10

FIVE years had passed. There had been many changes in Vyborg: the empty street leading to Mrs Pshenitzyn’s house was full of newly built summer cottages, and among them rose a long brick Government building which prevented the sunshine from pouring in gaily through the windows of the peaceful refuge of tranquillity and indolence. The little house itself had become a little dilapidated and looked rather grimy and untidy, like a man who has not shaven and washed. The paint had peeled off, the rainpipes were broken in places, and there were, therefore, big puddles in the yard across which, as in the old days, a narrow plank was laid. When someone went in at the gate, the old black dog did not jump vigorously on the chain, but barked hoarsely and lazily without coming out of the kennel.

And the changes inside the house!

+ Another woman was ruling over it and different children were playing about there. The red, drunken face of the rowdy Tarantyev appeared there again from time to time, and the gentle and meek Alexeyev was no longer to be seen there. Neither was Zakhar or Anisya to be seen: a new, fat woman cook was in charge of the kitchen, reluctantly and rudely carrying out the quiet orders of Agafya Matveyevna, and the same Akulina, the hem of her skirt tucked in at the waist, was washing troughs and earthenware jars; the same sleepy caretaker in the same sheepskin was idly spending the remaining years of his life in his dark hovel. Ivan Matveyevich’s figure again darted past the trellised fence at the appointed hours of early morning and dinner-time with a big parcel under his arm and goloshes on his feet, in winter and summer.

What has become of Oblomov? Where is he? Where? His body is resting under a modest urn, surrounded by shrubs, in a lonely corner of the nearest graveyard. Branches of lilac, planted by a friendly hand, slumber over his grave, and the wormwood spreads its sharp scent in the still air. The angel of peace himself seems to be guarding his sleep. However keenly the loving eyes of his wife kept watch over every moment of his life, perpetual rest, perpetual stillness, and the indolent passage of time slowly brought the mechanism of life to a standstill. Oblomov passed away apparently without pain, without suffering, just like a clock that has stopped because it has not been wound up. No one witnessed his last moments or heard his last groan. He had another stroke a year after the first, and again he recovered from it, but then he grew weak and pale, ate little, hardly ever went out into the garden, and grew more and more taciturn and thoughtful; sometimes he even wept. He had a feeling that death was near, and he was afraid of it. He had several dizzy spells, but these passed off. One morning Agafya Matveyevna brought him his coffee as usual, and found him resting as gently in death as he had rested in sleep, except that his head had slipped off the pillow and his hand was convulsively pressed to his heart, where apparently a blood vessel had burst.

Agafya Matveyevna had been a widow for three years; during that time everything had gone back to what it had used to be before. Her brother had been dealing in Government contracts, but had gone bankrupt and managed in all sorts of devious ways to obtain his old job of secretary in the office «where peasants were registered»; and again he walked to the office, bringing back fifty, twenty-five, and twenty copeck pieces to deposit them in his well-hidden box. Once more, as in the old days before Oblomov’s arrival, they had the same plain and coarse, but rich and plentiful meals. The leading role in the house was now occupied by Ivan Matveyevich’s wife, Irina Panteleyevna – that is, she reserved the right to get up late, drink coffee three times a day, change her dress three times a day, and see to one thing only in the house, namely, that her petticoats were starched as stiffly as possible. She did not concern herself with anything else, and Agafya Matveyevna was, as before, the live wire in the house: she looked after the kitchen and the meals, poured out tea and coffee for the whole family, mended their clothes, kept an eye on the washing, and the children, Akulina, and the caretaker. But why did she do that? Wasn’t she Mrs Oblomov, a landowner? Couldn’t she have lived by herself, independently and without being in need of anything or anybody? What could have made her assume the burden of other people’s housekeeping, of looking after other people’s children, and all those trifles to which a woman devotes herself either for love, for the sacred duty of family ties, or for the sake of a livelihood? Where were Zakhar and Anisya, her servants by every right? Where, finally, was the living pledge left her by her husband, little Andrey? Where are her children by her first marriage?

Her children are settled in life – that is to say, Vanya has finished his course of studies and has got a job in the Civil Service; Masha has married the superintendent of some Government office, and little Andrey is being brought up by Stolz and his wife, at their earnest request, and is being treated by them as a member of their family. Agafya Matveyevna never thought of little Andrey’s future as in any way comparable to the future of her older children, though in her heart she unconsciously perhaps gave an equal place to them all. But little Andrey’s education, manner of living, and future she considered to be altogether different from the lives of Vanya and Masha.

«Those two», she said indifferently, «are street arabs like myself. They were born for a hard life; but this one», she added, almost with respect, fondling little Andrey, if not with timidity, then with care, «is a little gentleman! See how fair his skin is – like a ripe peach! Such tiny hands and feet and hair like silk. He’s the spit and image of his father!»

That was why she had agreed without protest, and even with a certain joy, to Stolz’s proposal to bring up little Andrey with his own children, believing that his proper place was there, and not in her house, among ’the rabble’, with her dirty nephews, her brother’s children.

For about six months after Oblomov’s death she lived with Zakhar and Anisya in the house, giving herself up to grief. She had trodden a path to her husband’s grave and wept her eyes out, hardly ate or drank anything, and lived chiefly on tea; she scarcely closed her eyes at night and was completely worn out. She never complained to anyone about anything and as time passed she seemed to become more and more absorbed in herself, in her sorrow, and shut everyone out, even Anisya. Nobody knew what she really felt.

«Your mistress is still weeping for her husband», the grocer said to the cook.

«Still sorrowing for her husband», the churchwarden remarked, pointing her out to the woman who baked the host for the cemetery church, where the disconsolate widow came every week to weep and pray.

«She’s still wasting away with grief», they said in her brother’s house.

One day the entire family of her brother’s, the children, and even Tarantyev, suddenly descended upon her house under the pretext of offering condolences. They overwhelmed her with vulgar consolations and entreaties «to spare herself for the sake of her children» – all that had been said to her fifteen years ago, when her first husband had died, and it had had the desired effect at that time; but now, for some reason it made her feel disgusted and wretched. She was relieved when they changed the subject and told her that now they could live together again and that it would be better for her because «she would be wretched among her own people», and for them because no one could look after the house as well as she. She asked for time to think it over, and after grieving for another two months, she at last agreed to share the house with them. It was at that time that Stolz took little Andrey to live with him, and she was left alone.

Wearing a dark dress and with a black woollen shawl round her neck, she would walk from her room to the kitchen like a shadow, opened and closed cupboards as before, sewed, ironed lace, but slowly and without energy; she spoke, as it were, reluctantly, and in a low voice, and she no longer as before looked about her unconcernedly with eyes that never remained fixed in one place, but with an expression of concentration on her face and a hidden meaning in her eyes. This thought seemed to have imperceptibly settled on her face at the moment when she gazed intently and for a long time at her husband’s dead face, and had never left her since. She moved about the house, did all that was necessary, but her mind was not on her work. Over her husband’s dead body, and after she had lost him, she seemed suddenly to have grasped the whole meaning of her life and pondered over it – and ever since that thought lay brooding over her face like a shadow. Having sobbed out her intense grief, she concentrated on the sense of her loss: the rest was dead for her, except little Andrey. It was only when she saw him that she seemed to show signs of life and her features revived, her eyes filled with a joyful light and then with the tears of remembrance. She lost interest in all that happened around her: if her brother was angry because an extra rouble had been spent, or the roast was slightly burnt, or the fish was not quite as fresh as he liked; if her sister-in-law sulked because her petticoat had not been starched stiffly enough or her tea was weak or cold; if the cook was rude to her – Agafya Matveyevna did not notice anything, just as though they were not talking of her, and as though she never heard the sarcastic whisper: «A lady, a land- owner!» Her answer to it all was contained in the dignity of her sorrow and in her resigned silence. On the other hand, at Christmas or on Easter Sunday, or on the gay parties at Shrovetide, when everyone in the house was rejoicing, singing, eating, and drinking, she would suddenly burst into tears amid the general merry-making and hide herself in her room. Then she would withdraw into herself again and sometimes even look at her brother and his wife, as it were, with pride and pity. She realized that joy and laughter had gone out of her life, that God had breathed a soul into her and taken it away again, that the sun that had shone over her had set for ever… For ever, it is true; but her life, too, had gained a meaning for ever: for now she knew why she had lived and that she had not lived in vain.

She had loved so much and so utterly: she had loved Oblomov as a lover, as a husband, and as a born gentleman; but, as before, she could never tell this to anyone. And no one around her would have understood her. Where would she have found the right words? No such words were to be found in her brother’s, Tarantyev’s, or her sister-in-law’s vocabulary, because they all lacked the ideas those words expressed; only Oblomov would have understood her, but she never told him, because at the time she did not understand it herself and did not know how to express it. As the years passed, she understood her past better and better and hid it more deeply within herself, becoming more taciturn and reserved. The seven years that had flown by like a moment shed their soft light over her whole life, and there was nothing more for her to desire, nowhere farther to go. Only when Stolz came to Petersburg for the winter, she ran to his house and looked eagerly at little Andrey, caressing him with timid tenderness; she would have liked to say something to Stolz, to thank him, to lay before him all that was pent up in her heart and was locked up there for ever – he would have understood her, but she did not know how to, and she merely rushed to Olga, pressed her lips to her hands, and burst into such a flood of scalding tears that Olga could not help weeping with her too, and Andrey, greatly agitated, hurried out of the room. They were all bound by the same feeling, the same memory of the crystal-clear soul of their dead friend. They tried to persuade her to go to the country with them and live with them, near little Andrey, but she always replied: «Where one was born and bred, there one must die». In vain did Stolz give her an account of his management of her estate and sent her the income due to her. She returned it all and asked him to keep it for little Andrey.

«It is his, not mine», she repeated obstinately. «He will need it, he is a gentleman, and I can manage without it».