Observations placeholder

From Camille Flammarion L'Inconnu (page 108)

The Swiss painter Édouard Paris writes:

About a year and a half ago, my father, a cousin who was staying with us and my sister were talking in the dining room. These three people were alone in the room, when all of a sudden they heard the piano playing in the living room. Very intrigued, my sister took the lamp, went to the living room and saw perfectly a few notes all going down together, making sounds that could be heard, and rising again.

She came back and told what she saw. At first , they laughed at her story, seeing a mouse at the end of the case; but as the woman had excellent eyesight and was not superstitious at all, they found the matter strange.

However, eight days later, a letter from New York informed us of the death of an old uncle who lived in that city. But, more extraordinary, three days after the letter arrived, the piano played again. Like the first time, a death announcement came to us eight days later, this time from my aunt.

My uncle and aunt were a perfectly united couple. They had kept a very strong attachment to their parents and to the Jura, their place of origin.

The piano has never been heard on its own since then.

The witnesses of this case will certify this when you want it.

We live in the countryside around Neuchâtel, and I assure you that we are not neurotics here.

Signed: Édouard Paris, painter, near Neuchâtel (Switzerland).