Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [110]
When Stolz and he dined at Olga’s, Oblomov suffered the same agonies at dinner as on the previous day: he ate and talked knowing that she was looking at him, feeling that her gaze rested on him like sunshine, burning him, exciting him, stirring his nerves and blood. It was only after smoking a cigar on the balcony that he succeeded in hiding for a moment from her silent, persistent gaze. ‘What is it all about?’ he asked himself, fidgeting nervously. ‘It’s sheer agony! Have I come here to be laughed at by her? She does not look at anyone else like that – she dare not. I’m quieter than the others – so she – I’ll talk to her,’ he decided. ‘I’d rather myself say in words what she’s trying to drag out of me with her eyes.’
Suddenly she appeared before him at the balcony door; he offered her a chair and she sat down beside him.
‘Is it true that you’re awfully bored?’ she asked him.
‘It’s true, but not awfully,’ he replied. ‘I have some work to do.’
‘Mr Stolz told me that you were drawing up some scheme. Are you?’
‘Yes. I want to go and live in the country, so I’m gradually preparing myself for it.’
‘But aren’t you going abroad?’
‘Yes, certainly, as soon as Mr Stolz is ready.’
‘Are you glad you’re going?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’m very glad.…’
He looked at her: a smile crept all over her face, gleaming in her eyes or spreading over her cheeks; only her lips were tightly closed as always.
He could not bring himself to lie to her calmly.
‘I’m a little – er – lazy,’ he said, ‘but – –’
He could not help feeling at the same time rather annoyed that she should so easily, almost without saying a word, have extracted from him a confession of laziness. ‘What is she to me? I’m not afraid of her, am I?’ he thought.
‘Lazy?’ she retorted, with hardly perceptible slyness. ‘Is it possible? A man and lazy – I don’t understand it.’
‘What is there not to understand?’ he thought. ‘It seems simple enough.’
‘I sit at home most of the time,’ he said. ‘That is why Andrey thinks that I – –’
‘But,’ she said, ‘I expect you write and read a lot. Have you read – –’ She looked intently at him.
‘No, I haven’t!’ he suddenly blurted out, afraid that she might try to cross-examine him.
‘What?’ she asked, laughing.
He, too, laughed.
‘I thought you were going to ask me about some novel. I don’t read fiction.’
‘You’re wrong. I was going to ask you about books of travel.…’
He looked keenly at her: her whole face was laughing, but not her lips.
‘Oh, but she’s – one must be careful with her,’ Oblomov thought.
‘What do you read?’ she asked curiously.
‘As a matter of fact, I do like books of travel mostly.’
‘To Africa?’ she asked softly and slyly.
He blushed, guessing not without good reason that she knew not only what he read, but also how he read it.
‘Are you a musician?’ she asked, to help him to recover from his embarrassment.
At that moment Stolz came up.
‘Ilya, I’ve told Olga that you’re passionately fond of music and asked her to sing something – Casta diva.’
‘Why have you been telling stories about me?’ Oblomov replied. ‘I’m not at all passionately fond of music.’
‘How do you like that?’ Stolz interrupted. ‘He seems offended! I recommend him to you as a decent chap and he hastens to disillusion you.’
‘I merely decline the part of a lover of music: it’s a doubtful and difficult part!’
‘What music do you like best?’ asked Olga.
‘It’s a difficult question to answer. Any music. I sometimes listen with pleasure to a hoarse barrel-organ, some tune I can’t get out of my mind, and at other times I’ll leave in the middle of an opera; Meyerbeer may move me, or even a bargeman’s song: it all depends on what mood I’m in,