Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [117]
‘Oh, what have I done!’ he murmured. ‘I’ve ruined everything! Thank God, Stolz has gone: she has not had time to tell him, or I should have sunk through the ground! Love, tears – it doesn’t become me! Olga’s aunt hasn’t asked me to call again: I expect she must have told her. Oh, Lord!’
This was what he thought as he got farther and farther into the park, walking down a side avenue.
One thing that worried Olga was how she would meet him and how this encounter would go off: ought she to say something or ought she to pass it over in silence as if nothing had happened? But what could she say? Should she assume a stern expression, look at him proudly, or not look at all, but remark haughtily and dryly that she never expected him to behave like that: who does he think she is, to allow himself such an impertinence? That was what Sonia during a mazurka said to a second lieutenant, though she had taken a great deal of trouble to turn his head. ‘But,’ she asked herself, ‘has he been impertinent? If he really feels it, why shouldn’t he say it? But it was a bit sudden, all the same. He hardly knows me. No one would have said such a thing after seeing a woman for the second or third time, and no one would have fallen in love so quickly. Only Oblomov could.…’ But she remembered having read and heard that love came suddenly sometimes. ‘He acted on an impulse, he was carried away,’ she thought. ‘Now he doesn’t show himself. He is ashamed. It can’t be impertinence, then. But whose fault is it? Stolz’s, of course, because he made me sing.’ Oblomov did not want to listen at first – she resented it and – she tried.… She blushed crimson.… Yes, she had done all she could to rouse him. Stolz had said that he was apathetic, that nothing interested him, that all was dead within him. So she wanted to find out whether everything was dead, and she sang, she sang as never before.… ‘Good heavens, then it is my fault: I must ask him to forgive me.… But whatever for?’ she asked herself a moment later. ‘What am I to tell him? “Mr Oblomov, I’m awfully sorry, I tried to seduce you!”… Oh, how disgraceful! It’s not true!’ she said, flushing and stamping her foot. ‘Who’d dare to think such a thing? I did not know what was going to happen, did I? And if it hadn’t happened, if he had not said it – what then?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know,’ she thought. Ever since that evening she had felt so strange – she must have been very much offended – she felt positively feverish, her cheeks glowed.…
‘Nervous irritation – a slight fever,’ the doctor told her.
‘It is all Oblomov’s doing!’ she thought as she walked in the park. ‘Oh, he must be taught a lesson so that it doesn’t happen again! I’ll ask auntie not to invite him to our house: he mustn’t forget himself.… How did he dare?’ Her eyes blazed. Suddenly she heard someone coming.
‘Someone’s coming!’ thought Oblomov.
And they met face to face.
‘Olga Sergeyevna,’ he said, shaking like an aspen leaf.
‘Ilya Ilyich,’ she said, timidly, and they both stopped.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘Good morning,’ she replied.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘Nowhere in particular,’ she said without raising her eyes.
‘I’m not in your way?’
‘Oh, not at all,’ she replied, glancing at him quickly and curiously.
‘May I come with you?’ he asked suddenly, with a searching look.
They walked silently along the path. Neither the teacher’s ruler nor the headmaster’s eyebrows had ever made Oblomov’s heart thump as it was doing at that moment. He tried to make an effort and say something, but the words would not come; only his heart was pounding away as though in anticipation of some calamity.
‘Have you had a letter from Mr Stolz?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I have,’ Oblomov replied.
‘What does he say?’
‘He wants me to join him in Paris.’
‘And what are you going to do?’
‘I’ll go.’
‘When?’
‘Oh – some time – no, to-morrow – as soon as I get ready.’
‘Why so soon?’ she asked.
He made no answer.
‘Don’t you like your house or – tell me, why do