But at last it had come—this inspiration. Did the doctrine of environment mean anything at all? Assuredly! Here was the key to the situation, and that is why arrangements had been effected by him to sleep alone in the cell, the very bed, and bedclothes of a man hanged that afternoon. That is why he awaited midnight in the Tombs—midnight in “Murderers’ Row.”
He had been careful to attend the execution and to view the remains so as to recognize the astral body when it should appear later, for was it not absolutely certain that the spirit, consciousness—call it what you will—of the departed man would return searching for its body? And where to if not this little space the earthly part had occupied so long and where every emotion had been known? Surely this cell would be the first place to attract the released spirit. Here for the deceased had been the dreamings of past days, the horror of the realized present, the torture of the anticipated future. Long days and longer nights in which the inmate had burned with the fever of hope or shivered with the chill of despair. In this room his mind had been the home of every emotion. What hate, revenge, fear had these walls seen glower from his eyes! What prayers had been heard in weaker moments, confessions perhaps solitude had wrung from his lips! Here had been all passions. Here he had heard the cold voice of the sheriff reading the death warrant. Success was assured. There could be no doubt about it; and it had remained for this adventurer to discover the untrodden path. He was there to note and describe everything. Sublime discovery, method extraordinary, most perfect system of wresting the unknowable from the superhuman! He felt a veritable Columbus of daring. And the envy of his fellow-investigators in turn when he should give his contribution to science and should read his paper! Why, this very experience would be quoted in books! It nerved him to attempt anything.
He took out a note-book and began to prepare the opening of his prospective address. The night keeper on the last round accepted his cigars and said good night. It grew quieter. The singers were hoarse, the hospital patient quiet or drugged into quietness, and the inhabitant of the “cooler” had expressed all his opinions of every one and subsided. The time had come to prepare for the reception of the released spirit. It was his own body the experimenter proposed to submit as the material part to which the murderer’s consciousness might find access. He must undress. He did so, and contemplated the soiled sheets; but it was in the interests of science, and he did not hesitate. And now to compose his mind, to cultivate an abstracted calm, to wait and observe. Such was the success of this attempt that he slept.