“And did your doctor see it also?”
“No,” said Francis, “she appeared behind him, but I saw her distinctly then, as I often did afterwards by broad daylight. We had only to touch the keys of the instrument when she immediately appeared, so that to strike a note was a summons. When I once revisited the ancient Klausenburg, I found her sitting upon a stone staring at me. Thus persecuted, terrified, and in constant fear and anxiety, we have become ripe for death, and the physician despairing of our recovery advised us at last to visit this watering-place, as a last resource for restoring our shattered health. But hitherto we have not found any beneficial result. And who can assure us that the spectre may not here haunt us also. She intends to destroy us, and the most inconceivable things are possible to her strong will. I believe we need only sing an air, or play a sonata even at this distance, and she would make her appearance.”
“I will answer for that, count,” cried the doctor in a firm voice, “our faculty knows how to keep such malicious spirits at a distance.”
Here our conversation ended; we sent the patient home in a sedan chair to his hotel, and I accompanied the physician.
While walking in the quiet of night through the dark avenues of trees, he said to me, “Dear sir, we are too much excited to sleep, favour me with your company to my lodging; a powerful aromatic cardinal[[2]] will keep up our spirits, and I will there tell you my opinion respecting our two invalids, of whose recovery, after what I have heard, I no longer doubt. I would almost promise that in two months I shall send them home in tolerably good health.”
I was astonished at this, as I had given up all hope of the recovery of my friends. Our strongly-spiced beverage much enlivened us; and the doctor continued: “The mental disease of your friend is to me one of the most interesting psychological phenomena that has ever passed under my observation. He, as well as his wife, are labouring under a singular madness; and if we once succeed in attacking it rightly, then, in weakening, and finally in eradicating it altogether, the physical recovery will follow of itself. Though I did not know your friend formerly, yet, from his communications, I can exactly and truly construe his character and fate. He is naturally good and tender, the latter rather preponderating; and, like most men of this disposition, is more subject to vanity than those of firmer character. He has been handsome and amiable, possessed of talents, and persuasive manners, and has, therefore, been everywhere well received, so that, being a general favourite, and naturally pliant, he may have turned the head of many a pretty girl. Meeting, at last, with his beautiful wife, he determined to change his condition, and her naturally sensitive and nervous nature was delighted to call so amiable a gentleman her husband. And, as usually happens to enthusiasts, so is it in this case; they do not find in matrimony that transcendant felicity which they anticipated; a slight discord takes possession of the tender cords of the nerves, which impatiently look forward to new vibrations. The ugly, deformed sister felt, like most persons of the sort, jealousy and envy against the preferred, flattered, and fondled wife. She plainly showed her indignation, and confessed that she hated the count. This amiable conqueror of hearts now employed all his art to overcome this hatred. He succeeded, and the poor deluded creature even fancied that she had excited his affection, while his vanity exulted in the triumph. This heartlessness could not but mortify and shock the unfortunate Ernestine. An inward rage consumed her, she fell a victim to her unfortunate passion; and, dying, she uttered the menace to persecute them in every possible way. This is plainly madness. This madness, as has often been observed, is hereditary, and relations, brothers, sisters, and children, are seized with it whenever it is manifested in a member of the family. So in the case of your friend. Perhaps the affectionate count has not been quite silent on the subject to his wife; and she, being already in a delicate state, has indulged these fancies, and with anxious curiosity pursues the gloomy feelings produced by her nerves. Thus, what is more natural than that she should soon find an occasion on which she fancied she really saw her sister? The fears of his wife were communicated to him, anguish of mind at his misfortunes heated his imagination, and he also sees the apparition. Thus they go on, until both have nearly destroyed themselves by a mere phantom. If we can dissipate this phantom, they may be restored to health.”
“Dear doctor,” I replied, “I know not whether I have a particular propensity for superstition, but your reasons do not satisfy me. Much that has been handed down, both by tradition and writing, on this curious subject, cannot be mere fancy or invention, however much our reason may be opposed to it. There are, no doubt, states of the mind and of the nerves, as well as diseases, during which certain persons see what is veiled from all others. What is spirit? What notions does this word suggest? Do we know the nature, talent, or power, which these millions of differently constituted souls possess, after having shaken off their earthly frame? Do we know by what possibility this or that strong mind, by the power of his will, or anxious repentance, or a secret tormenting yearning after home, forms from his imagination a visible frame, such as he used to wear?”
“And supposing you to be quite right, what would you profit by it?” exclaimed the zealous doctor. “If any one who is in a discontented mood, or state of excitement, sees any thing, it is, indeed, only and always his own fancies, his own internal phases, which appear before his bodily eye. This may happen to any one at times. We have in the morning a vivid dream; we certainly awake, and still, for a moment, we see the child for whom we yearned, the lily or rose which delighted us, or an old friend who is a hundred miles distant. Perhaps it never yet happened that, to one of the many ghost-seers, his aged father or grandfather appeared as a youth or bridegroom, the murderer as a boy in his innocence, the wild spectre of an aged prisoner as a blooming virgin. Why, then, do not these spectres, for once, change their shape?”
“Because,” rejoined I, “they perhaps can express their imagination only in the last state immediately preceding their change.”
“Ah! this is idle,” exclaimed the doctor, impatiently; “yield the point quietly rather than vainly endeavour to refute me. Assist me rather in restoring your friend.”