“But what should induce Catherine to do this?”
“Michel was her husband, and she had forsaken him to come to Odessa and marry again. One night, fifteen years ago, she saw Michel, who had come to seek her. She slipped hastily into her house, and Michel, who thought she had not seen him, lay down at her door to watch; but he fell asleep, and then Luck burnt out his eyes, and carried him to a distance.”
“And is it Michel who has told you this?”
“Yes: he came, very pale, and covered with blood; and he took me by the hand and showed me all this with his fingers.”
Upon this, Luck and Catherine were arrested; and it was ascertained that she had actually been married to Michel in the year 1819, at Kherson. They at first denied the accusation, but Powleska insisted, and they subsequently confessed the crime. When they communicated the circumstances of the confession to Powleska, she said, “I was told it last night.”
This affair naturally excited great interest, and people all round the neighborhood hastened into the city to learn the sentence.
CHAPTER VI.
DOUBLE-DREAMING AND TRANCE.
Among the phenomena of the dream-life which we have to consider, that of double-dreaming forms a very curious department. A somewhat natural introduction to this subject may be found in the cases above-recorded, of Professor Herder and Mr. S——, of Edinburgh, who appear, in their sleep, to have received so lively an impression of those earnest wishes of their dying friends to see them, that they found themselves irresistibly impelled to obey the spiritual summons. These two cases occurred to men engaged in active daily life, and in normal physical conditions, on which account I particularly refer to them here, although many similar ones might be adduced.