Oblomov / Обломов. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Just consider how the „others“ live. The „others“ work hard, they rush about, they’re always busy», Oblomov went on. «If they don’t work, they don’t eat. The „others“ bow and scrape, beg, grovel. And I? Well, tell me, what do you think: am I like „other people“?»

«Please, sir, don’t go on torturing me with pathetic words», Zakhar implored. «Oh dear, oh dear!»

«I am like the „others“, am I? Do I rush about? Do I work? Have I not enough to eat? Do I look thin and wretched? Do I go short of things? It seems to me I have someone to wait on me and do things for me! Never in my life, thank God, have I had to pull a sock on my foot myself! Why should I worry? Whatever for? And who am I saying this to? Haven’t you looked after me since I was a child? You know all this; you’ve seen how tenderly I’ve been brought up; you know that I’ve never suffered from hunger or cold, that I’ve never lacked anything, that I haven’t had to earn my living and never done any heavy work.

So how did you have the heart to compare me to „others“? Do you think I am as strong as those „others“? Can I do and endure what they can?»

Zakhar was no longer capable of understanding what Oblomov was talking about. But his lips were blown up with emotion: the pathetic scene was raging like a storm-cloud over his head. He was silent.

В«Zakhar!В» Oblomov repeated.

В«Yes, sir?В» Zakhar hissed in a barely audible whisper.

В«Give me some more kvasВ».

Zakhar brought the kvas, and when Oblomov had drunk it and handed him back the glass, he made a dash for the door.

«No, no, wait!» said Oblomov. «I’m asking you how you could so terribly insult your master whom you carried in your arms as a baby, whom you have served all your life, and who has been your benefactor?»

Zakhar could not bear it any more.

The word В«benefactorВ» finished him! He began blinking more and more. The less he understood what Oblomov was saying to him in his pathetic speech, the sadder he became.

«I’m very sorry, sir», he began to wheeze penitently. «It was out of foolishness, sir, out of foolishness that I…»

Not understanding what he had done, Zakhar did not know what verb to use at the end of his speech.