Part 3

"But how do you think dreams arise in the first place?" I asked, more sympathetically. "Surely, if they have a meaning that can be discovered by a scientist like yourself, they must come in some logical way--and that is the thing I can't understand, first of all."

"Not so difficult. The dream is not an absurd and senseless jumble, as you seem to think. Really, when it is properly understood, it is a perfect mechanism and has definite meaning in penetrating the mind."

He was drawing thoughtfully on a piece of paper, as he often did when his mind was working actively.

"It is as though we had two streams of thought," he explained, "one of which we allow to flow freely, the other of which we are constantly repressing, pushing back into the subconscious or the unconscious, as you will. This matter of the evolution of our individual mental life is much too long a story for me to go into just at present.

"But the resistances, as they are called, the psychic censors of our ideas, so to speak, are always active, except in sleep. It is then that the repressed material comes to the surface. Yet these resistances never entirely lose their power. The dream, therefore, shows the material distorted.

"Seldom does one recognize his own repressed thoughts or unattained wishes. The dream is really the guardian of sleep, to satisfy the activity of the unconscious and repressed mental processes that would otherwise disturb sleep by keeping the censor busy. That's why we don't recognize the distortions. In the case of a nightmare the watchman, or censor, is aroused, finds himself over-powered, as it were, and calls for help. Consciousness must often come to the rescue--and we wake up."

"Very neat," I admitted, now more than half convinced. "But what sort of dreams are there? I don't see how you can classify them, study them."

"Easily enough. I should say that there are three kinds of dreams--those which represent an unrepressed wish as fulfilled, those that represent the realization of a repressed wish in an entirely concealed form, and those that represent the realization of a repressed wish, but in a form insufficiently or only partially concealed."

"But what about these dream doctors who profess to be able to tell you what is going to happen--the clairvoyants?"

Kennedy shrugged. "Cruel fakers, almost invariably," he replied. "This is something entirely different, on an entirely different plane. Dreams are not really of the future, even though they may seem to be. They are of the past--that is, their roots are in the past. Of course, they are of the future in the sense that they show striving after unfulfilled wishes. Whatever may be denied in reality, we can nevertheless realize in another way--in our dreams. It's a rather pretty thought."

He paused a moment. "Perhaps the dream doctors were not so fundamentally wrong as we think, even about the future," he added, thoughtfully, "though for a different reason than they thought and a natural one. Probably more of our daily life, conduct, moods, beliefs, than we think could be traced to preceding dreams."

I began vaguely now to see what he was driving at and to feel the fascination of the idea.

"Then you think that you will be able to find out from Mrs. Wilford's dreams more than she'll ever tell you or any one else about the case?"

"Exactly."

"Well, that doesn't seem so unreasonable, after all," I admitted, going back in my mind over what we had learned so far. "Why did Doctor Lathrop say he dissented from the theory?"

Kennedy smiled. "Many doctors do that. There's a side of it all that is distasteful to them, I suppose. It grates on minds of a certain type."

"What's that?"

"The sex aspect. Sex life possesses, according to Freud, a far higher significance in our mental household than traditional psychology is willing to admit. And I don't know as I would say I'd go the whole distance with Freud, either." He paused contemplatively. "Yet there is much that is true about his sex theories. Take an example. There's much about married life that can be learned from dreams. Thus, why John Doe doesn't get along with his wife has always been a matter of absorbing interest to the neighborhood. Conversation is taken up by it; yellow journalism is founded on it. Now, psychology--and mainly dream analysis--can solve the question--often right things for both John and Jane Doe and set the neighborhood tongues at rest. Sex and sex relations play a big rôle in life, whether we like to admit it or not."

"I see," I nodded. "Then you think that that's what Lathrop meant when he said he strongly disagreed with the theory?"

"Without a doubt. That is perhaps the part of the theory from which he reacted--or said he did. You see, Freud says that as soon as you enter the intimate life of a patient you begin to find sex in some form. In fact, he says, the best indication of abnormality would be its absence.

"Sex is one of the strongest of human impulses," Craig continued, as impersonally as if he were classifying butterflies, "yet the one impulse subjected to the greatest repression. For that reason it is the weakest point in our cultural development. However, if everything is natural there ought to be no trouble. In a normal life, says Freud, there are no neuroses."

"But how does that all apply in this case?" I asked. "You must mean that we have to deal with a life that is not normal, here in the Wilford case."

He nodded. "I was convinced of it, the moment Leslie called on me here. That was why I was interested. Before that I thought it was just an ordinary case that had stumped him and I was not going to pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him. But what he said put it in a different light. So did what Doyle told me, especially that sonnet he found. They didn't know it--don't know it yet--won't know it until I tell them. That doesn't alter the fact that it promises to be a unique case."

He paced the floor a few moments, as though trying to piece together the fragments he possessed.

"Let me proceed now with a preliminary psychanalysis, as the Freudians call it," he resumed, still pacing thoughtfully, "the soul analysis of Honora Wilford, as it were. I do not claim that it is final. It is not. But on such information and belief, as the lawyers say, as we have already, we are warranted in drawing some preliminary conclusions. They will help us to go on. If any of them are wrong, all we need to do is throw them overboard. Later, I shall add to that stock of information, in one way or another, and it may very greatly modify those conclusions. But, until then, let's adopt them as a working hypothesis."

I could only wonder at him. It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which this new science of dreams might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it by applying it directly to a concrete case which I had seen.

"You recall what Leslie told us, what Mrs. Wilford told us, and what Doctor Lathrop later confirmed--her dream of fear?" Craig went on. "At present, I should say that it was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a repressed wish. Dreams of fear are always important. Just consider fear for a moment. Fear in such a dream as this nearly always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. Their gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consequently, in her dream, she feared the death of her husband because, unconsciously, she wished it."

I was startled, to say the least. "But, Craig," I remonstrated, "the very idea is repulsive. I don't believe for a moment she is that kind of woman. It's impossible."

"Take this idea of dream-death of one who is living," ignored Kennedy. "If there is sorrow felt, then there is some other cause for the dream. But if there is no sorrow felt, then the dreamer really desires the death or absence of the person dreamed about. Perhaps I did put it a little too sweepingly," he modified; "but when all the circumstances are considered, as I have considered them in this case already, I feel sure that the rule will apply here."

"Better not tell that to Doyle," I remarked. "Judging by his attitude toward Honora Wilford, he'd arrest her on sight, if he knew what you just said."

"I shall not tell Doyle. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing to Doyle. I haven't indicted her--yet."

Turning the thing over in my mind, I found it even more and more distasteful, and I could not resist expressing myself rather strongly to that effect.

"I expected to have you quarrel with that conclusion," smiled Kennedy, calmly. "People always do, until they understand. Let me explain more fully what I mean. Remember, first, that in childhood death is synonymous with being away. And many of our dreams are only survivals of childhood, like the falling dreams. Take the night-shirt dream. I suppose that, in common with some other millions of mortals, you have dreamed of traveling on the Subway, we'll say, lightly clad. No one noticed it."

"Yes," I laughed. "Only, finally I knew it--and how I have sneaked back home by deserted streets, afraid to be seen. Yet, when I met any one, as you say, the person didn't seem to be embarrassed--not a tenth as much as I."

"It speaks well for you," nodded Kennedy, with mock gravity. "If you had felt that others saw and knew your shame, it would mean something entirely different. As it is, it is simply one of those survivals of childhood in which there is no sense of shame over nakedness. Other people don't show it, either. But, later in life, you learned shame. That's where your psychic censor comes in and makes you sneak home by the byways and hedges. And, still, others don't feel as you do about it in the dream. If they did, I'm afraid it might show your moral sense a bit perverted. However, that's just an illustration of what I mean when I say that the death-dream may often be a childhood survival."

I listened without comment, for Craig was interesting, now.

"To get back to the case we have," he resumed. "Take, for example, a girl who sees in her dream that her mother is dead. It may mean many things. But perhaps it means only that she wishes her mother away so that she may enjoy some pleasure that her strict parent by her presence denies. That's a more or less parallel case, you see."

Even though I was now more willing than before to admit the interpretation as applied to Honora Wilford, I was not prepared to admit the theory. Though I said nothing about it, I was afraid that such dream analysis was pointing too strongly to Honora herself as one who unconsciously wished her husband out of the way. The idea repelled me at the same time that it fascinated. I realized what wide possibilities it opened.

"Of all dreams," continued Kennedy, "anxiety-dreams are among the most interesting and important. Anxiety may originate in psychosexual excitement--the repressed libido, or desire, as the Freudians call it. Neurotic fear has its origin in sexual life and corresponds to a libido, or desire, which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied."

"That may be true," I admitted, "but don't you think it's a bit raw to accuse Honora of desiring the death of Vail Wilford just because she didn't love him? I'd hate to be a juryman in a case like that!"

"Raw? Is it?" repeated Kennedy. "That is, is it in a dream? Just dissociate dreams from facts, Walter. Take the case. You see, that fits splendidly so far with what we know of her--her secret regard for Shattuck surviving after the broken engagement; her apparent coldness; her very real lack of feeling for her husband; the superficiality of it all; love not really felt, but shown because the world must see and it was the proper thing for her to show--even if in her heart she did not feel it."

"I know all that," I insisted. "But, perhaps, after all, Lathrop may have some right on his side. Must one incriminate oneself by dreams?"

Kennedy shook his head. "Often dreams that are apparently most harmless turn out to be sinister, if we take the pains to interpret them. All have the mark of the beast. For instance, practically all so-called day dreams of women are erotic in their inception. Those of men may be so, but quite as often are likely to be dreams of ambition more than of love. One cannot say that this distinction will always be. It is hard to predict what may happen in the future. Perhaps modern social conditions may change the very nature of woman--perhaps her ambition for a 'career' may submerge her emotional life. But--well, I doubt it. A few years don't wipe out the evolution and instincts of countless ages. Besides, Nature can be trusted to take care of herself. Sexless women won't have children--then after whom will the next generation after them take?"

"But is that all there is to the dream theory?" I asked, nodding agreement on Kennedy's prediction.

"Not a bit of it. Even those brief dreams that she has told will bear hours of study and analysis. Building up her true, inward character is like laying mosaic. You add here a bit, there a bit, here a stone of one color, there of another. It takes patience and study. When the pieces are all fitted together the picture will be very different from what even an intimate friend thinks; yes, different from what she herself in her own inmost heart thinks herself to be."

He paused a moment, as though turning the dreams over in his mind to see whither they led.

"There's another feature of her dream I want to call your attention to," he went on, "and that is the crowd as she fled from the bull. Crowds in dreams usually denote a secret. Whatever her true feelings toward Shattuck, she believes them to be locked in her own heart. Again, when she was pursued across the field she said she could feel the hot breath of the beast as he pursued her. From that I would assume at least that she knows that Shattuck loves her. Then she stumbled and almost fell. That can have but one meaning--her fear of becoming a fallen woman. But she caught herself and ran on, in the dream. She escaped."

"What of the dream about Lathrop?" I asked.

"We'll take that up later and try to interpret it. I am not sure of that one, myself. As for the others, I don't mean to say that I've put a final interpretation on them, either. Some things, such as I've told you, I know. But there are others still to be discovered. Just now the important thing is to get an understanding of Honora herself."

He took a turn up and down the floor of the laboratory.

"Honora Wilford," he said, slowly, at last, "is what the specialists would call a consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate woman."

He paused significantly, then went on: "I suppose there have been many cases where an intellectual woman has found herself attracted almost without reason toward a purely physical man. You find it in literature continually--in the caveman school of fiction, you know. As an intellectual woman, Honora may suppress her nature. But sometimes, we believe, Nature will and does assert herself."

Kennedy considered the laboratory impatiently.

"No package from Leslie yet. I hardly know what to do--unless--yes--that is the thing, now that I have had time to think this all out. I must see Mrs. Wilford again--and alone."

IV

THE "HESITATION COMPLEX"

Honora Wilford was still in the apartment where we had left her under the watchful care of one of Doyle's men.

Undoubtedly she felt no disposition to stir out, for if she went out it was certain that she would have gone under the most galling espionage. It must have been maddening to a woman of her temperament and station in life to find herself so hedged about by restriction. Doubtless it was just that that Doyle had intended, in the hope that the strain to which he subjected her by it would shake her poise.

Nevertheless, she received us with at least outward graciousness. Perhaps it was that she recognized some difference in the treatment which Kennedy accorded her over that from those whom Doyle had seen fit to place in charge of the apartment where once she had been mistress.

At any rate, I thought she acted a bit weary and I felt genuinely sorry for her as she received us and questioned us with her eyes.

"I've been very much interested in those dreams of yours," remarked Kennedy, endeavoring not to betray too much of the source of his information, for obvious reasons. "Doctor Leslie has told me of some of them--and I tried to get Doctor Lathrop to tell me of the others."

"Indeed?" she queried merely, her large eyes bent on Kennedy in doubt, although she did not betray any trepidation about the subject.

"I wonder whether you would mind writing them down for me?" Craig asked, quickly.

"I've already done so once for Doctor Lathrop," she answered, as though trying to avoid it.

"Yes," agreed Kennedy, quickly; "but I can hardly expect him to let me see them--professional ethics and all that sort of thing, you know, forbid."

"I suppose so," she replied, with a little nervous smile. "Oh, if you really want me to do so, I suppose I can write them out again, of course--write them the best I can recollect."

"It would be of great assistance indeed, I can assure you," encouraged Kennedy.

Honora, without another demur, walked over to a little writing-desk which seemed to be her own. Kennedy followed and placed a chair for her. Then he stepped back, though not so far but that he could watch her.

A moment she paused, toying with her fountain-pen, then began to write.

"My most frequent dream is a horrible one," she began, writing in a firm hand, although she knew that she was observed and was weighing every word and action. "I have dreamed ever so many times that I saw Vail in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled."

At this point she seemed to hesitate and pause. I saw that Kennedy was carefully noting it and every mood and action she exhibited. Then, after a moment, gathering herself together again, she wrote on:

"I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move."

Again she paused, then very slowly began to write on another line.

"Then the scene shifted like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see a face. In all my dreams it has been the face of Vail."

As she finished, she seemed now to be struggling with her emotions. The more I saw of Honora Wilford, the more I was unable to resist the fascination of studying her. She was a woman well worth study--a woman of baffling temperament, high-strung, of keen perception, yet always in the face of even such circumstances as these keeping herself under seemingly perfect control.

Always I found myself going back again to my original impression of her. Somehow, indefinably, I felt that there was something lacking in this woman's life. Was it, as I had believed at first, "heart"? I wondered whether, after all, there had been lacking in this woman's life some big experience, whether ever she had really loved. I knew well what would have been the answer one might have received if she had been questioned. She would have pointed immediately to her married life as proof that she had loved--at least once upon a time. And yet, was it proof? Had she loved Vail Wilford deeply?

The fact was that I did not, could not feel entirely unsympathetic toward her. Somehow, I felt, it could not have been entirely her fault, that she must have been the victim of circumstances or prejudices over which she had no control. At any rate, I determined that whatever lay at the bottom of it all was well worth our study and discovery. I hoped that the case would last. I wanted to see its development, and, if by any chance it was possible, the development of Honora herself, for I felt that once the gap, whatever it was and however it had arisen in her life, was closed she would be a most wonderful woman.

At times when I thought of the manner of Doyle and his men toward her, it made me boil over. As for Kennedy, it was different. I did not understand Craig in this matter. Yet I knew him better than perhaps any one else. Whatever lay back of Craig's actions, always I knew there was sympathy. Some may have thought him cold, but I knew better. Kennedy had always represented to me science with a heart. As for Doyle--he was neither.

Kennedy's voice recalled me to the matter of immediate importance before us.

"There was also that dream of Doctor Lathrop about which you told me, in which he appeared as a lion," suggested Kennedy, as she stopped writing and handed him what she had written. "This is very good--just what I want, as a matter of fact. Won't you write that other dream for me, also?"

With an air of resignation, as though she felt she was in our hands and had determined that her acts would be above criticism, she turned again to her desk, picked up the pen she had laid down, and wrote on a fresh sheet of paper:

"In the dream I seemed to be going along a rocky path. It was narrow, and as I turned a bend there was a bearded lion in the way. I was terribly frightened. I woke up."

She began a new line and added: "The lion seemed to have a human face. It seemed to resemble Doctor Lathrop."

I contrasted the writing of this dream with the other. At least there had been no hesitation in writing this, I observed, whatever that might mean. Already I was coming to have some respect for the dream theory which I would have ridiculed only a few hours before Kennedy began to convince me.

Honora laid down the pen and glanced up rather wearily as Kennedy ran his eye over what she had written. Much as it all aroused her curiosity, plainly the whole proceeding on the part of Craig was a sealed book to her.

"There's just another dream, or, rather, two dreams," he said, in a moment, "that interested me almost as much when I heard of them. Doctor Lathrop happened to mention them without telling them and I'd like to get them from you."

She glanced at him covertly, as much as to say, "So, then, you have been talking about me to him?" but she controlled whatever remark was on her tongue and said nothing.

Instead, obediently again, she picked up the pen and wrote, while we waited and the minutes passed. Only now it seemed that she was writing more carefully, both taking more time over the actual legibility and the choice of words.

"I seemed to be attacked by a bull," she detailed. "It was in a great field and I fled from it over the field. But it pursued me. It seemed to gain on me."

It was evident that she was not writing this dream with the facility with which she had set down the others. She paused as she came to the chase by the bull and seemed to think about what next to say. Then she wrote:

"It was very close. Then, in my dream, in fright, I ran faster over the field. I remember I hoped to gain a clump of woods. As I ran I stumbled and would have fallen. But I managed to catch myself in time. I ran on. I expected momentarily to be gored by the bull. That seemed to be the end of the dream--with me running and the bull gaining on me."

She did not pause, however, except to skip a line, but began writing again:

"Then the dream changed. I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd. In the place of the bull pursuing me there was now a serpent. It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed. It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My terror was so great that I awoke."

She was about to lay the pen down again, as though glad of the opportunity, when Kennedy asked, with no intention of stopping so soon, "Were there not faces on these animals?"

"The faces seemed to be human," she murmured, evasively, still looking at what she had written for him, and making no effort to amend or correct it.

"Human?" repeated Kennedy. "Did they bear a resemblance to any one you know?"