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!"
Once he brought with him a book entitled THE HISTORY OF MANON
LESCAUT AND THE CHEVALIER DE GRIEUX, the work of Abbe Prevost. It
must be said that Soloviev himself was reading this remarkable
book for the first time. But still, Liubka appraised it far more
deeply and finely. The absence of a plot, the naiveness of the
telling, the surplus of sentimentality, the olden fashion of the
style--all this taken together cooled Soloviev; whereas Liubka
received the joyous, sad, touching and flippant details of this
quaint immortal novel not only through her ears, but as though
with her eyes and with all her naively open heart.
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