Page:The return of the soldier (IA returnofsoldier00west2).pdf/174

 There's no such thing. There's a deep self in one, the essential self, that has its wishes. And if those wishes are suppressed by the superficial self,—the self that makes, as you say, efforts, and usually makes them with the sole idea of putting up a good show before the neighbors,—it takes its revenge. Into the house of conduct erected by the superficial self it sends an obsession, which doesn't, owing to a twist that the superficial self, which isn't candid, gives it, seem to bear any relation to the suppressed wish. A man who really wants to leave his wife develops a hatred for pickled cabbage which may find vent in performances that lead straight to the asylum. But that's all technical," he finished bluffly. "My business to understand it, not yours. The point is, Mr. Baldry's obsession is that he can't remember the latter years of his life. Well,"—his winking blue eyes drew us all into a community we hardly felt,—"what's the