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I dined at a place called Agnia’s, run by a hard-faced widow incapable of smiling at anything. It was the sort of café which had American-cloth on the tables and a general atmosphere the bourgeoisie like to think is working-class. It was, of course, occupied entirely by bourgeois revolutionaries plotting, without any evidence of irony, the downfall of their own kind. I was unhappy about going to the place, which was in the Petersburgskaya and not that far from my lodgings. There was a chance the place might be raided by the police. I found the food uneatable. The company (Lunarcharsky and his friends) was boring and rude and Mrs Cornelius was desperate for conversation which, much as I tried, I was unable to supply. My only interest was in Science. I had no casual conversation. Amongst Kolya’s friends I would be asked for information, for a scientific opinion, which I could always offer cheerfully, keeping silent when there was nothing to say. Mrs Cornelius was beautiful, of course, and I enjoyed her ambience, but my anger at the nonsense being spouted by her companions was countered only by natural tact. I left early. I hoped to see her again. She understood my situation, I think, and felt a little guilty. As I left she kissed me on the cheek, wafting roses, and said softly, ‘Ta, ta, Ivan. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

In some trepidation I walked back through the wretched streets of our besieged capital. I paused on the Sampsoneffskaya Bridge to watch men breaking holes in the ice, which was still too thin here to use as a thoroughfare. They were like tramps. The only thing which identified them as anything else was their uniform. Why they were smashing at the ice, with pieces of wood and old railings, I still do not know. Perhaps they were hoping to fish.

At school the next day I was singled out for attack by Professor Merkuloff. He had a horrible cold and his nose was bright red. His eyes glared from beneath a ridiculous woollen hat which reached to the top of his glasses. The lecture was on something simple, the construction of a dynamo. He sarcastically asked me if I knew what a dynamo was. I replied quietly that I did know.

He asked me to define an ordinary dynamo and the principles by which it worked. I gave him the usual definition. He seemed disappointed. He asked if I knew anything else. I described the various sorts of dynamo then in general use, who the manufacturers were. I then talked about current experiments with new types, the kind of power it could be possible to generate, what machines could be run off such and such a source, and so on. He became flamboyantly angry. He screamed at me, ‘That will do, Kryscheff!’

‘There is more, your honour.’

‘I asked a simple question. I need simple answers.’

‘You asked me to elaborate.’

‘Sit down, Kryscheff!’

‘Perhaps you would like me to prepare some kind of paper on the development of the dynamo?’ I said.

‘I would like you to sit down. You are either insolent or you are a bore, Kryscheff. You might simply be a literal-minded idiot. You are certainly a fool!’

This was exactly what my envious schoolmates wanted to hear. His sarcasm drew an easy laugh from them. I had it in mind to face Merkuloff down; to demonstrate his lack of intelligence and imagination. He was a time-server. He only had his job because of the War. But it would mean my dismissal from the Institute and I could not afford it. I would be spitting in Uncle Semya’s eye. I would kill my mother. So I sat down.

This was when I finally resolved to display the profundity and complexity of my knowledge. I would eventually show the whole school that I knew more than teachers and pupils together. I would wait for the best chance. When I did this I wished to show Merkuloff up for the opinionated cretin he was. Our examinations, as I have explained, were chiefly oral. There would be a main end-of-term exam before the whole teaching board of the Institute. That was when I would take my revenge.

I was oblivious of the snifflings and jeerings of the other students as I boarded the horse-tram for the slow, freezing journey home. I read an article on Freycinet’s work on reinforced concrete (he had built the famous airship hangars at Orly). I also found a reference to Einstein which I could not at that time completely comprehend. Now I know we were both working towards a very similar end. He was formulating his General Theory of Relativity while I was planning to astonish my professors with my own ontological ideas. Such coincidences are common in science.