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By Root 2354 0

organized – harvesting, threshing, casting up accounts, the agent’s worried face, the noblemen’s elections, court sessions…. Only occasionally, at long intervals, would Olga’s eyes shine upon him, the strains of Casta diva reach him, and after snatching a hasty kiss, he would have to hurry off to the fields, to the town, and then again to the agent and the click of the abacus. The arrival of visitors would bring little comfort to him: they would talk about how much spirit they had distilled, how many yards of cloth they had delivered to the Government…. Oh dear, that wasn’t what he had promised himself, was it? Was that life? And yet people lived as though this was all that life meant. Andrey, too, liked it!

But marriage – the wedding, why, that was, anyway, the poetry of life, that was a fully opened-up flower. He imagined how he would lead Olga to the altar: she would be wearing orange blossom on her head and a long veil. There would be whispers of wonderment in the crowd. She would give him her hand shyly, her bosom heaving gently, her head bowed with her usual graceful pride, and would not know how to look at the crowd. Now a smile would light up her face, now tears would appear in her eyes, or the crease over her eyebrow would stir thoughtfully. At home, after the guests had gone, she would throw herself on his chest, as she had to-day, still wearing her gorgeous wedding-dress….

‘No,’ he thought, ‘I must run to Olga. I can’t think and feel by myself. I’ll tell everyone, the whole world – no, just her aunt, then the baron; I shall write to Stolz – he will be surprised! Then I’ll tell Zakhar: he will fall at my feet and howl with joy. I shall give him twenty-five roubles. Anisya will come and try to kiss my hand: I’ll give her ten roubles – then – then I shall shout for joy in a loud voice so that the whole world will hear and say: “Oblomov is happy, Oblomov is getting married!” Now I’ll run to Olga – we shall sit and whisper together for hours, making our secret plans to merge our two lives into one!’

He ran off to Olga. She listened to his dreams with a smile, but as soon as he jumped up to run and tell her aunt, she knit her brows in a way that alarmed him.

‘Not a word to anyone!’ she said, putting a finger to her lips and begging him to speak lower so that her aunt should not hear in the next room. ‘The time hasn’t come yet!’

‘Hasn’t the time come now that everything has been decided between us?’ he asked impatiently. ‘What are we to do now? How are we to begin? We can’t just sit and do nothing. We must think of our duties – serious life is beginning….’

‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed, looking searchingly at him.

‘Well, so I’d like to take the first step – go to your aunt and – –’

‘That’s the last step.’

‘Which is the first, then?’

‘The first – to go to the courts: you have to write some document, haven’t you?’

‘Yes – to-morrow – –’

‘Why not to-day?’

‘To-day – to-day is a very special day, and I can’t leave you, Olga, can I?’

‘Very well, to-morrow. And then?’

‘Then tell your aunt, write to Stolz.’

‘No, then you must go to Oblomovka…. Mr Stolz wrote to you what you had to do in the country, didn’t he? I don’t know what business you have there – building, is it?’ she asked, looking into his face.

‘Good Lord,’ said Oblomov, ‘if we are to listen to what Stolz says we’ll never get as far as telling your aunt! He says that I must begin building the house, then construct the road, then open schools!… You won’t do that in a lifetime. Let’s go there together, Olga, and then – –’

‘But where shall we go to? Is there a house there?’

‘No – the old house isn’t good enough; I expect the front steps must have collapsed by now.’

‘So where shall we go to?’ she asked.

‘We’ll have to find a flat here.’

‘For that you’ll also have to go to town,’ she observed. ‘That’s the second step.’

‘Then – –’ he began.

‘I think you’d better take the two steps first and then – –’

‘What’s all this?’ Oblomov thought mournfully. ‘No whispering for hours, no secret plans to merge our two