“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 cannot think what is passing within me,” he said, pointing to his head, and then to his heart. “I am all on edge, all on fire.”
With that he told her what Zakhar had said to him, and ended with a statement that, like herself, he could not sleep, and that in every glance he saw a question, or a sneer, or a veiled hint at the relations which might be existing between her and himself.
“Let us decide to tell my aunt this week,” she replied, “and at once this chatter will cease. Had I not known you so well, I should scarcely have been able to understand the fact that you can be afraid of servants’ gossip, yet not of making me anxious. Really I cannot understand you.”
“Listen,” presently she went on. “There is more in this than meets the eye. Tell me all that is in your mind. What does it mean?”
He looked at her—then kissed her hand and sighed.
“What have you been doing during the past week or so?” she persisted as she glanced round the room. “What a wretched place you have got! The windows are small, and the curtains dirty. Where are your other rooms?”
He hastened to show her them, in the hope that he might divert her mind from the question of his late doings; but she only repeated the question.
“I have been reading,” he replied, “and writing, and thinking of you.”
“Have you yet read my books?” she inquired. “Where are they? I will take them back with me.”
One of them happened to be lying on the table. She looked at the page at which it was open, and saw that the page was covered with dust.
“You have not read them!” she exclaimed.
“No,” he confessed.
Once more she looked at the mess and disorder in the room, and then inquired: “Then what have you been doing? You have neither been writing nor reading.”
“No; I have not had time to do so.. In this place, as soon as one rises, the rooms need to be swept, and other interruptions occur afterwards. Next, when dinner is over——”
“When dinner is over you need to go to sleep.”
So positive in its assurance was her tone that after a moment’s hesitation he replied that her conjecture was correct.
“Why do you do that?”
“In order to pass the time. You are not here with me, Olga, and life is wearisome and unbearable without you.”
Her gaze became so stern that he broke off abruptly.
“Listen, Ilya,” she said very gravely. “Do you remember saying in the park that at length your life had been fired to flame, and that you believed me to be the aim, the ideal, of your life?”
“How should I not remember it, seeing that it has revolutionized my whole existence? Cannot you see how happy I am?”
“No, I do not see it,” she replied coldly. “Not only have you deceived me, but also you are letting yourself relapse into your former ways.”
“Deceived you? I swear to God that, were that so, I would leap into the pit of Hell!”
“Yes—if the pit of Hell were just beneath your feet; but, were you to put off doing so, even for a day or two, you would straightway change your mind, and become nervous about the deed—more especially should Zakhar and the rest begin gossiping on the subject! That is not love.”
“Ah, you have no idea how these cares and distractions have injured my health!” he exclaimed. “Ever since I have known you, nothing but anxiety has been my lot. Yet deprivation of you would cause me to die or to go out of my mind. Only through you can I breathe or feel or see. Is it, then, wonderful that, when you are not with me, I fall ill? Without you everything is wearisome and distasteful. I feel like a machine, I walk and act without knowing ever what I am doing. Yes, I am like a machine whereof only you are the fuel, the motive power....”
When she had gone he trod the floor as on air. “How clearly she sees life!” he reflected. “How unerringly from that book of wisdom is she able to divine her road!” Yes, his life and hers had been bound to come together like two rivers, for she, and only she, was his true guide and instructor.
Next day there arrived a letter from the lawyer on his estate. He read it through—then let it slip from his fingers to the ground. The gist of the document was that his property was greatly involved, and that, if he wished matters to be set in order, he must hasten to take up his residence on the spot.
“Then marriage is not to be thought of for at least another year,” he reflected with dismay. “First of all I shall need to complete my plans for the estate, and then to consult an architect, and then, and then——”
He broke off with a sigh.
IV
Are you certain that nothing remains to you of your properly—that there is no hope of anything?” asked Olga a few days later.
“Yes, I am certain,” he replied—then added with a touch of hesitation in his tone: “But perhaps within a year or so——”
“Within a year or so you may be able to order your life and your affairs? Reflect a moment.”
He sighed, for he was fighting a battle with himself, and the battle was reflected in his face.
“Listen,” she went on. “Remember that you and I are no longer children, and that