Oblomov. Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov

a couple of sofas, upholstered in some silken material, and a handsome screen that was embroidered with birds and fruits unknown to Nature.

      Also the room contained silken curtains, a few mats, some pictures, bronzes, and pieces of china, and a multitude of other pretty trifles. Yet even the most cursory glance from the experienced eye of a man of taste would have detected no more than a tendency to observe les convenances while escaping their actual observance. Without doubt that was all that Oblomov had thought of when furnishing his study. Taste of a really refined nature would never have remained satisfied with such ponderous, ungainly redwood chairs, with such rickety whatnots. Moreover, the back of one of the sofas had sagged, and, here and there, the wood had come away from the glue. Much the same thing was to be seen in the case of the pictures, the vases, and certain other trifles of the apartment. Nevertheless, its master was accustomed to regard its appurtenances with the cold, detached eye of one who would ask, “Who has dared to bring this stuff here?” The same indifference on his part, added to, perhaps, an even greater indifference on the part of his servant, Zakhar, caused the study, when contemplated with attention, to strike the beholder with an impression of all-prevailing carelessness and neglect. On the walls and around the pictures there hung cobwebs coated with dust; the mirrors, instead of reflecting, would more usefully have served as tablets for recording memoranda; every mat was freely spotted with stains; on the sofa there lay a forgotten towel, and on the table (as on most mornings) a plate, a salt-cellar, a half-eaten crust of bread, and some scattered crumbs—all of which had failed to be cleared away after last night’s supper. Indeed, were it not for the plate, for a recently smoked pipe that was propped against the bed, and for the recumbent form of Oblomov himself, one might have imagined that the place contained not a single living soul, so dusty and discoloured did everything look, and so lacking were any active traces of the presence of a human being. True, on the whatnots there were two or three open books, while a newspaper was tossing about, and the bureau bore on its top an inkstand and a few pens; but the pages at which the books were lying open were covered with dust and beginning to turn yellow (thus proving that they had long been tossed aside), the date of the newspaper belonged to the previous year, and from the inkstand, whenever a pen happened to be dipped therein, there arose, with a frightened buzz, only a derelict fly.

      On this particular morning Oblomov had (contrary to his usual custom) awakened at the early hour of eight. Somehow he looked perturbed; anxiety, regret, and vexation kept chasing one another across his features. Evidently he had fallen a prey to some inward struggle, and had not yet been able to summon his wits to the rescue. The fact of the matter was that, overnight, he had received from the starosta * of his country estate an exceedingly unpleasant letter. We all know what disagreeable things a starosta can say in his letters—how he can tell of bad harvests, of arrears of debt, of diminished incomes, and so forth; and though this particular official had been inditing precisely similar epistles during the past three years, his latest communication had affected its recipient as powerfully as though Oblomov had received an unlooked-for blow. Yet, to do Oblomov justice, he had always bestowed a certain care upon his affairs. Indeed, no sooner had he received the starosta’s first disturbing letter (he had done so three years ago) than he had set about devising a plan for changing and improving the administration of his property. Yet to this day the plan in question remained not fully thought out, although long ago he had recognized the necessity of doing something actually decisive.

      * Overseer or steward.

      Consequently, on awakening, he resolved to rise, to perform his ablutions, and his tea consumed, to consider matters, to jot down a few notes, and, in general, to tackle the affair properly. Yet for another halfhour he lay prone under the torture of this resolve; until eventually he decided that such tackling could best be done after tea, and that, as usual, he would drink that tea in bed—the more so since a recumbent position could not prove a hindrance to thought.

      Therefore he did as he had decided; and when the tea had been consumed he raised himself upon his elbow and arrived within an ace of getting out of bed. In fact, glancing at his slippers, he even began to extend a foot in their direction, but presently withdrew it.

      Half-past ten struck, and Oblomov gave himself a shake. “What is the matter?” he said vexedly. “In all conscience ’tis time that I were doing something! Would I could make up my mind to—to———” He broke off with a shout of “Zakhar!” whereupon there entered an elderly man in a grey suit and brass buttons—a man who sported beneath a perfectly bald pate a pair of long, bushy, grizzled whiskers that would have sufficed to fit out three ordinary men with beards. His clothes, it is true, were cut according to a country pattern, but he cherished them as a faint reminder of his former livery, as the one surviving token of the dignity of the house of Oblomov. The house of Oblomov was one which had once been wealthy and distinguished, but which, of late years, had undergone impoverishment and diminution, until finally it had become lost among a crowd of noble houses of more recent creation.

      For a few moments Oblomov remained too plunged in thought to notice Zakhar’s presence; but at length the valet coughed.

      “What do you want?” Oblomov inquired.

      “You called me just now, barin?” *

      * “Master” or “sir”

      “I called you, you say? Well, I cannot remember why I did so. Return to your room until I have remembered.”

      Zakliar retired, and Oblomov spent another quarter of an hour in thinking over the accursed letter.

      “I have lain here long enough,” at last he said to himself. “Really, I must rise. … But suppose I were to read the letter through carefully and then to rise? Zakhar!”

      Zakhar re-entered, and Oblomov straightway sank into a reverie. For a minute or two the valet stood eyeing his master with covert resentment. Then he moved towards the door.

      “Why are you going away?” Oblomov asked suddenly.

      “Because, barin, you have nothing to say to me. Why should I stand here for nothing?”

      “What? Have your legs become so shrunken that you cannot stand for a moment or two? I am worried about something, so you must wait. You have just been lying down in your room, haven’t you? Please search for the letter which arrived from the starosta last night. What have you done with it?”

      “What letter? I have seen no letter,” asserted Zakhar.

      “But you took it from the postman yourself?”

      “Maybe I did, but how am I to know where you have since placed it?” The valet fussed about among the papers and other things on the table.

      “You never know anything,” remarked his master. “Look in that basket there. Or possibly the letter has fallen behind the sofa? By the way, the back of that sofa has not yet been mended. Tell the joiner to come at once. It was you that broke the thing, yet you never give it a thought!”

      “I did not break it,” retorted Zakhar. “It broke of itself. It couldn’t have lasted for ever. It was bound to crack some day.” This was a point which Oblomov did not care to contest. “Have you found the letter yet?” he asked.

      “Yes—several letters.”

      “But they are not what I want.”

      “I can see no others,” asserted Zakhar.

      “Very well,” was Oblomov’s impatient reply. “I will get up and search for the letter myself.”

      Zakhar retired to his room again, but had scarcely rested his hands against his pallet before stretching himself out, when once more there came a peremptory shout of “Zakhar! Zakhar!”

      “Good Lord!” grumbled the valet as a third time he made for the study. “Why should I be tormented in this fashion? I would rather be dead!”

      “My handkerchief!” cried Oblomov. “Yes, and very quickly, too! You might have guessed that that is what I am wanting.”