"You be blowed!"
Certainly no one of us was capable of consciously composing such a sentence as that. But everybody knows the words that were used. Perhaps our conscious or sub-conscious thoughts spoke in them? Did they emanate from Mme. X., the medium?
In the uncertainty into which we were plunged by these two séances, we asked M. and Mme. X. to come and pass a Sunday at Juvisy and try some new studies and tests.
They came, and on Sunday, October 8, we obtained some remarkable levitations. But there are some dregs of doubt yet in our minds, and we make engagements for another reunion that day fortnight.
On Sunday, the 22d of October, 1899, in furtherance of my desire to exercise careful control over the investigators, I had four broad boards nailed together, forming a vertical frame in which I placed the little table to be used during the sitting. This framework made it impossible for the feet of the sitters to pass under the table; and if it rose in spite of this, then we should know that the levitation was due to an unknown force.
The remarks of Mme. X., when she saw this device, made me think at once that no levitation was going to take place.
"This power of ours," said she, "is capricious; on some days we get good results, on others none at all, and for no apparent reason."
"But we shall perhaps have raps, at any rate?"
"Certainly. We ought not to anticipate results. One can always try."
Two hours after luncheon, Mme. X. agrees to try a sitting. No levitation whatever occurred.