The Man Who Sees Ghosts by Friedrich von Schiller Page A

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 nothave 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 Ihad 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