Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [194]
‘Of – what?’ she asked, sitting down and taking off her hat and coat.
He took both from her and put them on the sofa.
‘Talk, gossip….’
‘But you were not afraid of my spending sleepless nights, imagining all sorts of things and almost falling ill?’ she said, looking searchingly at him.
‘You don’t know what’s going on in me, Olga,’ he said, pointing to his head and heart. ‘I’m worried to death; you don’t know what’s happened, do you?’
‘What has happened?’ she asked coldly.
‘How far the rumours about you and me have spread! I did not want to worry you, and I was afraid to show myself at your place.’
He told her everything he had heard from Zakhar and Anisya, recalled the conversation of the dandies, and finished by saying that he had not been able to sleep ever since, and that in every glance he saw a question or a reproach or a sly hint at their meetings.
‘But we have decided to tell Auntie this week,’ she said. ‘Then all these rumours will have to stop.’
‘Yes, but I did not want to speak to your aunt this week, till I received my letter. I know that she will not ask me about my love, but about my estate, that she will want to know all the details, and I cannot explain anything to her till I’ve received an answer from my agent.’
She sighed.
‘If I didn’t know you,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I don’t know what I might have thought. You were afraid of worrying me by footmen’s gossip, but you were not afraid of causing me all this anxiety! I simply can’t understand you!’
‘You see, I thought that their talk would upset you. Katya, Marfa, Semyon, and that fool Nikita, goodness only knows what they are saying – –’
‘I’ve known for a long time what they are saying,’ she said imperturbably.
‘Who told you?’
‘Katya and Nanny told me about it long ago. They asked me about you, congratulated me….’
‘Congratulated you? Did they really?’ he asked in horror. ‘And what did you say?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just thanked them. I gave Nurse a kerchief, and she promised to go on foot to St Sergius’s shrine to offer up a prayer for me. I undertook to arrange Katya’s marriage with a pastry-cook: she, too, is in love…’
He looked at her with frightened and astonished eyes.
‘You visited us every day, so it’s natural that the servants should talk about it,’ she added. ‘They are always the first to talk. It was the same with Sonia: why does it frighten you so much?’
‘So that’s where the rumours came from!’ he said in a drawn-out voice.
‘They are not unfounded, are they? It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘It is true,’ Oblomov repeated, in a tone of voice that sounded neither like a denial nor like a question. ‘Yes,’ he added after a pause, ‘you are quite right. But, you see, I don’t want them to know about our meetings; that’s why I am so afraid.’
‘You are afraid – you tremble like a boy…. I can’t understand it! You are not stealing me, are you?’
He felt ill at ease; she looked attentively at him.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘there’s some kind of a lie here somewhere, there’s something wrong. Come here and tell me all you have on your mind. You could have stayed away for a couple of days or even for a week as a precaution, but you should have warned me, you should have written to me. You know I am no longer a child and I can’t be so easily upset by some nonsense. What does it all mean?’
He pondered a little, kissed her hand, and sighed.
‘This is what I think it is, Olga,’ he said. ‘All this time my imagination has been so frightened on your account by all these horrors, my mind has been so tortured by worries, my heart has been so sore with hopes that seemed to be on the point of fulfilment one moment and on the point of being shattered at another, and with expectations that my whole organism is shaken and has grown numb – it needs a rest even if it is only for a time – –’
‘But why haven’t I grown numb? Why do I seek a rest only beside you?’
‘You are young and strong, you love me serenely