_Some Philosophy and a Song_
|LET us leave Paris awhile and return to the little estate on the banks
of the Marne, which Théophraste generally moved to with the first rays
of the July sun. This year he was to go there before Marceline and his
friend, Adolphe, who had been commissioned to survey the timbers on
some lands elsewhere. Thus these last few days he could spend alone
in security and peace to attend to this unusual treatise which his new
position in the world had given him.
The name of the house was “Villa Flots d’Azure.” Théophraste had
given it this name against the wishes of Adolphe, who protested that the
name was for a villa near the sea. He had replied with logic that he had
often gone to the Preport, and that he had always seen the sea green;
that he knew the Marne, and that on account of the reflected blue sky
the water seemed blue. Do they not say “the beautiful blue Danube”?
It was not only the ocean that had blue waves, so he did not see why he
should not call his villa on the Marne “Villa Flots d’Azure.”
That day was the anniversary of their marriage. Théophraste was very
fond of Marceline, and these anniversaries were always the occasion for
much merry-making. Marceline also loved Théophraste, and saw no reason
why she should not like Adolphe equally as well, whereas, on the other
side, Adolphe adored Marceline and would have died for Théophraste. On
reflection, the name “Villa Flots d’Amour” would have been more
appropriate than “Villa Flots d’Azure,” such harmony existed
therein.
Théophraste shook Adolphe’s hand effusively. He complimented his wife
on her beauty. He had his green umbrella that day, and in making his
congratulations twirled it in a fashion, as he thought, resembling
the manner in which they used canes in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. He was not a vain person, but he knew by this scientific
miracle that he had been a great man two hundred years ago, and he
felt that he should convey the impression that he had moved among great
people and affairs.
It was their custom upon their return to their country house to invite
a few friends to a party to celebrate the occasion. Upon this occasion
Théophraste was at his best. He was in high spirits, and while passing
the good word to the gentlemen, made flattering speeches to the ladies.
The table was set in the garden under a tent where the guests assembled.
After a while the conversation turned to the latest doings in angling.
M. Lopard had caught a trout of three pounds; old M. Tartoush had cast
his line on Sunday—having caught nothing, complained that people made
too much noise shooting during the week, and drove the fish from these
waters. All joined in the conversation and gave their experiences except
M. Théophraste.
He kept silent. He found the topic too commonplace and felt a desire to
raise its level. He wanted it to drift into some subject related to
that preoccupying his mind. After awhile he was able to get Adolphe
interested in the subject of ghosts. From ghosts the conversation led on
to spiritualism. One lady knew a somnambulist and related some strange
stories which were calculated to work upon the imagination of the
company. Adolphe, upon this, explained the spiritualistic point of view
of the phenomena of somnambulism, and cited well-known authorities. He
seemed quite in his element, and finally reached the point desired by
Théophraste, the transmigration of souls and reincarnation.
“Is it possible,” said Marceline, “that a soul comes back to live
in its body? You have often told me so, Adolphe, but it seems to me that
one’s reason strongly repulses such an hypothesis.” “Nothing is
lost in Nature,” replied Adolphe, positively. “Neither the soul
nor the body. All is transformed, the soul as well as the body. The
reincarnation of souls at the end of a century is a doctrine which goes
back to such great antiquity that the ancient philosophers do not deny
it.”
“If one’s soul returned to a body,” said Marceline, “one would
surely know it.”
“Not always,” said Adolphe, “but sometimes.” “Ah,
sometimes?” asked Théophraste, who was by this time becoming
intensely interested.
“Yes, there are cases. For instance: Ptolemy Caesar, son of Caesar and
Cleopatra, who was king of Egypt before Christ, remembered well to have
been Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher, who lived 600 years before.”
“Impossible!” cried the ladies, and the gentlemen smiled
skeptically.
“You need not laugh, gentlemen. It is impossible to be more serious.
Our actual transformation, which is the final word in science, is in
full accord with the theory of reincarnation. What is transformation
except the idea that living things transform themselves, progressing one
into another? Nature presents herself to us under the aspect of a spark,
elaborately perfecting without ceasing to create, to attain an ideal
which will be the millennium. Whatever Nature does for the body she does
for the soul. It can be proved, for I have studied this side a great
deal, and it is the original of all sciences.
Monsieur Adolphe was not understood by the company, a fact of which he
was inwardly proud. He liked to feel a superiority of intellect, and
often he would raise the conversation above the level of his audience
just to gratify his vanity. He touched on many points which only need
be referred to lightly here in order to convince skeptics that the
extraordinary history of Théophraste is founded on a most scientific
basis.
“The transmigration of souls was taught in India,” said Adolphe;
“the cradle of the genus human, then in Egypt, then in Greece. They
chanted its mysteries in the name of Orpheus. Pythagoras, who continued
the teaching, did not admit with the philosophers on the banks of the
Ganges that the soul traveled over the cycle of all animal existence. He
made it come back, for example, into a pig.”
“There are some men,” said Madame Beulie, “who still have the
souls of pigs.”
“Without doubt,” said Adolphe, smiling; “but what Pythagoras says
is that we must not conclude from that, that pigs have the souls of
men. Plato also adopts this doctrine. It is the first which gave in the
Phidon the proof that souls do not exile themselves forever and that
they come back to animate bodies anew.”
“Oh, if we could only get proof of that it would be nothing for me to
die,” declared old Mlle. Tabouret, who had a mortal terror of dying.
“Here are the proofs,” continued Adolphe. “They are two in number.
One is taken from the general law of Nature, the other from human
nature. First, Nature is governed by the laws of contraries, and from
that we see that while death succeeds life, all would end by being
absorbed in death, and Nature would one day come to an end like
Endymion. Therefore I say that we exist after death.
“Secondly, if after consulting the general laws of Nature we turn to
our own minds, we will find there the same dogma attested by the fact of
resemblance. ‘To learn,’ said Plato, ‘is nothing but to recollect.
Since our souls learn, they must have a resemblance. What does it
recollect except to have lived, and to have lived in another body? Why
can we not believe that in leaving the body while it is animate at
this time it can animate several others in succession?’ I quote Plato
literally,” remarked Adolphe.
Then he passed from Plato to a modern authority. “Charles Fournier has
said: ‘Where is the old man who has not truly wished to be born again,
and to use in another life the experience he has acquired in this?’ To
pretend that that desire ought not to be realized is to admit that God
can deceive us. We ought then to recognize that we have lived previous
to being what we are, and that several other lives await us. All these
lives, to the number of eight hundred and ten, are distributed between
five periods and embrace a span of eighty-one thousand years. Allan
Hardai reckons that the soul returns to another body after two or three
thousand years unless we die a violent death. Then it is quite possible
one can be reincarnated after two hundred years.”
Adolphe had by this time drawn all around him and became the center of
attraction by his entertaining remarks. Théophraste had sat open-eyed,
listening intently, and upon hearing the last remark thought “That is
well. They may have hung me; so if I did not die that way, they may have
got rid of me by some other death more in keeping with my station in
life. Nevertheless,” he thought, “if all these people here could
only realize that they had a prince of the royal blood among them, they
would be very much astonished, and be filled with respect. But no, he
will still be Théophraste Longuet, manufacturer of rubber stamps.”
Champagne was brought, and soon the air rang merrily with general
chatter and the explosion of corks. It was then that Marceline turned
around to Théophraste and begged him to sing the song which he was
accustomed to sing on the anniversary of their marriage. He had sung it
the day of their wedding, and on account of its beauty they had adopted
it as their wedding song. It was Lissette de Baranger.
However, to the consternation of Marceline and all the guests, instead
of singing the song, he rose, threw his napkin on the table and said to
her in that strange voice which they heard at the Conciergerie:
“As thou wishest, Marie Antoinette, I can refuse thee nothing.”
“Oh, my God,” cried Marceline. “Hear what he called me in that
strange voice!”
The guests were obviously uncomfortable, and did not know what to make
of his peculiar behavior. The song was a vulgar song of the Regency
period, and certainly not for such a gathering as was at this party. He
sang it with the old French air:=
````Tou joli belle mimiere--
````Tou joli, moulin.=