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Many other experiments of the same kind, and with a similar result, were tried with blank cards; and it was then determined to try her with playing-cards. M. Berna had a pack of them on his table, and addressing M. Dubois aloud, he asked him to take one of them and place it at the occiput of the somnambule. M. Dubois asked him aloud whether he should take a court card.
Now at this the fairy burst into laughter again, and presently asked: "How old do you think me?" "About our own age," said Berna, after a glance at her and a moment's reflection. "Nonsense!" retorted the fairy, sharply. "These trees are hundreds of years old, yet I remember when they were mere twigs.
The Commissioners allowed M. Berna to continue the examination in his own way. After some fruitless efforts to get a more satisfactory answer from the somnambule, he invited M. Dubois to pass his card before her head, close against the bandage covering her eyes. This having been done, the somnambule said she could see better.
"I am from Pirna" he pronounced it "Berna," speaking in a round Saxon dialect "and I tell you, it's no joke for fellows like me in this damned New York. At first I earned my living as a professional strong man. Then my boss failed, and I had to give up my outfit, my iron bars and my weights and everything I needed for my job. I can carry twelve hundred pounds on my stomach."
She replied that she felt nothing; neither did her countenance express any pain. The Commissioners, somewhat surprised at this, repeated their question, and inquired whether she was absolutely insensible. Being thus pressed, she acknowledged that she felt a little pain. These preliminaries having been completed, M. Berna made her sit close by him.
He looked steadfastly at her, but made no movements or passes whatever. After the lapse of about two minutes she fell back asleep, and M. Berna told the Commissioners that she was now in the state of magnetic somnambulism. He then arose, and again looking steadfastly at her from a short distance, declared, after another minute, that she was struck with general insensibility.
It should be remembered that M. Berna had requested M. Dubois aloud to take a card and write upon it, and that the patient must have heard it, as it was said in her presence. She was next asked if she could distinguish what there was on this card. She replied "Yes; there was writing on it." "Is it small or large, this writing?" inquired the magnetiser. "Pretty large," replied she.
M. Berna was soon convinced that she had not studied her part well, or was not clever enough to reflect any honour upon the science, and he therefore dismissed her. Her place was filled by a woman, aged about thirty, also of very delicate health; and the following conclusive experiments were tried upon her: The patient was thrown into the somnambulic state, and her eyes covered with a bandage.
M. Berna offered eight proofs of Animal Magnetism, which he would elicit in her case, and which he classed as follow: He would throw her into the state of somnambulism. He would render her quite insensible to bodily pain. He would restore her to sensibility by his mere will, without any visible or audible manifestation of it. His mental order should deprive her of motion.
"Nor would you have seen me to-day, had I not known you were kind and pure-hearted, or had I not resolved to ask you to exercise your powers upon me." "I must say," remarked Helda, boldly, "that you are foolish to wish to become anything different from what you are." "For you are very beautiful NOW," added Berna, admiringly.
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