Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [207]
Oblomov’s legs gave way under him; he sat down in an armchair and wiped his hands and forehead with his handkerchief. It was a cruel thing to say, and it hurt him deeply: it seemed to have scorched him inwardly, while outwardly it was like the breath of ice-cold air. He smiled pitifully and painfully shamefacedly in reply, like a beggar reproached for his nakedness. He sat there with that helpless smile, weak with agitation and resentment; his eyes, from which the light seemed to have gone, said clearly: ‘Yes, I am poor, pitiful, abject – hit me, hit me!…’
Olga suddenly realized how harsh her words were; she rushed to him impetuously.
‘Forgive me, my friend!’ she said tenderly, with tears in her voice. ‘I don’t know what I am saying. I am mad! Forget everything. Let us be as before – let everything remain as it was….’
‘No,’ he said, getting up suddenly and rejecting her impulsive offer with a resolute gesture. ‘It cannot remain as it was! Don’t be upset because you’ve spoken the truth: I deserve it,’ he added dejectedly.
‘I am a dreamer, a visionary! ‘she said; ‘I’m an awful character. Why are other women, why is Sonia so happy?’ She wept. ‘Go away!’ she said, making up her mind and twisting her wet handkerchief again. ‘I can’t stand it. The past is too dear to me.’ She again buried her face in her handkerchief, trying to stifle her sobs. ‘Why has it all been ruined?’ she asked suddenly, raising her head. ‘Who laid a curse on you, Ilya? What have you done? You are kind, intelligent, tender, honourable, and – you are going to wrack and ruin! What has ruined you? There is no name for that evil….’
‘There is,’ he said in a hardly audible whisper.
She looked at him questioningly with her eyes full of tears.
‘Oblomovitis!’ he whispered; then he took her hand, wanted to kiss it and could not; he just pressed it tightly to his lips and hot tears fell on her fingers. He turned round without raising his head or showing her his face, and walked out of the room.
12
GOODNESS only knows where he wandered, what he did the whole day, but he returned home late at night. The landlady was the first to hear him knocking at the gate, and she woke Anisya and Zakhar, telling them that their master had come back.
Oblomov hardly noticed how Zakhar undressed him, took off his boots, and threw over his shoulders his – dressing-gown!
‘What’s this?’ he asked, merely glancing at the dressing-gown.
‘The landlady brought it to-day, sir,’ said Zakhar. ‘She washed and mended your dressing-gown.’
Oblomov remained sitting in the arm-chair. Everything around him had sunk into sleep and darkness. He sat leaning on his hand, without noticing the darkness and without hearing the clock strike. His mind was plunged into a chaos of vague, shapeless thoughts; they scudded along like clouds in the sky, without aim or connexion – he did not catch a single one. His heart was dead: life had ceased there for a time. The return to life and order, to the regular flow of the accumulated vital forces, which had been dammed up, took place slowly. The pressure was very severe, and Oblomov was not conscious of his body, of being tired, of having any needs. He could have lain like a stone for a whole day and night, or walked, or driven, or moved about like a machine. Man becomes resigned to his fate slowly and painfully, in which case his body gradually resumes all its normal functions, or he is crushed by grief, in which case he will rise no more – all depending on the intensity of the grief, and on the man himself. Oblomov did not remember where he was sitting or whether he was sitting at all: he watched the day break mechanically and without being aware of it; he could not tell whether or not he heard the old woman’s dry cough, the caretaker chopping wood in the yard, the noise and clatter in the house; he saw and yet did not appear to notice