From that time forth she lived in him alone, while he, for his part, racked his brains to avoid incurring the loss of her esteem. Whenever she detected in his soul—and she could probe that soul very deeply—the least trace of its former characteristics, she would work for him to heap himself with reproaches for his lethargy and fear of life. Just as he was about to yawn, as he was actually opening his mouth for the purpose, her astonished glance would transfix him, and cause his mouth to snap with a click which jarred his teeth. Still more did he hasten to resume his alacrity whenever he perceived that his lassitude was communicating itself to her, and threatening to render her cold and contemptuous. Instantly he would undergo a revival of strenuous activity; and then the shadow between them would disappear, and mutual sympathy once more beat in strong, clear accord. Yet this solicitude on his part had not, as yet, its origin in the magic ring of love. Indeed, the effect of his charmed toils was negative rather than positive. True, he no longer slept all day—on the contrary, he rode, read, walked, and even thought of resuming his writing and his agricultural schemes; yet the ultimate direction, the inmost significance, of his life still remained confined to the sphere of good intentions. Particularly disturbing did he find it whenever Olga plied him with some particular question or another, and demanded of him, as of a professor, full satisfaction of her curiosity. This occurred frequently, and arose not out of pedantry on her part, but out of a desire to know the right and the wrong of things.
At times a given question would absorb her even to the point of forgetting her consideration for Oblomov. For instance, on one occasion, when she had besought his opinion concerning double stars, and he was incautious enough to refer her to Herschel, he was dispatched to purchase the great authority’s book, and commanded to read it through, and to explain the same to her full satisfaction. On another occasion he was rash enough to let slip a word or two concerning various schools of painting; wherefore he had to undergo another week’s reading and explaining, and also to pay sundry visits to the Hermitage Museum. In the end how he trembled whenever she asked him a question!
“Why do you not say something?” she would say to him. “Surely it cannot be that the subject wearies you?”
“No, but how I love you!” he would reply, as though awakening from a trance; to which she would retort—
“Do you really? But that is not what I have just asked you.”
On another occasion he said to her—
“Cannot you see what is taking place in me? To me, speaking is a difficulty. Give me your hand, give me your hand! There seems to be something hindering me, something weighing me down. It is a something that is like the great rock which oppresses a man during deep sorrow. And, strangely enough, the effect of it is the same whether I happen to be sad or gay. Somehow my breath seems to hurt me as I draw it, and occasionally I come near to weeping. Yet, like a man overcome with grief, I feel that I should be lightened and relieved if I could weep. What, think you, is amiss with me?”
She looked at him with a smile of happiness which nothing could disturb. Evidently no weight was pressing uponherheart.
“Shall I tell you?” she said. “Yes.”
“You are in love.”
He kissed her hand.
“And you?” he asked. “Areyouin love?”
“In love?” she repeated. “I do not like the term for myself. I like you: that is better.”
“‘I like you’?” he re-echoed. “But a mother or a father or a nurse or even a dog may beliked: the phrase may be used as a garment, even as can, can—”
“Even as can an old dressing-gown,” she suggested with a smile. Presently she added—
“Whether I am actually in love with you or not I hardly know. Perhaps it is a stage that has not yet arrived. All I know is that I have never liked father or mother or nurse or dog as I like you. I feel lost without you. To be parted from you for a short while makes me sorry; to be parted from you for a long while makes me sad; and, were you to die, I should wear mourning for the rest of my life, and never again be able to smile. To me such love is life, and life is——”
“Yes?”
“Is a duty, an obligation. Consequently love also is a duty. God has sent me that duty, and has bid me perform it.” As she spoke she raised her eyes to heaven.
“Who can have inspired her with these ideas?” Oblomov thought to himself. “Neither through experience nor through trial nor through ‘fire and smoke’ can she have attained this clear, simple conception of life and of love.”
“Then, since there is joy in life, is there also suffering?” he asked aloud.
“I do not know,” she replied. “That lies beyond my experience as much as it lies beyond my understanding.”
“But how wellIunderstand it!”
“Ah!” she said merrily. “What glances you throw at me sometimes! Even my aunt has noticed it.”
“But how can there be joy in love if it never brings one moments of ecstatic delight?”
“What?” she replied with a glance at the scene around her. “Is not allthisso much ecstatic delight?” She looked at him, smiled, and gave him her hand. “Do you think,” she continued, “that presently I shall not be sorry when you take your leave? Do you think that I shall not go to bed the earlier in order that I may the sooner fall asleep, and cheat the wearisome night, and be able to see you again in the morning?” The light in Oblomov’s face had become brighter and brighter with each successive question, and his gaze more and more suffused with radiance.
Next morning, however, he rose pale and sombre. There were traces of sleeplessness on his features, wrinkles on his brow, and a lack of fire and eagerness in his eyes. Once upon a time he would have sunk back upon the pillow after drinking his tea, but now he had grown out of the habit, and contented himself with resting his elbow where his head had just been lying. Something in him was working strongly; but that something was not love. True, Olga’s image was still before him, but only at a distance, and in a mist, and shorn of its rays, like that of some stranger. With aching eyes he gazed at it for a moment or two, and then sighed.
“To live as God wills, and not as oneself wills, is a wise rule,” he murmured. “Nevertheless———”
“Clearly that is so,” presently he went on. “Otherwise, one would fall into a chaos of contradictions such as no human mind, however daring and profound, could hope to resolve. Yesterday one has wished, to-day one attains the madly longed-for object, and tomorrow one will blush to think that one ever desired it. Therefore one will fall to cursing life. And all because of a proud, independent striding through existence and a wilful ‘I will’! No; rather does one need to feel one’s way, to close one’s eyes, to avoid becoming either intoxicated with happiness or inclined to repine because it has escaped one. Yes,thatis life. Who was it first pictured life as happiness and gratification? The fool! ‘Life is a duty,’ says Olga. ‘Life is a grave obligation which must be fulfilled as such.’” He heaved a profound sigh.
“No, I cannot visit Olga to-day,” he went on. “My eyes are now open, and I see my duty before me. Better part with hernow, while it is still possible, than later, when I shall have sworn to part with her no more.”
How had this mood of his come about? What wind had suddenly affected him? How had it brought with it these clouds? Wherefore was he now for assuming such a grievous yoke? Only last night he had looked into Olga’s soul, and seen there a radiant world and a smiling destiny; only last night he had read both her horoscope and his own. What had since happened?
Frequently, in summer, one goes to sleep while the weather is still and cloudless, and the stars are glimmering softly. “How beautiful the countryside will look to-morrow under the bright beams of morning!” one thinks to oneself. “And how glad one will be to dive into the depths of the forest and seek refuge from the heat!” Then suddenly one awakes to the beating of rain, to the sight of grey, mournful clouds, to a sense of cold and damp.
In Oblomov’s breast the poison was working swiftly and vigorously. In thought he reviewed his life, and for the hundredth time felt his heart ache with repentance and regret for what he had lost. He kept picturing to himself what, by now, he would have been had he strode boldly ahead, and lived a fuller and a broader life, and exerted his faculties; whence he passed to the question of his present condition, and of the means whereby Olga had contrived to become fond of him, and of the reason why she still was so. “Is she not making a mistake?” was a thought which suddenly flashed through his mind like lightning; and as it did so the lightning seemed to strike his heart, and to shatter it. He groaned with the pain. “Yes, sheismaking a mistake,” he kept saying again and again. “She merely loves me as she works embroidery on canvas. In a quiet, leisurely manner a pattern has evolved itself, and she has turned it over, and admired it. Soon she will lay it aside, and forget all about it. Yes, her present affection is a meremaking readyto fall in love, a mere experiment of which I am the subject, for the reason that I chanced to be the first subject to come to hand.” So he collated the circumstances, and compared them. Never would she have noticed him at all, had not Schtoltz pointed him out, and infected her young. impressionable heart with sympathy for his (Oblomov’s) position, and therefore implanted in her a desire to see if possibly she could shake that dreamy soul from its lethargy before leaving it once more to its own devices.
“Yes, that is how the case stands,” he said to himself with an access of revulsion. He rose and lit a candle with a trembling hand. “’Tis just that and nothing more. Her heart was ready to accept love—it was tensely awaiting it—and I happened to fall in her way, and at the same time to fall into a blunder. Only would some one else need to arrive for her to renounce that blunder. As soon as ever she saw that some one else she would turn from me with horror. In fact, I am stealing what belongs to another; I am no better than a thief. My God, to think that I should have been so blind!”
Glancing into the mirror, he saw himself pale, dull, and sallow. Involuntarily he pictured to his mind those handsome young fellows who would one day come her way. Suddenly she would take fire, glance at him, and—burst out laughing! A second time he glanced into the mirror. No, he wasnotthe type with which women could fall in love! He flung himself down upon the bed, and buried his face in the pillow.
“Forgive me, Olga!” he murmured. “And may you always be happy!”
He gave orders that he was to be reported as “not at home” to any one who might call from the Ilyinskis’ house. Then he sat down to write Olga a letter. He wrote it swiftly. In fact, the pen flew over the pages. And when he had finished the missive he was surprised to find that his spirits felt cheered, and his mind easier.
“Why so?” he reflected. “Probably because I have put into what I have just written the whole sorrow of my heart.”
Next, he dispatched the letter by the hand of Zakhar, and, leaving the house, turned into the park, and seated himself on the grass. Among the turf-shoots ants were scurrying hither and thither, and jostling one another, and parting again. From above, the scene looked like the commotion in a human market-place—it showed the same bustle, the same congestion, the same swarm of population. Here and there, too, a bumble bee buzzed over a flower, and then crept into its chalice, while a knot of flies had glued themselves to a drop of sap on the trunk of a lime-tree, in the foliage a bird was repeating an ever-insistent note (as though calling to its mate), and a couple of butterflies were tumbling through the air in a giddy, fluttering, intricate movement which resembled a waltz. Everywhere from the herbage strong scents could be detected arising; everywhere there could be beard a ceaseless chirping and twittering.
Suddenly he saw Olga approaching. Walking very quietly, she was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as she did so. He had not expected those tears. Somehow they seemed to sear his heart. He rose and ran to meet her.
“Olga, Olga!” were his first tender words.
She started, looked at him with an air of astonishment, and turned away. He followed her.
“You are weeping?” he said.
“Yes, and’ isyouhave made me do so,” she replied, while her form shook with sobs. “But it is beyond your power to comfort me.”
“That miserable letter!” he ejaculated, suddenly becoming full of remorse.
For answer she opened a basket which she was carrying, took from it the letter, and handed it to him.
“Take it away,” she said. “The sight of it will only make me weep more bitterly.”
He stuffed it silently into his pocket, and, with head bent, seated himself beside her.
“Give me credit for good intentions,” he urged. “In any case the letter was evidence only of my care for your happiness—of the fact that I was thinking of it in advance, and was ready to sacrifice myself on its account. Do you think that I wrote the message callously—that inwardly I was not shedding tears the whole time? Why should I have acted as I did?”
“Why, indeed?” she interrupted. “For the reason that you wished to surprise me here, and to see whether I was weeping, and how bitterly. Had youreallymeant the letter as you say, you would be making preparations to go abroad instead of meeting me as you are now doing. Last night you wanted my ‘I love you’; to-day you want to see my tears; and to-morrow, I daresay, you will be wishing that I were dead!”
“How can you wrong me like that? Believe me, I would give half my life to see smiles on your face instead of tears.”
“Yes—now that you have seen a woman weeping on your account. But no; you have no heart. You say that you had no desire to make me weep. Had that been so, you would not have acted as you have done.”
“Then what ought I to do?” he asked tenderly. “Will you let me beg your pardon?”
“No; only children beg pardon, or persons who have jostled some one in a crowd. Moreover, even when granted, such pardon is worth nothing.”
“But what if the letter should be true, and your affection for me all a mistake?” he suggested.
“You areafraid, then?—you are afraid of falling into a well?—you are afraid lest some day I should hurt you by ceasing to be fond of you?”
“Would I could sink into the ground!” he reflected. The pain was increasing in proportion as he divined Olga’s thoughts.
“On the other hand,” she went on, “suppose you were to weary of love, even as you have wearied of books, of work, and of the world in general? Suppose that, fearing no rival, you were to go to sleep by my side (as you do on your sofa at home), and that my voice were to become powerless to wake you? Suppose that your present swelling of heart were to pass away, and your dressing-gown come to acquire more value in your eyes than myself? Often and often do such questions prevent my sleeping; yet I do not, on that account, troubleyouwith conjectures as to the future. Always I hope for better things, for, with me, happiness has cast out fear. Only for one thing have I long been sitting and waiting—namely, for happiness; until at length I had come to believe that I had found it.... Even if Ihavemade a mistake, at least this”—and she laid her hand upon her heart—“does not convict me of guilt. God knows that I never desired such a fate! And I had been so happy!” She broke off abruptly.
“Then be happy again,” urged Oblomov.
“No. Rather, go you whither you have always been wishing to go,” she said softly.
“You are wiser than I am,” he murmured, twisting a sprig of acacia between his fingers.
“No, I am simpler and more daring than you. What are you afraid of? Do youreallythink that I should cease to love you?”
“With you by my side I fear nothing,” he replied. “With you by my side nothing terrible can fall to my lot.”
Oblomov’s face beamed as he walked home. His blood was boiling, and a light was shining in his eyes. He entered his room—and at once, the radiance disappeared as his eyes, full of disgusted astonishment, became glued to one particular spot. That particular spot was the arm-chair, wherein was snugly ensconced Tarantiev.
“Why is it Ineverfind you here?” the visitor asked sternly. “Why are youalwaysgadding about? That old fool Zakhar has quite got out of hand. I asked him for a morsel of food and a glass ofvodka, and he refused me both!”
“I have been for a walk in the park,” replied Oblomov coldly. For the moment he had forgotten the murky atmosphere wherein he had spent so much of his life. And now, in a twinkling, Tarantiev had brought him tumbling from the clouds! His immediate, thought was that the visitor might insist on remaining to dinner, and so prevent him from paying his visit to Olga and her aunt.
“Why not come and take a look at that flat?” went on Tarantiev.
“Because there is no need,” replied Oblomov, avoiding his interlocutor’s eye. “I have decided not to move.”
“Not to move?” exclaimed Tarantiev threateningly. “Not when I have hired the place for you, and you have signed the lease?”
This led Oblomov to remember that, on the very day of his removal from town to the country villa, he had signed, without previously perusing it, a document which his present visitor had submitted to him.
“Nevertheless,” he remarked, “I shall not want the flat. I am going abroad.”
“I am sure you arenot,” retorted Tarantiev coolly. “What is more, the sooner you hand over to me a half-year’s rent, the better. Your new landlady does not care for such tricks to be played upon her. I have paid the money on your behalf, and I require to be repaid.”
“Where did you contrive to get the money from?”
“That has nothing to do with you. As a matter of fact, I had an old debt repaid me.”
“A better flat you could not find in all the city.”
“Nevertheless I do not want it. It lies too far from—from——”
“From where? From the centre of the city?”
Oblomov forbore to specify what he meant, but merely remarked that he should not be dining at home that evening.
“Then hand me over the rent, and the devil take you!” exclaimed Tarantiev.
“I possess no money at all. As it is, I shall have to borrow some.”
“Well, repay me at least my cab fare,” insisted the visitor. “It was only three roubles.”
“Where is the cabman? Why has he charged you so much?”
“I dismissed him long ago. I may add that the fare home is another three roubles.”
“By the coach you could travel for half a rouble.” However, Oblomov tendered Tarantiev four roubles, which the man at once pocketed.
“Also, I have expended some seven roubles on your account,” went on Tarantiev. “Besides, you might as well advance me something towards the price of a dinner. Roadside inns are dear. As a rule they fleece one of five roubles.”
Silently Oblomov handed him another rouble, in the hope that the man would now depart; but Tarantiev was not to be so easily shaken off.
“And also you might order Zakhar to bring me a snacknow,” he said.
“But I thought you intended to dine at an inn?”
“Yes, todine, but at the moment the time is two o’clock, and no more.”
Oblomov issued the necessary orders. On receiving them, Zakhar looked darkly at Tarantiev.
“We have no food ready,” he said’. “Also, where are my master’s shirt and jacket?”
“Shirt and jacket? Why, I gave them back to you long ago. I stuffed them into your own hands, and you bundled them away into a corner. Yet you come asking me where they are!”
“Also, what about a floorbrush and two cups which you carried off?” persisted Zakhar.
“Floorbrush? What floorbrush?” retorted Tarantiev. “Go and get me something to eat, you old fool!”
“We have not a single morsel in the house,” said Zakhar; “and also there is nobody to cook it.” With which he withdrew.
‘Tarantiev locked about him, and, perceiving Oblomov to be possessed both of a hat and a cap, attempted unsuccessfully to borrow the former for the remainder of the summer, and then took his leave.
When he had gone Oblomov sat plunged in thought. He recognized that his bright, cloudless holiday of love was over, and that workaday love had now become the order of the day, and that already it was so completely entering into his life’s ordinary tendencies that things were beginning to lose their rainbow colours.
“Indeed,” he reflected, “this morning may have seen the extinction of the last roseate ray of love’s festival—so that henceforth my life is to be warmed rather than lighted. Yes, life will swallow up love, although secretly it will remain moved by its powerful springs, and its manifestations be of an invariably simple, everyday nature. Yes, the poem is fading, and stem prose is to follow—to follow with a drab series of incidents which shall comprise a marriage ceremony, a journey to Oblomovka, the building of a house, an application to the local council, the laying out of roads, an endless transaction of business with peasants, a number of improvements, harvests, and so forth, the frequent spectacle of the bailiff’s anxious face, elections to the council of nobles, and sundry sittings on the local bench,” Somewhere he could see Olga beaming upon him, and singingCasta Diva, and then giving him a hasty kiss before he went forth to work, or to the town, or to interview the bailiff. Guests would call (a no very comforting prospect!), and they would talk about the wine which each happened to be brewing in his vats, and about the number ofarshins* of cloth which each happened to have rendered to the Treasury. What would this amount to? What was it he was promising for himself? Was it life? Whether life or not, it would have to be lived as though it, and it alone, constituted existence. At least it would be an existence that would find favour with Schtoltz!
* Ells.
But the actual wedding ceremony—that, at all events, would represent the poetry of life, its nascent, its just opening flower? He pictured himself leading Olga to the altar. On her head there would’ be a wreath of orange-blossoms, and to her gown a long train, and the crowd would whisper in amazement. Shyly, and with gently heaving bosom and brow bent forward in gracious pride, she would give him her hand in complete unconsciousness that the eyes of all were fixed upon her. Then, a bright smile would show itself on her face, the tears would begin to well, and for a moment or two the furrow on her forehead would twitch with thought. Then, when they had arrived home and the guests had all departed, she, yes, she—clad still in her gorgeous raiment—would throw herself upon his breast as she had done that morning!
Unable any longer to keep his fancies to himself, he went with them to Olga. She listened to him with a smile; but when he jumped up with the intention of informing also her aunt she frowned with such decision that he halted in awe.
“Not a word to any one!” she said. “The right moment is not yet come.”
“What ought we to do first, then?”
“To go to the registrar, and to sign the record.”
“And then?”
“After marriage to go and live at Oblomovka, and to see what can be done there.”
“We shall not be able to do that, for the house is in ruins, and a new one must first be built.”
“Then where are we to live?”
“We must take a flat in town.”
“Then you had better go at once and see about it.”
“Alas!” was Oblomov’s reflection. “Olga wishes for ever to be on the move. Apparently she cares nothing about dreaming over the poetical phases of life, or losing herself in reveries. She is like Schtoltz. It would seem as though the two had conspired to live life at top speed.”
Late that August rain set in, and, one day, Oblomov saw a vanload of the Ilyinskis’ furniture come past his windows. To remain in his country villa, now that the park was desolate and the shutters hung closed over the Ilyinskis’ windows, seemed to him impossible. At length he removed to the rooms which had been recommended him by Tarantiev, until such time as he should be able to find for himself a new flat. He took hasty meals at restaurants, and spent most of his evenings with Olga.
But the long autumn evenings in town were not like the long, bright days amid fields and woods.
Here he could not visit Olga three times a day, nor send her notes by Zakhar, seeing that she was five versts away. Thus the polled poem of the late summer seemed somehow to have halted, or to be moving more slowly, as though it contained less substance than of yore.
Sometimes they would keep silence for quite half an hour at a time, while she busied herself with her needlework, and he busied himself in a chaos of thoughts which ranged beyond the immediate present. Only at intervals would he gaze at her and tremble with passion; only at intervals would she throw him a fleeting glance, and smile as she caught the rays of tender humility, of silent happiness, which his eyes conveyed.
Yet on the sixth day, when Olga invited him to meet her at a certain shop, and to escort her homeward on foot, he found his position begin to grow a trille awkward.
“Oh, if you knew how difficult things are!” he said. She returned no answer, but sighed.
On another occasion she said to him—“Until we have arranged everything we cannot possibly tell my aunt. Nor must we see so much of one another. You had better come to dinner only on Sundays and Wednesdays. Also, we might meet at the theatre occasionally, if I first give you notice that we are going to be there. Also, as soon as a fine day should occur I mean to go for a walk in the Summer Gardens, * and you might come to meet me. The scene will remind us of our park in the country.” She added this last with a quiver of emotion.
* A public park in Petrograd
He kissed her hand in silence, and parted from her until Sunday. She followed him with her eyes—then sat down to immerse herself in a wave of sound at the piano. But something in her was weeping, and the notes seemed to be weeping in sympathy. She tried to sing, but no song would come.
A few days later, Oblomov was lolling on the sofa and playing with one of his slippers—now picking it up from the door with his toe, now dropping it again. To him entered Zakhar.
“What now?” asked Oblomov indifferently. Zakhar said nothing, but eyed him with a sidelong glance.
“Well?” said Oblomov again.
“Have you yet found for yourself another flat?” Zakhar countered.
“No, not yet. Why should you want to know?”
“Because I suppose the wedding will be taking place soon after Christmas.”
“The wedding? What wedding?” Oblomov suddenly leaped up.
“You know what wedding—your own,” replied Zakhar with assurance, as though he were speaking of an event long since arranged for. “You are going to be married, are you not?”
“I to be married? To whom?” And Oblomov glared at the valet.
“To Mademoiselle Ilyinski——” Almost before the man could finish his words Oblomov had darted forward.
“Who putthatidea into your head?” he cried in a carefully suppressed voice.
“The Lord bless its all and protect us!” Zakhar ejaculated, backing towards the door. “Who told me about it? Why, the Ilyinskis’ servants, this very summer.”
“Rubbish!” hissed Oblomov as he shook a warning finger at the old man. “Remember—henceforth let me hear not a word about it!” He pointed to the door, and Zakhar left the room—filling the flat with his sighs as he did so.
Somehow Oblomov could not recover his composure, but remained gazing at the spot which Zakhar had just vacated. Then he clasped his hands behind his head, and reseated himself in the arm-chair.
“So the servants’ hall and the kitchen are talking!” was his insistent reflection. “It has come to this, that Zakhar can actually dare to ask me when the wedding is to be! Yes, and that though even Olga’s aunt has not an inkling of the truth! What would she think of it if she knew? The wedding, that most poetical moment in the life of a lover, that crown of all his happiness—why, lacqueys and grooms are talking of it even though nothing is yet decided upon! No answer has come from the estate, my registry certificate is a blank, and a new flat still remains to be found.”
With that he fell to analysing that poetical phase from which the colour had faded with Zakhar’s mention of the same. Oblomov was beginning to see the other face of the medal. He tossed and turned from side to side, lay flat on his back, leaped up and took a stride or two, and ended by sinking back into a reclining position.
“How come folk to know about it?” he reflected. “Olga has kept silence, and I too have breathed not a word. So much for stolen meetings at dawn and sunset, for passionate glances, for the wizardry of song! Ah, those poems of love! Never do they end save in disaster. One should go beneath the wedding canopy before one attempts to swim in an atmosphere of roses. To think that before any preparations have been made—before even an answer has come, from the estate, or I have obtained either money or a flat—I should have to go to her aunt, and to say: ‘This is my betrothed!’ At all costs must I put a stop to these rumours. Marriage! Whatismarriage?”
He smiled as he remembered his recent poetical idealization of the ceremony—the long train to the gown, the orange-blossoms, the whispers of the crowd. Somehow the colours had now changed; the crowd now comprised also the uncouth, the slovenly Zakhar and the whole staff of the Ilyinskis’ servants’ ball. Also, he could see a long line of carriages and a sea of strange, coldly inquisitive faces. The scene was replete with glimmering, deadly weariness.
Summoning Zakhar to his presence, he again asked him how he had dared to spread such rumours.
“For do you know what marriage means?” he demanded of his valet. “It means that a lot of idle lacqueys and women and children start chattering in kitchens and shops and the market-place. A given individual ceases to be known as Ilya Ilyitch or Peter Petrovitch, and henceforth ranks only as thezhenich.* Yesterday no one would have noticed him, but by to-morrow every one will be staring at him as though he were a notorious rascal. Neither at the theatre nor in the street will folk let him pass without whispering, ‘Here comes thezhenich! And every day other folk will call upon him with their faces reduced to an even greater state of imbecility than distinguishes yours at this moment—all in order that they may, vie with one another in saying imbecile things. That is how such an affair begins. And early each morning the zhenich must go to see his betrothed in lemon-coloured gloves—never at any time may he look untidy or weary; and always he must eat and drink what is customary under the circumstances, in order that his sustenance may appear to comprise principally bouquets and air.Thatis the programme which is supposed to continue fully for three or four months! How couldI gothrough such an ordeal? Meanwhile you, Zakhar, would have had to run backwards and forwards between my place and my betrothed’s, as well as to keep making a round of the tailors’, the bootmakers’, and the cabinetmakers’ establishments, owing to the fact that I myself could not have been in every spot at once. And soon the whole town would have come to hear of it. ‘Have you yet heard the news?’ ‘Oblomov is going to be married!’ ‘Really? To whom? And what is she like? And when is the ceremony to be?’ Talk, talk, talk! Besides, how could I have afforded the necessary expenses? You know how much money I possess. Have I yet found another flat? And am I not owing a thousand roubles for this one? And would not the hire of fresh quarters have cost me three thousand roubles more, considering the extra rooms which would have been required? And would there not have been the cost of a carriage, and of a cook, and so forth? How could I possibly have paid for it all?”
* Bridegroom to-be.
Oblomov checked himself abruptly. He felt horrified to think of the threatening, the uncomfortable, vision which his imagination had conjured up. The roses, the orange-blossoms, the glitter and show, the whispers of the crowd—all these had faded into the background. His fond dreams, his peace of mind alike were gone. He could not eat or sleep, and everything had assumed an air of gloom and despondency. In seeking to overawe Zakhar, he had ended by frightening also himself, for he had stumbled upon the practical view of marriage, and come to perceive that, despite nuptial poetry, marriage constitutes an official, a very real step towards a serious assumption of new and insistent obligations. Unable, therefore, to make up his mind as to what he should say to Olga when he next met her, he decided to defer his visit until the following Wednesday. Having arrived at this decision, he felt easier.
Two days later, Zakhar entered the room with a letter from Olga.
“I cannot wait until Wednesday,” she wrote. “I feel so lost through these long absences from your side that I shall look to see you in the Summer Gardens at three o’clock to-morrow.”
“I cannot go,” he thought to himself. The next moment he comforted himself with the reflection that very likely, her aunt, or some other lady, would be with her; in which case he would have a chance of concealing his nervousness.
Scarcely had he reached the Gardens when he saw her approaching. She was veiled, and at first he did not recognize her.
“How glad I am that you have come!” she exclaimed. “I was afraid you would not do so.”
She pressed his hand, and looked at him with an air so frank, so full of joy at having stolen this moment from Fate, that he felt envious of her, and regretful that he could not share in her lighthearted mood. Her whole face bespoke a childish confidence in the future, in her happiness, and in him. Truly she was very charming!
“But why do you look so gloomy?” suddenly she exclaimed. “Why do you say nothing? I had thought you would be overjoyed to see me whereas I find you gone to sleep again! Wake up, sir!”
“I am both well and happy,” he hastened to say—fearful lest things should attain the point of her guessing what was really in his mind. “But I am disturbed that you should have come alone.”
“Rather, it is formeto be disturbed about that,” she retorted. “Do you think I ought to have brought my aunt with me?”
“Yes, Olga.”
“Then, if I had known that, I would have invited her to come,” offendedly she said as she withdrew her hand from his. “Until now I had imagined that your greatest happiness in life was to be with me, and with me alone. Let us go for a row in a boat.”
With that she set off towards the river, dragging his unwilling form behind her.
“Are you coming to our house to-morrow?” she inquired when they were safely settled in their seats.
“My God!” he reflected. “Already she has divined my thoughts, and knows that I do not want to come!”
“Yes, yes,” he answered aloud.
“In the morning, and for the whole day?”
“Yes.”
She splashed his face playfully with water.
“How bright and cheerful everything looks!” she remarked as she gazed about her. “Let us come again to-morrow. This time I shall come straight from home.”
“Then you have not come straight from home to-day?”
“No, but from a shop, from a jeweller’s.”
Oblomov looked alarmed.
“Suppose your aunt were to find out?” he suggested.
“Oh, suppose the Neva were to become dried up, and that this boat were to overturn, and that our house were suddenly to fall down, and that—that you were suddenly to lose your love for me?” As she spoke she splashed him again.
“Listen, Olga,” he said when they had landed on the bank. “At the risk of vexing and offending you, I ought to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Her tone was impatient.
“That we ought not to be indulging in these secret meetings.”
“But we are betrothed to one another?”
“Yes, dearest Olga,” he replied, pressing her hands, “and therefore we are bound to be all the more careful. I would rather be walking with you along this avenuepubliclythanby stealth—I would rather see the eyes of passers-by drop respectfully before you than run the risk of incurring a suspicion that you have so far forgotten your modesty and your upbringing as to lose your head and fail in your duty.”
“But I havenotforgotten my modesty and my upbringing,” she exclaimed, withdrawing her hands.
“No, I know that you have not,” he agreed. “I was merely thinking of what peoplemightsay—of how the world in generalmightlook upon it all. Pray do not misunderstand me. What I desire is that to the world you should seem to be as pure, as irreproachable, as in actual fact you are. To me your conduct seems solely honourable and modest; but would every one believe it to be so?”
“What you say is right,” she said after a pause. “Consequently, let us tell my aunt to-morrow, and obtain her consent.”
Oblomov turned pale. “Why hurry so?” he asked. “I know that, two weeks ago, I myself was urging haste; but at that time I had not thought of the necessary preparations.”
“Then your heart is failing you? That I can see clearly.”
“No; I am merely cautious. Even now I see a carriage approaching us. Are yousurethat the people in it are not acquaintances of yours? How these things throw one into a fever of perspiration I Let us depart as quickly as possible.” And with that he set off, almost at a run.
“Until to-morrow, then,” she said.
“No, until the day after to-morrow. That would be better. Or even until Friday or Saturday.”
“No, no; you must come to-morrow. Do you hear? What have we not come to! What a mountain of sorrow are you not threatening to bring upon my head!”
She turned to go home.