Oblomov (62 page)

‘No, I have an agent. He is there now, and I can go later when I am ready and have thought it over.’

He began boasting to Stolz how excellently he had settled his affairs without stirring from the house. His agent was collecting information about the runaway peasants and selling his corn at a good price. He had already sent him 1,500 roubles, and he would probably collect and send him the peasants’ tax this year.

Stolz gasped with amazement at this tale.

‘Why, you’ve been robbed all round!’ he said. ‘Fifteen hundred from three hundred peasants! Who’s your agent? What kind of a man is he?’

‘More than fifteen hundred,’ Oblomov corrected him. ‘I paid him his fee out of the money he received for the sale of corn.’

‘How much?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t remember. But I’ll show you. I have his accounts somewhere.’

‘Well, Ilya, you really are dead – you’re done for!’ he concluded. ‘Get dressed and come along to my place.’

Oblomov began to object, but Stolz took him away almost by force, wrote out a deed of trust in his own name, made Oblomov sign it, and told him that he would take Oblomovka on lease until Oblomov himself came to the country and got accustomed to farming.

‘You will be getting three times as much,’ he said, ‘only I shan’t be your tenant for long – I have my own affairs to manage. Let us go to the country now, or you can come after me. I shall be at Olga’s estate: it’s about three hundred miles from yours. I’ll call at your place, too. Get rid of your agent, make all the necessary arrangements, and then you must come yourself. I won’t leave you in peace.’

Oblomov sighed. ‘Life!’ he said.

‘What about life?’

‘It keeps disturbing you. Gives you no peace! I wish I could lie down and go to sleep – for ever!’

‘What you mean is that you would like to put out the light and remain in darkness! Fine sort of life! Oh, Ilya, why don’t you at least indulge in a little philosophy? Life will flash by like an instant, and you’d like to lie down and go to sleep! Let the
flame go on burning! Oh, if only I could live for two or three hundred years!’ he concluded. ‘How much one could do then!’

‘You are quite a different matter, Andrey!’ replied Oblomov. ‘You have wings: you don’t live, you fly. You have gifts, ambition. You’re not fat. You don’t suffer from styes. You’re not overcome by constant doubts. You’re differently made, somehow.’

‘Don’t talk rubbish! Man has been created to arrange his own life and even to change his own nature, and you’ve grown a big belly and think that nature has sent you this burden! You had wings once, but you took them off.’

‘Wings? Where are they?’ Oblomov said gloomily. ‘I don’t know how to do anything.’

‘You mean you don’t want to know,’ Stolz interrupted. ‘A man who can’t do something doesn’t exist, I assure you.’

‘Well, I can’t,’ said Oblomov.

‘To listen to you one would think you couldn’t write an official letter to the town council or a letter to your landlord, but you wrote a letter to Olga, didn’t you? You didn’t mix up
who
and
which
in it, did you? And you found excellent note-paper and ink from the English shop, and your handwriting, too, was legible, wasn’t it?’

Oblomov blushed.

‘When you needed it, the ideas and the language in which to express them came of themselves. Good enough for any novel! But when you don’t need it, then you don’t know how to do it, and your eyes do not see and your hands are too weak! You lost your ability for doing things in your childhood, in Oblomovka among your aunts and nannies. It all began with your inability to put on your socks and ended by your inability to live.’

‘All this may be true, Andrey, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped – what’s done is done!’ Oblomov said with a sigh, decisively.

‘What do you mean – it’s done!’ Stolz retorted angrily. ‘What nonsense! Listen to me and do what I tell you and it won’t be done!’

But Stolz left for the country alone, and Oblomov stayed behind, promising to go there in the autumn.

‘What shall I tell Olga?’ Stolz asked Oblomov before he left.

Oblomov bowed his head and looked sad; then he sighed.

‘Don’t mention me to her,’ he said at last, looking embarrassed. ‘Tell her you’ve not seen or heard of me.’

‘She won’t believe it.’

‘Well, tell her I’m done for, dead, lost….’

‘She will cry and won’t be comforted for a long time: why upset her?’

Oblomov pondered, greatly moved. His eyes were moist.

‘Very well, then,’ Stolz concluded, ‘I’ll tell her a lie and say that you are living on your memories of her and are looking for some serious aim in life. Note, please, that life itself and work constitute the aim of life – not woman; that was the mistake you both made. How pleased she will be!’

They said good-bye.

3

T
HE
day after St Elijah’s Day, Tarantyev and Ivan Matveyevich met again at the tavern in the evening.

‘Tea!’ Ivan Matveyevich gave his order gloomily, and when the waiter had brought tea and a bottle of rum he thrust the bottle back vexatiously. ‘This isn’t rum, it’s more like old nails,’ he said, and taking out his own bottle from the pocket of his overcoat, he uncorked it and let the waiter sniff at it. ‘Don’t you offer me any of your rum again,’ he observed.

‘Well, old man,’ he said after the waiter had gone. ‘Things don’t look very bright, do they?’

‘No,’ Tarantyev replied furiously; ‘the devil must have brought him! What a rogue that German is! Destroyed the deed of trust and got the estate on a lease! It’s unheard of! He’ll fleece the poor little sheep, I warrant you.’

‘If he knows his business, old man, then I’m afraid there may be trouble. When he finds out that the taxes have been collected and it was we who received the money, he may take criminal proceedings against us.’

‘Criminal proceedings, indeed! You’re becoming scared, old man! It isn’t the first time Zatyorty has put his paw in a landowner’s pocket. He knows how to steer clear of the law. You don’t suppose he gives receipts to the peasants, do you? You can be sure there are no strangers about when he takes the money. The German will get into a temper and shout, and that will be the end of it. Criminal proceedings, my foot!’

‘Do you think so?’ Ivan Matveyevich said, brightening up. ‘Well, in that case let’s have a drink!’

He poured out some more rum for himself and Tarantyev.

‘Well,’ he said comfortingly, ‘things are not as bad as they sometimes seem, especially after a drink.’

‘In the meantime, old man,’ Tarantyev went on, ‘you’d better do this: make out some bills – any you like – for fuel or cabbage or whatever you please, since Oblomov has transferred the management of his household to your sister, and show it to him. And when Zatyorty arrives we shall say that all the taxes he collected went to meet the expenses.’

‘But what if he should take the bills and show them to the German? The German will tot them up and then he might – –’

‘Rubbish! He’ll put them away somewhere, and the devil himself won’t find them. By the time the German comes back, the whole thing will be forgotten.’

‘Do you think so? Let’s have a drink, old man,’ said Ivan Matveyevich, pouring out a glass. ‘It’s a pity to dilute such fine stuff with tea. Have a sniff: three roubles. What do you say to a fine dish of salted cabbage soup and fish?’

‘Not a bad idea.’

‘Hey, waiter!’

‘What a rogue,’ Tarantyev began furiously again. ‘Let me rent it, he says. Why, such a thing would never occur to us Russians! It’s the sort of thing they do in Germany. Farms and leaseholds – it’s the sort of thing they go in for there. You wait, he’ll swindle him out of all his money by making him invest it in some shares.’

‘Shares?’ asked Ivan Matveyevich. ‘What are they? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.’

‘It’s a German invention!’ said Tarantyev spitefully. ‘Some swindler, for instance, gets an idea of building fireproof houses and undertakes to build a town: he needs money, of course, so he starts selling papers at, say, five hundred roubles each, and a crowd of blockheads buy them and sell them to each other. If the business is reported to be doing well, the bits of paper rise in price; if it’s doing badly, the whole thing goes bust. All you’ve got left is worthless bits of paper. Where is the town? you ask. Oh, they say, it’s burnt down, or, there wasn’t enough capital to finish building it, and the inventor has in the meantime run off with your money. That’s what shares are! And the German will drag him into it, mark my words. It’s a wonder he hasn’t done it already. I have stood in the way, you see. Done all I could to save a neighbour from ruin!’

‘Well, that’s finished and done with, I’m afraid. We shan’t
get any more taxes from Oblomovka,’ Ivan Matveyevich said, as he got slightly drunk.

‘Oh, to hell with him, old man! You’ve got plenty of money, haven’t you?’ Tarantyev replied, also slightly befuddled. ‘Got an inexhaustible source – keep drawing from it and don’t let up. Let’s have a drink!’

‘Not much of a source, old man. All you collect is one – and three-rouble notes all your life – –’

‘But you’ve been collecting it for twenty years, old man, so what have you got to grumble about?’

‘Twenty years, did you say?’ Ivan Matveyevich answered thickly. ‘You’ve forgotten that I’ve only been secretary for ten years. Before that there were only ten - and twenty-copeck pieces jingling in my pocket, and sometimes, I’m ashamed to say, I had to take a few coppers. What an awful life! Oh, old man, there are lucky people in the world who for a single word they whisper in someone’s ear or a line they dictate, or simply for signing their name on a piece of paper, suddenly get such a swelling in their pocket as though a pillow had been placed there, so that they could sleep on it. Oh,’ he cried dreamily, getting more and more drunk, ‘if only I could do things like that! Never be seen by petitioners, who dare not come near me. Get into my carriage and shout, “To the club!” and at the club important chaps wearing stars shake hands with me. I play cards, but not for five-copeck stakes! And the dinners – the dinners I have. I’d be ashamed even to mention cabbage soup with fish – make a wry face with disgust. Spring chickens in winter; aye, get it specially ordered, I would, and wild strawberries in April! At home my wife would be wearing real lace, my children would have a governess, smartly dressed, their hair beautifully brushed. Oh dear, old man, there is a paradise, but our sins keep us out of it. Let’s have a drink! Here they are, bringing our cabbage soup!’

‘Don’t grumble, old man; you’ve got plenty of money – plenty of money,’ said Tarantyev, quite tipsy by now, with bloodshot eyes. ‘Thirty-five thousand in silver – that’s no joke, is it?’

‘Quiet, quiet, old man,’ Ivan Matveyevich interrupted. ‘What about it? It’s only thirty-five thousand. Think how long it will take me to make it up to fifty! And, besides, you won’t be admitted to paradise even with fifty. If I get married, I’ll have to live very carefully, count every rouble, forget about Jamaica rum – what sort of life is that?’

‘But you must admit, old man, it’s a comfortable sort of life –
a rouble from one fellow, two from another, and by the end of the day you’ve put away seven roubles. No bother, no one the wiser, no stigma, no smoke. While if you happen to put your name to some big affair once, you sometimes have to spend your whole life trying painfully to scratch it out. No, old man, you mustn’t be unfair to yourself.’

Ivan Matveyevich was not listening; he had been thinking of something for some time.

‘Listen, old man,’ he suddenly began, opening his eyes wide and so pleased about something that he seemed to have become sober; ‘but – no! I’m afraid I’d better not tell you – can’t let such a glorious little bird out of my head – it’s a real treasure, it is…. Let’s have a drink, old man, let’s have a drink quick!’

‘I won’t drink before you tell me,’ said Tarantyev, pushing away his glass.

‘It’s a very important business, old man,’ Ivan Matveyevich whispered, glancing at the door.

‘Well?’ Tarantyev asked impatiently.

‘It’s a real find. You see, old man, it’s the same as putting your name to a big affair, upon my word, it is!’

‘What is it, for goodness’ sake? Won’t you tell me?’

‘It’s a gift – a gift!’

‘Well?’ Tarantyev egged him on.

‘Wait a bit, I must think it over. Yes, it’s as safe as houses, it’s perfectly legal. All right, old man, I’ll tell, but only because I need you; I couldn’t very well carry it out without you. Otherwise – God’s my witness – I shouldn’t have told you for anything in the world. It’s not the sort of thing you can very well confide to another soul.’

‘Am I a stranger to you, old man? I believe I can claim to have been useful to you many times, as a witness and for making copies – remember? What a swine you are!’

‘Look here, my dear fellow, hold your tongue, will you? I know the sort of chap you are – always letting the cat out of the bag!’

‘Who the hell can hear us here?’ Tarantyev said with annoyance. ‘Have I ever forgotten myself? Why keep me in suspense? Come on, out with it!’

‘Now, listen: Oblomov is a bit of a coward, and he has no idea how things are done. He lost his head over that agreement, and he did not know what to do with the deed of trust when he got it; he doesn’t even remember the amount of the tax the
peasants have to pay him. He told me himself that he did not know anything.’

‘Well?’ Tarantyev cried impatiently.

‘Well, he’s been going to my sister’s rooms much too often. The other day he sat there till after midnight, and when he met me in the hall he pretended not to see me. So we’ll just wait and see what’s going to happen and – you’ll have to take him aside and have a talk to him about it. Tell him that it isn’t nice to bring dishonour on a family, that she is a widow, that people are talking about it, and that she’ll find it impossible to get married again, that she had a proposal of marriage from a rich merchant, but now that he had heard that Oblomov was spend-the evenings with her, he is no longer anxious to carry on with his suit….’

‘Well, what will happen is that he will get frightened, take to his bed and sigh, turning from side to side like a hog – that’s all,’ said Tarantyev. ‘What do we get out of it? Where’s your gift?’