He stopped and laughed comfortably. Suddenly a thought pricked him, he became serious and said to Ilya, gravely: "N--no, brother! I don't want a new one! In the first place, it's dear and I should pawn it for drink, for sure, and secondly, suppose it turned out worse than the one I have, what then? She's a real beauty, the one I've got. Beyond all money. My soul's gone into her, she understands me so well, just my finger on the keys and away she sings! She's a rare treasure--perhaps there's not another like her in the world. A harmonica, she's like a wife. Once I had a wife too, an angel--not a woman, and if I wanted to marry again--how could I? I'd never find another like my dear. Whether you like it or not, you get measuring the new one by the old, and if she isn't enough, it's bad, for me and for her. That's the way of things. Ah! brother, a thing isn't good when it's good, but when it pleases you." Ilya could readily agree with Perfishka's praise of his instrument. No one who heard it but wondered at its ringing, tender tone. But he could not reconcile himself with the thought that the cobbler had no desire in the world. Clear and sharp, the question met him--can a man live his whole life in dirt, go about in rags, drink brandy, play the harmonica and never long for anything different, better? He had no wish to regard the contented Perfishka as half silly. He observed him constantly with the greatest interest, and was convinced that the cobbler at heart was better than all the other people in the house, tippler and good for nothing though he were. Sometimes the young people ventured to approach those great and far-reaching questions, which open fathomless abysses before mankind, and draw down by force into their mysterious depths man's eagerly inquiring spirit and his heart. It was always Jakov who began on these questions. He had acquired an odd habit of leaning against everything as though his legs felt insecure. If he were sitting, he either held on to the nearest fixed object with his hands or supported his shoulder against it. If he were walking along the street with his quick, irregular strides, he would grasp the stone posts by the way as though he were counting them, or try the fences with his hand as though to test their stability. At tea in Masha's room, he sat generally at the window, his back against the wall and his long fingers holding fast to the chair or the edge of the table. Holding his big head sideways, with its fine, smooth, tow-coloured hair, he would look at the speaker and the blue eyes in his pale face were either wide open or half closed. He loved, as of old, to relate his dreams, and could never re-tell the story of a book he had been reading without adding something singular and incomprehensible. Ilya reproached him for this habit, but Jakov was undisturbed and said simply: