“Oh, the unclean one take you, Satan!” Liubka began to cry out, having felt the dry fillip in her little finger.
Then, out of heated peroxide of manganese, mixed with sand, with the help of a druggist’s vial, the gutta-percha end of a syringe, a basin filled with water, and a jam jar—oxygen was derived. The red-hot cork, coal and phosphorus burnt in the jar so blindingly that it pained the eyes. Liubka clapped her palms and squealed out in delight:
“Mister Professor, more! Please, more, more! ...”
But when, having united the oxygen with the hydrogen brought in an empty champagne bottle, and having wrapped up the bottle for precaution in a towel, Simanovsky ordered Liubka to direct its neck toward a burning candle, and when the explosion broke out, as though four cannons had been fired off at once—an explosion through which the plastering fell down from the ceiling—then Liubka grew timorous, and, only getting to rights with difficulty, pronounced with trembling lips, but with dignity: “You must excuse me now, but since I have a flat of my own, and I’m not at all a wench any longer, but a decent woman, I’d ask you therefore not to misbehave in my place. I thought you, like a smart and educated man, would do everything nice and genteel, but you busy yourself with silly things. They can even put one in jail for that.”
Subsequently, much, much later, she told how she had a student friend, who made dynamite before her.
It must have been, after all, that Simanovsky, this enigmatic man, so influential in his youthful society, where he had to deal with theory for the most part, and so incoherent when a practical experiment with a living soul had come into his hands—was just simply stupid, but could skillfully conceal this sole sincere quality of his.
Having suffered failure in applied sciences, he at once passed on to metaphysics. Once he very self-assuredly, and in a tone such that after it no refutation was possible, announced to Liubka that there is no God, and that he would undertake to prove this during five minutes. Whereupon Liubka jumped up from her place, and told him firmly that she, even though a quondam prostitute, still believed in God and would not allow Him to be offended in her presence; and if he would continue such nonsense, then she would complain to Vassil Vassilich.
“I will also tell him,” she added in a weeping voice, “that you, instead of teaching me, only rattle off all kinds of stuff and all that sort of nastiness, while you yourself hold your hand on my knees. And that’s even not at all genteel.” And for the first time during all their acquaintanceship she, who had formerly been so timorous and constrained, sharply moved away from her teacher.
However, having suffered a few failures, Simanovsky still obstinately continued to act upon the mind and imagination of Liubka. He tried to explain to her the theory of the origin of species, beginning with an amoeba and ending with Napoleon. Liubka listened to him attentively, and during this there was an imploring expression in her eyes: “When will you stop at last?” She yawned into a handkerchief and then guiltily explained: “Excuse me, that’s from my nerves.” Marx also had no success goods, supplementary value, the manufacturer and the worker, which had become algebraic formulas, were for Liubka merely empty sounds, vibrating the air; and she, very sincere at soul, always jumped up with joy from her place, when hearing that, apparently, the vegetable soup had boiled up, or the samovar was getting ready to boil over.
It cannot be said that Simanovsky did not have success with women. His aplomb and his weighty, decisive tone always acted upon simple souls, especially upon fresh, naive, trusting souls. Out of protracted ties he always got out very easily; either he was dedicated to a tremendously responsible call, before which domestic love relations were nothing; or he pretended to be a superman, to whom all is permitted (O, thou, Nietszche, so long ago and so disgracefully misconstrued for high-school boys!). The passive, almost imperceptible, but firmly evasive resistance of Liubka irritated and excited him. What particularly incensed him was the fact that she, who had formerly been so accessible to all, ready to yield her love in one day to several people in succession, to each one for two roubles, was now all of a sudden playing at some pure and disinterested inamoration!