My friend Hermann.

— Under this title, Mr. H. Lugner published, in the feuilleton of the Journal des Débats of November 26, 1858, a witty fantastic tale, in the manner of Hoffmann, and which, at first sight, seems to bear some analogy to our agenères and to the phenomena of tangibility we have just discussed. Its length does not permit us to reproduce it in full. We shall limit ourselves to making an analysis of it, observing that the author narrates this story as a fact of which he had been a personal witness, being — so he said — bound by ties of friendship to the hero of the adventure. This hero, named Hermann, lived in a small town in the interior of Germany.

— “He was” — says the narrator — “a handsome young man of 25, of imposing bearing, full of nobility in all his movements, gracious and witty in speech; very learned and without the least pedantry, refined and without malice, very jealous of his dignity and without the least arrogance. In short, he was perfect in everything and more perfect still in three things: love of philosophy, a particular vocation for the waltz, and gentleness of character. This gentleness was neither weakness, nor fear of others, nor exaggerated distrust of himself: it was a natural inclination, a superabundance of that milk of human kindness [leite da bondade humana] which ordinarily we find only in the fictions of poets and with which Nature had endowed Hermann in a dose never before seen. He contained and at the same time sustained his adversaries with a goodness omnipotent and superior to insults; they could wound him, but not anger him. One day, the barber having burned the tip of his ear while curling his hair, Hermann hastened to excuse him, taking the blame upon himself and assuring that he had moved clumsily. Yet nothing of the sort happened, I can say so in conscience, because I was present and saw clearly that everything was due to the barber’s incompetence. He gave many other proofs of imperturbable goodness of soul. He listened to the reading of bad verses with an angelic air and replied to the most foolish epigrams with well-placed praises, where malevolent spirits would have acted with malice. This extraordinary gentleness had made him famous; there was not a woman who would not have given her life to watch over Hermann’s character without rest, seeking to make him lose his patience at least once in his life. “Add to all these merits the advantage of a complete independence and a fortune sufficient to count him among the richest men of the town, and you can hardly imagine that anything was lacking to Hermann’s happiness. Yet he was not happy and often showed signs of sadness… This was due to a singular infirmity, which had been afflicting him his whole life and which had long excited the curiosity of his little town.

“Hermann could not stay awake a single instant after sunset. When the day drew near its end he was seized with an invincible languor and, little by little, fell into a torpor that nothing could prevent and from which no one could rouse him. He went to bed with the sun and rose at the break of day; his morning habits would have made him an excellent hunter, had he been able to overcome his horror of blood and bear the idea of giving a cruel death to innocent creatures.”

Here is in what terms, in a moment of unburdening, he describes his own situation to his friend of the Journal des Débats:

“You know well, my dear friend, to what infirmity I am subject and what invincible sleep regularly oppresses me, from twilight to dawn. About this too you know what everyone knows and, like everyone, you have heard it said that this sleep, so to speak, is confused with death. Nothing is truer, and this prodigy would matter little to me, I swear it, if nature contented itself with taking my body as the object of one of its fancies. But my soul is also its plaything and I cannot tell you without horror the bizarre and cruel fate that has been inflicted upon it. Each of my nights is peopled with a dream that links itself with the most fatal clarity to the dream of the previous night. These dreams — God grant they be dreams — follow and chain themselves together like the events of a common existence unfolding in the face of the sun and in the company of other men. I live, then, twice, leading two quite different existences: one passes here, with you and with our friends; the other, very far from here, with men whom I know as well as I know you, with whom I speak as I speak to you, and who treat me as a madman as you do when I refer to another existence beyond this one I spend with you. Yet here I am alive and speaking, seated at your side and quite awake, I think; and whoever should claim that we are dreaming or that we are shadows, would he not with just reason pass for senseless? Well then! my dear friend, each of those moments, of those acts that fill the hours of my unavoidable sleep, are no less real, and when I find myself wholly in that other existence, it is this one that I would be tempted to regard as a dream. Yet I dream here no more than there. I live alternately on both sides and could not doubt it, although my reason is strangely shocked by the fact that my soul animates, successively, two bodies and thus confronts two existences. Ah! my dear friend, would to God that in these two bodies it had the same instincts and the same conduct and that there I were the man you esteem and know here. But it is nothing of the sort and perhaps they would not dare to contest the influence of the physical upon the moral if they knew my history. I do not wish to boast of myself; besides, the pride that one of these two existences might inspire in me is debased by the shame inseparable from the other. Nevertheless, I cannot say without vanity that here I am justly loved and respected by all; they praise my personality and my manners; they find me noble, liberal, and distinguished. As you know, I love letters, philosophy, the arts, liberty, and all that makes the charm and dignity of human life; I assist the unfortunate and do not envy my neighbor. You know my proverbial gentleness, my spirit of justice and mercy, and my insuperable horror of violence. All these qualities, which elevate me and adorn me here, I expiate there, with opposite vices. Nature, which has heaped blessings upon me here, has seen fit to curse me there. Not only has it cast me into an inferior situation, where I had to remain without letters and without culture, but it has given to that other body, which is also mine, organs so coarse or so perverse, senses so blind or so strong, such inclinations and such needs that my soul obeys, instead of commanding, letting itself be dragged by this despotic body into the vilest disorders. There I am hard and cowardly, a persecutor of the weak and servile before the strong, pitiless and envious, unjust by nature, violent to the point of delirium. Yet it is myself and, however much I hate and despise myself, I cannot help recognizing myself. “Hermann paused an instant; his voice trembled and his eyes were wet with tears. Trying to smile, I said to him: “I want to provoke your madness, the better to cure it. Tell me everything; to begin with, where does this other existence take place and by what name are you known?”

“My name is William Parker, he answered; I am a citizen of Melbourne, in Australia. It is there, in the land of the antipodes, that my soul flies, as soon as it leaves you. When the Sun sets here it leaves Hermann inanimate and, when it rises there, it gives life to the inert body of Parker. Then begins my miserable existence of vagabondage, of fraud, of brawls and of begging. I frequent a bad society and in it I am counted among the worst; I am in incessant strife with my companions and, not infrequently, I find myself with knife in hand; I am always at war with the police and, frequently, obliged to hide. But everything has an end in this world and this torment is drawing to a close. Unfortunately I have committed a crime. I cowardly and brutally killed a poor creature who had attached herself to me. Thus I brought to its height the public indignation, already excited by my bad conduct. The jury condemned me to death and I await my execution. Some humane and religious persons interceded with the governor, in order to obtain for me a pardon or, at least, a reprieve, which would give me time to convert myself. Yet my coarse and intractable nature is well known. They refused it and, tomorrow, or rather, tonight, I shall infallibly be led to the gallows.” “Well then! I said to him smiling, so much the better for you as for us; the death of that rogue is a good solution. Once Parker is cast into eternity, Hermann will live in peace; he will be able to stay awake like everyone else and remain with us day and night. This death will cure you, my dear friend, and I am grateful to the governor of Melbourne for having refused a pardon to that wretch.”

“You are mistaken, Hermann answered me, with such gravity that it moved me to pity: we shall both die together, since we are but one and, despite our diversities and our natural antipathy, we have but one soul, which will be struck by a single blow, because in all things we answer for one another. Do you believe, then, that Parker would still be alive if Hermann had not felt that both in death and in life they were inseparable? Would I have hesitated a single instant if I had been able to tear out and cast into the fire that other existence, like the accursed eye of which the scriptures speak? But I was so happy to live here that I would not admit dying there; and my indecision lasted until fate resolved this terrible question for me. Now, all is consummated; believe that I am taking my leave of you.”

“The next day they found Hermann dead in his bed and, some months later, the Australian newspapers reported the execution of William Parker, with all the particulars described by his duplicate.”

— This whole story is narrated with imperturbable coolness and in a serious tone; nothing is lacking, in the details we have omitted, to give it an air of truth. In the presence of the strange phenomena we have witnessed, a fact of this nature might appear if not real, at least possible, and related to a certain extent to those we have already cited. Indeed, would it not be analogous to that of the young man who slept in Boulogne, while, at the same time, he conversed in London with his friends? To that of Saint Anthony of Padua who, on the same day, preached in Spain and showed himself in Padua to save the life of his father, accused of homicide? [See: Phenomenon of bicorporeity.]

At first sight one may say that, if these two facts are exact, neither is it impossible that Hermann lived in Australia, while he slept in Germany, and reciprocally. Although our opinion is perfectly established on this subject, we believe we ought to refer it to our instructors from beyond the grave, in one of the sessions of the Society. To the question: Is the fact related by the Journal des Débats real? They answered: No; it is a story made especially to amuse readers. — If it is not real, is it possible? — No; a soul cannot animate two different bodies.

In reality, in the Boulogne story, although the young man showed himself in two different places simultaneously, in truth he possessed only one body of flesh and bone, which was in that town; in London there was only the appearance or perispirit, tangible, it is true, but not the mortal body itself; he could not die in London and in Boulogne. Hermann, on the contrary, according to the story, would really have two bodies, since one was hanged in Melbourne and the other buried in Germany. The same soul would thus have confronted two simultaneous existences, which, according to the Spirits, is not possible. The phenomena of the kind of that of Boulogne and of Saint Anthony of Padua, although very frequent, are, moreover, always accidental and fortuitous in an individual, never having a character of permanence, whereas the alleged Hermann was thus from infancy. Yet the gravest reason of all is the difference of characters. Surely, if these two individuals had had but one single soul, this could not be, alternately, that of a man of good and that of a bandit. It is true that the author bases himself on the influence of the organism. We lament it, if such is his philosophy and, even more, that he should seek to give it credit, for it would be to deny the responsibility of acts; such a doctrine would be the negation of all morality, because it would reduce man to the condition of a machine.