breathed his last.

The mainstay of his whole existence, his unfailing friend and companion,
was his aunt Platosha, with whom he exchanged barely a dozen words in the
day, but without whom he could not stir hand or foot. She was a long-faced,
long-toothed creature, with pale eyes, and a pale face, with an invariable
expression, half of dejection, half of anxious dismay. For ever garbed in
a grey dress and a grey shawl, she wandered about the house like a spirit,
with noiseless steps, sighed, murmured prayers--especially one favourite
one, consisting of three words only, 'Lord, succour us!'--and looked after
the house with much good sense, taking care of every halfpenny, and buying
everything herself. Her nephew she adored; she was in a perpetual fidget
over his health--afraid of everything--not for herself but for him; and
directly she fancied the slightest thing wrong, she would steal in softly,
and set a cup of herb tea on his writing-table, or stroke him on the
spine with her hands, soft as wadding. Yakov was not annoyed by these
attentions--though the herb tea he left untouched--he merely nodded his
head approvingly. However, his health was really nothing to boast of. He
was very impressionable, nervous, fanciful, suffered from palpitations of
the heart, and sometimes from asthma; like his father, he believed that
there are in nature and in the soul of man, mysteries which may sometimes
be divined, but to which one can never penetrate; he believed in the
existence of certain powers and influences, sometimes beneficent, but more
often malignant,... and he believed too in science, in its dignity and
importance. Of late he had taken a great fancy to photography. The smell of
the chemicals used in this pursuit was a source of great uneasiness to his
old aunt--not on her own account again, but on Yasha's, on account of his
chest; but for all the softness of his temper, there was not a little
obstinacy in his composition, and he persisted in his favourite pursuit.
Platosha gave in, and only sighed more than ever, and murmured, 'Lord,