Lili Page 19

  Only one thing troubled her rather more than she liked. In contrast to Grete’s and Andreas’ women friends, who had long since accepted Lili as one of themselves, with few exceptions, all the male friends of Andreas avoided Lili. Grete, who had expected help and sympathy for Lili from them most of all, and in this belief had revealed Lili’s existence to them, was very distressed over this failure on the part of Andreas’ friends, all the more so as just at that time the whole secret of Andreas and Lili was divulged in Copenhagen through the indiscretion of a Parisian woman friend and eventually published in unreserved fashion by an organ of the Press. Lili learned of this by accident. All her gaiety vanished again. For many days she would not stir out of her attic. She paid no heed to anything, and could not understand why none of Andreas’ friends found their way to her. A little entry in her diary tells of this:

  “How is it possible that all Andreas’ friends here have left me in the lurch? That they all avoid me as if I were a pariah? What have I done to them? Andreas was always ready to help them. He was always a reliable friend. And now one of them says that just because he esteemed Andreas so highly he could never recognize Lili. Lili would always stand between him and Andreas. He would shudder at offering her his hand. This sentiment is nothing but an eruption of overweening masculinity. And another excuses himself with other subterfuges. One could not be seen walking with Lili in the streets without compromising himself. Copenhagen was too small to show oneself publicly with such a pitiful creature, unmolested and unsuspected.”

  Lili herself never read the lurid article which a sensational journalist had published concerning Andreas and her, but the appearance of this article sufficed to clinch her determination to leave Copenhagen as quickly as possible. Now she knew that in Copenhagen she was outlawed. And panic-stricken she left the city. She would have preferred to return to Germany immediately; but one of Andreas’ brothers in Veijle, their native place in Jutland, implored her to visit him, if only for a few days. He was ready to accept and cherish her as a sister, and assured her that she could always find a home and peace and quiet with him. Lili went to him. She carried out this resolve as if in a dream. “Yes, go,” her sister and everybody who had Lili’s good at heart had said, “go back again to our little home town. Perhaps you will there recover your equilibrium.

  And if later on you should want to return to your helper in Germany, then do so. But first recover your gaiety and yourself.”

  A few days before this Grete had left for the South – for Italy.

  XIX

  Lili’s brother and sister-in-law lived in a villa facing a little fjord town in Jutland. Here she could reside undisturbed by curious glances.

  She was received most cordially, especially by her sister-in-law, a dear good creature, who as a woman showed Lili not only sympathy, but profound understanding from the first moment.

  The brother did not find it easy the first few days to adjust himself to his new sister, but it was not long before he was quite at home with her and could regard Lili simply as a sister.

  Brother and sister-in-law vied with each other to give Lili a peaceful and happy time during her stay in Andreas’ home town.

  She was quite content to be treated as a child who had been ill and must now be cherished and cosseted. Every evening her sister-in-law sat beside Lili’s bed and held her hand until she fell asleep. She was never left alone the whole day. If she went out, someone went with her. If Lili protested, they would hardly let her speak: even in little towns there were wicked people, and mad dogs, or other dangers.

  In these quiet and safe surroundings her nerves got better. She took long walks in the neighbourhood of the town, along the fjord and into the great forests which were now glorious in their autumn colours.

  Here by the fjord and in the adjacent woods Andreas had passed the happiest days of his childhood. But nearly all recollections of this had been extinguished in Lili. Everything seemed new to her, as if she saw it for the first time. Only now and then, in a particular light, prompted by a sound or a scent, would a far-off memory be kindled in her, as if through a haze. But it was never anything exact that stirred in her.

  One day her brother went with her into the town, to show her the old parental house in which Andreas had been born and nurtured and their parents had lived until their death.

  Lili stood in front of the old house of her parents; she recognized it, remotely and hazily, like something of which one had once dreamed. Her brother frequently asked her if she could not remember this or that incident from common childhood. The brother was only a few years older than Andreas. And it had always been Andreas who had remembered all the incidents of the past more clearly than anyone else. But Lili was always obliged to answer in the negative, however hard she tried to conjure up pictures from Andreas’ past. She always had such a strange feeling, as if something were vibrating in the depths of her being. But she was still too weak to form a precise idea of what it was. Frequently these questions tortured her, and her brother felt it and desisted.

  It was not through the past that she felt herself linked to her brother and his wife; but both were so kind and considerate that she gradually felt quite at home with them.

  “Lili,” her brother said one day, “you have now been here almost a whole month and you have not yet visited our Father’s and Mother’s grave in the old churchyard.”

  “I should so much like to go there.” she answered, “but you must show me where they are buried.” Then she burst into tears.

  Lili Elbe, Copenhagen, February 1931

  Her brother regarded her with surprise. He took her hands and drew her to him protectively.

  Lili divined what he was thinking.

  “Yes,” she said, tormented by a secret fear, “I know I have had neither father nor mother. I am really quite alone in the world, and often think that life is too full of dangers to be able to master it alone. Just for me. You must understand that. My life began amidst terrible pain, and sometimes I fear that everything has been in vain. But then again it seems as if something great and strong has sustained me. Then I feel something precious stirring within me. It may be happiness. In my dreams this happiness is perfect.”

  Her brother gazed at her with inquiring eyes. Lili patted his shoulder. “Dear brother, perhaps you cannot understand me when I talk like that; but that does not matter, so long as you are kind to me. Often I do not understand it myself; I do not understand my own life; I can never get over my astonishment.”

  *

  Andreas Sparre was dead.

  *

  Lili was again living in her Copenhagen attic.

  Here she was introduced by her hostess to a young Norwegian veterinary surgeon, who, without knowing what had happened to her, told her that he had been experimenting for a long time with the transplantation and grafting of ovaries upon animals and explained how the effect of these new ovaries was so great as to change completely the animal’s character and determined its age.

  And inasmuch as animals were less valuable subjects than human beings, he had more opportunity as a veterinary surgeon to study this phenomenon by experiments than other doctors. It went without saying that similar processes would be observed in the case of human beings. Lili now realized that the crisis through which she had passed, especially when she was first in Denmark, and from the effects of which she was still suffering, was a natural consequence of the implantation which had been carried out upon her. She perceived how her whole cerebral function had received a new direction.

  She confided all this to her diary:

  “In the first months after my operation it was necessary above all else to recuperate. When this had happened to some extent, the physical change in me began. My breasts formed, my hips changed and became softer and rounder. And at the same time other forces began to stir in my brain and to choke whatever remnants of Andreas still remained there. A new emotional life was arising within me.”

  At that time she wrote a letter to
Werner Kreutz:

  “I feel so changed that it seems as if you had operated not upon my body, but upon my brain. And although my face still bears traces of what I have gone through, I feel I am getting younger and younger every day.

  “Even the name of Andreas Sparre has no longer a bitter sound for me. He first had his youth, but now I believe that I am going to have mine. And sometimes I find it is unjust for me to retain his age and birthday, for my biological age is quite different from his. And it is also painful for me that his name instead of my name is on the official records. Andreas and I have really nothing whatever to do with each other.

  “I have now been a few weeks in his birthplace, but I have felt like a stranger there all the time. Nothing of what is now stirring in me was born in his parents’ house. I am newly created. I was born under your auspices in Dresden, and my birthday is that April day on which you operated upon me. My temperament, too, is like April weather. I laugh and cry at the same time. My heart is full of expectation as a spring day. And every time I feel stirring within me this new life and this new youth, as if I were mother and child at the same time, then all my thoughts turn towards you in boundless gratitude.”

  A few days later Lili filled many pages in her diary:

  “I know that only doctors can understand me when I speak of the question of my age. And a number of doctors have even promised to help me if I should later attempt to cut loose from Andreas in this respect, so that I am given an age that corresponds to my physical development as a woman. Others may ridicule this question or regard it with indifference; the important thing, in their view, is that one feels young and gives a youthful impression. I, on the other hand, believe just the contrary – that one is, in fact, actually as old as the official papers state, whether one feels young or old. Yesterday I discussed this question with a friend, who is a lawyer, and said to him:

  “‘Don’t forget: every time one books a room in an hotel, fills up a census paper, applies for a situation, or marries, one must always answer questions about age.’

  “And what did he say? He replied that I must not be so immodest. I must take over Andreas’ age as a heritage, just as I have inherited all his rights. Which I vigorously contested. ‘Assume, for the sake of argument,’ I said, ‘that I have some talent for painting and now began to paint like him. Andreas had his contacts as a painter. He had exhibited in a number of salons in Paris and elsewhere, and was a member of several of them. Can you imagine my running to the various exhibitions committees who knew him and there telling my fantastic story to the best of my ability, in order to claim whatever rights Andreas had? Both the French and the Danish colleagues of Andreas would regard me as crazy if I should maintain that I was one and the same person as Andreas. At least I should be regarded as an improbable phenomenon and ridiculed accordingly.

  “No, if I should really paint I would have to build up my career right from the start, as otherwise I should make myself a laughing-stock.

  “And can you see me – Lili Elbe – claiming the distinction which Andreas Sparre received from the French state as a painter? Can you imagine me decorating myself with it? No, I revere the memory of Andreas too much for this.

  “I know very well that I am only a stupid female and a mere nobody.

  “And, moreover, I am well aware that when one inherits, it always means that one enters upon the heritage with all its assets and liabilities, and for this reason one can even refuse to accept an inheritance. I lay no claim to Andreas’ heritage, least of all to his birthday, for his birthday signifies for me nothing but a liability. I cannot be forcibly compelled to take over this heritage. I will not drag Andreas’ age along with me like a burden, as I fear that just this very circumstance might be disastrous for my future. You have only to look at me to see that I lack all the assurance which Andreas possessed. My next-of-kin, that is, Andreas’ relatives, tell me every day how altogether different I am in character from Andreas. He was planted so firmly upon the earth. He could withstand storms. I feel like a young ingrafted tree which can be uprooted with the first gust of wind.

  “I must now try to devise a livelihood, to undertake something, to earn money for my support. And this is just where age comes in. Once a person secures a position, then it all depends upon how one feels and how one carries out the duties attaching to such position; but if a person has to begin right at the beginning, then everybody asks, especially if the subject be a woman, how old she is. And almost everywhere young people are preferred because it is thought that the future is theirs and that they possess possibilities of development. This applies not only to artists, but to all vocations.

  “I admit that my case is absolutely unusual, unique. But cannot you understand how wrong it is to insert my name instead of Andreas’ name on the baptismal certificate? My name, Lili Elbe, whom neither Andreas’ father nor mother knew. And now, legally speaking, it is really as if Andreas had never existed.

  “But that is, of course, nonsense, sheer nonsense, as a large number of paintings bear the name of Andreas. You can find his pictures in many galleries and art collections here. Andreas published books which bear his name. Consequently, I think it was wrong simply to cross his name out of the register and to insert mine in its place.”

  “And what did the lawyer answer?

  “In that case I must regard the name of Andreas, to some extent, as my pseudonym.

  “‘No,’ I retorted, ‘that would be wrong, as I have nothing whatever to do with Andreas’ pictures. They were created by Andreas. And it is just his pictures that are his absolute property. As a painter he was no dual personality. When he painted, he was an entire man, and strangely enough, until his last breath.’

  “My friend then inquired whether I had never felt any desire to paint like Andreas, whose art had been the most characteristic thing about him.

  “‘No,’ I replied, ‘I have not the slightest desire to paint. Not because I still feel too weak and tired. No; but it grows more apparent to me every day how little, in contrast with him, I see with a painter’s eyes. I have no desire to continue his work. My life must go its own way. I do not mean by this that I am no artist. Perhaps I am an artist. Anyhow, I believe most emphatically that I shall find another outlet for my artistic impulses, that is, for the desire to shape something. But I cannot say anything definite about this now, as I am still quite in the dark.’

  “We were strolling slowly through the grounds of Bernstorff Castle. It was a dreary December day, and my friend asked me whether I had lost all that feeling for Nature which inspired Andreas.

  “‘No,’ I said; ‘only whatever I look at now no longer suggests a subject for a picture. I am not “possessed” by a landscape, by a mood of Nature. If I see anything really beautiful, I feel as if my subconscious mind were absorbing it. More than this I do not know. Perhaps one day I shall be able to give a visible-audible expression to all this, in some artistic form, whether it be painting, or music, or prose, or something else. At the moment I find my greatest release in music. But when I grow introspective I seem to myself to be like a boat with all sails spread which drifts at the mercy of every current of the wind. For, indeed, I am still so very new. I must first have time to find myself. How old am I in reality? Perhaps the doctors can say. My age has nothing whatever to do with the age of Andreas, as I did not share flesh and blood with Andreas from the beginning. It was Andreas who possessed supremacy over this body for almost a lifetime. And it was only later that I developed in our common body, so that this body evolved until there was no longer any room for Andreas.’

  “However puzzling all this may sound to others, this is exactly how the matter stands, and, for this reason, I think that the name of Andreas ought to remain in the register of the church where he was baptised, and that papers ought to be issued for me, who has no home and no country, giving my biological age.’

  “My friend parted from me, shaking his head. And this head-shaking was what I encountered from most people.


  XX

  The many weeks which Lili now passed in her attic, far from Grete, were weeks of recuperation.

  It was her short life which, looking round and looking back, she confided to the pages of her diary. Since the journey from Berlin to Dresden everything had come back to her again, vividly illuminated by a remarkable light which cast no shadows.

  It was a confession which she poured out without restraint and without mercy on herself.

  “I feel like a bridge-builder. But it is a strange bridge that I am building. I stand on one of the banks, which is the present day. There I have driven in the first pile. And I must build it clear across to the other bank, which often I cannot see at all and sometimes only vaguely, and now and then in a dream. And then I often do not know whether the other bank is the past or the future. Frequently the question plagues me: have I had only a past, or have I had no past at all? Or have I only a future without a past?

  “I have found a new friend who wants to help me to collect and collate the loose leaves of my confession. Many years ago he knew Andreas slightly. He can hardly recall him now. He can remember his eyes, and in my eyes he has found this recollection. He is a German, and I am glad of the chance of talking German with him here.

  “He told me that when I went to see him for the first time, before I entered the room, he felt somewhat afraid of me, as if he might perhaps feel a repugnance towards me, especially as shortly before he had again glanced at some photographs of Andreas. When I was in his presence, so he told me, every doubt was dissipated, every doubt of my proper existence. He only saw the woman in me, and when he thought of Andreas, or spoke to me about Andreas, he saw and felt a person beside me or behind me.