Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [212]
got up without bustle or fuss, stopped half-way to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, took something out, carried it away – all machine-like. But ever since Oblomov became a member of the family, she pounded and sieved differently. She had almost forgotten her lace. She would start sewing, settling comfortably in a chair, when Oblomov would suddenly shout to Zakhar to fetch his coffee – and in a trice she was in the kitchen, looking round her as keenly as though she were taking aim, seized a spoon, poured three spoonfuls of coffee out against the light to see if it was quite ready and if it had settled, and if there were not any dregs in it or any skin on the cream. If his favourite dish was being cooked, she watched the saucepan, lifted the lid, sniffed, tasted, then seized the pan herself and held it over the fire. If she grated almonds and pounded something for him, she did it with such enthusiasm and such vigour that she was thrown into a perspiration. All her household duties – pounding, ironing, sieving, etc., – had acquired a new vital significance; Oblomov’s peace and comfort. Before, she regarded it as her duty; now, it became a delight. She began to live, in her fashion, a full and varied life. But she did not know what was happening to her; she never asked herself the question, but assumed this sweet burden absolutely, without resistance and without being swept off her feet, without trepidation, passion, vague forebodings, languor or the play and music of the nerves. It was as though she had suddenly gone over to another faith and begun professing it without wondering what kind of faith it was, what its dogmas were, but obeying its laws blindly. It seemed to have imposed itself upon her without her knowledge, and she seemed to have treated it as a cloud which she had neither tried to avoid nor run to meet; she fell in love with Oblomov as simply as though she had caught a cold or contracted an incurable fever. She never suspected anything herself: if she had been told, it would have been news to her and she would have smiled and blushed with shame. She accepted her duties towards Oblomov in silence, learned what every shirt of his looked like, counted the holes in his socks, knew with what foot he got out of bed, noticed when he was about to have a stye on his eye, knew what dish he liked best and how many helpings of it he had, whether he was cheerful or bored, whether he slept much or little, as though she had been doing so all her life, without asking herself why she did it or what Oblomov was to her, and why she should take so much trouble. Had she been asked if she loved him, she would again have smiled and said yes, but she would have given the same reply when Oblomov had lived no more than a week at her house. Why had she fallen in love with him and no one else? Why had she married without love and lived without falling in love till she was thirty, when it seemed to have come upon her suddenly? Though love is declared to be a capricious, unaccountable feeling that one contracts like an illness, it has, like everything else, causes and laws of its own. And if these laws have hitherto been so little studied, it is because a man, stricken with love, is hardly in a position to watch with scientific detachment how an impression steals into his soul, how it benumbs his senses as though with sleep, how at first he loses his sight, how and at which moment his pulse and then his heart begin beating faster, how he becomes suddenly compelled to declare his devotion till death, to desire to sacrifice himself, how his ‘I’ gradually disappears and becomes transformed into ‘him’ or ‘her’, how his intellect becomes extraordinarily dull or extraordinarily subtle, how his will is surrendered to that of another, how his head becomes bowed, his knees tremble, how the tears and the fever appear….
Agafya Matveyevna had not met many people like Oblomov before, and if she had it was from a distance, and she may have liked them, but they lived in a different sphere and she had no chance of getting to know them more intimately.