Part 59 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”Did he call--er--yesterday?”
”He calls every day to supervise the nurse who has Junior in charge.”
”Could one always be true to oneself in the face of any temptation?” he asked suddenly.
It was a bold question. Yet such had been the gradual manner of his leading up to it that, before she knew it, she had answered quite frankly, ”Yes--if one always thought of home and her child, I cannot see how one could help controlling herself.”
She seemed to catch her breath, almost as though the words had escaped her before she knew it.
”Is there anything besides your dream that alarms you,” he asked, changing the subject quickly, ”any suspicion of--say the servants?”
”No,” she said, watching him now. ”But some time ago we caught a burglar upstairs here. He managed to escape. That has made me nervous.
I didn't think it was possible.”
”Anything else?”
”No,” she said positively, this time on her guard.
Kennedy saw that she had made up her mind to say no more.
”Mrs. Hazleton,” he said, rising. ”I can hardly thank you too much for the manner in which you have met my questions. It will make it much easier for me to quiet your fears. And if anything else occurs to you, you may rest a.s.sured I shall violate no confidences in your telling me.”
I could not help the feeling, however, that there was just a little air of relief on her face as we left.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
THE PSYCHa.n.a.lYSIS
”H--M,” mused Kennedy as we walked along after leaving the house.
”There were several 'complexes,' as they are called, there--the most interesting and important being the erotic, as usual. Now, take the lion in the dream, with his mane. That, I suspect, was Dr. Maudsley. If you are acquainted with him, you will recall his heavy, almost tawny beard.”
Kennedy seemed to be revolving something in his mind and I did not interrupt. I had known him too long to feel that even a dream might not have its value with him. Indeed, several times before he had given me glimpses into the fascinating possibilities of the new psychology.
”In spite of the work of thousands of years, little progress has been made in the scientific understanding of dreams,” he remarked a few moments later. ”Freud, of Vienna--you recall the name?--has done most, I think in that direction.”
I recalled something of the theories of the Freudists, but said nothing.
”It is an unpleasant feature of his philosophy,” he went on, ”but Freud finds the conclusion irresistible that all humanity underneath the sh.e.l.l is sensuous and sensual in nature. Practically all dreams betray some delight of the senses and s.e.xual dreams are a large proportion.
There is, according to the theory, always a wish hidden or expressed in a dream. The dream is one of three things, the open, the disguised or the distorted fulfillment of a wish, sometimes recognized, sometimes repressed.
”Anxiety dreams are among the most interesting and important Anxiety may originate in psycho-s.e.xual excitement, the repressed libido, as the Freudists call it. Neurotic fear has its origin in s.e.xual life and corresponds to a libido which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied. All so-called day dreams of women are erotic; of men they are either ambition or love.
”Often dreams, apparently harmless, turn out to be sinister if we take pains to interpret them. All have the mark of the beast. For example, there was that unknown woman who had fallen down and was surrounded by a crowd. If a woman dreams that, it is s.e.xual. It can mean only a fallen woman. That is the symbolism. The crowd always denotes a secret.
”Take also the dream of death. If there is no sorrow felt, then there is another cause for it. But if there is sorrow, then the dreamer really desires death or absence. I expect to have you quarrel with that. But read Freud, and remember that in childhood death is synonymous with being away. Thus for example, if a girl dreams that her mother is dead, perhaps it means only that she wishes her away so that she can enjoy some pleasure that her strict parent, by her presence, denies.
”Then there was that dream about the baby in the water. That, I think, was a dream of birth. You see, I asked her practically to repeat the dreams because there were several gaps. At such points one usually finds first hesitation, then something that shows one of the main complexes. Perhaps the subject grows angry at the discovery.