nd, my brother, and bosom crony. But then, does he
know what loffe is? Is it possible that you northern people understand
loffe? It's we, Georgians, who are created for loffe. Look, Liubka!
I'll show you right away what loffe is!" He would clench his fists,
bend his body forward, and would start rolling his eyes so ferociously,
gnash his teeth and roar with a lion's voice so, that a childish terror
would encompass Liubka, despite the fact that she knew this to be a
joke, and she would dash off running into another room.

It must be said, however, that for this lad, in general unrestrained in
the matter of light, chance romances, existed special firm moral
prohibitions, sucked in with the milk of his mother Georgian; the
sacred adates concerning the wife of a friend. And then, probably he
understood--and it must be said that these oriental men, despite their
seeming naiveness--and, perhaps, even owing to it--possess, when they
wish to, a fine psychic intuition--he understood, that having made
Liubka his mistress for even one minute, he would be forever deprived
of this charming, quiet, domestic evening comfort, to which he had
grown so used. For he, who was on terms of thou-ing with almost the
whole university, nevertheless felt himself so lonely in a strange city
and in a country still strange to him!

These studies afforded the most pleasure of all to Soloviev. This big,
strong, and negligent man somehow involuntarily, imperceptibly even to
himself, began to submit to that hidden, unseizable, exquisite witchery
of femininity; which not infrequently lurks under the coarsest
covering, in the harshest, most gnarled environment. The pupil
dominated, the teacher obeyed. Through the qualities of a primitive,
but on the other hand a fresh, deep, and original soul, Liubka was
inclined not to obey the method of another, but to seek out her own
peculiar, strange processes. Thus, for example, she--like many
children, however,--learned writing before reading. Not she herself,
meek and yielding by nature, but some peculiar quality of her mind,
obstinately refused in reading to harness a vowel alongside of a
consonant, or vice versa; in writing, however, she would manage this.
For penmanship along slanted rulings she, despite the general wont of
beginners, felt a great inclination; she wrote bending low over the
paper; blew on the paper from exertion, as though blowing off imaginary
dust; licked her lips and stuck out with the tong