Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [177]
‘You don’t think I’ll let you, do you?’ she asked, looking at him sternly first into one, then into the other eye. ‘You’re not thinking of going to sleep, are you?’
‘Good Lord, sleep in the daytime!’ Oblomov replied quickly. ‘I’m just bored!’
And he let her take his hat from him.
‘We’re going to the theatre to-day,’ she said.
‘But we shall not be in the same box, shall we?’ he added with a sigh.
‘Does it matter? Is it nothing that we shall see each other, that you will come in during the interval, wait for me at the end, and offer me your arm to take me to the carriage? Mind you come!’ she added imperiously. ‘What’s all this nonsense?’
There was nothing to be done about it: he went to the theatre, yawned as though he were going to swallow the stage, scratched his head, and kept crossing and re-crossing his legs. ‘Oh, if only it were all over and I could sit beside her, and not have to drag myself all the way here,’ he thought. ‘It’s absurd that we should have to meet furtively and by chance after such a summer and that I should have to play the part of a lovesick boy…. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have gone to the theatre to-day had we been married: I’ve heard this opera six times already.’
In the interval he went to Olga’s box, and could hardly squeeze his way in between two unknown elegantly dressed men. Five minutes later he slipped away and stopped in the crowd at the entrance to the stalls.
The next act had begun and people were hurrying to their seats. The two dandies from Olga’s box were there too, but they did not see Oblomov.
‘Who was the fellow in the Ilyinskys’ box just now?’ one of them asked the other.
‘Oh,’ the other one replied casually, ‘someone by the name of Oblomov.’
‘What is he?’
‘He’s – er – a landowner, a friend of Stolz’s.’
‘Oh!’ the other cried significantly. ‘A friend of Stolz’s, is he? What is he doing here?’
‘Goodness knows,’ the other one replied, and they went to their seats.
But Oblomov was greatly disconcerted by this trifling conversation.
‘Who was the fellow – someone by the name of Oblomov – what is he doing here? – goodness knows!’ all this kept hammering in his brain. ‘Someone – –! What am I doing here? Why, I am in love with Olga: I am her – –. However, so they are already asking what I am doing here – they have noticed me. Oh dear, I must do something!’
He no longer saw what was taking place on the stage, what knights and ladies appeared there; the orchestra thundered away, but he never heard it. He looked round to see how many people he knew in the theatre – there and there – they were everywhere, and all of them were asking: ‘Who was the fellow in Olga’s box?’ and they all replied: ‘Oh, someone called Oblomov!’
‘Yes,’ he thought, timidly and gloomily, ‘I am just someone! People know me because I am a friend of Stolz’s. Why am I at Olga’s? Goodness knows! Those two dandies are looking at me and then at Olga’s box!’
He looked at the box. Olga’s binoculars were fixed on him.
‘Goodness,’ he thought, ‘she doesn’t take her eyes off me! What fascination can she have found in me? A fine treasure! Now she seems to be motioning to me to look at the stage – I believe those two dandies are looking at me and laughing – – Oh dear, oh dear!’
In his excitement he scratched his head again and once more crossed his legs. She had invited the dandies to tea after the theatre, promised to sing the Cavatina, and told him to come too.
‘No, I’m not going there to-day again. I must settle this thing as soon as possible and then – – Why doesn’t my agent send me an answer from the country? I should have left long ago, and become engaged to Olga before going…. Oh, she’s still looking at me! Oh, this is awful!’
He went home without waiting for the end of the opera. Gradually the impression of that evening at the opera was erased from his mind, and he once more looked at Olga with a tremor of happiness when he was alone with her, listened with suppressed tears of rapture to her singing when others