Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [107]
No. His inkwell was full of ink: letters, papers, and even stamped paper, covered with his own handwriting, lay on his table. Having written several pages, he never once put which twice in the same sentence, he wrote freely and occasionally expressively and eloquently as ‘in the days of yore’ when he had dreamed with Stolz of a life of labour and travelling. He got up at seven, read, took books to a certain place. He did not look sleepy, tired, or bored. There was even a touch of colour in his face and a sparkle in his eyes – something like courage, or at any rate self-confidence. He never wore his dressing-gown: Tarantyev had taken it with him with the other things to his friend’s. He read a book or wrote dressed in an ordinary coat, a light kerchief round his neck, his shirt-collar showed over his tie, and was white as snow. He went out in an excellently made frock-coat and an elegant hat. He looked cheerful. He hummed to himself. What was the matter? Now he was sitting at the window of his country villa (he was staying at a villa in the country a few miles from the town), a bunch of flowers lying by him. He was quickly finishing writing something, glancing continually over the top of the bushes at the path, and again writing hurriedly.
Suddenly the sand on the path crunched under light footsteps; Oblomov threw down the pen, grabbed the bunch of flowers, and rushed to the window.
‘Is it you, Olga Sergeyevna?’ he asked. ‘I shan’t be a minute!’
He seized his cap and cane, ran out through the gate, offered his arm to a beautiful woman, and disappeared with her in the woods, in the shade of enormous fir-trees.
Zakhar came out from some corner, followed him with his eyes, shut the door of the room, and went to the kitchen.
‘Gone!’ he said to Anisya.
‘Will he be in to dinner?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ Zakhar replied sleepily.
Zakhar was the same as ever: the same enormous side-whiskers, the same unshaven chin, the same grey waistcoat and tear in his coat, but he was married to Anisya, either because of a break with his lady-friend or just from conviction that a man ought to marry; he was married and, regardless of the proverb, he had not changed.
Stolz had introduced Oblomov to Olga and her aunt. When he brought Oblomov to her aunt’s house for the first time, there were other visitors there. Oblomov felt depressed and ill at ease as usual. ‘I wish I could take off my gloves,’ he thought; ‘it’s so warm in the room. How I’ve grown out of it all!’
Stolz sat down beside Olga, who was sitting by herself under the lamp at some distance from the tea-table, leaning back in an arm-chair and showing little interest in what was going on around her. She was very glad to see Stolz; though her eyes did not glow, her cheeks were not flushed, an even, calm light spread over her face, and she smiled. She called him her friend; she liked him because he always made her laugh and did not let her be bored, but she was also a little afraid of him because she felt too much of a child in his company. When some question arose in her mind, or when she was puzzled by something, she did not at once decide to confide in him; he was too far ahead of her, too much above her, so that her vanity sometimes suffered from the realization of her immaturity and the difference in their ages and intelligence. Stolz, too, admired her disinterestedly as a lovely creature with a fragrant freshness of mind and feelings. He looked on her as on a charming child of great promise. Stolz, however, talked to her oftener and more readily than to other women, because, though unaware of it herself, her life was distinguished by the utmost simplicity and naturalness and, owing to her happy nature and her sensible and unsophisticated education, she did not shrink from expressing her thoughts, feelings, and desires without any trace of affectation, even in the tiniest movement of her eyes, her lips, and her hands.