Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [245]
‘Oh no, you’re lying now, and clumsily too. What has been happening here, llya? What’s the matter with you? Aha! So that’s the meaning of the mutton and sour wine! You have no money! What do you do with it?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I do owe my landlady – a little – for – er – my board,’ Oblomov said.
‘For mutton and tongue! Ilya, tell me, what’s going on here? What kind of tale is this: the landlady’s brother has moved, things have gone badly…. There’s something wrong here. How much do you owe?’
‘Ten thousand on an IOU,’ Oblomov whispered.
Stolz jumped to his feet and sat down again.
‘Ten thousand? To the landlady? For your board?’ he repeated in horror.
‘Yes, I – er – got a lot on credit – I lived in great style, you know…. Remember the pineapples and peaches, and – well, so I got into debt,’ muttered Oblomov. ‘But what’s the use of talking about it?’
Stolz did not reply. He was thinking. ‘The landlady’s brother has gone, things have gone badly – that’s so: everything looks so bare, poor, dirty! What sort of woman is this landlady? She looks after him, he speaks of her with ardour….’
Suddenly Stolz changed colour, having guessed the truth. He turned cold.
‘Ilya,’ he said, ‘that woman – what is she to you?’
But Oblomov had put his head on the table and fallen into a doze.
‘She robs him, takes everything from him – it’s the sort of thing that happens every day, and I haven’t thought of it till this very moment!’ he reflected.
Stolz got up and opened the door leading to the landlady’s room so quickly that, at the sight of him, Agafya Matveyevna in alarm dropped the spoon with which she was stirring the coffee.
‘I’d like to have a talk with you, madam,’ he said politely.
‘Please step into the drawing-room,’ she replied timidly. ‘I’ll come at once.’
Throwing a kerchief round her neck, she followed him into the drawing-room and sat down on the very edge of the sofa. She no longer had her shawl and she tried to hide her hands under the kerchief.
‘Mr Oblomov has given you a bill of exchange, hasn’t he?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she replied with a look of dull surprise, ‘he has not given me any bill.’
‘Hasn’t he?’
‘I haven’t seen any bill,’ she repeated with the same expression of dull astonishment.
‘A bill of exchange!’ Stolz repeated.
She thought it over for a minute.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘you’d better have a talk to my brother. I haven’t seen any bill.’
‘Is she a fool or a rogue?’ Stolz thought.
‘But he owes you money, doesn’t he?’ he asked.
She gave him a vacant look, then suddenly an expression of intelligence and even of anxiety came into her face. She remembered the pawned string of pearls, the silver, and the fur coat, and imagined that Stolz was referring to that debt, only she could not understand how he had got to know of it, for she had never breathed a word about it not only to Oblomov, but even to Anisya, whom she generally told about every penny she spent.
‘How much does he owe you?’ Stolz asked anxiously.
‘Nothing at all. Not a penny.’
‘She’s concealing it from me, she is ashamed, the greedy creature, the usurer!’ he thought. ‘But I’ll get to the truth.’
‘And the ten thousand?’ he said.
‘What ten thousand?’ she asked in anxious surprise.
‘Mr Oblomov owes you ten thousand on an IOU – yes or no?’ he asked.
‘He owes me nothing. He owed the butcher since Lent twelve roubles and fifty copecks, but we paid it over a fortnight ago. We also paid the dairywoman for the cream – he owes nothing.’
‘But have you no document from him?’
She looked blankly at him.
‘You’d better have a talk to my brother,’ she replied. ‘He lives across the street in Zamykalov’s house, just along here. There’s a public-house in the basement.’
‘No, ma’am, I’d rather have a talk with you,’ he said decisively. ‘Mr Oblomov says that he owes you money, and not your brother.’
‘He does not owe me anything,’ she replied, ‘and as for my pawning silver, pearls, and a fur coat, I did it for myself. I bought shoes for Masha and myself, material