Oblomov (Penguin Classics)

Author:Goncharov, Ivan [Goncharov, Ivan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 2005-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

10

OBLOMOV was like a man who has just been watching a summer sunset and enjoying its crimson afterglow, unable to tear his eyes away from the sky and turn back to see the approaching night, thinking all the time of the return of light and warmth next day. He lay on his back enjoying the afterglow of his last meeting with Olga. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ Olga’s words still rang in his ears, sweeter than anything she had ever sung; the last rays of the intent look she gave him still rested upon him. He was trying to get to the bottom of its meaning, to determine how much she loved him, and was about to fall asleep when suddenly – –

Next morning Oblomov got up looking pale and gloomy; his face bore the traces of a sleepless night, his forehead was furrowed, his eyes dull and phlegmatic. His pride, his gay and cheerful look, the deliberate, sober movements of a busy man had all gone. He drank his tea listlessly, and without opening a single book or sitting down to his desk, he thoughtfully lit a cigar and sat down on the sofa. Formerly he would have lain down, but he had lost the habit of that now and he felt no compulsion to put his head on a pillow. He did, however, lean his elbow on it – a symptom of his former inclination. He was in a dismal mood. From time to time he sighed, shrugged his shoulders suddenly, or shook his head bitterly. Something was agitating him violently, but it was not love. Olga’s image was before him, but it seemed to be far away, in a haze, without radiance, a stranger to him; he gave it a sickly look and sighed.

‘Live as God commands and not as you would like is a wise rule, but – –’ And he sank into thought. ‘No, you can’t live as you like, that’s clear,’ some morose, cantankerous voice began speaking within him. ‘You will fall into a chaos of contradictions which no human intellect, however profound and daring, can unravel! One day you desire something, next day you get what you have so passionately desired, and the day after you blush at the thought of having desired it, and then you curse life because it has been fulfilled – that is what comes from your arrogant and independent striding into life, from your wilful I want to. A man has to grope his way through life; he must close his eyes to many things and not dream of happiness or dare to murmur if it escapes him – that is life! Whose idea was it that it was happiness or enjoyment? The madmen! “Life is life, it is duty,” Olga says – an obligation, and an obligation may be hard. Let us, then, do our duty.…’ He sighed. ‘I’m not going to see Olga again – Lord, you have opened my eyes and

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