Chapter 2
The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of theannual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenthcentury, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doinghonor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in thewar for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors ofthe war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of music,were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths offlowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the ceremony being avery solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett hadfallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit ofmaking a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay.
I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return tothe city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of mybetrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an eveningpaper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which wouldprobably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. Iremember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and theobjurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted,which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers inparticular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and theremarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon theunprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to makethose gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were goingfrom bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what weshould come to soon. "The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett'ssaying, "is that the working classes all over the world seem to begoing crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm sureI should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the otherday where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took placewhich those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any place nowwhere society could be called stable except Greenland, Patagonia, andthe Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what they were about,"somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western civilization.They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They saw it wasnothing but dynamite in disguise."
After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade herthat it would be better to be married at once without waiting for thecompletion of the house, spending the time in travel till our home wasready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening, the mourningcostume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off to greatadvantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even now with mymind's eye just as she looked that night. When I took my leave shefollowed me into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. There wasno circumstance out of the common to distinguish this parting fromprevious occasions when we had bade each other good-by for a night or aday. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, or I am sure inhers, that this was more than an ordinary separation.
Ah, well!
The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for alover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I was a confirmedsufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise perfectly well had beencompletely fagged out that day, from having slept scarcely at all thetwo previous nights. Edith knew this and had insisted on sending mehome by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go to bed at once.
The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations ofthe family of which I was the only living representative in the directline. It was a large, ancient wooden mansion, very elegant in anold-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had long sincebecome undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement housesand manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think ofbringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I hadadvertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleepingpurposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man by thename of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few wants. One featureof the house I expected to miss greatly when I should leave it, andthis was the sleeping chamber which I had built under the foundations.I could not have slept in the city at all, with its never ceasingnightly noises, if I had been obliged to use an upstairs chamber. Butto this subterranean room no murmur from the upper world everpenetrated. When I had entered it and closed the door, I was surroundedby the silence of the tomb. In order to prevent the dampness of thesubsoil from penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid inhydraulic cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewiseprotected. In order that the room might serve also as a vault equallyproof against violence and flames, for the storage of valuables, I hadroofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer door wasof iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe, communicatingwith a wind-mill on the top of the house, insured the renewal of air.
It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able tocommand slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even there, twonights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness that I mindedlittle the loss of one night's rest. A second night, however, spent inmy reading chair instead of my bed, tired me out, and I never allowedmyself to go longer than that without slumber, from fear of nervousdisorder. From this statement it will be inferred that I had at mycommand some artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort,and so in fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself onthe approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called inDr. Pillsbury.
He was a doctor by courtesy only, what was called in those days an"irregular" or "quack" doctor. He called himself a "Professor of AnimalMagnetism." I had come across him in the course of some amateurinvestigations into the phenomena of animal magnetism. I don't think heknew anything about medicine, but he was certainly a remarkablemesmerist. It was for the purpose of being put to sleep by hismanipulations that I used to send for him when I found a third night ofsleeplessness impending. Let my nervous excitement or mentalpreoccupation be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after ashort time, to leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I wasaroused by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process forawaking the sleeper was much simpler than that for putting him tosleep, and for convenience I had made Dr Pillsbury teach Sawyer how todo it.
My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr. Pillsbury visitedme, or that he did so at all. Of course, when Edith became my wife Ishould have to tell her my secrets. I had not hitherto told her this,because there was unquestionably a slight risk in the mesmeric sleep,and I knew she would set her face against my practice. The risk, ofcourse, was that it might become too profound and pass into a trancebeyond the mesmerizer's power to break, ending in death. Repeatedexperiments had fully convinced me that the risk was next to nothing ifreasonable precautions were exercised, and of this I hoped, thoughdoubtingly, to convince Edith. I went directly home after leaving her,and at once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr. Pillsbury. Meanwhile I sought mysubterranean sleeping chamber, and exchanging my costume for acomfortable dressing-gown, sat down to read the letters by the eveningmail which Sawyer had laid on my reading table.
One of them was from the builder of my new house, and confirmed what Ihad inferred from the newspaper item. The new strikes, he said, hadpostponed indefinitely the completion of the contract, as neithermasters nor workmen would concede the point at issue without a longstruggle. Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck thathe might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for amoment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboringclasses of America. The return of Sawyer with the doctor interrupted mygloomy meditations.
It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure hisservices, as he was preparing to leave the city that very night. Thedoctor explained that since he had seen me last he had learned of afine professional opening in a distant city, and decided to take promptadvantage of it. On my asking, in some panic, what I was to do for someone to put me to sleep, he gave me the names of several mesmerizers inBoston who, he averred, had quite as great powers as he.
Somewhat relieved on this point, I instructed
Sawyer to rouse me atnine o'clock next morning, and, lying down on the bed in mydressing-gown, assumed a comfortable attitude, and surrendered myselfto the manipulations of the mesmerizer. Owing, perhaps, to my unusuallynervous state, I was slower than common in losing consciousness, but atlength a delicious drowsiness stole over me.
Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887 Page 2
