Lili Read online

  “Once I had taken this decision I felt relieved. Now I knew that there would be an end of this torture within a measurable period of time.

  “My health worsened from day to day. And the moment came when Grete perceived the danger that I could not remain in Rome any longer, that a return to Paris, where we knew some trustworthy doctors, was urgently necessary.

  “Unutterably depressed, we left Rome – and Ridolfo Feruzzi – one sunny spring morning much earlier than we had planned.

  “In Paris, in our native environment, my condition apparently improved. Again we visited a few specialists, but always with a negative result. Eventually a radiologist took me in hand. The treatment almost cost me my life, and I was nearly relieved of the necessity of killing myself on the appointed first of May.

  “As the Parisian summer was too warm, we withdrew to Versailles, in the neighbourhood of the Park. Our life resumed its normal course. Neither Grete nor I were fond of making much fuss about our woes, our joys and sorrows. Work is the best doctor, I said to myself. And as often as my condition permitted, I went into the Park with my paintbox, just as I did in former years. And Lili came as often as she liked, to distract Grete and herself.

  “The only person who had a fairly clear perception of my condition was Claude Lejeune. At that period he was a comforter to us both. Without the need of many words, he divined what was concealed behind the apparent calm which Grete and I – and Lili – showed him on all his visits. When he came on Sunday, the old gaiety reigned once more among us.

  “If we had not had Claude Lejeune at that time … “He, like Grete, had long realized that the only thing that was still vital within me was Lili. This they believed firmly. And hence they both encouraged Lili to come as often as she liked.

  “Claude Lejeune often took long walks with her through the Park of Versailles, forging plans for the future. “On one such evening, when the setting sun had turned to molten gold all the windows of the palace and the smooth surface of the water in the pond, they were strolling arm in arm along the terrace. Suddenly they heard a lady say to her companion in passing: ‘Look! Two happy people!’

  “Most of our friends and acquaintances understood my condition much better than all the doctors whom we had consulted. Of course, their sympathy was limited to words. Nevertheless, their words often gave me moral support. They saw in me an overweighted man, whose sufferings were a real martyrdom, and not, as the French doctors declared over and over again, imagination and hysteria.

  “One day I met an elderly French painter in Trianon. We had known each other for years, but had not seen each other for a long time. He inquired sympathetically after my health. I answered evasively, without betraying the least hint of the real state of the case.

  “To my astonishment he made answer in my place.

  “I have been observing you for some time, without your having noticed it, here in the Park, when you are painting. I have been struck with the complete change that has come over you during recent years. Formerly you gave one the fresh, sharp impression of a healthy man. Now, if you will pardon my saying so, the effect you have on me is for all the world like that of a girl impersonating a man. You are ill. You are even very ill. You are undergoing a transformation. It is a fantastic idea; but what has never been before may become actuality tomorrow. We have known of cases of inversion for a long time, and doctors can deal with them. Why shouldn’t you also be helped? It is to be hoped you will find a courageous and imaginative doctor. Everything depends on this. Of course, you will wonder how a poor painter can find the enormous fee for such an undertaking. Let us hope, nevertheless, that you will find a man prepared to assist you for humane and scientific reasons.’

  “These and similar expressions of understanding were like little oases in my progress through the desert, and they gave me courage and strength to prolong yet a little further my hopeless quest of a saviour.

  “During this last summer at Versailles I began to notice that when I was standing in the street, or walking in the Park, people often stared at me in astonishment, even in the shops which I had been accustomed to visit for years. I had occasionally been aware of the same thing in Paris during recent years, but never to the same extent as was now the case in Versailles. Moreover, Parisians are the most cultivated, the most indifferent and the most blasé people in the world, while the Versaillese are provincial.

  “One bright morning when I wanted to reach the Park quickly, in order to paint, I took a short cut through a corridor of the Hôtel des Reservoirs, where several young waiters were standing.

  “I scarcely noticed them, but I had only gone a few steps when I heard behind me in pure Copenhagen slang the words: ‘Look at that smart girl in trousers going to paint!’

  “Incidentally I may observe that the hotels in Versailles are full of Danish waiters – I do not know why. Probably because German and Austrian waiters were mainly employed before the War, and, no doubt, owing to their knowledge of languages.

  “Enough! I behaved as if I had heard nothing, but went on my way pondering on the meaning of this compliment – and then it began to dawn on me why I had attracted attention everywhere in recent times.

  “A few days later the wife of our house porter, with whom I was on the best of terms said to me: ‘Monsieur must not be angry with me if I confide to Monsieur that the shopkeepers in the neighbourhood where Madame and Monsieur make their purchases will not believe that Monsieur is a monsieur.’ With eyes starting out of her head and mouth wide open she stood stock still while I answered with a smile: ‘Madame, I am very much inclined to agree with the shopkeepers.’

  “These and similar incidents showed me that the situation was beginning to be paradoxical. Lili could not show herself in the street on her own account, because she and I shared the same body – although not a soul took any notice of her whenever she walked abroad, apart from occasional pursuers. I, on the other hand, was stared at everywhere. Although I was dressed perfectly correctly as a man and took long masculine strides, people took me for a girl masquerading as a man.

  “It was not to be endured.

  “In the autumn, when we returned to Paris, I noticed that I was beginning to attract attention there also, although it mostly found expression in a somewhat more discreet manner. In the tube, or in the bus, or in the tram, I frequently caught looks and words from people who were watching me. The few remarks that I occasionally overheard were enough to convince me that the opinion of the shopkeepers in Versailles was shared by others. With my thorough knowledge of the sophistication of Parisians in general it became doubly clear to me that I was really on the way to becoming a sensation – and this fact made me more and more nervous. My nerves, which had been weakened by the sufferings of long years, simply revolted: they could no longer bear the sight of me pursued everywhere by wondering and curious simian grimaces. This molestation by my fellows utterly depressed me.

  “Thus I went again to the heart specialist with whom I was acquainted. Grete had called on him a few days before and had tried to explain to him my and Lili’s double life – and he had promised her to take me to another specialist in Versailles – although, personally, he regarded the whole thing as a fixed idea of mine, and exclusively as a ‘diseased imagining without any physical foundation’.

  “‘Your husband is healthy. His body is normal. I am speaking from a thorough knowledge, from a thorough examination of his body, madame.’ Such was the wisdom of his concluding remarks.

  “This visit to the new specialist in Versailles was to be my last experiment, I had solemnly sworn to Grete and myself, before we set out on the journey. On my arrival I immediately received the impression that the two doctors had settled their plan of campaign in advance: they wanted to try to drive out of me my hysterical ideas and whims. After an extremely superficial examination I was told point blank that I was a perfectly normal man without any defect whatever, and that all I had to do was to try to behave as a man with energy and good humour, i
n order to be able to lead once more the life of an ordinary man masculini generis. During this summary of their profound judgment they regarded me with scarcely veiled irony: they looked upon me as an hysterical subject, plainly as a fraud, and one of them, the ‘new specialist’, even hinted that I was really homosexual. This suggestion almost broke down my self-control. If Grete had not saved the situation by a ringing laugh, repudiating on my behalf the supposition as utterly absurd, I should have seized the fellow by the throat.

  “After this hopeless consultation, which profoundly depressed us both, my last reserves of strength were exhausted. And I swore to myself that henceforth no power on earth would induce me to consult new doctors. I would not run the risk of being degraded again for the amusement of the medicos.

  “I said to myself that as my case has never been known in the history of the medical art, it simply did not exist, it simply could not exist. Thus my doom, which was also Lili’s doom, was sealed. All that now remained for me to do was to go on living with all the patience that I could muster until the short term that I had set to my life had expired.

  “Outwardly, nothing changed in the routine of our daily life. I was even cheerful when friends or acquaintances visited us, but particularly so in my behaviour towards Grete, as I was afraid that she might see through me. That she was seriously perturbed I could divine from her whole attitude. She kept her feelings well under control, and generally showed me a smiling countenance, behind which she was able to hide her despondency. She had become so restless. Frequently, when she believed that I was not observing her, she would look at me furtively with an air of such strange inquiry that I feared she suspected my plans.

  “During these weeks I had only one desire: to hear music. Concerts I could no longer attend, as I dared not see people. Consequently, I bought large numbers of gramophone records, classical and modern music, all mixed up anyhow, and during long evenings our gramophone played far into the night. I swallowed everything that was music – gay and tragic, the most banal and the most solemn, the most melodious and the most discordant music – provided only it were music. It was my comforter, whether it moved me to tears or prompted me to join merrily in some chorus, or even invite Grete to dance with me.

  “At that time I lived on music. If I could not sleep, I fled to music. If I was unable to open my eyes in the morning, Grete would fetch the gramophone from the studio to my bedside. It was not that I was abnormally receptive or sensitive. I was never less sensitive than at this time. I merely felt utterly lost, abandoned to a fate which transcended human understanding. Music, the language of the soul, liberated me. Not to have to speak myself, not to have to give shape to my hopeless brooding, not to think myself nor clothe my vague ideas in words, was my daily and nightly prayer.

  “Formerly I had found distraction in reading. Now I never opened a book or journal. What were the fates of strange persons to me, unless I could find consolation in reading about a person of my own kind? But of such a person no author had been able to write, because it had never occurred to any author that such a person could ever have existed. How could the philosophies of the Greeks and of the present time assist me, which only tell us of the thoughts of men and of the thoughts of women in separate bodies and brains and souls? Plato’s Symposium … hitherto it had been my refuge. Plato was acquainted with persons on the borderline of both emotional worlds, that of man and that of woman. ‘Mixed beings’ they are called. But here in my sickly body dwelt two beings, separate from each other, unrelated to each other, hostile to each other, although they had compassion on each other, as they knew that this body had room only for one of them.

  “One of these two beings had to disappear, or else both had to perish. During these nights I was obsessed by the delusion that this body did not belong to me alone, that my share in this body grew less day by day, as it enclosed in its interior a being which demanded its existence at the price of my existence. I seemed to myself like a deceiver, like a usurper who reigned over a body which had ceased to be his, like a person who owned merely the façade of his house.

  “Now and then Lili would still appear, and Grete was delighted every time she came. Lili was gayer than I. Both of us knew this. And Lili knew it was in her power to comfort Grete. Sometimes, at Grete’s request, she remained for several days. In Lili’s company Grete was more easily able to bear the nights. Lili could fall asleep more easily. And when she slept, Grete, too, was able to sleep. Lili often wept without Grete remarking it. Lili had always possessed her own dream world. She had always had such delightful dreams. Now her dreams had vanished. They revisited her just for a few nights. And every dream was a continuation of the previous one. It was winter, and she would dream of a coming spring which was very sunny. She told Grete these dreams, but she felt that they were only dreams. And then would come fear. The next night, however, a still more beautiful dream would drive her fear away. Grete once told me that she had secretly recorded many of these dreams in her diary. And she said this as if she were betraying a secret.

  “‘Lili has dreamed you a romance,’ I said to her, and turned empty away.

  “But this dream-romance became the favourite subject of conversation between Grete and Lili during those dark days, and these talks were the only thing that gave Grete and Lili new courage and kept alive their hope that a miracle would somehow happen.

  “Thus we reached February. Elena and Ernesto were in Paris again. And one morning Elena took me with her to the strange man from Germany. Now it is the third of March. In less than two months it will be the first of May. That is the extreme limit of the period which I gave myself. Then Andreas Sparre will exist no longer. Whether Lili will survive this day and live out her own life rests in the hands of Werner Kreutz.”

  IX

  When Andreas entered his hotel, it was almost morning. He stood at the window of his bedroom and gazed down at the large square in front of the railway station. A number of taxis were there, a few belated pedestrians. A gleam of light was visible from the glass wall of the long narrow booking-hall.

  He was very tired.

  Slowly he undressed. He stood nude in front of the mirror. He thought of an expression he had used that evening: “I am like one who only owns the façade of his house.” The mirror in front of him showed him the façade. It was the unblemished body of a man.

  After a few hours he awoke in a cheerful humour, took a bath, breakfasted, punctually paid, one after another, his last visits to the various doctors, and felt almost carefree. In the middle of the Leipziger Strasse he heard a child’s voice whisper: “Look, mamma, a woman in man’s clothes.” He turned round, and encountered a frightened look in two girlish eyes, probably a ten-year-old, with a thick, fair pigtail; the child blushed a fiery red and clutched hold of her mother, who regarded him with as much astonishment as her daughter, and then hurried along with the child.

  A remarkable feeling of grim defiance welled up in him. Without meaning to, or even being aware of his action, he remained standing in front of a shop window, gazing inquiringly at his own reflection in the smooth plate-glass window. Irritably he muttered to himself. “There is nothing more to be done with me. There is nothing more to be done with me.” Several times he repeated this sentence, and then looked at his watch. It was half past four in the afternoon, and at five o’clock he had to be in Professor Gebhard’s sanatorium.

  He found himself in Potsdamer Platz and entered the post office. In the huge telephone directory he looked up the number of Baroness Schildt, whom he really ought to have visited before, and asked to be connected. She was not at home. He despatched a few hasty lines by post:

  “Dear Baroness,

  “Do not be angry if you should not see me again. In a few minutes I shall be calling a taxi and proceeding to my own funeral tomb, Professor Gebhard’s sanatorium. Whatever happens, think kindly of me. And if Lili should alone survive, do not let her be quite alone. I know that not all my men friends are her friends, but I should like h
er to inherit my women friends.”

  He threw the letter into the bag of the postman who was just emptying the blue pillar-box. He pressed a shilling into the worthy fellow’s hand. The postman looked at him astonished. Before the man could thank him, Andreas was in the nearest taxi. He gave the driver the exact address of the nursing-home, and punctually at five o’clock entered the sanatorium.

  He was immediately led to the house-surgeon, who regarded him with a benevolent mien.

  “I have just had a long telephone conversation with my colleague Kreutz about your case,” the Professor began. “Previously I had been talking to Doctor Arns about it. He will be present at the operation which I have to perform. I should now like to have the opportunity of making your acquaintance. A personal impression is very desirable.”

  Andreas answered to the point: “Please, Professor, ask me what you like.” But the Professor preferred a physical examination to all questions, requested him to undress and lie down upon an adjacent sofa of a type which had become very familiar to him since he had been in Berlin. “Yes,” declared the Professor, after making a detailed examination, “in yourself you are entirely what you represent yourself to be in civic life, a man, but at the same time your body undoubtedly shows a female conformation. I am surprised at the state of affairs.” And while Andreas was dressing himself again, the surgeon paced the room thoughtfully, regarded the patient without pausing, glanced at his diary, and then said: “I know you are in a hurry. Come early tomorrow morning.”

  “That is not convenient Professor, because I am to be photographed by Doctor Hardenfeld at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning before the operation, at Professor Kreutz’s wishes.”

  “Good,” declared Professor Gebhard, after again consulting his diary; “four o’clock in the afternoon will also be convenient. Today is Monday … then tomorrow, Tuesday, afternoon.”