“How wearisome the whole thing must have been!”
“What! Wearisome? Why, the more the merrier. Lydia, too, used to be there—though in those days I never so much as noticed her. In fact, never once did I do so until one day I found myself ‘vainly trying to forget her, vainly pitting reason in the lists with love.’” Volkov hummed the concluding words, and seated himself carelessly upon a chair. Almost instantly he leaped to his feet again, and blushed the dust from his trousers.
“What quantities of dirt you keep everywhere!” he remarked.“’tis Zakhar’s fault, not mine,” replied Oblomov.
“Well, now I must be off, as it is absolutely necessary that I should buy those camelias for Mischa’s bouquet. Au revoir!”
“Come and have tea after the opera, and tell me all about it.”
“No, that is impossible, for I am promised to supper at the Musinskis’. It is their reception day, you know. However, meet me there, and I’ll present you.”
“What is toward at the Musinskis’?”
“What, indeed? Why, entertainment in a house where you hear all the news.”
“Like everything else, it would bore me.”
“Then go and call upon the Mezdrovs, where the talk centres upon one topic, and one topic alone—the arts. Of nothing else will you hear but the Venetian School. Beethoven, Bach, Leonardo da Vinci, and so forth.”