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Rh creatures which never existed in the world at all were supposed to dwell there.

But to these warnings of his mother's the child paid little heed. Already he was outside, in the courtyard. With gleeful surprise (as though for the first time in his life) he went the round of his parents' establishment, with its gates sagging outwards, its dinted roof where lichen grew, its tottering veranda, its various annexes and outbuildings, and its overgrown garden. Also he yearned to ascend to the hanging gallery which girdled the house, that thence he might see the river; but the gallery was now in decay, and scarcely able to hold together, so that none but the servants trod it, and at no time did the gentry walk there. Heedless of his mother's warnings, however, the little Oblomov was on the point of making for its seductive steps when the nurse showed herself on the veranda, and caught hold of him. Next, he rushed from her towards the hay-loft, with the intention of scaling its steep ladder; and just had she time to destroy successive schemes of ascending to the pigeon-cote, of penetrating to the cattle-yard, and—Heaven preserve us all!—of making his way to the ravine!

"God bless the child!" exclaimed the