Nevertheless the peasants set forth, and, when about a hundred paces from the spot, began to adjure the monster in varying terms. But no answer was returned. Next, after halting a moment, the party advanced a little further. The man seemed still to be lying in the ditch, with his head resting against a fence, while beside him lay a satchel and a cudgel (on the latter of which was slung a pair of boots). Yet the peasants could not summon up the necessary courage to approach him or to touch him.
“Hi, friend!” they shouted—one scratching his head and another the back of his neck. “What are you doing there? Who are you? What’s the matter?”
The traveller made as though to raise his head a little, but failed. Evidently he was ill or tired out. Then a peasant ventured to touch him with a pitchfork.
“Don’t interfere with him, don’t interfere with him!” cried the rest. “How do we know what he is, seeing that he refuses to speak? Leave him alone, friends!”
“Yes, we had better go away,” added certain others. “What has he to do with us? Harm might come of him.”
So all returned to the village, and told the elder men that, lying in a ditch, there was a strange man who would not speak, and whose identity was known only to God.
“If he does not belong to these parts, leave him alone,” advised the elders from the spot where, with hands on knees, they were sitting resting on a bank. “Yes, leave him to himself. ’Tis no use your going there.”
This, then, was the corner of the world whither Oblomov passed in his sleep. Of the three or four scattered villages in the region, one was named Sosnovka, and a second Vavilovka—the two being distant from one another about a verst. Together they constituted Oblomov’s hereditary estate, and bore the joint title of Oblomovka. In Sosnovka stood the manor-house and the farm, while five versts from the village there lay the hamlet of Verklevo—once the property of the Oblomovs, but long since passed into other hands. The same hamlet had attached to it a number of outlying huts. As a whole, Verklevo belonged to a rich landowner, a constant absentee, and the estate was managed by a German bailiff. There you have the geography of this remote corner of the world.
Oblomov dreamed that, aged seven, he awoke in his little cot at home. He felt merry and full of life. What a goodly, handsome, plump youngster he was, with cheeks of such rotundity that, however desperately any other young scamp might have tried to rival them by inflation of his own, no competitor could possibly have succeeded. Oblomov’s nurse had long been waiting for him to awake, and now she began to draw on for him his stockings. This he refused to allow her to do; which end he attained by frisking and kicking, while she tried to catch hold of his leg, and the pair laughed joyously together. Finally, she lifted him on to her lap, and washed him, and combed his hair; after which she conducted him to his mother. On seeing his long-dead parent, the sleeping Oblomov’s form trembled with delight and affection, and from under his unconscious eyelids there stole and remained two burning tears....
Upon him his mother showered affectionate kisses, and gazed at him with tender solicitude to see whether his eyes were clear and healthy. Did he in any way ail? she inquired. Had he (tiffs to his nurse) slept quietly, or had he lain awake all night? Had he had any dreams? Had he been at all feverish? Lastly, she took him by the hand, and led him to the sacred ikon. Kneeling with one arm around his form, she prompted him in the words of the prayers, while the boy repeated them with scanty attention, since he preferred, rather, to turn his eyes to the windows, whence the freshness and scent of a lilac-tree was flooding the room.