Krakatit by Karel Čapek

It was six months since Prokop had had any chemical apparatus in his hands.

He examined one instrument after another; everything of which he had ever dreamed was there, gleaming, brand-new and arranged with pedantic precision. There was a desk and a technical library, an enormous table covered with chemicals, cupboards containing delicate instruments, a chamber for experimental explosions, a room containing transformers, and apparatus of which he had never even heard. He had looked over about half these marvels when, following a sudden impulse, he rushed to the table for a certain barium salt, some nitrate acid, a few other things, and began an experiment in the course of which he succeeded in burning his fingers, smashing a test-tube to fragments and burning a hole in his coat. Satisfied with this beginning he sat down at the writing-table and jotted down two or three notes.