The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький

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СКАЧАТЬ that is not the reason. I always pay in advance. Tell me what had better be done.”

      “Who made me your adviser? Do you think I give advice for nothing? Ask him, rather”—and Tarantiev pointed to Alexiev—“or else that kinsman of his.”

      “No, no. Tell me what I ought to do.”

      “I should advise you to move to another flat.”

      “I could have said that myself.”

      “To the flat of a friend of mine in the Veaborg Quarter,” continued Tarantiev.

“What? To a flat in the Veaborg Quarter? In winter the whole district is overrun with wolves!” 8

      “True, at times they come there from the Neva Islands, but my friend’s house has high walls to it, and, in addition, she and her family and a bachelor brother are nice people, and not like that fellow over there.” He pointed to Alexiev.

      “But what has all this to do with me?” said Oblomov irritably. “I tell you I am not going to move there.”

      “You fool!” exclaimed Tarantiev. “In that house you would be much quieter and more comfortable than you are here, and you would pay less, and you would have larger quarters. Besides, it is a more respectable place than this. Here one has to sit at a dirty table on which the pepper-pot is empty, the vinegar bottle the same, the knives are not clean, the tablecloth is falling to pieces, and dust, dust, dust, lies everywhere. Give me my cab-fare, and I will go and secure you the flat at once. Then you can move into it to-morrow.” Tarantiev started to leave the room.

      “Stop, stop!” cried Oblomov. “I tell you I am not going to the Veaborg Quarter. Pray exercise your wits in contriving how I may remain where I am. Moreover, I have a still more important affair on hand. That is to say, I have just received from my starosta a letter concerning which I should be glad of your advice.”

      With that he searched for the document, found it after some difficulty, and read it aloud.

      “So you hear what the starosta says as to drought and a failure of the crops? What ought I to do?”

      “The prime necessity,” replied Tarantiev, “is complete quiet for you. That you would get at the house of the friend of whom I have just spoken; and I could come to see you every day.”

      “Yes, yes,” said Oblomov. “But what about this affair of the starosta?”

      “The starosta is lying. He is a thief and a rogue. Why, I know an estate, only fifty versts from yours, where the harvest of last year was so good that it cleared the owner completely of debt. That being so, why have the crops on your estate threatened to fail? Clearly the starosta is a robber. If I were there I’d teach him! Do you suppose this letter to be a natural, an honest one? No, no more than we can suppose that that sheep’s head over there he pointed to Alexiev again—“is capable of writing an honest letter, or his kinsman either.”

      “Whom am I to appoint in the starosta’s place?” asked Oblomov. “Another man might prove even worse than he.”

      “You yourself had better go to the estate, and stay there for the summer, and then move into my friend’s house. I will see that her rooms shall be ready for you—yes, I will see to it at once. Personally, I should have sold that property of yours, and bought another. Hand it over to me, and I will very soon make the folk there aware that I am alive!”

      The upshot of it was that Oblomov accorded a half-hearted consent to Tarantiev’s procuring him a new lodging, and also to his writing to the governor of the district where his (Oblomov’s) property was situated. After that Tarantiev departed, stating that he would return to dinner at five o’clock.

      With Tarantiev’s departure a calm of ten minutes reigned in the apartment. Oblomov was feeling greatly upset, both by the starostas letter and by the prospect of the impending removal. Also, the tumultuous Tarantiev had thoroughly tired him out.

      “Why do you not sit down and write the letter?” asked Alexiev. “If you wish I will clean the inkstand for you.”

      “Clean it, and the Lord bless you!” sighed Oblomov. “Let me write the letter alone, and then you shall fair-copy it after dinner.”

      “Very well,” replied Alexiev. “But now I must be off, or I shall be delaying the Ekaterinhov party. Good-bye!”

      Oblomov did not heed him, but, sinking back into a recumbent position in the armchair, relapsed into a state of meditative lethargy.

IV

       Table of Contents

      Zakhar, after closing the dour successively behind Tarantiev and Alexiev, stood expecting to receive a summons from his master, inasmuch as he had overheard the fact that the latter had undertaken to write a letter. But in Oblomov’s study all remained silent as the tomb. Zakhar peeped through the chink of the door, and perceived that his master was lying prone on the sofa, with his head resting on the palm of his hand. The valet entered the room.

      “Why have you lain down again?” he asked.

      “Do not disturb me: cannot you see that I am reading?” was Oblomov’s abrupt reply.

      “Nay, but you ought to wash, and then to write that letter,” urged Zakhar, determined not to be shaken on.

      “Yes, I suppose I ought. I will do so presently. Just now I am engaged in thought.”

      As a matter of fact, he did read a page of the book which was lying open—a page which had turned yellow with a month’s exposure. That done, he laid it down and yawned.

      “How it all wearies me!” he whispered, stretching, and then drawing up, his legs. Glancing at the ceiling as once more he relapsed into a voluptuous state of coma, he said to himself with momentary sternness: “No—business first.” Then he rolled over, and clasped his hands behind his head.

      As he lay there he thought of his plans for improving his property. Swiftly he passed in review certain grave and fundamental schemes affecting his plough-land and its taxation; after which he elaborated a new and stricter course to be taken against laziness and vagrancy on the part of the peasantry, and then passed to sundry ideas for ordering his own life in the country.

      First of all, he became engrossed in a design for a new house. Eagerly he lingered over a probable disposition of the rooms, and fixed in his mind the dimensions of the dining-room and the billiard-room, and determined which way the windows of his study must face. Indeed, he even gave a thought to the furniture and to the carpets. Next, he designed a wing for the building, calculated the number of guests whom that wing would accommodate, and set aside proper sites for the stables, the coachhouses, and the servants’ quarters. Finally he turned his attention to the garden. The old lime and oak-trees should all be left as they were, but the apple-trees and pear-trees should be done away with, and succeeded by acacias. Also, he gave a moment’s consideration to the idea of a park, but, after calculating the cost of its upkeep, came to the conclusion that such a luxury would prove too expensive—wherefore he passed СКАЧАТЬ