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