Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/83

Rh he tried writing, and found, to his delight, that when her anæsthetic hand was hidden from her sight by a screen he could get answers to his questions in writing without Lucie's knowing that it was writing at all, much less what it said. At first it showed little or no spontaneity, and unless the content of the writing was determined by his suggestions it was limited to "Yes," "No," and "I don't know." He asked for a letter, and it wrote an apologetic refusal of an invitation; he asked it to solve little arithmetical problems, and if they were not very difficult it did so correctly while Lucie was talking or reading aloud or otherwise occupied. But there was never a sign of a self-conscious personality in the narrower sense of the word. The writer did not claim to be anybody in particular, and volunteered no information about herself.

One day Prof. Janet undertook to inquire into this point, as follows: "Do you hear me?" "No." "But you must, to answer." "Of course." "Then how do you do it?" "I do not know." "There must be some one who hears me?" "Yes." "Who, then?" "Some other person than Lucie." "Ah, some one else. Shall we name her Blanche?" "Yes, Blanche." But Lucie abhorred the name Blanche, and when the writing was shown to her she flew into a rage and tried to tear it up. So the name was changed. "What will you have?" asked Prof. Janet. "No name." "But it will be more convenient." "Very well, Adrienne." "Well, Adrienne, do you hear me?" "Yes."

It seems probable that the notion of being a person was first suggested by Prof. Janet. However that may be, thenceforward all these automatic phenomena seemed to become crystallized about the name Adrienne and the voice and touch of Prof. Janet, and were readily evoked by him but by no one else.

Having thus got access to the secondary system, the next point was to determine what it comprised. In brief, it was found that all Lucie had lost, whether spontaneously or by suggestion, Adrienne had, and, vice versa, whatever Adrienne got, whether spontaneously or by suggestion, Lucie lost.

Lucie had lost her sense of touch, but Adrienne's was perfect. Suggestions given through the sense of touch were executed, but made no impression upon Lucie's consciousness; Adrienne claimed to experience the corresponding mental states. Prof. Janet clinched the left fist, and it struck out; he then asked the right hand, "What are you doing?" "I am furious." "With whom?" "With F." "Why?" "I do not know, but I am angry." Then he unclasped the fist and put the fingers to the lips—the lips smile and the fingers throw kisses. "Adrienne, are you still angry?" "No, it is gone." "And now?" "I am in a good humor." "And Lucie?" "She knows nothing—she is asleep."