The small man was answering a question.
“Rather on the contrary, I should say. The stronger the character the greater the smash.”
David pondered this.
“I've read all you've written on the subject,” he said finally. “Especially since the war.”
The psycho-analyst put his finger tips together, judicially. “Yes. The war bore me out,” he observed with a certain complacence. “It added a great deal to our literature, too, although some of the positions are not well taken. Van Alston, for instance—”
“You have said, I think, that every man has a breaking point.”
“Absolutely. All of us. We can go just so far. Where the mind is strong and very sound we can go further than when it is not. Some men, for instance, lead lives that would break you or me. Was there—was there such a history in this case?”
“Yes.” Doctor David's voice was reluctant.
“The mind is a strange thing,” went on the little man, musingly. “It has its censors, that go off duty during sleep. Our sternest and often unconscious repressions pass them then, and emerge in the form of dreams. But of course you know all that. Dream symbolism. Does the person in this case dream? That would be interesting, perhaps important.”
“I don't know,” David said unhappily.