ain twice before dinner at a country house whither I
had gone to dine a league from hence. I was very faint. I told them not
to mind me, that it was nothing, and that I should soon recover myself;
and I went to a corner of the garden. Desfontaines having appeared to
me, reproached me for not having yet spoken to his brother, and again
conversed with me for a quarter of an hour without answering any of my
questions.

"As I was going in the morning to Notre-Dame de la Victoire, he appeared
to me again, but for a shorter time, and pressed me always to speak to
his brother, and left me, saying still, '_Jusques, jusques_,' without
choosing to reply to my questions.

"It is a remarkable thing that I always felt a pain in that part of my
arm which he had held me by the first time, until I had spoken to his
brother. I was three days without being able to sleep, from the
astonishment and agitation I felt. At the end of the first conversation,
I told M. de Varonville, my neighbour and schoolfellow, that
Desfontaines had been drowned; that he himself had just appeared to me
and told me so. He went away and ran to the parents' house to know if it
was true; they had just received the news, but by a mistake he
understood that it was the eldest. He assured me that he had read the
letter of Desfontaines, and he believed it; but I maintained always that
it could not be, and that Desfontaines himself had appeared to me. He
returned, came back, and told me in tears that it was but too true."

XXXIV

THE MARQUIS DE RAMBOUILLET

"The Phantom World"

The Marquis de Rambouillet, eldest brother of the Duchess of Montauzier,
and the Marquis de Precy, eldest son of the family of Nantouillet, both
of them between twenty and thirty, were intimate friends, and went to
the wars, as in France do all men of quality. As they were conversing
one day together on the subject of the other world, they promised each
other that the first who died should come and bring the news to his
companion. At the end of three months the Marquis de Rambouillet set off
for Flanders, where the war was then being carried on; and de Precy,
detained by a high fever, remained at Paris. Six weeks afterwards de
Precy, at six in the morning, heard the curtains of his bed drawn, and
turning to see who it was, he perceived the Marquis de Rambouillet in
his buff vest and boots; he sprung out of bed to embrace him to show his
joy at his return, but Rambouillet, retreati