Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [237]
‘I am his fiancée,’ she whispered.
‘I am engaged!’ a girl thinks with a proud tremor, having at last reached the moment which sheds a radiance over the whole of her life, and looking down upon the dark path along which she walked alone and unnoticed only yesterday.
Why, then, did Olga feel no tremor? She, too, had walked along a lonely and inconspicuous path, and at the crossroads had met him, who gave her his hand and led her out, not into the dazzling sunlight, but, as it were, to a broad, overflowing river, to wide fields, and friendly, smiling hills. The brilliant light did not force her to screw up her eyes, her heart did not stand still, her imagination did not catch fire. Her eyes rested with quiet joy on the broad stream of life, on its vast fields and green hills. A shiver did not run down her spine, her eyes did not gleam with pride: it was only when she transferred her gaze from the fields and hills to the man who gave her his hand that she felt a tear slowly rolling down her cheek….
She still sat as though asleep – so quiet was the dream of her happiness: she did not stir, she hardly breathed. Sunk in a trance, her mental gaze was fixed on a blue still night, warm and fragrant and pervaded by a gently shimmering radiance. The phantom vision of happiness spread out its broad wings and sailed slowly, like a cloud in the sky, over her head….
In that dream she did not see herself wrapped in gauze and lace for a couple of hours and in everyday rags for the rest of her life. She did not dream of a festive board, of lights, or of merry shouts; she dreamed of happiness, but such ordinary and unadorned happiness that once more, without a tremor of pride, but with deep emotion, she whispered: ‘I am his fiancée.’
5
DEAR me, how dull and gloomy everything was in Oblomov’s flat about eighteen months after his name-day, when Stolz had inadvertently turned up to dinner. Oblomov himself had grown more fat and flabby; boredom had eaten itself into his eyes and looked out of them like some kind of disease. He would walk up and down the room, then lie down and gaze at the ceiling; he would pick up a book from the bookcase, skim through a few lines, yawn, and begin to drum with his fingers on the table. Zakhar had grown still more clumsy and slovenly; patches appeared on his elbows; he looked wretched and starved, as though he had not enough to eat, slept badly, and did the work of three men. Oblomov’s dressing-gown was worn out and however carefully the holes in it were mended it kept giving way everywhere and not only along the seams: he should have got a new one long ago. The blanket on the bed was also worn out and patched here and there; the curtains at the windows were faded and, though clean, looked like rags.
Zakhar brought an old table-cloth, spread it over half of the table near Oblomov, then carefully with his tongue between his teeth, brought the tray with a decanter of vodka, put bread on the table and went out. The landlady’s door opened and Agafya Matveyevna came in, carrying dexterously a frying-pan with a sizzling omelette. She, too, had changed terribly, and not to her advantage. She had grown thinner. She no longer had the plump, round cheeks which turned neither red nor pale; her scanty eyebrows were no longer shiny; her eyes were sunken. She wore an old cotton dress; her hands were sunburnt or rough with work, with the heat or the water, or both. Akulina was no longer in the house. Anisya had to do the work in the kitchen and in the vegetable garden; she had to look after the poultry, scrub the floors, and do the washing; as she could not manage it all by herself, Agafya Matveyevna had willy-nilly to do the work in the kitchen: she did little pounding, grating, and sieving, because they could afford but little coffee, cinnamon, and almonds, and she never even thought about lace. She had more often