From this huddled room the bather steps into one beyond summer heat, dark and dripping with moisture, with a plunge bath in the centre. Passing through it, one finds next what seems like a wide marble staircase running the length of each side almost to the low roof, with gratings let in the face of the steps. The bather ascends one of these stony couches, and lies down with head on the stony pillow carved every six feet or so for the purpose. Wrapped in a sheet, already wet with moisture since leaving the dressing-room, a large sponge dipped in cold water at the back of one’s head, and another at the mouth and nose, one feels as if there were perspiration enough already for sanitary purposes; but when, with a hiss and a roar, the steam is let on through the gratings, one finds the difference. Rolling vapor fills the room, so dense that every outline is shut out as completely as in the darkest night. The heat rises to suffocation, the new bather thinks, and rushes again and again to the douche against the wall to wet her throbbing head, or into the next room, which seems cool as a waterfall, for a gasp of air that she can breathe. Old and experienced bathers lie still, declaring that, with head down and the wet sponge pressed to the nose, they breathe without difficulty. What was perspiration is literally a flowing away in rills and sheets of water that drip from the bather’s reeking sides. One seems to have turned to jelly, and submits helplessly to the scrubbing-brush and final shower-bath of water at eighty degrees, which causes a shiver by contrast. The outer room is refreshing in its coolness, and one wraps a dry sheet and blanket round one and lies down on the India-rubber cloth in dreamy indifference to all the rest of the world. What follows is Elysium. Every ache and pain, every care, is dispelled in a trance of rest. All the descriptions by Eastern travelers of the luxury of the bath are found true in this last stage of enjoyment. One is rejuvenated, entranced, and sinks into a light sleep, whose approach seems a prelude to paradise. The eyes close to keep out the sordid surroundings of the bathing-room; and every idea, or rather sensation--for the brain is too passive to think--is bliss. This is the _dolce far niente_ Italians aspire to--the sum of all delight possible to sensation. Passion and rapture have no charms that equal it. It is the death and extinction of all pain. Quite as beautiful is the return to consciousness, sense after sense regaining double brightness as softly and steadily as the unfolding of a flower. After a reluctant waking and going out into the sunlight again one seems to have found a new self. The feather-like lightness and elasticity of every limb amount almost to delirium, they are so different from one’s usual dullness. It is freedom that feels like flying. If this is simply health, in our common state we must be farther toward extinction than we imagine.