Adolphe and Marceline attempted to console him, but he wept more. Then Marceline began to weep.
In his emotion, Théophraste grasped them both by the hand, and cried, “Swear never to abandon me, no matter what happens, for, oh! some day I shall need your help.” They swore to him in good faith.
Adolphe then asked to see the document. As he spread the document before him, he said, “Théophraste, tell me, do you ever have dreams?”
“It is very probable, but I only dream a very little.”
“Never?” insisted Adolphe.
“Scarcely ever. However, I remember to have dreamed four or five times in my life, perhaps because I woke each time in the middle of my dream, and it was always the same dream. But what possible interest can there be in this, to the subject which is occupying us now, Adolphe?”
Adolphe continued: “Dreams have never been explained by science. Science attributes them all to the effects of the imagination, but it does not give us the reason for these clear, distinct visions which appear to us sometimes. Thus it explains a thing which is not known by another which is no better understood. It says that dreams are the recollection of things which took place in a former life. But even admitting this solution-which is a doubtful one-we still have to find out what is the magic mirror that serves so well to keep the imprint of things. Moreover, how can one explain visions of real things, events that one has never seen in a former state, and of which one has never even thought? Who can affirm that these are not visions of retrospective past events in a former life?”
“That is right, my dear Adolphe,” said Théophraste, “and I ought to confess the things that I have dreamed. I have dreamed them three times as I said before, things that were perhaps true in the past, or will be in the future. I have never seen them in a waking state in my present life.”
“You understand me,” said Adolphe. “Relate to me the things that you have dreamed of and have never seen.”
“Oh, that will not take long. But so much the better, for it is not very cheerful: I dreamed that I was married to a woman named Marie Antoinette, and then——”