“Why is it I never find you here?” the visitor asked sternly. “Why are you always gadding about? That old fool Zakhar has quite got out of hand. I asked him for a morsel of food and a glass of vodka, and he refused me both!”
“I have been for a walk in the park,” replied Oblomov coldly. For the moment he had forgotten the murky atmosphere wherein he had spent so much of his life. And now, in a twinkling, Tarantiev had brought him tumbling from the clouds! His immediate, thought was that the visitor might insist on remaining to dinner, and so prevent him from paying his visit to Olga and her aunt.
“Why not come and take a look at that flat?” went on Tarantiev.
“Because there is no need,” replied Oblomov, avoiding his interlocutor’s eye. “I have decided not to move.”
“Not to move?” exclaimed Tarantiev threateningly. “Not when I have hired the place for you, and you have signed the lease?”
This led Oblomov to remember that, on the very day of his removal from town to the country villa, he had signed, without previously perusing it, a document which his present visitor had submitted to him.
“Nevertheless,” he remarked, “I shall not want the flat. I am going abroad.”
“I am sure you are not,” retorted Tarantiev coolly. “What is more, the sooner you hand over to me a half-year’s rent, the better. Your new landlady does not care for such tricks to be played upon her. I have paid the money on your behalf, and I require to be repaid.”
“Where did you contrive to get the money from?”
“That has nothing to do with you. As a matter of fact, I had an old debt repaid me.”