Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [85]
‘And you and your master,’ he said, ‘are damned paupers. Jews, worse than Germans. I know who his grandfather was: a stall-holder in the flea-market. When your visitors left last night I wondered if they were not burglars who had got into the house: I felt sorry for them! His mother, too, used to sell stolen and threadbare clothes in the flea-market.’
‘Come, come, now!’ the caretaker tried to calm him.
‘Oh yes,’ Zakhar said, ‘my master is a born gentleman, thank God. All his friends are generals, counts, and princes. It isn’t every count he’ll invite to dinner, either; some of them come and have to wait in the hall.… All sorts of writers keep coming, too.…’
‘What sort of writers are they?’ asked the caretaker, intent on stopping the quarrel. ‘Are they civil servants or what?’
‘No,’ explained Zakhar, ‘they are gentlemen who invent everything they want themselves.’
‘What are they doing at your place?’ asked the caretaker.
‘Why, one of them will ask for a pipe of tobacco, another for a glass of sherry,’ said Zakhar, and paused, noticing that almost everyone was smiling sarcastically.
‘And you’re a lot of scoundrels, every one of you!’ he said hurriedly, casting a sidelong glance at them. ‘You’ll catch it for tearing other people’s clothes. I’ll go and tell my master!’ he added and walked home quickly.
‘Wait, wait! What’s the hurry?’ the caretaker cried. ‘Zakhar Trofimych! Let’s go and have a drink – come on!’
Zakhar stopped, turned back quickly, and, without looking at the other servants, rushed out into the street. He reached the door of the inn opposite the gate without paying heed to any of them, then he turned round, cast a sombre glance at the company, and motioning them even more sombrely to follow him, disappeared inside.
The others dispersed, too: some went into the inn, others went home: only the valet remained.
‘Well,’ he said thoughtfully and phlegmatically to himself, slowly opening his snuff-box, ‘what if he tells his master? You can see from everything that his master is a kind man – he’d only swear! There’s no harm in that, is there? Now, another one will just stare at you and then grab you by the hair.…’
11
SOON AFTEB YOUR Zakhar carefully and noiselessly opened the front door of his master’s flat and tiptoed to his room; then he walked up to the door of his master’s study, put his ear to it and, bending down, peeped through the key-hole.
From the study came the sound of regular snoring.
‘Asleep,’ he whispered. ‘I must wake him – it’ll be half-past four soon.’
He cleared his throat and went into the study.
‘Sir! sir!’ he began quietly, standing at the head of the bed. The snoring continued.
‘Oh, he’s fast asleep!’ said Zakhar. ‘Like a regular bricklayer! Sir!’
Zakhar touched Oblomov’s sleeve lightly.
‘Get up, sir! It’s half-past four!’
Oblomov just mumbled something, but did not wake.
‘Get up, sir! It’s disgraceful!’ Zakhar said, raising his voice.
No answer.
‘Sir!’ Zakhar repeated, touching his master on the sleeve.
Oblomov turned his head a little, with difficulty opened one eye and looked at Zakhar as though he had been stricken with paralysis.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘It’s me, sir. Get up, please.’
‘Go away!’ Oblomov muttered and sank into heavy sleep again. Instead of snoring, he began whistling through the nose. Zakhar pulled him by his dressing-gown.
‘What do you want?’ Oblomov asked sternly, opening both eyes suddenly.
‘You told me to wake you, sir.’
‘I know. You’ve done your duty and now clear out! Leave the rest to me.…’
‘I won’t go,’ Zakhar said, touching him again by the sleeve.
‘There now,’ Oblomov said gently, ‘leave me alone.’ And burying his face in the pillow, he was about to start snoring again.
‘You