Page:Unto the Third and Fourth Generation.pdf/15

 was agony to listen to her cries, and to see the convulsive twitching of her features. The hypnotist called for brandy and offered her a small dose of it. She clutched at the glass with feverish eagerness. Her eyes at that moment were like balls of fire in darkness. Their wild gloating was terrible to look upon.

It was true enough that we had not come too soon. The attack was imminent. We must act now or not at all.

“Hypnogenic agencies,” said La Mothe, “are difficult in a case like this, so we must needs try the mesmeric ones.”

Without quite realizing the difference I consented to this change in the experiment, and then everybody except myself was ordered out of the room. Shall I ever forget what occurred? The scene that followed has left scars on my memory. It is with pain like that of tearing the bandage from a wound that I try now to recall it.

The magnetizer put my dear one to sit on a chair in the middle of the floor, and seated himself on another chair drawn up directly in front of hers. Then, sitting face to face with her, he proceeded to inclose her knees within his own. This he did with difficulty, due to the natural revolt of her modesty at the contact of the operator's person. Holding her firmly, knee to knee, he began to make passes before her bosom, and at length to apply his left hand on her breast in downward movements toward what I now know as the hypnogenic zones. After that he reached over, and passed his right hand across her shoulder and behind her body. Their foreheads touched, their breathing must have mingled. Lucy inade a low, indistinguishable cry, and half turned to me with a movement either of appeal or of reproach.

The operation went on. Slowly, very slowly, with a calm that began to grow hateful, the magnetizer continued the downward pressure. Lucy's hysteria seemed to subside at every stroke of his hand. After a time her face, which had grown pale with fear, was inflamed as with pleasure, her eyes brightened and became humid, their pupils dilated, and their gaze grew fixed. She dropped her head, covered her face, and sighed audibly. I wanted to put a stop to everything, though I did not know why I should do so.

The operation continued. Lucy's eyes grew dimmer, their vision seemed to be obscured, her breathing became short and difficult as if she were beginning to suffer from an attack of nervous suffocation.

“The room is going round and round,” she said in a thick, low voice; and again in a half articulate murmur, “it is going faster and faster.”

“All right,” said La Mothe, turning to me for a moment, and my impulse to intervene was checked.

Then my darling's body began to be agitated by sudden jerky movements. This was followed by languor and prostration. Finally, as he reached across to her again, she fell forward in his arms, swayed a moment, dropped her head over his shoulders, with eyes closed and neck extended, and with a gurgling sigh lost consciousness.

“All right," said La Mothe again, but his tone of satisfaction revolted me. I wanted to lay hold of him by the throat and fling him out of the house. I knew now what was the sensation of horror which, down to that moment, had been so vague. It was horror of the power which the animal part of one human creature can, by the mysterious processes of nature, wield over the animal part of another. It was sickening horror of the power which man as man can wield over woman as woman, putting the soul to sleep and for a time, at all events, to death.

“Let me take her to her room,” said La Mothe.

“Out of the way there!” I cried, and plucking my dear one from his arms, I carried her into her bed room and laid her upon the bed.

I was leaning over her, kissing her marble forehead that was wet with my tears, when I became conscious that Godwin and McPherson were standing behind me.

“The intense excitement has produced catalepsy," said the doctor, and then after a moment he added, “she has merely fainted.”

I repeated the words in French, and La Mothe smiled, shook his head, and answered, “No.”

“Don't you see she has merely fainted?” said the doctor.

I repeated these words also, and the hypnotist replied,

“Do people speak when they have fainted?”

“Of course not,” said the doctor.

“Speak to her,” said the hypnotist to me.

I leaned over the bed again, and looking down at the closed eyelids, cried in a loud tone,

“Lucy!”

“Don't shout,” said the hypnotist. “Her hearing is not duller. It is intensified. She