e 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!

"Nonsense," he thought. "This can't be. She's making believe, and,
probably, I don't strike the right tone with her."

And with every day he became more exacting, captious, and stern. Hardly
consciously, more probably through habit, he relied on his usual
influence, intimidating the thought and subduing the will, which rarely
betrayed him.

Once Liubka complained about him to Lichonin:

"He's too strict with me, now, Vassil Vassilievich; and I don't
understand anything he says, and I don't want to take lessons with him
any more."

Somehow or other, Lichonin lamely quieted her down; but still he had an
explanation with Simanovsky. The other answered him with sang froid:

"Just as you wish, my dear fellow; if my method displeases you or
Liubka, then I'm even ready to resign. My problem consists only of
bringing in a genuine element of discipline into her education. If she
does not understand anything, then I compel her to learn it by heart,
aloud. With time this will cease. That is unavoidable. Recall,
Lichonin, how difficult the transition from arithmetic to algebra was
for us, when we were compelled to replace common numerals with letters,
and did not know why this was done. Or why did they teach us grammar,
instead of simply advising us to write tales and verses?"

And on the very next day, bending down low under the hanging shade of
the lamp over Liubka's body, and sniffing all over her breast and under
her arm pits, he was saying to her:

"Draw a triangle... Well, yes, this way and this way. On top I write
'Love.' Write simply the letter L, and below M and W. That will be: the
Love of Man and