PART IV

I

For many a day after his illness Oblomov’s mood was one of dull and painful despondency; but gradually this became replaced with a phase of mute indifference, in which he would spend hours in watching the snow fall and listening to the grinding of the landlady’s coffee-mill, to the barking of the housedogs as they rattled at their chains, to the creaking of Zakhar’s boots, and to the measured tick of the clock’s pendulum. As of old, Agafia Matvievna, his landlady, would come and propose one or another dish for his delectation; also her children would come running to and fro through his rooms. To the landlady he returned kindly, indifferent answers, and to the youngsters he gave lessons in reading and waiting, while smiling wearily, involuntarily at their playfulness. Little by little he regained his former mode of life.

One day Schtoltz walked into his room.

“Well, Ilya?” he said, with a questioning sternness which caused Oblomov to lower his eyes and remain silent.

“Then it is to be ‘never’?” went on his friend.

“‘Never’?” queried Oblomov.

“Yes. Do you not remember my saying to you, ‘Now or never’?”

“I do,” the other returned. “But I am not the man I then was. I have now set my affairs in order, and my plans for improving my estate are nearly finished, and I write regularly for two journals, and I have read all the books which you left behind you.”

“But why have you never come to join me abroad?” asked Schtoltz.

“Something prevented me.”

“Olga?”

Oblomov gathered animation at the question.

“Where is she?” he exclaimed. “I heard that she had gone abroad with her aunt--that she went there soon after, after----”

“Soon after she had recognized her mistake,” concluded Schtoltz.

“You know the story, then?” said Oblomov, scarcely able to conceal his confusion.

“Yes, the whole of it--even to the point of the sprig of lilac. Do you not feel ashamed of yourself, Ilya? Does it not hurt you? Are you not consumed with regret and remorse?”

“Yes; please do not remind me of it,” interrupted Oblomov hurriedly. “So great was my agony when I perceived the gulf set between us that I fell ill of a fever. Ah, Schtoltz, if you love me, do not torture me, do not mention her name. Long ago I pointed out to her her mistake, but she would not listen to me. Indeed I am not so much to blame.”

“I am not blaming you,” said Schtoltz gently; “for I have read your letter. It is I that am most to blame--then she--then you least of all.”

“How is she now?”

“How is she? She is in great distress. She weeps, and will not be comforted.”

Mingled anguish, sympathy, and alarm showed themselves on Oblomov’s features.

“What?” he cried, rising to his feet. “Come, Schtoltz! We must go to her at once, in order that I may beg her pardon on my knees.”

Schtoltz thought it well to change his tactics.

“Do you sit still,” he said with a laugh. “I have not been telling you the exact truth. As a matter of fact, she is well and happy, and bids me give you her greeting. Also, she wanted to write to you, but I dissuaded her on the ground that it would only cause you pain.”

“Thank God for that!” cried Oblomov, almost with tears of joy. “Oh, I am so glad, Schtoltz! Pray let me embrace you, and then let us drink to her happiness!”

“But why are you hidden away in this corner?” asked Schtoltz after a pause.

“Because it is quiet here--there is no one to disturb me.”

“I suppose so,” retorted Schtoltz. “In fact, you have here--well, Oblomovka over again, only worse.” He glanced about him. “And how are you now?”

“I am not very well. My breathing is bad, and spots persist in floating before my eyes. Sometimes, too, when I am asleep, some one seems to come and strike me a blow upon the back and head, so that I leap up with a start.”

“Listen, Ilya,” said Schtoltz gravely. “I tell you, in all seriousness, that if you do not change your mode of life you will soon be seized with dropsy or a stroke. As for your future, I have no hopes of it at all. If Olga, that angel, could not bear you from your swamp on her wings, neither shall I succeed in doing so. However, to the end I shall stand by you: and when I say that, I am voicing not only my own wish, but also that of Olga. For she desires you not to perish utterly, not to be buried alive; she desires that at least I shall make an attempt to dig you from the tomb.”

“Then she has not forgotten me?” cried Oblomov with emotion--adding: “As though I were worthy of her remembrance!”

“No, she has not forgotten you, and, I think, never will. Indeed, she is not the sort of person to forget you. Some day you must go and pay her a visit in the country.”

“Yes, yes--but not now,” urged Oblomov.

“Even at this moment I--I----” He pointed to his heart.

“What does it contain?” asked Schtoltz. “Love?”

“No, shame and sorrow. Ah, life, life!”

“What of it?”

“It disturbs me--it allows me no rest.”

“Were it to do so, the flame of your candle would soon go out, and you would find yourself in darkness. Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Life passes too swiftly for it to be spent in slumber. Would, rather, it were a perpetual fire!--that one could live for hundreds and hundreds of years! _Then_ what an immensity of work would one not do!”

“You and I are of different types,” said Oblomov. “_You_ have wings; you do not merely exist--you also fly. You have gifts and ambition; you do not grow fat; specks do not dance before your eyes; and the back of your neck does not need to be periodically scratched. In short, my organism and yours are wholly dissimilar.”

“Fie, fie! Man was created to order his own being, and even to change his own nature; yet, instead, he goes and develops a paunch, and then supposes that nature has laid upon him that burden. Once upon a time you too had wings. Now you have laid them aside.”

“Where are they?” asked Oblomov. “I am powerless, completely powerless.”

“Rather, you are _determined_ to be powerless. Even during your boyhood at Oblomovka, and amid the circle of your aunts and nurses and valets, you had begun to waste your intellect, and to be unable to put on your own socks, and so forth. Hence your present inability to live.”

“All that may be so,” said Oblomov with a sigh; “but now it is too late to turn back.”

“And what am I to say to Olga on my return?”

Oblomov hung his head in sad and silent meditation.

“Say nothing,” at length he said. “Or say that you have not seen me....”

A year and a half later Oblomov was sitting in his dull, murky rooms. He had now grown corpulent, and from his eyes _ennui_ peered forth like a disease. At intervals, too, he would rise and pace the room, then lie down again, then take a book from the table, read a few lines of it, yawn, and begin drumming with his fingers upon the table’s surface. As for Zakhar, he was more seedy and untidy than ever. The elbows of his coat were patched, and he had about him a pinched and hungry air, as though his appetite were bad, his sleep poor, and his work three times as much as it ought to have been. Oblomov’s dressing-gown also was patched: yet, carefully though the holes had been mended, the seams were coming apart in various places. Likewise the coverlet of the bed was ragged, while the curtains, though clean, were faded and hanging in strips.

Suddenly the landlady entered to announce a visitor, and also to say that it was neither Tarantiev nor Alexiev.

“Then it must be Schtoltz again!” thought Oblomov, with a sense of horror. “What can he want with me? However, it does not matter.”

“How are you?” inquired Schtoltz when he entered the room. “You have grown stout, yet your face is pale.”

“Yes, I am not well,” agreed Oblomov. “Somehow my left leg has lost all feeling.” Schtoltz threw at him a keen glance, and then eyed the dressing-gown, the curtains, and the coverlet.

“Never mind,” said Oblomov confusedly. “You know that never at any time do I keep my place tidy. But how is Olga?”

“She has not forgotten you. Possibly you will end by forgetting _her?_”

“No, never! Never could I forget the time when I was really alive and living in Paradise. Where is she, then?”

“In the country.”

“With her aunt?”

“Yes--and also with her husband.”

“So she is married? Has she been married long? And is she happy?” Oblomov had quite sloughed his lethargy. “I feel as though you had removed a great burden from my mind. True, when you were last here, you assured me that she had forgiven me; but all this time I have been unable to rest for the gnawing at my heart.... Tell me who the fortunate man is?”

“Who he is?” repeated Schtoltz. “Why, cannot you guess, Ilya!”

Oblomov’s gaze grew more intent, and for a moment or two his features stiffened, and every vestige of colour left his cheeks.

“Surely it is not yourself?” he asked abruptly.

“It is. I married her last year.”

The agitation faded from Oblomov’s expression, and gave place to his usual apathetic moodiness. For a moment or two he did not raise his eyes; but when he did so they were full of kindly tears.

“Dear Schtoltz!” he cried, embracing his friend. “And dear Olga! May God bless you both! How pleased I am! Pray tell her so.”

“I will tell her that in all the world there exists not my friend Oblomov’s equal.” Schtoltz was profoundly moved.

“No, tell her, rather, that I was fated to meet her, in order that I might set her on the right road. Tell her also that I bless both that meeting and the road which she has now taken. To think that that road might have been different! As it is, I have nothing to blush for, and nothing of which to repent. You have relieved my soul of a great burden, and all within it is bright. I thank you, I thank you!”

“I _will_ tell her what you have said,” replied Schtoltz. “She has indeed reason for never forgetting you, for you would have been worthy of her--yes, worthy of her, you who have a heart as deep as the sea. You must come and visit us in the country.”

“No,” replied the other. “It is not that I am afraid of witnessing your married happiness, or of becoming jealous of her love for you. Yet I will not come.”

“Then of what are you afraid?”

“Of growing envious of you. In your happiness I should see, as in a mirror, my own bitter, broken life. Yet no life but this do I wish, or have it in my power, to live. Do not, therefore, disturb it. Memories are the height of poetry only when they are memories of happiness. When they graze wounds over which scars have formed they become an aching pain. Let us speak of something else. Let me thank you for all the care and attention which you have devoted to my affairs. Yet never can I properly requite you. Seek, rather, requital in your own heart, and in your happiness with Olga Sergievna. Likewise, forgive me for having failed to relieve you of your duties with regard to Oblomovka. It is my fixed intention to go there before long.”

“You will find great changes occurred in the place. Doubtless you have read the statements of accounts which I have sent you?”

Oblomov remained silent.

“What? You have _not_ read them?” exclaimed Schtoltz, aghast. “Then where are they?”

“I do not know. Wait a little, and I will look for them after dinner.”

“Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Scarcely do I know whether to laugh or to weep.”

“Never mind. We will attend to the affair after dinner. First let us eat.”

During the meal Oblomov bestowed high encomiums upon his landlady’s cooking.

“She looks after everything,” he said. “Never will you see me either with unmended socks or with a shirt turned inside out. She supervises every detail.”

He ate and drank with great gusto--so much so that Schtoltz contemplated him with amazement.

“Drink, dear friend, drink,” said Oblomov. “This is splendid _vodka_. Even Olga could not make _vodka_ or patties or mushroom stews equal to these. They are like what we used to have at Oblomovka. No man could be better looked after by a woman than I am by my landlady, Agafia Matvievna. Nevertheless I, I------” He hesitated.

“Well, what?” prompted Schtoltz.

“I owe her ten thousand roubles on note of hand.”

“Ten thousand roubles? To your landlady? For board and lodging?” gasped Schtoltz, horrified.

“Yes. You see, the sum has gone on accumulating, for I live generously, and the debt includes accounts for peaches, pineapples, and so forth.”

“Ilya,” said Schtoltz, “_what_ is this woman to you?”

The other made no reply.

“She is robbing him,” thought his friend. “She is wheedling his all out of him. Such things are everyday, occurrences, yet I had not guessed it.”

Desirous of taking Oblomov away with him, he nevertheless found all his efforts in that direction ineffectual.

“I ask you once again,” he said. “In what relation do you stand to your landlady?”

Again Oblomov reddened.

“Why are you desirous of knowing?” he countered.

“Because, on the score of our old friendship, I think it my duty to give you a very serious warning indeed.”

“A warning against what?”

“A warning against a pit into which you may fall, Now I must be going. I will tell Olga that we may expect to see you this summer whether at our place or at Oblomovka.”

Then Schtoltz departed.

Not for some years did he visit the capital again, for Olga’s health necessitated a lengthy sojourn in the Crimea. For some reason or other her recovery after the birth of a child had been slow.

“How happy I am!” was her frequent reflection. Yet, no sooner had she passed her life in admiring review than she would find herself relapsing into a meditative mood. What a curious person she was!--a person who, in proportion as her felicity became more, complete, plunged ever deeper and deeper into a brooding over the past! Delving into the recesses of her own mind, she began to realize that this peaceful existence, this halting at various stages of felicity, annoyed her. However, with an effort of will she shook her soul clear of this despondency, and quickened her steps through life in a feverish desire to seek noise and movement and occupation. Yet the bustle of society brought her small relief, and she would retire again into her corner--there to rid her spirit of the unwonted sense of depression. Then she would go out once more, and busy herself with petty household cares which confined her to the nursery and the duties of a nurse and a mother, or join her husband in reading and discussing serious books or poetry. Her main fear was lest she should fall ill of the disease, the apathetic malady, of Oblomovka. Yet, for all her efforts to slough these phases of torpor and of spiritual coma, a dream of happiness other than the present used to steal upon her, and wrap her in a haze of inertia, and cause her whole being to halt, as for a rest from the exertions of life. Again, to this mood there would succeed a phase of torture and weariness and apprehension--a phase of dull sorrowfulness which kept asking itself dim, indefinite questions and ceaselessly pondering upon them. And as she listened to those questions she would examine herself, yet never discover what it was she yearned for, nor why, at times, she seemed to tire of her comfortable existence, to demand of it new and unfamiliar impressions, and to be gazing ahead in search of something.

“What does it all mean?” she would say to herself with a shudder. “Is there really anything more that I require, or that I need wish for? Whither am I travelling? I have no farther to go--my journey is ended. Yet have I _really_ completed my cycle of existence? Is this _really_ all--all?” Then she would glance timidly around her, and wonder, in doubt and trembling, what such whispers of the soul might portend. With anxious eyes she would scan the earth, the heavens, and the wilds, yet find therein no answer, but merely gloom, profundity, and remoteness. All nature seemed to be saying the same thing; in nature she could perceive only a ceaseless, uniform current of life to which there was neither a beginning nor an ending. Of course, she knew whom she could consult concerning these tremors--she knew who could return the needed answers to her questionings. But what would those answers import? What if Schtoltz should say that her self-questionings represented the murmurings of an unsympathetic, an unwomanly, heart--that his quondam idol possessed but a _blasé_, dissatisfied soul from which nothing good was to be looked for? Yes, how greatly she might fall in his estimation, were he to discover these new and unwonted pangs of hers! Consequently, whenever, in spite of her best efforts to conceal the fact, her eyes lost their velvety softness, and acquired a dry and feverish glitter; whenever, too, a heavy cloud overspread her face, and she could not force herself to smile, and to talk, and to listen indifferently to the latest news in the political world, or to descriptions of interesting phenomena in some new walk of learning, or to remarks upon some new creation of art--well, then she hid herself away, on the plea of illness.

Yet she felt no desire to give way to tears; she experienced none of those sudden alarms which had been hers during the period when her girlish nerves had been excited even to the point of self-expression. So if, while resting on some calm, beautiful evening, there came stealing upon her, even amid her husband’s talk and caresses, a feeling of weariness and indifference to everything, she would merely ask herself despairingly what it all meant. At one moment she would become, as it were, turned to stone, and sit silent; at another she would make feverish attempts to conceal her strange malady. Finally a headache would supervene, and she would retire to rest. Yet all the while it was a difficult matter for her to evade the keen eyes of her husband. This she knew well, and therefore prepared herself for conversation with him as nervously as she would have done for confession to a priest.

II

One evening she and Schtoltz were pacing the poplar avenue in their garden. She was suffering from her usual inexplicable lack of energy, and finding herself able to return but the briefest of answers to what he said.

“By the way,” he remarked, “the nurse tells me that Olinka is troubled with a night cough. Ought we not to send for the doctor to-morrow?”

“No. I have given her some hot medicine, and am going to keep her indoors for the present,” answered Olga dully.

In silence they walked to the end of the avenue.

“Why have you sent no reply to that letter from your friend Sonichka?” he inquired. “This is the third letter that you have left unanswered.”

“I would rather forget her altogether,” was Olga’s brief rejoinder.

“Then you are not well?” he continued after a pause.

“Oh yes; nothing is the matter with me. Why should you think otherwise’?”

“Then you are _ennuyée?_”

She clasped her hands upon his shoulder.

“No,” she said, in a tone of assumed cheerfulness--yet a tone in which the note of _ennui_ was only too plainly apparent.

He led her clear of the shade of the trees, and turned her face to the moonlight.

“Look at me,” he commanded. He gazed intently into her eyes.

“One would say that you were unhappy,” he commented. “Your eyes have a strange expression in them which I have noticed more than once before. What is the matter with you, Olga?”

She took him by the sleeve and drew him back into the shade.

“Are you aware,” she said with forced gaiety, “that I am hungry for supper?”

“No, no,” he protested. “Do not make a jest of this.”

“Unhappy, indeed?” she said reproachfully, halting in front of him. “Yes, I _am_ unhappy--but only from excess of happiness.” So tender was her tone, and so caressing the note in her voice, that he bent down and kissed her.

With that she grew bolder. The jesting supposition that she could be unhappy inspired her to greater frankness.

“No, I am not _ennuyée_,” she went on; “nor should I ever be so. You know that well, yet you refuse to believe my words. Nor am I ill. It is merely that, that well, that sometimes a feeling of depression comes over me. You are a difficult man to conceal things from. Sometimes I feel depressed, though I could not say why.”

She laid her head upon his shoulder.

“Nevertheless, what _is_ the reason of it?” he asked her gently as he bent over her.

“I do not know,” she repeated.

“Yet there _must_ be a reason of some sort. If that reason lies neither in me nor in your surroundings, it must lie in yourself. Sometimes such depression is a symptom of ill-health. Are you _sure_ that you are quite well?”

“At all events I feel so,” she replied gravely. “See for yourself how I eat and walk and sleep and work! Yet every now and then there comes over me a mood in which life seems to me incomplete.... Do not mind this, however. It is nothing--nothing at all.”

“Tell me more,” he urged. “Certainly life is incomplete, but what would you add to it?”

“And sometimes,” she continued, “I grow afraid lest everything should be about to be changed, or to come to an end; while at other times I find myself torturing my brain with a stupid wondering as to what more is to be expected from the future, this happiness of ours, this life, with its joys and sorrows”--she had dropped her voice to a whisper, in a sort of shame at her own questionings--“I know to be quite natural; yet something seems still to be drawing me onwards, and to be making me dissatisfied with my lot. How ashamed I feel of my folly and fancifulness! But do not notice me: this despondency of mine will soon pass away, and I shall once more become bright and cheerful.”

She pressed herself closer with a timid caress, as though she were asking pardon for what she termed her “folly.” He questioned her as to her symptoms as a physician might have done, and, in return, she described to him her dull self-interrogations, her confusion of soul. Meanwhile Schtoltz paced the avenue with his head on his breast and his mind filled with doubt and anxiety--anxiety at the fact that he so little understood his wife. At length she, in her turn, drew him into the light of the moon, and gazed inquiringly into his eyes.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked bashfully. “Are you smiling at my foolishness? Yes, ’tis very foolish, this despondency of mine. Do you not think so?”

He made no reply.

“Why do you not speak?” she urged impatiently.

“You have long been keeping silence,” he replied, “although always you have known how solicitous I am on your account. Permit _me_, therefore, to keep silence and reflect.”

“Yet, if you do that, I shall feel uneasy. Never ought I to have spoken out. Pray say _something_.”

“What am I to say?” he asked meditatively. “It may be that a nervous break down is hanging over you. Should that be so, the doctor, not I, will have to decide how best you can be treated. I will send for him to-morrow. In any case, if the mischief is not that, then----”

“Then what?” she queried, shaking his arm.

“It is over-imagination on your part. You are too full of life and hitherto been maturing.” He was speaking rather to himself than to her.

“Pray utter your thoughts aloud, Andrei,”

“It is over--I am still maturing,” she said beseechingly. “I cannot bear it when you go muttering to yourself like that. I have told you of my follies, and you merely bow your head and mumble something into your beard. In this dark spot such conduct makes me feel uncomfortable.”

“I am at a loss what to say. You tell me, ‘Depression comes over me,’ and ‘I find myself troubled with disturbing questions.’ What am I to make of that? Let us speak on the subject again later, and in the meanwhile consider matters. Possibly you require a course of sea-bathing, or something of the kind.”

“But you said to yourself: ‘Hitherto you have been maturing.’ What did you mean by that?”

“I was thinking that, that----” He spoke slowly and hesitatingly, as though he were distrustful of his own thoughts and ashamed of his own words. “You see, there are moments when symptoms of this kind betoken that, if a woman has nothing radically wrong with her health, she has reached maturity--has arrived at the stage when life’s growth becomes arrested, and there remains for her no further problem to solve.”

“Then you mean that I am growing old?” she interrupted sharply. “How can you say that? I am still young and strong.” And she drew herself up as she spoke.

He smiled.

“Do not fear,” he said. “You are not of the kind that will ever grow old. True, in old age one’s energies fail, and one ceases to battle with life; but that is a very different thing. Provided it be what I take it to be, your sense of depression and weariness is a sign of vigour. Frequently the growings of a vivid, excitable intellect transcend the limits of everyday existence, and, finding no answer to what that intellect demands of life, become converted into despondency and a temporary dissatisfaction with life. The meaning of it is that the soul is sorrowful at having to ask life its secret. Perhaps such is the case with _you_. If so, you need not term it folly.”

She sighed, but, apparently, with relief at the thought that the danger was over, and that she had not fallen in her husband’s estimation.

“I am quite happy,” she repeated, “nor do I spend my time in dreaming, nor is my life monotonous. What more, then, is there for me to have? What do these questionings portend? They harass me like a sickness.”

“They are a spur to encourage a weak, groping intellect which has lacked full preparation. True, such depression and self-questionings have caused many to lose their senses; but to others they seem mere formless visions, a mere fever of the brain.”

“To think that just when one’s happiness is full to overflowing, and one is thoroughly in love with life, there should come upon one a taint of sorrow!” she murmured.

“Yes; such is the payment exacted for the Promethean fire. You must not only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts and the self-questionings of which you have spoken: for they constitute the excess, the luxury, of life, and show themselves most when happiness is at its zenith, and has alloyed with it no gross desires. Such troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who _voluntarily_ goes to meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge.”

“But one can never get even with them. To almost every one they bring sorrow and indifference.”

“Yes; but that does not last. Later they serve to shed light upon life, for they lead one to the edge of the abyss whence there is no return--then gently force one to turn once more and look upon life. Thus they seem to challenge one’s tried faculties in order that the latter may be prevented from sinking wholly into inertia.”

“And to think, also, that one should be disturbed by phantoms at all!” she lamented. “When all is bright, one’s life suddenly becomes overshadowed with some sinister influence. Is there _no_ resource against it?”

“Yes, there is one. That resource lies in life itself. Without such phantoms and such questionings life would soon become a wearisome business.”

“Then what ought I to do? To submit to them, and to wear out my heart?”

“No,” he replied. “Rather, arm yourself with resolution, and patiently, but firmly, pursue your way.” With that he embraced her tenderly. “You and I are not Titans; it is not for us to join the Manfreds and the Fausts of this world in going out to do battle with rebellious problems. Rather, let us decline the challenge of such difficulties, bow our heads, and quietly live through the juncture until such time as life shall have come to smile again, and happiness be once more ours.”

“But suppose they decline to pass us by? Will not our doubts and fears continue to increase?”

“No; for we shall accept them as a new verse in life’s poem. In this case, however, there is no fear of that. Your trouble is not peculiar to you alone; it is an infectious malady common to all humanity, of which a touch has visited you with the rest. Invariably does a human being feel lost when he or she first breaks away from life and finds no support in place of it. May God send that in the present instance this mood of yours be what I believe it to be, and not a forerunner of some bodily illness. That would be worse, for it would be the one thing before which I should be nerveless and destitute of weapons. Surely that cloud, that depression, those doubts, those self-questionings of yours, are not going to deprive us of our happiness, of our------?” before he could do so, she had flung herself upon him in a frantic embrace.

“Nothing shall _ever_ do that!” she murmured in an access of renewed joy and confidence. “No, neither doubts nor sorrow nor sickness! No, nor yet--nor yet death itself!” Never had she seemed to love him as she did at that moment.

“Take care that Fate does not overhear what you have whispered,” he interposed with a superstitious caution born of tender forethought for her. “Yes, take care that it does not rate you ungrateful, for it likes to have its gifts appreciated at their true worth. Hitherto you have been _learning_ only about life: now you are going also to experience it. Soon, as life pursues its course, there will come to you fresh sorrows and travail; and, together, they will force you to look beyond the questions of which you have spoken, and therefore you must husband your strength.”

Schtoltz uttered these words softly, and almost as though he were speaking to himself. And in the words was a note of despondency which seemed to say that already he could see approaching her “sorrows” and “travail.”

She said nothing--she was too deeply struck with the mournful foreboding in his tone. Yet she trusted him implicitly--his voice alone inspired in her belief; and for that very reason his gravity affected her deeply, and concentrated her thoughts upon herself. Leaning upon him, she paced the avenue slowly and mechanically, with her soul awed to a silence which she could not break. Following her husband’s eyes, she was gazing forward at the vista of life, and trying to discern the point where, according to his words, “sorrows and travail” were awaiting her. And as she did so she saw arise before her a vision in which there became revealed to her a sphere of life that was no longer to be bright and leisured and protected, that was no longer to be passed amid plenty, that was no longer to be spent alone with him. In that sphere she could descry only a long sequence of losses and privations, with copious tears, strict asceticism, involuntary renunciation of whims born of hours of ease, and new and unwonted sensations which should call forth from her cries of pain and disappointment. Yes, in that vision she saw before her only sickness, material ruin, the loss of her husband, and...

Shuddering and faltering, she, with a man’s courageous curiosity, continued to gaze at this unfamiliar presentment of life, and timidly to review and to estimate her ability to cope with it. Only love, she saw, would never fail her--only love would over this new existence keep ever-faithful watch and ward. Yet it would be love of a different kind. From it there would be absent all ardent sighs and shining days and rapturous nights; as the years went on such things would come to seem children’s sport compared with the non-intimate affection which life, now grown profound and menacing, would cause her to adopt for her guide. From that life came to her ears no sound of laughter and kisses and tremulous, soulful intercourse amid groves and flowers, while life and nature kept high holiday. No, such things were “withered and gone.” The love beheld in that vision was a love which, unfading and indestructible, expressed itself on the features of husband and wife only during seasons of mutual sorrow, and shone forth only in slow, silent glances of mutual sympathy, and voiced itself only in a constant, joint endurance of the trials of life as he and she restrained the tears, and choked back the sobs, which those trials called forth. With that there came stealing into the midst of the doubts and fears which beset her other visions--visions remote but clear, inspiring but definite....

*****

Her husband’s calm, assured reasoning, added to her own implicit confidence in him, helped Olga to succeed in shaking off both her enigmatical, singular misgivings and her visionary, menacing dreams concerning the future. Once more, therefore, she strode boldly forward. To the night of doubt there succeeded a brilliant morning of maternal and housewifely duties. On the one hand, there beckoned to her the flower garden and the meadows; on the other hand there beckoned to her her husband’s study. No longer did she play with life as with a means of carefree indulgence. Rather, life had become a season of mysterious, systematic waiting, and of getting ready.

Yet once, when Schtoltz happened to mention Oblomov’s name, she let fall her sewing, and sank into a reverie.

“What of him?” later she asked. “Could we not find out how he is through some of his friends?”

“Even so, we should find out no more than we know already. Independently of his friends, I happen to be aware that he is alive and well, and living in the same rooms as formerly. But how he is spending his days, and whether he is morally dead or still there is flickering in him a last spark of vitality, it is impossible for an outsider to ascertain.”

“Do not speak like that, Andrei,” said Olga. “It hurts me to hear you do so. Were I not afraid, I would go in person to glean news of him.” The tears had risen very near to her eyes.

“Next spring we ourselves shall be in Petrograd,” the husband remarked. “_Then_ we will find out.”

“But it is not sufficient merely to find out: we ought also to do all we can for him!”

“Already I have done what is possible. When one is with him he is ready to take any steps desired; but directly one’s back is turned he relapses into slumber. ’Tis like trying to deal with a drunken man.”

“Then why turn your back upon him _ever?_ He ought to be treated firmly--he ought to, be removed from his rooms and taken away. Were I to ask him, he would come with us into the country. I feel sure I should never get over it if I were to see him sink to rack and ruin. Perhaps my tears----”

“Might revive him, you think?”

“No, but at least compel him to look around him, and to exchange his life for something better. With us he would be out of the mire, and living among his equals.”

“Surely you do not love him as you used to do?” Schtoltz asked half-jestingly.

“No, I do not,” she replied (and as she did so her grave eyes seemed to be gazing back into the past). “Yet in him there is something for which I have an abiding affection, and to which I shall ever remain true.”

“Shall I tell you what that something is?” She nodded an assent.”’Tis an honourable, trustworthy heart. That heart is the nugget given him of Nature, and he has carried it unsullied through all his life. Under life’s stress he fell, lost his enthusiasm, and ended by going to sleep--a broken, disenchanted man who had lost his power to live, but not his purity and his intrinsic worth. Never a false note has that heart sounded; never a particle of mire has there clung to his soul; never a specious lie has he heeded; never to the false road has he been seduced by any possible attraction. Even were a whole ocean of evil and rascality to come seething about him, and even were the whole world to become infected with poison and be turned upside down, Oblomov would yet refuse to bow to the false image, and his soul would remain as clean, as radiant, and as without spot as ever. That soul is a soul of crystal transparency. Of men like him but few exist, so that they shine amid the mob like pearls. No price could be high enough to purchase his heart. Everywhere and always that heart would remain true to its trust. It is to this element in him that you have always remained true; and it is owing to the same element in him that my task of keeping watch will never become a burden. In my day I have known many men with splendid qualities. Never have I known a man cleaner, brighter, and more simple than Oblomov. For many a man have I cherished an affection. Never for a man have I cherished an affection more ardent and lasting than that which I cherish for Oblomov. Once known, his personality is an entity for which one’s love could never die.... Is that so? Have I divined aright?”

She said nothing: her eyes were fixed intently upon her work. At length she arose, ran to her husband, gazed into his eyes for a moment as she embraced him, and let her head sink forward upon his shoulder. During those few moments there had arisen to her memory Oblomov’s kindly, pensive face, his tender, deprecating gaze, and the shy, wistful smile with which, at their last parting, he had met her reproaches. As she saw those things her heart ached with pity.

“You will never abandon him--you will never let him leave your sight?” she asked with her arms around her husband’s neck.

“No, never!--not though an abyss should open between us, and a dividing wall arise!”

She kissed him.

“Nor shall I ever forget the words which you have just spoken,” she murmured.

III

In the Veaborg Quarter peace and quietness reigned supreme. They reigned in its unwashed streets, with their wooden sidewalks, and in its lean gardens amid the nettle-encumbered ditches, where a goat with a ragged cord around its neck was diligently engaged in cropping the herbage and snatching dull intervals of slumber. At midday, however, the high, smart boots of a clerk clattered along a sidewalk, the muslin curtain at a window was pulled aside to admit the features of a Civil Service official’s lady, and for a brief moment there showed itself over a garden fence the fresh young face of a girl--then the face of a companion--then the face which had first appeared, as two maidens laughed and tittered during the process cf swinging each other on a garden swing.

Also in the abode of Oblomov’s landlady all was quiet. Had you entered the little courtyard, you would have happened upon an idyllic scene. The poultry would have started running hither and thither in fussy alarm, and the dogs given tongue in furious accents, while Akulina would have paused in her pursuit of milking the cow, and the _dvornik_ in his task of chopping firewood, in order that they might gaze unhampered at the visitor. “Whom do you wish to see?” the _dvornik_ would have inquired; and on your mentioning Oblomov’s name, or that of the mistress of the house, he would have pointed to the steps of the front door, and then resumed his task of wood-chopping; whereupon the visitor would have followed the neat, sanded path to the steps (which he would have found covered with a plain, clean carpet of some sort), and, reaching for the brightly polished knob of the doorbell, would have had the door opened to him by Anisia, one of the children, the landlady herself, or Zakhar. Everything in Agafia Matvievna’s establishment smacked of an opulence and a domestic sufficiency which had been lacking in the days when she had shared house with her brother, Tarantiev’s bosom friend. The kitchen, the lumber-room, and the pantry were alike fitted with cupboards full of china, crockery, and household wares of every sort; while in cases were set out Oblomov’s plate and articles of silver (long ago redeemed, and never since pledged). In short, the place abounded in such commodities as are to be found in the abode of every frugal housewife. Also, so carefully was everything packed in camphor and other preservatives that when Agafia Matvievna went to open the doors of the cupboards she could scarcely stand against the overwhelming perfume of mingled narcotics which came forth, and had to turn her head aside for a few moments. Hams hung from the ceiling of the storeroom (to avoid damage by mice), and, with them, cheeses, loaves-of--sugar, dried fish, and bags of nuts and preserved mushrooms. On a table stood tubs of butter, pots of sour cream, baskets of apples, and God knows what else besides, for it would require the pen of a scribe Homer to describe in full, and in detail, all that had become accumulated in the various corners and on the various floors of this little nest of domestic life. As for the kitchen, it was a veritable palladium of activity on the part of the mistress and her efficient assistant, Anisia. Everything was kept indoors and in its proper place; throughout there prevailed a system of orderliness and cleanliness; and only into one particular nook of the house did a ray of light, a breath of air, the good housewife’s eye, and the nimble, all-furbishing hand of the domestic never penetrate. That nook was Zakhar’s den. Lacking a window, it was so constantly plunged in darkness that its resemblance to a lair rather than to a human habitation was rendered the more complete. Whenever Zakhar surprised in his den the mistress of the house (come thither to plan a cleaning or various improvements) he explained to her, in forcible terms, that it was not a woman’s business to sweep out a place where faggots, blacking, and boots ought to lie, and that it mattered not a jot that clothes should be tossed in a heap on the floor, or that the bed in the stove corner had become overspread with dust, seeing that it was he, and not she, whose function it was to repose upon that bed. As for a besom, a few planks, a couple of bricks, the remains of a barrel, and two blocks of wood which he always kept in his room, he could not, he averred, get on in his domestic duties without them (though why that was so he left to the imagination). Finally, according to his own statement, neither the dust nor the cobwebs in the least inconvenienced him--to which he begged to add a reminder that, since he never obtruded his nose into the kitchen, he should be the more pleased if he could be left alone by those to whom the kitchen was at all times open. Once, when he surprised Anisia in his sanctum, he threatened her so furiously with uplifted fist that the case was referred to the court of superior instance--that is to say, to Oblomov himself, who walked supinely to the door of the den, inserted his head therein, scanned the apartment and its contents, sneezed, and returned mutely to his own quarters.

“What have you gained by it all?” said Zakhar to the mistress and her myrmidon, who had accompanied Oblomov, in the hope that his participation in the affair would lead to a change of some sort. Then the old valet laughed to himself in a way which twisted his eyebrows and whiskers askew.

In the other rooms of the house, however, everything looked bright and clean and fresh. The old stuff curtains had disappeared, and the doors and windows of the drawing-room and the study were hung with blue and green drapery and muslin curtains--the work of Agafia Matvievna’s own hands. Indeed, for days at a time Oblomov, prone upon his sofa, had watched her bare elbows flicker to and fro as she plied needle and thread; nor had he once gone to sleep to the sound of thread being alternately inserted and bitten off, as had been his custom in the old days at Oblomovka.

“Enough of work,” he had nevertheless said to her at intervals, “Pray cease your labours for a while.”

“Nay,” she had always replied, “God loves those who toil.”

Nor was his coffee prepared for him with less care, attention, and skill than had been the case before he had changed his old quarters for his present ones. Giblet soup, macaroni with Parmesan cheese, soup concocted of _kvass_ and herbs, home-fed pullets--all these dishes succeeded one another in regular rotation, and by so doing helped to make agreeable breaks in the otherwise monotonous routine of the little establishment. Nor did the sun, whenever shining, fail to brighten his room from morning till night--thanks to the fact that the market-gardens on either side of the building prevented that luminary’s rays from being shaded off by any obstacle. Outside, ducks quacked cheerfully, while, within, a geranium, added to a few hyacinths which the children had brought home, filled the little apartment with a perfume which mingled pleasantly with the smoke of Havana cigars and the scent of the cinnamon or the vanilla which the mistress of the house would be preparing with bare, energetic arms.

Thus Oblomov lived in a sort of gilded cage--a cage within which, as in a diorama, the only changes included alternations of day and night and of the seasons. Of changes of the disturbing kind which stir up the sediment from the bottom of life’s bowl--a sediment only too frequently both bitter and obnoxious--there were none. Ever since the day when Schtoltz had cleared him of debt, and Tarantiev and Tarantiev’s friend had taken themselves off for good, every adverse element had disappeared from Oblomov’s existence, and there surrounded him only good, kind, sensible folk who had agreed to underpin his existence with theirs, and to help him not to notice it, nor to feel it, as it pursued its even course. Everything was, as it were, at peace, and of that peace, that inertia, Oblomov represented the complete, the natural, embodiment and expression. After passing in review and considering his mode of life, he had sunk deeper and deeper therein, until finally he had come to the conclusion that he had no farther to go, and nothing farther to seek, and that the ideal of his life would best be preserved where he was--albeit without poetry, without those finer shades wherewith his imagination had once painted for him a spacious, careless course of manorial life on his own estate and among his own peasantry and servants.

Upon his present mode of life he looked as a continuation of the Oblomovkan existence (only with a different colouring of locality, and, to a certain extent, of period). Here, as at Oblomovka, he had succeeded in escaping life, in driving a bargain with it, and ensuring to himself an inviolable seclusion. Inwardly he congratulated himself on having left behind him the irksome, irritating demands and menaces cf mundane existence--on having placed a great distance between himself and the horizon where there may be seen flashing the lightning-bolts of keen pleasure, and whence come the thunderpeals of sudden affliction, and where flicker the false hopes and the splendid visions of average happiness, and where independence of thought gradually engulfs and devours a man, and where passion slays him outright, and where the intellect fails or triumphs, and where humanity engages in constant warfare, and leaves the field of battle in a state of exhaustion and of ever-unsatisfied, ever-insatiable desire. Never having experienced the consolations to be won in combat, he had none the less renounced them, and felt at ease only in a remote corner to which action and lighting and the actual living of life were alike strangers.

Yet moments there were when his imagination stirred within him again, and when there recurred to his mind forgotten memories and unrealized dreams, and when he felt in his conscience whispered reproaches for having made of his life so little as he had done. And whenever that occurred he slept restlessly, awoke at intervals, leaped out of bed, and shed chill tears of hopelessness over the bright ideal that was now extinguished for ever. He shed them as folk shed them over a dead friend whom with bitter regret they recognize to have been neglected during his lifetime. Then he would glance at his surroundings, hug to himself his present blessings, and grow comforted on noting how quietly, how restfully, the sun was rising amid a blaze of glory. Thus he had come to a decision that not only was his life compounded in the best manner for expressing the possibilities to which the idealistic-peaceful side of human existence may attain, but also that it had been expressly created for and preordained to, that purpose. To others, he reflected, let it fall to express life’s restless aspects; to others let it be given to exercise forces of construction and destruction; to each man be allotted his true _métier_.

Such the philosophy which our Plato of Oblomovka elaborated for the purpose of lulling himself to sleep amid the problems and the stern demands of duty and of destiny. He had been bred and nourished to play the part, not of a gladiator in the arena but of a peaceful onlooker at the struggle. Never could his diffident, lethargic spirit have faced either the raptures or the blows of life. Hence he expressed only one of its aspects, and had no mind either to succeed in it, or to change anything in it, or to repent of his decision. As the years flowed on both emotion and repining came to manifest themselves at rarer and rarer intervals, until, by quiet, imperceptible degrees, he became finally interned in the plain, otiose tomb of retirement which he had fashioned with his own hands, even as desert anchorites who have turned from the world dig for themselves a material sepulchre. Of reorganizing his estate, and removing thither with his household; he had given up all thought. The steward whom Schtoltz had placed in charge of Oblomovka regularly sent him the income therefrom, and the peasantry proffered him flour and poultry at Christmastide, and everything on the estate was prospering.

Meanwhile he ate heartily and much, even as he had done at Oblomovka. Also, he walked and worked sluggishly and little--again, as he had done at Oblomovka. Lastly, in spite of his advancing years, he drank beer and _vodka à raisin_ with complete _insouciance_, and took to sleeping ever more and more protractedly after dinner.

But suddenly a change occurred. One day, after his usual quota of slumber and day dreams, he tried to rise from the sofa, but failed, and his tongue refused to obey him. Terrified, he could compass only a gesture when he tried to call for help. Had he been living with Zakhar alone, he might have continued to signal for assistance until next morning, or have died, and not been found there till the following day; but, as it was, the eyes of his landlady had been watching over him like the eyes of Providence itself, and it cost her no skill of wit, but only an instinct of the heart, to divine that all was not well with Oblomov. No sooner had the instinct dawned upon her than Anisia was dispatched in a cab for a doctor, while Agafia Matvievna herself applied ice to the patient’s head, and extracted from her medicine chest the whole armoury of smelling-bottles and fomentations which custom and report had designated for use at such a juncture. Even Zakhar managed to get one of his boots on, and, thus shod, to fuss around his master in company with the doctor, the mistress of the house, and Anisia.

At length, blood having been let, Oblomov returned to consciousness, and was informed that he had just sustained an apoplectic stroke, and that he must adopt a different course of life. Henceforth, _vodka_, beer, wine, coffee, and rich food were, with certain exceptions, to be prohibited, while in their place there were prescribed for him daily exercise and a regular amount of sleep of an exclusively nocturnal nature. Even then these remedies would have come to nothing but for Agafia Matvievna’s watchfulness; but she had the wit so to introduce the system that the entire household involuntarily assisted in its working. Thus, partly by, cunning and partly by kindness, she contrived to wean Oblomov from his attractive indulgences in wind, postprandial slumber, and fish pasties. For instance, as soon as ever he began to doze, either a chair would be unset in an adjoining room, or, of its own volition, some old and worthless crockery would begin flying into splinters, or the children would start making a noise, and be told, _fortissimo_, to be gone. Lastly, should even this not prove effective, her own kindly voice would be heard calling to him, in order to ask him some question or another.

Also, the garden path was lengthened, and on it Oblomov accomplished, morning and evening, a constitutional of some two hours’ duration. With him there would walk the landlady--or, if she could not attend, one of the children, or his old friend, the irresponsible and to every man both humble and agreeable Alexiev. One morning Oblomov, leaning on the boy Vania’s arm, slowly paced the path. By this time Vania had grown into almost a youth, and found it hard to restrict his brisk, rapid step to Oblomov’s more tardy gait. As the elder man walked he made little use of one of his legs, which was a trace of the stroke which he had recently sustained.

“Let us go indoors now, Vaniushka,” he said; wherefore they directed their steps towards the door. But to meet them! there issued Agafia Matvievna.

“Why are you coming in so early?” she inquired.

“Early, indeed? Why, we have paced the path twenty times each way, and from here to the fence is a distance of fifty _sazhens_; wherefore we have covered two versts in all.”

“And how many times do _you_ say you have paced it?” she inquired of Vania.

He hesitated.

“Do not lie, but look me straight in the face,” she continued, fixing him with her gaze. “I have been watching you the whole time. Remember next Sunday. Possibly I might not let you go to the party that night.”

“Well, mother,” the boy said at length, “we have paced the path only _twelve_ times.”

“Ah, you rogue!” exclaimed Oblomov. “You were nipping off acacia-leaves all the time, whereas _I_ was keeping the most careful account.”

“Then you must go and do some more walking,” decided the landlady. “Besides, the fish soup is not yet ready.” And she closed the door upon the pair.

Oblomov, much against his will, completed another eight pacings of the path, and then entered the dining-room. On the large round table the fish soup was now steaming, and all hastened to take their usual seats--Oblomov in solitary state on the sofa, the landlady on his right, and the rest in due sequence.

“I will help you to _this_ herring, as it is the fattest,” said Agafia Matvievna.

“Very well,” he remarked. “Only, I think that a pie would go well with it.”

“Oh dear! I have forgotten the pies! I meant to make some last night, but my memory is all gone to pieces!” The artful Agafia Matvievna! “Besides, I am afraid that I have forgotten the cutlets and the cabbage. In fact, you must not expect very much of a dinner to-day.” This was addressed ostensibly to Alexiev.

“Never mind,” he replied. “I can eat anything.”

“But why not cook him some pork and peas, or a beef-steak?” asked Oblomov.

“I _did_ go to the butcher’s for a beefsteak, but there was not a single morsel of good beef left. However, I have made Monsieur Alexiev a cherry _compote_ instead. I know he likes that.” The truth was that cherry _compote was not_ bad for Oblomov; wherefore the complacent Alexiev had no choice but both to eat it and to like it.

After dinner no power on earth could prevent Oblomov from assuming a recumbent position; so, to obviate his going to sleep, the landlady was accustomed to place beside him his coffee, and then to inspire, her children to play games on the floor, so that, willy-nilly, Oblomov should be forced to join in their sport. Presently she withdrew to the kitchen to see if the coffee was yet ready, and, meanwhile, the children’s clatter died away. Almost at once a gentle snore arose in the room--then a louder one--then one louder still; and when Agafia Matvievna returned with the steaming coffee-pot she encountered such a volume of snoring as would have done credit to a post-house.

Angrily she shook her head at Alexiev.

“It is not my fault,” he said deprecatingly. “I tried to stir up the children, but they would not listen to me.”

Swiftly depositing the coffee-pot upon the table, she caught up little Andriusha from the floor, and gently seated him upon the sofa by Oblomov’s side; whereupon the child wriggled towards him, climbed his form until he had reached his face, and grasped him firmly by the nose.

“Hi! Hullo! Who is that?” cried Oblomov uneasily as he opened his eyes.

“You had gone to sleep, so Andriusha climbed on to the sofa and awoke you,” replied the landlady kindly.

“I had gone to sleep, indeed?” retorted Oblomov, laying his arm around the little one. “Do you think I did not hear him creeping along on all fours? Why, I hear _everything_. To think of the little rascal catching me by the nose! I’ll give it him! But there, there.” Tenderly embracing the child, he deposited him on the floor again, and heaved a profound sigh. “Tell us the news, Ivan Alexiev,” he said.

“You have heard it all. I have nothing more to tell.”

“How so? You go into society, and I do not. Is there nothing new in the political world?”

“It is being said that the earth is growing colder every day, and that one day it will become frozen altogether.”

“Away with you! Is _that_ politics?”

A silence ensued. Oblomov quietly relapsed into a state of coma that was neither sleeping nor waking. He merely let his thoughts wander at will, without concentrating them upon anything in particular as calmly he listened to the beating of his heart and occasionally blinked his eyes. Thus he sank into a vague, enigmatical condition which partook largely of the nature of hallucination. In rare instances there come to a man fleeting moments of abstraction when he seems to be reliving past stages of his life. Whether he has previously beheld in sleep the phenomena which are passing before his vision, or whether he has gone through a previous existence and has since forgotten it, we cannot say; but at all events he can see the same persons around him as were present in the first instance, and hear the same words as were uttered then.

So was it with Oblomov now. Gradually there spread itself about him the hush which he had known long ago. He could hear the beating of the well-known pendulum, the snapping of the thread as it was bitten off, and the repetition of familiar whispered sentences like “I cannot make the thread go through the eye of the needle. Pray do it for me, Masha--your eyesight is keener than mine.”

Lazily, mechanically he looked into his landlady’s face; and straightway from the recesses of his memory there arose a picture which, somewhere, had been well known to him.

To his vision there dawned the great, dark drawing-room in the house of his youth, lit by a single candle. At the table his mother and her guests were sitting over their needlework, while his father was silently pacing up and down. Somehow the present and the past had become fused and interchanged, so that, as the little Oblomov, he was dreaming that at length he had reached the enchanted country where the rivers run milk and honey, and bread can be obtained without toil, and every one walks clad in gold and silver.

Once again he could hear the old legends and the old folk-tales, mingled with the clatter of knives and crockery in the kitchen. Once again he was pressing close to his nurse to listen to her tremulous, old woman’s voice. “That is Militrissa Kirbitievna,” she was saying as she pointed to the figure of his landlady. Also, the same clouds seemed to be floating in the blue zenith that used to float there of yore, and the same wind to be blowing in at the window, and ruffling his hair, and the same cock of the Oblomovkan poultry-yard to be strutting and crowing below. Suddenly a dog barked. Some other guest must be arriving! Would it be old Schtoltz and his little boy from Verklevo? Yes, probably, for to-day is a holiday. And in very truth it _is_ they--he can hear their footsteps approaching nearer and nearer! The door opens, and “Andrei!” he exclaims excitedly, for there, sure enough, stands his friend--but now grown to manhood, and no longer a little boy!...

IV

Oblomov recovered consciousness. Before him Schtoltz _was_ standing--but the Schtoltz of the present, not the Schtoltz of a daydream.

Swiftly the landlady caught up the baby Andriusha, swept the table clear of her work, and carried off the children. Alexiev also disappeared, and Schtoltz and Oblomov found themselves alone. For a moment or two they gazed at one another amid a tense silence.

“Is that really you. Schtoltz?” asked Oblomov in tones scarcely audible for emotion--such tones as a man employs only towards his dearest friend and after a long separation.

“Yes, it is I,” replied Schtoltz quietly. “And you--are you quite well?”

Oblomov embraced him heartily. In that embrace were expressed all the long-concealed grief and joy which, fermenting ever in his soul, had never, since Schtoltz’s last departure, been expressed to any human being. Then they seated themselves, and once more gazed at one another.

“Are you _really_ well?” Schtoltz asked again.

“Yes, thank God!” replied Oblomov. “But you have been ill?”

“Yes--I was seized with a stroke.”

“Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Evidently you have let yourself go again. What have you been doing? Actually, it is five years since last we saw one another!”

Oblomov sighed, but said nothing.

“And why did you not come to Oblomovka?” pursued Schtoltz. “And why have you never written to me?”

“What was there to say?” was Oblomov’s sad reply. “You know me. Consequently you need ask no more.”

“So you are still living in these rooms?” And Schtoltz surveyed the room as he spoke. “Why have you not moved?”

“Because I am still here. I do not think the move will ever take place.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because I _am_ sure.”

Again Schtoltz eyed him closely, then became thoughtful, and started to pace the room.

“And what of Olga Sergievna?” was Oblomov’s next question. “Where is she now, and does she still remember me?” At this point he broke off abruptly.

“Yes, she is well, and has of you a remembrance as clear as though she had parted from you yesterday. Presently I will tell you where she is.”

“And your children?”

“The children too are well. But are you jesting when you say that you are going to remain where you are? My express purpose in coming here is to carry you off to our place in the country.”

“No, no!” cried Oblomov, though lowering his voice as he glanced at the door. Evidently the proposal had disturbed him greatly. “Do not say a word about it,” he pleaded. “Do not begin your arguments again.”

“But why will you not come? What is the matter with you? You know me well, and know that long ago I undertook this task, and shall never relinquish it. Hitherto business affairs have occupied my time, but now I am free once more. Come and live with us, or, at all events, near us. Olga and I have decided that you _must_ do so. Thank God that I have found you the same as before, and not worse! My hopes of doing that had been small. Let us be off at once. I am prepared even to abduct you by force. You _must_ change your mode of life, as you well know.”

To this speech Oblomov listened with impatience.

“Do not speak so loudly,” he urged. “In there----”

“Well--in there?”

“Is the landlady, and, should she hear us, she will think that I am going to leave her.”

“And why should you not leave her? Let her think what she likes!”

“Listen, Andrei.” Oblomov’s tone was one of unwonted firmness. “Do not continue your useless attempts to persuade me. Come what may, I must remain where I am.”

Schtoltz gazed at his friend in astonishment, but Oblomov returned the gaze with quiet resolution on his features.

“Remain here, and you are lost,” said Schtoltz. “This house, that woman, this way of living?--I tell you the thing cannot be. Let us go.”

He caught Oblomov by the sleeve, and started to drag him towards the door.

“Why do you want to take me away?” asked Oblomov, hanging back.

“Because I want you to leave this den, this swamp, for the world of light and air and health and normal existence.” Schtoltz was speaking sternly, and almost in a tone of command. “To what point have you sunk?” he went on. “What is going to become of you? Think for a moment. Are you so attached to this mode of life that you wish to go to sleep like a mole in its burrow? Remember that-----”

“I desire to remember nothing. Do not disturb the past. It can never be brought back again.” Into Oblomov’s face there had come a full consciousness of his power to think, to reason, and to will. “What is it you wish me to do? From the world to which you would abduct me I have parted for ever; and to solder together two pieces which have started asunder is impossible. I have grown to look upon this nook as my world. Should you uproot me from it, I shall die.”

“But look at the place, at the people with whom you are living!”

“I know what you mean--I am perfectly conscious of the facts. Ah, Andrei, believe me when I say that so well do I feel and understand things that for many a day past I have been ashamed to show myself abroad. Yet I cannot accompany you on your road. Even did I wish it, such a course is out of my power. Possibly, when you were last here, I _might_ have made the attempt; but now”--here he dropped his eyes for a moment and paused--“now it is too late. Go, and waste no further time upon me. Your friendship, as God in heaven knows, I value; but your disturbance of my peace I do _not_ value.”

“Nothing that you can say will turn me from my purpose. I intend to carry you off, ard the more so because I suspect certain things. Look here. Put on a garment of some sort, and come and spend the evening at my rooms. I have much to tell you, for I suppose you know what is afoot at our place?”

Oblomov looked at him inquiringly.

“Ah, I had forgotten,” Schtoltz went on. “You no longer go into society. Well, come with me, and I will tell you the whole story. Also, do you know who is waiting for me in a carriage at the gates? I will go and call her in.”

“What? Olga?” As the words burst tremulously from Oblomov’s lips his face underwent a sudden change. “For God’s sake do not bring her here! Go, go for God’s sake!”

But the elder man refused to move, although his friend half started to push him towards the door.

“I cannot return to her without you,” he said. “I have pledged my word on that. If you will not come with me to-day, then you must come to-morrow. You are merely putting me off for a time: you will never put me off for ever. Even should it be the day after to-morrow, we still shall meet again.”

Oblomov said nothing, but hung his head as though afraid to meet Schtoltz’s eye.

“When are you coming, therefore?” went on Schtoltz. “Olga will be sure to ask me when.”

“Ah, Andrei,” cried the other in a tone of affectionate appeal as he embraced his friend and laid his head upon his shoulder, “Pray leave me and--_forget_ me.”

“What? For ever?” cried Schtoltz in astonishment as he withdrew a little from Oblomov’s embrace in order the better to look him in the face.

“Yes,” whispered Oblomov.

Schtoltz stepped back a pace or two.

“Can this really be you, Ilya?” he exclaimed reproachfully. “Do you really reject me in favour of that woman, of that landlady of yours?” He started with a sudden pang. “So that child which I saw just new is _your_ child? Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Come hence at once. How you have fallen! What is that woman to you?”

“She is my wife,” said Oblomov simply.

Schtoltz stood petrified.

“Yes, and the child is my son,” Oblomov continued. “He has been called Andrei after yourself.” Somehow he seemed to breathe more freely now that he had got rid of the burden of these disclosures. As for Schtoltz, his face fell, and he gazed around the room with vacant eyes. A gulf had opened before him, a high wall had suddenly shot up, and Oblomov seemed to have ceased to exist--he seemed to have vanished from his friend’s sight, and to have fallen headlong. The only feeling in Schtoltz’s mind was an aching sorrow of the kind which a man experiences when, hastening to visit a friend after a long parting, he finds that for many a day past that friend has been dead.

“You are lost!” he kept whispering mechanically. “What am I to say to Olga?”

At length Oblomov caught the last words, and tried to say something, but failed. All he could do was to extend his hands in Schtoltz’s direction. Silently, convulsively the pair embraced, even as before death or a battle. In that embrace was left no room for words or tears or expressions of feeling.

“Never forget my little Andrei,” was Oblomov’s last choking utterance. Slowly and silently Schtoltz left the house. Slowly and silently he crossed the courtyard and entered the carriage. When he had gone Oblomov reseated himself upon the sofa in his room, rested his elbows upon the table, and buried his face in his hands....

“No, never will I forget your little Andrei,” thought Schtoltz sadly as he drove homewards. “Ah, Ilya, you are lost beyond recall! It would be useless now to tell you that your Oblomovka is no longer in ruins, that its turn is come again, and that it is basking in the rays of the sun. It would be useless now to tell you that, some four years hence, it will have a railway-station, and that your peasantry are clearing away the rubbish there, and that before long an iron road will be carrying your grain to the wharves, and that already local schools have been built. Such a dawn of good fortune would merely affright you; it would merely cause your unaccustomed eyes to smart. Yet along the road which you could not tread I will lead your little Andrei; and with him I will put into practice those theories whereof you and I used to dream in the days of our youth. Farewell, Oblomovka of the past! You have outlived your day!” For the last time Schtoltz looked back at Oblomov’s diminutive establishment.

“What do you say?” asked Olga with a beating heart.

“Nothing,” Schtoltz answered dryly and abruptly.

“Is he alive and well?”

“Yes,” came the reluctant reply.

“Then why have you returned so soon? Why did you not call me to the house, or else bring him out to see me? Let me go back, please.”

“No, you cannot.”

“Why so? What has happened there? Will you not tell me?”

Schtoltz continued to say nothing.

“Again I ask you: what is the matter with him?”

“The disease of Oblomovka,” was the grim response. And throughout the rest of the journey homeward Schtoltz refused to answer a single one of Olga’s questions.

V

Five years have passed, and more than one change has taken place in the Veaborg Quarter. The street which used to lead, unenclosed, to Oblomov’s humble abode is now lined with villas. In the midst of them a tall stone Government office rears its head between the sunlight and the windows of that quiet, peaceful little house which the sun’s rays once warmed so cheerfully.

The house itself has grown old and crazy: it wears a dull, neglected look like that of a man who is unshaven and unwashed. In places the paint has peeled away, and in others the gutters are broken. To the latter is due the fact that pools of dirty water stand in the courtyard, and that thrown across them is a piece of old planking. Should a visitor approach the wicket, the old watchdog no longer leaps nimbly to the extent of his chain, but gives tongue hoarsely and lazily from the interior of his kennel.

And, within the house, what changes have taken place! Over it there reigns a different housewife to the former one, and different children sport in play. Again is seen about the premises the lean countenance of Tarantiev, rather than the kindly, careless features of Alexiev; while of Zakhar and Anisia also there is not a sign discernible. A new cook performs, rudely and unwillingly, the quiet behests of Agafia Matvievna, and our old friend Akulina--her apron girded around her middle--washes up, as formerly, the domestic crockery and the pots and pans. Lastly, the same old sleepy _dvornik_ whiles away the same old idle life in the same old den by the gates, and at a given hour each morning, as well as always at the hour of the evening meal, there flashes past the railings of the fence the figure of Agafia’s brother, clad, summer and winter alike, in galoshes, and always carrying under his arm a large bundle of documents.

But what of Oblomov? Where is he--where? Under a modest urn in the adjoining cemetery his body rests among the shrubs. All is quiet where he is lying; only a lilac-tree, planted there by a loving hand, waves its boughs to and fro over the grave as it mingles its scent with the sweet, calm odour of wormwood. One would think that the _Angel of Peace_ himself were watching over the dead man’s slumbers....

Despite his wife’s ceaseless and devoted care for every moment of his existence, the prolonged inertia, the unbroken stillness, the sluggish gliding from day to day had ended by quietly arresting the machine of life. Thus Oblomov met his end, to all appearances without pain, without distress, even as stops a watch which its owner has--forgotten to wind up. No one witnessed his last moments or heard his expiring gasp. A second stroke of apoplexy occurred within a year of the first, and, like its precursor, passed away favourably. Later, however, Oblomov became pale and weak, took to eating little and seldom walking in the garden, and increased in moodiness and taciturnity as the days went on. At times he would even burst into tears, for he felt death drawing nearer, and was afraid of it. One or two relapses occurred, from which he rallied, and then Agafia Matvievna entered his room, one morning, to find him resting on his deathbed as quietly as he had done in sleep--the only difference being that his head had slipped a little from the pillow, and that one of his hands was convulsively clutching the region of the heart in a manner which suggested that the pain had there centred itself until the circulation of the blood had stopped for ever.

After his death Agafia Matvievna’s sister-in-law, Irina Paptelievna, assumed control of the establishment. That is to say, she arrogated to herself the right to rise late in the morning, to drink three cups of coffee for breakfast, to change her dress three times a day, and to confine her housewifely energies to seeing that her gowns were starched to the utmost degree of stiffness. More she would not trouble to undertake, and, as before, Agafia Matvievna remained the active pendulum of the domestic clock. Not only did she superintend the kitchen and the dining-room, and prepare tea and coffee for the entire household, but also she did the general mending and supervised the linen, the children, Akulina, and the _dvornik_.

Why was this? Was she not Madame Oblomov and the proprietress of a landed estate? Might she not have maintained a separate, an independent establishment, and have wanted for nothing, and have been at no one’s beck and call? What had led her to take upon her shoulders the burden of another’s housekeeping, the care of another’s children, and all those petty details which women usually assume only at the call of love, or in obedience to sacred family ties, or for the purpose of earning a morsel of daily bread? Where, too, were Zakhar and Anisia--now become, by every right of law, her servants? Where, too, was the little treasure, Andrei, which Oblomov had bequeathed her? Where, finally, were her children by her first husband?

Those children were now all provided for. That is to say, Vania had finished his schooling and entered Government service, his sister had married the manager of a Government office, and little Andrei had been committed to the care of Schtoltz and his wife, who looked upon him as a member of their own family. Never for a moment did Agafia Matvievna mentally compare his lot, or place it on a level with, that of her first children--although, unconsciously it may be, she allotted them all an equal place in her heart. In her opinion the little Andrei’s upbringing, mode of life, and future career stood divided by an immeasurable gulf from the fortunes of Vania and his sister.

“What are _they?_” she would say to herself when she called to see Andrei. “They are children born of the people, whereas this one was born a young _barin_.”

Then she would caress the boy, if not with actual timidity, at all events with a certain touch of caution, and add to herself with something like respect: “What a white skin he has! ’Tis almost transparent. And what tiny hands and feet, too, and what silky hair! He is just like his dead father.” Consequently she was the more ready to accede to Schtoltz’s request when he asked her that he (Schtoltz) should educate the youngster; since she felt sure that Schtoltz’s household was far more the lad’s proper place than was her own establishment, where he would have been thrown among her grimy young nephews.

Clad in black, she would glide like a shadow from room to room of the house--opening and shutting cupboards, sewing, making lace, but doing everything quietly, and without the least sign of energy. When spoken to, she would reply as though to do so were an effort. Moreover, her eyes no longer glanced swiftly from object to object, as they had done in the old days: rather, they remained fixed in a sort of ever concentrated gaze. Probably they had assumed that gaze during the hour when she had stood looking at her dead husband’s face.

That the light of her life was fast flickering before going out, that God had breathed His breath into her existence and taken it away again, and that her sun had shone brilliantly and was setting for ever, she clearly understood. Yes, that sun was setting for ever, but not before she had learnt the reason why she had been given life, and the fact that she had not lived in vain. Greatly she had loved, and to the full: she had loved _Oblomov_ as a lover, as a husband, and as a _barin_. But around her there was no one to comprehend this; wherefore she kept her grief the more closely locked, in her own bosom.

Only, next winter, when Schtoltz came to town, she ran to see him, and to gaze hungrily at little Andrei, whom she covered with caresses. Presently she tried to say something--to thank Schtoltz, and to pour out before him all that had been accumulating in her heart in the absence of an outlet. Such words he would have understood perfectly, had they been uttered. But the task was beyond her--she could only throw herself upon Olga, glue her lips to her hand, and burst into such a torrent of scalding tears that perforce Olga wept with her, and Schtoltz, greatly moved, hastened from the room. All three had now a common bond of sympathy--that bond being the memory of Oblomov’s unsullied soul. More than once Schtoltz and Olga besought the widow to come and live with them in the country, but always she replied: “Where I was born and have lived my live, there must I also die.” Likewise, when Schtoltz proposed to render her an account of his management of the Oblomovkan property, she returned him the income therefrom, with a request that he should lay it by for the benefit of little Andrei.

“’Tis his, not mine,” she said. “_He_ is the _barin_, and I will continue to live as I have always done.”

VI

One day, about noon, two gentlemen were walking along a pavement in the Veaborg Quarter, while behind them a carriage quietly paced. One of the gentlemen was Schtoltz, the other a literary friend of his--a stout individual with an apathetic face and sleepy, meditative eyes. As they drew level with a church, Mass had just ended, and the congregation was pouring into the street. In front of them a knot of beggars was collecting a rich and varied harvest.

“I wonder where these mendicants come from,” said the literary gentleman, glancing at the reapers.

“Out of sundry nooks and corners, I suppose,” replied the other carelessly.

“That is not what I meant. What I meant is, how have they descended to their present position of beggars? Have they come to it suddenly or gradually, for a good reason or for a bad one?”

“Why are you so anxious to know? Are you contemplating writing a ‘Mysteries of Petrograd’?”

“Perhaps I am,” the literary gentleman explained with an indolent yawn.

“Then here is a chance for you. Ask any one of them, and, for the sum of a rouble, he will sell you his story, which, jotted down, you could resell to the nobility. For instance, take this old man here. He looks a good example of the normal type. Hi, old man! We want you!”

The old man turned his head at the summons, doffed his cap, and approached the two gentlemen.

“Good sirs,” he whined, “pray help a poor man who has been wounded in thirty battles and grown old in war.”

“It is Zakhar!” exclaimed Schtoltz in astonishment. “It _is_ you, Zakhar, is it not?”

But Zakhar said nothing. Then suddenly, he shaded his eyes from the sun, and, staring intently at Schtoltz, muttered--

“Pardon me, your Honour--I do not recognize you. I am nearly blind.”

“What? You have forgotten your old friend, the _bavin_ Schtoltz?” the other asked reproachfully.

“Dear, dear! Is it _really_ your Honour? My bad sight has got the better of me.”

Catching Schtoltz impetuously by the hand, the old man imprinted kiss after kiss upon the skirt of his coat.

“The Lord Himself has permitted a poor lost wretch to see a joyful day!” he said, half-laughing, half-crying. Over his face, and particularly over his nose, there had spread a purplish tinge, while his head was almost completely bald, and his whiskers, though still long, looked so matted and entangled as to resemble pieces of felt wherein snowballs have been wrapped. As for his clothing, it consisted of an old, faded cloak, with one of the lapels missing, and a pair of down-at-heel goloshes. In his hands was a cap from which the fur had become worn away.

“Ah, good sir!” he repeated. “Heaven has indeed granted me joy for to-day’s festival!”

“But why are you in this state?” Schtoltz inquired. “Are you not ashamed of yourself?”

“Yes, your Honour; but what else could I do?” And Zakhar heaved a profound sigh. “How else was I to live? So long as Anisia was alive I had _not_ to go wandering about like this, for I was given bite and sup whenever I wanted it; but she died of cholera (Heaven rest her soul!), and her brother straightway refused to support me, saying that I was nothing but an old hanger-on. From Michei Andreitch Tarantiev too I received shameful abuse, and neither of them--would you believe it, your Honour?--ever gave me a morsel of bread! Indeed, had it not been for the _barinia_, God bless her”--and Zakhar crossed himself--“I should long ago have perished of the cold; but for a while she gave me a bit of clothing, and as much bread as I could eat, and a place by the stove of a night. Then they took to rating her on my account; so at last I left the house to wander whither my eyes might lead me. This is the second year that I have been dragging out this miserable existence.”

“But why did you not go and seek a situation?” Schtoltz inquired.

“Where was I to get one at this time of day, your Honour? True, I tried for two, but was unsuccessful. Things are not what they used to be: everything has changed for the worse. Nowadays masters require their lacqueys to look respectable, and the gentry no longer keep their halls chock-full of footmen. Indeed, ’tis seldom that you will find so many as _two_ footmen in a house. Yes,” he went on, “the gentry actually take off their_ own boots! They have even gone so _far as to invent a machine to do it with!” Evidently the idea cut Zakhar to the heart. “Yes,” he repeated, “our gentry are a shame and a disgrace to the country. They are fast coming to rack and ruin.” A sigh of profound regret followed.

“At one place,” presently he resumed, “I did obtain a situation. ’Twas with a German merchant, who engaged me to be his hall lacquey. After a while, however, he sent me to serve in the pantry. Now, was _that_ my proper business? One day I was carrying some crockery across the room on a tray, and the floor happened to be smooth and slippery, and down I fell, and the tray and the crockery with me. So I was turned out of doors. Next, an old countess took a fancy to my looks. ‘He is of respectable appearance,’ she said to herself, and added me to her staff of Swiss lacqueys. The post was a light one, and bid fair to be permanent, too. All that I had to do was to sit as solemnly as possible on a chair, to cross one leg over the other, and, when any rascal called, not to answer him, but just to grunt and send the fellow away--or else give him a box on the ear. Of course, to the gentry one had to behave differently--just to wave one’s staff like this.” Zakhar gave an illustration of what he meant. “As I say, ’twas an easy job, and the lady, God bless her! was not overdifficult to please. But one day she happened to peep into my room and to see there a bug. With that she bristled up and shrieked as though it had been _I_ who had invented bugs! When was a household _ever_ without a bug? So the next time she passed me she pretended that I smelt of liquor, and dismissed me.”

“Yes, and you smell of it now--and very strongly,” remarked Schtoltz.

“To my sorrow, I suppose so,” whined Zakhar, wrinkling his brow bitterly. “Well, then I tried to get a coachman’s job, and took service with a gentleman; but one day I had my feet frost-bitten (for I was overold and weak for the job), and another day the brute of a horse fell down and nearly broke my ribs, and another day I ran over an old woman and got taken to the police-station.”

“Well, well! Instead of drinking and getting yourself into trouble, come to my house, and I will give you a corner there until it is time for us to return to the country. Do you hear?”

“Yes, your Honour--yes; but, but----”

Zakhar sighed again. “I would rather not leave these parts. You see, the grave is here--the grave where my old patron is lying.” Zakhar sobbed. “Only to-day I have been there to commend his soul to God. What a _barin_ the Lord God has taken from us! ’Twould have been good for us if he could have lived another hundred years. Yes, only to-day I have been visiting his grave. Whenever I am near the spot I go and sit beside it, and shed tears--ah, such tears! And sometimes, too, when all is quiet there, I seem to hear him calling to me once more, ‘Zakhar! Zakhar!’--and shivers go running down my back. Never lived there such a _barin_ as he! And how fond of yourself he was, your Honour! May the Lord remember him when the heavenly kingdom shall come!”

“You ought to see our little Andrei,” said Schtoltz. “If you like, you can have charge of him.” And he handed the old man some money.

“Yes, I _will_ come! How could I not come when it is to see little Andrei Ilyitch? By this time he must be grown into a tall young gentleman. What joy the Lord has reserved for me this day! Yes, I _will_ come, your Honour, and may God send you good health and many a long year of life!” But it was after a departing carriage that Zakhar was dispatching his benedictions.

“Did you hear the old beggar’s story?” Schtoltz asked of his companion.

“Yes. Who was the Oblomov whom he mentioned?”

“He was--Oblomov. More than once I have spoken to you of him.”

“Ah, I think I remember the name. Yes, he was a friend and comrade of yours, was he not? What became of him?”

“He came to rack and ruin--though for no apparent reason.” As he spoke Schtoltz sighed heavily. Then he added: “His intellect was equal to that of his fellow’s, his soul was as clear and as bright as glass, his disposition was kindly, and he was a gentleman to the core. Yet he--he fell.”

“Wherefore? What was the cause?”

“The cause?” re-echoed Schtoltz. “The cause was--the disease of Oblomovka.”

“The disease of Oblomovka?” queried the literary gentleman in some perplexity. “What is that?”

“Some day I will tell you. For the moment leave me to my thoughts and memories. Hereafter you shall write them down, for they might prove of value to some one.”

In time Schtoltz related to his friend what herein is to be found recorded.