Only, next winter, when Schtoltz came to town, she ran to see him, and to gaze hungrily at little Andrei, whom she covered with caresses. Presently she tried to say something--to thank Schtoltz, and to pour out before him all that had been accumulating in her heart in the absence of an outlet. Such words he would have understood perfectly, had they been uttered. But the task was beyond her--she could only throw herself upon Olga, glue her lips to her hand, and burst into such a torrent of scalding tears that perforce Olga wept with her, and Schtoltz, greatly moved, hastened from the room. All three had now a common bond of sympathy--that bond being the memory of Oblomov’s unsullied soul. More than once Schtoltz and Olga besought the widow to come and live with them in the country, but always she replied: “Where I was born and have lived my live, there must I also die.” Likewise, when Schtoltz proposed to render her an account of his management of the Oblomovkan property, she returned him the income therefrom, with a request that he should lay it by for the benefit of little Andrei. “’Tis his, not mine,” she said. “_He_ is the _barin_, and I will continue to live as I have always done.” VI One day, about noon, two gentlemen were walking along a pavement in the Veaborg Quarter, while behind them a carriage quietly paced. One of the gentlemen was Schtoltz, the other a literary friend of his--a stout individual with an apathetic face and sleepy, meditative eyes. As they drew level with a church, Mass had just ended, and the congregation was pouring into the street. In front of them a knot of beggars was collecting a rich and varied harvest. “I wonder where these mendicants come from,” said the literary gentleman, glancing at the reapers. “Out of sundry nooks and corners, I suppose,” replied the other carelessly. “That is not what I meant. What I meant is, how have they descended to their present position of beggars? Have they come to it suddenly or gradually, for a good reason or for a bad one?” “Why are you so anxious to know? Are you contemplating writing a ‘Mysteries of Petrograd’?” “Perhaps I am,” the literary gentleman explained with an indolent yawn. “Then here is a chance for you. Ask any one of them, and, for the sum of a rouble, he will sell you his story, which, jotted down, you could resell to the nobility. For instance, take this old man here. He looks a good example of the normal type. Hi, old man! We want you!” The old man turned his head at the summons, doffed his cap, and approached the two gentlemen. “Good sirs,” he whined, “pray help a poor man who has been wounded in thirty battles and grown old in war.” “It is Zakhar!” exclaimed Schtoltz in astonishment. “It _is_ you, Zakhar, is it not?” But Zakhar said nothing. Then suddenly, he shaded his eyes from the sun, and, staring intently at Schtoltz, muttered-- “Pardon me, your Honour--I do not recognize you. I am nearly blind.”