Liubka clapped her palms and squealed out
in delight:
"Mister Professor, more! Please, more, more! ..."
But when, having united the oxygen with the hydrogen brought in an
empty champagne bottle, and having wrapped up the bottle for
precaution in a towel, Simanovsky ordered Liubka to direct its
neck toward a burning candle, and when the explosion broke out, as
though four cannons had been fired off at once--an explosion
through which the plastering fell down from the ceiling--then
Liubka grew timorous, and, only getting to rights with difficulty,
pronounced with trembling lips, but with dignity: "You must excuse
me now, but since I have a flat of my own, and I'm not at all a
wench any longer, but a decent woman, I'd ask you therefore not to
misbehave in my place. I thought you, like a smart and educated
man, would do everything nice and genteel, but you busy yourself
with silly things. They can even put one in jail for that."
Subsequently, much, much later, she told how she had a student
friend, who made dynamite before her.
It must have been, after all, that Simanovsky, this enigmatic man,
so influential in his youthful society, where he had to deal with
theory for the most part, and so incoherent when a practical
experiment with a living soul had come into his hands--was just
simply stupid, but could skillfully conceal this sole sincere
quality of his.
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