“It was one of the most clear-sighted and courageous moments of Oblomov’s life. Oh, how dreadful he felt when there arose in his mind a clear and vivid idea of human destiny and the purpose of a man’s life, and when he compared this purpose with his own life, and when various vital problems awakened one after another in his mind and began whirling about confusedly, like frightened birds awakened suddenly by a ray of sunlight in some dark ruin. He felt sad and sorry at the thought of his own lack of education, at the arrested development of his spiritual powers, and the feeling of heaviness which interfered with everything he planned to do; and was overcome by envy of those whose lives were rich and full, while a huge rock seemed to have been thrown across the narrow and pitiful path of his own existence. Slowly there arose in his mind the painful realization that many sides of his nature had never been awakened, that others were barely touched, that none had developed fully. And yet he was painfully aware that something good and fine lay buried in him as in a grave, that it was perhaps already dead or lay hidden like gold in the heart of a mountain, and that it was high time that gold was put into circulation. But the treasure was deeply buried under a heap of rubbish and silt. It was as though he himself had stolen and buried in his own soul the treasures bestowed on him as a gift by the world and life. Something prevented him from launching out into the ocean of life and devoting all the powers of his mind and will to flying across it under full sail. Some secret enemy seemed to have laid a heavy hand upon him at the start of his journey and cast him a long way off from the direct purpose of human existence. And it seemed he would never find his way to the straight path from the wild and impenetrable jungle.”[1]
[1] Goncharov,
Oblomov, translated by David Magarshak, (Harmondsworth, 1967), p. 101-102.
