Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [50]
‘My hands are clean,’ Zakhar remarked, showing what looked more like two soles than a pair of hands.
‘Oh, you’d better not show them to me,’ said Oblomov, turning away. ‘And should you want to have a drink, the decanter’s there, but there’s no glass.’
‘You can drink from the decanter just as well,’ Zakhar observed good-naturedly.
‘That’s just like you: one can just as well not sweep the floor, not dust, and not beat the carpets. And at the new flat,’ Oblomov went on, carried away by the vivid picture of the moving he had conjured up, ‘things won’t be put straight for at least three days – everything is sure to be in the wrong place: the pictures on the floor by the walls, the goloshes on the bed, the boots in the same bundle as the tea and the pomatum. There’s a chair with a broken leg, a picture with a smashed glass, a sofa covered in stains. Whatever you ask for is not to be found, no one knows where it is – been lost or left at the old flat – go and run back for it.’
‘Aye,’ Zakhar interrupted, ‘sometimes one has to run there and back a dozen times.’
‘There you are!’ Oblomov went on. ‘And getting up in the morning in a new flat – what a bore! No water, no charcoal for the samovar, and in the winter you’re sure to freeze to death, the rooms are cold and there’s no firewood; you have to run and borrow some.’
‘That depends on the kind of neighbours you get,’ Zakhar observed again. ‘Some wouldn’t lend you a jug of water, let alone a bundle of firewood.’
‘Yes, indeed!’ said Oblomov. ‘You move and you’d suppose that by the evening everything would be over, but not at all, you won’t be settled for another fortnight at least. Everything seems to be in its place, but there are still heaps of things to do: hang up the curtains, put up the pictures – you’d be sick and tired of it all, you’d wish you were dead. And the expense!’
‘Last time we moved, eight years ago,’ Zakhar confirmed, ‘it cost us two hundred roubles – I remember it as if it was to-day.’
‘Well, that’s no joke, is it?’ said Oblomov. ‘And how strange life is in a new flat at first! How soon will you get used to it? Why, I shan’t be able to sleep for at least a week in the new place. I’ll be eaten up with misery when I get up and don’t see the wood-turner’s signboard opposite; if that old woman with the short hair doesn’t look out of the window before dinner, I feel miserable. So you see now what you’re trying to let your master in for, don’t you?’ Oblomov asked reproachfully.
‘I see, sir,’ Zakhar whispered humbly.
‘Then why did you try to persuade me to move?’ said Oblomov. ‘Do you think I’m strong enough to stand it?’
‘I thought, sir, that other people are no better than us, and if they move, why can’t we?’
‘What? What?’ Oblomov asked in surprise, rising from his chair. ‘What did you say?’
Zakhar was utterly confused, not knowing what he could have said to cause his master’s pathetic words and gestures. He was silent.
‘Other people are no better!’ Oblomov repeated in dismay. ‘So that’s what you’ve been leading up to! Now I shall know that I’m the same as “other people” to you!’
Oblomov bowed to Zakhar ironically, and looked highly offended.
‘Good Lord, sir, I never said that you were the same as anyone else, did I?’
‘Get out of my sight, sir!’ Oblomov cried imperiously, pointing to the door. ‘I can’t bear to look at you! “Other people!” That’s nice!’