On the way he lost the money out of his pocket-book, and Barinskoi had to wait until he went back to St.Petersburg, to inquire into the case.

By such fool's stories was Wilhelm's friendship put to the proof.

Barinskoi did not stop at borrowing money occasionally, with sighs and groans, but every few days, often at a few hours' interval, a new and larger loan would frequently follow.
All this was a dubious method of consolation, and yet Dr.Schrotter, or rather Paul Haber, decided that though further contact with Barinskoi must be avoided, he was an object of increasing interest to Wilhelm.
Barinskoi had many ideas in sympathy with his, which he did not find in others, and their views of society and practical maxims of life were so much in common that Wilhelm was often puzzled by this question: "How is it possible that people can draw such completely different conclusions from the same suppositions by the same logical arguments?
Where is the fatal point where one's ideas separate--ideas which have so far traveled together ?" Barinskoi thought as Wilhelm did, that the world and its machinery were mere outward phenomena, a deception of the senses, whose influence acted as in a delirium.

All existing forms of the common life of humanity, all ordinances of the State or society appeared to him as foolish or criminal, and at any rate objectionable.

He considered that the object of the spiritual and moral development of the individual was the deliverance from the restraint, and the complete contempt of all outward authority.
So far his opinions agreed with Wilhelm's, and then he disclosed the laws of morality which he had evolved from them.
"The whole world is only an outward phenomenon, and the only reality is my own consciousness," said Barinskoi; "therefore I see in the would only myself, live only for myself, and try only to please myself, I am an extreme individualist.