a child does, ab initio. In order to effect this, I would allow him to awake under the full power of the delusion that he belonged to a past period. He should seem to enter this present world as a visitant from that past to which he imagined himself to belong. Under my guidance he should relearn what he had forgotten. I hoped to restore him to his friends at last, either altogether free from the dominion of those strange hallucinations, or remembering them only as the reminiscences of an almost forgotten dream.
One part of the plan has given me much perplexity. Should I allow him to remain under the belief that I share his delusion? By so doing, I should certainly gain his confidence, but would render myself, at the same time, a sort of accomplice with his delusion, and strengthen its hold upon him. Should I not, rather, frankly state to him the history of his case, as it appears to me and his friends? Even if his excellent understanding does not at once enable him to throw off the domination of those peculiar ideas; yet we two may, by a sort of tacit agreement, continue to act and speak, when by ourselves, as if I acquiesced in his view of the case. What is your opinion?"
Utis ceased, leaving my mind in a state of complete bewilderment. In his narrative, the bona fides of which I did not for a moment doubt, the main facts of my personal history, though correct in outline, were as strangely altered as was my new name from that I had recognized as mine up to a few hours before.
My capacity for astonishment was almost exhausted. Though conscious of being as wide awake as ever in my
