In Bohemia with Du Maurier | Page 9

this instance he had succeeded in
mesmerising a lad, but had found it impossible to recall him to his
normal condition. So, securing him by a leather strap fastened round
his waist, he led him through the streets of Paris to my rooms. There we
both tried our powers upon him, the result being very unsatisfactory.
The youth, feeling himself freed from one operator and not subjected
by the other, refused allegiance to either, and, being of a pugnacious
temperament, he squared up and commenced striking out at both of us.
It was not without considerable difficulty that I re-mesmerised him
completely, and then, having previously prepared his mind to account
naturally for his presence in my rooms, I succeeded in awakening him,
and all ended happily. The inquirer was duly grateful, the youth went
home strapless and none the worse for the adventure, and I proceeded
to do some very sound sleeping on my own account.

I would say more of my séances and all the recollections they evoke,
were I not impatient to get back to du Maurier and to Malines. Once on
the experiences of those days, I have much to relate--pros and cons, if
you please, for that subtle magnetic fluid, which, without physical
contact, one human being can transmit to another, is a ticklish one to
handle. I cannot pack my pen, though, and take train of thought to the
Belgian city without mentioning my friend Allongé, the well-known
French artist, then a fellow-student of mine at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
A chance contact of our knees as we sat closely packed with some sixty
other students put me on the track of a new subject, perhaps the most
interesting one it was ever my good fortune to come across. But of him
another time.
Using the privilege of a mesmerist, I elect to will the reader--that is, if
natural slumber has not ere this put him beyond my control--across the
frontier, into the back parlour of Mrs. L.'s tobacco store. There I am
operating on a boy--such a stupid little Flemish boy that no amount of
fluid could ever make him clever. How I came to treat him to passes I
don't remember; probably I used him as an object-lesson to amuse
Carry. All I recollect is that I gave him a key to hold, and made him
believe that it was red-hot and burnt his fingers, or that it was a piece of
pudding to be eaten presently, thereby making him howl and grin
alternately.
In the middle of our séance Carry is called away by a customer, one of
the swells of Malines much addicted to a poetical expression of his
admiration for the fair sex in general and for Carry in particular.
Greatly to our edification, she was pleased to improve the occasion by
leading him on, within our hearing, to make what is commonly called a
fool of himself. The pleasant incident is recorded in the accompanying
sketch.
But mesmerism meant more than incidental amusement or even
scientific experiment to us in those Antwerp and Malines days. When
one stands on the threshold of a world of mysteries one cannot but long
to bridge over the chasm that separates one from the gods, the fairies,
or the fiends. To be sure, we should have been glad if we could have
got "light, more light" thrown on our steps, but, failing that, we tried to
find our way as best we could in the mist. We loved that
never-attainable Will-o'-the-Wisp, "Truth," for its own dear Bohemian

sake; so, guided by Fancy and Fantasy, we made frequent inroads into
the boundless land where unknown forces pick up our poor dear little
conception of the Impossible, and use it as the starting-point of
never-to-be-exhausted possibilities.
[Illustration: A MESMERIC SÉANCE IN MRS. L.'S BACK
PARLOUR.]
Such a land was particularly well suited to the state of our
outward-bound minds and our excelsior appetites. It was on one or the
other of these excursions, I feel confident, that du Maurier was
inoculated with the germs that were eventually to develop into
Trilbyism and Svengalism. No wonder, then, if in more than one of his
letters and sketches the future delineator of those characters embodies
bold dreams and fancies, or if on one occasion he depicts himself, with
fixed gaze and hair erect, sitting bolt upright on my hospitable sofa,
thrilled and overawed by the midnight presence of the uncanny, which I
had evoked for his benefit.
"Yes, governor, it's all very well to ask a nervous fellow to Antwerp
and amuse him and make him ever so jolly and comfortable--But why,
when the bleak November wind sobs against the lattice and disturbs the
dead ashes in the grate, when everything is damned queer and dark, and