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388

THE GRADUAL APPEARANCE AND

it, the figure of a man. The outlines at first were vague, and the color blue, like the column, only of a darker shade. The baron looked upon it as a hallucination, but continued to examine it steadily from a distance of some thirteen or fourteen feet.

Gradually the outlines of the figure became marked, the features began to assume exact form, and the whole to take the colors of the human flesh and dress. Finally there stood within the column, and reaching about halfway to the top, the figure of a tall, portly old man, with a fresh color, blue eyes, snow-white hair, thin white whiskers, but without beard or moustache; and dressed with some care. He seemed to wear a white cravat and long white waistcoat, high stiff shirt-collar, and a long black frock-coat, thrown back from his chest, as is the wont of corpulent people like him in hot weather. He appeared to lean on a heavy white cane.

After a few minutes, the figure detached itself from the column and advanced, seeming to float slowly through the room, till within about three feet of its wondering occupant. There it stopped, put up its hand, as in form of salutation, and slightly bowed.

The baron's impulse when it first approached had been to ring the bell. So perfectly distinct was the vision, so absolutely material seemed the figure before him, that he could scarcely resist the impression that some stranger (for the features were wholly unknown to him) had invaded his apartment. But the age and friendly demeanor of the intruder arrested his hand. Whether from this world or the other, there seemed nothing hostile or formidable in the appearance that presented itself.

After a time, the figure moved toward the bed, which was to the right of the entrance-door and immediately opposite the fireplace, then, turning to the left, returned to the spot before the fireplace, where it had first appeared, then advanced a second time toward the baron.

DISAPPEARANCE OF AN APPARITION.

389

And this round it continued to make (stopping, however, at intervals) as often as eight or ten times. The baron heard no sound, either of voice or footstep.

The last time it returned to the fireplace, after facing the baron, it remained stationary there. By slow degrees the outlines lost their distinctness; and, as the figure faded, the blue column gradually reformed itself, inclosing it as before. This time, however, it was much more luminous,—the light being sufficient to enable the baron to distinguish small print, as he ascertained by picking up a Bible that lay on his dressing-table and reading from it a verse or two. He showed me the copy: it was in minion type. Very gradually the light faded, seeming to flicker up at intervals, like a lamp dying out.

From the time the figure appeared until it began to fade, mingling with the column, there elapsed about ten minutes so that the witness of this remarkable apparition had the amplest opportunity fully to examine it. When it turned toward the fireplace, he distinctly saw its back. He experienced little or no alarm, being chiefly occupied during the period of its stay in seeking to ascertain whether it was a mere hallucination or an objective reality. On one or two previous occasions during his life he had seen somewhat similar apparitions, less distinct, however, and passing away more rapidly; and, as they were of persons whom in life he had known, he had regarded them as subjective only; the offspring, probably, of his imagination, during an abnormal state of the nervous system.

Pondering over this matter, he went to bed, and, after a time, to sleep. In a dream, the same figure he had just seen again appeared to him, dressed exactly as before. It seemed to sit down on the side of the bed; and, as if in reply to the reflections that had been occupying the baron's mind before he retired to

390

CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTING AN APPARITION

rest, he thought he heard it say to him, in substance, 66 Hitherto you have not believed in the reality of apparitions, considering them only the recallings of memory: now, since you have seen a stranger, you cannot consider it the reproduction of former ideas." The baron assented, in dream, to this reasoning; but the phantom gave him no clew as to what its name or condition in life had been.

The next morning, meeting the wife of the concierge, Madame Matthieu, who had been in the habit of attending to his rooms, he inquired of her who had been their former occupant, adding that his reason for making the inquiry was, that the night before he had seen in his bedroom an apparition. At first the woman seemed much frightened and little disposed to be communicative; but, when pressed on the subject, she admitted that the last person who had resided in the apartments now occupied by the baron was the father of the lady who was the proprietor of the house, a certain Monsieur Caron, who had formerly filled the office of mayor in the province of Champagne. He had died about two years before, and the rooms had remained vacant from that time until taken by the baron.

Her description of him, not only as to personal appearance, but in each particular of dress, corresponded in the minutest manner to what the baron had seen. A white waistcoat coming down very low, a white cravat, a long black frock-coat: these he habitually wore. His stature was above the middle height; and he was corpulent, his eyes blue, his hair and whiskers white; and he wore neither beard nor moustache. His age was between sixty and seventy. Even the smaller peculiarities were exact, down to the high standing shirtcollar, the habit of throwing back his coat from his chest, and the thick white cane, his constant companion when he went out.

WITH THE EXTERNAL WORLD.

391

Madame Matthieu further confessed to the baron that he was not the only one to whom the apparition of M. Caron had shown itself. On one occasion a maid-servant had seen it on the stairs. To herself it had appeared several times, once just in front of the entrance to the saloon, again in a dimly-lighted passage that led past the bedroom to the kitchen beyond, and more than once in the bedroom itself. M. Caron had dropped down in the passage referred to, in an apoplectic fit, had been carried thence into the bedroom, and had died in the bed now occupied by the baron.

She said to him, further, that, as he might have remarked, she almost always took the opportunity when he was in the saloon to arrange his bedchamber, and that she had several times intended to apologize to him for this, but had refrained, not knowing what excuse to make. The true reason was that she feared again to meet the apparition of the old gentleman.

The matter finally came to the ears of the daughter, the owner of the house. She caused masses to be said for the soul of her father; and it is alleged-how truly I know not that the apparition has not been seen in any of the apartments since.

This narrative I had from the Baron de Guldenstubbé himself.* That gentleman stated to me that, up to the time when he saw the apparition, he had never heard of M. Caron, and of course had not the slightest idea of his personal appearance or dress; nor, as may be supposed, had it ever been intimated to him that any one had died, two years before, in the room in which he slept.

The story derives much of its value from the calm and dispassionate manner in which the witness appears to have observed the succession of phenomena, and the

* In Paris, on the 11th of May, 1859.

392

THE COUNT DE FELKESHEIM.

exact details which, in consequence, he has been enabled to furnish. It is remarkable, also, as well for the electrical influences which preceded the appearance, as on account of the correspondence between the apparition to the baron in his waking state and that subsequently seen in dream; the first cognizable by one sense only,— that of sight, the second appealing (though in vision of the night only) to the hearing also.

The coincidences as to personal peculiarities and details of dress are too numerous and minutely exact to be fortuitous, let us adopt what theory, in explanation, we may.

This series of narratives would be incomplete without some examples of those stories of a tragic cast, seeming to intimate that the foul deeds committed in this world may call back the criminal, or the victim, from another.

A very extraordinary sample of such stories is given in the memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a man of some distinction in his day, and from 1780 to 1794 a member of the British Parliament. It was related to Sir Nathaniel, when on a visit to Dresden, by the Count de Felkesheim. Of him Wraxall says, "He was a Livonian gentleman, settled in Saxony; of a very improved understanding, equally superior to credulity as to superstition." The conversation occurred in October, 1778.

After alluding to the celebrated exhibition, by Schrepfer, of the apparition of the Chevalier de Saxe, and expressing his opinion that "though he could not pretend to explain by what process or machinery that business was conducted, yet he had always considered Schrepfer as an artful impostor," the count proceeded to say that he was not so decidedly skeptical as to the possibility of apparitions as to treat them with ridicule or set them down as unphilosophical. Educated in the University

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