V
It would be wearisome to relate what happened to me with those prophets and seers. I will content myself with briefly telling one of the most curious experiences, which, moreover, sums up most of the others: the psychology of them all is very nearly identical.
The seer in question is one of the most famous in Paris. She claims to incarnate, in her hypnotic state, the spirit of an unknown little girl called Julia. Having made me sit down at a table that stood between us, she begged me to tutoyer Julia and to speak to her gently, as one speaks to a child of seven or eight years. Thereupon, her features, her eyes, her hands, her whole body were for some seconds unpleasantly convulsed; her hair came untied; and the expression of her face changed completely and became artless, puerile. The voice, shrill and clear, of a small child next came from that great, ripe woman's body and asked with a little lisp:
"What do you want? Are you troubled? Is it for yourself or for some one else that you have come to see me?"
"For myself."
"Very well; will you help me a little? Lead me in thought to the place where your troubles are."
I concentrated my attention on the project in which I was engrossed and on the different actors in the, as yet, hidden little drama. Then, gradually, after some preliminary gropings, and without my helping her with a word or gesture, she really penetrated into my thoughts, read them, so to speak, as a slightly veiled book, placed the situation of the scene most accurately, recognized the principal characters and described them summarily, with hopping and childish, but quaintly correct and precise little touches.
"That's very good, Julia," I then said, "but I know all that; what you ought to tell me is what is going to happen later."
"What is going to happen, what is going to happen ... you want to know all that is going to happen, but it's very difficult...."
"But still? How will the business end? Shall I win?"
"Yes, yes, I see; don't be afraid, I'll help you; you will be pleased...."
"But the enemy of whom you told me; the one who is resisting me and who wishes me ill...."
"No, no, he wishes you no ill, it's because of some one else.... I can't see why.... He hates him.... Oh, he hates him, he hates him! And it is because you like the other one so much that he does not want you to do for him what you wish to do."
What she said was true.
"But tell me," I insisted, "will he go on to the end, will he not yield?"
"Oh, do not fear him.... I see, he is ill; he will not live long."
"You are mistaken, Julia; I saw him two days ago; he is quite well."
"No, no, he is ill.... It doesn't show, but he is very ill ... he must die soon...."
"But how, in that case, and why?"
"There is blood upon him, around him, everywhere...."
"Blood? Is it a duel?" (I had thought, for a moment, that I might be called upon to fight my adversary.) "An accident, a murder, a revenge?" (He was an unjust and unscrupulous man, who had done much harm to many people.)
"No, no, ask me no more, I am very tired.... Let me go...."
"Not before I know...."
"No, I can tell you nothing more.... I am too tired.... Let me go.... Be good, I will help you...."
The same attack as at first then convulsed the body, in which the little voice had ceased; and the mask of forty years again covered the face of the woman, who seemed to be waking from a long sleep.
Is it necessary to add that we had never seen each other before this meeting and that we knew as little of each other as though we had been born on different planets?