s 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.

II

At the time of which we are speaking, there was in Moscow a certain
widow, a Georgian Princess,--a person of ill-defined standing and almost
a suspicious character. She was about forty years of age; in her youth
she had, probably, bloomed with that peculiar oriental beauty, which so
quickly fades; now she powdered and painted herself, and dyed her hair a
yellow hue. Various, not altogether favourable, and not quite definit