"Before the mesmeric cure had been commenced I went with my friend to the hospital, and saw the patient. I found the girl in a lofty, well-lighted room, fitted up in the most careful manner with all imaginable comforts and conveniences. She was of very delicate build for her station in life, and her refined-looking face was almost to be called beautiful, had it not been for the dull, vacant eyes, the deadly pallor, the colourless lips. Probably her malady had impaired, for the time, her mental powers, but she seemed to be very limited in intelligence, appeared to have a good deal of difficulty in understanding questions put to her, and answered them in the broad, abominable, unintelligible jargon which the country people speak in her part of the world. The director had selected as her mesmerizer a young, robust medical student whose face expressed ingenuousness and kindliness, and to whom he had ascertained that the girl had no dislike. The process began. There was no question in this case of visits by the curious, astonishing feats, or the like. Besides the mesmerizer, no one was present except the director (who watched the process with the minutest attention, and carefully observed the most trifling incidents) and me. At first the girl seemed but very slightly susceptible, but ere long she progressed rapidly from grade to grade, until in three weeks' time she reached the stage of true clairvoyance. Let me pass over the various wonderful phenomena which presented themselves in her several stages. It is sufficient if I assure you that here, where there was no possibility whatever of the smallest deception, I was convinced to the depths of my soul of the real occurrence of that state which mesmerists describe as the highest form of clairvoyance. In this stage, as Kluge says, the union with the mesmerizer is so absolute and complete that the subject not only knows instantly when the mesmerizer's thoughts are withdrawn from him (or her), but reads the thoughts which are in the mesmerizer's mind with the utmost minuteness. On the other hand, the clairvoyant is completely under the control of the mesmerizer's will, and can only think, speak, and act by means of, and through, the mesmerizer's psychical principle. This is exactly the condition in which this peasant girl was.
"I am unwilling to weary you with all that happened as between the mesmerizer and patient in this condition; I shall merely mention one circumstance--to my mind the most convincing of all. While she was in this condition, the girl spoke the pure, educated dialect of her mesmerizer, and in her answers to his questions--often given with a most charming smile--she expressed herself in the choice and refined language of a person of intelligence and education; in fact, exactly as her mesmerizer was in the habit of expressing himself; and as she did so, her lips and cheeks bloomed into rosy colours, and her features and expression were ennobled in the most striking manner.
"I could not but be amazed. But this complete absence of individual will in the patient, this absolute surrender of her personality, this objectionable dependence upon the spiritual principle of another--this existence, in fact, conditioned solely by another's spiritual principle--filled me with horror and awe. Nay, I could not but feel the deepest and most heartrending pity for the poor thing, even after I was obliged to see and admit that the mesmerism was doing the patient a most wonderful amount of good, so that she bloomed forth into the finest and most robust health, and thanked her mesmerizer, the director--and even me--for all the benefit she had derived, saying all this in a broader and more unintelligible jargon than ever. The director seemed to observe my feeling, and to share it. We never came to any explanation about it; probably for the best of reasons. Never since then have I been able to persuade myself to witness any more mesmeric cures. I had no wish to see any experiments besides the one in question, which was so perfect in all its conditions as to remove all doubts of the wondrous power of mesmerism. At the same time, it had brought me to the brink of an abyss into which it was impossible to peer without profound alarm.
"From all which it results that I am entirely of Lothair's opinion."
"And," said Ottmar, "as I add that I am entirely of yours, it is clear that we are all of one mind on this mysterious subject. No doubt any clever doctor who is an advocate for mesmerism would refute all our arguments in a moment, and soundly rebuke us for setting our crude laymen's opinions up in opposition to convictions resulting from careful experiments and extensive experience. Do not let us forget, neither, that we ought not to be altogether unfavourably disposed towards mesmerism, since, in our Serapiontic essays it may frequently find its application as a most efficient lever for bringing little-understood spiritual powers into play. Even you, Lothair, have made use of this lever not seldom. In your very 'Nutcracker,' that most edifying story, Marie is sometimes a little 'sonnambule.' But, ah! how far we have wandered away from the subject of Vincent!"
"The transition was easy enough," said Lothair. "The path was traced all ready. If Vincent joins our Brotherhood, there is sure to be much dabbling in mysteries, for his head is full of them. However, Cyprian here has not been attending to what we have been saying for several minutes past; he has been turning over the leaves of a manuscript which he took from his pocket. He ought now to have an opportunity of disburdening his mind."
"The truth is," said Cyprian, "that your discussion on mesmerism seemed, to me, tedious and wearisome; and, if you like, I will read you a Serapiontic tale which was suggested to me by Wagenseil's 'Chronicles of Nürnberg.' Remember, that my object was not to write a critical, antiquarian treatise on the celebrated Contest on the Wartburg; I have merely, according to my wont, related the circumstances just as they arose before my mental vision."
He read:--
"['THE SINGERS' CONTEST.]
"'At the season when spring and winter are bidding each other farewell--on the night of the Equinox--a reader sat in a lonely chamber with Johann Christoph Wagenseil's work on the glorious craft of the Master Singers open before him. The storm, raging and roaring without, was clearing up the fields, dashing the heavy rain-drops against the windows, and whistling and howling the winter's wild adieu through the chimneys of the houses; whilst the beams of the full moon were dancing and playing like pallid spectres up and down on the wall. But the reader took no note of all this. He closed the book, and gazed, deep in thought, into the fire which was crackling on the hearth, given over wholly to contemplation of the magic forms of long-past times, which his book had evoked for him. It was as if some invisible being laid down veil after veil upon his head, so that the objects around him floated far away into thicker and thicker mists. The raging of the storm and the crackling of the fire turned to gentle, harmonious murmuring whispers, and a voice within him said,