Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [159]
Olga gazed at him for a few minutes, then put on her cloak, picked up the kerchief from a branch, and putting it round her head slowly, took her parasol.
‘Where are you going? It’s quite early!’ he said, coming to himself suddenly.
‘No, I’m afraid it’s late. You’re quite right,’ she said, dejectedly and thoughtfully. ‘We have gone too far and there is no way out: we must part as quickly as possible and forget the past. Good-bye,’ she added, dryly and bitterly and, bending her head, walked down the path.
‘Good heavens, Olga, what are you talking about! Not meet again? Why, I – – Olga!’
She was not listening and walked on, the dry sand crunching under her feet.
‘Olga Sergeyevna!’ he called.
She did not hear and walked on.
‘For God’s sake, come back!’ he cried with tears in his voice. ‘Even a criminal must be given a hearing.… Good heavens, she can’t be so heartless! There’s woman for you!’
He sat down and buried his face in his hands. He could hear her footsteps no longer.
‘She’s gone!’ he said, almost in terror, and raised his head.
Olga was before him.
He seized her hand joyfully.
‘You haven’t gone,’ he said. ‘You will not go, will you? Please, don’t go. Remember, if you go away – I am a dead man!’
‘And if I don’t go away, I am a criminal and you, too – remember that, Ilya!’
‘Oh, no – –’
‘No? Why, if Sonia and her husband discover us together once more – I am ruined.’
He gave a start.
‘Listen,’ he began hurriedly in a faltering voice. ‘I haven’t said everything – –’ and he stopped short.
What at home had seemed so simple, natural, and necessary to him, what pleased him so much that he regarded it as his happiness, suddenly appeared as a sort of abyss to him. He had not the courage to cross it. The step he had to take was bold and decisive.
‘Someone’s coming!’ said Olga.
There was the sound of footsteps on a path.
‘It couldn’t be Sonia, could it?’ asked Oblomov, looking petrified with terror.
Two men and a woman – complete strangers – went past. Oblomov breathed freely.
‘Olga,’ he began hurriedly, taking her by the hand, ‘let’s go over there, where there is no one. Let us sit down.’
He made her sit down on a bench, himself sitting on the grass at her feet.
‘You flared up,’ he said, ‘went away, and I had not finished what I wanted to say, Olga.’
‘And I’ll go away again and I won’t come back if you play with me again,’ she said. ‘You liked my tears once, and now perhaps you would like to see me at your feet and so little by little make me your slave, be capricious, moralize, weep, be frightened and frighten me, and then ask what we are to do. I’d like you to remember, sir,’ she suddenly added proudly, getting up, ‘that I’ve grown up a lot since I met you, and I know what the game you are playing is called, but – you will never see my tears any more!’
‘I swear I am not playing with you,’ he cried earnestly.
‘So much the worse for you,’ she remarked dryly. ‘I have only one thing to say to all your apprehensions, warnings, and conundrums: till our meeting to-day I have loved you and did not know what I ought to do – now I know,’ she concluded decisively, making ready to go, ‘and I’m not going to ask your advice.’
‘And I know too,’ he said, retaining her by the hand and making her sit down again, and he stopped for a moment, plucking up courage to go on. ‘Just imagine,’ he began; ‘my heart is full of one desire, my head of one thought, but my will and my tongue won’t obey me: I want to speak and I can’t utter the words. And yet it is so simple, so – – Help me, Olga!’
‘I don’t know what is in your mind, sir, do I?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, please, without the sir: your proud glance is killing me, every word you say freezes me like ice.…’
She laughed.
‘You’re crazy,’ she said, putting her hand on his head.
‘That’s right, now I’ve received the gift of thought and speech!