A few years back, owing to a combination of circumstances, very insignificant in themselves, but very important for me, it was my lot to spend six months in the district town O——. This town is all built on a slope, and very uncomfortably built, too. There are reckoned to be about eight hundred inhabitants in it, of exceptional poverty; the houses are hardly worthy of the name; in the chief street, by way of an apology for a pavement, there are here and there some huge white slabs of rough-hewn limestone, in consequence of which even carts drive round it instead of through it. In the very middle of an astoundingly dirty square rises a diminutive yellowish edifice with black holes in it, and in these holes sit men in big caps making a pretense of buying and selling. In this place there is an extraordinarily high striped post sticking up into the air, and near the post, in the interests of public order, by command of the authorities, there is kept a cartload of yellow hay, and one government hen struts to and fro. In short, existence in the town of O——is truly delightful. During the first days of my stay in this town, I almost went out of my mind with boredom. I ought to say of myself that, though I am, no doubt, a superfluous man, I am not so of my own seeking; I’m morbid myself, but I can’t bear anything morbid.… I’m not even averse to happiness— indeed, I’ve tried to approach it right and left.… And so it is no wonder that I too can be bored like any other mortal. I was staying in the town of O——on official business.
Terentyevna has certainly sworn to make an end of me. Here’s a specimen of our conversation:—
TERENTYEVNA. Oh—oh, my good sir! what are you for ever writing for? it’s bad for you, keeping all on writing.
I. But I’m dull, Terentyevna.
SHE. Oh, you take a cup of tea now and lie down. By God’s mercy you’ll get in a sweat and maybe doze a bit.
I. But I’m not sleepy.
SHE. Ah, sir! why do you talk so? Lord have mercy on you! Come, lie down, lie down; it’s better for you.
I. I shall die any way, Terentyevna!
SHE. Lord bless us and save us! … Well, do you want a little tea?
I. I shan’t live through the week, Terentyevna!
SHE. Eh, eh! good sir, why do you talk so? … Well, I’ll go and heat the samovar.
Oh, decrepit, yellow, toothless creature! Am I really, even in your eyes, not a man?
—from The Diary of A Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev. Published in 1850, Turgenev’s novel provided a term for the soon to be ubiquitous concept of the superfluous man. The disdain the protagonist shows toward his caretaker, Terentyevna, is a hallmark of the superfluous character type. He is both dependent and resentful of her ministrations.
Oblomovism
With Oblomov, lying in bed was neither a necessity (as in the case of an invalid or of a man who stands badly in need of sleep) nor an accident (as in the case of a man who is feeling worn out) nor a gratification (as in the case of a man who is purely lazy). Rather, it represented his normal condition. Whenever he was at home and almost always he was at home—he would spend his time in lying on his back. Likewise he used but the one room—which was combined to serve both as bedroom, as study, and as reception-room—in which we have just discovered him. True, two other rooms lay at his disposal, but seldom did he look into them save on mornings (which did not comprise by any means every morning) when his old valet happened to be sweeping out the study. The furniture in them stood perennially covered over, and never were the blinds drawn up.
At first sight the room in which Oblomov was lying was a well-fitted one. In it there stood a writing-table of redwood, a couple of sofas, upholstered in some silken material, and a handsome screen that was embroidered with birds and fruits unknown to Nature. Also the room contained silken curtains, a few mats, some pictures, bronzes, and pieces of china, and a multitude of other pretty trifles. Yet even the most cursory glance from the experienced eye of a ma of taste would have detected no more than a tendency to observe les convenances while escaping their actual observance. Without doubt that was all that Oblomov had thought of when furnishing his study. Taste of a really refined nature would never have remained satisfied with such ponderous, ungainly redwood chairs, with such rickety whatnots. Moreover, the back of one of the sofas had sagged, and here and there the wood had come way from the glue. Much the same thing was to be seen in the case of the pictures, the vases, and certain other trifles of the apartment. Nevertheless, its master was accustomed to regard its appurtenances with the cold, detached eye of one who would ask, “Who has dared to bring this stuff here?” The same indifference on his part, added to, perhaps, an even greater indifference on the part of his servant, Zakhar, caused the study, when contemplated with attention, to strike the beholder with an impression of all-prevailing carelessness and neglect. On the walls and around the pictures there hung cobwebs coated with dust; the mirrors, instead of reflecting, would more usefully have served as tablets for recording memoranda; every mat was freely spotted with stains; on the sofa there lay a forgotten towel, and on the table (as on most mornings) a plate, a salt-cellar, a half-eaten crust of bread, and some scattered crumbs—all of which had failed to be cleared away after last night’s supper. Indeed, were it not for the plate, for a recently smoked pipe that was propped against the bed, and for the recumbent form of Oblomov himself, one might have imagined that the place contained not a single living soul, so dusty and discoloured did everything look, and so lacking were any active traces of the presence of a human being. True, on the whatnots there were two or three open books, while a newspaper was tossing about, and the bureau bore on its top an inkstand and a few pens; but the pages at which the books were lying open were covered with dust and beginning to turn yellow (thus proving that they had long been tossed aside), the date of the newspaper belonged to the previous year, and from the inkstand, whenever a pen happened to be dipped therein, there arose, with a frightened buzz, only a derelict fly.
Famously, the protagonist of Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov fails to leave bed for the first 150 pages and rarely does so beyond that point. Nearly paralyzed with ennui, Goncharov’s antihero is incapable of action, even when it comes to pursing a woman he loves. Unlike other examples of superfluous men, Oblomov does not engage in daring exploits or selfish hedonism in order to stave off his boredom. Instead, he lives in a state of complete apathy. In a speech given in 1922, Vladimir Lenin stated that, “Russia has made three revolutions, and still the Oblomovs have remained … and he must be washed, cleaned, pulled about, and flogged for a long time before any kind of sense will emerge.”