“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!

“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: