Summary
Oblomov dreamed of a wonderful land, which “represented a series of picturesque sketches, cheerful, smiling landscapes.” It seemed that everything there promised happiness, peace and tranquility. That corner consisted of several villages, and “silence and imperturbable calm” reigned among the local peasants, not disturbed by any worldly passions. Twice a year they went to the fair, and had no other connections with anyone. The peasants “heard that there are Moscow and St. Petersburg, that the French or Germans live beyond St. Petersburg,” and then darkness followed, populated by monsters, giants and “people with two heads.”
It was to this amazing land that Oblomov was transported in his dream. Two villages - Sosnovka and Vavilovka - “were the hereditary homeland of the Oblomov family,” and they were often called Oblomovka. Ilya Ilyich woke up early in the morning in his childhood bed, he was only seven years old. The kind nanny immediately began to dress him, wash him and comb his hair. The mother showered her beloved son with kisses, after which everyone went to drink tea. At the table, little Ilyusha was the center of attention of numerous relatives, each of whom tried to caress the boy and treat him with something tasty.
Then the inquisitive, lively boy went for a walk under the strict supervision of a nanny. The woman had to run all day after her playful pupil, who always wanted to end up in the most “dangerous” places. She loved Ilyusha with all her heart, and this daily bustle did not tire her.
Having run and jumped to his heart's content, Ilyusha began to closely observe the world around him. Like a sponge, he absorbed various phenomena that sank deeply into his soul, grew and matured with him.
Ilyusha’s parents also did not sit idle: old man Oblomov, sitting at the window, controlled every step of the servants, and his mother gave them endless instructions. Her “main concern was the kitchen and dinner,” preparation for which began immediately after morning tea. In Oblomovka, much attention was paid to caring for food. Here they raised the fattest geese and turkey poults, baked the most delicious pies, and made the best pickles and preserves in the area.
After lunch came the “hour of general afternoon nap.” The whole house seemed to fall into a stupor, and Ilyusha invariably took advantage of this. He freely climbed the dovecote, explored the garden, the ditch, and ran out of the gate. After sleep, everyone at home gathered for tea, and then went about their business. With the onset of dusk, it was time for dinner, after which the house plunged into a sweet, serene sleep.
Then Oblomov dreamed of a different time. On snowy winter evenings, when a blizzard raged outside the window, the nanny told him amazing fairy tales that captured his imagination for the rest of his life. Already as an adult, Ilya Ilyich often felt sad about “why is a fairy tale not life, and why is life not a fairy tale?”
Further, Oblomov “saw himself as a boy of thirteen or fourteen years old.” He studied at the boarding school of the German Stolz, who not only taught him to read and write, but also tried to re-educate the pampered barchuk. “The German was a practical and strict man,” and perhaps Ilyusha would have gained some sense from him if his native Oblomovka had not been located not far from the boarding house. The boy adopted the leisurely lifestyle of his parents, who did not strive for anything and did not set any goals for themselves. “They wouldn’t want or love another life.” In raising their son, they were only worried about “so that the child would always be cheerful and eat a lot.”
Sending Ilyusha to a boarding school for a week, his mother supplied him with all kinds of dishes, and all because “the Germans don’t feed you fatty foods.” At every opportunity, be it a holiday, the arrival of guests or bad weather, she left her son at home for a long time.
Realizing that one could acquire ranks, crosses and money “no other way than through study,” loving parents wanted to “somehow get a certificate that would say that Ilyusha had passed all the sciences and arts.”
So Ilya grew like a flower in a greenhouse. He eagerly sought to explore the world, frolic, play snowballs with the village boys, but his parents saw in this glorious liveliness of character only a threat to his health, and carefully wrapped the boy in warm blankets.
Losing himself in bed before dinner, Ilya Oblomov (see article The Image of Oblomov) dreams of his native estate, where he was born and raised. This is a blessed corner where there is no sea, no high mountains, no dense forests - nothing grandiose, wild and gloomy. (See also Goncharov - life and work.)
Oblomov's dream. Summary. Illustrated audiobook
“The sky there, it seems... is pressing closer to the earth, but not in order to throw arrows more powerfully, but perhaps only to hug it tighter, with love: it spreads out so low above your head, like a parent’s reliable roof, to protect, it seems, a chosen corner from all adversity. The sun shines there brightly and hotly for about six months and then does not suddenly leave there, as if reluctantly, as if it were turning back to look once or twice at its favorite place and give it a clear, warm day in the fall, amidst bad weather.”
Instead of mountains, there are a series of gentle hills that are pleasant to ride down. The river runs happily there, frolicking and playing. It will either spill into a wide pond, or rush forward like a quick thread, or become quiet, as if lost in thought, and crawl slightly over the pebbles.
The annual cycle occurs there correctly and calmly. Each season begins in its own time, and each is beautiful in its own way. Neither terrible storms nor destruction can be heard in that region.
“The Lord did not punish that side with either Egyptian or simple plagues. None of the inhabitants have seen or remember any terrible heavenly signs, no balls of fire, no sudden darkness, there are no poisonous reptiles there, locusts do not fly there, there are no roaring lions, no roaring tigers, not even bears and wolves, because there are no forests There are only plenty of chewing cows, bleating sheep and clucking chickens wandering through the fields and the village.”
Everything is quiet and sleepy in the three or four villages that make up this corner! Silence and undisturbed calm reign in the morals of the local people.
“No robberies, no murders, no terrible accidents happened there, no strong passions, no daring enterprises worried them.”
The nearest villages and the district town are twenty-five and thirty versts away. The inhabitants of this side did not even have anything to compare their lives with: whether they were living well or not, whether they were rich or poor.
“Happy people lived thinking that it shouldn’t and couldn’t be otherwise, confident that everyone else lived exactly the same way and that living differently was a sin... They never embarrassed themselves with any vague mental or moral questions, which is why they always flourished health and joy, that’s why they lived there for a long time, men at forty looked like young men, old people did not struggle with a difficult, painful death, but, having lived to the point of impossibility, they died as if on the sly, quietly freezing and imperceptibly breathing their last breath. That’s why they say that the people were stronger before.” They believed that “nothing was needed: life, like a calm river, flowed past them, they could only sit on the bank of this river and observe the inevitable phenomena that, in turn, without a call, appeared before each of them.”
Of the three or four villages scattered there, one was Sosnovka, the other was Vavilovka, one mile from each other. Both of them were the hereditary fatherland of the Oblomov family and therefore were called by the common name Oblomovka.
Oblomov now sees in a dream how he, a seven-year-old, handsome, red, plump boy wakes up in his bed. The nanny dresses him up, laughing at the children's pranks. She takes him to his mother, who showers Ilyusha with passionate kisses and carefully examines him. This is followed by morning tea with several elderly relatives living with them. Then Ilyusha goes for a walk under nanny's supervision. The nanny makes sure that he does not go into the ravine - the only place that is considered dangerous in the village.
Ilyusha hears the sound of knives chopping cutlets and herbs coming from the kitchen. Dinner is the main concern in their home. Relatives spend a long time in the morning discussing what to prepare for dinner. Everyone offers their own dish: some soup with giblets, some noodles or gizzard, some tripe, some red, some white gravy for the sauce. Delicious honey, kvass, and pies are prepared in Oblomovka.
After dinner, the entire manor house falls asleep. Both the bar and the servants are sleeping - everyone except the restless Ilyusha, who runs around the rooms alone. The nanny also falls asleep. Seizing the moment, little Oblomov runs towards the “terrible” ravine, but, having almost reached its edge, he turns back in fear, remembering his mother’s words that goblins, robbers and terrible animals live there.
But the heat of the day begins to subside, and the inhabitants of the manor's house wake up one by one. A sluggish conversation ensues. They drink tea again. Mama puts Ilyusha on her lap and strokes his head, dreaming with her aunts about the boy’s brilliant future.
Evening is coming. It's getting dark outside. The birds fall silent. Distant birch trees now seem like fairy-tale monsters. “The day has passed, and thank God! - say the Oblomovites. “We lived well, God willing, it will be the same tomorrow!”
The evenings are especially long in winter, and then the nanny tells Ilyushechka fairy tales about unknown countries, about good fellows, whom the pike sorceress, for no reason, endows with all earthly blessings. With special good nature, she “told the tale of Emel the Fool, this evil and insidious satire on our great-grandfathers, and perhaps also on ourselves.” With bated breath, the boy listens to the stories about the daring of Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, about Polkan the hero, about the passer-by Koleschishche, about the dead rising from their graves at midnight, or about victims languishing in captivity with a monster, or about a bear with a wooden leg, who goes through villages and hamlets to look for his natural leg that was cut off. “In Oblomovka they believed everything: werewolves and the dead. If they tell them that a haystack was walking across the field, they won’t think twice and will believe it.”
“The boy’s imagination was filled with strange ghosts; fear and melancholy settled into his soul for a long time, perhaps forever. He sadly looks around and sees everything in life as harm, misfortune, everything dreams of that magical side, where there is no evil, troubles, sorrows, where Militrisa Kirbitevna lives, where they feed and clothe so well for nothing... Ilya Ilyich will see later that he is simply made the world that the dead do not rise from their graves, that giants, as soon as they start, are immediately put in booths, and robbers in prison, but if the very belief in ghosts disappears, then some kind of residue of fear and unaccountable melancholy remains. Ilya Ilyich learned that there are no troubles from monsters, and he barely knows what kind there are, and at every step everyone expects and is afraid of something terrible...”
Ilya Ilyich sees himself in a dream as a grown-up boy, about 13-14 years old. Then he was already sent to study in the neighboring village of Verkhlevo. The landowner who owned it never lived there, entrusting the management of the estate to the German Stolz, and he started a small boarding school in Verkhlev for the children of the surrounding nobles. His son, Andrei, the same age as Ilyusha, lived with Stolz in Verkhlev. The Oblomov boy did not want to go to a boarding school, but his parents persuaded him, knowing the benefits of education for a future career.
And in Oblomovka the old serene life continued to flow. A series of family and church holidays took place, each with its own special rituals, which the Oblomovites always performed exactly. Life flowed in a continuous monotonous fabric, imperceptibly ending at the very grave. In the evenings after dinner, the father walked around the room in the same silent manner, with his hands behind his back, and the women sat around him, sewing. The room was dim: only one tallow candle was burning, for the Oblomovites, who never regretted slaughtering an excellent turkey or a dozen chickens they had raised themselves for the arrival of a guest, were always stingy about buying things in the city with money. They considered such spending almost a sin. Having heard once,
“... that one of the local young landowners went to Moscow and paid three hundred rubles for a dozen shirts, twenty-five rubles for boots and forty rubles for a vest for a wedding, old man Oblomov crossed himself and said with an expression of horror, a patter that “such a fellow should be imprisoned to prison."
In the living room in the evenings the same conversations took place. About the fact that with the onset of cold weather the days have shortened, about the recent arrival of a relative, about which of the neighbors had children, who and when they are thinking of marrying off, about how old Luka Savich, planning to ride a sled down a hill, hurt eyebrow, about why, according to the sign, the tip of the nose itches.
“Nothing disturbed the monotony of this life, and the Oblomovites themselves were not burdened by it, because they could not imagine another life-being, and if they could imagine it, they would turn away from it with horror. They would not have wanted or loved any other life. They would be sorry if circumstances brought any changes to their life. They will be gnawed by melancholy if tomorrow is not like today, and the day after tomorrow is not like tomorrow. Why do they need variety, change, chance, which others ask for? Let others clear up this cup, but they, the Oblomovites, don’t care about anything. Let others live as they want."
Sometimes some Natalya Faddeevna just comes to stay for a week or two.
One day Oblomov’s man, who returned from the city, brought the master a letter, which was handed to him from the post office. “First of all, I hid when the letter was brought to the city,” he justified himself, “but they suddenly came in a row and told your lordship to give it to you.” Old Oblomov picked up the letter with caution and doubt and opened it after hesitation. It turned out that it was from a relative of Philip Matveevich. He asked for the recipe for beer, which was deliciously brewed in Oblomovka. The relatives were delighted and amazed that Philip Matveevich was still alive. The lady began to look for the recipe, but when they learned that a return letter would cost 40 kopecks, the search slowed down, and it is still unknown whether the recipe was sent to the person who asked for it.
Poor Ilyusha, meanwhile, continued to go to Stolz to study, coming home every week for the weekend. He did not want to leave his home, and his mother often canceled his trips under the pretext that he had become pale or that there would be church holidays that week. Stolz scolded the Oblomovs for this. Constantly skipping classes, Oblomov could learn little. It’s good that Stolz’s son, Andrei, often did tasks for him...
Oblomov grew up with his parents “cherished like an exotic flower in a greenhouse, and just like the latter under glass, he grew slowly and sluggishly.” He was not allowed to run, or play in the snow, or open the window again. Children's seeking manifestations of his power turned inward, faded and faded.
A brief summary of the 9th chapter of the 1st part of I. A. Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” (see its full text).
Read the summary of the 1st part of “Oblomov”, a short biography of I. Goncharov, as well as the articles: Oblomovism as a type of life, The meaning and theme of the novel “Oblomov”.
