“Give me a pinch,” put in Tarantiev. “You use the plain stuff, and not the French, do you? Why not use the French? Never have I seen a swine like that relative of yours. On one occasion I borrowed of him fifty roubles. That was two years ago. And fifty roubles are not a very large sum, are they? They are a sum which he might well have forgotten, mightn’t he? Yes, he very well might. But as a matter of fact, he remembered it. Not a month had passed before he took to saying, whenever he met me: ‘How about that debt?’ I assure you I found him a perfect nuisance! And only yesterday he walked into our office, and said to me: ‘I expect you have just received your salary, and are therefore in a position to repay me?’ Well, I handed him over my salary, even though he had come there for the express purpose of shaming me in public. I had much ado not to put him out of the door. ‘Poor fellow, you need the money, I suppose?’ As though I had _not_ needed it! Am I such a rich man that I should quietly let him pouch fifty roubles? Oblomov, hand me a cigar.” “The cigars are in that box there,” said Oblomov, pointing to a whatnot. He was still posed in his usual lazy but becoming attitude--he was still taking no notice whatever of what was being done or said around him, but contemplating his small white hands. “What a rubbishy weed!” Tarantiev remarked, after sending out a puff of tobacco smoke and inhaling another. “You have come too early in the morning,” suggested Oblomov with a yawn. “Then I am boring you, am I?” “No; I was merely making a remark. Usually you arrive at lunch-time, but to-day you have come an hour beforehand.” “I have come an hour beforehand because I wish to find out what there is likely to be to eat at dinner. As a rule you provide such rubbishy stuff.” “You had better go into the kitchen and inquire.” Taramiev departed for the purpose, “We are to have beef and veal,” he remarked, on returning. “Ah, friend Oblomov, though a landowner, you haven’t the smallest notion how to live. Your _ménage_ is the _ménage_ of a tradesman. Have you bought that Madeira yet?” “I don’t know,” replied Oblomov, scarcely noticing what had been said. “You had better inquire of Zakhar. At all events there will be some sort of wine.” “What? The rubbishy old stuff which you bought of a German dealer? You ought to go to the English Store for your wines.” “Very well. Please send to the Store for some.” “Money first, please!” Oblomov fumbled in a cashbox, and produced therefrom a ten-rouble, note. “Madeira costs seven roubles the bottle,” he said. “Here are ten roubles. You will be given change at the Store.” Tarantiev hastened to cram the note into his pocket. “Likewise, do you feel like hiring a conveyance and going to the Ekaterinhov today?” he inquired. “If so, you might take me with you.” Oblomov shook his head. “I have met with two misfortunes,” he remarked. “In the first place, I am to be turned out of this fiat.”