Oblomov (12 page)

As soon as he got up in the morning and had taken his breakfast, he lay down at once on the sofa, propped up his head on his hand and plunged into thought without sparing himself till at last his head grew weary from the hard work and his conscience told him that he had done enough for the common welfare. Only then did he permit himself to rest from his labours and change his thoughtful pose for another less stern and business-like and a more comfortable one for languorous day-dreaming. Having done with the cares of business, Oblomov liked to withdraw into himself and live in the world of his own creation. He was not unacquainted with the joys of lofty thoughts; he was not unfamiliar with human sorrows. Sometimes he wept bitterly in his heart of hearts over the calamities of mankind and experienced secret and nameless sufferings and
anguish and a yearning for something far away, for the world, perhaps, where Stolz used to carry him away.… Sweet tears flowed from his eyes.

It would also happen that sometimes he would be filled with contempt for human vice, lies, and slanders, for the evil that was rife in the world, and he was consumed by a desire to point out to man his sores, and suddenly thoughts were kindled in him, sweeping through his head like waves of the sea, growing into intentions, setting his blood on fire, flexing his muscles, and swelling his veins; then his intentions turned to strivings; moved by a spiritual force, he would change his position two or three times in one minute, and half-rising on his couch with blazing eyes, stretch forth his hand and look around him like one inspired.… In another moment the striving would turn into an heroic act – and then, heavens! What wonders, what beneficent results might one not expect from such a lofty effort!

But the morning passed, the day was drawing to its close, and with it Oblomov’s exhausted energies were crying out for a rest: the storms and emotions died down, his head recovered from the spell of his reverie, and his blood flowed more slowly in his veins. Oblomov turned on his back quietly and wistfully and, fixing a sorrowful gaze at the window and the sky, mournfully watched the sun setting gorgeously behind a four-storied house. How many times had he watched the sun set like that!

Next morning there was life once more, new excitements and dreams! He liked to imagine himself sometimes as some invincible general, compared with whom not only Napoleon, but also Yeruslau Lazarevich dwindled into insignificance; he invented a war and a cause for it, such as, for instance, an invasion of Europe by the peoples of Africa, or he organized new crusades, and fought to settle the fate of nations, devastating cities, showing mercy, putting to death, performing deeds of goodness and magnanimity. Or he would choose to be a thinker or a great artist: everyone worshipped him, he was crowned with laurels, the crowd ran after him, shouting: ‘Look, look, here comes Oblomov, our famous Ilya Ilyich!’ At bitter moments he suffered greatly, tossed from side to side, lay face downwards, and sometimes lost heart completely; then he rose from his bed, knelt down and began to pray ardently, zealously, imploring heaven to avert the storm that threatened him. After entrusting the care of his future to Providence, he grew calm and indifferent to everything in the world – let the storm do its worst!

This was how he used his spiritual powers, after spending days
in a state of agitation and only recovering with a deep sigh from an enchanting dream or an agonizing anxiety when the day was drawing to a close and the sun began to set gorgeously in an enormous ball behind the four-storied house. Then he once more watched it with a wistful look and a sorrowful smile and rested peacefully from his emotional exertions.

No one saw or knew this inner life of Oblomov; they all thought that there was nothing special about him, that he just lay about and enjoyed his meals, and that that was all one could expect from him; that it was doubtful whether he was able to form any coherent thoughts in his head. That was what the people who knew him said about him. Only Stolz knew and could testify as to his abilities and the volcanic work that was going on inside his ardent head and humane heart; but Stolz was hardly ever in Petersburg.

Only Zakhar, whose whole life centred round his master, knew his inner life even better than Stolz; but he was convinced that both he and his master were doing useful work and living a normal life, as they should, and that they could not possibly live otherwise.

7

Z
AKHAR
was over fifty. He no longer belonged to the direct descendants of those Russian Calebs, the knights of the servants’ hall without fear and without reproach, who were full of selfless loyalty to their masters and who had all the virtues and no vices. This knight was with fear and with reproach. He belonged to two different epochs, and each of them had left its mark on him. From one he had inherited his boundless loyalty to the Oblomov family, and from the other, the later one, refinement and corrupt morals. Passionately devoted to his master, not a day passed without his telling him a lie. In the old days a servant would have restrained his master from extravagance and intemperance, but Zakhar was himself fond of having a drink with his cronies at his master’s expense; an old-fashioned servant was chaste as a eunuch, but this one kept running to a lady friend of doubtful character. The one guarded his master’s money better than any safe, but Zakhar always tried to cheat his master of ten copecks over some purchase and never failed to appropriate any coppers that were left lying on the table. In the same way, if Oblomov forgot to ask Zakhar for the
change, he would never see it again. He did not steal bigger sums because he measured his needs in coppers and ten-copeck pieces, or because he was afraid of being found out – certainly it was not because he was too honest. An old-fashioned Caleb, like a well-trained gun-dog, would rather die than touch the food entrusted to his care; but Zakhar was always watching out for an opportunity to eat and drink something he had been told not to touch; the one was anxious that his master should eat as much as possible and felt upset when he did not eat; the other felt upset if his master ate up all that had been put on his plate.

Moreover, Zakhar was a gossip. In the kitchen, in the shop, and at all the meetings at the gate he complained everyday of his hard life. He claimed that there had never been a worse master, that Oblomov was capricious, stingy, and bad-tempered, that there was no pleasing him – that, in short, he would rather be dead than go on living with him. Zakhar did these things not out of malice and not out of a desire to injure his master, but just because he had inherited from his father and grandfather the habit of abusing the master at every favourable opportunity.

Sometimes he told some cock-and-bull story about Oblomov out of sheer boredom or lack of a subject for conversation or out of a desire to impress his listeners.

‘My master,’ he wheezed quietly in a confidential whisper, ‘has taken to visiting that widow. Wrote a note to her yesterday, he did.’ Or he would declare that his master was the greatest gambler and drunkard in the world, that he played cards and drank all night long. There was not a word of truth in it: Oblomov paid no visits to the widow, he spent his nights sleeping peacefully and did not touch cards.

Zakhar was slovenly. He seldom shaved and though he washed his hands and face, it was more for show; besides, no soap could wash off the dirt. After a visit to the bath-house his hands turned red instead of black for a couple of hours, and then became black again. He was very clumsy; when he opened the doors or the gates, one half would shut while he was opening the other, and as he ran to the second half, the first one would shut. He could never pick up a handkerchief or anything else from the floor at once, but always bent down about three times, as though he were trying to catch it, and only got hold of it at the fourth attempt, and even then he was liable to drop it again. If he carried a number of plates or some other crockery across the room, those on the top began to decamp to the floor at the first step he took. First one fell off; he suddenly made a belated and useless
attempt to stop it, and dropped another two. As he stood gaping with surprise at the falling plates, paying no attention to those he still held in his hands and holding the tray aslant, the plates continued to drop on the floor; by the time he reached the other end of the room there was sometimes only one plate or wine-glass left on the tray, and, cursing and swearing, he very often deliberately flung down the last things that still remained in his hands. Walking across the room he invariably caught his side or his feet against a table or a chair; he rarely passed through the open half of the door without knocking his shoulder against the other half, swearing at both, at the landlord, and at the carpenter who made them. In Oblomov’s study almost all articles, especially the small ones which required careful handling, were either broken or damaged, and all thanks to Zakhar. This talent for handling things he applied equally to all articles, making no distinction in his method of treating them. He was, for instance, told to snuff a candle or pour out a glass of water: to do that he used as much force as was needed to open the gates. But the real danger came when Zakhar, inspired by a sudden zeal to please his master, took it into his head to tidy everything, clean and put everything in its proper place quickly, at once! There was no end of trouble and breakages; an enemy soldier, rushing into the house, could not have done so much mischief. Things fell down and broke, crockery was smashed, chairs turned over. In the end he had to be driven out of the room, or he went away, swearing and cursing, of his own accord. Fortunately, he was rarely inspired with such zeal.

All that, of course, happened because Zakhar had been brought up and acquired his manners not in the dark and narrow, but fastidiously furnished, drawing-rooms and studies, cluttered up with all sorts of fancy articles, but in the country, where there was plenty of room to move about. There he was accustomed to work without being cramped and to handle things of solid dimensions and massive weight, such as a spade, a crowbar, iron door clamps, and chairs of such size that he could shift them only with difficulty.

Some article, such as a candlestick, a lamp, a transparency, a paper-weight, remained undamaged for three or four years, but as soon as Zakhar picked it up, it broke.

‘Oh,’ he sometimes used to say to Oblomov when this happened, ‘look, sir, what an extraordinary thing: I just picked it up and it came to pieces in my hands.’

Or he said nothing at all, but would put it back secretly and
afterwards assured his master that he had broken it himself; and sometimes he excused himself by saying that even an iron article must get broken sooner or later since it could not possibly last for ever. In the first two instances one could still argue with him, but when, driven into a corner, he armed himself with the last argument, every objection was useless and nothing in the world could convince him that he was wrong.

Zakhar had drawn up a definite programme of activity which he never varied, if he could help it. In the morning he set the
samovar,
cleaned the boots and clothes his master asked for, but not those he did not ask for, though they might be hanging in the wardrobe for ten years. Then he swept – not every day, though – the middle of the room without touching the corners and dusted only the table that had nothing on it, to save himself the trouble of moving anything. After this he considered that he had a right to snooze on the stove or chatter with Anisya in the kitchen or with the servants at the gates. If he was ordered to do something else besides, he did it only reluctantly after long arguments to show that what was asked of him was useless or impossible. It was quite impossible to make him introduce any permanent new item into his programme of daily tasks. If he was told to clean or wash some article, or fetch something or take something away, he carried out the order with his usual growling, but Oblomov could never make him do that regularly and without being told. The next day or the day after he had to be told to do it again with a resumption of the same unpleasant arguments.

In spite of the fact that Zakhar liked to drink and gossip, took Oblomov’s coppers and silver ten-copeck pieces, smashed the crockery and damaged the furniture, and shirked his work, he was nevertheless deeply devoted to his master. He would gladly have jumped into fire or water for him without a moment’s hesitation and without thinking it heroic or worthy of any admiration or reward. He thought it a natural thing, as something that could not be otherwise, or rather he did not think at all, but acted without any reflection. He had no theories on the subject. It never occurred to him to analyse his feelings towards Oblomov; he had not invented them; they had descended to him from his father, his grandfather, his brothers, and the servants among whom he was brought up, and had become part of his flesh and blood. Zakhar would have died instead of his master, since he considered it as his bounden duty, and even without thinking about it he would have rushed to his
death just as a dog rushes at a wild beast in the forest, without thinking why it, and not its master, should rush upon it. But if, on the other hand, he had had to keep awake by his master’s bedside all night because his master’s health and even life depended on it, Zakhar would most certainly have fallen asleep.

Outwardly he did not show any servility to his master, he even treated him familiarly and rudely, was angry with him in good earnest over every trifle and even, as already said, told tales about him at the gate; but all this merely pushed into the background for a time, but not by any means diminished, his inborn and intimate feeling of devotion not to Oblomov as such, but to everything that bore the name of Oblomov and that was close, dear, and precious to him. It is possible even that this feeling was opposed to Zakhar’s own opinion of Oblomov personally; it is possible that a close study of his master’s character gave Zakhar a far from flattering opinion of him. Quite probably Zakhar would have objected if the degree of his devotion to Oblomov had been explained to him.