Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [78]
‘Yes, I must write to him,’ Mr Oblomov kept saying to his wife. ‘Where’s the recipe?’
‘Where is it?’ his wife replied. ‘I must try and find it. But why all this hurry? Wait till the holy-days; the fast will be over, and then you can write to him. There’s plenty of time.…’
‘Yes, indeed, I’d better write during the holy-days,’ said Mr Oblomov.
The question of the letter was raised again during the holy-days. Mr Oblomov made up his mind to write the letter. He withdrew to his study, put on his glasses, and sat down at the table. Dead silence reigned in the house; the servants were told not to stamp their feet or make a noise. ‘The master’s writing,’ everyone said, speaking in a timid and respectful voice as though someone was lying dead in the house. He had just time to write, ‘Dear Sir,’ in a trembling hand, slowly, crookedly, and as carefully as though performing some dangerous operation, when his wife came into the room.
‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, ‘but I can’t find the recipe. I must have a look in the bedroom cupboard. It may be there. But how are you going to send the letter?’
‘By post, I suppose,’ replied Mr Oblomov.
‘And what will the postage be?’
Mr Oblomov produced an old calendar.
‘Forty copecks,’ he said.
‘Waste forty copecks on such nonsense!’ she observed. ‘Let’s rather wait till we can send it by someone. Tell the peasants to find out.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Oblomov, ‘it would certainly be better to send it by hand.’ And tapping the pen on the table a few times, he put it back in the inkstand and took off his glasses.
‘Yes, indeed,’ he concluded. ‘It won’t run away; there’s plenty of time.’
It is doubtful whether Filip Matveich ever received the recipe.
Sometimes Oblomov’s father picked up a book. It made no difference to him what book it was. He did not feel any need for reading, but regarded it as a luxury, as something that one could easily do without, just as one could do without a picture on the wall or without taking a walk. That was why he did not mind what book he picked up: he looked upon it as something that was meant as an entertainment, something that would help to distract him when he was bored or had nothing better to do.
‘I haven’t read a book for ages,’ he would say, or sometimes he would change the phrase to, ‘Now, then, let’s read a book.’ Or he would simply happen to see the small pile of books that was left him by his brother and pick one up at random. Whether it happened to be Golikov, or the latest Dream Book, or Kheraskov’s Rossiade, or Sumarokov’s tragedies, or the Moscow News of two years ago, he read it all with equal pleasure, remarking at times: ‘Whatever will he think of next! What a rascal! Damn the fellow!’ These exclamations referred to the authors, for whose calling he had no respect whatever; he had even adopted the attitude of semi-indulgent contempt for a writer which is so characteristic of old-fashioned people. He, like many other people of his day, thought that an author must be a jovial fellow, a rake, a drunkard, and a mountebank, something like a clown. Sometimes he read the two-year-old papers aloud for the edification of everybody or just told them a piece of news from them. ‘They write from The Hague,’ he would say, ‘that his Majesty the King has safely returned to his palace after a short journey,’ and as he spoke he glanced at his listeners over his glasses. Or: ‘The ambassador of such and such a country has presented his credentials in Vienna. And here they write,’ he went on, ‘that the works of Madame Genlis have been translated into Russian.’
‘I suppose,’ remarked one of his listeners, a small landowner, ‘they do all these translations to extract some money from us gentry.’
Meanwhile poor Oblomov had still to go for his lessons to Stolz. As soon as he woke up on Monday morning, he felt terribly depressed. He heard Vaska’s raucous voice shouting from the front steps:
‘Antip, harness the piebald one to take the young master to the German!’
His heart sank. Sadly he went to his mother. She knew what was the