Besides it is high time you were starting for Mr.
Severin's who is expecting us for tea."
"A curious dream," said Severin when I had finished. He supported
his arms on his knees, resting his face in his delicate, finely
veined hands, and fell to pondering.
I knew that he wouldn't move for a long time, hardly even breathe.
This actually happened, but I didn't consider his behavior as in any
way remarkable. I had been on terms of close friendship with him for
nearly three years, and gotten used to his peculiarities. For it
cannot be denied that he was peculiar, although he wasn't quite the
dangerous madman that the neighborhood, or indeed the entire district
of Kolomea, considered him to be. I found his personality not only
interesting--and that is why many also regarded me a bit mad--but to
a degree sympathetic. For a Galician nobleman and land-owner, and
considering his age--he was hardly over thirty--he displayed
surprising sobriety, a certain seriousness, even pedantry. He lived
according to a minutely elaborated, half-philosophical, half-
practical system, like clock-work; not this alone, but also by the
thermometer, barometer, aerometer, hydrometer, Hippocrates, Hufeland,
Plato, Kant, Knigge, and Lord Chesterfield. But at times he had
violent attacks of sudden passion, and gave the impression of being
about to run with his head right through a wall.
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