I return with a glass and a carafe and pour out for her as much as she wishes. She drinks a quarter of a glass of water. At my request, she moves her hands downward on each side of the letter-weigher in the same way as day before yesterday, and after two or three passes the tray sinks, not to its full length as day before yesterday, but to the mark of thirty-five or forty grams.
The experiment was tried a second time and succeeded in the same way.
Under pretext of going in search of a photographic camera M. Mathieu draws me into another room and shows me a long, very fine hair which fell into his hand after the experiment, at the moment when Eusapia was making a gesture as if she were going to shake his hand.
This hair is of a rich chestnut tint (the color of Eusapia's hair) and measures fourteen inches in length. I have preserved it.
This took place at quarter past nine. The sitting begins at 9:30 and finishes at 11:30. After the sitting, Eusapia asks me for another glass of water, and shows me a little hair between her fingers.
Just as she is going, at midnight, half laughingly, half seriously, she pulls a hair from the front part of her head and, taking the hand of my wife, puts this hair in it and closes the hand while looking her in the eye. She certainly noticed that we had perceived fraud.
III.
November 19.—Eusapia is a sly one. She is gifted with great sharpness of sight and has unusually sensitive ears. She is very intelligent and is a person of rare delicacy of feeling. She perceives and divines everything which concerns herself. Never reading, since she doesn't know how to read; never writing, since she doesn't know how to write; speaking little when here, since she rarely finds persons who understand and speak Italian, she remains always concentrated in herself and nothing turns her from permanent thought about her own personality. It would undoubtedly be impossible to discover a similar state of mind in the case of other persons; for we, as they, are generally occupied with a thousand things which scatter our attention over many different objects.
I arrive, at 11:30, at the rooms of Dr. Richet in order to escort Eusapia to Mme. Fourton's, where we are to take luncheon. She is cold and constrained. I pretend not to notice it, and keep talking with the doctor. She goes to put on her hat and we descend the stairs. At the foot of the staircase she says, "What did M. Richet say to you? What were you speaking of?" A moment after, returning in thought to our last séance, she says, "Were you completely satisfied?" In the carriage I take her hand and converse with her in a friendly way. "Everything is going very well," I say to her "but some experiments will still be necessary in order to leave no room for doubt." Then I speak to her of other things.
She becomes gradually sociable and her clouded brow seems to clear up. However, she evidently feels that in spite of my rather superficial amiability, I am not absolutely the same to her. During the luncheon she holds out her champagne glass to me and drinks my health. Mme. Fourton is convinced of Eusapia's genuineness, beyond all manner of doubt. During conversation, a little later, Eusapia says to her, "I am sure of you, I am sure of Mme. Blech, of M. Richet, of M. de Rochas; but I am not sure of M. Flammarion."