Entry of a guilty one into the world of Spirits

I am going to tell you what I suffered when I died. Retained in the body by material bonds, my Spirit had great difficulty in detaching itself, which was a first and great anguish. The life that I had left at twenty-four years of age was still so strong in me, that I did not believe in its loss. I sought my body and was astonished and terrified to see myself lost in the midst of that multitude of shadows. At last, the consciousness of my state and the revelation of the faults I had committed in all my incarnations wounded me suddenly. An implacable light illuminated the most secret recesses of my soul, which felt itself naked and seized with overwhelming shame. I sought to escape, taking interest in new objects, yet known, that surrounded me; the radiant Spirits, floating in the ether, gave me the idea of a happiness to which I could not aspire; somber and desolate forms, some plunged in sad despair, others ironic or furious, glided around me and over the earth to which I was bound. I saw humans moving about and I envied their ignorance. A whole order of sensations unknown or rediscovered invaded me at the same time. As though dragged by an irresistible force, seeking to flee from this stabbing pain, I crossed distances, elements, material obstacles, without the beauties of Nature nor the celestial splendors being able to calm for an instant the laceration of my conscience, nor the dread that the revelation of eternity caused me. A mortal can have a presentiment of material tortures through the shudders of the flesh, but your fragile pains, softened by hope, tempered by distractions, killed by forgetfulness, will never be able to make you comprehend the anguish of a soul that suffers without respite, without hope, without repentance. I passed a time, whose duration I cannot appreciate, envying the elect, of whom I caught a glimpse of the splendor, detesting the evil Spirits who pursued me with their mockeries, despising the humans, whose baseness I saw, passing from a profound dejection to a senseless revolt. At last, you calmed me. I listened to the teachings that your guides gave you. The truth penetrated me and I prayed: God heard me. He revealed himself to me by his clemency, as he had revealed himself by his justice.

Novel.