22
" Oblomows liggende houding kwam niet uit noodzaak voort, zoals bij een zieke of bij iemand die slapen wil, het was geen toeval, omdat hij vermoeid was, noch genotzucht als van een luiaard, het was zijn normale houding. Wanneer hij thuis was - en hij was bijna altijd thuis - dan lag hij onveranderlijk in bed en altijd in diezelfde kamer, waar wij hem aangetroffen hebben en die niet alleen als slaapvertrek dienst deed, maar ook als salon en werkkamer. Hij had de beschikking over nog drie vertrekken, maar hij liep daar zelden binnen, hoogstens in de morgen, wanneer zijn kamer gedaan werd, wat lang niet alle dagen gebeurde. In die kamers zaten de meubels dan ook in hoezen en waren de gordijnen neergelaten. "
― Ivan Goncharov , Oblomov
24
" I desire nothing, seek nothing but peace, the slumber of the soul. I have tasted all the hollowness and wretchedness of life and I despise it heartily. Whoever has lived and thought cannot but, in his soul, despise humanity. Activity, cares, worries, distractions - I am sick of them all. I wish for nothing, I seek nothing. I have no aim, for one gains that which one is eager for - and sees that it is all illusion. My joyous days have passed. I have cooled to them. In the educated world, amidst human beings, I feel the disadvantages of life too strongly, but alone, far from the crowd, I turn to stone. In this trance anything can happen, I see neither others nor myself. I do nothing and do not notice the actions either of others or myself - and I am at peace, I am indifferent. There can be no happiness for me, and I will not succumb to unhappiness. "
― Ivan Goncharov , The Same Old Story
27
" I expected so much from life and if I had not seen it so close, I would to this day be expecting something. What treasures I discovered in my own soul - where are they all? I have exchanged them for the world's coin, given my frankness, my first passion - and for what? For bitter disillusionment, for the knowledge that all is deception, all is brittle, that one can place trust neither in oneself nor in others - and I have come to fear both others and myself. I have not been able, along with this analysis, to accept the trifles of life and be content with them, as many others do. "
― Ivan Goncharov , The Same Old Story
29
" She never indulged in reveries or tried to be clever in her conversation; she seemed to have drawn a line in her mind beyond which she never went. It was quite obvious that feelings, every kind of relationship, including love, entered into her life on equal terms with everything else, while in the case of other women love quite manifestly takes part, if not in deeds, then in words, in all the problems of life, and everything else is allowed in only in so far as love leaves room for it. The thing this woman esteemed most was the art of living, of being able to control oneself, of keeping a balance between thought and intention, intention and realization. You could never take her unawares, by surprise, but she was like a watchful enemy whose expectant gaze would always be fixed on you, however hard you tried to lie in wait for him. High society was her element, and therefore tact and caution prompted her every thought, word, and movement. "
― Ivan Goncharov , Oblomov
34
" All at once he found his mind drawing a parallel between that destiny and his own existence; all at once questions of life arose before his vision, like owls in an ancient ruin flushed from sleep by a stray ray of sunlight. Somehow he felt pained and grieved at his arrested development, at the check which had taken place in his moral growth, at the weight which appeared to be pressing upon his every faculty. Also gnawing at his heart there was a sense of envy that others should be living a life so full and free, while all the time the narrow, pitiful little pathway of his own existence was being blocked by a great boulder. And in his hesitating soul there arose a torturing consciousness that many sides of his nature had never yet been stirred, that others had never even been touched, and that not one of them had attained complete formation. Yet with this there went an aching suspicion that, buried in his being, as in a tomb, there still remained a moribund element of sweetness and light, and that it was an element which, though hidden in his personality, as a nugget lies lurking in the bowels of the earth, might once have become minted into sterling coin. But the treasure was now overlaid with rubbish--was now thickly littered over with dust. 'Twas as though some one had stolen from him, and besmirched, the store of gifts with which life and the world had dowered him; so that always he would be prevented from entering life's field and sailing across it with the aid of intellect and of will.
Yes, at the very start a secret enemy had laid a heavy hand upon him and diverted him from the road of human destiny. And now he seemed to be powerless to leave the swamps and wilds in favour of that road.
All around him was a forest, and ever the recesses of his soul were growing dimmer and darker, and the path more and more tangled, while the consciousness of his condition kept awaking within him less and
less frequently--to arouse only for a fleeting moment his slumbering faculties. Brain and volition alike had become paralysed, and, to all appearances, irrevocably--the events of his life had become whittled
down to microscopical proportions. Yet even with them he was powerless to cope--he was powerless to pass from one of them to another. Consequently they bandied him to and fro like the waves of the ocean. Never was he able to oppose to any event elasticity of will; never was he able to conceive, as the result of any event, a reasoned-out impulse. Yet to confess this, even to himself, always cost him a bitter pang: his fruitless regrets for lost opportunities, coupled with burning reproaches of conscience, always pricked him like needles, and led him to strive to put away such reproaches and to discover a scapegoat. "
― Ivan Goncharov , Oblomov
36
" Мне хотелось путешествовать неофициально, не приехать и "осматривать", а жить и смотреть на всё, не насилуя наблюдательности; не задавая себе утомительных уроков осматривать ежедневно, с гидом в руках, по стольку-то улиц, музеев, зданий, церквей. От такого путешествия остаётся в голове хаос улиц, памятников, да и то ненадолго. Вообще, большая ошибка - стараться собирать впечатления; соберёшь чего не надо, а что надо, то ускользнёт.
Если путешествуешь не для специальной цели, нужно, чтобы впечатления нежданно и незванно сами собирались в душу; а к кому они так не ходят, тот лучше не путшествуй. "
― Ivan Goncharov , The Frigate Pallada
37
" To think that just when one's happiness is full to overflowing, and one is thoroughly in love with life, there should come upon one a taint of sorrow!" she murmured.
Yes; such is the payment exacted for the Promethean fire. You must not only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts and the self-questionings of which you have spoken: for they constitute the excess, the luxury, of life, and show themselves most when happiness is at its zenith, and has alloyed with it no gross desires.
Such troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who voluntarily goes to meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge.
But one can never get even with them. To almost every one they bring sorrow and indifference.
Yes; but that does not last. Later they serve to shed light upon life, for they lead one to the edge of the abyss whence there is no return--then gently force one to turn once more and look upon life.
Thus they seem to challenge one's tried faculties in order that the latter may be prevented from sinking wholly into inertia. "
― Ivan Goncharov , Oblomov
38
" Sono furbe e giocano d'astuzia solo le donne più o meno limitate. Mancando loro l'intelligenza pura e semplice, muovono le leve della vita spicciola, quotidiana, per mezzo dell'astuzia, e intrecciano come un merletto la loro politica domestica, senza accorgersi di come si dispongano attorno a loro le linee principali della vita, senza capire a cosa tendano e dove s'incontreranno. L'astuzia è una moneta spicciola con cui non si compra molto. Come di spiccioli si può vivere un'ora o due, così l'astuzia può servire a dissimulare qualcosa, ingannare, alterare qua e là, ma non basta per abbracciare l'orizzonte lontano, per dominare dall'inizio alla fine un grande, importante avvenimento.
L'astuzia è miope: vede bene solo quel che ha sotto il naso, ma non vede lontano, e perciò finisce spesso per cadere nella trappola che aveva teso agli altri. "
― Ivan Goncharov , Oblomov
