The Countess of Monte Cristo
With this title, La Petite Presse publishes a serial novel in which we find the following passages, extracts from chapters XXX and XXXI:
“My paradise, dear mother," said her dying daughter to the Countess of Monte Cristo, "it will be to stay near you, near you!" still alive in your thoughts, listening to you and answering you, chatting in a low voice with your souls.
When the flower smells in the garden, and you bring it to your lips, I will be in the flower, and I will receive the kiss!" I will also be the ray, the passing breath, the sounding murmur. The wind that will shake your hair will be my caress; the scent of flowering lilacs will rise towards your window, it will be my breath; the distant song that will make you cry, it be my voice! …
Mother do not blaspheme! No anger against God! Alas! perhaps these anger and blasphemy would separate us forever.
As long as you stay down here, I will make myself your companion in exile; but later, when resigned to the wishes of our Father who is in heaven, you in your turn will have closed your eyes so as not to reopen them, then I will in turn be at your bedside, awaiting for your freedom; and intoxicated with eternal joy, our two hearts, united forever, entwined for eternity, will fly the same flight towards a merciful sky. Do you understand this joy, mother? Never leave one another, always love each other, always! To form, so to speak, two distinct beings and a single being, at the same time: to be you and me at the same time? To love and know that one is loved, and that the measure of the love that one inspires is the same that one feels?
Here below, we do not know each other; I ignore you as you ignore me; our two bodies are an obstacle between our two Spirits; we only see ourselves confusedly through the veil of flesh. But up there, we'll clearly read each other's hearts. And knowing how much we love each other is true paradise, you see!
Alas! All these promises of a mystical and infinite happiness, far from calming the anxieties of Helena, only made them more intense, by making her measure the value of good that she was going to miss.
At intervals, however, at the breath of these inspired words, Helena’s soul almost flew to the serene heights where Pippione's hovered. Her tears stopped, her calm returned to her disturbed bosom; it seemed to her that invisible beings were floating in the room, whispering the words to Blanche, as she pronounced them.
The child had fallen asleep, and in her dream, she seemed to be conversing with someone you couldn't see, listening to voices that only she could hear, and responding to them.
Suddenly, an abrupt tremble shook her frail limbs, she opened her large eyes wide and called her mother, who was dreaming, leaning on the window.
She approached the bed, and Pippione grabbed her hand with an already damp hand from the last sweats.
“The time has come," she said. “This is the last night. They call me, I hear them! I would like to stay still, poor mother, but I cannot, their will is stronger than mine; they are up there waving to me.”
- Madness! exclaimed Helena! Vision! Dream! You, die today, tonight, in my arms! Is that possible?
“- No, not die," said Pippione; “be born! I come out of the dream instead of entering it; the nightmare is over, I wake up. Oh! if you only knew how beautiful it is, and what light shines here, beside which your sun is but a black spot!”
She let herself fall on the cushions, remained silent for a moment, then continued:
"- The moments that I have to spend with you are short. I want you all to be here to tell me what you call an eternal farewell, that is just a brief goodbye. Everybody, do you hear me well? You first, the good doctor, Ursula, and Cyprienne, and Joseph.”
This name was pronounced lower than the others, it was the last breath, the last human regret of Pippione. From that moment, she belonged entirely to heaven…
…………………..
"- It was my daughter!
“- It was! … Repeated Doctor Ozam, in an almost fatherly voice, drawing Helena to his chest. It was! … So it is no longer… What is left here? A little half-decomposed flesh, nerves that vibrate no more, blood that thickens, eyes without gaze, a speechless throat, ears that no longer hear, a little mud! Your daughter! This corpse in which fertile nature already makes inferior life germinate, that will disseminate its elements? - Your daughter, this mud that tomorrow will turn green in the weeds, will flower in roses, and will restore to the ground all the living forces that it has stolen from her? No, no - this is not your daughter! This is only the delicate and charming outfit that she had created to go through our life of hardships, a rag that she disdainfully abandoned, like a worn dress that one throws away! If you want to have a vivid memory of your daughter, poor lady, you must look elsewhere… and higher.
“So, you believe it too, doctor,” she asked, “in this other life? You were said to be a materialist.”
“The doctor smirked softly. "Maybe I am, but not the way you mean it."
“It is not in another life that I believe, but in eternal life, in the life that has not begun and that, therefore, will have no end. – In the beginning, each of the beings equal to the others, educates, so to speak, their soul, and improves their faculties and power, in proportion to their merits and actions. Immediate consequence of this argumentation: this more perfect soul also aggregates a more perfect envelope all around itself. A day arrives when then finally this envelope is no longer sufficient, and then, the soul breaks the body, as they say.
But does she break it to find another more in line with her needs and her new qualities? Where? Who knows? Perhaps in one of those superior worlds that shine on our heads, in a world where she will find a more perfect body, endowed with more sensitive organs, thereby even better and happier!
……………….
We ourselves, perfect beings, from the first day endowed with all the senses that put us in touch with external nature, how much effort do we not need! What latent labors are not necessary for the child to become a man, the ignorant and weak being, king of Earth! And endlessly, until death, the courageous and the good ones persevere in this arduous way of work; they expand their intelligence by the study, their heart by dedication. That is the mysterious work of the human chrysalis, the work by which it acquires the power and the right to break the envelope of the body and to rise with wings."
Observation: The author, who had up until now kept anonymous, is Mr. du Boys, a young dramatic writer; from certain almost textual expressions, we can obviously see that he was inspired by the Doctrine.
