Another short story in which lesbian action plays some part is Dubut de Laforest’s “Mlle Tantale” (1884),[6] one of a group of psychological novelettes comparable to Casper’s _Klinische Novellen_ of thirty years earlier in that the author gleaned his material from his friend Charcot’s clinic. Mary Folkestone, the “Mlle Tantale” of the title, and the illegitimate daughter of a dancer, has, throughout childhood, been the witness of too many intimate scenes between her mother and the latter’s lovers to feel anything but loathing for sex. As an adolescent she is revolted even when her friend Camilla opens her blouse on a hot day; at the same time she is so aroused by the sight of the other girl’s breasts that she falls ill. The story outlines her lifelong struggle to overcome her inhibitions. Following a first experiment with her maid’s lover, which disgusts her, she tries a second with an artist who is her social equal. Although this is less repellent, she finds no complete satisfaction. She then enters upon a liaison with Camilla who, after experience with men as disillusioning as her own, has become a lesbian. This effort, too, is a failure. Finally, neurotic from lack of emotional outlet she resorts to aphrodisiacs and dies of their excessive use; not, however, until the first scorned lover has found her in time to receive a contrite dying kiss. This ending indicates a belief in heterosexual passion, however unromantic, as the remedy for sex-engendered neurosis, and reminds one that Freud began as a pupil of Charcot. Paul Bourget’s _Crime d’Amour_ (1886) will be touched on in passing only because Havelock Ellis mentions it as “dealing with the (lesbian) theme,” but actually it offers only half a dozen lines on the subject. The night before becoming the lover of a good friend’s wife, the hero reviews his very full amatory past. This reminiscence occurs early in the book and the cynicism about women which it reflects is an important factor in the story. The following quotation, however, gives the entire lesbian passage: On the mantlepiece between the likenesses of two dead friends he kept an enigmatic portrait representing two women, the head of one resting on the shoulder of the other. It was the constant living reminder of a terrible story—the bitterest faithlessness he had ever endured. He had been cynical or artificial enough to laugh over it earlier with the two heroines, but he had laughed with death in his heart.[7] No further reference is made to the women, nor is there the slightest implication that this affair is more responsible for his disillusionment than his many others, some of which are recounted at length. * * * * *