Chapter IV: Part I: I (4)

“Yes, I refused it. What should _we_ want with letters? _We_ have no need for them, nor had I any orders to take charge of such things. So I was afraid to touch it. ‘Don’t you go too fast with that thing,’ I said to myself. Yet how the postman abused me! He would have complained to the authorities had I left the letter where it was.”

“Fool!” exclaimed the lady of the house.

“And from whom can it be?” said old Oblomov meditatively as he studied the address. “Somehow I seem to know the handwriting.”

Upon that the missive fell to being passed from one person to another; and much guessing and discussion began. Finally the company had to own itself nonplussed. The master of the house ordered his spectacles to be fetched, and quite an hour and a half were consumed in searching for the same; but at length be put them on, and then bethought him of opening the letter.

“Wait a moment,” said his wife, hastily, arresting his hand. “Do not break the seal. Who knows what the letter may contain? It may portend something dreadful, some misfortune. To what have we not come nowadays? To-morrow, or the day after, will be soon enough. The letter will not walk away of itself.”

So the letter was placed under lock and key, and tea passed round. In fact, the document would have lain there for a year, had it not constituted a phenomenon so unusual as to continue to excite the Oblomovkans’ curiosity. Both after tea and on the following day the talk was of nothing else. At length things could no longer be borne, and on the fourth day, the company being assembled, the seal was diffidently broken, and old Oblomov glanced at the signature.

“Radistchev!” he exclaimed. “So the message is from Philip Matveitch!”

“Oh! Ah! From _him_, indeed?” resounded on all sides. “To think that he is actually alive! Glory be to God! And what does he say?”

Upon that old Oblomov started to read the letter aloud. It seemed that Philip Matveitch desired him to forward the recipe for a certain beer which was brewed at Oblomovka.

“Then send it, send it,” exclaimed the chorus. “Yes, and also write him an answer.”

Two weeks elapsed.

“Really we _must_ write that note,” old Oblomov kept repeating. “Where is the recipe?”

“Where is it?” retorted his wife. “Why, it still has to be looked for. Wait a little. Why need we hurry? Should God be good, we shall soon be having another festival, and eating flesh again. Let us write _then_. I tell you, the recipe won’t run away.”

“Yes, I daresay it would be better to write when we have reached the festival.”

Sure enough, the said festival arrived, and again there was talk of the letter. In fact, old Oblomov did in truth get himself ready to write it. He shut himself up in his study, he put on his spectacles, and he sat down to the table. Everything in the house was profoundly quiet, since orders had been issued that the establishment was not to stamp upon the floor, nor, indeed, to make a noise of any kind. “The _barin_ is writing,” was said in much the same tone of respectful awe that might have been used had a dead person been lying in the house.

Hardly had old Oblomov inscribed the words “Dear Sir”--slowly and crookedly, and with a shaking hand, and as cautiously, as though he had been engaged in a dangerous task--when there entered to him his wife.

“I have searched and searched,” she said, “but can find no recipe. Nevertheless the bedroom wardrobe still remains to be ransacked, so _how_ can you write the letter now?”

“It ought to go by the next post,” her husband remarked.

“And what will it cost to go?”

Old Oblomov produced an ancient calendar. “Forty kopecks,” he said.

“What? You are going to throw away _forty kopecks_ on such a trifle?” she exclaimed. “We had far better wait until we are sending other things also to the town. Let the peasants know about it.”

“That _might_ be better,” agreed old Oblomov, tapping his pen against the table. With that he replaced the pen in the inkstand, and took off his spectacles.

“Yes, it _might_ be better,” he concluded.

And to this day no one knows how long Philip Matveitch had to wait for that recipe.

Also, there were times when old Oblomov actually took a book in his hands. What book it might be he did not care, for he felt no actual craving to read; he looked upon literature as a mere luxury which could easily be indulged in, or be done without, even as one might have a picture on one’s wall, or one might not--one might go out for an occasional walk, or one might not. Hence, as I say, he was indifferent to the identity of a book, since he looked upon such articles as mere instruments of distraction from _ennui_ and lack of employment. Also, he always adopted towards authors that half-contemptuous attitude which used to be maintained by gentry of the _ancien régime_; for, like many of his day, he considered a writer of books to be a roisterer, a ne’er-do-well, a drunkard, a sort of merry-andrew. Also, he would read aloud items of intelligence from journals three years old--such items as, “It is reported from The Hague that, on returning to the Palace from a short drive, the King gazed at the assembled onlookers through his spectacles,” or “At Vienna such and such an Ambassador has just presented his Letter of Credentials.”

Again, there was a day when he read aloud the intelligence that a certain work by a foreign writer had just been translated into Russian.

“The only reason why they go in for translating such things,” remarked a small landowner who happened to be present, “is that they may wheedle more money out of us _dvoriané_.” *

* Squires, or gentry

Meanwhile the little Ilya was engaged in journeying backwards and forwards to Schtoltz’s school every Monday, when he awoke, he felt overcome with depression, should he happen to hear Vassika’s rapping voice shout aloud from the veranda: “Antipka, harness the piebald, as the young _barin_ has to drive over to the German’s!” Yes, then Ilya’s heart would tremble, and he would repair sadly to his mother, who would know why he did so, and begin to gild the pill, while secretly sighing to herself at the thought that she was to be parted from the lad for a whole week. Indeed, on such mornings he could scarcely be given enough to eat, and scarcely could a sufficiency of buns and cakes and pies and sweetmeats be made to take with him (the said sufficiency being based upon an assumption that at the German’s the pupils fared far from richly).

“One couldn’t overeat oneself there,” said the Oblomovkans. “For dinner one gets nothing but soup, roast, and cabbage, for tea only cold meat, and for supper _morgen fri_.” *

* German black pudding.

However, there were Mondays when he did _not_ hear Vassika’s voice ordering the piebald to be harnessed, and when his mother met him with a smile and the pleasant tidings, that he was not to go to school that day, since the following Thursday would be a holiday, and it was not worth while for him to make the journey to and fro for a stay only of three days. At other times he would be informed that that week was the Week of Kindred, * and that therefore cake-baking, and not book-learning, would be the order of the day. Or on a Monday morning his mother would glance at him, and say: “Your eyes look dull to-day. Are you _sure_ that you are well?” Then she would shake her head dubiously, and though the crafty youngster would be in perfect health, he would hold his tongue on the subject. Thereafter she would continue: “You must stay at home this week, for God knows what might happen to you at that other place.” And in her decision she would be confirmed by the whole of the rest of the household. True, these fond parents were not blind to the value of education; it was that they realized only its _external_ value. That is to say, they could not look beyond the fact that education enabled folk to get on in the world so far as the acquisition of rank, crosses, and money was concerned. Certain evil rumours had arisen regarding the necessity, of learning not only one’s letters, but also various branches of science which until now had remained unknown to the world of Oblomovka; but, as I say, the good folk of that place had only the dimmest, the remotest, comprehension of any _internal_ demand for education, and therefore desired to secure for their little Ilya only certain showy advantages, and no more--to wit, a fine uniform, and the getting of him into the Civil Service (his mother even foresaw him become a provincial governor!). Yet this, they thought, ought to be attained at as little cost as possible, and by means of a covert evasion of the various rocks and barriers which lay strewn about the path of enlightenment. Yes, those rocks and barriers, they said, must be walked around, not scaled; learning must be assimilated lightly, and not at the cost of exhaustion both of body and mind. In their view the process need be continued only until the little Ilya had obtained some sort of a certificate to the effect that he had been through “a course of the arts and sciences.”

* Week of the Dead.

But to this Oblomovkan system old Schtoltz was wholly opposed; and probably his German persistency would have carried the day, had he not had to contend with difficulties even in his own camp. That is to say, his son was accustomed to spoil young Oblomov by doing his exercises for him, and prompting him in his translations. Also, young Oblomov could clearly discern the differences between his home life and life at school. At home, no sooner would he have awakened than he would find Zakhar standing by his bed. Even as the nurse had done, Zakhar would draw on for the lad his stockings, and put on his boots; and if Master Ilya--now become a boy of fourteen--did not altogether approve of Zakhar’s performances he would nudge the valet on the nose with his toe. Moreover, should the boy at any time want anything, he had three or four servants to hasten to do his bidding; and in this fashion he never learnt what it was to do a single thing for himself. Yet in the end his parents’ fond solicitude wearied him for at no time could he even cross the courtyard, or descend the staircase, without hearing himself followed by shouts of “Where are you going to, Ilya?” or “How can you do that?” or “You will fall and hurt yourself!” Thus, pampered like an exotic plant in a greenhouse, he grew up slowly and drowsily, and in a way which turned his energies inwards, and gradually caused them to wither.

Yet on rare occasions he would still awake as fresh and vigorous and cheerful as ever; he would awake feeling that an imp of mischief was egging him on to climb the roof, or to go and roll in a field, or to rush round the meadow where the hay was being cut, or to perch himself on the top of a fence, or to start teasing the farm dogs--in short, to take to running hither and thither and everywhere.

At length the thing was no longer to be borne; no longer could he resist the imp’s prompting. One winter’s morning, capless, he leaped from the veranda into the courtyard, and thence through the entrance gates. Thereafter, rolling a snowball hastily in his hands, he darted towards a crowd of boys. The fresh air cut his face, the frost nipped his ears, his mouth and throat felt choked with cold, but in his breast there was a great joy. He rushed forward as fast as his legs could carry him, he shouted and he laughed. In two seconds he was in the thick of the boys. One snowball he threw--it achieved a miss; a second snowball he threw--it achieved the same; and just as he was seizing a third his face became converted into one large clot of snow. He fell, and, being unused to falling, hurt himself; yet still he laughed merrily, though the tears had sprung to his eyes. Behind the knot of youngsters ran two dogs, pulling at their clothes; for, as every one knows, dogs cannot with equanimity see a human being running. Thus the whole gang sped through the village--a noisy, shouting, barking crew. At length the lads were caught, and justice was meted out--to one on the head, to a second on the ears, to a third on the rump. Also, the fathers of the culprits were threatened with retribution. As for the young _barin_, he was hastily thrust into a snatched-up greatcoat, then into his father’s sheepskin, and, lastly, into a couple of quilts; after which he was borne homeward in triumph. The entire household had expected to behold him arrive in a moribund condition; and indescribable was his parents’ delight on seeing him carried in both alive and unharmed..Yes, they gave thanks to God, they dosed the boy with mint and elderberry wine and raspberry syrup, and they kept him three days in bed--although the one thing that would have done him any good would have been to have let him go out again and play in the snow!

*****

Entering quietly, Zakhar tried to arouse the sleeper, but failed. Suddenly a loud laugh proceeded from the neighbourhood of the door. Oblomov started up.

“Schtoltz! Schtoltz!” he cried rapturously as he threw himself upon the newcomer.