What Turgenev did for the country gentry, GONCHAROV (1812-91) did for the St. Petersburg gentry. The greater part of his work deals with the forties. Goncharov, a noble (_dvoryanin_) by education, and according to his own account by descent, though according to another account he was of merchant extraction, entered the Government service, and then went round the world in a frigate, a journey which he described in letters. Of his three novels, _The Everyday Story_, _Oblomov_, and _The Landslip_, _Oblomov_ is the most famous: in it he created a type which became immortal; and Oblomov has passed into the Russian language just as Tartuffe has passed into the French language, or Pecksniff into the English language. A chapter of the book appeared in 1849, and the whole novel in 1859.
Oblomov is the incarnation of what in Russia is called _Halatnost_, which means the propensity to live in dressing-gown and slippers. It is told of Krylov, who was an Oblomov of real life, and who spent most of his time lying on a sofa, that one day somebody pointed out to him that the nail on which a picture was hanging just over the sofa on which he was lying, was loose, and that the picture would probably fall on his head. "No," said Krylov, not getting up, "the picture will fall just beyond the sofa. I know the angle." The apathy of Oblomov, although to the outward eye it resembles this mere physical inertness, is subtly different. Krylov's apathy was the laziness of a man whose brain brought forth concrete fruits; and who feels neither the inclination nor the need of any other exercise, either physical or intellectual. Oblomov's apathy is that of a brain seething with the burning desires of a _vie intime_, which all comes to nothing owing to a kind of spiritual paralysis, "une infirmité morale." It is true he finds it difficult to put on his socks, still more to get up, when he is awake, impossible to change his rooms although the ceiling is falling to bits, and impossible not to lie on the sofa most of the day; but the reason of this obstinate inertia is not mere physical disinclination, it is the result of a mixture of seething and simmering aspirations, indefinite disillusions and apprehensions, that elude the grasp of the will. Oblomov is really the victim of a dream, of an aspiration, of an ideal as bright and mobile as a will-o'-the-wisp, as elusive as thistledown, which refuses to materialize.