Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [101]
‘Why, you’re a poet, Ilya!’ Stolz interrupted.
‘Yes, a poet in life, because life is poetry. People are free to distort it, if they like!… Then we might go into a hot-house,’ Oblomov went on, carried away by the ideal of happiness he was depicting.
He was extracting from his imagination ready-made scenes, which he had drawn long ago, and that was why he spoke with such animation and without stopping.
‘.… to have a look at the peaches and grapes, to tell them what we want for the table, then to go back, have a light lunch and wait for visitors.… Meanwhile there would be a note for my wife from Maria Petrovna, with a book and music, or somebody would send us a pineapple as a present, or a huge watermelon would ripen in my hot-house and I would send it to a dear friend for next day’s dinner, and go there myself.… In the meantime things are humming in the kitchen, the chef, in a snow-white cap and apron, is terribly busy, putting one saucepan on the stove, taking off another, stirring something in a third, making pastry, throwing away some water.… A clatter of knives – the vegetables are being chopped – ice-cream is being made.… I like to look into the kitchen before dinner, take the lid off a saucepan and have a sniff, to see them rolling up pasties, whipping cream. Then lie down on the sofa; my wife is reading something new aloud – we stop and discuss it.… But the visitors arrive, you and your wife, for instance.’
‘Oh, so you’ve married me, too, have you?’
‘Certainly! Two or three friends more, all familiar faces. We resume the conversation where we had left off the day before – we crack jokes or there is an interval of eloquent silence – of reverie, not because we are worried by some High Court case, but because all our desires have been fully satisfied and we are plunged into a mood of thoughtful enjoyment.… You will not hear someone delivering a violent philippic against an absent friend, you will not catch a glance that promises the same to you the moment you leave the house. You will not sit down to dinner with anyone you do not like. The eyes of your companions are full of sympathy, their jokes are full of sincere and kindly laughter.… Everything is sincere! Everyone looks and says what he feels! After dinner there is mocha coffee, a Havana cigar on the verandah.…’
‘You are describing to me the same sort of thing our fathers and grandfathers used to do.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Oblomov replied, almost offended. ‘How can you say it’s the same thing? Would my wife be making jams or pickling mushrooms? Would she be measuring yarn and sorting out home-spun linen? Would she box her maids’ ears? You heard what I said, didn’t you? Music, books, piano, elegant furniture?’
‘Well, and you?’
‘I should not be reading last year’s papers, travelling in an unwieldy old carriage, or eating noodle soup and roast goose, but I should have trained my chef in the English Club or at a foreign embassy,’
‘And then?’
‘Then, when the heat abated, I’d send a cart with the samovar and dessert to the birch copse or else to the hay-field, spread rugs on the newly mown grass between the ricks, and be blissfully happy there till it was time for the cold soup and beefsteak. The peasants are returning from the fields with scythes on their shoulders, a hay-cart crawls past loaded so high that it conceals the cart and the horse from view, a peasant’s cap with flowers and a child’s head sticking out from the hay on top; and there comes a crowd of women, barefoot and with sickles, singing at the top of their voices.… Suddenly they catch sight of their master and his guests, grow quiet, and bow low. One