I had forgotten,[1] or at least lost sight of them, when quite recently, at a hypnotic séance in Nancy, where I had stopped for a few days on my way to the Vosges, I was induced to question a "subject" by whose assistance the experimental savants of the Académie Stanislas had obtained some of those really startling results with which the scientific Press has surprised us for a few years past. I do not remember how, but it happened that my conversation with him turned on the planet Mars. After describing to me a country situated on the shores of a sea known to astronomers under the name of Kepler's Ocean, and a solitary island lying in the bosom of this sea; after telling me about the picturesque landscapes and reddish vegetation which adorned the shores, the wave-washed cliffs, and the sandy beaches where the billows break and die away,--the subject, who was very sensitive, suddenly grew pale, and raised his hand to his head; his eyes closed, his eyebrows contracted; he seemed desirous of grasping some fugitive idea which obstinately eluded him. "_See!_" said Dr. B., standing before him with irresistible command; "see! I wish it." "You have friends there," he said to me. "I am not surprised at that," I said, laughing; "I have done enough to deserve them." "Two friends," he went on, "who are talking about you now, this very minute." "Ah, ha! Persons who know me?" "Yes." "How is that?" "They have known you here." "Here?" "Here,--on the earth!" "How long ago was it?" "I do not know." "Have they lived on Mars long?" "I do not know." "Are they young?" "Yes; they are lovers, who adore each other." Then the loved image of my lamented friends rose distinctly in my mind; but I had no sooner seen them than the subject exclaimed,-- "Yes! it is they!" "How do you know?" "I see,--they are the same souls, same colors." "What do you mean by the 'same colors'?" "Yes, the souls are suffused with light." A few instants afterwards he added, "And yet there is a difference." Then he was silent, his forehead frowning in his effort to find out. But his face regained all its calmness and serenity as he added,-- "He has become she, the woman; she is now the man,--and they love each other more than ever." As if he did not quite understand what he had said himself, he seemed to be seeking for some explanation,--made painful efforts, judging from the contraction of the muscles in his face, and fell into a sort of cataleptic fit, from which Dr. B. speedily relieved him; but the lucid interval had fled, not to return. In ending, I leave this last fact with the reader just as it happened, without comment. Had the subject, according to the hypothesis now admitted by many hypnotists, been under the influence of my own thought when the professor ordered him to answer me? Or, being independent, had he really "freed" himself, and had he _seen_ beyond our sphere? I cannot undertake to decide. Perhaps it will appear in the course of this story.