“In love?” she repeated. “I do not like the term for myself. I like you: that is better.”
“‘I like you’?” he re-echoed. “But a mother or a father or a nurse or even a dog may be liked: the phrase may be used as a garment, even as can, can—”
“Even as can an old dressing-gown,” she suggested with a smile. Presently she added—
“Whether I am actually in love with you or not I hardly know. Perhaps it is a stage that has not yet arrived. All I know is that I have never liked father or mother or nurse or dog as I like you. I feel lost without you. To be parted from you for a short while makes me sorry; to be parted from you for a long while makes me sad; and, were you to die, I should wear mourning for the rest of my life, and never again be able to smile. To me such love is life, and life is——”
“Yes?”
“Is a duty, an obligation. Consequently love also is a duty. God has sent me that duty, and has bid me perform it.” As she spoke she raised her eyes to heaven.
“Who can have inspired her with these ideas?” Oblomov thought to himself. “Neither through experience nor through trial nor through ‘fire and smoke’ can she have attained this clear, simple conception of life and of love.”
“Then, since there is joy in life, is there also suffering?” he asked aloud.
“I do not know,” she replied. “That lies beyond my experience as much as it lies beyond my understanding.”
“But how well I understand it!”