Chapter XI: Act I: Scene 2 (1)

(_The Tsar’s bedchamber. Iván, pale and exhausted, in a black cassock,
is sitting in an arm-chair, beads in his hand. Near him, on a table,
lies the Cap of Monomákh; on the other side, on a stool, are the
royal vestments. Grigóri Nagóy is handing him a goblet._)

_Nagóy._ O Tsar! one drop of wine thou ’lt drink,
One drop refuse not. Thou these many days
Dost wear thyself out. All this time thy lips
Have nothing touched.
_Iván._ The body needs no food
When the soul is fed on anguish. Henceforth
Remorse shall be my food.
_Nagóy._ O mighty Tsar!
Is ’t true thou wouldst forsake us? How will it
With the Tsarítsa be? with the Tsarévich
Thy Dimítri?
_Iván._ God will not forsake them.
_Nagóy._ But who can hold the reins of government
Except thyself?
_Iván._ My mind’s edge is blunted;
My heart is faint; my hands are powerless
To hold the reins; already for my sins,
To th’ pagan God hath given victory,
Commanded me my throne that I give up
Unto another; my iniquities
Are more than sands o’ th’ sea: a cannibal--
Tormentor--lecher--church-profaner I:
The boundlessness of God’s long-suffering
Have I exhausted by the last misdeed.
_Nagóy._ O Tsar! Thou dost exaggerate thy sin;
Thy mind went not with it. Thou meantest not
To slay the Tsarévich: thy staff by accident
Did give the blow.
_Iván._ ’T is false! I knowingly,
On purpose, of free will did slay him. Or
Was I then mad, knew not where fell my blow?
No--I slew him purposely! On his back
He fell, bathed in his blood, aye, kissing
These my hands; and dying he forgave me
My monstrous sin, but I forgive myself
Such crimes dare not.
(_Speaks low._)
This very night to me
Appeared he, beckoned with bloody hand,
And, pointing to a cowl, he waved me on
With him along, unto the holy dwelling
By the White Lake, ev’n there where lie the relics
Of Cyril the Wonder-worker.
There loved I formerly alone to be
At times from out the tempests of the world;
There loved I, far from every care, to think
Of future rest, and the unthankfulness
Of man, and the malicious wiles of foes forget;
Mournfully sweet it was to me within
Some cell to rest me from the day’s exertions,
In evening hour to watch the clouds float by,
Hear but the winds sough, and the cries of gulls,
And of the lake the plash monotonous,
All silent there. There passion’s all forgotten.
There will I take the cowl, and it may be
By prayer, by life-long fasting and contrition,
That I shall merit pardon of my curse.
(_A silence._)
Go thou, and learn the reason that so long
Their conference lasts. Soon shall I know their sentence.
When come they with their Tsar? I ’ll lay on him
At once the regal mantle and the crown!
(_Exit Nagóy._)
The end of all! And hither am I brought
Along the lengthened path of majesty.
What have I met with on ’t? Sufferings alone.
E’en from my youth but knowing of unrest,
Now on the steed, amid the whistling shot,
The heathen subjecting, now in the Council
Struggling against the boyárs in revolt,
I see behind me but a long-drawn line
Of sleepless nights and troubled days.
I have not gracious to my people been--
No! I had never mastery o’er myself.
Father Sylvester, my good old tutor,
Would say to me, “Iván, take care! In thee
Satan would seat him. Open not thy soul
To him, Iván.” But I was deaf unto
The holy, aged man, and oped my soul
Unto the devil. No, no Tsar am I.
A wolf! a stinking cur! a tyrant!
My son I ’ve slain! Cain’s crime I have outpast!
A leper in soul and mind! The sores
That eat away my heart are countless!
O thou, God Christ, heal me, and forgive me
From my unheard-of foulness, and among
The choir of the blessèd count my soul.

--From _The Death of Iván the Terrible_, transl. by I. H.
Harrison.

THE KURGÁN

Where the broad level steppe lies bare
There stands a lonely mound,
Beneath a famous warrior erst
His latest honour found.

Three days the funeral feast endured,
Three days his meinie strove;
His wives the priests did offer there,
The war horse he did love.

But when at length he buried lay,
The noisy rites were o’er,
Singers foretold his fame to be,
Golden the lute he bore.

“O hero, yet thy deeds shall be
A mighty nation’s boast,
Nor shall thy loudly-sounded name
Through ages all be lost.

“Nay, should thy lofty tomb be laid
Low as this barren plain,
Yet far thy fame shall ever spread,
Honoured thy dust remain.”

And see! the years have passed amain,
And centuries have ranged,
Nations to nations given place,
Countries their fall have changed.

But still that mound its head lifts high,
Where the great chief doth rest,
Nor level with the ground it lies;
Still proudly soars its crest.

But through the years his glorious name
Was lost, nor lived till now.
Who was he, and what coronets
Graced his victorious brow?

What blood was it he shed in streams,
What towns in ashes laid?
What death was it he died, and when
Was his sepulture paid?

This lonely mound doth naught reply,
The warrior is forgot,
And games no more nor songs record
His once lamented lot.

Only the wild giraffe darts by,
Bounding across the plain,
Or locusts in a fluttering swarm
Settle, then on again.

Anon the cranes from high in air,
Their goal is now in sight,
Descend, shrill wayfarers, to rest
And preen for their last flight.

And there the timid jerboa leaps
When slowly dies the day,
Or rider high on mettled steed
Takes there his headlong way.

And, as across the sky they sail,
The clouds let drop their tears,
And lightly thence the passing breeze
The dust unheeded bears.

--Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
No. 25.

Iván Aleksándrovich Goncharóv. (1812-1891.)

Goncharóv was born in Simbírsk where his father was a wealthy
merchant. His first ten years he passed in his home amidst the sloth
and indolence of the old Russian patriarchalism. In 1822 he was placed
in an educational institution at Moscow, and twelve years later he
graduated from the university. He began early to translate from the
French and from other languages, in which he was versed, but his first
original story appeared only in 1847. This novel, _A Usual Story_, at
once attracted attention by its realistic pictures of details, and by
the fine raillery at the Romantic extravagancies of its hero. In 1852
Goncharóv was invited by the Ministry of Marine to accompany an
expedition which was to circumnavigate the world on a mission to
Japan. The result of this voyage was his memoirs, _Frigate Palláda_,
which for brilliancy of description surpass any book in the Russian
language on travels. During his voyage he, at the same time, worked on
his great novel, _Oblómov_, for which he had laid the plan long
before. It was published in 1858 and created a sensation unlike any
other previous production in Russia. The country was on the eve of the
emancipation, and everybody was filled with the optimism that the
native indolence was soon to come to an end, when Goncharóv with
marvellous plasticism generalised that very indolence in his hero, and
made him succumb to it: everybody who read the book recognised
himself, and trembled lest he should also become a victim of Russian
fatalism. Goncharóv’s later novel, _The Declivity_, was less
successful.

In English there are some extracts translated from _Oblómov_ in the
Library of the World’s Best Literature and in Garnett’s Universal
Anthology.

FROM “OBLÓMOV”

“Go ahead with the description of the ideal of your life---- Well, good friends around you: what next? How would you pass your days?”

“Well, I should rise in the morning,” began Oblómov, placing his hands back of his head, and an expression of rest came over his face: he was in thought already in the country. “The weather is fine, the sky deep-blue, and there is not a cloud,” he said. “One side of my house is turned with its balcony to the east, facing the garden and fields, the other towards the village. While waiting for my wife to get up, I should put on my smoking-jacket and should saunter through the garden, to breathe the morning evaporations; there I should find the gardener, and we should together water the flowers, and lop the bushes and trees. I cull a bouquet for my wife. Then I take a bath in the bath-tub or in the river; I return, the balcony is open; my wife has on a blouse and a light morning cap that barely stays on the head and that will be wafted away by the slightest breeze. She is waiting for me. ‘Tea is ready,’ she says. What a kiss! What tea! What a restful armchair! I seat myself at the table: upon it are toast, cream, fresh butter----”

“Then?”

“Then I don a comfortable coat or jacket, and lose myself with my wife in an endless, deep avenue of trees: we walk softly, lost in meditation, or think aloud, dream, count the moments of happiness, like the beating of the pulse, and listen to the beating and fainting of the heart; we look for sympathy in Nature----and by degrees we reach a brook or a field---- The river barely splashes; the ears of corn wave with the wind. ’T is warm----we seat ourselves in the boat, my wife rows, barely raising the oars----”

“Yes, you are a poet, Ilyá!” Stolz interrupted him.

“Yes, a poet of life, for life is poetry. It is the privilege of people to distort it! Then we can enter the greenhouse,” continued Oblómov, himself becoming intoxicated with the ideal which he was depicting. He extracted from his memory ready, long-present pictures, and therefore he spoke with warmth, and without stopping. “We look at the peaches, at the grapes,” he said: “We tell what to send to table; then we return, take a light breakfast and wait for friends---- There is a note for my wife from some Márya Petróvna, with a book or music; or a pine-apple has been sent us as a present, or in our own garden a monster melon has ripened, and we send it to some good friend, for to-morrow’s dinner, and we go there ourselves---- In the meantime everything is busy in the kitchen; the cook is running around in an apron and cap as white as snow: he puts down one pot, takes up another; there he stirs, here he begins to mix the dough; there he pours out some water--the knives are rattling--they are chopping some spinach--there they turn the ice-cream freezer---- ’T is a pleasure to look into the kitchen before dinner, to open a saucepan, sniff, take a glance at the making of the cakes, and beating of the cream. Then to lie down on the sofa; the wife reads aloud something new; we stop, quarrel a bit---- But there are guests coming, say, you and your wife.”

“Bah, you are getting me married, too?”

“By all means! Two, three friends more,--the same old faces. We take up the unfinished conversation of yesterday. Then come jokes, or there falls upon us an eloquent silence, a meditation,--not on account of the loss of some place, not on account of some affair of the Senate, but from the fulness of satisfied desire,--a meditation of enjoyment---- You will hear no philippics, with foam upon the lips, against an absent person; you will not notice a glance cast at you that promises you the same the moment you have closed the door. You will not dip your bread in his salt cellar whom you do not love, who is not good. In the eyes of the interlocutors you will perceive sympathy, in their jests, a sincere, harmless laughter---- Everything from the soul! What is in the eyes, is in the words and hearts. After dinner--a mocha, a Havana cigar on the terrace----”

“You are painting me there the same that has been with our fathers and grandfathers.”

“No, not the same,” retorted Oblómov, almost offended. “How can you say so? Do you suppose my wife would be preserving jams and mushrooms? Would she be counting skeins, and looking after the homespun? Would she be boxing the servant girls’ ears? Don’t you hear?--There would be music, books, piano, fine furniture!”

“Well, and you yourself?”

“I myself would not be reading last year’s newspapers, would not travel in a kolymága, would not eat noodles and goose meat, and would have my cook taking lessons in the English club or at the ambassador’s.”

“And then?”

“Then, when the heat would subside, I should send a carriage with the samovár, with a dessert, to the birch forest, or else, to the field, on the newly mown grass, I should have carpets spread between the hayricks, and there we should be staying in bliss until cold hash and beefsteak. The peasants are returning from the field, with their scythes over their shoulders; there creeps by a waggon with hay that conceals the vehicle and the horse; above, a peasant’s cap, adorned with flowers, and a child’s head stick out of the hay; there, a crowd of barefooted old women, with sickles, talk aloud---- Suddenly they notice their masters, and they grow silent, and bow low.

“’T is damp in the field, and dark; a mist, like an inverted sea, hovers over the rye; the horses jerk their shoulders and stamp their hoofs: ’t is time to go home. In the house the fires are lit; in the kitchen there is a mighty rattle of knives; there is a pan of mushrooms, cutlets, berries----there is music----Casta diva--Casta diva!” sang out Oblómov. “I cannot mention with indifference Casta diva,” he said, after singing the beginning of the cavatina; “how that woman weeps her heart away! What melancholy there is in those sounds---- And no one around her knows anything---- She is alone---- The secret weighs heavily upon her; she confides it to the moon----”

“Do you like that aria? I am very glad: Ólga Ílinski sings it beautifully. I ’ll introduce you to her,--what a voice, what singing! And what a charming child she herself is! However, maybe I am a prejudiced judge: I have a small weakness for her---- But, don’t let me distract you,” Stolz added: “Go ahead with your description!”

“Well,” continued Oblómov, “what more?----yes, that ’s all---- The guests scatter to the side buildings, to the pavilions; the next day they go in different directions: one to fish, another to hunt; a third,--well, just sits down----”

“How, with nothing in his hands?” asked Stolz.

“What do you want? Well, with a handkerchief, if you please. Why, would you not like to pass such an existence?” asked Oblómov, “or, is n’t that an existence?”

“All my life that way?” asked Stolz.

“To your grey hair, to the grave. This is life!”

“No, it is not.”

“How not? What is lacking here? Just consider that you would not see a single poor, suffering face, no care, not a single question about the Senate, exchange, shares, reports, audience at the minister’s, ranks, increase of salary. Nothing but soul-felt conversations. You would never have to move from one house to another,--that in itself is worth something! And you say that is not life?”

“That is not life!” Stolz repeated stubbornly.

“What is it then according to you?”

“That is----” Stolz fell to musing and was trying to find a proper expression for such a life, “I should call it---- Oblómovism!” he finally said.

“Ob-lóm-ov-ism!” Oblómov uttered slowly, wondering at the strange word, and pronouncing it by syllables: “Ob-lóm-ov-ism!”--he looked strangely and fixedly at Stolz. “What, then, in your opinion, is the ideal of life? What is not Oblómovism?” he asked timidly, without passion. “Do not all strive for the same thing that I am dreaming of? Say yourself,” he added more boldly, “is not the aim of all our running, passions, wars, commerce, politics the obtaining of peace, is it not a striving for that ideal of a lost paradise?”

“Your very Utopia is of the Oblómov kind,” retorted Stolz.

“Everybody is in search of rest and quiet,” Oblómov defended himself.

“Not all, and you yourself did not look for that in life ten years ago.”

“What did I look for?” Oblómov asked, perplexed, as he mentally transferred himself into the past.

“Try to recall it. Where are your books and translations?”

“Zákhar has put them somewhere,” answered Oblómov, “they are somewhere in the corner here.”

“In the corner!” Stolz said reproachfully. “In this same corner lie your intentions ‘to serve, while strength lasts, because Russia needs hands and heads to exploit its inexhaustible resources’--I am quoting your words: ‘to work, in order to rest more sweetly; and to rest means to live with the other, aristocratic, artistic side of life, the life of artists, poets.’ Has Zákhar stored away all these intentions also in the corner? Do you remember, you had intended, after having studied from books, to travel in foreign countries, in order to know and love yours better? ‘All life is thought and work,’ you used to repeat then: ‘an unnoticed, dark, but incessant work, and to die with the consciousness of having done your work’--well, in what corner does all that lie now?”

“Yes----yes----” said Oblómov, restlessly following every word of Stolz’s, “I do remember, I really did----it seems---- That ’s so!” he suddenly exclaimed, as the past returned to him. “Why, Andréy, we had made up our minds to crisscross Europe, to walk through all of Switzerland, to burn our feet on Mount Vesuvius, to go down to Herculaneum. We almost went insane! How many foolish things!----”

“Foolish things!” Stolz repeated reproachfully. “Did you not say in tears, as you looked at the engravings of Raphael’s Madonnas, at Correggio’s Night, at the Apollo Belvedere: ‘Lord! Shall I really never be able to gaze at the originals and be dumb with terror at the thought that I am standing before the productions of Michael Angelo, Titian, and that I tread the soil of Rome? Shall I pass my life seeing these myrtles, cypresses, and orange trees in hothouses, and not in their native home? Not to breathe the air of Italy, not to drink in the azure of its sky!’ And what superb fireworks you used to send out of your head. Foolish things!”

“Yes, yes! I remember,” said Oblómov, as he lost himself in the past. “You once took me by my hand and said to me: ‘Let us promise not to die before having seen all that!----”

“I remember,” continued Stolz, “how you once brought me a translation from Say, with a dedication to me upon my birthday: I still have the whole translation. How you shut yourself up with the teacher of mathematics, and wanted by all means to find out what good there was in knowing circles and squares, and then you gave it up before you were half way through, without having found it out! You began to study English--and you did not learn it! And when I made a plan of a journey abroad, and asked you to come to see me at the German universities, you jumped up, embraced me, and solemnly gave me your hand: ‘I am with you, Andréy, everywhere with you,’ those are all your words. You have always been something of an actor. Well, Ilyá? I have been twice abroad; after having been crammed full of our native wisdom, I sat modestly on the student benches at Bonn, Jena, Erlangen, then I studied Europe like my estate. But one might say, a journey is a luxury and not all are able or obliged to make use of that means; what about Russia? I have seen Russia up and down. I work----”

“Sometime you ’ll stop working,” Oblómov remarked.

“I shall never stop. Why should I?”

“When you have doubled your capital,” said Oblómov.

“Not when I increase it fourfold.”

“What is all this unrest for,” he said after a silence, “if it is not your aim to provide for the future and to retire later for a rest?”

“Country Oblómovism!” said Stolz.

“Or by service to gain importance and position in society, and then in honourable indolence to enjoy a well-deserved rest----”

“Petersburg Oblómovism!” exclaimed Stolz.

“When is one to live, pray?” Oblómov replied with annoyance to Stolz’s remarks. “Why should one worry a whole life away?”

“For work’s sake, and for nothing else. Work is the image, contents, element, and aim of life, at least, of my life. You have driven work out of life: what is it like now? I ’ll try to raise you, maybe, for the last time. If you will be staying here after that, with your Tarántevs and Aleksyéevs, you will go to perdition, and be a burden to yourself. Now or never!” he concluded.

Oblómov listened, fixing his excited eyes upon him. His friend had, so to say, placed a mirror before him, and he became frightened as he recognised himself.

“Do not scold me, Andréy, but really help me!” he began with a sigh. “I am tormented myself by it, and if you had seen or heard me only to-day, how I am digging my own grave and lamenting over myself, you would never have had the courage to blame me so much. I know and understand all, but I have no strength and no will. Give me your will-power and mind, and lead me where you wish. I shall probably go with you, but alone I will never move from the spot. You are saying the truth: ‘Now or never!’ Another year, and it will be too late!”

“Is it you, Ilyá?” said Andréy. “I remember you as a slender, lively boy, as you walked every day from Prechístenka to Kúdrino; there, in the garden----you have not forgotten the two sisters? You have not forgotten Rousseau, Schiller, Goethe, Byron, which you used to carry to them, and you took away from them the novels of Cottin, Janlis----you put on such importance before them, you wanted to purify their taste?----”

Oblómov jumped up from his bed. “What, you remember that too, Andréy? That is so! I dreamt with them, whispered hopes of the future to them, developed plans, ideas, and--feelings too, secretly from you, lest you should ridicule me. All that is dead, it was never repeated! Where has it all gone to, and why has it been extinguished? Incomprehensible! There have been no storms, no violent perturbations with me; I have not lost anything; no yoke burdens my conscience; it is as pure as glass; no stroke has killed ambition in me. God knows why all that has gone!” He sighed. “Do you know, Andréy? There has never burnt in my life, neither a redeeming, nor a destructive fire! It has never resembled a morning upon which gradually fall colours and fire until it is changed into day, as with others; and then it flames up, and boils, moves in the brilliant midday, and then softly, very softly, becomes paler and paler, and naturally and gently dies out towards evening. No, my life began with the extinction! Strange to say, it is so! From the first moment that I have been conscious of myself, I have felt that I am already being extinguished. I began to go out when I was writing documents in the chancery; I was going out when, later, I read in books truths that I did not know what to do with in life; I was going out among my friends, as I listened to the disputes, gossips, malicious teasings, ill-minded and cold prattle, emptiness, and as I looked at the friendship that was supported by aimless and unsympathetic meetings; I was going out in the languid and indolent saunterings along the Névski Prospect, among racoon furcoats and beaver collars,--at evening entertainments, receptions, where I was gladly received as a possible prospective bridegroom; I was going out and trifling away life and reason when I migrated from the city to the country, and from the country back to the Gorókhovaya street, measuring spring by the arrival of oysters and lobsters, autumn and winter by reception days, summer by excursions, and life in general by an indolent and restful dreaming, like the rest---- Even my ambition, what did I waste it upon? To order a garment from a well-known tailor, in order to find my way into a certain house, in order that Prince P. should press my hand. And ambition is the salt of life! What has become of it? Either I did not understand this life, or it is good for nothing, and I knew and saw nothing better, and no one showed it to me. You used to appear and disappear like a comet, brilliantly, swiftly, and I forgot all about it, and went out----”

Stolz no longer answered with a careless banter Oblómov’s speech. He listened and kept a grim silence.

“You told me lately that my face was not quite fresh, that it was crushed,” continued Oblómov. “Yes, I am a threadbare, old, worn-out coat, but not from the effect of the climate, and labour, but because for twelve years light was imprisoned within me; it sought an exit, and only burnt the prison, and did not get its liberty, and went out. Thus, my dear Andréy, have passed twelve years of mine, and I lost the desire to awaken.”

“Why did you not tear yourself away and run somewhere, instead of perishing in silence?” Stolz asked impatiently.

“Whither?”

“Whither? If you could do nothing better, with your peasants to the Vólga: there is more motion there, there are there some kind of interests, aims, work. I should have gone to Siberia, to Sitka----”

“You prescribe such dreadfully strong measures!” Oblómov remarked languidly.

“I am not alone in that. There is Mikháylov, Petróv, Seménov, Aleksyéev, Stepánov---- You can’t count them all: our name is legion!”

Stolz was still under the influence of that confession and he was silent. Then he sighed. “Yes, much water has flowed since then!” he said. “I will not leave you as you are; I ’ll take you away from here, first abroad, and then into the country: you will grow a little thinner, you will stop pining away, and we shall find some work for you----”

“Yes, let us get away from here!” the words escaped from Oblómov.

“To-morrow we will apply for a passport abroad, then we will pack up---- I will not leave you, do you hear, Ilyá?”

“It is always to-morrow with you!” retorted Oblómov, as though coming down from the clouds.

“You would prefer, ‘Don’t put off for to-morrow what you can do to-day?’ What a hurry! It is too late now,” Stolz added. “In two weeks we shall be far away----”

“You talk of two weeks, my friend! How so? Let us consider it properly and get ready---- I ’ll have to get some carriage----say rather in three months.”

“Talk of a carriage! We shall travel to the border in a stage coach, or in a steamer as far as Lubeck, that will be much more convenient. There we shall find railroads in many places.”

“And what about the house, and Zákhar, and Oblómovka? Some kind of arrangements will have to be made,” Oblómov defended himself.

“Oblómovism, Oblómovism!” said Stolz, laughing; then he took a candle, wished Oblómov good-night, and went to bed. “Now or never!--Remember!” he added, as he turned back to Oblómov and closed the door behind him.

“Now or never!” were the first threatening words he thought of as he awoke in the morning. He rose from his bed, walked three times up and down the room, and looked into the sitting-room where Stolz was sitting and writing. “Zákhar!” he called out, but he did not hear him jumping down from the oven bed. Zákhar did not make his appearance,--Stolz had sent him to the post-office. Oblómov walked up to his dusty table, sat down, picked up a pen, dipped it in the inkstand, but there was no ink in it, looked for some paper, but there was none. He fell to musing, and mechanically began to draw with his finger in the dust, then he looked down to see what he had written: it turned out to be “Oblómovism.” He hurriedly wiped away the writing with his sleeve. That word he had been dreaming of in the night: it was written in flaming letters upon the wall, as at Belshazzar’s feast. Zákhar arrived and when he found Oblómov not in his bed, he dimly looked at his master, wondering why he should be on his legs. In that dull glance of astonishment was written: “Oblómovism!” “One single word,” thought Ilyá Ilyích, “but how poisonous!----”

Zákhar took, as usual, the comb, brush, and towel, and stepped towards his master to fix his hair. “Go to the devil!” Oblómov exclaimed angrily and knocked the brush out of Zákhar’s hands, and Zákhar himself dropped the comb on the floor.

“Would you not like to lie down again?” asked Zákhar. “If so, I shall fix the bed for you.”

“Bring me ink and paper,” answered Oblómov.

He fell to musing over the words: “Now or never!” As he listened inwardly to this despairing appeal of reason and willpower, he consciously weighed the little willpower that was left to him, whither he would carry it, into what he would put that paltry remnant. After having pondered over it painfully, he seized the pen, dragged a book out of the corner, and in one hour wanted to read, write, and think all that he had neglected to read, write, and think in ten years. What was he to do now? To go ahead, or to remain? This Oblómov question was of more import to him than Hamlet’s. To go ahead,--that would mean at once doffing his comfortable dressing-gown, not only from the shoulders, but from the soul and mind; together with the cobweb on the walls to sweep away the cobweb from the eyes, and regain eyesight! What first step should be made for this? Where begin? “I do not know--I cannot--no, I am begging the question, I do know, and---- And here is Stolz by my side; he will tell me. What will he tell me? ‘In a week,’ he will say, ‘you must sketch a detailed instruction for your plenipotentiary and send him into the village. Get your Oblómovka mortgaged, buy some more land, send a plan of new buildings, give up your house, procure a passport, and go abroad for six months, to get rid of your surplus fat, to throw off the weight, to refresh the soul with the atmosphere of which you have dreamed long ago with your friend, to live without a dressing gown, without Zákhar and Tarántev, to put on your own socks and take off your own boots, sleep only at night, travel where all travel, on railroads, steamboats, and then---- Then to settle in Oblómovka, to find out what sowing and threshing is, why peasants are poor or well-to-do, walk over the fields, go to elections, to the factory, to the mill, the docks. At the same time you are to read newspapers, books, and become excited why the English have sent a warship to the East----’ That ’s what he will say! That ’s what is meant by going ahead, and thus it is to be all my life! Farewell, poetical ideal of life! That is some kind of a blacksmith shop, not life! There is in it an eternal fire, hammering, heat, din---- But when is one to live? Would it not be better to stay? To stay means to put on a shirt over all, to hear the patter of Zákhar’s feet as he jumps down from his couch, to dine with Tarántev, to think less about anything, never to finish the “Voyage to Africa,” to grow peacefully old in these chambers, at the house of Tarántev’s ladyfriend.”

“Now or never!” “To be or not to be!” Oblómov was about to rise from his chair, but his foot did not at once find its way into the slipper, and he sat down again.

Nikoláy Aleksándrovich Dobrolyúbov. (1836-1861.)

Dobrolyúbov was the most powerful of critics belonging to the school
of Byelínski. In the short period of three years in which he devoted
himself exclusively to criticism, he produced four large volumes of
minute analyses of the intellectual and social movements at the end of
the fifties. His most famous essay is _What is Oblómovism?_ in which
he places all the heroes of previous novels in the same category with
the hero in Goncharóv’s story. Dobrolyúbov was born in Nízhni-Nóvgorod
as the son of a poor priest. He studied at a Seminary and at the
Pedagogical Institute at St. Petersburg, struggling all the time
against want. He practised much asceticism, and kept strict account of
himself and his mental evolution by means of a diary. He later
transferred this asceticism and scrupulous self-examination to his
literary work.

WHAT IS OBLÓMOVISM?

It was remarked long ago that all the heroes of the most noted Russian stories and novels suffer from not seeing any aim in life and from not finding any proper occupation for themselves. On account of this they feel ennui and a dislike for all kinds of work, thus presenting a striking similarity to Oblómov. Indeed, open, for example, _Evgéni Onyégin_, _The Hero of Our Time_, _Who is to be Blamed_, _Rúdin_, or _Useless Men_, or _Hamlet of Shchigróv County_,[13]--in every one of them you will find traits that are literally identical with those in Oblómov----

----One feels the breeze of a new life when, after reading Oblómov, one stops to think what it is that has called forth this type in literature. It cannot be ascribed solely to the personal talent of the author and to the breadth of his views. Great talent and the broadest and humanest conceptions are to be found also in the authors who have produced the former types, mentioned above. But the fact is that since the appearance of the first of these, Onyégin, up to the present, thirty years have passed. What was then in the embryo, what was then whispered in indistinct words, has now assumed a definite, concrete form, has been proclaimed openly and aloud. The trite phrase has lost its meaning; there has arisen in society itself the need for actual work.

Béltov[14] and Rúdin, men with really high and noble tendencies, not only could not grasp the necessity, but could not even imagine the near possibility of a terrible, mortal conflict with actualities that oppressed them. They entered into a deep unknown forest, walked over a dangerous bog, saw under their feet various reptiles and serpents, and climbed a tree,--partly to see whether they could not discover a road somewhere, partly to rest and for a time at least to save themselves from the danger of sinking into the mire or being stung. The people who followed them waited for them to say something, and looked at them with respect as at people who had taken the lead. But these leaders saw nothing from the elevation to which they had climbed: the forest was very extensive and dense.

However, while climbing the tree, they have scratched their faces, wounded the feet, spoiled their hands. They suffer, they are fatigued, they must rest themselves, after having fixed a comfortable place upon the tree. It is true, they do nothing for the common good, they have discovered no way, and they say nothing. Those who stand beneath them must, without their aid, clear for themselves a road through the forest. But who will dare to throw a stone at these unfortunate men in order to make them fall down from their height in which they have settled after such difficulties, having in view the public good? They have the sympathy of the others, they are not even required to take part in the clearing of the forest; another work fell to their lot, and they did it. If it led to nothing, it is not their fault. Every one of the former authors could look at his Oblómov hero from that standpoint, and he was right. To this was also added the circumstance that the hope of finding a way out from the forest upon the road was long maintained by the whole crowd of the travellers, just as their confidence was long maintained in the far-sightedness of the leaders who had climbed the tree.

But by degrees the affair becomes clearer, and it takes a different turn. The leaders have taken a liking to the tree: they very eloquently discuss the ways and means of issuing from the bog and from the forest. They have found on the tree some kind of fruit which they enjoy, after throwing down the shell. They invite a few of the select from the crowd to come to them, and these climb up and stay there, not to look for the road, but to eat the fruit. They are now Oblómovs in the true sense. The poor travellers who stand below sink in the mire, serpents sting them, reptiles frighten them, and branches strike their faces. At last, the crowd decides to be doing something, and want to get back those who have lately climbed the tree; but the Oblómovs keep silent and glut themselves on the fruit. Then the crowd turns to its former leaders and begs them to come down and to help them in the common work. But the leaders again repeat the old trite phrases that it is necessary to find the road, but that it is useless to think of clearing the forest.

It is then that the poor travellers see their mistake, and turn their backs on them and say: “Sure enough, you are all Oblómovs!” And they begin to work with a vim and without cessation: they cut down the trees, make a bridge with them through the bog, lay out a path, kill the serpents and reptiles that are in their way, and no longer pay any attention to those clever fellows with their strong natures, those Pechórins and Rúdins, on whom they had all their dependence before and whom they so admired. At first the Oblómovists look calmly at the common movement, but later, as is their wont, they lose courage and begin to cry:

“Oh, oh! Don’t do that; leave off!” they cry as they notice that the tree upon which they are sitting is about to be cut down. “Consider, we might be killed, and then there will perish with us all those beautiful ideas, all those elevated sentiments, all those humane tendencies, that eloquence, that pathos, that love for everything beautiful and noble, which ever lived in us. Stop, stop! What are you doing?”

But the travellers have heard these beautiful phrases a thousand times, and they continue their work, without paying any attention to them. The Oblómovists have another chance to save their reputation: let them climb down from the tree, and fall in with the work of the others. But, as usual, they are at a loss what to do. “How do you expect us all of a sudden?” they repeat in despair, and they continue to hurl their futile curses against the stupid crowd that has lost respect for them.

The crowd, however, is right. If it has become conscious of the necessity for actual work, it can be of no consequence to it whether Pechórin stands before it, or Oblómov. We do not assert that Pechórin would act in the given circumstances precisely like Oblómov; these very circumstances cause him to develop in an entirely different direction. But the types which a mighty genius creates are lasting: there are even now some men living who represent, so to say, a chip of Onyégin, Pechórin, and so forth, not in the form in which they might have developed in other circumstances, but just exactly as they are represented by Púshkin, Lérmontov, and Turgénev. But in the social consciousness they are evermore changed into Oblómov.

It cannot be said that this change is already accomplished: no, even now thousands of persons are wasting their time in talking, and thousands of others are ready to regard this talking as work. But that this transformation is beginning, is proved by the type of Oblómov which Goncharóv has created. Its appearance would be impossible, if the conviction had not grown ripe in at least a small part of society that those quasi-talented natures that caused so much delight in former days are quite insignificant. Formerly they were cloaked by all kinds of mantles, adorned with all kinds of coiffures, and they attracted to themselves by all kinds of talents. But now Oblómov appears before us divested of his adornments, just as he is, uncommunicative, removed from a beautiful pedestal to a soft divan, covered with an ample morning robe, instead of a mantle. The question, What is he doing? Wherein is the meaning and aim of his life? is put directly and clearly, and it is not obscured by side questions. This is so, because the time for social labour has at last come or is just coming. For this reason we say that we see in Goncharóv’s novel a sign of the time.

Let us, indeed, see how the point of view has changed which was held in regard to those cultivated and glib accumbents who in former days were taken for real social workers.

Here is before you a young man; he is very handsome, agile, and cultured. He makes his entry in fashionable society and he has success there. He drives to the theatre, to balls and masquerades; he dresses and dines superbly; he reads books and writes very orthographically. His heart is agitated only by the routine of fashionable life, but he has also an idea about higher questions. He likes to talk of passions,

Of prejudices centuries old
And fateful mysteries of the tomb.

He has a few honourable rules; he is capable

Of changing to light tenant pay
The yoke of old manorial labour;

he is capable of not taking advantage of the inexperience of a girl whom he does not love; he is capable of not ascribing any special value to his worldly successes. He stands so far above the fashionable society which surrounds him that he has arrived at the consciousness of its inanity; he is even able to leave that society and to settle in the country; only, not knowing what work to find for himself, time weighs heavily upon him. Having nothing to do, he quarrels with his friend and frivolously kills him in a duel. A few years later he again makes his appearance in society and falls in love with a woman whose love he himself rejected before, because he would have been compelled to renounce his roving life for her. You recognise Onyégin in this man. But take a good look at him: it is Oblómov.

There is another man before you, with a more passionate soul, with a broader egoism. He has, as it were, all that by nature which forms an object of care to Onyégin. He does not worry about his toilet and apparel; he is a man of the world without all that. He does not need to pick his words and to shine with his tinsel knowledge: without all that his tongue is as sharp as a razor. He actually despises men, well knowing their weaknesses; he really knows how to conquer the hearts of women, not for a short moment, but for a long time, often for ever. Everything that hampers his way he knows how to remove or destroy. He has only one misfortune: he does not know whither to go. His heart is empty and cold to everything. He has experienced everything, and even while a young man all pleasures which one can get for money palled on him; he also loathes the love of worldly beauties, because it has given nothing to his heart; he is tired of the sciences, because he sees that neither glory nor happiness depend upon them, that ignoramuses are the happiest people, and that glory is a matter of success; dangers of war soon wearied him, because he saw no sense in them and because he readily got used to them.

In fine, even the sincere, pure love of a country girl whom he really likes annoys him: he does not find even in her any satisfaction for his impulses. But what impulses are they? Whither do they draw him? Why does he not give himself over to them with the whole power of his soul? It is because he himself does not understand them and does not take the trouble of thinking what to do with his power of soul. So he passes all his life in making witticisms at the expense of fools, in disquieting the hearts of inexperienced maidens, in mixing up with the affairs of others’ hearts, inviting brawls, showing bravado in trifles, fighting without any provocation---- You recollect that this is the history of Pechórin, that with almost such words he explains his character to Maksím Maksímych. Please, do take a good look at him: you will see Oblómov even in him.

Here is another man who walks upon his path with greater self-consciousness. He not only understands that he is endowed with great power, but he also knows that he has a great purpose. It seems he even suspects what that purpose is and where it is to be found. He is noble, honest, though he frequently does not pay his debts; he discusses with ardour not trifles, but higher questions; he assures us that he is ready to sacrifice himself for the good of humanity. In his mind all questions are solved, everything is brought into a living, harmonious connection; by his mighty speech he entices inexperienced youths so that, hearing him, they feel that they have been called to something great.

Now, what does he spend his life on? On beginning everything and not finishing it, on scattering himself in all directions, on following up things with ardour, without accomplishing them. He falls in love with a girl who finally tells him that, in spite of her mother’s prohibition, she is ready to belong to him; whereat he answers: “Heavens! so your mother does not give her consent! What a sudden shock! Lord, how soon! There is nothing to be done,--we must submit.” And that is a real picture of all his life. You already know that this is Rúdin. No, that ’s again Oblómov. If you will take a good look at this person, and will place him face to face with the demands of contemporary life, you will yourself come to this conclusion.

All these people have this in common: they have no work in life as their vital necessity, as their heart’s holiness, their religion, that might organically grow up with them so that to deprive them of it would mean to take their life away. Everything is external with them, nothing has any roots in their natures. They may be doing something if compelled by outward necessity, just as Oblómov made calls wherever Stolz took him, bought music and books for Ólga, and read what she made him read. But they have not their souls in the work which accident imposes upon them. If they were offered gratis all the external comforts which their labour gives them, they would gladly turn away from their work. By dint of his Oblómovism, the Oblómov official will stop going to his office, if that would not interfere with getting his salary and his promotions. The warrior will make a vow not to touch his arms, if he is offered the same conditions, provided they permit him also to keep his beautiful uniform which is very useful upon certain occasions. The professor will abandon his lectures, the student his studies, the writer his authorship, the actor will not appear on the stage, the artist will break his chisel or his palette, to express myself in eloquent style, if they can see their way of obtaining for nothing that which they now get by work.

They talk of higher aims, of the consciousness of moral obligations, of being imbued with the interests of society,--but investigate it all, and you will find that it is nothing but words and words. Their sincerest, most heartfelt aim is their aim for rest, for the morning gown, and their very activity is nothing else but _an honourable morning gown_ (the expression does not belong to me), with which they cover their inanity and apathy. Even the most cultivated people, such as possess a vivid nature and a warm heart, in practical life very easily depart from their ideas and plans, very readily make their peace with the reality that surrounds them, though they do not cease speaking of it as low and contemptible. This means that everything of which they speak and dream is, in their case, foreign and external; but in the depth of their soul is rooted one dream, one ideal,--a most undisturbed rest, quietism, Oblómovism. Many go even so far as not to be able to imagine a man working for the love of it, from predilection----

----If I now see a landed proprietor discussing the rights of humanity and the necessity for the development of the individual,--I know from his first words that he is an Oblómov.

If I meet an official who complains of the intricacy and laboriousness of the official routine,--he is an Oblómov.

If I hear from an officer tirades on the weariness of parades and bold discussions of the uselessness of slow steps, etc., I have no doubt that he is an Oblómov.

When I read in the periodicals liberalising sallies against malfeasance, and expressions of joy that at last that which we have been hoping and wishing for has been done,--I think that these must be correspondences from Oblómovka.

When I am in a circle of cultivated people who feel warmly for the needs of humanity and who for a series of years have with undiminished zeal been telling the same anecdotes, or at times even new ones, about bribe-takers, about oppressions, about illegalities of all kinds,--I involuntarily feel that I am transferred to old Oblómovka.

Stop these people in their noisy disputations and say to them: “You say that so and so is wrong; well, what is to be done?” They do not know. Propose the simplest means to them, and they will say: “But pray, why so suddenly?” You may be sure they will say that, because Oblómovs cannot speak otherwise. Continue your conversation with them and ask them: “What do you intend to do?” They will give you the same answer which Rúdin gave to Natálya: “What is to be done? Of course, submit to fate. What is to be done? I know too well how bitter, how hard and intolerable it is, but judge yourself”----and so forth. You will get nothing else out of them, because upon all of them is the stamp of Oblómovism.

Who will, at last, stir them from the spot with the almighty word “Forwards!” of which Gógol has dreamed so much and for which Russia has been waiting so long and so yearningly? So far there is no answer to this question, neither in society, nor in literature. Goncharóv, who knew how to grasp and represent to us our Oblómovism, could not help paying his tribute to the universal delusion which still holds strong sway over our society; he decided to bury Oblómovism and to hold a funeral sermon over it. “Farewell, old Oblómovka, you have lived your day,” he says with the lips of Stolz, but he tells an untruth. All Russia that has read or will read Oblómov will not agree with it. No, Oblómovka is our real country; its owners are our educators, its three hundred Zákhars are ever ready for our services. In every one of us there is a goodly part of Oblómov, and it is still too early to write the inscription on our tomb.

[13] These works are by the following authors: Púshkin, Lérmontov,
Gértsen, Turgénev, Saltykóv, Turgénev.

[14] Hero in _Who is to be Blamed?_

Iván Sergyéevich Turgénev. (1818-1883.)