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Strikes and Noises

Regardless of the ordinary strikes, we heard all kinds of strikes [rapping].

I will try to describe this as clearly as possible.

I will first consider what are called rhythmic strokes. It is a common experience.

We can obtain a series of strikes whose rhythm matches that of a song, a march, a Marseillaise, this is common. But what characterized those we heard was the following complication.

Several spirits managed to manifest themselves together with each of the strikes, with different sounds.

For example, one was recognized by a dry sound, the other by a metallic sound, a third by a soft one, quite similar to that produced by the impact of the fingertip on wood.

Well, when we asked for the rhythm of an aria, each of the spirits present struck it not separately but at the same time as the other two, that is, the first note consisted of the rapid succession of the three sounds, the second the same, and so on. It seemed as if each strike consisted of a slight rolling motion with each beat corresponding to a different sound. It was really interesting. The maximum number of particular sounds was five generated together.

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A manifestation related to both inputs and noises was very attractive. It took place in the darkness.

My father, a smoker, used to clean his pipes with horseshoe nails. Everyone knows that these nails are made of soft iron, therefore, devoid of any elasticity and even more so unable to produce any kind of musical sound. One of these nails was in an empty pocket on the sideboard of the room.

Now, one evening, we heard real hammer blows on the table. Then, after a rather prolonged silence, a crystalline sound came to strike our ears. It was a musical sound similar to that of a crystal glass, but much longer. We were wondering how our friends managed to produce this beautiful sound. We quickly got the explanation.

We had barely lit the lamp when we saw it, stuck in one of the grooves of the table, the horseshoe nail. It was with this more than primitive instrument that they had managed to charm our ears. - They made soft iron sound like the steel string of a piano!!

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Then came a whole series of very curious sounds, occurring outside the circle of the table.

It was first the particular squeaking of an ungreased saw biting a piece of wood, then a curious detail, the very clear noise of the two separate ends falling to the ground.

Another time it was the very special sound of the tearing of a piece of silk.

Finally, as a very interesting phenomenon, my father, at his request, obtained the following.

On a beautiful summer evening, when the moon was shining in a cloudless sky, my father asked our friends to imitate on the glass of the window the sound of a violent storm rain with hail.

After a few moments, very clearly, our ears were struck by the external noise of a torrential rain. They were real electric discharges for which the glass panes would have been the seat.

The imitation was so perfect that despite the good weather outside and also despite the fact that the demonstration had taken place at his request, my father got up and opened the window to see if it had really not rained.

The magnificent, brilliant moon, alone answered him.

Outside, there was no trace of humidity.