My Library

Who can say? He lay down to get a couple of hours' sleep before dressing for dinner, dreamt, to his great disgust, that he had broken a tooth, but when, pulling it out, it turned to molten toffee, he realized that he was dreaming, and forced himself awake. (We shall meet that process later in Oliver Fox's methods.) His narrative continues: "But I awoke with a start. Because I had stretched out my hand to press the switch of the lamp on the bookshelf over my bed, and instead found myself grasping the void, and myself suspended precariously in mid-air, perhaps on a level with the bookcase. The room, except for the glow of the electric stove, was in darkness, but all around me was a milky pellucid light. I was that moment fully awake and so fully conscious that I could not doubt my senses. Astonished as I have never been before, amazed to the point of proud exhilaration, I said to myself 'Fancy that I Now would you have believed it!... And this is not a dream.' It was just like the very things I did not and could not have believed; and here it was. It seemed to me almost ludicrous.... I felt as if I were being suspended by a steel arm which held me rigid — me, in comparison, weighing the weight of a feather. Then, with astonishing swiftness, as if the steel force which held me rigid was electrified to a bout of energy by the sudden apprehension which succeeded my first moment of delighted astonishment, I was seized, pushed out horizontally, placed on my feet, and thrust forward with the gentle-firm hand of the monitor: 'There you are, my good man, now you can proceed on your own.' I stood there, the same living being, but rather less stable, as if I were defying gravity.
"I was awed and not a little frightened that I was in the body of my Resurrection. So that's what it is like? How utterly unforeseen! I staggered uncertainly, and full of fear, to the door. I felt the handle, but to my discomfiture I could not turn it; there was no grip in my hand; it seemed unreal.