pieces in a moment.

"It was evident, therefore, that her, brain did act and calculate,
obscurely it is true, and within very restricted limits, for I could
never succeed in making her distinguish persons as she distinguished the
time; and to stir her intellect, it was necessary to appeal to her
passions, in the material sense of the word, and we soon had another, and
alas! a very terrible proof of this!

"She had grown up into a splendid girl, a perfect type of a race, a sort
of lovely and stupid Venus. She was sixteen, and I have rarely seen such
perfection of form, such suppleness and such regular features. I said she
was a Venus; yes, a fair, stout, vigorous Venus, with large, bright,
vacant eyes, which were as blue as the flowers of the flax plant; she had
a large mouth with full lips, the mouth of a glutton, of a sensualist, a
mouth made for kisses. Well, one morning her father came into my
consulting room with a strange look on his face, and, sitting down
without even replying to my greeting, he said:

"'I want to speak to you about a very serious matter. Would it be
possible--would it be possible for Bertha to marry?'

"'Bertha to marry! Why, it is quite impossible!'

"'Yes, I know, I know,' he replied. 'But reflect, doctor. Don't you
think--perhaps--we hoped--if she had children--it would be a great shock
to her, but a great happiness, and--who knows whether maternity might not
rouse her intellect?'

"I was in a state of great perplexity. He was right, and it was possible
that such a new situation, and that wonderful instinct of maternity,
which beats in the hearts of the lower animals as it does in the heart of
a woman, which makes the hen fly at a dog's jaws to defend her chickens,
might bring about a revolution, an utter change in her vacant mind, and
set the motionless mechanism of her thoughts in motion. And then,
moreover, I immediately remembered a personal instance. Some years
previously I had owned a spaniel bitch who was so stupid that I could do
nothing with her, but when she had had puppies she became, if not exactly
intelligent, yet almost like many other dogs who had not been thoroughly
broken.

"As soon as I foresaw the possibility of this, the wish to get Bertha
married grew in me, not so much out of friendship for her and her poor
parents as from scientific curiosity. What would happen? It was a
singular problem. I said in reply to her father:

"'Perhaps you are right. You might make