They had scarcely entered the laboratory room that contained the bell-jar than the old man was seen to grow horribly pale, twist around, beating the air with his hands and fall heavily to the ground.
After putting his hand on the unconscious man’s heart, the doctor stood up and simply said, in a voice strangled by emotion: “My friends, there’s nothing we can do. He has died of a ruptured aneurism.”
Dead! A man who, a moment before, had been so full of life! What a small thing human existence is!
They looked at one another, stunned. They thought they were victims of a nightmare.
“How can we tell Thilda?” Camaret asked his companions.
Yes, how could they inform the poor woman of the terrible catastrophe that had struck so suddenly? How could they avoid killing her on the spot, her too, by revealing her husband’s death to her?
The sound of footsteps was audible at the bottom of the stairs.
“There she is, coming up!” said the doctor, in a low voice. “There’s not a moment to lose. Stay here. I’ll come back in a minute.”
He opened the door and went rapidly down the stairs, suppressing the emotion that was gripping his heart, and putting on a calm expression.
“Madame,” he said to the poor widow, “Your husband is slightly indisposed.”
“Oh my god—what’s wrong?” Thilda exclaimed, trembling all over. “Quickly, I’m coming up to help him.”
“Oh, it’s almost nothing,” said the doctor. “A slight dizziness caused by indigestion. Your presence might perhaps be harmful. On seeing you, your husband might think that he’s worse that he really is. It’s necessary to avoid excitement. I will only ask you for a little vinegar or sedative solution.”
The young woman ran to fetch what Paradou had asked for and brought them to him. “If you need anything else,” she said, “you’ll find everything you might require in the chemistry cabinet.”
“Where’s the key?” asked the doctor.
“My husband always carries it on his person,” she replied. “It never leaves his waistcoat pocket.” Her eyes were full of tears. She added: “Look after him, and call me if the illness continues.”
Alas, the poor woman did not suspect that all hope was lost.
Paradou went back upstairs rapidly.
“What have you done?” asked his two companions, simultaneously, as soon as he had carefully locked the laboratory door with the key.
“I’ve gained a little time,” he replied—and in a few words, he brought them up to date with what had just happened.
“Let’s go into the private room,” he added, “and fetch a few medicines anyway. Camaret, will you prop the body up against a chair.”
He rummaged in the old man’s waistcoat pocket and found the key to the chemistry cabinet there. The door was open and all three of them went into the scientific sanctuary that concealed the old scientist’s secret, with a sort of dread mingled with curiosity. It was there that the extraordinary apparatus he had used to rendered them so tiny was located.
To their great astonishment, the room was half-empty. The principal item of furniture was a table placed in the middle and overloaded with bottles, flasks and retorts—in a word, all the usual apparatus of chemistry. In front of the only window was a small work-table with a few papers and a microscope. Along the opposite wall, on the shelves of a bookcase, was a collection of chemical products in carefully-labeled bottles of all shapes, sizes and colors.
That was all.
“Where’s the apparatus?” the doctor demanded, darting a rapid glance around him.
“I don’t see anything,” the optician replied.
Raising his eyes to the ceiling, Camaret perceived two copper wires hanging down from the upper part of the partition wall separating the two rooms, whose ends were cut. Those wires were evidently the extremities of those that connected with the bell-jar, which were supposed to put the bell-jar in electrical communication with the apparatus in the chemistry cabinet.
“Look!” cried the dentist, showing the wires to his two companions.
“But where’s the apparatus?” Soleihas asked, again.
“Al-Harik must have taken it away this morning,” said Camaret. “Look—the wires have been cut.”
“That’s odd,” said the doctor, assailed by a suspicion.
“What about the medicines?” said Soleihas.
“I forgot those,” Paradou replied. At the same time, the doctor headed toward the collection of chemical products, and took a few bottles.
As for the optician, he went over to the work-table, mechanically. He noticed a letter that Al-Harik had left there, open. Instinctive curiosity caused him to cast his eyes over it. It was unfinished.
No indiscretion, Soleihas thought. It’s necessary to respect even dead men’s letters—but the demon of curiosity drove him to read it anyway. The head of the letter bore the following words in capital letters:
TO MONSIEUR PARADOU AND HIS FRIENDS.
Soleihas immediately picked up the letter. Given that it was addressed to him and his companions, there was no longer any indiscretion in reading it.
“Paradou! Camaret!” he exclaimed. “Here’s a letter that Al-Harik has written to us.”
“A letter!” said the doctor, rapidly coming over. “What does it say?”
And, seizing the letter, Paradou began to read:
“Gentlemen, I must ask you…”
At that moment, the doctor was violently interrupted in his reading by the sudden arrival of the dentist, who had gone back into the other room for a few moments.
“Doctor,” said Camaret, his expression distraught. “Madame Al-Harik is knocking on the door and asking to come in.”
At these words, Paradou and Soleihas, abruptly recalled to sad reality, ran into the next room, followed by the dentist.
Thilda was indeed knocking on the door, which was fortunately locked.
“How is my husband?” she asked, in a voice still tremulous with emotion.
The doctor made a sign to his companions to take the corpse and carry it into the other room.
“Much better, Madame,” he replied, in a low voice. And, on seeing that Al-Harik’s body had disappeared, he cautiously opened the door, adding: “He’s getting better. Your husband is drowsy—he’s asleep in an armchair in the chemistry cabinet. Would you like to make up a bed for him and prepare a hot tisane.”
“Oh, that’s better,” said the poor widow, regaining hope. “Is all danger past, doctor?”
“Yes,” Paradou replied. “He needs a few hours rest now.”
“I’ll go get everything ready,” Thilda said, joyful again.
The beautiful young woman went back downstairs.
Paradou locked the door again.
“Another ten minutes gained,” he said to his companions, who had rejoined him. “Let’s take advantage of that to read the letter.”
“And afterwards?” the optician asked. “What are you going to do, doctor?”
“By the grace of God, my friend,” he replied.
In his haste, the doctor had folded up the letter and put it in one of his pockets. But which? His mind in turmoil, Paradou rummaged through all of them, one after another, without being able to find it. Impatiently, he brought out everything they contained. He finally found it, mixed in with some other papers.
He began reading:
“Gentlemen, I must ask you to pardon my conduct. I do not want to let you leave without revealing the trickery to which I have subjected you.”
“What trickery?” exclaimed Soleihas and Camaret.
The doctor continued reading: “You ought not, on returning to the Hyperpsychical Society of Perpignan, to mislead your colleagues erroneously, by making them party to discoveries that you have not really made.
“I hope that you will forgive me for a deception injurious to your self-respect, but if my experiments have not realized our chimerical hope of discovering the secrets of nature by becoming ever
smaller, admit that they have a considerable range from the viewpoint of that new branch of science, hypnotic suggestion.”
“Hypnotic suggestion!” cried Soleihas. “Then we’ve been hypnotized!”
“Let me finish reading,” the doctor replied, having gone pale and trembling with a violent emotion that he could not control. “A month ago, I received a visit from one of our old and best friends, Monsieur Collioure, one of the members of our society. Together, we planned the experiments of which you have been the victims…”
“Collioure!” cried the three friends, in unison.
“The traitor!” said the dentist. “I’ll pay him back for this.”
“It’s jealousy!” added Soleihas, red with anger.
The doctor, who was calmer, finished reading the letter. “Under the influence of hypnotic sleep, assisted by my niece Thilda, I caused you by suggestion to take part in the extraordinary voyages that…”{9
“What?” demanded the optician.
“The letter is unfinished,” the doctor replied.
At that moment, someone knocked again at the laboratory door, more forcefully, while they heard Thilda’s voice asking for news of Al-Harik and announcing that everything was ready for her husband to be put to bed.
“Come on, my friends,” said the doctor. “Here’s Al-Harik’s niece returning. I prefer that. Her distress will be less acute on learning of the death of her uncle than that of her husband.
“Who can tell?” the dentist added, ironically.
THE RELUCTANT SPIRITUALIST
I. A Spiritualistic Soirée
Have you ever attended a soirée of spiritualism? If not, I congratulate you; if you have, you know how boring they are.
Don’t think, though, that I think badly of spiritualists. They’re worthy and honest folk, faithful to their beliefs, incapable of deception, but naïve, very naïve. Besides, I’m a bit of a spiritualist myself. In company with a few friends, I’ve made tables turn, I’ve evoked the spirits of the dead—and even the living—and I’ve been most amused to take note of the phrases that the table dictates by tapping the ground with its feet.
All that is very interesting. The unfortunate thing is that I’m no longer a spiritualist, since I’ve practiced spiritualism, having acquired the certainty that the tables turn and tap the ground because they’re pushed, and write without the assistance of spirits.
The people capable of making tables turn and write are simply under the influence of a particular hypnotic state and are acting unconsciously. In that respect, the experiments in question seem worthy seem to me to be worthy of serious study, and that is why I never disdain to take part in spiritualist meetings. One can discover new facts there, previously-unknown phenomena, and hypnotic manifestations of great interest.
I needed these preliminary explanations to enable you to understand how, on March 16 last, I found myself at a spiritualist meeting at 6 p.m. at a house in the Rue de Rivoli whose number I shall not specify for fear of compromising myself. In any case, every spiritualist can find the number if he wants to; he only has to ask a turning table.
The evening was cold and damp. It seems that the spirits do not like that, for we had been sitting at the table for an hour—a large dining-table, but fitted with castors—without hands flat on the bare wood, and nothing had yet budged. From time to time a creak was heard, and you must know that a table creaks a few moments before starting to move, but it proved, on checking, that the noise came from a rickety chair or a kick administered to one of the table-legs by a spiritualist.
Ladies and young women, always more inclined than men to believe in the supernatural, are generally in a majority in these sorts of spiritualist meetings. That evening, they were numerous—and, I must say, very pretty. Were they equally spiritual?{10
When one makes a table turn, one needs to be quiet. The spirits don’t talk when others are talking.
To begin with, we had been attentive; these sorts of experiments always make a superstitious impression on the imagination. After a quarter of an hour, some of us had got tired and wanted to have bit of fun with the table, but the convinced spiritualists had imperiously commanded silence and respect.
“It’s necessary to pray,” said one of them—a grand old man with a white beard and an austere expression. “The spirits only come voluntarily on that condition.”
I don’t know whether anyone prayed, but the spirits still didn’t come. Half an hour later, during which we could hear the monotonous tick-tock of the clock, one spiritualist unfortunately took it into his head to yawn. That was the beginning of the debacle, for nothing is as infectious is yawning, especially on such occasions. Everyone yawned in turn. The spirits still hadn’t come. They had probably gone to sleep under the table some time before.
Finally, war-weary, we all broke the silence at once.
“Let’s make a chain,” said one of the participants.
The proposition was accepted with enthusiasm. When one has the hand of a pretty neighbor next to one’s own, one awaits the arrival of spirits with less impatience.
Making a chain means that the hands, still placed flat on the table, do not remain isolated, but for a continuous chain by means of contact between the outermost fingers of each land. Some people claim that the fluid circulates more easily, for spiritualists, being less advanced than physicists, still believe in fluids.
We had been forming the chain for at least a quarter of an hour when my right-hand neighbor exclaimed: “It’s turning!”
“You’re mistaken, said someone on the far side. “It didn’t move.”
“It’s definitely turning,” said my stubborn neighbor.
“It’s true—I can feel it moving!” exclaimed another voice.
“It’s not turning,” said a fourth.
“It is turning,” affirmed a fifth.
And there we all were, proclaiming that it was or wasn’t turning.
The grand old man, a convinced spiritualist, was distressed. “Silence!” he ordered. “If the spirits have come, they’ll leave again because of all the noise you’re making.”
Silence was gradually re-established. Scarcely ten minutes had gone by when the table seemed to try to rise up on the side opposite mine.
This time, there was no more doubt. Yes, the table was lifting.
“Pay attention—it’s about to speak,” said one of the participants. “Count the number of raps.” He added, in a loud and commanding voice: “Table, do you want to speak this evening—yes or no?”
Scarcely had he finished speaking than the table suddenly fell back with its full weight.
“A,” we said, all in chorus.
The table rose up gently again and fell back.
“B.”
It continued thus until the final letter of the alphabet.
“Z!” we cried. “That’s the first letter of the word.”
“And the last letter of the alphabet,” I remarked. “What sort of word can really begin with Z?”
“There’s Zélie,” one of the participants replied. “That’s the name of my cousin, who died last year.”
“It’s also that of my concierge,” said another. “Perhaps she’s died.”
“Silence!” cried the grand old man, the convinced spiritualist. “You’ll soon know, for the second letter’s starting.”
Indeed, the table rose up again. Thus time, it rapped as far as the letter U.
“ZU!” we cried.
“That must be Jupiter,” said a joker.
“No, since it begins with a Z,” said a good speller.
“Silence!” screeched the grand old man, increasingly convinced.
The table rose up to dictate the third letter.
A, B, C…S, T. It stopped conclusively on the letter T.
“It’s ZUT!” I cried, laughing and getting up from the table.{11
All the spiritualists were astounded. The spirit that was in the table was mocking them.
I thought, however, that I
glimpsed a few malign expressions, which seemed to say: “That’s all right—you deserved it.”
My example was imitated; people got to their feet. The ladies went to warm themselves in a circle around the fire, while the men chatted among themselves in small groups.
“We owe our misadventure to Monsieur Ranbel,” said the mistress of the house, suddenly, in a manner that was half-serious and half-amused, turning toward the group of which I was a member.
“Me, Madame!” I exclaimed. “Why?”
“Because you’re a skeptic and don’t want to believe in spirits. We’ll do so much, we’ll show you so many extraordinary things, that you’ll be obliged to believe in the end.”
“In any case, Madame,” I replied, “the spirits ought to be more obliging and more polite.”
Oh well, I ought to confess now that the author of the joke was me. This is how I did it. I had noticed that the table obeyed a slight pressure when I applied it from above. Lifted up by the unconscious effort of people on the same side as me, it was sufficient for me to impart a slight impulse to direct the involuntary movement. That was precisely what I had done.
I was careful not to divulge the secret to the mistress of the house, or to anyone else. They would have held it against me and refrained from inviting me to spiritualist meetings.
To conclude the evening, we took tea. Then a meeting was arranged for the same day of the following week, and we went our separate ways.
In the street, I fell into step with my left-hand neighbor at the turning table. I didn’t know him and had met him for the first time that evening. When the experiments were over, we had had an opportunity to chat. He was a man of about 40, a pleasant conversationalist, who said that he had traveled a great deal. As he lived in my neighborhood, we decided to go over the bridge together to reach the left bank.
“What did you think of that spiritualist séance?” he asked me.
“It was a fiasco,” I replied.
“It’s almost always like that,” he said. “In order to succeed, experiments in spiritualism require more calm and seriousness.”
“Are you really a spiritualist?”
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