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vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 174 |
VISION OF A PAST TRAGEDY.
[The following is a translation of a narrative copied into Licht mehr Licht of 1st October, from a German paper—Die Tafelrunde—published at Washington. It bears some marks of a genuine record, and is at least, from the peculiarity of the fact alleged, not likely to be a mere invention, though it may be difficult to verify, even with the not very obscure indication of personalities, &c., given in it. I have thought it worth transcribing chiefly for this reason, that it belongs to a class of similar phenomena in which there is an automatic representation of past events, as if they were being acted over again in the memory or imagination of Nature (or the world-consciousness) in the places of their occurrence, and at the times agreeing. The explanation which Spiritualists may be disposed hastily to adopt, that the Spirit of the suicide himself purposely re-enacted the horrid drama for the information of the visitor to his room, will hardly bear examination, notwithstanding the whispered words which followed. These, indeed, may well have been impressed upon her by the unhappy earth-bound wretch, rooted to the scene of his catastrophe. But the whole probably exact representation, with its—for the supposed purpose—unnecessary preliminaries and details; the very fact that, as he could communicate by words, the story might have been thus told; but, above all, the circumstance that the phenomenon belongs to a class of cases in many of which such explanation is quite inadmissible, must direct us to another law of their recurrence. The work of indexing their records, now being carried on by the Literary Committee of the Society for Psychical Research (to be followed by a proper classification of phenomena, in which their several peculiarities will for the first time appear in orderly arrangement), will, it may be expected, lead to a more scientific appreciation of facts not as yet sufficiently discriminated.—C.C.M.]
Although all names and dates of the following narrative could be given exactly, it may suffice to give initials and to leave other particulars of date, place, &c., indeterminate, seeing that the parties are still living.
Between 1850 and 1860, on a warm night in June, there came to Paris from London, the Russian Prince and Princess M., and in their train a young German waiting woman of the Princess, a native of Wurtemberg. They arrived about eleven in the evening, at the Hotel B., nearly in the middle of the street. Paris was at that time, as in 1867, full of foreigners, and even the distinguished Russian guests had to be accommodated on the second floor of the hotel. Their courier had to seek shelter elsewhere for the first night, but at the request of the Princess room was to be found for her maid in the hotel. The latter unpacked the boxes and trunks and left her mistress in bed about one o’clock. A waiter informed her that a room had been found for her, and to her astonishment shewed her into a sumptuous front apartment. On her expressing surprise that this fine room had not been given to the Princess instead of herself, the waiter replied that it had only become vacant an hour before, the Prince and Princess being then already settled in their rooms. Having closed[2] and locked the doors, she said her prayers, went to bed, and put out the light.
She shall now continue the narrative in the first person. It is not long ago since I had it from her, now a woman of forty-two, and she has often had to relate it to English, Prussians, and Russians. Her own faithfully reported words will be most impressive.
I know not whether I fell asleep and dreamed, or was awake and saw with my bodily eyes; I believed and still believe the latter. Be that as it may, suddenly the door leading from the corridor into my room, opened, and a gentleman entered with a candle in his hand. He was a French marine officer in dark blue uniform, with blouse, large angular collar, &c. The door seemed to close behind him of itself. At once I became as it were paralysed by fright, and could neither move nor cry out; my whole being concentrated in sight and hearing; evidently I was in a wholly abnormal condition. The gentleman put down the candle on a small table by my bed. My clothes lay on an arm-chair at the foot of the bed. Where they fell I could not see, but he pushed the chair nearly into the middle of the room. He now began walking up and down with violent gesticulations; I could not take my eyes off him. He was a lean young man with a brown complexion, and small insignificant features, but his brilliant, vivacious eyes and rich black hair made his countenance remarkable. I can still see how his hand ran through his hair, which fell, dishevelled, over his forehead. He muttered also some incoherent words in a quick, hollow voice, of which I could catch the following:—“Veux plus vivre, peux plus vivre,” (sic) (will not, cannot live on). Suddenly he threw himself on the arm-chair, drew a pistol from his breast, and cocked it. At this dreadful moment my eyes seemed supernaturally keen, for I even remarked a peculiarity in the crook and colour of the hammer of the pistol. After a very short interval of thought he shot himself in the mouth. I heard the sharp report, and a sound (Getöse) in the room, as if someone said softly in my ear, “Dites un ave pour moi!” (say an Ave for me). . . . . Then the room was dark, and only a lantern in the Place B. spread a weak, uncertain glimmer through the drawn curtains.
Time for me ceased till I heard knocking at my door, and several voices in the corridor. I listened, unable to move or to answer. Soon I heard the voice of the Princess.
“Are you certain this is the room you shewed my maid into last night?” she was asking excitedly.
“Certain.”
“Then force it open.”
Picklocks would have been useless, as the key inside was sticking in the lock; so the whole lock was torn out, and in rushed the Prince and Princess, the master of the hotel, the waiter and the locksmith. The Princess ran to my bed, and saw me lying as if dead, with open, staring eyes. She touched my hand and my face, crying “Clara, what is it? Clara, are you ill?” The German words, the warm hand, the familiar face, and her anxiety released me from my catalepsy; I was able to speak.
“First make them take away that dead body,” I cried, shuddering, “or I cannot get up.”
“Heavens!” exclaimed the Princess in Russian, “she has gone mad!” (My features, she said afterwards, had been distorted almost beyond recognition.) “Send for a doctor.”
Two physicians came in a few minutes. I was in a condition which astonished them, and only after many soothing entreaties could I prevail on myself to relate to them the foregoing particulars, not, however, as a terrible dream, but as something which beyond all doubt had happened in the room before my eyes during the past night.
The physicians were too discreet to contradict me, especially as my pulse shewed a condition of unnatural excitement. Indeed one of them, struck by the exactitude and particularity of my story, believed that some trick had been played to frighten me, and desired to speak with the hotel proprietor. He came, and after some whispered communications, the doctors and the Prince left the room with him.
I did not let go the Princess’s hand, and only on her reassuring persuasions could I bring myself to look round the room. No dead body was there. “They must have taken it out when they broke into the room,” I said, for it was impossible for me to believe it a vision.
The hotel proprietor, however, on hearing the physicians’ report, had replied, pale and agitated, “The Spirit world has broken in upon us! the night before last, at the same hour that Mademoiselle went to bed last night, the marine officer, M. R., shot himself in that very room! His corpse lies in the Morgue. You can imagine how disagreeable such events are to hotel owners. Before day-break I had the body removed, for the report of the pistol had been heard by a waiter. Only a few of my people knew of the circumstance, and on these I naturally enjoined silence. After a careful cleansing of the room I had it assigned last night to the Princess’s maid, as the Princess wished her to be accommodated in the hotel.”
All four went to the Morgue. There they saw the uniform as described by me, and the pistol, which had just the same unusual peculiarity of construction I mentioned. The face of the suicide was almost unrecognisable, but the rich black hair completely corresponded with my description. M. R., whose family at that time resided in Brittany, was a Creole by birth. Ever since, the Creole type of face has had something ghastly for me, particularly their brilliant eyes. M. R., as was afterwards discovered, had destroyed himself on account of some woman in Paris.
The rest of the account refers to the prolonged illness and gradual recovery of the narrator and to (ineffectual) attempts by a Paris Sisterhood to convert her to Roman Catholicism, on the strength of the appeal of the suicide for an “Ave” to be said for him. She also explains that at the time of the occurrence she did not even know what an “Ave” meant, which, as we are elsewhere told that she was an experienced travelling servant, seems a little odd. It is unnecessary to translate her story further, though what follows tends to confirm the general impression of bona fides. The writer in Die Tafelrunde concludes:—
“I have given the above word for word from notes I took at the time of hearing it. I may add that the heroine of the narrative is descended on the mother’s side from the Mystic Michael Hahn, that she had received a good education at Kornthal, and is now again living in her Wurtemberg home.”
Editor's notes
- ↑ Vision of a Past Tragedy. by unknown author, Light, Parallel publication: v. 2, No. 94, October 21, 1882; introductory note signed C.C.M.; narrative translated from Licht mehr Licht, October 1, citing Die Tafelrunde. The clipping’s issue remains unconfirmed.. Parallel source printed pages: 470-471.
- ↑ The marked beginnings of words, obscured at the left edge of the clipping, are restored from the visually checked matching text in Light, v. 2, No. 94, October 21, 1882, p. 470, PDF page 6.
Sources
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Light, v. 2, No. 94, October 21, 1882, pp. 470-471