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Death and its Mystery: After Death – Camille Flammarion

I was seven years old, and was at a school in Italy; my mother had gone to Vienna (Austria) with my father, where he was to be operated upon for gall-stones. On November 23rd I was punished, since I did not know my music lesson, and put on dry bread. My teacher, who was sorry for me, probably, said to me, “Go up and get your music-book and if you know your lesson, you may have dinner."

The piano was in a little room on the third floor. I went up, as a matter of course, without a light; the word “fear" was unknown to me; and, besides, in our home we were not accustomed to admit that there was such a thing. I picked up my music-book and turned as I heard someone call, "Mimi, Mimi!" three times in succession.

I saw my father and threw myself towards him. He was not there, and I went downstairs four steps at a time, calling out, “Papa is up there !"

They went up with a light: nothing- absolutely nothing. I cried all that night; I said that my father had come back, that he had hidden himself because I had not been good, and I promised to work hard, so that he would come back.

The next day a telegram reached the school: my poor father had died at half-past seven in the evening, at the hour at which he had appeared to me. He appeared not only to me but also to my grandmother. She was my mother’s mother, and therefore my father's mother-in-law, but he loved her dearly. There were three of them in the dining-room: my grandmother, her second husband, and my grandmother’s daughter, when the door opened and my father came in.

My grandmother exclaimed: “There you are! How splendid that you got well so soon !" There was no one there. My grandmother said: “Let us pray! He is dead." I can vouch for these occurrences. I should, perhaps, have forgotten them because of my youth (I am now forty-six years old), but people told me of them so often that they are engraved upon my memory; my conviction is unshakable. I should prefer that you give only my initials as a signature.

L. M. G.,

(Letter 76.) Venice.