Oblomov

by Ivan Goncharov

  ‘Good heavens!’ Oblomov groaned.

  ‘– and, finally,’ the doctor concluded, ‘go to Paris for the winter and amuse yourself there – in the whirl of life – and try not to think; from the theatre to a dance, a fancy-dress ball, pay visits to friends in the country, see that you have friends, noise, laughter around you.’

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Oblomov with ill-disguised vexation.

  The doctor pondered.

  ‘Perhaps you could try the sea air; get on a steamer in England and take a trip to America.’

  He got up to leave.

  ‘If you carry it all out exactly – –’ he said.

  ‘Very well, very well,’ Oblomov replied sarcastically, as he saw him off, ‘I shall certainly carry it out.’

  The doctor went away, leaving Oblomov in a most pitiful condition. He closed his eyes, put both hands behind his head, huddled himself up in the chair and sat like that, seeing and feeling nothing.

  A timid voice called behind him:

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Well?’ he replied.

  ‘And what shall I tell the landlord’s agent?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About our moving?’

  ‘You’re at it again?’ Oblomov asked in surprise.

  ‘But, sir, what am I to do? You must admit that my life’s not easy as it is. I’m worried to death – –’

  ‘Oh no, it’s me you’re worrying to death by your talk of moving,’ said Oblomov. ‘You’d better hear what the doctor has just told me!’

  Zakhar did not know what to say to that and merely fetched so deep a sigh that the ends of the kerchief round his neck shook on his breast.

  ‘You’ve made up your mind to kill me, have you?’ Oblomov asked again. ‘You’re sick of me, are you? Well, speak!’

  ‘Good Lord, sir, live as long as you like! I’m sure no one wishes you ill, sir,’ Zakhar growled, completely put out by the tragic turn the conversation was taking.

  ‘You do!’ said Oblomov. ‘I’ve forbidden you to mention moving to me, and you remind me of it half a dozen times a day. It upsets me – don’t you realize that? I’m in a bad way as it is.’

  ‘I thought, sir, that – I thought why shouldn’t we move?’ Zakhar said in a voice trembling with emotion.

  ‘Why shouldn’t we move?’ Oblomov said, turning together with his chair towards Zakhar. ‘You think it’s so easy, don’t you? But, my dear fellow, have you considered carefully what moving means? You haven’t, have you?’

  ‘I don’t think I have, sir,’ Zakhar answered humbly, ready to agree with his master about everything so long as there were no pathetic scenes, which he could not endure.

  ‘If you haven’t,’ said Oblomov, ‘then listen and see for yourself whether we can move or not. What does moving mean? It means that your master will have to leave the house for a whole day and walk about dressed from early morning.’

  ‘Well, sir, why not leave the house?’ Zakhar remarked. ‘Why not go away for a whole day? It’s unhealthy to sit at home. You do look bad, sir! Before, you looked the picture of health, but now that you always sit at home you look like nothing on earth. If you only took a walk in the streets, had a look at the people or something – –’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense and listen!’ said Oblomov. ‘Take a walk in the streets!’

  ‘Why not, sir?’ Zakhar went on warmly. ‘I’m told, sir, there’s a terrible monster on show. Why not go and have a look at it? Or you might go to a theatre or a mask ball, and we’d do the moving without you.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish! So that’s how you look after your master’s comfort! You don’t care if I tramp about the streets all day long, do you? What would it matter to you if I had dinner in some poky little hole and couldn’t lie down after it? They’ll do the moving without me! If I’m not here to keep an eye on things, you’d be moving – bits and pieces. I know,’ Oblomov went on with growing conviction, ‘what moving furniture means! It means breakages, noise, everything will be piled together on the floor: trunks, the back of the sofa, pictures, books, pipes, all sorts of bottles one never sees at any other time which suddenly turn up goodness knows from where! And you have to look after it all so that nothing gets broken or lost – one half here, another on the cart, or in the new flat! You want to smoke, you pick up your pipe, but the tobacco’s already gone – you want to sit down, but there’s nothing to sit on, you can’t touch anything without getting dirty and covered with dust – nothing to wash with and you have to go about with hands as filthy as yours – –’

  ‘My hands are clean,’ Zakhar remarked, showing what looked more like two soles than a pair of hands.

  ‘Oh, you’d better not show them to me,’ said Oblomov, turning away. ‘And should you want to have a drink, the decanter’s there, but there’s no glass.’

  ‘You can drink from the decanter just as well,’ Zakhar observed good-naturedly.

  ‘That’s just like you: one can just as well not sweep the floor, not dust, and not beat the carpets. And at the new flat,’ Oblomov went on, carried away by the vivid picture of the moving he had conjured up, ‘things won’t be put straight for at least three days – everything is sure to be in the wrong place: the pictures on the floor by the walls, the goloshes on the bed, the boots in the same bundle as the tea and the pomatum. There’s a chair with a broken leg, a picture with a smashed glass, a sofa covered in stains. Whatever you ask for is not to be found, no one knows where it is – been lost or left at the old flat – go and run back for it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Zakhar interrupted, ‘sometimes one has to run there and back a dozen times.’

  ‘There you are!’ Oblomov went on. ‘And getting up in the morning in a new flat – what a bore! No water, no charcoal for the samovar, and in the winter you’re sure to freeze to death, the rooms are cold and there’s no firewood; you have to run and borrow some.’

  ‘That depends on the kind of neighbours you get,’ Zakhar observed again. ‘Some wouldn’t lend you a jug of water, let alone a bundle of firewood.’

  ‘Yes, indeed!’ said Oblomov. ‘You move and you’d suppose that by the evening everything would be over, but not at all, you won’t be settled for another fortnight at least. Everything seems to be in its place, but there are still heaps of things to do: hang up the curtains, put up the pictures – you’d be sick and tired of it all, you’d wish you were dead. And the expense!’

  ‘Last time we moved, eight years ago,’ Zakhar confirmed, ‘it cost us two hundred roubles – I remember it as if it was to-day.’

  ‘Well, that’s no joke, is it?’ said Oblomov. ‘And how strange life is in a new flat at first! How soon will you get used to it? Why, I shan’t be able to sleep for at least a week in the new place. I’ll be eaten up with misery when I get up and don’t see the wood-turner’s signboard opposite; if that old woman with the short hair doesn’t look out of the window before dinner, I feel miserable. So you see now what you’re trying to let your master in for, don’t you?’ Oblomov asked reproachfully.

  ‘I see, sir,’ Zakhar whispered humbly.

  ‘Then why did you try to persuade me to move?’ said Oblomov. ‘Do you think I’m strong enough to stand it?’

  ‘I thought, sir, that other people are no better than us, and if they move, why can’t we?’

  ‘What? What?’ Oblomov asked in surprise, rising from his chair. ‘What did you say?’

  Zakhar was utterly confused, not knowing what he could have said to cause his master’s pathetic words and gestures. He was silent.

  ‘Other people are no better!’ Oblomov repeated in dismay. ‘So that’s what you’ve been leading up to! Now I shall know that I’m the same as “other people” to you!’

  Oblomov bowed to Zakhar ironically, and looked highly offended.

  ‘Good Lord, sir, I never said that you were the same as anyone else, did I?’

  ‘Get out of my sight, sir!’ Oblomov cried imperiously, pointing to the door. ‘I can’t bear to
look at you! “Other people!” That’s nice!’

  Zakhar heaved a deep sigh and withdrew to his room.

  ‘What a life!’ he growled, sitting down on the stove.

  ‘Good Lord,’ Oblomov, too, groaned. ‘Here I was going to devote the morning to some decent work, and now I’m upset for the whole day. And who’s done it? My own tried and devoted servant. And the things he has said! How could he have said it?’

  Oblomov could not compose himself for a long time; he lay down, he got up, paced the room, and again lay down. In Zakhar’s attempt to reduce him to the level of other people he saw a violation of his rights to Zakhar’s exclusive preference of his own master. He tried to grasp the whole meaning of that comparison and analyse what the others were and what he was, and to what an extent a parallel between him and other people was justified, and how gravely Zakhar had insulted him. Finally, he wondered whether Zakhar had insulted him consciously, that is to say, whether he was convinced that he, Oblomov, was the same as ‘another’, or whether the words had escaped him without thinking. All this hurt Oblomov’s vanity and he decided to show Zakhar the difference between himself and those ‘others’ and make him feel the whole baseness of his action.

  ‘Zakhar!’ he called solemnly in a drawn-out voice.

  Hearing this call, Zakhar did not growl or jump off the stove as usual, making a noise with his feet, but got down slowly and, brushing against everything with his arms and sides, walked out of his room quietly and reluctantly like a dog which knows by the sound of its master’s voice that its trick has been discovered and that it is being called to receive punishment. Zakhar half opened the door, but did not venture to go in.

  ‘Come in!’ said Oblomov.

  Though the door could be opened easily, Zakhar opened it only an inch and stuck in the doorway instead of walking in.

  Oblomov was sitting on the edge of his couch.

  ‘Come here!’ Oblomov ordered.

  Zakhar disentangled himself from the door with difficulty, but at once closed it behind him and leant against it firmly with his back.

  ‘Here!’ said Oblomov, pointing to a place beside him.

  Zakhar took half a step and stopped five yards from the place indicated.

  ‘Nearer!’ said Oblomov.

  Zakhar pretended to take another step, but merely swayed forward, stamped his foot, and remained where he was. Seeing that this time he could not make Zakhar come nearer, Oblomov let him stay where he was and looked at him for some time reproachfully and in silence. Embarrassed by this silent contemplation of his person, Zakhar pretended not to notice his master and stood turning away from him more than usual and did not even at that moment look at Oblomov out of the corner of his eye. He looked stubbornly to the left, where he saw a long-familiar sight: the fringe of the spider’s web round the pictures and the spider – a living reproach to his remissness.

  ‘Zakhar!’ Oblomov said quietly and with dignity.

  Zakhar made no answer.

  ‘Well,’ he seemed to be thinking, ‘what do you want? Some other Zakhar? Can’t you see that I’m here?’ He transferred his gaze from the left to the right, past his master; there, too, he was reminded of himself by the looking-glass covered with a thick layer of dust as with muslin – his own gloomy and unattractive face looked at him sullenly and wildly from there as through a mist. He turned away with displeasure from that melancholy and all-too-familiar object and made up his mind to glance for a moment at Oblomov. Their eyes met.

  Zakhar could not bear the reproach in his master’s eyes, and lowered his own eyes: there again, in the carpet, impregnated with dust and covered with stains, he read the sad testimony to his zeal in his master’s service.

  ‘Zakhar!’ Oblomov repeated with feeling.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ Zakhar asked in a barely audible whisper and gave a slight shudder, anticipating a pathetic speech.

  ‘Give me some kvas,’ said Oblomov.

  Zakhar breathed freely; he felt so happy that he rushed like a boy to the sideboard and brought some kvas.

  ‘Well, how do you feel?’ Oblomov asked gently, taking a sip from the glass and holding it in his hands. ‘You’re sorry, aren’t you?’

  The crestfallen expression on Zakhar’s face was immediately softened by a ray of repentance that appeared on his features. Zakhar felt the first symptoms of awakening reverence for his master and he suddenly began to look straight in his eyes.

  ‘Are you sorry for your misdemeanour?’ asked Oblomov.

  ‘Why, what “misdemeanour” is this?’ Zakhar thought bitterly. ‘Something awful, I’ll be bound. I shall burst into tears if he goes on lecturing me like this.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ Zakhar began on the lowest note of his register, ‘I haven’t said nothing except that – –’

  ‘No, wait!’ Oblomov interrupted. ‘Do you realize what you’ve done? Here, put the glass on the table and tell me.’

  Zakhar said nothing, being completely at a loss to understand what he had done, but that did not prevent him from looking with reverence at his master; he even hung his head a little, conscious of his guilt.

  ‘Well, aren’t you a venomous creature?’ Oblomov said.

  Zakhar still said nothing, and only blinked slowly a few times.

  ‘You’ve grieved your master!’ Oblomov declared slowly, looking fixedly at Zakhar and enjoying his embarrassment.

  Zakhar felt so miserable that he wished he could sink through the floor.

  ‘You have grieved him, haven’t you?’ asked Oblomov.

  ‘Grieved!’ Zakhar whispered, utterly bewildered by that new, pathetic word. He glanced wildly from the right to the left, looking in vain for some deliverance, and again all he saw was the spider’s web, the dust, and his own and his master’s reflections in the looking-glass.

  ‘Oh, I wish I could sink through the ground! Oh, why aren’t I dead?’ he thought, seeing that, try as he might, he could not avoid a pathetic scene. He felt that he was blinking more and more and that any moment tears would start in his eyes. At last he regaled his master with his familiar song, except that it was in prose.

  ‘How have I grieved you, sir?’ he asked, almost in tears.

  ‘How?’ Oblomov repeated. ‘Why, did it occur to you to think what other people are?’

  He stopped, still looking at Zakhar.

  ‘Shall I tell you what they are?’

  Zakhar turned like a bear in its lair and heaved a loud sigh.

  ‘The other people you’re thinking of are poor wretches, rough, uncivilized people who live in dirt and poverty in some attic; they can sleep comfortably on a felt mat somewhere in the yard. What can happen to such people? Nothing. They guzzle potatoes and salt herrings. Poverty drives them from one place to another, and so they rush about all day long. They, I’m sure, wouldn’t mind moving to a new flat. Lyagayev, for instance. He would put his ruler under his arm, tie up his two shirts in a handkerchief, and go off. “Where are you going?” “I’m moving,” he would say. That’s what other people are like. Aren’t they?’

  Zakhar glanced at his master, shifted from foot to foot, and said nothing.

  ‘What are other people?’ Oblomov went on. ‘They are people who do not mind cleaning their boots and dressing themselves, and though they sometimes look like gentlemen, it’s all a put-up show; they don’t know what a servant looks like. If they have no one to send out on an errand, they run out themselves. They don’t mind stirring the fire in the stove or dusting their furniture.…’

  ‘There are many Germans who are like that,’ Zakhar said gloomily.

  ‘No doubt there are! And I? What do you think? Am I like them?’

  ‘You’re quite different, sir,’ Zakhar said piteously, still at a loss to know what his master was driving at. ‘What has come over you, sir?’

  ‘I’m quite different, am I? Wait, think carefully what you’re saying. Just consider how the “others” live. The “others” work hard, they rush about, they’re always busy,�
� Oblomov went on. ‘If they don’t work, they don’t eat. The “others” bow and scrape, beg, grovel. And I? Well, tell me, what do you think: am I like “other people”?’

  ‘Please, sir, don’t go on torturing me with pathetic words,’ Zakhar implored. ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’

  ‘I am like the “others”, am I? Do I rush about? Do I work? Have I not enough to eat? Do I look thin and wretched? Do I go short of things? It seems to me I have someone to wait on me and do things for me! Never in my life, thank God, have I had to pull a sock on my foot myself! Why should I worry? Whatever for? And who am I saying this to? Haven’t you looked after me since I was a child? You know all this; you’ve seen how tenderly I’ve been brought up; you know that I’ve never suffered from hunger or cold, that I’ve never lacked anything, that I haven’t had to earn my living and never done any heavy work. So how did you have the heart to compare me to “others”? Do you think I am as strong as those “others”? Can I do and endure what they can?’

  Zakhar was no longer capable of understanding what Oblomov was talking about. But his lips were blown up with emotion: the pathetic scene was raging like a storm-cloud over his head. He was silent.

  ‘Zakhar!’ Oblomov repeated.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ Zakhar hissed in a barely audible whisper.

  ‘Give me some more kvas’

  Zakhar brought the kvas, and when Oblomov had drunk it and handed him back the glass, he made a dash for the door.

  ‘No, no, wait!’ said Oblomov. ‘I’m asking you how you could so terribly insult your master whom you carried in your arms as a baby, whom you have served all your life, and who has been your benefactor?’

  Zakhar could not bear it any more. The word ‘benefactor’ finished him! He began blinking more and more. The less he understood what Oblomov was saying to him in his pathetic speech, the sadder he became.

  ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ he began to wheeze penitently. ‘It was out of foolishness, sir, out of foolishness that I – –’