Summary

In Chapter 39, Dirk and Felix visited Doktor Mesmer, who explained his hypnosis methods. In Chapter 40, Dirk received a message that Herr Pfeiffer was ill and had to delay his trip home. Nastaran believed her husband had taken a lover, the thought of which made her distraught. Dirk brought Nastaran to Doktor Mesmer. The doctor believed that a channel of Nastaran’s memory was blocked. Mesmer struck part of his standing clock, which released a musical sound. The room began to smell like roses, as Dirk fell under a trance; he saw a forest around him. In Chapter 41, Mesmer repeated what Nastaran said in her trance: that she was trying to walk backward in her sleep to reach a place from her past where she had to leave her child. Someone had told Nastaran that she would find the key to her life in...