He could not press it without showing the importance that he attached to it.

“I do not insist,” he said; “it is a way like any other, but better.  You do not wish it, and we will not talk of it.”

But he yielded too quickly for her to hope that he renounced his project, and she remained under the influence of a stupefying terror.  What would she say if he made her talk?  Everything, possibly.  She did not even know what thoughts were hidden in the depths of her brain, and she knew absolutely nothing of this forced somnambulism with which she was threatened.

At this time the works of the school of Nancy on sleep, hypnotism, and suggestion, had not yet been published, or at least the book which served as their starting-point was not known, and she knew nothing of processes that were employed to provoke the hypnotic sleep.  As soon as her husband left the house she looked for some book in the library that would enlighten her.  But the dictionary that she found gave only obscure or confused instructions in which she floundered.  The only exact point that struck her was the method employed to produce sleep; to make the subject look at a brilliant object placed from fifteen to twenty centimetres in front of the eyes.  If this were true she had no fear of ever being put to sleep.

However, she was not reassured; and when a few days later at a dinner she found herself seated next to one of her husband’s ‘confreres’, who she knew interested himself in somnambulism, she had the courage to conquer her usual timidity concerning medicine, and questioned him.

“Are there not persons with certain diseases who can be put into a state of somnambulism?”

“It was formerly believed by the public and by many physicians that only persons afflicted with hysteria and nervous troubles could be put to sleep in this way, but it was a mistake; artificial somnambulism may be produced on many subjects who are perfectly healthy.”

“Is the will preserved in sleep?”

“The subject only preserves the spontaneity and will that his hypnotizer leaves him, who at his pleasure makes him sad, gay, angry, or tender, and plays with his soul as with an instrument.”

“But that is frightful.”

“Curious, at least.  It is certain that there is a local paralysis of such or such a cell, the study of which is the starting-point of many interesting discoveries.”

“When he wakes, does the subject remember what he has said?”

“There is a difference of opinion on this point.  Some say yes, and others no.  As for me, I believe the memory depends upon the degree of sleep:  with a light sleep there is remembrance, but with a profound sleep the subject does not remember what he has said or heard or done.”

She would have liked to continue, and her companion, glad to talk of what interested him, would willingly have said more, but she saw her husband at the other end of the table watching them by fits and starts, and fearing that he would suspect the subject of their conversation she remained silent.