Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [157]
‘Oh!’ Oblomov cried suddenly.
She laughed. ‘What will become of you then?’ she asked, looking at his face.
‘What will become of me? I’ll go off my head or shoot myself, and then you’ll get suddenly well again!’
‘No, no, don’t,’ she said nervously. ‘We are talking a lot of nonsense! Only you must never come to me when you’re dead: I’m afraid of ghosts.’
He laughed and so did she.
‘Goodness, what children we are!’ she said, growing serious.
He cleared his throat again.
‘Listen – I want to say something.’
‘What?’ she asked, turning round to him quickly.
He kept silent apprehensively.
‘Go on,’ she said, pulling him lightly by the sleeve.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ he said, becoming frightened.
‘Yes, you have something on your mind, haven’t you?’
He was silent.
‘If it’s something dreadful, then you’d better not tell me!’ she said. ‘No, tell me!’ she suddenly added again.
‘But it’s nothing – just nonsense.’
‘No, no, I don’t believe you: there is something; tell me!’ she insisted, holding him by the lapels of his coat so closely that he had to keep turning his head from side to side so as not to kiss her.
He would not have turned it but for the fact that her stern ‘Never!’ still rang in his ears.
‘Tell me!’ she persisted.
‘I can’t – it’s not necessary,’ he pleaded.
‘Why then did you preach to me that “confidence is the basis of mutual happiness”; that “not a single twist in one’s heart should be hidden from a friend’s eye”? Whose words are those?’
‘All I wanted to say,’ he began slowly, ‘was that I love you so much, so much that if – –’
He hesitated.
‘Well?’ she asked impatiently.
‘That if you fell in love with someone who could make you happier than I, then I – I’d swallow my grief in silence and give up my place to him.’
She let go of his coat suddenly.
‘Why?’ she asked in surprise. ‘I can’t understand it. I shouldn’t give you up to anyone. I don’t want you to be happy with another woman. This is a bit too clever. I don’t understand it.’
Her glance wandered thoughtfully over the trees.
‘Then you don’t love me, do you?’ she asked after a while.
‘On the contrary, I love you so unselfishly that I’m ready to sacrifice myself for you.’
‘But why? Who asked you to?’
‘But I meant in case you fell in love with somebody else.…’
‘With somebody else! Are you mad? Why should I if I love you? Would you fall in love with another woman?’
‘Why do you listen to me? I’m talking a lot of nonsense and you believe me. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t that at all I wanted to say.’
‘What did you want to say, then?’
‘I wanted to say that I feel guilty before you, that I’ve felt guilty a long time.…’
‘What of? How?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you love me? Was it a joke, perhaps? Tell me at once!’
‘No, no, it isn’t that!’ he said in anguish. ‘You see, what I mean is,’ he began irresolutely. ‘We meet – er – secretly.…’
‘Secretly? Why secretly? I tell Auntie almost every time that I’ve seen you.’
‘Not every time, surely?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Why, what’s wrong with that?’
‘I’m sorry: I should have told you long ago that it isn’t – done.’
‘You did tell me.’
‘Did I? Yes, of course I – er – I hinted at it. Well, I’m glad to say I’ve done my duty, then.’
He cheered up, glad that Olga had so lightly relieved him of his responsibility.
‘Anything else?’
‘Anything – er – no, that’s all,’ he replied.
‘It isn’t true,’ Olga observed positively. ‘There is something else. You haven’t told me everything.’
‘Well, you see,’ he began, trying to assume a casual tone, ‘I thought that – –’
He stopped, she waited.
‘– we ought not to meet so often.…’ He glanced at her timidly.
She was silent.
‘Why not?’ she asked after thinking it over for a short while.
‘You see, I’m awfully worried