Oblomov / Обломов. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Иван Гончаров
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You know all this; you’ve seen how tenderly I’ve been brought up; you know that I’ve never suffered from hunger or cold, that I’ve never lacked anything, that I haven’t had to earn my living and never done any heavy work. So how did you have the heart to compare me to „others“? Do you think I am as strong as those „others“? Can I do and endure what they can?»
Zakhar was no longer capable of understanding what Oblomov was talking about. But his lips were blown up with emotion: the pathetic scene was raging like a storm-cloud over his head. He was silent.
«Zakhar!» Oblomov repeated.
«Yes, sir?» Zakhar hissed in a barely audible whisper.
«Give me some more kvas».
Zakhar brought the kvas, and when Oblomov had drunk it and handed him back the glass, he made a dash for the door.
«No, no, wait!» said Oblomov. «I’m asking you how you could so terribly insult your master whom you carried in your arms as a baby, whom you have served all your life, and who has been your benefactor?»
Zakhar could not bear it any more. The word «benefactor» finished him! He began blinking more and more. The less he understood what Oblomov was saying to him in his pathetic speech, the sadder he became.
«I’m very sorry, sir», he began to wheeze penitently. «It was out of foolishness, sir, out of foolishness that I…»
Not understanding what he had done, Zakhar did not know what verb to use at the end of his speech.
«And I», went on Oblomov in the voice of a man who had been insulted and whose merits had not been sufficiently appreciated, «and I go on working and worrying day and night, sometimes with a burning head and a sinking heart. I lie awake at night, toss about, always thinking how to improve things – and for whom? Who is it I’m worrying about? All for you, for the peasants, and that means you, too… I daresay when you see me pull my blankets over my head you think I lie there asleep like a log. But no, I don’t sleep, I keep thinking all the time what I can do that my peasants should not suffer any hardships, that they should not envy the peasants belonging to other people, that they should not complain against me to God on the Day of Judgement, but should pray for me and remember me for the good I had done them. Ungrateful ones», Oblomov concluded bitterly.
Zakhar was completely overcome by the last pathetic words. He began to whimper quietly.
«Please, sir», he implored, «don’t carry on like that! What are you saying, sir? Oh, Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, what a terrible calamity has befallen us!»
«And you», Oblomov went on, without listening to him – «you ought to be ashamed to say such things. That’s the sort of snake I’ve warmed in my bosom!»
«Snake!» Zakhar repeated, throwing up his hands and bursting out sobbing so loudly that it sounded as though two dozen beetles had flown into the room and begun buzzing. «When have I mentioned a snake?» he said amidst his sobs. «Wily, I never even dream of the cursed things!»
Each had ceased to understand the other and, at last, they no longer understood themselves.
«How could you have brought yourself to say a thing like that?» Oblomov went on. «And in my plan I had assigned you a house of your own, a kitchen garden, a quantity of corn, and a regular wage! I had appointed you my steward, my butler, and my business manager! The peasants would bow low to you, they would all call you Zakhar Trofimych, Zakhar Trofimych! And you’re still dissatisfied, you put me on the same level as the „others“! That’s how you reward me! That’s how you abuse your master!»
Zakhar continued to sob, and Oblomov himself was moved. While admonishing Zakhar, he was filled with the consciousness of the benefits he had conferred on his peasants, and he uttered his last reproaches in a trembling voice and with tears in his eyes.
«Well, you can go now», he said to Zakhar in a conciliatory tone of voice. «Wait, give me some more kvas! My throat is parched. You might have thought of it yourself – can’t you hear your master is hoarse? That’s what you have brought me to! I hope», he went on when Zakhar had brought him the kvas, «you’ve understood your misdemeanour and that you won’t ever again compare your master to „other people“! To atone for your guilt, you must make some arrangement with the landlord so that we have not got to move. This is how much you care for your master’s peace of mind: you have thoroughly upset me and made it impossible for me to think of any new and useful idea. And who will suffer from it? You will. It is to my peasants that I have devoted all my life, it is for all of you that I have resigned from the service and sit shut up in my room. Well, never mind! There, it’s striking three. Only two hours left before dinner, and what can one do in two hours? Nothing. And there’s lots to be done. Oh well, I shall have to put off my letter till the next post and jot down the plan to-morrow. And now I’ll lie down for an hour: I’m worn out. Draw the blinds, shut the door, and be sure I’m not disturbed. Wake me at half-past four».
Zakhar began to seal up his master in the study; first he covered him up and tucked the blanket under him, then he drew the blinds, closed the doors tightly, and retired to his own room.
«May you never get up again, you devil», he growled, wiping away the traces of tears and climbing on the stove. «A devil he is, and no mistake! A house of your own, a kitchen garden, wages!» Zakhar, who had understood only the last words, muttered. «He knows how to talk, he does, just like cutting your heart with a knife! This is my house and my kitchen garden, and this is where I’ll peg out!» he said, hitting the stove furiously. «Wages! If I didn’t pick up a few coppers now and then, I shouldn’t have anything to buy tobacco with or to treat my friend. Curse you!.. I wish I was dead and buried!»
Oblomov lay on his back, but he did not fall asleep at once. He kept thinking and thinking, and got more and more agitated.
«Two misfortunes at once!» he said, pulling the blanket over his head. «How is one to stand up to it?»
But actually those two misfortunes – that is, the bailiff’s ominous letter and the moving – no longer worried Oblomov and were already becoming mere disturbing memories.
«The troubles the bailiff is threatening me with are still far off», he thought. «All sorts of things can happen before that: the rains may save the crops, the bailiff may make good the arrears, the runaway peasants may be returned to their „place of domicile“ as he writes… And where could those peasants have gone to?» he thought, getting more and more absorbed in an artistic examination of that circumstance. «They could not have gone off at night, in the damp and without provisions. Where would they sleep? Not in the woods, surely? They just can’t stay there! There may be a bad smell in a peasant’s cottage but at least it’s warm… And what am I so worried about?» he thought. «Soon my plan will be ready – why be frightened before I need to? Oh, you…»
He was a little more troubled by the thought of moving. That was the new and the latest misfortune. But in his present hopeful mood that fact, too, was already pushed into the background. Though he vaguely realized that he would have to move, particularly as Tarantyev had taken a hand in this business, he postponed it in his mind for at least a week, and thus gained a whole week of peace! «And perhaps Zakhar will succeed in coming to some arrangement so that it will not be necessary to move at all. Perhaps it could be arranged somehow! They might agree to put it off till next summer or give up the idea of conversion altogether; well, arrange it in one way or another! After all, I really can’t – move!»
So he kept agitating and composing himself in turn, and, as always, found in the soothing and comforting words perhaps, somehow, in one way or another, a whole ark of hope and consolation as in the old ark of the Covenant, and succeeded with their help in warding off the two misfortunes for the tune being. Already a slight, pleasant numbness spread over his body and began to cast a mist over his senses with sleep, just as the surface of the water is misted over with the first, timid frosts; another moment and his consciousness would have slipped away heaven only knows where, when suddenly he came to and opened his eyes.
«But, good Lord, I haven’t washed! I haven’t done a thing!» he whispered. «I was going to put down my plan on paper, and I haven’t done so. I haven’t