ISBN:	9781583228401, 9781583228401
Genre:	Literature

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OBLOMOV

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov

Translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz

Seven Stories Press

New York

English translation © 2008 by Marian Schwartz

Afterword © 2008 by Mikhail Shishkin

Oblomov was originally published in 1859.

This translation is based upon the following edition: Oblomov: “Literaturnye pamiatniki” Akademii Nauk SSSR (Oblomov: Literary monuments of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). Edited by L. S. Geiro. Leningrad: Nauka, 1987.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Goncharov, Ivan Aleksandrovich, 1812-1891.

[Oblomov. English]

Oblomov / by Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov ; translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz ; [afterword by Mikhail Shishkin].

p. cm.

isbn 978-1-58322-840-1 (hardcover)

1. Russia--Social life and customs--1533-1917--Fiction. I. Schwartz, Marian. II. Shishkin, Mikhail.
III. Title.

pg3337.g6o1213 2008

891.73’3--dc22

2008032961

Book design by Jon Gilbert

Printed in the USA.

College professors may order examination copies of Seven Stories Press titles for a free six-month trial period. To order, visit www.sevenstories.com/textbook or send a fax on school letterhead to (212) 226-1411.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Publisher’s Note

Translator’s Note

Gastronomical Glossary

OBLOMOV

Afterword

Publisher’s Note

to: S. A. Nikitenko [from: I. A. Goncharov]

Bad Schwalbach, 4 July 1868

...On the subject of translations, yesterday Stasiulevich pointed out a recently published German edition of Oblomov in a bookstore window. I cannot stand to see myself translated; I write for Russians, and attention from foreigners is not the least bit flattering to me.1

Perhaps we have failed Goncharov. We have chosen to release an English edition of his Oblomov in an effort to bring this classic Russian novel to an English-speaking public. For this we respectfully offer our most sincere apology.

Despite our insolence, however, it is our belief that Goncharov himself would be pleased to know that it is his preferred and assiduously reworked 1862 edition of Oblomov—and not the commonly used 1859 version—that has been translated.

In 1987, L. S. Geiro made a case for the 1862 version in her annotations to the Nauka edition of the novel, where she brought the reader’s attention to the existence of two versions of the “original.”2 There is the 1859 edition, which was widely published and republished as part of Goncharov’s collected works in 1884 and again in 1887. Then there is the lesser-known 1862 edition, which Goncharov began compiling a year and a half after Oblomov’s first publication in 1859 when he suddenly found himself on sick leave from his government position and with extra time on his hands.3 He removed various emphatic phrases, made significant editorial cuts, eliminated overwritten dialogue, and rendered his character descriptions, in Geiro’s words, more “laconic.”

With painstaking precision, Geiro reviewed Goncharov’s half-legible writing in the margins and hundreds of pages of his variants and fragments. This analysis, together with her biographical study of Goncharov before, during, and after the first publication of the novel, has convinced contemporary Russian literary scholars to consider the 1862 text the definitive version of Oblomov.4

In her Translator’s Note, Marian Schwartz locates Oblomov in its historical and literary context and provides a gastronomical glossary to interpret the varieties of Russian cuisine that the characters in the novel discuss and digest. Schwartz succeeds in her attempt to capture the humor, the music, and the theatricality of the original text. There are no glorified heroes in Oblomov, only disillusioned mortals; the grandiose sets and arias of old Saint Petersburg and its environs cease to edify the hero, seeming instead to suffocate him.

In its native Russian, and now in its sister English, Oblomov’s slapstick humor—a daft servant who drops a teacup or bumps into a door—and its dialogue are intoxicating. Oblomov and Zakhar, Stolz and Olga, Tarantiev and Alexeyev, interact in a way that a reader today, some century and a half later, can relate to with ease. They deliberate over social engagements and talk about love, relationships, obligations, life goals, or the lack thereof. Oblomov is not a heroic protagonist, he is a procrastinator of heroic proportions. With every action that is ultimately postponed, the text swells and contracts, obediently returning to its often static storyline.5 The cadences of Oblomov’s thoughts engage us for a time before we are released again into the intricate plot, each time with a bit more affection for our “hero” than the time before. While there is relatively little dramatic development, the magic of Oblomov is that it manages to convey a sense of movement, pulling us along even while our protagonist lies prostrate on his bed.

Schwartz suggests that Goncharov’s skill lies largely in his ability to endear Oblomov to us despite his heroic shortcomings. This claim finds its counterargument, appropriately, in the afterword written by Russian novelist Mikhail Shishkin and translated by Schwartz. Shishkin argues that Goncharov’s intention was not to have the reader sympathize with Oblomov, but rather to display his sluggishness and sloth as negative qualities. Shishkin’s view is that Oblomov charms us without his creator’s approval.

The narrative tugs us in opposite directions, and we are unsure whether to regard Oblomov as a hero of sorts, independently minded and beyond the niceties of social mores, or as a tragic figure who never accomplishes anything. With every rereading, we learn to welcome this nagging ambivalence like an old, petulant friend.

Daniella Gitlin

New York City

July 2008

notes:

Translator’s Note

In the first part of the nineteenth century, before the ideal of industrious modern man overtook us all, when idleness was still looked upon by Russia’s serf-owning rural gentry as a plausible, even a worthy goal, there was Oblomov.

Indolent, inattentive, incurious, sloppy, pudgy, given to daydreaming and procrastination—indeed, given to any excuse to remain horizontal—Oblomov is hardly the stuff of heroes. Yet, he is impossible not to admire, let alone love. The image of this gentle daydreamer, roused to action for one brief period of ardent but misbegotten love, is a fixture of Russian culture, forgiven his weaknesses and beloved for his shining soul.

Oblomov’s classic story first appeared in a literary journal, Otechestvennye zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland), in 1859. Since then it has been repackaged in countless Russian editions, a film, a BBC television dramatization, a BBC radio dramatization, and many translations into various languages, including at least five previous English versions, beginning with C. J. Hogarth’s, which appeared in 1915, and continuing through Natalie Duddington, Ann Dunnigan, David Magarshack, and finally Stephen Pearl in 2005.

As translator and scholar Timothy Sergay has argued so convincingly,* a new translation, particularly of a classic, never exists in a vacuum. Even if the translator claims perfect independence from predecessors—an approach I do not endorse—reviewers, scholars, and often even the general reader will naturally want to know how the new version fits into the “tradition” of earlier translations. The enterprise implies comparison. The perceived pitfall to this intervening moment of comparison in the translation process is that the new translator will be unduly influenced by her predecessors’ perceptions and solutions; its beauty is that it allows the new translator to refine her understanding of the author’s intent and execution through an appreciation of another translator’s take. In a sense, each new translator enters an ongoing, if intermittent discussion. This translation inevitably benefits from the dialog to this point.

What, then, might this new translation contribute to the discussion?

To begin with, this is a new translation of the 1862 version of the novel, whereas other recent translations have been based on the 1859 edition. A comparison of the two texts will reveal noticeable cuts and other changes made by Goncharov, especially in Part One. In 1987, L. S. Geiro’s annotations in the Nauka edition of Oblomov convinced scholars to consider the 1862 version of the novel the definitive original text. This is the first English translation of Oblomov that has been informed by Geiro’s extensive and thorough annotations.

Even more compelling, however, is the desire to breathe new life into Goncharov’s voice. Oblomov has delighted Russian readers for 150 years, and there is every reason it should delight the English reader as well.

Goncharov has a keen eye for social and human commentary, which he expresses with a light, ironic touch in both dialog and narration. My hope is that the reader will smile at the none-too-subtle ruses of various hangers-on and scoundrels who try to take advantage of Oblomov. Oblomov himself is a mass of endearing foibles and rationalizations. In the opening chapters he greets each new visitor with a plea not to come too close because they’re “straight from the cold” and therefore bringing with them great peril. Later, he rages at his beloved servant (and serf) Zakhar for comparing him to “other people”—as if he, this lovely but indolent man of the gentry, were not better than those “other people,” who had to work to survive.

Social commentary is also Goncharov’s gentle introduction to what the reader comes to understand as Oblomov’s profound and tragic nature. Goncharov leads the reader from an amused smile at Oblomov as the prototypical slacker to a deep appreciation of his humanity.

The novel does not have a traditional plot, but it does have structure, which starts the reader off with “realistic” surfaces and progresses to philosophical and psychological insight. For example, the softness of Oblomov’s person and clothing described at the novel’s outset gradually comes to be seen as the outward expression of the softness of his temperament, his gentleness. In the beginning we see Oblomov’s constant transparent fibs, a surface that belies his aversion to and indeed incapacity for true hypocrisy. He even tries to lie to himself and Olga that true love can change him, but in the end he is honest and does the honorable thing, letting her go.

Oblomov’s genuinely positive qualities are reflected in his closest relationships, all of which are with stellar characters, especially his childhood friend Stolz, who has all the positive qualities Oblomov lacks and yet manages to love Oblomov deeply, and Olga, with whom Oblomov falls desperately in love. The anguished romance between Oblomov and Olga makes the reader’s heart pound for pages and pages. By the time Oblomov dies, the reader understands and indeed sympathizes with the genuine grief of the few who knew and loved him. Goncharov lets us see Oblomov as they do and understand why they love him.

The novel, so full of dialog, provides ample opportunity to know the characters through their voices. Olga’s voice covers a large range, from quick intelligence, to teasing, to cold reproach, to deep, abiding love. Zakhar is smart but crude and speaks in simple sentences free of subordinate clauses. The bickering between him and Oblomov contains no true malice because Zakhar harbors true anger and distaste for only one man, Tarantiev, a fact the reader learns as much from Zakhar’s choice of words—nasty only when directed to Tarantiev—as from his actions. A true gentleman, Stolz addresses everyone with identical intelligence and directness.

Although the text is 150 years old, its language is neither ornate nor inaccessible, but there are realities of Russian life in the first half of the nineteenth century that will be unfamiliar to the English reader.

One area of difficulty relates to gastronomy. Food is a principal concern in Oblomov’s childhood at the family estate, Oblomovka, and remains almost an obsession throughout his life. Great effort is lavished on ingredients and menus; hard times, when they come, are expressed in terms of gastronomical diminishment. This emphasis amply justifies maintaining specificity about the dishes served. In some cases this can be done well with an English translation; in a handful of instances, though, a very specific Russian dish has no analog in English, and I’ve retained the Russian name. To my mind, being told that someone ate “cold soup” creates little interest; being told someone ate “okroshka” arouses my curiosity, which is duly rewarded when I learn the complexity of this traditional dish. Rather than introduce an explanation in the text, I’ve retained these half a dozen terms in transliteration and following this note have provided a Gastronomical Glossary, which also gives more detail on a few other food items. Professor Darra Goldstein of Williams College, herself the author of Russian cookbooks, particularly A Taste of Russia: A Cookbook of Russian Hospitality, from which I have drawn several of my definitions, has been generous with her advice and support on this important aspect of the book, for which I thank her.

I have left characters’ names unchanged from their Russian originals. The English reader, so often beleaguered by the Russian naming system, will be happy to see that the four main characters—Oblomov, Stolz, Olga, and Zakhar—are usually referred to by those single names. Inevitably, however, every character has a given name and patronymic, usually used in combination. In addition, patronymics appear in one of two forms, with relatively equal frequency, full and abbreviated. In the latter, the suffix is elided, as it is in speech: Andreyevich becomes Andreich; Mikhailovich becomes Mikhailich; Trofimovich becomes Trofimich; and so on. Oblomov’s full name is an exception because his patronymic has no abbreviated form; his full name is Ilya Ilich Oblomov. His father, however, appears as both “Ilya Ivanovich” and “Ilya Ivanich.”

I have reduced the number of diminutive forms because their variations are not meaningful to the English reader, who would have no way to know why little Vanya is often referred to as “Vanyusha” but occasionally as “Vanechka.”

There is a fine line, which I have tried to toe, between excessive explanation within the text and the use of foreign terms for their own exotic sake, without specific justification. The reader may encounter a few unfamiliar terms, but where is it written that a novel’s reader must never have to consult a dictionary? The notion is particularly absurd when the novel in question is 150 years old. The reader may want to look up “droshky.” As an example of explanation, the first time Zakhar jumps off his bench, I call it a “stove-bench” because this is in fact a sleeping shelf that runs along the side of the large ceramic stoves used to heat Russian dwellings. Subsequently, I use the less cumbersome “bench.” At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve retained the original units of measurement—arshins, sazhens, and versts—because modern equivalents are anachronistic and these three words are easily guessed or found. (1 shtoff = 1.23 liters; 1 arshin = 28 inches; 1 sazhen = 7 feet; 1 verst = 500 sazhens, or approximately 1 kilometer.)

Different translators have taken different approaches to a famous neologism that quickly made its way into general use: Oblomovshchina. I use “Oblomovshchina” rather than “Oblomovism” because the English suffix “-ism” is neutral and encompasses all of Oblomov’s characteristics, good and bad alike, whereas the Russian suffix “-shchina” has exclusively negative implications. Oblomovshchina, as Stolz, who coins the word, explains very clearly in the text, constitutes all the negative qualities of Oblomov’s worldview and existence, the romanticization of serenity and inaction. Slackerdom with a trust fund. When he introduces Oblomov to Olga, Stolz charges her with keeping Oblomov busy, not letting him nap or eat supper, inducing him to read books and newspapers and take exercise—all of which, of course, quickly leads to passion but does not permanently alter Oblomov’s nature. The common translation of the term, “Oblomovism,” begs the point. “Oblomovshchina” is not just being like Oblomov because it expressly excludes his ultimately more important positive qualities. Stolz dots all these i’s in the text itself, and my explanation here should cross all the remaining t’s.

Goncharov’s triumph in this novel is not merely his ingenious social satire but that he manages to take the reader from dismay at Oblomov’s indolence to a belief in Oblomov’s purity and ability, even though he shies away from life, allows himself to be duped right and left, and rouses himself to true action just once, when he falls in love. Goncharov convinces us that Oblomov is a paragon—of how to live and love without hypocrisy.

Marian Schwartz

Gastronomical Glossary

Botvinia A cold green soup made with spinach, sorrel, cucumber, radish, and often fish and seasoned with kvass and horseradish.

English trifle In Russian, angliiskii sup (“English soup”), a word formation, unusual in Russian and possibly unique to Oblomov, that is directly analogous to zuppa inglese.

Kvass A traditional home-made beer that can be brewed from a variety of fruits or vegetables but is brewed most commonly from fermented black bread.

Kulebyaka An elaborate savory pie containing layers of fish (sometimes meat), and/or vegetables encased in a puff pastry and shaped into a high, narrow oblong.

Okroshka A cold sour soup usually made from cucumber, kvass, radish, dill, egg, and cold cooked meats in julienne strips.

Lark buns In Russian, zhavoronki, from zhavoronok (lark). Sweet buns shaped to look like larks, symbolic of spring and baked traditionally to welcome the new planting season.

solyanka A soup of mixed meats, including beef, kidney, and ham, that acquires a slight sourness from the addition of dill pickles, olives, capers, marinated mushrooms, and lemon slices.

Sugar twist In Russian, krendelka. A sweet version of the Russian soft pretzel.

Ukha A commonly served fisherman’s soup, often cooked over a fire outdoors with the catch of the day.

OBLOMOV

Part One

I

One morning on Gorokhovaya Street, in one of those large buildings with a population that could fill an entire provincial town, there lay in an apartment, in a bed, one Ilya Ilich Oblomov.

This was a man of thirty-two or -three, of average height and pleasant appearance. He had dark gray eyes that roamed without a care over the walls and ceiling in a vague reverie, showing that nothing interested him and nothing worried him. This freedom from worry was conveyed in his face and extended to his posture, reaching even the folds of his robe.

Sometimes an expression of weariness or perhaps boredom darkened his look. But neither weariness nor boredom could rid his face for a minute of the softness that was its prevailing and basic expression. Indeed, this was the expression not only of his face, but of his entire soul, so openly and clearly did it shine in his eyes and smile and in every movement of his head and hands. Even a casual observer, a cold man, might take a quick glance at Oblomov and say, “A good-hearted fellow, no doubt, but a simpleton!” Someone more thoughtful and sympathetic would gaze into his eyes and walk away smiling, pleasantly perplexed.

Ilya Ilich’s face was neither ruddy, nor swarthy, nor positively pale, but rather indifferent, or so it seemed—perhaps because Oblomov was flabby beyond his years due to a lack of movement or of air, or perhaps of both. All in all, judging by his matte, excessively white neck, his pudgy little hands, and his soft shoulders, it was a body much too pampered for a man.

Even when he was agitated, his movements were subdued by his softness and did not fail to exude a kind of lazy grace. If a cloud of care drifted across his face, his gaze would dim, his brow would furrow, and a flurry of doubt, sorrow, and fright would ensue. However, rarely did this alarm coalesce as a definite idea, and more rarely still was it transformed into an intention. All his alarm would resolve itself in a sigh and sink into apathy or somnolence.

How well Oblomov’s at-home dress suited the serene features of his face and his pampered body! He wore a dressing gown of Persian fabric, a genuine Oriental dressing gown that bore not even the slightest whiff of Europe—sans tassels, sans velvet, sans waist—and so capacious that Oblomov could wrap it around himself twice. The sleeves, following the invariable Asiatic fashion, widened out going from fingers to shoulder. Although this dressing gown had lost its original freshness and in places had replaced its original natural luster with another acquired sheen, it nonetheless retained the vividness of its Oriental color and the sturdiness of its fabric.

In Oblomov’s eyes, the dressing gown possessed a host of unappreciated virtues. It was soft and supple; his body did not feel it; like an obedient slave, it submitted to his body’s most infinitesimal movement.

At home, Oblomov always went without tie or vest because he loved room and freedom. The slippers he wore were long, soft, and wide, and when he lowered his feet from bed to floor, he invariably slipped them right in, without looking.

For Ilya Ilich, recumbence was neither a necessity, as it would be for an ill or sleepy man, nor an occasional occurrence, as for someone who was weary, nor a pleasure, as for a lazy man; it was his normal state. When he was at home—and he was almost always at home—he was lying down, and always in the same room where we found him, which served him as bedroom, study, and sitting room. He had three other rooms as well, but he rarely looked in there, except perhaps in the morning (and then not every day), when his servant was sweeping his study, which did not happen every day. In those rooms the furniture was slip-covered and the blinds were lowered.

At first glance, the room where Ilya Ilich lay seemed wonderfully furnished. There was a mahogany bureau, two sofas upholstered in silk, and red screens embroidered with flowers and fruits never seen in nature. There were silk curtains, carpets, several paintings, a bronze, porcelain, and much handsome bric-a-brac.

But the experienced eye of a man of impeccable taste could cast a quick glance over everything here and read only a desire to observe the decorum of unavoidable proprieties solely to be free of them. Naturally, Oblomov had troubled over nothing but this when he had furnished his study. A refined taste would not be content with these heavy, clumsy mahogany chairs and tottering shelves. The back of one sofa had settled, and the wood veneer had become detached here and there.

The pictures, vases, and bric-a-brac bore the exact same stamp.

The master himself, however, regarded the furnishings of his study so coldly and distractedly, his eyes seemed to be asking, “Who brought all this in and put it here?” Due to this cold outlook of Oblomov’s on his own property, and perhaps to the even colder outlook on the same subject of his servant, Zakhar, the study’s appearance, the more one examined it, was striking for its prevailing desolation and neglect.

Along the walls and around the pictures, a cobweb clung in festoons impregnated with dust; the mirrors, instead of reflecting objects, would have served better as tablets for writing reminder notes in the dust. The carpets were covered in stains. A forgotten towel lay on the sofa, and on the table it was the rare morning when there was not a plate with a gnawed bone and salt-cellar that had not been cleared from the previous day’s supper and that bread crumbs were not scattered about.

Were it not for this plate, the just-smoked pipe leaning up against the bed, and the master himself lying on that bed, one might have thought no one lived here—so much had everything accumulated dust, faded, and in general lost any vital traces of human presence. True, on the shelves were two or three opened books, a newspaper lay about, and there was an inkwell and pens on the bureau, but the pages to which the books had been opened were dusty and yellowed, obviously abandoned long ago, the newspaper was last year’s, and if you dipped a pen in the inkwell you would pull out only the buzzing of a startled fly.

Ilya Ilich had awoken very early, contrary to habit, at about eight o’clock. Something was very much on his mind. His face displayed fear in alternation with longing and vexation. He was obviously overwhelmed by inner struggle, and his mind had not yet come to the rescue.

The problem was that the previous evening Oblomov had received a letter of distasteful content from his bailiff in the country. One knows what distasteful things a bailiff can write about: crop failure, arrears, reduced income, and so forth. Although both last year and the year before that the bailiff had written his master precisely the same letter, nonetheless this last letter had had a powerful effect on him, like any nasty surprise.

Was this easy? He would have to think about means for taking measures. Actually, one had to give Ilya Ilich his due for his concern over his affairs. At the bailiff’s first distasteful letter, received a few years before, he had already begun to devise a plan in his mind for various alterations and improvements in the management of his estate.

This plan proposed the introduction of various new economic, constabulary, and other measures. However, the plan was far from entirely thought through, and the bailiff’s distasteful letters were repeated annually, rousing him to activity, and, consequently, disturbing his peace of mind. Oblomov was conscious of the need to undertake something decisive.

As soon as he awoke, he intended to rise immediately, wash and, after drinking his tea, think hard, come up with an idea, write it down, and in general study the matter properly.

He lay there for half an hour, agonizing over this intention, but then reasoned that he could do this after his tea, and he could drink his tea, as was his habit, in bed, especially since nothing was keeping him from thinking lying down.

And so he did. After his tea he sat up from his couch and was about to rise. Looking at his slippers he even began lowering one foot toward them from the bed, but pulled it back immediately.

The clock struck half past nine, and Ilya Ilich gave a start.

“What am I doing, in fact?” he said aloud with vexation. “Shame on me. It’s time I got to work! The moment I indulge myself, I . . .”

“Zakhar!” he shouted.

In a room separated by only a small hallway from Ilya Ilich’s study, one heard first something just like the growling of a chained dog and then the striking of feet jumping down from somewhere. This was Zakhar jumping from the bench where he ordinarily spent his time sitting and dozing.

An elderly man entered the room. He was wearing a gray frock coat with a rip under the arm, where a scrap of shirt poked out, and a gray vest with brass buttons. He had a skull as bald as a knee and light brown bushy side-whiskers streaked with gray, each big enough for three beards.

Zakhar had made no attempt to change not only his God-given image but even the attire he had worn in the country; his clothes were sewn for him from a pattern he had brought from the country. He liked his frock coat and vest as well because in this quasi-uniform he saw a dim memory of the livery he had once worn escorting his deceased masters to church or to pay calls. In his memories the livery was the sole representative of the dignity he attached to the Oblomov house.

There was nothing else to remind the old man of their grandly expansive and peaceful life in the remote countryside. His old masters had died, and the family portraits were still at the house, probably lying in some attic. The legends about the old way of life and the family’s importance had faded away or lived on only in the memory of the few old men left in the village. This was why the gray frock coat was dear to Zakhar; in it, as well as in a few features retained in his master’s face and manners that reminded Zakhar of Oblomov’s parents, and in his whims, which Zakhar grumbled at, both privately and aloud—but which meanwhile he respected privately as a manifestation of the master’s will, his seigniorial right—he saw dim reminders of the grandeur of yore.

Without these whims, he would not have felt he had a master; without them nothing would have resurrected his youth, the village he had left so long ago, and the legends about that old house.

The Oblomov house had once been wealthy and illustrious in its part of the world, but later, God only knew why, it had grown poorer and poorer, deteriorated, and at last disappeared among the gentry houses of more recent date. Only the house’s graying servants preserved and handed down the faithful memory of its past, treasuring it as something sacred.

This was why Zakhar was so fond of his gray frock coat. He may even have treasured his side-whiskers because in his childhood he had seen many old servants who wore this old-fashioned, aristocratic adornment.

Deep in thought, Ilya Ilich did not notice Zakhar for a long time. Zakhar was standing in front of him, silent. At last he coughed.

“What do you want?” asked Ilya Ilich.

“Didn’t you call for me?”

“Did I? Why did I call for you? I don’t remember!” he answered, stretching. “Go back to your room for now and I’ll remember.”

Zakhar left and Ilya Ilich continued to lie and think about the accursed letter.

A quarter of an hour passed.

“That’s enough lying about!” he said. “I should get up. But actually, why don’t I read the bailiff’s letter closely one more time? Then I’ll get up.

“Zakhar!”

Again the same little jump and growl, though a little more forceful. Zakhar came in, and Oblomov was again deep in thought. Zakhar stood there for a minute or two, with poor grace, looking a little sideways at his master, and finally headed for the doorway.

“Where are you going?” asked Oblomov abruptly.

“You aren’t saying anything, so why should I stand here for nothing?” rasped Zakhar, because he did not have his other voice, which, according to him, he had lost hunting with the dogs, when he was riding with the old master and a strong wind blew in his throat.

He stood half-turned in the middle of the room and kept looking at Oblomov sideways.

“What, have your feet withered and fallen off so you can’t stand a little? You can see I’m worried, so just you wait! Haven’t you been lying around there long enough? Look for the letter I received from the bailiff yesterday. What did you do with it?”

“What letter? I didn’t see any letter,” said Zakhar.

“You took it from the postman. It was all dirty!”

“How am I supposed to know where you put it?” said Zakhar, patting the papers and various objects lying on the table.

“You never know anything. There, in the basket, take a look! Or did it fall behind the sofa? That back on the sofa still hasn’t been fixed. Why don’t you call in the carpenter to mend it? You were the one who broke it.”

“I didn’t break it,” replied Zakhar. “It broke itself. It couldn’t last forever. It was bound to break one day.”

Ilya Ilich felt no need to argue the contrary.

“Found it, did you?” was all he asked.

“Here are some letters.”

“Not those.”

“Well, there aren’t any others,” said Zakhar.

“Oh, all right then, go!” said Ilya Ilich impatiently. “I’ll get up and find it myself.”

Zakhar went to his corner, but no sooner had he rested his hands on the bench to jump up than he again heard the hurried cry: “Zakhar, Zakhar!”

“Oh, Lord!” grumbled Zakhar, as he headed back to the study. “What torture is this? Oh, will death never come?”

“What do you want?” he said, holding onto the study door with one hand and looking at Oblomov, in a sign of anything but good will, and so sideways that he could only see his master with half an eye, and the master could see only one vast side-whisker, out of which a few birds might have flown if you waited long enough.

“My handkerchief, and quickly! You might have guessed yourself. You don’t see!” remarked Ilya Ilich sternly.

Zakhar betrayed no particular dissatisfaction or surprise at this order and reproach from his master, in all likelihood finding both altogether natural.

“Who on earth knows where your handkerchief is?” he grumbled, circling the room and feeling every chair, although one could see as it was that there was nothing lying on the chairs.

“You lose everything!” he commented, opening the door to the sitting room to see whether it was there.

“Where are you going? Look in here! I haven’t been there since the day before yesterday. And quickly!” said Ilya Ilich.

“Where’s your handkerchief? There isn’t any handkerchief!” said Zakhar, shrugging and peering into all the corners. “Why there it is under you!” he rasped angrily. “Look, the end’s poking out. You’re lying on it, and you’re asking for your handkerchief!”

Without waiting for a reply, Zakhar left the room. Oblomov felt a little awkward at his own slip-up. He quickly found another reason to blame Zakhar.

“How clean you keep everything: the dust, the dirt, my God! There, and there, just look in the corners. You don’t do anything!”

“If I don’t do anything,” began Zakhar in an injured voice, “at least I try, and I don’t spare myself! I wipe the dust and sweep nearly every day.”

He pointed to the middle of the floor and the table where Oblomov ate his dinner.

“There and there,” he said. “It’s all swept and picked up, just like for a wedding. What more do you want?”

“And what’s this?” interrupted Ilya Ilich, pointing to the walls and ceiling. “And this? And this?” He pointed to the towel abandoned the day before and to the plate and crust of bread left on the table.

“Oh, that. All right, I’ll clear that,” said Zakhar condescendingly, picking up the plate.

“Only that! What about the dust on the walls, and the cobweb?” said Oblomov, pointing to the walls.

“I’ll clear that off before Holy Week. I’ll clean the icon and take down the cobweb then, too.”

“What about wiping off the books, and the pictures?”

“The books and pictures right before Christmas. Anisya and I’ll go through all the cupboards. How can anyone clean now? You’re always home.”

“Sometimes I go to the theater and pay calls. You could—”

“Clean at night?”

Oblomov looked at him reproachfully, shook his head, and sighed, and Zakhar gazed indifferently out the window and sighed, too. His master seemed to be thinking, Well, brother, you’re more of an Oblomov than I am, and Zakhar nearly thought, Liar! You’re just the master of saying wise and pathetic words. The dust and cobwebs are none of your business.

“Do you realize that moths come from mold?” said Ilya Ilich. “Sometimes I even see a bedbug on the wall!”

“I have bedbugs, too!” responded Zakhar indifferently.

“You think that’s all right? It’s vile!” commented Oblomov.

Zakhar’s whole face grinned so wide the grin even took in his eyebrows and side-whiskers, which jutted out to the sides, and a red blotch spread over his entire face all the way to his forehead.

“Why is it my fault there are bedbugs in this world?” he said with naïve wonder. “Did I invent them?”

“It’s from dirt,” interrupted Oblomov. “Why are you always lying?”

“I didn’t invent dirt either.”

“You’ve got mice running around in your room at night. I hear them.”

“I didn’t invent mice either. These creatures, the mice and the cats and the bedbugs, there’s lots everywhere.”

“Why don’t other people have moths and bedbugs?”

Distrust appeared on Zakhar’s face—or, rather, the serene confidence that this was not true.

“I have lots of everything,” he said stubbornly. “You can’t see every little bedbug, you can’t crawl in the crack after it.”

But he was apparently thinking, And what’s sleeping without bedbugs?

“If you swept and picked up the filth from the corners, there wouldn’t be any,” admonished Oblomov.

“Clear it away and it’ll pile up again tomorrow,” said Zakhar.

“No, it won’t,” interrupted the master. “It doesn’t have to.”

“It will. I know,” insisted the servant.

“Well, if it does, you’ll sweep it out again.”

“What’s that? Clean every corner every day?” asked Zakhar. “What kind of a life is that? I’d rather have God take me!”

“Why does everyone else have a clean place?” objected Oblomov. “Look across the way, at the piano tuner’s. It’s a pleasure to peek in, and all they have is one girl.”

“Where are Germans going to get any dirt?” objected Zakhar suddenly. “Just look at how they live! The whole family gnaws on a bone all week long. The frock coat passes from the father’s shoulders to the son’s, and from the son’s back to the father’s. The wife and daughters have little dresses so short they have to cross their legs under themselves like geese. Where are they going to get any dirt? They don’t have what we have here—piles of old worn clothes lying in the cupboards from year to year, or a whole corner of bread crusts saved up for the winter. They don’t have any crusts just lying around. They make rusks and eat them with their beer!”

Zakhar actually spit through his teeth as he argued on that niggardly existence.

“There’s nothing to discuss!” objected Ilya Ilich. “You should clean.”

“Sometimes I want to clean, but you don’t let me,” said Zakhar.

“There you go again! See, now I’m the one getting in your way.”

“Of course you are. You’re always home. How can anyone clean with you around? Go away for a whole day and then I’ll clean up.”

“Now there’s an idea. Go away, indeed! You’d better go to your room.”

“It’s the truth!” insisted Zakhar. “See, if you went away today, Anisya and I could clean it all up. Even then we couldn’t manage just us two. You’d need to hire a charwomen to wash everything down.”

“Oh ho! There’s an idea. Charwomen! Go to your room,” said Ilya Ilich.

He regretted having goaded Zakhar into this conversation. He kept forgetting that bringing up this delicate subject got you nothing but trouble.

Oblomov would have liked everything to be clean, and he would have liked it to have gotten that way imperceptibly, all by itself; but Zakhar always turned it into a capital case the minute anyone began asking him to dust, mop, and so forth. He would start arguing that this would entail tremendous disruption in the house, knowing full well that just the thought of this horrified his master.

Zakhar left, and Oblomov plunged into his thoughts. A few minutes later it struck half-past again.

“What’s this?” said Ilya Ilich, mildly aghast. “It’s nearly eleven, and I still haven’t risen or washed?

“Zakhar! Zakhar!”

“Oh you, my God! Well!” was heard from the front hall, and then the famous jump.

“Ready to wash?” asked Oblomov.

“Ready long ago!” replied Zakhar. “Why aren’t you getting up?”

“Why didn’t you say you had things ready? I would have been up long ago. Go on, I’m right behind you. I need to do some work, I’m going to sit down and write.”

Zakhar left and returned a minute later with a full and greasy notebook and scraps of paper.

“Here, if you’re going to write, then kindly check the accounts, too. Money has to be paid.”

“What accounts? What money?” asked Ilya Ilich with distaste.

“For the butcher, grocer, laundress, and baker. They’re all asking for money.”

“Money is all they think about!” grumbled Ilya Ilich. “Why don’t you give me the accounts one at a time, instead of all at once?”

“You’re the one who keeps driving me away with your ‘tomorrow, tomorrow.’”

“Well, can’t this wait until tomorrow now?”

“No! They’re badgering me hard. They won’t give me anything on credit. It’s the first of the month now.”

“Ah!” said Oblomov sadly. “A new worry! Well, why are you standing there? Put it on the table. I’ll get up now, wash, and take a look,” said Ilya Ilich. “So, ready to wash?”

“Yes!”

“So, now . . .”

He groaned as he prepared to sit up in bed, in order to get up.

“I forgot to tell you,” began Zakhar. “Just now, you were still asleep, and the landlord’s manager sent the porter. He says we have to move out right away. They need the apartment.”

“Well, what can you do? If they need it, then naturally we’ll move out. Why do you keep badgering me? This is the third time you’ve mentioned this.”

“They’re badgering me, too.”

“Tell them we’ll move out.”

“They say you’ve been promising for a month, and you still haven’t moved out. ‘We’re going to tell the police,’ they said.”

“Let them know!” said Oblomov decisively. “We’ll move ourselves, as soon as it’s a little warmer, in a few weeks.”

“What few weeks! The manager says the workers are coming in two weeks and they’re going to knock everything down. ‘Leave tomorrow or the day after,’ he says.”

“Drat! What’s their hurry? See? Something else! Are you going to tell me to move now? Don’t you dare mention the apartment. I’ve already forbidden you once, and now you’ve done it again. Watch out!”

“What should I do then?” responded Zakhar.

“What should you do? Look how he tries to get rid of me!” replied Ilya Ilich. “He’s asking me! What business is it of mine? Don’t bother me. Deal with it however you like, just so we don’t move. He can’t make a little effort for his master!”

“But how, Ilya Ilich sir? How am I supposed to deal with it?” Zakhar began hoarsely. “It’s not my building. How can we not move from someone else’s building if they’re driving us out? If it were my building, it would be my great pleasure—”

“Can’t you do something to persuade them? ‘We’ve been living here for a long time,’ say, ‘we pay like clockwork.’”

“I did,” said Zakhar.

“Well, and what did they do?”

“What did they do? They sang their own tune. ‘Move,’ they said, ‘we need to do your apartment over.’ They want to make one big apartment out of the doctor’s and this one, before the landlord’s son gets married.”

“Oh, my God!” said Oblomov, vexed. “You see what asses people are, getting married!”

He turned over on his back.

“You might write the landlord, sir,” said Zakhar. “That way, maybe he won’t bother you and he can tell them to start with knocking down that apartment over there.”

As he said this, Zakhar pointed off to the right.

“Well, all right, I’ll write him as soon as I get up. You go to your room and I’ll give it some thought. You don’t know how to do anything,” he added. “I even have to trouble myself over this foolishness.”

Zakhar left and Oblomov began to think.

But he was at pains as to what to think about: the bailiff’s letter, or moving to a new apartment, or settling his accounts. He got lost in the flood of mundane worries and lay there, turning from side to side. Only now and again his disjointed exclamations could be heard: “Oh, my God! Life just won’t leave me alone.”

Exactly how long he lingered in this state of indecision is unknown, but in the front hall the doorbell rang.

“Now someone’s come!” said Oblomov, wrapping himself up in his robe. “And I’ve still not risen. It’s a sheer disgrace! Who could this be so early?”

And, lying there, he gazed with curiosity at the door.

II

In walked a young man about twenty-five years of age who radiated health and had laughing cheeks, lips, and eyes. To see him was to envy him.

He was combed and dressed impeccably, and the freshness of his face, linen, gloves, and coat was blinding. An elegant chain with many tiny trinkets lay across his vest. He took out the finest batiste handkerchief, breathed deeply the scent of the Orient, and then carelessly ran it over his face and lustrous hat, and brushed off his polished boots.

“Ah, Volkov, welcome!” said Ilya Ilich.

“Hello, Oblomov,” said the gleaming gentleman as he approached.

“Don’t come any closer, don’t! You’re straight from the cold!” he said.

“Oh, the pet, the sybarite!” said Volkov, looking for a place to put his hat, and seeing dust everywhere, put it nowhere. He spread the tails of his coat to sit down, but after taking a closer look at the chair, remained standing.

“You’re still not up! What’s that robe you’re wearing? No one’s worn those for ages,” he shamed Oblomov.

“It’s not a robe, it’s a dressing gown,” said Oblomov, lovingly wrapping himself in his dressing gown’s wide skirts.

“Are you well?” asked Volkov.

“Well!” said Oblomov, yawning. “Hardly! I’m wracked by congestion. And how have you been?”

“Me? Fine. Healthy and gay—quite gay!” added the young man with feeling.

“Where are you coming from so early?” asked Oblomov.

“The tailor’s. See what a fine coat?” he said, turning in front of Oblomov.

“Excellent! Sewn with great taste,” said Ilya Ilich. “Only why is it so broad in back?”

“This is a riding coat. For horseback riding.”

“You mean you ride horseback?”

“Oh yes! I ordered the coat especially for today. After all, today is the first of May and Goryunov and I are riding to Ekaterinhof. Ah! Didn’t you know? Misha Goryunov’s been promoted. We’re celebrating today!” added Volkov ecstatically.

“Imagine that!” said Oblomov.

“He has a roan,” Volkov went on. “His regiment’s horses are roans, and mine is raven black. How are you going, on foot or by carriage?”

“Oh . . . I’m not,” said Oblomov.

“Not to be in Ekaterinhof on the first of May! What is wrong with you, Ilya Ilich?” said Volkov in amazement. “Everyone will be there!”

“What do you mean ‘everyone’? Not everyone!” remarked Oblomov lazily.

“Do go, please, Ilya Ilich! Sofia Nikolaevna and Lydia make only two in the carriage, and there’s a bench in the box opposite. You could ride with them.”

“No, I won’t fit on a bench. And what would I do when I got there?”

“Well, if you like, Misha could lend you another horse.”

“God knows what he’s thinking!” said Oblomov almost to himself. “Why are you so obsessed with the Goryunova sisters?”

“Oh!” said Volkov, blushing, “shall I tell you?”

“Yes!”

“You won’t tell anyone, word of honor?” continued Volkov, sitting closer to him on the sofa.

“Naturally.”

“I’m in love with Lydia,” he whispered.

“Bravo! Has it been long? She seems very sweet.”

“Three weeks!” said Volkov with a deep sigh. “And Misha’s in love with Dashenka.”

“Which Dashenka?”

“Where have you been, Oblomov? He doesn’t know Dashenka! The whole town is out of its mind over her dancing. Today he and I are going to the ballet, and he’ll throw her a bouquet. I’ll have to lead him to her he’s so shy, a novice still. Oh! I must go for camellias.”

“Where else? That’s enough for you, come here to dine. We could talk. I’ve had two disasters.”

“I can’t. I’m dining with Prince Tyumenev. All the Goryunovs will be there, as will she, she . . . my Lydia,” he added in a whisper. “Why have you abandoned the prince? What a gay house! And what a scale they’ve set! And the summer house! Simply drowning in flowers. They added a gallery, gothique. In the summer, they say, there will be dances and tableaux vivants. Will you be going?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Ah, what a house! This winter, on Wednesdays, there were never fewer than fifty, sometimes upwards of a hundred people.”

“My God! What boredom. It must have been hellish!”

“How can you say that? Boredom! Why, the more the merrier. Lydia went there, and I didn’t notice her, and then all of a sudden . . .

“In vain do I try to forget her

My passion to vanquish with sense . . .”

he began singing, and he sat down on a chair, forgetting himself, but then suddenly jumped up and began wiping the dust from his clothes.

“What dust you have everywhere!” he said.

“It’s all Zakhar!” complained Oblomov.

“Well, time for me to go!” said Volkov. “To get camellias for Misha’s bouquet. Au revoir.”

“Come for tea this evening, after the ballet. You can tell me how it all was,” invited Oblomov.

“I can’t, I gave the Mussinskys my word. Today is their day. Why don’t you come along? If you like, I’ll introduce you.”

“No, what’s there to do?”

“At the Mussinskys’? Please, half the town goes there. What’s there to do? This is the kind of house where they talk about everything.”

“That’s just what’s so boring, that it’s about everything,” said Oblomov.

“Well, then call on the Mezdrovs,” interrupted Volkov. “There all they talk about is the arts. That’s all you’ll hear: the Venetian school,* Beethoven and Bach, Leonardo da Vinci . . .”

“Always the same thing. How boring! Pedants, definitely!” said Oblomov, yawning.

“There’s no pleasing you. It’s not as if there aren’t enough houses! Now everyone has their day. We dine at the Savinovs’ on Thursday, the Maklashins’ on Friday, the Vyaznikovs’ on Sunday, and Prince Tyumenev’s on Wednesday. All my days are taken!” concluded Volkov with shining eyes.

“Isn’t it tedious traipsing around day in and day out?”

“I’ll give you tedious! How could it be tedious? It’s exceedingly gay!” he said lightheartedly.

“You read a little in the morning, because you have to be perfectly au courant and know the news. Thank God, my service is such that I’m not required to frequent my office. Just twice a week you sit and dine with the general, and then you go pay calls where you haven’t been for a while. Well, and then there’s, oh, say, a new actress, at the Russian or the French theater. If there’s an opera, I’ll subscribe. And now I’m in love. Summer is beginning, Misha has been promised leave, and we’ll go to his place in the country for a month, for variety. There’s hunting there. They have excellent neighbors who give bals champêtres. Lydia and I will take walks in the woods, go for boat rides, and pick flowers. Oh my!” He spun around from joy. “However, it’s time I went. Good-bye,” he said, trying in vain to examine his front and back in the dusty mirror.

“Wait a minute,” Oblomov held him back. “I was wanting to discuss some matters with you.”

“Pardon, I’m late,” Volkov hurried. “Next time! Wouldn’t you like to eat oysters with me? You can tell me about it then. Let’s go. Misha is treating.”

“Good gracious, no!” said Oblomov.

“Good-bye then.”

He left and came back.

“Have you seen this?” he asked, showing his tightly gloved hand.

“What is it?” asked Oblomov, at a loss.

“Ah, new lacets! See how well they tighten. You don’t spend two hours agonizing over a button. Pull the string and you’re set. It’s the latest from Paris. Shall I bring you a pair to try?”

“Fine, bring me a pair!” said Oblomov.

“And look at this. Quite cunning, isn’t it?” he said, searching for a certain one in his pile of trinkets. “A calling card with a bent corner.”

“I can’t make out what’s written there.”

“Pr.—Prince M. Michel,” said Volkov. “His last name, Tyumenev, didn’t fit. He gave me this at Easter, instead of an egg. Well, good-bye, au revoir. I still have ten places to be. My goodness, what a lot of gaiety there is in the world!”

And he disappeared.

Ten places to be in one day. Poor man! thought Oblomov. And this is life! He gave a good shrug. Where’s the human being in this? To what end does he split himself up and scatter himself about? Naturally, it wouldn’t be bad to have a look at the theater and fall in love with some Lydia. She must be very sweet! Picking flowers in the country with her and going for a ride—that’s nice. But to be ten places in one day—the poor man! he concluded, turning over on his back and rejoicing that he had no such empty desires and thoughts and that he did not traipse about but lay right where he was, maintaining his human dignity and his peace of mind.

Another bell interrupted his thoughts.

A new visitor walked in.

This was a gentleman wearing a dark green coat with coat-of-arms buttons. He was smooth-shaven and had dark side-whiskers that framed his face evenly, a troubled but calmly aware expression in his eyes, a well-scrubbed face, and a pensive smile.

“Good day to you, Sudbinsky!” Oblomov greeted him cheerfully. “You hardly ever come to see your old colleague anymore. Don’t come any closer! You’re straight from the cold.”

“Good day to you, Ilya Ilich. I’ve been intending to visit for a long time,” said the visitor. “You know yourself what a devilish service we have! There, look, I’m carrying an entire suitcase for my report; and now, if anyone asks for anything, I’ve told the messenger to rush over here. I never have a moment to myself.”

“You’re only now on your way to work? Why so late?” asked Oblomov. “You used to be there by ten.”

“Used to be, yes. Now is another matter. At twelve o’clock I’m in the carriage.” He emphasized the last word.

“Ah! I can guess!” said Oblomov. “Department chief! Has it been long?”

Sudbinsky nodded significantly.

“Since Holy Week,” he said. “But I have so much to do. It’s dreadful! From eight to twelve o’clock at home, from twelve to five at the office, and I work in the evening, too. I’m quite out of the habit of company!”

“Hmm. Department chief. What do you know!” said Oblomov. “Congratulations! Just look at you. And to think we worked together as clerks. I imagine they’ll make you state councilor next year.”

“The thought! Bless you! I still have to get my Crown this year. I thought they would present it for distinction, but now I’ve taken a new post, and you can’t expect something two years in a row.”

“Come for dinner. We’ll drink to your promotion!” said Oblomov.

“No, today I’m dining with the deputy director. I have to prepare my report by Thursday. Hellish work! I can’t trust the statements from the provinces. I have to verify the registers for myself. Foma Fomich is so suspicious, he wants to do everything himself. So today after dinner we’ll sit down together.”

“You mean after dinner as well?” asked Oblomov, not believing his ears.

“What did you think? It will be nice if I can get away a little earlier in time for a ride to Ekaterinhof. Oh yes, I stopped by to ask whether you might be going to the festivities. I could stop by for you.”

“I haven’t been well. I can’t!” said Oblomov, frowning. “And I have so much to do. No, I can’t!”

“A pity!” said Sudbinsky. “The day is so fine. Today is my only hope for a breath of air.”

“So, what’s new at the office?” asked Oblomov.

“Oh, all kinds of things. In letters they abolished writing ‘your most humble servant’ and write ‘accept my assurance,’ and we’re not allowed to present two copies of statements of service. They’ve added three desks and two officials on special assignment. Our commission has been shut down. Quite a lot!”

“Well, and what about our former colleagues?”

“So far so good. Svinkin lost a file!”

“Is that a fact? What did the director do?” asked Oblomov in a trembling voice. He was scared by force of habit.

“He had his bonus held back until it was found. It’s an important file, ‘on levies.’ The director thinks he lost it”—and Sudbinsky added, almost whispering—“on purpose.”

“There, you see! Forever at your labors!” said Oblomov. “Always working.”

“It’s dreadful. Dreadful! Well, naturally, it’s pleasant serving with a man like Foma Fomich. He never forgets bonuses, even those who do nothing are never forgotten. He finds the money. When you’re due, he gets you something for excellence, and if you’re not due for a promotion or a cross, he comes up with money.”

“How much do you get?”

“Just imagine! A thousand two hundred rubles in salary, seven hundred fifty just for board, six hundred for my rooms, a subsidy of nine hundred, five hundred for travel, and as much as a thousand rubles in bonuses.”

“The deuce you do!” said Oblomov, jumping up from his bed. “I’ll bet you have a fine voice. Just like an Italian singer!”

“Why, that’s nothing! Peresvetov there receives additional money, and he has less to do than I and he can’t think straight. Well, of course, he doesn’t have the same reputation. I’m highly valued,” he added modestly, casting his eyes down. “Not long ago the minister said of me that I am an ‘adornment for the ministry.’”

“Good work!” said Oblomov. “The only thing is you’re working from eight o’clock until twelve, from twelve until five, and at home as well. Oh my!”

He shook his head.

“But what would I do if I didn’t work?” asked Sudbinsky.

“Anything at all! You could read, or write,” said Oblomov.

“That’s all I do right now, read and write.”

“Oh, not like that. You could publish.”

“Not everyone is meant to be a writer. After all, you aren’t writing here.”

“I, on the other hand, have an estate on my hands,” said Oblomov with a sigh. “I’m devising a new plan and introducing various improvements. It’s utter agony. Whereas you’re working for others, not yourself.”

“What can you do! If you’re to have money, you must work. I shall have a rest in the summer. Foma Fomich has promised to devise a trip especially for me. I’ll be given travel money for five horses, an allowance of three rubles a day, and then a bonus.”

“They must be swimming in it,” said Oblomov enviously. Then he sighed and lapsed into thought.

“I need money. I’m getting married in the fall,” added Sudbinsky.

“You don’t say! Is that a fact? To whom?” said Oblomov with sympathy.

“I’m not joking. To Murashina. Remember, they lived nearby at the dacha? You were having tea with me and you saw her, I think.”

“No, I don’t remember. Is she pretty?”

“Yes, she’s very sweet. We can go dine with them, if you like.”

Oblomov hesitated.

“Yes . . . fine, only . . .”

“Next week,” said Sudbinsky.

“Yes, next week,” Oblomov rejoiced. “My clothes aren’t ready yet. So, is it a good match?”

“Yes, her father’s a state councilor, still active. He’s giving us ten thousand and has an apartment at government expense. He’s set half aside for us, twelve rooms; furniture, heating, and lighting at government expense as well. Life will be tolerable.”

“Tolerable! I should think so! You lucky dog!” Oblomov added, not without envy.

“For the wedding, Ilya Ilich, I’d like you to be my best man. Take care—”

“What do you mean, certainly!” said Oblomov. “And what about Kuznetsov, Vasiliev, and Makhov?”

“Kuznetsov is long married, Makhov took over my place, and Vasiliev was transferred to Poland. Ivan Petrovich was given a St. Vladimir,* and Oleshkin is ‘His Excellency.’”

“He’s a kind fellow!” said Oblomov.

“Yes, he is. He deserves it.”

“Very kind, a gentle nature, and even-tempered,” said Oblomov.

“And so obliging,” added Sudbinsky. “He doesn’t have that drive, you know, to curry favor, or foul things for others, or trip them up, or outdo them. He does his best.”

“A splendid man! Sometimes you would get mixed up in your document or not look carefully at whether you were entering an opinion or laws in the registry, and it was all right. He would just have someone else redo it. An excellent man!” concluded Oblomov.

“Whereas our Semyon Semyonich is as incorrigible as ever,” said Sudbinsky, “a master at bravado. Here’s what he did recently. A request came in from the provinces to erect kennels adjacent to our department in order to protect government property from theft. Our architect, a practical man, knowledgeable and honest, drew up a very moderate estimate. Out of nowhere, Sudbinsky decided it was too much so he said, We shall make an inquiry as to how much the construction of a kennel might cost. He found thirty kopeks less somewhere, and now there’s a memorandum—”

The doorbell rang again.

“Good-bye,” said the official. “I’ve run on and there’s something I must do.”

“Sit a little longer,” Oblomov tried to detain him. “By the way, I want to consult with you. I’ve had two disasters—”

“No, no, I’d better stop by in a few days,” he said, leaving.

You’re stuck, my good friend, stuck up to your ears, thought Oblomov, watching him go. Deaf, dumb, and blind to everything else in the world. You’ll get on in life, be a big shot in time, and pick up ranks. We call that a career! But how little of a man this requires. His mind, his will, his feelings—what are they for? It’s a luxury! He’ll live out his days and so very much in him will never stir. Meanwhile, he works from twelve to five in the office and from eight to twelve at home. Poor man!

He experienced a serene pleasure that from nine to three and from eight to nine he could be at home on his sofa, and he was proud that he did not need to go anywhere with a report or write any documents and that he had room for his emotions and imagination.

Oblomov was philosophizing and so failed to notice that a very gaunt and swarthy gentleman overgrown with side-whiskers, mustache, and goatee was standing at his bedside. He was dressed with studied negligence.

“Good day, Ilya Ilich.”

“Good day, Penkin. Don’t come any closer. You’re straight from the cold!” said Oblomov.

“What an eccentric you are!” the man said. “Still the same incorrigible, carefree lazybones!”

“Yes, carefree!” said Oblomov. “Here, just let me show you the letter from my bailiff. I keep wracking my brains, and you say ‘carefree’! Where have you come from?”

“The bookstall. I went to see whether the journals were out. Have you read my essay?”

“No.”

“I’ll send it to you and you can read it.”

“What’s it about?” Oblomov asked through a mighty yawn.

“Trade, the emancipation of women, the marvelous April days we’ve had the luck to enjoy, and the newly invented fire extinguisher. How is it you don’t read this? After all, this is the life we lead. Most of all I’m fighting for the realistic trend in literature.”

“Have you been very busy?” asked Oblomov.

“Yes, rather. Two articles for the newspaper each week, then I’m writing analyses of novelists, and oh, I’ve written a story.”

“What about?”

“The mayor of a certain town socking townspeople in the jaw.”

“Yes, that is indeed the realistic trend,” said Oblomov.

“Isn’t it, though?” confirmed the delighted man of letters. “I draw out a thought like that and I know it’s new and daring. One passer-by is witness to these beatings and in a meeting with the governor complains to him. The governor orders the official who has come for an inquiry to look into this as well and in general to collect information on the mayor’s character and conduct. The official calls a meeting of the townspeople, supposedly to question them about commerce, but meanwhile why don’t we make some inquiries about this as well. What do the townspeople do? They cringe and laugh and lavish the mayor with praise. The official makes inquiries on the side and is told that the townspeople are terrible swindlers. They sell rotten meat and give short weight and short measure even to the treasury, and they’re all immoral, so those beatings were just punishment.”

“So the mayor’s beatings function in your tale like the fatum of the ancient tragedians?” said Oblomov.

“Precisely,” Penkin chimed in. “You have a great deal of sensitivity, Ilya Ilich. You should write! But meanwhile I was able to show both how arbitrary the mayor was and how degenerate the common people’s morals, how badly organized the actions of the officials’ subordinates, and the need for strict but legal measures. The idea is rather new, isn’t it?”

“Yes, especially for me,” said Oblomov. “I read so little.”

“Indeed, there are no books in sight here!” said Penkin. “But I beg of you, read one thing. A magnificent epic poem, one might say, is nearly ready: ‘The Corrupt Official’s Love for a Fallen Woman.’ I can’t tell you who the author is because it’s still a secret.”

“What’s it about?”

“It exposes the entire mechanism of our society’s movement, and all in poetic tones. Every spring is touched; every rung of the social ladder considered. It’s like a trial, with the author summoning both the weak but depraved magnate and the whole swarm of corrupt officials who are hoodwinking him. It sorts through all the categories of fallen women—French, German, Finnish, and all the rest—with stunning, thrilling accuracy. I’ve heard excerpts. The author is magnificent! You hear echoes of Dante and Shakespeare in him.”

“That’s going a bit too far!” said Oblomov in amazement, sitting up.

Penkin suddenly paused, seeing he truly had gone too far.

“You read it and you’ll see for yourself,” he added, now without bravado.

“No, Penkin, I won’t.”

“Why not? It’s quite the sensation. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“Then let them! Some people have nothing better to do than talk. There is that vocation.”

“Read it just out of curiosity.”

“What’s there that I haven’t seen?” said Oblomov. “Why do they write this? Only to please themselves.”

“What do you mean ‘themselves’? It’s perfectly accurate, and so life-like you can’t help but laugh. Like real-life portraits. No matter who they take—a merchant, an official, an officer, a policeman—it’s like an impression drawn directly from life.”

“Why do they struggle so? For fun? Are they saying, Look at us! No matter who we take up, aren’t we convincing? But there’s no life to it. No understanding or sympathy. None of what you there call humanity. It’s sheer vanity. They depict thieves and fallen women as if they were nabbing them on the street and hauling them off to jail. You don’t hear any ‘invisible tears’ in their story, just obvious, crude laughter and malice.”

“What else do you need? You yourself put it splendidly. There’s seething malice, the bilious persecution of sin, and contemptuous ridicule of the fallen man. It’s all in there!”

“No, not all!” said Oblomov, suddenly fired up. “Depict your thief, your fallen woman, your haughty fool, but don’t forget the human being there. Where is the human element? You want to write with just your head!” Oblomov was almost hissing. “You think thought has no need of heart? No, love fertilizes thought. Extend a hand to a fallen man to lift him up, or weep bitterly over him should he perish, but don’t sneer. Love him, remember yourself in him, and treat him as you would yourself. Then I’ll read you and bow my head to you,” he said, lying back down on the sofa peacefully. “They depict the thief and the fallen woman,” he said, “but they forget the human being or don’t know how to depict him. What kind of art is this? What poetic colors have you found? Condemn degeneracy and filth, only, please, without any pretensions to poetry.”

“What, would you have me depict nature? Roses, a nightingale, or a frosty morning, meanwhile everything around us is seething and in motion? All we need is the naked physiology of society. We don’t have time for songs now.”

“A human being. Give me a human being!” said Oblomov. “And love him.”

“Love a moneylender, a hypocrite, a thieving or dim-witted official? Do you hear what you’re saying? It’s obvious you don’t read literature!” said Penkin heatedly. “No, they have to be punished, cast out from civil life and society.”

“Cast out from civil life?” began Oblomov, suddenly inspired and standing before Penkin. “That means forgetting that this unworthy vessel contains a higher principle. He may be a depraved man, but he is still a man, just like you. Cast him out? But how can you cast him out of the circle of mankind, the lap of nature, and God’s mercy?” he nearly shouted, his eyes blazing.

“Now look who’s gone a bit too far!” said Penkin, astonished, in turn.

Oblomov saw that he had indeed gone too far. He suddenly fell silent, stood there for a moment, yawned, and slowly lay back down on the sofa.

Both plunged into silence.

“What do you read?” asked Penkin.

“Me? Mostly travelogues.”

Another silence.

“So will you read the poem when it comes out?” asked Penkin. “I could bring it,”

Oblomov shook his head.

“Well, shall I send you my story?”

Oblomov nodded.

“However, it’s time I went to the printers!” said Penkin. “Do you know why I came to see you? I wanted to suggest we go to Ekaterinhof. I have a carriage. Tomorrow I have to write an article on the festivities. We could observe together, and whatever I don’t notice, you could tell me. It would be gayer. Let’s go.”

“No, I’m not well,” said Oblomov, frowning and pulling up his blanket. “I’m afraid of the damp. It still hasn’t dried out. But you could come dine today. We could talk a little. I have two disasters—”

“No, our whole editorial office is at the St. George today,* and we’ll go to the festivities from there. Tonight I have to write this up and send it to the printer’s at the crack of dawn. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Penkin.”

Writing at night, thought Oblomov. So when does he sleep? But he’s probably making five thousand a year! That’s a living! But writing all the time, wasting your thoughts and soul on trifles, changing your convictions, trading in intellect and imagination, coercing your nature, worrying, seething, regretting, knowing no peace and always rushing somewhere. And writing, always writing, like a wheel, a machine. Write tomorrow and the day after; a holiday comes, summer arrives, and he’s still writing? When does he stop and rest? Poor man!

He turned his head to his table, which was completely smooth. The ink had dried up, and there was no quill to be seen, and he rejoiced to be lying there, as free of care as a newborn baby, squandering nothing and selling nothing.

What about the bailiff’s letter, and the apartment? he suddenly remembered, and he began to think.

But then someone rang the bell again.

“What is this rout I’m having today?” said Oblomov, and he waited to see who would enter.

In walked a man of indeterminate age and indeterminate physiognomy, at that time of life when it can be difficult to guess a man’s age. Neither handsome nor ugly, neither tall nor short, neither blond nor brunet. Nature had given him no distinctive, notable features whatsoever, either for ill or good. Many called him Ivan Ivanich; others, Ivan Vasilievich; still others, Ivan Mikhailich. His last name was also cited variously. Some said he was Ivanov; others called him Vasiliev or Andreyev; still others thought he was Alexeyev. A chance passer-by seeing him for the first time, if told his name, would immediately forget it, as he would his face, and would take no note of what he said. His presence would add nothing to society, just as his absence would subtract nothing. His mind possessed no wit, originality, or any other characteristic, just as his body had no distinctive markings.

Perhaps, had he at least been able to recount everything he had seen and heard, he might in this way have engaged others, but he never went anywhere. Just as he was born in Petersburg, so he never left it; consequently, he saw and heard exactly what everyone else already knew.

Can such a man be likeable? Does he love, hate, and suffer? He must—you would think—love and not love, and suffer, because no one is freed from that. But somehow he managed to love everyone. There are men like that, in whom, no matter how hard you struggle, you cannot arouse the spirit of enmity, revenge, and the like. No matter what you do to them, they are always kind. Although they say people like that are kind because they love everyone, in essence they love no one and are kind only because they are not mean.

If in the presence of such a man others give alms to a beggar, he too will toss him his coin, but if they rain down curses, drive him away, mock him, he too will curse and mock along with the rest. You cannot call him rich because he is not rich, rather he is poor, but you definitely could not call him poor either, if only because there are many poorer than he.

He has his private income of about three hundred rubles a year, and on top of that he holds a negligible post and receives a negligible salary. He suffers no want and never borrows money, but it has been a long time since it has occurred to anyone to ask him for a loan.

He has no particular occupation in service because his colleagues and superiors have never been able to remark what he does worse and what better, so as to determine of what he is specifically capable.

Scarcely anyone, save his mother, noticed his arrival in the world, and very few noticed him during the course of his life, and doubtless no one would notice were he to vanish from the face of the earth. No one would ask about him or feel sorry for him, but neither would anyone rejoice at his death. He has neither enemies nor friends but a great many acquaintances. His funeral procession alone might draw the attention of a passer-by who might pay his respects to this indeterminate person with the respect due him for the first time—with a deep bow. Another curious person might even run to the head of the procession to learn the deceased’s name—and then promptly forget it.

This whole Alexeyev, Vasiliev, Andreyev, or whoever, was just a partial, impersonal allusion to the mass of humanity, its muffled echo, its blurred reflection.

Even Zakhar, who in frank conversations, at gatherings by the gates or the shop, gave cutting descriptions of all the guests who visited his master, was always stumped when it came to this . . . let’s just call him Alexeyev. He would ponder, fish around for some distinctive feature he could latch onto in this man’s appearance, manners, or personality, and eventually shrug and put it this way: “That one isn’t much to look at!”

“Ah!” Oblomov greeted him. “Is that you, Alexeyev? Hello. Where have you been? Don’t come any closer. I’m not going to shake your hand. You’re straight from the cold!”

“Go on, what cold? I hadn’t planned on visiting you today,” said Alexeyev, “but I ran into Ovchinin and he took me home with him. I’ve come for you, Ilya Ilich.”

“Where’s that?”

“To Ovchinin’s. Come on. Matvei Andreich Alyanov, Kazimir Albertich Pkhailo, and Vasily Sevastyanich Kolymyagin are there.”

“Why are they all there and what do they want from me?”

“Ovchinin is inviting you to dinner.”

“Hmm, dinner,” echoed Oblomov in a monotone.

“And afterward everyone’s going to Ekaterinhof. They told me to tell you to hire a carriage.”

“But what is there to do there?”

“You don’t mean that! The festivities are there now. Don’t you know today’s the first of May?”

“Have a seat. Let’s think,” said Oblomov.

“Get up! It’s time to dress.”

“Wait a bit. It’s early, after all.”

“You call this early? They invited us for twelve o’clock. We’ll dine a little early, at two or so, and then it’s off to the festivities. Let’s go quickly! Shall I tell him to get you dressed?”

“Dress now? I still haven’t washed.”

“Then wash.”

Alexeyev started pacing back and forth across the room, then he stopped in front of a picture he’d seen a thousand times before, peeked out the window, picked up some trinket from a shelf, turned it over and examined it on all sides, put it back, and then started pacing again and whistling—all this so as not to keep Oblomov from getting up and washing. In that way, ten minutes passed.

“What’s the matter with you?” Alexeyev suddenly asked Ilya Ilich.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re still lying there.”

“You mean I have to get up?”

“Of course! They’re expecting us. You wanted to go.”

“Go where? I didn’t want to go anywhere.”

“Look, Ilya Ilich, we just said we were going to Ovchinin’s for dinner and then on to Ekaterinhof.”

“I should go for a ride in the damp? What’s there that I haven’t already seen? Look, it’s about to rain. It’s overcast outside,” said Oblomov lazily.

“There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and you’ve made up the rain. It’s overcast because your windows haven’t been washed for how long? It’s the dirt, the dirt on them! Pitch-black it is, especially since you have one blind lowered nearly all the way.”

“Fine, you go mention that to Zakhar and he’ll be quick to suggest charwomen and driving you out of the house for an entire day!”

Oblomov got to thinking, and Alexeyev drummed his knuckles on the table where he was sitting, running his eyes distractedly over the walls and ceiling.

“So what about us? What are we going to do? Are you going to dress or stay here?” he asked several minutes later.

“Go where?”

“What about Ekaterinhof?”

“You’re obsessed with that Ekaterinhof, you really are!” responded Oblomov, vexed. “Wouldn’t you rather sit here? Is it cold in the room? Does it smell bad? So why are you looking to go out?”

“No, I’m always happy here. I’m content,” said Alexeyev.

“So if you’re happy here, why want to go somewhere else? Why don’t you stay with me all day, have your dinner, and then in the evening do as you like! Oh, and I forgot. How could I go anywhere? Tarantiev is coming for dinner. Today is Saturday.”

“Well, if that’s how things stand . . . I’m happy to . . . as you like,” said Alexeyev.

“Did I not tell you about my affairs?” asked Oblomov animatedly.

“What affairs? I don’t know,” said Alexeyev, staring at him wide-eyed.

“Why is it I’ve taken so long to get up? You see, I’ve been lying here this entire time thinking how to extricate myself from disaster.”

“What’s that?” asked Alexeyev, trying to look frightened.

“Two disasters! I just don’t know what to do.”

“What disasters?”

“They’re driving me out of my apartment. Imagine, I have to leave. The breakage, the racket—I shudder to think! I’ve been living in this apartment for eight years, and now the landlord plays this trick on me. ‘Move out,’ he says, ‘and right away.’”

“Right away, too! He must need it. It’s very hard to bear, this moving. There’s always a lot of trouble with moving,” said Alexeyev. “They lose things and break things. It’s very tedious! And you have such a marvelous apartment. What do you pay?”

“Where are you going to find another like it?” said Oblomov, “and on the double to boot? The apartment’s dry and warm, and the building’s quiet. We’ve only been robbed once! If you look at the ceiling, it seems unsound, and the plaster’s all fallen off, but it still hasn’t caved in.”

“I say!” said Alexeyev, shaking his head.

“What can I do to keep from having to move out?” Oblomov reasoned in his reverie.

“Well, did you have a contract for your lease?” asked Alexeyev, surveying the room from ceiling to floor.

“Yes, only the contract’s expired, and I’ve been paying by the month all this time. I don’t remember since when.”

“What do you think?” asked Alexeyev after a short pause. “Will you move or stay?”

“I don’t think at all,” said Oblomov. “I don’t want to think. Let Zakhar come up with something.”

“You know, some people like to move,” said Alexeyev. “That’s the only pleasure they find, changing apartments.”

“Well, let ‘some people’ move. I can’t bear change of any kind! And the apartment, that isn’t all!” began Oblomov. “Take a look here at what my bailiff writes. I’ll show you the letter right now. Where is it? Zakhar! Zakhar!”

“Our Heavenly Lady!” rasped Zakhar in his corner as he jumped off the stove. “When will God finally take me?”

He came in and gave his master an uneasy look.

“Why didn’t you look for the letter?”

“Where would I look for it? How do I know what letter you mean? I can’t read.”

“Go look anyway,” said Oblomov.

“You were the one reading some letter last night,” said Zakhar. “After that I didn’t see.”

“So where is it?” uttered Ilya Ilich with vexation. “I didn’t swallow it. I remember very well you taking it from me and putting it somewhere way over there. So now go look and see where it is!”

He gave his blanket a shake, and the letter fell out of the folds and onto the floor.

“Look how you blame everything on me! Well, well, just imagine!” Oblomov and Zakhar started shouting at each other at the same time. Zakhar left and Oblomov started reading the letter, which might as well have been written with kvass and which was on gray paper and stamped with brown sealing wax.

“Kind sir,” began Oblomov, “Your Honor, our father and benefactor, Ilya Ilich . . .”

At this point Oblomov skipped several greetings and wishes of health and picked up from the middle:

“I wish to report to your lordly grace, oh benefactor, that here, on your patrimony, all is well. There has been no rain for four weeks. The people must have angered the Lord God, so there has been no rain. The elders cannot recall such a drought. The spring sowing is burning up, as if set a-fire. In some places worms have ruined the winter wheat, in other places the early frosts. We were going to plow the spring crop over, but we do not know whether anything will grow. Perhaps our kind Lord will spare your grace, for we have no care for ourselves. Let us perish if we must. Before St. Ivan’s Day three muzhiks left: Laptev, Balochov, and especially Vaska left, the smithy’s son. I drove away the wives after their husbands, and those wives have not returned. We hear they are living in Chelki, and my child’s godfather went to Chelki from Verkhlyovo because his manager sent him there. We’ve heard they’ve brought a plow from over the sea, so the manager sent my child’s godfather to Chelki to take a look at one of those plows. I gave my child’s godfather instructions about the runaway muzhiks. He said he paid his respects to the chief of police, who said, ‘Give me the document, and then every possible means will be taken to return the peasants to their households at their place of residence,’ and the policeman said no more, and I fell at his feet and implored him, in tears; he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Get out, get out! You’ve been told it will be done. Just give me the document!’ But I didn’t. There is no one here to hire. Everyone has gone to the Volga, to work on the barques. That’s the kind of foolish people we have here nowadays, oh benefactor and father, Ilya Ilich! There will be none of our linen at the market this year. I locked the hothouse and bleachery up tight and posted Sychug to stand watch day and night. He’s a sober muzhik; just so he doesn’t take anything of the master’s, I watch him day and night. Others are drinking hard and asking to go on quit-rent. Arrears are not going well. This year we will send a small income, oh father of ours, our benefactor, two thousand or so less than the year just past, if the drought doesn’t ruin us altogether, and if it does, we propose sending your grace word.”

Then followed protestations of devotion and a signature: “Your bailiff, your humblest slave, Prokofy Vytyagushkin, has put his hand to this with his own hand.” Since he could not write, he had put a cross. “Written from the words of this bailiff by his brother-in-law, Demka Krivoi.”

Oblomov glanced at the end of the letter.

“There’s no month or year,” he said. “This letter must have been lying around the bailiff’s since last year because it mentions St. Ivan’s Day and the drought! When he came to his senses!”

He began to think.

“So?” he continued. “What do you think of that? He proposes ‘two thousand or so less’! How much does that leave? How much did I receive last year now?” he asked, looking at Alexeyev. “I didn’t tell you at the time?”

Alexeyev looked up at the ceiling and began to think.

“I’ll have to ask Stolz when he comes,” continued Oblomov. “I think it was seven or eight thousand. Too bad I didn’t write it down! So now he’s putting me on six! I really will starve to death! What will I live on here?”

“Why are you so worried, Ilya Ilich?” said Alexeyev. “You must never succumb to despair. It will all come right in the end.”

“But do you hear what he writes? He might send some money and console me a little, but he causes me nothing but trouble, as if out of spite! And it’s like this every year! You see how this upsets me! ‘Two thousand or so less’!”

“Yes, it’s a great loss,” said Alexeyev. “Two thousand is no joke! You know, they say Alexei Loginich too is getting only twelve thousand this year instead of seventeen.”

“At least it’s twelve and not six,” interrupted Oblomov. “That bailiff has thoroughly undone me! If it is in fact as he says, a failed crop and a drought, then why upset me in advance?”

“Yes, that’s true,” began Alexeyev, “he oughtn’t have, but what delicacy can you expect from a muzhik? Those people understand nothing.”

“So what would you do in my place?” asked Oblomov, gazing inquiringly at Alexeyev, in the faint hope that he would think up some way to console him.

“I’ll have to think, Ilya Ilich. One can’t decide instantly,” said Alexeyev.

“The governor! Perhaps I should write to him!” said Ilya Ilich pensively.

“Who do you have for governor?” asked Alexeyev.

Ilya Ilich did not reply and began to think. Alexeyev fell silent and contemplated something as well.

Crumpling up the letter, Oblomov propped his head on his hands, rested his elbows on his knees, and sat like that for a while, beset by a flood of distressing thoughts.

“If only Stolz would get here!” he said. “He writes he’ll be here soon, but the deuce if I know where he’s knocking about! He would make things right.”

Distress darkened his face again. For a long time both were silent. Eventually, Oblomov roused first.

“Here’s what I should do!” he said decisively, and he nearly got out of bed, “and do it as soon as possible. It’s no good tarrying. First of all—”

Right then there was a desperate ringing in the front hall, so that Oblomov and Alexeyev shuddered and Zakhar jumped instantly from his bench.

III

“Anybody home?” asked someone in the front hall loudly and rudely.

“Where would we be going this time of day?” Zakhar replied even more rudely.

In walked a man of about forty who belonged to the large breed—tall, voluminous in the shoulders and through his torso, sizable facial features, a large head, a short strong neck, large protruding eyes, and thick lips. A quick glance at this man gave rise to the thought of something crude and slovenly. He clearly did not strive for elegance in dress. Nor was he always seen clean-shaven. Evidently, he did not care. He was unembarrassed by his attire and wore it with a cynical dignity.

This was Mikhei Andreyevich Tarantiev, who hailed from the same district as Oblomov.

Tarantiev viewed everything sullenly, with poorly disguised contempt and frank ill will toward all around him, prepared to abuse everyone and everything in the world, as if offended by some injustice or unacknowledged for some merit, a strong character, ultimately, hounded but not bowed by fate.

His movements were bold and sweeping. He spoke loudly, glibly, and nearly always crossly, and if you heard him at any remove, he sounded like three empty wagons driving over a bridge. He was never constrained by anyone’s presence, never at a loss for words, and predictably rude in his dealings with everyone, not excepting his friends, as if he were trying to make them feel that, by striking up a conversation with him, even by dining or supping with him, he was doing them a great honor.

Tarantiev was a man of quick and cunning intellect. No one could arbitrate any mundane question or tangled legal matter better than he. He would immediately construct a theory of action in either case, very subtly bring proofs to bear, and in his conclusion would almost always in addition insult whoever was consulting him.

Meanwhile, it had been twenty-five years since he had found employment in an office as a clerk, and in that position his hair had gone gray. Never would it have occurred to him or anyone else that he might rise higher.

The problem was that Tarantiev was a master of talk and only talk. When he spoke, he resolved everything clearly and easily, especially as concerned other people, but the moment he had to move a finger or get started—in short, apply the theory he had created and give it a practical turn, demonstrating administrative ability and speed—he was a changed man. All of a sudden he was at a loss, all of a sudden he felt pained and unwell, then embarrassed, then something else would happen that he would also fail to address, and if he did, then God forbid it should come to pass. He was like a child, failing to look, not knowing certain minor details, arriving late, and eventually abandoning the matter halfway through, or taking it up from the wrong end and thus fouling it up so thoroughly that it was beyond redemption. On top of that, when it was all over, he would rain down abuse.

His father, an old-time provincial copyist, would have settled on his son a legacy of his art and proficiency at attending to other people’s affairs and his deftly traversed walk of life of departmental service, but fate had something else in store. His father, who had himself once scraped together the money to study in Russian, did not want his son to lag behind the times and wished him to be taught something other than the wise science of attending to people’s affairs. For several years he sent him to a priest to study Latin.

In three years’ time the innately capable boy completed the Latin grammar and syntax and was about to start his study of Cornelius Nepos when his father decided that what he knew was quite enough,* that this knowledge alone gave him a tremendous advantage over the older generation, and that, finally, further studies might impede his service, if you like, in departmental offices.

Sixteen-year-old Mikhei, not knowing what to do with his Latin, began forgetting it in his parents’ house, but then, while in anticipation of the honor of serving in the local or district court, he attended all his father’s drinking parties and, in that school, the school of frank conversation, the young man’s mind developed to a fine point.

Brimming with youthful impressionability, he listened to the stories of his father and his father’s friends about various civil and criminal cases and the curious incidents that passed through the hands of all these old-time copyists.

None of this ever led to anything, however. Nothing came of Mikhei—neither a man of business nor a pettifogger—although all his father’s efforts had inclined to this and, of course, would have been crowned with success had fate not destroyed the old man’s plans. Mikhei truly did master the full theory of his father’s conversations, and all that remained was to apply them to business, but after his father’s death he never did find employment at court and was taken away to Petersburg by a benefactor who found him a place as a clerk in some department and then promptly forgot all about him.

Thus Tarantiev remained merely a theoretician his entire life. He could not put his Latin to use in his Petersburg service or use his subtle theory to settle just and unjust cases as he saw fit. Meanwhile, he bore and was conscious of a slumbering power locked up inside him by hostile circumstances, for good, with no hope of seeing the light of day. Perhaps it was this awareness of the useless power inside him that made Tarantiev so rude in his dealings and so ill willed, perpetually cross, and abusive.

He viewed his present activities—copying documents, sewing up files, and so forth—with bitterness and contempt. One last hope smiled upon him from afar: transferring to a post in the liquor monopoly. On that road he saw the sole profitable substitute for the walk of life bequeathed him by his father but never achieved. In anticipation of this, he applied the theory of activity and life ready-made for him by his father, a theory of bribery and cunning (never applied to its principal arena in the provinces), to every small detail of his worthless existence in Petersburg, allowing it to creep into all his social relations since he had no official ones.

Deep down, in theory, he was a bribe-taker and so, due to his lack of cases and petitioners, he contrived to solicit bribes from his co-workers and friends, God knows how and why. He compelled them, wherever and however he could, through cunning and importunity, to pay for him; he demanded undeserved respect from one and all; and he was captious. He was never ashamed of his shabby clothes, but he was no stranger to alarm if the day’s prospects did not include an ample dinner and a respectable quantity of wine and vodka.

Because of this, among his acquaintances, he played the role of the large guard dog that barks at everyone and allows no one to move a muscle but at the same time never fails to snatch a scrap of meat on the fly, no matter where it comes from or where it’s going.

Such were Oblomov’s two most assiduous visitors.

Why did these two Russian workers come to see him? They knew very well why: to drink, eat, and smoke fine cigars. They found a warm and comfortable haven and an ever identically indifferent, if not hearty, welcome.

The question was, why did Oblomov let them in?—and of this he was barely conscious himself. Apparently, for the very same reason why, at this same time in our many distant Oblomovkas, in every prosperous home, there crowded a swarm of similar individuals of both sexes, with neither bread nor trade nor hands for producing and only a stomach for consumption, but almost always with a rank and a title.

There are as well sybarites who cannot get along without additions like this in life. They’re bored without this something extra in their world. Who would locate the snuff box gone missing or pick up the handkerchief fallen to the floor? To whom could one complain of headache and expect sympathy, or recount a bad dream and demand an interpretation? Who would read a book before bedtime to help one fall asleep? Sometimes a worker like this is sent to the nearest town to make a purchase or will help in the household. Not for them to be rambling about themselves!

Tarantiev made a lot of noise and drew Oblomov out of his lethargy and boredom. He shouted, argued, and put on a show, relieving the lazy master himself of the need to speak or act. To the room where sleep and tranquility reigned, Tarantiev brought life, movement, and sometimes even news from the outside world. Oblomov could listen and watch without moving a finger at the energetic moving and talking being in front of him. Not only that, he also had the naïveté to believe that Tarantiev was in fact capable of giving him sensible advice.

Alexeyev’s visits to Oblomov endured for another, no less important reason. If he wanted to live as he pleased, that is, lie there in silence, doze, or pace around the room, it was as if Alexeyev weren’t there. He too would be silent, doze, or look at a book, examining the pictures and bric-a-brac with lazy yawns that made his eyes water. He could keep that up for at least three days. If Oblomov was bored at being alone and felt the need to express himself—to talk, read, discuss, or express his agitation—here always was an obedient and ready listener and sympathizer who agreeably shared equally both his silence and his conversation, his agitation and his way of thinking, whatever that might be.

Oblomov’s other visitors came by less often, for a moment, like the first three visitors; more and more, his vital ties with all of them were rupturing. Oblomov sometimes showed interest in some news or a five-minute conversation, but then, content with this, he would fall silent. He needed to repay them in kind and take an interest in what interested them. They were swimming in the sea of humanity. They all understood life in their own way, a way Oblomov did not want to understand, and they insisted on entangling him in it. He didn’t like any of it, it repulsed him. It was not his cup of tea.

Only one man was dear to his heart, and he, too, gave Oblomov no rest. He loved news, society, science, all of life, but in a deeper, warmer, and more sincere way. And although Oblomov was kind to everyone, he sincerely loved and trusted him alone, perhaps because he had grown up, studied, and lived with him. This was Andrei Ivanovich Stolz.

He was away, but Oblomov was expecting him at any time.

IV

“Hello, old neighbor,” said Tarantiev abruptly, extending a shaggy hand to Oblomov. “What are you doing lying around like a log at this hour?”

“Don’t come any closer! You’re straight from the cold!” said Oblomov, pulling up his blanket.

“Something new you’ve dreamed up. Straight from the cold!” bellowed Tarantiev. “Come now, take my hand since I’m offering it! It’s almost twelve o’clock, and he’s lying about!”

He was about to lift Oblomov from his bed, but Oblomov forestalled him by quickly lowering his feet and slipping them straight into both slippers.

“I was just about to get up myself,” he said, yawning.

“I know how you were getting up. You’d have lazed around here until dinner. Hey, Zakhar! Where are you, you old fool? Come quickly and get your master dressed.”

“First get yourself a Zakhar of your own. Then you can bark!” began Zakhar as he entered the room, casting a baleful eye at Tarantiev. “They’ve tracked in so much dirt, you’d think there’d been a peddler!” he added.

“Not only that, he talks, too, the freak!” said Tarantiev, and he raised his foot to kick Zakhar from behind as he passed, but Zakhar stopped, turned toward him, and bristled.

“Just try it,” he rasped angrily. “What’s this? I’m leaving,” he said, walking back toward the doorway.

“Enough, Mikhei Andreich. How impatient you are! Why are you kicking him?” said Oblomov. “Come, Zakhar, do as you’re told!”

Zakhar turned around, cast a sidelong look at Tarantiev, and darted past.

Oblomov leaned his elbows on him, reluctantly, like a supremely weary man, rose from his bed, and crossing reluctantly to his big armchair, lowered himself into it and sat right there, stock-still.

Zakhar took the pomade, comb, and brush from the night table, pomaded his master’s head, made a part, and then groomed him with the brush.

“Will you be washing now?” he asked.

“Oh, so you’re here, too?” said Tarantiev, suddenly addressing Alexeyev, while Zakhar was combing Oblomov’s hair. “I didn’t see you. Why are you here? That relative of yours is such a pig! I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“What relative? I don’t have any relative,” replied a dumbstruck Alexeyev timidly, staring wide-eyed at Tarantiev.

“You know, that fellow that’s still serving there, what’s his name? Afanasiev. What do you mean not a relative? Sure he is.”

“But I’m Alexeyev, not Afanasiev,” said Alexeyev. “I have no relative.”

“There you go again. No relative! He’s homely just like you, and his name is Vasily Nikolaich, too.”

“Really and truly, we’re not related. I’m Ivan Alexeich.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter because he looks like you. Except he’s a pig. You tell him so when you see him.”

“I don’t know him and I’ve never seen him,” said Alexeyev, opening the snuff box.

“Give me the snuff!” said Tarantiev. “You only have the ordinary, not the French? So it is,” he said after sniffing it. “Why not the French?” he then added sternly.

“Never in all my born days have I seen a pig like your relative,” Tarantiev went on. “Once I borrowed fifty rubles from him, it must be going on two years. Well, is fifty rubles such a large sum? Wouldn’t you think he could forget it? No, he can’t. Every month, whenever I run into him, it’s, ‘How’s about that little debt?’ he says. I’m sick of it! Not only that, yesterday he came to our department, ‘All right,’ he says, ‘you have your salary, now you can pay me back.’ I gave him my salary and disgraced him so badly in front of everyone that he couldn’t find the door fast enough. Poor man, he’s the one who needs it! As if I didn’t! What kind of rich man am I to be lavishing fifty rubles on him! Hey, old neighbor, give me a cigar.”

“The cigars are over there, in the box,” replied Oblomov, pointing to the shelf.

He sat thinking in his comfortable chair, in his lazily handsome pose, not noticing what was going on around him or hearing what was being said. He examined and stroked his small white hands lovingly.

“Hey! Are these the same ones?” asked Tarantiev, sternly looking at Oblomov as he pulled out a cigar.

“Yes,” replied Oblomov mechanically.

“Didn’t I tell you to buy the other ones, the foreign ones? That’s how you remember what people tell you! Watch out, make sure you have them by next Saturday or I won’t be coming around for a long time. Nasty!” he continued, lighting up the cigar and releasing one cloud of smoke into the air and inhaling another. “You can’t smoke these.”

“You’ve come early today, Mikhei Andreich,” said Oblomov, yawning.

“What, am I boring you or something?”

“No, I was just commenting. You usually come right before dinner, and now it’s not even one.”

“I came early on purpose to find out what kind of dinner it was going to be. You keep feeding me filth, so I’m going to find out what you’ve ordered prepared today.”

“Ask in the kitchen,” said Oblomov.

Tarantiev went out.

“Good gracious!” he said, returning. “Beef and veal! Oh, brother Oblomov, you don’t know how to live. You, a landowner! What kind of a gentleman are you? You live like a Philistine. You don’t know how to entertain a friend! Well, has the Madeira been bought?”

“I don’t know. Ask Zakhar,” said Oblomov, who barely heard him. “There must be wine there.”

“The same as before, from the German? No, please, you have to buy it at the English shop.”

“Oh, this will do,” said Oblomov. “Imagine sending out again!”

“Give me the money and I’ll drop by and bring it back. I still have somewhere else to go.”

Oblomov rummaged in a drawer and pulled out an old red ten-ruble note.

“Madeira costs seven rubles,” said Oblomov, “and here’s ten.”

“Well, hand it over. They’ll give me change, have no fear!”

He snatched the bill from Oblomov’s hands and quickly pocketed it.

“Well, I’m off,” said Tarantiev, putting on his hat, “but I’ll be back by five. I need to stop by somewhere. They promised me a post in the liquor office, and I’ve been told to pay them a call. So here’s the thing, Ilya Ilich. Why don’t you hire a carriage today and go to Ekaterinhof? You could take me along.”

Oblomov shook his head.

“What, are you too lazy or too stingy? Oh, you bungler!” he said. “Well, good-bye for now.”

“Wait up, Mikhei Andreich,” Oblomov broke in. “I need your advice on something.”

“What else? Speak quickly. I’m in a hurry.”

“You see two disasters have suddenly befallen me. I’m being driven from my apartment—”

“You’re obviously not paying. Rightly so!” said Tarantiev, and he was about to leave.

“Not so! I always pay in advance. No, they want to make it over into another apartment. Now wait! Where are you going? Tell me what to do. They’re rushing me. They say I have to move out in a week.”

“Since when have I become your advisor? You’re just imagining things.”

“I’m not imagining anything at all,” said Oblomov. “Instead of yelling and shouting, think what I should do. You’re a practical man.”

Tarantiev was no longer listening but rather pondering something.

“All right, very well, you can thank me,” he said, removing his hat and sitting down, “by ordering champagne served with dinner. Your troubles are over.”

“How’s that?” asked Oblomov.

“Will there be champagne?”

“Certainly, if your advice is worth—”

“No, you alone are not worth my advice. Why should I advise you for nothing? Go ask him,” he added, pointing to Alexeyev, “or his relative.”

“All right, all right, enough. Speak!” begged Oblomov.

“Here’s what you do. Tomorrow you will kindly move to an apartment—”

“What? So that’s your idea! I thought of that myself.”

“Hold on and don’t interrupt!” exclaimed Tarantiev. “Tomorrow you have to move to rooms in my old friend’s house on the Vyborg side.”

“Now there’s something new. The Vyborg side! People say wolves go over there in winter.”

“It happens. They come over from the islands. But what does that have to do with you?”

“It’s boring there, and empty, and there’s no one there.”

“That’s a lie! My friend’s sister lives there. She has her own house and a big garden. She’s a high-minded woman, a widow, with two children. Her bachelor brother lives with her—a real mind, not like that one sitting over there in the corner,” he said, pointing to Alexeyev. “He makes one too many!”

“What on earth do I care about all this?” said Oblomov impatiently. “I’m not moving there.”

“I’ll just see if you don’t. You asked for advice, and you should do what you’re told.”

“I’m not moving,” said Oblomov decisively.

“Well, then, the hell with you!” replied Tarantiev, and he pulled his hat down over his eyes and started for the door.

“Just think about it! Why would I move to that backwater? Can’t an apartment be found here, since this disaster has befallen me?”

“You’re such a crank!” said Tarantiev, turning around. “What do you think’s so sweet about this place?”

“What do you mean? It’s close to everything. I have the stores and the theater and friends here. It’s in the center of town, and every—”

“What’s that?” Tarantiev interrupted. “How long has it been since you’ve left this courtyard? Tell me that! How long since you’ve been to the theater? What friends do you visit? What the hell do you care about the center, if I may inquire?”

“How can you ask? I have plenty of reasons!”

“See? You don’t even know yourself! But think about it. You’d be living with my old friend’s sister, a high-minded woman, in peace and quiet. No one would bother you. There’d be no noise or commotion, and it’s neat and clean. You might as well be living in a roadhouse here, and you a gentleman, a landowner! It’s clean and quiet there. There’s someone to talk to if you get bored. Other than me, no one will call on you. Her two little children—you can play with them to your heart’s content! What’s the matter with you? Just think of the advantages. What do you pay here?”

“Fifteen hundred.”

“There, a thousand rubles will get you practically the entire house! And what bright, splendid rooms. She’s wanted a quiet, neat lodger for a long time—and now I’m designating you.”

Oblomov shook his head absently.

“That’s a lie. You’ll move!” said Tarantiev. “You decide. You see, it would be half as expensive for you. You would come out five hundred rubles ahead on your apartment alone. Your board would be twice as good and clean, with no cook or Zakhar to be stealing from you.”

Grumbling was heard from the front hall.

“And it would be neater,” continued Tarantiev. “Right now it’s nasty sitting at your table. You go for the pepper—but no, no vinegar’s been bought, the knives haven’t been cleaned, the linen keeps going missing, you say, and there’s dust everywhere. It’s disgusting! But there a woman would be keeping house for you, and neither you nor that idiot Zakhar of yours—”

The grumbling in the front hall got louder.

“That old dog,” continued Tarantiev, “wouldn’t have to think about anything. You’d be living with everything provided for. What’s there to consider? Move and put an end—”

“But how can I, all of a sudden, at the drop of a hat, to the Vyborg side . . .”

“Listen to him!” said Tarantiev, wiping the perspiration from his face. “It’s summer now, and this might as well be a dacha. What are you doing here, rotting away on Gorokhovaya? The Bezborodkin garden is there, Okhta is almost next door, and the Neva is two paces away. You have your own garden—and no dust or stuffiness! What’s there to consider? I’ll fly over to see her before dinner—give me money for a cab—and you can move tomorrow.”

“What kind of man is this?” said Oblomov. “All of a sudden he says a hell of a thing: Move to the Vyborg side. That’s easy to say. No, come up with some clever way for me to stay. I’ve been living here for eight years and I don’t feel like changing.”

“It’s over. You’re moving. I’ll go see my friend’s sister right now, and I’ll inquire about my position another time.”

He was about to leave.

“Wait up! Wait! Where are you going?” Oblomov stopped him. “I have something else, something more important. Look at the letter I received from my bailiff and decide what I’m to do.”

“You see? Look at what’s become of you!” objected Tarantiev. “You can’t do anything yourself. It’s always me! Me! What are you good for? You’re a straw, not a man!”

“Where’s that letter? Zakhar! Zakhar! Where has he run off to!” said Oblomov.

“Here’s the bailiff’s letter,” said Alexeyev, picking up the crumpled letter.

“Yes, here it is,” repeated Oblomov, and he began reading aloud.

“What do you say? What am I to do?” asked Ilya Ilich when he’d finished reading. “Drought, arrears . . .”

“Hopeless! An utterly hopeless man!” said Tarantiev.

“Why do you say ‘hopeless’?”

“How can I not?”

“Well, if I’m hopeless, then tell me, what am I to do?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I told you, we’ll have champagne. What else do you want?”

“The champagne is for finding the apartment. After all, I’ve done you a good turn, but you don’t feel that, you’re still arguing. You’re ungrateful! Go find your own apartment! And why an apartment? The main thing is the tranquility you’ll have. It will be like living with your own sister. Two little children, a bachelor brother, I’ll drop by every day—”

“All right, fine,” Oblomov cut him off. “Now just tell me what I’m to do about the bailiff.”

“No, add porter to dinner and then I’ll tell you.”

“Fine, you have your stout! You’re never satisfied.”

“Well, then, good-bye,” said Tarantiev, putting on his hat again.

“Oh you! My God! Here the bailiff writes that my income will be ‘two thousand or so less,’ and he’s adding on porter! All right, fine, buy the porter.”

“Give me more money!” said Tarantiev.

“Aren’t you going to have change from the red note?”

“What about the cab to the Vyborg side?” replied Tarantiev.

Oblomov pulled out another ruble and thrust it at him with vexation.

“Your bailiff’s a swindler—that’s what I’d say to you,” began Tarantiev as he pocketed the ruble, “and you gawk and believe him. Look at the song he’s singing! Drought, crop failure, arrears, and the muzhiks gone. He’s lying, lying, lying! I’ve heard that, in our parts, at the Shumilovo estate, last year’s harvest paid off all their debts, and here all of a sudden you have drought and crop failure. Shumilovo is only fifty versts from you. Why didn’t the grain burn up there? He’s made up the part about the arrears, too! Where was he looking? Why did he let it happen? Where did the arrears come from? Do you mean there’s been no work or selling out our way? Oh, the thief! I’d teach him a lesson! The muzhiks scattered all because of him, because he was fleecing them, and he let them go, and he didn’t think to complain to the chief of police.”

“That can’t be,” said Oblomov. “He even gives the chief of police’s answer in the letter—and so naturally—”

“Oh you! You don’t know anything. All swindlers write naturally—you can take my word on that. Look at this honest soul, a sheep among sheep, but would he write naturally? Never. His relative, though, swine and beast that he is, he would. Even you wouldn’t write naturally! You can tell that bailiff of yours is a beast because he wrote so cleverly and naturally. Look how neatly he chooses his words: ‘To return the peasants to their households at their place of residence.’”

“What am I to do about him?” asked Oblomov.

“Remove him immediately.”

“But who will I appoint? What do I know of muzhiks? Another might be worse. I haven’t been there for twelve years.”

“Get yourself to the country. That’s essential. Spend the summer there and in the fall move straight into your new rooms. I’ll do what’s needed to see that everything’s ready.”

“New rooms! To the country myself! What desperate measures you propose!” said Oblomov, displeased. “Instead of running to extremes you should be holding to a middle course.”

“Oh, brother Ilya Ilich, you’re as good as lost. Yes, in your place I would have mortgaged the estate long ago and bought another or a house here in a good location. Your village is worth that much. And there I would have mortgaged and bought another house. Give me your estate and people would hear tell of me.”

“Stop your boasting and think of something so that I don’t have to move out of my apartment, or go to the country, and so the matter is taken care of,” remarked Oblomov.

“Do you ever budge from that spot?” said Tarantiev. “You should take a look at yourself. What are you good for? What benefit do you bring the fatherland? He can’t go to the country!”

“It’s too soon for me to go right now. First let me finish my plan for the transformations I intend to make on the estate. You know what, Mikhei Andreich?” said Oblomov suddenly. “Why don’t you go? You know business and you know the area, too. I wouldn’t be stingy about your expenses.”

“Am I your steward or something?” objected Tarantiev haughtily. “Anyway, I’m not used to dealing with muzhiks anymore.”

“What am I to do?” said Oblomov pensively. “Really, I don’t know.”

“Well, write to the chief of police and ask him whether the bailiff has spoken to him about the wandering muzhiks,” advised Tarantiev, “and ask him to go by the village. Then write to the governor saying you ordered the chief of police to report on the bailiff’s conduct. Say, ‘Your Excellency, take a fatherly interest and cast your merciful eye on the inevitable, horrifying calamity that threatens me due to the rebellious actions of the bailiff and the extreme ruin I am bound to suffer and that will leave my wife and little children without any care or bite of bread, my ten little children—”

Oblomov burst out laughing.

“Where am I going to come up with that many little ones if they ask me to present my children?” he said.

“You lie and write: my ten little children. He’ll pay it no mind and won’t make any inquiries, but on the other hand it will be ‘natural.’ The governor will hand the letter over to his secretary, and at the same time you’ll write to him, including a little something, of course—and he’ll issue the order. Why don’t you ask your neighbors? Who do you have there?”

“Dobrynin is close by,” said Oblomov. “I used to see him often here, but now he’s there.”

“Write to him, too, and ask him nicely. Say, ‘Do me this vital favor and oblige me as a Christian, a friend, and a neighbor.’ Slip some Petersburg gift into the letter—a cigar, maybe. That’s how you should proceed, otherwise you’ll never make head or tails of anything. A lost man! I would have that bailiff running his legs off. I’d show him what’s what! When does the post go out?”

“The day after tomorrow,” said Oblomov.

“Then sit down and write immediately.”

“But it’s the day after tomorrow. Why do it immediately?” noted Oblomov. “I could tomorrow just as well. Listen, Mikhei Andreich,” he added, “perform your ‘good deeds,’ and, fine, I’ll add a fish or some kind of fowl to dinner.”

“What else?”

“Sit down and write. Will it take you long to pen three letters? You tell it so ‘naturally,’” he added, trying to conceal a smile, “and Ivan Alexeich over there can copy it out.”

“Hah! What an idea!” answered Tarantiev. “That I should write! It’s been days since I’ve written anything at my office. The moment I sit down tears start gushing from my left eye. It’s obvious there’s a draft, and my head goes numb when I lean over. . . . A sluggard you are. A sluggard! You’re lost, brother, Ilya Ilich, and over nothing!”

“Oh, if only Andrei would get here soon!” said Oblomov. “He would set everything to rights.”

“That’s some benefactor you’ve found!” Tarantiev interrupted him. “The damn German, the sly rogue!”

Tarantiev nursed an instinctive revulsion for foreigners. In his eyes “Frenchman,” “German,” and “Englishman” were synonyms for “swindler,” “snake,” “rogue,” and “robber.” He didn’t even make any distinctions among nations. In his eyes, they were all equal.

“Listen, Mikhei Andreich,” began Oblomov sternly. “I have asked you to mind your tongue, especially about a man dear to my heart.”

“Dear to your heart!” retorted Tarantiev with venom. “What relation is he of yours? He’s a German. That we know.”

“He’s dearer than any family. He and I grew up together and went to school together, and I won’t stand for any rude remarks.”

Tarantiev turned red from anger.

“Ah! If you’re trading me in for the German,” he said, “I’ll never step foot in your home again.”

He put on his hat and started for the door. Oblomov instantly softened.

“You should respect him as my friend and be more circumspect when you speak about him. That’s all I require! That doesn’t seem like much to ask,” he said.

“Respect a German?” said Tarantiev with supreme contempt. “Why should I?”

“I already told you, if only because he and I grew up and went to school together.”

“A matter of great import! What do I care who went to school with whom!”

“If he were here, he would have rid me of all my troubles long ago without asking for porter or champagne,” said Oblomov.

“Ah! You’re reproaching me! Well, to hell with you and your porter and champagne! Here, take your money. Now where did I put it? Have I completely forgotten where I stuck the damn money?”

He pulled out a greasy, scribbled piece of paper.

“No, that’s not it!” he said. “Where did I put it?”

He rummaged in his pockets.

“Don’t bother, don’t take it out!” said Oblomov. “I’m not reproaching you. I’m just asking you to speak more civilly about someone who has done so much for me.”

“So much!” retorted Tarantiev spitefully. “You wait. He’s going to do even more—just listen to him!”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Oblomov.

“Here’s why, because once your German swindles you, you’ll know about trading in an old neighbor, a Russian, for some itinerant.”

“Listen here, Mikhei Andreich,” began Oblomov.

“There’s nothing for me to listen to. I’ve listened to a lot and put up with plenty of grief from you! God sees all the insults I’ve borne. In Saxony his father probably never saw the likes of bread, and he came here to turn up his nose.”

“Why must you speak ill of the dead? Why is his father to blame?”

“They’re both to blame, father and son,” said Tarantiev sullenly with a wave of his hand. “My father was right to advise me to beware of these Germans, and he knew all manner of men in his day!”

“What didn’t your father like, for example?” asked Ilya Ilich.

“He didn’t like it that he came to our province with just the coat on his back and his boots, in September, and then he up and left his son an inheritance. What does that mean?”

“He only left his son an inheritance of forty thousand or so. Some of it came in his wife’s dowry and the rest he acquired by teaching children and administering the estate. He received a good salary. You see, his father wasn’t to blame. So now why is the son to blame?”

“A fine boy! All of a sudden, he makes his father’s forty into capital of three hundred thousand, falls into being a court councilor and a scholar, and now he’s off traveling! He’s cut a figure everywhere! Now, would an authentic, decent Russian man ever do all that? A Russian man would choose one thing, and he’d take his time doing it, little by little, nice and easy, but not this one! If he’d gone into tax farming, that would be one thing. It would be obvious how he got so rich. But as it is, he’s a flibbertigibbet! It’s unnatural! I’d sue the likes of him! Here he is now wandering around the devil knows where!” continued Tarantiev. “Why does he wander around foreign lands?”

“He wants to study, to see and know everything.”

“Study! Hasn’t he been taught enough? What’s the point? He’s lying. Don’t believe him. He’s throwing sand in your eyes, like your bailiff. Do you hear what stories he tells? Imagine a court councilor studying anything! Look, you studied in school, but do you study now? And does he”—he pointed to Alexeyev—“does he study? Does his relative study? What good men study? Does he sit there, in some German school, and study his lessons? He’s lying! I heard he went to see some machine and order one. Obviously, a grip-vice for Russian money! I’d send him to prison. Shares or something. . . . Oh those shares, they make me sick at heart!”

Oblomov had a good laugh.

“Why are you grinning so? Isn’t it true what I’m saying?” said Tarantiev.

“Come, let’s leave this!” Ilya Ilich interrupted him. “Go on about your business, and Ivan Alexeyevich and I will write all these letters and I’ll try to sketch out my plan on paper as quickly as I can. It makes sense to do them all at one time.”

Tarantiev was about to enter the front hall when he suddenly turned around.

“I completely forgot! I’ve been meaning to see you on a matter since morning,” he began, now not at all rudely. “I’ve been invited to a wedding tomorrow. Rokotov is getting married. Let me wear your coat, old neighbor. As you see, mine’s on the shabby side.”

“How can I?” said Oblomov, scowling at this new request. “My coat isn’t right for you.”

“What do you mean it isn’t right? It is!” interrupted Tarantiev. “You remember, I tried on your coat, and it might have been made for me! Zakhar! Zakhar! Come here, you old brute!”

Zakhar growled like a bear, but he didn’t come.

“Call him, Ilya Ilich. Why do you let him behave like this?” complained Tarantiev.

“Zakhar!” shouted Oblomov.

“What the hell is it now!” was heard in the front hall along with the sound of feet jumping from the bench.

“Well, what do you want?” he asked, addressing Tarantiev.

“Get me my black coat!” commanded Ilya Ilich. “Mikhei Andreich here is going to try it on to see whether it’s right for him. Tomorrow he has to go to a wedding.”

“I won’t,” said Zakhar firmly.

“How dare you when your master orders?” shouted Tarantiev. “Ilya Ilich, why don’t you pack him off to an asylum?”

“Yes, that’s all we need, the old man going to an asylum! Zakhar, get me the coat. Don’t be stubborn!”

“I won’t!” replied Zakhar coldly. “First let him bring back the vest and our shirt. It’s been visiting him for four months. That one he took for a name-day, and it vanished into thin air. I won’t give him the coat!”

“Good-bye then! To hell with you now!” concluded Tarantiev heatedly, walking away and shaking his fist at Zakhar. “Look, Ilya Ilich, I’ll rent the rooms for you, do you hear?” he added.

“Fine then, fine!” said Oblomov impatiently, just to get rid of him.

“You write what you need to,” continued Tarantiev, “and don’t forget to write the governor that you have ten children, ‘one tinier than the next.’ At five o’clock the soup better be on the table! Why didn’t you have them make a pie?”

But Oblomov was silent. He had stopped listening to him long before and, eyes shut, was thinking about something else.

With Tarantiev’s departure, an inviolable silence reigned in the room for about ten minutes. Oblomov was upset over both the bailiff’s letter and the impending move to an apartment and in part wearied by Tarantiev’s jabber. Finally, he sighed.

“Why aren’t you writing?” asked Alexeyev softly. “I would sharpen a pen for you.”

“Sharpen one, for heaven’s sake, and go away!” said Oblomov. “I’ll start myself, and after dinner you can copy it out.”

“Very well,” replied Alexeyev. “Indeed, I do still seem to be bothering you. Well, I’ll go now and tell them not to wait for us to go to Ekaterinhof. Good-bye, Ilya Ilich.”

But Ilya Ilich was not listening to him. He had gathered his feet under himself and was nearly lying down in his comfortable chair. His head resting in his hand, deep in thought, or perhaps it was slumber.

V

Oblomov, gentry by birth, collegiate secretary by rank, had been living in Petersburg continuously for eleven years.

In the beginning, during his parents’ lifetime, he had lived in closer quarters, in two rooms, and made do simply with his servant Zakhar, whom he had brought from the country. Upon the death of his father and mother, however, he became the sole owner of three hundred fifty souls, which he had inherited in one of the more distant provinces, practically in Asia.

Instead of five, he received seven and as much as ten thousand rubles’ income in banknotes, and at that point his life took on other, broader dimensions. He let a somewhat larger apartment, added a cook to his staff, and acquired a pair of horses.

At the time he was still young, and if he could not have been called lively, then at the least he was livelier than he was now. He was still full of all kinds of aspirations, still hoped for things, still expected much of fate and of himself; he was still preparing for an arena, a role—first and foremost, of course, in service, which had been his purpose in coming to Petersburg. Later, he also thought about his role in society; and finally, in the distant future, at the turning point from youth to maturity, the notion of family happiness flickered and smiled in his imagination.

Days followed other days, however, years took other years’ place, his fluff became a stiff beard, lackluster points took the place of the light in his eyes, his waist rounded out, his hair began falling out mercilessly, he turned thirty, and he had not advanced a step in any arena and was still standing on the threshold of his own arena, right where he had been ten years before.

Life, in his eyes, divided up into two halves: one consisted of work and tedium, which to him were synonyms; the other of tranquility and peaceful merriment. Because of this, his main arena, service, at first bedeviled him in a most unpleasant way.

Reared in the depths of the provinces, amid the timid and warm ways and customs of his native land, he moved over the course of twenty years from embrace to embrace of his kin, his friends, and his acquaintances. So imbued had he been with the principle of family that even his future service appeared to him in the form of a family activity, akin, for example, to the idle recording of a receipt or an expenditure in a notebook such as his father had kept.

He thought that the colleagues in a single office comprised a close and amicable family who kept close vigil over their mutual tranquility and comfort, that attending one’s place of work was by no means a mandatory habit to be kept daily, and that slush, heat, or simply indisposition would always serve as sufficient and legitimate pretexts for failing to attend one’s post.

How grieved he was, then, when he saw that there had to be an earthquake at the very least for a healthy clerk not to come to work, and as bad luck would have it, Petersburg did not have earthquakes; a flood, of course, could serve as an impediment, but those too occurred only rarely.

Oblomov hesitated even more when envelopes marked “important” or “very important” flashed before his eyes, or when he was compelled to make inquiries and extracts, to dig in files, and to write notebooks which were two fingers’ thick and were called, as if for spite, notes. Moreover, everything had to be done quickly, and everyone was in a rush to get somewhere and never lingered over anything. Before they could put down one file, they had furiously latched onto another, as if it held all the power, and once they’d finished would forget it and fall upon a third—and there was never any end to this!

A couple of times he was awakened at night and forced to write these “notes.” Several times a courier came and took him from his guests—all on account of these very same notes. All of this filled him with tremendous terror and boredom. “When am I to live? When am I to live?” he repeated in anguish.

At home he had heard that the superior was a father to his subordinates and so he had composed for himself the most convivial and familial concept of this personage. He imagined him as something akin to a second father who, time and again, with and without cause, breathed only to reward his subordinates and to trouble himself not only over their needs but also over their comforts.

Ilya Ilich had thought that the superior entered into his subordinate’s position to such an extent that he would inquire how he had slept that night, why his eyes were cloudy, and whether he had a headache.

He was cruelly disenchanted, however, on his very first day of service. With his superior’s arrival, the fuss and bustle began; everyone was out of sorts, and everyone kept knocking each other over, while others kept tugging at their clothes, worried that they were insufficiently fine as they were to show themselves to their superior.

This happened, as Oblomov subsequently noted, because there were superiors who, in the face of the subordinate scampering toward him, mad with fright, saw not only respect for themselves but even jealousy and sometimes a capacity for service as well.

Ilya Ilich had no cause to be frightened of his own superior, a good man with a pleasant manner who had never done anyone a bad turn, who could not have been more content with his subordinates, and who wished nothing better. No one had ever heard an unkind word from him, neither a shout nor a fuss; he never made demands but only requests. A request to take care of some matter, a request to be his guest, a request to be put under arrest. He used the formal—never the informal—“you” with everyone, both to a single functionary and to everyone collectively.

Nonetheless, his subordinates quailed in their superior’s presence. To his kind question they answered in a strange voice not their own, a voice they never used with anyone else.

Ilya Ilich, too, suddenly quailed, without knowing why, when his superior entered the room, and he would lose his voice and a strange voice, reedy and vile, would take its place, the moment his superior addressed him.

At his office, Ilya Ilich was wracked with fear and anguish even under his good-hearted, indulgent superior. God knows what would have become of him had he found himself under a strict and demanding one!

Oblomov served imperfectly for about two years. He might have lasted a third, until he received a promotion, but a particular event forced him to quit his employment earlier.

One day, he sent an important document to Arkhangelsk instead of Astrakhan. When the matter was cleared up they began seeking out the guilty party.

Everyone waited with curiosity for the superior to call Oblomov in and to inquire coolly and calmly, “Whether it was he who had sent the document to Arkhangelsk,” and everyone was at a loss to imagine the voice in which Ilya Ilich would answer him.

Some thought he would not answer at all, that he would not be able.

Looking at the others, Ilya Ilich himself was frightened out of his wits, even though he and everyone else knew that his superior would confine himself to a comment. Oblomov’s own conscience, however, issued a much sterner sentence.

Oblomov did not wait for the punishment he deserved. He went home and sent in a medical certificate.

This certificate stated the following: “I, the undersigned, attest and affix my seal, that Collegiate Secretary Ilya Oblomov has been taken by a thickening of the heart with dilation of the left ventricle thereof (Hypertrophia cordis cum dilatatione ejus ventriculi sinistri), as well as by a chronic pain in his liver (hepatitis), which constitutes a dangerous threat to the patient’s health and life. Such attacks have occurred, it must be assumed, due to his daily attendance at his place of work. For this reason, in order to avert a recurrence and intensification of the painful attacks, I feel it is necessary to put an end, for the time being, to Mr. Oblomov’s attendance at his place of work and in general prescribe that he refrain from mental occupation or any other kind of activity.”

This helped only for a while, however. He had to recuperate—and beyond that the future held once again his daily attendance at his post. Oblomov could not bear this and submitted his resignation. So ended his career in government—never to be resumed.

His role in society seemed to be working out better for him.

During the first years of his sojourn in Petersburg, in his early, youthful years, the calm features of his face livened up more often. His eyes radiated the fire of life for longer and poured out beams of light, hope, and strength. He worried like everyone else, hoped, rejoiced over trifles, and suffered over minor details.

But all that had been long ago, during that tender period when a man assumes in any other man a sincere friend and falls in love with and is prepared to offer his hand and heart to nearly any woman—something others did indeed accomplish, often to their great regret thereafter and for the rest of their life.

In these blissful days, Ilya Ilich also knew his share of soft, velvety, even passionate gazes from the crowd of beauties, masses of highly promising smiles, two or three undeserved kisses, and even friendlier handshakes that brought tears to his eyes.

Actually, he never did let the beauties capture him and was never their slave or even a very assiduous admirer, if only because intimacy with women entails a great deal of trouble. Oblomov tended to limit himself to a bow from afar, at a respectful distance.

Rarely, fate brought him together with a woman in society to the degree that he could burn brightly for a few days and consider himself to be in love. As a result, his amorous intrigues never developed into full-blown romances; they stalled at their very outset, and in their innocence, simplicity, and purity were not inferior to tales of love written by some lady lodger of a certain age.

More than any others, he ran from those pale, wistful maidens who tended to have black eyes that shone with “days of torment and nights of iniquity,” maidens with woes and delights unknown to anyone and shadows under their eyes, maidens who always had something to confide or say, and when they had to say it they would shudder, fill with unexpected tears, and then suddenly entwine their arms around their friend’s neck, look long into his eyes and then at the sky, say that their life was doomed to perdition, and occasionally faint. These maidens he avoided like the plague. His heart, still pure and virginal, may have been waiting for its own true love, its own time, its own pathos, but then, with the passage of years, it apparently stopped waiting and lost hope.

Ilya Ilich parted even more coolly with his crowd of friends. Immediately after the first letter from the bailiff about arrears and crop failures, he replaced his first friend, his chef, with a cook, then sold his horses, and, finally, let his other “friends” go.

Almost nothing drew him out of his building, and with every passing day he became more firmly and permanently ensconced in his apartment.

First, he found it hard to spend the entire day dressed. Then he was too lazy to dine at the home of anyone other than informal, mostly bachelor homes, where he could remove his tie, unbutton his vest, and even “lounge” or take a cat nap.

Soon after, evenings wearied him as well because he had to wear a coat and shave every day.

He read somewhere that only morning vapors were beneficial, whereas the evening air was harmful, and he began to fear the damp.

In spite of all these vagaries, his friend Stolz did manage to drag him into society, but Stolz often had to be away from Petersburg and go to Moscow, Nizhni, the Crimea, and then abroad, and in his absence Oblomov again sunk up to his ears in his solitude and seclusion, from which he could be drawn only by something unusual, out of the ordinary run of life’s daily phenomena. However, nothing of the kind was in the offing.

In addition to all this, with the years a childish shyness returned, an expectation of danger and evil from everything not encountered within the sphere of his daily existence—the consequence of his estrangement from diverse external phenomena.

He was not frightened, for instance, by the crack in his bedroom ceiling. He was used to it, and it would never have occurred to him that the perpetually stuffy air in the room and his constant sitting in seclusion was almost more pernicious to his health than the night’s damp, or that overfilling one’s stomach on a daily basis was a kind of gradual suicide. He was accustomed to this and so was not frightened by it.

He was unaccustomed to movement, life, crowds, and bustle.

In a close crowd, he felt like he was suffocating; he got into a boat with faint hope of reaching the opposite shore safely; he rode in a carriage fully expecting the horses to bolt and crash.

He was also subject to nervous anxiety. He was afraid of the silence around him or of something he himself simply couldn’t name—he would get gooseflesh all over his body. Sometimes he would cast a fearful glance into a dark corner, expecting his imagination to play a trick on him and show him a supernatural phenomenon.

Thus his role in society played itself out. He waved a lazy good-bye to all that was youthful, the hopes that had deceived and been deceived by him, and everything tenderly sad, his bright memories, the kind that make the heart beat faster in those who see old age drawing nigh.

VI

What ever did he do at home? Read? Write? Study?

Yes, if a book or newspaper happened to be at hand, he would read it.

If he heard of some remarkable work, he would feel an urge to get to know it; he would seek out the book, ask for it, and if they brought it quickly, he would pick it up and begin to form an idea of the subject. One more step and he would have mastered it, but before you knew it he was lying there, gazing apathetically at the ceiling, the book lying by his side neither read nor understood.

A cooling would overtake him more swiftly than the enthusiasm had: he would never return to a book once abandoned.

Meanwhile, he had studied like everyone else, that is, until he was fifteen, at a boarding school, and then Oblomov’s parents, after a long struggle, had decided to send their dear Ilya to Moscow, where he perforce completed his course of study.

His shy, apathetic nature prevented him from revealing his laziness and capriciousness in all its glory among strangers or at school, where they made no exceptions for spoiled sons. Out of necessity he sat up straight in the classroom and listened to what the teachers were saying, because he had no choice, and with effort, with sweat and sighs, he learned the lessons assigned him.

All this he viewed as the punishment heaven sent for our sins. He did not glance beyond the line the teacher drew with his nail when assigning a lesson and did not make any inquiries or demand any clarifications. He was content with what was written in his notebook and revealed no tiresome curiosity, even when he did not understand everything he had heard and learned.

If he did manage to plow through a book called statistics, history, or political economy, he was utterly content.

Whenever Stolz brought him books to read above and beyond what he’d learned, Oblomov would gaze at him for a long time in silence.

“Even you, Brutus, are against me!” he would say with a sigh, picking up the books.

He found this immoderate reading unnatural and difficult.

What was the point of all these notebooks on which you expended vast quantities of paper, time, and ink? What was the point of textbooks? What, ultimately, was the point of six or seven years in solitude, all the strict rules, the punishments, the sitting and languishing over lessons, and the prohibition against running, playing pranks, and merrymaking when even then it was still not over?

When does one live? he would ask himself again. When, ultimately, does one put to use that capital of knowledge, most of which will never be good for anything in life? Political economy, for instance, algebra, geometry—what am I going to do with these at Oblomovka?

History itself merely cast you into melancholy. You study and read that in such a year there were calamities and man was unhappy. He gathered all his forces, worked, rooted around, suffered terribly and labored, always preparing for brighter days. Now that they had come, you’d think that history itself would take a break, but no, again clouds gathered, again the edifice collapsed, again there was work and more rooting around. The brighter days didn’t linger, they raced by—and life kept flowing, always flowing, smashing everything as it went.

Serious reading exhausted him. The great thinkers could stir no thirst in him for speculative truths.

The poets, on the other hand, cut him to the quick; he was a young man once again, like everyone else. He knew that happy moment in life that betrayed no one and smiled on everyone, the blossoming of his powers, his hopes for his being, his desire for good, courage, and activity, an era of a pounding heart and pulse, trembling, ecstatic speeches, and sweet tears. His mind and heart brightened; he shook off his somnolence and his soul begged for activity.

Stolz helped his friend extend this moment as much as possible for a nature such as his. He snagged Oblomov on poets and for a year and a half kept him under the ferule of thought and science.

Seizing on the ecstatic flight of this young dream, Stolz set different goals, other than pleasure, in reading poets and pointed more austerely down the path of his life and Oblomov’s, drawing him into the future. Both men were stirred, and they wept and made solemn vows to each other to follow the path of reason and light.

Stolz’s youthful ardor infected Oblomov, who thirsted for labor, a distant but enticing goal.

However, the flower of life withered, bearing no fruit. Oblomov came to his senses and only rarely, at Stolz’s instruction, indeed, would read a given book, and then not all of a sudden, not in a rush, not avidly, but rather would run his eyes lazily over the lines.

No matter how interesting the point where he had stopped, if at that point he was overtaken by the dinner hour or sleep, he would place the book face down and go to dine or put out the candle and go to bed.

If he was given the first volume, once he had finished it he would not ask for the second, but if it was brought he would slowly make his way through it.

Later on, he couldn’t even get through the first volume and spent most of his free time with his elbow on his desk and his head on his elbow. Sometimes, instead of his elbow, he would use the very book Stolz had pressed on him to read.

Thus did Oblomov complete his academic pursuits. The date on which he heard his final lecture was his erudition’s Pillars of Hercules.* With the signing of Oblomov’s diploma, the principal of his institution—as had his teacher previously with his nail in the book—drew a line beyond which our hero did not see any need to extend his scholarly aspirations.

His head offered a complex archive of closed files, individuals, eras, figures, religions, and political-economic, mathematical, and other truths, tasks, theses, and so on, none of them connected in any way.

It was like a library consisting only of disparate volumes in different fields of knowledge.

Learning had a strange effect on Ilya Ilich. There was inside him an abyss between science and life, a great abyss which he did not try to cross. Life for him was one thing, science quite another.

He had studied all existent and long since nonexistent laws and completed a course in legal procedure, but when, on the occasion of a burglary in his building, he had to write a document for the police, he took out pen and paper and thought and thought and then sent for a clerk.

His accounts in the country were kept by the bailiff. “What use is science here?” he reasoned, baffled.

And so, he returned to his seclusion without the burden of knowledge that might have given direction to the thought that was roaming freely in his head or idly dozing.

What ever did he do? Well, he continued to design a pattern for his own life. In it he found, and not without grounds, more wisdom and poetry than books and learning could ever exhaust.

Having turned his back on service and society, he began tackling the task of existence in a different way, pondered his purpose, and at last discovered that the horizon of his activities and the way he lived lay in himself.

He realized that he had been given as destiny family happiness and caring for his estate. Until then he had not understood his own affairs properly; occasionally Stolz would look into them for him. He did not know very well his income, or his expenses, and had never drawn up a budget—none of that.

As old man Oblomov had received the estate from his father, so he had passed it on to his son. Although he had lived all his days in the country, he had never complicated matters, never wracked his brains over various schemes, as men nowadays do so as to discover new sources of productivity for their lands or expand and increase the old, and so forth. How and with what the fields had been sown under his grandfather, what the market routes were for the products of the field then, so they remained in his day as well.

Actually, the old man was very pleased whenever a good harvest or a higher price yielded an income greater than the previous year’s. He would call this a divine blessing. Only he did not like going to any extra mental or other effort to acquire more money.

“God willing, we will have our fill,” he used to say.

Ilya Ilich took after neither his father nor his grandfather. He had studied and he had lived in society, and all this had brought him to various notions which they would have found strange. He realized not only that acquiring was not a sin but that it was the duty of every citizen to support the general well-being through honest labor.

As a result, the greater part of the design for life which he had sketched out in his seclusion was taken up by a brand-new plan that conformed to the demands of the era, a plan to organize his estate and administer his peasants.

The basic idea of the plan, its disposition, its main parts—all this had been ready in his mind long since; all that remained were the details and the estimates and figures.

He had been working indefatigably on his plan for several years, thinking and pondering, both walking and lying down, at home and in society. He would add to or alter items here and there, revive in his memory what he had conceived of the day before and forgotten in the night, and sometimes, a new, unexpected thought would blaze up like lightning and begin seething in his mind—and his work would be off and running.

He was not some minor executor of another person’s ready-made thought; he himself was the creator and he himself the executor of his own ideas.

As soon as he rose from bed in the morning, after his tea, he would lie right back down on his sofa, prop his head on his hand, and ponder, sparing no effort, until, at last, his head was weary from the hard work and his conscience told him enough had been done today for the common weal.

Freed from practical cares, Oblomov liked to retreat into his shell and live in the world he had created.

The pleasures of lofty thoughts were well within his grasp, and he was no stranger to universal human sorrows. He had wept bitterly, in the depths of his soul, at one time or another over man’s misfortunes and had experienced obscure and nameless sufferings and anguish, and the desire to go far away, more than likely into the world where Stolz was trying to draw him.

Sweet tears would run down his cheeks.

Sometimes it happened as well that he would be filled with contempt for men’s vice, hypocrisy, and slander and the evil that poured through the world, and he would burn with a desire to point out to man his evils, and suddenly thoughts would be kindled in him. They would roam and wander in his mind, like waves at sea, and then they would grow into intentions and ignite all the blood in him, and his intentions would be transformed into aspirations. Moved by a moral force, in a single minute he would quickly change poses several times. With glittering eyes he would half-rise in bed, reach out, and cast an inspired gaze around him. Now his effort was about to come to pass and become deed, and then—Lord! What miracles, what noble consequences could one look for from such lofty effort!

However, before you knew it the morning would flash by, the afternoon would be drawing toward evening, and with them Oblomov’s exhausted forces would be heading toward rest. The storms and upsets would be reconciled inside him, his head would sober up from his thoughts, and his blood would travel through his veins with less dispatch. Quietly, pensively, Oblomov would turn over on his back, aim his mournful gaze out the window, and with sadness let his eyes follow the sun, which was setting so magnificently behind someone’s four-story house.

How many, many times had he seen the sunset off in this way!

On the morrow, life would be back, its turmoil and dreams would be back! He liked imagining himself sometimes as an invincible commander before whom not only Napoleon but even Eruslan Lazarevich meant nothing.* He would make up a war and a reason for it. For instance, he would have nations from Africa flooding into Europe, or he would organize new crusades and fight. He would decide the fate of nations, raze cities, spare and punish, and perform deeds of kindness and generosity.

Or he would select the arena of the thinker, the great artist. Everyone would worship him; he would reap laurels, and the crowd would chase after him, exclaiming, “Look, look, here comes Oblomov, our famous Ilya Ilich!”

In bitter moments, he suffered from worry, tossed and turned, lay face down; sometimes he was even utterly distraught. Then he would get out of bed and onto his knees and begin to pray ardently and zealously, begging heaven to avert whatever storm threatened.

Afterward, having submitted his fate to heaven’s care, he would become calm and indifferent to everything in the world, and the storm there could do as it pleased.

Thus he set in motion his moral powers, and thus he worried, often for days on end, only to wake up with a deep sigh from his enchanting dream or his agonizing worry as the day was heading toward evening and the sun was beginning to sink magnificently, a giant orb, behind the four-story house.

Then he would again watch it go with his pensive gaze and sad smile and calmly find rest from his turmoil.

No one knew or witnessed this inner life of Ilya Ilich. Everyone thought that Oblomov simply lay there eating as he pleased and that nothing more was to be expected of him, that hardly any thoughts were going to tally up in his head. This is how he was viewed everywhere he was known.

His abilities and the volcanic inner workings of his fervent mind and humane heart, were known in detail and could be attested to by Stolz, but Stolz was almost never in Petersburg.

Zakhar alone, whose entire life had revolved around his master, knew in even greater detail the extent of Oblomov’s inner life. He, however, was convinced that he and his master were going about their business of living normally and properly, and that this was the only way to live.

VII

Zakhar was over fifty years old. He was a far cry from those Russian Caleb Balderstones,* those servile knights without fear or reproach filled with selfless devotion for their lords and distinguished by all the virtues and none of the vices.

This knight possessed both fear and reproach. He belonged to two eras, and both had left their stamp on him. From one he had inherited an unlimited devotion to the house of the Oblomovs; and from the other, the later one, a refinement and corruption of his ways.

While passionately devoted to his master, it was a rare day, nonetheless, that he did not lie to him about something. A servant of old would have kept his master from extravagance and intemperance, whereas Zakhar himself liked to drink with friends at his master’s expense. A servant of old would have been as chaste as a eunuch, whereas this one was always running to see his lady-friend of dubious virtue. The other would have guarded his master’s money more tightly than any chest, whereas Zakhar strove to pinch a coin from every expenditure and never failed to commandeer any copper coins lying on the table. Similarly, if Ilya Ilich forgot to ask Zakhar for his change, he would never get it back.

Greater sums he did not steal, perhaps because he measured his needs in copper coins or was afraid to be noticed, but in any case, it was not due to any excess of honesty.

A Caleb of old would rather have died, like a well-trained hunting dog, than touch something edible entrusted to him, whereas this one would no sooner espy than eat and drink what hadn’t been entrusted to him as well. That one cared only that his master eat more and grieved when he didn’t, whereas this one agonized when the master ate up everything he put on his plate.

On top of that, Zakhar was a gossip. In the kitchen, at the shop, and at the gatherings by the gate, he complained every day that there was no living for him, that the likes of such a bad master had never been known: he was capricious, miserly, and irritable, and there was no pleasing him. In short, Zakhar would rather die than live with him.

Zakhar did this not out of malice or any desire to harm his master but just because, out of a habit he had inherited from his grandfather and his father of attacking his master at any convenient moment.

Sometimes, out of boredom or a lack of material for conversation, or in order to arouse more interest among his audience, he would suddenly circulate some fantastic story about his master.

“Well, mine’s gotten into the habit of calling on that widow over there,” he rasped softly, in confidence, “and yesterday he wrote her a note.”

Or he would announce that his master was a cardsharp and drunkard such as the world has never produced and that he spent all his nights hard at his cards and vodka.

Not that any of this was true. Ilya Ilich was not calling on a widow, at night he slept peacefully, and he never picked up a hand of cards.

Zakhar was slovenly. He rarely shaved, and although he did wash his hands and face, though mostly he seemed to be pretending to wash. Not that any soap could get him clean. When he did go to the bathhouse, his hands, which started out black, would turn red for an hour or two and then be black again.

He was exceedingly clumsy. If he tried to open the gates or a door, he would open one half and the other would swing shut; then he would run to that one and meanwhile this one would swing shut.

Never did he pick a handkerchief or other object off the floor right away, rather he would always bend over a few times, as if trying to catch it, and then on the fourth perhaps pick it up, though sometimes he would drop it again.

If he was carrying a pile of dishes or other things across the room, then at his very first step, whatever was on top would start to desert for the floor. First one would go flying, and then he would make a sudden belated and useless movement to stop it from falling and would drop two more. He would watch the falling objects, mouth agape, rather than keeping an eye on those still in his arms, and as a result, he would hold the tray at a slant and objects would continue falling. Thus sometimes he would carry to the other end of the room a single glass or saucer, whereupon he himself sometimes would throw the last one remaining in his arms, swearing and cursing.

Walking across a room, he would catch his foot, or catch his side on a table or chair, and would not always land right in the open half of the door but rather bang his shoulder on the other and then curse both halves, or the landlord, or the carpenter who had made them.

Nearly all the things in Oblomov’s study, especially the smaller objects requiring cautious treatment, had been broken or smashed—all owing to Zakhar. He applied his ability to pick up an object to all objects identically, making no distinction in the way he treated one item or another.

Ordered to snuff out a candle or pour a glass of water, for example, he would use as much force as it took to open the gates.

God forbid Zakhar should be consumed with the zeal to please his master and conceive of tidying and cleaning and in one lively swoop put all in order! There would be no end to the calamities and losses; you’d think an enemy soldier had burst into the house to cause that much damage. It would begin with various objects breaking and falling, dishes smashing, and chairs overturning; it would end with having to drive him from the room or with Zakhar himself swearing and cursing as he left.

Zakhar had delineated for himself a well-defined set of activities, once and for all, and beyond that he would never voluntarily go.

In the morning, he put the samovar on and cleaned the boots and the clothes his master had requested, but by no means anything he had not requested, even if it had hung there for ten years.

Then he would sweep—although not every day—the middle of the room, never getting as far as the corners, and wipe the dust from whatever table had nothing on it, so that he would not have to remove any objects.

Then he would consider himself justified in dozing on his bench or chatting with Anisya in the kitchen and the domestics by the gate, without a care in the world.

If ordered to do something on top of this, he would fulfill the order reluctantly, after arguing and trying to convince his master that the order was either pointless or impossible to fulfill.

Nothing on earth could force him to add a new permanent item to the set of occupations he had delineated for himself.

In spite of all this, that is, the fact that Zakhar liked to drink and gossip, that he stole coins from Oblomov, and that he broke and smashed various objects and was lazy, nonetheless, in the end, he was a servant profoundly devoted to his master.

He would not think twice about burning up or drowning for him, considering it no great deed worthy of amazement or any sort of reward. He looked upon this as natural and believed it could not be otherwise—or, to put it a better way, he didn’t look upon it at all but simply acted in this way, without any speculation. He had no theories whatsoever on this subject.

Zakhar would have thrown himself to his death, exactly like a dog which, upon encountering a beast in the forest, attacks it without considering that perhaps his master should instead.

On the other hand, had the need arisen, for instance, to sit at his master’s bedside all night long without shutting his eyes and had his master’s health and even his life depended on it, Zakhar would have fallen asleep without fail.

Outwardly, not only would he never show any servility toward his master, he was even rather rude and familiar in his dealings with him, became quite angry at him over the slightest thing, and even, as has been said, said spiteful things about him at the gate. Nonetheless, this merely put a temporary damper on but by no means diminished his vital, familial devotion not for Ilya Ilich per se but for everything that bore Oblomov’s name, everything sweet and dear to him.

Perhaps even this emotion contradicted Zakhar’s own view of the individual who was Oblomov, and perhaps a study of his master’s character had instilled in Zakhar other convictions. In all likelihood, had anyone explained to Zakhar the degree of his attachment to Ilya Ilich, he would have disputed it.

Zakhar loved Oblomovka as a cat loves its attic, a horse its stable, and a dog the kennel in which it was born and raised. With respect to this attachment he had formed his own personal impressions.

For instance, he loved the Oblomovka coachman more than the cook and Varvara the dairymaid more than both of them, but Ilya Ilich least of all. Nonetheless, the Oblomovka cook was for him better than and superior to other cooks in the world and Ilya Ilich stood above all other landowners.

Taraska the footman he could not tolerate; but he would not exchange Taraska for the best servant in all the world simply because Taraska was a part of Oblomovka.

He was familiar and rude with Oblomov, much as a shaman is rude and familiar with his idol. He might sweep it off a table, drop it, and sometimes even strike it in vexation; nonetheless, deep down, he was constantly aware of the superiority of this idol’s nature over his own.

The slightest grounds sufficed to evoke this feeling from the depths of Zakhar’s soul and force him to look on his master with reverence and sometimes even to be moved to tears.

Zakhar looked down upon all the other gentlemen and visitors who came to see Oblomov, and he waited on them—serving tea and so forth—with condescension, as if to make them feel the honor they enjoyed by being his master’s guest. He could turn them away quite rudely. “The master is sleeping,” he might say, haughtily surveying the visitor from head to toe.

Sometimes, instead of gossip and slander, he would suddenly decide to elevate Ilya Ilich immoderately at the shops and at the gatherings by the gate, and then there was no end to his raptures. He would begin enumerating his master’s virtues, his intellect, kindness, generosity, and goodness; and if the master lacked sufficient qualities for a panegyric, he would borrow them from others and lend him gentility, wealth, or extraordinary might.

If he needed to give the porter, the building manager, or even the landlord himself a scare, he always threatened them with his master. “Just you wait. I’m going to tell my master,” he would say threateningly. “I’ll show you!” He had no inkling of any authority more powerful in the world.

However, outward relations between Oblomov and Zakhar were always rather hostile. Living together as they did, they were sick and tired of each other. Brief daily intimacy between two people never leaves either one unscathed. It takes a great deal of life experience, logic, and sincere warmth on both sides to appreciate each other’s merits and not taunt or be taunted by each other’s shortcomings.

Ilya Ilich knew one immense virtue in Zakhar: his devotion to him, which he was accustomed to, believing as well, for his part, that it could and should not be otherwise. Having become accustomed to this virtue once and for all, he no longer appreciated it, but meanwhile he could not, despite his indifference to everything, patiently suffer Zakhar’s innumerable little shortcomings.

If Zakhar, while nourishing deep in his soul a devotion to his master characteristic of the servants of old, differed from them in his modern shortcomings, then Ilya Ilich, for his part, while privately valuing Zakhar’s devotion, did not have for him that friendly, almost familial disposition which previous masters had nourished for their servants. Occasionally, he permitted himself strong language with Zakhar.

Zakhar was equally sick and tired of his master. Having served as a footman in his youth in the master’s home, he had been promoted to personal servant for Ilya Ilich and ever since had considered himself an object of luxury, an aristocratic appurtenance of the house, appointed to maintain the fullness and luster of the ancient name, but not an object of necessity. This is why, having dressed his little master in the morning and undressed him at night, he did absolutely nothing the rest of the time.

Lazy by nature, he was lazy as well due to his servant upbringing. He boasted among the domestics and did not trouble himself either to put on the samovar or to sweep the floors. He either dozed in the anteroom, or went off to the servants’ room or the kitchen to chat; or else, for hours on end, arms crossed over his chest, stood at the gate and in drowsy reverie gazed in every direction.

Imagine, after a life like that, to have imposed on him, out of the blue, the heavy burden of an entire household! Serve his master, sweep, clean, and be his errand-boy as well! All this lay a sullenness on his heart, and a crudeness—a cruelty—manifested itself in his manner. This was why he grumbled every time his master’s voice compelled him to quit his bench.

In spite of this outward sullenness and rudeness, though, Zakhar had quite a good and gentle heart. He even liked spending time with little children. In the yard, by the gate, he was often seen with a pack of children. He settled their quarrels, teased them, taught them games, or just sat with them, taking one on one knee and another on the other, and from behind some other scamp would wind his arms around his neck or ruffle his side-whiskers.

Thus Oblomov was keeping Zakhar from living by demanding his services and presence around him every minute, even though his heart, his sociable manner, his love of inaction, and his constant, never abating need to eat drew Zakhar to his lady-friend, the kitchen, the shop, or the gate.

They had known each other for a long time and had lived together for a long time. Zakhar had held little Oblomov in his arms, and Oblomov remembered him as a young, nimble, voracious, and cunning fellow.

The old tie between them was ineradicable. Just as Ilya Ilich could not get up, go to bed, be combed and shod, or have his dinner without Zakhar’s help, so too Zakhar could not imagine for himself a master other than Ilya Ilich, an existence other than dressing and feeding him, being rude to him and cunning, lying, and at the same time, inwardly, revering him.

VIII

Shutting the door behind Tarantiev and Alexeyev after they left, Zakhar did not sit back down on his bench, in anticipation of his master summoning him at any moment, because he had heard he was planning to write. In Oblomov’s study, though, all was as quiet as the grave.

Zakhar peeked through the crack. What on earth? Ilya Ilich was lying on his sofa, his head resting in his palm, and before him lay his book. Zakhar opened the door.

“What, lying down again?” he asked.

“Don’t bother me. Can’t you see I’m reading!” Oblomov blurted out.

“It’s time to get washed and write,” said a tenacious Zakhar.

“Yes, indeed, it is time,” Ilya Ilich woke up. “You go for now. I’m going to think.”

“When was it he managed to lie down again?” grumbled Zakhar, jumping on the stove. “He’s quick!”

Oblomov did manage, however, to finish the page, yellowed with time, where he had broken off his reading a month before. He put the book away and yawned, and then he became absorbed by his nagging thoughts about his “two disasters.”

“How tedious!” he whispered, first stretching, then bending his legs.

He was feeling languorous and dreamy. He turned his eyes skyward and sought out his favorite star, but it was at its very zenith and was merely pouring its blinding gleam over the limestone wall of the building behind which Oblomov watched it set in the evenings. No, business first, he thought sternly, but later . . .

Morning was long since over in the country and on the wane in Petersburg. A tumult of human and nonhuman voices reached Ilya Ilich from the courtyard: the singing of traveling musicians accompanied largely by the barking of dogs. They had come to demonstrate a sea creature and had brought and were offering for sale every possible kind of product in different voices.

He lay back and put both hands behind his head. Ilya Ilich was busy working out the plan for his estate. He quickly ran through in his mind several serious, radical provisions about quit-rent and plowing; he thought up a new, stricter measure against the peasants’ idleness and vagrancy; and then he moved on to the arrangement of his own daily life in the country.

He was engrossed in the construction of his country home. He dwelt with satisfaction for several minutes on the disposition of the rooms and determined the length and breadth of the dining room and billiards room, gave some thought as well to which way the windows of his study would face, and even considered the furniture and rugs.

After this he situated the annex to the house, pondered the number of guests he intended to receive, and set a place aside for the stables, sheds, servants, and various other services.

Finally, he turned to the garden. He decided to leave all the old linden and oak trees as they were but to destroy the apple and pear trees and in their place plant acacias. He had been considering a park, but after making a mental estimate of the costs found it too expensive and so set that aside for another time and moved on to the flower gardens and hothouses.

At this he had a tempting thought about the fruits to come that was so vivid he suddenly shifted ahead several years to the country, when the estate would be set up according to his plan and he would be living there permanently.

He pictured himself of a summer’s eve sitting on the terrace, at the tea table, under a canopy of trees the sun could not penetrate, smoking a long pipe and lazily sucking in the smoke, pensively enjoying the view that opened up beyond the trees, the cool air, and the silence. In the distance, he pictured the fields now yellow, the sun sinking behind the familiar birch grove and casting a rosy glow over the mirror-smooth pond, vapor rising from the fields, the chill with the onset of dusk, and the peasants walking home in clusters.

The idle domestics were sitting at the gate, where he could hear their merry voices, laughter, and balalaika; the girls were playing tag, and the little children were frolicking all around him, climbing into his lap, and hanging from his neck; and sitting at the samovar, queen of all she surveyed, his goddess—a woman! His wife! Meanwhile, in the dining room, which was furnished with exquisite simplicity, welcoming lights shone brightly and the large round table was being laid. Zakhar, promoted to major-domo, his side-whiskers now quite gray, was laying the table, setting out the crystal and silver with a pleasant clink, constantly dropping either a glass or a fork on the floor. They sat down to an abundant dinner, and sitting there as well was his unfailing childhood friend Stolz, and others, all familiar faces. Then they were off to bed.

Oblomov’s face flushed with happiness. His dream was so vivid, alive, and poetic that he suddenly felt a vague desire for love and quiet happiness; he suddenly had a thirst for the fields and hills of his native land, his own home, a wife and children.

After lying face down for five minutes or so, he slowly turned onto his back again. His face shone with timid, touching emotion. He was happy.

With pleasure, he slowly stretched his legs, which made his trousers roll up a little, but he did not notice this slight disturbance. His obliging dream bore him along easily and freely, far into the future.

He was now absorbed by his favorite thought. He was thinking about the small colony of friends who would settle in villages and farms within fifteen or twenty versts of his village and how they would take turns paying daily calls on one another, having suppers, dinners, and dances. He could see all the bright days and their bright faces, free of cares and wrinkles, laughing, round, brightly flushed, with a double chin and an unfailing appetite. There would be eternal summer and eternal merrymaking, sweet food and sweet idleness.

“My God!” he uttered from a surfeit of happiness, and then he woke up.

At this, five voices rang out from the courtyard: “Potatoes!” “Sand! Who needs sand?” “Coal! Coal!” “Won’t you give something, kind sirs, for the construction of the Lord’s temple?” From the neighboring building, still under construction, came the blows of axes and workers’ shouts, and from the street came the creaking of wheels. The sound of voices and movement everywhere!

“Oh my!” Ilya Ilich heaved a loud and bitter sigh. What kind of a life is this? This din in the capital is a disgrace! When will that paradisiacal life I so long for begin? When will I have the fields and my native woods? he thought. If only I could be lying on the grass under a tree right now watching the dear sun through the branches and counting how many little birds had landed on them. Here you have your dinner on the grass, or your breakfast, brought to you by a rosy-cheeked servant girl with soft, bare, rounded elbows and a sunburnt neck. She casts her eyes down, the scamp, and smiles. When will that time come?

Ah, my plan! But what about the bailiff and the apartment? his memory suddenly stirred.

“Yes, yes!” Ilya Ilich began hastily. “Right away, just a minute!”

Oblomov rose quickly and sat up on the sofa, then lowered his feet to the floor, landed in both slippers at once, and sat there like that for a moment. Then he got all the way up and stood pensively for a couple of minutes.

“Zakhar! Zakhar!” he shouted loudly, glancing at the desk and inkwell.

“What else do you want?” was heard along with a jump. “My legs can barely drag me along.”

“Zakhar!” repeated Ilya Ilich pensively without taking his eyes off the desk. “Here’s the thing, old friend,” he began, pointing to the inkwell, but he lapsed back into his reverie without finishing his sentence.

At this, his arms stretched upward and his knees bent, and he began stretching and yawning.

“I think we have cheese left,” he began, still stretching, with pauses, “Yes, and give me some Madeira. It’s a long time until dinner so I’ll have a little breakfast.”

“Left where?” said Zakhar. “There’s nothing left.”

“What do you mean nothing left?” interrupted Ilya Ilich. “I remember very well. There was a piece of—”

“No, there wasn’t! There wasn’t any piece!” repeated Zakhar firmly.

“There was!” said Ilya Ilich.

“There wasn’t,” replied Zakhar.

“Well, then buy some.”

“Let me have some money.”

“There’s change over there. Take it.”

“There’s only a ruble forty there, and I need a ruble sixty.”

“There were some copper coins there, too.”

“I didn’t see them!” said Zakhar, shifting from foot to foot. “There was the silver, and that’s right there, but no coppers!”

“Yes, there were. Yesterday the peddler put them right in my hands.”

“I was there when he did that,” said Zakhar. “I saw him give you the change, but no copper.”

I wonder whether Tarantiev took it, thought Ilya Ilich hesitantly. But no, he would have taken the other change as well.

“So what else is there?” he asked.

“Nothing. Yesterday’s ham, I don’t know if that’s gone, you have to ask Anisya,” said Zakhar. “Should I bring it?”

“Bring it, whatever there is. What do you mean there isn’t anything?”

“Well, there isn’t!” said Zakhar, and he left. Ilya Ilich paced around his study slowly and pensively.

“Yes, it’s a lot of trouble,” he said softly. “Why, there’s a mass of work to do on my plan alone! But there was cheese left, you know,” he added pensively, “and it was Zakhar who ate it, and he says there wasn’t any! Where did those coppers go?” he said, rummaging around on his desk.

Fifteen minutes later, Zakhar opened the door with a tray, which he held in both hands and, entering the room, he tried to close the door with his foot, but missed and kicked the air, whereupon a glass fell and with it the stopper from the decanter and a roll.

“You can’t take a step without doing that!” said Ilya Ilich. “Well, at least pick up what you dropped. He’s still standing there admiring his handiwork!”

Zakhar, holding the tray, was about to bend over to pick up the roll, but once he’d squatted he suddenly saw that both his hands were occupied and he had nothing with which to pick it up.

“Well, then, pick it up!” said Ilya Ilich, chuckling. “What’s the matter with you? What’s holding you up?”

“Oh, to hell with you, damn it!” Zakhar burst out in anger, addressing the dropped objects. “Who’s ever heard of having breakfast right before dinner?”

Setting the tray down, he picked up off the floor what he’d dropped, and taking the roll, he blew on it and put it on the table.

Ilya Ilich fell to his breakfast, and Zakhar stood at a slight distance, looking at him sideways, evidently trying to think of something to say.

But Oblomov was eating his breakfast and not paying him the slightest mind.

Zakhar coughed twice.

Still no reaction.

“The landlord’s manager just sent over again,” Zakhar finally began, cautiously. “The contractor was at his place, and he asked if he couldn’t take a look at our apartment. About doing it over and all.”

Ilya Ilich was eating and did not say a word.

“Ilya Ilich,” Zakhar said even more quietly, after a pause.

Ilya Ilich pretended not to hear.

“They’re saying we have to move out next week,” rasped Zakhar.

Oblomov poured a glass of wine and said nothing.

“What are we to do, Ilya Ilich?” asked Zakhar, almost in a whisper.

“Didn’t I forbid you to speak to me of this?” said Ilya Ilich sternly, and he stood up and walked toward Zakhar.

Zakhar took a step back.

“What a venomous man you are, Zakhar!” added Oblomov heatedly.

Zakhar took offense.

“Oh ho!” he said. “Venomous? Why am I venomous? I didn’t kill anyone.”

“What do you mean not venomous!” repeated Ilya Ilich. “You’re poisoning my life.”

“I’m not venomous!” repeated Zakhar.

“Why do you keep throwing the apartment in my face?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“And what am I?”

“Weren’t you the one who was going to write to the building’s owner?”

“Well, I will. Give me some time. You can’t at the drop of a hat!”

“You should’ve written by now.”

“Now! Now! I have a slightly more important matter as well. Do you think this is like chopping wood? A lick and a prayer? Look,” said Oblomov, turning his dry pen in the inkwell, “there’s not even any ink! How am I supposed to write?”

“I’ll just thin it with kvass,” said Zakhar, and taking the inkwell he started off briskly to the front hall, while Oblomov started looking for paper.

“This is too much! There’s not even any paper!” he said to himself as he rummaged in the drawer and on the desk. “None at all! Oh, that Zakhar. He makes my life impossible!”

“Now, tell me why you’re not a venomous man?” said Ilya Ilich to Zakhar as he was entering. “You don’t keep track of anything! How can we have no paper in the house?”

“Why are you punishing me like this, Ilya Ilich! I’m a Christian. Why do you keep yelling at me with your ‘venomous’? What an idea—venomous! We were born and reared under the old master. He allowed himself to call me a whelp and pull me by the ears, but we never dreamed of hearing a word like that! Is the world coming to an end? Kindly take your paper.”

He took half a sheet of gray paper from the shelf and handed it to him.

“How can anyone write on this?” asked Oblomov, tossing the paper aside. “I covered my glass with it overnight, so that nothing . . . venomous . . . would fall in.”

Zakhar turned away and looked at the wall.

“Oh well, what can I do? Give it here, I’ll write a draft and Alexeyev can copy it out.”

Ilya Ilich sat down at his desk and quickly wrote, “Kind sir.”

“What nasty ink!” said Oblomov. “Next time, keep a sharp look-out, Zakhar, and do your job as you should!”

He thought a little and began writing.

“The apartment which I occupy on the second floor of the building in which you have proposed making certain alterations perfectly suits my way of life and the habit acquired as a consequence of my long sojourn in this building. Having been informed through my servant, Zakhar Trofimov, that you have instructed him to inform me that the apartment which I occupy . . .”

Oblomov stopped and reread what he had written.

“Clumsily done,” he said. “I say ‘which’ two times in a row, and ‘that’ two.”

He started muttering and moving words around, but that made it seem as if “which” referred to the floor—which was clumsy again. He tinkered with it and started thinking about how to avoid using “that” two times.

He would cross a word out and put it back. Three times he moved the “that” around, but then it made no sense or it was right next to another “that.”

“You just can’t get rid of that other ‘that’!” he said impatiently. “Oh, to hell with the letter and everything else! Wracking my brains over such foolish details! I’m not used to writing business letters anymore. And look, it’s nearly three o’clock.”

“Take that, Zakhar.” He tore the letter into four pieces and threw it on the floor.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Zakhar, picking up the scraps of paper.

“So quit your nagging about the apartment. What’s that you have there?”

“It’s the accounts.”

“Oh my Lord! You’ll be the death of me! Well, how much is it, tell me quickly!”

“Eighty-six rubles and fifty-four kopeks for the butcher.”

Ilya Ilich threw up his hands.

“Have you lost your mind! That much money for the butcher alone?”

“You haven’t paid for three months, so it’s going to be a lot! Here it is, all written down. They aren’t robbing you!”

“Now, tell me why you’re not a venomous man,” said Oblomov. “You bought enough beef for a million. Why would do you do that? If only you did some good.”

“It wasn’t me who ate it!” snarled Zakhar.

“No? It wasn’t?”

“Would you begrudge me my bread? Here, look!”

He shoved the accounts at him.

“Well, then, who else?” said Ilya Ilich, pushing the greasy notebooks away with vexation.

“Another one hundred twenty-one rubles and eighteen kopeks for the baker and grocer.”

“This is ruin! I’ve never heard of such a thing!” said Oblomov, beside himself with rage. “What’s wrong with you, you cow, chewing up all those greens?”

“No! I’m a venomous man!” remarked Zakhar bitterly, turning entirely sideways to his master. “If we hadn’t let Mikhei Andreich in, it would have come out less,” he added.

“Well, how much will it be altogether? Add it up!” said Ilya Ilich, and he began adding.

Zakhar did the same computation on his fingers.

“The deuce if I can make heads or tails of this. Different every time!” said Oblomov. “How much did you get? Two hundred or so?”

“Just wait a minute, give me time!” said Zakhar, frowning and grumbling. “Eight tens and ten tens is eighteen, and two tens . . .”

“Oh, you’ll never finish that way,” said Ilya Ilich. “Go to your room and give me the accounts tomorrow, and see to the paper and ink. What a lot of money! I said I’d pay a little at a time, but no, he tries to get me all at once. These people!”

“Two hundred five rubles and seventy-two kopeks,” said Zakhar, finished calculating. “The money, please.”

“What? Right now? Wait a while. I assure you, tomorrow . . .”

“As you like, Ilya Ilich, they’re asking—”

“Leave me alone, will you? I said tomorrow, and tomorrow it shall be. Go to your room while I work. I have slightly more important worries.”

Ilya Ilich got comfortable in his chair, tucked his feet under him, and before he could begin to think the doorbell rang.

In walked a rather short man with a moderate belly, a white face, ruddy cheeks, and a bald spot that was surrounded from the back by thick black hair, like a fringe. His bald spot was round, clean, and gleamed so it might have been carved of ivory. The visitor’s face was marked by a carefully attentive expression to everything he chanced to see, a restraint to his gaze, moderation in his smile, and discreetly official decorum.

He wore a comfortable frock coat that opened out, for ease, like gates, at the merest touch. His linen was sparkling white, as if to match his bald spot. On his right index finger he wore a massive ring with some kind of dark stone.

“Doctor! What brings you here?” exclaimed Oblomov, extending one hand to his visitor and pulling up a chair with the other.

“I’ve missed you. You’re always so healthy you never call for me, so I stopped by myself,” replied the doctor, joking. “No,” he then added seriously, “I was upstairs, at your neighbor’s, so I stopped by to see you.”

“Thank you. But what’s wrong with my neighbor?”

“Just this. He’s going to last three or four weeks, maybe even until the fall, but then . . . it’s dropsy in the chest. We know the end. Well, and how about you?”

Oblomov shook his head sadly.

“It’s bad, doctor. I’d been thinking of consulting you myself. I don’t know what I’m to do. My stomach barely digests, there’s a weight in the pit of my stomach, I have terrible heartburn, and I’m short of breath,” said Oblomov with a pitiful mien.

“Give me your hand,” said the doctor, and he took his pulse and shut his eyes for a minute. “Do you have a cough?” he asked.

“At night, especially when I’m eating my supper.”

“Hmm! Rapid heartbeat ever? Headaches?”

The doctor asked several similar questions, then bowed his bald head and meditated deeply. Two minutes later he suddenly raised his head and said in a decisive voice, “If you spend another two or three years in this climate lying here all that time and eating fatty, heavy food, you will die of a stroke.”

Oblomov gave a start.

“What can I do? Teach me, for God’s sake!” he implored.

“The same thing other people do: go abroad.”

“Abroad!” echoed Oblomov, dumbfounded.

“Yes. What of it?”

“Have mercy, doctor. Abroad! How can I?”

“How can you not?”

Oblomov silently cast his eyes over himself, then his study, and mechanically repeated, “Abroad!”

“What’s preventing you?”

“What do you mean? Everything.”

“What everything? Don’t you have the money?”

“That’s it! I don’t have the money,” began Oblomov animatedly, rejoicing at this most natural obstacle behind which he could hide altogether. “Just look at what my bailiff writes. Where’s that letter? Where did I put it? Zakhar!”

“Fine, fine,” began the doctor. “That’s none of my affair. My duty is to tell you that you must change your way of life, place, air, and occupation—everything.”

“Fine, I’ll give it some thought,” said Oblomov. “Where should I go and what should I do?” he asked.

“Go to Kissingen,” began the doctor. “Spend June and July there. Drink the waters, then go to Switzerland or the Tyrol and take the grape cure. Spend September and October there.”

“What insanity, the Tyrol!” whispered Ilya Ilich barely audibly.

“Then somewhere dry—Egypt, if nowhere else.”

What next! thought Oblomov.

“Eliminate all worry and distress.”

“That’s fine for you to say,” commented Oblomov. “You aren’t receiving letters like this from your bailiff.”

“You must also avoid this kind of thinking,” continued the doctor.

“Thinking?”

“Yes, mental tension.”

“What about my plan for my estate? Please, am I just a blockhead?”

“Well, it’s up to you. My business is merely to warn you. You must fend off passions, too. They harm your treatment. You must try to entertain yourself with horseback riding, dancing, moderate exercise in the fresh air, and pleasant conversation, especially with ladies, so that your heart beats lightly and only from pleasant emotions.”

Oblomov listened to him, hanging his head.

“And then?” he asked.

“And then, no reading or writing. God forbid! Take a villa with windows facing south, and lots of flowers, and have music and women around you.”

“What kind of food should I eat?”

“Avoid meats and animal foods in general, farinaceous and gelatinous foods as well. You may have clear bouillon and greens, only be careful: the cholera is rampant almost everywhere now, so you must take every precaution. You may walk for eight hours a day, more or less. Take up shooting.”

“Lord!” groaned Oblomov.

“Finally,” concluded the doctor. “For the winter go to Paris and there amuse yourself in the whirl of life without reflection. Go from theater to ball, to masquerade, to visits out of town, just so you’re surrounded by friends, noise, and laughter.”

“Nothing else?” asked Oblomov with poorly disguised vexation.

The doctor reflected.

“You might take the sea air. Embark in England and sail to America.”

He rose and began saying good-bye.

“If you carry out all this exactly . . .” he said.

“Fine, fine. I certainly will,” replied Oblomov poignantly as he was seeing him to the door.

The doctor left, leaving Oblomov in the most pitiable state. He shut his eyes, put both hands on his head, curled into a ball on his chair, and sat there like that, looking at nothing, feeling nothing.

Behind him he heard a hesitant summons.

“Ilya Ilich!”

“Well?” he responded.

“What should I tell the landlord’s manager?”

“What about?”

“Moving?”

“Are you back to that?” asked Oblomov in amazement.

“But what am I to do, Ilya Ilich sir? See for yourself. My life is bitter as it is. I have one foot in the grave.”

“No, it’s you, obviously, who wants to drive me to my grave with your moving,” said Oblomov. “Did you hear what the doctor said?”

Zakhar could find nothing to say so he just released a sigh that made the tips of his neckerchief flutter on his chest.

“Have you resolved to be the death of me? Is that it?” asked Oblomov again. “Are you sick of me? Eh? Well, are you going to speak?”

“Christ be with you! Live in good health! Who wishes you any ill?” growled Zakhar in utter confusion over the tragic turn their talk had begun to take.

“You!” said Ilya Ilich. “I forbade you to so much as hiccup about moving, and a day doesn’t pass that you don’t remind me five times. This is what’s upsetting me, you have to understand. My health is no good anyway.”

“I thought, sir, that . . . that is, why not move, I thought?” said Zakhar in a voice trembling from emotional distress.

“Why not move? You speak of this as if it were nothing!” said Oblomov, turning with his chair to face Zakhar. “Have you given proper thought to what moving means? Eh? You haven’t, have you?”

“No, I haven’t!” replied Zakhar, meekly, prepared to agree with his master about everything just to keep the matter from turning into one of those emotion-riddled scenes which he found worse than bitter radish.

“No, you haven’t, so listen to me and determine for yourself whether I can move or not. What does moving mean? It means the master going out for an entire day, properly dressed from the morning on, and going out—”

“What’s wrong with going out?” commented Zakhar. “Why not be out for an entire day? After all, sitting home isn’t healthy. Look at how unwell you are! You used to be fresh as a cucumber, but now, the way you sit around, God knows what you look like. If you walked through the streets, looked at people, or something else . . .”

“Stop talking nonsense. Listen to him!” said Oblomov. “Walking through the streets!”

“Yes, it’s true,” continued Zakhar with increasing heat. “Look, people say, they’ve brought in some strange monstrosity. You could go see it. You could go to a tee-ater or a masquerade, and we here could move without you.”

“Don’t say such foolish things! A fine job you’re doing of worrying over your master’s peace! Wander around the entire day, you say. You care nothing that I would be dining God knows where, and just where and how would I take my nap after dinner? They would move here without me! Before you know it, they’d be moving shards. I know what moving means!” said Oblomov with mounting conviction. “It means breakage and noise. They heap all your things in a pile on the floor: your suitcase, and the sofa back, and the pictures, and the pipe stems, and the books, and those hourglasses you never see any other time, and here God knows where they come from! Watch after everything so they don’t lose it or break it. Half is here, the other in transit, or at the new apartment. If you feel like smoking, you pick up a pipe but the tobacco’s gone. You want to sit down, but there’s nowhere to sit. No matter what you touch, it’s soiled; everything’s dusty. There’s no way to wash up, so you go around with hands that look like yours.”

“My hands are clean,” noted Zakhar, showing two palms that looked more like soles.

“Oh, just don’t show them to me!” said Ilya Ilich, turning away. “And if you get thirsty,” continued Oblomov, “and pick up a pitcher, there’s no glass.”

“You can drink all you want from the pitcher!” added Zakhar, good-naturedly.

“That’s how it always is with you. You don’t have to sweep, or dust, or beat the rugs. And at the new apartment,” continued Ilya Ilich, carried away with the picture of a move he imagined so vividly, “they won’t get things sorted out for days, and everything will be in the wrong place: the pictures near the walls and on the floor, galoshes on the bed, boots in the same bundle as the tea and pomade. Before you know it an armchair leg is broken, or a picture glass is smashed, or the sofa is covered in stains. No matter what you ask for, it isn’t there, and no one knows where it is, or it’s lost, or it’s forgotten in the old apartment, so you run there.”

“You’re running back and forth a good ten times for the first while,” interjected Zakhar.

“There, you see?” continued Oblomov. “You wake up in the morning in your new apartment, and what tedium! There’s no water or coal, and in the winter such a chill sets in, and the rooms get so cold, and there’s no firewood; you have to run and borrow some.”

“It depends on what kind of neighbors the Lord sends,” noted Zakhar again. “From some you can’t ask for a ladle of water, let alone a bundle of firewood.”

“Exactly so!” said Ilya Ilich. “You move, and by evening, you’d think, the fuss would be over with, but no, you’re still dealing with it for a couple of weeks. Everything seems set up, but you turn around and there’s still something left—hanging curtains, nailing up pictures. It sucks you dry and you wish you were dead. And the expense. The expense!”

“The last time, eight years ago, it was about two hundred rubles—as I remember now,” confirmed Zakhar.

“Well, there’s a joke for you!” said Ilya Ilich. “And living in a new apartment is so miserable at first! And do you get used to it quickly? Why, I wouldn’t fall asleep in a new place for five nights. The anguish would start gnawing at me the minute I got up and saw over there, instead of that sign for the turner some other one across the way. Or over there, if that shorn old woman didn’t look out her window before dinner, I’d be miserable. Can you see for yourself now what state you’ve brought your master to? Can you?” asked Ilya Ilich reproachfully.

“Yes,” whispered Zakhar meekly.

“Why did you ever suggest I move? Would I have the human strength to bear all this?”

“I thought that other people, no worse than us, do move, you know, so then we could, too,” said Zakhar.

“What? What?” asked Ilya Ilich, suddenly dumbfounded, rising slightly from his chair. “What did you say?”

All of a sudden Zakhar was confused, not knowing what he might have done to cause his master to make such a passionate exclamation and gesture. He said nothing.

“‘Other people no worse!’” repeated Ilya Ilich, horrified. “So this is what your talking’s come to! Now I shall know that I might as well be ‘other people’ to you!”

Oblomov bowed ironically to Zakhar and made a supremely injured face.

“Please, Ilya Ilich, how can I be comparing you with anyone?”

“Out of my sight!” said Oblomov imperiously, pointing to the door. “I don’t want to see you. Ah! ‘Other people’! Fine!”

With a deep sigh, Zakhar retreated to his corner.

“What a life. Imagine!” he grumbled, sitting on his bench.

“My God!” moaned Oblomov as well. “Here I was going to devote my morning to practical labor, and now they’ve undone me for an entire day! And who did this? My own servant, tried and true, but what he said! How could he?”

It took Oblomov a long time to calm down. He lay down, stood up, paced around the room, and lay down again. In Zakhar’s reducing him to the level of ‘other people’ he saw a violation of his rights to Zakhar’s exclusive preference for his master’s person over each and every other person.

He delved deep into this comparison, trying to sort out what “other people” were and what he himself was, to what degree this parallel was possible and fair, how terrible the insult inflicted upon him by Zakhar was, and finally, whether Zakhar had insulted him consciously; that is, was he convinced that Ilya Ilich might as well be “other people,” or had it slipped from his tongue without his head’s participation? All this stung Oblomov’s vanity, and he decided to show Zakhar the difference between him and those whom Zakhar meant by “other people” and make him feel the full vileness of his act.

“Zakhar!” he cried out slowly and solemnly.

Hearing this summons, Zakhar did not jump from his bench, as was his habit, striking his feet, nor did he grumble; rather he climbed slowly off the stove and set out, bumping into everything with his arms and sides, quietly, reluctantly, like a dog that can tell from its master’s voice that its mischief has been found out and it is being summoned for punishment.

Zakhar opened the door halfway but could not bring himself to go in.

“Come in!” said Ilya Ilich.

Although the door swung freely, Zakhar opened it as if he could not squeeze through and for this reason merely stuck in the doorway but did not go in.

Oblomov was sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Come here!” he said insistently.

Zakhar freed himself from the door with difficulty but immediately shut it behind himself and leaned back against it solidly.

“Here!” said Ilya Ilich, pointing to a spot close to him. Zakhar took half a step and stopped two sazhens from the indicated spot.

“Closer!” said Oblomov.

Zakhar pretended to take a step but actually only swayed and stamped, remaining right where he was.

Seeing that he was not going to lure Zakhar any closer, Ilya Ilich left him standing where he was and looked at him for a while in silence, with reproach.

Feeling awkward at this silent survey of his person, Zakhar pretended not to notice his master and, ever more than usual, stood sideways to him and in that moment did not even cast his one-sided glance at Ilya Ilich.

He stood there looking hard to the left, in the other direction, and there he saw a long-familiar object—the fringe from the cobweb around the pictures, and in the cobweb vivid reproof for being so remiss.

“Zakhar!” Ilya Ilich spoke quietly and with dignity.

Zakhar did not reply; he seemed to be thinking, So, what do you want? Some other Zakhar? I’m right here, after all. He shifted his gaze over his master, from left to right, and there the mirror, too, coated with dust as thick as muslin, reminded him of itself. In it his own sullen and unattractive face looked back wildly, frowning angrily, as if out of a fog.

Displeased, he turned his gaze away from this sad, all-too-familiar object and decided to rest it for a moment on Ilya Ilich. Their eyes met.

Zakhar could not bear the reproach written in his master’s eyes, and he cast his gaze downward, at his feet. There, again, in the rug, which was full of dust and stains, he read the sad testimony to his zeal for his master’s service.

“Zakhar!” repeated Ilya Ilich with feeling.

“What do you want?” whispered Zakhar faintly, and he shuddered ever so slightly, anticipating an emotional speech.

“Get me some kvass!” said Ilya Ilich.

Zakhar’s heart leapt. He rushed headlong to the sideboard, as happy as a little boy, and brought the kvass.

“So, what do you have to say for yourself?” asked Ilya Ilich briefly, sipping from the glass and holding it in his hands. “You know it’s not good, don’t you?”

The wild look on Zakhar’s face softened instantly with a ray of repentance. Zakhar felt the first hints of reverence for his master awaken in his breast and approach his heart, and he suddenly looked him straight in the eye.

“Are you sorry for what you did?” asked Ilya Ilich.

What did I do? thought Zakhar with foreboding. Something pitiful. You just can’t help but cry when he starts in like this.

“Please, Ilya Ilich,” began Zakhar from the lowest note in his range, “I didn’t say anything except that you—”

“No, wait!” interrupted Oblomov. “Do you realize what you did? Here, put that glass on the table and answer me!”

Zakhar did not answer because he had absolutely no idea what he had done, but this did not prevent him from looking at his master with reverence. He even bowed his head a little, conscious of his guilt.

“How can you tell me you’re not a venomous man?” said Oblomov.

Zakhar held his tongue through this, only blinking hard a few times.

“You’ve disappointed your master!” Ilya Ilich spoke, pausing between words, and he stared at Zakhar, enjoying his confusion.

Zakhar didn’t know what to do he was so miserable.

“You did disappoint me, didn’t you?” asked Ilya Ilich.

“Yes!” whispered Zakhar, utterly distraught, over this new pitiful word. He cast his gaze right, left, and straight ahead, searching for salvation in something, and again there flashed before him the cobweb, and the dust, and his own reflection, and his master’s face.

I wish the earth would swallow me up! Oh, will death never come! he thought, seeing there was no getting round an emotional scene, no matter what he did. As it was, he could feel himself blinking faster and faster, and before you knew it, he would burst into tears.

At last he answered the master with the familiar song, only in prose.

“How did I disappoint you, Ilya Ilich?” he said, almost weeping.

“How?” echoed Oblomov. “Have you ever considered what ‘other people’ are?”

He stopped, continuing to watch Zakhar.

“Shall I tell you?”

Zakhar turned around like a bear in his den, and his sigh filled the entire room.

“The ‘other people’—to whom you refer—are the cursed poor, crude, uneducated people who live in filth and poverty, in attics. They sleep outside in rags. What is there for people like that to do? Nothing. They guzzle potatoes and herring. Want casts them from pillar to post, and they’re running all the livelong day. They may indeed move to a new apartment. Look at Lyagaev, who tucks his ruler under his arm, bundles up his two shirts, and he’s on his way. ‘Where are you going?’ people say. ‘I’m moving,’ he says. That’s how it is for ‘other people.’ So am I, in your opinion, ‘other people’? Am I?”

Zakhar glanced at his master, shifted from one foot to the other, and was silent.

“What are ‘other people’?” continued Oblomov. “‘Other people’ are the kind of people who clean their own boots, dress themselves, and though they may sometimes look like gentlemen, they’re lying. They don’t even know what a servant is, and they have no one to send out. They run out for whatever they need themselves, they put the fuel in the stove themselves, and sometimes they even dust.”

“Lots of Germans are like that,” said Zakhar gloomily.

“Exactly so! And I? What do you think, am I ‘other people’?”

“Certainly you’re ‘other people’!” said Zakhar lamentably, still not understanding what his master meant. “God knows what’s come over you.”

“I’m certainly ‘other people,’ am I? Watch out, be careful what you say! Would you like to know how ‘other people’ live? ‘Other people’ work tirelessly and rush about, always busy,” continued Oblomov. “If they don’t work, they don’t eat. ‘Other people’ bow down. ‘Other people’ beg and demean themselves. And I? Go on, you decide. What do you think, am I ‘other people’? Am I?”

“Oh, please, sir, stop torturing me with these pitiful words!” implored Zakhar. “God in heaven!”

“So I’m ‘other people’! Do I rush about? Do I work? Do I not get enough to eat? Am I scrawny or pathetic to look at? Am I lacking for anything? It seems I have someone to serve me, to do for me! I’ve never once pulled on my own stockings for as long as I’ve lived, thank God! Am I going to worry? Why should I? And to whom am I speaking? Isn’t it you who has been looking after me since I was a child? You know all this. You’ve seen that I was raised tenderly, that I’ve never had to endure cold or hunger, I’ve never known want, I’ve never earned my living or done any kind of manual labor. So how is it you have the temerity to compare me to other people? Is my health like ‘other people’s’? Can I do everything, endure everything?”

Zakhar had lost all ability to understand Oblomov’s speech, but his lips had puffed out from inner agitation. The emotional scene was rumbling like a cloud overhead. He was silent.

“Zakhar!” repeated Ilya Ilich.

“What do you want, sir?” Zakhar whispered almost inaudibly.

“Get me some more kvass.”

Zakhar brought the kvass, and when Ilya Ilich had drunk his fill and handed back the glass, he was ready to head straight for his corner.

“Oh, no! Wait a minute!” began Oblomov. “I’m asking you. How could you insult your master so bitterly, the master you carried as a child, the master you’ve served all this time, the master who is your benefactor?”

Zakhar couldn’t take it anymore. The word “benefactor” was the last straw. He began blinking faster and faster. The less he understood of what Ilya Ilich was saying to him in his emotional speech, the sadder he became.

“It’s my fault, Ilya Ilich,” he began his hoarse repentance. “It was foolishness, truly foolishness I—”

Not understanding what he had done, Zakhar didn’t know what verb to use at the end of his speech.

“Whereas I,” continued Oblomov in the voice of an injured and unappreciated man, “will still be worrying day and night, laboring, sometimes even my head will burn and my heart sink. You don’t sleep at night, you toss and turn, you keep thinking how best . . . and about whom? For whom is it all? You, the peasants, and therefore, you, too. Perhaps you think, seeing me sometimes covered up over my head with the blanket, that I’m lying there like a blockhead, sleeping. No, I’m not sleeping, I’m constantly thinking serious thoughts, so that the peasants do not want for anything, so that they do not envy strangers, so that they mourn for me to the Lord God on Judgment Day and pray for the best for me at my funeral. Ungrateful peasants!” concluded Oblomov with bitter reproach.

Zakhar was thoroughly touched by these last pitiful words. He began sobbing quietly.

“Ilya Ilich, sir!” he implored. “Please stop! God bless you, how you go on! Oh, Holy Mother of God! What disaster has befallen us all of a sudden, out of the blue.”

“And you,” continued Oblomov, not listening to him, “you should be ashamed to say it! So this is the snake I’ve warmed in my breast!”

“Snake!” said Zakhar, throwing his hands up, and he was so overcome by weeping, it was as if twenty beetles had flown in and were buzzing around the room. “When did I bring up a snake?” he said amid his sobbing. “I never even dream of it, the unclean beast!”

Each had ceased to understand the other and, ultimately, himself.

“How is it you have the heart to say such a thing?” continued Ilya Ilich. “Especially when in my plan I’ve set aside a separate house for you, with a garden, and an allotment of grain, and I even settled your salary! You’re my manager, my major domo, my chargé d’affaires! You have the muzhiks bowing down to you; ‘Zakhar Trofimich’ this, and ‘Zakhar Trofimich’ that! But he’s still not satisfied, so he bestows the title of ‘other people’ on me! There’s a reward for you! What a fine way to honor his master!”

Zakhar continued sobbing, and Ilya Ilich was himself quite moved. While admonishing Zakhar he had been deeply touched in that moment by the awareness of the good deeds he had rendered to the peasants, and he concluded his final reproaches in a trembling voice, with tears in his eyes.

“All right, now go about your business,” he told Zakhar in a conciliatory tone. “No, wait. Get me some more kvass! My throat is all dried out. You should have guessed that. Can’t you hear how hoarse your master is? What you’ve made me do!”

“I hope you’ve realized your false step,” said Ilya Ilich when Zakhar brought him the kvass, “and from now on you won’t be comparing your master to other people. To assuage your guilt, you can smooth things over with the landlord, so that I don’t have to move. So that’s how you safeguard your master’s peace! You upset me thoroughly and robbed me of any useful new idea. And who did you rob? Yourself. It’s for you that I’ve devoted my whole self, for you that I resigned, for you that I sit in seclusion. All right, off with you! Look, it’s striking three! Only two hours to dinner, and what can you do in two hours? Nothing. But I have masses of things to do. Very well, I’ll put off the letter until the next post, and I’ll outline my plan tomorrow. All right, and now I’ll have a little lie-down. I’m utterly worn out. Lower the blinds and make sure they’re well shut, so I’m not disturbed. I may nap for an hour, but wake me at half past four.”

Zakhar began sealing his master up in his study. First he pulled the blanket over him and tucked it in, then he lowered the blinds, locked all the doors, and went back to his corner.

“He’ll be the death of you, that devil!” he grumbled as he wiped away the traces of tears and crawled onto his bench. “A real devil he is! A separate house, a garden, and a salary!” said Zakhar, who had only understood the last words. “The master says those pitiful words, and it’s like he’s stabbing me in the heart with a knife. This is my house and my garden and this is where I’ll turn my toes up!” he said, striking the bench in fury. “A salary! I don’t care how many coins you scrape together, you never have enough for tobacco or anything to treat your lady-friend. He can go to hell! You think, death will never come!”

Ilya Ilich lay on his back but did not fall asleep right away. He was thinking and thinking, worrying and worrying.

“Two disasters at once!” he said, wrapping himself in his blanket from head to foot. “Just try facing that!”

In actual fact, though, these two disasters, that is, the bailiff’s sinister letter and the move to the new apartment, had ceased to alarm Oblomov and had merely joined the ranks of disturbing recollections.

The disasters threatened by the bailiff are still a long ways off, he thought, and a lot could change before then. Rain might fix the grain, the bailiff might make up for the arrears. The runaway muzhiks might be “returned to their households at their place of residence,” as he writes.

Just where did they go, those muzhiks? he thought, and he delved into more of an aesthetic examination of this fact. I dare say they left at night, in the damp, without any bread. Where would they sleep? Not in the forest, surely? If only they’d sit still! A hut may smell nasty, but at least it’s warm.

What’s the point of worrying? he thought. My plan will be ready soon enough. Why frighten myself ahead of time? Oh my, I . . .

The thought of moving worried him somewhat more. This was a fresher, more recent disaster. In Oblomov’s reassuring spirit, though, even this fact had acquired its own history. Although he could vaguely envision the necessity of moving, especially since Tarantiev was now involved, nonetheless he mentally shifted this disturbing event in his life back at least a week, so now he had gained an entire week of tranquility!

Zakhar might even smooth this over so that there is no need to move at all, and perhaps this can all be avoided. They may postpone work until next summer or even altogether. They’ll get it done somehow. I cannot, simply cannot move!

Thus he would work himself up and calm himself down, in alternation, so that at last, in these conciliatory and calming words Oblomov might perhaps, somehow, this time find, as he always had, an ark filled with hopes and consolations, like our forefathers found in the ark of the covenant, and at the present moment he was using them to ward off the two disasters.

A faint but pleasant numbing sensation was running through his limbs and had just barely begun to cloud his emotions with sleep, the way the first timid frosts cloud the surface of the waters. Another minute and his consciousness would have flown off God knows where, but all of a sudden Ilya Ilich awoke and opened his eyes.

“But I haven’t washed! How can that be? I haven’t done anything at all,” he whispered. “I was going to set out my plan on paper, but I didn’t. I didn’t write to the chief of police, or to the governor, either. I started a letter to the building’s landlord but didn’t finish it, and I didn’t check the accounts or pay any money—and now the morning is lost!”

He thought it over. What is this? Would other people have done all this? flashed through his mind. Other people, other people. What are these “other people”?

He tried to compare himself seriously to “other people.” He began to think and think and now an idea was taking shape in his mind, an idea completely opposite to the one he had given Zakhar about “other people.”

He had to admit that other people would have finished all the letters, and in such a way that “which” and “that” never collided once. Other people would have moved to a new apartment, implemented their plan, and made the trip to the country.

I, too, could have done all that, after all, it occurred to him. After all, I think I know how to write. I used to write not just letters but more difficult things than that! What happened to all of that? And what is so terrible about moving? All it takes is the will! “Other people” never wear dressing gowns, he added to his description of “other people.” “Other people”—and at this he yawned—almost never nap, and “other people” enjoy life, go everywhere, see everything, and take an interest in it all. Whereas I’m not “other people”! he said, now with sorrow, and he lapsed into deep thought. He even freed his head from under the blanket.

There followed one of those clear, conscious moments in Oblomov’s life.

How frightening for him when suddenly, deep down inside, there arose a vivid and clear notion of human destiny and purpose, and when he caught a glimpse of the parallel between this purpose and his own life, all manner of vital questions stirred in his mind, one after the other, and raced chaotically, scarily, like birds aroused by a sudden ray of sunlight falling on a slumbering ruin.

He was saddened and pained by his backwardness and arrested moral growth and his heaviness, which got in the way of everything. Envy gnawed at him that other people lived so fully and expansively, whereas he felt as if a heavy stone had been left on the narrow and pitiful path of his existence.

Taking shape in his timid soul was the agonizing awareness that many aspects of his nature had failed to awaken altogether, others had only been barely moved, and not one of them had been developed to its fullest.

Meanwhile, he was painfully aware that a fine, bright principle was buried inside him, as if in its grave. Perhaps it had already died, or perhaps it was lying there, like gold in the bowels of a mountain, and it had long been time for his gold to become coin of the realm.

His treasure, however, was crushed under a deep and heavy deposit of rubble and silt. It was as though someone had stolen and buried deep inside him the treasures the world and life had presented to him. Something was preventing him from making a dash for the arena of life and rushing across it under full sail of his intellect and will. Some secret foe had placed a heavy hand on him at the start of his journey and had thrown him far off his direct human purpose.

There seemed to be no climbing out of this backwoods, this wilderness, to the straight path. There was forest all around him, and inside him it was growing denser and darker all the time, and the path was getting more and more overgrown. His shining awareness was waking up more and more rarely and only for a moment rousing his sleeping powers. His mind and will had been paralyzed long since and, apparently, irrevocably.

The events of his life had been reduced to microscopic proportions, but even those events were too much for him. He could not move from one to another but was tossed back and forth, as from one wave to the next, and he could not resist the waves’ resilience alone or let his reason take up pursuit of another.

This private confession left him bitter. His fruitless regrets over what was past and his burning pangs of conscience stung him like needles. He tried with all his might to throw off the burden of these reproaches, to find a guilty party and let loose their sting at him. But at whom?

“It’s all Zakhar’s fault!” he whispered.

Recalling the details of his scene with Zakhar, his face blazed with the fire of shame.

What if someone heard that? he thought, rigid at this thought. Thank God Zakhar won’t be able to relate it to anyone. Not that they’d believe it, thank God!

He took a breath, cursed himself, tossed and turned, and searched for the guilty party—but couldn’t find him. His oh’s and ah’s even reached Zakhar’s ears.

“That kvass’s got him all worked up in there!” grumbled Zakhar crossly.

Why am I like this? Oblomov asked himself, nearly in tears, and he hid his head under the blanket again. Why truly?

Having sought out in vain the hostile principle that was preventing him from living as he should, as “other people” lived, he sighed and shut his eyes, and a few minutes later slumber again began to shackle his senses, little by little.

“I too wanted something like that,” he said, trying hard to blink, “Except that nature has already insulted me so. But no, thank God, I can’t complain.”

After this a conciliatory sigh was heard. He made the transition from agitation to his normal state of tranquility and apathy.

“Evidently this is simply my fate. What am I to do now?” he whispered very softly, overcome by sleep.

“Except for the two thousand less in income,” he said loudly, all of a sudden, in his delirium. “Just a minute, wait a second”—and he half woke up.

“Still, it would be interesting to know why I’m like this,” he said again in a whisper. His eyelids had shut completely. “Yes, why? It must be because . . .” he tried to get the words out but couldn’t.

Thus he never did settle on a reason. His tongue and lips fell instantly, mid-word, and froze, as they were, half-open. Instead of the word, one heard another inhale, followed by the beginning of the even snoring of a man serenely asleep.

Sleep halted the slow and lazy flow of his thoughts and instantly transported him to another time, other people, and another place, where the reader and I will be transported as well in the next chapter.

IX

Oblomov’s Dream

Where are we? To what blessèd corner of the earth has Oblomov’s dream transported us? What wondrous land is this?

No, it’s true, there is no sea, no tall mountains, cliffs, or chasms, no slumberous forests—nothing grandiose, wild, and gloomy.

What is it for, the wild and grandiose? The sea, for example? Never mind about that! It brings man only sorrow; looking at it makes him feel like crying. The heart is flummoxed in the face of the boundless shroud of waters, and there is nothing upon which to rest one’s gaze, tormented as it is by the vast scene’s monotony.

The waves’ roar and maddened claps do not coddle the weak ear. They are constantly repeating their song, the same song since the beginning of the world, a song of somber and unresolved content. In it one hears the same moan and complaints, as if from some monster condemned to torment, and also piercing, sinister voices. The birds do not chirp around him; only taciturn seagulls fly desultorily along the shore, like the damned, circling above the water.

Powerless is the roar of the beast before these howls of nature, insignificant is the voice of man, and man himself is so small and weak, that he disappears imperceptibly in the fine details of the broad picture! Perhaps this is why looking at the sea distresses him so.

No, never mind that. Never mind the sea! Its very silence and immobility arouses no gratifying emotion deep down. In the barely perceptible vacillation of the watery mass, man constantly sees the same boundless, albeit slumbering, force which sometimes mocks his proud will so venomously and deeply buries his courageous intentions and his every effort and labor.

Nor are mountains and chasms created for man’s amusement. They are ominous and terrifying, like the bared claws and fangs of a wild beast aimed at him; they remind us all too vividly of our frailty and hold us in fear and longing for our life. Even the sky there, above the cliffs and chasms, seems far away and beyond our grasp, as if it had given up on men.

Such was not the peaceful corner where our hero suddenly found himself.

The sky there, on the contrary, seemed to hug the earth more tightly, not to aim its arrows more powerfully but merely to embrace it firmly, with love, spreading as low overhead as the trusty paternal roof to guard this elect corner from any and all adversity—or so it seemed.

The sun there shone bright and hot for about half the year and then moved away not suddenly but as if reluctant, turning to look back once or twice more at its favorite place and to bestow upon it in autumn, amid the foul weather, a clear, warm day.

The mountains there looked like mere models of those frightening mountains that rise up elsewhere and awe the imagination. They are a series of sloping hills ideal for riding down, frolicking, or, lying back or sitting, for contemplating the setting sun.

The river raced merrily, frisking and playing; it spilled into a broad pond here, dashed in a quick thread there, or quieted, as if lost in thought, and barely crawled over the pebbles, releasing quick-running streams to either side by whose murmuring it was so sweet to doze.

This entire corner, for fifteen or twenty versts around, presented a series of picturesque studies and cheerful, smiling landscapes. The sandy, sloping banks of the shining brook, the small bushes that descended the hill to the water, the crooked ravine with the stream at its bottom, and the birch grove—all of it seemed chosen on purpose, one better than the next, and masterfully drawn.

A heart tormented by upheavals or unfamiliar with them altogether would beg to hide away in this corner that time forgot and live in a happiness beyond imagining. Everything there promised a peaceful life of long duration, until one’s hair yellowed and one lapsed into an imperceptible sleep akin to death.

The year completed its cycle in due and untroubled course.

At the calendar’s instruction, spring arrived in March, when muddy streams ran down the hills and the earth thawed and released a warm steam. The peasant threw off his sheepskin jacket, came out into the air in just his shirt, and shielding his eyes with his arm, admired the sun at length, heaving his shoulders with satisfaction. Then he dragged his overturned cart first by one and then the other shaft or else examined and kicked the plow lying idly under its cover as he prepared for his usual labors.

Sudden blizzards did not return in spring to blanket the fields or snap the trees with snow.

Like a cold, unapproachable beauty, winter sustained its nature straight through to the legitimate season of warmth. It did not taunt with unexpected thaws or tyrannize with fantastic frosts. Everything followed in the usual, universal order prescribed by nature.

The snow and cold began in November, building toward Epiphany, when the peasant, should he leave his hut for a moment, invariably returned with hoarfrost on his beard. By February, the keen nose had caught a gentle whiff of imminent spring in the air.

But the summer! The summer was especially ravishing in this land. There one sought the fresh dry air filled not with lemon or laurel but simply the scent of wormwood, pine, and bird cherry. One sought clear days and the sun’s rays, which burned lightly, without singeing, and the sky, cloudless for nearly three months.

Once the bright days came, they lasted for three or four weeks at a stretch. The evenings there were warm and the nights close. The stars blinked affably and amicably in the heavens.

If it did rain, what a salutary summer rain it was! It would gush smartly, abundantly, dancing gaily, like the fat, hot tears of a man suddenly overjoyed. Yet, no sooner did it stop than the sun was once again surveying and drying the fields and foothills with its bright smile of love, and the entire land was again smiling back at the sun with happiness.

Joyfully did the peasant greet the rain: “What the rain gets wet, the sun dries out!” he said, offering up his face, shoulders, and back to the warm shower with pleasure.

Storms were only beneficial there, not frightening. They always happened at the same, set time, almost never omitting St. Ilya’s Day,* as if to maintain the tradition among the people. Even the number and strength of the lightning bolts were the same every year, as if the treasury released a certain measure of electricity for the year to the entire land.

Frightening storms and havoc were unheard of in this land.

The newspapers never ran anything of the kind about this corner blessed by God. Nor was anything ever printed, or heard, about this land except for the peasant widow Marina Kulkova, who at the age of twenty-eight gave birth to four infants at once, a fact printed—horrors!—even in the newspapers.

The Lord of heaven had sent down neither Egyptian plagues nor the ordinary kind. None of the inhabitants had ever seen or remembered any terrible heavenly signs, or balls of fire, or sudden darkness; no poisonous snakes lived there; the locust did not descend; there were no bellowing lions, no roaring tigers, not even any bears or wolves because there were no forests. Roaming the fields and village were only an abundance of masticating cows, bleating sheep, and cackling hens.

God knows whether a poet or dreamer would be content with nature in this peaceful corner. Those gentlemen, as we know, like to gaze at the moon and listen to the trilling of nightingales. They like a flirtatious moon who arrays herself in straw-yellow clouds and pokes mysteriously through the tree branches, or sprinkles sheaves of silver rays into her admirers’ eyes.

In this land, though, no one had ever known a moon like that. To them, the moon was just the moon, and it gazed good-naturedly, all eyes, upon the village and field, looking for all the world like a polished copper bowl.

In vain would a poet gaze at this moon with ecstatic eyes because it would look back at the poet naively, the way a round-faced country beauty responds to the passionate and eloquent gazes of a city spark.

Nor were nightingales heard in this land, perhaps because there were no shadowy shelters or roses there, although what an abundance of quail! In the summer, during the grain harvest, little boys caught them bare-handed.

People there did not consider quail an object of gastronomic luxury, however. No, such degeneracy had never penetrated the ways of this land’s inhabitants. The quail was a bird not included on their list of comestibles. There, it delighted man’s ear with its song. This was why a quail hung in a braided cage under the roof of nearly every house.

No poet or dreamer would be content with even the general view of this modest and unpretentious locale. They would not see there an evening in the Swiss or Scottish taste, when all nature—forests, water, hut walls, and sandy hills—is bathed in a crimson blaze and a cavalcade of men rides down the winding, sandy road, against this crimson backdrop, escorting some lady on an outing to a gloomy ruin and hastening to a mighty castle, where they could look forward to an episode about the War of the Roses recounted by an old man, a wild goat for dinner, and a ballad sung by the young miss to the strains of a lute—scenes so richly implanted in our imagination by Sir Walter Scott.

No, our land had none of this.

How quiet and sleepy it all was in the three or four villages that constituted this corner! They lay not far from one another and were as if tossed at random by a giant hand and scattered in different directions, and so they have remained to this day.

As one hut had landed at the brink of a ravine, so it had hung there since time immemorial, with one half in the air and propped up by three poles. Three or four generations had lived in it quietly and happily.

You’d think even a chicken would be afraid to enter, but there with his wife lived Onisim Suslov, a stout man who could not stand up straight in his own abode.

Not just anyone could enter Onisim’s hut, only the visitor who persuaded it to turn its back to the forest and face front.

The porch hung over the ravine, so to step onto the porch one had to hold onto the grass with one hand and the roof of the hut with the other and step straight onto the porch.

Another hut clung like a swallow’s nest to a foothill; three found themselves side by side there, while two lay at the very bottom of the ravine.

All was quiet and sleepy in the village. The mute huts stood wide open, and there was not a soul to be seen. Only flies swarmed and buzzed in the stifling air.

Entering a hut, in vain would you call out. Dead silence would be the reply. In the rare hut, a painful moan or muffled cough would come from an old woman living out her days on the stove, or a barefoot three year old with long hair would appear from behind the partition, wearing only a shirt and gaze silently, staring, at whoever had entered and shyly hide once again.

The same profound peace and quiet lay over the fields as well, only here and there a plowman, scorched by the heat, burrowed through the black field like an ant, leaning into his plow and bathed in sweat.

In this land, silence and unruffled calm reigned in the people’s ways as well. There had never been robberies, murders, or any terrible incidents there; neither strong passions nor courageous exploits had disturbed them.

What passions and endeavors were there to disturb them? They knew themselves well. The inhabitants of this land lived far from other people. The nearest villages and the district town were twenty-five or thirty versts away.

At the appointed time, the peasants carted their grain to the nearest landing on the Volga, which was their Colchis and Pillars of Hercules.* Once a year, some went to the fair, and that was the full extent of their dealings with anyone.

Their interests were concentrated on themselves, neither intersecting nor touching upon anyone else’s.

They knew that the “province,” by which they meant the provincial capital, was eighty versts away, but it was the rare person who had been there. They knew that beyond that was Saratov or Nizhni, and they had heard of Moscow and Peter and that beyond Peter lived the French or the Germans. But beyond that there began for them, as for the ancients, a dark world, unknown countries inhabited by monsters, men with two heads, and giants. After that came darkness—ending ultimately with the fish that carried the world on its back.

Since their corner was very nearly impassable, there was nowhere to glean the latest news about what was going on in the wider world. Carters selling wooden wares lived just twenty versts away and knew no more than they. They didn’t even have anything with which to compare their own daily life: whether they lived well or not; whether they were rich or poor; whether there was anything more they could want, that others had.

These happy people lived thinking that life simply could not be otherwise, confident that everyone else lived exactly the same way and that to live any other way was a sin.

Had they been told that other people plowed, sowed, reaped, and sold some other way, they would not have believed it. What passions or excitements could they know?

Like all human beings, they had their cares and weaknesses, they had their tax or quit-rent to pay, and they could be lazy and dreamy, but all this did not cost them much, nor did it stir their blood.

Over the last five years, out of several hundred souls, no one had died so much as a natural, to say nothing of a violent, death.

Yet, when someone did go to his eternal rest due to old age or some disease of old age, they could not stop wondering over such an unusual event there for a long time.

Meanwhile, it did not seem the least bit surprising, for example, that Taras the blacksmith had nearly steamed to death in his dugout, to the point that he had to be doused with water.

Of all the crimes, one, specifically—the theft of peas, carrots, and turnips from gardens—was very popular, and once two piglets and a chicken had disappeared at the same time, an incident that angered the entire environs and was ascribed unanimously to the cart that had passed through the night before carrying wooden wares to the fair. Otherwise, incidents of any kind were extremely rare.

Although, once a man had been found lying past the outskirts, in a ditch, by a bridge, evidently left behind by an artel that had passed through the village.*

The little boys were the first to notice him and ran in horror to the village with news of some terrible snake or werewolf lying in the ditch, adding that he had chased them and nearly eaten Kuzka.

The bolder muzhiks among them armed themselves with pitchforks and axes and proceeded en masse to the ditch.

“What’s your hurry?” said the old men, trying to calm them. “Is your neck that strong? What do you need with that? Leave it be. No one’s after you.”

But the muzhiks went anyway, and when they were fifty sazhens off, they started trying to rouse the monster with different voices, but there was no reply. They kept stopping and advancing.

In the ditch lay a muzhik with his head resting on a hillock; scattered around him was a sack and stick on which hung two pairs of bast sandals.

The muzhiks could not bring themselves to get any closer or to touch him.

“Hey! You! Brother!” they shouted in turn, some scratching the back of their heads, some their backs. “What’s with you? Who are you? Hey! You! What’re you doing there?”

The passerby made a movement as if to raise his head, but he couldn’t. Evidently, he was either unwell or exhausted.

One man finally decided to give him a poke with his pitchfork.

“Leave him be! Leave him!” shouted many. “How do we know what he is? He hasn’t said a word. He could be anyone. Leave him be, boys!”

“Let’s go,” said a few. “Honest. Let’s go. Who’s he to us, our uncle? Nothing but trouble!”

So they all went back to the village, where they told the old men that someone from away was lying there and wasn’t talking and God knew what he was doing there.

“From away? Then leave him be!” said the old men sitting on the bank, resting their elbows on their knees. “Let him alone! You had no call going there!”

Such was the corner of the world to which Oblomov was transported, in a flash, in his dream.

Of the three or four villages scattered there, one was Sosnovka and another Vavilovka, which were one verst apart.

Sosnovka and Vavilovka had been passed down by his father’s clan, the Oblomovs, and so were known under the general name of Oblomovka.

The seigniorial estate and residence were in Sosnovka. About five versts from Sosnovka was the settlement of Verkhlyovo, which had also belonged to the Oblomov family, once upon a time, and had passed into other hands long since. A few other randomly scattered huts were also part of this settlement.

The settlement belonged to a rich landowner who had never shown his face at his estate, which was run by a steward of German background.

Such was the entire geography of this corner of the world.

Ilya Ilich awoke one morning in his little bed. He was only seven years old. He was carefree and gay.

How pretty, rosy-cheeked, and plump he was! His little cheeks were so round that try as he might, no clown could ever puff his out like that.

His nurse waited for him to awaken. She began pulling on his stockings, but he wouldn’t let her and was naughty, kicking his feet. His nurse caught them and he and she had a good laugh.

At last she was able to get him on his feet. She washed him, combed his pretty head, and took him to see his mother.

Seeing his long-dead mother, Oblomov, even in his dream trembled with joy and ardent love for her. Two warm tears welled up in the sleeping man’s eyes and hung there.

His mother showered him with passionate kisses, then surveyed him with avid, worried eyes. “Were his little eyes cloudy?” she asked. “Did anything hurt?” she asked the nurse. “Did he sleep soundly, wake in the night, or toss in his sleep? Had he had a fever?” Then she took him by the hand and led him to the icon.

There, kneeling and putting one arm around him, she prompted him with the words of the prayer.

The boy repeated them distractedly, looking out the window, where the cool air and the scent of lilac poured into the room.

“Shall we go for a walk today, Mama?” he suddenly asked in the middle of the prayer.

“We shall, my darling,” she said quickly, keeping her eyes fixed on the icon and hurrying to finish the holy words.

The boy repeated them listlessly, but the mother invested them with her entire soul.

Then they went to see his father, and then to have their tea.

Around the tea table Oblomov saw his elderly aunt, who was eighty years old and lived with them and who, her head shaking from old age, was constantly grumbling at her maid, who served her from her place behind her chair. There, too, were three elderly spinsters, distant relatives of his father, his mother’s rather dotty brother-in-law, and a landowner of seven souls, Chekmenev, who was visiting them, as well as several old women and men.

This entire staff and suite of the Oblomov household swept up Ilya Ilich and began showering him with endearments and praise. He could barely wipe away the traces of these unsolicited kisses.

After that they began feeding him rolls, cookies, and creams.

Afterward, his mother petted him again and let him go out to play in the garden, around the courtyard, and at the pond, with a stern warning to his nurse not to leave the child alone, not to let him go near the horses, dogs, or goat, not to go too far from the house, and, most of all, not to let him go to the ravine, which enjoyed a bad reputation as the most frightening place thereabouts.

Once, they had found a dog there that was deemed rabid merely because it ran away from people when they gathered against it with pitchforks and axes and vanished somewhere over the hill. Carrion was brought to the ravine. Robbers were assumed to be in the ravine, as well as wolves and various other creatures which had never been seen in these parts or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

The child had not waited for his mother’s warnings, though; he had long been outside.

With joyful amazement, as if for the first time, he looked and ran all around his parents’ home, with its twisted gates, its wooden roof, which sagged in the middle and had gentle green moss growing on it, its ramshackle porch, various added wings and stories, and its neglected garden.

He burned to run up on the overhanging gallery that wrapped around the entire house to look at the river from there. But the gallery was dilapidated and barely holding up, and only the servants were allowed to walk on it; the masters did not.

He paid no mind to his mother’s prohibitions and was about to head for the tempting steps, but his nurse appeared on the porch and managed to catch him.

He ran from her to the hayloft, intending to climb the steep steps, but barely had she reached the hayloft when she had to rush to shatter his thoughts of crawling up to the dovecote, sneaking into the farmyard, and—God forbid!—going to the ravine.

“Lord have mercy, chasing that child is like chasing a whirligig! Now, won’t you sit here quietly, sir? You should be ashamed!” said the nurse.

Thus the nurse’s entire day, all her days and nights, were filled with a flurry of running, torment over or lively delight in the child, fear that he would fall and break his nose, tender emotion at his spontaneous childish caress, and vague anguish over his remote future, which alone made her heart beat faster. These worries warmed the old woman’s blood and fired her drowsy life, which might otherwise have been snuffed out long ago.

The child was not always so frisky, however. Sometimes he would suddenly grow calm seated beside his nurse and stare hard at everything. His childish mind observed everything being accomplished before him; it touched him deeply and grew and matured along with him.

The morning was magnificent. There was a chill in the air; and the sun was still not very high. The house, trees, dovecote, and gallery—everything—cast long shadows. In the garden and the yard, cool corners beckoned one to meditation and sleep. Only in the distance, the field of rye seemed to be on fire and the brook glittered and sparkled so in the sun that it hurt one’s eyes.

“Why is it, nurse, that here it’s dark and there it’s light but it’s going to be light there, too?” asked the child.

“Because, dear, the sun is heading toward the moon and doesn’t see it, so it’s gloomy, but as soon as it sees it far away, it will brighten up.”

The child pondered this and kept looking around. He saw Antip set out for water, and another Antip, ten times bigger than the real one, walk across the earth beside him, and the barrel looked as big as his house, and the horse’s shadow covered the entire meadow, and when the shadow had stepped only twice across the meadow it suddenly started going over the hill, before Antip could even drive out of the yard.

The child took two steps as well. One more step and he would go over the hill.

He wanted to go to the hill and see what had become of the horse. He was on his way to the gate when he heard his mother’s voice at the window:

“Nurse! Don’t you see the child has run out into the sun? Take him where it’s cool. If his head bakes it will hurt, his stomach will be upset, and he won’t eat. As it is you’re going to have him off to the ravine!”

“You naughty boy!” the nurse grumbled softly, dragging him onto the porch.

The child looked and observed with a sharp and imitative gaze at what the grown-ups were doing, at what they’d devoted their morning to, and how.

Not a single detail or feature escaped the child’s keen eye. The scene of domestic life was etched sharply in his soul, and his pliant mind was suffused with vivid examples and was unconsciously outlining a program for his own life based on the life that surrounded him.

It cannot be said that the morning went for naught in the Oblomov household. The tapping of knives chopping cutlets and greens in the kitchen flew all the way to the village.

From the servants’ hall came the hissing of the spindle and an old woman’s delicate voice. It was hard to tell whether she was weeping or improvising a plaintive song without words.

Outside, as soon as Antip returned with the barrel, women and coachmen emerged from the various corners with their buckets, troughs, and pitchers.

An old woman carried a cup of flour and a handful of eggs from the storehouse to the kitchen, and over there the cook suddenly splashed water out the window and doused Arapka, which had been looking out the window the entire morning, not taking its eyes off the yard as it gently swished its tail and licked its lips.

Nor was Oblomov himself—the old man—idle, either. All morning he sat by the window and gave his undivided attention to everything going on outside.

“Hey, Ignashka, you fool! What’re you carrying there?” he asked someone walking across the yard.

“I’m taking the knives to the servants’ hall for sharpening,” replied the other without looking at his master.

“All right then, go on, and mind you sharpen them well!”

Then he stopped a peasant woman:

“Hey, woman! Woman! Where’ve you been?”

“To the cellar, sir,” she said, stopping, and shielding her eyes with her arm, she looked at the window, “to get milk for the table.”

“All right then, go on, go on!” replied the master. “And mind you don’t spill that milk. And you, Zakharka, you imp, where are you running off to again?” he shouted later. “I’ll give you something to run off for! I can see this is your third time. Back to the front hall with you!”

So young Zakhar went back to doze in the front hall.

If the cows came in from the field, the old man was the first to worry about them being watered; if he saw a cur chasing a chicken out the window, he immediately took stern measures against such infractions.

His wife, too, was extremely busy. She spent several hours with Averka the tailor discussing how to sew Ilyusha a jacket out of her husband’s coat. She herself drew with chalk and watched to make sure Averka didn’t steal any fabric. Then she moved on to the maids’ room to tell each girl how much lace to tat that day. Then she invited Nastasya Ivanovna, or Stepanida Agapovna, or another of her suite, to take a stroll through the garden with her for some practical purpose: to see how the apples were ripening and whether any that had already ripened had fallen; to graft here, prune there, and so forth.

Her chief concern, however, was the kitchen and dinner. The entire house conferred about dinner. Even her elderly aunt was asked her advice. Each proposed a dish of her own: giblet soup for one, dumplings or brawn for another, or tripe, a red sauce or perhaps a white.

Each piece of advice was taken under advisement, discussed thoroughly, and then either accepted or rejected by final decision of the mistress of the house.

Either Nastasya Petrovna or Stepanida Ivanovna was constantly being sent to the kitchen to remind them to add this or cancel that, to bring sugar, honey, or wine for the meal, or to see whether the cook had used everything that had been issued.

Concern over food was the principal and most vital concern at Oblomovka. What calves were fattened there for the annual holidays! What fowl were raised! How many subtle considerations and how much work and care went into looking after those birds! The turkeys and chickens designated for name-days and other great days were fed nuts; the geese were deprived of motion and forced to hang in a sack, immobilized, for several days before the holiday, so that they swam in fat. What stores there were of preserves, pickles, and pastries! What honeys! What kvasses brewed! What pies baked at Oblomovka!

And so, until midday, all was bustle and care, and all was filled with this remarkable life, as packed as an anthill.

Nor did these industrious ants let up on Sundays or holidays. Then the tapping of knives in the kitchen rang out even more often and more loudly; the peasant woman made several journeys from storehouse to kitchen with double the flour and eggs; the poultry yard was filled with more screeches and bloodshed. A gigantic pie was baked, which the masters themselves were still eating the next day. On the third and fourth day, the leftovers went to the maids’ room; the pie lasted until Friday, so that one utterly stale end, without any filling, was granted, in the form of a special kindness, to Antip, who crossed himself and with a crackle dauntlessly destroyed this petrified curiosity, enjoying the awareness that this was the master’s pie more than he did the pie itself, much as an archeologist enjoys drinking a wretched wine from the shard of some millennial vessel.

The child kept looking and observing with his childish mind, which let nothing slip. He saw how midday and dinner followed a busy, well-spent morning.

It was a hot midday with not a cloud in the sky. The sun hung stock-still overhead and singed the grass. The air had ceased to flow and was hanging motionless. Neither a tree nor the water stirred, and over the village and fields lay an implacable silence, as if everything had died. A human voice rang out sonorously and far away in the emptiness. A fly could be heard going by and buzzing at twenty sazhens, and in the thick grass there was snoring, as if someone had flopped down there and was sleeping sweetly.

Dead silence reigned in the house as well. It was the hour of the universal postprandial nap.

The child saw that his father, his mother, his old aunt, and the suite had all wandered off to a corner of their own; whoever didn’t have one went to the hayloft, and another to the garden, while a third sought cool air on the inside porch and another covered his face with a handkerchief to keep off the flies and drifted off right there, where the heat was exhausting and the heavy dinner had laid him low. Even the gardener stretched out under a bush in the garden, beside his spade, and the coachman slept in the stables.

Ilya Ilich glanced into the servants’ hall, where everyone was lying side by side, on the benches, floor, and porches, leaving the children to their own devices. The children crawled around the yard and dug in the sand. With no one to bark at, even the dogs burrowed deep in their kennels.

A person could walk through the whole house and not encounter a soul. It would be easy to steal them blind and cart everything out of the yard; no one would have prevented it—had there been any thieves roaming the area.

It was an all-encompassing, invincible sleep, the spitting image of death. Everything was dead, except for all the snoring coming in every tone and tune and from every corner.

Occasionally, someone would lift his head in his sleep and look around blankly, in surprise, in both directions, and turn over on his other side or, without opening his eyes, spit half-asleep—smacking his lips or muttering under his breath—and fall back to sleep.

Someone else would hop up from his bed on both feet, quickly, without any advance preparation, as if he were afraid of losing precious minutes, grab his mug of kvass, and blow on the flies swimming there to make them move to the other side. This made the flies, hitherto motionless, begin to thrash, in hopes of improving their position. After he wet his whistle, he would fall back on his bed as if he’d been shot.

All this time the child watched and then watched some more.

After dinner, he again went out into the air with his nurse. But the nurse, despite all the strictness of her mistress’s orders and despite her own intention, could not resist the lure of sleep. She too was infected with this Oblomovka contagion.

At first she watched the child cheerfully, kept him from going far, grumbled sternly if he was naughty, and then, feeling the symptoms of the plague coming on, implored him not to go past the gates, not to touch the goat, and not to climb up to the dovecote or the gallery.

She made herself comfortable in a cool corner on the porch, on the cellar threshold, or simply on the grass, ostensibly to knit a stocking and watch the child. Before long, however, she was shushing him lazily and nodding her head.

That whirligig’s going to climb up to that gallery, just you watch, she thought, nearly asleep, or even worse . . . if he went to the ravine . . .

At this the old woman’s head bowed to her knees and the stocking fell from her hands. She lost sight of the child and started snoring ever so lightly, her mouth half-open.

This was the moment he had been waiting for, the moment his independence began.

He felt as if he were alone in all the world. He escaped from his nurse on tiptoe and surveyed everyone, to see who was sleeping where. He stopped and looked carefully around to see whether anyone woke up, spat, or muttered in his sleep, and then, with a sinking heart, he ran up to the gallery, ran all around over the creaking boards, climbed up to the dovecote, plunged deep into the garden, and listened to a beetle buzzing and watched its flight in the air until it was far away. He listened to something chirring in the grass, looked for it, and found the violator of the peace; he caught the dragonfly, tore off its wings, and watched to see what would come of it, or poked a straw through it and followed its flight with this addition. With pleasure, afraid to take a breath, he watched a spider suck the blood from a trapped fly and the poor victim thrash and buzz in its paws. The child ended it by killing both the victim and its torturer.

After that he clambered down into the ditch, dug around, searched for roots, scraped them off, and ate them to his heart’s content, preferring them to the apples and jam his mama gave him.

He ran out past the gates because he wanted to go to the birch grove. He thought it was so close that he could get there in five minutes, not going roundabout, along the road, but as the crow flies, across the ditch, the wicker fences, and the pits, but he was afraid. People said there were goblins there, and robbers, and frightful beasts.

He wanted to run off to the ravine, too, which was all of fifty sazhens from the garden. The child ran to the brink, squinted, and was about to glance down, as into the crater of a volcano, but suddenly all the rumors and legends about the ravine rose up before him, and he was horror-struck. He raced back more dead than alive, trembling with fear, and threw himself on his nurse, waking the old woman.

She startled awake, straightened the kerchief on her head, tucked a wisp of gray hair under it with her finger, and pretending she hadn’t been sleeping at all, looked suspiciously at Ilyusha and then the master’s windows and began clicking her needles with trembling fingers as she knit the stocking in her lap.

Meanwhile, the heat had begun to ease, and everything in nature had livened up. The sun was already moving toward the woods.

In the house, the silence was gradually broken. In one corner a door creaked, someone’s steps could be heard in the yard, and someone sneezed in the hayloft.

Soon after, a servant carried the huge samovar from the kitchen, hurrying, bent under its weight. People began gathering for tea. One had a creased face and eyes welling with tears; another had a red patch from lying on his cheek and temples; a third had talked in his sleep in a voice quite unlike his own. All this wheezing, sighing, yawning, head scratching, and stretching, in the struggle to wake up.

Dinner and nap had given rise to an unquenchable thirst. Thirst burns the throat. You might drink a dozen cups of tea, but it doesn’t help. Sighs were heard, and complaints. People resorted to cranberry juice, pear water, and kvass, and some even consulted the medical manual, to slake the dryness in their throat.

Everyone was seeking to alleviate their thirst as if it were some divine punishment. Everyone cast about, and everyone was in agony, like a caravan of travelers on the Arabian steppe unable to find an oasis anywhere.

The child was right there, beside his dear mama. He looked into the strange faces around him and listened to their languid, sleepy conversation. He enjoyed looking at them, and he wondered at all the foolish things they said.

After tea, everyone took up some occupation. One went to the stream and roamed quietly along its banks, kicking pebbles into the water. Another sat down by a window and caught every fleeting phenomenon with his eyes, whether a cat running across the yard or a jackdaw flying by. The observer pursued both with his gaze and the tip of his nose, turning his head first right, then left. Thus dogs sometimes like to sit at the window for days on end, resting their head under the dear sun and painstakingly surveying anyone who walks by.

Ilyusha’s mother rested his head in her lap and slowly ran her fingers through his hair, admiring its softness and urging both Nastasya Ivanovna and Stepanida Tikhonovna to admire it as well. She discussed Ilyusha’s future with them, making him the hero of some brilliant epic she had created. The others promised him mountains of gold.

But now dusk was beginning to fall. In the kitchen again the fire crackled, and again the staccato tapping of knives was heard. Dinner preparations were under way.

The servants had gathered by the gate, where you could hear a balalaika and laughter, and some were playing tag.

By now the sun was dropping over the forest. It cast a few almost warm rays, which pierced the entire forest in a fiery streak, spilling gold vividly over the tops of the pines. Then the rays died out, one by one. The last ray lingered for a long time; like a slender needle, it pierced the canopy of branches, but then it too went out.

Objects were losing their shape. Everything coalesced first into a gray and then a darker mass. The birds’ singing gradually let up, and soon after they fell completely silent, except for one stubborn bird which, in defiance of all the others, amid the general silence, chirped monotonously, with pauses, but less and less often, and even that bird eventually whistled weakly, tunelessly, one last time, fluttered up, lightly stirring the leaves around it . . . and fell asleep.

Everything fell silent. Only the grasshoppers chirred louder and louder, trying to outdo one another. White vapors rose from the earth and spread over the meadow and river. The river, too, quieted; a little while later something splashed in it one last time and it became perfectly still.

It smelled of damp and was growing darker and darker. The trees were grouping together into monsters; it was frightening in the forest, where something might suddenly creak, as if one of the monsters were going from its place to another and had snapped a dry twig underfoot.

The first little star shone brightly in the sky, like a living eye, and lights flickered in the windows of the house.

The moments of nature’s universal, triumphant silence had come, those minutes when the creative mind works harder, poetic thoughts seethe more ardently, the heart’s passion blazes more brightly and its longing aches more painfully, the grain of a criminal thought ripens in a cruel soul more imperturbably and powerfully—and when at Oblomovka everyone sleeps so soundly and peacefully.

“Let’s go for a walk, Mama,” said Ilyusha.

“What an idea. Good heavens! If we go for a walk now,” she replied, “it’s damp, and your feet will get chilled. And it’s frightening. The goblin is about now, and he carries off little children.”

“Where does he carry them to? What is he like? Where does he live?” asked the child.

And his mother gave her unbridled fantasy free rein.

The child listened to her, opening and closing his eyes until, at last, he was overtaken by sleep. His nurse came, took him from his mother’s lap, and carried the sleepy boy away, his head hanging over her shoulder, to bed.

“Now this day is passed, praise God!” said the people of Oblomovka as they lay down in bed, groaning and making the sign of the cross over themselves. “We lived it well. God grant tomorrow be just the same! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”

Then Oblomov dreamed of another time. One endless winter’s night he pressed close to his nurse, and she whispered a story to him about a fantastic place where there was no night or cold, where miracles happened all the time, the rivers flowed with milk and honey, and no one did anything all year round, and all they knew, all the livelong day, were fine lads like Ilya Ilich and beauties the likes of which no tale has told nor pen described, living lives of pleasure.

There was a good fairy there, too, the one who appears to us sometimes in the form of a pike and who chooses a favorite, quiet and harmless—a lazy man, in other words, whom everyone insults—and she showers him, for no reason whatever, with all manner of good things. Then he goes and has himself a good meal and dresses himself in a fine coat and finally marries some fabulous beauty, a Militrisa Kirbityevna.

The child, all eyes and ears, hung on every word of her story.

His nurse (or perhaps it was the legend) so artfully avoided in the story everything which did in fact exist that one’s imagination and mind, permeated with the fantasy, remained enslaved to it until old age. With all her good nature, his nurse recounted the tale of Emelyan the Fool, that wicked and perfidious satire on our forefathers and, perhaps, on ourselves as well.

Although the adult Ilya Ilich later did find out that there were no rivers of milk and honey and no good fairies, and although he would joke and smile at his nurse’s legends, this smile was not sincere but was accompanied by a secret sigh because he confused the fairytale with life and grieved at times, unconsciously, that the fairy tale was not life, and vice versa.

He could not help but dream of a Militrisa Kirbityevna, and he was constantly drawn to that other land which knew only pleasure and where there were no cares or woes. He retained for all time a tendency to want to lie on the stove, walk around in fine clothes he had not earned, and eat at the good fairy’s expense.

Both old man Oblomov and old man Oblomov’s father had listened as children to the same fairytales, which had been passed down in the stereotypical edition of days gone by, in the mouths of nurses and tutors, down through the ages and generations.

His nurse, meanwhile, was drawing another picture for the child’s imagination.

She told him of the deeds of our Achilles and Ulysses, of the valor of Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Polkan the Bogatyr, and Kolechishcha the Pilgrim, about how they traveled through Old Russia and smote countless hordes of infidels and how they vied over who could drink down a goblet of green wine in one breath without a murmur. Then she talked about evil robbers and sleeping princesses, about towns and men turned to stone. Eventually, she moved on to our demonology, the living dead, monsters, and werewolves.

With Homerian simplicity and good nature and the same stirring faithfulness to detail throwing her picture into relief, she embedded in his childish memory and imagination the Iliad of Russian life, created by our own Homers in those obscure times when man had yet to make peace with the menaces and mysteries of nature and life, when he trembled at the werewolf and goblin and Alyosha Popovich sought protection from the disasters that surrounded him, and when miracles reigned in the air, water, forest, and field.

The life of man at that time was frightening and uncertain. It was dangerous for him to cross his own threshold because if he didn’t watch out, a beast might gore him or a robber slit his throat. An evil Tatar might take away all he had, or a man might vanish, without a trace.

Then, suddenly, heavenly signs would appear, pillars and balls of flame, and there, above a fresh grave, a flame would blaze up, or someone would seem to be walking in the forest, as if carrying a lantern, laughing horribly, his eyes flashing in the darkness.

There was so much that happened to man himself that was hard to understand. A man could live long and well and then suddenly say something he shouldn’t, or start shouting in a voice not his own, or walk in his sleep at night. Out of the blue he might start pounding and beating someone else to the ground, whereas just before this happened a hen had crowed like a rooster and a raven had cawed on the roof.

A weak man could lose heart, gazing around at life aghast, and seek in his imagination the key to his own secrets as well as those of the nature that surrounded him.

Or perhaps the sleep, the perpetual quiet of this languid life, and the absence of movement or any authentic terrors, adventures, and dangers compelled man to create amid the natural world another fantastic world and in it search for revelry and entertainments for his idle imagination or a clue to the ordinary concatenations of circumstances and causes for phenomena outside the phenomena themselves.

Our poor ancestors groped their way through life. They were not inspired, nor did they even try to keep their will in check, but then they naïvely wondered or were horrified at discomfort and evil and tried to wring the reasons for them out of nature’s mute and obscure hieroglyphs.

For them, death occurred because a dead man had been carried out of the gate head first rather than feet first; a fire because a dog had barked outside a window at three o’clock in the morning. And so they took care to see the dead were carried out of the gate feet first, and they always ate the same thing, and likewise they slept, as before, on the bare grass. They beat a barking dog or drove it from the yard and shook sparks from the torch into a crack in the damp earthen floor.

To this day, surrounded by a harsh, irrational reality, the Russian likes to believe the bewitching tales of days gone by, and it may be a very long time before he surrenders this belief.

Listening to his nurse’s tales of our golden fleece—the Firebird—and about the walls and hiding places in the magic castle, the little boy would brace himself, imagining himself a hero of deed, and shivers would run down his spine, or else he would anguish over the brave man’s failures.

Story flowed after story. His nurse narrated with zeal, vividly, enthusiastically, and at times inspiredly, because she herself half-believed the stories. The old woman’s eyes sparked with fire, her head shook from excitement, and her voice rose to unaccustomed notes.

The child, engulfed by a mysterious horror, would press close to her with tears in his eyes.

Whether the story turned to the living dead rising from their graves at midnight, to victims languishing, imprisoned by a monster, or to a bear with a wooden leg that walked from village to village searching for its natural leg that was cut off, the child’s hair would stand on end. His childish imagination would freeze, then boil up. He experienced an agonizing, sweetly painful process; his nerves went taut, like strings.

His nurse gloomily repeated the bear’s words: “Creak and creak, you disgrace of a leg. I went from hamlet to hamlet and village to village. All the peasant women were asleep save one. She was sitting on my hide, cooking my flesh, and spinning my fur”—and so on. When the bear at last entered the hut and prepared to grab his leg’s thief, the child could bear it no longer. He rushed into his nurse’s arms trembling and squealing. Tears of fright sprang forth, and at the same time he laughed with joy that he was not in the claws of the beast but on the bench, beside his nurse.

The boy’s imagination was populated by strange ghosts. Fear and longing had taken their place deep inside him and for a long time to come, perhaps forever. He looked around sadly and saw harm and disaster in everything and was always dreaming of that magical place free of evil, troubles, and sorrows where Militrisa Kirbityevna lived and where they gave you fine food and clothing for nothing.

Fairytales held their sway not only over Oblomovka’s children but over the adults as well, until the day they died. Everyone in the house and village, from the master and his wife to the sturdy blacksmith Taras—everyone trembled at something in the dark evening. Any tree could turn into a giant then, any bush into a den of robbers.

Shutters rattling and the wind howling in the chimney made men, women, and children alike turn pale. On Epiphany, no one would go past the gate alone after ten o’clock at night; and on Easter no one would dare go to the stables at night, for fear of coming upon a house spirit there.

At Oblomovka they believed in everything: both werewolves and the living dead. If someone told them the haystack roamed through the field, they would believe it without a second thought. If someone spread a rumor that this here was not a sheep but something else, or that some Marfa or Stepanida was a witch, they would be afraid of the sheep and Marfa both. It would never occur to them to ask why the sheep was no longer a sheep or why Marfa had become a witch, and they would fall upon anyone who had the temerity to doubt it, so powerful was the belief in the miraculous at Oblomovka!

Later Ilya Ilich would see that the world was arranged quite simply, that the dead did not rise from their graves, and that the moment giants appeared they were immediately put in a sideshow and robbers into prison. But if his faith in ghosts per se had fallen by the wayside, he held onto a residue of fear and unaccountable anguish.

Ilya Ilich had learned that there were no disasters due to monsters, but what disasters there were he scarcely knew, and at every step he expected something terrible and was afraid. Even now, when left in a darkened room, or seeing a corpse, he would shudder from the sinister anguish that had been cast inside him as a child. Laughing at his fears come morning, he again turned pale in the evening.

Continuing, Ilya Ilich suddenly saw himself as a boy of thirteen or fourteen.

By then he was studying at Verkhlyovo, about five versts from Oblomovka, with the steward there, a German, Stolz, who ran a small boarding school for the children of the local gentry.

Stolz had a son of his own, Andrei, who was almost the same age as Oblomov, and Stolz had also been given a boy who almost never studied but suffered rather from scrofula and spent his entire childhood with his eyes or ears bandaged and crying silently over the fact that he did not live with his grandmother but in a stranger’s house, among malefactors, and that there was no one to be kind to him and no one to bake him his favorite pie.

Apart from these children there were as yet no others at the school.

It could not be helped, so father and mother sat their pet Ilyusha at his books. This cost them tears, howls, and tantrums. Finally they took him off to school.

The German was a practical and strict man, like almost all Germans. Perhaps Ilyusha might have learned something well with him if Oblomovka had been more like fifty versts from Verkhlyovo. As it was, though, how could he? The spell of the Oblomovka atmosphere, way of life, and habits reached all the way to Verkhlyovo, which, after all, had once been Oblomovka as well. There, apart from Stolz’s house, everything breathed the same primordial idleness, simple ways, quiet, and stillness.

The child’s mind and heart had been filled with the pictures, scenes, and ways of this life before he had seen his first book, and who knows how early the development of the intellectual germ in a child’s brain begins? How can one discern the birth of the first ideas and impressions in an infant’s soul?

Perhaps before a child has barely spoken a word, and perhaps not at all, perhaps before he is even walking, let alone speaking, merely looking at everything with that intent, mute, child’s gaze that adults call stupid, perhaps then he already sees and guesses the meaning of and connection among the phenomena of his environment, only he does not admit this either to himself or to others.

Perhaps Ilyusha had long since noticed and understood what people were saying and doing in his presence: his father, wearing his velveteen trousers and brown quilted jacket, knowing only how to pace from corner to corner the livelong day, his hands clasped behind his back, sniffing tobacco and blowing his nose; and his mother going from coffee to tea, and from tea to dinner. He knew his parent would never dream of not believing how many haycocks had been harvested or mowed, or of fining someone for a misdeed, but just fail to give him a handkerchief quickly enough and he would start shouting about how things had gone to hell in a hand basket and turning the entire house upside down.

Perhaps his child’s mind had long since decided that the way the adults around him lived was the right way and there was no other. How else would you have him decide? But how did the adults at Oblomovka live?

Did they ever ask themselves why life had been granted them? God only knows. If so, how did they reply? In all likelihood, they didn’t. It seemed to them perfectly simple and clear.

They had never heard of the so-called life of labor, of people who bore heavy cares in their breast, who scurried from corner to corner over the face of the earth or committed their life to constant, unending labor.

The people of Oblomovka had a hard time believing in emotional upheaval. They did not accept as life the round of constant aspirations to go somewhere or achieve something. They feared a superfluity of passion like fire; just as elsewhere a person’s body quickly burned up from the volcanic work of an inner fire of emotion, so the Oblomovka soul drowned peacefully, without obstacle, in their soft bodies.

Life did not brand them with untimely wrinkles or morally devastating blows and infirmities, as it did others.

These good people understood life as nothing other than an ideal of tranquility and inaction, which was disturbed from time to time by various unpleasant coincidences, such as illnesses, losses, quarrels, and, oh yes, labor.

They endured labor as a punishment laid upon our forefathers in times gone by, but they could not love it, and where there was the chance always avoided it, finding this both possible and proper.

They never troubled themselves with any vague intellectual or moral questions. This was why they always bloomed with health and good cheer and why they lived so long. At forty, the men looked like youths; the old men did not battle a long, tortuous death but rather lived to the point of impossibility and died more or less by stealth, quietly falling still and imperceptibly releasing their last breath. Thus the common wisdom that people used to be stronger.

Stronger indeed. In the old days, people were in no hurry to explain to a child the meaning of life or to prepare him for it as for something arduous. They did not weary him over books, which give rise in the mind to so many questions, swallow up the head and heart, and shorten life.

The standard for life was passed on to them ready-made by their parents, who had accepted it, also ready-made, from their grandfather, and their grandfather from their great-grandfather, with an oath to preserve its integrity and inviolability, like the Vestal flame. As it was in the time of their grandfathers and fathers, so it was in the time of Ilya Ilich’s father, and so it may still be today at Oblomovka.

What did they have to ponder or fret about? What was there to learn, what goals to achieve?

They needed nothing. Life, like a tranquil river, flowed passed them. All they had to do was sit on the bank of that river and observe the inevitable phenomena which were presented to each of them in turn, without summons.

So to the imagination of the sleeping Ilya Ilich there began to be revealed, also in turn, like tableaux vivants, first, the three main acts of life that had been played out both in his family and among his relatives and acquaintances: birth, wedding, and funeral.

Then came a long and colorful procession of its subdivisions, both gay and sad: christenings, name-days, family celebrations, fast days, feast days, noisy dinners, family gatherings, welcomes, congratulations, and official tears and smiles.

All this passed very precisely, with all due pomp and circumstance.

He even pictured familiar faces and their miens at various rites, their care and concern. You could give them any ticklish job of matchmaking you pleased, any formal wedding or name-day you pleased, and they would celebrate it according to all the rules, without the slightest omission. Whom to seat where, what to serve and how, who should ride with whom at the ceremony, whether to heed an omen—in all of this no one ever made the least mistake at Oblomovka.

Didn’t they know how to raise a child there? One had only to glance at what pink-cheeked and heavy Cupids the women there were carrying and leading around. They stood by their conviction that children should be fat, white, and healthy.

They turned their back on spring, had no wish to know it, until, at its beginning, they had first baked a pastry lark. How could they not know and do this?

Herein lay all their life and learning, herein all their sorrows and joys. This was why they drove out any other care and sadness and knew no other joys. Their life teemed exclusively with these fundamental and inevitable events, which provided unending food for head and heart.

With a heart beating from excitement they looked forward to a rite, a feast, or a ceremony. After they had christened, married off, or buried someone, they would forget the man himself and his fate and plunge into their usual apathy, from which they would be dragged by a new such instance—a name-day, a wedding, and so forth.

No sooner was a child born than the parents’ first concern was to perform all the rituals propriety demanded and as accurately as possible, without the least omission, that is, to offer a feast after the christening, whereupon their anxious care of him began.

A mother set herself and the nurse the task of raising a healthy child and protecting him from catching cold, from the evil eye, and from other hostile circumstances. They made every effort to ensure that the child was always happy and ate a lot.

As soon as the fine fellow was on his feet, that is, once he no longer needed a nurse, the secret desire stole into his mother’s heart to find him a life’s companion—the healthier and pinker-cheeked the better.

Again an era began of rituals, feasts, and finally the wedding, the focus of life’s full pathos.

Then the reiterations would begin: the birth of children, the rituals, and the feasts, until funerals changed the stage-sets, though not for long. These individuals would cede their place to others, children would become youths and at the same time suitors, they would marry and produce more just like themselves, and in this way life would stretch on, following this program, in a continuous, homogenous fabric, breaking off imperceptibly right at the grave.

True, at times other cares did embroil them, but the people of Oblomovka met them for the most part with stoic steadfastness, and the cares that circled overhead raced past like birds that fly toward a smooth wall and, finding nowhere to nest, flap their wings in vain against the hard stone and fly on.

Thus, for example, once, part of the gallery on one side of the house suddenly collapsed and buried under its ruins a brood hen and her chicks. It would have fallen on Aksinya, Antip’s wife, as well, who was wont to make herself comfortable under the gallery with her spinning, but at the time, to her good fortune, she had gone for more flax.

The house was thrown into an uproar. Everyone, from little to big, came running and was horrified at imagining that the mistress herself or Ilya Ilich might have been walking by instead of the brood hen and her chicks.

Everyone exclaimed and began blaming one another for not having thought of it long ago: one should have said something, another should have ordered repairs, and a third should have made them.

Everyone marveled that the gallery had collapsed, whereas they had only just been marveling at how long it had held up!

The worry and discussion began about how to remedy the matter. They regretted the brood hen and chicks and slowly dispersed to their own places, having strictly forbidden anyone to take Ilya Ilich near the gallery.

Then, a few weeks later, Andryushka, Petrushka, and Vaska were ordered to haul the collapsed boards and railings to the sheds so they wouldn’t be lying in the road, and there they lay scattered until spring.

Old man Oblomov, every time he saw the boards from his window, would be beset by the thought of the repair. He called in the carpenter and began to consult on how best to go about it, whether to build a new gallery or raze what was left as well. Then he would let the carpenter go home, saying, “Leave me, and I’ll think it over.”

This continued until Vaska or Motka informed the master that, you see, when he, Motka, had climbed onto the remains of the gallery that morning, the corners had stood quite away from the walls. Before you knew it there was going to be another collapse.

Then the carpenter was called in for a final consultation, as a consequence of which it was decided for now to prop up the remaining portion of the surviving gallery with the old remnants, which was in fact done by the end of that month.

“So! The gallery is getting started again!” the old man told his wife. “Just look how handsomely Fedot has set the beams, just like the columns at the marshal of the nobility’s home! See, it’s fine now, and it will be for a long time to come!”

Someone reminded him that it would be appropriate to fix the gate as well and repair the porch, or else, they said, not only would cats be falling through the steps but hogs would be getting into the cellar.

“Yes, yes, we should,” replied Ilya Ivanovich carefully, and he went immediately to survey the porch. “Indeed, look, it is very rickety,” he said, rocking the porch with his foot, like a cradle.

“Oh, it was rickety when it was made,” remarked someone.

“So what if it was?” replied Oblomov. “At least it didn’t fall apart. It hasn’t stood there for sixteen years without repair for nothing. A wonderful job Luka did then! Now there was a carpenter’s carpenter. He’s dead, may he rest in peace. Now they’re spoiled; they don’t do things right.”

He turned his eyes in the other direction, and the porch, they say, is just as rickety to this day, and it still hasn’t fallen apart. Evidently, that Luka was indeed a splendid carpenter.

Although, one must give his masters their due as well. In any disaster or discomfort they were much concerned and were even known to become heated and angry. How, they said, could this or that be neglected or abandoned? Measures had to be taken immediately. And all they talked about was repairing the footbridge over the ditch or fencing off the garden in one place so the livestock wouldn’t spoil the trees because all the wicker in one place was lying on the ground.

Ilya Ivanovich extended his concern even to the point that one day, while walking through the garden, he lifted up the wicker with his own hands, grunting and groaning, and ordered the gardener to put up two posts immediately. Thanks to this decisiveness of Oblomov’s, the wicker fence lasted the entire summer and only in the winter was it felled again by snow. Eventually three new boards were laid on the footbridge, immediately after Antip fell off it, with his horse and barrel, into the ditch. Before he could recuperate from his injury, the footbridge had already been given its finishing touches.

The cows and goats, too, got into the garden after the fence again. They only managed to strip the currant bushes and set upon their tenth linden but had not reached the apple orchard when the order came to set the fence in the ground properly and even dig a small ditch alongside it. The two cows and the goat caught in the act paid the price. They were given a sound thrashing.

Ilya Ilich also dreamed of the large dark sitting room in his parent’s home, the old ash chairs, always slip-covered, the huge, clumsy, hard sofa upholstered in faded and stained but sturdy blue wool, and the one large leather armchair. A long winter’s evening was setting in. His mother was sitting on the sofa with her feet tucked under her lazily knitting a child’s stocking, yawning and scratching her head with her needle from time to time. Alongside her sat Nastasya Ivanovna and Pelageya Ignatievna, their noses buried in their work, assiduously sewing something for Ilyusha for the holiday, or for his father, or for themselves.

His father, hands clasped behind his back, paced back and forth across the room, in perfect contentment, or sat down in his chair, and after a moment again began to pace, listening carefully to the sound of his own footsteps. Then he sniffed some tobacco, sneezed, and sniffed some more.

A single tallow candle burned dimly in the room, something allowed only on winter and autumn evenings. In the summer months, everyone tried to go to bed and rise without candles, in the daylight.

This was done in part out of habit, in part for reasons of economy. When it came to any object not made at home but acquired through purchase, the people of Oblomovka were stingy in the extreme.

They would gladly slaughter an excellent turkey or a dozen chickens for a guest’s arrival, but they would not put one extra raisin in a dish and would turn pale should that guest think to pour himself a glass of wine without permission.

Actually, such degeneracy almost never occurred there. Only a wanton, someone who had lost all respect, would do such a thing, and such a guest would never be allowed back.

No, those were not the ways there. A guest would not touch anything until he had been entreated three times. He knew full well that a single entreaty more often held a request that he refuse the dish or wine proffered rather than taste it.

Nor would they light two candles for just anyone. A candle was purchased in town, for money, and was kept, like all purchased items, under the mistress’s key. Candle ends were carefully counted and stored away.

As a general rule, they did not like to spend money, and no matter how essential an item, the money for it was always given out with great regret, even if the expense was insignificant. A significant expenditure was accompanied by moans, wails, and curses.

The people of Oblomovka would rather endure any manner of discomfort—and even had it ingrained in them not to consider it a discomfort—than spend money.

This was why the sofa in the sitting room had been covered in stains for such a long time and why Ilya Ivanich’s leather armchair was only called leather, whereas in fact it was either bast or rope. Only one scrap of leather remained, on the back; it had been five years since the last remaining section had shredded and fallen off. This may have been why all the gates were crooked and the porch rickety. But to pay two, three, or five hundred rubles for something, no matter how necessary, seemed to them tantamount to suicide.

Hearing that one of the local young landowners had traveled to Moscow and there paid three hundred rubles for a dozen shirts, twenty-five rubles for boots, and forty rubles for a vest for his wedding, old man Oblomov crossed himself and said with an expression of horror, sputtering, that “a fellow like that ought to be put behind bars.”

Generally speaking, they were deaf to political economy’s truths about the need for rapid and lively turnover of capital and about improving productivity and exchanging goods. In the simplicity of their hearts they understood and executed capital’s sole purpose: to be kept in a chest.

In the chairs in the sitting room, in various positions, sat and wheezed the house’s inhabitants or regular visitors.

For the most part, a deep silence reigned among the company. Everyone saw everyone else daily, their intellectual treasures had been mutually excavated and learned, and very little news was received from outside.

It was quiet, the silence broken only from time to time by the steps of Ilya Ivanovich’s heavy work boots, the pendulum of the clock ticking softly in its case on the wall, or Pelageya Ignatievna or Nastasya Ivanovna snapping or biting off a thread.

Thus half an hour would pass sometimes before anyone would yawn out loud and cover his mouth, saying, “Lord have mercy!”

After him his neighbor would yawn, then the next opened his mouth, slowly, as if on command, and so on, and the infectious play of air in lungs made the complete circuit, sometimes bringing a tear to someone’s eye.

Or Ilya Ivanich would walk over to the window, look out, and say with some surprise, “It’s only five o’clock, but look how dark it is outside!”

“Yes,” someone would say. “At this time of year it’s always dark. The long evenings are setting in.”

In the spring, they would be amazed and delighted that the long days were setting in. But if you were to ask them what good these long days were to them, they could not tell you.

And again they would fall silent.

But if someone tried to light something off a candle and suddenly snuffed it out, everyone would shudder, and someone would invariably say, “An unexpected visitor!”

Sometimes a conversation about this would ensue.

“Who could the visitor be?” the mistress of the house would say. “Not Nastasya Faddeyevna, surely? Oh, if only it were she! But no, she won’t be here before the holiday. What a joy that would be! How she and I would embrace and have a good cry together! We could go to matins and vespers together. Not that I can keep up with her! I may be younger, but I can’t stand as long!”

“When was it she left us?” asked Ilya Ivanovich. “After St. Ilya’s Day was it?”

“What a thought, Ilya Ivanich! You’re always mixing things up. She couldn’t wait for Whitsunday,” his wife corrected him.

“I thought she was here for St. Peter’s,” objected Ilya Ivanovich.

“You’re always going on so!” his wife would say reproachfully. “You argue and only disgrace yourself.”

“Well, how could she not have been here for St. Peter’s? We were still baking all the mushroom pies then, and she loves them so.”

“Why, that’s Maria Onisimovna who loves mushroom pies. How could you not remember? Maria Onisimovna stayed until St. Prokhor’s and St. Nikanor’s, not St. Ilya’s.”

They marked time by the holidays, seasons, and various family and domestic events, without ever referring to months or dates. Perhaps this came about in part as well because not only Oblomov himself but the others as well kept confusing both the names of the months and the order of the dates.

A defeated Ilya Ivanovich fell silent, and once again the entire company plunged into somnolence. Ilyusha had flopped down behind his mother and was dozing as well, sometimes quite asleep.

“Yes,” one of the guests would say later with a deep sigh, “that husband of Maria Onisimovna, the departed Vasily Fomich, what a man he was, God bless him, so healthy, and he died! And before he’d reached his sixtieth birthday. A man like that should live to be a hundred!”

“We’re all going to die, and when we do is God’s will,” objected Pelageya Ignatievna, and she sighed. “Some die, but the Khlopovs, they barely have time to christen them. They say Anna Andreyevna has given birth again. This is her sixth.”

“Anna Andreyevna isn’t the only one!” said the mistress of the house.

“Once they marry off that brother of hers the children will start coming, and then what fuss and bother there’ll be! The younger boys are growing up, too, and they’re being eyed for suitors. You want to marry off your daughters, but where are the suitors? Nowadays, they all want a dowry, don’t you know, and they all want it in cash money.”

“What’s this?” asked Ilya Ivanovich, walking over to the conversation.

“What we’re saying is that . . .”

And they repeated the story for him.

“And there you have the life of man!” intoned Ilya Ivanovich instructively. “One man dies, another is born, a third marries, and here we are all getting older, not just from year to year but from one day to the next! Why is that so? Wouldn’t it be something if every day was like yesterday, and yesterday like tomorrow! It’s sad, come to think of it.”

“The old get older, and the young grow up!” said someone in the corner in a sleepy voice.

“We should be praying to God more and not thinking about things!” noted the mistress of the house sternly.

“True, true,” responded Ilya Ivanovich in a cowardly stutter at having taken it into his head to do some philosophizing, and again he began pacing back and forth.

They were silent again for a long time. There was only the scratching of threads being poked in and out with the needle. Occasionally the mistress would break the silence.

“Yes, it is dark outside,” she would say. “God willing, it won’t be long until Yuletide, our family will come visit, and it will be merrier and we won’t notice the evenings passing. If Malania Petrovna comes, what goings-on we’ll see! Such mischief she gets up to! Melting tin and wax to tell our fortunes and running past the gates—she’ll lead all my maids astray. Up to all kinds of games—that’s what she’s like, really!”

“Yes, a lady of the world!” noted one of the company. “Two years past she decided to go sledding, and that’s how Luka Savich slashed open his brow.”

All of a sudden everyone shuddered, looked at Luka Savich, and burst out laughing.

“How did you do that, Luka Savich? Come, tell us!” said Ilya Ivanovich, dying of laughter.

Everyone continued to laugh, and Ilyusha woke up and he laughed, too.

“What’s there to tell!” said an embarrassed Luka Savich. “It was all cooked up by Alexei Naumich over there. Nothing happened at all.”

“Come!” everyone chorused. “What do you mean nothing happened? Do you think we’re dead? What about your brow, that scar on your brow?”

And they started laughing.

“But why must you laugh?” Luka Savich tried to coax them in between bursts of laughter. “I would have . . . and not . . . Oh, it was all Vaska, that cutthroat. He slipped me old runners and they went in opposite directions under me. That’s why I . . .”

Loud laughter all round drowned out his voice. In vain did he strain to finish the story of his fall. Their laughter poured through the entire company and penetrated as far as the front hall and maids’ room, engulfing the entire house, and everyone recalled the amusing event, everyone laughed for a long time, amiably, unquenchably, like the Olympic gods. No sooner did they quiet down than someone would pick it up again—and they were as good as lost.

Finally, somehow, they managed to calm down.

“How about it, Luka Savich, will you be sledding at Yuletide this year?” asked Ilya Ivanovich after a pause.

Again a general outburst of laughter, which lasted another ten minutes.

“Shall I tell Antipka to make us a toboggan run?” Oblomov spoke again suddenly. “Luka Savich says he’s such a great enthusiast, he can’t wait—”

The laughter of the whole company kept him from finishing.

“And are they whole . . . those runners?” one of the company could barely speak from laughter.

More laughter.

Everyone laughed for a long time, and finally they began calming down, little by little. One wiped away his tears, another sniffed, a third coughed violently and spat, barely getting the words out: “Oh, my Lord! He was soaking wet. My God he made us laugh then! I swear! The way he went head over heels, and the hem of his caftan split—”

At this there followed the absolutely final, most extended peal of laughter, and then there was complete calm. One sighed, another yawned out loud, mumbling something, and all was plunged into silence.

Once again, all you could hear was the swinging of the pendulum, the tapping of Oblomov’s boots, and the light snap of a bitten thread.

Suddenly Ilya Ivanovich stopped in the middle of the room with a look of alarm, holding the tip of his nose.

“What disaster is this! Look out!” he said. “This means a dead man: the tip of my nose keeps itching.”

“Oh, my Lord!” said his wife, throwing up her hands. “What dead man if it’s only the tip of your nose itching? A dead man is when the bridge of your nose itches. Oh, Ilya Ivanich, what a forgetful man you are, God bless you! Just think if you ever said this out in company or in front of our guests. It would be so embarrassing.”

“But what does it mean if the tip of my nose itches?” asked a baffled Ilya Ivanovich.

“It means you’ll look into a glass. How could you even think a dead man!”

“I get everything mixed up!” said Ilya Ivanovich. “How can you remember if it’s the side of the nose that itches, or the tip, or the eyebrows . . .”

“The side,” chimed in Pelageya Ivanovna, “means news; if the eyebrows itch, that’s tears; the forehead is greeting; itching on the right side means greeting a man, on the left a woman; if the ears start to itch, that means rain; the lips, kisses; the mustache, gifts; the elbow, sleeping in a new place; the soles, a journey.”

“My, Pelageya Ivanovna, that’s excellent!” said Ilya Ivanovich. “And when oil is going to be cheap, the back of the head itches, isn’t that so?”

The ladies began to laugh and whisper among themselves, and some of the men smiled. Another outburst of laughter was readying, but at that moment they heard in the room what sounded like a dog growling and a cat hissing simultaneously, as if they were about to attack each other. It was the clock getting ready to chime.

“Oh my! Nine o’clock already!” said Ilya Ivanovich with delighted amazement. “Look here, have you ever seen time pass like that? Hey, Vaska! Vanka, Motka!”

Three sleepy faces appeared.

“Why aren’t you setting the table?” asked Oblomov, amazed and vexed. “No, shouldn’t you be thinking about your masters? Don’t just stand there! Some vodka, and hurry up!”

“That’s why the tip of your nose was itching!” said Pelageya Ivanovna with animation. “You’ll be drinking vodka and looking into a glass.”

After supper and after they had exchanged kisses and made the sign of the cross over each other, everyone dispersed to their own beds, and sleep came to reign over their carefree heads.

Ilya Ilich dreamt of not one such night, or two, but of whole weeks, months, and years of days and nights spent this way.

Nothing disrupted the sameness of this life, and the people of Oblomovka themselves did not feel it as a burden because they could not imagine any other way to live. Had they been able to, they would have turned away from it in horror.

Another life they would have neither wanted nor liked. They would have been sorry if circumstances had brought changes, of whatever kind, to their daily life. Longing would have gnawed at them had tomorrow not resembled today, and the day after tomorrow not resembled tomorrow.

What did they need with the variety, changes, and coincidences that others invited? Let others sip from that cup. They at Oblomovka had no truck with that. Let others live as they pleased.

After all, coincidences, even boons, were worrisome. They meant fuss, trouble, bustle, and travel. Don’t sit where you are but buy and sell, or write—in short, get busy! No thank you.

For decades they went on wheezing, dozing, and yawning or being filled with good-natured laughter at country humor, or gathering in a circle, recounting what they had dreamed the night before. If the dream was frightening, everyone got to thinking and was genuinely frightened; if prophetic, everyone was genuinely delighted or filled with sorrow, depending on whether the dream was sad or reassuring. If the dream demanded the observance of some sign, then they immediately undertook active measures to observe it.

Otherwise, they would play fools or trumps, and Boston on holidays with guests,* or they would lay out grande-patience,† tell fortunes on the king of hearts and the queen of clubs, predicting mariage.

Sometimes some Natalia Faddeyevna would visit for a week or two. At first the old women would run down the entire vicinity: who was living how and doing what. They would delve not only into family life and life behind the scenes but also into the hidden thoughts and intentions of each and every person. They would worm their way into their souls, curse and condemn the unworthy, unfaithful husbands, most often, and then count off the various events, the name-days, christenings, and births, who had served what to whom, and who had and had not been invited where.

When they tired of this, they would begin showing off their new dresses and coats, even their skirts and stockings. The mistress of the house would boast of the fabrics, threads, and laces her household had made.

But even this would exhaust itself eventually, and then they would make do with their coffees, teas, and jams. After that they moved on to silence.

They would sit for a long time, looking at one another, sighing heavily over something from time to time. Occasionally, one of them would even start to weep.

“What is the matter, my dear?” another asked in alarm.

“Oh, it’s sad, darling!” her guest replied with a heavy sigh. “Cursed souls that we are, we have angered the Lord God. It can lead to no good.”

“Don’t frighten me, dearest!” interrupted the mistress of the house.

“Yes, yes,” the other continued. “The end time is at hand. Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Doomsday is coming!” said Natalia Faddeyevna at last, and both wept bitterly.

No grounds for this conclusion were forthcoming from Natalia Faddeyevna, and no one rose up against anyone. There hadn’t even been any comets that year. But old women sometimes have dark forebodings.

Now and again, time as they knew it might be disturbed by some unexpected event, for example, when an entire house burned with fever, from little to big.

Other illnesses were almost unheard of in the house and village, unless someone stabbed himself on a stake in the darkness, or fell from the hayloft, or a board dropped from the roof and struck him in the head.

All this happened rarely, though, and tried and true domestic remedies were used for such accidents. They rubbed the bruise with a fresh-water sponge or angelica and had him drink holy water, or they would whisper incantations—and all would pass.

But all too often charcoal fumes sickened people. Then everyone lay stretched out side by side on beds. You could hear their moans and groans. One would place cucumbers around his head and tie them on with a towel; another would put cranberries in his ears and sniff horseradish; a third would go out in the freezing cold wearing just his shirt; and a fourth would simply lie on the floor, senseless.

This happened periodically, a couple of times a month, because they did not like to let the heat go up the chimney for naught and would shut the flue when there were still flames flickering, like in Robert le diable.* There was no touching a single bench or stove without getting a blister on your hand.

One time only was the sameness of their daily life broken by a genuinely unexpected event.

Everyone had gathered for tea, having rested after a difficult dinner, when an Oblomovka muzhik just returned from town came in unexpectedly and spent a long time trying to pull something out of his shirt, finally wresting out a crumpled letter addressed to Ilya Ivanich Oblomov.

They all froze. The mistress’s countenance even changed a little. All eyes were aimed at and all noses pointed toward the letter.

“What an extraordinary thing! Who is it from?” the lady of the house finally spoke, coming to her senses.

Oblomov took the letter and turned it over in his hands, perplexed, uncertain what to do with it.

“But where did you get this?” he asked the muzhik. “Who gave it to you?”

“In the yard, where I was staying in town, see,” replied the muzhik, “they came twice from the post asking for Oblomov muzhiks. They said, ‘Hey, there’s a letter for your master.’

“Well, first off I hid so the soldier took the letter away. Then the Verkhlyovo sexton saw me and he told. Came back. Came back and started yelling at me and gave me the letter and even took five kopeks. What do I with it, I asked him, where do I put it? That’s when they told me to give it to your honor.”

“You might not have taken it,” noted the mistress angrily.

“I tried. What do we want with a letter, I said. We don’t need it. No one told us to take any letters, I said, and I daren’t. Take your letter! Well, that soldier started yelling at me something awful and said he’d complain to his captain, so I took it.”

“Fool!” said the lady of the house.

“Who could it be from?” said Oblomov thoughtfully, examining the address. “The handwriting does seem familiar, though!”

The letter passed from hand to hand. There was talk and conjecture as to who it might be from and what it might concern. Ultimately, everyone was at a loss.

Ilya Ivanovich called for his eyeglasses, which they sought for an hour and a half. He put them on and only then considered opening the letter.

“Stop. Don’t break the seal, Ilya Ivanich,” his wife insisted fearfully. “Who knows what kind of letter is in there? It might be something terrible, some disaster. You know very well what the people have become nowadays! Tomorrow or the day after is plenty of time. It’s not going anywhere.”

The letter and eyeglasses were put away under lock and key. Everyone turned their attention to tea. It would have lain there for years had it not been such an extraordinary phenomenon and disturbed Oblomovka’s minds. Over tea the next day, all anyone could talk about was the letter.

Finally, they could stand it no longer and on the fourth day they crowded around and uneasily broke the seal.

“‘Radishchev,’” he read. “Oh! Why this is from Filipp Matveich!”

“Oh! So that’s who!” was heard on all sides. “You mean he’s still alive? Imagine, he hasn’t died yet! Well, praise God! What does he write?”

Oblomov began to read aloud. It turned out that Filipp Matveyevich was asking him to send his recipe for beer, which they brewed especially well at Oblomovka.

“Send it! Send it to him!” everyone began at once. “You must write a nice letter.”

Thus passed a couple of weeks.

“I must! I must write!” Ilya Ivanovich repeated to his wife. “Where is that recipe?”

“Yes, where is it?” replied his wife. “We still have to look for it. Just be patient. Why are you in such a hurry? Look, God willing, we’ll live to see the holiday, we’ll break our fast, and then you’ll write. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Indeed, I’d do better writing at the holiday,” said Ilya Ivanovich.

At the holiday, the matter of the letter came up again. Ilya Ivanovich was quite prepared to write. He withdrew to his study, put on his eyeglasses, and sat down at his desk.

Deep silence reigned in the house. The servants had been ordered not to tromp about or make noise. “The master is writing!” said everyone in the shyly respectful voice people use when there is a dead person in the house.

No sooner had he written, “My dear sir,” slowly, crookedly, with a trembling hand and caution worthy of some dangerous matter, than his wife appeared.

“I’ve looked and looked but the recipe is nowhere to be found,” she said. “I still have to look in the bedroom cupboard. How are we to send the letter?”

“By post,” replied Ilya Ivanovich.

“How much will that cost?”

Oblomov took out an old calendar.

“Forty kopeks,” he said.

“There you go throwing away forty kopeks!” she remarked. “Why don’t we wait and see whether someone is going there from town? Tell the muzhiks to find out.”

“Indeed, sending it with someone is better,” replied Ivan Ivanovich, and he tapped his pen on the desk, slipped it into the inkwell, and removed his eyeglasses.

“You’re right, it’s better,” he concluded. “It’s not going anywhere. We’ll get it sent.”

No one knows whether Filipp Matveyevich ever saw the recipe.

Sometimes Ilya Ivanovich would pick up a book—he didn’t care what kind. He had no inkling of any substantive need for reading; he considered it a luxury, the kind of thing one could easily do without, just as one might have a picture on the wall or might not, one might go for a walk or might not. He didn’t care what kind of a book it was. He looked on it as something intended to distract him from boredom and idleness.

“I haven’t read a book in a long time,” he would say, though sometimes he would change the phrasing: “Why don’t I read a book?” he would say, or simply in passing, accidentally, he would see the small pile of books he had inherited from his brother and pull out whatever came to hand. Whether it was Golikov, the Newest Dream Book, Kheraskov’s Rossiad or Sumarokov’s tragedies, or, finally, news from the year before last—he read it all with equal pleasure, repeating over and over,

“Just look what he’s dreamed up! What a thief! The hell with you!”

These exclamations referred to the authors, a calling which in his eyes merited no respect whatsoever; he had even assimilated that mild contempt for writers held by people in days gone by. Like many then, he considered the writer nothing but a convivial fellow, a reveler, a drunk, a joker, more like a jester.

Sometimes he would read aloud from two-year-old papers, for everyone, or inform them of the news.

“Look, they’re writing from Le Havre,” he would say, “that His Majesty the King has deigned to return safely from a brief journey to the palace”—and then he would peer over his eyeglasses at all his listeners.

Or:

“In Vienna, such-and-such an ambassador has presented his credentials.”

“Now, here they write,” he also read, “that the compositions of Mme. Genlis have been translated into the Russian language.”

“There is no doubt but they translate these things,” commented one of his listeners, the owner of the small estate, “just to swindle money out of our fellow gentry.”

Poor Ilyusha kept having to go to Stolz’s for his lessons. No sooner did he awaken on Monday than he was beset by anguish. He heard the sharp voice of Vaska shouting from the porch:

“Antipka! Harness the piebald to take the young master to the German’s!”

His heart shuddered. Sad, he went to see his mother. She knew why and began to sweeten the pill, secretly sighing over the week-long separation.

They were beside themselves trying to feed him in the morning. They would bake him rolls and sugar twists and give him pickles, cookies, jams, fruit pastes and all manner of dried and glazed fruits, and even more substantial foods. All this in prospect of the German not feeding him well enough.

“You won’t get fat there,” he was told at Oblomovka. “For dinner they’ll give you soup, and roast meat, and potatoes, butter at tea, and as for supper, your stomach will be growling by morning.”

Actually, Ilya Ilich tended to dream of Mondays when, instead of Vaska’s voice ordering the piebald harnessed, his mother greeted him over tea with a smile and welcome news.

“Today you won’t be going. Thursday is an important holiday and it’s not worth traveling back and forth for three days now, is it?”

Or sometimes she would suddenly announce, “Today is memorial week—no time for studies. We’ll be making pancakes.”

Or his mother might peer at him on Monday morning and say, “My, your eyes look weary today. Are you well?” And she would shake her head.

The cunning little boy was right as rain, but he would hold his tongue.

“Why don’t you stay home just this week,” she would say. “Then we’ll see what God has in store.”

Everyone in the house was firmly convinced that studies and memorial week were mutually exclusive, and that a holiday on Thursday was an insurmountable obstacle to study for the entire week.

Occasionally a servant or maid who had got into trouble over the little master might grumble, “Oh, you brat! Aren’t you away to your German soon?”

Another time, Antipka might turn up unexpectedly at the German’s on the familiar piebald, in the middle or beginning of the week, to collect Ilya Ilich.

“I’m to tell you Maria Savishna or Natalia Faddeyevna has come for a visit, or the Kuzovkovs and their children, so you’re wanted at home!”

So for a few weeks Ilyusha would stay home, and then, before you knew it, Holy Week was upon them, and then a holiday, and then someone in the family would for some reason decide that people didn’t study during St. Foma’s week; or only a couple of weeks remained until summer, so there was no point making the trip, and in the summer the German himself was resting, so they might as well put it off until the fall.

Before you knew it, Ilya Ilich had been playing hooky for six months, and how he had grown in that time! How fat he was! How splendidly he slept! They couldn’t get enough of him at home, remarking, on the contrary, that when the child returned from the German’s on Saturday he was thin and pale.

“Is trouble far off?” said his father and mother. “His studies aren’t going anywhere, but you can’t buy health. Health is more precious than anything else. Just look, he comes home looking like he’s been in the hospital, not studying. All his nice fat is gone and he’s so skinny. He’s such a scamp, always up to something!”

“Yes,” remarked his father. “Studying is not for the likes of us—though, if nothing else, it does make you toe the line!”

His loving parents continued to seek out pretexts for keeping their son home. And their pretexts did not end with holidays. In winter they thought it was too cold, in summer the heat also made traveling unsuitable, and sometimes it would even rain, and in autumn the slush would prevent it. Sometimes Antipka would seem untrustworthy: he may or may not have been drunk, but he had a wild look in his eye. They feared an accident, that he might get stuck or take a spill. The Oblomovs tried to lend these pretexts as much legitimacy as possible in their own eyes and especially in Stolz’s, who did not spare them but accused them to their faces of spoiling the boy with that kind of indulgence.

The days of the Prostakovs and Skotinins were long since passed.* The saying, “Knowledge is light, and ignorance darkness,” had already found its way to the villages along with the books the second-hand book peddlers brought.

The old people understood the advantage of education, but solely its outward advantage. They saw how people only began to make their way in the world—that is, acquire ranks, crosses, and money—through study, and that the old official minions, firmly ensconced operators perhaps but set in their ways, their quotes and commas, nonetheless, were faring poorly.

Sinister rumors began circulating about the need not only to be literate but also for other branches of knowledge hitherto unheard of in that life. An abyss gaped between a titular counselor and a collegiate assessor, and the bridge across it was some kind of a diploma.

The old campaigners, children of habit and disciples of graft, had begun to disappear. Many who did not manage to die first were driven out for political unreliability, and others were taken to court. The most fortunate were those who said to hell with the new way of things and cleared out, for better or worse, to the nests they had feathered for themselves.

The Oblomovs had grasped this and realized the advantage of an education, but only this obvious advantage. They had only a vague and remote concept of any inner need for learning, so they tried to snatch a few brilliant advantages for their Ilyusha.

They dreamed of a uniform sewn for him and imagined him a councillor in court; his mother even pictured him governor. All this, however, they would have preferred to achieve for him on the cheap, through various ruses, skirting the rocks and barriers scattered on his path to education and honors without endeavoring to jump over them. For example, to study only a little, without wearying body and soul or losing the blessed plumpness he had acquired as a child, but so as to observe the prescribed form and to win some certificate that would say Ilyusha had completed his course in the arts and sciences.

This Oblomov system of child-rearing encountered strong resistance in Stolz’s system. The struggle was intent on both sides. Stolz struck at his rivals directly, openly, and insistently, while they dodged his blows with the above-mentioned wiles, not to say others.

The victory went undecided. German persistence might have overcome the Oblomov stubbornness and obduracy, but the German encountered difficulties on his own side, and the victory was not destined to be decided in favor of either side. The problem was that Stolz’s son spoiled Oblomov, either prompting him on his lessons or doing his translations for him.

Ilya Ilich pictured both his home life and his life with Stolz clearly.

No sooner did he awaken at home than Zakharka—subsequently his famous valet Zakhar Trofimich—was standing at his bedside.

As Ilyusha’s nurse had before, Zakhar pulled on his stockings and put on his shoes, while Ilyusha, now a fourteen-year-old boy, knew only that he was to offer first one foot, then the other, while lying down, and if the slightest thing seemed wrong, he would give Zakharka a good kick in the nose.

If Zakharka, disgruntled, thought to complain, he would be in for another slap from the adults.

Then Zakharka combed Ilya Ilich’s hair and pulled on his jacket, carefully placing his arms in the sleeves so as not to disturb him too much, and reminded Ilya Ilich that he needed to do one thing or another: wash up upon rising in the morning, and so forth.

If Ilya Ilich wanted anything, all he had to do was blink and three or four servants rushed to carry out his wish. If he dropped anything, or needed something he couldn’t reach, or something brought, or something sent for, sometimes, like a high-spirited boy, he would want to run off and do it all himself, but at that his father and mother and his three aunts would start exclaiming in five separate voices:

“Why? Where are you going? What are Vaska, and Vanka, and Zakharka for? Hey! Vaska! Vanka! Zakharka! What are you gawking at? I’ll give you what for!”

Ilya Ilich simply could not do anything for himself.

Later he found that this way really was much less bother, and he himself learned to shout, “Hey, Vaska! Vanka! Serve this! Give me the other! I want this, not that! Run and fetch it!”

At times he got sick and tired of his parents’ loving concern.

If he ran down the stairs or through the yard, he would suddenly hear ten desperate voices behind him: “Oh my! Hold on! Stop! He’ll fall and break something. Stop! Stop!”

If he got it into his head to slip out to the inner porch in winter or open a small window, again the shouts: “Hey! Where are you going? How could you? Don’t run, don’t go, don’t open anything. You’ll hurt yourself or catch cold.”

So Ilyusha stayed home, sadly, coddled like an exotic flower in a hothouse and, like the latter, under glass, he grew slowly and listlessly. Forces seeking an outlet turned inward, flagged, and faded.

But every once in a while, he woke up feeling energetic, fresh, and cheerful, indeed. He felt something playing, seething inside, as if an imp had taken up residence and was taunting him to climb onto the roof, or get on the roan and gallop to the meadow where they were mowing hay, or straddle the fence, or taunt the village dogs. Sometimes he had a sudden urge to break into a run through the village, then the field, over the gullies, and into the birch grove, and from there take a running jump to the bottom of the ravine, or join up with the other little boys for a snowball fight and test his powers.

The imp would wear him down. He would resist and resist until at last he couldn’t stand it and suddenly, without a cap, in winter, he would jump off the porch into the yard and from there out the gate, grab a handful of snow in each hand, and race toward the cluster of boys.

The fresh wind cut him in the face so hard that frost nipped at his ears, his mouth and throat breathed cold, and his chest was seized with delight. He raced as fast as his legs would carry him, shrieking and laughing.

Here were the boys. He threw a snowball—and it missed. He didn’t have the knack, and all he wanted was to grab some more snow when a whole clump of it was plastered over his face and he fell—and it hurt because he wasn’t used to it, but he was laughing and there were tears in his eyes.

The house was in an uproar. Ilyusha’s gone! Shouts, commotion. Zakharka ran into the yard, followed by Vaska, Mitka, and Vanka. They were all running around the yard, out of their minds.

Two dogs, which, as we know, cannot ignore a running man, took after them, nipping at their heels.

The servants were shouting and wailing and the dogs were barking as they rushed through the village.

At last they came upon the boys and began meting out justice: one by the hair, another by the ears, another by the scruff of his neck. They even threatened their fathers.

Finally, they got their hands on the little master, wrapped him in a hastily grabbed sheepskin, then in his father’s fur coat, then in two blankets, and carried him home, triumphantly.

At home they had despaired of ever seeing him again, considering him lost. But at the sight of him, alive and unharmed, his parents’ joy was indescribable. They gave thanks to the Lord God, then fed him chamomile, then elderberry, and as night fell raspberry tea, and they kept him in bed for several days, but only one thing would have done him any good, and that was another snowball fight.

X

As soon as Ilya Ilich’s snoring reached Zakhar’s ear, he carefully jumped off his bench, making not a sound, tiptoed out to the porch, locked the master in, and headed for the gate.

“Ah, Zakhar Trofimich, welcome! Haven’t seen you in a long time!” the coachman, footmen, women, and boys by the gate began in a tumult of voices.

“How’s yours? Left the yard yet?” asked the porter.

“Sleeping again,” said Zakhar gloomily.

“How’s that?” asked the coachman. “Seems a little early for that. Ailing, I guess?”

“Ailing? Drunk!” said Zakhar in a voice as if he himself were convinced of it. “Can you believe it? He drank a bottle and a half of Madeira and two shtofs of kvass all by himself, so now he’s sleeping it off.”

“Mmm,” said the coachman with envy.

“What’s sent him on a bender now?” asked one of the women.

“No, Tatiana Ivanovna,” replied Zakhar, giving her his one-sided look, “there’s no ‘now’ about it. He’s just plain no good, and it makes me sick to say so.”

“I guess, like mine!” she remarked with a sigh.

“What, Tatiana Ivanovna, is she going somewhere today?” asked the coachman. “I’m not going to have to go very far, am I?”

“Take her somewhere!” replied Tatiana. “She’s sitting there with her beloved, and they can’t get enough of each other.”

“He visits you pretty often,” said the porter. “I’m sick of the damned man, at night, when everyone’s gone out, and they come in. He’s always the last, and he curses at the main door being locked. As if I were going to wait on the porch for him!”

“A fool like that’s hard to find, brothers!” said Tatiana, “The things he gives her! She decks herself out like a peahen and struts around. But if anyone saw the skirts and stockings she wore, what a disgrace! She goes two weeks without washing her neck, but she paints her face. Sometimes, sinner that you are, you think, ‘You wretched creature! You should put a scarf over your head and go to a convent and pray.’”

Everyone laughed but Zakhar.

“Oh, that Tatiana Ivanovna, she hits the nail on the head!” voices spoke approvingly.

“But it’s true!” Tatiana went on. “Why would gentlemen ever let themselves be seen with a woman like that?”

“Where’re you going?” someone asked her. “What’s that bundle you have?”

“I’m taking a dress to the seamstress. My lady of fashion sent me. She says it’s too big! But Dunyasha and I, when we have to stuff her into it we can’t do anything for three days after, our arms hurt that much! Well, time for me to go. Good-bye! See you soon.”

“Good-bye!” said a few of them.

“Good-bye, Tatiana Ivanovna,” said the coachman. “Stop by this evening.”

“Well, I don’t know. I will if I can. Good-bye then!”

“Good-bye,” said everyone.

“Good-bye—and good luck!” she replied as she walked away.

“Good-bye, Tatiana Ivanovna!” shouted the coachman again.

“Good-bye!” she shouted back clearly, a little ways off.

When she was gone, Zakhar seemed to be waiting for his turn to speak. He sat down on the iron post by the gate and started swinging his legs, watching the people walking and riding by, gloomily and distractedly.

“So, how’s yours today, Zakhar Trofimich?” asked the porter.

“Oh, like always, in a snit,” said Zakhar, “and all because of you. Thanks to you I’ve had my share of grief, and all over the apartment! He’s furious, that’s how much he doesn’t want to move.”

“You think it’s my fault?” said the porter. “If it were up to me, he could stay forever. Since when am I the landlord? They give the orders. If I were the landlord, but I’m not.”

“You mean he swears at you?” asked someone’s coachman.

“God alone gives me strength to bear it, he swears so!”

“So what? He’s a good master if swearing’s all he does!” said one footman laboriously opening a round snuff box. Hands from the whole company, except Zakhar’s, reached out for the tobacco, and they all started sniffing, sneezing, and spitting.

“It’s better if he swears,” he continued. “The worse he swears, the better. At least he won’t smack you if he’s swearing. I used to live with one and you’d never know what for, but watch out because he had you by the hair.”

Zakhar waited disdainfully for this one to finish his tirade, and then, turning to the coachman, continued.

“Just goes on blaming a man over nothing and for nothing,” he said. “He doesn’t care a straw!”

“No pleasing him, right?” asked the porter.

“I’ll say!” Zakhar rasped significantly, closing his eyes tight. “No pleasing him isn’t the half of it! This is wrong, and that’s wrong, and you don’t know how to walk, and you don’t think to serve me, and you break everything, and you don’t clean, and you steal, and you eat everything up. Bah! To hell with it! Today he let loose—he ought to be ashamed! And what for? A little cheese was left over from last week—you wouldn’t toss it to a dog—but no, the servant shouldn’t think of eating it! He asked for it. ‘None left,’ I said—and he was off and running: ‘You ought to be hung, he says, you ought to be boiled in burning tar,’ he says, ‘and ripped apart with red-hot tongs. You ought to be impaled, he says!’ Meanwhile he keeps after me. What do you think, brothers? The other day I splashed his foot with boiling water—I don’t know how it happened—and you should have heard him yell! If I hadn’t jumped back he would have punched me in the chest. That’s what he was trying to do! He would have punched me.”

The coachman shook his head, and the porter said, “There’s a lively master for you. No putting anything over on him.”

“Well, if he’s just swearing, he’s a wonderful master!” said the same footman phlegmatically. “The other’s worse, when he doesn’t swear, just looks and looks and then grabs you by the hair before you can figure out why!”

“There was no call,” said Zakhar, paying no attention whatsoever to a word of the footman who interrupted him. “His foot still isn’t healed, and he keeps smearing it with ointment. That’s fine with me!”

“A typical master!” said the porter.

“God forbid!” continued Zakhar. “He might beat somebody someday. Good Lord, beat him to death! And for the slightest little thing he wants to go calling me a bald . . . I don’t even want to tell you. And today he’s come up with something new. I’m ‘venomous,’ he says! He has some nerve!”

“Well, so what?” said the same footman. “If he’s swearing, then thank God, and God grant him his health. But when he never says anything and you’re walking by and he looks and looks and then up and grabs you—like the one I live with. But swearing, well, that’s all right.”

“Serves you right,” Zakhar remarked to him with venom for his unwanted objections. “I’d give it to you even worse.”

“What bad ‘bald’ thing does he call you, Zakhar Trofimich?” asked a servant boy of about fifteen. “A devil, is it?”

Zakhar slowly turned his head and rested his troubled gaze on him.

“You’d better watch out!” he then said poignantly. “You’re a little young to be so sharp, brother! I don’t give a damn if you are a general’s. I’ll give you what for! Get back to your place!”

The boy took two steps back, stopped, and smiled at Zakhar.

“What are you grinning at?” wheezed Zakhar furiously. “Just you wait, you’re going to get it. I’ll give you one on the ears and then you can grin at me!”

Right then a large footman wearing unbuttoned livery with frogs and laced boots ran out of the entry. He came up to the boy, gave him a slap for starters, and then called him a fool.

“What’s that for, Matvei Moiseich?” said the puzzled and abashed boy, holding his cheek and blinking in fits and starts.

“Aha! You’re still talking?” answered the footman. “I’ve been running all over the house for you, and you’re here!”

He grabbed him by the hair with one hand, bent his head over, and then punched him in the neck three times, methodically, steadily, and deliberately.

“The master rang five times,” he added by way of admonition, “and they’re swearing at me over you, you whelp! Get going!”

He pointed imperiously to the stairs. The boy stood there for a minute in disbelief, blinked twice, looked at the footman, and seeing he could expect nothing more from him than a repetition of the same, gave his hair a shake and started for the stairs all full of beans.

What a triumph for Zakhar!

“That’s fine, Matvei Moiseich! Just fine! Let him have it!” he intoned with malicious delight. “You’re too easy on him! That’s it, Matvei Moiseich! Thank you! He thinks he’s so smart. There’s your ‘bald devil’ for you! That’ll wipe the grin off his face!”

The servants chuckled, amiably sympathizing with the footman who’d given the boy a thrashing and Zakhar, so gleeful at this. Only no one had any sympathy for the boy.

“That’s just like him, no more no less, just like my old master,” the same footman who had kept interrupting Zakhar started in again. “You think how you might have a little fun, and all of a sudden, it’s as if he can tell what you’re thinking. He walks by and grabs you just like that, just like Matvei Moiseich did Andryushka. So what if all he does is swear? What’s the big deal—calling you a ‘bald devil’!”

“Maybe his master should have grabbed you, too,” the coachman replied, pointing to Zakhar. “Look at the head of hair on you. What if he tried to grab Zakhar Trofimich? He’s got a head like a melon. Unless he grabbed those two whiskers of his, on his cheeks. He’s got something there!”

Everyone burst out laughing, but Zakhar was taken aback at the clever remark of the coachman, from whom he’d known nothing but friendly conversation heretofore.

“This is what I’d tell that master,” he began, rasping furiously at the coachman. “I’d tell him to find something to grab on you. He could iron out that beard of yours. Look, it’s got icicles all over!”

“Your master’s pretty clever if he can iron the beards on other people’s coachmen! You just get some coachmen of your own, and then you do the ironing. You’re just shooting off your mouth!”

“You think we should hire you for a coachman, you rogue, you?” rasped Zakhar. “You’re not good enough to be harnessed up for my master!”

“Some master!” commented the coachman caustically. “Where did you dig that one up?”

He, the porter, the barber, the footman, and the defender of the system of swearing all started laughing.

“Go on and laugh, but I’m going to tell my master!” rasped Zakhar.

“You,” he said, turning to the porter, “you should be getting rid of these wretches, not laughing. Why were you put here? To take care of problems. And what do you do? I’m going to tell my master. Just you wait, you’ll get yours!”

“All right, that’s enough, Zakhar Trofimich!” said the porter, trying to calm him. “What did he do to you?”

“How dare he talk about my master like that?” objected Zakhar heatedly, pointing to the coachman. “Does he have any idea who my master is?” he asked reverently. “And you,” he said, turning to the coachman, “you could never dream of a master like that: good, clever, and handsome! Yours is a scrawny nag by comparison! It’s a disgrace to see you leaving the courtyard on that brown mare looking like beggars! You live on radishes and kvass, and that greatcoat of yours has more holes than I can count!”

It should be noted that the greatcoat the coachman was wearing had not a single hole.

“Good luck finding the likes of it,” interrupted the coachman, and his hand darted out to tug on the scrap of shirt poking all the way out under Zakhar’s arm.

“That’s enough, you two!” repeated the porter, holding them apart.

“Hey! You’re tearing my clothes!” shouted Zakhar, pulling even more shirt out. “Just you wait, I’m going to show my master! Here, brothers, look what he did. He tore up my clothes!”

“Me!” said the coachman, who was losing his nerve. “You can see his master gave him a good thrashing.”

“A master like mine give a thrashing!” said Zakhar. “Such a good heart, a heart of gold, not a master, God grant him health! It’s heaven with him. I never want for anything, he’s never called me a fool, I live in plenty and peace, I eat from his table, and I come and go when I please—so there! And in the country I have my own house, my own garden, and my own grain, and the muzhiks all bow to me! I’m the steward and major domo rolled in one! While you and your . . .”

He was so angry, his voice gave out before he could finish off his rival. He paused for a minute to gather his strength and think up some venomous word, but he couldn’t due to a surfeit of bile.

“Just you wait, because you’re going to pay for this and then you’ll have something to tear!” he said finally.

Cutting his master to the quick meant cutting Zakhar to the quick as well. His ambition and pride were shaken, and his devotion was aroused and expressed with full force. He was prepared to rain bilious venom down not only on his rival but also on his rival’s master, and his rival’s master’s family, if he had one, which he didn’t know, and everyone he knew, too. Here, he repeated with amazing accuracy all the gossip and slander about the masters that he had garnered from previous conversations with the coachman.

“You and your master are damned to hell. Yids, worse than a German!” he said. “I know who your grandfather was, a peddler at the flea market. Last night when your guests left I thought crooks had broken in the house, they were such a pathetic sight. Your mother sold stolen used clothes at the flea market, too.”

“Enough of this. Enough!” implored the porter.

“Yes!” said Zakhar. “Thank God, at least my master is gentry. He hobnobs with generals and counts and princes. And he won’t have just any count at his table. One might come and stand waiting in the front hall. Writers come all the time.”

“What writers might those be, my dear fellow?” asked the porter, wishing to put an end to the quarrel. “Officials, you mean?”

“No, the kind of gentlemen who lounge on the sofas, drink sherry, and smoke pipes. Sometimes they track such dirt, God forbid—” said Zakhar, and he stopped, having noticed that nearly everyone was smirking.

“You’re all villains, the whole lot of you!” he sputtered, casting a one-sided look at them all. “Just try and tear someone else’s clothes again! I’m going to tell my master!” he added, and he strode off home.

“Enough! Wait up! Wait!” exclaimed the porter. “Zakhar Trofimich! Let’s go to the alehouse. Come on.”

Zakhar stopped where he was, quickly turned around, and without looking at the other servants, made a dash for the street. He reached the door of the alehouse, which was just across the way, without looking back at anyone. There he turned around, cast a glance at the entire company, and waved even more gloomily for everyone to follow him as he vanished through the door.

Everyone else went their separate ways, some to the alehouse, some home. Only the one footman remained.

“So, and what’s so bad if he does tell his master?” he said in a reverie, phlegmatically, reasoning with himself, as he slowly opened his snuff box. “He’s a good master, anyone can tell that. All he does is swear! That’s something right there, if he just swears! While someone else looks and looks and then grabs you by the hair.”

XI

Just past four o’clock, Zakhar cautiously unlocked the front door, making no sound, and tiptoed back to his room. There he went up to the door to his master’s study, first put his ear to it, and then squatted to look through the keyhole.

He heard a steady snoring coming from the study.

“Asleep,” he whispered. “I should wake him. It’s nearly four-thirty.”

He coughed and walked into the study.

“Ilya Ilich! Hey, Ilya Ilich!” he began softly, standing at the head of Oblomov’s bed.

The snoring continued.

“He’s sleeping like a stonemason!” said Zakhar. “Ilya Ilich!”

Zakhar touched Oblomov lightly on the sleeve.

“Get up. It’s four-thirty.”

Ilya Ilich mumbled in response, but didn’t wake up.

“Get up, Ilya Ilich! What a disgrace!” said Zakhar, raising his voice.

There was no response.

“Ilya Ilich!” repeated Zakhar, touching his master’s sleeve.

Oblomov turned his head slightly and managed to open one glazed eye at Zakhar.

“Who’s there?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“It’s me. Get up.”

“Go away!” grumbled Ilya Ilich, and he plunged back into a heavy sleep.

Instead of snoring, he started whistling through his nose. Zakhar tugged at his hem.

“What do you want?” asked Oblomov ominously, suddenly opening both eyes.

“You told me to wake you.”

“Yes, I know. You’ve done your duty, now go away! The rest is up to me.”

“No, I won’t” said Zakhar, touching his sleeve again.

“Don’t touch me!” began Ilya Ilich abruptly, and burying his face in his pillow, he was just about to start snoring.

“You shouldn’t, Ilya Ilich,” said Zakhar. “I’d be very happy, but you just shouldn’t!”

And he touched his master.

“Please be so kind as to leave me alone,” said Oblomov firmly, opening his eyes.

“Yes, please be so kind, but later you’re the one who’ll be angry I didn’t wake you.”

“Oh, my God! What a servant!” said Oblomov. “All right, just let me shut my eyes for a minute. What’s one minute? I myself know . . .”

Ilya Ilich suddenly fell silent, struck instantly by sleep.

“You know your sleeping!” said Zakhar, confident his master couldn’t hear. “Look, sleeping like a top! Why were you born into this world?”

“Come on, get up! I’m telling you—” Zakhar was starting to bellow.

“What? What?” began Oblomov menacingly, raising his head.

“Why don’t you get up, sir?” responded Zakhar gently.

“No, what was that you said? Eh? How dare you!”

“How dare I what?”

“Speak so rudely?”

“You were dreaming. Really and truly, dreaming.”

“You think I’m asleep? I’m not. I can hear everything.”

Meanwhile, he was asleep again.

“Oh, you sleepyhead,” said Zakhar in despair. “Why do you lie there like a log? It makes me sick to look at you. Take a look, good people! Bah!”

“Get up! Get up!” he began suddenly in a frightened voice. “Ilya Ilich! Look what’s going on around you.”

Oblomov quickly raised his head, looked around, and lay back down with a deep sigh.

“Leave me in peace!” he said imperiously. “I told you to wake me, and now I’m taking it back. Do you hear? I’ll wake up when I feel like it.”

Sometimes Zakhar would leave him like this, saying, “Well, to hell with you. Sleep away!” Other times he would insist, as he did now.

“Get up! Get up!” he began at the top of his voice, and he snatched Oblomov’s hem and sleeve with both hands.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Oblomov jumped up and rushed at Zakhar.

“Just you wait. I’ll teach you how to disturb your master when he wants to sleep!” he said.

Zakhar ran away at top speed, but in a few steps Oblomov sobered up from sleeping and started stretching and yawning.

“Get . . . me . . . some . . . kvass,” he said, in between yawns.

At that, someone burst into merry laughter behind Zakhar. They both looked around.

“Stolz! Stolz!” cried Oblomov, ecstatic, rushing toward his visitor.

“Andrei Ivanich,” said Zakhar, grinning.

Stolz continued to fall about laughing. He had been witness to the entire scene.

Part Two

I

Stolz was a German only by half, on his father’s side. His mother was Russian, he confessed the Orthodox faith, and his native tongue was Russian, which he had studied with his mother and from books, in the university lecture hall and in games with the village boys, in talking with their fathers, and at Moscow fairs. He had inherited the German language from his father and also from books.

Stolz had been raised and educated at Verkhlyovo, where his father was steward. From the age of eight he had sat with his father over a geographical map, parsed out Herder, Wieland, and Bible verses, and done sums for the illiterate accounts of peasants, tradesmen, and factory owners, while with his mother he had read sacred history, learned Krylov’s fables, and parsed out Télémaque.*

Whenever he could get away from his lessons, he would run off to decimate birds’ nests with the other boys, and frequently, in the middle of class or prayers, the chirping of jackdaw chicks would come from his pocket.

It sometimes happened as well that his father would be sitting in the garden under a tree in the postprandial hour, smoking his pipe, while his mother knit a sweater or embroidered on canvas when all of a sudden there would be a commotion and shouts outside and a mob of people would burst into the house.

“What’s this?” asked his frightened mother.

“They must be bringing Andrei in again,” said his father coolly.

The doors flung open and a crowd of peasant men, women, and boys burst into the garden. Indeed, they had brought Andrei—but in what a state: without his boots, his clothing torn, and a broken nose on him and another boy.

It always made his mother uneasy to see Andryusha disappear from the house for half the day, and had it not been for his father positively forbidding her to stop him, she would have kept him by her side.

She would wash him and change his linen and clothes, and Andryusha would spend half the day as a clean, properly raised little boy, but in the afternoon, and sometimes even in the morning, someone would drag him in stained, torn, and unrecognizable again, or the muzhiks would bring him in on a wagon with the hay, or, finally, he would return with the fishermen in a boat, having fallen asleep on the seine.

His mother would be in tears, his father unperturbed, laughing even.

“He’ll make a fine Bursche, a fine Bursche!”* he said sometimes.

“Please, Ivan Bogdanich,” his wife complained. “Not a day goes by he doesn’t come home with a bruise, and the other day he had a bloody nose.”

“What kind of boy is it who never gets or gives someone else a bloody nose?” said his father, laughing.

His mother would weep and weep, and then she would sit down at the piano and lose herself in Herz.† Tears would fall on the keys, one after the other. But when Andryusha did come home, or if someone else brought him, he would start telling tales so glibly and animatedly, he would make her laugh, and besides, he was so quick-witted! Before long he was reading Télémaque as well as she and playing four hands with her.

One time he went missing for a week. His mother cried her eyes out but his father was unperturbed. He paced around the garden smoking.

“Look, if it were Oblomov’s son who’d gone missing,” he said at his wife’s suggestion that he go look for Andrei, “I’d have raised the entire village and the police as well, but Andrei will come home. Oh, what a fine Bursche!”

The next day they found Andrei sleeping quite calmly in his own bed, while under his bed lay someone’s rifle and a pound of powder and shot.

“Where have you been? Where did you get the rifle?” His mother bombarded him with questions. “Why don’t you say something?”

“Because!” was his only reply.

His father asked him whether his German translation of Cornelius Nepos was prepared.

“No,” he answered.

His father grabbed him up by the scruff of his neck, took him out the gate, put his cap on his head, and kicked him from behind so hard he knocked him off his feet.

“Go back to where you came from,” he added, “and come back with the translation, two chapters instead of one, and for your mother learn the part from the French comedy she assigned you. Don’t show your face without it!”

Andrei returned a week later, bringing the translation and having learned the part.

When he was a little older, his father sat him down beside him in the trap, handed him the reins, and told him to drive him to the factory, then to the fields, then to town, to see the merchants, to offices, and then to look at some clay, which he took on his finger, sniffed, sometimes licked, and gave his son to sniff, explaining what kind it was and what it was good for. If not that, then they would set out to watch them making potash or tar or rendering fat.

At fourteen and fifteen the boy often went to town alone, in the trap or on horseback, with a saddlebag and instructions from his father, and never did he forget, misremember, overlook, or fail at anything.

“Recht gut, mein lieber Junge!” * his father would say when he had heard his report and, patting him on the shoulder with his broad hand, he would give him a few rubles, depending on the importance of the assignment.

Afterward, his mother would spend a long time washing the soot, mud, clay, and grease off Andryusha.

She was not entirely happy with this practical, working education. She feared her son would turn into a German burgher like his father’s people. She viewed the entire German nation as a mob of patent tradesmen and did not care for the crudeness, independence, and arrogance with which the German mass everywhere had asserted their rights as burghers, earned over a millennium, the way a cow wears its horns without knowing how to hide them.

In her view, there was not and never could be a single gentleman in the entire German nation. She had never remarked in the German temperament the slightest gentleness, delicacy, or indulgence, none of the things that made life so pleasant in good society and that made it possible to circumvent a rule, violate a universal custom, or flaunt convention.

No, those louts were so hard-nosed, so insistent on doing what they were supposed or had taken into their head to do, that they would bang their head against a wall just so they would be following the rules.

She had been a governess in a wealthy home and had had occasion to go abroad. She had traveled all over Germany and had lumped all Germans into a single mass of clerks, artisans, and merchants who smoked stubby pipes and spat through their teeth, of stick-straight officers with the faces of soldiers and officials with ordinary faces who were capable only of manual labor, of the painstaking accumulation of money, of vulgar order, tediously correct lives, and the pedantic dispatch of their duties—all those burghers with their awkward manners, big rough hands, vulgarly fresh faces, and crude speech.

No matter how you dress a German up, she thought, no matter how fine and white a shirt he puts on—he can wear polished boots, he can even put on tan gloves—he still looks like he was cut from shoe leather, his rough, reddened hands still poke out of his white cuffs, and looking out from his elegant attire is a barkeep if not a baker. Those rough hands just beg to pick up an awl or, at best, a bow in an orchestra.

In her son, however, she glimpsed her ideal of a gentleman. Upstart though he was, coming from the common corpus, from his burgher father, nonetheless he was the son of a woman of the Russian gentry, and he was a very blond, beautifully made boy with small hands and feet, a pure face, and a clear and ready look such as she had never set eyes on in any wealthy Russian home, even abroad, and certainly not among the Germans.

Now, all of a sudden, he was practically grinding the grain at the mill himself, returning home from the factories and fields, just like his father: covered in grease and manure, his dirty hands red and roughened, and as hungry as a wolf!

She rushed to cut Andryusha’s nails, tend his curls, and sew him elegant collars and cuffs. She ordered his jackets in town; she taught him to listen closely to the meditative sounds of Herz and sang to him of flowers and the poetry of life; and she whispered of the brilliant vocation of soldier, or writer, and dreamed with him of the lofty role that would fall to his lot.

This entire prospect would crumble at the clicking of the abacus, the sorting through of the muzhiks’ greasy receipts, and his dealings with factory owners.

She came to detest even the trap Andryusha drove to town, the oilcloth cloak his father gave him, and the green suede gloves—all the crude attributes of a life of labor.

Unluckily for her, Andryusha was an excellent student, and his father made him his tutor at his small boarding school.

As if that were not bad enough, he always set him a salary, as if he were a workman, in perfect German fashion, ten rubles each month, and had him sign for it.

Take heart, good mother. Your son has grown up on Russian soil, not among the common herd, with their burgher horns and millstone-turning hands. Not far off is Oblomovka, where every day is a holiday, where they have slipped work from their shoulders like a yoke. There the master does not rise at dawn, nor does he make the rounds of the factories near greased and oiled wheels and springs.

There was a house at Verkhlyovo itself as well, though for most of the year it stood empty and locked. Often, though, her mischievous boy found his way inside, and there he saw the long halls and galleries and the dark portraits on the walls that had none of that crude freshness or those large rough hands. He saw the languorous blue eyes, the powdered hair, the white pampered faces and full bosoms, the gentle blue-veined hands in fluttering cuffs, the swords placed proudly in hilts. He saw the rank of generations file past in nobly idle luxury, in brocade, velvet, and lace.

In those faces he traced the history of glorious times, battles, and names. There he read the tale of days gone by, not the one his father had told him a hundred times, sputtering over his pipe about life in Saxony among the turnips and potatoes, between market and garden.

Three times a year this castle would fill with people and seethe with life, celebrations, and balls. Lights would burn at night in the long galleries.

The prince and princess would arrive with their family. The prince was a gray old man with a faded parchment face, dull protruding eyes, and a large bald brow who had three stars, a gold snuff-box, and a cane with a ruby knob and who wore velvet boots. The princess was a majestic beauty, a woman of such stature that no one would ever approach, embrace, or kiss her, not even the prince himself, even though she had five children.

She seemed somehow above the world to which she descended three times a year. She spoke with no one and went nowhere but sat in the green corner room with three old women and went through the garden, on foot, along a covered gallery to church, where she sat on a chair behind a screen.

But apart from the prince and princess, there was an entire world in that house, a world so gay and lively that Andryusha suddenly saw with his own childish green eyes three or four different spheres, and his sharp mind avidly and unconsciously observed the types of this diverse crowd, as if they were colorful scenes at a costume ball.

Here were the Princes Pierre and Michel, the former of whom immediately taught Andryusha how they beat the tattoo in the cavalry and infantry, which sabers and spurs were hussar and which dragoon,* which breeds of horses were in each regiment, and which he must join after his studies to avoid disgracing himself.

The other, Michel, had barely met Andryusha when he positioned him and began playing amazing tricks with his fists, landing them first on Andryusha’s nose and then his belly, and then said this was English boxing.

A few days later, Andrei, with nothing more to his credit than his country freshness and muscular arms, had broken Michel’s nose in English and Russian fashion both, without the least science, and risen in the estimation of both princes.

There were also two princesses, girls eleven and twelve years old, quite tall and slender and elegantly dressed, who spoke to no one, bowed to no one, and were afraid of the muzhiks.

There was their governess, Mlle. Ernestine, who went to drink coffee with Andryusha’s mother and taught her how to give him curls. Sometimes she would take his head, rest it in her lap, and wind his tresses in paper until it hurt terribly, then take both his cheeks in her white hands and kiss him very tenderly!

Then there was the German who turned out snuff-boxes and buttons on his lathe, the music teacher who drank from Sunday to Sunday, a whole gaggle of maids, and, finally, a pack of dogs and puppies.

All this filled the house and village with noise, hubbub, clatter, shouts, and music.

On the one hand, Oblomovka, and, on the other, the prince’s castle, with its generous share of the life of leisure, met up with his German element, and so in the end Andrei made neither a good Bursche nor even a Filister.

Andryusha’s father was an agronomist, an engineer, and a teacher. From his father, a farmer, he had taken practical lessons in agronomy; he had studied engineering in Saxon factories; and at the nearest university, which had about forty professors, he had acquired a vocation for teaching what those forty wise man had somehow managed to impart.

Further than that he did not go but stubbornly turned back, deciding that he needed to do serious work, and returned to his father, who gave him one hundred thalers and a new knapsack and sent him to go wherever his fancy took him.

Ivan Bogdanovich never saw his homeland or his father again. He spent six years traveling through Switzerland and Austria, and for twenty years he had lived in Russia and thanked God for his fate.

He had been to university and decided that his son should do the same. It did not have to be a German university; nor was there any need for the Russian university to produce a turnabout in his son’s life and take him far from the track his father had privately laid for his son’s life.

He did this very simply. He took the track from his own grandfather and extended it, ruler-straight, to the future of his own grandson and was confident, never suspecting that the Herz variations, the mother’s dreams and stories, and the galleries and boudoirs in the princely castle would turn the narrow German track into a broader road than his grandfather, his father, or he himself had ever imagined.

Actually, he was no pedant in this instance and did not try to insist on his own way. It was just that he did not know how to conceive of a different road for his son.

He did not let this worry him very much. After his son returned from the university and spent a few months at home, his father said that there was nothing more for him to do at Verkhlyovo, that over there they had even sent Oblomov to Petersburg, and that therefore it was time for him to do the same.

But why he needed to go to Petersburg and why he could not remain at Verkhlyovo and help run the estate—this the old man did not ask himself. All he remembered was that when he himself had completed his course of study his father had sent him away.

So he sent his son away. Such was the custom in Germany. The mother was no longer alive, and there was no one to contradict him.

On the day of his son’s departure, Ivan Bogdanovich gave him one hundred rubles.

“You’ll ride to the provincial seat,” he said, “where you’ll collect three hundred fifty rubles from Kalinnikov and leave the horse with him. If he isn’t there, sell the horse. There’s going to be a fair there soon, and you’ll get four hundred rubles even if it’s not a hunter. It will cost you about forty rubles to reach Moscow, and seventy-five from there to Petersburg, so you’ll have plenty left. Then, it’s up to you. You’ve done serious business with me, so you probably know that I have some capital. But don’t count on that before my death, and I’m likely to live another twenty years, unless a rock falls on my head. The lamp is burning brightly, and there’s lots of oil in it. You’re well educated, and all careers are open to you. You can go into government or trade, you can even write, if you like. I don’t know what you’ll choose, what you have the greatest desire to do.”

“I might just see if I can do them all at once,” said Andrei.

His father laughed long and hard and started clapping his son on the shoulder so hard he nearly knocked the horse over. Andrei didn’t mind.

“But if you don’t find your métier, if you don’t find your way and you need to consult with someone, go see Reinhold. He’ll teach you. Oh!” he added, pointing up and shaking his head. “This . . . this . . .”—he wanted to praise him but couldn’t find the words—“we came here together from Saxony. He has a four-story house. I’ll tell you the address.”

“No need, don’t tell me,” replied Andrei. “I’ll go see him when I have my own four-story house. For now, I’ll get along without him.”

Again a clap on the shoulder.

Andrei leapt onto his horse. Two bags were tied to the saddle: in one lay his oilcloth cloak and you could see his thick, hobnail boots and a few shirts of Verkhlyovo cloth—things bought and taken at his father’s insistence. In the other lay an elegant coat of fine cloth, a sheepskin coat, a dozen fine shirts, and boots ordered in Moscow, in memory of his mother’s admonitions.

“So!” said the father.

“So!” said the son.

“That’s all?” asked the father.

“That’s all!” replied the son.

They took a good look at each other without saying a word, as if they were piercing one another with their gaze.

Meanwhile, a handful of curious neighbors had gathered to watch with jaws dropped as the steward sent his son off to a foreign land.

Father and son shook hands. Andrei rode off at a round pace.

“What a pup! Not a tear!” said the neighbors. “Look at those two crows perched over there, cawing on the fence. They’re cawing to him to wait up!”

“What does he care about crows? He wanders alone through the forest on midsummer’s night, fellows. This won’t bother them. A Russian would never get away with that!”

“The old heathen’s a fine one!” commented one mother. “You’d think he was throwing a kitten out on the street. Not a hug! Not a moan!”

“Stop! Stop, Andrei!” shouted the old man.

Andrei stopped his horse.

“Ah! I guess that’s loosened his tongue!” the crowd said approvingly.

“So?” asked Andrei.

“Your girth is loose. It needs tightening.”

“I’ll fix it myself when I get to Shamshevka. No point wasting time. I should get there by light.”

“So!” said the father, waving his hand.

“So!” echoed the son with a nod, and bending over a little, he was just about to spur his horse.

“Oh, you dogs! Dogs, really! Like strangers!” said the neighbors.

Suddenly a loud wail burst forth from the crowd. One woman had broken down.

“Poor man, you poor good man!” she intoned, wiping her eyes with the tip of her head scarf. “You poor orphan! With no dear mother here, no one to bless you. Let me at least make the cross over you, my handsome boy!”

Andrei rode up to her, jumped down from his horse, embraced the old woman, and was about to ride off when he suddenly began to weep as she made the cross over him and kissed him. In her ardent words, he seemed to hear his mother’s voice for a moment, and her tender image arose. He gave the woman another firm embrace, hastily wiped his tears, and leapt on his horse. One good kick and he vanished in a cloud of dust. Three curs chased after him on either side and let up a howl.

II

Stolz was the same age as Oblomov; he too was over thirty. He had served, retired, taken up his own affairs, and had in fact earned himself a house and money. He owned part of a company that sent goods abroad.

He was constantly in motion. If the company needed to send an agent to Belgium or England, they sent him. If they needed someone to write a draft or put a new idea into practice, they chose him. Meanwhile, he both went into society and read, but when he found the time for this, God only knew.

He was all bones, muscles, and nerves, like a purebred English horse. He was rather gaunt, and he had almost no cheeks at all. That is, he had the bone and muscle but no sign of soft roundness. The color of his face was even and rather swarthy, without any pink, and his eyes were expressive, though a little green.

He made no unnecessary movements. If he sat, he sat quietly; if he did in fact act, he used only as many gestures as necessary.

Just as his organism bore nothing extra, so in the moral aspects of his life he sought a balance between what was practical and the finer demands of the spirit. These two aspects proceeded in parallel, crossing and intertwining as they went, but never getting entangled in complicated, insoluble knots.

He strode firmly and smartly. He lived on a budget, trying to spend every day, like every ruble, vigilantly, monitoring minute by minute the time, labor, and strength of heart and soul spent.

He seemed to manage his sorrows and joys the same way he did the movements his hands made and the steps his feet took, or the way he dealt with good weather and bad.

He opened an umbrella when it was raining. That is, he suffered as long as his grief lasted, and he did not suffer meekly, but rather irritably, and he endured patiently only because he ascribed the cause of any suffering to himself and never hung it like a caftan on someone else’s nail.

He took pleasure in delight as he would a flower plucked along the road, until it withered in his hands, never drinking to the last drop of bitterness that lies at the bottom of any pleasure.

A simple, or rather, direct and authentic perspective on life—this was his unfailing objective, and as he worked gradually toward attaining it, he understood just how difficult it was and was inwardly proud and happy whenever he happened to note a twist on this route and take a step straight ahead.

“How complicated and hard it is to live simply!” he often told himself and with hurried glances watched the thread of life’s lace begin to bend, crooked in some places and slanted in others, into a complicated, irregular knot.

Most of all he feared his imagination, that two-faced companion with the friendly face on one side and the hostile face on the other—a friend, the less you believe it, and an enemy when you drift off trustingly to its sweet whisper.

He was leery of daydreams, and if he did enter into that sphere, he did so as one enters a grotto with the inscription “ma solitude, mon hermitage, mon repos”*—knowing the hour and minute one is going to walk out of it.

There was no room in his heart for puzzling, mysterious daydreaming. Anything that could not be subjected to the analysis of experience and practical truth was, in his eyes, an optical illusion, a reflection of rays of light and colors on the retina of the organ of sight, or, finally, a fact yet to be tested by experience.

He did not possess the dilettantism that likes to roam the sphere of the miraculous or to play Don Quixote on the field of conjectures and discoveries for a thousand years to come. He stopped stubbornly at the threshold of mystery, displaying neither a child’s faith nor a dandy’s doubt, rather waiting for a law to appear and with it the mystery’s key.

He watched his heart just as delicately and cautiously as he did his imagination. Here, often misstepping, he had to admit that the sphere of functions of the heart was still terra incognita.

He thanked fate ardently if in that mysterious sphere he managed to distinguish between a varnished lie and a pale truth before it was too late; he no longer complained when he stumbled over a deception artfully covered in flowers. He did not fall just because his heart started pounding feverishly and was pleased as punch if it did not bleed, if his forehead did not break into a cold sweat and a long shadow was not cast over his life for a long time afterward.

He counted himself lucky as well because he could maintain his stature while galloping on a steed of emotion and did not jump the fine line that separates the world of emotion from the world of hypocrisy and sentimentality, the world of truth from the world of the ridiculous, or, galloping back, did not leap onto the dry, sandy soil of rigidity, hair-splitting, mistrust, pettiness, and an emasculated heart.

Even in the midst of infatuation, he kept his feet and sufficient inner strength to tear himself away in the event of extremity and be free. He was not blinded by beauty and so did not forget or demean his dignity as a man, was not a slave, and did not “lie at the feet” of beauties, although he did not experience impassioned delights, either.

He had no idols, but he did maintain a powerful soul and strong body, while being chastely proud. He radiated a freshness and strength that could not help but confuse women who were not shy.

He knew the value of these rare and precious traits and spent them so sparingly that he was called an egoist and callous. People reproached him for his restraint from outbursts and his ability to keep within the boundaries of his spirit’s natural, free state and then immediately defend, sometimes with envy and amazement, someone else who had flung himself into a swamp and shattered his own and someone else’s existence.

“Passions, passions justify everything,” said the people around him, “while you in your egoism guard only yourself. It remains to be seen for whom.”

“I am guarding it for someone,” he said thoughtfully, as if gazing into the distance, and he continued to have no faith in the poetry of passions, nor did he admire their stormy manifestations and destructive traces. Rather he continued to wish to see the ideal of man’s being and aspirations in his strict understanding and dispatch of life.

The more people disputed this, the deeper he “prolonged” his obstinacy, at times even falling into a puritanical fanaticism, at least in debates. He said that “man’s proper purpose is to live through the four seasons of the year, that is the four ages, without omitting any, and to carry the vessel of life to his last day, without spilling a single drop for naught, and that a slow, evenly burning flame is better than any raging fires, no matter what poetry burned in them.” In conclusion he added that he “would be happy if he could vindicate his conviction on his own example, but he had no hopes of achieving this because it was very hard and man was in general too spoiled and there was no genuine breeding anymore.”

Meanwhile, he himself kept stubbornly to his chosen road. No one had ever seen him dwell on anything painfully and agonizingly. Evidently, he was not eaten up by the gnawings of a weary heart, and his soul never ached or became lost in complicated, difficult, or new circumstances, but rather approached them as if they were old acquaintances, as if he were living a second life and passing through familiar places.

No matter what he encountered, he immediately employed whatever method that particular phenomenon demanded, the way the housekeeper immediately selects from the clutch of keys hanging at her waist precisely the one she needs for a given door.

He placed persistence in achieving one’s goals above all else. This was a sign of character in his eyes, and he never denied respect to men with this persistence, no matter how insignificant their goals.

“These are men!” he would say.

Need it be added that he himself moved toward his own goal doughtily past all barriers and only abandoned a goal when a wall arose on his path or an impassable abyss gaped open?

However, he was incapable of arming himself with that bravery which closes its eyes and leaps across an abyss or rushes at a wall at hazard. He measured the abyss or wall, and if there was no sure means for surmounting it, he walked away, no matter what people said about him.

Shaping a disposition like this may well have required the very mix of elements from which Stolz had been shaped. Public figures have long been cast among us in five or six stereotypical guises, looking around lazily with one eye open, one hand on the social machinery, nodding, moving it along the usual rut, placing one foot in a print left by a predecessor. But now their eyes have opened from their slumber and broad, energetic steps and lively voices have been heard. How many Stolzes are bound to come forward with Russian names!

How could a man like this be close to Oblomov, in whom every feature and every step, whose very existence, was a flagrant protest against Stolz’s life? This question has apparently long been decided, that if opposite extremes do not serve as grounds for sympathy, as was previously thought, then they in no way prevent it.

Moreover, they were tied by their childhood and schooling, two mighty springs, and the good, rich Russian kindnesses lavished abundantly on the German boy in Oblomov’s family, and then there was the role of the strong, which Stolz played in Oblomov’s life, in both the physical and moral respect, and finally, and most of all, at the base of Oblomov’s nature lay a pure, bright, and good principle filled with deep sympathy for everything fine and that opened and responded only to the call of this simple, artless, eternally trusting heart.

No one—no matter how sullen and mean—who has by chance or design gazed into that bright, childlike soul could fail to respond in kind or, if circumstances precluded intimacy, then at least in good and solid memory.

Often, tearing himself away from his affairs or from society, after a party or a ball, Andrei would go to sit on Oblomov’s wide sofa and in lazy conversation distract or calm his troubled or weary soul and always experienced that soothing feeling that a man experiences going from magnificent halls to his own modest shelter, or returning from the beauties of southern nature to the birch wood where he played as a child.

III

“Hello, Ilya! How glad I am to see you! So, how have you been? Well?” asked Stolz.

“Oh, not at all well, brother Andrei,” said Oblomov with a sigh. “Such health!”

“What, are you ill?” asked Stolz, concerned.

“I’m beset by styes. I got over one in the right eye just last week, and now I’ve got another.”

Stolz burst out laughing.

“Is that it?” he asked. “You’ve been sleeping too much.”

“What do you mean, ‘Is that it?’ I’ve got terrible heartburn. You should have heard what the doctor said the other day. ‘Take yourself abroad, he says, or things could go badly. You could have a stroke.’”

“So, what about it?”

“I’m not going.”

“Why?”

“Bless me! Imagine what he told me. He said I should live on some mountain and travel to Egypt, or America.”

“So what?” said Stolz coolly. “You can be in Egypt in two weeks and in America in three.”

“Oh, brother Andrei, not you, too! You were the one sensible man, and now you’ve gone off your rocker. Who goes to America and Egypt! The English, because that’s how the Lord God made them and they have nowhere to live at home. Who among us would go? Maybe some desperate man whose life isn’t worth a straw.”

“What great feat is it really? You board a coach or a ship, breathe the fresh air, look at foreign lands, cities, customs, all the wonders. Oh, you! All right, tell me, how are your affairs, and what’s happening at Oblomovka?”

“Oh!” said Oblomov, and he gestured with his hand.

“What’s happened?”

“What’s happened is that life is moving on!”

“And thank God!” said Stolz.

“Why thank God? If it would just pat you on the head, but it keeps badgering me, the way it used to be in school when the bullies would badger some peace-loving pupil. First he’d sneak a pinch, then he’d give it to him right on the brow and throw sand at him. I can’t take it!”

“You are altogether too—meek. What’s happened?” asked Stolz.

“Two disasters.”

“What are they?”

“I’m utterly bankrupt.”

“How is that?”

“Here, I’ll read you what the bailiff writes. Where’s that letter? Zakhar! Zakhar!”

Zakhar found the letter. Stolz quickly read it and began to laugh, probably at the bailiff’s style.

“What a knave that bailiff is!” he said. “He’s let the muzhiks go and now he’s complaining! He should have given them passports and let them go wherever they liked.”

“Have mercy, please, if he’d done that, everyone would have wanted to go,” objected Oblomov.

“Then let them!” said Stolz with complete unconcern. “Anyone who is doing well where he is won’t leave, and anyone who isn’t won’t do well for you either, so why keep him?”

“Now there’s a notion!” said Ilya Ilich. “The muzhiks at Oblomovka are meek homebodies. Why should they go wandering around?”

“But you don’t know,” interjected Stolz. “They want to build a landing stage at Verkhlyovo and they’re proposing putting a highway through, so that even Oblomovka won’t be far from the main road, and in town they’re starting a fair.”

“Oh, my God!” said Oblomov. “That’s all we need! Oblomovka was in such a backwater, so out of the way, and now a fair and a road! The muzhiks will get used to going to town, and merchants will be hanging about. All is lost! Disaster!”

Stolz started laughing.

“Why isn’t it a disaster?” Oblomov went on. “The muzhiks were fine, not a peep out of them, to the good or the bad, they did their work and never aspired to anything, and now they’ll be corrupted! Next thing you know, there’ll be teas, coffees, velvet trousers, accordions, and polished boots. No good will come of it!”

“Yes, if that’s the case, then of course little good will,” commented Stolz. “But if you start a school in the village . . .”

“Isn’t it too soon?” said Oblomov. “Literacy is harmful for the muzhik. If you teach him how to read, he may never plow again.”

“Don’t you see, the muzhiks will read about how to plow. Such an odd man you are! But listen, in all seriousness, you need to spend some time in the country yourself this year.”

“Yes, it’s true, only my plan isn’t complete,” remarked Oblomov meekly.

“You don’t need one!” said Stolz. “Just go, and when you’re there you’ll see what needs doing. You’ve been tinkering with this plan for a long time, and you mean it’s still not ready? What have you been doing?”

“Oh, brother! As if all I had to worry about was the estate. What about my other misfortune?”

“Which one is that?”

“They’re driving me out of my apartment.”

“What do you mean, driving you out?”

“Just that. ‘Get out,’ they say, no more, no less.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“What do you mean, what’s the problem? I’ve rubbed my back and sides raw turning away from these troubles. It’s always the same: do this and that, settle those accounts, pay here, pay there, and now a move! It’s dreadful how much money is going out, and I don’t even know where it’s going! Before you know it, you’re left without a pin.”

“The man has become so spoiled it’s hard for him to move out of an apartment!” said Stolz with amazement. “By the way, about money. Do you have much? Give me five hundred rubles. I have to send it immediately. Tomorrow I’ll pick it up from our office.”

“Wait! Let me think. They sent a thousand rubles from the country recently, and now I have . . . here, just a second.”

Oblomov began rummaging through his drawers.

“Here we have ten, twenty, here are two hundred rubles . . . and twenty here. There were some coppers here as well. Zakhar! Zakhar!”

Zakhar jumped from his bench in the same sequence as before and walked into the room.

“Where are the twenty kopeks that were on the table? I put them there yesterday.”

“What’s this, Ilya Ilich! Still going on about the twenty kopeks! I told you there weren’t any twenty kopeks there.”

“What do you mean there weren’t! It was change from the oranges.”

“You gave it to someone and forgot,” said Zakhar, turning toward the door.

Stolz burst out laughing.

“This is Oblomovka all over!” he reproached them. “They don’t know how much money they have in their pocket!”

“And how much money did you give Mikhei Andreich the other day?” Zakhar reminded him.

“Ah, yes! Tarantiev did borrow another ten rubles,” Oblomov turned animatedly to Stolz. “I did forget.”

“Why do you let that animal in?” remarked Stolz.

“Who lets him in!” Zakhar intervened. “He acts like this is his house or some inn. He borrowed the master’s shirt and vest and was off and away! He came for his coat the other day. ‘Let me wear it!’ Sir, if only you could stop him, Andrei Ivanich.”

“It’s none of your business, Zakhar. Go to your room!” Oblomov noted sternly.

“Give me a sheet of stationery,” requested Stolz, “to write a note.”

“Zakhar, give him the paper. Look, Andrei Ivanich needs—” said Oblomov.

“We don’t have any! I was looking for it the other day,” Zakhar called from the front hall without even coming into the room.

“Give me a scrap of paper then!” Stolz badgered him.

Oblomov looked on the table, but there wasn’t even a scrap.

“Then at least give me a calling card.”

“I haven’t had any calling cards for a long time,” said Oblomov.

“What is the matter with you?” Stolz rejoined with irony. “But you’re preparing to manage your affairs and you’re writing a plan. Please, tell me, do you ever go anywhere? Where do you go? Who do you see?”

“Where have I been? Hardly anywhere. I stay at home. That plan has been on my mind, and now there’s the apartment as well. Thank you, Tarantiev wanted to make an effort and look for—”

“Does anyone come to see you?”

“Sometimes. There’s Tarantiev, and Alexeyev, too. The doctor stopped by the other day. Penkin was here, and Sudbinsky and Volkov.”

“I don’t see any books here,” said Stolz.

“There’s a book!” noted Oblomov, pointing to the book lying on the table.

“What’s this?” asked Stolz, taking a look at the book. “Journey to Africa. And the page where you stopped is mildewed. Not a newspaper in sight. Do you read the newspaper?”

“No, the print’s too fine, it ruins your eyes. And there’s no need. If there’s something new, all day long that’s all you hear about at every turn.”

“For God’s sake, Ilya!” said Stolz, casting an amazed look at Oblomov. “What do you do? You’re like a lump of dough rolled into a ball and lying there.”

“It’s true, Andrei, just like a lump,” responded Oblomov sadly.

“Do you think your awareness of the fact is any excuse?”

“No, it’s just an answer to what you said. I’m not trying to excuse myself,” noted Oblomov with a sigh.

“You have to pull yourself out of this daydreaming.”

“I tried before, but I failed, and now . . . why should I? Nothing excites me, my heart doesn’t long for anything, and my mind sleeps peacefully!” he concluded with almost imperceptible sadness. “Enough about that. Why don’t you tell me where you’re coming from now?”

“Kiev. I’m going abroad in a couple of weeks. You should go, too.”

“Fine, if you like,” decided Oblomov.

“All right, then sit down and write a request, and tomorrow you can hand it in.”

“It can wait until tomorrow!” began Oblomov, suddenly remembering. “What’s their hurry? You’d think someone was chasing them! Let’s think it over, talk it over, and then we’ll see. First I should go to the country, and then abroad, and after that—”

“Why after that? What about the doctor’s orders? First, shed your fat and heaviness, and then your daydreaming will slip away. You need calisthenics for your body and soul.”

“No, Andrei, all that wears me out. My health is poor. No, you’d better leave me and go by yourself.”

Stolz looked at the recumbent Oblomov. Oblomov looked at him.

Stolz shook his head and Oblomov sighed.

“Are you really too lazy to live?” asked Stolz.

“I guess I am, truly, Andrei.”

Andrei pondered the question of how to cut him to the quick and where his quick might be. Meanwhile he gazed upon him in silence and suddenly began to laugh.

“Do you realize you’re wearing one linen sock and one cotton?” he suddenly noted, pointing to Oblomov’s feet. “And that your shirt is on inside out?”

Oblomov looked at his feet and then his shirt.

“Indeed,” he admitted, embarrassed. “That Zakhar was sent to punish me! You can’t believe the trouble I’ve had with him! He argues and he’s rude and don’t even ask about working!”

“Oh, Ilya!” said Stolz. “No, I can’t leave you like this. A week from now you won’t recognize yourself. This evening I will inform you of the detailed plan I intend to carry out with you, but for now get dressed. Just wait, I’m going to shake you up. Zakhar!” he shouted. “Get Ilya Ilich dressed!”

“Where are we going? Dear God, what’s the matter with you? Tarantiev and Alexeyev will be here any minute for dinner. Then they were wanting—”

“Zakhar,” Stolz said, not listening to him, “come get him dressed.”

“Yes sir, Andrei Ivanich. I’ll just clean his boots,” said Zakhar willingly.

“What? It’s five o’clock and his boots aren’t cleaned?”

“Of course, they’re cleaned, of course, just last week, but the master hasn’t gone out, so they’re dull again.”

“Well, give them over as they are. Take my suitcase into the sitting room; I’m staying with you. I’ll get dressed right now, and you be ready, Ilya. We’ll have dinner somewhere along the way, and then we’ll stop at two or three homes, and—”

“You mean you . . . this is all so sudden . . . wait . . . let me think about it . . . you see, I’m not shaved.”

“There’s nothing to think or scratch your head about. You’ll get a shave en route. I’ll drop you off.”

“Which homes are we going to?” exclaimed Oblomov sorrowfully. “People I don’t know? What a notion! I’d rather go see Ivan Gerasimovich. He hasn’t been here in several days.”

“Who is this Ivan Gerasimich?”

“He used to serve with me.”

“Ah! The graying clerk. What do you find there? What is this desire to waste your time with that chatterbox!”

“You speak so harshly of people sometimes, Andrei, God only knows. He’s a fine man. He just doesn’t wear Dutch shirts.”

“What do you do at his place? What do you and he talk about?” asked Stolz.

“You know, it’s so proper and cozy at his place. The rooms are small and the sofas are so deep, you sink so far down no one can see you. The windows are quite covered with ivy and cactus, and he has more than a dozen canaries and three dogs, such good ones! He always has something to eat on the table. The engravings all depict family scenes. You come and you never want to leave. You sit there without a care or thought in the world, and you know there’s someone nearby. Naturally, he’s not smart, and there’s no exchanging ideas with him or thinking, but on the other hand he’s not crafty but good and kind, and he has no pretensions and won’t stab you in the back!”

“But what do you do?”

“Do? Well, I arrive and we sit opposite each other on sofas with our feet up, and he smokes.”

“What about you?”

“I smoke, too, and listen to the canary trilling. Then Marfa brings in the samovar.”

“Tarantiev and Ivan Gerasimich!” said Stolz, shrugging. “Well, get dressed, and quickly,” he hurried him along. “Tell Tarantiev when he arrives,” he added, addressing Zakhar, “that we are not dining at home and that Ilya Ilich will not be dining at home all summer and in the fall he will have a great deal to attend to and so won’t be able to see him.”

“I’ll tell him, I won’t forget, I’ll tell him everything,” responded Zakhar. “And what are your orders about the dinner?”

“Eat it with someone and enjoy it.”

“Yes sir.”

Ten minutes later Stolz came out dressed, shaved, and combed, and Oblomov was sitting melancholically on his bed, slowly buttoning his shirt but not getting the button in the hole. Kneeling on one leg in front of him was Zakhar with an uncleaned boot, holding it like a dish, ready to put it on and waiting for his master to finishing his buttoning.

“You still haven’t put on your boots!” said Stolz in amazement. “Come on, Ilya. Hurry up!”

“But where are we going? Why must we?” said Oblomov. “What haven’t I seen there? I’m out of touch, I don’t feel like it.”

“Quickly! Quickly!” said Stolz, hurrying him along.

IV

Although it was no longer early, they did manage to stop in here and there to attend to affairs, then Stolz picked up a man he knew who owned gold mines to join them for dinner, then they went to the man’s dacha for tea and found a large company gathered, and Oblomov suddenly found that he had gone from perfect isolation to a crowd of people. He returned home late that night.

The next day, and the day after that, and the whole week flashed by. Oblomov protested, complained, and argued, but he was carried away and accompanied his friend everywhere.

One day, returning late from somewhere, he rose up against all the bustle.

“You don’t take off your boots for days on end,” grumbled Oblomov as he put on his dressing gown. “My feet itch so! I don’t like this Petersburg life of yours!” he continued, lying down on the sofa.

“What kind do you like?” asked Stolz.

“Not this kind.”

“What exactly didn’t you like about it?”

“All of it. The perpetual running to and fro, the perpetual play of petty desires, especially greed, people trying to spoil things for others, the tittle-tattle, the gossip, the slights, the way they look you up and down. You listen to what they’re talking about and it makes your head spin. It’s stupefying. People look so smart, you think, you see such dignity in their face, and then you hear: ‘This one was given this, that one obtained a lease.’ ‘My God, what for?’ exclaims someone. ‘This one lost at the club yesterday, and that one is borrowing three hundred thousand!’ It’s tedium. Tedium! Where is the human being in this? Where is his integrity? Where did it go? How did it get exchanged for all this pettiness?”

“Something has to engage society and the public,” said Stolz. “Everyone has his interests. That’s what life—”

“Society and the public! You must be sending me into this society and public on purpose, Andrei, to drive out any desire I might have to be there. Life! A fine life! What can you find there? Interests of the mind and heart? Look for the center around which all this revolves. There isn’t one. There’s nothing profound that cuts you to the quick. They’re all corpses, sleepwalkers, worse than me, these members of society and the public! What guides them in life? They don’t just lie there, they whisk about every day, like flies, back and forth. And what’s the point? You walk into a room and you can’t admire enough how symmetrically seated the guests are, how calmly and thoughtfully they’re sitting—over cards. There’s no getting around it, it’s a glorious purpose in life! A sterling example for the mind seeking action! Aren’t they the living dead? Aren’t they sleeping their lives away sitting up? Why am I more to blame than they, lying at home without contaminating my mind with treys and jacks?”

“That’s an old story. People have said that a thousand times,” commented Stolz. “Don’t you have anything fresher?”

“And our best youth? What are they doing? Aren’t they sleepwalking, driving up and down Nevsky and dancing? The daily, empty shuffling of days! Just look at the pride and mysterious dignity, the look of revulsion they have for anyone not dressed as they are and not bearing their names and titles. These unfortunates imagine they are actually above the crowd: ‘We serve somewhere no one else does, you know; we have the first row of chairs, we get invited to Prince N’s ball, and no one else does.’ But when they get together amongst themselves, they just get soused and pick fights, like savages! Are these really living, not sleeping, people? And it’s not just the young. Take a look at the grown men. They gather and feed each other without the slightest kindness, or goodness, or mutual attraction! They gather for dinner, for the evening, as if it were their job, without cheer, coldly, to boast about their chef or salon, just so they can then ridicule and taunt one another. The day before yesterday, at dinner, I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl under the table when they started shredding the reputation of men who weren’t there: ‘This one’s a fool, that one’s vulgar, another’s a thief, a third is ridiculous’—real defamation! When they say it they look at each other with eyes that say, ‘The minute you walk through the door, you’re in for the same.’ Why do they get together if they’re like that? There’s no sincere laughter, not a ray of sympathy! They try to lure a high rank, a name. ‘So-and-so paid me a call, and I paid so-and-so a call,’ they boast later. What kind of a life is that? I want no part of it. What can I learn there? What can I get out of it?”

“You know what, Ilya?” said Stolz. “You reason like a wise old man. That’s how they always wrote in the old books. And actually, that’s fine. At least you’re reasoning and not sleeping. So, what else? Continue.”

“Continue what? Look at them. Not a fresh, healthy face on a one of them.”

“That’s the climate,” interrupted Stolz. “Look, your face is haggard, too, and you don’t even go anywhere, you just lie around.”

“No one has a clear, calm look,” continued Oblomov. “They all infect each other with agonizing worry and care. They’re searching for something. It would be different if there were some truth or benefit for yourself and others, but no, they pale at a friend’s success. One is worried because tomorrow he’s going by an office, the matter’s been dragging on for four years, the opposing side is gaining the upper hand, and he’s been carrying a single thought in his head for five years, a single desire: to get the better of the other person and erect the edifice of his own well-being on the other’s ruins. Spending five years making the rounds, sitting, and sighing in a waiting room—there’s life’s ideal and purpose! Someone else is suffering because he’s condemned to go to work every day and sit for five hours at a time, while another sighs heavily over not having such plenty.”

“You’re a philosopher, Ilya!” said Stolz. “Everyone else bustles about. You alone have no need of anything!”

“Take that yellow gentleman in spectacles,” continued Oblomov. “He badgered me about whether I had read some deputy’s speech, and he stared at me when I said I didn’t read the newspapers. He went on about Louis Philippe as if he were his own father. Then he pestered me for my opinion about why the French ambassador had left Rome. Why should I condemn myself to filling up every day with colorless news and shouting for a week until I’m all shouted out? Today Mehmet-Ali sent a ship to Constantinople, and he’s wracking his brains trying to figure out why. Tomorrow Don Carlos can’t do something and he’s in a terrible state. A canal is being dug there, while here a detachment of troops has been sent to the Orient. Good gracious! He’s burning to go. He looks awful. He’s running and shouting as if the troops were coming straight at him. They reason and ponder pell-mell, but they themselves are bored. They’re not interested. Through these shouts you can see the eternal rest! This is alien to them; they’re fish out of water. There is nothing they care about so they rush in all directions without any destination in mind. This all-encompassing sweep hides their emptiness and lack of sympathy for anything! Whereas choosing a modest path of labor and following it, digging a deep rut—that’s tedious and insignificant. Omniscience is useless there and there’s no one to fool.”

“Well, you and I haven’t rushed hither and yon, Ilya. So where is our modest path of labor?” asked Stolz.

Oblomov suddenly fell silent.

“You see, I just have to complete my plan,” he said. “To hell with them!” he added irritably. “I’m not doing them any harm, and I don’t want anything from them. I just don’t see a normal life in it. No, it’s not life, it’s a distortion of the standard and ideal of life that nature has pointed out to man as his goal.”

“What is this ideal, this standard of life?”

Oblomov did not reply.

“Go on, tell me. What life would you devise for yourself?” Stolz pressed.

“I’ve already devised it.”

“Then what is it? Please, tell me.”

“What is it?” said Oblomov, turning over on his back and staring at the ceiling. “Here’s what! I would go to the country.”

“What’s keeping you?”

“My plan isn’t finished. And then, I wouldn’t go alone but with a wife.”

“Aha! So that’s it! Well, God speed. What are you waiting for? In another few years, no one will marry you.”

“What can I do? It’s not my fate!” said Oblomov, sighing. “My fortune won’t allow it.”

“Forgive me, but Oblomovka? And your three hundred souls!”

“So what? What would a wife and I live on there?”

“There’s enough for two of you to live!”

“What if children follow?”

“You’ll raise your children, and they’ll make their own way. You have to know how to guide them.”

“No, I won’t make workmen out of gentry!” Oblomov interrupted dryly. “And besides the children, where is it ‘the two of you’? That’s just what people say, ‘you and your wife,’ but in fact the minute you marry you have all kinds of women creeping into your house. Look at any household and you’ll see female relatives and women who are neither relatives nor housekeepers. If they don’t live there they come every day to drink coffee and have dinner. How can one feed a boarding house like that on three hundred souls?”

“Fine, then. What if you were given another three hundred thousand. What would you do?” asked Stolz, his curiosity very much piqued.

“Go straight to a pawn shop,” said Oblomov, “and live off the interest.”

“That won’t get you very much interest. Why not put it in a company, say, ours?”

“No, Andrei, I’m not such a soft touch.”

“You mean you wouldn’t trust me?”

“Not on your life. Anything could happen, and not just to you. What if you went broke? I’d be left without a pin. Is a bank any better?”

“Fine, then. What would you do?”

“Well, I’d come to my new, serenely arranged house. I’d have good neighbors—you, for instance. Except that you never stay long in one place.”

“Would you always stay where you were? You wouldn’t go anywhere?”

“No.”

“Why go to the trouble of building railroads everywhere, and ships, if life’s ideal is to stay where you are? Let’s submit a proposal to stop it, Ilya, since we’re not going anywhere.”

“There are plenty besides us. Aren’t there enough bailiffs, stewards, merchants, officials, and itinerant travelers with no corner to call their own? Let them travel to their heart’s content!”

“And who are you?”

Oblomov did not reply.

“What category of society do you count yourself among?”

“Ask Zakhar,” said Oblomov.

Stolz fulfilled Oblomov’s desire literally.

“Zakhar!” he shouted.

Zakhar came in with sleepy eyes.

“Who is this lying here?” asked Stolz.

Zakhar woke up all of a sudden and glanced sideways, suspiciously, at Stolz, and then at Oblomov.”

“What do you mean, who? Can’t you see?”

“No,” said Stolz.

“What are you up to? It’s the master, Ilya Ilich.”

He grinned.

“Fine. You may go.”

“A master!” repeated Stolz, and he burst into peals of laughter.

“Well, ‘gentleman,’” Oblomov, vexed, corrected him.

“No, no! You’re a master!” Stolz continued, laughing.

“What’s the difference?” said Oblomov. “A gentleman is the same thing as a master.”

“A gentleman,” defined Stolz, “is the kind of master who puts on his own stockings and removes his own boots.”

“Yes, an Englishman does it himself because they don’t have very many servants, whereas a Russian . . .”

“Go on with your drawing of your life’s ideal. So, good friends nearby, what else? How would you spend your days?”

“Well, I’d get up in the morning,” began Oblomov, folding his hands behind his head, and an expression of serenity washed over his face. In his mind, he was already in the country. “The weather is splendid, the sky is blue as blue can be, not a cloud in the sky,” he said. “In my plan, one side of the house has a balcony facing east, toward the garden and the fields; the other faces the village. While I’m waiting for my wife to wake up, I put on my housecoat and take a walk around the garden to breathe the morning vapors. There I find the gardener and we water the flowers together and prune the bushes and trees. I make a bouquet for my wife. Then I go to the bath or the river to bathe, and as I’m returning, the balcony is open and my wife is there wearing a smock and a light cap that looks like it’s just barely holding on, as if it were about to fly off her head. She’s waiting for me. ‘Your tea is ready,’ she says. What a kiss! What tea! What a comfortable chair! I sit down by the table, and on it are cookies, creams, and fresh butter.”

“After that?”

“After that, I put on a roomy coat or jacket, put my arm around my wife’s waist, and she and I take a stroll down the endless, dark allée, walking quietly, thoughtfully, silent or thinking out loud, daydreaming, counting my minutes of happiness like the beating of a pulse, listening to my heart beat and sink, seeking sympathy in nature, and before we know it we come out on a stream and field. The river is lapping a little, ears of grain are waving in the breeze, and it’s hot. We get into the boat and my wife steers us, barely lifting her oar.”

“Why, you’re a poet, Ilya!” Stolz interrupted.

“Yes, a poet of life, because life is poetry. People distort it so willfully! Then we stop in at the hothouse,” continued Oblomov, himself intoxicated by the ideal of happiness he’d drawn.

He extracted from his imagination ready-made scenes he had already drawn and so spoke with enthusiasm, without stopping.

“We look at the peach trees and grapevines,” he said, “and say what should be served at the meal, and then return, have a light lunch, and await our visitors. Then there is a note for my wife from some Maria Petrovna, with a book and sheet music, or someone might have sent a gift of pineapple, or an outrageous melon might have ripened in our hothouse—and you send it to a good friend for tomorrow’s dinner and then go there yourself. Meanwhile, the kitchen is humming. The chef, wearing a snowy white apron and hat, is bustling about. He puts on one pot, takes another off, stirs something here, starts kneading the dough there, and splashes water there. The knives are tapping. They’re chopping the greens and cranking the ice cream. Before dinner it’s nice to peek into the kitchen, open a pot and sniff, watch the pies being rolled out and filled with creams. Then I lie down on a couch, and my wife reads me something new out loud. We stop and argue . . . But the guests are coming, you and your wife, for example.”

“You’d have me married as well?”

“Without fail! And a few other friends, always the same faces. We resume the previous day’s unfinished conversation. There might be jokes or an eloquent silence, musing—not because someone lost his position, or over Senate business, but out of a surfeit of satisfied desires, the reverie of contentment. You don’t hear Philippics with foaming at the mouth against someone absent or notice a glance cast at you promising more of the same for you the moment you walk out the door. You don’t dip your bread in the salt cellar with someone you don’t like, someone who isn’t a fine fellow. In the eyes of your companions you see sympathy, and in a joke sincere, not malicious laughter. Everything to your liking! What’s in your eyes and words is what’s in your heart! After dinner some mocha and a Havana on the terrace.”

“You’re drawing me the exact same thing your fathers and grandfathers had.”

“No, not exactly,” responded Oblomov, almost insulted. “Where is it the same? Would I have my wife sitting over jams and mushrooms? Would she count skeins and sort huckaback? Would she slap her maids on the cheek? Didn’t you hear the part about the sheet music, books, piano, and elegant furniture?”

“What about you?”

“I wouldn’t read last year’s newspapers, ride in a rattletrap, or eat goose with dumplings. No, I’d have my chef train at the English Club or with a diplomat.”

“What then?”

“Then, once the heat lets up, I send a wagon with the samovar and dessert to the birch wood—not to the field but to the mown grass—and we spread carpets between the ricks and we’re blissfully happy down to the okroshka and beefsteak. The muzhiks are coming from the field with scythes on their shoulders; over there is a cart crawling along, with hay covering the whole wagon and the horse. On top, from the stack, a muzhik’s cap pokes out with flowers, and a child’s head, too; over there a crowd of barefoot peasant women carrying sickles are singing loudly. All of a sudden they see their masters and fall silent and bow low. One of them, with a sunburnt neck, bare elbows, and cunning eyes lowered shyly but ever so slightly, just for show, defends herself from her master’s caress, but she is actually pleased. ‘Shh! Make sure your wife doesn’t see, God forbid!’”

Both Oblomov and Stolz burst into peals of laughter.

“It’s damp in the field,” concluded Oblomov, “and dark. Fog hangs over the rye like an upside-down sea, and the horses are twitching their shoulders and stomping their hooves. It’s time to go home. At the house the lights have been lit, and in the kitchen five knives are tapping: a skillet of mushrooms, cutlets, berries. And there’s music . . . Casta diva . . . Casta diva!” sang Oblomov.* “I can never think of ‘Casta diva’ calmly,” he said, singing the beginning of the cavatina. “That woman cries her heart out so! What grief those sounds hold! And no one around her knows. She’s alone. Her secret is her burden, which she entrusts to the Moon.”

“You like that aria? I’m very glad. Olga Ilinskaya sings it beautifully. I’ll introduce you. There’s a voice, there’s singing! And she herself is such an enchanting child! Actually, I may be biased; I have a weakness for her. But don’t digress, don’t digress,” added Stolz. “Tell me more!”

“What else?” continued Oblomov. “It’s all there! The guests scatter to the wings and pavilions, and the next day they wander off: one to fish, another with a rifle, and whoever wishes it, simply to sit quietly.”

“Just like that, with nothing in their hands?” asked Stolz.

“What do you want? All right, a handkerchief, if you like. You mean to say you wouldn’t want to live like that?” asked Oblomov. “Eh? Isn’t that the life?”

“Like that forever?” asked Stolz.

“Until we’re old and gray, to the grave. That’s the life!”

“No, it’s not!”

“How is it not? What’s missing? Just think about it. You would never see a single pale face full of suffering, a single care, a single question about the Senate, the stock exchange, shares, reports, meetings with the minister, ranks, or allowance increases. And all the conversations to your liking! You would never have to move from your apartment—that alone is worth it! That isn’t the life?”

“No, it’s not!” repeated Stolz stubbornly.

“Then what is it, in your opinion?”

“It’s . . .” Stolz began to think and search for what to call this life. “It’s . . . Oblomovshchina,” he said at last.

“O-blo-mov-shchi-na!” Ilya Ilich pronounced it slowly, amazed at this strange word and breaking it into syllables. “Ob-lo-mov-shchi-na!”

He stared strangely at Stolz.

“Where does life’s ideal lie, in your opinion? What is it if not Oblomovshchina?” he asked timidly, deflated. “Doesn’t everyone want what I dream of? Gracious!” he added, more boldly. “You mean the purpose of all your running, passions, wars, commerce, and politics isn’t your portion of serenity, not the desire for this ideal of paradise lost?”

“Even your utopia is Oblomovan,” objected Stolz.

“Everyone seeks rest and serenity,” Oblomov defended himself.

“Not everyone. Ten years ago, even you weren’t searching for that in life.”

“What do you mean I wasn’t?” asked Oblomov, perplexed, thinking back on the past.

“Try to remember and think. Where are your books and translations?”

“Zakhar put them somewhere,” replied Oblomov. “They’re lying in some corner here.”

“Some corner!” said Stolz with reproach. “In that same corner lie your plans ‘to serve as long as you have the strength, because Russia needs hands and heads to develop its inexhaustible sources (your words); to work in order to relax more sweetly, relaxing meaning living the other, artistic, elegant side of life, the life of artists and poets.’ Did Zakhar stack all those plans in some corner, too? Do you remember how you wanted to travel to foreign lands after your studies, in order to learn and love your own better? ‘All of life is thought and work,’ you used to repeat, ‘unrecognized and obscure though the work may be, it’s continuous, and to die with the awareness that you have given your all.’ Eh? What corner do you have that lying around in?”

“Yes . . . yes,” said Oblomov, uneasily following Stolz’s every word. “I remember, I did . . . exactly . . . I think,” he said, suddenly recalling the past. “Of course! Andrei, you and I were planning first to travel the length and breadth of Europe, cover Switzerland on foot, burn our feet on Vesuvius, and descend to Herculaneum. We were nearly out of our minds! So many foolish ideas!”

“Foolish ideas!” echoed Stolz with reproach. “Weren’t you the one who said with tears in your eyes as you looked at the etchings of Raphael’s Madonnas, Corregio’s nights, and the Apollo Belvedere, ‘My God! Can it be that I may never see the originals and be struck dumb at standing in front of a work by Michelangelo or Titian and trampling the soil of Rome? Might I live out my life and see these myrtles, cypresses, and orange trees only in hothouses and not in their native land? Might I never breathe the air of Italy or drink in its blue sky?’ So many magnificent fireworks came from your mind! Foolish ideas!”

“Yes, yes, I remember,” said Oblomov, contemplating the past. “You took me by the arm and said, ‘Let us promise not to die before we’ve seen this.’”

“I remember,” continued Stolz, “how once you brought me a translation of Say with a dedication to me on my name-day; I still have the translation intact. And how you locked yourself in with your mathematics teacher because you had to find out why you needed to know your circles and squares, but abandoned it halfway through and never did. You started studying English . . . and never finished! And when I made plans for a trip abroad and invited you to take a look at the German universities, you jumped up, embraced me, and shook my hand solemnly: ‘I’m yours, Andrei, I shall go everywhere with you.’ Those are all your words. You were always something of an actor. What happened, Ilya? I’ve been abroad twice, seeking wisdom, and I sat humbly on student benches in Bonn, Jena, and Erlangen, and then I learned Europe as if it were my own estate. A voyage is a luxury, I’ll grant you that, and not everyone is in a position or obliged to enjoy this means, but what about Russia? I’ve seen the length and breadth of Russia. I work—”

“One day you’ll stop working,” remarked Oblomov.

“Never. Why should I?”

“When you double your capital,” said Oblomov.

“When I quadruple it, I still won’t stop.”

“But why then,” he began after a pause, “why do you knock yourself out if your goal isn’t to set yourself up for life and then go off to your rest, to relax?”

“Village Oblomovshchina!” said Stolz.

“Or achieve importance and status in society through service and then enjoy the rest you’ve earned in honorable idleness.”

“Petersburg Oblomovshchina!” objected Stolz.

“Then when are you going to live?” objected Oblomov to Stolz’s comments with vexation. “Why torment yourself all your days?”

“For the work itself, no other reason. Work is life’s form, content, element, and purpose—at least mine. You’ve driven work clean out of your life, and what has come of it? I’m going to try to lift you up, maybe for the last time. If you continue to sit there after this with your Tarantievs and Alexeyevs, then you’re quite lost and you’ll become a burden even to yourself. It’s now or never!” he concluded.

Oblomov listened to him, watching him with anxious eyes. It was as if his friend had stood him in front of a mirror, and what he saw frightened him.

“Don’t scold me, Andrei. It would be so much better if you helped me!” he began with a sigh. “I’ve been agonizing over this myself, and if you could have seen and heard me just today, how I’m digging my own grave and grieving for myself, you wouldn’t let a reproach slip off your tongue. I know all this, and I understand all this, but I don’t have the strength or the will. Give me some of your will and intelligence and lead me where you like. Maybe I’ll follow you, but by myself I’ll never budge. You’re right when you say, ‘Now or never.’ Another year and it will be too late!”

“Is this you, Ilya?” said Andrei. “I remember when you were a lively, slim boy and how you would walk to Kudrino from Prechistenka every day. In the little garden there . . . you haven’t forgotten the two sisters, have you? You haven’t forgotten the Rousseau, Schiller, Goethe, and Byron you brought them and the novels by Cottin and Genlis you took away?* Remember how you used to put on airs for them and tried to refine their taste?”

Oblomov jumped up from his bed.

“Why, you remember that, too, Andrei? Of course! I daydreamed with them, whispered my hopes for the future, worked out my plans and thoughts and . . . my feelings, too, on the quiet from you, so you wouldn’t make fun of me. All that died there, never to be reprised! But where did it all go? Why did it die? It’s beyond comprehension! After all, I never knew a single storm or upheaval. I never lost anything. I don’t have a yoke weighing on my conscience; it’s as clear as glass. No blow ever struck at my self-esteem, so God only knows why it’s all lost!”

He sighed.

“Do you know, Andrei, I’ve never known what it’s like to have a flame of either salvation or destruction burn in my life, or a morning gradually showered with color and fire that turns into a day like other people have, a day that burns hotly, and everything seethes and moves in the hot afternoon, and then grows quieter and quieter, paler and paler, and as night falls everything fades away naturally and gradually. No, my life began with the fading away. It’s strange but true! The moment I became aware of myself, I felt I was already fading! I started fading over my writing of papers in the office; then I faded afterward reading the truths in books, truths I didn’t know what to do with in my life; I faded with my friends, listening to their discussions, gossip, and teasing, their cold and malicious chatter, and their emptiness, as I observed friendships maintained by gatherings without purpose or sympathy; I faded and wrecked my strength with Mina. I spent more than half my income on her and imagined I loved her. I faded in my dismal and idle promenading up and down Nevsky, amid the raccoon coats and beaver collars, at parties and at-home days, where they showed me hospitality as a plausible bridegroom. I faded and squandered my life and mind away moving from city to dacha and from dacha to Gorokhovaya, defining the spring by the delivery of oysters and lobsters, fall and winter by fixed days, summer by outings, and my whole life by lazy and serene somnolence, just like other people. Even my ambition—how did I spend that? On ordering clothing from a famous tailor? On being invited to a famous house? On Prince P. shaking my hand? But ambition is the salt of life! Where did it go? Either I failed to understand this life, or it’s worthless and it’s just as well I knew and saw nothing and no one pointed this out to me. You came and went, like a comet, bright and swift, and I forgot all that and faded away.”

Stolz did not respond to Oblomov’s speech with a casual gibe. He listened and maintained a gloomy silence.

“You just said that my face was haggard and not quite fresh,” Oblomov continued. “Yes, I’m a limp, shabby, worn caftan, not because of the climate or work, but because for twelve years a light has been locked up inside me that’s been searching for an outlet but only burned its own prison; it never broke free, and died out. And so, my dear Andrei, twelve years passed. I no longer had any desire to wake up.”

“Why didn’t you break out and run away? Why did you let yourself perish in silence?” asked Stolz impatiently.

“Run where?”

“Where? To the Volga and your muzhiks at the very least. Even there you have more movement, you have various interests, a purpose, work. I would have gone to Siberia, to Sitka.”

“See what strong remedies you’re always prescribing!” noted Oblomov despondently. “Am I the only one? Look, there’s Mikhailov, Petrov, Semyonov, Stepanov . . . more than you can count. Our name is legion!”

Stolz was still under the influence of this confession and remained silent. Then he sighed.

“Yes, a lot of water has flowed away!” he said. “I can’t leave you like this. I’m taking you away, first abroad and then to the country. You’ll lose a little weight and stop your fits of spleen, and there we’ll find you something to do.”

“Yes, let’s go away somewhere!” burst from Oblomov.

“Tomorrow we’ll start attending to getting you a passport to go abroad, then we’ll start preparing. I’m not going to back down, do you hear me, Ilya?”

“It’s always tomorrow with you!” objected Oblomov, as if dropping from the clouds.

“And you prefer ‘not to put off until tomorrow what can be done today’? What energy! It’s late now,” added Stolz, “but in two weeks we shall be far away from here.”

“What’s that, my friend? In two weeks? Good gracious, so sudden!” said Oblomov. “Why don’t we think this over well and prepare? We’re going to need some kind of tarantass.* That will take several months at least.”

“Now he wants a tarantass! We’ll travel post to the border, or by steamship to Lubeck, whichever is more convenient. They have railroads there in lots of places.”

“What about the apartment, and Zakhar, and Oblomovka? I do have to leave orders, after all,” Oblomov defended himself.

“Oblomovshchina! Oblomovshchina!” said Stolz, laughing. Then he picked up a candle, wished Oblomov a good night, and went off to bed. “It’s now or never. Remember that!” he added, turning to Oblomov and shutting the door behind him.

V

Now or never! The ominous words appeared before Oblomov only after he awoke in the morning.

He got out of bed, walked around the room a few times, and glanced into the sitting room, where Stolz was sitting and writing.

“Zakhar!” he shouted.

There was no jump from the stove; Zakhar wasn’t coming. Stolz had sent him to the post office.

Oblomov walked over to his own dusty desk, sat down, picked up a pen, and dipped it in the inkwell, but there wasn’t any ink. He looked for some paper, but there wasn’t any paper, either.

He began thinking and mechanically writing in the dust with his finger. Then he looked to see what he had written: Oblomovshchina.

He quickly erased what he had written with his sleeve. He had dreamt about that word being written in fire on the walls, like at Balthazar’s feast.

Zakhar came back and not finding Oblomov in bed, gave his master a troubled look, amazed to see him up and about. Written in this dull gaze of amazement was one word: Oblomovshchina.

One word, thought Ilya Ilich, and so . . . venomous!

As usual, Zakhar collected the comb, brush, and towel, and went over to groom Ilya Ilich.

“Go to hell!” said Oblomov angrily, knocking the brush out of Zakhar’s hands. Zakhar himself had already dropped the comb on the floor.

“You’re not going to lie down again?” asked Zakhar. “Then I’ll make your bed.”

“Bring me ink and paper,” replied Oblomov.

Oblomov thought about those words: Now or never!

Attending to this desperate appeal of reason and strength, he acknowledged and weighed what he had left of his remaining will and where he would take it, where he would invest these meager remains.

After agonizing thought he grabbed his pen, pulled a book out of the corner, and in a single hour hoped to read, write, and think through everything he had not read, written, or thought through in ten years.

What was he to do now? Move forward or stay where he was? This Oblomovan question was deeper for him than Hamlet’s. Moving forward meant suddenly throwing his roomy dressing gown from his soul and mind as well as his shoulders, sweeping the dust and cobwebs, not from the walls but from his eyes, and seeing things clearly.

What first step should I take toward this? Where should I begin? I don’t know, I can’t . . . no . . . I’m dodging the question. I do know, and . . . yes, and Stolz is here by my side. He’ll tell me.

But what will he tell me? ‘In a week,’ he’ll say, ‘jot down detailed instructions for your agent and send him to the country, mortgage Oblomovka, buy more land, send a plan for some buildings, give up your apartment, get a passport and go abroad for six months, shed your excess fat, get rid of the weight, refresh your soul with the air you once dreamed of with your friend, live a while without your dressing gown, without Zakhar and Tarantiev, put on your own stockings and take off your own boots, sleep only at night, go where everyone is going, take the railroad, take a steamer, and then . . . then . . . settle down at Oblomovka and know what sowings and yields are and why a muzhik can be poor and rich. Walk in the fields, travel to the elections, the factory, the mill, and the landing stage. Meanwhile, read newspapers and books, and worry about why the English have sent a ship to the Orient.’

That’s what he’ll say! That’s what going forward means. And so on for the rest of my life! Farewell to my poetic ideal! This is a smithy, not life, a place of constant flames, crackling, heat, and noise. When is there time to live a little? Wouldn’t it be better to stay here?

Staying here means wearing my shirt inside out, listening to Zakhar’s feet jumping from his bench, having dinner with Tarantiev, thinking less about everything, not finishing my book about the journey to Africa, and growing old peacefully in the apartment at Tarantiev’s friend’s sister’s.

Now or never! To be or not to be! Oblomov was about to rise from his chair, but his foot missed his slipper so he sat back down.

Two weeks later, Stolz left for England, having taken Oblomov’s word that he would go straight to Paris. Ilya Ilich’s passport was all set, and he had even ordered himself a traveling coat and purchased a cap. Thus had matters moved forward.

Zakhar had already tried to argue with a wise air that it was enough to order a single pair of boots and add extra soles to the others. Oblomov bought a blanket, a woolen sweater, a traveling kit—and wanted a bag for provisions, but ten people told him that people did not carry provisions abroad.

Zakhar dashed from artisan to artisan and shop to shop, always in a lather, and although he put quite a few tenners and fivers in his pocket from the change at the shops, he cursed Andrei Ivanovich and everyone else who had ever come up with the idea of traveling.

“What is he going to do there all alone?” he said at the shop. “Listen, only maids serve the gentry there, hear? What’s a girl doing pulling off boots? How’s she going to pull stockings on the master’s bare feet?”

He actually grinned so hard his side-whiskers jutted out, and he shook his head. Oblomov wasted no time in writing down what he would take along and what he would leave at home. Tarantiev was instructed to take the furniture and other possessions to his friend’s sister’s apartment, on the Vyborg side, lock them up in the three rooms, and keep them there until Oblomov’s return from abroad.

Those who knew Oblomov, some with disbelief, others with ridicule, and still others rather frightened, said, “He’s going. Can you imagine? Oblomov has got moving!”

But Oblomov had not left one month later or three.

On the eve of his departure, his lip swelled up in the night. “A fly bit me and I can’t go to sea with this lip!” he said, and he decided to wait for the next steamer. It was already August and Stolz had been in Paris long since, writing him indignant letters but receiving no reply.

Why was this? Could it be the ink had dried up in his inkwell and he had no paper? Or might it have been because in the Oblomov style “which” and “that” so often collided, or, finally, in the ominous call of “now or never” Ilya Ilich had settled on the latter and had folded his arms behind his head—and in vain would Zakhar try to awaken him.

No, his inkwell was full of ink and on his desk he had letters and stationery that even had his crest and was covered with his handwriting.

When he had written several pages he did not once put in “which” twice; his style flowed freely and from time to time expressively and eloquently, as in “days gone by,” when he and Stolz had dreamed of a life of work and travel, written notebooks of prose and verse, and wept over poets.

He would arise at seven o’clock, read, and take his books somewhere. His face showed not a trace of sleep, weariness, or boredom. Color had actually returned to it, and there was a sparkle in his eyes and something akin to courage or at least self-confidence. No dressing gown was to be seen on him; Tarantiev had taken it away to his friend’s sister’s along with the rest of his belongings.

Oblomov sat with a book or writing in his everyday coat, he wore a light scarf around his neck, and his shirt collar lay over his tie and gleamed like snow. He went out in a beautifully made frock coat and a stylish hat. He was cheerful. He was humming. Why was this?

Here he was sitting by the window of his dacha (he was staying at a dacha, a few versts from town), and beside him lay a bouquet of flowers. He was rapidly finishing his writing while constantly glancing over the bushes, at the path, and again hurrying to write.

Suddenly, on the path there was a crunching of sand under light steps; Oblomov dropped his pen, grabbed the bouquet, and ran up to the window.

“Is that you, Olga Sergeyevna? I’ll be right there!” he said, and he grabbed his cap and stick, ran out through the gate, gave his arm to a beautiful woman, and disappeared with her into the woods, in the shadow of huge firs.

Zakhar emerged from around a corner, watched him go, locked his room, and went to the kitchen.

“He’s gone!” he told Anisya.

“Is he going to have dinner?”

“Who knows?” replied Zakhar sleepily.

Zakhar was the same as ever: the same enormous side-whiskers and stubbly chin, the same gray vest and the slit in his frock coat, but he was married to Anisya, either as a result of his rupture with his lady-friend or simply out of the conviction that a man ought to be married. He had married and had not changed, no matter how the saying went.

Stolz had introduced Oblomov to Olga and her aunt. When Stolz had brought Oblomov to the house of Olga’s aunt for the first time, they had had guests. This was hard for Oblomov and, as usual, awkward.

I wish I could take my gloves off, he thought, it’s awfully warm in this room. How unaccustomed I am to all this!

Stolz sat down beside Olga, who was sitting alone, under a lamp, away from the tea table, leaning back in her chair and little interested in what was going on around her.

She was delighted to see Stolz; although her eyes did not light up or her cheeks flush, her entire face filled with a calm, even light and a smile appeared.

She called him her friend and loved him because he always made her laugh and would not let her be bored, but she was also a little afraid of him because he made her feel too much a child.

Whenever a question was born in her mind, or bewilderment, she could not instantly bring herself to trust him. He was too far ahead of her, too high above her, and her vanity suffered sometimes from this immaturity and this distance between their minds and ages.

Stolz, too, admired her unselfishly, as a marvelous creation with a fragrant freshness of intelligence and emotions. In his eyes, she was simply a splendid child of great promise.

However, Stolz did speak to her more willingly and frequently than he did to other women because she was following a simple, natural path in life, albeit unconsciously, and due to her happy nature and her healthy, not overly clever upbringing, she did not try to deny the natural manifestation of her thinking, feeling, and will, not even in the slightest, faintest movement of her eyes, lips, and hands.

Perhaps she did not stride as confidently down this path as she might have because now and again, she heard beside her the other, more confident steps of her “friend,” whom she trusted, and so tried to match her step with his?

Be that as it may, it is the rare maiden in whom you encounter such simplicity and natural freedom of look, word, and action. In her eyes, you would never read, Now I shall purse my lip a little and look thoughtful. I look quite pretty like that. I’ll look over there now and act frightened and give a little cry and they will run over to me right away. I’ll sit down at the piano and display the tiniest tip of my foot.

She had no airs, no coquetry, no hypocrisy, no trumpery, and no designs! On the one hand, Stolz almost alone appreciated her; on the other hand, she sat out more than one mazurka alone, making no attempt to conceal her boredom, and, looking at her, the most gracious of the young men were tongue-tied, not knowing what to say to her or how.

Some considered her unsophisticated, dull, and shallow because sage maxims about life and love, quick, surprising, and bold rejoinders, and opinions she had read or heard about music and literature did not trip from her tongue. She said little, and what she did say was her own and unpretentious. She was skirted by the smart and spirited “cavaliers”; while the unspirited, on the contrary, considered her rather odd and were a little intimidated. Stolz alone spoke with her continuously and made her laugh.

She loved music but sang more often in private, or for Stolz, or for some boarding school friend. According to Stolz, though, she sang as no other singer sang.

No sooner had Stolz sat down beside her than laughter burst out in the room, laughter so ringing, sincere, and infectious that anyone who heard it would invariably start laughing himself, without knowing why.

But Stolz did not always make her laugh. Half an hour later she was listening to him with curiosity and with doubled curiosity was shifting her eyes to Oblomov—glances which made Oblomov want to fall through the earth.

What on earth are they saying about me? he thought, peeking at them anxiously. He wanted to leave, but Olga’s aunt called him over to the table and sat him down beside her, under a cross-fire of looks from the entire company.

He turned fearfully toward Stolz—who had gone. He looked at Olga and met that same curious look of hers, which was aimed straight at him.

She’s still looking! he thought, surveying his clothing in embarrassment.

He even wiped his face with his handkerchief, thinking he might have a spot on his nose, and touched his tie to make sure it hadn’t come unknotted. That happened sometimes with him. No, all seemed to be in order, but she was still looking!

However, he was served a cup of tea and a tray of sugar twists. He wanted to quell his embarrassment and be free and easy, and in that mood he grabbed such a stack of rusks, cakes, and twists that a little girl sitting next to him burst out laughing. The others looked at the pile with curiosity.

My God, she’s looking, too! thought Oblomov. What am I going to do with this stack?

Without looking, he saw Olga rise from her place and go to another corner. His heart eased.

But the little girl watched him keenly in anticipation of what he would do with the rusks.

I’ll eat them as quickly as I can, he thought, and began picking up cakes hand over fist. Fortunately, they melted in his mouth.

There were only two rusks left. He sighed freely and got up the nerve to look to see where Olga had gone.

She was standing by a bust and leaning against the pedestal, watching him. She had left her corner apparently in order to watch him more freely. She had noticed his awkwardness with the rusks.

At supper she sat at the other end of the table, spoke, ate, and appeared to pay him no mind. But as soon as Oblomov turned timidly in her direction, in hopes she wasn’t looking, he met her glance, filled with curiosity, but at the same time very kind.

After supper, Oblomov took hasty leave of Olga’s aunt. She invited him to dinner the next day and asked him to convey the invitation to Stolz. Ilya Ilich bowed and walked all the way across the room without looking up. Right behind the piano was a screen and the door. He glanced—and Olga was sitting at the piano watching him with great curiosity. He thought she was smiling.

Andrei must have told her how yesterday I was wearing different stockings or my shirt was inside out! he concluded and he went home, out of sorts, both because of this assumption and even more because of the dinner invitation, to which he had replied with a bow—meaning, he accepted.

Oblomov could not get Olga’s persistent gaze out of his mind. In vain did he lie stretched out on his back. In vain did he assume the laziest and calmest of poses. He couldn’t sleep and that was that. He even found his dressing gown repulsive, Zakhar stupid and unbearable, and the dusty cobweb intolerable.

He ordered several wretched paintings taken out which he had had foisted upon him by some patron of poor artists. He himself fixed the blind that had not gone up in a long time, called in Anisya and ordered her to clean the windows, swept down the cobweb, and then lay down on his side and thought for a good hour—about Olga.

At first, he carefully studied her appearance and kept drawing her portrait in his memory.

Olga was not a beauty in the strict sense, that is, she had no whiteness to her, no vivid coloring of cheeks and lips, and her eyes did not burn with the rays of an inner fire. There was neither coral on her lips nor pearls in her mouth, nor did she have miniature hands like a five-year-old child with fingers like grapes.

Were she transformed into a statue, though, she would have been a statue of grace and harmony. The size of her head perfectly suited her rather tall stature, and the oval shape and dimensions of her face suited the size of her head. All this, in turn, harmonized with her shoulders, and her shoulders with her torso. Anyone who met her, even the most absent-minded, would halt for a moment in front of such a fully, thoughtfully, and artistically realized being.

Her nose described a subtly arched and graceful line; her lips were thin and usually pursed, a sign of continuously focused thought. The same presence of active thought shone in the sharp, always vivacious, perpetually vigilant gaze of her dark, blue gray eyes. Her brows lent a special beauty to her eyes; they were not arched and did not circle the eyes in two fine, tweaked threads. No, these were two blond, fluffy, almost straight stripes that rarely lay symmetrically. One was a line higher than the other, and this put a small crease above her eyebrow, an eloquent crease, as if thought resided there.

Olga walked with her head inclined slightly forward and resting in perfect harmony and nobility on her slender, proud neck. Her body moved evenly, stepping lightly, almost imperceptibly.

Why was she staring yesterday? thought Oblomov. Andrei swears he hasn’t told her about the stockings and shirt but was speaking of his friendship for me, about how we grew up and studied—everything that was good—and meanwhile (and he did tell her this), how unhappy Oblomov was, how everything good in him was dying due to too little participation and activity, how weakly his life was flickering and how . . .

Why should she smile? Oblomov continued his thoughts. If she had any kind of heart, it ought to sink and bleed from pity, whereas she . . . oh, never mind! I’m going to stop thinking about it! I’ll just go there today, have dinner, and not step foot there again.

One day followed another, and he was there with both feet, as well as his arms and head.

One fine morning Tarantiev moved Oblomov’s entire household to his friend’s sister’s in a lane on the Vyborg side, and Oblomov spent three days such as he had not spent them in a long time: without a bed or sofa and having his dinner at Olga’s aunt’s.

Unexpectedly, they learned that opposite their dacha was another, unoccupied. Oblomov rented it sight unseen and was living there. He was with Olga from dawn ‘til dusk. He read to her, sent her flowers, and took walks around the lake and over the hills—he, Oblomov.

Life is full of surprises! How could this have happened? Here is how.

When he and Stolz were dining with Olga’s aunt, Oblomov during dinner experienced the same torment as the day before, chewed under her gaze, spoke while knowing, feeling, that over him stood this gaze, like the sun, singeing him, disturbing him, stirring his nerves and blood. On the balcony, behind his cigar, behind its smoke, he could barely hide for a moment from this wordless, persistent gaze.

“What is going on?” he said, turning in all directions. “This is perfect torture! Am I merely an object of fun for her? She doesn’t look at anyone else like that; she wouldn’t dare. I’m just meeker, that’s why she . . . I shall speak to her!” he decided. “I’ll tell her myself, in words, what she has been drawing from my soul with her eyes.”

That very moment she appeared before him suddenly on the balcony threshold. He brought her a chair, and she sat down beside him.

“Is it true you’re very bored?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he replied, “but not very. I have my activities.”

“Andrei Ivanich said you’re writing some kind of plan, is that right?”

“Yes, I want to go live in the country, so I’m preparing little by little.”

“Will you go abroad?”

“Yes, definitely, as soon as Andrei Ivanich is ready.”

“Are you going willingly?” she asked.

“Quite willingly.”

He looked. A smile was spreading across her face, then her eyes lit up, then her cheeks flushed, only her lips were pursed, as usual. He didn’t have the heart to tell such a bald-faced lie.

“I am a little . . . lazy,” he said, “but . . .”

He was vexed as well that she had lured from him so easily, almost silently, this confession of laziness. What is she to me? Am I afraid of her? he thought.

“Lazy!” she objected with the barest cunning. “Could that be? A man is lazy. I don’t understand that.”

What’s there not to understand? he thought. It seems simple. “I sit at home mostly, and that’s why Andrei thinks I—”

“But you probably write a lot,” she said, “and read. Have you been reading something?”

She looked at him very steadily.

“No, I haven’t!” suddenly burst from him from fright, so that she wouldn’t think to examine him.

“Haven’t been reading what?” she said, laughing.

And he too began to laugh.

“I thought you were going to ask me about some novel. I don’t read them.”

“You guessed wrong. I was going to ask you about your travels.”

He gave her a sharp look. Her whole face was laughing, except for her lips.

Oh! I must watch my step with her, thought Oblomov.

“What do you read?” she asked with curiosity.

“I do like travel most of all.”

“To Africa?” she asked slyly and quietly.

He blushed, guessing, not without reason, that she knew not only what he was reading but how.

“Are you a musician?” she asked, to ease him out of his embarrassment.

At that moment, Stolz walked up.

“Ilya! I was telling Olga Sergeyevna about your passion for music and asked her to sing something. ‘Casta diva.’”

“Why are you slandering me?” replied Oblomov. “I have no passion for music.”

“How’s that?” interjected Stolz. “You’d think he’d been insulted! I recommend him as a decent man, and he rushes to disappoint you on his account!”

“I merely decline the role of music lover. That’s a dubious as well as difficult role!”

“What kind of music do you like most?” asked Olga.

“That’s a hard question to answer! All kinds! Sometimes I’m happy listening to a husky barrel organ, or some melody that’s popped into my head, and another time I’ll leave an opera halfway through. Meyerbeer stirs me, so does a barge song even. It depends on my mood. Sometimes Mozart makes you stop up your ears.”

“That means you truly love music.”

“Sing something, Olga Sergeyevna,” asked Stolz.

“But what if Monsieur Oblomov is in a mood now to stop up his ears?” she said, turning to him.

“Now I should pay you a compliment,” replied Oblomov. “But I don’t know how, and even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

“Why is that?”

“What if you sing badly!” remarked Oblomov naïvely. “Afterward I would feel awkward.”

“Like yesterday with the rusks,” suddenly burst from her, and she herself blushed and God knows what she would have given not to have said it. “Forgive me. I’m sorry!” she said.

Oblomov had certainly not expected that and became flustered.

“That was a nasty jab!” he said under his breath.

“No, perhaps a small revenge, and really and truly, it was unintentional, because you couldn’t even find a compliment for me.”

“Perhaps I will when I hear you.”

“So you’d like me to sing?” she asked.

“No, he would,” replied Oblomov, pointing to Stolz.

“And you?”

Oblomov shook his head.

“I can’t want what I don’t know.”

“You’re a barbarian, Ilya!” Stolz remarked. “That’s what it means to lie around at home and put your stockings on—”

“Please, Andrei,” Oblomov broke in quickly, not letting him finish. “It would cost me nothing to say, ‘Oh! I would like it very much, so happy, of course, you sing excellently,’” he continued, addressing Olga, “‘This would afford me . . .’ and so on. Is that really necessary?”

“But you could at least have expressed a wish that I sing, if only out of curiosity.”

“I don’t dare. You’re not an actress.”

“Well, I shall sing for you,” she told Stolz.

“Ilya, prepare your compliment.”

In the meantime, evening had fallen. They had lit a lamp that shone like the moon through the ivied trellis. Dusk concealed the outlines of Olga’s face and figure and seemed to draw a veil over her; her face was in shadow, and all you could hear was her gentle but strong voice and a nervous tremor of emotion.

She sang several arias and romances at Stolz’s instruction. Some expressed suffering with a vague intimation of happiness; others, joy, but the sounds of these held a germ of sorrow.

The words and sounds, this pure and strong maidenly voice made his heart beat faster, his nerves tremble, eyes sparkle, and tears well up. He felt like dying and never waking up from these sounds and at the same moment his heart thirsted again for life.

Oblomov flushed, grew faint, could barely hold back tears, and had even more trouble stifling the joyous cry ready to burst from inside him. He had not felt such spirit and strength for a long time, a strength that seemed to rise whole from deep inside, prepared to accomplish some great deed.

At that moment, he would even have gone abroad if all he had to do was embark and go.

In conclusion she sang “Casta Diva.” All the ecstasies, the thoughts racing like lightning in his mind, the quivering that ran through his body like needles, all this destroyed Oblomov. He was on the verge of collapse.

“Are you pleased with me today?” Olga asked Stolz suddenly when she stopped singing.

“Ask Oblomov. What does he say?” said Stolz.

“Oh my!” burst from Oblomov.

He impulsively snatched up Olga’s hand and dropped it immediately and then was terribly embarrassed.

“Forgive me,” he muttered.

“You hear?” Stolz said to her. “Tell me honestly, Ilya. How long has it been since this has happened to you?”

“It might have happened this morning if a husky barrel-organ had passed by his windows,” interjected Olga with good nature, and so gently that she took the sting out of the sarcasm.

He looked at her with reproach.

“His windows have yet to be removed. He can’t hear what’s going on outside,” added Stolz.

Olga looked at Stolz with reproach.

Stolz took Olga’s hand.

“I don’t know what to ascribe it to that today you sang as never before, Olga Sergeyevna, or at least I haven’t heard it. There is my compliment!” he said, kissing each one of her fingers.

Stolz left. Oblomov, too, made ready to leave, but Stolz and Olga detained him.

“I have business,” commented Stolz, “and you would just go lie down. It’s early still.”

“Andrei! Andrei!” said Oblomov with a prayer in his voice. “No, I can’t stay today. I’m leaving!” he added, and he left.

He did not sleep all night. Melancholy and pensive, he paced up and down his room. At dawn he left the house and walked along the Neva and through the streets, feeling and thinking about God knows what.

Three days later, he was again there in the evening when the other guests sat down to cards and he found himself by the piano, with Olga. Her aunt had taken ill with a headache; she was sitting in her study and sniffing spirits.

“Would you like me to show you the collection of drawings Andrei Ivanich brought me from Odessa?” asked Olga. “Did he show them to you?”

“Are you trying to play the good hostess with me?” asked Oblomov. “You shouldn’t!”

“Why not? I don’t want you to be bored. I want you to feel at home here, to feel comfortable and at ease, so that you don’t leave . . . and lie down.”

She’s a wicked, mocking creature! thought Oblomov, admiring her every move in spite of himself.

“You want me to feel comfortable and at ease, and not be bored?” he repeated.

“Yes,” she replied, looking at him as she had the previous day but with an expression of even greater curiosity and good nature.

“For that, first, don’t look at me the way you are now, and the way you did the other day.”

The curiosity in her eyes doubled.

“It’s precisely that look which makes me so uncomfortable. Where is my hat?”

“Why uncomfortable?” she asked gently, and her look lost its expression of curiosity. It was now only good and kind.

“I don’t know, only it seems to me that you’re trying to use that look to draw out of me everything I don’t want others to know, especially you.”

“But why? You’re Andrei Ivanich’s friend, and he’s a friend to me, therefore—”

“Therefore there’s no reason why you should know everything about me that Andrei Ivanich does,” he finished.

“There’s no reason, but there is the possibility.”

“Thanks to my friend’s frankness—a disservice on his part!”

“You mean you have secrets?” she asked. “Crimes perhaps?” she added, laughing and moving away from him.

“Perhaps,” he replied, sighing.

“Yes, that is a serious crime,” she said shyly and quietly, “wearing different stockings.”

Oblomov grabbed his hat.

“I can’t take it!” he said. “And you want me to feel comfortable! I no longer like Andrei. Did he tell you that?”

“He made me laugh terribly with it today,” added Olga. “He’s always making fun. Forgive me, I won’t, and I’ll try to look at you differently.”

She made a cunningly grave face.

“All this is still in the first place,” she continued. “And since I’m not looking at you as I did yesterday, you must feel more comfortable and at ease now. So, what must I do in the second place to make sure you’re not bored?”

He looked straight into her kind blue-gray eyes.

“Now you’re the one looking strangely at me,” she said.

Indeed, he was looking at her not with his eyes but with his thoughts, his entire will, like a mesmerist, but involuntarily, powerless not to look.

My God, how very pretty she is! There really are women like this in the world! he thought, looking at her with almost frightened eyes. That whiteness, those eyes, where it’s dark and at the same time gleaming, as in the deep . . . her soul, no doubt! One can read her smile like a book; and behind the smile those teeth and her whole head. How gently it rests on her shoulders, tossed there like a flower, breathing perfume.

Yes, I am taking something from her, he thought, something is passing from her to me. In my heart, right here, there’s a seething and pounding now. I feel something new here, something I don’t think was there before. My God, what happiness it is to look at her! I’m even having trouble breathing.

These thoughts raced through his head like a whirlwind, and he kept looking at her the way people look into the infinite distance, or a bottomless chasm—obliviously, blissfully.

“That’s quite enough, Monsieur Oblomov. Now you’re the one looking at me!” she said, turning her head away shyly, but curiosity got the better of her and she could not take her eyes off his face.

He heard nothing.

Indeed, he kept looking at her without hearing what she was saying, silently noting what was happening to him; he touched his head—and there too something was in upheaval, racing. He could not keep up with his thoughts; like a flock of birds they fluttered up, and something hurt on his left side, near his heart.

“Don’t look at me so strangely,” she said. “It makes me uncomfortable as well. You would probably like to take something from my soul, too.”

“What could I take from you?” he asked mechanically.

“I have plans, too, begun and unfinished,” she replied.

He woke up at this allusion to his own unfinished plan.

“Strange!” he remarked. “You’re wicked, but your look is so good. People are right in saying that you can’t believe women. They lie intentionally with their tongue and unintentionally with their look, their smile, their blush, even their fainting.”

She did not let the impression strengthen but quietly picked up his hat and sat on his chair.

“I won’t! I won’t!” she repeated animatedly. “Oh, forgive my intolerable tongue! But really and truly, I’m not mocking you!” She almost sang this, and emotion trembled in the singing of this phrase.

Oblomov calmed down.

“That Andrei!” he uttered with reproach.

“Well, in the second place, tell me, what can I do so you won’t be bored?” she asked.

“Sing!” he said.

“There it is, the compliment I was waiting for!” she broke in with a burst of joy. “You know,” she then went on with animation, “if you hadn’t said that ‘oh my’ the day before yesterday, after my singing, I don’t think I could have fallen asleep all night. I might have wept.”

“But why?” asked Oblomov with surprise.

She pondered that.

“I don’t know myself,” she then said.

“You’re proud. That’s why.”

“Yes, of course, that’s why,” she said, pondering that as she ran one hand over the keys. “But there’s pride everywhere, and quite a lot of it. Andrei Ivanich says it’s almost the only engine that can govern our will. Now you probably don’t have it, which is why you always—”

She didn’t finish.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she faltered. “I’m fond of Andrei Ivanich,” she continued, “not only because he makes me laugh—sometimes he talks and I weep—and not because he is fond of me, but I think because . . . he likes me more than other people. See where pride has crept in!”

“You’re fond of Andrei?” Oblomov asked her, and he plunged an intense, searching look into her eyes.

“Yes, of course, if he likes me more than other people. I have for a long time,” she replied gravely.

Oblomov looked at her in silence, and she replied with a simple, taciturn look.

“He is fond of Anna Vasilievna, too, and Zinaida Mikhailovna, but not in the same way,” she continued. “He wouldn’t sit with them for two hours, or make them laugh, or tell them anything from the heart. He talks about business, theater, and the news, but he talks with me like a sister . . . no, a daughter,” she added hastily. “Sometimes he even yells at me if I haven’t understood something immediately, or haven’t obeyed or agreed with him. But he doesn’t yell at them, and I may be even fonder of him for that. Pride!” she added thoughtfully. “But I don’t know what that has to do with my singing. People have been saying so many good things about it for so long, but you didn’t want to listen to me, you were nearly forced. If you had left after that without saying a word to me, if I hadn’t noted anything in your face, I think I would have fallen ill. Yes, that’s it exactly: pride!” she concluded decisively.

“Did you really notice something in my face?” he asked.

“Tears, though you tried to hide them. That is a bad trait among men, being ashamed of their own hearts. That is pride as well—false pride. I’d rather they were ashamed sometimes of their mind, which is more often mistaken. Even Andrei Ivanich is ashamed of his heart. I’ve told him so, and he agreed with me. And you?”

“Looking at you, I would agree to anything!” he said.

“Another compliment! And so . . .”

She searched for the word.

“Banal!” Oblomov completed her thought without taking his eyes off her.

She confirmed the word’s significance with a smile.

“That’s just what I feared when I didn’t want to ask you to sing. What does one say, listening for the first time? And one must say something. It’s difficult to be intelligent and sincere at the same time, especially when it comes to feelings, under the influence of an impression like when . . .”

“But in fact I sang then as I haven’t sung in a long time, perhaps ever. Don’t ask me to sing because I’ll never sing like that again. Wait, I’ll sing one more,” she said, and at that moment her face seemed to blaze up and her eyes burned. She dropped to her chair, struck a few powerful chords, and began.

My God, what was heard in that singing! Hopes, a vague fear of storms, the storms themselves, bursts of happiness—all of that, heard not in the song but in her voice.

She sang for a long time, glancing over at him from time to time, as if childishly asking, “Are you pleased? No? Then listen to this.” And she sang again.

Her cheeks and ears were flushed with agitation. From time to time the play of lightning bolts of the heart flashed on her fresh face, a beam blazed out of passion so ripe it was as if her heart had experienced a distant future time in life, and then suddenly this transitory beam died, and again her voice was fresh and silvery.

The same kind of life played in Oblomov as well. He felt as if he were living and feeling all this not for an hour or two but for years on end.

Both of them, outwardly transfixed, had exploded with an inner fire and were feeling an identical trembling. Their eyes welled with tears prompted by their identical mood. All these were symptoms of those passions which evidently must have begun once to play in her young soul, which was now subject only to temporary, fleeting hints and surges of the sleeping forces of life.

She ended with a long, ringing chord that drowned out her voice. Suddenly she stopped, placed her hands in her lap and, touched and overwrought herself, took a look at Oblomov. How was he?

On his face shone the dawn of a happiness that had awakened and risen from the bottom of his soul. His tear-filled gaze was aimed at her.

Now without thinking she took his hand, and he hers.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Your face! Why is it like that?”

But she knew why his face was like that, and inwardly she felt a modest triumph as she admired this expression of her power.

“Look in the mirror,” she continued, smiling and pointing to his face in the mirror. “Your eyes are shining. My God, there are tears in them! How deeply you feel the music!”

“No, it’s not music . . . I feel . . . but . . . love!” said Oblomov softly.

Instantly, she let go his hand and her face changed. Her gaze met his, which was aimed at her. His gaze was transfixed, almost insane; it was not the gaze of Oblomov but of passion.

Olga realized that the word had burst from him, that he had had no power over it, and that it was the truth.

He came to his senses, picked up his hat, and ran out of the room without looking back. She was no longer following him with her curious gaze. She stood at the piano for a long time without stirring, like a statue, and looked down stubbornly, but her breast was heaving.

VI

Amid his lazy lying about in lazy postures, amid his dull dozing, amid his bursts of inspiration, in the forefront Oblomov had always dreamed of a woman as his wife and—sometimes—as his lover.

He dreamed of a tall, slender woman with hands serenely folded on her bosom and a quiet but proud look sitting casually amid the ivy in a bosquet, stepping lightly across a carpet, across the sand of an allée, with a swaying torso, a head set gracefully on her shoulders, and a thoughtful expression. This constituted his ideal, the embodiment of an entire life filled with pleasure and triumphant serenity—indeed, serenity itself.

He dreamed of her first all in flowers, at the altar, wearing a long gown; then by the head of their matrimonial bed, with shyly lowered eyes; and finally—as a mother, surrounded by children.

He dreamed of the smile on her lips, but not a passionate smile, eyes not wet with desire, but a smile sympathetic to him, her husband, and condescending to everyone else, a look well disposed to him alone and diffident, stern even, toward others.

He never wanted to see her tremble, or hear her heated dream, her sudden tears, her longing, her exhaustion, and then her mad transition to joy. He had no need of the moon or melancholy. She ought not suddenly to turn pale, faint, or experience shattering outbursts.

“Women like that have lovers,” he said, “and so many troubles: doctors, the waters, and all manner of whims. One can’t fall asleep in peace!”

By the side of a proudly diffident, calm friend, though, a man sleeps without care. He falls asleep with confidence and upon waking meets the same meek, sympathetic look. Twenty or thirty years later, his warm look meets the same meek, softly flashing ray of sympathy in her eyes. And so on to the grave!

Isn’t this it, the secret goal of every single person? To find in his friend the unchanging face of serenity, the perpetual and steady flow of emotion? After all, this is love’s standard, and if it deviates slightly, changes, or cools, we suffer. Isn’t my ideal the universal ideal? he thought. Isn’t this the crowning achievement, the very pinnacle of relations between the sexes?

Giving passions a legitimate outlet, indicating their proper flow, like a river, for the good of the entire land—that is man’s common task, the summit of progress toward which all those progressive thinkers climb and fall by the wayside. Reaching it means the end of betrayals and coolings and the constant, steady beating of a serenely happy heart and consequently a perpetually full life, the perpetual sap of life, perpetual moral well-being.

There are examples of this boon, albeit rare. People point to them as phenomena. This is why we are born, they say. But God knows whether one can be reared for this or pursue it consciously.

Passion! That is all well and good in verse and on the stage, where actors in cloak and dagger stride about and afterward the murderers and their victims dine together.

It would be well if passions ended this way, too, whereas what remains after them is smoke and stench but no happiness! Their memories lead to nothing but shame and hair-pulling.

Finally, if this misfortune—passion—does befall you, then no matter what, you end up on a broken, hilly, intolerable road on which even horses stumble and the horseman is exhausted, though your native village is in view. Don’t let it out of your sight, but leave this dangerous place with all due speed.

Yes, one must rein in passion, stifle and drown it in marriage.

He would have run in horror from a woman if she were suddenly to burn him with her eyes or moan, fall on his shoulder with eyes closed, then wake up and wind her arms around his neck until he choked. This was fireworks, a powder keg exploding. And what then? You went deaf and blind and tore out your hair!

But let us see what kind of woman Olga was!

For a long time after his confession burst from him they did not see each other alone. He hid like a schoolboy, just to catch a glimpse of Olga. She changed toward him but did not run away and was not cold but only more pensive.

She seemed to regret that this had happened because it prevented her from tormenting Oblomov with her curious gaze and from teasing him good-naturedly over his lying about, his laziness, and his awkwardness.

The comic element ran high in her, but it was the comic element of a mother who can’t help but smile at her son’s silly attire. Stolz had left, she was bored at having no one to sing for, and her piano was closed. In short, constraint, fetters, lay on them both, and they both felt awkward.

How well things had been going! How simply they had met! How freely they had drawn together! Oblomov was simpler than Stolz and kinder, although he did not make her laugh, or he made her laugh by being himself and easily forgave her teasing.

Then, as well, Stolz, in leaving, had bequeathed Oblomov to her and asked her to look after him and prevent him from sitting at home. In her clever, pretty head a detailed plan developed as to how she would train Oblomov not to nap after dinner, and not just nap—she would not even allow him to recline on his sofa in the afternoon. She would extract his promise.

She dreamed of “ordering him to read the book” Stolz had left, and then to read the newspapers every day and tell her the news, to write his letters to the country, to finish his plan for the estate, and to prepare to go abroad. In short, she would not let him doze off. She would point out his goal and make him love again everything he had once loved, and Stolz would not recognize him when he returned.

She would perform this entire miracle—she, so shy, so quiet, who up until now no one had obeyed, who had not begun to live! She would be the initiator of this transformation!

And it had begun. No sooner had she begun to sing than Oblomov changed.

He would live, act, and bless life and her. Restoring a man to life—how much fame would a doctor win by saving a hopeless patient? But what about saving a morally dying mind and soul?

She actually shuddered in proud and joyful excitement. She considered it a lesson assigned from on high. In her mind she made him her secretary and librarian.

And suddenly, all this had to end! She did not know how she should proceed, and this was why she did not speak when she met Oblomov.

Oblomov agonized that he had frightened or offended her. He anticipated her lightning glances and cold severity and shuddered when he saw her, turning aside.

Meanwhile, he moved to the dacha and for several days set off, always alone, over the hummocks, through the swamp, and into the forest, or went to the village and sat idly by the peasants’ gates, watching the children run around and the calves splash in the pond like ducks.

Near the dacha was a lake and an enormous park, where he was afraid to go lest he encounter Olga alone.

What ever possessed me! he thought, and he did not even ask himself whether it was in fact the truth he had blurted out or this had merely been the passing effect of the music on his nerves.

The sense of awkwardness and shame—or “disgrace,” as he put it—that he had inflicted prevented him from sorting out what this outburst had been and, in a larger sense, who Olga was to him. He was not ready to analyze the fact that something had been added to his heart, a lump that had not been there before. Inside him, all his emotions had rolled up into a single lump—of shame.

When she appeared briefly in his imagination, there also arose the image, the ideal of embodied serenity and life’s happiness. This ideal was Olga—to a tee! The two images converged and coalesced.

“Oh, what have I done!” he said. “I’ve ruined everything! Thank God Stolz left before she had the chance to tell him because I would have fallen through the earth! Love and tears—do they suit me? Even Olga’s aunt doesn’t send word or invite me. She must have told her. My God!”

This is what he was thinking as he wended his way deeper into the park, down a side allée.

Olga’s only concern was how she would greet him, how this event would transpire—in silence, as if nothing had happened, or would she have to speak?

But what would she say? Make a stern face, look at him proudly or not at all, and comment haughtily and dryly that she “had never expected such behavior from him. Who did he think he was, permitting himself such impudence?” Thus had Sonechka responded to a cornet during a mazurka, although she had done everything in her power to turn his head.

What exactly is impudent about that? she asked herself. If he does in fact feel something, why should he not say so? Although it was very sudden, when we had barely met. No one else would ever have said that upon seeing a woman for the second or third time. Nor would anyone else have felt love so quickly. This only Oblomov could do.

But she did recall hearing and reading that sometimes love does come suddenly.

It was impulse, infatuation, and now he won’t show his face because he’s ashamed, so it probably wasn’t impudence. But who is to blame? she thought. Andrei Ivanich, of course, because he had made her sing.

But at first Oblomov had not wanted to listen, which had vexed her, and she . . . had made an effort. (She blushed deeply.) Yes, she had done everything in her power to stir him.

Stolz had said he was apathetic, that nothing interested him, that everything in him had died. So she had wanted to see whether everything in fact had, so she sang and sang, like never before.

My God! It is my fault. I shall beg his forgiveness. But for what? she asked later. What shall I say to him? Monsieur Oblomov, it is my fault. I seduced you. What a disgrace! It’s not true! she said angrily and stamped her foot. Who dares think that? How could I know what would come of it? And if it hadn’t, if it hadn’t burst from him, what then? she asked. I don’t know, she thought.

Ever since that day she had felt strange at heart. She must have been very offended because she even felt feverish and two pink spots flushed on her cheeks.

“It’s nerves, a slight fever,” said the doctor.

What had that Oblomov done! Oh, he needs to be taught a lesson, so that this never happens again! I’ll ask ma tante to turn him away from the house. He ought not to forget himself. How dare he! she thought as she walked through the park. Her eyes were burning.

All of a sudden, she heard someone coming.

Someone’s coming, thought Oblomov.

And they came face to face.

“Olga Sergeyevna!” he said, quaking like an aspen leaf.

“Ilya Ilich!” she replied shyly, and they both stopped.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“Good afternoon,” she echoed.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Oh . . .” she said, not looking up.

“Am I disturbing you?”

“Oh, not at all,” she replied, glancing at him quickly and with curiosity.

“May I join you?” he asked suddenly, casting a searching glance at her.

They walked down the path in silence. Nothing in his life, neither his teacher’s ruler nor his director’s eyebrows, had ever made Oblomov’s heart beat as it did now. He wanted to say something and tried to find the strength, but the words would not leave his tongue. His heart beat incredibly, though, as if disaster were imminent.

“Have you had a letter from Andrei Ivanich?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Oblomov.

“What does he write?”

“He’s summoning me to Paris.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll go.”

“When?”

“Well—no, tomorrow, as soon as I’m packed.”

“Why so soon?” she asked.

He did not answer.

“Don’t you like your dacha, or . . . tell me, why do you want to leave?”

Impudent man! Now he wants to go! she thought.

“I don’t know why, but I’m in pain. I feel uncomfortable. There’s something burning me,” whispered Oblomov, not looking at her.

She did not answer but broke off a branch of lilac and sniffed it, covering her face and nose.

“Sniff! How wonderful it smells!” she said, and she covered his nose.

“And here are lilies of the valley! Wait, I’ll pick them,” he said, bending toward the grass. “These smell better—like the fields and woods. They have more of nature. Whereas lilac always grows near houses, and the branches climb in the windows, and the smell is too sweet. Look, the lilies of the valley are still wet with dew.”

He offered her several lilies of the valley.

“Do you like mignonettes?” she asked.

“No, they have such a strong smell. I don’t like mignonettes or roses. I don’t like flowers very much at all. In the fields they’re all right, but in a room—all the fuss and litter . . .”

“You like your rooms to be clean then?” she asked, looking at him slyly. “You can’t stand litter?”

“Yes, but you don’t know my servant,” he muttered. Oh, the wicked woman! he added to himself.

“Will you go to Paris directly?” she asked.

“Yes. Stolz has been waiting a long time for me.”

“Take him a letter. I shall write,” she said.

“Then give it to me today. Tomorrow I’m moving back to town.”

“Tomorrow?” she asked. “Why so soon? You’d think someone was driving you away.”

“Someone is.”

“Who?”

“Shame,” he whispered.

“Shame!” she echoed mechanically. Now is when I should say to him, Monsieur Oblomov, I never expected . . .

“Yes, Olga Sergeyevna,” he finally got a hold of himself. “I think you’re shocked . . . and angry.”

The time has come. This is the moment. Her heart was pounding very hard. My God, I can’t!

He tried to look into her face and learn what she was about. But she was sniffing the lilies of the valley and lilac and did not know herself what she thought, or what she should say, or do.

Oh, Sonechka would have thought of something now, but I’m so stupid! I don’t know how to do anything, she thought in anguish.

“I’ve forgotten all about it,” she said.

“Believe me, I didn’t intend . . . I couldn’t help myself,” he began, gathering his nerve little by little. “If there had been a clap of thunder then, or a stone had fallen on me, I would have said it anyway. No power on earth could have stopped me. For God’s sake, don’t think I meant to . . . A minute later I would have given anything to take back my rash words.”

She walked along, head down, sniffing the flowers.

“Please, forget it,” he continued, “especially since it isn’t true.”

“It’s not?” she echoed suddenly, straightening up and dropping the flowers.

Her eyes opened wide and shone with astonishment.

“What do you mean, it’s not true?” she repeated.

“Oh please, for God’s sake, don’t be angry. Please forget it. I assure you, it was only a momentary enthusiasm . . . because of the music.”

“Only the music!”

Her face changed: the two pink patches were gone, and her eyes dulled.

Now it was nothing at all! Now he’s taken back his rash words and I shouldn’t be angry! Now isn’t this fine . . . we can be calm . . . we can talk and joke as before, she thought and she tore a branch from a tree in passing, tugged one leaf off with her lips, and then immediately threw both the branch and the leaf on the path.

“You’re not angry? You’ve forgotten?” said Oblomov, leaning toward her.

“What is this? What are you asking?” she replied with agitation, irritation almost, turning away from him. “I’ve forgotten everything. I’m so forgetful!”

He fell silent, not knowing what to do. He saw only her sudden irritation but not the cause.

My God! she thought. Now everything has righted itself, as if that scene never happened, thank God! But what . . . oh, my God! What is this? Oh, Sonechka, Sonechka! How lucky you are!

“I’m going home,” she said suddenly, quickening her step and turning down another allée.

There were tears in her throat. She feared she was going to cry.

“Not that way. This way is closer,” remarked Oblomov. Fool, he told himself miserably. I should have declared myself! Now I’ve given her even worse offense. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It would have passed and been forgotten of its own accord. Now I have no choice but to beg forgiveness.

That must be why I was so irritated, she thought. I never had a chance to say, Monsieur Oblomov, I never expected such liberties from you. He warned me. ‘It’s not true!’ you say. So he was lying as well! How dare he?

“Are you quite sure you’ve forgotten?” he asked softly.

“Yes, I’ve forgotten everything,” she spoke quickly, anxious to go home.

“Give me your hand, as a sign that you’re not angry.”

Without looking at him, she gave him the tips of her fingers, and the moment he touched them immediately pulled her hand back.

“No, you’re angry!” he said with a sigh. “How can I assure you that I got carried away, that I would never allow myself to be so bold? No, it’s settled, I won’t listen to your singing anymore.”

“Don’t assure me. I don’t need your assurances,” she said animatedly. “I won’t be singing in any case!”

“Fine, I’ll be silent,” he said, “only, for God’s sake, don’t go away like this, or I’ll have an enormous stone weighing on my soul.”

She started off more quietly and began listening intently to what he was saying.

“If it’s true that you would have cried if you hadn’t heard me gasp at your singing, then now, if you go away like this, if you don’t smile and give me your hand in friendship, I . . . Have pity, Olga Sergeyevna! I shall be ill. My knees are shaking, and I can barely keep my feet.”

“Why is that?” she asked suddenly, glancing at him.

“I don’t know myself,” he said. “My shame has passed. I’m not ashamed of my words. I think they . . .”

Once again, shivers crept over his heart; once again there was something else there. Once again her kind and curious gaze scorched him. So gracefully had she turned to face him, so anxiously had she awaited his reply.

“You think they what?” she asked impatiently.

“No, I’m afraid to say. You’ll be angry again.”

“Say it!” she said imperiously.

He was silent.

“Well?”

“I feel like crying again, looking at you. You see, I have no pride, I’m not ashamed of my heart.”

“Why should you cry?” she asked, and the two pink patches appeared on her cheeks.

“I keep hearing your voice again . . . and again I feel . . .”

“What?” she said, and tears surged from her breast, so tensely was she waiting.

They walked up to her porch.

“I feel,” Oblomov rushed to finish and stopped.

Slowly, as if it were hard, she climbed the steps.

“The same music . . . the same agitation . . . the same feel. . . . Forgive me, forgive me. Really and truly, I am not responsible for myself.”

“Monsieur Oblomov,” she said sternly, then suddenly her face lit up with the ray of her smile. “I am not angry. Good-bye,” she added meekly. “However, from now on . . .”

Without turning around, she reached back to him. He snatched her hand and kissed her palm. Softly she pressed his lips and instantly fluttered through the glass door, while he stood there, transfixed.

VII

He gazed after her for a long time, his eyes big, his mouth open, his gaze wandering from bush to bush.

Strangers passed and a bird flew by. A peasant woman asked in passing whether he needed berries, but his stupor persisted.

He walked quietly back down the same allée and quietly, before he was halfway, came upon the lilies of the valley which Olga had dropped and the branch of lilac she had torn off and abandoned in irritation.

Why did she do that? He tried to make sense of it and remember.

“Fool! Fool!” he said suddenly aloud, snatching up the lilies of the valley and the branch and nearly ran down the allée. “I asked her forgiveness, but she . . . could it really be? What a thought!”

Happy, beaming, “the moon’s crescent on his brow,” as his nurse used to say, he went home, sat in the corner of the sofa, and quickly wrote Olga in large letters in the dust on the table.

“Oh, what dust!” he realized after he recovered from his ecstasy. “Zakhar! Zakhar!” he shouted for a long time, because Zakhar was sitting with the coachmen by the gate on the lane.

“Come on!” said Anisya in an ominous whisper, tugging at his sleeve. “The master’s been calling you for a long time.”

“Look, Zakhar, what’s this?” said Ilya Ilich, but softly, good-naturedly. He was in no condition to be angry. “Are you bound and determined to institute the same chaos here? The dust and cobwebs? No, I’m sorry, I won’t allow it! As it is, Olga Sergeyevna gives me no peace: ‘You like litter, she says.’”

“Fine for her to say. She has five servants,” commented Zakhar, turning toward the door.

“Where are you going? Go sweep. A person can’t sit down or lean on his elbows here. This is filth. This is Oblomovshchina!”

Zakhar pouted and looked at his master sideways.

There! He thought. Now he’s come up with some pathetic word! But it’s familiar!

“Go on, sweep. Why are you standing there?” said Oblomov.

“Why sweep? I already swept today!” replied Zakhar stubbornly.

“If you swept, where is this dust from? Look! There! And there! I don’t want that! Sweep this instant!”

“I swept,” repeated Zakhar, “and I’m not going to sweep ten times a day! The dust collects from the street. It’s the fields, the dacha here. There’s a lot of dust outside.”

“Now, Zakhar Trofimich,” began Anisya, who suddenly looked in from the other room. “There’s no point sweeping the floor first and then dusting the tables. The dust just settles again. First you should—”

“What are you doing here giving orders?” rasped Zakhar furiously. “Get back to your place!”

“Where have you ever seen anyone sweep the floor first and then wipe the tables? That’s why the master’s angry.”

“Enough! Enough!” he shouted, menacing her with an elbow to the breast.

She grinned and made herself scarce. Oblomov waved at him, too, to make him go away. Oblomov lay his head down on an embroidered pillow, pressed his hand to his heart, and felt it beating.

This is really dangerous, he told himself. What should I do? If I ask the doctor’s advice, he might send me to Abyssinia!

Back before Zakhar and Anisya were married, each had had his own domain and never stepped foot in the other’s. That is, Anisya knew the market and kitchen and took part in cleaning the rooms only once a year, when she washed the floors.

After their wedding, though, she had freer access to the master’s rooms. She helped Zakhar, and the rooms became cleaner, and in general she took on several of her husband’s duties, in part of her own volition and in part because Zakhar despotically imposed them on her.

“All right, go beat the rug,” he would rasp imperiously, or, “You should have straightened over there, all that lying in the corner, and take what’s left over to the kitchen,” he would say.

Thus he had spent a blissful month. The rooms were clean, his master didn’t grumble or utter any “pathetic words,” and he, Zakhar, did nothing. This bliss passed, however, and for the following reason.

The moment he and Anisya took up the housekeeping in the master’s rooms, no matter what Zakhar did, it was foolish. Every step of his was always a misstep. For fifty-five years he had walked the wide world with confidence that everything he did could be done neither otherwise nor better.

Now, all of a sudden, in a matter of weeks, Anisya had proved to him that he was no good at all, and she had done it with offensive disdain, moreover, and very quietly, as is done only with children or perfect fools—smirking as she looked at him to boot.

“Zakhar Trofimich,” she said gently, “you shouldn’t shut the flue before you open the window pane. You’ll chill the rooms off.”

“What’s your way?” her husband asked rudely. “When should I open it?”

“When you’re stoking. It draws the air and then gets warm again,” she replied quietly.

“Silly woman!” he said. “I’ve been doing it this way for twenty years, and I’m not about to change for you.”

Lying together on his cupboard shelf were tea, sugar, lemon, and silver, and also his blacking, brushes, and soap.

One day, he came in to see his soap lying on the wash stand, his brushes and blacking on the kitchen windowsill, and his tea and sugar in a separate drawer of his bureau.

“Is it you who keeps turning everything your own way? Is it?” he asked menacingly. “I put everything in one corner on purpose to be handy, and now you have it all in different places?”

“So the tea doesn’t smell of soap,” she commented meekly.

Another time she showed him a few moth-holes in the master’s clothes and said once a week the clothes had to be shaken out and brushed.

“Let me beat them with my whisk,” she concluded gently.

He snatched away the whisk and frock coat she had picked up and put them back where they had been.

When, yet another time, as usual, he started fulminating against the master for yelling at him about the cockroaches because “he didn’t invent them,” Anisya silently cleared the bits of food off the shelf and the black bread crumbs that had been lying around since time immemorial, swept and washed out the cupboards and dishes—and the cockroaches disappeared almost entirely.

Zakhar had not quite realized what was up and ascribed this merely to her zeal. But one day when he brought in a tray with cups and glasses and broke two glasses and began cursing, as usual, and was about to throw the whole tray on the floor, she took the tray from his hands, put on other glasses and the sugar bowl and the bread, and arranged everything so that not a cup budged, and then showed him how to pick up the tray with one hand and steady it with the other, and then walked around the room twice, turning the tray right and left, and not a single spoon on it budged. Zakhar suddenly realized that Anisya was smarter than he was!

He snatched the tray from her, dropped the glasses, and never forgave her.

“Just look how it’s done!” she added gently.

He looked at her with obtuse disdain, and she smirked.

“Oh you, you woman, you think you’ve seen so much and you’re so smart! Do you think we had a house like this at Oblomovka? Everything rested on me: the servants and boys alone made fifteen! And your pals, you womenfolk, you don’t even know them by name. But here you . . . Oh you!”

“I just want what’s best,” she began.

“Enough!” he rasped, menacing her with an elbow to the breast. “Get out of here, out of the master’s rooms, and go to the kitchen. Know your woman’s place!”

She smirked and left, and he watched her go, sideways, sullenly.

His pride was suffering, and he was sullen with his wife. Whenever Ilya Ilich happened to ask him about something, though, and it either didn’t turn up or turned up broken, and in general, whenever the house was in a shambles and a storm gathered over Zakhar’s head, complete with “pathetic words,” Zakhar would wink at Anisya, nod toward the master’s study, and jerking his thumb in that direction, say in an imperious whisper, “Go to the master and ask what he wants.”

Anisya would go in, and the storm was always cleared up with a simple explanation. Zakhar himself, no sooner had “pathetic words” started slipping into Oblomov’s speech, would suggest he call for Anisya.

In short, had it not been for Anisya, everything in Oblomov’s rooms would have gone to wrack and ruin. She numbered among Oblomov’s household now and unconsciously shared the indissoluble bond between her husband and the life, house, and person of Ilya Ilich, and her womanly eye and solicitous hand kept vigil in his neglected quarters.

No sooner had Zakhar turned away, than Anisya would dust the tables and sofas, air out the room, straighten the blinds, pick up the boots tossed in the middle of the room and the trousers hanging on the good chairs, collect all the clothing, even the papers, pencils, penknives, and pens on the desk, and put it all in order. She would fluff his rumpled bedclothes, straighten the pillows—and all in a trice. Then she would run a quick eye over the whole room, push in a chair, close a half-open dresser drawer, remove a napkin from the table, and slip into the kitchen when she heard Zakhar’s creaky boots.

She was a lively, deft woman of about forty-seven with a solicitous smile, eyes that danced in all directions, a strong neck and bosom, and reddened, tenacious hands that never tired.

She barely had a face. All you noticed was her nose, which, though small, seemed to lag behind her face or be awkwardly attached. Moreover, its lower part jutted up, obscuring the face behind it. Her face was so hidden and faded that you got a clear understanding of her nose long before you ever noticed the rest.

There are lots husbands like Zakhar in this world. A diplomat might listen casually to his wife’s advice and shrug—and write as she advised without a murmur.

An administrator, whistling, might respond to his wife’s chatter about an important matter with a grimace of regret—and the next day pompously report that very chatter to the minister.

These gentlemen treat their wives just as sullenly or lightly, barely deigning to let them speak, considering them, if not peasants, as Zakhar did, then as flowers to distract them from their serious, practical life.

Noon had scorched the park’s path long since. Everyone was sitting in the shade, under the canvas awnings, only the nurses and children were bravely walking about, in groups, and sitting on the grass, under the afternoon’s rays.

Oblomov was still lying on his sofa, believing and not believing the import of his morning’s conversation with Olga.

She loves me. She feels something for me. Could that be? She dreams about me. She sang so passionately for me, and the music infected us both with sympathy.

Pride began to play in him. Life and its magical prospects began to shine along with all their colors and lights, which had so long been missing for him. He could already see himself abroad with her, at the lakes in Switzerland, in Italy walking through the ruins of Rome, riding in a gondola, and then getting lost in the crowd of Paris and London, and then . . . and then at his earthly paradise—Oblomovka.

She was a goddess with that dear prattle, elegant, white face, and delicate, gentle neck.

The peasants had never seen anything like it. They bowed to the ground before this angel. She stepped quietly across the grass and walked with him in the shade of the birch wood. She sang to him.

And he felt life, its quiet flow, its sweet streams and splashing. He fell into a reverie because his wishes had been granted and his happiness was complete.

Suddenly a cloud passed over his face.

“No, this can’t be!” he uttered aloud, rising from his sofa and pacing around the room. “She can’t love ridiculous me, with my sleepy look and flabby cheeks. She’s been laughing at me all along.”

He stopped in front of the mirror and examined himself for a long time, first unfavorably, and then his gaze cleared and he even smiled.

“I think I look better and fresher than I did in town,” he said. “My eyes aren’t so dull. I had that stye, but it’s gone. It must be the air here. I do a lot of walking, don’t drink any wine at all, and don’t lie around. I don’t need to go to Egypt.”

A footman came from Maria Mikhailovna, Olga’s aunt, to invite him to dinner.

“Yes, I’ll come!” said Oblomov.

The footman left.

“Wait. This is for you.”

He gave him some money.

He felt gay and at ease. The day outside was so clear. People were so good and they were enjoying everything; everyone had happiness on their face. Only Zakhar was sullen and kept looking at his master sideways, while Anisya grinned so good-naturedly. I’ll get a dog, decided Oblomov, or a cat. Better a cat. Cats are affectionate and purr.

He rushed off to see Olga.

But still . . . Olga does love me! he thought en route. She is a young, free creature! Her imagination has access to the most poetic sphere of life now. She must dream of a young man with black curls, slender and tall, with a pensive hidden strength, valor on his face, a proud smile, a spark in his eyes that drowns and flickers in his glance and touches the heart so easily, and a soft, fresh voice that rings like a metal string. Ultimately, people love men who aren’t young, too, who don’t have valor on their face or agility in a mazurka or on horseback. Presumably, Olga is no commonplace girl whose heart can be tickled by a mustache or moved by the rattle of a saber, but after all then something else is wanted . . . a strong intellect, for instance, to which a woman can submit and bow her head and society can bow down. Or a famous artist. But what am I? Oblomov—nothing more. Now Stolz is another matter. Stolz is intellect, strength, and the ability to control himself, others, and his destiny. No matter where he goes or whom he meets, before you know it he’s taken charge and is playing them like an instrument. But what about me? I can’t even control Zakhar . . . or myself for that matter. I’m Oblomov! Stolz! My God! She is fond of him, he thought, aghast. She said so herself. “Like a friend,” she said. Yes, but that’s a lie, if an unconscious one. There is no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman.

He began to slacken his pace, overcome by doubts.

What if she’s just flirting with me? If she’s only . . .

He stopped in his tracks, momentarily stunned.

What if this is guile, a plot? Why did I ever think she loved me? She didn’t say so. This is the satanic whispering of pride! Andrei! Could it be? No, she is so, so . . .

“Look how wonderful she is!” he said joyously, all of a sudden, seeing Olga walking toward him.

With a cheerful smile Olga held out her hand to him.

No, she’s not like that, she’s no deceiver, he decided. Deceivers don’t have such a kind look or such sincere laughter. They chirp. Yet she hasn’t said she loves me! He thought again in fright. Thus he reasoned privately. But why am I so vexed? Lord! What a maelstrom I’ve landed in!

“What’s that you have?” she asked.

“A branch.”

“What kind of branch?”

“Lilac, as you see.”

“Where did you get it? There is no lilac here. Where have you been?”

“It was you who broke it off and threw it away.”

“Why did you pick it up?”

“I like it so much that you . . . threw it away in irritation.”

“You like my irritation? This is something new! Why?”

“I won’t say.”

“Tell me, please, I beg of you.”

“Not for anything, not for the world!”

“I implore you.”

He shook his head.

“What if I sing?”

“Then . . . perhaps.”

“So only music has an effect on you?” she said, scowling. “Then it’s true?”

“Yes, music conveyed by you.”

“Then I shall sing. ‘Casta diva, Casta di—’” she began Norma’s appeal and stopped.

“All right, now tell me!” she said.

He struggled with himself briefly.

“No!” he concluded even more decisively than before. “Not for anything. Never! If it’s not true? If I was mistaken? Never!”

“What is this? Something terrible,” she said, directing her thoughts at this question and her searching gaze at him.

Then her face filled with a gradual realization. A ray of thought made its way into every feature, and suddenly her face lit up with her guess. So, too, the sun occasionally emerges from behind a cloud and little by little lights up one bush, and another, and a roof, and suddenly spills its light over the entire landscape. She now knew what Oblomov was thinking.

“No no, I don’t have the heart to say it,” repeated Oblomov, “so don’t ask.”

“I won’t,” she replied indifferently.

“But why? Just now you . . .”

“Let’s go home,” she said gravely, paying him no heed. “Ma tante is waiting.”

She walked ahead, left him with her aunt, and went straight to her room.

VIII

That entire day was one of gradual disappointment for Oblomov. He spent it with Olga’s aunt, a very intelligent and proper woman who was always beautifully dressed, always wearing a new silk dress that fit her perfectly and elegant lace collars. Her cap, too, was made with taste and her ribbons gathered fetchingly around her almost fifty-year-old but still fresh face. Her gold lorgnette hung on a chain.

Her poses and gestures were dignity itself. She draped herself very deftly in a luxurious shawl, rested her elbow so aptly on an embroidered pillow, and leaned back so grandly on the sofa. You would never see her at work. Trivial occupations such as leaning over sewing did not suit her face or her imposing figure. She gave orders to her servants in an offhand manner, briefly and dryly.

She sometimes read and never wrote, but she spoke well, although mostly in French. Still, she had immediately noted that Oblomov did not speak French quite fluently and after that had switched to Russian.

In conversation she neither daydreamed nor quipped. A strict line seemed to have been drawn in her head, a line her mind never crossed. Everything pointed to the fact that emotion, any kind of sympathy, not excluding even love, had always been a part of her life on a par with other elements, whereas with other women you immediately saw that love, if not in deed then in words, was a part of every issue in life and that everything else was incidental, occupying only the space left over from love.

With this woman what came first was the ability to live, to control oneself, to keep thought and intention, and intention and execution, in balance. Never would you catch her unprepared, at loose ends, like a vigilant enemy who, no matter how you lie in wait always meets you with an expectant gaze aimed straight at you.

Society was her element, and so tact and caution for her preceded every thought, every word and movement.

She never divulged the secret workings of her heart to anyone, never entrusted her deepest secrets. You would never see a good friend or old woman with her to whom she could whisper over a cup of coffee. Only with Baron von Langwagen was she often alone; in the evening he sometimes sat until midnight, but almost always with Olga present. Even so, they were mostly silent but silent in a significant and intelligent way, as if they knew something others didn’t, but not only that.

Evidently they enjoyed each other’s company. This was the sole conclusion one could draw, looking at them. She treated him just as she did everyone else: graciously and kindly, but just as evenly and calmly.

Evil tongues wagged and hinted at some longstanding friendship, a trip abroad together. However, her attitude toward him did not bear even the shadow of a concealed special sympathy, which would have come to the surface.

Meanwhile, he was the guardian of Olga’s small estate, which had been mortgaged for a certain contract, as had the village as well.

The baron had taken care of the matter, that is, had forced some official to write the documents, read them through his lorgnette, and sign them, and had sent the same official to take them to the proper offices, while he himself through his connections in society had seen to it that the procedure made satisfactory progress. He had given her hope of a swift and happy conclusion. This put an end to the evil talk, and people grew accustomed to seeing the baron at the house, as if he were a relative.

He was nearly fifty years old, but he was very fresh; he only colored his mustache and limped a little on one leg. He was polite to the point of refinement, never smoked in the presence of ladies, never crossed his legs, and sternly reproached young men who allowed themselves to lean back in their chair and lift their knee and boot to nose level in company. Even inside he wore gloves, removing them only when he sat down to dinner.

He dressed in the latest fashion and wore several ribbons in the buttonhole of his coat. He always rode in a carriage and took extremely good care of his horses. Before getting into his carriage, he first took a walk around it, examined the harness and even the hooves of the horses, and sometimes took out a white kerchief and wiped the horse’s shoulder or mane to see whether it had been groomed well.

He would greet someone he knew with a graciously polite smile and someone he did not coldly at first. However, once he had been introduced his coldness was replaced by a smile as well, and the person so introduced could now count on it always.

He had equally precise opinions about everything: virtue, high prices, the sciences, and society. He expressed his opinion in clear and complete thoughts, as if he were speaking in prepared sentences that had been written down for some course and released to the world for their general edification.

Relations between Olga and her aunt were simple and calm. In tenderness they never crossed the bounds of moderation, and not a shadow of discontent ever lay between them.

This had come about in part due to the personality of Maria Mikhailovna, Olga’s aunt, and in part due to the utter lack of any reason for either of them to behave otherwise. It would never have occurred to Olga’s aunt to demand of Olga anything that ran drastically counter to her wishes; Olga would never have dreamed of not fulfilling her aunt’s wishes or following her advice.

How did these wishes manifest themselves? In her choice of dress and coiffure, or, for example, whether to go to the French theater or the opera.

Olga obeyed insofar as her aunt expressed a desire or offered advice, but not one whit more—and her aunt always offered that advice with a moderation so dry it was almost arid, well within the rights of an aunt but never beyond that.

These relations were so colorless that there was no way to determine whether her aunt had any claims to Olga’s obedience or special tenderness, or whether Olga felt a duty to her aunt or any special tenderness for her.

On the other hand, the first time you saw them together you could tell that they were aunt and niece and not mother and daughter.

“I’m going to the store. Is there nothing you need?” her aunt would ask.

“Yes, ma tante. I need to exchange the violet dress,” said Olga, and so they would go together. Or, “No, ma tante,” Olga would say, “I went just recently.”

Her aunt would take both Olga’s cheeks by two fingers and kiss her forehead, and Olga would kiss her aunt’s hand, and one would go and the other remain.

“Shall we take the same dacha again?” her aunt would say not as a question or assertion but as if she herself had been trying to decide but couldn’t.

“Yes, it’s very fine there,” said Olga.

So they would take the dacha.

But if Olga said, “Oh, ma tante, aren’t you tired of that forest and sand? Would it not be better to look in the other direction?”

“We shall see,” said her aunt. “Shall we go to the theater, dear Olga?” her aunt would say. “People have been clamoring about this play for so long.”

“With pleasure,” replied Olga, but without any anxious desire to please or any expression of submissiveness.

Occasionally they even argued in a mild way.

“Goodness, ma chère, do green ribbons really suit you?” said her aunt. “Take the straw-yellow.”

“Oh, ma tante! I’ve worn the straw-yellow six times and finally you have noticed.”

“Well, take the pensée.”

“Do you like these?”

Her aunt took a close look and slowly shook her head.

“As you like, ma chère, but in your place I would take the pensée or the straw-yellow.”

“No, ma tante, I’d rather take these here,” said Olga softly, and she chose what she liked.

Olga asked her aunt’s advice not as an authority whose judgment was law for her but as she would ask advice from any other, more experienced woman.

“Ma tante, you have read this book. What do you make of it?” she would ask.

“Oh, how vile!” said her aunt, pushing aside but not hiding the book and taking no measures to keep Olga from reading it.

Not that it would have ever occurred to Olga to read it. If they both were having trouble deciding, they would address the same question to Baron von Langwagen or to Stolz when he was available, and the book would or would not be read according to their judgment.

“Ma chère Olga!” her aunt would sometimes say. “About that young man who often approaches you at the Zavadskys’, yesterday I was told a very silly story.”

And only that. After that it was up to Olga whether or not to speak to him.

Oblomov’s appearance at the house raised no questions or special notice in the aunt or the baron, or even in Stolz. The latter wanted to introduce his friend to a house where everything was rather stiff, where they would not only not suggest he nap after dinner but where one did not even cross one’s legs, where one had to be freshly dressed and remember what one was talking about—in short, where he could not doze or let himself go and where there was continuous lively and modern conversation.

Then Stolz thought that if he brought into Oblomov’s dreamy life the presence of an attractive, intelligent, lively, and somewhat mocking young woman it would be like bringing a lamp into a darkened room, a lamp that shed an even light in all its dark corners and a few degrees of warmth, bringing cheer to the room.

This was the entire result he had been seeking in introducing his friend and Olga. He had not foreseen that he was introducing fireworks; Olga and Oblomov so much the more.

Ilya Ilich sat decorously with Olga’s aunt for a couple of hours without once crossing his legs and conversing properly about everything. Twice he even deftly slipped a stool under her feet.

The baron arrived, smiled politely, and graciously shook his hand.

Oblomov conducted himself even more decorously, and all three could not have been more content with one another.

The aunt regarded Oblomov’s conversations in corners with Olga and his walks with her . . . or rather, she did not regard them at all.

Walking with a young man, a dandy, was another matter. She would not have said anything then either but with her innate tact would somehow have instituted a different order. She might have gone with them a time or two herself, or she might have sent some third party along, and the walks would have come to an end of their own accord.

But walking “with Monsieur Oblomov” and sitting with him in a corner of the main room, or on the balcony—what could come of that? He was over thirty years old and wasn’t about to tell her foolish things or give her the wrong sort of books. Nor would it ever have occurred to anyone that he might.

Moreover, the aunt had heard Stolz, on the eve of his departure, telling Olga not to let Oblomov get lazy, to forbid him naps, to torment him, tyrannize him, give him various commissions—in short, to take charge of him. He had also asked her not to let Oblomov out of her sight, to invite him to her home often, to drag him out on walks and trips, and to stir him up any way she could if he did not go abroad.

Olga did not show her face while he was sitting with her aunt, and the time passed slowly. Oblomov felt hot and cold all over. He had seen a glimmer of a reason for the change in Olga. He found this change harder than the previous one.

His previous blunder had merely frightened and embarrassed him, but now he felt terrible—awkward, cold, and sad at heart, as in damp, rainy weather. He had let her understand that he had guessed her love for him, and he had perhaps missed the mark. This was indeed an insult, an insult scarcely redeemable. Even if he had hit the mark, he had been so clumsy. He was simply witless.

He may have frightened off the emotion shyly beating in her young, maidenly heart, an emotion that perches cautiously and lightly, like a bird on a branch. At the least noise or rustling, it takes wing.

He waited with sinking trepidation for Olga to come down for dinner and for what she would say and how, and how she would look at him.

She did come down and looking at her he could not admire her enough; he barely recognized her. Her face had changed, even her voice had changed.

The young, naïve, almost childish grin never once appeared on her lips. Never once did she look with those wide open eyes that held either a question, or perplexity, or simple curiosity—as if there was nothing to ask, nothing to know, nothing at which to wonder!

Her gaze did not follow him as it had before. She looked at him as if she had long known and studied him, ultimately as if he were no more to her than the baron. In short, it was as if he had not seen her for a year and in that year she had grown up.

There was none of the severity, none of yesterday’s irritation. She joked and even laughed, and answered questions thoroughly which previously she had not answered at all. It was evident that she had decided to force herself to do what others did, something she had not done before. The freedom and lack of constraint that allowed her to say whatever was on her mind was gone. What had become of it so suddenly?

After dinner, he approached her to ask whether she wasn’t going for a walk. Without answering him she addressed her question to her aunt: “Shall we go for a walk?”

“Yes, but not too far,” said her aunt. “Have someone get me my umbrella.”

So everyone went. They walked idly and gazed into the distance, toward Petersburg, went as far as the forest, and returned to the balcony.

“I don’t imagine you feel like singing today, do you? I’m afraid to ask,” said Oblomov, wondering whether this constraint was going to end, whether her gaiety would return, and whether a ray of sincerity, naïveté, and trust would finally flicker in a single word, a smile, or finally, her singing.

“It’s too hot!” commented her aunt.

“That’s all right, I shall try,” said Olga, and she sang a romance.

He listened and could not believe his ears.

This was not she. Where was the passionate sound of before?

She sang so purely, so correctly, and at the same time so . . . so much as all young girls sing when they’re asked to sing in company: without enthusiasm. She had taken her soul out of her singing, and not a single nerve stirred in her listener.

Was she being cunning, pretending, angry? She gave no clue. She looked at him affectionately and spoke willingly, but spoke and sang like everyone else. What was this?

Without waiting for tea, Oblomov picked up his hat and took his leave.

“You must come more often,” said her aunt. “On weekdays we’re always alone, if you don’t find it boring, and on Sunday we always have someone here. You won’t be bored.”

The baron rose politely and bowed.

Olga nodded at him as she would to anyone she knew well, and when he had left she turned toward the window and watched and listened indifferently to Oblomov’s receding steps.

Those two hours and the few days that followed, the better part of the week, had had a profound effect on her and moved her well along. Only women are capable of this speed in the blossoming of their powers, this development of all aspects of their soul.

It was as if she were taking a course in life that met not daily but hourly. Every hour of the slightest, barely perceptible experience, every instance that flitted by like a bird, past a man’s nose, was snapped up by the young woman with inexplicable speed. She would follow its flight into the distance, and the curve described by the flight remained in her memory as an indelible sign, an instruction, a lesson.

Where a man might need someone to set a signpost with an inscription, all she needed was the slightest puff, the faintest disturbance of the air.

Why, all of a sudden, as a result of what, would a stern thought suddenly rest on the face of a young woman who only last week had been so carefree and whose face so ridiculously naïve? What was this thought? What did it concern? This thought seemed to hold everything, a man’s entire logic, his entire speculative and empirical philosophy, his entire system of life!

A cousin who had left her only recently as a little girl had now completed his course of study, donned epaulets, and catching sight of her had run up to her merrily, intending to pat her on the shoulder as he once did, spin her around, and jump from chair to chair, sofa to sofa, but all of a sudden, looking straight into her face, he became shy and walked away confused, conscious that he was still a boy, whereas she was a woman!

Where had this started? What had happened? Had there been some drama? Some major event? Some news the whole town knew?

No one—not her maman, mon oncle, ma tante, her nurse, or her maid—knew anything. And it had happened in no time at all. She danced two mazurkas and a few quadrilles, came down with a headache for some reason and spent a sleepless night.

Then it all passed, except that something new had been added to her face. She watched differently, no longer laughed loudly, did not eat a whole pear at once, did not tell stories about “how it was at their boarding school.” She, too, had completed her studies.

The next day and the day after that Oblomov scarcely recognized Olga, as if he were that cousin, and he looked at her shyly, while she looked at him simply, but without her former curiosity or tenderness—simply as others did.

What is the matter with her? What is she thinking and feeling now? He was wracked with questions. Truly, I don’t understand a thing!

How, indeed, was he to understand that something had come about in her that takes twenty-five years and twenty-five professors and libraries to bring about in a man, and only then after he has wandered the earth, sometimes even entailing a loss of moral aroma, freshness of thought, and hair? She had entered the realm of consciousness and had done so at so little cost and with so little effort.

“No, this is too hard, too tedious!” he concluded. “I shall move to the Vyborg side. I shall study and read and go to Oblomovka . . . alone!” he added then with deep sorrow. “Without her! Farewell, my paradise, my life’s shining, quiet ideal!”

He did not go on the fourth or fifth day. He did not read or write. Getting ready to set out on a walk, he would step out onto the dusty road; after that it was uphill.

What a whim to go traipsing about in this heat! he told himself, and he yawned. He turned back, lay down on the sofa, and fell into a deep sleep, as he once had on Gorokhovaya Street, in his dusty room with the blinds lowered.

His dreams were troubled. He awoke and before him the table was laid with botvinia and cutlets. Zakhar stood there looking sleepily out the window; in the next room Anisya was clattering dishes.

He ate his dinner and sat down by the window. Being alone all the time was boring and absurd! Once again he had no desire to go anywhere or do anything.

“Look here, master, they brought you a kitten from the neighbors. Weren’t you wanting one? You asked yesterday,” said Anisya, thinking to distract him, and she put the kitten in his lap.

He began petting the kitten, but even with a kitten he was bored!

“Zakhar!” he said.

“What do you want?” responded Zakhar listlessly.

“I may be moving to town,” said Oblomov.

“What town? We don’t have an apartment.”

“To the Vyborg side.”

“Wouldn’t that just be moving from dacha to dacha?” he replied. “What haven’t you seen there? Mikhei Andreich?”

“I’m so uncomfortable here.”

“And now you want to move, too? Lord! I’m worn out here as is. I still haven’t found two cups and the broom, and if Mikhei Andreich didn’t take them there, they’re likely lost.”

Oblomov was quiet. Zakhar left and came right back, carrying a suitcase and traveling bag.

“Where am I supposed to put this? Maybe you want me to sell it?” he said, giving the suitcase a kick.

“Have you lost your mind? I’m going abroad in a few days,” Oblomov interrupted testily.

“Abroad!” said Zakhar all of a sudden, grinning. “You talked about it, sure, but abroad!”

“What do you find so strange in that? I’m going, and that’s that. My passport’s ready.”

“Just who’s going to take your boots off there?” noted Zakhar ironically. “The maids? You’ll be lost there without me!”

He grinned again, which made his side-whiskers and eyebrows jut out.

“You’re always saying foolish things! Take this away and step lively!” replied Oblomov irritably.

The next day, as soon as Oblomov awoke at ten o’clock in the morning, Zakhar, serving him his tea, said that he had met the young lady on his trip to the bakery.

“Which young lady?” asked Oblomov.

“Which young lady? Ilinskaya, Olga Sergeyevna.”

“So?” asked Oblomov impatiently.

“So, she told me to send her regards and asked whether you were well and what you were doing.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you were well, and I said what could he be doing?”

“Why did you have to add your foolish opinions?” noted Oblomov. “‘What could he be doing!’ How would you know what I might be doing? Well, and what else?”

“She asked where you had dinner yesterday.”

“So?”

“I said at home, and you had supper at home, I said. ‘You mean he had supper?’ the young lady asked. ‘Two chickens,’ I said, ‘that’s all.’”

“Idiot!” said Oblomov forcefully.

“What idiot! Isn’t it true?” said Zakhar. “Look, I’ll show you the bones if you want.”

“You really are an idiot!” repeated Oblomov. “Well, what did she say?”

“She grinned. ‘So little?’ she said after.”

“There’s an idiot for you!” repeated Oblomov. “You might have told her that you put my shirt on inside out as well!”

“She didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell her,” replied Zakhar.

“What else did she ask?”

“She asked what you’d been doing these days.”

“Well, what did you say?”

“Nothing, I said, he just lies around.”

“Oh, no!” uttered Oblomov, powerfully vexed, and he raised his fists to his temples. “Get out!” he added ominously. “If you ever dare say such foolish things about me again, just watch what I do to you! What poison this man is!”

“What, I’m supposed to lie in my old age?” Zakhar tried to defend himself.

“Get out!” repeated Ilya Ilich.

Zakhar didn’t mind the swearing just as long as his master uttered no “pathetic words.”

“I said you wanted to move to the Vyborg side,” concluded Zakhar.

“Step lively!” shouted Oblomov imperiously.

Zakhar left and heaved a sigh that filled the front hall, while Oblomov began to drink his tea.

He finished his tea and from the enormous store of rolls and sugar twists ate only one roll, for fear of another indiscretion from Zakhar. Then he lit a cigar and sat down at the table, opened a book, read a page and was about to turn it—and the pages turned out to be uncut.

Oblomov ripped the pages with his finger, creating festoons along the edges—and the book wasn’t his but Stolz’s, who had such strict and tedious rules, God help him, especially when it came to books! His papers, pencils, all those small items were supposed to be right where he put them.

He ought to have used an ivory paper cutter, but he didn’t have one. He could have asked for a table knife, of course, but Oblomov preferred to put the book away and head for the sofa, only he had barely leaned one hand on the embroidered pillow to get himself in a more comfortable position when Zakhar walked into the room.

“But the young lady asked you to come to that . . . what was that? . . . oh!” he reported.

“Why didn’t you say this before, two hours ago?” asked Oblomov hurriedly.

“You told me to go and wouldn’t let me finish,” objected Zakhar.

“You’ll be the death of me, Zakhar!” said Oblomov with pathos.

He can’t be back to that! thought Zakhar, presenting the master with his left side-whisker and looking at the wall. Just like before. He has to get his dig in!

“Go where?” asked Oblomov.

“Over to that, what’s it called? Right, the garden, I think.”

“The park?” asked Oblomov.

“The park, exactly, ‘for a stroll, she says, if he likes. I’ll be there.’”

“Get me dressed!”

Oblomov ran all over the park, peeked into the stands of trees and the gazebo, but no Olga. He started down the allée where they had had their declaration and found her there, on a bench, not far from where she had torn off the branch and thrown it down.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said to him in a kind voice.

“I’ve been looking all over the park for you,” he replied.

“I knew you would, so I sat here on purpose, in this allée. I thought you would surely come down it.”

He was about to ask, “Why did you think that?” but one look at her and he didn’t.

Her face was different, not like before, when they had walked here, but the one she had left him with the last time, causing him such alarm. Her affection was restrained, the entire expression of her face very concentrated and definite. He saw he could not play with her at riddles, hints, and naïve questions, that that merry, childish moment had passed.

Much of what had not been said, that could have been approached with a cunning question, had been decided between them without words or explanations—God knows how—and there was no going back.

“Why have I not seen you for so long?” she asked.

He did not reply. He would have liked to let her understand in passing that the mysterious charm of their relations had vanished, that he was disturbed by the concentration with which she surrounded herself, like a cloud, as if she had retreated inwardly, and he didn’t know what he should do, how he should behave with her.

But he sensed that the slightest hint at this would provoke a look of astonishment in her and then add a chill to her manner, and that spark of sympathy which he had so recklessly extinguished at the very beginning might be lost for good. He had to fan it, quietly and imperceptibly, but how to do that he decidedly did not know.

He vaguely realized that she had grown up and stood slightly above him, that there was no going back to their childlike trust, that they faced a Rubicon and their lost happiness was on the other shore: he had to cross.

But how? What if he took the step alone?

She understood more clearly than he did what was going on inside him and so the advantage was on her side. She looked frankly into his soul and saw the feeling being born deep inside him, saw it play and emerge. She saw that with him feminine wiles, cunning, and coquetry—Sonechka’s weapons—would be superfluous because no battle lay ahead there.

She even saw that, despite her youth, the prime and main role in this sympathy was hers, that all she could expect from him was a deep impression, passionately lazy submission, and eternal harmony with every beat of her heart, but no movement of will, no active thought.

She weighed her power over him in an instant, and she liked this role of guiding star, the ray of light she would shed on a still lake and its reflection. She reveled in many aspects of her primacy in this single combat.

In this comedy—or tragedy, depending on the circumstances—both characters appeared almost always in the same capacity: as tormentor and victim.

Like any woman in the leading role—that is, the role of tormentor, although naturally less than others and unconsciously—Olga could not resist playing cat and mouse. From time to time a flash of emotion would burst from her, like lightning, like an unexpected whim, and then, just as suddenly, she would concentrate again and retreat inwardly. But most of all and most often she nudged him forward, knowing that he would not take a step himself and would remain stock-still where she had left him.

“Have you been busy?” she asked, stitching a piece of canvas.

I could have said I was if it weren’t for Zakhar! came the moan in his breast.

“Yes, I was reading a little,” he responded offhandedly.

“What, a novel?” she asked, and she looked up to see what face he would make when he began to lie.

“No, I almost never read novels,” he replied quite calmly. “I was reading The History of Discoveries and Inventions.”

Thank God I skimmed over a page of the book today! he thought.

“In Russian?” she asked.

“No, in English.”

“You read English?”

“With difficulty, but yes. Have you been in town anywhere?” he asked, mostly to quash the conversation about books.

“No, I’ve been at home. I always work here, in this allée.”

“You’re always here?”

“Yes, I like this allée so much. I’m grateful to you for showing it to me. Almost no one ever comes here.”

“I didn’t show it to you,” he interrupted. “Do you remember? We both met here by chance.”

“Yes, indeed.”

They fell silent.

“Has your stye quite passed?” she asked, looking straight into his right eye.

He blushed.

“It has now, thank God,” he said.

“You should dampen your eyes with table wine when you feel like scratching them,” she continued, “and a stye won’t form. My nurse taught me that.”

Why does she keep going on about styes? thought Oblomov.

“And you shouldn’t be eating supper,” she added seriously.

Zakhar! A furious imprecation against Zakhar stirred in his throat.

“If you eat heavy suppers,” she continued without looking up from her work, “and lie around for a few days, especially on your back, a stye is sure to form.”

Idiot! The imprecation against Zakhar thundered inside Oblomov.

“What’s that you’re working on?” he asked to change the subject.

“A bell-pull,” she said, unfurling the canvas and showing him the pattern, “for the baron. Is it pretty?”

“Yes, very pretty. The pattern is very sweet. Is that a lilac branch?”

“I guess so,” she said offhandedly. “I chose it at random, it just happened,” and blushing a little, she couldn’t roll the canvas up quickly enough.

Though this will get tedious if things continue like this, if I can’t get anything out of her, he thought. Someone else—Stolz, for instance—would find out what I can’t.

He frowned and looked around sleepily. She looked at him and then put her work in her basket.

“Let’s walk as far as the wood,” she said, letting him carry her basket, while she herself opened her parasol, straightened her dress, and set out.

“Why aren’t you more cheerful?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Olga Sergeyevna. Why should I be cheerful? And how?”

“Take up some interest, spend more time with people.”

“Take up some interest! You can take something up when you have a purpose. What purpose do I have? None.”

“The purpose is to live.”

“When you don’t know what you’re living for, you don’t care how you live from one day to the next. You’re happy the day has passed and the night has come, and in your sleep you bury the tedious question of what you lived for that day and what you’re going to live for tomorrow.”

She listened silently, a stern look on her face; her furrowed brow concealed a severity, and either mistrust or indifference crept into the snake-like line of her lips.

“What you lived for!” she repeated. “Could anyone’s existence be unneeded?”

“Yes. Mine, for instance.”

“You still don’t know where the purpose of your life lies?” she asked, halting. “I don’t believe that. You’re slandering yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t deserve to live.”

“I’ve already passed the point where my purpose should have been, and I have nothing left ahead.”

He sighed and she smiled.

“Nothing?” she repeated searchingly, but in a lively, merry way, with laughter, as if not believing him and foreseeing that he did have something left ahead.

“You’re laughing,” he continued, “but it’s true!”

She continued walking forward quietly, her head bowed.

“For what or whom shall I live?” he said, following behind. “For what shall I search, at what shall I aim my thoughts and intentions? The flower of my life has faded, leaving only thorns.”

They walked along quietly. She listened distractedly, tore off a lilac branch in passing and without looking handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“As you see, a branch.”

“What kind of a branch?” he said, gazing into her eyes.

“Lilac.”

“I know, but what does it mean?”

“The flower of life and—”

He stopped and so did she.

“And?” he repeated as a question.

“My vexation,” she said, looking directly at him with a look of concentration, and her smile said she knew what she was doing.

The cloud of impenetrability blew away. Her look was eloquent and understandable. She seemed to have purposely opened to a familiar page in her book and let him read the sacred passage.

“Then I can hope . . .” he said suddenly, blushing with delight.

“For everything! But . . .”

She fell silent.

Oblomov was suddenly resurrected. She, in turn, did not recognize him. His foggy, sleepy face was instantly transformed and his eyes opened; color played on his cheeks; his thoughts quickened; and desires and will flashed in his eyes. She also read clearly in this mute play of his face that Oblomov had instantly found his life’s purpose.

“Life, life is opening up to me again,” he said, as if in a delirium. “Here it is, in your eyes, your smile, this branch, ‘Casta diva’—it’s all here.”

She shook her head.

“No, not all. Half.”

“The better half.”

“If you like,” she said.

“Where is the other? What else is there after this?”

“Look for it.”

“Why?”

“So you don’t lose the first half,” she concluded. She gave him her arm, and they started for home.

In a transport of joy, he glanced stealthily at her pretty head, her figure, and her curls and held the branch convulsively.

All this is mine! Mine! he kept telling himself, but he didn’t believe it himself.

“You won’t be moving to the Vyborg side?” she asked as he was leaving.

He laughed and did not even call Zakhar an idiot.

IX

Since that time there had been no abrupt changes in Olga. She was steady and calm with her aunt and in company but she lived and felt alive only with Oblomov. She no longer asked anyone what she should do or how she should act and did not refer mentally to Sonechka’s authority.

As the phases of life, that is, her feelings, were revealed to her, she vigilantly observed phenomena, listened keenly to the voice of her own instinct, and checked it lightly against the few observations she had stored up. She proceeded cautiously, testing the ground with her foot before taking a step.

Not that she had anyone she could ask. Her aunt? But her aunt glossed over questions like this so easily and deftly that Olga could never weave her responses into any kind of sentence to etch into her memory. Stolz was away. Oblomov? But he was the Galatea to her Pygmalion.

Her life filled so quietly and unobtrusively that she lived in this new realm without attracting any attention or any obvious outbursts or alarms. She did just what she had done before, for everyone else, but she did it all differently.

She attended the French performance, but the play’s content now had a connection to her life. She read a book and the book invariably had lines with sparks from her mind, the fire of her emotions flickered here and there, and words spoken the night before were written down, as if the author had overheard how her heart now beat.

The forest held the same trees, but their sound had taken on special meaning; she had established a vibrant consonance with them. The birds did not simply twitter and chirp but were saying something to each other. Everything around her spoke and responded to her mood; a flower would blossom and she seemed to hear its breathing.

Her dreams also took on a life of their own, populated by visions and images she occasionally addressed aloud. They would tell her things, but so obscurely that she couldn’t understand them and struggled to talk to and question them, and she, too, said something that made no sense. Only when morning came would Katya tell her that she had been talking in her sleep.

She recalled Stolz’s predictions. He had often told her that she had not yet begun to live, and occasionally she had taken offense at him considering her just a girl when she was twenty years old. Now, however, she realized he had been right, that she had only just begun to live.

“When all the forces in your organism come into play, then life will begin to play around you as well. You’ll see what your eyes are closed to now, and you’ll hear what you’ve never heard. The music of your nerves will begin to play, you’ll hear the music of the spheres, and you’ll listen to the grass grow. Just wait, there’s no hurry. It will come in its own time!” he warned.

And so it had. This must be my forces in play, my organism waking up, she said using his words, closely attending to the strange new excitement, and keenly and shyly examining each new phenomenon of her newly awakened power.

She did not succumb to dreaminess or surrender to the sudden trembling of leaves, nocturnal visions, or the mysterious whispering, when someone in the night seemed to lean over her ear and say something vague and incomprehensible.

“It’s nerves!” she would whisper occasionally with a smile, through tears, barely mastering her fear and withstanding the struggle between her delicate nerves and her awakened powers. She would rise from bed, drink a glass of water, open her window, pass a handkerchief over her face, and see her waking and sleeping dream in a sensible light.

Meanwhile, no sooner had Oblomov awoken in the morning than the first image in his imagination was Olga holding a lilac branch. He would drop off to sleep thinking of her, go for a walk, read—and she was always there.

In his mind he conducted a nonstop conversation with her, day and night. To The History of Discoveries and Inventions he kept adding new discoveries in Olga’s appearance or personality and invented ways to meet her by chance, send her a book, or surprise her.

Speaking with her when they met, he would continue the conversation at home, so that occasionally Zakhar would walk in and, in the extremely tender and soft tone in which he mentally spoke with Olga, Oblomov would say to him: “You bald devil, you just gave me uncleaned boots again. Watch I don’t throw you out.”

His nonchalance had abandoned him the moment she sang for him that first time. He no longer lived as before, when he didn’t care whether he lay on his back and looked at the wall, whether Alexeyev was sitting with him or he himself was sitting with Ivan Gerasimovich, the days when he expected no one and nothing of the day or the night.

Now, day and night, each hour of the morning and evening, had its own image and was either filled with a radiant glow or faded and gloomy, according to whether that hour had been filled with Olga’s presence or had passed without her and, consequently, had passed listlessly and tediously.

All this was reflected in his being. His head was filled with a network of day-to-day, minute-to-minute considerations, puzzles, previsions, and anguish over the unknown, and all because he wanted to know whether he would see her. What would she say and do? How would she look at him, what commission would she give him, what would she ask him about, would she be pleased? These considerations became the critical questions of his life.

Oh, if only I could feel love’s warmth, without its alarms! he dreamed. No, life touches you, no matter where you go, and it burns so! How much new movement had suddenly crowded into it, how many occupations! Love was life’s hardest school of all!

He had already read several books. Olga asked him to recount their content and listened to his tale with unbelievable patience. He wrote several letters to the country, replaced the bailiff, and made contact with one of his neighbors through Stolz’s mediation. He would even have gone to the country had he considered it possible to leave Olga.

He did not eat supper and for two weeks had not known what it meant to take an afternoon nap.

In a few weeks’ time, they had toured all of Petersburg’s outskirts. Olga, her aunt, the baron, and he went to concerts out of town and to grand festivities. They were talking of traveling to Imatra in Finland.

As for Oblomov, he would never have stepped foot beyond the park, but Olga kept coming up with plans, and the moment he hesitated with his reply to her invitation to go somewhere, the outing became a certainty. Then there was no end to Olga’s smiles. There was not a knoll within five versts of the dacha that he had not climbed several times.

Meanwhile, their sympathy grew, developed, and manifested itself according to its own immutable laws. Olga blossomed along with her emotion. There was more light in her eyes and more grace in her movements; her bosom developed luxuriantly and stirred measuredly.

“You’ve grown even prettier at the dacha, Olga,” her aunt told her. The baron’s smile expressed the very same compliment.

Blushing, Olga lay her head on her aunt’s shoulder, and her aunt patted her cheek affectionately.

“Olga! Olga!” Oblomov called out one day cautiously, almost whispering, at the bottom of a hill where she had told him they would meet for a walk.

No reply. He looked at his watch.

“Olga Sergeyevna!” he then added, loudly. Silence.

Olga was sitting at the top of the hill. She heard his call but said nothing, trying to restrain her laughter. She wanted to force him to climb the hill.

“Olga Sergeyevna!” he called out, struggling through the bushes until he was halfway up the hill and looking up. She said to meet at five thirty, he told himself.

She could not keep from laughing.

“Olga! Olga! Oh, there you are!” he said, and he climbed to the top of the hill.

“Oof! What made you want to hide on the hill!” He sat down beside her. “You torture yourself just to torture me.”

“Where have you come from? Straight from home?” she asked.

“No, I stopped by your house, and they said you’d left.”

“What did you do today?” she asked.

“Today . . .”

“Did you have words with Zakhar?” she finished his thought.

He laughed at that as if that were something utterly impossible.

“No, I read the Revue. But Olga, listen . . .”

He said nothing, however, only sat down beside her and immersed himself in contemplation of her profile, her head, the movement of her hands back and forth as she poked the needle into the canvas and pulled it out. He aimed his gaze at her like a burning-glass and could not tear it away.

He did not move a muscle. Only his gaze turned right, left, or down, depending on how her hand moved. Inside, he was working hard: his circulation was stronger, his pulse and the seething in his heart had doubled. All this had such a powerful effect that he was breathing slowly and heavily, the way men breathe before their execution or in a moment of supreme pleasure.

He was mute and unable even to stir, only his eyes, wet with emotion, were irresistibly drawn to her.

From time to time, she cast a profound look at him, read the simple thought etched on his face, and thought, My God! How he loves me! How loving he is, how loving! She was filled with admiration and pride at this man her power had laid prostrate at her feet!

The moment for symbolic hints, significant smiles, and lilac branches had passed irrevocably. Their love was stricter and more demanding and was becoming an obligation; they now had mutual rights. Both parties were opening up more and more; the misunderstandings and doubts had vanished or had yielded to clearer and more positive questions.

She was constantly teasing him with light sarcastic comments for his idly spent years, issuing harsh sentences, and punishing his apathy more profoundly and effectively than Stolz had. Later, as they became closer, she moved on from sarcastic comments about Oblomov’s listless and limp existence to a despotic display of will, doughtily reminding him of his purpose in life and his obligations, strictly requiring movement, and constantly calling forth his intellect, sometimes by entangling him in a delicate, vital issue familiar to her, sometimes coming to him with a question about something that was unclear to her or beyond her grasp.

He struggled, racked his brains, bobbed and weaved so as not to stumble in her eyes or to help her sort out a knotty problem, if not cut it heroically.

All her feminine wiles were permeated with a tender sympathy; all his aspirations to keep up with the movements of her thought breathed passion.

But more often, he was exhausted and lay at her feet, placed his hand on his heart, and listened to it beat without taking his immobile, astonished, and ecstatic gaze off her.

How he loves me! she would repeat in those moments, admiring him. If occasionally she noticed the old traits hidden in Oblomov’s soul, into which she was capable of peering deeply, the slightest weariness or the barest somnolence, reproaches would rain down on him, to which were occasionally added the bitterness of remorse and the fear of error.

Sometimes he had only to be on the verge of yawning, of opening his mouth, and he would be struck by her astonished look, whereupon he would immediately close his mouth so hard his teeth clattered. She pursued the slightest shadow of sleepiness even on his face. She asked him not only what he was doing but what he was going to do.

More powerful than reproaches at awakening his courage was when he noted that his weariness made her weary, indifferent, and cold. Then he felt a fever of life, his powers, and activity, and the shadow again disappeared and sympathy gushed once again like a strong and clear spring.

All these cares, however, still did not step outside the magic circle of love. His activities were negative: he did not nap, he read, occasionally he thought to write his plan, and he did a great deal of walking and riding. His further intention, the very meaning of his life, what he would do—all that still fell within the realm of intentions.

“What more life and activity does Andrei want?” said Oblomov, struggling to keep his eyes open after dinner and not fall asleep. “Isn’t this life? Isn’t love a kind of service? Let him try it! Ten versts every day on foot! Yesterday I spent the night in town, at a wretched inn, fully dressed. I only removed my boots, and Zakhar wasn’t there—and all thanks to her commissions!”

Most agonizing of all for him was when Olga posed a special question and demanded full satisfaction from him, as she would from a professor. This happened often with her, not due to any pedantry but simply out of a desire to know. Often she even forgot her aims regarding Oblomov and got carried away by the question itself.

“Why don’t they teach us that?” she would say, pensive and vexed, occasionally with avidity, by fits and starts, as she listened to a conversation about something people normally consider unnecessary for a woman to know.

One day, out of the blue, she approached him with questions about double stars. He was sufficiently imprudent to refer to Herschel and was sent to town; he had to read the book and tell her about it until she was satisfied.*

Another time, again out of imprudence, in a conversation with the baron, a couple of words escaped him about schools of painting, and again he had work for a week reading and recounting, and then they also took a trip to the Hermitage, where he had to confirm what he had read to her in practice.

If he said anything thoughtlessly, she would see it right away and confront him then and there.

Then he would have to spend a week going from store to store seeking out etchings from the best paintings.

Poor Oblomov was either repeating old stuff or rushing to the bookstalls for new art books, and sometimes he would stay up all night digging through them and reading in order, the next morning, as if by chance, to answer yesterday’s question with knowledge extracted from the archive of his memory.

She posed these questions not with feminine distraction or on a moment’s whim to know something or other but persistently, impatiently, and if Oblomov was silent she punished him with a long, searching look. How he trembled at that look!

“Why don’t you say something? Why are you silent?” she would ask. “One might think you were bored.”

“Oh!” he would say, as if coming around from a faint. “How I love you!”

“Indeed? If I hadn’t asked, it would not have seemed so,” she said.

“Can’t you feel what’s going on inside me?” he began. “You know, I even have trouble speaking. Look, here . . . give me your hand . . . something is getting in the way. It’s as if something heavy, like a stone, were lying there, as happens in profound grief, but meanwhile it’s strange, both in grief and in happiness the organism undergoes the very same process. You feel bad, it almost hurts to breathe, and you feel like crying! If I did start crying, the tears would make me feel better, as they do in grief.”

She gazed at him silently, as if verifying his words, comparing them against what was written on his face, and she smiled. Her verification had been satisfactory. The breath of happiness spilled over her face, but a peaceful happiness that seemingly nothing could disturb. Her heart obviously did not feel heavy but only good, as in nature this quiet morning.

“What’s happening to me?” in his reverie, Oblomov seemed to be asking himself.

“Shall I tell you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re in love.”

“Yes, of course,” he confirmed, pulling her hand away from the canvas. He did not kiss it but merely pressed her fingers firmly to his lips and seemed ready to hold them like that for a long time.

She tried very quietly to take them away, but he held on tight.

“All right, let me go, that’s enough,” she said.

“And you?” he asked. “You’re . . . not in love.”

“In love? No. I don’t know, I’m afraid of that. I love you!” she said, and she gazed at him for a long time, as if making sure she really did love him.

“I . . . love . . . you!” Oblomov spoke. “But after all, one can love a mother, a father, a nurse, even a pet dog. All this is covered by the general, collective concept ‘I love you,’ like an old—”

“Dressing gown?” she said, and she laughed. “A propos, where is your dressing gown?”

“What dressing gown? I’ve never had one.”

She looked at him with a smile of reproach.

“There you are going on about that old dressing gown!” he said. “I’m waiting and my heart is dying of impatience to hear the emotion burst from your heart, to hear what you will call these impulses, and you . . . For heaven’s sake, Olga! Yes, I’m in love with you and I say that without this there is only passive love. People don’t fall in love with their father, or their mother, or their nurse, they simply love them.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated almost to herself, as if still looking inwardly and trying to catch what was going on inside her. “I don’t know whether I’m in love with you or not. If not, maybe the moment hasn’t come yet. I only know one thing, that I’ve never loved my father, my mother, or my nurse like this.”

“What’s the difference? Do you feel something special?” he prodded.

“Would you like to know?” she asked slyly.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t you feel the need to express what you’re feeling?”

“Why would you like to know?”

“So that I can live it every minute—today, all night, tomorrow—until next we meet. That’s all I live for.”

“There, you see? You need to renew your store of affection every day! This is where the difference lies between being in love and loving. I—”

“You?” he waited impatiently.

“I love differently,” she said, leaning back on the bench and letting her eyes wander among the racing clouds. “Without you I’m bored. Being apart from you for a short time is regrettable; for a long time painful. One day I found out for certain, I saw and believe that you love me—and I’m happy, even if you never repeat that you love me. More and better than that I don’t know how to love.”

These words make her sound like Cordelia! thought Oblomov, gazing at Olga passionately.

“If you were to die,” she continued, stumbling, “I would wear mourning for you forever and I would never in my life smile again. If you love another you shall never hear a murmur or a curse from me, but inwardly I shall wish you happiness. For me, this love is life itself, and life is . . .”

She searched for words.

“What is life, to your mind?”

“Life is duty and obligation, therefore love, too, is a duty. It’s as if God sent it to me,” she finished, looking up at the sky, “and told me to love.”

“Cordelia!” uttered Oblomov aloud. “She was twenty-one years old as well! So that’s what love is, to your mind!” he added, reflecting.

“Yes, and I think I will have enough strength to live and love my whole life through. One without the other is impossible.”

Who instilled this in her? thought Oblomov, looking at her almost with awe. She must have come to this through experience, trials, fire and smoke, to this clear and simple understanding of life and love.

“But have you known real delights? Passions?” he began.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t experienced them and I don’t understand what that means.”

“Oh, how well I understand now!”

“Perhaps, in time, I too will experience the same impulses as you do, and perhaps I will look at you when we meet and not believe that it is really you before me. But that must be very silly!” she added merrily. “The expression in your eyes sometimes—I think ma tante must notice.”

“What is the happiness you feel in love,” he asked, “if you don’t experience the same vital delights I do?”

“What? Why, this!” she said, pointing to him, to herself, and to the solitude surrounding them. “Isn’t this happiness? Did I ever live like this before? In the past, I would not have sat here alone for a quarter of an hour without a book, without music, among these trees. Talking with any man other than Andrei Ivanich was boring. There was nothing to talk about. I kept thinking I would end up alone. But now, even sitting together in silence is gay!”

She cast her eyes around her at the trees and the grass and then stopped on him, smiled, and gave him her hand.

“Don’t you think it will hurt me terribly when you go away?” she added. “Don’t you think I will hurry to bed earlier in order to fall asleep and not see the boring night? Don’t you think that I will send you a note in the morning? Don’t you . . .”

With every “don’t you” Oblomov’s face glowed more and more and his gaze filled with beams of light.

“Yes, yes,” he echoed, “I, too, am impatient for the morning, and the night is boring, and tomorrow I will send you a note about something just so I can utter your name one more time and hear it resound, so that I can learn some new detail about you from your servants and envy them for having seen you. We think, wait, live, and hope identically. Forgive me my doubts, Olga. I’m convinced you love me as you have never loved your father, your aunt, or your—”

“Pet dog,” she added.

“Believe me,” she concluded, “as I believe you, and have no doubt. Do not trouble yourself with foolish doubts of this happiness or it will slip away. What I have once called my own I shall never give back unless it is taken away. I know that, and it matters not that I’m young, but . . . You know,” she said with confidence in her voice, “in the month since I have known you I have thought through and felt so much, it’s as if I had read a long book, about myself, in small snatches. Do not doubt—”

“I can’t help but doubt,” he interrupted. “Don’t ask that of me. Now, in your presence, I’m sure of everything: your look, your voice, everything is filled with truth and sympathy. You look at me as if you were speaking. I don’t need words, I know how to read your glances. But when you’re not here, an agonizing game of doubts and questions begins, and I have to run to see you again, to look at you again. Without that I don’t believe it. What is this?”

“But I believe you. Why is that?”

“If only you didn’t! Before you is a man out of his mind, beside himself with passion! I think you look in my eyes as if they were a mirror. Not only that, you’re twenty years old. Look at yourself. How can a man meet you and not pay you the tribute of amazement, if only in his look? To know you, listen to you, and gaze upon you for a while, to love you—oh yes, that will drive a man out of his mind! You are so even and calm, but if one day passes or two and I don’t hear you say ‘I love you,’ this is where my worry begins.”

He pointed to his heart.

“I love you, I love you, I love you. There, you have enough for three days!” she said, rising from the bench.

“You keep joking, but think what it’s like for me!” he remarked, sighing, as he descended the hill with her.

Thus the same motif played itself out between them in myriad variations. Their meetings and conversations—it was all the same song, the same sounds, the same light, which burned brightly, and its rays were merely refracted and split into pink, green, and yellow and trembled in the air around them. Every day and hour brought new sounds and rays, but only one light burned, and the motif they heard was always the same.

Both he and she were listening closely to these sounds. They caught them and hastened to sing them to each other, so that each would hear, never suspecting that tomorrow there would be other sounds and different rays and forgetting the next day that yesterday the singing had been different.

She arrayed the outpourings of her heart in whatever colors her imagination burned with at that moment and believed that they were true to nature, and she hastened in her innocent and unconscious coquetry to appear in this beautiful attire before the eyes of her friend.

He believed even more in these magical sounds and enchanting light and hastened to stand before her in the full panoply of his passion and to show her all the luster and strength of the fire that was consuming his soul.

They were not lying to themselves or to each other. They were setting forth what their heart was saying, and its voice passed through their imagination.

To Oblomov it did not matter, in essence, whether Olga was Cordelia and remained true to this image or took a new path and transformed herself into a different vision, just so she appeared in the same colors and rays of light in which she lived in his heart, and just so he was happy.

Nor did Olga wonder whether her passionate friend would pick up her glove if she threw it into a lion’s jaws or whether he would cast himself into an abyss just so she could see the symptoms of this passion, just so he could remain true to her ideal of a man, and moreover a man who had awakened to life through her, just so the fire of courage burned in him at the light of her glance, at her smile, and he never stopped seeing in her his purpose in life.

Therefore, only one moment, only the ephemeral breath of love, only one morning, only one capricious design, was reflected in the flickering image of Cordelia and the fire of Oblomov’s passion. Tomorrow, tomorrow another would sparkle, perhaps just as beautiful, but different nonetheless.

X

Oblomov himself was like someone who has just watched the setting summer sun and is enjoying its rosy traces without tearing his gaze from the sunset or turning back toward where the night was emerging, thinking only of tomorrow’s return of warmth and light.

He was lying on his back enjoying the last traces of yesterday’s meeting. “I love you, I love you, I love you” trembled in his ears better than any of Olga’s singing. The rays of her deep glance still rested on him. He had read the meaning in them, determined the extent of her love, and was about to lose himself in sleep when suddenly . . .

The next morning Oblomov arose pale and sullen. On his face were traces of sleeplessness; his brow was creased; his eyes held no fire or desire. His pride, his cheerful, bold glance, and the moderate, conscious haste of a busy man’s movements—all that was gone.

He drank his tea listlessly and did not touch a single book or sit down at his desk, but rather lit a cigar pensively and sat down on the sofa. In former days, he would have stretched out, but now he had broken himself of that habit and did not so much as reach for a pillow; however, he did lean his elbow on it—an allusion to his former inclinations.

He was gloomy. From time to time he sighed, shrugged suddenly, and shook his head in distress.

Something was powerfully at work inside him, but it wasn’t love. Olga’s image was before him, but it seemed to be retreating into the distance, in a fog, without rays of light, as if a stranger to him; he looked at it with a painful glance and sighed.

Live as God commands, not as you please—it’s a wise rule, but . . . And he lapsed into thought.

Surely, one cannot live just as one pleases, that’s clear, a gloomy, obstinate voice spoke inside him. You’ll land in a chaos of contradictions that the human mind alone can’t unravel, no matter how profound or daring it is! Yesterday you wished for something, today you got what you had wished for so passionately and ardently, and the day after tomorrow you’ll blush for having desired it, and then you’ll curse your life because it was granted. That’s what comes of striding independently and impudently through life. That’s what comes of the willful “I want.” One must feel one’s way, shut one’s eyes to a great deal, rave on about happiness, and not dare murmur or it will slip away. That’s life! Whoever said that life was happiness and pleasure? Madmen! ‘Life is life, duty, and obligation,’ says Olga, ‘and obligation can be hard. We will do our duty.’ He sighed.

“Olga and I must stop seeing each other. Lord! You have opened my eyes and showed me my duty,” he said, gazing heavenward, “but where am I to find the strength? To part! This is your chance, painful though it is, but at least afterward you won’t curse yourself for not having parted. They’ll be coming from her right away, she was going to send . . . She’s not expecting . . .”

What kind of a reason was this? What wind had suddenly blown at Oblomov? What clouds had it swept in? Why was he picking up this sorrowful yoke? Wasn’t it just yesterday that he had gazed into Olga’s soul and seen there a bright world and a bright fate, read his horoscope and hers? What had happened? He must have eaten supper or lain on his back, and his poetic mood had yielded to these horrors.

Often one falls asleep in the summer on a quiet, cloudless night, with flickering stars, and thinks how fine the field will be the next day in its bright morning colors! How merry it is to delve into the heart of the forest and hide from the heat! Then suddenly you wake up to the rattling of rain and sad gray clouds; it’s cold and damp.

Last evening, as was his wont, Oblomov had listened to the beating of his heart, plunged into an analysis of his own happiness, and suddenly come upon a drop of bitterness and poisoned himself.

The poison acted powerfully and swiftly. He reviewed his entire life in his mind. For the hundredth time, repentance and belated regret over what was past advanced on his heart. He imagined what he would have been now had he strode forward, lived more fully and richly, and been energetic. Then he passed on to wondering what he was now and how Olga could possibly love him for it.

Isn’t this a mistake? suddenly flashed in his mind, like lightning, and this lightning struck him right in the heart and broke it. He groaned. A mistake! Yes, that’s what this is! tossed about in his mind.

“I love you, I love you, I love you” suddenly resounded once again in his memory, and his heart began to warm, but all of a sudden it turned cold. Even this triple “I love you” of Olga’s—what was it? The deception of her eyes and the cunning whisper of an as yet unclaimed heart. Not love but merely the presentiment of love!

One day that voice would ring out, but as powerfully as a thundering chord, and make the whole world shudder! Both her aunt and the baron would find out, and the rumble from that voice would ring out far and wide! The feeling would not steal past quietly, like a brook, hiding in the grass, with a barely audible gurgling.

She loved now the same way she embroidered on her canvas. The pattern emerged quietly, lazily, and she unfurled it even more lazily, admiring it and then putting it down and forgetting it. Yes, this was only preparation for love, an experiment, and he was the subject who had turned up first, a little shopworn for the experiment, by chance . . .

It was chance, after all, that had brought them together. She wouldn’t have noticed him had Stolz not pointed him out and infected her young, impressionable heart with his sympathy. Then compassion for his situation had appeared, the conceit that she could shake the sleep from that lazy soul and then abandon it.

“That’s what it is!” he said in horror, rising from his bed and lighting the candle with a trembling hand. “There was never any more to it than that! She was ready to accept love, her heart had been waiting so keenly, and she had encountered him by chance, by mistake. As soon as someone else appeared she would come to her senses and be horrified at her mistake! How she would look at him then and turn away. How horrible! I’m stealing what belongs to someone else! I’m a thief! What am I doing? What? How blind I was! My God!”

He looked in the mirror: he was pale and yellow, his eyes lackluster. He recalled those lucky young men, their gaze dewy and pensive, but strong and deep, like hers, with a flickering spark in their eyes, confidence of victory in their smile, and a bold step and ringing voice. He would wait for one of them to appear, and she would blaze up all of a sudden and look at him, Oblomov, and . . . start to laugh!

He looked in the mirror again. “No one loves men like this!” he said.

Then he lay face down on the pillow. “Farewell, Olga, be happy,” he concluded.

“Zakhar!” he shouted in the morning.

“What do you want?”

“If a man comes from the Ilinskys’ for me, tell him I’m not home, that I went to town.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, I’d better write her,” he told himself, “otherwise she’ll think it’s odd that I went missing all of a sudden. An explanation is essential.”

He sat down at his desk and began to write quickly, heatedly, with feverish haste, not the way he had written to his landlord in early May. Not once did two “which’s” or two “that’s” come into unseemly and unpleasant proximity.

It must seem strange, Olga Sergeyevna—he wrote—to receive a letter from me when we see each other so frequently. You must read it to the end, and you will see that there was no other way for me to act. I ought to have begun with this letter. Then we both would have been freed of the many reproaches of conscience that lie ahead, but now it is too late. We came to love each other so suddenly, so swiftly, it was as if we had both taken suddenly ill, and that prevented me from coming to my senses earlier. Not only that, but looking at you, listening to you for hours on end, who would voluntarily accept the heavy burden of breaking the spell? Where can you store up the caution and strength of will you may need at any moment to stop at every slope and not go tumbling down? Every day I thought, “I won’t fall any further. I’ll stop. This is up to me.” But I did fall further, and now the struggle has begun and I need your help. Only today, last night, did I realize how quickly my feet were slipping. Only yesterday was I able to look deeper into the abyss into which I’m falling and did I resolve to stop myself.

I speak only of myself—not out of egoism but because when I am lying at the bottom of that abyss you will still be flying high above me, like the pure angel you are, and I don’t know whether you will want to look down. Listen, without any insinuations, I will tell you plainly and simply: you do not and cannot love me. Heed my experience and believe me unconditionally. After all, my heart began beating long ago. Perhaps it beat falsely and irrelevantly, but this is precisely what taught me to distinguish its proper from its random beating. You cannot but I can and should know where the truth lies and where the error, and it is my duty to warn whoever has not had the chance yet to learn this. So I am warning you: You are mistaken. Look around you!

As long as love appeared to us in the form of a light and smiling vision, as long as it sounded in “Casta diva” and was borne in the scent of a lilac branch, in unvoiced sympathy, in an embarrassed glance, I did not trust it, taking it for the play of my imagination and the whispering of my pride. But those antics have passed. I am ill with love and have felt the symptoms of passion. You have become pensive and grave; you have given me your leisure; your nerves have spoken up; you have begun to worry. And this is when—only now, that is—I took fright and felt it my duty to stop and say what this was.

I told you that I loved you, and you responded in kind. Do you hear the dissonance in this? You don’t? You will hear it later, when I am already in the abyss. Look at me. Think hard about my existence. Could you love me? Do you love me? “I love you, I love you, I love you,” you said yesterday. “No, no, no!” I firmly reply.

You do not love me but you are not lying, I hasten to add. You are not deceiving me. You cannot say yes when your heart says no. I merely want to prove to you that your genuine “I love you” is not genuine love but a future love. It is merely the unconscious need to love, which, due to a lack of real sustenance, in the absence of fire, burns with a false light that does not warm and is expressed sometimes in women in their caresses for a child or for another woman, even simply in tears or fits of hysteria. From the very beginning I ought to have told you sternly, “You are mistaken. Before you is not the man you have been waiting for and dreaming of. Just wait. He will come and your eyes will open. You will be vexed and embarrassed at your mistake, and this vexation and embarrassment will hurt me.” That’s what I ought to have told you if I were by nature more sage of mind and more bold of heart, if I, finally, had been more sincere. I did say it, but you remember how: fearfully, so that you wouldn’t believe it, so that it wouldn’t happen. I told you beforehand everything others might say later, to prepare you not to listen to or believe them, and I myself rushed to see you and thought: “Someday someone else will come, but for now I’m happy.” There it is: the logic of infatuation and passion.

Now I think otherwise. But what would happen if I grew attached to you, when seeing you became a necessity of life rather than a luxury, and love had sunk into my heart (is this why I felt a callous there)? How would I tear myself away then? Would you survive the pain? This would be very bad for me. Even now I cannot contemplate it without horror. If you were more experienced and older, then I would have blessed my good fortune and given you my hand for eternity. As it is . . .

Why am I writing? Why did I not come and tell you directly, myself, that my desire to see you grows with each passing day but see you I must not? Tell you to your face—would I have the strength? Judge for yourself! Sometimes I have even tried to tell you something similar to this but have said something completely different. Perhaps your face would have expressed sorrow (if it is true that you were not weary of me), or you would have misunderstood my good intentions and taken offense. I could not bear either one or the other and I would again say the wrong thing, and my honest intentions would scatter to dust and end with an agreement that we see each other the next day. Now, without you here, it’s completely different. Your gentle eyes, your good, pretty little face is not before me; the paper suffers without a murmur, and I write calmly (I’m lying): we shall never see each other again (I’m not lying).

Another would have added that I’m writing bathed in tears, but I’m not going to pose for you or drape myself in my sorrow because I don’t want to add to your pain or stir up your compassion and grief. All that draping usually conceals the intention to plant deeper roots in emotion’s soil, and I want to eradicate the seeds of this in you and in me. In any case, weeping is either for seducers seeking to snare women’s incautious vanity with their pretty phrases, or for languid dreamers. I say this, in parting, as one parts with a good friend, letting him go on a long journey. In a few weeks, or a month, it would be too late, too hard. Love is having incredible success; it is a St. Anthony’s fire of emotions. Even now I don’t recognize myself, I don’t keep track of the hours and minutes. I don’t know the rising and setting of the sun. But I do keep track of whether I have or haven’t seen you, will or won’t see you, whether you were coming and didn’t but will. All this suits youth, which easily endures upheavals both pleasant and unpleasant; but what suits me is serenity, boring and sleepy though it may be, but it’s what I know. I cannot cope with storms.

Many would be amazed at my action. Why is he running away? they would say. Others would laugh at me. Fine, I’m resigned to that as well. If I can resign myself to not seeing you, I can resign myself to anything.

In my deep longing, I console myself a little by saying that this all too brief episode in our life will leave me forever with such a pure and fragrant memory that it alone will suffice to keep my soul from plunging back into its former sleep, and for you, without bringing you harm, it will serve as a guide in your future, normal love. Farewell, my angel, fly away quickly, as a startled bird flies from a branch where she has perched in error, just as lightly, boldly, and gaily as that bird!

Oblomov wrote with inspiration. His pen flew over the pages. His eyes were shining, his cheeks burning. The letter was rather long, like all love letters. Lovers are so garrulous.

That’s odd! I’m no longer bored or distressed! he thought. I’m almost happy. Why is that? Doubtless because I have unburdened my soul in this letter!

He reread the letter, folded it, and sealed it.

“Zakhar!” he said. “When their man comes, give him this letter for the young lady.”

“Yes, sir,” said Zakhar.

Indeed, Oblomov felt almost cheerful. He sat down on the sofa with his feet tucked up and didn’t even ask whether there was any breakfast for him. He ate two eggs and lit a cigar. Both his heart and head were full. He was alive. He imagined Olga receiving the letter and how amazed she would be, the face she would make when she read it. What would happen then?

He reveled in the prospect of the day and the novelty of the situation. With a sinking heart he listened for the knock at the door, for the servant to come, for Olga to read the letter. . . . No, it was quiet in the front hall.

What could this mean? he thought anxiously. No one has come. How can that be?

A secret voice whispered to him, Why are you so worried? Isn’t this what you needed, for there not to be relations, for them to be broken? But he stifled that voice.

Half an hour later he called Zakhar in from the yard, where he had been sitting with the coachman.

“Hasn’t anyone come?” he asked. “Haven’t they?”

“No, they came,” replied Zakhar.

“What did you say?”

“I said you weren’t here, you’d gone to town, like you said.”

Oblomov stared at him in wonderment.

“Why did you say that?” he asked. “What did I tell you to do when the servant came?”

“It wasn’t the servant, it was her maid,” responded Zakhar with implacable calm.

“Did you give her the letter?”

“Of course not. After all, first you told me to say you weren’t home and then to give him the letter. So when the servant comes, I’ll give it to him.”

“No, no! You’re a murderer plain and simple! Where is the letter? Bring it here!”

Zakhar brought him the letter, already quite soiled.

“Go wash your hands! Look!” said Oblomov darkly, pointing to a spot.

“My hands are clean,” replied Zakhar, looking sideways.

“Anisya! Anisya!” shouted Oblomov.

Anisya poked halfway out the front hall.

“Do you see what Zakhar’s done?” he complained to her. “Take this letter and give it to the servant or maid who comes from the Ilinskys’, and see that it’s given to the young lady, do you hear?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do as you ask.”

But no sooner had she gone into the front hall than Zakhar snatched the letter away from her.

“Get out!” he shouted. “Know your woman’s place!”

Soon after, the maid came running again. Zakhar started opening the door for her, and Anisya was about to go to her, but Zakhar gave her a furious look.

“What are you doing here?” he asked hoarsely.

“I just came to hear how you—”

“All right! All right!” he thundered, waving his elbow at her. “Go!”

She grinned and left, but from the other room she looked through the crack to see whether Zakhar was going to do as the master had ordered.

Hearing the noise, Ilya Ilich himself jumped up.

“What’s wrong, Katya?” he asked.

“The young lady told me to ask where you’d gone. But you haven’t gone, you’re home! I’ll run and tell her,” she said, and she was about to run off.

“I am home. This one here is always lying,” said Oblomov. “Here, give the young lady my letter!”

“Yes sir, I will!”

“Where is the young lady now?”

“She went for a walk through the village and she told me to say that if you’ve finished your book she would like to see you in the garden between one and two.”

She left.

No, I won’t go. Why roil my emotions when everything should be over? thought Oblomov as he headed for the village.

From a distance he glimpsed Olga walking uphill and Katya catching up to her and giving her his letter. He saw Olga stop for a moment, look at the letter, ponder, and then nod to Katya and walk down the park allée.

Oblomov skirted the hill and entered the same allée from the other end. When he reached the middle, he sat down in the grass, among the bushes, and waited.

She’ll pass by here, he thought. I’ll just take a peek, unnoticed, to see how she is and withdraw for good.

He awaited her steps with a sinking heart. No, it was quiet. Nature was living its busy life. All around, tiny, invisible work seethed, yet everything seemed to be lying in triumphant repose.

Meanwhile, everything in the grass was moving, crawling, bustling. Over there were some ants running in different directions, fussing and bustling, colliding, scattering, rushing. It was just like looking at a human market from high up: the same clusters, the same jostling, the same people piling up.

Here was a bee buzzing around a flower and crawling into its calyx; here were flies sticking in a clump around a drop of sap that had emerged on a crack in a linden; here was a bird somewhere in the thicket that had long been repeating the same sound, perhaps calling to another bird.

Here were two butterflies swirling around each other in the air, at top speed, as if in a waltz, rushing around woody stems. The scent of the grass was heavy and from it came an incessant crackling.

What a racket here! thought Oblomov, staring into this bustle and listening to the delicate sound of nature. While on the outside it’s all so quiet and calm!

But there were still no steps to be heard. Finally, there they were. Oh! sighed Oblomov, carefully pulling the branches aside. It’s she! What’s that? She’s crying! My God!

Olga was walking along quietly and wiping away her tears with her handkerchief, but no sooner did she wipe them away than new ones appeared. She was ashamed of them, swallowing them, trying to hide them even from the trees, but she couldn’t. Oblomov had never seen Olga’s tears before. He hadn’t anticipated them, and they practically scorched him, but in a way that felt warm, not hot.

He tried to catch up to her.

“Olga, Olga!” he said tenderly, following her.

She shuddered, looked back, gazed at him in surprise, and then turned and walked on.

He started walking alongside her.

“Are you crying?” he said.

Her tears flowed harder. She could no longer stop them and pressed her handkerchief to her face, burst into sobs, and sat down on the first bench.

“What have I done!” he whispered, horrified, taking her hand and trying to pull it away from her face.

“Leave me alone!” she said. “Go away! Why are you here? I know I shouldn’t cry. What for? You’re right. Yes, anything might happen.”

“What must I do to dry these tears?” he asked, kneeling before her. “Tell me, order me. I’m prepared to do anything.”

“You were the cause of the tears, and stopping them is not in your power. You’re not that strong! Let go!” she said, waving the handkerchief at her face.

He looked at her and silently cursed himself.

“That wretched letter!” he said with remorse.

She opened her workbasket, pulled out the letter, and handed it to him.

“Here,” she said. “Take it away so that I don’t have to cry any longer whenever I look at it.”

He silently tucked it into his pocket and sat down beside her, his head hanging.

“Won’t you at least do justice to my intentions, Olga?” he said softly. “This is proof of how precious your happiness is to me.”

“Yes, precious!” she said, sighing. “No, Ilya Ilich, You must have become envious that I was so quietly happy, so you rushed to disturb my happiness.”

“Disturb it! Didn’t you read my letter? I tell you over and over—”

“I didn’t finish it because my eyes filled with tears. I’m so foolish! But I guessed the rest. Don’t repeat it so I don’t cry even more.”

Her tears started falling again.

“Isn’t that why I’m giving you up?” he said. “Because I foresee your happiness ahead and am sacrificing myself to it? Do you imagine I’m doing this cold-bloodedly? Aren’t I crying my insides out? Why am I doing this?”

“Yes, why?” she repeated, suddenly ceasing to cry and turning to face him, “So you could hide in the bushes now to see whether I would cry and how? That’s why! If you sincerely wanted what was written in the letter, if you were convinced that we should part, you would have gone abroad without trying to see me.”

“What an idea!” he began with reproach but did not finish. He was struck by this assumption because he suddenly realized that it was the truth.

“Yes,” she confirmed, “Yesterday you needed my ‘I love you,’ and today you needed my tears. Tomorrow you may need to see me die.”

“Olga, how can you insult me that way! Don’t you believe I would give half my life to hear your laughter and not see your tears?”

“Yes, perhaps now that you’ve seen a woman crying over you. No,” she added, “you have no heart. If, as you say, you did not want my tears, you would not have done this.”

“How could I have known?” he said with a question and exclamation in his voice, placing both hands on his chest.

“When a heart loves, it has a mind of its own,” she objected. “It knows what it wants and knows beforehand what will happen. I should not have come here yesterday. We had guests arrive unexpectedly, but I knew you would be in anguish waiting for me and might sleep badly. I came because I didn’t want your anguish. But you . . . You’re happy that I’m crying. Look! Look! Enjoy it!”

And she began to weep again.

“I slept so badly, Olga. I was in anguish all night long.”

“And you felt bad because I slept well and wasn’t in anguish. Isn’t that so? If I hadn’t started crying now, you would have slept badly today as well.”

“What can I do now? Say I’m sorry?” he said with docile tenderness.

“Children say they’re sorry, or people when they step on someone’s foot in a crowd, but ‘I’m sorry’ won’t help here,” she said, fanning her face with her handkerchief again.

“But Olga, what if it’s true? What if my idea is just and your love is a mistake? If you fall in love with someone else and then blush whenever you look at me?”

“Yes, what then?” she asked, looking at him with such an ironically profound and penetrating glance that he lost his composure.

She’s trying to get something out of me! he thought. Hold on, Ilya Ilich!

“What do you mean, ‘What then?’” he echoed mechanically, looking at her uneasily, unable to guess what thought was taking shape in her mind or how she would justify her “What then?” when obviously there was no justifying the results of this love if it was a mistake.

She looked at him so consciously and with such confidence that she evidently had mastered her thoughts.

“You’re afraid,” she objected poignantly. “Afraid of ‘falling to the bottom of the abyss.’ You’re frightened by an insult in the future, that I’ll stop loving you! ‘This would be very bad for me,’ you wrote.”

He still did not get her point.

“After all, it will be good for me if I fall in love with someone else. That would mean I’m happy! But you say ‘foresee my happiness ahead and are prepared to sacrifice everything for me, even your life’?”

He stared at her and blinked only rarely and widely.

“There’s the logic of it!” he whispered. “I have to admit I never anticipated . . .”

She surveyed him venomously from head to toe.

“What about the happiness that was driving you out of your mind?” she continued. “And all those mornings and evenings, this park, and my ‘I love you’? Is all that worth nothing? No price, no sacrifice, no pain?”

Oh, I wish the earth would swallow me up! he thought, in inner agony as Olga’s thought was revealed to him in full.

“But what if,” she began heatedly with a question, “what if you should tire of this love the way you’ve tired of books, service, and society? What if with time, without a rival, without another love, you suddenly fall asleep with me, as you do at home on the sofa, and my voice doesn’t awaken you? What if the swelling in your heart passes and if not even another woman but your dressing gown becomes dearer to you?”

“Olga, that’s impossible!” he interrupted with distaste, moving back.

“Why is it impossible?” she asked. “You say I’m ‘mistaken, I’ll fall in love with someone else,’ and sometimes I think you will simply stop loving me. What then? How can I justify what I’m doing now? If not people or society, what will I tell myself? Sometimes I can’t sleep because of this, but I have not tormented you with my conjectures about the future because I believe in something better. For me, the happiness outweighs the fear. I’m worth something when your eyes sparkle because of me, when you search me out, scrambling up hills, when you forget your idleness and rush after me through the heat, to town for a bouquet or a book, when I see that I’m making you smile and desire life. I have been waiting and searching for one thing, happiness, and I believe I have found it. If I’m wrong, if it’s true that I’m going to mourn my mistake, at least here”—she put her hand over her heart—“I feel I’m not to blame; it means fate did not intend this, God did not grant it. But I am not afraid of my future tears. I will mourn, but not in vain. I did buy something with them. I felt so good . . . before!” she added.

“And I hope you do again!” implored Oblomov.

“But you see only gloom ahead. You think nothing of happiness. This is ingratitude,” she continued. “This isn’t love, this is—”

“Egoism!” Oblomov finished her thought and did not dare look at Olga, did not dare speak, did not dare beg forgiveness.

“Go,” she said softly. “Go wherever you were going.”

He looked at her. Her tears had dried. She was looking down, pensively, and drawing in the sand with her parasol.

“Lie down again,” she added then. “Don’t make a mistake. Don’t ‘fall into an abyss.’”

“I’ve poisoned myself and you instead of being simply and straightforwardly happy,” he muttered ruefully.

“Drink your kvass. It won’t poison you,” she said sarcastically.

“Olga! That’s not very handsome of you!” he said. “After I punished myself with my confession.”

“Yes, you punish yourself, throw yourself into the abyss, and give half your life—in words—and then the doubt comes in, the sleepless night. How kind you are to yourself, how cautious and solicitous, how far ahead you see!”

What truth, and how simple it is! thought Oblomov, but he was ashamed to say so out loud. Why hadn’t he seen it for himself instead of this woman barely starting out in life? How quick she was! Not long ago she still looked at things like such a child.

“We have nothing more to discuss,” she concluded, standing. “Farewell, Ilya Ilich, and rest easy. After all, that is where your happiness lies.”

“Olga, no! For the love of God, no! Now that everything has come clear again, don’t drive me away,” he said, taking her hand.

“What do you need from me? You wonder whether my love for you is a mistake. I can’t allay your doubts. It may well be a mistake—I don’t know.”

He let go of her hand. She had again raised her dagger over his head.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Can’t you tell?” he asked again with doubt on his face. “Don’t you suspect?”

“I don’t suspect anything. I told you yesterday what I felt, but I don’t know what will be a year from now. Do you really think that after one happiness there is another and then a third just like it?” she asked, looking into his eyes. “Tell me. You’re more experienced than I.”

But he had no desire to confirm her in this thought so he said nothing while batting at an acacia with one hand.

“No, people love only once!” he repeated as a schoolboy would a rote phrase.

“There, you see? I believe that, too,” she added. “If that’s not the case, I may stop loving you, my mistake may hurt me, and you as well, and we may part! To love two times, three times . . . No, I don’t want to believe that!”

He heaved a sigh. Her “may” made him heart-sick, and he trailed pensively behind her. But with each step his heart felt lighter. The mistake he had conceived of in the night was a distant future. After all, this isn’t love alone, all of life is like this, it suddenly occurred to him, and if one pushes away every instance as a mistake, when will it not be a mistake? What’s wrong with me? It’s as if I went blind.

“Olga,” he said, barely touching her waist with two fingers (she stopped), “you are wiser than I.”

She shook her head.

“No, simpler and bolder. What are you afraid of? Do you honestly think it’s possible to stop loving someone?” she asked with proud confidence.

“Now I’m not afraid either!” he said brightly. “With you, fate is not frightening!”

“I read those words somewhere recently. In Sue, I think,”* she responded suddenly with irony, turning to face him, “only there a woman says them to a man.”

Oblomov’s face flushed red.

“Olga! I want everything to be as it was yesterday,” he implored. “I won’t fear mistakes.”

She did not reply.

“All right?” he asked shyly.

She did not reply.

“Well, if you don’t want to say it, give me some sign. A branch of lilac.”

“The lilacs have gone, for good!” she replied. “There, you see what’s left: faded ones!”

“Gone, faded!” he repeated, looking at the lilac. “The letter is gone as well,” he said suddenly.

She shook her head. He walked behind her and pondered the letter, yesterday’s happiness, and the faded lilac.

Lilac does indeed fade! he thought. What was the point of that letter? Why didn’t I sleep through the night and write in the morning? See now how calm I am inside again. He yawned. I’m terribly sleepy. But if it hadn’t been for the letter, none of this would have happened, either. She wouldn’t have cried. Everything would have been as it was yesterday. We would have been sitting here quietly, in the allée, looking at each other, talking about happiness. And today it would be the same, and tomorrow, too. He yawned wide.

Further, it suddenly dawned on him what would have happened if this letter had achieved its purpose, if she had shared his thought and been frightened, as he was, of mistakes and future, distant storms, if she had listened to his so-called experience and prudence and agreed that they part and forget each other.

God forbid! To part and move to town, to a new apartment! A long night would drag out after this, then a tedious tomorrow, an unbearable day after tomorrow, and a series of days, each more faded than the last.

How could that be? Why, that was death! And that’s what would happen! He would fall ill. He didn’t want this parting. He couldn’t bear it. He would have come and begged her to see him. Why did I ever write that letter? he asked himself.

“Olga Sergeyevna!” he said.

“What do you want?”

“To all my confessions I must add one more.”

“What is that?”

“That letter was not really wanted at all.”

“That’s not true. It was essential.”

She looked over her shoulder and started to laugh when she saw the face he made, how his sleepiness evaporated and his eyes opened wide in amazement.

“Essential?” he repeated slowly, fixing his astonished gaze on her back, but saw only the two tassels of her mantilla there.

What did these tears and reproaches mean? Was it some cunning? But Olga was not cunning. That much he saw clearly.

Only rather limited women are cunning and try to be even more so. Lacking sufficient direct intelligence, they move the springs of petty daily life by means of cunning and weave their domestic politics like lace, not noticing the main lines of their life being set out around them—where they lead and where they converge.

Cunning was like small change: it didn’t buy you a lot. Just as you could survive an hour or two on small change, so you could cover something up, deceive someone there, and distort something else, but that wasn’t enough to take in the distant horizon or to pull together the beginning and end of a major, central event.

Cunning was myopic. It only saw what was right under its nose, not what was up ahead, and as a result itself often fell into the very same trap it had set for others.

Olga was simply intelligent. Just take today’s issue, how easily and clearly she resolved it, and not everyone could! She immediately saw the direct meaning of an event and approached it straight on.

Whereas cunning was like a mouse. It would run around things and hide. Olga was not that kind of person. What was this? What was this new thing?

“Why was the letter essential?” he asked.

“Why?” she echoed and quickly turned to him with a merry face, enjoying the fact that she knew how to stump him at every step. “Because,” she began after a pause, “because you didn’t sleep last night and wrote everything for me. I’m an egoist, too! That is in the first place.”

“Then why did you just reproach me if you yourself agree with me now?” interrupted Oblomov.

“Because you invented your agonies. I didn’t invent them, they just happened, and I’m enjoying the fact that they’re already past, whereas you prepared them and enjoyed them in advance. You’re wicked! That’s why I was reproaching you. And then, there’s thought and feeling at play in your letter. You lived last night and this morning not in your usual way but in the way your friend and mine would like you to, that’s in the second place. And finally, in the third place . . .”

She came so close to him that the blood rushed to his heart and head and he began to breathe heavily, with excitement. And she looked straight into his eyes.

“In the third place, because in this letter your tenderness, your caution, your concern for me, your fear for my happiness, your clear conscience—everything Andrei Ivanovich pointed out to me about you and that I have come to love and that has made me forget your idleness and apathy—are as plain to see as in a mirror. You unwittingly spoke your mind there. You are no egoist, Ilya Ilich. You did not write so that we would part. Not at all. That is not what you wanted. You wrote because you were afraid of deceiving me. This was your honesty speaking, otherwise your letter would have offended me and I would not have wept—out of pride! You see, I know why I love you and I’m not afraid of a mistake. In you I am not mistaken.”

As she said this, she appeared to Oblomov in all her splendor and radiance. Her eyes burned with such triumph of love and awareness of her power; two pink spots glowed on her cheeks. And he, he was the cause of this! With a movement of his honest heart he had cast this fire, this play, this splendor into her heart.

“Olga! You are better than all women, you are the very first woman in the world!” he said in ecstasy, and forgetting himself he held out his arms and leaned toward her.

“For God’s sake . . . one kiss, as a pledge of my inexpressible happiness,” he whispered, as if delirious.

Instantly she took a step back. The triumphant radiance and color drained from her face, and her timid eyes glittered menacingly.

“Never! Never! Don’t come any closer!” she said in fright, almost in horror, extending both hands and her parasol between them, and she stopped as if planted there, turned to stone, not breathing, in a menacing pose, with a menacing glance, half-turned.

He was suddenly pacified. Before him was not a timid Olga but an offended goddess of pride and fury, with pursed lips and lightning in her eyes.

“Forgive me!” he murmured, embarrassed and devastated.

She slowly turned and started off, casting a fearful glance over her shoulder to see what he was doing. But he wasn’t doing anything, just walking along quietly, like a dog dragging his tail after it has been trodden.

She was about to pick up her pace, but seeing his face she suppressed a smile and walked on more calmly, only shuddering from time to time. A pink spot appeared first on one cheek, then the other.

The farther she went, the more her face cleared and the more infrequently and calmly her breath came, and she again began to walk at an even gait. She saw how sacred her “never” was for Oblomov, and little by little, her fit of anger died down to be replaced by compassion. She was walking more and more quietly.

She wanted to soften her outburst; she tried to think of a pretext to speak.

I’ve spoiled everything! That is my real mistake! ‘Never’! My God! The lilacs have faded, he thought, looking at a drooping lilac. Yesterday has faded, and my letter has faded, and that moment, the best in my life, when a woman for the first time told me, like a voice from on high, that there was something fine in me, it has faded!

He took a look at Olga. She was standing and waiting for him, her eyes cast down.

“Give me the letter!” she said softly.

“It has faded!” he replied mournfully, handing her the letter.

Again she drew close to him and tilted her head. Her eyelids were lowered all the way. She was almost trembling. He gave her back the letter. She neither looked up nor moved away.

“You frightened me,” she added softly.

“Forgive me, Olga,” he murmured.

She did not reply.

“That ominous ‘never’!” he said mournfully, and he sighed.

“It will fade!” she whispered, barely audibly, blushing. She cast a bashful, affectionate glance at him, took both his hands, squeezed them in hers, and then placed them on her heart.

“Hear it beating!” she said. “You frightened me! Let me go!”

And without looking at him, she turned and ran down the path, lifting her dress slightly in front.

“Where are you going?” he said. “I’m tired and can’t keep up with you.”

“Leave me be. I’m running off to sing and sing and sing!” she repeated, her face burning. “My chest is so tight it almost hurts!”

He stayed where he was and for a long time watched her go, like a retreating angel.

Will this moment fade as well? he thought almost sadly, and he himself could not tell whether he was moving or standing still.

The lilacs have gone, he thought again. Yesterday has gone, and the stifling night and its ghosts have gone as well. Yes! This moment will go, too, like the lilac! But while last night was going, today’s morning was already dawning.

“What on earth is this?” he said aloud in his absent-mindedness. “Love, too? Love? But I thought it hung over lovers like a sultry noon and nothing could move or breathe in its atmosphere. There is no peace in love either, and it is constantly changing, constantly moving forward, forward—‘like all of life,’ as Stolz used to say. The Joshua has yet to be born who would tell it, ‘Stop and don’t move!’ What will happen tomorrow?” he asked himself nervously and started home thoughtfully, lazily.

As he passed by Olga’s windows, he heard her stifled chest relieving itself in the sounds of Schubert, as if she were sobbing with joy.

My God! How fine it is to live in this world!

XI

At home, Oblomov found another letter from Stolz which began and ended with these words: “Now or never!” It was filled with reproaches for his torpor and then an invitation to go to Switzerland without fail because Stolz was about to go there, and, finally, to Italy.

If not this, then he urged Oblomov to go to the country and check up on his affairs, shake up the muzhiks’ neglected life, check on and determine his income, and personally see to the construction of his new home.

“Remember our understanding: now or never,” he concluded.

“Now, now, now!” repeated Oblomov. “Andrei doesn’t know the epic that is unfolding in my life. What else does he have to think about? Could I ever be so busy with anything? He should try it! You read about the French and the English, and they seem to be working all the time and always have business on their minds! Not at all! They travel all over Europe, and some even go to Asia and Africa, just like that, for no reason at all: one to sketch an album or dig up antiquities; another to shoot lions or catch snakes. If not that, then they sit at home in noble idleness, eat breakfast, and dine with friends and women—that’s all they do! Why should I slave away? All Andrei can think of is, ‘Work and work some more, work like a horse!’ What for? My belly is full and I have clothes to wear. Although Olga has asked me again whether I intend to make the trip to Oblomovka.”

He rushed to write and plan and even went to see his architect. Soon after, the plan for the house and garden was laid out on his small desk. A family house, spacious, with two balconies.

Here am I, and here is Olga, here is the bedroom, and the nursery, he thought, smiling. But the muzhiks, the muzhiks . . . The smile slid from his face and worry furrowed his brow. My neighbor writes, he goes into detail, he talks about the plowing and the yield. How tedious! He even suggests we share the expense of extending the road to the large trading village, with a bridge across the brook, and asks for three thousand. He wants me to mortgage Oblomovka. But how on earth do I know whether I should? Or whether anything will come of it? What if he’s trying to trick me? Let’s say he’s an honest man. Stolz knows him, but he could be tricked as well, and what a lot of money! Three thousand is such a lot of money! Where am I to get it? No, it’s terrifying! He also writes that I should move some of my peasants to my uncultivated land and demands a speedy reply—always speedy. He’s taken it upon himself to send all the documents for mortgaging the estate to the council. “If I send him my power of attorney he’ll go to the court and have it notarized.” There’s what he wants! But I don’t even know where the court is or how the doors to it open.

Oblomov did not write him for another week, meanwhile even Olga asked whether he had been to the court. Recently Stolz, too, had sent letters to him and to her asking, “What is he doing?”

Actually, Olga could only observe her friend’s activities from the outside, and then only in the sphere to which she had access: whether he looked on cheerfully, willingly rode everywhere, and appeared at the wood at the appointed hour, and how engaged he was in the city’s news and general conversation. She watched most jealously of all to make sure he did not lose sight of his main purpose in life. If she asked him about the court it was only to be able to tell Stolz something about his friend’s affairs.

Summer was at its height. July was passing and the weather was excellent. Olga and Oblomov were almost inseparable. On a clear day he was in the park, at hot noon-time he hid in the woods with her, among the pines, seated at her feet and reading to her. She was already embroidering another scrap of canvas—for him. The hot summer reigned for them as well, and occasionally clouds would run up and pass overhead.

If he did have troubling dreams or if doubts did rattle his heart, Olga, like an angel, was standing guard. Her bright eyes would gaze into his face and determine what was in his heart, and then all would be quiet once again, and their emotion would again flow steadily, like a river, reflecting new patterns in the sky.

Olga’s view of life, love, and everything else was even clearer and surer. She looked around herself even more confidently than before and did not shy from the future. New aspects of her mind were unfurling, as were new traits of her personality, manifested either with poetic diversity, profoundly, or else correctly, clearly, gradually, and naturally.

She possessed a determination that not only overcame destiny but even Oblomov’s laziness and apathy. No sooner did an intention arise in her than the matter was under way. That was all you’d hear about, and if you didn’t hear it, you saw that she had just one thing on her mind, that she would not forget, stand back, or lose her head, and that she would weigh everything and reach her goal.

He could not understand where this strength in her came from, this tact—the way she knew what to do and how, no matter what happened.

That’s because one of her eyebrows never lies straight but is always slightly raised, he thought, and above it she has that fine, barely noticeable crease. There, in that crease, that’s where her persistence makes its nest.

No matter how calm and bright the expression on her face, that crease could not be smoothed out and her brow would not lie straight. But she had no physical strength or abrupt ways and inclinations. Her constancy in her intentions and her persistence did not deflect her a single step from her feminine sphere.

She had no wish to be a lioness, flood her awkward admirer with harsh speech, or amaze an entire sitting room with her quick mind so that someone in the corner would shout, “Bravo! Bravo!”

She even possessed the shyness characteristic of many women. True, she did not shudder when she saw a mouse or faint when a chair fell, but she was afraid to wander too far from the house, would turn back if she saw a muzhik who seemed suspicious, and shut her window at night so thieves couldn’t crawl in—just like a woman.

And then, she was so open to compassion and pity! It was not hard to call forth her tears, and it was easy to gain entry to her heart. In love she was so gentle; all her attitudes toward everything were filled with such softness and kind attention. In short, she was a woman!

Occasionally, her speech would glitter with a spark of sarcasm, but such grace, such a meek and dear intelligence shone there that anyone would gladly make himself an open target.

On the other hand, she was not afraid of drafts and went about lightly dressed at twilight. She didn’t mind! Her health was excellent; she ate with appetite; she had her favorite dishes; she knew how to prepare them.

Many people know this, but many people don’t know what to do in a given instance, and if they do, then it is only because they have been taught or have heard, and they don’t know why, and they cannot do otherwise than refer immediately to the authority of their aunt or cousin.

Many people don’t even know what they themselves should want, and if they do decide on something, then they do so listlessly, so that either way it is a matter of indifference. This is probably because their eyebrows lie evenly, in an arc, pinched with their fingers, and they have no crease on their brow.

A secret relationship, invisible to others, established itself between Oblomov and Olga. For them, every glance, each insignificant word said in front of others, had its own meaning. They saw an allusion to love in everything.

Olga would turn red occasionally, despite all her self-confidence, when someone at the table would tell the story of someone’s love that resembled hers; and since all love stories are similar, she often had occasion to blush.

At the slightest mention of this, Oblomov would suddenly grab such a stack of rusks in his embarrassment over tea that someone would invariably laugh.

They became sensitive and cautious. Sometimes Olga would not tell her aunt she had seen Oblomov, and at home he would announce he was going to town but would in fact go to the park.

However, no matter how clear Olga’s mind, or how consciously she looked around herself, or how fresh and healthy she was, she began to have certain distressing new symptoms. From time to time, she would be overtaken by worry and would wrack her brains without knowing what to make of it.

Sometimes, walking arm in arm with Oblomov at a sultry noon-time, she would lazily lean into his shoulder and walk along mechanically, in a kind of exhaustion, deliberately silent. She would lose all her vivacity; her weary gaze, sapped of vitality, would become immobile and fix on a single point; and she would be too lazy to turn it to another object.

She would start to feel miserable. Something was weighing on her chest, worrying her. She lifted her mantilla and braid from her shoulders, but even that didn’t help. Everything weighed and pressed. She could have lain under a tree for hours on end.

Oblomov would become flustered and wave a branch in her face, but she waved off his concerns with an impatient gesture and continued to languish.

Then all of a sudden she would heave a sigh, take a conscious look around, glance at him, squeeze his hand, and smile, and her vivacity and laughter would be back and she was back in control.

One evening especially she fell into this alarming state, this lunacy of love, and appeared to Oblomov in a new light.

It was stuffy and hot. A warm muffled wind blew from the forest, and heavy clouds covered the sky. It was growing darker and darker.

“It’s going to rain,” said the baron, and he went home.

Her aunt went to her room. For a long time, Olga played the piano, lost in thought, but then stopped.

“I can’t. My fingers are trembling, and I can’t catch my breath,” she told Oblomov. “Let’s walk in the garden.”

For a long time they walked arm and arm up and down paths. Her hands were damp and soft. They entered the park.

The trees and bushes merged into a gloomy mass. You couldn’t see anything two paces away—just the sandy paths snaking like a whitish stripe.

Olga peered into the gloom and pressed up against Oblomov. They wandered in silence.

“I’m afraid!” she said suddenly, shuddering, as they were making their way down a narrow path, almost feeling their way, between two black, impenetrable forest walls.

“Of what?” he asked. “Don’t be afraid, Olga, I’m here.”

“I’m afraid of you, too!” she whispered. “But afraid in a good way! My heart is sinking. Give me your hand, and feel it beat.”

But she herself shuddered and looked all around.

“Do you see? Do you?” she whispered, shuddering, and firmly latching onto his shoulder with both hands. “Didn’t you see someone flash by in the darkness?”

She pressed closer to him.

“There’s no one there,” he said, but chills ran down his spine, too.

“Cover my eyes with something, quickly. Harder!” she whispered. “It’s all right now. It’s nerves,” she added with agitation. “There it is again! Look! Who is it? Let’s sit down somewhere on a bench.”

They felt their way to a bench and he sat her down.

“Let’s go home, Olga,” he tried to persuade her. “You’re unwell.”

She lay her head on his shoulder.

“No, the air is fresher here,” she said. “I feel so tight, here, near my heart.”

Her breath was hot on his cheek.

He touched her head with his hand—and her head was hot, too. Her chest was laboring and found relief in frequent sighs.

“Shouldn’t we go home?” Oblomov repeated, worried. “You must lie down.”

“No, no, leave me alone, don’t touch me,” she said languidly, barely audibly. “I’m burning here,” and she pointed to her chest.

“Truly, let’s go home,” Oblomov hurried.

“No, wait. This will pass.”

She squeezed his hand and looked closely into his eyes, all the while saying nothing. Then she began to weep, softly at first, then sobbing violently. He was bewildered.

“For God’s sake, Olga, let’s go home, quickly!” he said, worried.

“It’s all right,” she replied, sobbing. “Don’t try to stop me, let me cry it out. My tears will put out the fire and I’ll feel better. It’s just my nerves acting up.”

He listened to her labored breathing in the darkness and felt her hot tears drop on his hand and her convulsive squeeze of his hand.

He didn’t move a finger or breathe. Her head was lying on his shoulder, and her breath was splashing his cheek with heat. He was trembling, too, but he didn’t dare brush her cheeks with his lips.

Then she grew quieter and quieter and her breathing evened out. She fell quite silent. He wondered whether she had fallen asleep and was afraid to stir.

“Olga!” he called out in a whisper.

“What?” she whispered in reply and sighed aloud. “There you see? It’s passed,” she said languidly. “I feel better and can breathe freely.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Let’s go!” she echoed reluctantly. “My sweet!” she whispered blissfully then, squeezing his arm, and leaning on his shoulder reached the house with shaky steps.

In the hall, he took a look at her. She was weak but smiling a strange, unconscious smile, as if she were under the influence of some dream.

He sat her down on the sofa, knelt beside her, and kissed her hand several times with deep emotion.

She kept looking at him with the same smile, let both her arms drop, and watched him go.

In the doorway he turned around. She was watching him, and her face wore the same exhaustion, the same hot smile, as if it was all too much for her.

He left in a reverie. He had seen that smile somewhere before. He remembered a painting depicting a woman with that smile—only it wasn’t Cordelia.

The next day he sent to inquire after her health. They had him told: “Fine, praise God, and they are asking you to dine today, and in the evening they hope everyone will go to the fireworks, five versts away.”

He could not believe it and so went there himself. Olga was as fresh as a daisy. There was a sparkle in her eyes, a vivacity, and her cheeks glowed pink. Her voice was so sonorous! But she was suddenly flustered and nearly cried out when Oblomov approached her, and she blazed up when he asked, “How are you feeling since yesterday?”

“That was a slight case of nerves,” she hastened to say. “Ma tante says I should be going to bed earlier. It has only started happening to me recently that . . .”

She did not finish and turned away, as if begging for mercy. But why she was so flustered she herself did not know. Why did the memory of yesterday evening and her case of nerves gnaw and burn so?

She was both embarrassed at something and vexed at someone, either herself or Oblomov. Yet in another moment Oblomov seemed even dearer and closer to her, and she felt drawn to him to the point of tears, as if she had entered into some secret kinship with him since the previous evening.

For a long time she could not sleep, and for a long time in the morning she walked alone down the path, agitated, from the park to the house and back, all the time thinking and thinking, lost in conjectures, frowning and then suddenly flushing red and smiling at something, but she still could not reach a decision. Oh, Sonechka! she thought with vexation. Such a happy girl! She would have decided instantly!

And Oblomov? Why had he been mute and sluggish with her yesterday, never mind that her breath splashed his cheek with heat, her hot tears dropped on his hand, and he practically carried her home in his arms and listened to the immodest whisper of her heart. Another man in his place would have . . .

Although Oblomov had spent his youth among young men who knew everything, who had long since had an answer to every vital question, and who believed in nothing and analyzed everything coldly and wisely, in his heart glimmered a belief in friendship, love, and the honor of men, and no matter how often he had been mistaken about people, no matter how often he would be mistaken again and his heart would suffer, not once was the foundation of good and his belief in it shaken. He secretly admired woman’s purity, recognized her power and rights, and made his offerings to her.

What he did lack was the character to admit frankly the doctrine of good and his respect for innocence. All too quietly he reveled in its aroma but sometimes he did join the chorus of cynics who shuddered at even the suspicion of chastity or respect for it and to their raucous chorus added his own careless word.

He had never clearly fathomed the true weight of a word of good, truth, and purity cast in the stream of human speech and the deep bend it cut in it. Nor had he thought that a word spoken boldly and loudly, with no hint of false shame, but rather with courage, that this word would not drown in the ugly cries of fashionable satyrs but would plunge like a pearl into the abyss of public life and always find itself a shell.

Many stumble over a good word, blushing in embarrassment, and utter a careless word boldly and loudly, never suspecting that it, too, unfortunately, will not go for naught but will leave a long trail of often times ineradicable evil.

On the other hand, in practice Oblomov was just. Not a single spot or reproach of cold, heartless cynicism without passion or struggle lay on his conscience. He could not listen to the daily stories about one man trading a horse or furniture, and another a woman, or about what costs the trading entailed.

More than once he had suffered over a man’s lost dignity and honor and wept over the sordid fall of a woman he did not know, but he never said anything for fear of society.

This had to be guessed, and Olga had.

Men laugh at eccentrics like that, but women recognize them immediately. Pure, chaste women love them, out of sympathy; corrupt women seek out their friendship in order to purge themselves of spoilage.

The summer was moving along and drawing to a close. The mornings and evenings were now dark and damp. Not just the lilacs but the lindens, too, had faded, and the berries were gone. Oblomov and Olga saw each other daily.

He had caught up with life. That is, once again he kept up everything he had lagged behind for so long. He knew why the French envoy had left Rome and why the English were sending troop ships to the Orient, and he was interested in when a new road was going to be laid in Germany or France. However, he gave no thought to the road through Oblomovka to the big village, did not send the power of attorney to the court to be notarized, and did not reply to Stolz’s letters.

He kept up only on what arose in the daily conversations at Olga’s house and what there was to read in the newspapers they took and, quite assiduously, thanks to Olga’s persistence, followed current foreign literature. All the rest drowned in the realm of pure love.

In spite of the frequent alterations in this rosy atmosphere, the principal foundation was the cloudless horizon. If Olga occasionally had to ponder Oblomov and her love for him, if there was free time and free room in her heart from this love, if all her questions did not find a full and always ready answer in his mind and his will was silent to the summons of her will, and if to her vivacity and the quivering of life he responded only with a passive but passionate look—she would fall into a distressing reverie. Something cold would creep into her heart like a snake and wake her from her dream, and the warm, fairy-tale world of love would be transformed into an autumn day when all objects appear in a gray light.

She sought the reason for this incompleteness, this dissatisfaction with her happiness. What was she lacking? What did she need? This was fate, after all, her fate, to love Oblomov, wasn’t it? This love was justified by his meekness, his pure faith in good, and most of all his tenderness, tenderness such as she had never before seen in a man’s eyes.

What did it matter if he did not respond to her every look with a look of understanding, if she heard something off in his voice, something she seemed to have heard once before, either asleep or waking? It was her imagination, nerves. Why should she listen to them and complicate matters for no reason?

Even if she wanted to leave this love behind, how could she? The deed was done. She already loved him, and one could not shed love at will, like a dress. People only love once in life, she thought. Anything else is immoral, or so they say.

So she studied her love, tested it, and met each new step with a tear or a smile and pondered it. Then would appear that concentrated expression that concealed both tears and a smile and that frightened Oblomov so.

Of these thoughts and this struggle, though, she made no mention to Oblomov.

Oblomov did not ponder his love. He dozed in the delightful somnolence he had once dreamed of out loud in Stolz’s presence. From time to time, he would begin to believe in life’s constant cloudlessness, and once again he would dream of an Oblomovka inhabited by fine, friendly, and carefree faces, the sitting on the terrace, the reverie from the fullness of his contented happiness.

Even now he sometimes yielded to this contemplation and, in secret from Olga, once or twice, took a nap in the woods while awaiting her delayed arrival. And then, out of nowhere, a cloud flew up.

One day they were returning together from somewhere, lazily and silently, and had only just started to cross the main road when a cloud of dust rushed toward them, and in the cloud raced a carriage, and in the carriage sat Sonechka and her husband, some other gentleman, and also a lady.

“Olga! Olga! Olga Sergeyevna!” the shouts rang out.

The carriage came to a halt. All the ladies and gentlemen emerged from it, surrounded Olga, and began exchanging greetings and kisses on the cheek. Everyone began talking at once and did not notice Oblomov for a long time. Then, all of a sudden, everyone looked at him—one gentleman through a lorgnette.

“Who is this?” asked Sonechka quietly.

“Ilya Ilich Oblomov!” Olga introduced him.

Everyone set out for the house on foot. Oblomov felt ill at ease. He hung back from the company and was about to swing his leg over the wicker fence and slip away home through the rye when Olga’s look brought him back.

That would have been fine, but all these ladies and gentlemen looked at him so oddly, and even that would have been all right. In days gone by, people never looked at him otherwise, due to his sleepy, bored gaze and his careless dress.

But these ladies and gentlemen shifted this same odd glance from him to Olga as well. This suspicious look at her brought a sudden chill to his heart. Something began gnawing away at him, but so painfully, so agonizingly, that he couldn’t bear it and he went home pensive and out of sorts.

The next day, Olga’s sweet chatter and affectionate playfulness could not cheer him up. To her persistent questions he had to respond that his head ached and patiently allow his head to be doused with seventy-five kopeks’ worth of eau de cologne.

The day after that, after they had returned late, Olga’s aunt gave them an excessively intelligent look, especially him, and then lowered her large, slightly puffy eyelids, but her eyes seemed to keep looking at them through the eyelids, and she took a thoughtful sniff of spirits.

Oblomov was in agony but said nothing. He could not bring himself to entrust Olga with his doubts for fear of alarming or frightening her, and, to tell the truth, he was even afraid for himself, afraid of ruffling this unruffled, cloudless world with a matter of such grave importance.

It was no longer a matter of whether it was a mistake that she loved him, Oblomov, but whether their entire love, these trysts in the forest, alone, sometimes late in the evening, were a mistake.

I attempted a kiss, he thought, aghast, and this is a criminal act in the moral code, and not the least among them! There are many lesser degrees: hand squeezing, confessions, letters . . . We’ve been through all that. However, he thought further, straightening his head, my intentions are honest, I—

All of a sudden, the cloud vanished and before him unfolded Oblomovka, as bright as a holiday, all a-gleam, bathed in rays of sunlight, with its green hills and silver stream. He was walking with Olga down a long path, pensively, his arm around her waist, sitting in the gazebo, on the terrace.

Around her everyone bowed their head in adoration. In short, everything he had told Stolz.

Yes, yes, but I ought to have begun with this! he thought again, terrified. The three ‘I love you’s,’ the branch of lilac, the confession—all this ought to have been a pledge of happiness for my whole life and not repeated with a pure woman. What am I? Who am I? The thought hammered away in his mind.

I’m a seducer, a Don Juan! All that remains is for me, like that nasty old beau with the unctuous eyes and red nose, to stick a rose stolen from a woman into my lapel and whisper into a friend’s ear of my triumph, all that . . . all that . . . Oh my God, I’ve gone too far! Here is the abyss! And Olga is not flying high above it, she is at its bottom . . . for which, for which . . .

He was straining himself to the breaking point, crying like a child, because the radiant colors of his life had faded and because Olga would be the victim. All his love was a crime, a spot on his conscience.

Then for a minute his disturbed mind cleared when Oblomov realized that there was a legitimate outcome to all this: offer Olga his hand and a ring.

“Yes, yes!” he said in joyful trepidation. “And her reply will be a look of embarrassed consent. She won’t say a word. She’ll blaze up and smile to the bottom of her heart, and then her gaze will fill with tears.”

Her tears and smile, her silently outstretched hand, then her vibrant, frolicsome joy, the happy haste in her movements, and then the long, long conversation, the whispering in private, that trusting whispering of souls, that mysterious pact to merge two lives into one!

They alone would see their invisible love shining through in little things, in their conversations about everyday matters. And no one would dare insult them with a glance.

All of a sudden his face became quite stern and pompous.

Yes, he told himself, here it is, the world of straightforward, honest, and secure happiness! Until now I’ve been embarrassed to pluck these flowers and rush around in the scent of love, like a little boy, to seek out meetings, walk in the moonlight, listen to the beating of her maidenly heart, and catch the trembling of her dream. My God!

His ears turned red.

This evening Olga will find out the strict obligations love imposes on us. Today will be our last meeting alone, today.

He lay his hand on his heart. It was beating strongly but evenly, as it should beat in honest men. Once again he was upset at the thought of Olga being sad at first when he told her they should not see each other. Then he would shyly declare his intention, but first he would elicit the shape of her thoughts and revel in her confusion, and . . .

He went on dreaming of her embarrassed consent, the secret whispering, and the kisses in view of the whole world.