Oblomov Falls in Love

This week Ink & Time brings you another episode from Oblomov, by Goncharov.

If you’ve never read Oblomov, be careful. He’s easy to fall in love with.

And by that very emotion, as Part II opens, he is at long last spurred into action, inspired to get out of bed, and to perhaps do something with his life.

Find some quiet time this weekend to get to know Oblomov.

Here is Part I, Chapter I if you missed it.

If you’re charmed by the story of Oblomov, it’s endearing characters and its delightful style of writing, you will love the look and feel of the recently released hard cover from Time Warp Editions.

This is how reading the classics should feel. And your dinner guests will be so impressed.

This scene begins about 20% into Part II, where we find Oblomov pondering whether he will go abroad to meet his friend Schtoltz… but something remarkable is about to happen to him…

“To be or not to be.” Oblomov rose from his chair, but, failing at once to insert his foot into a slipper, sat down again.

Two weeks later Schtoltz departed for England, after exacting from Oblomov a pledge to join him later in Paris. Oblomov even went to the length of procuring a passport, ordering an expensive travelling coat, and purchasing a cap. The furniture of the flat was to be removed to the quarters of Tarantiev’s crony in the Veaborg Quarter, and stored in the three rooms until its owner’s return.

A month went by—three months; yet Oblomov still did not start. Schtoltz, who had reached Paris long ago, continued to send him letter after letter, but they remained unanswered. Why so?

Was it because the ink in the inkstand had become dried up and no writing-paper was available? No; both ink, pens, and paper were present in abundance.

Indeed, more than once Oblomov sat down to write, and did so fluently, and, at times, as expressively and eloquently as he had done in the days when, with Schtoltz, he had dreamed of the strenuous life, and of traveling.

Likewise he had taken to rising at seven o’clock in the morning, and to reading, and to carrying books about with him. Also, his face had lost its look of dreaminess, weariness, ennui—there was colour in his cheek, a sparkle in his eye, and an air almost of adventurousness—at least, almost of self-assurance—about his whole being.

Lastly, no longer was the dressing gown to be seen, for Tarantiev had carried it off to his friend’s flat, along with the rest of Oblomov’s effects. Thus Oblomov wore better clothes than had been his wont, and even sang cheerfully as he moved about. Why so?

The reason was that there had come into his life two friends of Schtoltz’s, in the shape of a pretty girl named Olga Sergievna Ilyinitch and her aunt.

On his first visit to them he was overcome with constraint. “How gladly I would take off my gloves!” he thought to himself. “And how hot the room is! And how unused to this sort of thing I have grown!”

“Besides, she will keep looking at me,” was his further reflection as diffidently he scanned his clothes.

He even wiped his face with his handkerchief, lest a smut should have settled on his nose. Also, he touched his tie, to make sure that its folds had not come undone, as had sometimes happened with him. But no—all was as it should be.

Yet she would persist in regarding him attentively.

Next, a footman tendered him a cup of tea, with a plate of biscuits. He tried to subdue his nervousness, and to unbend; but in the act of unbending he seized such a handful of cracknels, biscuits, and sugared buns that the girl tittered and the rest of those present gazed at the pile with unconcealed interest.

“My God, she is still looking at me!” he thought to himself. “What on earth am I to do with all these biscuits?”

Without looking, he could tell that Olga had risen from her seat and moved to another corner. This helped to relieve his breast of a certain amount of weight. None the less she continued to contemplate him, in order to see what he would do with the confectionery.

“Probably I had best eat them as quickly as possible,” he thought; with which he fell to hurriedly selecting one after another. Luckily all were of the sort which melts in the mouth.

When only two of them remained he heaved a sigh of relief, and decided to glance towards the corner where he knew Olga to be seated.

Horrors! She was standing by a bust, with one hand resting on its pedestal, and her eyes closely observing him! Nay, she had even come out of her corner to get a closer view of him!

Without doubt she must have noted his awkwardness with the biscuits!

True, at supper she sat at the other end or the table, and ate and talked as though she were in no way concerned with him; yet never once did he throw a timid glance in her direction (in the hope that she was not looking his way) but straightway he encountered her gaze—a gaze which, though good humoured, was also charged with curiosity.

That was enough. He hastened to take leave of her aunt, who invited him to come and dine another day.

He bowed, and moved away across the drawing room without raising his eyes. Presently he encountered a screen, with behind it, the grand piano. He looked again—and behold, behind the screen was seated Olga!

She was still gazing at him with intent curiosity. Also, she seemed to him to be smiling.

“Certainly Andrei has often told me that I put on pairs of odd socks, and my shirt inside out,” he reflected as he drove home. From that moment he could not get Olga’s glance out of his head. In bed he lay on his back and tried to adopt the most comfortable attitudes; yet still he could not sleep.

One fine morning Tarantiev came and carried off the rest of Oblomov’s furniture; with the result that its owner spent three such days as he had never before experienced—days during which he was bed-less and sofa-less, and therefore driven to dine at the house of Olga’s aunt.

Suddenly he noticed that opposite the aunt’s house there stood an untenanted villa. Consequently he hired it (furnished) at sight, and went to live there. Thereafter he spent his whole time with Olga—he read with her, he culled flowers with her, he walked by the lake and over the hills with her.

Yes, he, Oblomov! How came this about? It came about thus.

On the evening of the fateful dinner party at the aunt’s house Oblomov experienced the same torture during the meal as he had done on the previous occasion. Every word that he spoke he uttered with an acute sense that over him, like a searchlight, there was hovering that glance, and that it was burning and irritating him, and that it was stimulating his nerves and blood.

Surely, on the balcony, he thought, he would be able, when ensconced behind a cloud of tobacco smoke, to succeed in momentarily concealing himself from that silent, that insistent gaze?

“What does it all mean?” he said to himself as he rocked himself to and fro. “Why, it is sheer torture! Have I made myself ridiculous?

At no one else would she dare to stare as she does at me. I suppose it is because I am quieter than the rest. However, I will make an agreement with her.

I will tell her, in so many words, that her eyes are dragging my very soul out of my body.”

Suddenly she appeared on the threshold of the balcony. He handed her a chair, and she took a seat beside him.

“Are you so very ennuyé?” she inquired.

“Ennuyé,* yes—but not much so. I have pursuits of my own.”

(*Ennuyé: French word meaning bored or weary, often used to convey a sense of refined or fashionable world-weariness)

“Ah? Schtoltz tells me that you are engaged in drawing up a scheme of some sort?”

“Yes. I want to live upon my estate, and am making a few preparations for doing so.”

“And you are going abroad?”

“Undoubtedly—as soon as ever Schtoltz is ready to accompany me.”

“Shall you be very glad to go?”

“Yes, very.”

He looked at her. A smile was hovering on her face, and illuminating her eyes, and gradually spreading over her cheeks. Only her lips remained as pressed together as usual. He lacked the spirit to continue his lies calmly.

“However, I—I am rather a lazy person,” he began. “But, but…”

Suddenly he felt vexed to think that she should have extracted from him a confession of his lethargy. “What is she to me?” he thought. “Am I afraid of her?”

“Lazy?” she exclaimed with a scarcely perceptible touch of archness. “What? A man be lazy? That passes my comprehension.”

“Why should it?” was his inward comment. “It is all simple enough. I have taken to sitting at home more and more, and therefore Schtoltz thinks that I…”

“But I expect you write a great deal?” she went on. “And have you read much?” Somehow her gaze seemed very intent.

“No, I cannot say that I have.” The words burst from him in a sudden fear lest she should see fit to put him through a course of literary examination.

“What do you mean?” she inquired, laughing. Then he too laughed.

“I thought that you were going to cross question me about some novel or another,” he explained. “But, you see, I never read such things.”

“Then you thought wrong. I was only going to ask you about a few books of travel.”

He glanced at her quickly. Her lips were still compressed, but the rest of her face was smiling.

“I must be very careful with her,” he reflected.

“What do you read?” she asked with seeming curiosity.

“It happens that I am particularly fond of books of travel,” he replied.

“Travels in Africa, for instance?” There was quiet demureness in the tone.

He reddened at the not wholly unreasonable conjecture that she was aware not only of what he read but of how he read.

“And are you also musical?” she continued, in order to relieve him of his embarrassment. At this moment Schtoltz (who had now returned from abroad) appeared on the scene.

“Ha, Ilya!” he cried. “I have told Olga Sergievna that you adore music, and that tonight she must sing something—‘Casta Diva,’* for example.”

(*one of the most famous arias in the operatic repertoire from Vincenzo Bellini’s opera Norma (1831). Casta Diva" means "Chaste Goddess" in Italian and is a lyrical and emotional plea for tranquility)

“Why did you speak for me at all?” protested Oblomov. “I am by no means an adorer of music.”

“What?” Schtoltz exclaimed. “Why, the man is offended! I introduce him as a person of taste, and here is he stumbling over himself to destroy his good reputation!”

“I am only declining the role of connoisseur,” said Oblomov. “’Tis too difficult and risky a role. Sometimes I can listen with pleasure to a cracked barrel organ, and its tunes stick in my memory; while at other times I leave the Opera before the piece is half over. It all depends upon the mood in which I am. In fact, there are moments when I could close my ears even to Mozart.”

“Then it is clear that you do love music,” said Olga.

“Sing him something,” requested Schtoltz.

“But suppose that Monsieur Oblomov were, at this very moment, to be feeling inclined to close his ears?” she said as she turned to him.

“I suppose I ought to utter some compliment or another,” he replied. “But I cannot do so, and I would not, even if I could.”

“Why?”

“Because,” was Oblomov’s naïve rejoinder, “things would be so awkward for me if I were to find that you sing badly.”

“Even as, the other day, you found things awkward with the biscuits?” she retorted before she could stop herself.

The next moment she reddened as though she would have given worlds to have been able to recall her words. “Pardon me,” she added. “I ought not to have said that.”

Oblomov had been unprepared, and was quite taken aback.

“That was a cruel advantage,” he murmured.

“No—only a small revenge (and an unpremeditated one) for your failure to have had a compliment ready.”

“Then perhaps I will have one ready when I have heard you sing.”

“‘You wish me to sing, then?”

“No; he wishes it.” Oblomov pointed to Schtoltz.

“But what of yourself?”

Oblomov shook his head deprecatingly.

“I could not wish for what I have not yet experienced,” he said.

“You are very rude, Ilya,” put in Schtoltz. “See what comes of lolling about at home and confining your efforts to having your socks put on for you.”

“Pardon me,” said Oblomov quickly, and without giving him time to finish. “I should find it no trouble to say: ‘I shall be most glad, most delighted, to hear you sing, for of course you sing perfectly.’ So,” he went on, “‘it will afford me the very greatest possible pleasure.’ But do you really think it necessary?”

“At least you might express a desire that I should sing—if only out of curiosity.”

“I dare not do so,” replied Oblomov. “You are not an actress.”

“Then it shall be for you that I will sing,” she said to Schtoltz.

“While you, Ilya,” he added, “can be getting your compliment ready.”

Evening was closing in, and the lamp had been lit. Moonlike, it cast through the ivy-covered trellis a light so dim that the dusk still veiled the outlines of Olga’s face and figure—it still shrouded them, as it were, in crepe; while the soft, strong voice, vibrating with nervous tension, came ringing through the darkness with a note of mystery.

At Schtoltz’s prompting she sang several arias and romances, of which some expressed suffering, with a vague forecast of joy, while others expressed joy, coupled with a lurking germ of sorrow.

As Oblomov listened he could scarcely restrain his tears or the cry of ecstasy that was almost bursting from his soul. In fact, he would have undertaken the tour abroad if thereby he could have remained where he was at that moment, and then gone.

“Have I pleased you tonight?” she inquired of Schtoltz.

“Ask, rather, Oblomov,” he replied. “Confess now, Ilya: how long is it since you felt as you are feeling at this moment?”

“Yet he might have felt like that this morning if ‘a cracked barrel organ’ had happened to pass his window,” put in Olga—but so kindly as to rob the words of their sarcasm.

“He never keeps his windows open,” remarked Schtoltz. “Consequently, he could not possibly hear what is going on outside.”

That night Oblomov was powerless to sleep.

He paced the room in a mood of thoughtful despondency, and at dawn left the house to roam the city, with his head and his heart full of God only knows what feelings and reflections!

To be continued…

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