Oblomov (64 page)

‘What a pity,’ she said naïvely and openly, ‘I can’t go there with you. I’d love to, but I expect you will tell me all about it and so well that I shall feel as though I’d been there myself.’

And the spell was broken by this openly expressed desire, which she did not conceal from anyone, and this vulgar and formal praise of his narrative powers. As soon as he gathered up all the threads and succeeded in weaving a most delicate network of lace and had only to fasten the last loop – steady now – one more moment and – she would suddenly once again grow calm, even, and sometimes actually cold. She would be sitting, carrying on with her work, listening to him in silence, raise her head from time to time, and look at him in such a questioning, curious, matter-of-fact way that he more than once threw down the book in vexation or, cutting short some explanation, jumped up from his seat and went away. If he turned round he would catch her surprised glance and he would feel ashamed, come back and invent some excuse. She listened to him with such unaffected simplicity and believed it. She did not doubt him in the least; there was not even the ghost of a sly smile on her lips.
‘Does she love me or not?’ he wondered. If she did love him, why was she so reserved and so cautious? If she did not, why was she so submissive and so anxious to anticipate his wishes? He had to go for a week to Paris and London, and came to tell her about it on the very day he was leaving, without any previous warning. If she gave a sudden start or changed colour, it was love, the mystery was solved, he was happy! But she just shook him firmly by the hand and looked grieved: he was in despair.

‘I’ll miss you awfully,’ she said. ‘I could cry, I feel like a real orphan. Auntie,’ she added plaintively, ‘look, Mr Stolz is going away!’

That was the last straw. ‘Turned to her aunt!’ he thought. ‘That’s the limit! I can see that she is sorry I am going, that she loves me, perhaps, but – this sort of love can be bought like shares on the exchange at the price of so much time, attention, and gallantry…. I won’t come back,’ he thought sullenly. ‘How do you like that? Olga – a little girl – why, she used to do everything I asked her! What’s the matter with her?’

And he sank into deep thought.

What was the matter with her? There was one little thing he did not know: that she had loved, that, as far as she was capable, she had passed through the period of girlish lack of control, sudden blushes, badly concealed heartache, the feverish symptoms of love and its first ardour. Had he known this, he would have found out, if not whether she loved him or not, at any rate why it was so difficult to guess what was the matter with her.

In Switzerland they visited every place where tourists go, but more often they liked to stay in out-of-the-way and little-frequented spots. They, or at any rate Stolz, were so preoccupied with their own affairs, that they were weary of travelling, which they regarded as of secondary importance. He went for walks with her in the mountains, looked at precipices and waterfalls, and she was in the foreground of every landscape. He would walk behind her up some narrow path, while her aunt remained sitting in the carriage below; he would watch her keenly and in secret, stopping when she reached the top and taking breath, and wonder how she would look at him, for it was at him that she looked first of all; there was no doubt in his mind about that by now. It would have been splendid: it made his heart feel warm and joyful, but then she would suddenly cast a glance over the landscape, and stand fascinated, lost in dreamy contemplation – and he was no longer there so far as
she was concerned. The moment he stirred, reminded her of himself, or uttered a word, she gave a start and sometimes cried out: it was evident that she had forgotten whether he were beside her or far away – indeed, whether he existed at all. But afterwards, at home, at the window or on the balcony, she would speak to him alone for hours, describing her impressions at length till she had put it all into words; she spoke warmly and with enthusiasm, choosing her words and rapidly seizing some expression he suggested, and he would catch in her eyes a look of gratitude for his help. Or she would sit down in a large arm-chair, pale with fatigue, and only her eager and never-tired eyes would tell him that she wanted to listen to him.

She would listen to him without moving or uttering a word, and without missing a single detail. When he fell silent, she still listened, her eyes still questioned him, and in answer to this mute challenge, he went on talking with fresh force and fresh enthusiasm. It would have been splendid: he felt warm and joyful, and his heart beat fast; it meant that she lived in the present and that she wanted nothing more: her light, her inspiration, her reason was beside her. But she would suddenly get up looking tired, and those same questioning eyes of hers would ask him to go away, or she would grow hungry and eat with such an appetite.

All that would have been excellent: he was not a dreamer; he did not want violent passion any more than Oblomov, only for different reasons. He would have wished, however, that their feeling should flow in a smooth and broad stream, but not before it first boiled up hotter at the source, so that they could scoop it up and drink their fill of it and afterwards know all their lives where this spring of happiness flowed from.

‘Does she or does she not love me?’ he cried in an agony of suspense, nearly bursting into tears, nearly on the point of a nervous breakdown.

This question was becoming more and more an obsession with him, spreading like a flame, paralysing his intentions: it was becoming a question not of love, but of life and death. There was no room in his heart for anything else now. It was as though in these six months he had experienced all the agonies and torments of love against which he had so skilfully guarded in his relations with women. He felt that his robust constitution would break down if this strain on his mind, his will, and his nerves went on for many more months. He understood what he had so far failed to understand – how a man’s powers are wasted
in this secret struggle of the soul with passion, how incurable, though bloodless, wounds are inflicted upon the heart and give rise to cries of agony, and how even life may be lost. He lost some of his arrogant confidence in his own powers; he no longer joked light-heartedly when he heard stories of people going out of their minds, or pining away for all sorts of reasons, and among them – for love. He was frightened.

‘I’m going to put an end to this,’ he said. ‘I’ll find out what’s at the back of her mind, as I used to before, and tomorrow – I shall either be happy or go away! I can’t bear it any more!’ he went on, looking at himself in the glass. ‘I look like nothing on earth – enough!’

He went straight to his goal – that is, to Olga.

And what about Olga? Had she not noticed the state he was in or was she completely indifferent to it? She could not help noticing it: women less subtle than she know how to distinguish between friendly devotion and acts of kindness and the tender expression of another feeling. One could not accuse her of being a flirt, for she had a correct understanding of true undissembling and unconventional morality. She was above such vulgar weakness. It can only be assumed that, without having anything particular in mind, she liked the adoration, so full of passion and understanding, of a man like Stolz. Of course she liked it: this adoration made amends for her hurt feeling of self-respect and gradually put her back on the pedestal from which she had fallen; little by little her pride was revived. But what did she think would be the end of this adoration? It could not go on for ever expressing itself in the continual conflict between Stolz’s inquiring mind and her obstinate silence. Did she, at any rate, realize that all this conflict was not in vain and that he would gain the suit on which he had spent so much will and determination? He was not spending all his fire and brilliance for nothing, was he? Would Oblomov’s image and her old love dissolve in its rays? She did not understand anything of this, she had no clear conception of it, and she struggled desperately with these questions, with herself, and did not know how to escape from this confusion. What was she to do? She could not remain in a state of indecision: sooner or later this mute struggle and interplay of the feelings which were locked in their breasts would give way to words – what could she tell him about her past? How would she describe it and how would she describe her feeling for Stolz? If she loved Stolz, then what was her first love? Flirtation, frivolity, or worse? She blushed with shame and turned hot at
this thought. She would never accuse herself of that. But if that was her first pure love, what were her relations to Stolz? Again play, deception, subtle calculation to entice him into marriage so as to cover up the frivolity of her conduct? She turned cold and pale at the very thought of it. But if it was not play, or deception or calculation – so…. was it love again? But such a supposition made her feel utterly at a loss: a second love – eight or seven months after the first! Who would believe her? How could she mention it without causing surprise, perhaps – contempt! She dared not think of it. She had no right. She ransacked her memory: there was nothing there about a second love. She recalled the authoritative opinions of her aunts, old maids, all sorts of clever people, and, finally, writers, ‘philosophers of love’ – and on all sides she heard the inescapable verdict: ‘A woman loves truly only once.’ Oblomov, too, pronounced the same verdict. She recalled Sonia and wondered what she would have said about a second love, but visitors from Russia had told her that her friend was already engaged on her third….

No, she decided, she had no love for Stolz and, indeed, could not have! She had loved Oblomov, and that love had died and the flower of life had withered for ever! She had only friendship for Stolz, a friendship based on his brilliant qualities and his friendship for her, his attention, his confidence.

It was thus that she banished the thought, or even the possibility of love for her old friend. This was the reason why Stolz could not detect in her face or words any sign either of positive indifference or a momentary flash or even spark of feeling which overstepped by a hair’s-breadth the limits of warm, cordial, but ordinary friendship. There was only one way she could have ended it once and for all: having noticed the first symptoms of love in Stolz, she ought to have gone away at once, and thus nipped it in the bud. But it was already too late: it had happened long ago, and, besides, she ought to have foreseen that his feeling would develop into passion; and he was not Oblomov: she could not run away anywhere from him. Even if it had been physically possible, it was morally impossible for her to go away. At first she enjoyed only the rights of their old friendship and, as before, found in Stolz either a playful, witty, and ironical companion or a true and profound observer of life and of everything that interested them. But the more frequently they met, the more intimate they grew spiritually and the more active his role became: from a mere observer of events he imperceptibly became their interpreter and her guide. Without her noticing it,
he became her reason and conscience, and new rights made their appearance, new secret ties that entangled the whole of Olga’s life, all except one cherished corner which she carefully hid from his observation and judgement. She had accepted this spiritual guardianship over her heart and mind, and saw that she had in her turn acquired an influence over him. They had exchanged rights; she had permitted this exchange to happen somehow without noticing it and without saying anything about it. How could she take it all away again now? And, besides, there was in it so much fun – pleasure – variety – life. What would she do if she were suddenly deprived of it? And, anyway, when the idea of running away occurred to her, it was too late; she had not the strength to do it. Each day she did not spend with him, every thought she did not confide in him and share with him, lost its colour and significance. ‘Oh dear,’ she thought, ‘if only I could be his sister! What happiness it would be to possess a permanent claim on a man like that, not only on his mind, but also on his heart, to enjoy his presence openly and legitimately, without having to pay for it by heavy sacrifices, disappointments, and confessions of one’s miserable past. And now – what am I? If he goes away, I not only have no right to keep him, but I ought to wish to part from him; and if I do make him stay, what am I to tell him? What right have I to wish to see and hear him every minute? Because I am bored, because I feel miserable, because he teaches me, amuses me, is useful and pleasant to me? That is a reason, of course, but not a right. And what do I give him in exchange? The right to admire me disinterestedly without daring to think of reciprocity when so many women would have thought themselves lucky – –’

She was unhappy and tried to find a way out of that situation, and saw no end to it, no purpose in it. All the future held for her was fear of his disappointment and of parting from him for ever. Sometimes it occurred to her to tell him everything and so bring to an end both his struggle and hers, but her courage failed her the moment she thought of it. She felt ashamed and unhappy. The strange thing was that since she had been inseparable from Stolz and he had taken possession of her life, she ceased to respect her past, and even began to be ashamed of it. If the baron, for instance, or anyone else had got to know about it, she would, of course, have felt embarrassed and uncomfortable, but she would not have tortured herself as much as she was doing now at the thought that Stolz might find out about it. She imagined with horror the expression of his face, how he
would look at her, what he would say, and what he would think afterwards. She would suddenly appear so worthless to him, so weak and insignificant. No, no, not for anything in the world! She began observing herself, and she was horrified to discover that she was ashamed not only of her love affair, but also of its hero…. And she was consumed with remorse for being ungrateful for the deep devotion of her former lover. Perhaps she would have grown used to her shame and made the best of it – what doesn’t a person get used to? – if her friendship for Stolz had been free from any selfish thoughts and desires. But if she was successful in suppressing the artful and flattering whisper of her heart, she could not control the flight of her imagination: the shining image of this other love often appeared before her eyes; the dream of splendid happiness on the wide arena of many-sided life, with all its depths, sorrows, and delights – her happiness with Stolz and not in indolent drowsiness with Oblomov – grew more and more seductive. It was then that she shed tears over her past and could not wash it away. She recovered from her dream and sought refuge more than once behind the impenetrable wall of silence and friendly indifference that Stolz felt to be so unendurable. Then, forgetting herself, she was again carried away selflessly by the presence of her friend, and was charming, amiable, and trustful till the unlawful dream of happiness to which she had forfeited the right reminded her that the future was lost for her, that she had left her rosy dreams behind, and that the flower of life had withered. It is possible that, as the years passed, she would have become reconciled to her position and, like all old maids, would have renounced her dreams of the future and sunk into cold apathy or devoted herself to charitable works; but suddenly her unlawful dream assumed a more threatening aspect when from some words that escaped Stolz she realized that she had lost him as a friend and had acquired a passionate admirer. Friendship was lost in love.