He repeated with a sneer: 

“Humbug! humbug! humbug!  We need not discuss Donato, who is merely a very smart juggler.  As for M. Charcot, who is said to be a remarkable man of science, he produces on me the effect of those story-tellers of the school of Edgar Poe, who end by going mad through constantly reflecting on queer cases of insanity.  He has set forth some nervous phenomena, which are unexplained and inexplicable; he makes his way into that unknown region which men explore every day, and not being able to comprehend what he sees, he remembers perhaps too well the explanations of certain mysteries given by speaking on these subjects, that would be quite a different thing from your repetition of what he says.”

The words of the unbeliever were listened to with a kind of pity, as if he had blasphemed in the midst of an assembly of monks.

One of these gentlemen exclaimed: 

“And yet miracles were performed in former days.”

But the other replied:  “I deny it.  Why cannot they be performed any longer?”

Thereupon, each man referred to some fact, or some fantastic presentiment, or some instance of souls communicating with each other across space, or some case of secret influences produced by one being or another.  And they asserted, they maintained that these things had actually occurred, while the skeptic went on repeating energetically: 

“Humbug! humbug! humbug!”

At last he rose up, threw away his cigar, and with his hands in his pockets, said:  “Well, I, too, am going to relate to you two stories, and then I will explain them to you.  Here they are: 

“In the little village of Etretat, the men, who are all seafaring folk, go every year to Newfoundland to fish for cod.  Now, one night the little son of one of these fishermen woke up with a start, crying out that his father was dead.  The child was quieted, and again he woke up exclaiming that his father was drowned.  A month later the news came that his father had, in fact, been swept off the deck of his smack by a billow.  The widow then remembered how her son had wakened up and spoken of his father’s death.  Everyone said it was a miracle, and the affair caused a great sensation.  The dates were compared, and it was found that the accident and the dream had very nearly coincided, whence they drew the conclusion that they had happened on the same night and at the same hour.  And there is the mystery of magnetism.”

The story-teller stopped suddenly.

Thereupon, one of those who had heard him, much affected by the narrative, asked: 

“And can you explain this?”