consciousness and the most I can say of it all is that the experience was that of one going to sleep at one end of his journey and waking up at his destination. 13

13

CHAPTER III

AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WITH IRENE

The next time I met my nurse was by chance. I saw her at the public library near Dr. Newell’s house, where I often went to sit and think the first few days after my rebirth into the world. She had left the Newell residence on the night of the day she had put me in the violet room, being called to some special duty elsewhere. I approached her with a kindly salutation which she reciprocated in a manner indicating that she was pleased to meet me. In the meantime I had found out her name—Irene Davis—and had also found out that an elective course in a training school for scientific nursing was according to the custom of the times, which regarded such a course as indispensable to the education of a liberally trained young woman.

The

Our conversation drifted along as to my personal comforts until I told her that I had heard 14 that I was to be called upon to deliver a written account of my recollections of the past, especially in reference to the Negro question.

14

“I suppose Dr. Newell is at the bottom of that,” she remarked, “he is so intensely interested in the Negro question that he would be the first one to make the suggestion. I really believe that he refused to allow you to be taken to the City Hospital when you were found on his lawn because he almost divined that you might have a message from another age for him on that subject. The city authorities yielded to his wishes and assigned me to assist in caring for you at his residence, instead of at the hospital.

“I found very little to do, however, but would like to recall to you the beneficial effects of the violet room, which I see had the desired results. It always does, and many people who can afford it, especially physicians, are now installing these rooms in their houses for the benefit of neurotic patients, on whom the violet rays of electricity, coupled with neurium, a newly discovered chemical preparation, similar to radium, has a most remarkable effect.”

I remarked that I had taken no medicine and really felt better than ever in either of my lives. 15 “Well,” said she, laughing, “I trust you may be able to recall all about the past and give a 

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