"One day a book came to my hand. It was a serious work, on abnormalisms in mankind: a book partly psychologic, partly medico-psychiatric; of the newest 'school'. It had much to say of homosexualism, of Uranianism. It considered and discussed especially researches by German physicians into it. It described myself, my secret, unrestful self, with an unsparing exactness! The writer was a famous specialistic physician in nervous diseases, abnormal conditions of the mind, and so on—an American. For the first time I understood that responsible physicians, great psychologists—profound students of humanities, high jurists, other men in the world besides obscene humourists of a club-room, and judges and juries in police-courts—knew of men like myself and took them as serious problems for study, far from wholly despicable. This doctor spoke of my kind as simply—diseased. 'Curable', absolutely 'curable'; so long as the mind was manlike in all else, the body firm and normal. Certainly that was my case! Would I not therefore do well to take one step which was stated to be most wise and helpful toward correcting as perturbed a relation as mine had become to ordinary life? That step was—to marry. To marry immediately!"
"The physician who had written that book happened to be in England at the time. I had never thought it possible that I could feel courage to go to any man... save that one vague sympathizer, my dream-friend, he who some day would understand all!.. and confess myself; lay bare my mysterious nature. But if it were a mere disease, oh, that made a difference! So I visited the distinguished specialist at once. He helped me urbanely through my embarrassing story of my... 'malady'.... 'Oh, there was nothing extraordinary, not at all extraordinary in it, from the beginning to the end,' the doctor assured me, smiling. In fact, it was 'exceedingly common... All confidential specialists in nervous diseases knew of hundreds of just such cases. Nay, of much worse ones, and treated and cured them... A morbid state of certain sexual-sensory nerve-centers'... and so on, in his glib professional diagnosis."
—"'So I am to understand that I am curable?'"—'Curable? Why, surely. Exactly as I have written in my work; as Doctor So-and-So, and the great psychiatric Professor Such-a-One, proved long ago... Your case my dear sir, is the easier because you suffer in a sentimental and sexual way from what we call the obsession of a set, distinct Type, you see; instead of a general... h'm... how shall I style it... morbidity of your inclinations. It is largely mere imagination! You say you have never really "realized" this haunting masculine Type which has given you such trouble? My dear sir, don't think any more about such nonsense!... you never will "realize" it in any way to be... h'm... disturbed. Probably had you married and settled down pleasantly, years ago, you often would have laughed heartily at the whole story of such an illusion of your nature now. Too much thought of it all, my dear friend! too much introspection, idealism, sedentary life, dear sir! Yes, yes, you must marry—God bless you!'"
"I paid my distinguished specialist his fee and came away, with a far lighter heart than I had had in many a year."
"Marry! Well, that was easily to be done. I was popular enough with women of all sorts. I was no woman-hater. I had many true and charming and most affectionate friendships with women. For, you must know, Imre, that such men as I am are often most attractive to women, most beloved by them.. I mean by good women... far more than through being their relatives and social friends. They do not understand the reason of our attraction for them, of their confidence, their strengthening sentiment. For we seldom betray to them our secret, and they seldom have knowledge, or instinct, to guess its mystery. But alas! it is the irony of our nature that we cannot return to any woman, except by a lie of the body and the spirit, (often being unable to compass or to endure that wretched subterfuge) a warmer glow than affection's calmest pulsations. Several times, before my consulting Dr. D... I had had the opportunity of marrying 'happily and wisely'—if marriage with any woman could have meant only a friendship. Naught physical, no responsibility of sex toward the wife to whom one gives oneself. But 'the will to possess, the desire to surrender', the negation of what is ourself which comes with the arms of some one other human creature about us—ours about him—long before, had I understood that the like of this joy was not possible for me with wife or mistress. It had seemed to me hopeless of attempt. If marriage exact that effort.. good God! then it means a growing wretchedness, riddle and mystery for two human beings, not for one. Stay! it means worse still, should they not be childless......"
"But now I had my prescription, and I was to be cured. In ten days, Imre, I was betrothed. Do not be surprised. I had known a long while earlier that I was loved. My betrothed was the daughter of a valued family friend, living in a near town. She was beautiful, gifted, young, high-souled and gentle. I had always admired her warmly; we had been much thrown together. I had avoided her lately however, because—unmistakeably—I had become sure of a deeper sentiment on her part than I could exchange."
"But now, now, I persuaded myself that I did indeed return it; that I had not understood myself. And confidently, even ardently, I played my new role so well, Imre, that I was deceived myself. And she? She never felt the shade of suspicion. I fancied that I loved her. Besides, my betrothed was not exacting, Imre. In fact, as I now think over those few weeks of our deeper intimacy, I can discern how I was favoured in my new relationship to her by her sensitive, maidenly shrinking from the physical nearness, even the touch, of the man who was dear to her... how troubling the sense of any man's advancing physical dominancy over her. Yet do not make the mistake of thinking that she was cold in her calm womanliness; or would have held herself aloof as a wife. It was simply virginal, instinctive reserve. She loved me; and she would have given herself wholly to me, as my bride."
"The date for our marriage was set. I tried to think of nothing but it and her; of how calmly, securely happy I should soon be, and of all the happiness that, God willing, I would bring into her young life. I say 'tried' to think of nothing else. I almost succeeded. But... nevertheless... in moments..."
"It was not to be, however, this deliverance, this salvation for me!"
"One evening, I was asked by a friend to come to his lodgings to dine, to meet some strangers, his guests. I went. Among the men who came was one... I had never seen him before... newly arrived in my city.. coming to pass the winter. From the instant that set me face to face with him... that let me hear his voice in only a greeting... that put us to exchanging a few commonplace sentences... I thrilled with joy and trembled to my innermost soul with a sudden anguish. For, Imre, it was as if that dead schoolmate of mine, not merely as death had taken him; but matured, a man in his beauty and charm... it was as if every acquaintance that ever had quickened within me the same unspeakable sense of a mysterious bond of soul and of body... the Man-Type which owned me and ever must own me, soul and body together—had started forth in a perfect avatar. Out of the slumberous past, out of the kingdom of illusions, straying to me from the realm of banished hopes, it had come to me! The Man, the Type, that thing which meant for me the fires of passion not to be quenched, that subjection of my whole being to an ideal of my own sex... that fatal 'nervous illusion', as the famous doctor's book so summarily ranged it for the world.. all had overtaken me again! My peace was gone—if ever I had had true peace. I was lost, with it!..."
"From that night, I forgot everything else except him. My former, unchanged, unchangeable self, in all its misery and mystery reverted. The temperament which I had thought to put to sleep, the invisible nature I had believed I could strangle—it had awakened with the lava-seethe of a volcano. It burned in my spirit and body, like a masked crater."
"Imre, I sought the friendship of this man, of my ideal who had re-created for me, simply by his existence, a world of feeling; one of suffering and yet of delight. And I won his friendship! Do not suppose that I dared to dream, then or ever, of more than a commonplace, social intimacy. Never, never! Merely to achieve his regard toward myself a little more than toward others; merely that he would care to give me more of his society, would show me more of his inner self than he inclined to open to others. Just to be accounted by him somewhat dearer, in such a man's vague often elusive degree, than the majority for whom he cared at all! Only to have more constant leave to delight my spirit in silence with his physical beauty while guarding from him in a sort of terror the psychic effects it wrought in me..... My hopes went no further than these. And, as I say, I won them. As it kindly happened, our tastes, our interests in arts and letters, our temperaments, the fact that he came to my city with few acquaintances in it and was not a man who readily seeks them... the chance that he lived almost in the same house with me... such circumstances favored me immediately. But I did not deceive myself once, either as to what was the measure or the kind of my emotion for him, any more than about what (if stretched to its uttermost) would be his sentiment for me, for any man. He could not love a man so. He could love... passionately, and to the completing of his sexual nature... only a woman. He was the normal, I the abnormal. In that, alone, he failed to meet all that was I:
"Did I keep my secret perfectly from him? Perfectly, Imre! You will soon see that clearly. There were times when the storm came full over me... when I avoided him, when I would have fled from myself, in the fierce struggle. But I was vigilant. He was moved, now and then, at a certain inevitable tenderness that I would show him. He often spoke wonderingly of the degree of my 'absorbing friendship'. But he was a man of fine and romantic ideals, of a strong and warm temper. His life had been something solitary from his earliest youth... and he was no psychologist. Despite many a contest with our relationship, I never allowed myself to complain of him. I was too well aware how fortunate was my bond with him. The man esteemed me, trusted me, admired me... all this thoroughly. I had more; for I possessed what in such a nature as his proves itself a manly affection. I was an essential element in his daily life all that winter; intimate to a depth that (as he told me, and I believe it was wholly true) he had never expected another man could attain. Was all that not enough for me? Oh, yes! and yet... and yet..."
"I will not speak to you more of that time which came to pass for me, Imre. It was for me, verily, a new existence! It was much such a daily life, Imre, as you and I might lead together, had fate allowed us the time for it to ripen. Perhaps we yet might lead it... God knows!... I leave you tomorrow!"
"But, you ask,—what of my marriage-engagement?"
"I broke it. I had broken it within a week after I met him, so far as shattering, it to myself went. I knew that no marriage, of any kind yet tolerated in our era, would 'cure' me of my 'illusion', my 'nervous disease', could banish this 'mere psychic disturbance', the result of 'too much introspection.' I had no disease! No... I was simply what I was born!—a complete human being, of firm, perfect physical and mental health; outwardly in full key with all the man's world: but, in spite of that, a being who from birth was of a vague, special sex; a member of the sex within the most obvious sexes, or apart from them. I was created as a man perfectly male, save in the one thing which keeps such a 'man' back from possibility of ever becoming integrally male—his terrible, instinctive demand for a psychic and a physical union with a man—not with a woman."
"Presently, during that same winter, accident opened my eyes wider to myself. From then, I have needed no further knowledge from the Tree of my Good and Evil. I met with a mass of serious studies, German, Italian, French, English, from the chief European specialists and theorists on the similisexual topic: many of them with quite other views than those of my well-meaning but far too conclusive Yankee doctor. I learned of the much-discussed theories of 'secondary sexes' and 'intersexes'. I learned of the theories and facts of homosexualism, of the Uranian Love, of the Uranian Race, of 'the Sex within a Sex'. I could, at last, inform myself fully of its mystery, and of the logical, inevitable and necessary place in sexualism, of the similisexual man, and of the similisexual woman".
"I came to know their enormous distribution all over the world today; and of the grave attention that European scientists and jurists have been devoting to problems concerned with homosexualism. I could pursue intelligently the growing efforts to set right the public mind as to so ineradicable and misunderstood a phase of humanity. I realized that I had always been a member of that hidden brotherhood and Sub-Sex, or Super-Sex. In wonder, too I informed myself of its deep, instinctive, freemasonries—even to organized ones—in every social class, every land, every civilization: of the signs and symbols and safeguards of concealment. I could guess that my father, my grandfather and God knows how many earlier forerunners of my unhappy Ego, had been of it! 'Cure?' By marriage? By marriage, when my blood ran cold at the thought!...... The idea was madness, in a double sense. Better a pistol-shot to my heart! So first, I found pretexts to excuse meetings with my bride-not-to-be, avoiding thus a comedy which now was odious as a lie and insupportable as a nervous demand. Next, I pleaded business-worries. So the marriage was postponed for three months further. Then I discovered a new obstacle to bring forward. With that, the date of the wedding was made indefinite. Then came some idle gossip, unjust reflections on my betrothed and on myself. I knew well where blame enough should fall, but not that sort of blame. An end had to be! I wrote my betrothed, begging my freedom, giving no reason. She released me, telling me that she would never marry any other man. She keeps her word to-day. I drew my breath in shame at my deliverance.
"Any other man!"
"So seldom had I referred to my betrothal in talking with my new friend that he asked me no questions when I told him it was ended. He mistook my reserve; and respected it rigidly."
"During that winter, I was able to prove myself a friend in deed and need to him. Twice, by strange fatality, a dark cloud came over his head. I might not dare to show him that he was dearer than myself; but I could protect and aid him. For, do not think that he had no faults. He had more than few; he was no hero, no Galahad. He was careless, he was foolishly obstinate, he made missteps; and punishment came. But not further than near. For I stood between! At another time his over-confidence in himself, his unsuspiciousness, almost brought him to ruin, with a shameful scandal! I saved him, stopping the mouths of the dogs that were ready to howl, as well as to tear. I did so at the cost of impairing my own material welfare; worse still, alas! with a question of duty to others. Then, once again, as that year passed, he became involved in a difference, in which certain of my own relatives, along with some near friends of my family were concerned; directors in a financial establishment in our city. I took his part. By that step, I sacrificed the good-will and the longtime intimacy of the others. What did I care? 'The world well lost!' thought I."
"Then, from that calm sky, thickened and fell on me the storm; and for my goodly vineyard I had Desolation!"
"One holiday, he happened to visit some friends in the town where was living my betrothed.. that had been. He heard there, in a club's smoking-room, a tale 'explaining'—positively and circumstantially, why my engagement had been broken. The story was a silly falsehood; but it reflected on my honour. He defended me instantly and warmly. That I heard. But his host, after the sharp passing altercation was over, the evening ended, took him aside to tell him privately that, while friendship for me made it a credit to stand out for me, the tale was 'absolutely true'. He returned to me late that night. He was thoroughly annoyed and excited. He asked me, as I valued my good name and his public defence of it, to give him, then and there, the real, the decisive reason for my withdrawing from my engagement. He would not speak of it to anyone; but he would be glad to know, now, on what ground he rested. I admitted that my betrothed had not wished the withdrawing."
"That was the first thing counter to what he had insisted at the club. He frowned in perplexity. Ah, so the matter was wholly from myself? I assented. Would I further explain?... so that at least he could get rid of one certain local statement... of that other one. An argument rose between us that grew to a sharp altercation. It was our first one, as well as our last. We became thoroughly angry, I the more so, because of what I felt was a manifest injustice to myself. Finally there was no other thing left than for me to meet his appeal—his demand. 'No matter what was the root of the mystery, no matter what any attitude toward me because of it, he must know'... Still I hung back. Then, solemnly, he pledged me his word that whatever I might disclose, he 'would forgive it'; it should 'never be mentioned between us two again'; only provided that it bore out his defence of my relation to a faithful and pure woman."
"So—I yielded! Lately, the maddening wish to tell him all at any risks, the pressure of passion and its concealment... they had never so fiercely attacked me! In a kind of exalted shame, but in absolute sincerity, I told him all! I asked nothing from him, except his sympathy, his belief in whatever was my higher and manlier nature... as the world judges any man... and the toleration of our friendship on the lines of its past. Nothing more: not a handclasp, not a look, not a thought more; the mere continued sufferance of my regard. Never again need pass between us so much as a syllable or a glance to remind him of this pitiable confession from me, to betray again the mysterious fire that burned in me underneath our intimacy. He had not suspected anything of it before. It could be forgotten by him from now, onward."
"Did I ask too much? By the God that made mankind, Imre—that made it not only male or female but also as We are... I do not think I did!"
"But he, he thought otherwise! He heard my confession through with ever more hostile eyes, with an astonished unsympathy... disgust... curling his lips. Then, he spoke—slowly—pitilessly: '... I have heard that such creatures as you describe yourself are to be found among mankind. I do not know, nor do I care to know, whether they are a sex by themselves, a justified, because helpless, play of Nature; or even a kind of logically essential link, a between-step.... as you seem to have persuaded yourself. Let all that be as it may be. I am not a man of science nor keen to such new notions! From this moment, you and I are strangers! I took you for my friend because I believed you to be a... man. You chose me for your friend because you believed me.... stay, I will not say that!... because you wished me to be.... a something else, a something more or less like to yourself, whatever you are! I loathe you!... I loathe you! When I think that I have touched your hand, have sat in the same room with you, have respected you!.. Farewell!...... If I served you as a man should serve such beings as you, this town should know your story tomorrow! Society needs more policemen than it has, to protect itself from such lepers as you! I will keep your hideous secret. Only remember never to speak to me!... never to look my way again! Never! From henceforward I have never known you and never will think of you!—if I can forget anything so monstrous in this world!'"
"So passed he out of my life, Imre. Forever! Over the rupture of our friendship not much was said, nevertheless. For he was called to London a few days after that last interview; and he was obliged to remain in the capital for months. Meantime I had changed my life to meet its new conditions; to avoid gossip. I had removed my lodgings to a suburb. I had taken up a new course in professional work. It needed all my time. Then, a few months later, I started quietly on a long travel-route on the Continent, under excuse of ill-health. I was far from being a stranger to life in at least half a dozen countries of Europe, east or west. But now, now, I knew that it was to be a refuge, an exile!"
"For so began those interminable, those mysterious, restless pilgrimages, with no set goals for me; those roamings alone, of which even the wider world, not to say this or that circle of friends, has spoken with curiosity and regret. My unexplained and perpetual exile from all that earlier meant home, sphere, career, life! My wandering and wandering, ever striving to forget, ever struggling to be beguiled intellectually at least; to be diverted from so profound a sense of loss. Or to attain a sort of emotional assoupissement, to feel myself identified with new scenes, to achieve a new identity. Little by little, my birth-land, my people, became strange to me. I grew wholly indifferent to them. I turned my back fuller on them, evermore. The social elements, the grades of humanity really mine, the concerns of letters, of arts,... from these I divorced myself utterly. They knew me no more. In some of them, already I had won a certain repute; but I threw away its culture as one casts aside some plant that does not seem to him worth watering and tending."
"And indeed the zest of these things, their reason for being mine, seemed dead.... asphyxiated! For, they had grown to be so much a part of what had been the very tissue of intimacy, of life, with him! I fled them all. Never now did my foot cross the threshold of a picture-gallery, never did I look twice at the placard of a theater, never would I enter a concert-room or an opera-house, never did I care to read a romance, a poem, or to speak with any living creature of aesthetics that had once so appealed to me! Above all did my aversion to music (for so many years a peculiar interest for me)—become now a dull hatred,..... a detestation, a contempt, a horror!... super-neurotic, quintessently sexual, perniciously homosexual art—mystery—that music is! For me, no more symphonies, no more sonatas, no more songs!... No more exultations, elegies, questions to Fate of any orchestra!... Nevermore!"
"And yet, involuntarily, sub-consciously, I was always hoping... seeking—something. Hoping..., seeking.... what? Another such man as I? Sometimes I cried out as to that, 'God forbid it!' For I dreaded such a chance now; realizing the more what it would most likely not offer me. And really unless a miracle of miracles were to be wrought just for me, unless I should light upon another human creature who in sympathies, idealisms, noble impulses, manliness and a virile life could fill, and could wish to fill, the desolate solitudes of mine, could confirm all that was deepest fixed in my soul as the concept of true similisexual masculinity.... oh, far better meet none! For such a miracle of miracles I should not hope. Even traversing all the devious ways of life may not bring us face to face with such a friend. Yet I was hoping—seeking—I say: even if there was no vigour of expectancy, but rather in my mind the melancholy lines of the poet:
"Or, how easy to meet such a man, he also 'seeking, despairing' and not to recognize him, any more than he recognizes us! The Mask—the eternal social Mask for the homosexual!—worn before our nearest and dearest, or we are ruined and cast out! I resolved to be content with tranquility... pleasant friendships. Something like a kindly apathy, often possessed me."
"And nevertheless, the Type that still so stirred my nature? The man that is.... inevitably.. to be loved, not merely liked; to be feared while yet sought; the friend from whom I can expect nothing, from whom never again will I expect anything, more than calm regard, his sympathy, his mere leave for my calling him 'barátom'—my brother-friend? He, by whom I should at least be respected as an upright fellow-creature from the workshop of God, not from the hand of the Devil; be taken into companionship because of what in me is worthily companionable? The fellow-man who will accept what of good in me is like the rest of men, nor draw away from me, as from a leper? Have I really ceased to dream of this grace for me, this vision—as years have passed?"
"Never, alas! I have been haunted by it; however suppressed in my heart. And something like its embodiment has crossed my way, really nearly granted me again; more than once. There was a young English officer, with whom I was thrown for many weeks, in a remote Northern city. We became friends; and the confidence between us was so great that I trusted him with the knowledge of what I am. And therewith had I in turn, a confession from him of a like misfortune, the story of his passion for a brother-officer in a foreign service, that made him one of the most wretched men on the face of the world—while everyone in his circle of home-intimates and regimental friends fancied that he had not a trouble in life! There was, too, one summer in Bosnia, a meeting with a young Austrian architect; a fellow of noble beauty and of high, rich nature. There was a Polish friend, a physician—now far off in Galizien. There was an Italian painter in Rome. But such incidents were not full in the key. Hence, they moved me only so far and no farther. Other passings and meetings came. Warm friendship often grew out of them; tranquil, lasting, sustaining friendship!—that soul-bond not over-common with us, but, when really welded, so beautiful, so true, so enduring!..."
"But one thing I had sworn, Imre; and I have kept my word! That so surely as ever again I may find myself even half-way drawn to a man by the inner passion of an Uranian love—not by the mere friendship of a colder psychic complexion—if that man really shows me that he cares for me with respect, with intimate affection, with trust... then he shall know absolutely what manner of man I am! He shall be shown frankly with what deeper than common regard he has become a part of my soul and life! He shall be put to a test!... with no shrinkings on my part. Better break apart early, than later... if he say that we break! Never again, if unquiet with such a passion, would I attempt to wear to the end the mask, to fight out the lie, the struggle! I must be taken as I am, pardoned for what I am; or neither pardoned nor taken. I have learned my lesson once and well. But the need of my maintaining such painful honesty has come seldom. I have been growing in to expecting no more of life, no realizing whatever of the Type that had been my undoing, that must mean always my peace or my deepest unrest... till I met you, Imre! Till I met you!"
"Met you! Yes, and a strange matter in my immediately passionate interest in you... another one of the coincidences in our interest for each other... is the racial blood that runs in your veins. You are a Magyar. You have not now to be told of the unexplainable, the mysterious affinity between myself and your race and nation; of my sensitiveness, ever since I was a child, to the chord which Magyarország and the Magyar sound in my heart. Years have only added to it, till thy land, thy people, Imre, are they not almost my land, my people? Now I have met thee. Thou wert to be; somewhat, at least, to be for me! That thou wast ordained to come into the world that I should love thee, no matter what thy race... that I believe! But, see! Fate also has willed that thou shouldst be Magyar, one of the Children of Emesa, one of the Folk of Árpád!"
"I cannot tell thee, Imre,... oh, I have no need now to try!.... what thou hast become for me. My Search ended when thou and I met. Never has my dream given me what is this reality of thyself. I love this world now only because thou art in it. I respect thee wholly—I respect myself—certain, too, of that coming time, however far away now, when no man shall ever meet any intelligent civilization's disrespect simply because he is similisexual, Uranian! But—oh, Imre, Imre!—I love thee, as can love only the Uranian... once more helpless, and therewith hopeless!—but this time no longer silent, before the Friendship which is Love, the Love which is Friendship."
"Speak my sentence. I make no plea. I have kept my pledge to confess myself tonight. But I would have fulfilled it only a little later, were I not going away from thee tomorrow. I ask nothing, except what I asked long ago of that other, of whom I have told thee! Endure my memory, as thy friend! Friend? That at least! For, I would say farewell, believing that I shall still have the right to call thee 'friend'—even—O God!—when I remember tonight. But whether that right is to be mine, or not, is for thee to say. Tell me!"
I stopped.
Full darkness was now about us. Stillness had so deepened that the ceasing of my own low voice made it the more suspenseful. The sweep of the night-wind rose among the acacias. The birds of shadow flitted about us. The gloom seemed to have entered my soul—as Death into Life. Would Imre ever speak?
His voice came at last. Never had I heard it so moved, so melancholy. A profound tenderness was in every syllable.
"If I could... my God! if I only could!.. say to thee what I cannot. Perhaps... some time.... Forgive me, but thou breakest my heart!.... Not because I care less for thee as my friend.... no, above all else, not that reason! We stay together, Oswald!... We shall always be what we have become to each other! Oh, we cannot change, not through all our lives! Not in death, not in anything! Oh, Oswald! that thou couldst think, for an instant, that I—I—would dream of turning away from thee... suffer a break for us two... because thou art made in thy nature as God makes mankind—as each and all, or not as each and all! We are what we are!... This terrible life of ours... this existence that men insist on believing is almost all to be understood nowadays—probed through and through—decided!... but that ever was and will be just mystery, all!...... Friendship between us? Oh, whether we are near or far! Forever! Forever, Oswald!... Here, take my hand! As long as I live... and beyond then! Yes, by God above us, by God in us!... Only, only, for the sake of the bond between us from this night, promise me that thou wilt never speak again of what thou hast told me of thyself—never, unless I break the silence. Nevermore a word of—of thy—thy—feeling for me. There are other things for us to talk of, my dear brother? Thou wilt promise?"
With his hand in mine, my heart so lightened that I was as a new creature, forgetting even the separation before me, I promised. Gladly, too. For, instead of loss, with this parting, what gain was mine! Imre knew me now as myself!—he really knew me: and yet was now rather the more my friend than less, so I could believe, after this tale of mine had been told him! His sympathy—his respect—his confidence—his affection—his continued and deeper share in my strange and lonely life—even if lands and seas should divide us two—ah, in those instants of my reaction and relief, it seemed to me that I had everything that my heart had ever sought of him, or would seek! I made the promise too, gladly with all my soul. Why should he or I ever speak of any stranger emotions again?
Abruptly, after another long pressure of my hand, my friend started up.
"Oswald we must go home!" he exclaimed. "It's nearly nine o'clock, surely. I have a regimental report to look at before ten... this affair of mine tomorrow."
Nearly the whole of our return-ride we were silent. The tram was full as before with noisy pleasure-trippers. Even after quitting the vehicle, neither of us said more than a few sentences... the beauty of the night, the charm of the old Z... park, and so on. But again Imre kept his arm in mine, all the way we walked. It was, I knew, not accident. It was the slight sign of earnest thoughts, that he did not care to utter in so many words.
We came toward my hotel.
"I shall not say farewell tonight, Oswald," said Imre, "you know how I hate farewells at any time... hate them as much as you. There is more than enough of such a business. Much better to be sensible.. to add as few as one can to the list.... I will look in on you tomorrow... about ten o'clock. I don't start till past midday."
I assented. I was no longer disturbed by any mortal concerns, not even by the sense of the coming sundering. Distrust—loneliness—the one was past, even if the other were to come!
The hotel-portier handed me a telegram, as we halted in the light of the doorway.
"Wait till I read this," I said.
The dispatch ran: "Situation changed. Your coming unnecessary. Await my letter. Am starting for Scotland."
I gave an exclamation of pleasure, and translated the words to Imre.
"What! Then you need not leave Szent-Istvánhely?" he asked quickly, in the tone of heartiest pleasure that a friend could wish to hear. "Teremtette! I am as happy as you!.... What a good thing, too, that we were so sensible as not to allow ourselves to make a dumpish, dismal afternoon of it, over there at the Z.... You see, I am right, my dear fellow.. I am always right!... Philosophy, divine philosophy! Nothing like it! It makes all the world go round."......
With which Imre touched his csákó, laughed his jolliest laugh, and hurried away to the Commando of the regiment.
I went upstairs, not aware of there being stairs to climb... unless they might be steps to the stars. In fact the stars, it seemed to me, could not only shine their clearest in Szent-Istvánhely; but, after all, could take clement as well as unfriendly courses, in mortal destiny.
III.
FACES—HEARTS—SOULS.
Byron
Psalm. CVI, 30.
Next morning, before I was dressed, came this note:
"I have just received word that I must take my company out to the camp at once. Please excuse my not coming. It does not make so much difference, now that you are to stay. Will write you from the Camp. Only a few days absence. I shall think of you.
Imre.
P. S. Please write me."
I was amused, as well as pleased, at this characteristic missive.
My day passed rather busily. I had not time to send even a card to Imre; I had no reason to do so. To my surprise, the omission was noticed. For, on the following morning I was in receipt of a lively military Ansichtskarte with a few words scratched on it; and at evening came the ensuing communication; which, by the by, was neither begun with the "address of courtesy", as the "Complete Letter-Book" calls it, nor ended with the "salute of ceremony", recommended by the same useful volume; they being both of them details which Imre had particularly told me he omitted with his intimate "friends who were not prigs." He wrote:
"Well, how goes it with you? With me it is dull and fatiguing enough out here. You know how I hate all this business, even if you and Karvaly insist on my trying to like it. I have a great deal to say to you this evening that I really cannot write. Today was hot and it rained hard. Dear Oswald, you do not know how I value your friendship. Yesterday I saw the very largest frog that ever was created. He looked the very image of our big vis-a-vis in the Casino, Hofkapellan Számbor. Why in God's name do you not write? The whole city is full of tiz-filléres picture-postcards! Buy one, charge it to my account, write me on it.—
Imre.
P. S. I think of you often, Oswald."
This communication, like its predecessor, was written in a tenth-century kind of hand, with a blunt lead-pencil! I sent its authour a few lines, of quite as laconical a tone as he had given me to understand he so much preferred.
The next day, yet another communication from the P... Camp! Three billets in as many days, from a person who "hated to write letters," and "never wrote them when he could get out of it!" Clearly, Imre in camp was not Imre in Szent-Istvánhely!
"Thank you, dear Oswald, for your note. Do not think too much of that old nonsense (azon régi bolondság) about not writing letters. It depends. I send my this in a spare moment. But I have nothing whatever to say. Weather here warm and rainy. Oswald, you are a great deal in my thoughts. I hope I am often in yours. I shall not return tomorrow, but I intend to be with you on Sunday. Life is wearisome. But so long as one has a friend, one can get on with much that is part of the burden; or possibly with all of it.—Yours ever—
Imre"
I have neglected to mention that the second person of intimate Magyar address, the "thou" and "thee", was used in these epistles of Imre, in my answers, with the same instinctiveness that had brought it to our lips on that evening in the Z... park. I shall not try to translate it systematically, however; any more than I shall note with system its disused English equivalents in the dialogue that occurs in the remainder of this record. More than once before the evening named, Imre and I had exchanged this familiarity, half in fun. But now it had come to stay. Thenceforth we adhered to it; a kind of serious symbolism as well as intimate sweetness in it.
I looked at that note with attention: first, because it was so opposed in tenor to the Imre von N... "model". Second, because there appeared to have been a stroke under the commonplace words "Yours ever". That stroke had been smirched out, or erased. Was it like Imre to be sentimental, for an instant, in a letter?—even in the most ordinary accent? Well, if he had given way to it, to try to conceal such a sign of the failing, particularly without re-writing the letter... why, that was characteristic enough! In sending him a newspaper-clipping, along with a word or so, I referred to the unnecessary briskness of our correspondence.
".... Pray do not trouble yourself, my dear N..., to change your habits on my account. Do not write, now or ever, only because a word from you is a pleasure to me. Besides I am not yet on my homeward-journey. Save your postal artillery."
To the foregoing from me, Imre's response was this:
"It is three o'clock in the morning, and everybody in this camp must be sound asleep, except your most humble servant. You know that I sometimes do not sleep well, Lord knows why. So I sit here, and scrawl this to thee, dear Oswald... All the more willingly because I am awfully out of sorts with myself..... I have nothing special to write thee; and nevertheless how much I would now be glad to say to thee, were we together. See, dearest friend... thou hast walked from that other world of thine into my life, and I have taken my place in thine, because for thee and for me there shall be, I believe, a happiness henceforth that not otherwise could come to us. I have known what it is to suffer, just because there has been no man to whom I could speak or write as to thee. Dear friend, we are much to one another, and we shall be more and more... No, would not write if it were not a pleasure to me to do it. I promise thee so. We had a great regimental athletic contest this afternoon, and I took two prizes. I will try to sleep now, for I must be on my feet very early. Good night, or rather good-morning, and remember...
Thine own
Imre."
This letter gave me many reflections. There was no need for its closing injunction. To tell the truth, Imre von N... was beginning to bewilder me!—this Imre of the P... Camp and of the mail-bag, so unlike the Imre of our daily conversations and moods when vis-à-vis. There was certainly a curious, a growing psychic difference. The naïveté, the sincerity of the speaking and of the acting Imre was written into his lines spontaneously enough. But there was that odd new touch of an equally spontaneous something, a suppressed emotion—that I could not define. My own letters to Imre certainly did not ring to the like key. On the contrary (I may as well mention that it was not of mere accident, but in view of a resolution carefully considered, and held-to) the few lines which I sent him during those days were wholly lacking in any such personal utterances as his. If Imre chose to be inconsistent, I would be steadfast.
All such cogitations as to Imre's letters were however soon unnecessary, inasmuch as on the tenth day of his Camp-service, he wrote:
"Expect me tomorrow. I am well. I have much to tell thee. After all, a camp is not a bad place for reflections. It is a tiresome, rainy day here. I took the second prize for shooting at long range today.
Imre."
Now, I did not suppose that Imre's pent-up communicativeness was likely to burst out on the topic of the Hungarian local weather, much less with reference to his feats with a rifle, or in lifting heavy weights. I certainly could not fancy just what meditations promoted that remark about the Camp! So far as I knew anything, of such localities, camps were not favourable to much consecutive thinking except about the day's work.
I did not expect him till the afternoon should close. I was busy with my English letters. It was a warm August noon, and even when coat and waistcoat had been thrown aside, I was oppressed. My high-ceiled, spacious room was certainly amongst the cooler corners of Szent-Istvánhely; but the typical ardour of any Central-Hungary midsummer is almost Italian. Outside, in the hotel-court, the fountain trickled sleepily. Even the river steamers seemed too torpid to signal loudly. But suddenly there came a most wide-awake sort of knock; and Imre, with an exclamation of delight—Imre, erect, bronzed, flushed, with eyes flashing—with that smile of his which was almost as flashing as his eyes—Imre, more beautiful than ever, came to me, with both hands outstretched.
"At last.... and really!" I exclaimed as he hurried over the wide room, fairly beaming, as with contentment at being once more out of camp-routine. "And back five hours ahead of time!"
"Five hours ahead of time indeed!" he echoed, laughing. "Thou art glad? I know I am!"
"Dear Imre, I am immeasurably happy", I replied.
He leaned forward, and lightly kissed my cheek.
What!—he Imre von N—, who so had questioned the warm-hearted greetings of his friend—Captain M—! An odd lapse indeed!
"I am in a state of regular shipwreck," he exclaimed; standing up particularly straight again, after a demonstration that so confounded me as to leave me wordless!—"I have had no breakfast, no luncheon, nothing to eat since five o'clock. I am tired as a dog, and hungry—oh, mint egy vén Kárpáti medve!" [Literally, "as an old Carpathian bear".] "I stopped to have a bath at the Officers' Baths.. you should see the dust between here and the Camp... and to change, and write a note to my father. So, if you don't mind, the sooner I have something to eat and perhaps a nap, why the better. I am done up!"
In a few moments we were at table. Imre manifestly was not too fagged to talk and laugh a great deal; with a truly Homeric exhibition of his appetite. The budget of experiences at the Camp was immediately drawn upon, with much vivacity. But as luncheon ended, my guest admitted that the fatigues of the hot morning-march with his troop, from P.... (during which several sunstrokes had occurred, those too-ordinary incidents of Hungarian army-movements in summer) were reacting on him. So I went to the Bank, as usual, for letters; transacted some other business on the way; and left Imre to himself. When I returned to my room an hour or so later, he was stretched out, sound asleep, on the long green sofa. His sword and his close-fitting fatigue-blouse were thrown on a chair. The collarless, unstarched shirt (that is so much an improvement on our civilian garment) was unbuttoned at the throat; the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, in unconscious emphasizing of the deepened sun-tan of his fine skin. The long brown eye-lashes lying motionless, against his cheek, his physical abandonment, his deep, regular, soundless breathing... all betokened how the day had spent itself on his young strength. Once left alone, he had fallen asleep where he had sat down.
A great and profoundly human poet, in one famous scene, speaks of those emotions that come to us when we are watching, in his sleep, a human being that we love. Such moments are indeed likely to be subduing to many a sensitive man and woman. They bring before our eyes the effect of a living statue; of a beauty self-unconscious, almost abstract, if the being that we love be beautiful. Strongly, suddenly, comes also the hint at helplessness; the suggestion of protection from us, however less robust. Or the idea of the momentary but actual absence of that other soul from out of the body before us, a vanishing of that spirit to whom we ourselves cling. We feel a subconscious sense of the inevitable separation forever, when there shall occur the Silence of "the Breaker of Bonds, the Sunderer of Companionships, the Destroyer of Fellowships, the Divider of Hearts"—as (like a knell of everything earthly and intimate!) the old Arabian phrases lament the merciless divorce of death!
I stood and watched Imre a moment, these things in my mind. Then, moving softly about the room, lest he should be aroused, I began changing my clothes for the afternoon. But more than once the spell of my sleeping guest drew me to his side. At last, scarce half dressed, I sat down before him, to continue to look at him. Yes.. his face had the same expression now, as he slumbered there, that I had often remarked in his most silent moments of waking. There were not only the calm regular beauty, the manly uprightness, his winning naïveté of character written all through such outward charm for me; but along with that came again the appealing hint of an inward sadness; the shadow of some enrooted, hidden sorrow that would not pass, however proudly concealed.
"God bless thee, Imre!" my heart exclaimed in benediction, "God bless thee, and make thee happy!... happier than I! Thou hast given me thy friendship. I shall never ask of God... of Fate... anything more... save that the gift endure till we two endure not!"
The wish was like an echo from the Z... park. Or, rather, it was an echo from a time far earlier in my life. Once again, with a mystic certainty, I realized that those days of Solitude were now no longer of any special tyranny upon my moods. That was at an end for me, verily! O, my God! That was at an end!....
Imre opened his eyes.
"Great Árpád!", he exclaimed, smiling sleepily, "is it so late? You are dressing for the evening!"
"It is five o'clock," I answered. "But what difference does that make? Don't budge. Go to sleep again, if you choose. You need not think of getting supper at home. We will go to the F— Restaurant."
"So be it. And perhaps I shall ask you to keep me till morning, my dear fellow! I am no longer sleepy, but somehow or other I do feel most frightfully knocked-out! Those country roads are misery..... And I am a poor sleeper often,.... that it is, in a way. I get to worrying... to wondering over all sorts of things that there's no good in studying about... in daylight or dark."
"You never told me till lately, in one of your letters, that you were so much of an insomniac, Imre. Is it new?"
"Not in the least new. I have not wished to say anything about it to anybody. What's the use! Oh, there many are things that I haven't had time to tell you—things I have not spoken about with anyone—just as is the case with most men of sense in this world... eh? But do you know," he went on, sitting up and continuing with a manner more and more reposeful, thoughtful, strikingly unlike his ordinary nervous self, ".. but do you know that I have come back from the Camp to you, my dear Oswald, certain that I shall never be so restless and troubled a creature again. Thanks to you. For you see, so much that I have shut into myself I know now that I can trust to your heart. But give me a little time. To have a friend to trust myself to wholly—that is new to me."
I was deeply touched. I felt certain again that a change of some sort—mysterious, profound—had come over Imre, during those few days at the Camp. Something had happened. I recognized the mood of his letters. But what had evolved or disclosed it?
"Yes, my dear von N..." I returned, "your letters have said that, in a way, to me. How shall I thank you for your confidence, as well as for your affection?"
"Ah, my letters! Bother my letters! They said nothing much! You know I cannot write letters at all. What is more, you have been believing that I wrote you as... as a sort of duty. That whatever I said—or a lot of it—well, there were things which you fancied were not really I. I understood why you could think it."
"I never said that, Imre," I replied, sitting down beside him on the sofa.
"Not in so many words. But my guilty conscience prompted me. I mean that word, 'conscience', Oswald. For—I have not been fair to you, not honest. The only excuse is that I have not been honest with myself. You have thought me cold, reserved, abrupt... a fantastic sort of friend to you. One who valued you, and yet could hardly speak out his esteem—a careless fellow into whose life you have taken only surface-root. That isn't all. You have believed that I... that I... never could comprehend things... feelings... which you have lived through to the full... have suffered from... with every beat of your heart. But you are mistaken."
"I have no complaint against you, dear Imre." No, no! God knows that!
"No? But I have much against myself. That evening in the Z... park... you remember... when you were telling me"...
I interrupted him sharply: "Imre!"
He continued—"That evening in the Z— park when you were telling me"—
"Imre, Imre! You forget our promise!"
"No, I do not forget! It was a one-sided bargain, I am free to break it for a moment, nem igaz? Well then, I break it! There! Dear friend, if you have ever doubted that I have a heart,... that I would trust you utterly, that I would have you know me as I am.... then from this afternoon forget to doubt! I have hid myself from you, because I have been too proud to confess myself not enough for myself! I have sworn a thousand times that I could and would bear anything alone—alone—yes, till I should die. Oswald—for God's sake—for our friendship's sake—do not care less for me because I am weary of struggling on thus alone! I shall not try to play hero, even to myself... not any longer. Oswald..., listen... you told me your story. Well, I have a story to tell you... Then you will understand. Wait... wait... one moment!... I must think how, where, to begin. My story is short compared with yours, and not so bitter; yet it is no pleasant one."
As he uttered the last few words, seated there beside me, whatever sympathy I could ever feel for any human creature went out to him, unspeakably. For, now, now, the trouble flashed into my mind! Of course it was to be the old, sad tale—he loved, loved unhappily—a woman!
The singer! The singer of Prag! That wife of his friend Karvaly. The woman whose fair and magnetic personality, had wrought unwittingly or wittingly, her inevitable spell upon him! One of those potent and hopeless passions, in which love, and probably loyalty to Karvaly, burdened this upright spirit with an irremediable misfortune!
"Well," I said very gently, "tell me all that you can, if there be one touch of comfort and relief for you in speaking, Imre. I am wholly yours, you know, for every word."
Instead of answering me at once, as he sat there so close beside me, supporting his bowed head on one hand, and with his free arm across my shoulder, he let the arm fall more heavily about me. Turning his troubled eyes once—so appealingly, so briefly!—on mine, he laid his face upon my breast. And then, I heard him murmur, as if not to me only, but also to himself:
"O, thou dear friend! Who bringest me, as none have brought it before thee... rest!"
Rest? Not rest for me! A few seconds of that pathetic, trusting nearness which another man could have sustained so calmly... a few instants of that unspeakable joy in realizing how much more I was in his life than I had dared to conceive possible... just those few throbs upon my heart of that weary spirit of my friend... and then the Sex-Demon brought his storm upon my traitorous nature, in fire and lava! I struggled in shame and despair to keep down the hateful physical passion which was making nothing of all my psychic loyalty, asserting itself against my angriest will. In vain! The defeat must come; and, worse, it must be understood by Imre. I started up. I thrust Imre from me—falling away from him, escaping from his side—knowing that just in his surprise at my abruptness, I must meet—his detection of my miserable weakness. No words can express my self-disgust. Once on my feet, I staggered to the opposite side of the round table between us. I dropped into a chair. I could not raise my eyes to Imre. I could not speak. Everything was vanishing about me. Of only one thing could I be certain; that now all was over between us! Oh, this cursed outbreak and revelation of my sensual weakness! this inevitable physical appeal of Imre to me! This damned and inextricable ingredient in the chemistry of what ought to be wholly a spiritual drawing toward him, but which meant that I—desired my friend for his gracious, virile beauty—as well as loved him for his fair soul! Oh, the shame of it all, the uselessness of my newest resolve to be more as the normal man, not utterly the Uranian! Oh, the folly of my oaths to love Imre without that thrill of the plain sexual Desire, that would be a sickening horror to him! All was over! He knew me for what I was. He would have none of me. The flight of my dreams, departing in a torn cloud together, would come with the first sound of his voice!
But Imre did not speak. I looked up. He had not stirred. His hand was still lying on the table, with its open palm to me! And oh, there was that in his face... in the look so calmly bent upon me... that was... good God above us!.. so kind!
"Forgive me," I said. "Forgive me! Perhaps you can do that. Only that. You see... you know now. I have tried to change myself... to care for you only with my soul. But I cannot change. I will go from you. I will go to the other end of the world. Only do not believe that what I feel for you is wholly base... that were you not outwardly—what you are—had I less of my terrible sensitiveness to your mere beauty, Imre—I would care less for your friendship. God knows that I love you and respect you as a man loves and respects his friend. Yes, yes, a thousand times! But... but... nevertheless... Oh, what shall I say... You could never understand! So no use! Only I beg you not to despise me too deeply for my weakness; and when you remember me, pardon me for the sake of the friendship bound up in the love, even if you shudder at the love which curses the friendship."
Imre smiled. There was both bitterness as well as sweetness in his face now. But the bitterness was not for me. His voice broke the short silence in so intense a sympathy, in a note of such perfect accord, such unchanged regard, that I could scarcely master my eyes in hearing him. He clasped my hand.
"Dear Oswald! Brother indeed of my soul and body! Why dost thou ask me to forgive thee! Why should I 'forgive'? For—oh, Oswald, Oswald! I am just as art thou... I am just as art thou!"
"Thou! Just as I am? I do not understand!"
"But that will be very soon, Oswald. I tell thee again that I am as thou art... wholly.. wholly! Canst thou really not grasp the truth, dear friend? Oh, I wish with all my heart that I had not so long held back my secret from thee! It is I who must ask forgiveness. But at least I can tell thee today that I came back to thee to give thee confidence for confidence, heart for heart, Oswald! before this day should end. With no loss of respect—no weakening of our friendship. No, no! Instead of that, only with more—with... with all!"
"Imre... Imre! I do not understand—I do not dare... to understand."
"Look into thyself, Oswald! It is all there. I am an Uranian, as thou art. From my birth I have been one. Wholly, wholly homosexual, Oswald! The same fire, the same, that smoulders or flashes in thee! It was put into my soul and body too, along with whatever else is in them that could make me wish to win the sympathy of just such a friend as thee, or make thee wish to seek mine. My youth was like thine; and to become older, to grow up to be a man in years, a man in every sinew and limb of my body, there was no changing of my nature in that. There were only the bewilderments, concealments, tortures that come to us. There is nothing, nothing, that any man can teach me of what is one's life with it all. How well I know it! That inborn mysterious, frightful sensitiveness to whatever is the man—that eternal vague yearning and seeking for the unity that can never come save by a love that is held to be a crime and a shame! The instinct that makes us cold toward the woman, even to hating her, when one thinks of her as a sex. And the mask, the eternal mask! to be worn before our fellowmen for fear that they should spit in our faces in their loathing of us! Oh God, I have known it all—I have understood it all!"
It was indeed my turn to be silent now. I found myself yet looking at him in incredulity—wordless.
"But that is not the whole of my likeness to thee, Oswald. For, I have endured that cruellest of torments for us—which fell also to thy lot. I believe it to be over now, or soon wholly so to be. But the remembrance of it will not soon pass, even with thy affection to heal my heart. For I too have loved a man, loved him—hiding my passion from him under the coldness of a common friendship. I too have lived side by side, day by day, with him; in terror, lest he should see what he was to me, and so drive me from him. Ah, I have been unhappier, too, than thou, Oswald. For I must needs to watch his heart, as something not merely impossible for me to possess (I would have cast away my soul to possess it!)—but given over to a woman—laid at her feet—with daily less and less of thought for what was his life with me... Oh, Oswald!... the wretchedness of it is over now, God be thanked! and not a little so because I have found thee, and thou hast found me. But only to think of it again"....
He paused as if the memory were indeed wormwood. I understood now! And oh, what mattered it that I could not yet understand or excuse the part that he had played before me for so long?—his secrecy almost inexplicable if he had had so much as a guess at my story, my feelings for him! As in a dream, believing, disbelieving, fearing, rejoicing, trembling, rapt, I began to understand Fate!
Yet, mastering my own exultant heart, I wished in those moments to think only of him. I asked gently:
"You mean your friend Karvaly?"
"Even so... Karvaly."
"O, my poor, poor Imre! My brother indeed! Tell me all. Begin at the beginning."
I shall not detail all of Imre's tale. There was little in it for the matter of that, which could be set forth here as outwardly dramatic. Whoever has been able, by nature or accident, to know, in a fairly intimate degree, the workings of the similisexual and uranistic heart; whoever has marvelled at them, either in sympathy or antipathy, even if merely turning over the pages of psychiatric treatises dealing with them—he would find nothing specially unfamiliar in such biography. I will mention here, as one of the least of the sudden discoveries of that afternoon, the fact that Imre had some knowledge of such literature, whether to his comfort or greater melancholy, according to his author. Also he had formally consulted one eminent Viennese specialist who certainly was much wiser—far less positive—and not less calming than my American theorist.
The great Viennese psychiater had not recommended marriage to Imre: recognizing in Imre's "case" that inborn homosexualism that will not be dissipated by wedlock; but perhaps only intensifies, and so is surer to darken irretrievably the nuptial future of husband and wife, and to visit itself on their children after them. But the Austrian doctor had not a little comforted and strengthened Imre morally; warning him away from despising himself: from thinking himself alone, and a sexual Pariah; from over-morbid sufferings; from that bitterness and despair which, year by year, all over the world, can explain, in hundreds of cases, the depressed lives, the lonely existences, the careers mysteriously interrupted—broken? What Asmodeus could look into the real causes (so impenetrably veiled) of sudden and long social exiles; of sundered ties of friendship or family; of divorces that do not disclose their true ground? Longer still would be the chronicle of ruined peace of mind, tranquil lives maddened, fortunes shattered—by some merciless blackmailer who trades on his victim's secret! Darker yet the "mysterious disappearances," the sudden suicides "wholly inexplicable," the strange, fierce crimes—that are part of the daily history of hidden uranianism, of the battle between the homosexual man and social canons—or of the battle with just himself! Ah, these dramas of the Venus Urania! played out into death, in silent but terribly-troubled natures!—among all sorts and conditions of men!