“Yet she knew why he was doing so, and a modest touch of triumph that she could so greatly have affected him filled her soul.
“Look at yourself in the mirror,” she went on, “and you will see that your eyes are shining, and that—yes, really!—they have tears in them. How deeply you must feel music!”
“No—it is not music that I am feeling,” he replied slowly; “but—but love!”
‘Her glance met his, and instantly she saw that he had uttered the word in spite of himself, that the word had got him in its power, and that the word had voiced the truth.
Recovering himself, he picked up his hat, and left the room. When he had gone she remained standing like a statue by the piano—her eyes cast down, and her breast rising and falling tumultuously.
II
From that time forth she lived in him alone, while he, for his part, racked his brains to avoid incurring the loss of her esteem. Whenever she detected in his soul—and she could probe that soul very deeply—the least trace of its former characteristics, she would work for him to heap himself with reproaches for his lethargy and fear of life. Just as he was about to yawn, as he was actually opening his mouth for the purpose, her astonished glance would transfix him, and cause his mouth to snap with a click which jarred his teeth. Still more did he hasten to resume his alacrity whenever he perceived that his lassitude was communicating itself to her, and threatening to render her cold and contemptuous. Instantly he would undergo a revival of strenuous activity; and then the shadow between them would disappear, and mutual sympathy once more beat in strong, clear accord. Yet this solicitude on his part had not, as yet, its origin in the magic ring of love. Indeed, the effect of his charmed toils was negative rather than positive. True, he no longer slept all day—on the contrary, he rode, read, walked, and even thought of resuming his writing and his agricultural schemes; yet the ultimate direction, the inmost significance, of his life still remained confined to the sphere of good intentions. Particularly disturbing did he find it whenever Olga plied him with some particular question or another, and demanded of him, as of a professor, full satisfaction of her curiosity. This occurred frequently, and arose not out of pedantry on her part, but out of a desire to know the right and the wrong of things.
At times a given question would absorb her even to the point of forgetting her consideration for Oblomov. For instance, on one occasion, when she had besought his opinion concerning double stars, and he was incautious enough to refer her to Herschel, he was dispatched to purchase the great authority’s book, and commanded to read it through, and to explain the same to her full satisfaction. On another occasion he was rash enough to let slip a word or two concerning various schools of painting; wherefore he had to undergo another week’s reading and explaining, and also to pay sundry visits to the Hermitage Museum. In the end how he trembled whenever she asked him a question!