Lili Read online

  In Lili’s ears Grete’s words still echoed.

  “Early spring … painting as I used to,” and she completed the sentence, “with Andreas.”

  Was it jealousy which was now stirring in her? No, no; the idea was impossible.

  She leaned across to Grete – no one saw it, not even Niels, who had fallen asleep like Grete, while the two strange gentlemen were standing outside in the corridor smoking – and laid her hand in Grete’s lap. Then she rose and sat next to Grete, laid her head against Grete’s shoulder and gazed out of the window again. Ranges of hills were billowing up, growing into small mountains, and new ones kept joining them, dotted with villas. And eventually everything became a confusion of villas and gardens and tenement houses – between which factory buildings reared their heads and streets opened like canals between columns of houses, while the columns of houses became great settlements full of pulsating life. Trams, cars, people, clamouring advertisements on blank walls, a wide ramification of railway lines on either side, trains with an endless line of coaches, a station on the right hand and the left hand, a continuous shuddering of the carriage as it slid rumblingly past the points.

  Then the train stopped. Niels woke up.

  “Shall we soon be there?” asked Lili. “The next station.” She awoke Grete.

  When the train started again, all three of them were standing at the window. Now they were crossing the long bridge, under which the broad, dark river extended like a glistening velvet ribbon, and Lili saw Dresden’s domes and towers and roofs emerge from the shimmering water’s surface. Slowly she looked up and saw that it was no phantasmagoria – this magnificent city on both banks of the River Elbe, ascending from the broad valley to green hills and the soft blue sky.

  She knelt on her seat and stared out and drank in the picture of this place of pilgrimage, longed for so ardently and vouchsafed her in return for so much suffering. And her eyes became too full and too heavy. She closed them, and pressed her hands against her heart. The tears she wept were the soft tears of faith. A feeling of boundless happiness flooded her whole being. “Now I am home … now I shall soon be home.”

  Niels laid his hand on her shoulder. “It is only for happiness, Niels.”

  Grete was standing beside her. She could find no word to utter, but many tears to shed.

  How Lili got out of the compartment, how she made her entry into Dresden in a taxi, she could never afterwards remember.

  It was a long drive. Soon the streets of the city lay behind them, and they were traversing the residential districts. They passed a block of tall buildings, then suddenly the cab turned round a corner. Slender, white, gleaming birch trees raised their filagree-fine branches above a garden wall, behind which towered a grey, solemn, massive block of buildings, comprised of many houses.

  “Stop, stop!”cried Lili. “Here we are!”

  The next moment the cab stopped in front of a porch, which bore in large letters the inscription:

  “MUNICIPAL WOMEN’S CLINIC”

  “How could you know that?” asked Grete and Niels, as they were helping Lili to alight.

  “I felt that it must be here, answered Lili very faintly. “Help me a little, so that I can walk. It was such a long, fatiguing journey.”

  When they stood in front of the porch and rang the bell Lili was pale as death. She heard the pealing of the hospital bell, and it seemed to her as if she was hearing the sound of her own heart.

  A white-clad nurse hailed them from the window of the porter’s lodge. “Private patients’ ward? Straight through the garden, please.” By this time it was late afternoon. A soft, subdued light from a watery sky flooded the large garden. Lili led the way. She was home at last.

  XII

  Standing at the entrance door to the private clinic was an elderly white-clad nurse, who was embracing a lady.

  This was Lili’s first impression of the Women’s Clinic, and this impression remained.

  The elderly nurse was the Matron. She was bidding farewell to a patient.

  Then she received the three foreigners with great cordiality, and ushered them into a long hospital corridor. Twilight had already set in, and through the glass panes of a large folding door at the end of the corridor fell a soft sea-green shimmer, which was reflected on the polished floor and the many white-lacquered doors.

  “The Professor will be with you in a moment,” said the Matron.

  Near the large folding-door were a few armchairs and a small table, illuminated by a lamp, where a doctor in a white smock was conversing with two ladies.

  Grete seized Lili’s hand. “That’s Professor Kreutz,” she whispered.

  “You are mistaken, Grete,” said Niels. “Besides, you have never seen him. Surely he is only an assistant doctor.” “Grete is right. It is Professor Kreutz,” whispered Lili with a trembling voice.

  While he was conducting the two ladies to the office, he remained standing a moment and greeted the newcomers with ceremonious politeness, after which he requested them to sit down.

  They all seated themselves about the round table. Lili had relapsed into silence. White-clad nurses came and went and said good day. But Lili had eyes and ears for nothing.

  Only when the door of the office opened again and the two ladies were ushered out by the Professor, did she become wide awake.

  The Matron made a sign to them, and Niels took Lili’s hand. Grete remained sitting in the armchair.

  Two months before Professor Kreutz had seen Andreas in Paris on a single occasion. Now Lili stood in front of him for the first time. The Professor led her into the office, and then went out again to welcome Grete.

  Lili, who had suddenly become very calm, looked about her in the room. It was a large apartment and might have been a study or an operating room. In front of the large window, which gave a view of the birch trees in the garden, stood a chair for patients, and in front of one wall was a writing-desk, full of papers. Everything in the room was dazzling white.

  When the Professor returned, he sat down opposite Lili. She began to chat about her stay in Berlin. Suddenly he interrupted her with a question. His rather stern face broke into a smile.

  “Did Professor Arns acquaint you with the result of his chemical and microscopical examination?”

  “No, Professor.”

  “Well, then, I can tell you the welcome news that all the examinations gave the most favourable results. Everything confirms our assumption.”

  She breathed again. She was relieved of the necessity of explanations.

  She listened to his peculiar velvety voice. A feeling of happiness stole over her. The good Professor spoke so sympathetically about everything that affected her that she grew courageous, and suddenly began to relate her experience with Dr Karner in Berlin. But when she looked up she gazed into Professor Kreutz’ eyes, those eyes that were light and dark at the same time, and her words died on her lips. She could not utter another syllable. It flashed upon her that Andreas had been able to talk quite freely to the Professor in Paris. Why could she not do so?

  Professor Kreutz regarded her inquiringly, and waited for her to proceed with her story. When, however, she failed to do so, he broke the silence.

  “I really intended you to come into the private ward immediately, but, in a most unexpected fashion, every bed is at the moment occupied. This is, perhaps, just as well, as we must wait a little before the operation is performed. I am looking out for a pair of particularly good glands for you.”

  At this realistic argument Lili shuddered. She did not know where to turn her eyes. She was overwhelmed with shame, and utterly embarrassed.

  The Professor seemed hardly to notice this, for he continued calmly:

  “Besides, it will do you nothing but good to spend a few days in the hotel, and see the town and our museum. Moreover, you could do some painting. You will find plenty of subjects here. Such a distraction should be most beneficial to you.”

  At these words Lili seemed to lose all her mo
ral support. The idea of not being immediately received into the clinic, but stopping for days in a strange hotel, appeared to her as monstrous, undeserved punishment. She wanted to beg the Professor to be allowed to remain there, she wanted to rebel against his decision. She looked imploringly at the Professor, but could find nothing to say except:

  “Very well, Professor.”

  This ended the interview. The Professor held out his hand, and went out of the room with her to Grete. He mentioned an hotel in the vicinity of the Women’s Clinic and bade her good-bye very formally.

  Utterly disconcerted, Lili met Grete. She felt as if she had suffered a disastrous defeat. A single glance of this man had deprived her of all her strength. She felt as if her whole personality had been crushed by him. With a single glance he had extinguished it. Something within her rebelled. She felt like a schoolgirl who had received short shrift from an idolized teacher. She heard the Professor’s voice ringing in her ear. She was conscious of a peculiar weakness in all her members. She stood there as if in a fog and apprehended nothing. But later, when she recalled this moment, she found an explanation: it was the first time her woman’s heart had trembled before her lord and master, before the man who had constituted himself her protector, and she understood why she then submitted so utterly to him and his will.

  The hotel which Professor Kreutz had recommended to them was situated in a wide square surrounded by trees, and had a garden. It was a quiet, select establishment, and was scarcely ten minutes’ distance from the Women’s Clinic.

  A large light room which overlooked the square was assigned to Lili and Grete. Niels installed himself in another room. They were heavy, oppressive days which Lili had now to endure. She could not understand why she could not be immediately received into the clinic. She was almost convinced that Professor Kreutz found her unsympathetic and that she had a repellent effect upon him.

  Grete wrote down in her diary:

  “Lili is utterly despondent. She thinks the Professor sees in her nothing but a female impersonator, that is to say, Andreas. She imagines that she has an ugly and disagreeable appearance, and that every normal person must be repelled by her. She weeps perpetually. We have gone out on a number of occasions, but, dominated by her fixed idea, Lili thought she could read in every glance of the passers-by a confirmation of Professor Kreutz’s aversion. It goes without saying that we foreigners should attract attention here in Dresden, but she blames herself entirely. She is indignant because the Professor suggested that she should do some painting in the interval. That was the worst thing he could have said. Everything that relates to Andreas is detested by her, but especially painting.”

  In order to break right away from Andreas, she must, above all, avoid practising his most characteristic activity. “The Professor ought to have known this,” said Lili, “or else he intended to convey that he saw in Lili nothing but an impersonation of Andreas.”

  The following day Grete wrote in her diary:

  “Niels was certainly quite right when he said that what the Professor is now doing with Lili is nothing less than an emotional moulding, which is preceding the physical moulding into a woman. Hitherto Lili has been like clay which others had prepared and to which the Professor has given form and life by a transient touch. Up till now, he thought, Lili’s femininity has been only superficial, not yet completely wholly genuine. By a single glance the Professor yesterday awoke her heart to life, to a life with all the instincts of woman. The more I ponder over this, the more heartily I agree with Niels. Lili is now silent and completely wrapped up in herself. True, she still weeps softly to herself at times; but those are the tears of nostalgia. She does not know herself what is happening to her, and I can do nothing more than assist her with encouraging words and patience.”

  The next page contained the following entry:

  “Lili said to me last night: ‘It is certainly unjust of me to think bitterly of Andreas, but sometimes I am obliged to think of him, and then I do not quite know what to call him. I think I must call him my dead brother, and to this I must get accustomed. So much so that I cannot any longer realize that he and I have dwelt in the same body; this body now belongs to me alone.’ Then she said: ‘Perhaps I am the murderer of Andreas, and this idea tortures me fearfully, as I surmise that I shall perhaps be of much less value than he. He was a creative person. He was a painter, with a long record behind him. And just because of this I am afraid of wanting to achieve anything. For if I should really once paint and then perceive that my performance fell below his, this would completely upset me, and I would commit suicide!’ Suddenly she said: ‘Grete, I see in front of me the clothes of Andreas which we left behind in Berlin. I see every article of clothing. And I think of them at night. And I am afraid to go to sleep again, lest I should dream that I was slipping these clothes on.’ ”

  Thus a whole week passed. A deep melancholy hung over Lili, and this melancholy deepened into an icy horror when one morning a number of letters from Copenhagen, addressed to Monsieur Andreas Sparre of Paris, arrived from the Women’s Clinic. She would not even touch the letters. Even Grete was not allowed to read the letters.

  Niels had to burn them. And now Lili was convinced that she would never be able to enter the Women’s Clinic.

  “The letters have made it impossible. Let us go from here,” implored Lili without tears, firmly resolved to efface herself in silence. Then, like a release, came news from the Women’s Clinic that a room was now free for Lili, and Grete went with her the short distance to the hospital.

  The next day Niels returned to Berlin.

  XIII

  Many times Lili tried to recall the first moments she spent in the Women’s Clinic, and every time she felt again the infinite peace which had then settled upon her distracted spirit. A ray of hope, which, like a Bachian hymn, was carried by angel voices to an invisible vault.

  All anxiety and unrest fell away from her. Her own life appeared to her of secondary importance, and so valueless. An obscure feeling inspired her with devotion, a feeling of participating in something new and great, something that transcended everything that came within the range of ordinary experience. A white sick-room, brightened by the green reflection from the garden. A white bed. Upon a white table mysterious shining instruments and forceps under a glass case. An odour of ether and formalin over everything. Visits from the Matron, a well-preserved motherly woman in white nurse’s uniform with starched white cap on her silver-grey hair. Now and again, penetrating through the folding-door a muffled noise, gradually dying down – the sound of invalid carriages rolling past. And in the white room Grete. Now and then soft voices and footfalls. The door is opened, a slender figure in a white coat enters, and remains standing in the room.

  Of this first visit of the Professor Lili retained only an almost musical recollection. A voice. A vision. What he said to her faded right out of her mind. But from the moment he stood before her in the white sick-room, all her burdens slipped away. And her whole being was flooded with assurance and joyous hope.

  Lili went out under the birch trees in the large garden and waited. The Professor had told her that everything would be ready for the operation within a day or two.

  The white trees gleamed silvery upon the shining green borders. Their branches stood out against the grey, quivering atmosphere as if bathed in a reddish sheen. Here and there hedges and bushes with their branches still bare. Silky catkins on the few willow trees, and here and there yellow buds. And many seats along the paths. White-clad sisters resting after lunch greeted Lili and Grete. And in the middle of the large garden a bevy of young, pregnant women. They were laughing joyously and happily, and in their blue hospital clothes looked like big crocuses just sprung up.

  “Lili,” said Grete, “now I truly understand the beautiful German word ‘fore-spring’. Everything here is so full of expectation.”

  Then a slender man in white overalls hastened across the park to the septic station. An assistant doctor followed h
im, and a whisper flew from mouth to mouth: “The Professor.” All eyes were fixed on him, and everything seemed to stop for a moment.

  And then the turret clock of the clinic struck. Six o’clock. It was time to return to one’s room. The park was already dark. Arm in arm Lili and Grete went slowly into the large house. The lights were burning in the broad, white corridors. Down below, in front of the Professor’s room, stood the Matron. Suddenly his voice sounded through the open door, and Lili shuddered. In a fright she drew Grete with her round the corner into the corridor whereon her room was situated.

  Lili Elbe, Women’s Clinic, Dresden, June 1930 (after the operation)

  “What’s the matter?” asked Grete.

  “Hurry,” whispered Lili, breathless, and slipped into her room. An inexplicable fear had gripped her at the sound of the Professor’s voice. Once again she felt like a schoolgirl! The next evening, when Lili was put to bed, she was subjected to all the ceremonies that precede an operation. And Grete sat beside her to offer encouragement. The Professor had already intimated in the morning that if a young woman who had to be operated upon the following day possessed suitable ovaries, the transplantation should be effected forthwith. Excited and happy she bade Grete farewell this evening. She lay awake for hours and stared into the white room. The night-lamp diffused a subdued light. Nurse Hannah, young and pretty, sat beside her, conversed with her, placed a sleeping-draught on the night table, and then softly disappeared.

  Lili did not take the sleeping-draught. She was afraid of sleeping too long. She wanted to be wide awake when next morning, her great morning, came.

  Not another sound was heard from the corridors. Everything was drowned in the silence of the night. Lili’s thoughts were suffused with gentle light. It seemed to her as if she no longer had any responsibility for herself, for her fate. For Werner Kreutz had relieved her of it all. Nor had she any longer a will of her own.

  And suddenly she thought of the past, of Paris. Yet the next moment she fled from this recollection. There could be no past for her. Everything in the past belonged to a person who had vanished, who was dead. How altogether different from her Andreas Sparre had been! Now there was only a perfectly humble woman, who was ready to obey, who was happy to submit herself to the will of another.