The head of the family, too, was not idle, for he spent the morning in sitting by the window and following with his eyes everything which took place in the courtyard.
“Hi, Ignashka, what have you there, you rascal?” he cried to a man who happened to cross the open space.
“Some knives to be sharpened in the scullery,” the man replied, without looking at his master.
“Very well, then. Mind you sharpen them properly.”
Next, the master stopped one of the maidservants.
“Where are you going?” he inquired.
“To the cellar to get some milk for the table,” she replied, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Good!” he pronounced. “And see that you don’t spill any. You, Zakharka—where are you off to once more? This is the third time I have seen you gadding about. Go back to your place in the hall.” Whereupon Zakharka returned to her day-dreams at the post mentioned. Again, as soon as the cows returned from pasture, old Oblomov was always there to see that they were properly watered. Also, when, from his post at the window, he chanced to observe the yard-dog chasing one of the hens he hastened to take the necessary measures against a recurrence of such conduct. In the same way, his wife was fully employed. For three hours she discussed with Averka, the tailor, the best ways and means of converting a waistcoat of her husband’s into a jacket for her son—herself drawing the requisite lines in chalk, and seeing to it that Averka should pilfer not a morsel of the cloth. Thereafter she passed to the maids’ room, where she parcelled cut to each damsel the day’s portion of lacemaking; whence she departed to summon one of her personal maids to attend her in the garden, for the purpose of seeing how the apples were swelling, which of them had fallen or were turning ripe, which trees wanted grafting or pruning, and so forth. But her chief care was the kitchen and the dinner. Concerning the latter she consulted the entire household, including the aged aunt. Each member of the family proposed a special dish, and the sum of these proposals was taken into consideration, adjudicated upon in detail, and adopted or rejected according to the final decision of the mistress. From time to time, also, a maid was dispatched to the culinary regions to remind the cook of this, or to tell her to add that, or to instruct her to change the other, while conveying to her sugar, honey, and wine for flavouring, and also seeing to it that the said cook was using everything which had been measured out. In fact, the supervision of food was the first and the principal domestic preoccupation of Oblomovka.
What calves were not fattened for the year’s festivals! What poultry was not reared! What forethought and care and skill were not devoted to the consumption of comestibles! Game fowls and pullets were set apart solely for birthdays and other solemn occasions; wherefore they were stuffed with nuts. For the same reason geese were caught several days beforehand, and hung up in bags until wanted, in order that, being restrained from exercise, they might put on the more fat. And what a roasting and a pickling and a baking would sometimes take place, and what mead and kvass * were there not brewed, and what pies were there not compounded!
* A liquor made from fermented bread crusts or fruit.
Until noon, therefore, everything at Oblomovka was in a state of bustle and commotion. Life was indeed full and antlike and in evidence! Even on Sundays and holidays these labour-loving ants did not desist from their toil, for on such days the clatter of knives in the kitchen sounded louder and more rapid than ever, a maid made several journeys from the storeroom to the kitchen with double quantities of meal and eggs, and in the poultry-run an added amount of cackling and of bloodshed took place. Likewise, on such days there was baked a gigantic pie, which was eaten by the gentry on the same and the following days, and by the maids on the third and fourth; after which, should it survive to the fifth clay, the last stale remnants, devoid of stuffing, were given, as a special favour, to Antip, who, crossing himself, undauntedly attacked the rock-hard fragments—though it was in the thought that it had recently been the gentry’s pie rather than in the pie itself that he took most delight; even as an archaeologist rejoices to drink even the poorest wine from the shell of a thousand-year-old vessel.
All this the boy noted with his childish, ever-watchful mind. He perceived that, after mornings thus usefully and busily spent, there ensued noon and dinner. On the present occasion noontide was sultry, and not a cloud was in the sky. Indeed, the sun seemed to be standing still to scorch the grass, and the ah to have ceased to circulate—to be hanging without the slightest movement. Neither from tree nor lake could the faintest rustle be heard, and over the village and the countryside there hung an unbroken stillness, as though everything in them were dead. Only from afar could a human voice be distinguished, while, some twenty sazhens 13b away, the drone of a flying beetle, with the snoring of some one who had sunk into the thick herbage to enjoy a refreshing sleep, came gently to the ear. Even the house was possessed by a silence as of death, for the hour of post-prandial slumber had arrived. The boy’s father, mother, and aged grandaunt, with their attendants, could be seen disposed in various corners; and, should any one not possess a particular corner, he or she repaired either to the hay-loft or to the garden or to a cool resting-place among the growing hay or, with face protected from the flies with a handkerchief, to a spot where the scorching heat would assist digestion after the enormous dinner. Even the gardener stretched himself out beneath a bush by the side of his plot, and the coachman in the stable.
Little Oblomov proceeded to peep into the servants’ hall, where the inmates were sleeping as though slumber had become an epidemic. On the benches, on the floor, and on the threshold they slept, while their children crawled about the courtyard and fashioned mud pies. Indeed, the very dogs had crawled into their kennels, since there was no longer any one to bark at. In short, one might have traversed the entire establishment without meeting a single soul; and everything in it could with ease have been stolen, and removed in carts from the courtyard, since no one would have been there to prevent the deed. The prevailing lethargy was all-consuming, all-conquering—a true image of death; seeing that, but for the fact that from various corners there came snores in different notes and keys, every one seemed wholly to have departed this life. Only at rare intervals would some one raise his head with a start, gaze around him with vacant eyes, and then turn over to the other side.
After dinner the child accompanied his nurse for a second airing out of doors. Yet, despite her mistress’s injunctions and her own resolves, the old woman could not altogether resist the general call of sleep, and began to fall a victim to the all-prevalent malady of Oblomovka. At first she kept a vigilant eye upon her little charge, and, chiding him for his waywardness, never let him stray from her side; but presently, after giving him strict instructions not to go beyond the gates, nor to interfere with the goat, nor to climb either the dovecote or the gallery, she settled herself in a shady spot, with the ostensible intention of at once knitting a stocking and of watching over young Oblomov. Next she took to checking him only in lazy fashion, as her head nodded and she said to herself: “Look you, he will certainly climb those stairs to the gallery, or else”—her eyes had almost closed—“he will run down into the ravine.” With that her head sank forward, and the stocking slipped from her hands. In a second her open mouth had emitted a gentle snore, and the boy had disappeared from her vision.
Needless to say, this was the moment which the youngster had been impatiently awaiting, for it marked the beginning of an independent existence, and he was now alone in the wide, wide world. On tiptoe he left the nurse’s side, and, peeping cautiously at the other slumberers, kept stopping to throw a second glance at any one who chanced to stir, or to spit, or to snuffle in his sleep. At last, with a tremor of joy in his heart, he made for the gallery, ascended the creaking stairs at a run, scaled also the dovecote, explored the recesses of the garden, listened to the buzzing of beetles, and followed with his eyes their flight through the air. Next, on hearing a chirping sound in the grass, he sought and captured the disturber of the public peace,