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 tongue,
from the inside, now one cheek, now the other.
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