“You doctors,” he continued with that delicious air of superiority so often assumed by laymen when they are in good health, “put too much to the credit of diseased imagination.”
“No doubt; it’s a convenient shelf on which to put a difficulty. But go on.”
“The body is your province, yet you can’t explain why a cataleptic patient should hear a watch tick when it is placed against his foot.”
“Nor you; nor any one. But perhaps it may aid you to get rid of your rubbishing theories if I tell you that catalepsy, as you understand it, is a disease not known to us; in fact, it does not exist.”
He seemed crestfallen at hearing this. “But what do you want to prove?” I asked. “What have you yourself seen?”
“Nothing, I tell you. And I pray I may never see anything.”
After this he seemed inclined to shirk the subject, but I pinned him to it. I was really anxious to get at the true state of his mind. In answer to the leading questions with which I plied him, Carriston revealed an amount of superstition which seemed utterly childish and out of place beside the intellectual faculties which he undoubtedly possessed. So much so, that at last I felt more inclined to laugh at than to argue with him.
Yet I was not altogether amused by his talk. His wild arguments and wilder beliefs made me fancy there must be a weak spot somewhere in his brain—even made me fear lest his end might be madness. The thought made me sad; for, with the exception of the eccentricities which I have mentioned, I reckoned Carriston the pleasantest friend I had ever made. His amiable nature, his good looks, and perfect breeding had endeared the young man to me; so much so, that I resolved, during the remainder of the time we should spend together, to do all I could toward talking the nonsense out of him.
My efforts were unavailing. I kept a sharp lookout upon him, and let him fall into no more mysterious reveries; but the curious idea that he possessed, or could possess, some gift above human nature, was too firmly rooted to be displaced. On all other subjects he argued fairly and was open to reason. On this one point he was immovable. When I could get him to notice my attacks at all, his answer was: