The eighteenth pipe brought back the state of ecstasy which, for awhile, seemed to have left the patient. Every now and then he opened his eyes wide and seemed to follow some flying image.
With the twentieth pipe these symptoms merely increased, and when Murowski asked him how he felt he replied:
“Oh! I feel so happy; I never felt anything like it before.”
The doctor made the following note: Sclerotica much inflamed, pulse 70, respiration 25, temperature 100·04, satyriasis setting in. Upon being asked if he wanted anything, he replied:
“I don’t want anything—nothing at all—leave me alone. The pipe! give me the pipe! that Edward, that Edward! does he want the thing to fail altogether?”
The next instant he exclaimed: “Oh! if this be Mohammed’s paradise, let me go on smoking for ever! The pipe! the pipe!”
“Is it not high time,” asked van Nerekool anxiously, “to put a stop to this? The poor fellow will, I fear, do himself some serious mischief.”
“No, no, no,” cried the Pole. “Don’t be alarmed, I answer for him, there is not the slightest danger. His pulse is perfectly regular, the breathing has quickened somewhat; but there is only a rise of ·3 in the temperature. It would be a pity not to go on now, this experiment is most important to science.”
After the twenty-first pipe, Grenits seemed to lose all control over himself. He lay still, almost motionless; but every word he uttered, every look and every gesture betrayed what was passing within. This continued until the twenty-fourth pipe had been smoked. Murowski then again asked him how he felt, and he answered pretty quietly:
“Oh! I am at peace, at rest. Delightful! delightful!”