dwehr_ leaders they would have made! There
are no such men in the present day.]

THE FLAX-CRUSHER

PART IV.

My mother, resuming her story, went on to say:--

"We are all, as a matter of fact, at the mercy of our illusions, and
the proof of this is that in many cases nothing is easier than to
take in Nature by devices which she is unable to distinguish from the
reality. I shall never forget the daughter of Marzin, the carpenter in
the High Street, who, losing her senses owing to a suppression of the
maternal sentiment, took a log of wood, dressed it up in rags, placed
on the top of it a sort of baby's cap, and passed the day in fondling,
rocking, hugging, and kissing this artificial infant. When it was
placed in the cradle beside her of an evening, she was quiet all
night. There are some instincts for which appearances suffice, and
which can be kept quiet by fictions. Thus it was that Kermelle's
daughter succeeded in giving reality to her dreams. Her ideal was a
life in common with the man she loved, and the one which she shared in
fancy was not, of course, that of a priest, but the ordinary domestic
life. She was meant for the conjugal existence, and her insanity
was the result of an instinct for housekeeping being checkmated. She
fancied that her aspiration was realized and that she was keeping
house for the man whom she loved; and as she was scarcely capable of
distinguishing between her dreams and the reality she was the victim
of the most incredible aberrations, which prove in the most effectual
way the sacred laws of nature and their inevitable fatality.

"She passed her time in hemming and marking linen, which, in her idea,
was for the house where she was to pass her life at the feet of her
adored one. The hallucination went so far that she marked the linen
with the priest's initials; often with his and her own interlaced. She
plied her needle with a very deft hand, and would work for hours at
a stretch, absorbed in a delicious reverie. So she satisfied her
cravings, and passed through moments of delight which kept her happy
for days.

"Thus the weeks passed, while she traced the name so dear to her, and
associated it with her own--this alone being a pastime which consoled
her. Her hands were always busy in his service, and the linen which
she had sewn for him seemed to be herself. It would be used and
touched by him, and there was deep joy in the thought. She would be
always deprived of him, it w