"Why, let him if he can," returned I; "but my son, observe this bed of straw and unsheltering roof, those moldering walls and humid floor, my wretched body thus disabled by fire, and my children weeping round me for bread. You have come home, my child, to all this; yet here, even here, you see a man that would not for a thousand worlds exchange situations. O my children, if you could but learn to commune with your own hearts, and know what noble company you can make them, you would little regard the elegance and splendor of the worthless. Almost all men have been taught to call life a passage, and themselves the travelers. The similitude still may be improved, when we observe that the good are joyful and serene, like travelers that are going towards home; the wicked but by intervals happy, like travelers that are going into exile."
My compassion for my poor daughter, overpowered by this new disaster, interrupted what I had further to observe. I bade her mother support her, and after a short time she recovered. She appeared from that time more calm, and I imagined had gained a new degree of resolution; but appearances deceived me, for her tranquillity was the languor of overwrought resentment. A supply of provisions charitably sent us by my kind parishioners seemed to diffuse new cheerfulness among the rest of the family; nor was I displeased at seeing them once more sprightly and at ease. It would have been unjust to damp their satisfactions merely to condole with resolute melancholy, or to burden them with a sadness they did not feel. Thus once more the tale went round, and the song was demanded, and cheerfulness condescended to hover round our little habitation.
The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for the season; so that we agreed to breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank; where, while we sat, my youngest daughter, at my request, joined her voice to the concert on the trees about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But that melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it. Her mother, too, upon this occasion felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as before. "Do, my pretty Olivia," cried she, "let us have that little melancholy air your papa was so fond of; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do, child; it will please your old father." She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me:
As she was concluding the last stanza, to which an interruption in her voice from sorrow gave peculiar softness, the appearance of Mr. Thornhill's equipage at a distance alarmed us all, but particularly increased the uneasiness of my eldest daughter, who, desirous of shunning her betrayer, returned to the house with her sister. In a few minutes he was alighted from his chariot, and making up to the place where I was still sitting, inquired after my health with his usual air of familiarity. "Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate the baseness of your character; and there was a time when I would have chastised your insolence for presuming thus to appear before me. But now you are safe; for age has cooled my passions, and my calling restrains me."
"I vow, my dear sir," returned he, "I am amazed at all this, nor can I understand what it means. I hope you don't think your daughter's late excursion with me had anything criminal in it."
"Go," cried I; "thou art a wretch, a poor pitiful wretch, and every way a liar; but your meanness secures you from my anger. Yet, sir, I am descended from a family that would not have borne this! And so, thou vile thing! to gratify a momentary passion, thou hast made one poor creature wretched for life, and polluted a family that had nothing but honor for their portion."
"If she or you," returned he, "are resolved to be miserable, I cannot help it. But you may still be happy; and whatever opinion you may have formed of me, you shall ever find me ready to contribute to it. We can marry her to another in a short time, and what is more, she may keep her lover beside; for I protest I shall ever continue to have a true regard for her."
I found all my passions alarmed at this new degrading proposal; for although the mind may often be calm under great injuries, little villainy can at any time get within the soul and sting it into rage. "Avoid my sight, thou reptile," cried I, "nor continue to insult me with thy presence. Were my brave son at home he would not suffer this; but I am old and disabled, and every way undone."
"I find," cried he, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher manner than I intended. But as I have shown you what may be hoped from my friendship, it may not be improper to represent what may be the consequences of my resentment. My attorney, to whom your late bond has been transferred, threatens hard; nor do I know how to prevent the course of justice except by paying the money myself, which, as I have been at some expenses lately previous to my intended marriage, is not so easy to be done. And then my steward talks of driving for the rent: it is certain he knows his duty, for I never trouble myself with affairs of that nature. Yet still I could wish to serve you, and even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage, which is shortly to be solemnized with Miss Wilmot; it is even the request of my charming Arabella herself, whom I hope you will not refuse."
"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "hear me once for all: as to your marriage with any but my daughter, that I never will consent to; and though your friendship could raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would I despise both. Thou hast once woefully, irreparably deceived me. I reposed my heart upon thine honor, and have found its baseness. Never more, therefore, expect friendship from me. Go, and possess what fortune has given thee—beauty, riches, health, and pleasure. Go and leave me to want, infamy, disease, and sorrow. Yet humbled as I am, shall my heart still vindicate its dignity, and though thou hast my forgiveness, thou shalt ever have my contempt."
"If so," returned he, "depend upon it you shall feel the effects of this insolence; and we shall shortly see which is the fittest object of scorn, you or me." Upon which he departed abruptly.
mong the Russian novelists of the first rank stands Iván the son of Alexander Goncharóf. His life has been almost synchronous with the century. He was born in 1812 in the city of Simbirsk, on the Volga below Nizhni Nóvgorod. His father, a wealthy merchant of that flourishing town, died when the boy was only three years old, leaving him in the care of his mother, a conscientious and lovely woman, who, without a remarkable education, nevertheless determined that her son should have the best that could be provided. In this she was cordially assisted by Ivàn's godfather, a retired naval officer who lived in one of her houses and was a cultivated, lively, and lovable man, the centre of the best society of the provincial city. His tales of travel and adventure early implanted in the boy a great passion for reading and study about foreign lands, and the desire to see the world.
He was at first taught at home; then he was sent to a private school which had been established by a local priest for the benefit of neighboring land-owners and gentry. This priest had been educated at the Theological School at Kazán, and was distinguished for his courtly manners and general cultivation. His wife—for it must be remembered that the Russian priesthood is not celibate—was a fascinating French woman, and she taught her native tongue in her husband's school. This remarkable little institution had a small but select library, and here young Goncharóf indulged his taste in reading by devouring the Voyages of Captain Cook, Mungo Park, and others, the histories of Karamzin and Rollin, the poetical works of Tasso and Fenelon, as well as the romantic fiction of that day; he was especially fascinated by 'The Heir of Redclyffe.' His reading, however, was ill regulated and not well adapted for his mental discipline. At twelve he was taken by his mother to Moscow, where he had the opportunity to study English and German as well as to continue his reading in French, in which he had already been well grounded.
In 1831 he entered Moscow University, electing the Philological Faculty. There were at that time in the University a coterie of young men who afterwards became famous as writers, and the lectures delivered by a number of enthusiastic young professors were admirably calculated to develop the best in those who heard them. He finished the complete course, and after a brief visit at his native place went to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Ministry of Finance. Gogol, and Goncharóf himself, have painted the depressing influence of the officialdom then existing. The chinóvnik as painted by those early realists was a distinct type. But on the other hand, there was a delightful society at St. Petersburg, and the literary impulses of talented young men were fostered by its leaders. Some of these men founded a new journal of which Salonitsuin was the leading spirit, and in this appeared Goncharóf's first articles. They were of a humoristic tendency. His first serious work was entitled 'Obuiknavénnaya Istóriya' (An Ordinary Story),—a rather melancholy tale, showing how youthful enthusiasm and the dreams of progress and perfection can be killed by formalism: Aleksandr Adúyef the romantic dreamer is contrasted with his practical uncle Peter Ivánovitch. The second part was not completed when the first part was placed in the hands of the critic Byelinsky, the sovereign arbiter on things literary. Byelinsky gave it his "imprimatur," and it was published in the Sovreménnik (Contemporary) in 1847. The conception of his second and by all odds his best romance, 'Oblómof,' was already in his mind; and the first draft was published in the Illustrated Album, under the title 'Son Oblómova' (Oblómof's Dream), the following year.
In 1852 Goncharóf received from the Marine Ministry a proposition to sail around the world as private secretary to Admiral Putyátin. On his return he contributed to various magazines sketches of his experiences, and finally published a handsome volume of his travels entitled 'Phregat Pállada' (The Frigate Pallas). In 1857 he went to Carlsbad and completed 'Oblómof' on which he had been working so many years. It appeared in Otetchestvenniya Zapíski (Annals of the Fatherland) in 1858 and 1859, and made a profound sensation. The hero was recognized as a perfectly elaborated portrait of a not uncommon type of Russian character: a good-natured, warm-hearted, healthy young man, so enervated by the atmosphere of indolence into which he has allowed himself to sink, that nothing serves to rouse him. Love is the only impulse which could galvanize him into life. Across his path comes the beautiful Olga, whom the Russians claim as a poetic and at the same time a genuine representative of the best Russian womanhood. Vigorous, alert, with mind and heart equally well developed, she stirs the latent manhood of Oblómof; but when he comes to face the responsibilities, the cares, and the duties of matrimony, he has not the courage to enter upon them. Olga marries Oblómof's friend Stoltz, whom Goncharóf intended to be a no less typical specimen of Russian manhood, and whom most critics consider overdrawn and not true to life. The novel is a series of wonderful genre pictures: his portraits are marvels of finish and delicacy; and there are a number of dramatic scenes, although the story as a whole lacks movement. The first chapter, which is here reproduced, is chosen not as perhaps the finest in the book, but as thoroughly characteristic. It is also a fine specimen of Russian humor.
Goncharóf finished in 1868 his third novel, entitled 'Abruíf' (The Precipice). It was published first in the Viéstnik Yevrópui (European Messenger), and in book form in 1870. In this he tries to portray the type of the Russian Nihilist; but Volokhóf is regarded rather as a caricature than as a faithful portrait. In contrast with him stands the beautiful Viera; but just as Volokhóf falls below Oblómof, so Viera yields to Olga in perfect realism. One of the best characters in the story is the dilettante Raísky, the type of the man who has an artistic nature but no energy. One of the most important characters of the book is Viera's grandmother: the German translation of 'The Precipice' is entitled 'The Grandmother's Fault.'
Goncharóf has written a few literary essays, and during the past few years has contributed to one of the Russian reviews a series of literary recollections. But his fame with posterity will depend principally on his 'Oblómof,' the name of which has given to the language a new word,—oblómovshchina[F] Oblómovism,—the typically Russian indolence which was induced by the peculiar social conditions existing in Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861: indifference to all social questions; the expectation that others will do your work; or as expressed in the Russian proverb, "the trusting in others as in God, but in yourself as in the Devil."
In Garókhavaya Street, in one of those immense houses the population of which would suffice for a whole provincial city, there lay one morning in bed in his apartment Ílya Ílyitch Oblómof. He was a pleasant-appearing man of two or three and twenty, of medium stature, with dark gray eyes; but his face lacked any fixed idea or concentration of purpose. A thought would wander like a free bird over his features, flutter in his eyes, light on his parted lips, hide itself in the wrinkles of his brow, then entirely vanish away; and over his whole countenance would spread the shadeless light of unconcern.
From his face this indifference extended to the attitudes of his whole body, even to the folds of his dressing-gown. Occasionally his eyes were darkened by an expression of weariness or disgust, but neither weariness nor disgust could for an instant dispel from his face the indolence which was the dominant and habitual expression not only of his body, but also of his very soul. And his soul was frankly and clearly betrayed in his eyes, in his smile, in every movement of his head, of his hands.
A cool superficial observer, glancing at Oblómof as he passed him by, would have said, "He must be a good-natured, simple-hearted fellow." Any one looking deeper, more sympathetically, would after a few moments' scrutiny turn away with a smile, with a feeling of agreeable uncertainty.
Oblómof's complexion was not florid, not tawny, and not positively pallid, but was indeterminate,—or seemed to be so, perhaps because it was flabby; not by reason of age, but by lack of exercise or of fresh air or of both. His body, to judge by the dull, transparent color of his neck, by his little plump hands, his drooping shoulders, seemed too effeminate for a man. His movements, even if by chance he were aroused, were kept under restraint likewise by a languor and by a laziness that was not devoid of its own peculiar grace.
If a shadow of an anxious thought arose from his spirit and passed across his face, his eyes would grow troubled, the wrinkles in his brow would deepen, a struggle of doubt or pain would seem to begin: but rarely indeed would this troubled thought crystallize into the form of a definite idea; still more rarely would it be transformed into a project.
All anxiety would be dissipated in a sigh and settle down into apathy or languid dreaming.
How admirably Oblómof's house costume suited his unruffled features and his effeminate body! He wore a dressing-gown of Persian material—a regular Oriental khalát, without the slightest suggestion of anything European about it, having no tassels, no velvet, no special shape. It was ample in size, so that he might have wrapped it twice around him. The sleeves, in the invariable Asiatic style, grew wider and wider from the wrist to the shoulder. Although this garment had lost its first freshness, and in places had exchanged its former natural gloss for another that was acquired, it still preserved the brilliancy of its Oriental coloring and its firmness of texture.
The khalát had in Oblómof's eyes a multitude of precious properties: it was soft and supple; the body was not sensible of its weight; like an obedient slave, it accommodated itself to every slightest motion.
Oblómof while at home always went without cravat and without waistcoat, for the simple reason that he liked simplicity and comfort. The slippers which he wore were long, soft, and wide; when without looking he put down one foot from the bed to the floor it naturally fell into one of them.
Oblómof's remaining in bed was not obligatory upon him, as in the case of a sick man or of one who was anxious to sleep; nor was it accidental, as in the case of one who was weary; nor was it for mere pleasure, as a sluggard would have chosen: it was the normal condition of things with him. When he was at home—and he was almost always at home—he invariably lay in bed and invariably in the room where we have just found him: a room which served him for sleeping-room, library, and parlor. He had three other rooms, but he rarely glanced into them; in the morning, perhaps, but even then not every day, but only when his man came to sweep the rooms—and this, you may be sure, was not done every day. In these rooms the furniture was protected with covers; the curtains were always drawn.
The room in which Oblómof was lying appeared at first glance to be handsomely furnished, There were a mahogany bureau, two sofas upholstered in silk, handsome screens embroidered with birds and fruits belonging to an imaginary nature. There were damask curtains, rugs, a number of paintings, bronzes, porcelains, and a quantity of beautiful bric-a-brac. But the experienced eye of a man of pure taste would have discovered at a single hasty glance that everything there betrayed merely the desire to keep up appearances in unimportant details, while really avoiding the burden. That had indeed been Oblómof's object when he furnished his room. Refined taste would not have been satisfied with those heavy ungraceful mahogany chairs, with those conventional étagères. The back of one sofa was dislocated; the veneering was broken off in places. The same characteristics were discoverable in the pictures and the vases, and all the ornaments.
The proprietor himself, however, looked with such coolness and indifference on the decoration of his apartment that one might think he asked with his eyes, "Who brought you here and set you up?" As the result of such an indifferent manner of regarding his possessions, and perhaps of the still more indifferent attitude of Oblómof's servant Zakhár, the appearance of the room, if it were examined rather more critically, was amazing because of the neglect and carelessness which held sway there. On the walls, around the pictures, spiders' webs, loaded with dust, hung like festoons; the mirrors, instead of reflecting objects, would have served better as tablets for scribbling memoranda in the dust that covered them. The rugs were rags. On the sofa lay a forgotten towel; on the table you would generally find in the morning a plate or two with the remains of the evening meal, the salt-cellar, gnawed bones, and crusts of bread. Were it not for these plates, and the pipe half smoked out and flung down on the bed, or even the master himself stretched out on it, it might easily have been supposed that the room was uninhabited, it was so dusty, so lacking in all traces of human care. On the étagères, to be sure, lay two or three opened books or a crumpled newspaper; on the bureau stood an inkstand with pens; but the pages where the books were open were covered thick with dust and had turned yellow, evidently long ago thrown aside; the date of the newspaper was long past; and if any one had dipped a pen into the inkstand it would have started forth only a frightened, buzzing fly!
Ílya Ílyitch was awake, contrary to his ordinary custom, very early,—at eight o'clock. Some anxiety was preying on his mind. Over his face passed alternately now apprehension, now annoyance, now vexation. It was evident that an internal conflict had him in its throes, and his intellect had not as yet come to his aid.
The fact was that the evening before, Oblómof had received from the stárosta (steward) of his estate a letter filled with disagreeable tidings. It is not hard to guess what unpleasant details one's steward may write about: bad harvests, large arrearages, diminution in receipts, and the like. But although his stárosta had written his master almost precisely the same kind of letter the preceding year and the year before that, nevertheless this latest letter came upon him exactly the same, as a disagreeable surprise.
Was it not hard?—he was facing the necessity of considering the means of taking some measures!
However, it is proper to show how far Ílya Ílyitch was justified in feeling anxiety about his affairs.
When he received the first letter of disagreeable tenor from his stárosta some years before, he was already contemplating a plan for a number of changes and improvements in the management of his property. This plan presupposed the introduction of various new economical and protectional measures; but the details of the scheme were still in embryo, and the stárosta's disagreeable letters were annually forthcoming, urging him to activity and really disturbing his peace of mind. Oblómof recognized the necessity of coming to some decision if he were to carry out his plan.
As soon as he woke he decided to get up, bathe, and after drinking his tea, to think the matter over carefully, then to write his letters; and in short, to act in this matter as was fitting. But for half an hour he had been still in bed tormenting himself with this proposition; but finally he came to the conclusion that he would still have time to do it after tea, and that he might drink his tea as usual in bed with all the more reason, because one can think even if one is lying down!
And so he did. After his tea he half sat up in bed, but did not entirely rise; glancing down at his slippers, he started to put his foot into one of them, but immediately drew it back into bed again.
As the clock struck half-past nine, Ílya Ílyitch started up.
"What kind of a man am I?" he said aloud in a tone of vexation. "Conscience only knows. It is time to do something: where there's a will—Zakhár!" he cried.
In a room which was separated merely by a narrow corridor from Ílya Ílyitch's library, nothing was heard at first except the growling of the watch-dog; then the thump of feet springing down from somewhere. It was Zakhár leaping down from his couch on the stove, where he generally spent his time immersed in drowsiness.
An elderly man appeared in the room: he was dressed in a gray coat, through a hole under the armpit of which emerged a part of his shirt; he also wore a gray waistcoat with brass buttons. His head was as bald as his knee, and he had enormous reddish side-whiskers already turning gray—so thick and bushy that they would have sufficed for three ordinary individuals.
Zakhár would never have taken pains to change in any respect either the form which God had bestowed on him, or the costume which he wore in the country. His raiment was made for him in the style which he had brought with him from his village. His gray coat and waistcoat pleased him, for the very reason that in his semi-fashionable attire he perceived a feeble approach to the livery which he had worn in former times when waiting on his former masters (now at rest), either to church or to parties; but liveries in his recollections were merely representative of the dignity of the Oblómof family. There was nothing else to recall to the old man the comfortable and liberal style of life on the estate in the depths of the country. The older generation of masters had died, the family portraits were at home, and in all probability were going to rack and ruin in the garret; the traditions of the former life and importance of the house of Oblómof were all extinct, or lived only in the memories of a few old people still lingering in the country.
Consequently, precious in the eyes of Zakhár was the gray coat: in this he saw a faint emblem of vanished greatness, and he found similar indications in some of the characteristics of his master's features and notions, reminding of his parentage, and in his caprices, which although he grumbled at them under his breath and aloud, yet he prized secretly as manifestations of the truly imperious will and autocratic spirit of a born noble. Had it not been for these whims, he would not have felt that his master was in any sense above him; had it not been for them, there would have been nothing to bring back to his mind his younger days, the village which they had abandoned so long ago, and the traditions about that ancient home,—the sole chronicles preserved by aged servants, nurses, and nursemaids, and handed down from mouth to mouth.
The house of the Oblómofs was rich in those days, and had great influence in that region; but afterwards somehow or other everything had gone to destruction, and at last by degrees had sunk out of sight, overshadowed by parvenus of aristocratic pretensions. Only the few gray-haired retainers of the house preserved and interchanged their reminiscences of the past, treasuring them like holy relics.
This was the reason why Zakhár so loved his gray coat. Possibly he valued his side-whiskers because of the fact that he saw in his childhood many of the older servants with this ancient and aristocratic adornment.
Ílya Ílyitch, immersed in contemplation, took no notice of Zakhár, though the servant had been silently waiting for some time. At last he coughed.
"What is it you want?" asked Ílya Ílyitch.
"You called me, didn't you?"
"Called you? I don't remember what I called you for," he replied, stretching and yawning. "Go back to your room; I will try to think what I wanted."
Zakhár went out, and Ílya Ílyitch lay down on the bed again and began to cogitate upon that cursed letter.
A quarter of an hour elapsed.
"There now," he exclaimed, "I have dallied long enough; I must get up. However, I must read the stárosta's letter over again more attentively, and then I will get up—Zakhár!" The same noise of leaping down from the stove, and the same growling of the dog, only more emphatic.
Zakhár made his appearance, but again Oblómof was sunk deep in contemplation. Zakhár stood a few moments, looking sulkily and askance at his master, and finally he turned to go.
"Where are you going?" suddenly demanded Oblómof.
"You have nothing to say to me, and why should I waste my time standing here?" explained Zakhár, in a hoarse gasp which served him in lieu of a voice, he having lost his voice, according to his own account, while out hunting with the dogs when he had to accompany his former master, and when a powerful wind seemed to blow in his throat. He half turned round, and stood in the middle of the room and glared at his master.
"Have your legs quite given out, that you can't stand a minute? Don't you see I am worried? Now, please wait a moment! wasn't it lying there just now? Get me that letter which I received last evening from the stárosta. What did you do with it?"
"What letter? I haven't seen any letter," replied Zakhár.
"Why, you yourself took it from the postman, you scoundrel!"
"It is where you put it; how should I know anything about it?" said Zakhár, beginning to rummage about among the papers and various things that littered the table.
"You never know anything at all. There, look on the basket. No, see if it hasn't been thrown on the sofa.—There, the back of that sofa hasn't been mended yet. Why have you not got the carpenter to mend it? 'Twas you who broke it. You never think of anything!"
"I didn't break it," retorted Zakhár; "it broke itself; it was not meant to last forever; it had to break some time."
Ílya Ílyitch did not consider it necessary to refute this argument. He contented himself with asking:—
"Have you found it yet?"
"Here are some letters."
"But they are not the right ones."
"Well, there's nothing else," said Zakhár.
"Very good, be gone," said Ílya Ílyitch impatiently. "I am going to get up. I will find it."
Zakhár went to his room, but he had hardly laid his hand on his couch to climb up to it before the imperative cry was heard again:—
"Zakhár! Zakhár!"
"Oh, good Lord!" grumbled he, as he started to go for the third time to Oblómof's library. "What a torment all this is! Oh that death would come and take me from it!"
"What do you want?" he asked, as he stood with one hand on the door, and glaring at Oblómof as a sign of his surliness, at such an angle that he had to look at his master out of the corner of his eyes; while his master could see only one of his enormous side-whiskers, so bushy that you might have expected to have two or three birds come flying out from them.
"My handkerchief, quick! You might have known what I wanted. Don't you see?" remarked Ílya Ílyitch sternly.
Zakhár displayed no special dissatisfaction or surprise at such an order or such a reproach on his master's part, regarding both, so far as he was concerned, as perfectly natural.
"But who knows where your handkerchief is?" he grumbled, circling about the room and making a careful examination of every chair, although it could be plainly seen that there was nothing whatever on them.
"It is a perfect waste of time," he remarked, opening the door into the drawing-room in order to see if there was any sign of it there.
"Where are you going? Look for it here; I have not been in that room since day before yesterday. And make haste," urged Ílya Ílyitch.
"Where is the handkerchief? There isn't any handkerchief," exclaimed Zakhár rummaging and searching in every corner.
"Oh, there it is," he suddenly cried angrily, "under you. There is the end of it sticking out. You were lying on it, and yet you ask me to find your handkerchief for you!"
And Zakhár, without awaiting any reply, turned and started to go out. Oblómof was somewhat ashamed of his own blunder. But he quickly discovered another pretext for putting Zakhár in the wrong.
"What kind of neatness do you call this everywhere here! Look at the dust and dirt! Good heavens! look here, look here! See these corners! You don't do anything at all."
"And so I don't do anything," repeated Zakhár in a tone betokening deep resentment. "I am growing old, I shan't live much longer! But God knows I use the duster for the dust, and I sweep almost every day."
He pointed to the middle of the floor, and at the table where Oblómof had dined. "Here, look here," he went on: "it has all been swept and all put in order, fit for a wedding. What more is needed?"
"Well then, what is this?" cried Ílya Ílyitch, interrupting him and calling his attention to the walls and the ceiling. "And that? and that?"
He pointed to a yesterday's napkin which had been flung down, and to a plate which had been left lying on the table with a dry crust of bread on it.
"Well, as for that," said Zakhár as he picked up the plate, "I will take care of it."
"You will take care of it, will you? But how about the dust and the cobwebs on the walls?" said Oblómof, making ocular demonstration.
"I put that off till Holy Week; then I clean the sacred images and sweep down the cobwebs."
"But how about dusting the books and pictures?"
"The books and pictures? Before Christmas; then Anísiya and I look over all the closets. But now when should we be able to do it? You are always at home."
"I sometimes go to the theatre or go out to dine: you might—"
"Do house-cleaning at night?"
Oblómof looked at him reproachfully, shook his head, and uttered a sigh; but Zakhár gazed indifferently out of the window and also sighed deeply. The master seemed to be thinking, "Well, brother, you are even more of an Oblómof than I am myself;" while Zakhár probably said to himself, "Rubbish! You as my master talk strange and melancholy words, but how do dust and cobwebs concern you?"
"Don't you know that moths breed in dust?" asked Ílya Ílyitch. "I have even seen bugs on the wall!"
"Well, I have fleas on me sometimes," replied Zakhár in a tone of indifference.
"Well, is that anything to boast about? That is shameful," exclaimed Oblómof.
Zakhár's face was distorted by a smirking smile, which seemed to embrace even his eyebrows and his side-whiskers, which for this reason spread apart; and over his whole face up to his very forehead extended a ruddy spot.
"Why, am I to blame that there are bugs on the wall?" he asked in innocent surprise: "was it I who invented them?"
"They come from lack of cleanliness," insisted Oblómof. "What are you talking about?"
"I am not the cause of the uncleanliness."
"But you have mice in your room there running about at night—I hear them."
"I did not invent the mice. There are all kinds of living creatures—mice and cats and fleas—lots of them everywhere."
"How is it that other people don't have moths and bugs?"
Zakhár's face expressed incredulity, or rather a calm conviction that this was not so.
"I have plenty of them," he said without hesitation. "One can't look after every bug and crawl into the cracks after them."
It seemed to be his thought, "What kind of a sleeping-room would that be that had no bugs in it?"
"Now do you see to it that you sweep and brush them out of the corners; don't let there be one left," admonished Oblómof.
"If you get it all cleaned up it will be just as bad again to-morrow," remonstrated Zakhár.
"It ought not to be as bad," interrupted the master.
"But it is," insisted the servant; "I know all about it."
"Well then, if the dust collects again, brush it out again."
"What is that you say? Brush out all the corners every day?" exclaimed Zakhár. "What a life that would be! Better were it that God should take my soul!"
"Why are other people's houses clean?" urged Oblómof. "Just look at the piano-tuner's rooms: see how neat they look, and only one maid—"
"Oh, these Germans!" exclaimed Zakhár suddenly interrupting. "Where do they make any litter? Look at the way they live! Every family gnaws a whole week on a single bone. The coat goes from the father's back to the son's, and back from the son's to the father's. The wives and daughters wear little short skirts, and when they walk they all lift up their legs like ducks—where do they get any dirt? They don't do as we do—leave a whole heap of soiled clothes in the closet for a year at a time, or fill up the corners with bread crusts for the winter. Their crusts are never flung down at random: they make zweiback out of them, and eat them when they drink their beer!"
Zakhár expressed his disgust at such a penurious way of living by spitting through his teeth.
"Say nothing more," expostulated Ílya Ílyitch. "Do better work with your house-cleaning."
"One time I would have cleaned up, but you yourself would not allow it," said Zakhár.
"That is all done with! Don't you see I have entirely changed?"
"Of course you have; but still you stay at home all the time: how can one begin to clean up when you are right here? If you will stay out of the house for a whole day, then I will have a general clearing-up."
"What an idea! Get out of here. You had better go to your own room."
"All right!" persisted Zakhár; "but I tell you, the moment you go out, Anísiya and I will clear the whole place up. And we two would finish with it in short metre; then you will want some women to wash everything."
"Oh, what schemes you invent! Women! away with you!" cried Ílya Ílyitch.
He was by this time disgusted with himself for having led Zakhár into this conversation. He had quite forgotten that the attainment of this delicate object was at the expense of considerable confusion. Oblómof would have liked a state of perfect cleanliness, but he would require that it should be brought about in some imperceptible manner, as it were of itself; but Zakhár always induced a discussion as soon as he was asked to have any sweeping done, or the floors washed, and the like. In such a contingency he was sure to point out the necessity of a terrible disturbance in the house, knowing very well that the mere suggestion of such a thing would fill his master with horror.
Zakhár went away, and Oblómof relapsed into cogitation. After some minutes the half-hour struck again.
"What time is it?" exclaimed Ílya Ílyitch with a dull sense of alarm. "Almost eleven o'clock! Can it be that I am not up yet nor had my bath? Zakhár! Zakhár!"
"Oh, good God! what is it now?" was heard from the ante-room, and then the well-known thump of feet.
"Is my bath ready?" asked Oblómof.
"Ready? yes, long ago," replied Zakhár. "Why did you not get up?"
"Why didn't you tell me it was ready? I should have got up long ago if you had. Go on; I will follow you immediately. I have some business to do; I want to write."
Zakhár went out, but in the course of a few minutes he returned with a greasy copy-book all scribbled over, and some scraps of paper.
"Here, if you want to write—and by the way, be kind enough to verify these accounts: we need the money to pay them."
"What accounts? what money?" demanded Ílya Ílyitch with a show of temper.
"From the butcher, from the grocer, from the laundress, from the baker; they all are clamoring for money."
"Nothing but bother about money," growled Ílya Ílyitch. "But why didn't you give them to me one at a time instead of all at once?"
"You see you always kept putting me off: 'To-morrow,' always 'To-morrow.'"
"Well, why shouldn't we put them off till to-morrow now?"
"No! they are dunning you; they won't give any longer credit. To-morrow's the first of the month."
"Akh!" cried Oblómof in vexation, "new bother! Well, why are you standing there? Put them on the table. I will get up immediately, take my bath, and look them over," said Ílya Ílyitch. "Is it all ready for my bath?"
"What do you mean—'ready'?" said Zakhár.
"Well, now—"
With a groan he started to make the preliminary movement of getting up.
"I forgot to tell you," began Zakhár, "while you were still asleep the manager sent word by the dvórnik that it was imperatively necessary that you vacate the apartment: it is wanted."
"Well, what of that? If the apartment is wanted of course we will move out. Why do you bother me with it? This is the third time you have spoken to me about it."
"They bother me about it also."
"Tell them that we will move out."
"He says, 'For a month you have been promising,' says he, 'and still you don't move out,' says he: 'we'll report the matter to the police.'"
"Let him report," cried Oblómof resolutely: "we will move out as soon as it is a little warmer, in the course of three weeks."
"Three weeks, indeed! The manager says that the workmen are coming in a fortnight: everything is to be torn out. 'Move,' says he, 'either to-morrow or day after to-morrow.'"
"Eh—eh—eh—that's too short notice: to-morrow? See here, what next? How would this minute suit? But don't you dare speak a word to me about apartments. I have already told you that once, and here you are again. Do you hear?"
"But what shall I do?" demanded Zakhár.
"What shall you do? Now how is he going to get rid of me?" replied Ílya Ílyitch. "He makes me responsible! How does it concern me? Don't you trouble me any further, but make any arrangements you please, only so that we don't have to move yet. Can't you do your best for your master?"
"But Ílya Ílyitch, little father [bátiushka], what arrangements shall I make?" began Zakhár in a hoarse whisper. "The house is not mine; how can we help being driven out of the place if they resort to force? If only the house were mine, then I would with the greatest pleasure—"
"There must be some way of bringing him around: tell him we have lived here so long; tell him we'll surely pay him."
"I have," said Zakhár.
"Well, what did he say?"
"What did he say? He repeated his everlasting 'Move out,' says he; 'we want to make repairs on the apartment.' He wants to do over this large apartment and the doctor's for the wedding of the owner's son."
"Oh, my good Lord!" exclaimed Oblómof in despair; "what asses they are to get married!"
He turned over on his back.
"You had better write to the owner, sir," said Zakhár. "Then perhaps he would not drive us out, but would give us a renewal of the lease."
Zakhár as he said this made a gesture with his right hand.
"Very well, then; as soon as I get up I will write him. You go to your room and I will think it over. You need not do anything about this," he added; "I myself shall have to work at all this miserable business myself."
Zakhár left the room, and Oblómof began to ponder.
But he was in a quandary which to think about,—his stárosta's letter, or the removal to new lodgings, or should he undertake to make out his accounts? He was soon swallowed up in the flood of material cares and troubles, and there he still lay turning from side to side. Every once in a while would be heard his broken exclamation, "Akh, my God! life touches everything, reaches everywhere!"
No one knows how long he would have lain there a prey to this uncertainty, had not the bell rung in the ante-room.
"There is some one come already!" exclaimed Oblómof, wrapping himself up in his khalát, "and here I am not up yet; what a shame! Who can it be so early?"
And still lying on his bed, he gazed curiously at the door.