“And from whom can it be?” said old Oblomov meditatively as he studied the address. “Somehow I seem to know the handwriting.”
Upon that the missive fell to being passed from one person to another; and much guessing and discussion began. Finally the company had to own itself nonplussed. The master of the house ordered his spectacles to be fetched, and quite an hour and a half were consumed in searching for the same; but at length be put them on, and then bethought him of opening the letter.
“Wait a moment,” said his wife, hastily, arresting his hand. “Do not break the seal. Who knows what the letter may contain? It may portend something dreadful, some misfortune. To what have we not come nowadays? To-morrow, or the day after, will be soon enough. The letter will not walk away of itself.”
So the letter was placed under lock and key, and tea passed round. In fact, the document would have lain there for a year, had it not constituted a phenomenon so unusual as to continue to excite the Oblomovkans’ curiosity. Both after tea and on the following day the talk was of nothing else. At length things could no longer be borne, and on the fourth day, the company being assembled, the seal was diffidently broken, and old Oblomov glanced at the signature.
“Radistchev!” he exclaimed. “So the message is from Philip Matveitch!”
“Oh! Ah! From him, indeed?” resounded on all sides. “To think that he is actually alive! Glory be to God! And what does he say?”
Upon that old Oblomov started to read the letter aloud. It seemed that Philip Matveitch desired him to forward the recipe for a certain beer which was brewed at Oblomovka.
“Then send it, send it,” exclaimed the chorus. “Yes, and also write him an answer.”
Two weeks elapsed.
“Really we must write that note,” old Oblomov kept repeating. “Where is the recipe?”
“Where is it?” retorted his wife. “Why, it still has to be looked for. Wait a little. Why need we hurry? Should God be good, we shall soon be having another festival, and eating flesh again. Let us write then. I tell you, the recipe won’t run away.”
“Yes, I daresay it would be better to write when we have reached the festival.”
Sure enough, the said festival arrived, and again there was talk of the letter. In fact, old Oblomov did in truth get himself ready to write it. He shut himself up in his study, he put on his spectacles, and he sat down to the table. Everything in the house was profoundly quiet, since orders had been issued that the establishment was not to stamp upon the floor, nor, indeed, to make a noise of any kind. “The barin is writing,” was said in much the same tone of respectful awe that might have been used had a dead person been lying in the house.
Hardly had old Oblomov inscribed the words “Dear Sir”—slowly and crookedly, and with a shaking hand, and as cautiously, as though he had been engaged in a dangerous task—when there entered to him his wife.
“I have searched and searched,” she said, “but can find no recipe. Nevertheless the bedroom wardrobe still remains to be ransacked, so how can you write the letter now?”
“It ought to go by the next post,” her husband remarked.
“And what will it cost to go?”
Old Oblomov produced an ancient calendar. “Forty kopecks,” he said.
“What? You are going to throw away forty kopecks on such a trifle?” she exclaimed. “We had far better wait until we are sending other things also to the town. Let the peasants know about it.”
“That might be better,” agreed old Oblomov, tapping his pen against the table. With that he replaced the pen in the inkstand, and took off his spectacles.
“Yes, it might be better,” he concluded.
And to this day no one knows how long Philip Matveitch had to wait for that recipe.
Also, there were times when old Oblomov actually took a book in his hands. What book it might be he did not care, for he felt no actual craving to read; he looked upon literature as a mere luxury which could easily be indulged in, or be done without, even as one might have a picture on one’s wall, or one might not—one might go out for an occasional walk, or one might not. Hence, as I say, he was indifferent to the identity of a book, since he looked upon such articles as mere instruments of distraction from ennui and lack of employment. Also, he always adopted towards authors that half-contemptuous attitude which used to be maintained by gentry of the ancien régime; for, like many of his day, he considered a writer of books to be a roisterer, a ne’er-do-well, a drunkard, a sort of merry-andrew. Also, he would read aloud items of intelligence from journals three years old—such items as, “It is reported from The Hague that, on returning to the Palace from a short drive, the King gazed at the assembled onlookers through his spectacles,” or “At Vienna such and such an Ambassador has just presented his Letter of Credentials.”
Again, there was a day when he read aloud the intelligence that a certain work by a foreign writer had just been translated into Russian.
“The only reason why they go in for translating such things,” remarked a small landowner who happened to be present, “is that they may wheedle more money out of us dvoriané.” 15
Meanwhile the little Ilya was engaged in journeying backwards and forwards to Schtoltz’s school every Monday, when he awoke, he felt overcome with depression, should he happen to hear Vassika’s rapping voice shout aloud from the veranda: “Antipka, harness the piebald, as the young barin has to drive over to the German’s!” Yes, then Ilya’s heart would tremble, and he would repair sadly to his mother, who would know why he did so, and begin to gild the pill, while secretly sighing to herself at the thought that she was to be parted from the lad for a whole week. Indeed, on such mornings he could scarcely be given enough to eat, and scarcely could a sufficiency of buns and cakes and pies and sweetmeats be made to take with him (the said sufficiency being based upon an assumption that at the German’s the pupils fared far from richly).
“One couldn’t overeat oneself there,” said the Oblomovkans. “For dinner one gets nothing but soup, roast, and cabbage, for tea only cold meat, and for supper morgen fri.” 16
However, there were Mondays when he did not hear Vassika’s voice ordering the piebald to be harnessed, and when his mother met him with a smile and the pleasant tidings, that he was not to go to school that day, since the following Thursday would be a holiday, and it was not worth while for him to make the journey to and fro for a stay only of three days. At other times he would be informed that that week was the Week of Kindred, 17 and that therefore cake-baking, and not book-learning, would be the order of the day. Or on a Monday morning his mother would glance at him, and say: “Your eyes look dull to-day. Are you sure that you are well?” Then she would shake her head dubiously, and though the crafty youngster would be in perfect health, he would hold his tongue on the subject. Thereafter she would continue: “You must stay at home this week, for God knows what might happen to you at that other place.” And in her decision she would be confirmed by the whole of the rest of the household. True, these fond parents were not blind to the value of education; it was that they realized only its external value. That is to say, they could not look beyond the fact that education enabled folk to get on in the world so far as the acquisition of rank, crosses, and money was concerned. Certain evil rumours had arisen regarding the necessity, of learning not only one’s letters, but also various branches of science which until now had remained unknown to the world of Oblomovka; but, as I say, the good folk of that place had only the dimmest, the remotest, comprehension of any internal demand for