Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [147]
‘Now I’m not afraid, either!’ he said cheerfully. ‘With you I do not fear the future.’
‘I’ve read that phrase somewhere recently – in Sue, I think,’ she suddenly said, with irony, turning towards him, ‘only there, it’s a woman who says it to a man.…’
Oblomov flushed.
‘Olga,’ he implored, ‘let everything be as yesterday. I’ll never be afraid of mistakes.’
She said nothing.
‘Well?’ he asked timidly.
She said nothing.
‘Well, if you don’t want to say it, give me some sign – a sprig of lilac.…’
‘The lilac – is over!’ she replied. ‘You can see for yourself – it’s all withered.’
‘It’s over – withered!’ he repeated, looking at the lilac. ‘It’s all over with the letter, too!’ he said suddenly.
She shook her head. He walked after her, thinking about the letter, yesterday’s happiness, the withered lilac.
‘The lilac is certainly withered!’ he thought. ‘Why did I send that letter? Why didn’t I sleep all night and why did I write it in the morning? Now that my mind is at rest again’ (he yawned) ‘… I feel awfully sleepy. If I hadn’t written the letter, nothing of this would have happened: she wouldn’t have cried, everything would have been as yesterday, we should have sat quietly in this avenue, looking at each other and talking of happiness. And it would have been the same to-day, and tomorrow…’ he gave a big yawn.
Then he suddenly began to wonder what would have happened if his letter had achieved its object, if she had agreed with him, if she had been afraid of mistakes and future distant storms, if she had listened to his so-called experience and common sense and agreed that they should part and forget each other. Heaven forbid! To say good-bye, to return to town, to a new flat! To be followed by an interminable night, a dull tomorrow, an unbearable day after to-morrow, and a long succession of days, each more colourless than the last.… He could not allow that to happen! That was death! And it would most certainly have happened! He would have fallen ill. He had never wanted to part from her, he could not have endured it, he would have come and implored her to see him.
‘Why, then, did I write that letter?’ he asked himself.
‘Olga Sergeyevna,’ he said.
‘What do you want?’
‘I must add one more confession – –’
‘What?’
‘Why, there was no need for that letter at all!’
‘Oh yes, there was,’ she decided.
She looked round and laughed when she saw the face he made, how his drowsiness had suddenly vanished, and how he opened his eyes wide with astonishment.
‘Was there?’ he repeated, slowly fixing his gaze at her back, with surprise.
But all he could see were the two tassels of her cloak. What, then, was the meaning of her tears and reproaches? It was not cunning, was it? But Olga was not cunning – he saw that clearly. It was only women of comparatively low mentality who were cunning or subsisted on cunning. Possessing no real intelligence, they set the springs of their petty, everyday lives in motion by means of cunning, and wove, like lace, their domestic policies without suspecting the existence of the main currents of life, their points of intersection and their direction. Cunning was like a small coin with which one could not buy a great deal. Just as a small coin could keep one going for an hour or two, so cunning might help to conceal or distort something or to deceive someone, but it was not sufficient to enable one to scan a far horizon or to survey a big event from beginning to end. Cunning was short-sighted: it saw well only what was happening under its nose, but not at a distance, and that was why it was often caught in the trap it had set for others. Olga was simply intelligent: how easily and clearly she had solved the problem to-day, and, indeed, any problem! She grasped the true meaning of events at once and she reached it by a direct road. While cunning was like a mouse, running round and round everything and hiding.… Besides, Olga’s character was different. So what was the meaning of it? What was it all about?
‘Why was the letter necessary?’ he asked.
‘Why?