From Necropolis: Gorky

He liked absolutely any person who introduced an element of rebellion or, at the very least, mischief, into the world—up to and including maniacs and arsonists, whom he wrote about extensively and was happy to talk about for hours on end. He was a bit of an arsonist himself. Not once did I ever see him put out a match after lighting a cigarette: he would invariably throw the match away unextinguished. After lunch or during his evening tea, when the ashtray would be filled with a sufficient quantity of cigarette butts, matches, and papers, he made it his cherished habit to furtively shove a lit match inside the pile. After doing so, he would attempt to distract the attention of those around him—while he himself cast cunning glances over his shoulder at the blazing bonfire. It seemed that these “little family fires,” as I once suggested calling them, took on a certain wicked and joyful symbolic meaning in his eyes. He felt great respect for the experiments being done in atomic fission; he would often talk about how, for example, if the scientists were to succeed, a stone picked up from the street could produce enough energy to facilitate interplanetary communication. But he said this in a weary, hackneyed tone of voice. It was as if he was only doing it so that he could put in at the very end, in a fervent and merry fashion, that “one fine day, these experiments, hm, yes, you understand, could lead to the destruction of our universe. Now that will be a fire!” And then he would cluck his tongue.