I rejoined Thornduck in the study.
"Sarakoff is in a kind of trance," I observed. "What do you make of it?"
"Isn't it natural?" he asked. "What kind of a man was he? What motives did he work on? Just think what the killing of desire means. All those things that depended on worldly ambition, self-gratification, physical pleasure, conceit, lust, hatred, passion, egotism, selfishness, vanity, avarice, sensuality and so on, are undermined and rendered paralysed by the germ. What remains? Why, in most people, practically nothing remains."
"Even so," I said, "I don't see why Sarakoff should go into a trance."
"He's gone into a trance simply because there's not enough left in him to constitute an individuality. The germ has taken the inside clean out of him. He's just an immortal shell now."
"Then do you think——?"
I stared at him wonderingly.
"I think that the germ will send most of the world to sleep."
He got up and walked to the window. The clear noonday light fell on his thin sensitive face and accentuated the pallor of his skin.
"All those who are bound on the wheel of desire will fall asleep," he murmured. A smile flickered on his lips and he turned and looked at me.