Lili Read online

  He sat up straight in his seat, and observed his companion without her noticing it.

  What struck him was the expression of her eyes. She did not seem to be seeing him at all; she did not seem to be aware that she was sharing the tiny compartment with a man.

  He looked in front of him. He stared at his fingers. But his eyes were soon fixed on her again, and he noted with astonishment that she was weeping.

  The tears were starting from her eyes. She must have seen that he was looking at her; but in spite of this she did not make the least attempt to hide her weeping or dry her tears.

  She was obviously quite young. Plaits of fair hair framed a smooth, narrow, girlish forehead. Her eyes, dimmed with tears, were bright blue and at other times could no doubt sparkle with gaiety. She had removed her gloves. He noticed a plain ring on a finger of her left hand. She was a bride, then.

  Profound sympathy stirred in him. “Mademoiselle …” he began.

  She did not seem to hear him. Probably he had spoken too softly, or the roar of the train had drowned his words. Then it occurred to him that he was now in Germany. “Gnädiges Fräulein … ” he repeated, almost embarrassed.

  She raised her weeping eyes. “What an enchanting bride!” thought Andreas.

  “I should like so much to help you,” he said. “You seem to be in great trouble …”

  He could get no further. She covered her face with her hands and wept as if her heart would break. Then, between her sobs, she handed him a folded newspaper, which she had been hugging the whole time. Only then did Andreas notice it. He took the paper, but did not know what to do with it. He rose from his seat and sat beside the weeping girl and stroked her hand. She became calmer.

  It appeared that her husband, a well-known musician, had gone to Berlin two days before in order to give a concert in that city. This very evening he had been expected to return. On the way to the station to meet him, she had chanced to buy a newspaper, the newspaper which Andreas was now holding in his hand, and in it she had read …

  She pointed to the place on the front page and wept again.

  Andreas read:

  The young pianist XX of Hanover, who gave a successful concert yesterday evening in the XX hall, met with an accident on the way to his hotel, his taxi colliding with a tram. He is now lying in hospital with very serious injuries. His condition gives rise to the gravest anxiety.

  Andreas was shocked when he read the report. He had offered his help to the unhappy bride. Now he felt like an idle chatterer.

  And yet, little as he had ever been able to help himself, in the case of others he had frequently been able to alleviate pain by means of a mystic force which appeared to dwell in him. How often had not Grete and Elena assured him of this?

  The young lady’s feverish, trembling hands were now lying in his. He clasped them tightly for a long time. At first she quivered like a captive bird. Then the quivering grew less and less. He did not utter a word; he merely stroked very softly the limp, girlish hands. She too was silent. He could hear her gentle breathing, and then her breathing became more and more regular. Her head sank on his shoulder, and she fell asleep. Now her heart was beating softly against his hand, which he had been obliged to place around her to afford her support.

  And he smiled happily at the thought that something of that hidden enigmatic force was still left in him today. More than once he tried to move; but each time his companion trembled like a sick child, whimpering in slumber. He therefore remained sitting in a rigid position.

  And gradually the roar of the train rocked him lightly to sleep also.

  It was not long before he awoke, and the thought of his position forced a smile to his lips.

  Here he was now sitting, he, the painter Andreas Sparre, of Copenhagen, whom life had drifted to Paris, and who was now being driven northward by a fantastic destiny, overwhelmed with his own grief and needing help and assistance if ever a person did, and chance had selected just him to give consolation to a perfect stranger, to help her over a dark hour of her existence – perhaps her darkest hour. And here was this little German lady, the wife of an unknown man, lying in his arms. And she and he, each of them, were journeying, guided by by some blind providence, towards their own fates … somewhere in Germany.

  These were the thoughts that kept running through his mind.

  And then a few secret tears splashed down his cheeks, and it suddenly dawned upon him why all this had so happened. This charming creature from Hanover, who was now slumbering in his arms like a blissfully confiding child, had been sent him as the last woman towards whom he could act as a protective male – before parting for ever from woman, from the eternal-feminine.

  So his thoughts assumed these vague shapes, while on the other side of the window a foggy morning was dawning, and the train was rushing through the sea of houses which constituted Berlin.

  He realized that he must awaken his travelling companion.

  With a shriek of anguish she started out of her sleep, and gazed at him in utter perplexity. “Oh no, he can’t be dead! …” Her words again dissolved in tears.

  “Child.” he said, speaking in a soft and confident voice, “child, I do not know your name, and you do not know mine, but please believe me when I say that I know he is alive.”

  She seized both his hands and covered them with kisses.

  “Yes, indeed,” he assured her, “make your mind quite easy.”

  “Oh, I am quite at ease! How you have helped me! I shall never forget what you have done.”

  A few minutes later she was lost in the crowd of people on the platform. Andreas gazed after her for a long time. The newspaper which she had given him during the night was the only memento which he retained.

  A few days later Andreas happened to read in a newspaper that the husband of his unknown travelling companion was on the road to recovery.

  V

  In the company of a limping porter, Andreas walked the short distance from the station to the hotel.

  “How devilish cold it is here in Berlin, although it is the first of March!” he confided in a tone of surprise to the man who was carrying his two trunks. “In Paris it is already spring.”

  “Yes, in Paris,” replied the honest fellow, “in Paris.” And this ended the conversation.

  Andreas turned up his collar. His teeth were really chattering. He was exhausted after passing an almost sleepless night and plunging into the midst of a strange world. But the unexpected coldness of the temperature kept his senses fully alert.

  Suddenly, before he reached the neighbouring hotel, the thought struck him: “These two trunks contain my very last articles of male clothing; shirts, collars … How absurd!”

  A feeling of defiance welled up in him, as if the man were at bay, the man within him.

  In the hotel, where the manager had been advised of his arrival, he was treated with exquisite courtesy. He immediately inquired whether Professor Kreutz, who was in the habit of staying in this hotel almost every weekend, had already arrived. He was disappointed to learn that this was not so, nor had any letter been left for him with the porter.

  A few minutes later he went to his room. He took a warm bath, and by the time he had breakfasted all his troubles were forgotten.

  Elena’s woman friend, the sender of the fateful telegram which had prompted his journey to Berlin, soon rang him up:

  “Welcome to Berlin,” her voice intoned over the telephone. Andreas immediately recognized the voice of Baroness Schildt, whom he had met in Paris on a number of occasions with Grete and their two friends.

  “We have everything ready. And so that no time may be lost, some specialists whom Werner Kreutz has been consulting will be getting into touch with you, probably today or tomorrow.”

  Some minutes later, Professor Arns, a doctor whom he had never heard of before, made an appointment with him for twelve o’clock.

  And scarcely had this visit been arranged than the telephone rang again. Niels Hvide, an o
ld Copenhagen friend, a lawyer and a poet at the same time, who had been living in Berlin for years, called him up.

  “Hello, Andreas.”

  “How do you know that …”

  “Grete sent me a long telegram yesterday, and early this morning an express letter from her followed. The letter has therefore been racing you. You must come and see us at once. Inger and I will keep the morning coffee hot until you arrive.”

  An address and directions were hastily written down. A few minutes afterwards Andreas was on his way, and half an hour later he was in his friend’s house.

  A splendid fellow, this Niels – a blond giant from North Jutland, where his family were old landed proprietors.

  Inger, his wife, was of the modern cultivated woman type. Henna-red hair contrasted piquantly with her large blue eyes. Both were globe-trotters. Grete and Andreas had often undertaken long journeys with them together. Intimate as they had all been with one another, however, Niels and his wife had hitherto been unaware of Andreas’ secret.

  He was received most cordially. They had breakfast and spoke about indifferent subjects as long as Inger was in the room. Then Niels blurted out:

  “Grete has told me something which I can’t quite understand in this letter which came early this morning. You can, of course, read it.”

  Andreas retorted. “No; the letter is addressed to you.”

  On the walls of the room hung a few pictures, painted by Grete and by Andreas. Involuntarily Andreas looked up at them. The first picture, painted by Grete, was – Lili.

  “Yes,” said Niels delicately, “now I understand a good deal of what used to seem like a fantastic idea about you both – seeing you crop up so often as a female model in Grete’s pictures.”

  A brief silence followed this remark.

  “Well, old fellow,” resumed Niels, “some hints which Grete let fall about you a year ago in Paris showed me then that your life appeared to be taking a strange turn. Whether the change that is now in store for you is a happy or a disastrous one, you can be assured of this – that you have entrusted your fate here to the best and most conscientious hands. Everything now depends upon whether you will have the strength to go through with it. You seem tired. But” – and Niels laughed merrily – “it really is a most extraordinary thing for a man to be faced with the choice of whether he will survive in this world of multiplying sensations as Andreas, or” – and then he pointed to the picture – “as Lili.”

  Andreas looked hard at his friend. “Faced with the choice, you say … No, I do not think it is a question of that, but of something much more serious, of life or death, in fact; for believe me, the man you are talking to is condemned to death. And now the question is, whether that being – there” – and he pointed to the portrait, “can be summoned into existence and take up the battle of life.”

  Niels now spoke very seriously. “Yes, and what seems to be the most important thing at the moment is that you should be perfectly clear in your own mind how this strange, fantastic change which you have been undergoing from childhood until now – that is, during a normal human life – has been proceeding; in what gradual manner, therefore, Lili has been gaining the upper hand over Andreas.”

  “That is so,” replied Andreas, looking at his watch; “but now I must be off to my first arbiter of life and death, to Professor Arns. And when I have finished with him I must probably go further … through the whole round.”

  “Agreed,” laughed Niels jovially; “and when you have finished your lesson you will come again to us. And now, neck or nothing!”

  *

  Professor Arns, the inventor of a new method of blood-testing, received Andreas in a very considerate manner. He put a series of questions which, although of a delicate nature, were answered by Andreas without the least hesitation.

  Einar Wegener (Andreas Sparre), Gerda Wegener (Grete Sparre), two French friends, Chambord, France, 1926

  During the long and elaborate examinations – (the main thing was to determine the vital condition of Lili in Andreas by an analysis of his blood) – Andreas exerted all his will-power to exclude thought. The doctor conducted him from the study into a comfortably furnished room. “If you would like to smoke, please do so,” he said. After chatting for a short time about unimportant things, Professor Arns intimated to his patient that he must now submit himself for a special examination by his friend Dr Hardenfeld, the sexual psychologist. “My colleague Hardenfeld has had so much experience in the more ‘emotional’ sphere – whatever we may think of this from the scientific standpoint – that I, at any rate, cannot ignore his opinion in what may so specially affect your person. When they have dismissed you there, you will have to go to Dr Karner, another colleague. He and I, in fact, have to determine the hormone content of your blood, while Hardenfeld has to pronounce a purely psychological opinion upon you and the person in you whom you call Lili. In any case I shall be glad if you will call on me again tomorrow morning. The result of these various ‘tests’ to which we have to subject you will then be forwarded to your protector, Professor Kreutz.”

  “Your protector.” These words made Andreas’ heart beat faster, and when, shortly afterwards, he was sitting in a waiting room of the spacious Institute for Psychiatry, he was obliged to keep repeating these two words to himself – otherwise all his courage would have oozed away. “Why have I been sent here?” he wondered. “What have I to do here?” He felt intensely uncomfortable. In this large room a group of abnormal persons seemed to be holding a meeting – women who appeared to be dressed up as men, and men of whom one could scarcely believe that they were men. The manner in which they were conversing disgusted him; their movements, their voices, the way in which they were attired, produced a feeling of nausea.

  At length Dr Hardenfeld appeared and ushered him into his consulting-room. With a thousand penetrating questions, this man explored the patient’s emotional life for hours. Andreas had to submit to an inquisition of the most ruthless kind. The shame of shamelessness is something that actually exists, he thought, during these hours, and clung to this definition, which he had once found in some philosophical work, in an effort to banish the feeling he had of standing there as if in the pillory. His emotional life was undergoing an ordeal which resembled running the gauntlet.

  And when this torture came at last to an end, the inquisitor dismissed him with the words: “I shall expect you tomorrow morning at the same time.”

  Then it was Dr Karner’s turn. Andreas had by now acquired a sort of routine in answering the questions put to him. This examination took the form of a conversation throughout. Before Andreas was aware of it, he found himself in the midst of a real “masculine conversation,” its theme being the political relations between France and Germany. And thus, quite incidentally, the doctor introduced a long, fine syringe into Andreas’ arm, in order to take a blood test.

  Dr Karner also dismissed him with the words: “And I will see you again in the morning.”

  Exhausted by his ordeal, Andreas at length made his way to Niels and Inger Hvide in the evening.

  “No,” he exclaimed, “don’t ask me anything now. I am not fit to answer questions. Let us rather take a good long walk through your Babylon on the Spree round the Kurfürstendamm. I must see men, healthy men.”

  Inger had a previous engagement for the evening; but Niels accepted his friend’s proposal with alacrity.

  They proceeded first to a Russian restaurant, where they enjoyed a supper of many courses, washed down with several glasses of vodka. Then they sampled German,

  French, Hungarian, and Spanish wines in bars and cafés of the most various kind. To the surprise of them both, Andreas proved a good tippling comrade this evening.

  “Your health, Andreas!” said Niels, who had again remarked his friend’s astonishing drinking capacity. “You are really a strange fellow. This evening you are behaving just like a rake – and tomorrow you will perhaps be insisting that henceforth I must treat you like a lady. When
I look at you I can hardly believe that there is not something wonderful about it all. But perhaps from the very beginning not only have two souls dwelt within your breast in the sense of Goethe, but two beings, two whole beings. I hardly know how to express myself.”

  Andreas regarded him calmly. “I know what you are trying to get at. It is difficult to make head or tail of this change; difficult for me, but much more difficult for others. And the strangest thing of all, believe me, is that each of the beings within me is healthy and perfectly normal in its emotional life.”

  “And it is just that which is perhaps the abnormal and incredible thing about your case,” declared Neils. “I have known you for years, I mean” – and then he laughed slightly – “as Andreas, for you have been silent about Lili to us friends. And as a man you have always seemed to me unquestionably healthy. I have, indeed, seen with my own eyes that you attract women, and that is the clearest proof that you are a genuine fellow.” He paused, and then placed his hand on Andreas’ shoulder. “You won’t take it amiss if I ask you a frank question?”

  Andreas stared at him. “Niels, if you knew what kind of questions I have had to answer today you would not behave so solemnly about the matter.”

  “Well, then, Andreas, have you at any time been interested in your own kind? You know what I mean.”

  Andreas shook his head calmly. “My word on it, Niels; never in my life. And I can add that those kind of creatures have never shown any interest in me.”

  “Good, Andreas! That’s just what I thought.”

  “I will honestly and plainly confess to you, Niels, that I have always been attracted to women. And today as much as ever. A most banal confession!”

  Niels raised his glass. “And now we will drink to the future. Let come what may! Go right through with it! If you had lived in the time of the old Greeks, perhaps they would have made you a demi-god. In the Middle Ages they would have burnt you, for miracles were then forbidden. But today doctors are, at any rate, permitted to accomplish something like a miracle. Thus we will drink to the day that is coming.”