“There’ll be little need for nurses when the war is over. No, I see nothing in front of me. A long, vast stretch of nothing.” She turned and looked around the room, and as she looked around it I looked too, following her gaze across the bookshelves and the paintings and the certificates on the walls. “Whereas,” she continued, “if I were to spend the rest of my days in your body, even if there were fewer days to live, they’d be better days. I’d be surrounded by books and luxuries. I’d be educated and never want for anything. I’d heal people and move in high circles. If ever I was bored I would simply go back through your memories, and relive for myself one of your many adventures. I imagine there are enough memories in you to last me a lifetime. And of course there is the not inconsiderable advantage that I would be a man.” She turned to me, took my hands in hers, and gave me an imploring look. “What do you say, Professor Balthazar? Please, won’t you set me free?”

I looked into her dark sparkling eyes and wondered if I should warn her about Artopoulos, about what had happened to Édmonde and Lucien, about the Baudelaire Society and Charles’s manuscript. If I did so, would she change her mind? Would she decide that her own body, her own life, were not so insufferable after all? But as I wondered these thoughts, I felt that familiar flicker of pleasure as the first stirrings of the crossing began, and I decided that she already knew everything she needed to know.

Go here.

Madeleine Blanc

Born 1898

First crossing 1917

BALTHAZAR SAT IN his chair very close to me, staring vacantly at nothing in particular. For a moment, I thought I’d made a blind crossing. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

Balthazar shook his head a little as if recovering from a blow. “Fine, I think.”

“No regrets?” I asked. “No second thoughts? Once I walk out that door, there’ll be no turning back.” For the sake of my own conscience, I needed to make one last gesture of goodwill before making my escape forever.

“No,” he replied, “you have granted me my wish. I’m grateful to you.”

To be certain he was fully lucid, I questioned him about his current name, his former name, where we were, the day of the week, the name of the President of the Republic—he remembered everything. “You’re not in a fugue state, which is a good sign,” I said. “But I should warn you: you are going to need all your wits about you. This very day, you will face a tribunal inquiring into your clinical methods.” As I spoke, I saw that memories of the matter came to him, and he nodded with recognition. “They will ask you to hypnotize a man called Aristide Artopoulos. I urge you to reflect a moment upon the history of your acquaintance with him.” Balthazar nodded as memories of Artopoulos rushed to the surface of his mind. “The critical thing is that you must not look him in the eye, or he will cross with you. And, believe me, you don’t want that.”