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By Root 2203 0

that everyone else lived like them and to live otherwise was a sin. They would not believe it if someone told them that there were people who had other ways of ploughing, sowing, harvesting, and selling. What passions and excitements could they possibly have? Like everyone else, they had their worries and weaknesses, rent and taxes, idleness and sleep; but all this did not amount to a great deal and did not stir their blood. For the last five years not one of the several hundred peasants of that locality had died a natural, let alone a violent, death. And when someone had gone to his eternal sleep either from old age or from some chronic illness, the people there had gone on marvelling at such an extraordinary event for months. And yet it did not surprise them at all that, for instance, Taras the blacksmith had nearly steamed himself to death in his mud hut so that he had to be revived with cold water. The only crime that was greatly prevalent was the theft of peas, carrots, and turnips from the kitchen gardens, and on one occasion two sucking pigs and a chicken had suddenly disappeared – an event which outraged the whole neighbourhood and was unanimously attributed to the fact that carts with wooden wares had passed through the village on their way to the fair. But, generally speaking, accidents of any kind were extremely rare.

Once, however, a man had been found lying in a ditch by the bridge outside a village, evidently a member of a co-operative group of workmen who had passed by on their way to the town. The boys were the first to discover him, and they ran back terrified to the village with the news that some terrible serpent or werewolf was lying in a ditch, adding that he had chased them and nearly eaten Kuzka. The braver souls among the peasants armed themselves with pitchforks and axes and went in a crowd to the ditch.

‘Where are you off to?’ The old men tried to stop them. ‘Think yourselves stout fellows, do you? What do you want there? Leave it alone, no one’s driving you.’

But the peasants went, and about a hundred yards from the spot began calling to the monster in different voices, and as there was no reply, they stopped, then moved on again. A peasant lay in the ditch, leaning his head against its side; a bundle and a stick with two pairs of bast-shoes tied on it, lay beside him. They did not venture near him or touch him.

‘Hey you, there!’ they shouted in turn, scratching their heads or their backs. ‘What’s your name? Hey, you! What do you want here?’

The stranger tried to raise his head but could not; evidently he was either ill or very tired. One peasant nearly brought himself to touch him with his pitchfork.

‘Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!’ many of the others cried. ‘How do we know what sort of a man he is? He hasn’t said a word. He may be one of them – don’t touch him, lads!’

‘Let’s go,’ some said. ‘Come on now: he isn’t one of ours, is he? He’ll only bring us trouble!’

And they all went back to the village, telling the old men that a stranger was lying there who would not speak and goodness only knows what he was up to.

‘Don’t have anything to do with him if he is a stranger,’ the old men said, sitting on the mound of earth beside their cottages, with their elbows on their knees. ‘Let him do as he likes! You shouldn’t have gone at all!’

Such was the spot where Oblomov suddenly found himself in his dream. Of the three or four villages scattered there, one was Sosnovka and another Vavilovka, about a mile from each other. Sosnovka and Vavilovka were the hereditary property of the Oblomov family and were therefore known under the general name of Oblomovka. The Oblomov country seat was in Sosnovka. About three and a half miles from Sosnovka lay the little village of Verkhlyovo, which had once belonged to the Oblomov family but which had long since passed into other hands, and a few more scattered cottages which went with it. This village belonged to a rich landowner who was never to be seen on his estate, which was managed by a German steward.

Such was the whole geography