Oblomov / Обломов. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Иван Гончаров

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СКАЧАТЬ and sufficient excuse for not going to the office. One can easily imagine his disappointment when he discovered that nothing short of an earthquake could prevent a civil servant who was in good health from turning up at his office, and unfortunately there were no earthquakes in Petersburg; to be sure, a flood could also serve as an excuse, but even floods were rare occurrences. Oblomov grew still more worried when documents inscribed «Important» and «Very Important» began to flash before his eyes, when he was asked to make various inquiries, extracts from official documents, look through papers, write reports two inches thick, which were called, as though in jest, notes, and, what was even worse, everything had to be done in a hurry – everyone seemed to be rushing about without stopping to take breath; as soon as one case was finished, they threw themselves furiously upon another, as though that was the only thing that mattered, and when they had finished that, they forgot it and pounced upon a third – and so it went on and on! Twice he had been roused at night and made to write «notes»; a few times he was dragged out by a courier from visits to friends – always because of those notes. All this appalled him and bored him terribly. «But when am I going to live? When am I to live?» he kept repeating.

      He had heard at home that the head of a department was a father to his subordinates and had therefore formed a most fanciful and homely idea of such a person. He imagined him to be something like a second father whose only concern was to reward his subordinates whether they deserved it or not, and to provide not only for their needs but also for their pleasures. Oblomov had thought that a superior was so eager to put himself in the place of his subordinate that he would inquire carefully how he had slept, why he was bleary-eyed, and whether he had a headache. But he was bitterly disappointed on his very first day at the office. With the arrival of the head of the department, the office was in a turmoil; they began rushing about, they looked harassed, they ran into one another, some pulling their uniforms straight for fear that they were not tidy enough to appear before their chief. This happened, as Oblomov observed afterwards, because certain heads of departments were apt to regard the stupidly frightened face of a subordinate rushing out to meet them as a sign not only of his respect for them, but also of his zeal and sometimes of his ability for the service. Oblomov had no need to be afraid of his chief, a kindly and agreeable person, who had never done any harm to anyone and whose subordinates were highly satisfied and wished for nothing better. No one had ever heard him utter an unpleasant word or raise his voice; he never demanded, but always asked. If it was a question of doing some work, he asked one of his subordinates to do it; if he wanted to invite one to his house, he asked him; if he wanted to put him under arrest, he asked him. He was never familiar with anyone; he treated all individually and collectively with the utmost respect. But somehow all his subordinates quailed before him; they answered his kind questions in a voice that was different from their own, such as they never used in speaking to other people. Oblomov, too, suddenly quailed, without himself knowing why, when his chief entered his office and he, too, began to lose his voice and to speak in a different tone – a high, horrible falsetto – as soon as his chief addressed him.

      Oblomov was worn out with fear and anguish serving under a good and lenient chief; goodness only knows what would have become of him if he had had a stern and exacting one! He somehow or other managed to stay in the service for two years; he might have endured for a third and obtained a higher rank had not a particular incident forced him to send in his resignation. One day he sent an important paper to Arkhangelsk instead of to Astrakhan. The mistake was discovered and a search was made for the culprit. They all waited with interest for the chief to summon Oblomov and ask him coldly and calmly whether he had sent the paper to Arkhangelsk, and they all wondered in what kind of voice Oblomov would reply. Some surmised that he would not reply at all, that he would not be able to. Watching his colleagues, Oblomov became frightened himself, though like the others he knew that his chief would merely reprimand him; but his own conscience was much sterner than any reprimand. Oblomov did not wait for the punishment he deserved, but went home and sent in a medical certificate.

      The certificate was as follows: «I, the undersigned, certify, and affix my seal hereto, that the collegiate secretary Ilya Oblomov suffers from an enlarged heart and a dilation of its left ventricle (Hypertrophia cordis cum dilatatione ejus ventriculi sinistri) and from a chronic pain in the liver (hetitis) which may endanger the patient’s health and life, the attacks, it may be presumed, being caused by his daily attendance at the office. Therefore, to prevent a repetition and an intensification of these morbid attacks, I consider it necessary that Mr Oblomov should stop going to the office for a time and, generally, prescribe an abstention from mental and any other activity».

      But this helped for a time only; he had to become well again sooner or later, and then he would have to go to the office again every day. Oblomov could not stand it, and he sent in his resignation. That was the end of his work for the State, and it was never resumed again.

      His social career seemed to be more successful at first. During his early years in Petersburg the tranquil features of his face were more frequently animated, his eyes used to glow for hours with the fire of life, they shone with light, hope, and strength. He was as animated as other people, was full of hope, rejoiced at trifles, and also suffered from the same trifles. But that was long ago, when he was still at the tender age when a man regards every other man as his best friend and falls in love with almost every woman, ready to offer her his hand and heart – which some indeed succeed in doing, often to their profound regret for the rest of their lives. In those blissful days Oblomov, too, had his share of not a few tender, soft, and even passionate glances from the crowd of beauties, a lot of promising smiles, two or three stolen kisses, and many more friendly handshakes, that made him suffer and brought tears to his eyes. Still, he never surrendered entirely to a pretty woman and never became her slave, or even a faithful admirer, if only because intimacy with a woman involves a great deal of trouble. Oblomov confined himself mostly to expressing his admiration from afar, from a respectable distance.

      Very seldom did fate throw him together with a woman so closely that he could catch fire for a few days and imagine himself to be in love. That was why his love adventures never developed into love affairs; they stopped short at the very beginning, and in their simplicity, innocence, and purity equalled the love-stories of a schoolgirl. He particularly avoided the pale, melancholy maidens, mostly with black eyes which reflected «tormenting days and iniquitous nights», maidens with secret joys and sorrows, who always have something to confide, something to tell, and when they tell it, shudder, burst into tears, then suddenly throw their arms around their friend’s neck, gaze into his eyes, then at the sky, and declare that there is a curse on their life, and sometimes fall down in a faint. He avoided them fearfully. His soul was still pure and virginal; it was perhaps waiting for real love, for support, for overpowering passion, and then, as the years passed, seemed to have despaired of waiting.

      Oblomov parted still more coldly from his many friends. Immediately after receiving his first letter from the bailiff with news of arrears and failure of crops, he replaced his best friend, the chef, by a woman cook, then sold his horses and, finally, dismissed his other «friends». There was hardly anything that attracted him in the town and he became more and more firmly attached to his flat. At first he found it a bit hard to remain dressed all day, then he felt too lazy to dine out except with intimate friends, mostly bachelors, who did not object to his divesting himself of his tie or unbuttoning his waistcoat, and even, if possible, lying down to have an hour’s sleep. Soon he got tired of parties, too: one had to put on a dress-suit and shave every day. He read somewhere that only morning mists were good for one and evening mists were bad, and he began to fear the damp. In spite of these eccentricities, his friend Stolz succeeded in making him go out and call on people; but Stolz often left Petersburg for Moscow, Nizhny-Novgorod, the Crimea, and latterly abroad, too, and without him Oblomov was plunged up to the neck in solitude and seclusion, from which he could be dragged only by something unusual, something out of the ordinary events of life; but nothing of the sort ever happened or was likely to happen.

      Besides, as Oblomov grew older, he reverted to a sort of childish timidity, an expectation of danger and evil from everything that was outside the sphere of his daily experience, the result of getting out of touch with life. He was not afraid, for example, of the crack СКАЧАТЬ