"Easily."

"It is not possible."

Without replying, he took a book from the library, and turning over the
leaves, he read: "Is it possible to make a sleeping person, without
awaking him, pass from the natural to the hypnotic sleep? The thing is
possible, at least with certain subjects."

Then handing her the book:

"You see that to put you to sleep artificially I need only the
opportunity of finding you sleeping naturally. It is very simple."

"That would be odious."

"Those are merely words."

He threw her into such a state of terror that she kept awake all night,
and as he would not sleep for fear of talking, he felt that she exerted
every faculty to keep awake. But had he not gone too far? And by this
threat would he not drive her to some desperate act? If she should
escape, if she deserted him--what would become of him without her? Was
she not his whole life? But he reassured himself by saying that she
loved him too much ever to consent to a separation. Without doubt, she
herself would come to think as he wished her to think.

And yet when he returned home in the evening she told him that her mother
was not well, and begged him to examine her. This examination proved
that Madame Cormier was in her usual health; but she complained that her