Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [250]
‘I haven’t come to see you, but my friend,’ Tarantyev bawled.
‘Good gracious, sir, I don’t want to have anything to do with you, I’m sure,’ Agafya Matveyevna said. ‘You used to come to see my brother, not me. I’m sick and tired of you. You eat us out of house and home and abuse us into the bargain!’
‘Oh, so that’s it! Very well, your brother will show you what’s what! And you will pay me for your insult! Where’s my hat? To hell with you! Robbers, murderers!’ he shouted as he walked across the yard. ‘You’ll pay me for your insult, you will!’
The dog jumped on the chain, barking at the top of its voice.
That was the last time Tarantyev and Oblomov ever saw each other.
8
STOLZ did not come to Petersburg for several years. Only once did he pay a short visit to Oblomovka and Olga’s estate. Oblomov received a letter from him in which Stolz tried to persuade him to go to the country and take charge of his estate, which was in good working order now; he and Olga were leaving for the south coast of the Crimea for two reasons: he had business in Odessa, and Olga was in delicate health since her confinement and hoped to benefit from a holiday in the Crimea. They settled in a quiet little spot on the seashore. Their house was small and modest. Its architecture and its interior decorations had a style of their own, which bore the imprint of the personal taste and thoughts of its owners. They had brought many things with them and had many more packages, cases, and cartloads sent them from Russia and abroad. A lover of comfort might perhaps have shrugged at the apparently discordant character of the furniture, old pictures, statues with broken arms and legs, engravings, sometimes rather bad but dear for sentimental reasons, and all sorts of knick-knacks. Only a connoisseur’s eyes would light up eagerly at the sight of some of the pictures or a book yellow with age, old china, stones, and coins. But there was a breath of warm life among the furniture of different periods, the pictures, the bric-à-brac, which were of no significance to anybody, but which reminded them of some happy hour or some memorable occasion, and among the enormous number of books and sheets of music. There was something in it all that stimulated the mind and aesthetic feeling, something that made one aware of the unslumbering thought and the radiant beauty of human achievement as one was aware of the radiant and eternal beauty of nature all around. The tall desk which belonged to Andrey’s father was also there, as well as the chamois-leather gloves. The oilskin cloak hung in the corner near the cupboard with minerals, shells, stuffed birds, samples of different kinds of clay, merchandise, and so on. The place of honour was occupied by an Erard grand piano, shining with gold and inlaid work. The cottage was covered from top to bottom with a network of vine, ivy, and myrtle. From one side of the balcony the sea could be seen, and from the other the road to the town. It was from that end that Olga watched for Andrey to return when he had been away from home on business, and, seeing him, she went downstairs, ran through a lovely flower-garden and a long poplar avenue, and flung herself on her husband’s neck, her cheeks flushed with joy and her eyes sparkling, always with the same ardour of impatient happiness, in spite of the fact that it was not the first nor the second year of their marriage.
Stolz’s views on love and marriage may have been odd and exaggerated, but they were, at any rate, his own. Here, too, he followed the free and, it seemed to him, simple road: but what a hard school of observation, patience, and labour he went through before he learnt to take these ‘simple steps’! It was from his father that he inherited the habit of looking earnestly at everything in life, even at trifles; he might perhaps have inherited from him also the pedantic severity with which Germans regard every step they take in life, including marriage.
Old Stolz’s life was there for all to read, just as though it had been inscribed on a stone tablet, and there