"Very much. For some reason—perhaps unknown to herself—she omits all mention of it in writing it for us. I think you'll understand better as we go on with the dream. 'It was very close,' he read, rapidly. 'Then in my dream, in fright I ran faster over the field. I remember I hoped to gain a clump of woods. As I ran, I stumbled and would have fallen. But I managed to catch myself in time. I ran on.'
"I think we discussed that ourselves, once, the fear of being a fallen woman. We need not go over it again, except to point out that her dream shows that, perhaps unconsciously, something restrained her. 'I expected momentarily to be gored by the bull. That seemed to be the end of the dream,' and so forth.
"Now, the next part. 'I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd.' We discussed that, too—about the crowd denoting a secret. Then comes the serpent. 'It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed.' That's a bit different, there, from the way she told it. 'It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My fear was so great that I awoke.' All right. Here's the point—when I questioned her about the faces, the human faces, on those animals. She told Lathrop that the face she saw was that of Shattuck. But to me she absolutely denied it. She said she did not recognize the face. There's the point. Why did she cut out that about the hot breath of the bull? Why did she deny absolutely the face of Shattuck?"
He was pacing up and down as though he had either made or confirmed a discovery.
"Just consider what I told you about the Freud theory again," he went on. "Fear, as I told you, is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. We threshed that all out over my interpretation of the first dream of all—the death-dream. I hope you are beginning to understand, by this time.
"But morbid fear also, as I have said, denotes some sex feeling. Now take the last dreams. In dreams animals are usually symbols. In the two parts of this dream we find both the bull and the serpent. From time immemorial they have been the symbols of the continuing life-force. Such symbolism has been ingrained in literature and thinking, both mystical and otherwise. When she felt the hot breath of the bull, it meant the passion of love in Shattuck, who is pursuing her. Frankly, I do not think he has ever lost his love for her. And she knows it—at least, subconsciously. That's what that means. In her heart she knows it, although she may not openly admit it. Also, she fears it.
"More than that. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. One doesn't always realize how easy that is. A thing dreamed of may have happened years ago. But if one could recall all the thoughts immediately preceding sleep, one would be able to trace out some impelling thought, perhaps on the surface quite unrelated, which brought it up. The more unrelated, the more interesting and important the connecting link. There was every chance, in this case, of Shattuck having been suggested to her any day. Besides, she may be thinking a great deal of him—and not realize it—for her moral censorship is always pushing such thoughts back into the subconscious."
Kennedy regarded me attentively, then added: "She dreamed of a man's face on those beasts—then denied it to me. What's the explanation?"
I suppose Kennedy was handing the explanation to me, but I could not quite understand it, much less express it.
"Easy," he answered to his own question. "She thinks that she hates him. Consciously she rejects. Unconsciously, though, she accepts him. Any of the new psychologists who know the intimate connection between love and hate could understand how that is possible. Love does not extinguish hate, nor hate, love. They repress each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow. A proper understanding of that would explain many of the anomalies of human nature—especially in the relations of men and women which sometimes seem to be inexplicable."