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

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СКАЧАТЬ her hands, “and therefore we are bound to be all the more careful. I would rather be walking with you along this avenue publicly than by stealth—I would rather see the eyes of passers-by drop respectfully before you than run the risk of incurring a suspicion that you have so far forgotten your modesty and your upbringing as to lose your head and fail in your duty.”

      “But I have not forgotten my modesty and my upbringing,” she exclaimed, withdrawing her hands.

      “No, I know that you have not,” he agreed. “I was merely thinking of what people might say—of how the world in general might look upon it all. Pray do not misunderstand me. What I desire is that to the world you should seem to be as pure, as irreproachable, as in actual fact you are. To me your conduct seems solely honourable and modest; but would every one believe it to be so?”

      “What you say is right,” she said after a pause. “Consequently, let us tell my aunt to-morrow, and obtain her consent.”

      Oblomov turned pale. “Why hurry so?” he asked. “I know that, two weeks ago, I myself was urging haste; but at that time I had not thought of the necessary preparations.”

      “Then your heart is failing you? That I can see clearly.”

      “No; I am merely cautious. Even now I see a carriage approaching us. Are you sure that the people in it are not acquaintances of yours? How these things throw one into a fever of perspiration I Let us depart as quickly as possible.” And with that he set off, almost at a run.

      “Until to-morrow, then,” she said.

      “No, until the day after to-morrow. That would be better. Or even until Friday or Saturday.”

      “No, no; you must come to-morrow. Do you hear? What have we not come to! What a mountain of sorrow are you not threatening to bring upon my head!”

      She turned to go home.

III

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      On arriving at his rooms again, Oblomov never noticed that Zakhar gave him a cold dinner, or that, after it, he rolled into bed and slept heavily and insensibly; like a stone. Next day he received a letter in which Olga said that she had spent the whole night weeping.

      “She has been unable to sleep!” he thought to himself. “Poor angel! Why does she care for me so much? And why am I so fond of her? Would we had never met! It is all Schtoltz’s fault. He shed love over us as he might have shed a disease. What sort of a life is this? Nothing but anxiety and emotion! How can it ever lead to peaceful happiness and rest?”

      Sighing deeply, he threw himself upon the sofa—then rose again, and went out into the street, as though seeking the normal existence which pursues a daily, gradual course of contemplation of nature, and constitutes a series of calm, scarcely perceptible phenomena of family life. Of existence as a spacious, a turbulent, a billowing river, as Schtoltz always conceived it to be, he could form no conception whatever.

      He wrote to Olga that he had taken a slight chill in the Summer Gardens—wherefore he must stay at home for a couple of days; but that he hoped soon to be better, and to see her on the following Sunday. In reply she wrote that he must take the greatest care of himself; that even on Sunday he must not come should he not be well enough; and that a whole week’s separation would be bearable to her if thereby he were enabled to avoid risking his health. This excuse for omitting the Sunday visit Oblomov gladly seized upon; wherefore he sent back word that, as a matter of fact, a few days’ additional convalescence would be no more than prudent.

      Day succeeded day throughout the week. He read, he walked about the streets, and, occasionally, he looked in upon his landlady for the purpose of exchanging a couple of words and drinking some of her excellent coffee. So comfortable did she make him that he even thought of giving her a book to read; but when he did so she merely read the headings of a chapter or two, and then returned him the volume, saying that later she would get her little girl to read the work to her.

      Meanwhile Olga received unexpected news. This was to the effect that a lawsuit with regard to her property had ended in her favour, and that within a month’s time she would be able, should she wish, to enter into actual possession. But of this, and of her other plans for the future, she decided not to tell Oblomov, but to spend the present hour in dreams of the happiness that was to be hers and his when she had seen love complete its revolution in his apathetic soul, and the slothfulness fall from his shoulders.

      That very day he was to come. Yet three o’clock arrived—four o’clock—and no Oblomov. By half-past five the beauty and the freshness of her features had begun to fade. Insensibly her form assumed a drooping posture, and as she sat at the table her face was pale. Yet no one noticed this. The rest of the guests consumed the dishes which she had prepared for him alone, and carried on a desultory, indifferent chatter of conversation. Until ten o’clock she vacillated between hope and despair. Then, on the arrival of that hour, she withdrew to her room. At first she showered upon his head all the resentment that was seething within her. Not a word of mordant sarcasm in her vocabulary would she not have devoted to his punishing, had he been present. But after a while her mind passed from fierceness to a thought which chilled it like ice.

      “He is sick,” was that thought. “He is lonely and ill, and unable even to write.” So much did the idea gam upon her that she passed a sleepless night, and rose pale, quiet, and determined. The same morning—it was Monday—the landlady informed Oblomov that a visitor desired to see him.

      “To see me? Surely not?” he exclaimed. “Where is she?”

      “Outside. Shall I send her away?” Oblomov was about to assent when Olga’s maid, Katia, entered the room. Oblomov changed countenance. “How come you to be here?” he asked.

      “My mistress is outside,” she replied, “and has sent me in to bid you go to her.” There was no help for it, so he went out, and found Olga alone.

      “Are you quite well?” she exclaimed. “What has been the matter with you?” With that they entered his: study.

      “I am better now—the sore throat is almost gone,” he replied; and as he spoke he touched the part mentioned, and coughed slightly.

      “Then why did you not come last night?” She raked him with a glance so keen that for the moment he found himself tongue-tied.

      “And why have you taken such a step as this?” he countered. “Surely you know what you are doing?”

      “Never mind,” she retorted impatiently. “I do not believe you have been ill at all.”

      “No—I have not,” he confessed.

      “You have been deceiving me? Why so?”

      “I will explain later. Important reasons have kept me away from you for a fortnight.”

      “What are they?”

      “I—I am afraid of scandal, of people’s tongues.”

      “And not of the fact that possibly I might pass sleepless nights—that possibly I might be so anxious as to be unable to rest?”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ