Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [181]
‘One minute it’s go and the next wait!’ Zakhar grumbled, holding on to the door.
‘How did you dare to spread such ridiculous rumours about me?’ Oblomov asked in an agitated whisper.
‘But when did I spread them, sir? It wasn’t me, sir, but the Ilyinsky servants who said that you had proposed – –’
‘Sh-sh-sh!’ Oblomov hissed, waving his hand menacingly. ‘Not a word, do you hear? Never!’
‘Yes, sir,’ Zakhar replied timidly.
‘So you won’t spread this preposterous story abroad, will you?’
‘No, sir,’ Zakhar replied quietly, not grasping the meaning of half the words but knowing only that they were ‘pathetic’.
‘Remember, then, if you hear anyone talking about it, or if anyone should ask you, say the whole thing is nonsense and that there never was or could be anything of the sort!’ Oblomov added in a whisper.
‘Yes, sir,’ Zakhar whispered almost inaudibly.
Oblomov looked round and shook a finger at Zakhar, who was blinking in alarm and tiptoeing towards the door.
‘Who was the first to speak of it?’ Oblomov asked, overtaking him.
‘Katya told Semyon, Semyon told Nikita,’ Zakhar whispered, ‘Nikita told Vasilisa – –’
‘And you told everybody!’ Oblomov hissed menacingly. ‘I’ll show you how to spread slanders about your master! You’ll see!’
‘Why are you torturing me with your pathetic words, sir?’ asked Zakhar. ‘I’ll call Anisya: she knows everything.’
‘What does she know? Come on, out with it!’
Zakhar at once rushed through the door and walked into the kitchen with extraordinary rapidity.
‘Leave your frying-pan and go to the master!’ he said to Anisya, pointing with his thumb to the door.
Anisya gave the frying-pan to Akulina, unloosed the hem of her skirt, which she had tucked in at the waist, patted herself on the hips, and, wiping her nose with a forefinger, went in to the master. She calmed Oblomov in five minutes by telling him that no one had ever said anything about a wedding: she did not mind taking her oath on it and taking the icon down from the wall that this was the first time she had heard of it; she had heard something quite different: it was the baron who had made a proposal of marriage to the young lady….
‘The baron!’ Oblomov asked, jumping to his feet, and not only his heart, but also his hands and feet turned cold.
‘That’s nonsense too!’ Anisya hastened to say, seeing that she had got herself out of the frying-pan into the fire. ‘That was merely what Katya said to Semyon, Semyon to Marfa, and Nikita said that it would not be a bad thing if your master made an offer of marriage to our young lady….’
‘What a fool that Nikita is!’ observed Oblomov.
‘Yes, sir, he certainly is a fool,’ Anisya confirmed. ‘He looks asleep when he sits behind the carriage. And Vasilisa did not believe him, either,’ she went on, talking very fast. ‘She told me on Assumption Day that the nurse herself had said to her that Miss Olga was not thinking of marrying and that it was hardly possible that our master would not have found a wife for himself if he had meant to marry, and that she had met Samoylo the other day and that he thought it a big joke: a wedding, indeed! And it didn’t look like a wedding, but more like a funeral, that auntie kept having headaches, and Miss Olga cried and never uttered a word, and no trousseau being made; Miss Olga had hundreds of stockings that needed darning, and that last week they pawned their silver….’
‘Pawned their silver? So they have no money, either!’ Oblomov thought, raising his eyes to the walls in horror and fixing them on Anisya’s nose, because there was nothing else he could fix them on. She seemed to be saying all this with her nose and not with her mouth.
‘Mind, don’t talk any more nonsense!’ Oblomov said, shaking his finger at her.
‘Talk, sir? Why, sir, I don’t think about it, let alone talk,’ Anisya rattled on, just as though she were chopping up sticks. ‘Besides, sir, there’s nothing to talk about, is there? It’s the first time I’ve heard of it to-day, and that’s the truth, may the Lord strike me