Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [272]
‘Done for!’ he whispered mechanically. ‘What am I going to tell Olga?’
Oblomov heard the last words and was going to say something, but could not. He held out both his arms to Andrey, they embraced firmly and in silence, as people embrace before a battle, before death. This embrace stifled their words, their tears, their feelings.
‘Don’t forget my Andrey!’ were Oblomov’s last words, which he uttered in a faint voice.
Andrey walked out of the house slowly and in silence, walked slowly and thoughtfully across the courtyard, and stepped into the carriage, while Oblomov sat down on the sofa and, leaning his elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands.
‘No, I shall not forget your Andrey,’ Stolz thought sadly as he walked across the yard. ‘You’re done for, Ilya: it is useless to tell you that your Oblomovka is no longer in the wilds, that its turn has come, and that the rays of sunshine have at last fallen upon it! I shall not tell you that in another four years there will be a railway station there, that your peasants will be working on the line, and that later on your corn will be carried by train to the quayside. And then – schools, education, and after that – but no! You will be frightened of the dawn of new happiness; it will hurt your eyes that are unaccustomed to the bright light. But I shall lead your Andrey to where you would not go, and I will carry out your youthful dreams together with him. Good-bye, old Oblomovka! he said, looking back for the last time at the windows of the little house. ‘You’ve had your day!’
‘What’s happening there?’ Olga asked with a fast-beating heart.
‘Nothing!’ Andrey replied dryly and curtly.
‘Is he alive and well?’
‘Yes,’ Andrey replied reluctantly.
‘Why have you come back so soon? Why didn’t you call me there or bring him here? Let me go to him!’
‘You can’t go to him!’
‘What is happening there?’ Olga asked in alarm. ‘Has “the gulf opened up”? Are you going to tell me?’
He was silent.
‘But what on earth is going on there?’
‘Oblomovitis!’ Andrey replied gloomily, and in spite of Olga’s questions preserved a sullen silence till they got home.
10
FIVE years had passed. There had been many changes in Vyborg: the empty street leading to Mrs Pshenitzyn’s house was full of newly built summer cottages, and among them rose a long brick Government building which prevented the sunshine from pouring in gaily through the windows of the peaceful refuge of tranquillity and indolence. The little house itself had become a little dilapidated and looked rather grimy and untidy, like a man who has not shaven and washed. The paint had peeled off, the rainpipes were broken in places, and there were, therefore, big puddles in the yard across which, as in the old days, a narrow plank was laid. When someone went in at the gate, the old black dog did not jump vigorously on the chain, but barked hoarsely and lazily without coming out of the kennel.
And the changes inside the house! Another woman was ruling over it and different children were playing about there. The red, drunken face of the rowdy Tarantyev appeared there again from time to time, and the gentle and meek Alexeyev was no longer to be seen there. Neither was Zakhar or Anisya to be seen: a new, fat woman cook was in charge of the kitchen, reluctantly and rudely carrying out the quiet orders of Agafya Matveyevna, and the same Akulina, the hem of her skirt tucked in at the waist, was washing troughs and earthenware jars; the same sleepy caretaker in the same sheepskin was idly spending the remaining years of his life in his dark hovel. Ivan Matveyevich’s figure again darted past the trellised fence at the appointed hours of early morning and dinner-time with a big parcel under his arm and goloshes on his feet, in winter and