Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [263]
‘You won’t leave him?’ she said with her arms still round her husband’s neck. ‘You won’t abandon him, will you?’
‘Never! Not unless a gulf opens suddenly, or a wall rises between us.’
She kissed her husband.
‘Will you take me to him in Petersburg?’
He hesitated and was silent.
‘Will you? Will you?’ she asked, insisting on an answer.
‘Listen, Olga,’ he said, trying to free his neck from her embrace; ‘we must first – –’
‘No, say – yes! Promise, or I won’t leave you alone!’
‘All right,’ he replied, ‘only not the first, but the second time. I know very well what you will feel like if he – –’
‘Don’t say another word!’ she interrupted. ‘Yes, you will take me: together we shall do everything. Alone you won’t be able to – you won’t want to!’
‘Perhaps you’re right, only I’m afraid you will be upset, and perhaps for a long time,’ he said, not altogether pleased that Olga had forced him to consent.
‘Remember, then,’ she concluded, resuming her seat, ‘you will only give him up if “a gulf opens up or a wall rises between us.” I won’t forget those words.’
9
PEACE and quiet reigned over Vyborg, its unpaved streets, wooden pavements, meagre gardens, and ditches overgrown with nettles, where a goat with a frayed rope round its neck was busily grazing or drowsing dully beside a fence; at midday a clerk’s elegant high heels clattered along the pavement, a muslin curtain in some window moved aside, and the wife of some civil servant peeped out from behind the geraniums; or a girl’s fresh face suddenly appeared above the fence in some garden and at once disappeared again, followed by another girl’s face, which also disappeared, then again the first appeared, and was followed by the second; then the shrieks and laughter of the girls on the swings could be heard.
All was quiet in Mrs Pshenitzyn’s house. You walked into the small courtyard and you were in the midst of a living idyll: cocks and hens were thrown into a commotion and ran off to hide in the corners; the dog began jumping on its chain and barking at the top of its voice; Akulina stopped milking the cow, and the caretaker left off chopping wood, and both eyed the visitor with interest. ‘Who do you want?’ the caretaker asked, and on being given the name of Oblomov or the landlady, he pointed silently to the front steps and started chopping wood again. The visitor walked down a clean, sand-strewn path to the front steps, covered with a plain, clean carpet, pulled the brightly polished brass handle of the bell, and the door was opened by Anisya, the children, and sometimes by the landlady herself or Zakhar – Zakhar being always the last.
Everything in Mrs Pshenitzyn’s house bore the stamp of such abundance and prosperity as was not to be seen there even when Marfa Matveyevna kept house for herself and her brother. The kitchen, the pantries, the sideboard were full of crockery, large and small, round and oval dishes, sauce-boats, cups, piles of plates, and iron, copper, and earthenware saucepans and pots. In the cupboards was kept Agafya Matveyevna’s silver, redeemed long ago and never pawned since, side by side with Oblomov’s silver. There were whole rows of enormous, tiny and paunchy teapots and several rows of china cups, plain and gilt, painted with mottoes, flaming hearts, and Chinamen; there were huge glass jars of coffee, cinnamon, and vanilla, crystal teacaddies, cruets of oil and vinegar. Whole shelves were loaded with packets, bottles, boxes of household remedies, herbs, lotions, plasters, spirits, camphor, simple and fumigatory powders; there was also soap, material for cleaning lace, taking out stains, etc., etc. – everything, in fact, that a good housewife in the provinces keeps in her house. When Agafya Matveyevna suddenly opened the door of a cupboard full of all these articles, she was herself overcome by the bouquet of all these narcotic smells and had to turn her face away for a moment.
In the larder hams were suspended from the ceiling, so that mice could