Oblomov, Part Three, Chapter 5
"Wasn't it you two weeks ago who were trying to rush ME into it?" she asked drily.
Ilya’s feeling a bit lost after that night at the theatre and the whole ‘just some Oblomov’ thing and the argument with Zakhar. He’s got propriety on the brain and so he decides not to see Olga on Wednesday but instead he’ll wait until the weekend when there will be more company. Don’t get me wrong—he’s still itching to see her, but his obsession regarding propriety gets the better of him—that is until a letter arrives from Olga. She can’t wait to see him and has requested a rendezvous in the park that day. He goes and they meet, but Ilya is horrified when he sees that she’s come alone, and even more horrified when she tells him how she got rid of her servant and the deception she employed to get to the rendezvous.
“How could you do such a thing?” said Oblomov, his eyes bulging with astonishment. He wore an expression of dismay that Olga mimicked.
“Be serious, Olga, this is no laughing matter!”
But Olga’s being sweet and playful and it’s really quite endearing. Ilya finds his ire giving way to joy a little bit:
He could not help forgetting himself for a moment when he saw her face unclouded by the usual tension lurking in her knitted brows and etched in that little furrow […] For these few minutes her face radiated such a childlike faith in fate, in happiness, in him, that his heart melted.
They go out on a boat together and Ilya still finds himself feeling anxious. It’s as if it’s his default state to sabotage the good things in his life. There’s a scene where he explains to Olga that, earlier on, his love was counterbalancing his reason.
“Yes, but then I couldn’t control my feelings; I pushed you away with one hand and pulled you back with the other. You were so trusting and I… well… wasn’t being entirely honest with you—the feeling was new and powerful then—”
Now, his reason is taking over. And it was the opposite with Olga—she was the reason while he was the passion. Now they’ve swapped roles, and Ilya starts going on again about how young she is and how she doesn’t understand the world as he does.
“You’re lying to your aunt, you leave the house without telling anyone and you go and meet a man alone… Try telling that to your guests on Sunday!…”
This is where Olga suggests telling her aunt. Ilya says no. Olga points out this role reversal:
Ilya tells her he’s not going to come tomorrow and that he hopes to have had a reply from Oblomovka by the weekend, but Olga persuades him to come and he agrees. Will he though? We’ll see in the next chapter!
Video Review
Here’s my video review of the chapter, recorded right after reading it.