“It has a name,” he said almost inaudibly. She looked at him questioningly with tear-filled eyes.
“That name,” he added, “is ‘The Disease of Oblomovka.’”
Turning with bowed head, he departed.
Whither he wandered, or what he did, he never afterwards knew. Late at night he returned home. His landlady, hearing his knock, awoke Zakhar, who undressed his master, and wrapped him in the old dressing-gown.
“How comes that to be here?” asked Oblomov, glancing at the garment.
“I was given it by the landlady to-day,” replied Zakhar. “She has just cleaned and mended it.”
Sinking into an arm-chair, Oblomov remained there. All around was growing dim and dreamlike. As he sat there with his head resting on his hand he neither remarked the dimness nor heard the striking of the hours. All his mind was plunged in a chaos of formless, indefinite thoughts which, like the clouds in the sky, passed aimlessly, disconnectedly athwart the surface of his brain. Of none of them could he catch the actual substance. His heart felt crushed, and for the moment the life in it was in abeyance. Mechanically he gazed in front of him without even noticing that day was breaking, or that his landlady’s dry cough was once more audible, or that the dvornik was beginning to cut firewood in the courtyard, or that the usual clatter in the house had begun again. At length he went to bed, and fell into a leaden, an uncomfortable sleep....
“To-day is Sunday,” whispered the kindly voice of the landlady, “and I have baked you a pie. Will you not have some?”
He returned no answer, for he was in a high fever.