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The great support of his whole existence, his unfailing comrade and friend, was his aunt, that Platosha, with whom he exchanged barely ten words a day, but without whom he could not take a step. She was a long-visaged, long-toothed being, with pale eyes in a pale face, and an unvarying expression partly of sadness, partly of anxious alarm. Eternally attired in a grey gown, and a grey shawl which was redolent of camphor, she wandered about the house like a shadow, with noiseless footsteps; she sighed, whispered prayers–especially one, her favourite, which consisted of two words: “Lord, help!”–and managed the housekeeping very vigorously, hoarding every kopek and buying everything herself. She worshipped her nephew; she was constantly fretting about his health, was constantly in a state of alarm, not about herself but about him, and as soon as she thought there was anything the matter with him, she would quietly approach and place on his writing-table a cup of herb-tea, or stroke his back with her hands, which were as soft as wadding.

This coddling did not annoy Yakoff, but he did not drink the herb-tea, and only nodded approvingly. But neither could he boast of his health. He was extremely sensitive, nervous, suspicious; he suffered from palpitation of the heart, and sometimes from asthma. Like his father, he believed that there existed in nature and in the soul of man secrets, of which glimpses may sometimes be caught, though they cannot be understood; he believed in the presence of certain forces and influences, sometimes well-disposed but more frequently hostile … and he also believed in science,–in its dignity and worth. Of late he had conceived a passion for photography. The odour of the ingredients used in that connection greatly disturbed his old aunt,–again not on her own behalf, but for Yasha’s sake, on account of his chest. But with all his gentleness of disposition he possessed no small portion of stubbornness, and he diligently pursued his favourite occupation. “Platosha” submitted, and merely sighed more frequently than ever, and whispered “Lord, help!” as she gazed at his fingers stained with iodine.

Yakoff, as has already been stated, shunned his comrades; but with one of them he struck up a rather close friendship, and saw him frequently, even after that comrade, on leaving the university, entered the government service, which, however, was not very exacting: to use his own words, he had “tacked himself on” to the building of the Church of the Saviour[52] without, of course, knowing anything whatever about architecture. Strange to say, that solitary friend of Aratoff’s, Kupfer by name, a German who was Russified to the extent of not knowing a single word of German, and even used the epithet “German”[53] as a term of opprobrium,–that friend had, to all appearance, nothing in common with him. He was a jolly, rosy-cheeked young fellow with black, curly hair, loquacious, and very fond of that feminine society which Aratoff so shunned. Truth to tell, Kupfer breakfasted and dined with him rather often, and even–as he was not a rich man–borrowed small sums of money from him; but it was not that which made the free-and-easy German so diligently frequent the little house on Shabolovka Street. He had taken a liking to Yakoff’s spiritual purity, his “ideality,”–possibly as a contrast to what he daily encountered and beheld;–or, perhaps, in that same attraction toward “ideality” the young man’s German blood revealed itself. And Yakoff liked Kupfer’s good-natured frankness; and in addition to this, his tales of the theatres, concerts, and balls which he constantly attended–in general of that alien world into which Yakoff could not bring himself to penetrate–secretly interested and even excited the young recluse, yet without arousing in him a desire to test all this in his own experience. And Platosha liked Kupfer; she sometimes thought him too unceremonious, it is true; but instinctively feeling and understanding that he was sincerely attached to her beloved Yasha, she not only tolerated the noisy visitor, but even felt a kindness for him.