And I was obliged to refuse it because, as I told you,
the taste of brandy always turns me sick and faint, mix it how
you please."
"Exactly so," returned the doctor. "And here is the incident
reproduced in the dream. You see the man's shadow and the woman's
shadow together this time. You hear the pouring out of liquid
(brandy from the hotel bottle, and water from the hotel jug); the
glass is handed by the woman-shadow (the landlady) to the
man-shadow (myself); the man-shadow hands it to you (exactly what
I did); and the faintness (which you had previously described to
me) follows in due course. I am shocked to identify these
mysterious appearances, Mr. Midwinter, with such miserably
unromantic originals as a woman who keeps a hotel, and a man who
physics a country district. But your friend himself will tell you
that the glass of brandy-and-water was prepared by the landlady,
and that it reached him by passing from her hand to mine. We have
picked up the shadows, exactly as I anticipated; and we have only
to account now--which may be done in two words--for the manner of
their appearance in the dream. After having tried to introduce
the waking impression of the doctor and the landlady separately,
in connection with the wrong set of circumstances, the dreaming
mind comes right at the third trial, and introduces the doctor
and the landlady together, in connection with the right set of
circumstances.
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