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By Root 2379 0

necessary a purchase might be, money for it was issued with the greatest regret and that, too, only if the sum was insignificant. Any considerable expense was accompanied by moans, shrieks, and abuse. At Oblomovka they preferred to put up with all sorts of inconveniences, and even stopped regarding them as such, rather than spend money. That was why the sofa in the drawing-room had for years been covered in stains; that was why the leather arm-chair of Oblomov’s father was leather only in name, being all rope, a piece of leather remaining only on the back, the rest having all peeled off five years before; and that was perhaps why the gate was lopsided and the front steps rickety. To pay 200, 300, or 500 roubles all at once for something, however necessary it might be, seemed almost suicidal to them. Hearing that a young local landowner had been to Moscow and bought a dozen shirts for 300 roubles, a pair of boots for twenty-five roubles, and a waistcoat for his wedding for forty roubles, Oblomov’s father crossed himself and said, with a look of horror on his face, that ‘such a scamp must be locked up’. They were, generally speaking, impervious to economic truths about the desirability of a quick turnover of capital, increased production, and exchange of goods. In the simplicity of their souls they understood and put into practice only one way of using capital – keeping it under lock and key – in a chest.

The other inhabitants of the house and the usual visitors sat in the arm-chairs in the drawing-room in different positions, breathing hard. As a rule, deep silence reigned among them: they saw each other every day, and had long ago explored and exhausted all their intellectual treasures, and there was little news from the outside world. All was quiet; only the sound of the heavy, home-made boots of Oblomov’s father, the muffled ticking of a clock in its case on the wall, and the snapping of a thread by the teeth or the hands of Pelageya Ignatyevna or Nastasya Ivanovna broke the dead silence from time to time. Half an hour sometimes passed like that, unless of course someone yawned aloud and muttered, as he made the sign of the cross over his mouth, ‘Lord, have mercy upon us!’ His neighbour yawned after him, then the next person, as though at a word of command, opened his mouth slowly, and so the infectious play of the air and lungs spread among them all, moving some of them to tears.

Oblomov’s father would go up to the window, look out, and say with mild surprise:

‘Good Lord, it’s only five o’clock, and how dark it is outside!’

‘Yes,’ someone would reply, ‘it is always dark at this time of the year: the evenings are drawing in.’

And in the spring they would be surprised and happy that the days were drawing out. But if asked what they wanted the long days for, they did not know what to say.

And again they were silent. Then someone snuffed the candle and suddenly extinguished it, and they all gave a start.

‘An unexpected guest!’ someone was sure to say. Sometimes this would serve as topic for conversation.

‘Who would that be?’ the mistress would ask. ‘Not Nastasya Faddeyevna? I wish it was! But no, she won’t come before the holiday. That would have been nice! How we should embrace each other and have a good cry! And we should have gone to morning and afternoon Mass together.… But I’m afraid I couldn’t keep up with her! I may be the younger one, but I can’t stand as long as she can!’

‘When was it she left here?’ Oblomov’s father asked. ‘After St Elijah’s Day, I believe.’

‘You always get the dates mixed up,’ his wife corrected him. ‘She left before Whitsun.’

‘I think she was here on the eve of St Peter’s Fast,’ retorted Oblomov’s father.

‘You’re always like that,’ his wife said reprovingly. ‘You will argue and make yourself ridiculous.’

‘Of course she was here. Don’t you remember we had mushroom pies because she liked them?’

‘That’s Maria Onisimovna: she likes mushroom pies – I do remember that! And Maria Onisimovna did not stop till St Elijah’s Day, but only till St Prokhov’s and Nikanor