Le 12 mars 1860, le New York Evening Post se fit l’écho d’une étrange aventure arrivée à Joseph Green Cogswell (1), alors conservateur de l’Astor Library de New York. À trois reprises, il aurait croisé un spectre dans l’un des recoins de la bibliothèque, après l’heure de la fermeture.
Au cours des deux mois suivants, ce fait-divers sera repris dans les colonnes de nombreux périodiques américains : The Buffalo Morning Express [14 mars], The New York Saturday Press [17 mars], The Burlington Free Press [23 mars], The Milwaukee Daily Sentinel [12 avril], The Golden Era [22 avril], The Lancet, etc., avant de faire la joie des revues spirites, comme The Banner of Light ou The Spiritual Magazine.
L’anecdote sera également consignée dans le journal du compositeur contemporain George Templeton Strong qui, sur la foi des témoignages de Mrs. Burns et Hoppin, donne le fantôme pour celui de feu Austin L. Sands, courtier en assurances.
À partir de la fin du XXème siècle, plusieurs publications en mal de sensationnalisme se feront un plaisir d’identifier l’apparition de l’Astor Library comme celle de l’écrivain Washington Irving. Trois usagers de la bibliothèque ayant affirmé, quelques années après l’aventure du conservateur, y avoir croisé le spectre d’Irving, l’occasion était trop belle pour ne pas enjoliver la légende. Washington Irving, qui présidait le groupe d’administration de l’Astor Library, était un ami intime de Cogswell, et il est indéniable que sa mort, le 28 novembre 1859, l’avait profondément affecté. Malheureusement, Cogswell n’a jamais associé le nom de son ami à l’apparition dont il a été témoin ; et pour cause : d’après sa correspondance, son expérience remonte au début du mois de juillet 1859, et Irving était alors encore en vie.
J. G. Cogswell ne mentionnera qu’une seule fois sa rencontre avec le fantôme de l’Astor Library. Dans une lettre adressée à Mr. Ticknor, en mai 1860, il déplore la publicité faite à une anecdote racontée à quelques amis, à l’hôtel Oriental, et qui n’était pas destinée à être rendue publique. Il attribue l’hallucination dont il a été victime à une simple illusion causée par le clair de lune. (2)
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L’article que nous reproduisons est paru dans Le Moniteur du 30 mars 1860. C’est une adaptation de la version rapportée par le Buffalo Morning Express ; mais il a sans doute été traduit à partir du Spiritual Magazine. Il sera intégralement repris dans le Journal de Vienne et de l’Isère, vingt-quatrième année, n° 16, dimanche 15 avril 1860, puis dans la Revue Spiritualiste, tome troisième, 1860, accompagné de la note suivante : « Nous trouvons que les journaux précités auraient beaucoup mieux fait de rapporter simplement les faits au lieu de les juger et des les attribuer à une hallucination. Pour nos lecteurs qui en général sont convaincus de la réalité des apparitions, ils savent ce qu’ils doivent penser du fait arrivé ainsi, à New-York, d’une manière claire et persistante à trois reprises. »
Il nous a semblé intéressant de le mettre en parallèle avec le texte original du New York Evening Post, qui s’en distingue par une mise en scène fantastique autrement plus développée.
Monsieur N
UNE APPARITION
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L’Evening Post de New-York publie un fait assez curieux dont un certain nombre de personnes avaient déjà connaissance, et sur lequel on se livrait depuis quelques jours à des commentaires assez amusants. Les spiritualistes y voient un exemple de plus des manifestations de l’autre monde. Les gens sensés ne vont pas en chercher si loin l’explication, et reconnaissent clairement les symptômes caractéristiques d’une hallucination. C’est là aussi l’opinion du docteur Cogswell lui-même, le héros de l’aventure.
Le docteur Cogswell est bibliothécaire en chef de l’Astor Library. Le dévouement qu’il apporte à l’achèvement d’un catalogue complet de la bibliothèque lui fait souvent prendre pour son travail les heures qui devraient être consacrées au sommeil, et c’est ainsi qu’il a l’occasion de visiter seul, la nuit, les salles où tant de volumes sont rangés sur les rayons.
Il y a une quinzaine environ, il passait ainsi, le bougeoir à la main, vers onze heures du soir, devant un des retraits garnis de livres, lorsqu’à sa grande surprise il aperçut un homme bien mis qui paraissait examiner avec soin les titres des volumes. Imaginant tout d’abord avoir affaire à un voleur, il recula et examina attentivement l’inconnu. Sa surprise devint bien plus vive encore lorsqu’il reconnut dans le nocturne visiteur le docteur ***, qui avait vécu dans le voisinage de Lafayette-Place, mais qui est mort et enterré depuis six mois [sic, pour six semaines].
M. Cogswell ne croit pas beaucoup aux apparitions et s’en effraie encore moins. Il crut néanmoins devoir traiter le fantôme avec égards, et élevant la voix : « Docteur, lui dit-il, comment se fait-il que vous, qui, de votre vivant, n’êtes probablement jamais venu dans cette bibliothèque, vous la visitiez ainsi, après votre mort ? »
Le fantôme, troublé dans sa contemplation, regarda le bibliothécaire avec des yeux ternes et disparut sans répondre.
« Singulière hallucination, » se dit M. Cogswell.
Il retourna à son travail, puis alla se coucher et dormit tranquillement. Le lendemain, à la même heure, il lui prit envie de visiter encore la bibliothèque. À la même place que la veille, il retrouva le même fantôme, lui adressa les mêmes paroles et obtint le même résultat.
« Voilà qui est curieux, pensa-t-il. Il faudra que je revienne demain. »
Mais, avant de revenir, M. Cogswell examina les rayons qui semblaient intéresser si vivement le fantôme, et, par une singulière coïncidence, reconnut qu’ils étaient tous chargés d’ouvrages anciens et modernes de nécromancie. Le lendemain donc, quand, pour la troisième fois, il rencontra le docteur défunt, il varia sa phrase et lui dit : « Voici la troisième fois que je vous rencontre, docteur. Dites-moi donc si quelqu’un de ces livres trouble votre repos, pour que je le fasse retirer de la collection. »
Le fantôme ne répondit pas plus cette fois que les autres ; mais il disparut définitivement, et le persévérant bibliothécaire a pu revenir la même heure et au même endroit, plusieurs nuits de suite, sans l’y rencontrer.
Cependant, sur l’avis des amis auxquels il a raconté l’histoire et des médecins qu’il a consultés, il s’est décidé à prendre un peu de repos et à faire un voyage de quelques semaines jusqu’à Charlestown, avant de reprendre la tâche, longue et patiente, qu’il s’est imposée, et dont les fatigues ont sans doute causé l’hallucination que nous venons de raconter.
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THE ASTOR LIBRARY VISITED BY A GHOST
ALL GOTHAM IN A FEVER
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For several days past there has been a bit of personal gossip afloat up-town, which, as in all similar instances, has been highly exaggerated. Yet even allowing for these exaggerations, the facts or the suppositions – whichever they may be – as related by one of the principal actors, are of themselves strange enough to satisfy the most inveterate admirer of the marvellous; and as the story has been solemnly asseverated before a mixed company of some twenty persons, and afterwards retailed and repeated so much as to be almost the town-talk, we are committing no impropriety, we trust, in stating the circumstances, as far as we have been able to discover them.
The numerous literary persons and others who frequent the spacious halls of the Astor Library will be interested, therefore, in learning that their favorite retreat is haunted. Of course, on seeing the comfortable, well-lighted rooms in the day time, when filled with careful readers, and enlivened often by the presence of a gaily dressed lady and other visitors, nothing seems more preposterous than the idea of ghosts. But let the reader imagine these wide halls as they are at night, swathed in darkness, the gloomy alcoves casting yet deeper and gloomier shadows – when a footfall reverberates through the wide expanse with mysterious echoes, and whe the lamp borne by the startled explorer along tortuous passages and among musty tomes sends but a feeble rayon that scarcely serves to make the darkness visible, and the aspect is very different. At this time, the Astor Library – and, for that matter, all large libraries at such a time – is a rather dismal place, and suggests, unpleasantly enough, to any one who may be there alone, Hood’s lines :
« O’er all there hung a shadow and a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirited daunted,
Which said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted. »
It was at such a time, in such a place, and to one lonely explorer, that the ghost of the Astor Library appeared.
To understand the circumstances of this remarkable apparition the more fully, the reader should remember that Dr. Cogswell, the efficient librarian, has been for some time engaged in the compilation of a complete catalogue of the library. Although over a year since it was commenced, the work has only reached to the letter P. Dr. Cogswell is an unmarried man, and occupies a sleeping apartment in the upper part of the library, the janitor residing in the basement. It is a rule of the library to dismiss visitors at sunset, and during the evening and night no individual besides Dr. Cogswell and the janitor and his family remain in the building.
Against the advice of his friends, Dr. Cogswell devotes hours of night that should be given to repose, to the pursuance of his work on the catalogue. Naturally anxious to hasten forward it completion, and fired with all the enthusiasm of a professed bibliopole, his labors in this tedious and difficult task are almost incredible. At the same time, the work is of that dry, statistical character, which is by no means suggestive of fanciful apparitions, nor is the indefatigable compiler a man easily swayed by the passing delusions of the eye or brain.
Some two weeks ago, Dr. Cogswell was at work as usual on the catalogue. It was about eleven o’clock at night, and having occasion to refer to some books in a distant part of the libray he left his desk, and, as he had often done before, took his candle and pursued his course among the winding passages toward the desired spot. But before reaching it, while in an alcove in the southwest part of the older portion of the building, he was startled by seeing a man respectably dressed in citizen’s clothes, surveying a shelf of books. The doctor supposed it to be a robber who had secreted himself for the purpose of abstracting some of the valuable works in the library; after stepping back behind a partition for a moment, he again moved cautiouly forward, to catch a glimpse of the individual’s face, when to his suprise he recognized in the supposed robber the features of a physician (whose name we forbear giving) who had lived in the immediate vicinity of the library, and who had died some six weeks ago! It should be borne in mind that this deceased person was a mere casual acquaintance of Dr. Cogswell, not an intimate friend, and since his death Dr. Cogswell had not thought of him.
But the apparition was in the presence of a man not easily scared. The librarian, so far from fainting or shrieking, as might reasonably be expected, calmly addressed the ghost.
« Dr. ––, » said he, « you seldom, if ever, visited the Library while living. Why do you trouble us now when dead? »
Perhaps the ghost did not like the sound of the human voice; any way, it gave no answer, but disappeared.
The next day, Dr. Cogswell thought over the matter, and attributed it to some optical delusion, and in the evening proceeded with his work as usual. Again he wished to refer to some books, and again visited the southwestern alcove. There again, as large as life, was the ghost, very calmly and placidly surveying the shelves. Dr. Cogswell again spoke to it:
« Dr. ––, » said he, « again I ask you, why you, who never visited the Library while living, trouble it now when dead? »
Again the ghost vanished, and the undaunted librarian pursued his task without interruption. The next day he examined the shelves before which the apparition had been standing, and by a singular coincidence found that they were filled with books devoted to demonology, witchcraft, magic, spiritualism, etc. Some of these books are rare tomes, several centuries old, written in Latin, illustrated with quaint diagrams, and redolent of mysticism; while on the next shelves are their younger brethen, the neat, spruce works of modern spiritualists, of Brittan, Davis, Edmonds, and others. The very titles of these mystic books are suggestive. There are the Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus, a folio published in London in 1672; Albamasar de Conjectionibus; Kerner’s Majicon; Godwin’s Lives of the Necromancers; Glanvii on Witches and Apparitions; Cornelius Agrippa; Bodin’s Demonomania; Lilly’s Astrology, and others, a perusal of any of which would effectually murder the sleep of a person of ordinary nerve for at least half a dozen nights. It was these volumes that appeared to attract the apparition.
The third night, Dr. Cogswell, still determined that the shade, spirit, delusion, or effect of indigestion – whatever it might be – should not interfere with his duties, again visited the various books to which he wished to refer, and, when occasion demanded, did not fail to approach the mystic alcove. There again was the apparition, dressed precisely as before, in a gentleman’s usual costume, as natural as life, and with a hand raised, as if about to take down a book. Dr. Cogswell again spoke–
« Dr. ––, » he said, boldly, « this is the third time I have met you. Tell me if any of this class of books now disturb you? If they do, I will have them removed. »
A few days ago, at a dinner-party at the house of a well-known wealthy gentleman, Dr. Cogswell related the circumstances above recorded, as nearly as we can learn. As some eighteen or twenty persons were there, the remarkable story of course was soon spread about. A number of literary men, including an eminent historian and others, heard the recital, and though they attribute Dr. Cogswell’s ghost-seeing to the strain and tension of his nerves during his too protracted labors at the catalogue, they yet confess that the story has its remarkable phases. – Both Dr. Cogswell and the deceased physician were persons of a pratical turn of mind, and always treated the ghost-stories sometimes set afloat with deserved contempt. And, as they were not at all intimate, it will not be at least a curious question for the psychologist to determin, why the idea of this deceased gentleman should come to Dr. Cogswell’s brain and resolve itself into an apparition, when engaged in dry, statistical labors, which should effectually banish all thoughts of the marvellous.
Acting on the advice of several friends, Dr. Cogswell is now absent on a short trip to Charlestown, to recuperate his energies. His indefatigable industry, his devotion to the interests of the Library, and his great efficiency as a librarian, render it highly desirable that he should enjoy recreation and repose, and not endanger his health by a too close application to his duties. In regard to the apparition, we will make no comments, but give the story as related by Dr. Cogswell, as we are credibly informed, and as it has already been talked about in various literary and domestic circles in this city.
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(in The New York Evening Post, 12 mars 1860)
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(1) Aux côtés de John Jacob Astor,Joseph Green Cogswell (27 septembre 1786-26 novembre 1871) a été l’un des fondateurs de l’Astor Library ; il en a été le conservateur de 1854 à 1861.
(2) Life of Joseph Green Cogswell, as sketched in his letters, privately printed at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1874, note p. 281.
la porte ouverte 