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By Root 2297 0

in the presence of Olga or passed it dully and listlessly without her. All this had a great effect on him: his head was a regular network of daily and hourly considerations, conjectures, anticipations, agonies of uncertainty – all revolving round the questions whether he would see her or not, what she would say and do, how she would look, what commission she would give him, what she would ask him, would she be pleased or not. All these considerations had become questions of life and death to him. ‘Oh, if one could experience only this warmth of love without its anxieties!’ he mused. ‘No, life does not leave you alone. You get burnt wherever you go! How many fresh emotions and occupations have suddenly been crowded into it! Love is a most difficult school of life!’ He had read several books. Olga asked him to tell her what they were about, and listened to him with incredible patience. He wrote several letters to his estate, replaced his bailiff and got in touch with one of his neighbours through the good offices of Stolz. He would even have gone to Oblomovka if he had thought it possible to be away from Olga. He had no supper, and for the last fortnight he had not known what it meant to lie down in the daytime. In two or three weeks they had visited all the places round Petersburg. Olga and her aunt, the baron and Oblomov appeared at suburban concerts and fêtes. They talked of going to Imatra in Finland.

So far as Oblomov was concerned, he would not have stirred anywhere farther than the park, but Olga kept planning it all, and if he showed the slightest hesitation in accepting an invitation to go somewhere, the excursion was sure to take place. Then there was no end to Olga’s smiles. There was not a hill within a radius of five miles from his summer cottage that he had not climbed several times.

Meanwhile their attachment grew and developed and expressed itself in accordance with the immutable laws. Olga blossomed out as her feeling grew stronger. Her eyes were brighter, her movements more graceful, her bosom filled out so gorgeously and rose and fell so evenly.

‘You’ve grown prettier in the country, Olga,’ her aunt said.

The baron’s smile expressed the same compliment. Blushing, Olga put her head on her aunt’s shoulders, and her aunt patted her affectionately on the cheek.

‘Olga! Olga!’ Oblomov called cautiously, almost in a whisper, standing at the foot of a hill, where she had asked him to meet her to go for a walk.

There was no answer. He looked at his watch.

‘Olga Sergeyevna,’ he added in a loud voice.

Silence.

Olga was sitting on the top of the hill. She had heard him call, but she suppressed her laughter and said nothing.

‘Olga Sergeyevna!’ he called, looking up to the top after having clambered half-way up between the bushes. ‘She told me to come at half-past five,’ he said to himself.

She could no longer refrain from laughing.

‘Olga! Olga! Why, you’re there!’ he said, and continued to climb up. ‘Ugh! What do you want to hide on a hill for?’ he said, sitting down beside her.

‘I suppose it’s because you want to make me suffer, but you make yourself suffer too, don’t you?’

‘Where do you come from? Straight from home?’ she asked.

‘No, I went to your place first. They told me you had gone out.’

‘What have you been doing to-day?’ she asked.

‘To-day – –’

‘Had a row with Zakhar?’ she finished for him.

He laughed as though it had been something utterly impossible.

‘No, I read the Revue. Listen, Olga,’ but he said nothing more and, sitting down beside her, sank into contemplation of her profile, her head, the up-and-down movement of her hand as she pulled the needle through the canvas. He fixed her with his eyes and was unable to take them off her. He did not move, only his glance moved to right and to left, following the movement of her hand. Everything within him was in a state of tremendous activity: his blood was racing through his veins, his pulse was beating twice as fast, his heart was seething – all this had such an effect on him that he breathed slowly and