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By Root 2286 0

was carted and carried past his windows. Though to leave his flat, to dine out, and not lie down all day no longer seemed an heroic feat to him, he was now faced with the problem of how to spend the evenings. To remain alone in the country when the park and the woods were deserted and when Olga’s windows were shuttered seemed utterly impossible to him. He walked through her empty rooms, walked round the park, came down the hill, and his heart was oppressed with sadness. He told Zakhar and Anisya to go to Vyborg, where he decided to stay until he found another flat, and himself went to town, had a quick dinner at a restaurant, and spent the evening at Olga’s.

But autumn evenings in town were not like the long bright days and evenings in the park and the woods. In town he could not see her three times a day; there Katya did not run with a message to him, and he could not send Zakhar three miles with a note. In fact, all the flowering summer poem of their love seemed to have come to a stop, as though its subject-matter had run out. Sometimes they were silent for half an hour on end. Olga would be absorbed in her work, counting to herself the squares of the pattern with her needle, and he would be absorbed in a chaos of thoughts, living in a future that was far ahead of the present moment. Only at times, as he gazed intently at her, would he give a passionate start, or she would glance at him and smile, catching a glimpse of a tender look. He went to town and dined at Olga’s three days in succession under the pretext that his rooms were not ready yet, that he was going to move during the week and could not settle down in his new flat before that. But on the fourth day he felt that it would be improper to call again, and after walking up and down the pavement before Olga’s house for some time, he sighed and drove home. On the fifth day Olga told him to go to a certain shop where she would be and then walk back to her home with her while the carriage followed them. All this was awkward: they met people they knew, they exchanged greetings, and some of them stopped for a chat.

‘Oh dear, how awful!’ he said, perspiring with apprehension and the awkwardness of the situation.

Olga’s aunt, too, looked at him with her large, languorous eyes, inhaling her smelling-salts thoughtfully, as though she had a headache. And what a long journey it was! Driving from Vyborg and back again in the evening took him three hours.

‘Let us tell your aunt,’ Oblomov insisted, ‘then I can stay with you all day and no one will say anything.’

‘But have you been to the courts?’ Olga asked.

Oblomov was greatly tempted to say that he had been there and done everything, but he knew that Olga had only to look at him searchingly to discover the lie in his face. He sighed in reply.

‘Oh, if you only knew how difficult it is!’ he said.

‘And have you spoken to your landlady’s brother? Have you found a flat?’ she asked afterwards, without raising her eyes.

‘He’s never at home in the morning, and in the evenings I am here,’ said Oblomov, glad to have found some satisfactory excuse.

Now Olga sighed, but said nothing.

‘I will most certainly speak to the landlady’s brother tomorrow,’ Oblomov tried to soothe her. ‘It is Sunday to-morrow and he won’t go to the office.’

‘Until all this is settled,’ Olga said reflectively, ‘we can’t tell Auntie and we must not see so much of each other.’

‘Yes, yes – that’s true,’ he added hastily in alarm.

‘You’d better dine with us on Sundays, our at home day, and then, say, on Wednesdays, alone,’ she decided. ‘And on other days we can meet at the theatre. I’ll let you know when we are going and you to come.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ he said, glad that she took upon herself the arrangement of their future meetings.

‘And if it’s a fine day,’ she concluded, ‘I’ll go for a walk in the Summer Gardens and you can come there. That will remind us of the park – the park!’ she repeated with feeling.

He kissed her hand in silence and said good-bye to her till Sunday. She followed him with her eyes sadly,