"Edward Bellamy. Lookimg Backward From 2000 to 1887" - читать интересную книгу автора

mansion, very elegant in an old-fashioned way within, but
situated in a quarter that had long since become undesirable for
residence, from its invasion by tenement houses and manufactories.
It was not a house to which I could think of bringing a
bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I had
advertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleeping
purposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man
by the name of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few
wants. One feature of the house I expected to miss greatly when
I should leave it, and this was the sleeping chamber which I had
built under the foundations. I could not have slept in the city at
all, with its never ceasing nightly noises, if I had been obliged to
use an upstairs chamber. But to this subterranean room no
murmur from the upper world ever penetrated. When I had entered
it and closed the door, I was surrounded by the silence of
the tomb. In order to prevent the dampness of the subsoil from
penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid in hydraulic
cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewise protected.
In order that the room might serve also as a vault equally proof
against violence and flames, for the storage of valuables, I had
roofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer door
was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe,
communicating with 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 to command slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even
there, two nights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness
that I minded little the loss of one night's rest. A second
night, however, spent in my reading chair instead of my bed,
tired me out, and I never allowed myself to go longer than that
without slumber, from fear of nervous disorder. From this
statement it will be inferred that I had at my command some
artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort, and so in
fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself on the
approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called
in Dr. 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 Animal Magnetism." I had come across him in the
course of some amateur investigations into the phenomena of
animal magnetism. I don't think he knew anything about
medicine, but he was certainly a remarkable mesmerist. It was
for the purpose of being put to sleep by his manipulations that I
used to send for him when I found a third night of sleeplessness
impending. Let my nervous excitement or mental preoccupation
be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after a short time, to
leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I was aroused
by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process for