“Ha!” said Oblomov as he greeted him. “So it is you, Alexiev? Whence are you come?”
“To tell the truth. I had not thought to call upon you to-day,” replied the visitor, “but by chance I met Ovchinin, and he carried me off to his quarters, whither I, in my turn, have now come to convey you.”
“To convey me to, to——?”
“To Ovchinin’s. Already Alianov, Pchailo, and Kolhniagin are there.”
“But why have they collected together? And what do they want with me?”
“Ovchinin desires you to lunch with him, and then to accompany him and the rest of us to the Ekaterinhov. Likewise he has instructed me to warn you to hire a conveyance. Come, get up! ’Tis fully time you were dressed.”
“How am I to dress? I have not yet washed myself.”
“Then do so at once.”
With that Alexiev fell to pacing the room. Presently he halted before a picture which he had seen a thousand times before; then he glanced once or twice out of the window, took from a whatnot an article of some sort, turned it over in his hands, looked at it from every point of view, and replaced the same. That done, he resumed his pacing and whistling—the whole being designed to avoid hindering Oblomov from rising and performing his ablutions. Ten minutes passed.
“What is the matter with you?” asked Alexiev suddenly.