apologetic and taking no notice of Vincent’s excited appearance. “My
ward, Fräulein Rosenhagen, was unaware that I had guests.--I merely
wished to reassure myself that you require nothing before I go into the
town. Is there anything you desire of me?”
“Nothing, thank you,” interposed Chassaigne, quickly, before Vincent
could speak.
“_A tantôt_, then!” He nodded amicably and went out.
“We ought to have questioned him!” cried Vincent, resentful of the
missed opportunity.
“We ought to do nothing of the kind, my dear Vincent,” replied
Chassaigne. “Calm yourself. Be sensible. What question could we
possibly ask that would not be ridiculous? You may be utterly wrong.”
“_It is she!_ I swear it!” asserted the young man, vehemently. “Do you
think I cannot recognize a woman I have known all my life?”
He commenced to pace up and down the room in wild agitation. His friend
contemplated him with a gaze of genuine solicitude.
“You may be mistaken for all that,” he said, gently. “Doubles, although
rare, exist----”
Vincent stared at him in exasperation.
“My fiancée had three little moles just above her right wrist--I looked
for those three moles when I held that woman’s arm just now--_and I
found them_! Are doubles so exactly reproduced as that?” he asked,
furiously.
“It sounds incredible, certainly,” agreed Chassaigne. “But her
attitude----”
“I know,” said Vincent, recommencing his pacing up and down the room.
“She looked at me like a complete stranger. But,” he ground his teeth
in jealous rage, “if she has consented to live with that man--she might
have pretended--to hide her shame----”
“My friend,” said Chassaigne, seriously, “in that young woman was
neither shame nor pretence. I observed her closely. She genuinely did
not recognize any acquaintance in you. She genuinely did not even know
French. She was genuinely resentful of your familiarity. That was no
play-acting performance. She was taken by surprise. She had no time to
prepare herself for it.”
The young man beat his brow.
“Oh, I am going mad!” he cried. “It was she, I swear it!--and yet--she
did not know me! It baffles me.” He stopped for a moment, then looked
up with a new idea. “Chassaigne! You are an authority on these things.
It is possible--by hypnotism or anything of the sort--to change a
personality completely--so that they forget everything--start afresh?”
Chassaigne met his glance, hesitated.
“It is--perhaps--possible,” he said, slowly. He went up to his friend,
put his hand on his shoulder, drew him to a chair. “Sit down, my
dear fellow. Let us be calm and think this out. If you are right--if
this young woman is indeed your--your friend--your suggestion might
_perhaps_ be the key to the enigma. But we shall achieve nothing by
getting excited.”
Vincent allowed himself to be gently forced into the chair. He looked
white and ill, thoroughly shaken. His friend, contemplating him, was
impressed by his appearance. Could such a shock be produced by a merely
imagined resemblance? He felt that it could not--and then those three
moles! His mind reverted to the young woman, to her indubitably genuine
non-recognition, and he felt more than ever puzzled. With a quiet
deliberation he drew up a chair and seated himself close to his comrade.
“Now let us analyze this problem,” he said. He spoke in a calm,
consulting-room voice which eliminated in advance all emotion from the
discussion.
Vincent looked up, his eyes miserable.
“Have you ever known of such a case?”
“Of a personality _permanently_ changed? No.”
“Is it hypothetically possible?”
“Hypothetically--yes.”
“By hypnotism?”
“By hypnotism and suggestion.”
“But a woman cannot be hypnotized against her will, can she?”
“No--technically not--but her will may be stunned, so to speak, into
abeyance by a sudden shock or by terror and then, virtually, she might
be hypnotized against her will. It is possible.”
The young man took a deep breath.
“That acquits her moral responsibility. But you say it is
hypothetically possible to change a personality _permanently_? It
sounds fantastic to me. Would you please explain?”
Chassaigne leaned back in his chair and lightly joined the finger-tips
of his two hands. He spoke in the impersonal tone of a professor
elucidating a thesis.
“Well, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning we should have to
analyze personality--and human personality is a mystery I confess
myself unable to explore. You are aware, however, that there are
people who have double personalities--even triple and multiple
personalities--which differ utterly. For some reason which eludes us,
one of these submerged personalities in an individual may suddenly come
to the top. He, or she, entirely forgets the personality which was
theirs up to that moment, forgets name, relations, every circumstance
of life--and is completely someone else, quite new. There is a
recent case, exhaustively studied, of a young woman with four such
personalities--over which she has not the slightest control, and which
differ profoundly, mentally and morally. I mention this merely to show
you how unstable personality may be.”
“These are pathological cases,” interposed Vincent. “My fiancée was a
thoroughly well-balanced woman.”
Chassaigne nodded.
“Before the war when you last saw her. She must have gone through
great stress since. But let us continue. Under hypnotism a person is
extraordinarily susceptible to the suggestions of the operator. He
will carry out perfectly any rôle indicated to him. The reason is that
in the hypnotic condition the conscious personality is put to sleep
and the subjective mind--the dream-creating consciousness which is
independent of the will--is paramount. That subjective mind possesses
little if any power of origination, but it has a startling faculty
of dramatizing any suggestion made to it. Tell a hypnotic that he is
President Wilson at the Peace Conference and he will get up and make
a speech perfectly in character, amazingly apposite, expressing ideas
that are normally perhaps quite alien to his temperament. Tell him
that he is Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and he will act the part
with a reality that is impressive. He believes himself actually to be
Napoleon. Under hypnotism, then, the personality which is mirrored in
the Ego--which you believe to be the essential, unchanging you--may be
utterly changed----”
“Yes,” objected Vincent. “But that is only during the hypnotic trance.
It is not permanent.”
“Wait a moment,” said Chassaigne. “Suggestions made during the hypnotic
trance may and do persist after the subject has awakened from it. I
may, for example, suggest to the hypnotized person that when he wakes
he will have forgotten his native language--and he will forget it. If
he knows no other, he will remain dumb until I remove the suggestion. I
may suggest to him that a person actually in the room is not there--and
he will not perceive him. I may suggest that in a week, a month, a
year, at such and such an hour, he will perform some absurd action--and
punctually to the moment, without understanding the source of his
impulse, he will perform it. Post-hypnotic persistence of suggestion is
a scientific fact.”
“Then--in this case?”
“In this case we have to do with a clever and possibly unscrupulous
man who is a specialist in manipulating the human mind. Of course, he
practises hypnotic suggestion as a part of his profession--it is the
chief agent in modern mental therapeutics. _It is possible_ that by
some means he got this young woman into his power after she was dragged
from her home. It is possible that he was violently attracted to her,
and finding that she did not reciprocate his sentiments, proceeded to
subject her individuality to his. How would he do this? He would drug
or stun her volition by terror--as, for example, a bird is helplessly
fascinated in fear of the snake. Then, using some common mechanical
means such as the revolving mirror--staring into her eyes--anything
that would fatigue the sensory centres of sight--he would induce a
hypnotic trance. In that trance he would suggest to her that her name
was no longer Hélène whatever it was--but Fräulein Rosenhagen, that she
was a German woman ignorant of French, that she was perfectly happy
and contented in his society. In the supernormally receptive state of
the hypnotized mind he could give her lessons in German, which would
be learned with a speed and accuracy far surpassing that of ordinary
education. He would suggest to her that all his lessons persisted after
waking. Finally, he would constantly reiterate these suggestions in
a succession of hypnotic trances--once the first has been induced,
it is easy to bring about the second--until he had reconstructed her
personality, or rather imposed a new one upon her consciousness.
“There, my dear Vincent, presuming that you are correct in your
recognition of this young lady, is a theoretical explanation of the
phenomenon which confronts us. For that the young woman genuinely did
not recognize you, I am certain.”
“She is held in the most diabolical slavery ever conceived, then!”
cried Vincent, in despair. “A slavery of the soul! But can nothing be
done?”
Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders.
“Something can be attempted, my dear fellow. I promise nothing.” He
rose from his chair. “Now, I want you to promise to keep quiet--not
to interfere. Fortunately, I speak German, and can talk to her in the
language she believes to be her own. Wait a minute.” He roved round
the room, opening the cupboards under the bookcases, the drawers in
the writing-table by the window. “Ah, here we are!” he ejaculated. He
held up a small silver mirror which revolved quickly upon its single
support under the motion of his fingers. “I expected that our friend
the doctor would possess this little instrument.” He smiled. “Very
considerate of him to go out and leave us to ourselves! Now we will try
and profit by the circumstance. I am going to find that young lady and
bring her to you. You will maintain the attitude of a complete stranger
who regrets an impulsive familiarity for which a mistake in identity is
responsible. Master yourself!” He put the little mirror on the table
and went out of the room.
A few moments later he returned, held the door wide open for the young
woman to enter. He spoke in fluent German.
“My young friend, Fräulein, will not be consoled until he has had the
opportunity of a personal apology!”
The young woman inclined her head gravely, and somewhat shyly advanced
to the centre of the room. Vincent rose to his feet, his face deadly
white, trembling in every limb, and bowed. Ignorant of German, he could
not utter a word. Chassaigne turned to him, spoke to him in French.
“Look closely at Fräulein Rosenhagen, _mon ami_--and satisfy yourself.”
The muscles of his face tense under the effort to repress his emotion,
to appear normal, the young man looked at her for a long moment. She
returned his gaze without a quiver of the eyelids, smiled with the
kindliness which sets a stranger at his ease.
“It is she--it is she,” he muttered, hoarsely. “I swear it!”
Chassaigne turned to the young woman.
“My young friend is much affected by your extraordinary resemblance
to a lady he knew, Fräulein,” he said, smilingly, in German. “But he
perceives now that he was mistaken. You will, I am sure, pardon an
emotion that a person of your charm will readily understand. My friend
was greatly attached to the lady he thought he recognised in you.”
The young woman smiled upon Vincent in feminine sympathy for a lover.
“Is she a German?” she asked in a rich deep voice that made him start.
Chassaigne replied for him.
“No, Fräulein--she is a Frenchwoman brought to Germany against her
will.”
He observed her narrowly as he spoke. Her face remained calm. His
words, evidently, awakened no latent memory in her.
“How dreadful!” she said. Her rich voice vibrated on a note of
unfeigned sympathy which was, nevertheless, impersonal. “Poor man! And
he does not know where she is!”
“He has no idea, Fräulein,” replied Chassaigne. “But let us leave this
painful subject. Will you not keep us company for a few minutes? We are
strangers in a strange land.” With a gallant courtesy, which, however,
omitted to wait for her assent, he took her right hand and led her to a
chair. His quick eyes noted the three moles upon her wrist. She seated
herself almost automatically. He registered, in support of his theory,
her easy susceptibility to a quietly insistent suggestion. “Will you
not tell us what is most worth seeing in Mainz?” he asked, smilingly.
She looked up at him.
“Alas, mein Herr, I cannot!” she said. “I have never been in the city.”
“Indeed?” He expressed mild but courteous surprise. “Perhaps you have
only recently come to live here yourself?”
“Yes--er--no!” She smiled at her own confusion. “I mean we have been
here some time--but we travelled so much before we came here--that I--I
have really lost count----”
Chassaigne made a reassuring little gesture which relegated the matter
to a limbo of indifference.
“You travelled with Doctor Breidenbach, I presume?” he asked, casually.
“Yes. We went to a great many places. He was in the army then.”
“When you first met him?”
“Yes.” Her first tone of confident assertion changed almost as she
uttered it to one of puzzled doubt. “Yes--I--I think so--I really
forget.” She smiled in self-apology. “I have a very bad memory, you
see, mein Herr,” she said, as if in explanation. “Doctor Breidenbach is
treating me for it.”
“Ah?--Doubtless he is doing you a great deal of good?” Chassaigne
seated himself upon the edge of the table and smiled down upon her in
paternal benevolence.
“Oh, yes,” she began, impulsively. “You see, we are going to be
married. But Doctor Breidenbach thinks it would not be right to be
married until my memory is perfectly restored. So”--she hesitated, then
smiled up with an innocent naïveté--“so you see I am doing all I can to
concentrate and--and get it right.”
“_Mon Dieu!_” groaned Vincent in a low tone of anguish, turning away
and staring out of the window.
Chassaigne frowned admonition at him in a quick glance unperceived by
the young woman. Unobtrusively, he put one hand behind him, picked up
the revolving-mirror from the table, held it behind his back. He nodded
assent to her little self-revelation.
“Of course. No doubt you are making very rapid progress. Doctor
Breidenbach is a very clever man, is he not?”
“Oh, yes--very clever. And so kind!”
Chassaigne nodded again, his smile holding her confidence. As if
absent-mindedly, he brought the little mirror in front of him, played
with it. He noticed that her eyes fixed themselves instinctively upon
it.
“Pretty toy!” he remarked, casually. “It belongs to Doctor Breidenbach
I suppose?”
She stared at it in a strange fascination, shuddered suddenly.
“Yes,” she said, with a little gesture before her eyes as though
trying to throw off a spell, “yes--I--I think so----”
“A scientific instrument, I presume?” continued Chassaigne,
imperturbably, as if merely interested in a curiosity, twirling the
support between his fingers so that the mirror rapidly revolved.
Imperceptibly he leaned forward, brought it nearer to her eyes. “It
suggests sleep, I think,” he continued in a quiet level voice that had
suddenly acquired a peculiar intensity. “Sleep. Sleep, Fräulein!”
She stared at it, open-eyed, stiffening curiously. A phrase of protest
seemed frozen on her lips.
He held it very close to her face, revolving the mirror in a
long-continued series of rapid flashes before her eyes.
“Sleep!” he commanded in his intense level voice.
Her breast heaved in a long, sleepy sigh. She shuddered again,
stiffened suddenly, sat rigid, entranced. Vincent, watching, crept
forward, tense with anxiety.
“What are you going to do?” he whispered.
Chassaigne motioned him to silence with a gesture of his forefinger. He
turned to the young woman.
“You are asleep, are you not?”
She did not reply.
“You hear me?”
“Yes.”
Her lips moved, but beyond that she did not stir.
“In that sleep you remember things which you had otherwise forgotten.”
He turned to Vincent, whispered: “What is her name?”
“Hélène Courvoisier.”
Chassaigne bent over her, picked up her wrist with the three moles.
“Do you remember Hélène Courvoisier?”
“No.”
“Not even the name?”
“Not even the name.”
There was a short silence, and then Chassaigne spoke again in insistent
level tones.
“I suggest to you that you are yourself Hélène Courvoisier!”
Vincent, guessing the purport of the words, held his breath in
suspense. To his despair the young woman responded with a far-away but
genuinely mirthful laugh.
“No! How absurd!” she said, laughing like a person under a drug. “I
am Ottilie Rosenhagen! I was always Ottilie Rosenhagen!” She laughed
again, hysterically, but more and more freely, more and more loudly,
more and more the laugh of a person normally awake. Still laughing,
she shuddered, passed her hand across her brow, relaxed suddenly
from her stiff attitude--and ceased to laugh with a glance around of
bewilderment. She fixed her eyes upon Chassaigne.
“I--I think I feel unwell,” she said, rising brusquely from her chair.
“Excuse me!--I--I cannot stay!”
Without a glance behind her, she went swiftly from the room.
Vincent watched her go, anguish and despair in his eyes. He turned to
Chassaigne.
“Well?” he asked, hoarsely.
Chassaigne made a gesture of annoyance. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I might have guessed as much!” he said. “He has rendered her immune
to the suggestion. You see, the trance was induced easily enough. As
I thought, she was accustomed to being hypnotized by that mirror and
the mere sight of it was almost sufficient. Without that, I should
certainly have failed to hypnotize her at all, for Breidenbach would
assuredly have impressed upon her the suggestion that she could be
hypnotized by no one but himself. He has furthermore guarded himself by
impressing upon her that the suggestion of being anybody but Ottilie
Rosenhagen will suffice to break the trance. He cannot be sure that
such an impressionable subject may not be hypnotized, possibly by a
chance accident--such things occur--in his absence. But he can be sure
that any counter-suggestion on the vital matter will defeat itself--as
we have just seen.”
“But can no one remove the suggestion?” cried Vincent. He glared around
the room, clenching his fist. “The infernal scoundrel! By God, I’ll
kill him!” He fingered the revolver, in the holster strapped to his
belt.
Chassaigne laid a restraining hand upon him.
“If you do--you will in all probability kill the only man in the world
who can replace the factitious personality of Ottilie Rosenhagen by the
real personality of Hélène Courvoisier!”
Vincent stared at him.
“Do you mean that?”
“He certainly can remove the suggestions he has himself made. It is
doubtful whether any other can.”
“He must be forced to do it! We must inform the authorities!”
“Agreed, my dear fellow!” Chassaigne’s voice was soothing. “But we
must first get evidence--real evidence--that this young woman is not
Ottilie Rosenhagen but Hélène Courvoisier. What evidence have we got
now that we could put up before a tribunal? None. Merely your alleged
recognition, as against her own emphatic denial that she is the person
you maintain. And at the present time not even the most cunning
cross-examination could elucidate the fact that she had ever known the
French language. Ottilie Rosenhagen does not know French--and, at this
moment, to all intents and purposes, she _is_ Ottilie Rosenhagen!”
“Then we must get hold of him ourselves!”
“He will simply laugh at us as madmen--apply to have us removed from
his house. No, my dear fellow, we cannot force the pace. Wait. Be
patient. Arouse no suspicion in his mind. Our opportunity will come,
be sure of that. The real personality of Hélène Courvoisier is there
all the time, latent. I am confident that we shall--somehow--succeed in
bringing it to the surface again.”
The young man shuddered.
“I wish I could see how!” he said, hopelessly.
“You will see it. I guarantee it,” said Chassaigne, forcing his
cheerfulness. “Now, come away out of this house. We will go into Mainz,
dine, spend the evening at a café, and forget it--or talk it over, as
you will. We can do nothing more now.” He smiled at him. “Come! As your
superior officer, I command you!”
The hour was late when the two officers returned. Before going out,
Chassaigne had provided himself with a key, and they let themselves
into the house. It was quiet, its occupants apparently in bed.
Throughout the evening there had been but one topic of conversation
and, as it was yet unexhausted, they went into Doctor Breidenbach’s
library, switched on the lights, and sat down for a final smoke before
retiring.
“What we require,” said Chassaigne, for the twentieth time, as he
lit his cigarette, “is demonstrable evidence, something that makes
it certain that you are not under an illusion. Even in my own mind,
I cannot help confessing, there is a doubt. Look at it from my point
of view. You assure me that you recognize the young woman. Good--but
your recognition may be an error, although sincere. You strengthen
your case by pointing to the three moles. But, if I were questioned, I
should be bound to admit that you did not mention those moles until you
had seen them on this woman. You may be suffering from a not uncommon
delusion of memory which refers to the past a thing now for the first
time perceived. The strongest piece of evidence we possess is that,
under the physical analysis to which we subjected the young woman, I
found that she was a hypnotic subject, that she was impressible, and
that her personality as Ottilie Rosenhagen is practically without any
memories of the past. _But we could not discover any trace of any other
personality._ She rejects as ridiculous the suggestion that she is not
Ottilie Rosenhagen. That proves nothing, in the special circumstances
we are considering. She might or might not still be Hélène Courvoisier.
But the theory on which we have been working presupposes a crime so
unique, that, quite frankly, to be entirely convinced I want to come
upon some trace of a submerged personality which tallies with your
assertion. If she is Hélène Courvoisier that personality is certainly
there. But how are we going to get at it?”
Vincent shook his head.
“I cannot imagine,” he said, wearily.
He looked up to see Chassaigne staring in astonishment at the door
behind his chair. Startled, he twisted himself round to see what was
happening--and gasped.
Framed in the doorway, a dressing-gown over her night-attire, her dark
hair loose over her shoulders, was the young woman. In her hand was a
bedroom candle, alight. Her face was expressionless and placid. Her
eyes were open, looked fixedly in front of her. She moved into the room
with a gliding step.
“She is asleep!” whispered Chassaigne. “Speak to her, Vincent!--who
knows?--Perhaps another stratum of personality!”
The young woman glided straight toward the lieutenant, who gripped at
the arm of the chair in his emotion. She was close upon him ere he
could force himself to speech.
“Hélène!” he said in a tense, low voice, looking up into her eyes as if
trying to bring her dream down to him. “Do you know me?”
She bent over him, kissed him softly upon the brow.
“Maxime!” she murmured, her tone vibrant with tender affection.
“Maxime! You have been away so long!”
_She spoke in French!_
Chassaigne jumped in his chair, but before he could utter a word, a new
voice spoke sharply.
“Ottilie!”
The two officers turned to the doorway to see Doctor Breidenbach
standing there, his face clouded with menace, his eyes angry.
The young woman started, looked wildly about her in the bewilderment
of one suddenly aroused from sleep. Then after one horrified glance at
her attire, an amazed stare at the two officers, she sank down on to
a chair and covered her face with her hands. Trembling violently in
every nerve of her body, she crouched there in a misery of shame, too
overwhelmed to utter a sound.
The German advanced into the room, stood over her.
“Ottilie! Come away at once!”