Of the various automatic phenomena, the “speaking in tongues” is one which at all times has most aroused curiosity, while at the same time little accurate knowledge concerning it has been obtainable, on account of the difficulty of collecting correctly the confused and unintelligible words as they gush forth.

The phonograph, which has already been employed in some exceptional cases, like that of Le Baron, will doubtless some day render inestimable service to this kind of study, but it leaves much still to be desired at the present moment, from the point of view of its practical utilization in the case of subjects not in their right mind, who are not easily manageable, and who will not remain quiet long enough while uttering their unusual words to allow the instrument to be adjusted and made ready.

There are different species of glossolalia. Simple, incoherent utterances, in a state of ecstasy, interspersed with emotional exclamations, which are sometimes produced in certain surcharged religious environments, is another matter altogether from the creation of neologisms, which are met with in the dream, in somnambulism, mental alienation, or in children. At the same time this fabrication of arbitrary words raises other problems—as, for example, the occasional use of foreign idioms unknown to the subject (at least, apparently), but which really exist. In each of these cases it is necessary to examine further whether, and in what measure, the individual attributes a fixed meaning to the sounds which he utters, whether he understands (or has, at least, the impression of understanding) his own words, or whether it is only a question of a mechanical and meaningless derangement of the phonetic apparatus, or, again, whether this jargon, unintelligible to the ordinary personality, expresses the ideas of some secondary personality. All these forms, moreover, vary in shades and degrees, and there are, in addition, those mixed cases, possibly the more frequent, where all the forms are mingled and combined. The same individual, and sometimes in the course of the same spasm, also exhibits a series of neologisms, comprehended or uncomprehended, giving way to a simple, incoherent verbiage in common language, or vice versa, etc.

A good description and rational classification of all these categories and varieties of glossolalia would be of very great interest. I cannot think of attempting such a study here, having enough already to fully occupy my attention, by reason of having involved myself with the Martian of Mlle. Smith. This somnambulistic language does not consist, as we have already discovered, either in speaking ecstatically or in religious enthusiasm, nor yet in the use of a foreign language which really exists; it represents rather neologism carried to its highest expression and practised in a systematic fashion, with a very precise signification, by a secondary personality unknown to the normal self. It is a typical case of “glosso-poesy,” of complete fabrication of all the parts of a new language by a subconscious activity. I have many times regretted that those who have witnessed analogous phenomena—as, for example, Kerner, with the Seeress of Prevost—have not gathered together and published in their entirety all the products of this singular method of performing their functions on the part of the verbal faculties. Undoubtedly each case taken by itself seems a simple anomaly, a pure arbitrary curiosity, and without any bearing; but who knows whether the collection of a large number of these psychological bibelots, as yet few enough in their total, would not end in some unexpected light? Exceptional facts are often the most instructive.

In order to avoid falling into the same errors of negligence, not knowing where to stop, in case I wished to make a choice, I have taken the course of setting forth here in full all the Martian texts which we have been able to gather. I will have them follow a paragraph containing certain remarks which that unknown language has suggested to me; but, very far from flattering myself that I have exhausted the subject, I earnestly hope that it will find readers more competent than myself to correct and complete my observations, since I must acknowledge that as a linguist and philologist I am very much like an ass playing the flute. It is expedient, in beginning, to give some further details regarding the various psychological methods of manifestation of that unknown tongue.

I. Verbal Martian Automatisms

I have described in the preceding chapter, and will not now return to it, the birth of the Martian language, indissolubly bound up with that of the romance itself, from the 2d of February, 1896, up to the inauguration of the process of translation by the entrance of Esenale upon the scene on the 2d of November following (see pp. 154-165). During several months thereafter the Martian language is confined to the two psychological forms of apparition in which it seems to have been clothed during the course of that first year.

First: Verbo-auditive automatism, hallucinations of hearing, accompanying visions in the waking state. In the case of spontaneous visions, Hélène notes in pencil, either during the vision itself or immediately afterwards, the unintelligible sounds which strike her ear; but to her great regret many of them escape her, since she is sometimes only able to gather the first or the last phrase of the sentences which her imaginary personages address to her, or scattered fragments of conversations which she holds with herself; these fragments themselves often contain inaccuracies, which are ultimately rectified at the moment of translation, Esenale having the good habit of articulating very clearly each Martian word before giving its French equivalent. In the case of the visions which she has at the seances, Hélène slowly repeats the words she hears without understanding them, and the sitters make note of them more or less correctly.

Secondly: Vocal automatism (“verbo-motor hallucinations of articulation,” in the cumbersome official terminology). Here again it is the sitters who gather as much as they can of the strange words pronounced in a state of trance, but that is very little, since Hélène, in her Martian state, often speaks with a tremendous volubility. Moreover, a distinction must be made between the relatively clear and brief phrases which are later translated by Esenale, and the rapid and confused gibberish the signification of which can never be obtained, probably because it really has none, but is only a pseudo-language (see pp. p. 154-159).

A new process of communication, the handwriting, made its appearance in August, 1897, with a delay of perhaps eighteen months as to the speech (the reverse of Leopold’s case, who wrote a long time before speaking). It is produced, also, under two forms, which constitute a pendant to the two cases given above, and also complete the standard quartette of the psychological modalities of language.

Thirdly: Verbo-visual automatism—that is, apparitions of exotic characters before Hélène’s eyes when awake, who copies them as faithfully as possible in a drawing, without knowing the meaning of the mysterious hieroglyphics.

Fourthly: Graphic automatism—i.e., writing traced by the hand of Hélène while completely entranced and incarnating a Martian personage. In this case the characters are generally smaller, more regular, better formed than in the drawings of the preceding case. A certain number of occasions, when the name has been pronounced by Hélène before being written, and especially the articulation of Esenale at the moment of translation, have permitted the relations between her vocal sounds and the graphic signs of the Martian language to be established.

It is to be noted that these four automatic manifestations do not inflict an equal injury upon the normal personality of Mlle. Smith. As a rule, the verbo-auditive and verbo-visual hallucinations only suppress her consciousness of present reality; they leave her a freedom of mind which, if not complete, is at least sufficient to permit her to observe in a reflective manner these sensorial automatisms, to engrave them on her memory, and to describe them or make a copy of them, while she often adds remarks testifying to a certain critical sense. On the contrary, the verbo-motor hallucinations of articulation or of writing seem to be incompatible with her preservation of the waking state, and are followed by amnesia. Hélène is always totally absent or entranced while her hand writes mechanically, and if, as seldom happens, she speaks Martian automatically, outside of the moments of complete incarnation, she is not aware of it, and does not recollect it. This incapacity of the normal personality of Mlle. Smith to observe at the time or remember afterwards her verbo-motor automatisms denotes a more profound perturbation than that she experiences during her sensory automatisms.

The Martian handwriting only appeared at the end of a prolonged period of incubation, which betrayed itself in several incidents, and was certainly stimulated by various exterior suggestions during a year and a half at least. The following are the principal dates of this development.

February 16, 1896.—The idea of a special handwriting belonging to the planet Mars occurs for the first time to Hélène’s astonishment in a Martian semi-trance (see p. 161).

November 2.—Handwriting is clearly predicted in the phrase, “Astané will teach me to write,” uttered by Hélène in a Martian trance, after the scene of the translation by Esenale (see p. 166).

November 8.—After the translation of text No. 3, Leopold, being questioned, replies that Astané will write this text for Mlle. Smith, but the prediction is not fulfilled.

May 23, 1897.—The announcement of Martian handwriting becomes more precise. “Presently,” says Astané to Hélène, “thou wilt be able to trace our handwriting, and thou wilt possess in thy hands the characters of our language” (text 12).

June 20.—At the beginning of a seance, a Martian vision, she demands of an imaginary interlocutor “a large ring which comes to a point, and with which one can write.” This description applies to M. R., who has with him some small pocket-pens of this kind, capable of being adjusted to the end of the index-finger.

June 23.—I hand Hélène the two small pocket-pens which M. R. has brought for her, but they do not please her. After trying to use one, she throws it away and takes up a pencil, saying that if she must write Martian, the ordinary means will suffice as well as those peculiar pocket-pens. In about a minute she falls asleep, and her hand begins automatically to trace a message in Leopold’s handwriting. I then ask that individual whether the pocket-pens of M. R. do not meet the exigencies of Martian, and whether Mlle. Smith will some day write that language, as has already been announced. Hélène’s hand thereupon responds in the beautiful calligraphy of Leopold: “I have not yet seen the instrument which the inhabitants of the planet Mars use in writing their language, but I can and do affirm that the thing will happen, as has been announced to you.—Leopold.”

June 27.—In the scene of the translation of text 15, Hélène adds to her usual refrain, “Esenale has gone away; he will soon return; he will soon write.”

August 3.—Between four and five o’clock in the afternoon Hélène had a vision at her desk, lasting ten or fifteen minutes, of a broad, horizontal bar, flame-colored, then changing to brick-red, and which by degrees became rose-tinted, on which were a multitude of strange characters, which she supposes to be the Martian letters of the alphabet, on account of the color. These characters floated in space before and round about her. Analogous visions occur in the course of the weeks immediately following.

August 22.—Hélène for the first time writes in Martian. After various non-Martian visions Mlle. Smith turns away from the window (it rained hard, and the sky was very gray) and exclaims, “Oh, look, it is all red! Is it already time to go to bed? M. Lemaître, are you there? Do you see how red it is? I see Astané, who is there, in that red; I only see his head and the ends of his fingers; he has no robe; and here is the other (Esenale) with him. They both have some letters at the ends of their fingers on a bit of paper. Quick, give me some paper!” A blank sheet and the pocket-pen are handed to her, which latter she disdainfully throws down. She accepts an ordinary pencil, which she holds in her customary fashion, between her middle and index-finger, then writes from left to right the three first lines of Fig. 21, looking attentively towards the window at her fictitious model before tracing each letter, and adding certain oral notes, according to which there are some words which she sees written in black characters on the three papers—or, more correctly, on three white wands, a sort of narrow cylinder, somewhat flattened out—which Astané, Esenale, and a third personage whose name she does not know but whose description corresponds with that of Pouzé, hold in their right hands. After which she again sees another paper or cylinder, which Astané holds above his head, and which bears also some words which she undertakes to copy (the three last lines of Fig. 21, p. 205). “Oh, it is a pity,” says she, on coming to the end of the fourth line, “it is all on one line, and I have no more room.” She then writes underneath the three letters of line 5, and without saying anything adds line 6. Then she resumes: “How dark it is with you ... the sun has entirely gone down” (it still rains very hard). “No one more! nothing more!” She remains in contemplation before that which she has written, then sees Astané again near the table, who again shows her a paper, the same, she thinks, as the former one. “But no, it is not altogether the same; there is one mistake, it is there [she points to the fourth line towards the end] ... Ah, I do not see more!” Then, presently she adds: “He showed me something else; there was a mistake, but I was not able to see it. It is very difficult. While I was writing, it was not I myself, I could not feel my arms. It was difficult, because when I raised my head I no longer saw the letters well. It was like a Greek design.”

At this moment Hélène recovered from the state of obscuration, from which she emerged with difficulty, which had accompanied the Martian vision and the automatic copy of the verbo-visual text. But a little later in the evening she only vaguely remembered having seen strange letters, and was altogether ignorant of having written anything.

The very natural supposition that the three first words written were the names of the known personages (Astané, Esenale, Pouzé), who bore them on their wands, led to the discovery of the meaning of many of the Martian characters and permitted the divining of the sense of the three last words.

The new alphabet was enriched by certain other signs on the following days, thanks to the echos of that seance in the ordinary life of Hélène, who happened on several occasions to write not the true Martian as yet, but French in Martian letters, to her great stupefaction when she found herself after a while in the presence of these unknown hieroglyphics.

The first manifestation of that graphic automatism, being as yet concerned only with the form of the letters and not the vocabulary, dates from the day after the following seance:

August 23.—“Here,” wrote Hélène to me at noon, sending me some memoranda from which I have taken the three examples of Fig. 22—“here are some labels which I made it my business to make this morning at ten o’clock, and which I have not been able to finish in a satisfactory manner. I have only just now emerged from the rose-colored fog in which I have been continuously enwrapped for almost two hours.”

Three weeks later a complete automatic Martian handwriting was produced in a seance at my house, of which the following is a summary.

September 12, 1897.—At the end of a quite long Martian vision, Mlle. Smith sees Astané, who has something at the end of his finger and who signs to her to write. I offer her a pencil, and after various tergiversations she slowly begins to trace some Martian characters (Fig. 23). Astané has possession of her arm, and she is, during this time, altogether anæsthetic and absent. Leopold, on the contrary, is at hand, and gives various indications of his presence. At the end of the sixth line she seems to half awaken, and murmurs, “I am not afraid; no, I am not afraid.” Then she again falls into a dream in order to write the four last words (which signify “Then do not fear,” and which are the response of Astané to her exclamation).

Almost immediately Leopold substitutes himself for Astané and traces on the same sheet, in his characteristic handwriting (considerably distorted towards the end): “Place thy hand on her forehead,” by means of which he indicates to me that the time has arrived to pass on to the scene of translation by Esenale.

We may conclude from these successive stages that the Martian handwriting is the result of a slow autosuggestion, in which the idea of a special writing instrument, and its handling, for a long time played the dominant rôle, then was abandoned, without doubt, as impracticable to realize. The characters themselves then haunted for several weeks Hélène’s visual imagination before they appeared to her on the cylinders of the three Martians in a manner sufficiently clear and stable to enable her to copy them and afterwards to be capable of subduing her graphomotor mechanism. Once manifested outwardly, these signs, which I have assembled under the form of an alphabet in Fig. 24, have not varied for two years.

Moreover, some trifling confusion, of which I shall speak a little later, shows well that the personality which employs them is not absolutely separated from that of Hélène, although the latter, in a waking state, might hold the same relation to Martian which she holds to Chinese—that is, she knows its general very characteristic aspect, but is ignorant of the signification of the characters, and would be incapable of reading it.

Hélène’s Martian handwriting is not stereotyped, but presents, according to circumstances, some variations in form, especially in the size of the letters.

This may be established by Figs. 21 to 32, in which I have reproduced the greater part of the texts obtained by writing. When the Martian gushes forth in verbo-visual hallucinations, Hélène transcribes it in strokes of large dimensions, lacking firmness, full of repetitions (Figs. 21, 26, 31), and she always remarks that the original, which is before her eyes, is much smaller and clearer than her copy. In the texts which have come automatically from her hand—i.e., supposedly traced by the Martians themselves—the handwriting is really smaller and more precise. Here again are some curious differences. Astané has a calligraphy less voluminous than that of Esenale, and Ramié has a much finer one than Esenale (Figs. 28 and 29).

It would be altogether premature for me to launch myself upon the study of Martian graphology, and, therefore, leaving that line to my successors, I take up the texts which have been collected in their chronological order.

II. The Martian Texts

It is not always easy to represent a language and its pronunciation by means of the typographical characters of another. Happily the Martian, in spite of its strange appearance and the fifty millions of leagues which separate us from the red planet, is in reality so near neighbor to French that there is scarcely any difficulty in this case.

The dozen written texts[19] which we possess, and which Mlle. Smith either copied from a verbo-visual hallucination, or which were traced by her hand in an access of graphomotor automatism, are readily translated into French, since each Martian letter has its exact equivalent in the French alphabet. I have confined myself to placing accents on the vowels (there are none in the Martian writing), conformably to the pronunciation of Esenale at the moment of translation. It is only necessary to read the following texts aloud, articulating them as though they were French, in order to secure the Martian words almost exactly as they proceed from the mouth of Mlle. Smith; I say almost, because there still remains, naturally, in the speech of Esenale, as in that of every one, a special mannerism of strengthening certain syllables and slurring others—in short, that of delicate shades of accentuation, which cannot be adequately represented, and which the hearers did not attempt to take note of at the seances.

In the auditive or vocal texts, those which have not been obtained by writing, I have adopted the more probable orthography, according to the pronunciation of Esenale, but (with the exception of words known by means of the written texts) I naturally cannot guarantee their absolute correctness.

The manner in which Hélène takes down in pencil the Martian phrases which strike her ear is not of great assistance to us in that respect, because, as I have said above (p. 158), she finds herself at the time of these verbo-auditive hallucinations in the situation of a person who hears some unknown words, and spells them as well as she is able, after a quite arbitrary and often faulty fashion. She writes, for example, “hezi darri né ciké taisse,” which, according to the pronunciation of Esenale and other written texts, should be “êzi darié siké tés”; or, again, “misse messe as si lé,” instead of “mis mess ass ilé.” We cannot, therefore, depend upon the orthography of Hélène, but I have naturally followed it in every case in which there seemed to be no good reason to depart from it. In stating that the following texts should be articulated like French, two remarks must be added: First, the final consonant, very rare in Martian, is always aspirated; the word ten is pronounced as in the French gluten; essat, like fat; amès, like aloes; mis and mess, like lis (flower), and mess (of an officer), etc. In the second place, for the different values of the e I have adopted the following rule: the e broad is always indicated by the accent grave è; the e medium, which is only found at the beginning and in the middle of a word, is marked with the acute accent é; the e short, by the acute accent at the end of a word (or before a final e mute), and by the circumflex at the beginning or in the middle; the e mute, or demi-mute, remains without accent.

The pronunciation, therefore, will be, for example, the e’s of the Martian words mété, bénézee, like those of the French words été, répétée; êvé, like rêvé, tès, as in Lutèce, etc.

There will be found in italics, underneath the Martian texts, their French equivalents, word for word, as given by Esenale in the manner described above (see pp. 166-168).[20] I have also indicated the kind of automatism—auditive, visual, vocal, or graphic—by means of which each text was obtained, also the date of its appearance, and (in parentheses) that of the seance, often quite remote, at which it was translated. I have also added such explanations as seemed to me to be necessary.

Vocal. February 2, 1896. See above, p. 157.

2. dodé né ci haudan té mess métiche astané ké dé
Ceci est la maison du grand homme Astané que tu
mé véche.
as vu.

Auditive. About September 20, 1896 (translated November 2).—Heard by Hélène at the same time at which she had the vision of Fig. 12 (see p. 166).

3. modé iné cé di cévouitche ni êvé ché kiné liné
Mère adorée, je te reconnais et suis ton petit Linet.

Words addressed to Mme. Mirbel by her son Alexis (Esenale) in a scene of incarnation altogether analogous to that described on p. 156.

4. i modé mété modé modé iné palette is
O mère, tendre mère, mère bien-aimée, calme tout
ché péliché ché chiré né ci ten ti vi
ton souci, ton fils est près de toi.

Vocal. November 29, 1896 (translated same seance).—Spoken by Esenale and addressed to Mme. Mirbel, in a scene of incarnation analogous to the preceding. At the moment of translation, Esenale repeated, very distinctly, the last words, as follows: “né ci, est près [“is near”], ten ti vi, de toi (“thee”).” This was evidently an error, since it appears from numerous later texts that est près de toi corresponds to né ten ti vi; it follows that it would be natural to translate the word ci by là, ici, or tout, if these words had not been differently rendered in other texts. (A confusion of the adverb là with the article la, translated by ci in text 2, might also be suspected.)

5. i kiché ten ti si ké di êvé dé étéche mêné
Oh! pourquoi près de moi ne te tiens-tu toujours, amie
izé bénézée
enfin retrouvée!

Auditive. December 4, 1896 (translated December 13). Fragment of a long discourse by Astané to Hélène, during an apparition which she had of him about nine o’clock in the evening, as she was about to go to bed. This sentence, which he uttered twice, is the only one which she has been able to recall with sufficient precision to note down immediately after the vision. She has the feeling of having understood Astané’s whole discourse while he was delivering it, and thinks she would have been able to translate it into French, perhaps not word for word, but in its general sense. She expected to transcribe it the following day, but in the morning when she awoke she was unable to recall either the words of Astané or their meaning, not even that of this sentence, written on the previous evening. Heard again, as the second part of the following text, in the seance of the 13th of December.

6. ti iche cêné éspênié ni ti êzi atèv astané êzi
De notre belle “Espénié” et de mon être Astané, mon
érié vizé é vi... i kiché ten ti si ké di êvé
âme descend à toi... oh! pourquoi près de moi ne te tiens-tu
dé étéche mêné izé bénézée
toujours, amie enfin retrouvée!

Auditive. December 13, 1896 (translated same seance).—Heard in the far-away voice of Astané, Hélène having all the while a painful sensation, as though the skin of her face around her eyes, on the back of her wrists and hands, was being torn off. In the translation the word Espénié remains as it is, being a proper name; the left index-finger (Leopold) points heavenward, and says that it might be rendered by terre, planète, demeure.

7. cé êvé plêva ti di bénèz éssat riz tès midée
Je suis chagrin de te retrouver vivant sur cette laide
durée cé ténassé riz iche éspênié vétéche ié ché atèv hêné
terre; je voudrais sur notre Espénié voir tout ton être s’élever
ni pové ten ti si éni zée métiché oné gudé ni zée darié
et rester près de moi; ici les hommes sont bons et les cœurs
grêvé
larges.

Auditive. December 15, 1896 (translated January 17, 1897).—Words spoken by Astané to Hélène in a morning vision. The following fragment of the letter in which she sent me this text merits being cited as an example of those quite frequent cases in which Mlle. Smith, without knowing the exact translation of the foreign words, nevertheless divines their general signification and comprehends them by their emotional equivalent. “This morning, at a quarter before six, I saw Astané at the foot of my bed. The general sense of his language was at that moment quite clear to my mind, and I give it to you as I understood it—that is, in as clear a manner as possible, having noted it down afterwards: ‘How much I regret your not having been born in our world; you would be much happier there, since everything is much better with us, people as well as things, and I would be so happy to have you near me.’ That is about what it seemed to me to mean; perhaps some day we may be able to be sure of it.”

8. amès mis tensée ladé si—amès ten tivé avé
Viens un instant vers moi, viens près d’un vieil
men—koumé ié ché pélésse—amès somé têsé
ami fondre tout ton chagrin: viens admirer ces
misaïmé—ké dé surès pit châmi—izâ méta ii
fleurs, que tu crois sans parfum, mais pourtant si
borêsé ti finaïmé—iâ izi dé séïmiré
pleines de senteurs!... Mais si tu comprendras!

Auditive and vocal. January 31, 1897 (translated same seance).—Hélène, in hemisomnambulism, sees Astané, who tells her to repeat his words; she replies to him: “But speak plainly ... I will gladly repeat them ... but I do not understand very well....” Then she pronounces slowly and very distinctly the foregoing text, in groups of words, separated by a moment of silence (marked in the text by the sign—). It is remarked that these groups, with the exception of the sixth, correspond to the hemistiches of the French translation obtained in the same seance. After the sixth group Hélène remains silent for a long time, and finally says: “I cannot understand;” then utters the four last words, which are the reply of Astané to her objection.

9. ané éni ké éréduté cé ilassuné té imâ ni
C’est isi que, solitaire, ie m’approche du ciel et
bétiné chée durée
regarde ta terre.

Auditive. February 24, 1897 (translated March 14).—Reclining in her easy-chair, after the noonday meal, Hélène hears this sentence, while at the same time she has the vision of a house, constructed by digging into a Martian mountain, and traversed by a sort of air-shafts, and which represents Astané’s observatory.

10. simandini lé lâmi mêné kizé pavi kiz atimi
Simandini, me voici! amie! quelle joie, quel bonheur!

Auditive. March 14, 1897 (translated same seance).—See following text.

11. i modé duméïné modé kêvi cé mache povini
O mère, ancienne mère, quand je peux arriver
poénêzé mûné é vi saliné éziné mimâ nikaïné modé
quelques instants vers toi j’oublie mes parents Nikaïné, mère!
—i men
—ô ami!

Vocal. March 14, 1897 (translated same seance).—From the beginning of this seance Hélène complained of cold hands, then a great desire to weep, and of a buzzing in the ears, which kept increasing and in which she finally heard Astané address to her the Martian words of text 10. Immediately after she passes into full somnambulism; her respirations, very short and panting, rise to three per second, accompanied by synchronous movements of the left index-finger; then she stops suddenly with a long expiration, immediately followed by a deep inspiration: then her breast heaves, her face assumes an expression of suffering, and the left index-finger announces that it is Esenale (Alexis Mirbel) who is incarnated. After a series of spasms and hiccoughs, Hélène arises, and, placing herself behind Mme. Mirbel, takes her neck in her hands, bows her head upon hers, tenderly pats her cheek, and addresses to her the words of text No. 11 (except the two last words). Then she raises her head, and again, with panting respiration (accelerated to thirty inspirations in sixteen seconds), walks towards M. Lemaître (whose pupil Alexis Mirbel had been at the time of his death). She places her hands upon his shoulders, affectionately grasps his right hand, and with emotion and continued sobbing addresses to him the two words i men! After which she goes through the pantomime of extending her hand to Leopold and of allowing him to conduct her to a couch, where the translation of texts Nos. 10, 11, and 9 is obtained by the customary process, but not without difficulty.

12. lassuné ké nipuné ani tis dé machir mirivé
Approche, ne crains pas; bientôt tu pourras tracer
iche manir sé dé évenir toué chi amiché zé forimé
notre écriture, et tu posséderas dans tes mains les marques
ti viche tarviné
de notre langage.

Auditive. May 23, 1897 (translated same seance).—Shortly after the beginning of the seance, Hélène, still being awake, has a vision of Astané, who addresses her in these words, which she repeats slowly and in a feeble voice. I give the text as it was heard and uniformly noted by several sitters, both at the moment of its utterance and at its subsequent translation. Many corrections, however, would be necessary, in order to make it correspond with the later written texts: ké nipuné ani, et ne crains pas (“and I am not afraid,” or, “and I do not fear”) should be changed to kié nipuné ani, ne crains pas (see text 17); sé or cé only stands here for et, which everywhere else is given as ni; viche is used in error for iche (unless the v was added for the sake of euphony, of which there is no other example) and tis for tiche.

13. (adèl) ané sini (yestad) i astané cé fimès astané mirâ
C’est vous, ô Astané, je meurs! Astané, adieu!

Vocal. Same seance as the preceding text, after which Hélène passes into full somnambulism, begins to weep, pants, holds her hand on her heart, and pronounces this sentence, mingling with it the two words Adèl and yestad, which are not Martian, but belong to the Oriental cycle; they also do not appear in the text as it was repeated at the time of its translation. This intrusion of terms foreign to the Martian dream is explained by the imminence of a Hindoo scene ready to appear, which occupied the latter half of the seance in which the Arab servant, Adèl, plays a leading rôle. The mingling of the two romances is greatly accentuated a few moments later, in a long discourse, devoid of r’s and very rich in sibilants, and spoken with so great volubility that it was impossible to gather a single word. At the time of the translation, at the close of the seance, this tirade was repeated with the same rapidity, preventing any notation; according to the French translation which followed, it concerned memories of the life of Simandini which Hélène recalled to Astané and in which there is much mention of the aforesaid Adèl (see Hindoo Cycle, Chap. VII.).

14. eupié zé palir né amé arvâ nini pédriné évaï
Eupié, le temps est venu; Arva nous quitte; sois
diviné lâmée ine vinâ té luné—pouzé men hantiné
heureux jusque au retour du jour.—Pouzé, ami fidèle,
êzi vraïni né touzé med vi ni ché chiré saïné—ké
mon désir est même pour toi et ton fils Saïné.—Que
zalisé téassé mianiné ni di daziné—eupié—pouzé
l’élément entier t’enveloppe et te garde!—Eupié!—Pouzé!

Auditive. June 18, 1897 (translated June 20).—During a visit I made to Mlle. Smith she has a vision of two Martian personages walking on the shore of a lake, and she repeats this fragment of their conversation which she has heard. According to another text (No. 20), Arva is the Martian name of the sun.

15. modé tatinée cé ké mache radziré zé tarvini va
Mère chérie, je ne puis prononcer le langage où
nini nini triménêni ii adzi cé zé seïmiré vétiche i
nous nous comprenions si bien! Je le comprends cependant; ô
modé inée kévi bérimir m hed kévi machiri cé di triné
mère adorée, quand reviendra-t-il? Quand pourrai-je te parler
ti éstotiné ni bazée animina i modé cé méï adzi
de ma dernière et courte existence? O mére, je t’ai bien
ilinée i modé inée cé ké lé nazère ani—mirâ
reconnue, ô mère adorée, je ne me trompe pas!—Adieu
modé itatinée mirâ mirâ mirâ
mère chérie, adieu, adieu, adieu!