The name was suggested to him because he had
fallen ill in a city of the South where a woman called Beatrice
once lived and was loved by a great poet. That was the train of
self-suggestion in his delirium. Mind, do you understand?"
"He suggested to himself the name in his illness."
"In the same way that he suggested to himself the existence of the woman
whom he afterwards believed he loved?"
"In exactly the same way."
"It was all a curious and very interesting case of auto-hypnotic
suggestion. It made him very mad. He is now cured of it. Do you see that
he is cured?"
The sleeper gave no answer. The stiffened limbs did not move, indeed,
nor did the glazed eyes reflect the starlight. But he gave no answer.
The lips did not even attempt to form words. Had Unorna been less
carried away by the excitement in her own thoughts, or less absorbed in
the fierce concentration of her will upon its passive subject, she would
have noticed the silence and would have gone back again over the old
ground. As it was, she did not pause.
"You understand therefore, my Mind, that this Beatrice was entirely the
creature of the man's imagination. Beatrice does not exist, because she
never existed. Beatrice never had any real being. Do you understand?"
This time she waited for an answer, but none came.
"There never was any Beatrice," she repeated firmly, laying her hand
upon the unconscious head and bending down to gaze into the sightless
eyes.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155