NOTE: In a private session at the house of one of our colleagues from the Society, the medium spontaneously wrote the following, on February 6th, 1861:
“The skies are ampler, the atmosphere larger, the flowers more beautiful, the fruits sweeter and the aspirations go even beyond imagination. Greetings, new homeland! Greetings, new dwelling! Greetings love, greetings happiness! How pale is the brief passage on Earth, and how happy is the one who sighed of relief for having left Tartarus and gone to the heavens! Greetings, true bohemia! Greetings, true separation! Greetings, dreams that have come true! I was glad when I fell asleep because I knew that the awakening would be happy. Ah! Thank you my friends for your kind remembrance!
M. Murger
The following Q&A were carried out at the Society on February 8th:
1. You spontaneously came last Wednesday to communicate at the house of one of our colleagues, and there you wrote a nice message. However, there wasn’t anybody there who knew you. Can you please tell us what has prompted you to give us the honor of your visit? – A. I came to demonstrate that I was alive so that I could be evoked today.
2. Were you sympathetic to the spiritist ideas? – A. Two things: First, I suspected then I was easily driven by my own inspirations.
3. It seems that your confusion did not last long considering that you express yourself so easily and so clearly! – A. I died with a perfect awareness of myself, hence I only had to open the eyes of the spirit as soon as the eyes of the flesh were shut.
4. That communication may be considered as a report of your first impressions about the world where you are now. Could you describe with more accuracy what happened to you since the moment when the soul left the body? – A. I was overwhelmed with joy; I saw dear faces again, faces that I supposed were lost forever. I have just been dematerialized and my sensations are still almost earthly sensations.
5. Could you give us your impressions about your main book: ‘La vie de bohème’, from your current stand point? – A. Stunned as I am by the unknown splendors of resurrection, how do you want me to go back to that poor book, a pale reflex of a painful youth?
6. One of your friends, Mr. Théodore Pelloquet, published a bibliographic article about you in the Le Siècle on the 6th of this month. Could you address him with a few words as well as other writers who are friends and comrades of yours, some of whom may not exactly be believers in a future life? – A. I will tell them that the worldly success is like gold transformed into dry leaves. What we all believe in, what we all expect is success, always success, we the hungry harvesters of the Parisian soil, never looking up and above, to the skies, never thinking of the one who always judges us based on our deeds. Will my words change them? No. Dragged through the scorching life that blemishes belief and youth, they will hear lightheartedly, they will forget and move on.
7. Do you see Gérard de Nerval here, the one that has just spoke of you? – A. I see him, and Musset and the lovely and great Delphine. I see them all. They help me; they give me encouragement and teach me to communicate.
Observation: This last question was triggered by the following communication spontaneously received by a medium at the Society, at the beginning of the session:
“A brother has arrived to our world, he is happy and doing well. He thanks heaven for his somewhat late liberation, as you heard him saying a short while ago. Goodbye to sadness, tears and the bitter smile, because we now know that the smile among you is never honest. Something really regrettable and painful on Earth is the need to smile; forced smile or smile at nothing, particularly in France when someone is prepared to dream in solitude. Disenchantment is terrible to a long waiting heart, disillusion a terrible skeleton whose contour one tries to unsuccessfully touch. The uneasy and trembling hand can only find bones. What a horror! For someone who believed in love, religion, family, friendship; those who can face that horrible and petrifying mask, and go unpunished. Ah! Those living, although petrified, but those who sing like bohemians those die very quickly. They turn Medusa’s head. My brother was one of those. As you see my friends from now on we no longer live only in our books, and we will promptly attend your calls. Far from being proud of this happy environment that surrounds us, we shall come to you as if we were still on Earth, and Murger will still sing.”
Gérard de Nerval
