Oblomov / Обломов. Книга для чтения на английском языке

He was still young then, and while it could not be said that he was lively, he was at all events livelier than now; he was still full of all sorts of aspirations, still hoped for something, and expected a great deal from the future and from himself; he was still preparing himself for a career, for the part he was going to play in life, and, above all, of course for the Civil Service, which was the main reason for his arrival in Petersburg. Later he also thought of the part he was going to play in society; finally, in the distant future, at the turning point of youth and mature age, the thought of family happiness filled his imagination with agreeable expectations.

But days and years passed – the soft down on his chin turned into a tough, stubbly growth, his eyes lost their brightness, his waist expanded, his hair had begun to thin out relentlessly, he turned thirty, and he had not advanced a step, but was still standing on the threshold of his career, just where he had been ten years before.

Yet he was still hoping to start his life, he was still tracing in his mind the pattern of his future, but with every year that passed he had to change and rub out something in that pattern.

In his opinion, life was divided into two halves: one consisted of work and boredom – those words were synonymous for him – and the other of rest and quiet enjoyment. This was why his chief pursuit in life – his career as a civil servant – proved to be an unpleasant surprise to him from the outset.

Brought up in the wilds of the country, amid the gentle and kindly manners and customs of his native province, and passing for twenty years from the embraces of his parents to those of his friends and relations, he had become so imbued with the idea of family life, that his career in the Civil Service appeared to him as a sort of family occupation, such as, for instance, the unhurried writing down of income and expenditure in a note-book, which his father used to do.

He thought that the civil servants employed in one department were one big, happy family, unremittingly concerned about one another’s peace and pleasure; that going to the office was not by any means a duty that must be performed day in and day out, and that rainy weather, heat, or a mere disinclination could always be given as a legitimate and sufficient excuse for not going to the office.