Ivan Gavrilych Yartsev

A university friend of the Laptev brothers, a robust, good-humored master of chemistry who teaches science at a technical school and two girls' gymnasiums while dabbling seriously in sociology, Russian history, singing, and conjuring; the person who first drew Laptev out of his father's house in his student years, he later takes in the abandoned Polina Rassudina out of comradely obligation rather than love, and in the novella's closing pages is shown gazing at the now-mature Yulia with an admiration that unsettles Laptev without ever becoming an affair.