Her husband’s calm, assured reasoning, added to her own implicit confidence in him, helped Olga to succeed in shaking off both her enigmatical, singular misgivings and her visionary, menacing dreams concerning the future. Once more, therefore, she strode boldly forward. To the night of doubt there succeeded a brilliant morning of maternal and housewifely duties. On the one hand, there beckoned to her the flower garden and the meadows; on the other hand there beckoned to her her husband’s study. No longer did she play with life as with a means of carefree indulgence. Rather, life had become a season of mysterious, systematic waiting, and of getting ready.
Yet once, when Schtoltz happened to mention Oblomov’s name, she let fall her sewing, and sank into a reverie.
“What of him?” later she asked. “Could we not find out how he is through some of his friends?”
“Even so, we should find out no more than we know already. Independently of his friends, I happen to be aware that he is alive and well, and living in the same rooms as formerly. But how he is spending his days, and whether he is morally dead or still there is flickering in him a last spark of vitality, it is impossible for an outsider to ascertain.”
“Do not speak like that, Andrei,” said Olga. “It hurts me to hear you do so. Were I not afraid, I would go in person to glean news of him.” The tears had risen very near to her eyes.
“Next spring we ourselves shall be in Petrograd,” the husband remarked. “Then we will find out.”
“But it is not sufficient merely to find out: we ought also to do all we can for him!”
“Already I have done what is possible. When one is with him he is ready to take any steps desired; but directly one’s back is turned he relapses into slumber. ’Tis like trying to deal with a drunken man.”
“Then why turn your back upon him ever? He ought to be treated firmly—he ought to, be removed from his rooms and taken away. Were I to ask him, he would come with us into the country. I feel sure I should never get over it if I were to see him sink to rack and ruin. Perhaps my tears——”
“Might revive him, you think?”