nts, and taking out his handkerchief,
agitated the air round the patient, who forthwith opened her eyes,
and stared about the room like a person awaking from sleep. No
traces of her indisposition, however, appeared to remain; and soon
shaking off all drowsiness, she was able to converse and laugh as
cheerfully as usual. On being asked what she remembered of her
sensations, she said that she had only a general idea of having
felt unwell and oppressed: that she had wished to open her eyes,
but could not, they felt as if lead were on them. Of having walked
to the table she had no recollection. Notwithstanding her having
suffered, she was desirous of being again mesmerised, and sat down
fearlessly to make a second trial. This time it was longer before
her eyes closed, and she never seemed to be reduced to more than a
state of half unconsciousness. When the mesmeriser asked her if she
slept, she answered in the tone of utter drowsiness, 'Je dors, et
je ne dors pas.' This lasted some time, when Mr K---- declared that
he was afraid of fatiguing his patient, (and probably his
spectators too,) and that he should disperse the mesmeric fluid. To
do so, however, seemed not so easy a matter as the first time when
he awoke the sleep-waker; with difficulty she appeared to rouse
herself; and even after having spoken a few words to us, and risen
from her chair, she suddenly relapsed into a state of torpor, and
fell prostrate to the ground, as if perfectly insensible. Mr K----,
entreating us not to be alarmed, raised her up--placed her in a
chair, and supported her head with his hand. It was then that I
distinctly recognised one of the asserted phenomena of mesmerism.
The head of Mademoiselle M---- followed every where, with unerring
certainty, the hand of her mesmeriser, and seemed irresistibly
attracted to it as iron to the loadstone. At length Mr K----
succeeded in thoroughly awaking his patient, who, on being
interrogated respecting her past sensations, said that she retained
a recollection of her state of semi-consciousness, during which she
much desired to have been able to sleep wholly; but of her having
fallen to the ground, or of what had passed subsequently, she
remembered nothing whatever. To other enquiries she replied, that
the drowsy sensation which firs