Oblomov

by Ivan Goncharov

  ‘Is she married?’ Oblomov cried, staring at Stolz.

  ‘Why are you so alarmed? Memories?’ Stolz added softly, almost tenderly.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ Oblomov cried, coming to himself. ‘I wasn’t alarmed, but surprised. I don’t know why it startled me. How long has she been married? Is she happy? Tell me, please. I feel as though you had lifted a load off my mind. Though you assured me that she had forgiven me, I – well, you know, I felt uneasy! Something kept gnawing at me…. Dear Andrey, how grateful I am to you!’

  He was so genuinely pleased, he was so jumping about on the sofa, unable to keep still, that Stolz could not help admiring him and was even touched.

  ‘What a good chap you are, Ilya,’ he said. ‘Your heart was worthy of her. I shall tell her everything.’

  ‘No, no, don’t tell her!’ Oblomov interrupted. ‘She’ll think me unfeeling if she hears that I was glad to learn of her marriage.’

  ‘But isn’t gladness also a feeling, and an unselfish one too? You’re only glad that she is happy.’

  ‘That’s true, that’s true!’ Oblomov interrupted. ‘I don’t know what I’m talking about. But who – who is the lucky man? I forgot to ask.’

  ‘Who?’ Stolz repeated. ‘How slow you are, Ilya!’

  Oblomov suddenly looked motionless at his friend: for a moment his face went rigid and the colour left his cheeks.

  ‘It – it isn’t you, is it?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Frightened again? What of?’ Stolz said, laughing.

  ‘Don’t joke, Andrey, tell me the truth!’ Oblomov cried agitatedly.

  ‘Of course, I’m not joking. I’ve been married to Olga for over a year.’

  Gradually the look of alarm disappeared from Oblomov’s face, giving place to an expression of peaceful thoughtfulness; he did not raise his eyes, but his thoughtfulness was a minute later changed to a deep and quiet joy, and when he slowly looked up at Stolz, his eyes were full of tender emotion and tears.

  ‘Dear Andrey!’ said Oblomov, embracing his friend. ‘Dear Olga – Sergeyevna,’ he added, restraining his enthusiasm. ‘God himself has blessed you! Oh dear, I’m so happy! Tell her – –’

  ‘I’ll tell her that I know of no other Oblomov!’ Stolz interrupted him, deeply moved.

  ‘No, tell her, remind her that we were brought together only for the sake of putting her on the right path and that I bless our meeting and bless her on her new path in life! What if it had been someone else?’ he added in terror. ‘But now,’ he concluded gaily, ‘I do not blush for the part I played, and I am not sorry for it. A heavy load has lifted from my soul; it’s all clear there and I am happy. Dear Lord, I thank you!’

  He again almost jumped about on the sofa with excitement: one moment he laughed and another he cried.

  ‘Zakhar, champagne for dinner!’ he cried, forgetting that he had not a farthing.

  ‘I’ll tell Olga everything, everything,’ said Stolz. ‘I understand now why she can’t forget you. No, you were worthy of her: your heart is a well – deep!’

  Zakhar thrust his head round the door.

  ‘Please, sir, one moment!’ he said, winking at his master.

  ‘What do you want?’ Oblomov asked impatiently. ‘Go away!’

  ‘I want some money, please!’ Zakhar whispered.

  Oblomov suddenly fell silent.

  ‘Never mind,’ he whispered into the door. ‘Say you’d forgotten or that you hadn’t time! Go now! No, come back!’ he said aloud. ‘Have you heard the news, Zakhar? Congratulate Mr Stolz: he is married.’

  ‘Are you really, sir? I am glad, sir, to have lived to hear such joyful news. Accept my congratulations, Mr Stolz, sir! May you live happily for many years and have children in plenty. Dear me, this is great news indeed, sir!’

  Zakhar bowed, smiled, grunted, and wheezed. Stolz took out a note and gave it him.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take it and buy yourself a coat; you look like a beggar.’

  ‘Whom have you married, sir?’ asked Zakhar, trying to catch Stolz’s hand to kiss.

  ‘Olga Sergeyevna – remember?’ said Oblomov.

  ‘The llyinsky young lady! Lord, what a nice young lady she is, sir! You were right to scold me that time, sir, old dog that I am! It was all my stupid fault, sir: I thought it was you. It was I who told the Ilyinsky servants about it, and not Nikita! Aye, that was slander, that was! Oh, dear me, dear me – –’ he kept repeating, as he went out of the room.

  ‘Olga invites you to stay at her house in the country. Your love has cooled down, so there is no danger: you won’t be jealous. Let’s go.’

  Oblomov sighed. ‘No, Andrey,’ he said; ‘it isn’t love or jealousy I’m afraid of, but I won’t go with you all the same.’

  ‘What are you afraid of then?’

  ‘I’m afraid of envying you: your happiness will be like a mirror in which I shall see my bitter and wasted life; for, you see, I won’t live differently any more – I can’t.’

  ‘My dear Ilya, how can you talk like this? You’ll have to live the same sort of life as those around you, whether you want to or not. You’ll keep accounts, look after your estate, read, listen to music. You can’t imagine how much her voice has improved! Remember Casta diva?’

  Oblomov waved his hand to stop Stolz reminding him of it.

  ‘Let’s go, then!’ Stolz insisted. ‘It’s her wish. She won’t leave you alone. I may get tired of asking you, but not she. There is so much energy in her, so much vitality that quite often I find it hard to keep up with her myself. The past will again begin to stir in your soul. You will recall the park, the lilac, and you’ll rouse yourself….’

  ‘No, Andrey, no; don’t remind me of it, don’t try to rouse me, for God’s sake,’ Oblomov interrupted him earnestly. ‘It doesn’t comfort me, it hurts me. Memories are either the finest poetry when they are memories of actual happiness or a burning pain when they are associated with wounds that have scarcely healed. Let’s talk of something else. Oh, yes, I forgot to thank you for all the trouble you are taking about my affairs and my estate. My friend, I cannot, I don’t feel equal to it; you must look for my gratitude in your own heart, in your happiness – in Olga…. Sergeyevna, but I – I – cannot! I’m sorry I am giving you all this trouble. But it will soon be spring and I will most certainly go to Oblomovka….’

  ‘But have you any idea what is happening in Oblomovka?’ said Stolz. ‘You won’t recognize it! I haven’t written to you because you don’t answer letters. The bridge is built, and the house is finished, roof and all. But you must see about the interior decorations according to your own taste – I can’t undertake that. The new manager is one of my own men and he is looking after everything. You’ve seen the accounts, haven’t you?’

  Oblomov made no answer.

  ‘Haven’t you read them?’ Stolz asked. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Wait, I’ll find them after dinner. I must ask Zakhar.’

  ‘Oh, Ilya, Ilya! I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.’

  ‘We’ll find them after dinner. Let’s have dinner!’

  Stolz frowned as he sat down to the table. He remembered Oblomov’s name-day party: the oysters, the pineapples, the double-snipe; now he saw a coarse table-cloth, cruet-bottles stopped with bits of paper instead of corks, forks with broken handles, two large pieces of black bread on their plates. Oblomov had fish soup and he had barley broth and boiled chicken, followed by tough tongue and mutton. Red wine was served. Stolz poured himself out half a glass, had a sip, put the glass back on the table, and did not touch it again. Oblomov drank two glasses of currant vodka, one after the other, and greedily attacked the mutton.

  ‘The wine is no good at all,’ said Stolz.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Oblomov. ‘I’m afraid they were too busy to go over to the other side of the river for it. Won’t you have some currant vodka? It’s nice. Try it, Andrey.’

  He poured himself out another glass and drank it. Stolz looked at him in sur
prise, but let it pass.

  ‘Agafya Matveyevna makes it herself. She’s a nice woman,’ said Oblomov, slightly drunk. ‘I must say I don’t know how I shall be able to live in the country without her: you won’t find such a housekeeper anywhere.’

  Stolz listened to him with a slight frown.

  ‘Who do you think does all the cooking? Anisya? No, sir!’ Oblomov went on. ‘Anisya looks after the poultry, weeds the cabbage patch, and scrubs the floors. Agafya Matveyevna does all this.’

  Stolz did not eat the mutton or the curd dumplings; he put down his fork and watched with what appetite Oblomov ate it all.

  ‘Now you won’t see me wearing a shirt inside out,’ Oblomov went on, sucking a bone with great relish. ‘She examines everything and misses nothing – all my socks are darned – and she does it all herself. And the coffee she makes! You’ll see for yourself when you have some after dinner.’

  Stolz listened in silence with a worried expression.

  ‘Now her brother has gone to live in a flat of his own – he took it into his head to get married – so, of course, things are not on such a big scale as before. In the old days she had not a free minute to herself. She used to be rushing about from morning till night, to the market, to the shopping arcade…. Tell you what,’ concluded Oblomov, having all but lost the use of his tongue, ‘let me have two or three thousand and I’d have offered you something better than tongue and mutton – a whole sturgeon, trout, first-class fillet of beef. And Agafya Matveyevna would have worked wonders without a cook – yes, sir!’

  He drank another glass of vodka.

  ‘Do have a drink, Andrey; there’s a good chap – lovely vodka! Olga Sergeyevna won’t make you any vodka like this,’ he said, speaking rather thickly. ‘She can sing Casta diva but doesn’t know how to make such vodka! Nor how to make a chicken-and-mushroom pie! Such pies they used to make only in Oblomovka and now here! And what’s so splendid about it is that it isn’t done by a man cook: you never know what his hands are like when he makes the pie, but Agafya Matveyevna is cleanliness itself.’

  Stolz listened attentively, taking it all in.

  ‘And her hands used to be white,’ Oblomov, now well and truly befuddled, went on. ‘So white you could not help wishing to kiss them! But now they’re very rough, because, you see, she has to do everything herself. Starches my shirts herself!’ Oblomov cried with feeling, almost with tears. ‘Indeed, she does – seen it myself. I tell you many wives don’t look after their husbands as she does after me – yes, sir! A nice creature, Agafya Matveyevna, a nice creature! Look here, Andrey, why not come to live here with Olga Sergeyevna? I mean, get yourself a summer cottage here. You’d love it! We’d have tea in the woods, go to the Gunpowder Works on St Elijah’s Day, with a cart laden with provisions and a samovar following us. We’d lie down on the grass there – on a rug! Agafya Matveyevna would teach Olga Sergeyevna how to run a house, I promise you she would! Only, you see, things are rather tight now, her brother has moved out, and if we had three or four thousand, we’d get you such turkeys – –’

  ‘But you’re getting five thousand from me,’ Stolz said suddenly. ‘What do you do with it?’

  ‘And my debt?’ Oblomov blurted out suddenly.

  Stolz jumped up from his seat.

  ‘Your debt?’ he repeated. ‘What debt?’

  And he looked at Oblomov like a stern teacher at a child trying to hide something from him.

  Oblomov suddenly fell silent. Stolz sat down beside him on the sofa.

  ‘Whom do you owe money to?’ he asked.

  Oblomov sobered down a little and came to his senses.

  ‘I don’t owe anything to anyone,’ he said. ‘I was lying.’

  ‘Oh no, you’re lying now, and clumsily too. What has been happening here, llya? What’s the matter with you? Aha! So that’s the meaning of the mutton and sour wine! You have no money! What do you do with it?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I do owe my landlady – a little – for – er – my board,’ Oblomov said.

  ‘For mutton and tongue! Ilya, tell me, what’s going on here? What kind of tale is this: the landlady’s brother has moved, things have gone badly…. There’s something wrong here. How much do you owe?’

  ‘Ten thousand on an IOU,’ Oblomov whispered.

  Stolz jumped to his feet and sat down again.

  ‘Ten thousand? To the landlady? For your board?’ he repeated in horror.

  ‘Yes, I – er – got a lot on credit – I lived in great style, you know…. Remember the pineapples and peaches, and – well, so I got into debt,’ muttered Oblomov. ‘But what’s the use of talking about it?’

  Stolz did not reply. He was thinking. ‘The landlady’s brother has gone, things have gone badly – that’s so: everything looks so bare, poor, dirty! What sort of woman is this landlady? She looks after him, he speaks of her with ardour….’

  Suddenly Stolz changed colour, having guessed the truth. He turned cold.

  ‘Ilya,’ he said, ‘that woman – what is she to you?’

  But Oblomov had put his head on the table and fallen into a doze.

  ‘She robs him, takes everything from him – it’s the sort of thing that happens every day, and I haven’t thought of it till this very moment!’ he reflected.

  Stolz got up and opened the door leading to the landlady’s room so quickly that, at the sight of him, Agafya Matveyevna in alarm dropped the spoon with which she was stirring the coffee.

  ‘I’d like to have a talk with you, madam,’ he said politely.

  ‘Please step into the drawing-room,’ she replied timidly. ‘I’ll come at once.’

  Throwing a kerchief round her neck, she followed him into the drawing-room and sat down on the very edge of the sofa. She no longer had her shawl and she tried to hide her hands under the kerchief.

  ‘Mr Oblomov has given you a bill of exchange, hasn’t he?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she replied with a look of dull surprise, ‘he has not given me any bill.’

  ‘Hasn’t he?’

  ‘I haven’t seen any bill,’ she repeated with the same expression of dull astonishment.

  ‘A bill of exchange!’ Stolz repeated.

  She thought it over for a minute.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘you’d better have a talk to my brother. I haven’t seen any bill.’

  ‘Is she a fool or a rogue?’ Stolz thought.

  ‘But he owes you money, doesn’t he?’ he asked.

  She gave him a vacant look, then suddenly an expression of intelligence and even of anxiety came into her face. She remembered the pawned string of pearls, the silver, and the fur coat, and imagined that Stolz was referring to that debt, only she could not understand how he had got to know of it, for she had never breathed a word about it not only to Oblomov, but even to Anisya, whom she generally told about every penny she spent.

  ‘How much does he owe you?’ Stolz asked anxiously.

  ‘Nothing at all. Not a penny.’

  ‘She’s concealing it from me, she is ashamed, the greedy creature, the usurer!’ he thought. ‘But I’ll get to the truth.’

  ‘And the ten thousand?’ he said.

  ‘What ten thousand?’ she asked in anxious surprise.

  ‘Mr Oblomov owes you ten thousand on an IOU – yes or no?’ he asked.

  ‘He owes me nothing. He owed the butcher since Lent twelve roubles and fifty copecks, but we paid it over a fortnight ago. We also paid the dairywoman for the cream – he owes nothing.’

  ‘But have you no document from him?’

  She looked blankly at him.

  ‘You’d better have a talk to my brother,’ she replied. ‘He lives across the street in Zamykalov’s house, just along here. There’s a public-house in the basement.’

  ‘No, ma’am, I’d rather have a talk with you,’ he said decisively. ‘Mr Oblomov says that he owes you money, and not your brother.’

  ‘He does not owe me anything,’ she replied, ‘and as
for my pawning silver, pearls, and a fur coat, I did it for myself. I bought shoes for Masha and myself, material for Vanya’s shirts, and gave the rest to the greengrocer. I have not spent a penny of it on Mr Oblomov.’

  He looked at her, listened and tried to grasp the meaning of her words. He alone, it seems, came near to guessing Agafya Matveyevna’s secret, and the look of disdain, almost contempt he had cast at her when speaking to her was involuntarily replaced by one of interest and even sympathy. In the pawning of the pearls and silver he vaguely read the secret of her sacrifices, but he could not make up his mind whether they were made as a result of pure devotion or in expectation of blessings to come. He did not know whether he should feel glad or sad for Ilya. It was quite clear that he owed her nothing, and that this debt was some fraudulent trick of her brother’s, but a great deal more had been revealed…. What was the meaning of the pawning of the pearls and silver?

  ‘So you have no claim on Mr Oblomov, have you?’ he asked.

  ‘You’d better talk it over with my brother,’ she replied monotonously. ‘He ought to be at home by now.’

  ‘You say Mr Oblomov does not owe you anything?’

  ‘Not a penny, I swear it’s the truth!’ she declared solemnly, looking at the icon and crossing herself.

  ‘Are you ready to confirm it before witnesses?’

  ‘Yes, before anyone. I’d say it at confession! As for my pawning the pearls and silver, it was for my own expenses.’

  ‘Very good,’ Stolz interrupted her. ‘I’ll be coming back tomorrow with two friends of mine. You will not refuse to say the same thing in their presence, will you?’

  ‘I think you’d better have a talk to my brother,’ she repeated. ‘You see, I’m not dressed decently – I’m always in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be nice for strangers to see me: they’ll think ill of me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, and I shall see your brother tomorrow after you’ve signed a paper.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m quite unused to writing now.’

  ‘You won’t have to write much. Just two lines.’

  ‘No, sir, I’d rather you spared me that. Why not let Vanya write? He writes beautifully.’