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 tongue, from the inside, now one cheek, now the other.  Soloviev did not thwart her, and followed after, along those ways which her instinct laid down.  And it must be said, that during this month and a half he had managed to become attached with all his huge, broad, mighty soul to this chance, weak, transitory being.  This was the circumspect, droll, magnanimous, somewhat wondering love, and the careful concern, of a kind elephant for a frail, helpless, yellow-downed chick.

The reading was a delectation for both of them, and here again the choice of works was directed by the taste of Liubka, while Soloviev only followed its current and its sinuosities.  Thus, for example, Liubka did not overcome Don Quixote, tired, and, finally, turning away from him, with pleasure heard Robinson Crusoe through, and wept with especial copiousness over the scene of his meeting with his relatives.  She liked Dickens, and very easily grasped his radiant humour; but the features of English manners were foreign to her and incomprehensible.  They also read Chekhov more than once, and Liubka very freely, without difficulty, penetrated the beauty of his design, his smile and his sadness.  Stories for children moved her, touched her to such a degree that it was laughable and joyous to look at her.  Once Soloviev read to her Chekhov’s story, The Fit, in which, as it is known, a student for the first time finds himself in a brothel; and afterwards, on the next day, writhes about, as in a fit, in the spasms of a keen psychic suffering and the consciousness of common guilt.  Soloviev himself did not expect that tremendous impression which this narrative would make upon her.  She cried, swore, wrung her hands, and exclaimed all the while: 

“Lord!  Where does he take all that stuff from, and so skillfully!  Why, it’s every bit just the way it is with us!”