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By Root 2110 0

fear, and decided that she, Anisya, had missed her real vocation and that the true field of her activities was not Oblomov’s kitchen, where her constant scurrying and her restless and nervous feverishness of movements were directed solely towards catching in the air a plate or glass dropped by Zakhar, and where her experience and subtlety of mind were suppressed by her husband’s sullen jealousy and coarse arrogance. The two women understood each other and became inseparable. When Oblomov dined out, Anisya spent her time in the landlady’s kitchen, and out of love for the culinary art, darted from one corner to another, put pots in and took them out again, and almost at the same moment opened the cupboard, got out what was wanted, and slammed the door to again before Akulina had time to grasp what it was all about. Anisya’s reward was dinner, six or more cups of coffee in the morning and the same number in the evening, and a long, frank conversation with the landlady and sometimes whispered confidences from her.

When Oblomov dined at home, the landlady helped Anisya, that is, indicated with a finger or a word whether or not it was time to take out the roast meat, whether red wine or some cream should be added to the sauce, and what was the right way of boiling the fish…. And, dear me, how many useful household tips they obtained from each other, not only about the culinary art but also about linen, yarn, sewing, washing clothes, cleaning blond-lace and lace and gloves, removal of stains from various materials, as well as using all sorts of home-made medicines and herbs – everything, in fact, that an observant mind and lifelong experience had contributed to that particular sphere of life!

Oblomov got up about nine o’clock in the morning, occasionally catching sight through the trellis of the fence of the landlady’s brother going to work with the paper parcel under his arm; then he applied himself to his coffee. The coffee was as excellent as ever, the cream was thick, the rolls rich and crisp. Then he lighted a cigar and listened attentively to the cackling of the broody hen, the chirping of the chicks, the trilling of the canaries and siskins. He did not order their removal.

‘They remind me of the country, of Oblomovka,’ he said.

Then he sat down to finish reading the books he had begun at his summer cottage, and sometimes casually lay down with a book on the sofa. There was perfect silence all around; only occasionally, perhaps a soldier or a small crowd of peasants with axes stuck in their belts walked down the street. Very rarely indeed a pedlar penetrated into this remote suburb and, stopping in front of the trellised fence, shouted for half an hour: ‘Apples, Astrakhan water-melons,’ so that you could not help buying something. Sometimes Masha, the landlady’s little daughter, came in with a message from her mother to the effect that there were different varieties of mushrooms for sale and asked if he would like to order a barrel for himself; or he called in Vanya, the landlady’s son, and asked him what he had been learning, and made him read and write to see how well he could do it. If the children forgot to close the door behind them, he caught sight of the landlady’s bare neck and her elbows and back. She was always busy, always ironing something, pounding, polishing, no longer standing on ceremony with him and putting on her shawl when she noticed him looking at her through the half-open door; she merely smiled and went on pounding, ironing, and polishing on the large table. Sometimes he walked to the door with a book, looked in and talked to her.

‘You’re always busy!’ he said to her once.

She smiled and went on carefully turning the handle of the coffee-mill, her elbow describing circles with such rapidity that Oblomov felt dizzy.

‘You’ll get tired,’ he went on.

‘No, I’m used to it,’ she replied, rattling the coffee-mill.

‘And what do you do when there is no work?’

‘No work? Why, there is always something to do,’ she said. ‘In the morning there is dinner to cook, after dinner there is