Oblomov (69 page)

Stolz listened to him with a slight frown.

‘Who do you think does all the cooking? Anisya? No, sir!’ Oblomov went on. ‘Anisya looks after the poultry, weeds the cabbage patch, and scrubs the floors. Agafya Matveyevna does all this.’

Stolz did not eat the mutton or the curd dumplings; he put down his fork and watched with what appetite Oblomov ate it all.

‘Now you won’t see me wearing a shirt inside out,’ Oblomov went on, sucking a bone with great relish. ‘She examines everything and misses nothing – all my socks are darned – and she does it all herself. And the coffee she makes! You’ll see for yourself when you have some after dinner.’

Stolz listened in silence with a worried expression.

‘Now her brother has gone to live in a flat of his own – he took it into his head to get married – so, of course, things are not on such a big scale as before. In the old days she had not a free minute to herself. She used to be rushing about from morning till night, to the market, to the shopping arcade…. Tell you what,’ concluded Oblomov, having all but lost the use of his tongue, ‘let me have two or three thousand and I’d have offered you something better than tongue and mutton – a whole sturgeon, trout, first-class fillet of beef. And Agafya Matveyevna would have worked wonders without a cook – yes, sir!’

He drank another glass of vodka.

‘Do have a drink, Andrey; there’s a good chap – lovely vodka! Olga Sergeyevna won’t make you any vodka like this,’ he said, speaking rather thickly. ‘She can sing
Casta diva
but doesn’t know how to make such vodka! Nor how to make a chicken-and-mushroom
pie! Such pies they used to make only in Oblomovka and now here! And what’s so splendid about it is that it isn’t done by a man cook: you never know what his hands are like when he makes the pie, but Agafya Matveyevna is cleanliness itself.’

Stolz listened attentively, taking it all in.

‘And her hands used to be white,’ Oblomov, now well and truly befuddled, went on. ‘So white you could not help wishing to kiss them! But now they’re very rough, because, you see, she has to do everything herself. Starches my shirts herself!’ Oblomov cried with feeling, almost with tears. ‘Indeed, she does – seen it myself. I tell you many wives don’t look after their husbands as she does after me – yes, sir! A nice creature, Agafya Matveyevna, a nice creature! Look here, Andrey, why not come to live here with Olga Sergeyevna? I mean, get yourself a summer cottage here. You’d love it! We’d have tea in the woods, go to the Gunpowder Works on St Elijah’s Day, with a cart laden with provisions and a
samovar
following us. We’d lie down on the grass there – on a rug! Agafya Matveyevna would teach Olga Sergeyevna how to run a house, I promise you she would! Only, you see, things are rather tight now, her brother has moved out, and if
we
had three or four thousand, we’d get you such turkeys – –’

‘But you’re getting five thousand from me,’ Stolz said suddenly. ‘What do you do with it?’

‘And my debt?’ Oblomov blurted out suddenly.

Stolz jumped up from his seat.

‘Your debt?’ he repeated. ‘What debt?’

And he looked at Oblomov like a stern teacher at a child trying to hide something from him.

Oblomov suddenly fell silent. Stolz sat down beside him on the sofa.

‘Whom do you owe money to?’ he asked.

Oblomov sobered down a little and came to his senses.

‘I don’t owe anything to anyone,’ he said. ‘I was lying.’

‘Oh no, you’re lying now, and clumsily too. What has been happening here, llya? What’s the matter with you? Aha! So that’s the meaning of the mutton and sour wine! You have no money! What do you do with it?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I do owe my landlady – a little – for – er – my board,’ Oblomov said.

‘For mutton and tongue! Ilya, tell me, what’s going on here? What kind of tale is this: the landlady’s brother has moved,
things have gone badly…. There’s something wrong here. How much do you owe?’

‘Ten thousand on an IOU,’ Oblomov whispered.

Stolz jumped to his feet and sat down again.

‘Ten thousand? To the landlady? For your board?’ he repeated in horror.

‘Yes, I – er – got a lot on credit – I lived in great style, you know…. Remember the pineapples and peaches, and – well, so I got into debt,’ muttered Oblomov. ‘But what’s the use of talking about it?’

Stolz did not reply. He was thinking. ‘The landlady’s brother has gone, things have gone badly – that’s so: everything looks so bare, poor, dirty! What sort of woman is this landlady? She looks after him, he speaks of her with ardour….’

Suddenly Stolz changed colour, having guessed the truth. He turned cold.

‘Ilya,’ he said, ‘that woman – what is she to you?’

But Oblomov had put his head on the table and fallen into a doze.

‘She robs him, takes everything from him – it’s the sort of thing that happens every day, and I haven’t thought of it till this very moment!’ he reflected.

Stolz got up and opened the door leading to the landlady’s room so quickly that, at the sight of him, Agafya Matveyevna in alarm dropped the spoon with which she was stirring the coffee.

‘I’d like to have a talk with you, madam,’ he said politely.

‘Please step into the drawing-room,’ she replied timidly. ‘I’ll come at once.’

Throwing a kerchief round her neck, she followed him into the drawing-room and sat down on the very edge of the sofa. She no longer had her shawl and she tried to hide her hands under the kerchief.

‘Mr Oblomov has given you a bill of exchange, hasn’t he?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she replied with a look of dull surprise, ‘he has not given me any bill.’

‘Hasn’t he?’

‘I haven’t seen any bill,’ she repeated with the same expression of dull astonishment.

‘A bill of exchange!’ Stolz repeated.

She thought it over for a minute.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘you’d better have a talk to my brother. I haven’t seen any bill.’

‘Is she a fool or a rogue?’ Stolz thought.

‘But he owes you money, doesn’t he?’ he asked.

She gave him a vacant look, then suddenly an expression of intelligence and even of anxiety came into her face. She remembered the pawned string of pearls, the silver, and the fur coat, and imagined that Stolz was referring to that debt, only she could not understand how he had got to know of it, for she had never breathed a word about it not only to Oblomov, but even to Anisya, whom she generally told about every penny she spent.

‘How much does he owe you?’ Stolz asked anxiously.

‘Nothing at all. Not a penny.’

‘She’s concealing it from me, she is ashamed, the greedy creature, the usurer!’ he thought. ‘But I’ll get to the truth.’

‘And the ten thousand?’ he said.

‘What ten thousand?’ she asked in anxious surprise.

‘Mr Oblomov owes you ten thousand on an IOU – yes or no?’ he asked.

‘He owes me nothing. He owed the butcher since Lent twelve roubles and fifty copecks, but we paid it over a fortnight ago. We also paid the dairywoman for the cream – he owes nothing.’

‘But have you no document from him?’

She looked blankly at him.

‘You’d better have a talk to my brother,’ she replied. ‘He lives across the street in Zamykalov’s house, just along here. There’s a public-house in the basement.’

‘No, ma’am, I’d rather have a talk with you,’ he said decisively. ‘Mr Oblomov says that he owes you money, and not your brother.’

‘He does not owe me anything,’ she replied, ‘and as for my pawning silver, pearls, and a fur coat, I did it for myself. I bought shoes for Masha and myself, material for Vanya’s shirts, and gave the rest to the greengrocer. I have not spent a penny of it on Mr Oblomov.’

He looked at her, listened and tried to grasp the meaning of her words. He alone, it seems, came near to guessing Agafya Matveyevna’s secret, and the look of disdain, almost contempt he had cast at her when speaking to her was involuntarily replaced by one of interest and even sympathy. In the pawning of the pearls and silver he vaguely read the secret of her sacrifices, but he could not make up his mind whether they were made as a result of pure devotion or in expectation of blessings to come. He did not know whether he should feel glad or sad for Ilya. It was quite clear that he owed her nothing, and that this debt was
some fraudulent trick of her brother’s, but a great deal more had been revealed…. What was the meaning of the pawning of the pearls and silver?

‘So you have no claim on Mr Oblomov, have you?’ he asked.

‘You’d better talk it over with my brother,’ she replied monotonously. ‘He ought to be at home by now.’

‘You say Mr Oblomov does not owe you anything?’

‘Not a penny, I swear it’s the truth!’ she declared solemnly, looking at the icon and crossing herself.

‘Are you ready to confirm it before witnesses?’

‘Yes, before anyone. I’d say it at confession! As for my pawning the pearls and silver, it was for my own expenses.’

‘Very good,’ Stolz interrupted her. ‘I’ll be coming back tomorrow with two friends of mine. You will not refuse to say the same thing in their presence, will you?’

‘I think you’d better have a talk to my brother,’ she repeated. ‘You see, I’m not dressed decently – I’m always in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be nice for strangers to see me: they’ll think ill of me.’

‘Don’t worry about that, and I shall see your brother tomorrow after you’ve signed a paper.’

‘I’m afraid I’m quite unused to writing now.’

‘You won’t have to write much. Just two lines.’

‘No, sir, I’d rather you spared me that. Why not let Vanya write? He writes beautifully.’

‘No, you mustn’t refuse,’ he insisted. ‘If you don’t sign the paper it will mean that Mr Oblomov owes you ten thousand.’

‘No, he doesn’t owe me a penny,’ she repeated. ‘I swear he doesn’t.’

‘In that case you must sign the paper. Good-bye till-morrow.’

‘To-morrow you’d better go and see my brother,’ she said, seeing him off. ‘He lives just there, at the corner, across the street.’

‘No, and I’d ask you to say nothing to your brother till I come, or it will be very unpleasant for Mr Oblomov.’

‘Then I won’t say anything to him,’ she said obediently.

7

O
N
the following day Agafya Matveyevna gave Stolz a written statement to the effect that she had no claim of any kind on Oblomov. With this statement Stolz suddenly appeared before
her brother. That was a real bombshell for Ivan Matveyevich. He took out the IOU and pointed with the shaking finger of his right hand, which he held with the nail downwards, to Oblomov’s signature and the attached notary’s signature.

‘It’s the law, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve nothing to do with it. I’m merely watching over my sister’s interests. I have no idea what money Mr Oblomov had borrowed from her.’

‘You have not heard the last of it!’ Stolz threatened him as he drove off.

‘It’s perfectly legal,’ Ivan Matveyevich pleaded, hiding his hands in his sleeves, ‘and I’ve nothing to do with it!’

As soon as he came to his office on the following day, a messenger arrived from the General, who wanted to see him at once.

‘The General?’ all the clerks in the office repeated in horror. ‘Whatever for? Does he want some document? Which one? Quick, quick! File the papers, draw up the schedules! What is it?’

In the evening Ivan Matveyevich came to the tavern greatly disconcerted. Tarantyev had been waiting for him there for hours.

‘Well, what is it, old man?’ he asked impatiently.

‘What is it?’ Ivan Matveyevich said monotonously. ‘What do you think?’

‘You were told off?’

‘Told off!’ Ivan Matveyevich mimicked him. ‘I wish I’d been given a beating! And you’re a nice one, too!’ he cried, reproachfully. ‘You didn’t tell me what sort of German he was, did you?’

‘But I told you he was a rascally fellow!’

‘A rascally fellow, is it? We’ve seen plenty of rascals! Why didn’t you tell me he had influence? Why, he’s on familiar terms with the General, just as you are with me. Would I have had anything to do with him, if I’d known?’

‘But,’ Tarantyev retorted, ‘it’s perfectly legal!’

‘Perfectly legal!’ Ivan Matveyevich again mimicked him. ‘Just try and say it there: why, your tongue will stick to the roof of your mouth. Do you know what the General asked me?’

‘What?’ Tarantyev asked curiously.

‘Is it true that you and some other blackguard made the landowner Oblomov drunk and forced him to sign an IOU in your sister’s name?’

‘Did he actually say “and some other blackguard”?’ asked Tarantyev.

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Who can that blackguard be?’ Tarantyev asked again.

His friend looked at him.

‘I don’t expect you know, do you?’ he said bitterly. ‘It couldn’t be you by any chance, could it?’

‘Me? So I’ve got mixed up in it too?’

‘You’d better thank the German and your country neighbour. The German, you see, has sniffed it all out, cross-questioned everybody….’

‘You should have mentioned someone else, old man, and told them I had nothing to do with it.’

‘Should I now? Why, what sort of a saint are you?’

‘But what did you say when the General asked whether it was true that you and some other blackguard…? That was when you should have tried to bluff him.’

‘Bluff him? You can’t bluff a fellow like that! You should have seen those green eyes of his! I tried my best to say that the whole thing was not true, that it was a slander, that I knew nothing about any Oblomov, and that it was all Tarantyev’s fault, but I just couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I merely threw myself on his mercy.’

‘Well, they’re not going to prosecute you, are they?’ Tarantyev asked hoarsely. ‘Mind, I had nothing to do with it. Now, you, old man – –’

‘You had nothing to do with it? No, sir, if we are in for it, you will be the first. Who was it persuaded Oblomov to drink? Who abused and threatened him?’

‘But it was your idea,’ said Tarantyev.

‘Why, are you a minor, by any chance? I know nothing whatever about the whole business.’

‘That’s not fair, old man! Think how much money you had through me, and I’ve only had three hundred roubles.’