Oblomov
Part 4
Chapter 5
FIVE years have passed, and more than one change has taken place in the
Veaborg Quarter. The street which used to lead, unenclosed, to Oblomov's
humble abode is now lined with villas. In the midst of them a tall stone
Government office rears its head between the sunlight and the windows of
that quiet, peaceful little house which the sun's rays once warmed so
cheerfully.
The house itself has grown old and crazy: it wears a dull, neglected look
like that of a man who is unshaven and unwashed. In places the paint has
peeled away, and in others the gutters are broken. To the latter is due the
fact that pools of dirty water stand in the courtyard, and that thrown
across them is a piece of old planking. Should a visitor approach the
wicket, the old watchdog no longer leaps nimbly to the extent of his chain,
but gives tongue hoarsely and lazily from the interior of his kennel.
And, within the house, what changes have taken place! Over it there
reigns a different housewife to the former one, and different children sport
in play. Again is seen about the premises the lean countenance of Tarantiev,
rather than the kindly, careless features of Alexiev; while of Zakhar and
Anisia also there is not a sign discernible. A new cook performs, rudely and
unwillingly, the quiet behests of Agafia Matvievna, and our old friend
Akulina—her apron girded around her middle—washes up, as formerly, the
domestic crockery and the pots and pans. Lastly, the same old sleepy
dvornik whiles away the same old idle life in the same old den by
the gates, and at a given hour each morning, as well as always at the hour
of the evening meal, there flashes past the railings of the fence the figure
of Agafia's brother, clad, summer and winter alike, in galoshes, and always
carrying under his arm a large bundle of documents.
But what of Oblomov? Where is he—where? Under a modest urn in the
adjoining cemetery his body rests among the shrubs. All is quiet where he is
lying; only a lilac-tree, planted there by a loving hand, waves its boughs
to and fro over the grave as it mingles its scent with the sweet, calm odour
of wormwood. One would think that the Angel of Peace himself were watching
over the dead man's slumbers. . . .
Despite his wife's ceaseless and devoted care for every moment of his
existence, the prolonged inertia, the unbroken stillness, the sluggish
gliding from day to day had ended by quietly arresting the machine of life.
Thus Oblomov met his end, to all appearances without pain, without distress,
even as stops a watch which its owner has forgotten to wind up. No one
witnessed his last moments or heard his expiring gasp. A second stroke of
apoplexy occurred within a year of the first, and, like its precursor,
passed away favourably. Later, however, Oblomov became pale and weak, took
to eating little and seldom walking in the garden, and increased in
moodiness and taciturnity as the days went on. At times he would even burst
into tears, for he felt death drawing nearer, and was afraid of it. One or
two relapses occurred, from which he rallied, and then Agafia Matvievna
entered his room, one morning, to find him resting on his deathbed as
quietly as he had done in sleep—the only difference being that his head had
slipped a little from the pillow, and that one of his hands was convulsively
clutching the region of the heart in a manner which suggested that the pain
had there centred itself until the circulation of the blood had stopped for
ever.
After his death Agafia Matvievna's sister-in-law, Irina Paptelievna,
assumed control of the establishment. That is to say, she arrogated to
herself the right to rise late in the morning, to drink three cups of coffee
for breakfast, to change her dress three times a day, and to confine her
housewifely energies to seeing that her gowns were starched to the utmost
degree of stiffness. More she would not trouble to undertake, and, as
before, Agafia Matvievna remained the active pendulum of the domestic clock.
Not only did she superintend the kitchen and the dining-room, and prepare
tea and coffee for the entire household, but also she did the general
mending and supervised the linen, the children, Akulina, and the
dvornik.
Why was this? Was she not Madame Oblomov and the proprietress of a landed
estate? Might she not have maintained a separate, an independent
establishment, and have wanted for nothing, and have been at no one's beck
and call? What had led her to take upon her shoulders the burden of
another's housekeeping, the care of another's children, and all those petty
details which women usually assume only at the call of love, or in obedience
to sacred family ties, or for the purpose of earning a morsel of daily
bread? Where, too, were Zakhar and Anisia—now become, by every right of
law, her servants? Where, too, was the little treasure, Andrei, which
Oblomov had bequeathed her? Where, finally, were her children by her first
husband?
Those children were now all provided for. That is to say, Vania had
finished his schooling and entered Government service, his sister had
married the manager of a Government office, and little Andrei had been
committed to the care of Schtoltz and his wife, who looked upon him as a
member of their own family. Never for a moment did Agafia Matvievna mentally
compare his lot, or place it on a level with, that of her first
children—although, unconsciously it may be, she allotted them all an equal
place in her heart. In her opinion the little Andrei's upbringing, mode of
life, and future career stood divided by an immeasurable gulf from the
fortunes of Vania and his sister.
"What are they?" she would say to herself when she called to see
Andrei. "They are children born of the people, whereas this one was born a
young barin."
Then she would caress the boy, if not with actual timidity, at all events
with a certain touch of caution, and add to herself with something like
respect: "What a white skin he has! 'Tis almost transparent. And what tiny
hands and feet, too, and what silky hair! He is just like his dead father."
Consequently she was the more ready to accede to Schtoltz's request when he
asked her that he (Schtoltz) should educate the youngster; since she felt
sure that Schtoltz's household was far more the lad's proper place than was
her own establishment, where he would have been thrown among her grimy young
nephews.
Clad in black, she would glide like a shadow from room to room of the
house—opening and shutting cupboards, sewing, making lace, but doing
everything quietly, and without the least sign of energy. When spoken to,
she would reply as though to do so were an effort. Moreover, her eyes no
longer glanced swiftly from object to object, as they had done in the old
days: rather, they remained fixed in a sort of ever concentrated gaze.
Probably they had assumed that gaze during the hour when she had stood
looking at her dead husband's face.
That the light of her life was fast flickering before going out, that God
had breathed His breath into her existence and taken it away again, and that
her sun had shone brilliantly and was setting for ever, she clearly
understood. Yes, that sun was setting for ever, but not before she had
learnt the reason why she had been given life, and the fact that she had not
lived in vain. Greatly she had loved, and to the full: she had loved Oblomov
as a lover, as a husband, and as a barin. But around her there was
no one to comprehend this; wherefore she kept her grief the more closely
locked in her own bosom.
Only, next winter, when Schtoltz came to town, she ran to see him, and to
gaze hungrily at little Andrei, whom she covered with caresses. Presently
she tried to say something—to thank Schtoltz, and to pour out before him
all that had been accumulating in her heart in the absence of an outlet.
Such words he would have understood perfectly, had they been uttered. But
the task was beyond her—she could only throw herself upon Olga, glue her
lips to her hand, and burst into such a torrent of scalding tears that
perforce Olga wept with her, and Schtoltz, greatly moved, hastened from the
room. All three had now a common bond of sympathy—that bond being the
memory of Oblomov's unsullied soul. More than once Schtoltz and Olga
besought the widow to come and live with them in the country, but always she
replied: "Where I was born and have lived my live, there must I also die."
Likewise, when Schtoltz proposed to render her an account of his management
of the Oblomovkan property, she returned him the income therefrom, with a
request that he should lay it by for the benefit of little Andrei.
"'Tis his, not mine," she said. "He is the barin, and I
will continue to live as I have always done.