On the evening of the fateful dinner-party at the aunt’s house Oblomov experienced the same torture during the meal as he had done on the previous occasion. Every word that he spoke he uttered with an acute sense that over him, like a searchlight, there was hovering that glance, and that it was burning and irritating him, and that it was stimulating his nerves and blood. Surely, on the balcony, he thought, he would be able, when ensconced behind a cloud of tobacco smoke, to succeed in momentarily concealing himself from that silent, that insistent gaze?
“What does it all mean?” he said to himself as he rocked himself to and fro. “Why, it is sheer torture! Have I made myself ridiculous? At no one else would she dare to stare as she does at me. I suppose it is because I am quieter than the rest. However, I will make an agreement with her. I will tell her, in so many words, that her eyes are dragging my very soul out of my body.”
Suddenly she appeared on the threshold of the balcony. He handed her a chair, and she took a seat beside him.
“Are you so very ennuyé?” she inquired.
“Ennuyé, yes—but not much so. I have pursuits of my own.”
“Ah? Schtoltz tells me that you are engaged in drawing up a scheme of some sort?”
“Yes. I want to live upon my estate, and am making a few preparations for doing so.”
“And you are going abroad?”
“Undoubtedly—as soon as ever Schtoltz is ready to accompany me.”
“Shall you be very glad to go?”
“Yes, very.”
He looked at her. A smile wras hovering on her face, and illuminating her eyes, and gradually spreading over her cheeks. Only her lips remained as pressed together as usual. He lacked the spirit to continue his lies calmly.
“However, I—I am rather a lazy person,” he began. “But, but——”
Suddenly he felt vexed to think that she should have extracted from him a confession of his lethargy. “What is she to me?” he thought. “Am I afraid of her?”
“Lazy?” she exclaimed with a scarcely perceptible touch of archness. “What? A man be lazy? That passes my comprehension.”
“Why should it?” was his inward comment. “It is all simple enough. I have taken to sitting at home more and more, and therefore Schtoltz thinks that I——”
“But I expect you write a great deal?” she went on. “And have you read much?” Somehow her gaze seemed very intent.
“No, I cannot say that I have.” The words burst from him in a sudden fear lest she should see fit: to put him through a course of literary examination.
“What do you mean?” she inquired, laughing. Then he too laughed.
“I thought that you were going to crossquestion me about some novel or another,” he explained. “But, you see, I never read such things.”
“Then you thought wrong. I was only going to ask you about a few books of travel.”
He glanced at her quickly. Her lips were still compressed, but the rest of her face was smiling.
“I must be very, careful with her,” he refleted.
“What do you read?” she asked with seeming curiosity.
“It happens that I am particularly fond of books of travel,” he replied.
“Travels in Africa, for instance?” There was quiet demureness in the tone. He reddened at the not wholly unreasonable conjecture that she was aware not only of what he read but of how he read.
“And are you also musical?” she continued, in order to relieve him of his embarrassment. At this moment Schtoltz (who had now returned from abroad) appeared on the scene.
“Ha, Ilya!” he cried. “I have told Olga Sergievna that you adore music, and that to-night she must sing something—‘Casta Diva,’ for example.”
“Why did you speak for me at all?” protested Oblomov. “I am by no means an adorer of music.”
“What?” Schtoltz exclaimed. “Why, the man is offended! I introduce him as a person of taste, and here is he stumbling over himself to destroy his good reputation!”
“I am only declining the rôle of connoisseur,” said Oblomov. “’Tis too difficult and risky a rôle. Sometimes I can listen with pleasure to a cracked barrel-organ, and its tunes stick in my memory; while at other times I leave the Opera before the piece is half over. It all depends upon the mood in which I am. In fact, there are moments when I could close my ears even to Mozart.”
“Then it is clear that you do love music,” said Olga.
“Sing him something,” requested Schtoltz.
“But suppose that Monsieur Oblomov were, at this very moment, to be feeling inclined to close his ears?” she said as she turned to him.
“I suppose I ought to utter some compliment or another,” he replied. “But I cannot do so, and I would not, even if I could.”
“Why?”
“Because,” was Oblomov’s naïve rejoinder, “things would be so awkward for me if I were to find that you sing badly.”
“Even as, the other day, you found things awkward with the biscuits?” she retorted before she could stop herself. The next moment she reddened as though she would have given worlds to have been able to recall her words. “Pardon me,” she added. “I ought not to have said that.”
Oblomov had been unprepared, and was quite taken aback.
“That was a cruel advantage,” he murmured.
“No—only a small revenge (and an unpremeditated one) for your failure to have had a compliment ready.”
“Then perhaps I will have one ready when I have heard you sing.”
“‘You wish me to sing, then?”
“No; he wishes it.” Oblomov pointed to Schtoltz.
“But what of yourself?”
Oblomov shook his head deprecatingly.
“I could not wish for what I have not yet experienced,” he said.
“You are very rude, Ilya,” put in Schtoltz. “See what comes of lolling about at home and confining your efforts to having your socks put on for you.”
“Pardon me,” said Oblomov quickly, and without giving him time to finish. “I should find it no trouble to say: ‘I shall be most glad, most delighted, to hear you sing, for of course you sing perfectly.’ So,” he went on, “‘it will afford me the very greatest possible pleasure.’ But do you really think it necessary?”
“At least you might express a desire that I should sing—if only out of curiosity.”
“I dare not do so,” replied Oblomov. “You are not an actress.”
“Then it shall be for you that I will sing,” she said to Schtoltz.
“While you, Ilya,” he added, “can be getting your compliment ready.”
Evening was closing in, and the lamp had been lit. Moonlike, it cast through the ivy-covered trellis