Lumen. I had no perception of time; but the whole retrospective panorama appeared to me in successive scenes—in less than a day, perhaps in a few hours.
Quærens. Then I do not understand you at all. Pardon your old friend this interruption, a little too abrupt perhaps. As I took it, you saw the real events of your life, not merely images of them. But, in view of the time necessary for the passage of light, these events appeared to you after they had happened. If, then, seventy-two terrestrial years had passed before your eyes, they should have taken seventy-two years to appear to you, and not a few hours. If the year 1793 appeared to you only in 1864, the year 1864, consequently, should only in 1936 appear to you.
The anachronism explained.
Lumen. You have grounds for your fresh objection, and this proves to me that you have perfectly comprehended the theory of this fact. I fully appreciate your belief in me; indeed its consciousness helps me in my explanations. Thus it is not necessary that seventy-two years should be needed in which to review my life, for under the impulse of an involuntary force all its events passed before me in less than a day. Continuing to follow the course of my existence, I reached its later years, rendered memorable by the striking changes which had come over Paris. I saw our old friends, and you yourself; my daughter and her charming children; my family, and circle of acquaintances; and last of all I saw myself lying dead upon my bed, and I was present at the final scene. Yes; I tell you I had returned to the Earth. Drawn by the contemplation which absorbed my soul, I had quickly forgotten the mountain, the old men, and Capella. Even as a dream all faded from my mind.
I did not at first perceive the strange vision which captivated all my faculties. I cannot tell you either by what law or by what power souls can be transported with such rapidity from one place to another. Suffice it to say, I had returned to the Earth in less than a day, and I had entered my chamber even at the moment of my decease. Also in this returning voyage I had travelled faster than the rays of light, hence the various phases of my life on Earth had unrolled themselves to my sight in their successive stages as they occurred. When I reached half-way I saw the rays of light arriving only thirty-six years behind time, showing me the Earth, not as it appeared seventy-two years ago, but thirty-six. When I had travelled three-quarters of the way I saw things as they had been eighteen years ago; at the half of the last quarter, as they were nine years previously; until finally the whole acts of my life were condensed into less than one day because of the rapid rate at which my soul had travelled, which far surpassed the velocity of the rays of light.
Quærens. Was not this a very strange phenomenon?
Lumen. Do any other objections rise in your mind as you listen to me?
Quærens. No, this is the only one; or rather, this one has puzzled and interested me so greatly that it has absorbed all others.
Lumen. I would remark that there is another, an astronomical one, which I will hasten to dispel, for fear it should arise and cloud your mind. It depends upon the Earth's movement, not only upon its diurnal rotation, which in itself would be sufficient to prevent my seeing the facts in succession, but this movement would also be greatly accelerated by the rapidity of my return to the Earth. Hence seventy-two years would pass before me in less than a day. On reflection, I was surprised that I had not earlier perceived this; yet as I had only seen a comparatively small number of countries, panoramas, and facts, it is probable that in returning to our planet I had only a fleeting glance for a few moments of the successive points of interest. But however this may be, I can but bear evidence that I have been witness to the rapid succession of events both throughout the century and of my own life.
Quærens. That difficulty had not escaped me; I had weighed the thought, and had come to the conclusion that you had revolved in space, even as a balloon is spun round by the rotation of the globe. It is true that the inconceivable speed with which you would be whirled through space would be likely to give you vertigo, nevertheless, after hearing your experience, this hypothesis forces itself upon me, that spirits rush through space with the lightness and velocity of thought; and in remarking on the intensity of your gaze as you approached certain parts of the Earth, may it not be admissible to infer that this very eagerness to see certain localities, might be the reason of your being drawn to them, and as it were fixed above their point of vision?