Madame B. and Her Three Souls.

Marvellous as the cases cited in the last chapter appear, they are thrown entirely into the shade by the case of Madame B., in which the two personalities not only exist side by side, but in the case of the Sub-conscious self knowingly co-exist, while over or beneath both there is a third personality which is aware of both the other two, and apparently superior to both. The possibilities which this case opens up are bewildering indeed. But it is better to state the case first and discuss it afterwards. Madame B., who is still under Prof. Richet’s observations, is one of the favourite subjects of the French hypnotiser. She can be put to sleep at almost any distance, and when hypnotised completely changes her character. There are two well-defined personalities in her, and a third of a more mysterious nature than either of the two first. The normal waking state of the woman is called Leonie I., the hypnotic state Leonie II. The third occult Unconscious Personality of the lowest depth is called Leonie III.

“This poor peasant,” says Professor Janet, “is in her normal state a serious and somewhat melancholy woman, calm and slow, very gentle and extremely timid. No one would suspect the existence of the person whom she includes within her. Hardly is she entranced when she is metamorphosed; her face is no longer the same; her eyes, indeed, remain closed, but the acuteness of the other senses compensates for the loss of sight. She becomes gay, noisy, and restless to an insupportable degree; she continues good-natured, but she has acquired a singular tendency to irony and bitter jests.... In this state she does not recognise her identity with her waking self. ‘That good woman is not I,’ she says; ‘she is too stupid!’”

Madame B. has been so often hypnotised, and during so many years (for she was hypnotised by other physicians as long ago as 1860), that Leonie II. has by this time acquired a considerable stock of memories which Madame B. does not share. Leonie II., therefore, counts as properly belonging to her own history and not to Madame B.’s all the events which have taken place while Madame B.’s normal self was hypnotised into unconsciousness. It was not always easy at first to understand this partition of past experiences.

“Madame B. in the normal state,” says Professor Janet, “has a husband and children. Leonie II., speaking in the somnambulistic trance, attributes the husband to the ‘other’ (Madame B.), but attributes the children to herself.... At last I learnt that her former mesmerisers, as bold in their practice as certain hypnotisers of to-day, had induced somnambulism at the time of her accouchements. Leonie II., therefore, was quite right in attributing the children to herself; the rule of partition was unbroken, and the somnambulism was characterised by a duplication of the subject’s existence” .

Still more extraordinary are Leonie II.’s attempts to make use of Leonie I.’s limbs without her knowledge or against her will. She will write postscripts to Leonie I.’s letters, of the nature of which poor Leonie I. is unconscious.

It seems, however, that when once set up this new personality can occasionally assume the initiative, and can say what it wants to say without any prompting. This is curiously illustrated by what may be termed a conjoint epistle addressed to Professor Janet by Madame B. and her secondary self, Leonie II. “She had,” he says, “left Havre more than two months when I received from her a very curious letter. On the first page was a short note written in a serious and respectful style. She was unwell, she said worse on some days than on others and she signed her true name, Madame B. But over the page began another letter in quite a different style, and which I may quote as a curiosity: ’My dear good sir, I must tell you that B. really makes me suffer very much; she cannot sleep, she spits blood, she hurts me. I am going to demolish her, she bores me. I am ill also. This is from your devoted Leontine’ (the name first given to Leonie II).

“When Madame B. returned to Havre I naturally questioned her concerning this curious missive. She remembered the first letter very distinctly, but she had not the slightest recollection of the second. I at first thought there must have been an attack of spontaneous somnambulism between the moment when she finished the first letter and the moment when she closed the envelope. But afterwards these unconscious, spontaneous letters became common, and I was better able to study the mode of their production. I was fortunately able to watch Madame B. on one occasion while she went through this curious performance. She was seated at a table, and held in the left hand the piece of knitting at which she had been working. Her face was calm, her eyes looked into space with a certain fixity, but she was not cataleptic, for she was humming a rustic tune; her right hand wrote quickly, and, as it were, surreptitiously. I removed the paper without her noticing me, and then spoke to her; she turned round wide-awake but was surprised to see me, for in her state of distraction she had not noticed my approach. Of the letter which she was writing she knew nothing whatever.

“Leonie II.’s independent action is not entirely confined to writing letters. She observed (apparently) that when her primary self, Leonie I., discovered these letters she (Leonie I.) tore them up. So Leonie II. hit upon a plan of placing them in a photographic album into which Leonie I. could not look without falling into catalepsy (on account of an association of ideas with Dr. Gibert, whose portrait had been in the album). In order to accomplish an act like this Leonie II. has to wait for a moment when Leonie I. is distracted, or, as we say, absent-minded. If she can catch her in this state Leonie II. can direct Leonie I.’s walks, for instance, or start on a long railway journey without baggage, in order to get to Havre as quickly as possible.”

In the whole realm of imaginative literature, is there anything to compare to this actual fact of three selves in one body, each struggling to get possession of it? Leonie I., or the Conscious Personality, is in possession normally, but is constantly being ousted by Leonie II., or the Subconscious Personality. It is the old, old case of the wife trying to wear the breeches. But there is a fresh terror beyond. For behind both Leonie I. and Leonie II. stands the mysterious Leonie III.

“The spontaneous acts of the Unconscious Self,” says M. Janet, here meaning by l’inconscient the entity to which he has given the name of Leonie III., “may also assume a very reasonable form a form which, were it better understood, might perhaps serve to explain certain cases of insanity. Mme. B., during her somnambulism (i.e. Leonie II.) had had a sort of hysterical crisis; she was restless and noisy and I could not quiet her. Suddenly she stopped and said to me with terror. ‘Oh, who is talking to me like that? It frightens me.’ ’No one is talking to you.’ ‘Yes! there on the left!’ And she got up and tried to open a wardrobe on her left hand, to see if some one was hidden there. ‘What is that you hear?’ I asked. ’I hear on the left a voice which repeats, “Enough, enough, be quiet, you are a nuisance."’ Assuredly the voice which thus spoke was a reasonable one, for Leonie II. was insupportable; but I had suggested nothing of the kind, and had no idea of inspiring a hallucination of hearing. Another day Leonie II. was quite calm, but obstinately refused to answer a question which I asked. Again she heard with terror the same voice to the left, saying, ’Come, be sensible, you must answer.’ Thus the Unconscious sometimes gave her excellent advice.”

And in effect, as soon as Leonie III. was summoned into communication, she accepted the responsibility of this counsel. “What was it that happened?” asked M. Janet, “when Leonie II. was so frightened?” “Oh! nothing. It was I who told her to keep quiet; I saw she was annoying you; I don’t know why she was so frightened.”

Note the significance of this incident. Here we have got at the root of a hallucination. We have not merely inferential but direct evidence that the imaginary voice which terrified Leonie II. proceeded from a profounder stratum of consciousness in the same individual. In what way, by the aid of what nervous mechanism, was the startling monition conveyed?

Just as Mme. B. was sent, by means of passes, into a state of lethargy, from which she emerged as Leonie II., so Leonie II., in her turn, was reduced by renewed passes to a state of lethargy from which she emerged no longer as Leonie II. but as Leonie III. This second waking is slow and gradual, but the personality which emerges is, in one important point, superior to either Leonie I. or Leonie II. Although one among the subject’s phases, this phase possesses the memory of every phase. Leonie III., like Leonie II., knows the normal life of Leonie I., but distinguishes herself from Leonie I., in whom, it must be said, these subjacent personalities appear to take little interest. But Leonie III. also remembers the life of Leonie II. condemns her as noisy and frivolous, and is anxious not to be confounded with her either. “Vous voyez bien que je ne suis pas cette bavarde, cette folle; nous ne nous ressemblons pas du tout.”

We ask, in amazement, how many more personalities may there not be hidden in the human frame? Here is simple Madame B., who is not one person but three first her commonplace self; secondly, the clever, chattering Leonie II., who is bored by B., and who therefore wants to demolish her; and thirdly, the lordly Leonie III., who issues commands that strike terror into Leonie II., and disdains to be identified with either of the partners in Madame B.’s body.

It is evident, if the hypnotists are right, that the human body is more like a tenement house than a single cell, and that the inmates love each other no more than the ordinary occupants of tenemented property. But how many are there of us within each skin who can say?