Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [36]
He never looked beyond the line which the teacher marked with his nail in setting the lesson; he never asked any questions and never required any explanations. He was quite satisfied with what was written in his note-book and showed no tiresome curiosity even when he failed to understand all that he heard and learned. If he managed somehow or other to master a book on statecraft, history, or political economy, he was perfectly satisfied. When Stolz brought him books, which he had to read in addition to what he had learned, he used to look at him in silence for a long time.
‘So you, too, Brutus, are against me?’ he said with a sigh, as he sat down to read them.
Such immoderate reading seemed hard and unnatural to him. Of what use were all those note-books which had taken up so much time, paper, and ink? What is the use of text-books? And, last but not least, why waste six or seven years of your life being cooped up in a school? Why put up with all the strict discipline, the reprimands, the boredom of sitting over lessons, the bans on running about, playing, and amusing yourself, when life is still ahead of him?
‘When am I to live?’ he asked himself again. ‘When am I at last to put into circulation all this capital of knowledge, most of which will be of no use to me in life anyway? Political economy, for instance, algebra, geometry – what am I going to do with them in Oblomovka?’
History, too, depressed him terribly: you learn and read that at a certain date the people were overtaken by all sorts of calamities and were unhappy, then they summoned up their strength, worked, took infinite care, endured great hardships, laboured in preparation for better days. At last they came – one would think history might take a rest, but no, clouds gathered again, the edifice crashed down, and again the people had to toil and labour… The bright days do not remain, they fly, and life flows on, one crisis follows upon another.
Serious reading tired him. Philosophers did not succeed in awakening in him a passion for speculative thought. The poets, on the other hand, touched him to the quick: like everyone else, he became young again. He, too, reached the happy time of life, which never fails anyone and which smiles upon all, the time when one’s powers are at their height, when one is conscious of life and full of hope and desire to do good, to show one’s prowess, to work, when one’s heart beats faster and the pulses quicken, when one thrills with emotion, makes enthusiastic speeches, and sheds sweet tears. His heart and mind grew clear: he shook off his drowsiness and longed for activity. Stolz helped him to prolong that moment as long as was possible for such a nature as his friend’s. He took advantage of Oblomov’s love of the poets and kept him for sixteen months under the spell of thought and learning. He made use of the ecstatic flight of his young friend’s fancy to introduce aims other than pure delight in the reading of poetry, pointed out the distant goals of his own and his friend’s life, and carried him off into the future. Both grew excited, wept, and exchanged solemn promises to follow the path of reason and light. Oblomov was infected by the youthful ardour of Stolz, and he was aflame with the desire to work and to reach his distant, but fascinating goal.
But the flower of life opened up and bore no fruit. Oblomov sobered down, and only occasionally, on Stolz’s advice, read one book or another, though not at once, and without hurry or eagerness, lazily scanning the lines. However absorbing the passage that engaged his attention might be, if it was time to have dinner or to go to bed, he put the book face downwards and went to have dinner or blew out the candle and went to sleep. If he was given the first volume of some work, he did not, after finishing it, ask for the second, but if it were