THE SUPERFLUOUS MAN
175
sympathy, an entirely uncharacteristic friendship of the most un–
spoken and sensitive kind. It is not merely a connection left over from
boyhood nor
is
it one of those odd associations sometimes found
between opposites. Stolz's mind is continually concerned with
Oblomov and Oblomov's with Stolz.
Goncharov is proposing a serious question which Mirsky failed to
see. What possible resources could the "flat" Stolz have within him–
self for sympathy with his sluggish friend? Or how could Oblomov
endure the thought of this indefatigable Rotarian? In failing to
put
this
question to himself, Mirsky mi.&;es the intelligence of Gon–
charov's paradox. Like any good literary paradox, it is both useful and
meaningful. The important thing
to
remember is that those small
events that seem so casual in Goncharov's offhand telling are more
than anecdotal gingerbread.
A little more concisely than he
has
given the childhood of
Oblomov, the author sketches in a biography for Stolz. On the
one hand there is the tough and ambitious "German" character of
his father and on the other the influence of
his
mother. A little hor–
rified by what the boy is becoming, she plays romantic music for him
and hopes that he may turn out a little gentler and a little more Rus–
sian than the elder Stolz. He visits Oblomovka, too, where life seems
like a perpetual holiday. There is a picture of
him
standing in the
portrait gallery looking at Oblomov's ancestors with their dark blue
eyes, powdered hair and fine blue-veined hands under their lace
cuffs resting on sword hilts. He thinks of his father's kitchen garden
in Saxony with its potatoes and kohlrabi.
The results of this mixture come out when Andrey
is
leaving
home to go to Petersburg for the first time. His father slaps him on
the shoulder and they stare at each other for a minute. "Well?" asks
his father. "Well?" says the son. "Is that al1?" asks the elder Stolz.
"That's all," says Andrey. But in the meantime the neighbors have
been watching, amazed and indignant at the lack of sentiment. "The
young puppy hasn't shed a tear," they say. "The old infidel is a nice
one, too."
As
Andrey starts to ride away,
his
father calls
him
to stop. "Ah,"
the neighbors say, "so his heart has pricked him after all." But it
is only a saddle strap that needs tightening. Andrey starts off again.
"Oh you dogs," the neighbors say in agony. Suddenly there is a
