de Stoudza. When she has gone, her husband and his guests
arrange a seance and evoke a spirit. No sooner have preliminaries been
settled than the spirit spells out the word "O-u-v-r-e-z." They open the
window, and behold! the sky is red with a glare which proves to proceed
from the burning of the train in which Madame d'Aubenas is supposed to
have started. The incident is effective enough, and a little creepy; but
its effect is quite incommensurate with the strain upon our powers of
belief. The thing is supposed to be a miracle, of that there can be no
doubt; but it has not the smallest influence on the course of the play,
except to bring on the hurry-scurry and alarm a few minutes earlier than
might otherwise have been the case. Now, if the spirit, instead of
merely announcing the accident, had informed M. d'Aubenas that his wife
was not in it--if, for example, it had rapped out "Gilberte chez
Stoudza"--it would have been an honest ghost (though indiscreet), and we
should not have felt that our credulity had been taxed to no purpose.
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