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Oblomov / Обломов. Книга для чтения на английском языке

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But Oblomov was not listening to him; he almost lay down in the arm-chair, with his feet tucked under him, looking very dispirited, lost in thought or perhaps dozing.

5

Oblomov, a gentleman by birth and a collegiate secretary by rank, had lived in Petersburg without a break for the last twelve years.

At first, while his parents were still alive, he had lived more modestly, occupying two rooms, and was satisfied with the services of Zakhar, whom he had brought with him from the country; but after the death of his father and mother he became the sole owner of 350 serfs, whom he had inherited in one of the remote provinces almost on the borders of Asia. Instead of 5,000 he had received from 7,000 to 10,000 roubles a year, and it was then that the manner of his life became different and much grander. He took a bigger flat, added a cook to his domestic staff, and even kept a carriage and pair. He was still young then, and while it could not be said that he was lively, he was at all events livelier than now; he was still full of all sorts of aspirations, still hoped for something, and expected a great deal from the future and from himself; he was still preparing himself for a career, for the part he was going to play in life, and, above all, of course for the Civil Service, which was the main reason for his arrival in Petersburg. Later he also thought of the part he was going to play in society; finally, in the distant future, at the turning point of youth and mature age, the thought of family happiness filled his imagination with agreeable expectations.

But days and years passed – the soft down on his chin turned into a tough, stubbly growth, his eyes lost their brightness, his waist expanded, his hair had begun to thin out relentlessly, he turned thirty, and he had not advanced a step, but was still standing on the threshold of his career, just where he had been ten years before. Yet he was still hoping to start his life, he was still tracing in his mind the pattern of his future, but with every year that passed he had to change and rub out something in that pattern.

In his opinion, life was divided into two halves: one consisted of work and boredom – those words were synonymous for him – and the other of rest and quiet enjoyment. This was why his chief pursuit in life – his career as a civil servant – proved to be an unpleasant surprise to him from the outset.

Brought up in the wilds of the country, amid the gentle and kindly manners and customs of his native province, and passing for twenty years from the embraces of his parents to those of his friends and relations, he had become so imbued with the idea of family life, that his career in the Civil Service appeared to him as a sort of family occupation, such as, for instance, the unhurried writing down of income and expenditure in a note-book, which his father used to do. He thought that the civil servants employed in one department were one big, happy family, unremittingly concerned about one another’s peace and pleasure; that going to the office was not by any means a duty that must be performed day in and day out, and that rainy weather, heat, or a mere disinclination could always be given as a legitimate and sufficient excuse for not going to the office. One can easily imagine his disappointment when he discovered that nothing short of an earthquake could prevent a civil servant who was in good health from turning up at his office, and unfortunately there were no earthquakes in Petersburg; to be sure, a flood could also serve as an excuse, but even floods were rare occurrences. Oblomov grew still more worried when documents inscribed «Important» and «Very Important» began to flash before his eyes, when he was asked to make various inquiries, extracts from official documents, look through papers, write reports two inches thick, which were called, as though in jest, notes, and, what was even worse, everything had to be done in a hurry – everyone seemed to be rushing about without stopping to take breath; as soon as one case was finished, they threw themselves furiously upon another, as though that was the only thing that mattered, and when they had finished that, they forgot it and pounced upon a third – and so it went on and on! Twice he had been roused at night and made to write «notes»; a few times he was dragged out by a courier from visits to friends – always because of those notes. All this appalled him and bored him terribly. «But when am I going to live? When am I to live?» he kept repeating.

He had heard at home that the head of a department was a father to his subordinates and had therefore formed a most fanciful and homely idea of such a person. He imagined him to be something like a second father whose only concern was to reward his subordinates whether they deserved it or not, and to provide not only for their needs but also for their pleasures. Oblomov had thought that a superior was so eager to put himself in the place of his subordinate that he would inquire carefully how he had slept, why he was bleary-eyed, and whether he had a headache. But he was bitterly disappointed on his very first day at the office. With the arrival of the head of the department, the office was in a turmoil; they began rushing about, they looked harassed, they ran into one another, some pulling their uniforms straight for fear that they were not tidy enough to appear before their chief. This happened, as Oblomov observed afterwards, because certain heads of departments were apt to regard the stupidly frightened face of a subordinate rushing out to meet them as a sign not only of his respect for them, but also of his zeal and sometimes of his ability for the service. Oblomov had no need to be afraid of his chief, a kindly and agreeable person, who had never done any harm to anyone and whose subordinates were highly satisfied and wished for nothing better. No one had ever heard him utter an unpleasant word or raise his voice; he never demanded, but always asked. If it was a question of doing some work, he asked one of his subordinates to do it; if he wanted to invite one to his house, he asked him; if he wanted to put him under arrest, he asked him. He was never familiar with anyone; he treated all individually and collectively with the utmost respect. But somehow all his subordinates quailed before him; they answered his kind questions in a voice that was different from their own, such as they never used in speaking to other people. Oblomov, too, suddenly quailed, without himself knowing why, when his chief entered his office and he, too, began to lose his voice and to speak in a different tone – a high, horrible falsetto – as soon as his chief addressed him.

Oblomov was worn out with fear and anguish serving under a good and lenient chief; goodness only knows what would have become of him if he had had a stern and exacting one! He somehow or other managed to stay in the service for two years; he might have endured for a third and obtained a higher rank had not a particular incident forced him to send in his resignation. One day he sent an important paper to Arkhangelsk instead of to Astrakhan. The mistake was discovered and a search was made for the culprit. They all waited with interest for the chief to summon Oblomov and ask him coldly and calmly whether he had sent the paper to Arkhangelsk, and they all wondered in what kind of voice Oblomov would reply. Some surmised that he would not reply at all, that he would not be able to. Watching his colleagues, Oblomov became frightened himself, though like the others he knew that his chief would merely reprimand him; but his own conscience was much sterner than any reprimand. Oblomov did not wait for the punishment he deserved, but went home and sent in a medical certificate.

The certificate was as follows: «I, the undersigned, certify, and affix my seal hereto, that the collegiate secretary Ilya Oblomov suffers from an enlarged heart and a dilation of its left ventricle (Hypertrophia cordis cum dilatatione ejus ventriculi sinistri) and from a chronic pain in the liver (hetitis) which may endanger the patient’s health and life, the attacks, it may be presumed, being caused by his daily attendance at the office. Therefore, to prevent a repetition and an intensification of these morbid attacks, I consider it necessary that Mr Oblomov should stop going to the office for a time and, generally, prescribe an abstention from mental and any other activity».

But this helped for a time only; he had to become well again sooner or later, and then he would have to go to the office again every day. Oblomov could not stand it, and he sent in his resignation. That was the end of his work for the State, and it was never resumed again.

His social career seemed to be more successful at first. During his early years in Petersburg the tranquil features of his face were more frequently animated, his eyes used to glow for hours with the fire of life, they shone with light, hope, and strength. He was as animated as other people, was full of hope, rejoiced at trifles, and also suffered from the same trifles. But that was long ago, when he was still at the tender age when a man regards every other man as his best friend and falls in love with almost every woman, ready to offer her his hand and heart – which some indeed succeed in doing, often to their profound regret for the rest of their lives. In those blissful days Oblomov, too, had his share of not a few tender, soft, and even passionate glances from the crowd of beauties, a lot of promising smiles, two or three stolen kisses, and many more friendly handshakes, that made him suffer and brought tears to his eyes. Still, he never surrendered entirely to a pretty woman and never became her slave, or even a faithful admirer, if only because intimacy with a woman involves a great deal of trouble. Oblomov confined himself mostly to expressing his admiration from afar, from a respectable distance.

Very seldom did fate throw him together with a woman so closely that he could catch fire for a few days and imagine himself to be in love. That was why his love adventures never developed into love affairs; they stopped short at the very beginning, and in their simplicity, innocence, and purity equalled the love-stories of a schoolgirl. He particularly avoided the pale, melancholy maidens, mostly with black eyes which reflected «tormenting days and iniquitous nights», maidens with secret joys and sorrows, who always have something to confide, something to tell, and when they tell it, shudder, burst into tears, then suddenly throw their arms around their friend’s neck, gaze into his eyes, then at the sky, and declare that there is a curse on their life, and sometimes fall down in a faint. He avoided them fearfully. His soul was still pure and virginal; it was perhaps waiting for real love, for support, for overpowering passion, and then, as the years passed, seemed to have despaired of waiting.

Oblomov parted still more coldly from his many friends. Immediately after receiving his first letter from the bailiff with news of arrears and failure of crops, he replaced his best friend, the chef, by a woman cook, then sold his horses and, finally, dismissed his other «friends». There was hardly anything that attracted him in the town and he became more and more firmly attached to his flat. At first he found it a bit hard to remain dressed all day, then he felt too lazy to dine out except with intimate friends, mostly bachelors, who did not object to his divesting himself of his tie or unbuttoning his waistcoat, and even, if possible, lying down to have an hour’s sleep. Soon he got tired of parties, too: one had to put on a dress-suit and shave every day. He read somewhere that only morning mists were good for one and evening mists were bad, and he began to fear the damp. In spite of these eccentricities, his friend Stolz succeeded in making him go out and call on people; but Stolz often left Petersburg for Moscow, Nizhny-Novgorod, the Crimea, and latterly abroad, too, and without him Oblomov was plunged up to the neck in solitude and seclusion, from which he could be dragged only by something unusual, something out of the ordinary events of life; but nothing of the sort ever happened or was likely to happen.

Besides, as Oblomov grew older, he reverted to a sort of childish timidity, an expectation of danger and evil from everything that was outside the sphere of his daily experience, the result of getting out of touch with life. He was not afraid, for example, of the crack in his bedroom ceiling, he was used to it; nor did it ever occur to him that the stuffy atmosphere in the room and his constant sitting indoors was almost more perilous for his health than night dampness, that his daily over-indulgence at a meal was a kind of slow suicide, for he was used to it and felt no fear. He was not used to movement, to life, to crowds, and to bustle. He felt stifled in a crowd; he got into a boat fearing that he would not reach the other bank in safety; he drove in a carriage expecting the horse to bolt and smash it. Sometimes he had an attack of nerves; he was afraid of the stillness around him or for a reason he did not understand a cold shiver ran down his spine. Sometimes he looked apprehensively at a dark corner, dreading lest his imagination should trick him into seeing a ghost there.

That was what his social life had come to. He lazily dismissed all the youthful hopes that had betrayed him or been betrayed by him, all the bitter-sweet, bright memories that sometimes make even an old man’s heart beat faster.

6

WHAT did he do at home, then? Did he read or write or study? Yes, if he chanced to pick up a book or a newspaper, he read it. If he heard of some remarkable work, he would feel an urge to become acquainted with it. He tried to get the book, asked for it, and if it was brought to him soon, he began it and formed some idea of what it was about; another step and he would have mastered it, but instead he lay looking apathetically at the ceiling, with the book lying beside him unfinished and not properly understood. He grew indifferent much faster than he had grown interested: he never went back to a book he had abandoned. And yet he had been educated like other people, like everyone, in fact – that is to say, till the age of fifteen he had been in a boarding-school, then his old parents had decided, after a long struggle, to send their darling boy to Moscow, where willy-nilly he had to follow the course of his studies to the end. His timid, apathetic nature prevented him from giving full play to his laziness and caprices among strangers at school, where no exceptions were made for spoiled children. He had to sit straight in his schoolroom and listen to what the teachers were saying, because there was nothing else he could do, and he learned his lessons with much labour, with sighs, in the sweat of his brow. All that he regarded as a punishment sent by heaven for our sins.

He never looked beyond the line which the teacher marked with his nail in setting the lesson; he never asked any questions and never required any explanations. He was quite satisfied with what was written in his note-book and showed no tiresome curiosity even when he failed to understand all that he heard and learned. If he managed somehow or other to master a book on statecraft, history, or political economy, he was perfectly satisfied. When Stolz brought him books, which he had to read in addition to what he had learned, he used to look at him in silence for a long time.

«So you, too, Brutus, are against me?» he said with a sigh, as he sat down to read them.

Such immoderate reading seemed hard and unnatural to him. Of what use were all those note-books which had taken up so much time, paper, and ink? What is the use of text-books? And, last but not least, why waste six or seven years of your life being cooped up in a school? Why put up with all the strict discipline, the reprimands, the boredom of sitting over lessons, the bans on running about, playing, and amusing yourself, when life is still ahead of him?

«When am I to live?» he asked himself again. «When am I at last to put into circulation all this capital of knowledge, most of which will be of no use to me in life anyway? Political economy, for instance, algebra, geometry – what am I going to do with them in Oblomovka?»

History, too, depressed him terribly: you learn and read that at a certain date the people were overtaken by all sorts of calamities and were unhappy, then they summoned up their strength, worked, took infinite care, endured great hardships, laboured in preparation for better days. At last they came – one would think history might take a rest, but no, clouds gathered again, the edifice crashed down, and again the people had to toil and labour… The bright days do not remain, they fly, and life flows on, one crisis follows upon another.

Serious reading tired him. Philosophers did not succeed in awakening in him a passion for speculative thought. The poets, on the other hand, touched him to the quick: like everyone else, he became young again. He, too, reached the happy time of life, which never fails anyone and which smiles upon all, the time when one’s powers are at their height, when one is conscious of life and full of hope and desire to do good, to show one’s prowess, to work, when one’s heart beats faster and the pulses quicken, when one thrills with emotion, makes enthusiastic speeches, and sheds sweet tears. His heart and mind grew clear: he shook off his drowsiness and longed for activity. Stolz helped him to prolong that moment as long as was possible for such a nature as his friend’s. He took advantage of Oblomov’s love of the poets and kept him for sixteen months under the spell of thought and learning. He made use of the ecstatic flight of his young friend’s fancy to introduce aims other than pure delight in the reading of poetry, pointed out the distant goals of his own and his friend’s life, and carried him off into the future. Both grew excited, wept, and exchanged solemn promises to follow the path of reason and light. Oblomov was infected by the youthful ardour of Stolz, and he was aflame with the desire to work and to reach his distant, but fascinating goal.

But the flower of life opened up and bore no fruit. Oblomov sobered down, and only occasionally, on Stolz’s advice, read one book or another, though not at once, and without hurry or eagerness, lazily scanning the lines. However absorbing the passage that engaged his attention might be, if it was time to have dinner or to go to bed, he put the book face downwards and went to have dinner or blew out the candle and went to sleep. If he was given the first volume of some work, he did not, after finishing it, ask for the second, but if it were brought to him, he read it through slowly. Later on he found even the first volume too much for him and spent most of his leisure with his elbow on the table and his head on his elbow; sometimes, instead of his elbow, he used the book Stolz insisted that he should read.

So ended Oblomov’s career as a student. The date on which he heard his last lecture was the utmost limit of his learning. The principal’s signature on his certificate, like his teacher’s nail-mark on his book in the old days, was the line beyond which our hero did not think it necessary to extend the field of his knowledge. His head was a complicated depository of past deeds, persons, epochs, figures, religions, disconnected political, economic, mathematical and other truths, problems, principles, and so on. It was like a library composed entirely of odd volumes of various branches of knowledge. His studies had a strange effect on Oblomov; there was for him a gulf between life and learning which he never attempted to cross. To him life was one thing and learning another. He had studied all the existing and the no longer existing systems of law, he had been through the course of practical jurisprudence, but when after a burglary in his house he had to write to the police, he took a sheet of paper and pen, spent a long time thinking over it, and in the end sent for a clerk. His estate accounts were kept by the bailiff. «What has learning to do with it?» he asked himself in perplexity.

He returned to his seclusion without any store of knowledge which might have given a direction to his roving and idly slumbering thoughts. What did he do? Why, he went on drawing the pattern of his own life. He found in it, not without reason, so much wisdom and poetry that it provided him with an inexhaustible source of occupation even without any books and learning. Having given up the service and society, he began to solve the problem of existence in a different way; he began to ponder about the purpose of his life, and at last discovered that it was in himself that he had to look for its secret. He understood that family happiness and the care of the estate were his sole business in life. Till then he had no idea of the position of his affairs: Stolz sometimes looked after them for him. He did not know exactly what his income and expenditure were, he never drew up any budget – he did nothing.

Oblomov’s father left the estate to his son as he had received it from his father. Though he had spent all his life in the country, he never tried to be clever or racked his brains over different improvements as landowners do nowadays: how to discover new sources of productivity of the land or to enlarge and increase the old sources, and so on. The fields were cultivated in the same way as in his grandfather’s time, and the methods of marketing the agricultural produce were the same. The old man, to be sure, was very pleased if a good harvest or a rise in prices provided him with a larger income than the year before: he called it a divine blessing. He had merely an aversion to making money in all sorts of new-fangled and devious ways.

«Our fathers and forefathers were no stupider than we», he used to say in answer to what he regarded as harmful advice, «and yet they lived happily, and so shall we: God willing, we shall not starve».

Receiving, without various cunning shifts, an income from the estate that was sufficient to provide a good dinner and supper for his family and guests, he thanked God and thought it a sin to try to get more than that. If his steward brought him 2,000 roubles, having put another 1,000 in his own pocket, and tearfully blamed the hail, drought, or bad harvest for it, old Oblomov crossed himself and said also with tears:

«God’s will be done. I shall not argue with God. We must thank God for what there is».

Since the death of Oblomov’s parents the affairs on the estate had not improved; on the contrary, as was evident from the bailiff’s letter, they had grown worse. It was obvious that Oblomov had to go there himself and find out on the spot the reason for the gradual decline in his income. He intended to do so, but kept delaying, partly because such a journey meant almost a new and unknown feat for him. In all his life he had made only one journey – in a big, old-fashioned coach, amidst featherbeds, chests, trunks, hams, loaves, all sorts of roasted and cooked beef and poultry, and accompanied by several servants. That was how he had made his only journey from the estate to Moscow, and this journey he took as the standard for all journeys. And now, he was told, one no longer journeyed like that: one travelled at breakneck speed. Again, Oblomov put off his journey because he was not yet ready to put his affairs in order. He was certainly not like his father and grandfather. He had studied and lived in the world: all that suggested all sorts of ideas that were new to him. He understood that acquisition was not a sin, but that it was the duty of every citizen to help to raise the general welfare by honest labour. That was why the greatest part of the pattern of life which he drew in his seclusion was devoted to a fresh plan for re-organization of the estate and dealing with the peasants in accordance with the needs of the times. The fundamental idea of the plan, its arrangement and its main parts had long been ready in his head; only the details, the estimates and the figures remained. He worked untiringly on the plan for several years, thinking it over continually as he was pacing his room or lying down or visiting friends; he kept adding to it or changing various items, recalling what he had thought of the day before and forgotten during the night; and sometimes a new, unexpected idea would flash like lightning through his mind and set it simmering – and the work would start all over again. He was not some petty executor of somebody else’s ready-made notions; he had himself created his own ideas and he was going to carry them out.

As soon as he got up in the morning and had taken his breakfast, he lay down at once on the sofa, propped up his head on his hand and plunged into thought without sparing himself till at last his head grew weary from the hard work and his conscience told him that he had done enough for the common welfare. Only then did he permit himself to rest from his labours and change his thoughtful pose for another less stern and business-like and a more comfortable one for languorous day-dreaming. Having done with the cares of business, Oblomov liked to withdraw into himself and live in the world of his own creation. He was not unacquainted with the joys of lofty thoughts; he was not unfamiliar with human sorrows. Sometimes he wept bitterly in his heart of hearts over the calamities of mankind and experienced secret and nameless sufferings and anguish and a yearning for something far away, for the world, perhaps, where Stolz used to carry him away. … Sweet tears flowed from his eyes.

It would also happen that sometimes he would be filled with contempt for human vice, lies, and slanders, for the evil that was rife in the world, and he was consumed by a desire to point out to man his sores, and suddenly thoughts were kindled in him, sweeping through his head like waves of the sea, growing into intentions, setting his blood on fire, flexing his muscles, and swelling his veins; then his intentions turned to strivings; moved by a spiritual force, he would change his position two or three times in one minute, and half-rising on his couch with blazing eyes, stretch forth his hand and look around him like one inspired… In another moment the striving would turn into an heroic act – and then, heavens! What wonders, what beneficent results might one not expect from such a lofty effort!

But the morning passed, the day was drawing to its close, and with it Oblomov’s exhausted energies were crying out for a rest: the storms and emotions died down, his head recovered from the spell of his reverie, and his blood flowed more slowly in his veins. Oblomov turned on his back quietly and wistfully and, fixing a sorrowful gaze at the window and the sky, mournfully watched the sun setting gorgeously behind a four-storied house. How many times had he watched the sun set like that!

Next morning there was life once more, new excitements and dreams! He liked to imagine himself sometimes as some invincible general, compared with whom not only Napoleon, but also Yeruslau Lazarevich dwindled into insignificance; he invented a war and a cause for it, such as, for instance, an invasion of Europe by the peoples of Africa, or he organized new crusades, and fought to settle the fate of nations, devastating cities, showing mercy, putting to death, performing deeds of goodness and magnanimity. Or he would choose to be a thinker or a great artist: everyone worshipped him, he was crowned with laurels, the crowd ran after him, shouting: «Look, look, here comes Oblomov, our famous Ilya Ilyich!» At bitter moments he suffered greatly, tossed from side to side, lay face downwards, and sometimes lost heart completely; then he rose from his bed, knelt down and began to pray ardently, zealously, imploring heaven to avert the storm that threatened him. After entrusting the care of his future to Providence, he grew calm and indifferent to everything in the world – let the storm do its worst!

This was how he used his spiritual powers, after spending days in a state of agitation and only recovering with a deep sigh from an enchanting dream or an agonizing anxiety when the day was drawing to a close and the sun began to set gorgeously in an enormous ball behind the four-storied house. Then he once more watched it with a wistful look and a sorrowful smile and rested peacefully from his emotional exertions.

No one saw or knew this inner life of Oblomov; they all thought that there was nothing special about him, that he just lay about and enjoyed his meals, and that that was all one could expect from him; that it was doubtful whether he was able to form any coherent thoughts in his head. That was what the people who knew him said about him. Only Stolz knew and could testify as to his abilities and the volcanic work that was going on inside his ardent head and humane heart; but Stolz was hardly ever in Petersburg.

Only Zakhar, whose whole life centred round his master, knew his inner life even better than Stolz; but he was convinced that both he and his master were doing useful work and living a normal life, as they should, and that they could not possibly live otherwise.

7

Zakhar was over fifty. He no longer belonged to the direct descendants of those Russian Calebs, the knights of the servants’ hall without fear and without reproach, who were full of selfless loyalty to their masters and who had all the virtues and no vices. This knight was with fear and with reproach. He belonged to two different epochs, and each of them had left its mark on him. From one he had inherited his boundless loyalty to the Oblomov family, and from the other, the later one, refinement and corrupt morals. Passionately devoted to his master, not a day passed without his telling him a lie. In the old days a servant would have restrained his master from extravagance and intemperance, but Zakhar was himself fond of having a drink with his cronies at his master’s expense; an old-fashioned servant was chaste as a eunuch, but this one kept running to a lady friend of doubtful character. The one guarded his master’s money better than any safe, but Zakhar always tried to cheat his master of ten copecks over some purchase and never failed to appropriate any coppers that were left lying on the table. In the same way, if Oblomov forgot to ask Zakhar for the change, he would never see it again. He did not steal bigger sums because he measured his needs in coppers and ten-copeck pieces, or because he was afraid of being found out – certainly it was not because he was too honest. An old-fashioned Caleb, like a well-trained gun-dog, would rather die than touch the food entrusted to his care; but Zakhar was always watching out for an opportunity to eat and drink something he had been told not to touch; the one was anxious that his master should eat as much as possible and felt upset when he did not eat; the other felt upset if his master ate up all that had been put on his plate.

Moreover, Zakhar was a gossip. In the kitchen, in the shop, and at all the meetings at the gate he complained every day of his hard life. He claimed that there had never been a worse master, that Oblomov was capricious, stingy, and bad-tempered, that there was no pleasing him – that, in short, he would rather be dead than go on living with him. Zakhar did these things not out of malice and not out of a desire to injure his master, but just because he had inherited from his father and grandfather the habit of abusing the master at every favourable opportunity.

Sometimes he told some cock-and-bull story about Oblomov out of sheer boredom or lack of a subject for conversation or out of a desire to impress his listeners.

«My master», he wheezed quietly in a confidential whisper, «has taken to visiting that widow. Wrote a note to her yesterday, he did». Or he would declare that his master was the greatest gambler and drunkard in the world, that he played cards and drank all night long. There was not a word of truth in it: Oblomov paid no visits to the widow, he spent his nights sleeping peacefully and did not touch cards.

Zakhar was slovenly. He seldom shaved and though he washed his hands and face, it was more for show; besides, no soap could wash off the dirt. After a visit to the bath-house his hands turned red instead of black for a couple of hours, and then became black again. He was very clumsy; when he opened the doors or the gates, one half would shut while he was opening the other, and as he ran to the second half, the first one would shut. He could never pick up a handkerchief or anything else from the floor at once, but always bent down about three times, as though he were trying to catch it, and only got hold of it at the fourth attempt, and even then he was liable to drop it again. If he carried a number of plates or some other crockery across the room, those on the top began to decamp to the floor at the first step he took. First one fell off; he suddenly made a belated and use less attempt to stop it, and dropped another two. As he stood gaping with surprise at the falling plates, paying no attention to those he still held in his hands and holding the tray aslant, the plates continued to drop on the floor; by the time he reached the other end of the room there was sometimes only one plate or wine-glass left on the tray, and, cursing and swearing, he very often deliberately flung down the last things that still remained in his hands. Walking across the room he invariably caught his side or his feet against a table or a chair; he rarely passed through the open half of the door without knocking his shoulder against the other half, swearing at both, at the landlord, and at the carpenter who made them. In Oblomov’s study almost all articles, especially the small ones which required careful handling, were either broken or damaged, and all thanks to Zakhar. This talent for handling things he applied equally to all articles, making no distinction in his method of treating them. He was, for instance, told to snuff a candle or pour out a glass of water: to do that he used as much force as was needed to open the gates. But the real danger came when Zakhar, inspired by a sudden zeal to please his master, took it into his head to tidy everything, clean and put everything in its proper place quickly, at once! There was no end of trouble and breakages; an enemy soldier, rushing into the house, could not have done so much mischief. Things fell down and broke, crockery was smashed, chairs turned over. In the end he had to be driven out of the room, or he went away, swearing and cursing, of his own accord. Fortunately, he was rarely inspired with such zeal.

All that, of course, happened because Zakhar had been brought up and acquired his manners not in the dark and narrow, but fastidiously furnished, drawing-rooms and studies, cluttered up with all sorts of fancy articles, but in the country, where there was plenty of room to move about. There he was accustomed to work without being cramped and to handle things of solid dimensions and massive weight, such as a spade, a crowbar, iron door clamps, and chairs of such size that he could shift them only with difficulty.

Some article, such as a candlestick, a lamp, a transparency, a paper-weight, remained undamaged for three or four years, but as soon as Zakhar picked it up, it broke.

«Oh», he sometimes used to say to Oblomov when this happened, «look, sir, what an extraordinary thing: I just picked it up and it came to pieces in my hands».

Or he said nothing at all, but would put it back secretly and afterwards assured his master that he had broken it himself; and sometimes he excused himself by saying that even an iron article must get broken sooner or later since it could not possibly last for ever. In the first two instances one could still argue with him, but when, driven into a corner, he armed himself with the last argument, every objection was useless and nothing in the world could convince him that he was wrong.

Zakhar had drawn up a definite programme of activity which he never varied, if he could help it. In the morning he set the samovar, cleaned the boots and clothes his master asked for, but not those he did not ask for, though they might be hanging in the wardrobe for ten years. Then he swept – not every day, though – the middle of the room without touching the comers and dusted only the table that had nothing on it, to save himself the trouble of moving anything. After this he considered that he had a right to snooze on the stove or chatter with Anisya in the kitchen or with the servants at the gates. If he was ordered to do something else besides, he did it only reluctantly after long arguments to show that what was asked of him was useless or impossible. It was quite impossible to make him introduce any permanent new item into his programme of daily tasks. If he was told to clean or wash some article, or fetch something or take something away, he carried out the order with his usual growling, but Oblomov could never make him do that regularly and without being told. The next day or the day after he had to be told to do it again with a resumption of the same unpleasant arguments.
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