“My people did not let me have even a wish,” Goncharóff wrote in his short autobiography, from which we discovered the close connection between the author and his hero: “all had been foreseen and attended to long since. The old servants, with my nurse at their head, looked into my eyes to guess my wishes, trying to remember what I liked best when I was with them, where my writing table ought to be put, which chair I preferred to the others, how to make my bed. The cook tried to remember which dishes I had liked in my childhood--and all could not admire me enough.” Such was Oblómoff’s youth, and such was to a very great extent Goncharóff’s youth and character as well. The novel begins with Oblómoff’s morning in his lodgings at St. Petersburg. It is late, but he is still in bed; several times already he has tried to get up, several times his foot was in the slipper; but, after a moment’s reflection, he has returned under his blankets. His trusty Zakhár--his old faithful servant who formerly had carried him as a baby in his arms--is by his side, and brings him his glass of tea. Visitors come in; they try to induce Oblómoff to go out, to take a drive to the yearly First of May promenade; but--“What for?” he asks. “For what should I take all this trouble, and do all this moving about?” And he remains in bed. His only trouble is that the landlord wants him to leave the lodgings which he occupies. The rooms are dull, dusty--Zakhár is no great admirer of cleanliness; but to change lodgings is such a calamity for Oblómoff that he tries to avoid it by all possible means, or at least to postpone it. Oblómoff is very well educated, well-bred, he has a refined taste, and in matters of art he is a fine judge. Everything that is vulgar is repulsive to him. He never will commit any dishonest act; he cannot. He also shares the highest and noblest aspirations of his contemporaries. Like many others, he is ashamed of being a serf-owner, and he has in his head a certain scheme which he is going to put some day into writing--a scheme which, if it is only carried out, will surely improve the condition of his peasants and eventually free them.