“You have heard it all. I have nothing more to tell.”
“How so? You go into society, and I do not. Is there nothing new in the political world?”
“It is being said that the earth is growing colder every day, and that one day it will become frozen altogether.”
“Away with you! Is that politics?”
A silence ensued. Oblomov quietly relapsed into a state of coma that was neither sleeping nor waking. He merely let his thoughts wander at will, without concentrating them upon anything in particular as calmly he listened to the beating of his heart and occasionally blinked his eyes. Thus he sank into a vague, enigmatical condition which partook largely of the nature of hallucination. In rare instances there come to a man fleeting moments of abstraction when he seems to be reliving past stages of his life. Whether he has previously beheld in sleep the phenomena which are passing before his vision, or whether he has gone through a previous existence and has since forgotten it, we cannot say; but at all events he can see the same persons around him as were present in the first instance, and hear the same words as were uttered then.
So was it with Oblomov now. Gradually there spread itself about him the hush which he had known long ago. He could hear the beating of the well-known pendulum, the snapping of the thread as it was bitten off, and the repetition of familiar whispered sentences like “I cannot make the thread go through the eye of the needle. Pray do it for me, Masha—your eyesight is keener than mine.”
Lazily, mechanically he looked into his landlady’s face; and straightway from the recesses of his memory there arose a picture which, somewhere, had been well known to him.
To his vision there dawned the great, dark drawing-room in the house of his youth, lit by a single candle. At the table his mother and her guests were sitting over their needlework, while his father was silently pacing up and down. Somehow the present and the past had become fused and interchanged, so that, as the little Oblomov, he was dreaming that at length he had reached the enchanted country where the rivers run milk and honey, and bread can be obtained without toil, and every one walks clad in gold and silver.
Once again he could hear the old legends and the old folk-tales, mingled with the clatter of knives and crockery in the kitchen. Once again he was pressing close to his nurse to listen to her tremulous, old woman’s voice. “That is Militrissa Kirbitievna,” she was saying as she pointed to the figure of his landlady. Also, the same clouds seemed to be floating in the blue zenith that used to float there of yore, and the same wind to be blowing in at the window, and ruffling his hair, and the same cock of the Oblomovkan poultry-yard to be strutting and crowing below. Suddenly a dog barked. Some other guest must be arriving! Would it be old Schtoltz and his little boy from Verklevo? Yes, probably, for to-day is a holiday. And in very truth it is they—he can hear their footsteps approaching nearer and nearer! The door opens, and “Andrei!” he exclaims excitedly, for there, sure enough, stands his friend—but now grown to manhood, and no longer a little boy!...
IV
Oblomov recovered consciousness. Before him Schtoltz was standing—but the Schtoltz of the present, not the Schtoltz of a daydream.
Swiftly the landlady caught up the baby Andriusha, swept the table clear of her work, and carried off the children. Alexiev also disappeared, and Schtoltz and Oblomov found themselves alone. For a moment or two they gazed at one another amid a tense silence.
“Is that really you. Schtoltz?” asked Oblomov in tones scarcely audible for emotion—such tones as a man employs only towards his dearest friend and after a long separation.
“Yes, it is I,” replied Schtoltz quietly. “And you—are you quite well?”
Oblomov embraced him heartily. In that embrace were expressed all the long-concealed grief and joy which, fermenting ever in his soul, had never, since Schtoltz’s last departure, been expressed to any human being. Then they seated themselves, and once more gazed at one another.
“Are you really well?” Schtoltz asked again.
“Yes, thank God!” replied Oblomov. “But you have been ill?”
“Yes—I was seized with a stroke.”
“Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Evidently you have let yourself go again. What have you been doing? Actually, it is five years since last we saw one another!”
Oblomov sighed, but said nothing.
“And why did you not come to Oblomovka?” pursued Schtoltz. “And why have you never written to me?”
“What was there to say?” was Oblomov’s sad reply. “You know me. Consequently you need ask no more.”
“So you are still living in these rooms?” And Schtoltz surveyed the room as he spoke. “Why have you not moved?”
“Because I am still here. I do not think the move will ever take place.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because I am sure.”
Again Schtoitz eyed him closely, then became thoughtful, and started to pace the room.
“And what of Olga Sergievna?” was Oblomov’s next question. “Where is she now, and does she still remember me?” At this point he broke off abruptly.
“Yes, she is well, and has of you a remembrance as clear as though she had parted from you yesterday. Presently I will tell you where she is.”
“And your children?”
“The children too are well. But are you jesting when you say that you are going to remain where you are? My express purpose in coming here is to carry you off to our place in the country.”
“No, no!” cried Oblomov, though lowering his voice as he glanced at the door. Evidently the proposal had disturbed him greatly. “Do not say a word about it,” he pleaded. “Do not begin your arguments again.”
“But why will you not come? What is the matter with you? You know me well, and know that long ago I undertook this task, and shall never relinquish it. Hitherto business affairs have occupied my time, but now I am free once more. Come and live with us, or, at all events, near us. Olga and I have decided that you must do so. Thank God that I have found you the same as before, and not worse! My hopes of doing that had been small. Let us be off at once. I am prepared even to abduct you by force. You must change your mode of life, as you well know.”
To this speech Oblomov listened with impatience.
“Do not speak so loudly,” he urged. “In there——”
“Well—in there?”
“Is the landlady, and, should she hear us, she will think that I am going to leave her.”
“And why should you not leave her? Let her think what she likes!”
“Listen, Andrei.” Oblomov’s tone was one of unwonted firmness. “Do not continue your useless attempts to persuade me. Come what may, I must remain where I am.”
Schtoltz gazed at his friend in astonishment, but Oblomov returned the gaze with quiet resolution on his features.
“Remain here, and you are lost,” said Schtoltz. “This house, that woman, this way of living?—I tell you the thing cannot be Let us go.”
He caught Oblomov by the sleeve, and started to drag him towards the door.
“Why do you want to take me away?” asked Oblomov, hanging back.
“Because I want you to leave this den, this swamp, for the world of light and air and health and normal existence.” Schtoltz