There were many things reserved and unsociable about Barinskoi; for example, he never invited any one to his rooms.

He called for his letters at the post office.

The address he gave, and under which he was entered at the University office, described him as a newspaper correspondent, which agreed with his daily readings and writings.

He frequently disappeared for two or three days, after which he emerged again, as it were, dirtier than before, with reddened, half-closed eyelids, weak voice, and general bloodless appearance.

A conjecture as to where he was during this time was suggested by a smell of spirits, beside the fact that students from the laboratory had often seen him late at night at the corner of the Leipziger and Friedrichstrasse in earnest consultation with some unhappy creature of the streets, and that he was often seen haunting remote streets in the eastern districts in the company of women.
Barinskoi declared he was the correspondent of a large St.Petersburg paper, and that he made great efforts to remove the prejudices of Russia against Germany, and to give his readers a respect for their great neighbors.