Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [273]
What has become of Oblomov? Where is he? Where? His body is resting under a modest urn, surrounded by shrubs, in a lonely corner of the nearest graveyard. Branches of lilac, planted by a friendly hand, slumber over his grave, and the wormwood spreads its sharp scent in the still air. The angel of peace himself seems to be guarding his sleep. However keenly the loving eyes of his wife kept watch over every moment of his life, perpetual rest, perpetual stillness, and the indolent passage of time slowly brought the mechanism of life to a standstill. Oblomov passed away apparently without pain, without suffering, just like a clock that has stopped because it has not been wound up. No one witnessed his last moments or heard his last groan. He had another stroke a year after the first, and again he recovered from it, but then he grew weak and pale, ate little, hardly ever went out into the garden, and grew more and more taciturn and thoughtful; sometimes he even wept. He had a feeling that death was near, and he was afraid of it. He had several dizzy spells, but these passed off. One morning Agafya Matveyevna brought him his coffee as usual, and found him resting as gently in death as he had rested in sleep, except that his head had slipped off the pillow and his hand was convulsively pressed to his heart, where apparently a blood vessel had burst.
Agafya Matveyevna had been a widow for three years; during that time everything had gone back to what it had used to be before. Her brother had been dealing in Government contracts, but had gone bankrupt and managed in all sorts of devious ways to obtain his old job of secretary in the office ‘where peasants were registered’; and again he walked to the office, bringing back fifty, twenty-five, and twenty copeck pieces to deposit them in his well-hidden box. Once more, as in the old days before Oblomov’s arrival, they had the same plain and coarse, but rich and plentiful meals. The leading role in the house was now occupied by Ivan Matveyevich’s wife, Irina Panteleyevna – that is, she reserved the right to get up late, drink coffee three times a day, change her dress three times a day, and see to one thing only in the house, namely, that her petticoats were starched as stiffly as possible. She did not concern herself with anything else, and Agafya Matveyevna was, as before, the live wire in the house: she looked after the kitchen and the meals, poured out tea and coffee for the whole family, mended their clothes, kept an eye on the washing, and the children, Akulina, and the caretaker. But why did she do that? Wasn’t she Mrs Oblomov, a landowner? Couldn’t she have lived by herself, independently and without being in need of anything or anybody? What could have made her assume the burden of other people’s housekeeping, of looking after other people’s children, and all those trifles to which a woman devotes herself either for love, for the sacred duty of family ties, or for the sake of a livelihood? Where were Zakhar and Anisya, her servants by every right? Where, finally, was the living pledge left her by her husband, little Andrey? Where are her children by her first marriage?
Her children are settled in life – that is to say, Vanya has finished his course of studies and has got a job in the Civil Service; Masha has married the superintendent of some Government office, and little Andrey is being brought up by Stolz and his wife, at their earnest request, and is being treated by them as a member of their family. Agafya Matveyevna never thought of little Andrey’s future as in any way comparable to the future of her older children, though in her heart she unconsciously perhaps gave an equal place to them all. But little Andrey’s education, manner of living, and future she considered to be altogether different from the lives of Vanya and Masha.
‘Those two,’ she said indifferently, ‘are street arabs like myself. They were born for a hard life; but this one,’ she added, almost with respect, fondling little Andrey, if not with timidity, then with care, ‘is a little gentleman!