One evening, at Varsovie (says M. Ochorowicz), Eusapia is sleeping in her chamber by the side of ours. I have not yet gone to sleep, when suddenly I hear her rising and moving about with bare feet in the drawing-room. Then she enters her chamber again and approaches our door. I make a sign to Mme. Ochorowicz, who has waked up, to be quiet and to observe carefully what is going to take place. A moment after, Eusapia gently opens the door, comes up to my wife's toilet-table, opens a drawer, shuts it, and goes away, carefully avoiding making any noise. I hastily dress myself and we enter her chamber. Eusapia is quietly sleeping. The light of our candle seems to wake her.
"What were you hunting for in our sleeping-room?"
Seeing the uselessness of further questions, we go to bed again, advising her to sleep quietly.
Next day I ask her the same question. She is very much astonished and even troubled (she blushes slightly).
"How should I dare," said she, "to enter your chamber during the night?"
This accusation is very painful to her, and she tries to persuade us by all kinds of insufficient reasons that we are wrong. She denies the whole thing, and I am obliged to admit that she does not remember getting up or _even having conversed with us_ (it was just another somnambulistic state).
I take a little table, and direct Eusapia to put her hands on it.
"Very well," says she, "John will tell you that I don't lie."
"Is it you, John, who came into our sleeping chamber last night?"
"Was it the chambermaid?" (I suggest this idea for the express purpose of testing John's veracity.)
"Yes," says the table.--"No, it is not true," exclaims Eusapia, seeing her hope banished--"Yes," replies the table, forcibly.
"_She was hunting matches; for she was frightened in her sleep, and didn't want to sleep without light._"
Sure enough, there were always matches in the drawer opened by Eusapia, except on this particular night. She therefore returned without getting any.
While listening to the explanation of the table, Eusapia shrugged her shoulders, but protested no longer.
Here, then, is a woman who, from time to time, has the power of passing from one psychical state to another. Is it just to accuse such a creature of premeditated fraud, without the slightest medical and psychological examination, without the least attempt at verification?...