Chapter II: Part I: I (2)

“You fool!” exclaimed Tarantiev. “In that house you would be much quieter and more comfortable than you are here, and you would pay less, and you would have larger quarters. Besides, it is a more respectable place than this. Here one has to sit at a dirty table on which the pepper-pot is empty, the vinegar bottle the same, the knives are not clean, the tablecloth is falling to pieces, and dust, dust, dust, lies everywhere. Give me my cab-fare, and I will go and secure you the flat at once. Then you can move into it to-morrow.” Tarantiev started to leave the room.

“Stop, stop!” cried Oblomov. “I tell you I am _not_ going to the Veaborg Quarter. Pray exercise your wits in contriving how I may remain where I am. Moreover, I have a still more important affair on hand. That is to say, I have just received from my _starosta_ a letter concerning which I should be glad of your advice.”

With that he searched for the document, found it after some difficulty, and read it aloud.

“So you hear what the _starosta_ says as to drought and a failure of the crops? What ought I to do?”

“The prime necessity,” replied Tarantiev, “is complete quiet for you. That you would get at the house of the friend of whom I have just spoken; and I could come to see you every day.”

“Yes, yes,” said Oblomov. “But what about this affair of the _starosta?_”

“The _starosta_ is lying. He is a thief and a rogue. Why, I know an estate, only fifty versts from yours, where the harvest of last year was so good that it cleared the owner completely of debt. That being so, why have the crops on _your_ estate threatened to fail? Clearly the _starosta_ is a robber. If I were there I’d teach him! Do you suppose this letter to be a natural, an honest one? No, no more than we can suppose that that sheep’s head over there he pointed to Alexiev again--“is capable of writing an honest letter, or his kinsman either.”

“Whom am I to appoint in the _starosta’s_ place?” asked Oblomov. “Another man might prove even worse than he.”

“You yourself had better go to the estate, and stay there for the summer, and then move into my friend’s house. _I_ will see that her rooms shall be ready for you--yes, I will see to it at once. Personally, I should have sold that property of yours, and bought another. Hand it over to me, and I will very soon make the folk there aware that I am alive!”

The upshot of it was that Oblomov accorded a half-hearted consent to Tarantiev’s procuring him a new lodging, and also to his writing to the governor of the district where his (Oblomov’s) property was situated. After that Tarantiev departed, stating that he would return to dinner at five o’clock.

With Tarantiev’s departure a calm of ten minutes reigned in the apartment. Oblomov was feeling greatly upset, both by the _starostas_ letter and by the prospect of the impending removal. Also, the tumultuous Tarantiev had thoroughly tired him out.

“Why do you not sit down and write the letter?” asked Alexiev. “If you wish I will clean the inkstand for you.”

“Clean it, and the Lord bless you!” sighed Oblomov. “Let me write the letter alone, and then you shall fair-copy it after dinner.”

“Very well,” replied Alexiev. “But now I must be off, or I shall be delaying the Ekaterinhov party. Good-bye!”

Oblomov did not heed him, but, sinking back into a recumbent position in the armchair, relapsed into a state of meditative lethargy.

IV

Zakhar, after closing the door successively behind Tarantiev and Alexiev, stood expecting to receive a summons from his master, inasmuch as he had overheard the fact that the latter had undertaken to write a letter. But in Oblomov’s study all remained silent as the tomb. Zakhar peeped through the chink of the door, and perceived that his master was lying prone on the sofa, with his head resting on the palm of his hand. The valet entered the room.

“Why have you lain down again?” he asked.

“Do not disturb me: cannot you see that I am reading?” was Oblomov’s abrupt reply.

“Nay, but you ought to wash, and then to write that letter,” urged Zakhar, determined not to be shaken on.

“Yes, I suppose I ought. I will do so presently. Just now I am engaged in thought.”

As a matter of fact, he _did_ read a page of the book which was lying open--a page which had turned yellow with a month’s exposure. That done, he laid it down and yawned.

“How it all wearies me!” he whispered, stretching, and then drawing up, his legs. Glancing at the ceiling as once more he relapsed into a voluptuous state of coma, he said to himself with momentary sternness: “No--business first.” Then he rolled over, and clasped his hands behind his head.

As he lay there he thought of his plans for improving his property. Swiftly he passed in review certain grave and fundamental schemes affecting his plough-land and its taxation; after which he elaborated a new and stricter course to be taken against laziness and vagrancy on the part of the peasantry, and then passed to sundry ideas for ordering his own life in the country.

First of all, he became engrossed in a design for a new house. Eagerly he lingered over a probable disposition of the rooms, and fixed in his mind the dimensions of the dining-room and the billiard-room, and determined which way the windows of his study must face. Indeed, he even gave a thought to the furniture and to the carpets. Next, he designed a wing for the building, calculated the number of guests whom that wing would accommodate, and set aside proper sites for the stables, the coachhouses, and the servants’ quarters. Finally he turned his attention to the garden. The old lime and oak-trees should all be left as they were, but the apple-trees and pear-trees should be done away with, and succeeded by acacias. Also, he gave a moment’s consideration to the idea of a park, but, after calculating the cost of its upkeep, came to the conclusion that such a luxury would prove too expensive--wherefore he passed to the designing of orangeries and aviaries.

So vividly did these attractive visions of the future development of his estate flit before his eyes that he came to fancy himself already settled there, and engaged in witnessing the result of several years’ working of his schemes.

On a fair summer’s evening he seemed to be sitting at a tea-table on the terrace of Oblomovka--sitting under a canopy of leafy shade which the sun was powerless to penetrate. From a long pipe in his hand he was lazily inhaling smoke, and revelling both in the delightful view which stretched beyond the circle of the trees and in the coolness and the quiet of his surroundings. In the distance some fields were turning to gold as the sun, setting behind a familiar birch-grove, tinged to red the mirror-like surface of the lake. From the fields a mist had risen, for the chill of evening was falling, and dusk approaching apace. To his ears, at intervals, came the clatter of peasantry as they returned homewards, and at the entrance gates the servants of the establishment were sitting at ease, while from their vicinity came the sound of echoing voices and laughter, the playing of _balalaiki_, * and the chattering of girls as they pursued the sport of _goriclki_. ** Around him, also, his little ones were frisking at times climbing on to his knee and hanging about his neck; while behind the _samovar_ *** was seated the real ruler of all that his eyes were beholding his divinity, a woman, his _wife!_... And in the dining-room--a room at once elegant and simply appointed--a cheerful fire was glowing, and Zakhar, now promoted to the dignity of a major-domo, and adorned with whiskers turned wholly grey, was laying a large, round table to a pleasant accompanying tinkle of crystal and silver as he arranged, here a decanter and there a fork.

* Three-stringed, lute-like instruments.

** A sort of catch-as catch-can.

*** Tea-urn.

Presently the dreamer saw his wife and himself sit down to a bountiful supper. Yes, and with them was Schtoltz, the comrade of his youth, his unchanging friend, with other well-known faces. Lastly, he could see the inmates of the house retiring to rest....

Oblomov’s features blushed with delight at the vision. So clear, so vivid, so poetical was it all that for a moment he lay with his face buried in the sofa cushions. Suddenly there had come upon him a dim longing for love and quiet happiness; suddenly he had become athirst for the fields and the hills of his native place, for his home, for a wife, for children....

After lying face downwards for a moment or two, he turned upon his back. His features were alight with generous emotion, and for the time being he was--_happy_.

Again the charming seductiveness of sleep-waking enfolded him in its embrace. He pictured to himself a small colony of friends who should come and settle in the villages and farms within a radius of fifteen or twenty versts of his country house. Every day they should visit one another’s houses--whether to dine or to sup or to dance; until everywhere around him he would be able to see only bright faces framed in sunny days--faces which should be ever free of care and wrinkles, and round, and merry, and ruddy, and double-chinned, and of unfailing appetite. In all his neighbourhood there should be constant summertide, constant gaiety, unfailing good fare, the joys of perennial lassitude.... “My God, my God!” he cried in the fullness of his delight: and with that he awoke. Once more to his ears came the cries of hawkers in the courtyard as they vended coal, sand, and potatoes; once more he could hear some one begging for subscriptions to build a church; once more from a neighbouring building which was in course of erection there streamed a babel of workmen’s shouts, mingled with the clatter of tools.

“Ah!” he sighed with a sense of pain. “Such is real life! What ugliness there is in the roar of the capital! When shall I attain the life of paradise--the life for which I yearn? Shall I ever see my own fields, my own forests? Would that at this moment I were lying on the grass under a tree, and gazing upwards at the sun through the boughs, and trying to count the birds which come and go over my head!”

But what about the plans for improving the estate? And what about the _starosta_ and the flat? Once again these things knocked at his memory.

“Yes, yes,” he answered them. “_Seichass_--presently.”

With that he rose to a sitting posture on the sofa, lowered his legs to the level of his slippers, and slipped the latter on to his feet; after which he sat still for a little while. At length he attained a wholly erect posture, and remained meditating for a couple of minutes.

“Zakhar! Zakhar!” he shouted as he eyed the table and the inkstand. “I want you to, to----” Further he failed to get, but mutely pointed to the inkstand, and then relapsed into thought.

The doorbell rang, and a little man with a bald head entered.

“Hullo, doctor!” Oblomov exclaimed as he extended one hand towards his guest, and with the other one drew forward a chair. “What chance brings you here?”

“The chance that, since all of you decline to be ill, and never send for me, I am forced to come of myself,” replied the doctor jestingly. “But no,” he added, in a more serious tone. “The truth is, I had to visit a neighbour of yours on the upper floor, and thought I might as well take you on the way. How are you?”

Oblomov shook his head despondently. “Poorly, doctor,” he said. “I have just been thinking of consulting you. My stomach will scarcely digest anything, there is a pain in the pit of it, and my breath comes with difficulty.”

“Give me your wrist,” said the doctor. He closed his eyes and felt the patient’s pulse. “And have you a cough?” he inquired.

“Yes--at night-time, but more especially while I am at supper.”

“Hm! And does your heart throb at all, or your head ache?” He then added other questions, bowed his bald pate, and subsided into profound meditation. At length he straightened himself with a jerk, and said with an air of decision--

“Two or three years more, of this room, of lying about, of eating rich, heavy foods, and you will have a stroke.”

Oblomov started.

“Then what ought I to do, doctor? Tell me, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Merely what other people do--namely, go abroad.”

“Pardon me, doctor, but how am I to do that?”

“Why should you not? Does money prevent you, or what?”

“Yes, yes; money is the reason,” replied Oblomov, gladly catching at the excuse, which was the most natural one that could possibly have been devised. “See here--just read what my _slarosta_ writes.”

“Quite so, but that is no business of mine,” said the doctor. “_My_ business is to inform you that you must change your mode of life, and also your place of residence. You must have fresh air--you must have something to do. Go to Kissingen or to Ems, and remain there during June and July, whilst you drink the waters. Then go on to Switzerland, or to the Tyrol, and partake of the local grape cure. That you can do during September and October.”

“Oh the devil take the Tyrol!” murmured Oblomov under his breath.

“Next, transfer yourself to some dry place like Egypt, and put away from you all cares and worries.”

“Excellent!” said Oblomov. “I only wish that _starostas_’ letters like this one reached you!”

“Also you must do no thinking whatsoever.”

“No thinking, you say?”

“Yes--you must impose upon the brain no exertion.”

“But what about my plans for my estate? I am not a log, if you will pardon my saying so.”

“Oh, very well. I have merely been warning you. Likewise, you must avoid emotion of every kind, for that sort of thing is sure to militate against a successful cure. Try, rather, to divert yourself with riding, with dancing, with moderate exercise in the open air, and with pleasant conversation--more especially conversation with the opposite sex. These things are designed to make your heart beat more lightly, and to experience none but agreeable emotions. Again, you must lay aside all reading and writing. Rent a villa which faces south and lies embowered in flowers, and surround yourself also with an atmosphere of music and women.”

“And may I eat at all?”

“Yes, certainly; but avoid all animal and farinaceous food, as well as anything which may be served cold. Eat only light soups and vegetables. Even in _this_ great care will need to be exercised, for cholera, I may tell you, is about. Walk eight hours out of every twenty-four; go in for shooting.”

“Good Lord!” groaned Oblomov.

“Finally,” concluded the doctor, “go to Paris for the winter, where, surrounded by a whirlpool of gaiety, you will best be able to distract your mind from your habitual brooding. Cultivate, theatres, balls, masquerades, the streets, society friends, noise, and laughter.”

“Anything else?” inquired Oblomov, with ill-concealed impatience. The doctor reflected a moment.

“Yes; also get the benefit of sea air,” he said. “Cross over to England, or else go for a voyage to America.”

With chat he rose to take his leave. “Should you carry out these instructions to the letter----” he began.

“Yes, yes. Of _course_ I shall carry them out!” said Oblomov bitterly as he accompanied the physician to the door.

The doctor having departed, Oblomov threw himself back into an arm-chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and remained sitting in an almost unthinking heap. Roused by Zakhar to consider once more the question of changing his quarters, he engaged in a long and heated conversation with the valet. Eventually he dismissed the man to his den, but could not dismiss from his own mind certain comparisons which Zakhar had drawn between his master’s life and the life of ordinary people. How strange that suddenly there should have dawned in him thoughts concerning human fate and destiny! All at once he found his mind drawing a parallel between that destiny and his own existence; all at once questions of life arose before his vision, like owls in an ancient ruin flushed from sleep by a stray ray of sunlight. Somehow he felt pained and grieved at his arrested development, at the check which had taken place in his moral growth, at the weight which appeared to be pressing upon his every faculty. Also gnawing at his heart there was a sense of envy that others should be living a life so full and free, while all the time the narrow, pitiful little pathway of his own existence was being blocked by a great boulder. And in his hesitating soul there arose a torturing consciousness that many sides of his nature had never yet been stirred, that others had never even been touched, and that not one of them had attained complete formation. Yet with this there went an aching suspicion that, buried in his being, as in a tomb, there still remained a moribund element of sweetness and light, and that it was an element which, though hidden in his personality, as a nugget lies lurking in the bowels of the earth, might once have become minted into sterling coin. But the treasure was now overlaid with rubbish--was now thickly littered over with dust. ’Twas as though some one had stolen from him, and besmirched, the store of gifts with which life and the world had dowered him; so that always he would be prevented from entering life’s field and sailing across it with the aid of intellect and of will. Yes, at the very start a secret enemy had laid a heavy hand upon him and diverted him from the road of human destiny. And now he seemed to be powerless to leave the swamps and wilds in favour of that road. All around him was a forest, and ever the recesses ox his soul were growing dimmer and darker, and the path more and more tangled, while the consciousness of his condition kept awaking within him less and less frequently--to arouse only for a fleecing moment his slumbering faculties. Brain and volition alike had become paralysed, and, to all appearances, irrevocably--the events of his life had become whittled down to microscopical proportions. Yet even with them he was powerless to cope--he was powerless to pass from one of them to another. Consequently they bandied him to and fro like the waves of the ocean. Never was he able to oppose to any event elasticity of will; never was he able to conceive, as the result of any event, a reasoned-out impulse. Yet to confess this, even to himself, always cost him a bitter pang: his fruitless regrets for lost opportunities, coupled with burning reproaches of conscience, always pricked him like needles, and led him to strive to put away such reproaches and to discover a scapegoat....

Once again Oblomov sank asleep; and as he slept he dreamed of a different period, of different people, of a different place from the present. Let us follow him thither.

V

We find ourselves transported to a land where neither sea nor mountains nor crags nor precipices nor lonely forests exist--where, in short, there exists nothing grand or wild or immense.

Of what advantage, indeed, is the grand, the immense? The ocean depresses the soul of man, and at the sight of its boundless expanse of billows--an expanse whereon the weary eye is allowed no resting-place from the uniformity of the picture--the heart of man grows troubled within him, and he derives no solace from the roaring and mad rolling of the waves. Ever since the world began, those waves have sung the same dim, enigmatical song. Ever since the world began, they have voiced but the querulous lament of a monster which, everlastingly doomed to torment, utters a chorus of shrill, malicious cries. On the shores of the sea no bird warbles; only the silent gulls, like lost spirits, fit wearily along its margin, or circle over its surface. In the presence of that turmoil of nature the roar even of the wildest beast sounds weak, and the voice of man becomes wholly overwhelmed. Yes, beside it man’s form looks so small and fragile that it is swallowed up amid the myriad details of the gigantic picture. That alone may be why contemplation of the ocean depresses man’s soul. During periods, also, of calm and immobility his spirit derives no comfort from the spectacle; for in the scarcely perceptible oscillation of the watery mass he sees ever the slumbering, incomprehensible force, which, until recently, has been mocking his proud will and, as it were, submerging his boldest schemes, his most dearly cherished labours and endeavours.

In the same way, mountains and gorges were not created to afford man encouragement, inasmuch as, with their terrible, menacing aspect, they seem to him the fangs and talons of some gigantic wild beast--of a beast which is reaching forth in an effort to devour him. Too vividly they remind him of his own frail build; too painfully they cause him to go in fear for his life. And over the summits of those crags and precipices the heavens look so remote and unattainable that they seem to have become removed out of the ken of humanity.

Not so that peaceful corner of the earth upon which our hero, in his slumber, opened his eyes. There, on the contrary, the heavens seemed to hug the earth--not in order that they might the better aim their thunderbolts, but in order that they might the closer enfold it in a loving embrace. In fact, they hovered low in order that, like a sheltering, paternal roof, they might guard this chosen corner of the earth from every adversity. Meanwhile the sun shone warm and bright during half the year, and, withdrawing, did so so slowly and reluctantly that it seemed ever to be turning back for one more look at the beloved spot, as though wishing to give it one more bright, warm day before the approaching weather of autumn. Also the hills of that spot were no more than reduced models of the terrible mountains which, in other localities, rear themselves to affright the imagination. Rather, they resembled the gentle slopes down which one may roll in sport, or where one may sit and gaze dreamily at the declining sun. Below them, toying and frisking, ran a stream. In one place it discharged itself into a broad pool, in another it hurried along in a narrow thread, in a third it slackened its pace to a sudden mood of reverie, and, barely gliding over the stones, threw out on either side small rivulets whereof the gentle burbling seemed to invite sleep. Everywhere the vicinity of this corner of the earth presented a series of landscape studies and cheerful, smiling vistas. The sandy, shelving bank of the stream, a small copse which descended from the summit of that bank to the water, a winding ravine of which the depths were penetrated by a rill, a plantation of birch-trees--all these things seemed purposely to be fitted into one another, and to have been drawn by the hand of a master. Both the troubled heart and the heart which has never known care might have yearned to hide themselves in this forgotten corner of the world, and to live its life of ineffable happiness. Everything promised a quiet existence which should last until the grey hairs were come, and thereafter a death so gradual as almost to resemble the approach of sleep.

There the yearly round fulfils itself in a regular, serene order. As the calendar ordains, spring comes in in March, when turbid rivulets begin to run from the hills, and the earth, thawing, steams with tepid vapour. Then the peasant, doffing his sheepskin, goes out in shirtsleeves alone, and shades his eyes with’ his hand as gladly he shrugs his shoulders and drinks his fill of the gleaming sunlight. Then, with a shaft in either hand, he draws forth the cart which has been lying bottom upwards, under the tiltshed, or examines and sounds with his foot the plough which has been reposing in the penthouse. All this is in preparation for the usual routine of toil, since in that region spring sees no return of sudden snowstorms to heap the fields and crack the branches. On the other hand, Winter, like a cold, unapproachable beauty, retains her character until the lawful season of thaw has arrived. Never does she mock one with unexpected softenings of the air; never does she triple-harness the earth with unheard-of degrees of frost. Everything proceeds according to rote--according to a generally prescribed order of nature. Although, in November, there begin snow and frost which, towards the festival of Epiphany, increase to the point of freezing to an icicle the beard of the peasant who has stepped out of his hut for a breath of fresh air, the sensitive nose can, by February, detect the kindly odour of approaching spring.

Next, the summer is peculiarly ravishing. Only in that particular spot can one find that fresh, dry perfume which is the scent neither of laurel nor of lemon, but of mingled wormwood, pine, and cherry-blossom. Only there, also, can one find those bright days when the sun’s rays are warm, but never scorching, and the sky remains cloudless for three mouths on end. As the bright days draw on they lengthen, week by week; and during that period the evenings are hot and the nights stifling, while the stars twinkle in the heavens with the welcoming mien of friends. And when rain at length arrives, how beneficent is its coming! Boisterously, richly, merrily it spates forth, like the large, hot tears of a man unexpectedly relieved of care; and as soon as ever it has passed the sun appears with a new smile of love, to dry the fields and the hillocks, and to cause all the countryside to assume an answering smile of delight. How gladly, too, the peasant greets the rain! “The good rain washes us, and the sun will dry us again,” is his saying as he exposes his face to the tepid downpour and lets it play upon his shoulders and back. Moreover, in that region thunder is never terrible, but, rather, benevolent, and always occurs at one particular season (generally on Saint Elias’ Day, in order that the people’s established tradition may be fulfilled * ). Also it would appear that, every year, both the number and the intensity of the peals remain the same--as though for each year the heavenly treasury had allotted a given measure of electricity. But of terrible and destructive storms that country can shew no record.

* Namely, that, should thunder occur on that day, the whole
of the ensuing year will be prosperous, since the peals
represent the saint’s passage to heaven.

Nor has the country whereof I am speaking ever been visited with the Egyptian or other plagues. Never has any member of its population beheld a dire manifestation of Heaven, nor a thunderbolt, nor an unlooked-for darkness; nor do venomous vermin abide there, and the locust comes not thither, and lions, tigers, bears, and wolves are unknown ( owing to the fact that the country contains no fastnesses for them to dwell in). In short, over the fields and around the village wander only lowing cattle, bleating sheep, and cackling poultry.

Yet none but God knows whether a poet or a visionary would find himself satisfied with the natural features of this peaceful spot. Such gentlemen, we know, love to gaze upon the moon, and to listen to the strains of nightingales; they love to see Luna clothe herself in coquettish, aureate cloud, and then glide mysteriously through the boughs of trees, and send forth clusters of silver beams to delight the eyes of her worshippers’! But in this country of Oblomov’s dream no one knows such a moon; there Luna’s features, as she looks down upon the villages and the fields, resembles, rather, a polished, cheery copper basin, and in vain would the poet fasten ravished eyes upon her, for she would return his gaze with the same indifference as that with which a round-faced rustic beauty meets the eloquent, passionate glances of a town gallant.

Nor has a nightingale ever been heard in that country--perchance for the reason that the region contains no shaded arbours or gardens of roses. But what an abundance of quails it can show!--so much so that in summer, when the harvest is in course of being gathered, urchins can catch them even in their hands! Yet it must not be supposed that thereafter the quails furnish a gastronomic dainty. Such an outrage would be repugnant to the moral sense of the inhabitants, since the quail is a bird, and therefore legally prohibited from being used for food. Consequently it lives but to delight the popular ear with its song, and in almost every house there hangs beneath the eaves a wicker cage wherein a member of that feathered species sits penned.

Even the general aspect of this modest, unaffected spot would fail to please the poet or the visionary. Never would it be theirs to behold a scene in which all nature--woodland, lake, cotter’s hut, and sandy hillside--is burning with a purplish glow, while sharply defined against a purple background may be seen moving along a sandy, winding road, a cavalcade of countrymen in attendance upon some great lady who is journeying towards a ruined castle--a castle where they will find awaiting them the telling of legends concerning the Wars of the Roses, the eating of wild goats for supper, and the singing of ballads to the lute by a young English damsel--a scene of Scottish or Swiss flavour of the kind which has been made familiar to our imagination by the pen of Sir Waiter Scott.

Of this there is nothing in our country.

How quiet and dreamy are the three or four villages which constitute that restful region! They lie not far from one another, and seem to have been thrown into their respective positions by some giant hand, and ever since to have maintained those positions. In particular, one hut stands on the edge of a ravine, with one-half its bulk projecting over the declivity, but supported on three props. Within it some three or four generations have spent happy, peaceful lives; for though it looks scarcely large enough to house a chicken, it is none the less tenanted by a well-to-do peasant and his wife. Onisim Suslov is the peasant’s name, and he cannot stand upright in his abode. The veranda actually overhangs the ravine, and to reach it one has with one hand to grasp the herbage, and, with the other, the gable before setting foot upon the structure itself. Another of the huts is, as it were, gummed to the side of a hill, like a swallow’s nest, while three others stand close beside it, and two are situated at the bottom of the ravine.

In the village all is quiet. The doors of its solitary little dwellings stand open, but not a soul is to be seen. Only the flies circle and buzz in clusters. Were you to enter one of the huts, you would call aloud in vain, for your only answer would be the deathlike silence, except that here and there you might hear the gasping of an invalid or the deep cough of some old woman who is living out her days upon the stove. Also, there might appear from behind the fence a long-haired, barefooted youngster of three, clad only in a shirt, who would gaze mutely at the new-comer, and then timidly hide himself again.

The same deep silence, the same deep peace, lies also upon the fields. Only somewhere over the distant soil there can be seen moving, like an ant, a sunburnt ploughman. Occasionally he leans upon his plough to clear his forehead of the sweat. Even the manners of that region are possessed of a still restfulness which nothing can disturb. Never has a robbery or a murder or a similar happening been known there; never have the inhabitants succumbed to strong passions, or experienced hazardous adventures. Indeed, what passions, what adventures would have the power to move them? No man has ever strayed beyond his own circle, for the local inhabitants dwell far from other men, and both the nearest village and the nearest country town lie distant from twenty-five to thirty versts.

True, at given seasons the peasants cart their grain to the river wharf which lies nearest to them, and once a year, also, they attend a fair; but they maintain no relations beyond these. In fact, all their interests are centred in themselves. True, they know that eighty versts away there stands the provincial capital; but few of them have ever journeyed thither. Also they know that beyond it stand Saratov and Nizhni Novgorod--likewise they have heard that such places as Moscow and Petrograd exist, and that on the farther side of them dwell folk who are known as Germans and French; but beyond that point there begins for them, as it did for the ancients, a mysterious world of unknown countries which are peopled with monsters and two-headed giants, and bounded on the outer side by a void of mist, and, again, by the colossal fish which bears the world on its bark. Moreover, since this peaceful corner of the universe is almost inaccessible, there filters thither but few items of news concerning the great white universe. * Indeed, even traders in rustic wares who live twenty versts away know no more than they do. Likewise, it never enters into their heads to compare their lot with those of other men--to inquire whether other men are rich or poor, comfortable or in need, for these peasants live in the fortunate belief that no circumstances could ever be different to their own--that all other folk must surely be living even as they are, and that to live in any other fashion would be a sin. Were you to assure them that others plough, sow, reap, or sell their produce in any way than that which obtains in this particular spot, the inhabitants would not believe you. That being so, how could any element of vexation or disturbance ever come nigh them? True, they resemble the rest of humanity in that they have their cares and weaknesses and obligations of lax-payment and fits of laziness and lethargy; but these press upon them but lightly, and occasion no real stirring of the blood. Indeed, during the past five years not a single soul of that local population of hundreds has died either a violent death or a natural. Even should a man or a woman expire of old age or a senile disease, it is not long before the rest have got ever their astonishment at the unusual occurrence. In the same way, after the trader Tarass had come near to steaming himself to death in his hut, and had had to be revived with cold water, the affair caused scarcely any stir in the neighbourhood.

* As distinguished from the black universe, the unknown.

Of crimes, one only--that of theft of produce from market gardens--is at all prevalent. Also, once two pigs and a chicken mysteriously disappeared. True, the latter event threw the district into something of a turmoil, but was unanimously ascribed to a pedlar who, the previous evening, had passed through the district on his way to a fair. In general, such untoward incidents are of the greatest rarity.

However, in a ditch in a paddock near the bridge once there was found lying a man--apparently a member of a party which had just traversed the neighbourhood _en route_ for the country town. Some boys were the first to notice him, and at once they came running home with a horrifying tale of a great serpent or werewolf which was crouching in a hole. To this they added a statement that the said creature had pursued them, and come near to devouring Kuzka. From far and near the peasants armed themselves with hatchets and pitchforks, and proceeded to the ditch _en masse_.

“Whither away?” the old men said reprovingly. “Are you mad? What do you want to do? Leave things alone, and no harm will come of it!”

Nevertheless the peasants set forth, and, when about a hundred paces from the spot, began to adjure the monster in varying terms. But no answer was returned. Next, after halting a moment, the party advanced a little further. The man seemed still to be lying in the ditch, with his head resting against a fence, while beside him lay a satchel and a cudgel (on the latter of which was slung a pair of boots). Yet the peasants could not summon up the necessary courage to approach him or to touch him.

“Hi, friend!” they shouted--one scratching his head and another the back of his neck. “What are you doing there? Who are you? What’s the matter?”

The traveller made as though to raise his head a little, but failed. Evidently he was ill or tired out. Then a peasant ventured to touch him with a pitchfork.

“Don’t interfere with him, don’t interfere with him!” cried the rest. “How do we know what he is, seeing that he refuses to speak? Leave him alone, friends!”

“Yes, we had better go away,” added certain others. “What has _he_ to do with us? Harm might come of him.”

So all returned to the village, and told the elder men that, lying in a ditch, there was a strange man who would not speak, and whose identity was known only to God.

“If he does not belong to these parts, leave him alone,” advised the elders from the spot where, with hands on knees, they were sitting resting on a bank. “Yes, leave him to himself. ’Tis no use _your_ going there.”

This, then, was the corner of the world whither Oblomov passed in his sleep. Of the three or four scattered villages in the region, one was named Sosnovka, and a second Vavilovka--the two being distant from one another about a verst. Together they constituted Oblomov’s hereditary estate, and bore the joint title of Oblomovka. In Sosnovka stood the manor-house and the farm, while five versts from the village there lay the hamlet of Verklevo--once the property of the Oblomovs, but long since passed into other hands. The same hamlet had attached to it a number of outlying huts. As a whole, Verklevo belonged to a rich landowner, a constant absentee, and the estate was managed by a German bailiff. There you have the geography of this remote corner of the world.

Oblomov dreamed that, aged seven, he awoke in his little cot at home. He felt merry and full of life. What a goodly, handsome, plump youngster he was, with cheeks of such rotundity that, however desperately any other young scamp might have tried to rival them by inflation of his own, no competitor could possibly have succeeded. Oblomov’s nurse had long been waiting for him to awake, and now she began to draw on for him his stockings. This he refused to allow her to do; which end he attained by frisking and kicking, while she tried to catch hold of his leg, and the pair laughed joyously together. Finally, she lifted him on to her lap, and washed him, and combed his hair; after which she conducted him to his mother. On seeing his long-dead parent, the sleeping Oblomov’s form trembled with delight and affection, and from under his unconscious eyelids there stole and remained two burning tears....

Upon him his mother showered affectionate kisses, and gazed at him with tender solicitude to see whether his eyes were clear and healthy. Did he in any way ail? she inquired. Had he (tiffs to his nurse) slept quietly, or had he lain awake all night? Had he had any dreams? Had he been at all feverish? Lastly, she took him by the hand, and led him to the sacred _ikon_. Kneeling with one arm around his form, she prompted him in the words of the prayers, while the boy repeated them with scanty attention, since he preferred, rather, to turn his eyes to the windows, whence the freshness and scent of a lilac-tree was flooding the room.

“Shall we go for a walk to-day, mamma?” suddenly he asked.

“Yes, darling,” she replied hastily, but kept her gaze fixed upon the _ikon_, and hurriedly concluded the sacred formula. Yet into the words of that formula her very soul was projected, whereas the little one repeated them only in nonchalant fashion.

The prayer over, they went to greet his father, and then to take morning tea. Beside the table Oblomov could see seated the aunt of eighty who had always lived with them. Never did she cease to grumble at the ancient serving-maid who, her head trembling with senility, stood behind her chair to wait upon her. Also there were present three old maiden ladies who were distant relatives of his father’s; a weak-minded gentleman named Chekmenev, who, the brother-in-law of Oblomov’s mother, was the owner of seven serfs, and happened to be staying with Oblomov’s parents; and certain other old men and women. The latter, the domestic staff and retinue of the Oblomov family, caught hold of the little Ilya Ilyitch, and started to heap him with caresses and attentions--so much so that he had much ado to wipe away the traces of these unsought kisses. Then there began the feeding of the child with rolls, biscuits, and cream; after which his mother bestowed upon him another embrace, and sent him out to walk round the garden and the courtyard and the lake--accompanying her farewell with particular instructions to the nurse that never must she leave the child alone for a single moment, nor yet must she allow him to approach the horses, the dogs, or the goat, nor yet must she take him far from home. Above all things, never must the nurse suffer him to approach the ravine, which was the most dreaded spot in the neighbourhood, and bore an evil reputation. Once there had been found there a dog which confessed itself a mad one, inasmuch as it had run headlong from folk who chased it with hatchets and pitchforks, and had disappeared behind a neighbouring hill. Likewise to the ravine carrion was carted, while robbers and wolves and various other creatures which never existed in the world at all were supposed to dwell there.

But to these warnings of his mother’s the child paid little heed. Already he was outside, in the courtyard. With gleeful surprise (as though for the first time in his life) he went the round of his parents’ establishment, with its gates sagging outwards, its dinted roof where lichen grew, its tottering veranda, its various annexes and outbuildings, and its overgrown garden. Also he yearned to ascend to the hanging gallery which girdled the house, that thence he might see the river; but the gallery was now in decay, and scarcely able to hold together, so that none but the servants trod it, and at no time did the gentry walk there. Heedless of his mother’s warnings, however, the little Oblomov was on the point of making for its seductive steps when the nurse showed herself on the veranda, and caught hold of him. Next, he rushed from her towards the hay-loft, with the intention of scaling its steep ladder; and just had she time to destroy successive schemes of ascending to the pigeon-cote, of penetrating to the cattle-yard, and--Heaven preserve us all!--of making his way to the ravine!

“God bless the child!” exclaimed the nurse. “_Will_ you be quiet, then, young sir? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Indeed, the whole day, as well as every day and every night, was spent by her in similar alarums and excursions, in alternations of torture and relief on the child’s account, in terror because he had fallen and broken his nose, in gratification at his warm, childish caresses, and in dim anxiety concerning his ultimate future. Only these and like emotions made her old heart beat and her old blood grow warm; only these retained in her the drowsy life which, but for them, would long ago have flickered out.

Yet the child was not always mischievous. Sometimes he would grow suddenly quiet as, sitting beside her, he gazed fixedly before him with his childish intellect taking in the various phenomena which presented themselves to his vision. Such phenomena were sinking fast into his mind, to grow and ripen there even as it grew and ripened.

The morning was a splendid one, and the air still fresh, since the sun had not yet attained much height. From the house, from the trees, from the dovecote, and from the gallery there streamed long shadows which formed, in the garden and in the orchard, cool corners which invited meditation and sleep. Only in the distance a rye-held was glowing with flame, and the river sparkling and flashing in the rays of the sun until actually it hurt the eyes to look at it.

“Why is it so dark in one place and bright in another?” asked the child. “Will it soon be bright everywhere?”

“Yes. That is because the sun has come out to meet the moon, and at times keeps frowning because he cannot catch sight of her. By and by he _will_ catch sight of her. Then he will send out his light once more.” The child pondered, and gazed at the scene around him. Before him he could see Antip driving the watercart, with another Antip, ten times as large as the real one, accompanying him, and the barrel of the cart looking as large as a house, and the horse’s shadow covering the whole of the pond. Then the shadows seemed to take two strides across the pond, and then to move behind the hill, though the figure of Antip had not yet left the courtyard. In his turn the child took a couple of strides, and then a third, to see if he too would end by disappearing behind the hill, which he had a great longing to ascend, for the purpose of ascertaining what had become of the horse. Consequently he set on towards the gates but only to hear his mother calling from a window--

“Nurse, nurse, do you not see that the boy has just run out into the sunshine? Pray bring him back into the shade, or he will get a sunstroke, and be ill, and sick, and unable to eat! Besides, he might run down into the ravine!”

“Oh, the naughty darling!” the nurse muttered to herself as she dragged him back on to the veranda. The child looked about him with the keen, observant glance of a “grown-up” who is debating how best a morning can be spent. Not a trifle, not a circumstance, escaped the child’s inquisitive attention, so that insensibly the picture of his home life engraved itself upon his mind, and his sensitive intellect nourished itself on living examples, and involuntarily modelled its programme of life on the life which surrounded it.

Never at any time could it be said that the _morning_ was wasted in the Oblomovs’ establishment. The sound of knives in the kitchen, as they minced cutlets and vegetables, reached even to the village; while from the servants’ quarters came the hum of a spindle, coupled with the thin, low voice of an old woman--but a voice so low that with difficulty could one distinguish whether she were weeping, or whether she were merely improvising to herself a mournful “song without words.” Also, on Antip returning with the watercart, there would advance to meet it, with pails, cans, and pitchers, a number of maidservants and grooms, while from the storehouse an old woman would produce a vessel of meal and a pile of eggs, and carry them to the kitchen. There, on the cook suddenly throwing some water out of the window, the cat Arapka--which, with eyes fixed upon the view, had spent the morning in agitating the tip of her tail and licking herself--came in for a splashing.

The head of the family, too, was not idle, for he spent the morning in sitting by the window and following with his eyes everything which took place in the courtyard.

“Hi, Ignashka, what have you there, you rascal?” he cried to a man who happened to cross the open space.

“Some knives to be sharpened in the scullery,” the man replied, without looking at his master.

“Very well, then. Mind you sharpen them properly.”

Next, the master stopped one of the maidservants.

“Where are _you_ going?” he inquired.

“To the cellar to get some milk for the table,” she replied, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Good!” he pronounced. “And see that you don’t spill any. You, Zakharka--where are _you_ off to once more? This is the third time I have seen you gadding about. Go back to your place in the hall.” Whereupon Zakharka returned to her day-dreams at the post mentioned. Again, as soon as the cows returned from pasture, old Oblomov was always there to see that they were properly watered. Also, when, from his post at the window, he chanced to observe the yard-dog chasing one of the hens he hastened to take the necessary measures against a recurrence of such conduct. In the same way, his wife was fully employed. For three hours she discussed with Averka, the tailor, the best ways and means of converting a waistcoat of her husband’s into a jacket for her son--herself drawing the requisite lines in chalk, and seeing to it that Averka should pilfer not a morsel of the cloth. Thereafter she passed to the maids’ room, where she parcelled cut to each damsel the day’s portion of lacemaking; whence she departed to summon one of her personal maids to attend her in the garden, for the purpose of seeing how the apples were swelling, which of them had fallen or were turning ripe, which trees wanted grafting or pruning, and so forth. But her chief care was the kitchen and the dinner. Concerning the latter she consulted the entire household, including the aged aunt. Each member of the family proposed a special dish, and the sum of these proposals was taken into consideration, adjudicated upon in detail, and adopted or rejected according to the final decision of the mistress. From time to time, also, a maid was dispatched to the culinary regions to remind the cook of this, or to tell her to add that, or to instruct her to change the other, while conveying to her sugar, honey, and wine for flavouring, and also seeing to it that the said cook was using everything which had been measured out. In fact, the supervision of food was the first and the principal domestic preoccupation of Oblomovka.

What calves were not fattened for the year’s festivals! What poultry was not reared! What forethought and care and skill were not devoted to the consumption of comestibles! Game fowls and pullets were set apart solely for birthdays and other solemn occasions; wherefore they were stuffed with nuts. For the same reason geese were caught several days beforehand, and hung up in bags until wanted, in order that, being restrained from exercise, they might put on the more fat. And what a roasting and a pickling and a baking would sometimes take place, and what mead and _kvass_ * were there not brewed, and what pies were there not compounded!

* A liquor made from fermented bread crusts or fruit.

Until noon, therefore, everything at Oblomovka was in a state of bustle and commotion. Life was indeed full and antlike and in evidence! Even on Sundays and holidays these labour-loving ants did not desist from their toil, for on such days the clatter of knives in the kitchen sounded louder and more rapid than ever, a maid made several journeys from the storeroom to the kitchen with double quantities of meal and eggs, and in the poultry-run an added amount of cackling and of bloodshed took place. Likewise, on such days there was baked a gigantic pie, which was eaten by the gentry on the same and the following days, and by the maids on the third and fourth; after which, should it survive to the fifth day, the last stale remnants, devoid of stuffing, were given, as a special favour, to Antip, who, crossing himself, undauntedly attacked the rock-hard fragments--though it was in the thought that it had recently been the gentry’s pie rather than in the pie itself that he took most delight; even as an archaeologist rejoices to drink even the poorest wine from the shell of a thousand-year-old vessel.