The Man Who Sees Ghosts Read online

  “In this way I may have spent about two months at this nobleman’s residence, when one morning the young cavalier, Lorenzo, came into my room. His face was a picture the deepest grief with all its features contorted: he threw himself into a chair with every sign of despair.

  “‘Captain,’ he said, ‘it is all over with me. I must go away; I cannot bear it any longer.’

  “‘What is it, my lord? What is wrong?’

  “‘Oh this terrible passion!’ (Here he rose impetuously from the chair and threw himself into my arms.) ‘I have struggled against it like a man—but now I cannot continue any longer.’

  “‘But on whom does it depend, my dear friend, except yourself? Is not everything in your power? Father,—family?’

  “‘Father—family! What is that to me? Do you think I want a hand given under duress, and not her freely given affection? And don’t I have a rival? Ah, and who? A rival perhaps who numbers among the dead! Oh leave me, leave me! Even if I should have to go to the ends of the world, I must find my brother.’

  “‘What? How, after so many failed attempts, can you still harbour any hope…’

  “‘Hope!—In my heart it died long ago. But has it in hers? What does it matter if I still have hope? Can I be happy as long as a glimmer of this hope lives in Antonie’s heart?—Two words, my friend, could end my martyrdom—but what’s the use! My fate will remain a misery until eternity breaks its long silence, and graves testify for me.’

  “‘So it is certainty, then, which could make you happy?’

  “‘Happy? Ah, I doubt whether I could ever again be that!—But uncertainty is the most terrible thing to be condemned to!’ (After a silence he grew calmer and then continued sadly.) ‘Oh, if he could see my suffering! Can this loyalty make him happy, if it is the cause of his brother’s misery? Should a living man languish for the sake of a dead one no longer capable of pleasure? If he only knew the torment I suffer…’ (here he began to weep violently and pressed his face against my chest), ‘perhaps—yes, then perhaps he would himself lead her to me and place her in my arms.’

  “‘But why should this wish of yours be so utterly beyond fulfilment?’

  “‘My friend! What are you saying?’ He gave me a frightened look.

  “‘The departed have intervened in the destinies of the living,’ I continued, ‘for far less weighty cause. Is not the whole temporal happiness of a man—of a brother—’

  “‘The whole temporal happiness! Oh, that’s how I feel! What a true word you have spoken there! My whole—bliss!’

  “‘- and the peace of a family in mourning, are these not sufficient causes to call upon the aid of the invisible powers? Of course they are! Whenever an earthly matter can justify disturbing the peace of the blessed—justify making use of a power—’

  “‘For Heaven’s sake, my friend,’ he interrupted, ‘no more of that! Once, I admit, I did entertain such a thought—I think I spoke to you about it—but for a long time now I have dismissed it as wicked and detestable.’

  “I am sure you can see,” continued the Sicilian, “where this led us. I endeavoured to dispel the young nobleman’s scruples, and finally succeeded. It was decided to summon the ghost of the dead man, and for this I stipulated a period of just fourteen days in order, as I alleged, to prepare myself in proper fashion. At the end of this time and when my machinery was duly set up, I chose a grim evening when the family were gathered around me in the usual manner, to coax from them their consent to this, or much rather to lead them without their noticing to the point where they themselves requested it of me. The greatest difficulty was with the young Countess, whose presence was so essential; but here it was that the wild flight of her passion came to our aid, and even more perhaps a feeble glimmer of hope on her part that the man believed to be dead might still be alive and so would not appear at the summons. The only obstacle I did not have to struggle with was distrust in the business itself, doubts as to my skills.

  “As soon as the consent of the family was obtained, the third day was appointed for the task. Prayers, which had to be prolonged till midnight, fastings, vigils, solitude, and mystical instruction, along with the use of a certain hitherto unknown musical instrument that I had found very effective in similar cases, constituted the preparations for this solemn act, and they accorded with our wishes so well that the fanatical enthusiasm of my listeners inflamed my own fantasy, and added in no small measure to the illusion I was striving for. At last the awaited hour arrived—”

  “I can guess,” exclaimed the Prince, “who it is you are about to bring on for us now—But go on—go on—”

  “No, my lord. The conjuration passed off just as we had hoped.”

  “But how? Where was the Armenian?”

  “Have no fear,” answered the Sicilian, “the Armenian will appear all in good time.

  “I do not wish to go into a description of the sleight of hand I used, which would anyway lead me too far away from the story.—Suffice it to say it fulfilled all my expectations. The old Marchese, Lorenzo, the young Countess along with her mother, and also some relatives, were present. You can easily imagine that in the long period I had spent in this house I won’t have lacked for opportunities to collect the most detailed information about everything concerning the dead man. Several portraits of him that I had come across enabled me to give the apparition a most deceptive likeness, and, since I had the ghost communicate only by signs, his voice could awaken no suspicion. The dead man himself appeared in the clothing of a barbarian slave, with a deep wound in his neck. You will note,” said the Sicilian, “that in this respect I departed from the general assumption, which was that he had perished in the waves. This was because I had reason to hope that the unexpectedness of this turn of events would not a little enhance the credibility of the vision itself: the opposite, a too slavish approximation to the more natural explanation, would conversely, so it seemed to me, have greatly endangered its credibility.”

  “I believe that this was correctly judged,” said the Prince, turning to us. “Among a given number of paranormal apparitions, I think it would be precisely the more likely of them that would be bound to jar. If what they learnt had come as no surprise, this would have served only to detract from the means by which they had learnt it, and indeed even cast suspicion on these means, the content of the revelation being so pat. For what is the point of troubling a spirit if you are to learn nothing more from it than what could be concluded without it by means of mere common sense? But the surprising novelty and harshness of what is disclosed is, as it were, a guarantee of the miracle by which it is obtained—for who would ever doubt a supernatural agency in an action that succeeded in achieving something that a natural agency could not?—I have interrupted you,” said the Prince. “Let us hear the end of your story.”

  “I had them ask the spirit,” the Sicilian continued, “whether there was anything still in this world that he would call his own, anything he had left behind that was dear to him. The spirit shook his head three times and stretched one hand towards heaven. Before he withdrew he slipped a ring from his finger, and this was found lying on the floor after he had disappeared. When the Countess looked at it more closely—it was her wedding ring.”

  “Her wedding ring!” exclaimed the Prince in astonishment. “Her wedding ring! How did you obtain it?”

  “I—it was not the real one, my lord, I had—it was only a copy—”

  “A copy!” echoed the Prince. “To make a copy you would have needed the real one, so how did you come by it, since the dead man can certainly have never removed it from his finger?”

  “That is certainly true,” said the Sicilian, not without some signs of embarrassment, -“but from a description I was given of the real wedding ring—”

  “Given to you by whom?”

  “A long time before,”—said the Sicilian—“It was a very simple ring, with the name of the young Countess, I think—But you have completely broken the thread of my—”

>   “So what happened next?” asked the Prince, with a very dissatisfied and equivocal look.

  “They now felt convinced that Jeronymo was no longer alive. From that day the family let it be known publicly that he was dead, and went into formal mourning for him. The matter of the ring left Antonie, too, no longer in doubt and gave a greater force to Lorenzo’s suit. But the violent impact which this apparition had on her resulted in her succumbing to a dangerous illness, which might soon have shattered the hopes of her lover for ever. Upon her recovery she insisted on taking the veil and was only dissuaded from doing so by the forceful remonstrances of her father confessor, in whom she placed an absolute trust. At length the united efforts of this man and of the family succeeded in extorting her consent. The last day of mourning was to be the happy day, which the old Marchese resolved to make even more festive by the transfer of all his property to the rightful heir.

  “The day came and Lorenzo received his trembling bride at the altar. The sun set and a magnificent banquet was waiting for the happy guests in the brightly-lit wedding hall, while noisy music went hand in hand with joyful abandon. The happy old man had wanted all the world to share in his joy; all approach roads to the palace were opened, and everyone who took pleasure in his happiness was made welcome. Now among this throng of people—”

  The Sicilian paused and a shudder of expectation made us hold our breaths.

  “Among this throng of people,” he continued, “my neighbour pointed out to me a Franciscan monk standing as motionless as a stone pillar, a tall, gaunt figure with a face the colour of ashes, who was staring fixedly at the married couple with a grim and sorrowful expression. The joy which all about him was reflected in laughing faces seemed to pass this man by alone: his demeanour remained the same, unchangeable like that of a stone bust among living figures. The extraordinary nature of this spectacle, which, since it caught me by surprise in the middle of the merry-making and jarred so starkly with everything else around me at that moment, affecting me therefore all the more deeply, left behind such an indelible imprint on my soul that it was through this alone that I was able to recognise the features of this monk in the physiognomy of the Russian (for you realise now that all three, the Russian, this monk and your Armenian are one and the same person), something which would otherwise have been quite impossible. Again and again I tried to tear my eyes from this terrifying figure, but each time they involuntarily returned and found him still unchanged. I nudged my neighbour, and he his; the same fascination, the same consternation, spread to all who were seated at table; conversation faltered and suddenly a general silence descended; this did not trouble the monk. He stood rigidly, the same as ever, staring fixedly at the married couple with a grim and sorrowful look.

  “This apparition horrified each and everyone; the young Countess alone seemed to rediscover her own sorrow in the face of this stranger, and clung with silent pleasure to the only object in the assembly which seemed to understand and share her grief. Gradually the crowd dispersed; midnight came and went; the music began to play more quietly and forlornly, the candles to burn more dimly until finally only a few remained, and conversation lowered to an ever softer whisper—and in the dull light of that wedding hall it became more and more desolate; the monk stood rigidly and the same as ever, staring quietly and sorrowfully at the wedding couple.

  “The banqueting table is removed, the guests disperse here and there, the family gather into a narrowing circle; the monk is still not invited into that circle. I do not know not why it was that no-one wished to speak to him; no-one did. The female acquaintances of the trembling bride crowd around her, while she directs a pleading look of supplication at the venerable stranger: the stranger did not respond.

  The men gather in like manner round the bridegroom—there is a forced, expectant silence. ‘Oh, that we should be so happy together,’ began the old Marchese, who alone amongst us all did not seem to notice the nameless man, or at least not to wonder at him—‘Oh, that we should be so happy,’ he said, ‘and my son Jeronimo not here!’

  “‘Did you invite him and has he failed to appear?’ asked the monk. It was the first time he had opened his mouth. We looked at him in horror.

  “‘Alas! where he has gone there is no more appearing,’ replied the old Marchese. ‘Venerable man, you have misunderstood me. My son Jeronymo is dead.’

  “‘Perhaps he is merely frightened to show himself in such company,’ continued the monk. ‘Who knows what he might look like, your son Jeronymo!—Let him hear the voice which he heard last!—Ask your son Lorenzo to call him!’

  “‘What does this mean?’ everyone murmured. Lorenzo changed colour. To tell the truth the hairs on my neck began to rise.

  “The monk meanwhile had stepped to the drinks table from where he picked up a full wine-glass which he set to his lips—‘To the memory of our dear Jeronymo!’ he cried. ‘Whoever loved the dead man, let him do this after me.’

  “‘Wherever you may be from, venerable sir,’ the Marchese exclaimed at length, ‘that name you have uttered is a dear one. I bid you welcome. Come, my friends,’ (turning towards us and seeing to it that the glasses were passed round,) ‘we must not let not a stranger put us to shame.—To the memory of my son Jeronymo!’

  “Never, I believe, was a toast drunk with such sombre cheer.

  “‘There is a full glass still there—Why does my son Lorenzo decline to drink to this friendly toast?’

  “Trembling, Lorenzo received the glass from the Franciscan’s hand—trembling, he brought it to his lips—‘To my beloved brother, Jeronymo!’ he stammered, and shuddering, set it down.

  “‘That is my murderer’s voice,’ cried a terrifying figure which stood suddenly in our midst, in clothes dripping with blood and mutilated with hideous wounds.

  “But do not ask me about what next happened,” said the Sicilian, with his face showing every sign of terror. “I lost consciousness when I turned to look, as did everyone, at the figure standing there. When we came to ourselves Lorenzo was fighting for his life: both monk and apparition had disappeared. The young knight, racked by terrible convulsions, was carried to his bed; nobody was at the bedside of the dying man apart from the priest and the wretched old man, who followed him only a few weeks later to the grave. His confession lies buried in the heart of the priest, who heard his last confession, and no living person has discovered it.

  Not long after this event it so happened that a well in the rear courtyard of the estate needed clearing; it had lain hidden beneath a tangle of bushes and for many years been blocked with rubble; on rummaging through this rubble they discovered a skeleton. The house where this took place is no longer standing; the del M**nte family has died out, and in a cloister not far from Salerno they will show you the grave of Antonie.

  “You see now,” continued the Sicilian, when he saw how all of us stood there speechless and nonplussed, and that no-one was about to say anything—“you see now the origin of my acquaintance with this Russian officer—or this Armenian. Judge for yourselves now as to whether I had good reason to fear a being who has twice crossed my path in such a terrifying manner.”

  “There is just one more question I would have you answer,” said the Prince, getting to his feet. “In your story have you been consistently honest about everything concerning this Lorenzo?”

  “I have told you all I know,” replied the Sicilian.

  “So you really did think him to be an upright man?”

  “I did, in heaven’s name, I did,” he answered.

  “Even when he gave you that ring you spoke of?”

  “What?—He gave me no ring—I never said it was he who gave me the ring.”

  “Good,” said the Prince, ringing the bell and getting ready to leave. “And you regard the spirit of the Marquis of Lanoy,” (he asked, turning back once more), “which this Russian yesterday had follow on the heels of yours, as a true and genuine spirit?”

  “I can regard it as nothing else,” he answer
ed.

  “Come,” said the Prince to us. The turnkey entered. “We are ready,” he said to the latter. “You, sir,” turning to the Sicilian, “will be hearing further from me.”

  “My lord, the last question you put to the charlatan I would like to put to you,” I said to the Prince when we were alone once more. “Do you regard that second spirit as the true and genuine one?”

  “No, I assuredly do not—not any longer.”

  “Not any longer? Then you did?”

  “I’ll not deny that I got carried away for a moment and believed it to be something more than an illusion.”