Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [127]
While Oblomov sat with her aunt, Olga did not show herself, and time dragged on slowly. Oblomov was again getting hot and cold in turns. Now he guessed the reason for this change in Olga and somehow this change worried him more than the first. His first blunder had made him ashamed and frightened, but now he was feeling worried, awkward, chilled, and miserable, as in damp, rainy weather. He had made it clear to her that he had guessed she loved him, and perhaps he had guessed it at an inopportune moment. That was indeed an insult that could scarcely be put right. And even if the moment had been opportune, how clumsy he had been! He was simply a brainless coxcomb! He might have frightened away the feeling that was timidly knocking at her young, virginal heart, to settle there lightly and warily like a bird on a branch: let there be the slightest sound, the faintest rustle – and away it flies. He waited nervously and with trepidation for Olga to come down to dinner, wondering what she would say, how she would speak, and how she would look at him.…
She came down – and he could not help admiring her; he hardly recognized her. Her face was different, even her voice was not the same. The young, naïve, almost childish smile not once appeared on her lips; she did not once look at him with wide-open eyes questioningly or puzzled or with good-natured curiosity, as though she had nothing more to ask, find out, or be surprised at. Her eyes did not follow him as before. She looked at him as though she had known him for years and had studied him thoroughly, and, finally, as though he were nothing to her, no more than the baron – in short, he felt as though he had not seen her for a whole year during which she had grown into a woman. There was no trace of sternness or of the vexation of the day before; she joked and even laughed, and replied in detail to the questions she would have left unanswered before. It was obvious that she had made up her mind to force herself to behave as other people, which she had never done before. The freedom, the naturalness, which made it possible for her to say what was in her mind, was no longer there. Where had it all gone?
After dinner he went up to ask her if she would care to go for a walk. Without answering him, she turned to her aunt and asked:
‘Shall we all go for a walk?’
‘Yes, if we don’t go too far,’ said the aunt. ‘Ask for my parasol, please.’
And they all went. They walked without enthusiasm, looked at Petersburg in the distance, went as far as the woods, and returned to the balcony.
‘I don’t expect you feel like singing to-day, do you?’ asked Oblomov. ‘I’m afraid to ask you,’ he added, wondering whether her restraint would come to an end, her former cheerfulness return, and whether there was a chance of recapturing even for a moment, in a word, a smile or at least in her singing, her former sincerity, naïvety, and trustfulness.
‘It’s too hot!’ the aunt observed.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Olga, ‘I’ll try,’ and she sang one song.
He listened and could not believe his ears. It was not she: where was the old passionate note? She sang so clearly, so correctly, and at the same time so – so like all young girls who were asked to sing in company: without passion. She had taken her soul out of her singing, and not a single nerve stirred in her listener. Was she playing a deep game, pretending or angry? It was impossible to tell: she looked at him kindly, she spoke readily, but she spoke as she sang, like everyone else.… What did it mean?
Without waiting for tea, Oblomov took his hat and said good-bye.
‘Do come more often,’ said the aunt. ‘We’re always alone on week-days, if you’re not afraid to be bored, and on Sundays there’s always someone coming to see us, so you will certainly not be bored then.’
The baron got up politely and bowed to him.
Olga nodded to him as to an old friend, and when he was going out she turned to the window and looked out, listening with indifference to Oblomov’s retreating steps.
These two hours and the