“Yes, charming. Suppose, one day, we go to lunch with her?”
Oblomov hesitated. “Very well,” he said after a pause; “only——”
“What about next week?”
“Certainly. Next week let it be. But at the moment I have no suitable clothes. Is your fiancêe a financial catch?”
“Yes, for her father is a State councillor, and intends to give her ten thousand roubles, as well as to let us have half his official house (a house of twelve rooms—the whole being furnished, heated, and lighted at the public expense); so we ought to do very well. Herewith I invite you to be my best man at the wedding.”
Once more the doorbell rang.
“Good-bye,” said Sudbinski. “I am annoyed that, as I surmise, I should be wanted at the office.”
“Then stay where you are,” urged Oblomov. “I desire your advice, for two misfortunes have just befallen me.”
“No, no; I had better come and see you another day.” And Sudbinski took his leave.
“Plunged up to the ears in work, good ‘friend!” thought Oblomov as he watched him depart. “Yes, and blind and deaf and dumb to everything else in the world! Yet by going into society and at the same time, busying yourself about your affairs you will yet__win distinction, and promotion. Such is what they call ‘a career’! Yet of how little use is a man like that! His intellect, his will, his feelings—what do they avail him? So many luxuries is what they are—nothing more. Such an individual lives out his little span without achieving a single thing worth mentioning; and meanwhile he works in an office from morning till night—yes, from morning till night, poor wretch!”