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“Where are you going?” cried my cousin, who, like me, awakened by the noise
of the three blows, could not suppress a certain degree of terror, knowing that
the principal entry door of the street being locked, nobody could enter to knock
at the door of our bedchamber.

“I am going to admit papa, who comes to bid me farewell,” said I.

She then got up and put me to bed again; but I resisted, crying very much and
exclaiming,—”Papa is at the door, and I must see papa before he leaves me
forever.”

“Has that apparition ever made its appearance since that time?”

“No, though I have recalled it often enough. But God, perhaps, grants to a
child’s purity, privileges which are refused to man’s corrupt nature.”

“Then,” said Lucien, smiling, “we are more fortunate in our family than you
are.”

“Have your deceased ancestors ever shown themselves?”

“Each time that a great event is about to take place.”

“And to what do you attribute this privilege being granted to your family?”

“I am going to give you the whole tradition, such as we have preserved it. I
told you that Savilia died, leaving two sons.”

“Yes, I recollect that.”

“These two sons grew up, in an attachment the most devoted, concentrating
upon each other all the affection and tenderness which would have been shared
with their relatives, if they had lived. They swore to each other, that nothing,
not even death, should separate them: and by the aid of I know not what powerful
conjuration, they wrote with their blood on a piece of parchment the reciprocal
oath, that he who died first, should appear to the other at the moment of his
death, and in every time of great extremity during his life. Three months after,
one of the brothers was killed in an ambuscade, in the very moment when the
other brother was sealing a letter written to him. As he was putting his seal on
the hot wax, he heard a sigh behind him, and, turning round, he saw his brother
standing there, leaning with his hand resting upon his shoulder, although he
felt no weight, nor even the impression of his hand. By a mechanical impulse he
presented the letter to his brother, who took it and disappeared. The night
before he died he saw this apparition again.

“Without doubt, the two brothers had not only pledged their word for
themselves, but also for their offspring, for since that time the apparitions
have appeared not only at the time when a death was about to take place, but
also upon the eve of all great events connected with the family.”

“And have you ever had a vision of this kind?”

“No; but as my father, during the night preceding his death, was informed by
his brother of his approaching end, I presume that my brother and I shall enjoy
the privilege of our ancestors, as we have never done any thing to make us
unworthy of that favor.”

“And this privilege is only granted to the males of the family?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange.”

“So it is.”

I looked at the young man, who, cold, grave and calm, told me a thing
considered impossible, and I repeated with Hamlet— “There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!”

At Paris, I would have considered the young man as a mystifier; but in the
heart of Corsica, in a little obscure village, I was constrained to look upon
him as a fool who believed implicitly in the deceptions of his imagination, or a
being more or less fortunate than other people.

“And now,” said he, after a long pause, “have I told you all you wished to
know?”

“Yes, I thank you, I am much gratified at your confidence in me, and I
promise you to keep it secret.”

“Oh!” replied he, smiling, “there is no secret in all this, and the first
peasant you might meet in the village, would have told you the same story. I
only hope that my brother may not have boasted at Paris of this privilege; the
consequence would probably be, that the men would laugh in his face, and the
women get a nervous attack.”