Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [215]
She finished sewing, bit off the thread, folded her work, and carried it to her bedroom.
And thus he drew nearer to her as to a warm fire, and once he drew very near, so that there was nearly a conflagration or, at any rate, a sudden blaze.
He was pacing his room and, turning to the landlady’s door, he saw that her elbows were quite amazingly active.
‘Always busy!’ he said, going in to her. ‘What is this?’
‘I’m grinding cinnamon,’ she replied, gazing into the mortar as though it were an abyss and clattering away mercilessly with the pestle.
‘And what if I won’t let you?’ he asked, taking hold of her elbows and preventing her from pounding.
‘Please, let me go! I must pound some sugar and pour out some wine for the pudding.’
He was still holding her by the elbows, and his face was close to the nape of her neck.
‘Tell me what if I – fell in love with you?’
She smiled.
‘Would you love me?’ he asked again.
‘Why not? God commanded us to love everyone.’
‘And what if I kissed you?’ he whispered, bending down so that his breath burnt her cheek.
‘It isn’t Easter week,’ she said with a smile.
‘Kiss me, please!’
‘If, God willing, we live till Easter, we’ll kiss each other then,’ she said, without being surprised, alarmed, or embarrassed, but standing straight and still like a horse when its collar is put on.
He kissed her lightly on the neck.
‘Please be careful, or I’ll spill the cinnamon and there won’t be any left for the pastry,’ she observed.
‘No matter,’ he replied.
‘Have you got another stain on your dressing-gown?’ she asked solicitously, taking hold of the skirt of the dressing-gown.
‘I believe it’s oil.’ She sniffed the stain. ‘Where did you get it? It didn’t drip from the icon lamp, did it?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know where I can have acquired it.’
‘You must have caught it in the door,’ Agafya Matveyevna suddenly guessed. ‘The hinges were greased yesterday – they all creaked. Take it off and let me have it at once, I’ll take it out and wash the place: there will be nothing showing to-morrow.’
‘Kind Agafya Matveyevna,’ said Oblomov, lazily throwing the dressing-gown off his shoulders. ‘Do you know what? Let’s go and live in the country: that’s the place for housekeeping! You’ve got everything there: mushrooms, fruit, jam, the poultry yard, the dairy – –’
‘But why go there?’ she concluded with a sigh. ‘I’ve been born here, I’ve lived here all my life, and here I ought to die.’
He gazed at her with mild excitement, but his eyes did not shine or fill with tears, his spirit did not long for the heights or aspire to perform deeds of heroism. All he wanted was to sit on the sofa without taking his eyes off her elbows.
2
ST JOHN’S DAY was a great festive occasion. Ivan Matveyevich did not go to the office on the day before, he rushed about the town, each time bringing home a bag or a basket. Agafya Matveyevna had lived solely on coffee for three days, and only Oblomov had had a three-course dinner, the rest of the household living on anything that was available at any given hour of the day. On the eve of the great day Anisya did not go to bed at all. Zakhar alone slept enough for the two of them, regarding all these preparations almost with contempt.
‘In Oblomovka,’ he said to the two chefs who had been invited from the count’s kitchen, ‘we had such dinners cooked every holiday. There were five different kinds of sweet and more sauces than you could count! And they would be eating all day and the next day, too, and we would eat the left-overs for five days. And just as we would finish, new visitors would arrive, and the whole thing started all over again – and here it’s only once a year!’
At dinner he served Oblomov first and refused point-blank to serve some gentleman with a large cross round his neck.
‘Our master is a gentleman born and bred,’ he said proudly, ‘and these guests are a common lot!’
Tarantyev, who sat at the end of the table, he would not serve at all, or