“Listen, Andrei.” Oblomov’s tone was one of unwonted firmness. “Do not continue your useless attempts to persuade me. Come what may, I must remain where I am.”
Schtoltz gazed at his friend in astonishment, but Oblomov returned the gaze with quiet resolution on his features.
“Remain here, and you are lost,” said Schtoltz. “This house, that woman, this way of living?—I tell you the thing cannot be Let us go.”
He caught Oblomov by the sleeve, and started to drag him towards the door.
“Why do you want to take me away?” asked Oblomov, hanging back.
“Because I want you to leave this den, this swamp, for the world of light and air and health and normal existence.” Schtoltz was speaking sternly, and almost in a tone of command. “To what point have you sunk?” he went on. “What is going to become of you? Think for a moment. Are you so attached to this mode of life that you wish to go to sleep like a mole in its burrow? Remember that——-”
“I desire to remember nothing. Do not disturb the past. It can never be brought back again.” Into Oblomov’s face there had come a full consciousness of his power to think, to reason, and to will. “What is it you wish me to do? From the world to which you would abduct me I have parted for ever; and to solder together two pieces which have started asunder is impossible. I have grown to look upon this nook as my world. Should you uproot me from it, I shall die.”
“But look at the place, at the people with whom you are living!”
“I know what you mean—I am perfectly conscious of the facts. Ah, Andrei, believe me when I say that so well do I feel and understand things that for many a day past I have been ashamed to show myself abroad. Yet I cannot accompany you on your road. Even did I wish it, such a course is out of my power. Possibly, when you were last here, I might have made the attempt; but now”—here he dropped his eyes for a moment and paused—“now it is too late. Go, and waste no further time upon me. Your friendship, as God in heaven knows, I value; but your disturbance of my peace I do not value.”
“Nothing that you can say will turn me from my purpose. I intend to carry you off, ard the more so because I suspect certain things. Look here. Put on a garment of some sort, and come and spend the evening at my rooms. I have much to tell you, for I suppose you know what is afoot at our place?”