“Madame Jeanne, the beauties of your body have been immortalized in verse and in paintings. You have been a muse to great works of art. Men who knew you still dream of you today. Though no longer the body it once was, it is a desirable body all the same, a jewel whose tarnish only adds to its rarity. Your face is still the face of a great beauty, one who has lived a singular life. My proposal is simple. Perhaps you have guessed it already. I would like to offer you my body, and half of my fortune, in exchange for yours. If I had a choice, I would no doubt choose a younger body, a healthier body, but I don’t have a choice. A crossing into your body is the only crossing I will ever be able to make. I would like to take that chance, even if it means I will not live as long. I am not in love with life itself. I don’t desire to live a long life. I would rather live a life of sensuality and pleasure. I would gladly give up this body and half the fortune it was born into to be kissed by Mademoiselle Adélaïde the way she kissed you last week, even if it is only for a few short years.”

I could scarcely believe my ears. “You would like to cross with me?”

“Yes. On one condition. I do not wish it to be a blind crossing. I must be able to remember my previous body, and bring across with me all my memories. I must be able to remember who I am, who we are, after the crossing. Can you promise me that?”

I assured her that such a crossing was indeed possible, even when crossing for the first time.

By the time the coach left, several hours later, it was loaded with luggage, and there were two women in the carriage: Madame Jeanne and Mademoiselle Adélaïde.

Go here.

Édmonde de Bressy

Born 1845

First crossing 1864

Second crossing 1900

Died 1900

“DO YOU BELIEVE in metempsychosis?”

It was mid-afternoon on a bright day in late March 1900, and I was in the parlor car of Union Pacific’s Overland Limited, hurtling across the American Midwest. Through the window, a snow-dusted prairie sparkled under a wintry noonday sun. I was lost in a daydream, seated in a leather armchair with a book in my lap, selected at random from the car’s library shelf, when I heard those words repeated in French in a deep, beguiling voice:

“Madame, do you believe in metempsychosis?”

I looked up and beheld a handsome, olive-skinned man seated in the armchair opposite mine, sporting a thick walrus mustache for which he was much too young, wearing a purple smoking jacket and a carmine turban, gazing at me intently with eyes of Japanese lacquer. It was odd, I thought, that he should address me thus in French.