Oblomov. Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov
Oblomov hesitated. “Very well,” he said after a pause; “only——”
“What about next week?”
“Certainly. Next week let it be. But at the moment I have no suitable clothes. Is your fiancêe a financial catch?”
“Yes, for her father is a State councillor, and intends to give her ten thousand roubles, as well as to let us have half his official house (a house of twelve rooms—the whole being furnished, heated, and lighted at the public expense); so we ought to do very well. Herewith I invite you to be my best man at the wedding.”
Once more the doorbell rang.
“Good-bye,” said Sudbinski. “I am annoyed that, as I surmise, I should be wanted at the office.”
“Then stay where you are,” urged Oblomov. “I desire your advice, for two misfortunes have just befallen me.”
“No, no; I had better come and see you another day.” And Sudbinski took his leave.
“Plunged up to the ears in work, good ‘friend!” thought Oblomov as he watched him depart. “Yes, and blind and deaf and dumb to everything else in the world! Yet by going into society and at the same time, busying yourself about your affairs you will yet__win distinction, and promotion. Such is what they call ‘a career’! Yet of how little use is a man like that! His intellect, his will, his feelings—what do they avail him? So many luxuries is what they are—nothing more. Such an individual lives out his little span without achieving a single thing worth mentioning; and meanwhile he works in an office from morning till night—yes, from morning till night, poor wretch!”
Certainly a modicum of quiet satisfaction was to be derived from the thought that from nine o’clock until three, and from eight o’clock until nine on the following day, he, Oblomov, could remain lying prone on a sofa instead of having to trot about with reports and to inscribe multitudes of documents. Yes, he preferred, rather, leisure for the indulgence of his feelings and imagination. Plunged in a philosophical reverie, he overlooked the fact that by his bedside there was standing a man whose lean, dark face was almost covered with a pair of whiskers, a moustache, and an imperial. Also the new-comer’s dress was studied in its negligence.
“Good morning, Oblomov,” he said.
“Good morning, Penkin,” was the response. “I should like to show you a letter which I have just received from my starnsta. Whence have you sprung?”
“From the newsagent’s, near by. I went to see if the papers are yet out. Have you read my latest article?”
“No.”
“Then you ought to do so.”
“What is it about?” Oblomov asked with a faint yawn.
“About trade, about the emancipation of women, about the beautiful April days with which we have been favoured, and about the newly formed fire-brigade. How come you not to have read that article? In it you will see portrayed the whole of our daily life. Over and above anything else, you will read therein an argument in favour of the present realistic: tendency in literature.”
“And have you no other work on hand?” inquired Oblomov.
“Yes, a good deal. I write two newspaper articles a week, besides reviewing a number of books. In addition, I have just finished a tale of my own.”
“What is it about?”
“It tells how, in a certain town, the governor used to beat the citizens with his own hand.”
“The realistic tendency, right enough!” commented Oblomov.
“Quite so,” said the delighted littérateur. “In my tale (which is novel and daring in its idea) a traveller witnesses a beating of this kind, seeks an interview with the governor of the province, and lays before him a complaint. At once the said governor of the province orders an official who happens to be proceeding to that town for the purpose of conducting another investigation to inquire also into the truth of the complaint just laid, and likewise to collect evidence as to the character and behaviour of the local administrator. The official in question calls together the local citizens, on the pretext of a trade conference, and incidentally sounds them concerning the other matter. And what do you suppose they do? They merely smile, present their compliments, and load the governor of the town with praises! Thereafter the official makes extraneous inquiries, and is informed that the said citizens are rogues who trade in rotten merchandise, give underweight, cheat the Treasury, and indulge in wholesale immorality; wherefore the beatings have been a just retribution.”
“Then you intend the assaults committed by the governor to figure in the story as the fatum of the old tragedians?”
“Quite so,” said Penkin. “You have great quickness of apprehension, and ought yourself to tackle the writing of stories. Yes, it has always been my idea to expose the arbitrariness of our local governors, the decline of morality among the masses, the faulty organization existing among our subordinate officials, and the necessity of drastic, but legal, measures to counterbalance these evils. ’Tis a novel idea for a story, is it not?”
“Certainly; and to me who read so little a peculiarly novel one.”
“True, I have never once seen you with a book in your hand. Nevertheless, I beseech you to read a poem which, I may say, is shortly to appear. It is called ‘The Love of a Blackmailer for a Fallen Woman.’ the identity ol the author I am not at liberty to disclose—at all events yet.”
“Pray give me an idea of this poem.”
“It exposes, as you will see, the whole mechanism of the social movement—but a mechanism that is painted only in poetic colours. Each spring of that engine is touched upon, and each degree of the social scale held up to the light. We see summoned to the bar, as it were, a weak, but vicious, lord, with a swarm of blackmailers who are engaged in cheating him. Also various categories of fallen women are dissected—French women, German women, and others; the whole being done with vivid and striking verisimilitude. Certain extracts from the poem have come to my ears, and I may say that the author is a great man—one hears in him the notes both of Dante and of Shakespeare.”
“And whence has he originated?” asked Oblomov, leaning forward in astonishment; but Penkin, perceiving that he had now said too much, merely repeated that Oblomov must read the poem, and judge for himself. This Oblomov declined to do.
“Why?” asked Penkin. “The thing will make a great stir and be much talked about.”
“Very well: let people talk. ’Tis all some folks have to do. ’Tis their métier.”
“Nevertheless, read it yourself, for curiosity’s sake.”
“What have I not seen in books!” commented the other. “Surely folk must write such things merely to amuse themselves?”
“Yes; even as I do. At the same time, what truth, what verisimilitude, do you not find in books! How powerfully some of them move one through the vivid portraiture which they contain! Whomsoever these authors take—a tchinovnik, * an officer, or a blackmailer—they paint them as living creatures.”
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