While he was speaking he had gone into the other room, and was bending the lever down once more; I flew at his throat. But even before I reached him my motive changed; seizing a Spanish knife that was on the table, I sought to plunge it in my breast. But, with a quick stroke of the elbow, as if he had been prepared for the attempt, he dashed the knife from my hand to the floor, and I sank in despair back into his arm-chair. “Yes-s,” said he, with a sort of hiss of content like a long-drawn sigh of relief. “Yes-s-s--I haf put my mechanik quickly through the Murder-motif without binding you again, after I had put it back to sleep.” “What do you mean?” I said, languidly. How could I ever hope to win Althea away from this man’s wiles? “When man’s consciousness awakes from the sleep of the world, its first motive is Murder,” said he; “you remember the Hebrew myth of Cain?” and he laughed silently. “Its next is Suicide; its third, Despair. This time I have put my mechanik quickly through the Murder movement, so your wish to kill me was just now but momentary.” There was an evil gleam in his eye as he said this. “I leafe a dagger on the table, because if I left a pistol the subject would fire it, and that makes noise. Then at the motion of Suicide you tried to kill yourself: the suicide is one grade higher than the murderer. And now, you are in Despair.” He bent the lever further down and touched a small glass rod. “And now, I will gife to you--I alone--all the emotions of which humanity is capable.” How much time followed, I know not; nor whether it was not all a dream, only that a dream can hardly be more vivid--as this was--than my life itself. First, a nightmare came of evil passions; after murder and suicide and despair came revenge, envy, hatred, greed of money, greed of power, lust. I say “came,” for each one came on me with all the force the worst of men can feel. Had I been free, in some other place, I should inexorably have committed the crimes these evil passions breed, and there was always some pretext of a cause. Now it was revenge on Materialismus himself for his winning of Althea Hardy; now it was envy of his powers, or greed of his possessions; and then my roving eye fell on that strange picture of his I mentioned before; the face of the woman now seemed to be Althea’s. In a glance all the poetry, all the sympathy of my mind or soul that I thought bound me to her had vanished, and in their place I only knew desire. The doctor’s leer seemed to read my thoughts; he let the lever stay long at this speed, and then he put it back again to that strange rhythm of Sleep. “So--I must rest you a little between times,” he said. “Is my fine poet convinced?” But I was silent, and he turned another wheel. “All these are only evil passions,” said I, “there may well be something physical in them.” “Poh--I can gife you just so well the others,” he sneered. “I tell you why I do not gife you all at once----”