uce it among his
fellow-creatures, even though it were to shorten their lives, would
render a greater service to humanity than the man who found the means
of securing to them eternal salvation and eternal youth."

The doctor burst out laughing, and, while he chewed his cigar, he
said:

"Yes, but 'tis not so easy as that to discover it. Men have, however
crudely, been seeking for and working for the object you refer to
since the beginning of the world. The men who came first reached
perfection at once in this way. We are hardly equal to them."

One of the three idlers murmured:

"'Tis a pity!"

Then, after a minute's pause, he added:

"If we could only sleep, sleep well without feeling hot or cold, sleep
with that perfect unconsciousness we experience on nights when we are
thoroughly fatigued, sleep without dreams."

"Why without dreams?" asked the guest sitting next to him.

The other replied:

"Because dreams are not always pleasant, and they are always
fantastic, improbable, disconnected, and because when we are asleep we
cannot have the sort of dreams we like. We require to be awake when we
dream."

"And what's to prevent you from being so?" asked the writer.

The doctor flung away the end of his cigar.

"My dear fellow, in order to dream when you are awake you need great
power and great exercise of will, and when you try to do it, great
weariness is the result. Now, real dreaming, that journey of our
thoughts through delightful visions, is assuredly the sweetest
experience in the world; but it must come naturally, it must not be
provoked in a painful manner, and must be accompanied by absolute
bodily comfort. This power of dreaming I can give you provided you
promise that you will not abuse it."

The writer shrugged his shoulders:

"Ah! yes, I know--haschich, opium, green tea--artificial paradises. I
have read Baudelaire, and I even tasted the famous drug, which made me
very sick."

But the doctor, without stirring from his seat, said:

"No: ether, nothing but ether, and I would suggest that you literary
men ought to use it sometimes."

The three rich men drew closer to the doctor.

One of them said:

"Explain to us the effects of it."

And the doctor replied:

"Let us put aside big words, shall we not? I am not talking of
medicine or morality; I am talking of pleasure. You give yourselves up
every day to excesses which consume your lives. I want to indicate to
you a new sensation, only