"I grant it, my dear sir, I grant it; but he is often eccentric. Sometimes he shuts himself up for several days; often he roams about at night. He reads unheard-of books.... German metaphysics ... physiology, and I know not what! Even yesterday a package of them came from Leipzig. Must I speak plainly? A Hercules needs a Hebe. There are some very pretty peasant girls here.... On Saturday evenings, when they have washed, you might mistake them for princesses.... There is not one of them but would be only too proud to distract my lord. I, at his age, devil take me!... No, he has no mistress; he will not marry, it is wrong. He ought to have something to occupy his mind." The doctor's coarse materialism shocked me extremely, and I abruptly terminated the conversation by saying that I sincerely wished that Count Szémioth should find a wife worthy of him. I was surprised, I must admit, when I learnt from the doctor of the Count's taste for philosophical studies. It went against all my preconceived ideas that this officer of the Hussars, this ardent sportsman, should read German metaphysics and engage himself in physiology. The doctor spoke the truth, however, as I had proof thereof even that very day. "How do you explain, Professor," he said to me suddenly towards the close of dinner--"how do you explain the _duality_ or the _twofold nature_ of our being?" And when he observed that I did not quite follow him, he went on-- "Have you never found yourself at the top of a tower, or even at the edge of a precipice, having at the same time a desire to throw yourself down into space, and a feeling of terror absolutely the reverse?" "That can be explained on purely physical grounds," said the doctor; "first, the fatigue of walking up hill sends a rush of blood to the brain, which--" "Let us leave aside the question of the blood, doctor," broke in the Count impatiently, "and take another instance. You hold a loaded firearm. Your best friend stands by. The idea occurs to you to put a ball through his head. You hold assassination in the greatest horror, but all the same, you have thought of it. I believe, gentlemen, that if all the thoughts which come into our heads in the course of an hour ... I believe that if all _your_ thoughts, Professor, whom I hold to be so wise, were written down, they would form a folio volume probably, after the perusal of which there would not be a single lawyer who could successfully defend you, nor a judge who would not either put you in prison or even in a lunatic asylum."