Inexplicable & Unexplained Pt. VII

As the proverb goes: “The further into the forest, the more firewood there is.” This is true for me. When I began my story about various kinds of “inexplicable” events that illustrated my relatively not very long life with pictures that were not quite ordinary, I never thought that I had such a rich and varied collection of them! I have said almost nothing about the very strange phenomena of mediumship, and other similar facts that happened to me. I will point them out briefly, at least.

In 1879, 1880 and the beginning of 1881 we were engaged in mediumistic experiments in Tiflis, and after moving to Odessa and here, until the end of almost last year, when very significant dreams that simultaneously occurred to us, the three most active members of our circle, forced us to abandon these activities. The significance of such dream visions, and their direct indication of facts occurring in the near future, forced us to look at them more seriously than dreams are usually looked at. As for me personally, I definitely believe much more in some dreams, than in the messages of invisible workers of mediumistic séances (who lied to me nineteen times out of twenty.) My family, along with Nanny Masha in the foreground, as well as some acquaintances, took part in our Tiflis séances. Most often the participants included the family of Colonel Popov, E. A. Babaev, and sometimes Anna Alekseevna Gren, née Princess Dolgorukaya (daughter of the magnetizer mentioned at the beginning of my story) participated. Anna Alekseevna is a very strong medium, although she rarely practices mediumship, and does not develop her powers at all. We saw many remarkable phenomena in the form of strong knocks, lifting and moving of tables—tables often climbed onto doors, catching and unlocking the handles; they climbed up walls and, having fallen on the floor, crawled along it with the board forward, pushing our hands; they played on the keys of the piano (hitting them with the leg) sometimes meaningfully, but mostly just strummed. The most interesting phenomenon of that time was the “echo.” This is what we called the imitation of blows heard in the table somewhere in a distant corner of the room, where there was no one present. Thus, once, I remember, the large table at which we were sitting was imitated under a small sofa in the opposite corner of the living room. They would hit our table top three times, and immediately under the sofa the same three strong blows would be heard; we would pound with shot, and it would be repeated under the sofa. But this phenomenon occurred no more than three or four times in all two or three years of our mediumistic experiments. They spoke to us with knocks a lot, and willingly answered mental questions—often very successfully, but mostly falsely, although sometimes there were quite truthful answers. I will cite several of the most remarkable cases.

One evening, we were sitting in my living room at a séance, and I was busy in my room behind two locked doors, so I didn’t hear anything. At that time, I had just begun publishing children’s stories in pedagogical journals, which I had previously written solely for the pleasure of my children. Before, as the proverb goes: “Without thunder, no peasant will cross himself!”

I never thought about earning money through writing, but in recent years I had to work. In addition to children’s stories, I contributed a lot to local newspapers, but I did not dare send anything to the magazines of the capital. At that time, I had written a short story, but I really did not know what to do with it. I did not want it to go to waste, and meanwhile I was sure that the editors would take a look at the unknown name of the author and put it aside…not even under the cloth, but probably under the table! I must say that no one, not even my children, knew anything about my worries and perplexities.

At the table sat Masha (who is illiterate,) E. A. Babaeva, and my eldest son’s friend, cornet Popov. Needless to say, the last two could not have the slightest idea of my thoughts and worries. The children who asked questions admired the accuracy of the answers they received, and the cleverness of the “table,” and invited me to listen and marvel. Not particularly trusting their delight, I reluctantly entered the living room. My daughters began to beg me to “think about something.”

“It’s not hard to think of, but he’ll lie!” I said, and in my head the question flashed: “How much could my little story bring me?” “Good,” I said, “I thought of it.”

The answer came immediately: “250 rubles.”

Intrigued by the successful answer (which, by the way, turned out to be absolutely correct,) I said: “Well done, table! Well, go on,” and thought: “Advise me where to send it.”

Imagine my surprise when the table clearly knocked: “Send to Mikhail, write to him, and I will influence you.”

I understood the meaning of the answer before my daughter (who was writing down the letters,) read it. “Who is Mikhail?”

Naturally, everyone’s thoughts turned to His Imperial Majesty the Grand Duke, the former Viceroy of the Caucasus.

“Do you want to ask the Grand Duke for anything, Mom?” the children bombarded me with questions. “Have you thought about him?”

“And who is this influential person who thinks they can influence him?” laughed the people sitting there at the table.

“Oh, wait!” I said, understandably very surprised.

“We are not talking about the Grand Duke at all. Which Mikhail are you talking about? Say it more clearly!” I turned to the table.

He immediately tapped out the full phrase: “Send to Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov, and I will arrange your business.”

“Who are you?” was our persistent question.

Here the general surprise knew no bounds. The following was said by knocks:

“I am Princess Natalia Shalikova. We were great friends. I will help you.”

It must be said that not a single person present, except perhaps myself at one time, had any idea that M. N. Katkov was married to Shalikova; and since there are many Shalikovs in Tiflis, my children and others gasped. “What news! Some Georgian princess Shalikova is bragging about her influence on Katkov!”

The table became very agitated and knocked: “I’m not just anyone! I’m Katkov’s wife’s sister! He loves me very much. I’ll ask him, and he’ll read your story.”

We were all quiet for a minute.

“Tell me, please, are you alive or dead? If dead, when did you die? How long ago?” the questions rained down again.

The answer was remarkable in its truth. “In July, it will be two years since I died. Natalya Petrovna Shalikova died, but I am alive and that’s all the same. Hope for my help. Send the manuscript to The Russian Herald—everything will be arranged.”

Needless to say, that is what I did. Then I wrote about all this to my relative E. A. Lodyzhenskaya, having learned that she was well acquainted with the Katkovs, and asked her to tell me whether N. P. Shalikova had told the truth about herself—if such a person existed.

There was no answer for a long time, but when it came, it left us all in amazement. Elizaveta Alexandrovna sent me a photograph of the late princess, giving details of her life and death and confirming that on July 10, 1878, she herself closed her eyes for the last time. My story also appeared in print in July, almost on the anniversary of her death.

Here is a case of a different kind. The Popov family and my children were talking at a table in their large hall. The experiments were going well—something was being said, however, very gloomy, about hell and the torments of the afterlife. One of the Popov boys, Vladimir, 14 years old, who was not holding the table, but was listening from afar to what was happening around him, came up to me and whispered:

“They ask for proof that hell exists. Now I’m going to scare them.”

I didn’t have time to stop him; he ran away and returned a minute later as if nothing had happened. Then I called him over to tell him not to do anything stupid, and not to disturb them.

“I didn’t say anything…honestly, I was just joking,” the boy said.

Suddenly there was a commotion near the table.

“What is it? Leave him alone! Don’t ask! He wants to talk! He wants to say something himself, speak the alphabet quickly.”

And then the table knocked:

“Don’t believe me! Volodya is being naughty! I have nothing to do with it. Coal”

“Corner? What corner? Should I put Volodya in the corner?” the children asked, laughing.

“Not a corner—coal! Coal!” was the answer.

Everyone rushed to Volodya. I was the first. But it was funny and pitiful to look at him, he was so shocked and so confused. In his hands he actually had a piece of coal, still quite warm. He took it out of the stove and was about to throw it on the table as a gift from hell.

Such foresight on the table could not fail to make an impression.

In conclusion, I will mention the last, very strange, incident that happened to me in summer.

In May 1884 I was traveling to Paris. On the fourth night of the journey, tired from travel, I had just fallen fast asleep when suddenly I was awakened by the desperate voice of my daughter Nadezhda, an eighteen-year-old girl who, like my whole family, remained in Odessa. I clearly, and distinctly, heard her frightened call: “Mama! Mama!”

Having completely forgotten where I was in my sleep, and being terribly frightened, I opened my eyes, certain that something had happened to her, and that she was near me. Indeed, opening my eyes, I clearly saw above me Nadya’s worried, pale face with tears in her eyes. Not remembering myself, I jumped up to help her, and only then realized that I was in a train carriage approaching Paris, and not at home in Odessa. I realized that it was a vision, and became even more frightened: “Could this have happened for nothing?” Soon the letters I received from my daughters and son reassured me. I wrote to them about this strange incident on the very first day of my arrival, and asked if anything special had happened to Nadya that same night? To my great surprise, she was the only one who did not write anything to me. However, I was calm, knowing that the children would not write me such cheerful letters if something happened to her. Three weeks later, everything was explained by her letter—they had conspired to hide her illness from me for the sake of my peace of mind. On that very night, from the 7th to the 8th of May, when her voice woke me up, and her pale face leaned towards me in the railway carriage, Nadya herself, thousands of miles away from me, lay unconscious, dangerously ill. She had caught a cold the day before and had pneumonia.

“Imagine our surprise, Mommy, when we received your letter!” she wrote to me. “You heard and saw me on the very night I fell ill and thought of you in my delirium.”

Let us stop for now at what has been given here, although this is far from all the inexplicable things that I have experienced in my life. In recent years, many strange things have happened in our family—both at our mediumistic sessions, and outside of them, especially in the area of dreams. Perhaps, in time, I will share them with people who are interested not only in tangible and completely explainable facts.