Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [214]
He was getting more and more friendly with his landlady every day: the thought of love never entered his head, that is, the sort of love he had recently experienced as if it were some sort of small-pox, measles, or fever, and which he shuddered at every time he recalled it. He was getting closer to Agafya Matveyevna just as one does to a fire which makes one feel warmer and which one cannot love. After dinner he gladly stayed in her room and smoked a pipe, watching her put away the silver in the dresser, take out the cups, pour out the coffee, and having washed and wiped one cup with meticulous care, pour out his coffee first of all, hand it to him, and look to see if he liked it. He gladly rested his eyes on her plump neck and round elbows, when the door of her room was opened, and even when it was not opened for a long time, he gently opened it himself with a foot, and joked with her and played with her children. But he did not miss her if the morning passed and he did not see her; instead of remaining with her after dinner, he often went to his room for two hours’ sleep; but he knew that as soon as he woke his tea would be ready, nay, that it would be ready at the very moment he awoke. And, above all, it was all done without any fuss: he had no swelling in his heart, he never once had to ask himself anxiously whether he would see his landlady or not, what she would think, what he would say to her, how to reply to her question, how she would look at him – it was nothing, nothing of the kind. There were no yearnings, no sleepless nights, no sweet or bitter tears. He sat smoking, watching her sewing; sometimes he said something and sometimes he didn’t, and yet he felt at peace with himself, he did not want anything, he did not feel like going anywhere, just as though everything he needed were there. Agafya Matveyevna made no demands on him, nor did she coax him to do anything. Neither did he have any ambitious desires or impulses, nor any aspirations for performing heroic deeds, nor any agonizing qualms of conscience about the way he was wasting his time and destroying his powers, about not doing anything, neither good nor evil, about being idle and vegetating and not living. It was as though some unseen power had placed him like a precious plant in the shade as a protection from the heat and under a roof to shelter him from the rain, and looked after him and cherished him.
‘How deftly you move your needle past your nose, Agafya Matveyevna,’ said Oblomov. ‘You pick up the thread so quickly from underneath that I’m really afraid you might stitch your nose to your skirt.’
She smiled. ‘Let me first finish stitching this seam,’ she said, almost as though she were speaking to herself, ‘and then we’ll have supper.’
‘And what is there for supper?’
‘Sauerkraut and salmon,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t any sturgeon to be had anywhere. I’ve been to all the shops, and my brother asked for it, but there isn’t any. Of course, if a live sturgeon is caught – a merchant from the Coaching Arcade had ordered one – I am promised a piece of it. Then there is veal and fried buckwheat-meal.’
‘That’s excellent! How nice of you to have remembered! I only hope Anisya won’t forget.’
‘And what am I here for? Can you hear it sizzling?’ she