Oblomov, Part Three, Chapters 9–12
"Do you really think that in a year you'll succeed in putting your affairs and your life in order?" she asked. "Just think for a moment!"
The next four chapters are super short so I’m doing a bumper edition to cover them all up to the end of Part 3.
Chapter 9
Oblomov asks his landlady’s brother, Ivan Matveich, if he can help him with the situation at his estate. And we’re like that, ‘What are you doing, Ilya Ilyich?’ We know what’s about to happen, right?
Chapter 10
Ivan Matveich and Tarantyev sit down together and work out their plan for fleecing Oblomov. What a despicable pair of rogues.
Chapter 11
This is the big one, the turning point of the novel. Without burying the lede, Olga chucks Ilya. She finally realises that he’s never going to be able to fulfil his potential, no matter how passionately he loves her.
She gives him one last chance to change:
Oblomov was silent. “If you knew how much I love—”
“It’s not protestations of love I’m waiting for, but a ‘yes or no’ answer!”
“Don’t torment me, Olga!” he implored in despair.
“Well, Ilya, am I right or wrong?”
“Yes,” he replied clearly and categorically, “you’re right!”
So, it’s the end of the line for the relationship. We knew that’s how it was going to go though, didn’t we? Or am I only saying that because I’ve read it before? I honestly can’t recall how I felt at this point when I first read it back in 1994. It’s just tragic though, isn’t it? But I feel that, for Olga, it was the right move. It can’t have been easy. There is a point where she asks, “what if you had actually married me?” Yeah, good question. So, painful as it is for both of them, it definitely feels like the right move.
Oblomovshchina
I love this scene at the end of the chapter, when Olga asks him what’s wrong with him.
So it’s his neurodiversity that’s led to the split, and I love that it has a name and that the translator has chosen to transliterate rather than translate the word. It works so well. It also makes me very, very glad that my own wife didn’t abandon me when she otherwise might have done. I got close, but I saved myself and the relationship at the eleventh hour. I’ll celebrate my 20th sobriety anniversary and my 23rd wedding anniversary this autumn. That’s a potential answer for Olga’s question above. I was redeemable, but perhaps Ilya Ilyich is not and Olga’s not willing to take the chance. I certainly didn’t have my own relationship to relate to when I first read this novel and it’s amazing how literature grows with us, or we with it.
Chapter 12
A very short chapter in which Ilya dons his dressing gown again.
Ilya Ilyich hardly noticed Zakhar taking his clothes off, removing his boots and wrapping him in, of all things, the dressing gown!
It’s a slow process of working through grief for Ilya, and I’m sure for Olga too, though we don’t get that in this chapter. Will she even feature again in the novel? Possibly not.
“It’s Sunday today,” a warm and friendly voice could be heard saying, “won’t you try a nice piece of pie – we’ve just been baking?”
It’s a nice, warm ending to a cold chapter, that is until we read the final line:
Oblomov did not reply; he was in the grip of a fever.
Questions
So, do you think Olga made the right call? Would you have made the same call in her situation? Could Ilya have come around and been the husband she hoped she could make him into?
Answer in the comments!
Video Review
Here’s my video review of the chapter, recorded right after reading it. You readers are getting these videos before my YouTube viewers and hopefully without ads. I say hopefully as I’ve not turned on ads for these videos until they’re public on YouTube, but YouTube may very well put them in anyway for their own business needs.