The Parasite

lt of her experiment. Strange what a silent, colorless creature she is save only when she exercises her power! Even talking about it

owers. It is just as well to put her views on record, th

rect influence upon Miss Marden when she came round to you. I was not even thinking of her that morning. What I did was to set her mind as I might set the alaru

stion had been to

st inevitably

a terrible po

answered gravely, “and the more you know of

d that this matter of suggestion is only at the f

ther not

at the decisio

ity I ask, but in the hope that I may find some scienti

t at all interested in science, nor do I care w

was h

ow. Let me see; what was it you asked me? Oh, about the further powers. Professor Wilson won’t believe in them, but they are quite true all the same. For example, it is possi

e subject’s

rden did when she came round and frightened you so. Or, if the influence was less powerful, he

lost his own wi

r-ridden by anot

exercised this

ral t

n will so s

hable from themselves. The thing is to have the gift of projecting it into another perso

nd your soul into an

might put i

oes your ow

y feels l

no danger to your

ulty in finding your way back again. You must always preserve the connection, as it were. I am afraid I express myself very badly, Professor Gi

and how, while she lies in a lethargy, she can control the actions of people at a distance. Do I accept it? Certainly not. She must prove and re-prove before I yield a point. But if I am still a sceptic, I have at least ceased to be a scoffer. We are to have a sitting this evening, and she is

m inside—to have an organism which will respond, and at the same time a brain which will appreciate and criticise—that is surely a

and larger, until they changed suddenly into two mountain lakes toward which I seemed to be falling with horrible rapidity. I shuddered, and as I did so some deeper stratum of thought told me that the shudder represented the rigor which I had observed in Agatha. An instant later I struck the surface of the lakes, now joined into one, and down I went beneath the water with a fulness in my head and a buzzing in my ears. Down I went, down, down, and then with a swoop up again until I could see the light streaming brightly through the gree

ause an absolute mystery. It is stimulating to the imagination, but I must be on my guard against that. Let us have no inferences nor deductions, and nothing but solid facts. I KNOW that the mesmeric trance i

r vac. (the beginning of it) would be the best time for the wedding. Why should we delay? I grud

save that insensibility came on more quickly. See Note-book A for temperature o

zed again. Detail

ena of suggestion and of lucidity. Professors have demonstrated these things upon women at Nancy and at the Salpetriere. It will be more convincing when a woman demonstrates it upon a professor, with a second professor as a witness. And that

in this evening to return a volume of Virchow’s “Archives” which I had lent

he, “that you are being exper

et it go any further. You will think me very impertinent, no doubt, but, none

e I aske

he friend of my friend, and my position is a delicate one. I can only say this: that I have myself been the s

is he one of those men of science who feel personally injured when facts run counter to their preconceived opinions? He cannot seriously suppose that because he has some vague grievance I am, therefore, to aba

Mesmerized

ized by Miss P.

s P. (Sphygmographic chart

least noise, for example, makes me start, and the stupidity of a student causes me exasperation instead of amusement. Agatha wishes me to stop, but I tell her that every course of study is trying, and that one can never attain a result with out paying

marked. I keep full notes of each sitting. Wilson is leaving for town for a week or ten days, but we shall n

my eagerness for scientific facts I have been foolishly blind to the human relations between Miss Penclosa and myself. I

voluntarily, and clasped hers. When I came fully to myself, we were sitting with them locked, she looking up at me with an expectant smile. And the horrible thing was that I felt impelled to say what she expected me to say. What a false wretch I should have been! How I should have loathed myself to-day had I yielded to the temptation of that moment! But, thank God, I was strong enough to spring up and hurry from the room. I was rude, I fear, but I could not, no, I COULD not, trust myself another moment. I, a gentleman, a man of honor, engaged to one of the sweetest girls in England—and y

ty! It is impossible. And then she knew about Agatha. She understood how I was placed. She only smiled out of amusement, perhaps, when in my dazed state I seized her hand. It was my half-mesmerized brain which gave it a meaning, and sprang with such bestial swiftness to meet it. I wish I could persuade myself that it was indeed so. On the whole, perhaps, my wise

uld go to Miss Penclosa’s to-night, and yet, at eight, I was at Wilson’s door as usual. I don’t know how it occurred. The influence of habit, I suppose. Perhaps there is a mesmeric craze as there is an opium craze, and I am a victim to it. I only know that as

t have felt. Miss Penclosa’s manner was quite the same as usual, and she expressed no surprise at my having come in spite of my note. There wa

d in hers, and to suffer that odious feeling which urges me to throw away my honor, my career, every thing, for the sake of this creature who, as I can plainly see when I am away from her influence, possesses no single charm upon earth. But when

subjects with her. We spoke of Agatha, among other things. What could I have been dreaming of? Miss Penclosa said that she was conven

ght. From this Sunday night onward I shall never sit with Miss Penclosa again. Never! Let the experiments go, let the research come to an end; any thing is better than fa

nteresting investigation, but it would be a greater pity still to r

going mad? Let me try and be calm and reason with mysel

truggle against it. I simply COULD not sit still at the table. At last, in the very middle of a hand, I threw my cards down and, with some sort of an incoherent apology about having an appointment, I rushed from the room. As if in a dream I have a vague recollection of tearing through the hall, snatching my hat from the stand, and slamming the door behind me. As in a dream, too, I have the impression of the double line of gas-lamps, and my bespat

r night, but it will no longer suffice. It is something much deeper and more terrible than that. Why, when I was at the Mardens’ whist-table, I was dragged away as if the noose of a rope h

d in my own journal, that when she has acquired power over a subject she can make him do her will? And she has acquired that power over me. I am for the moment at the beck and call of this creature with

ave blamed myself do not really come from me at all. They are all transferred from her,

night. I am in a horrible position, but, above all, I must not lose my head. I must pit my intellect against her powers. After all, I am no silly puppet

site, a monstrous parasite. She creeps into my frame as the hermit crab does into the whelk’s shell. I am powerless What can I do? I am dealing with forces of which I know nothing. And I can tell no one

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