My entire therapeutic method consisted in making a blind crossing with a patient—that is, a crossing of which the patient would afterward have no recollection, other than a faint, residual impression of psychic relief or alleviation. I had performed it hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times, and never had a patient ever expressed the slightest hint of awareness of what had just happened. But on this occasion, something went wrong. Perhaps it was inevitable that, sooner or later, I’d make a mistake. Perhaps I was run down, or distracted by my reunion with Artopoulos. Perhaps it was subconsciously intended, or provoked by something about Madeleine herself. Whatever the case, it was my intention, as always, that after the return crossing she should have no recollection of what had occurred. But as soon as the initial crossing was complete, I felt something was amiss. I must have overlooked something, or been careless somehow in my method. All the same, I proceeded in my exploration of the patient’s body and mind when she, in my own body sitting in the chair opposite me, spoke.

“Please,” she said, in my own voice, “I don’t want to go back.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t want to go back,” she repeated with more emphasis.

“Go back where?”

“To my body. To Madeleine. Don’t make me. Please.”

“You want to stay in that old man’s body?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

I watched in horror as Madeleine-in-Balthazar rose from the chair and leaned over me, whispering the following words very slowly: “You cannot make me go back to that body.”

“I would remind you that you are under hypnosis, which you entered into voluntarily. When I command it, you will look again into my eyes and you will return to the body that is rightfully yours.”

Balthazar paused, as if considering mutiny, but after a long moment he sat back in his chair and we began the return crossing. I was more determined than ever to leave in Madeleine not a trace of a memory of what had just occurred, but naturally I was also perturbed. My confidence in my abilities was shaken. The technique of crossing is based on a kind of mental purity. Obstructions, distractions, hindrances can tilt the entire process off-kilter. When the return crossing was complete, Madeleine didn’t say anything untoward, but there was something about her expression that suggested her state of mind was not how it was supposed to be. She beheld me with an expression somewhere between wonder and suspicion, markedly different from that depressed countenance that had characterized her demeanor before the crossing.

“What just happened?” she asked finally.

“You were under hypnosis.”

“How long did it last?”

“A little under thirty minutes, as we discussed.”

“And what happened in that time?”

“You were in a state of deep relaxation the entire time.”