BALTHASAR’S EXTRACT (The Titanic Era Diary of Evelyn Westcott) Part VI Evi Westcott is a turn-of-the-20th Century Alpha female, impatient with the roles polite society has assigned to women — including accidental women like herself — and in a hurry to set things straight. Evi is now nineteen and in love. In fin de siecle Europe, she’s learned about Life in its astonishing diversity. In this chapter, she returns to Baltimore to face a crisis that threatens all of ‘Tottie’s Girls’ — the dozen gender-dsyphoric youth who like Evelyn depend for their happiness on a secure supply of ‘Balthasar’s extract.’

1911 is a fine time to be young. The world is full of new things — the automobile, the aeroplane, social consciousness, moving pictures, mental hygiene and ragtime. Women are dumping the corset and demanding the vote, kicking over the pedestals upon which Victorian Sensibility has placed them. It is a time of creativity and experimentation in the natural sciences, of rapidly growing comprehension of how ‘internal secretions’ regulated human physiology.

Join Evi as she and Aunt Enid bid 'arrivaderci' to baroque, boisterous, sensual Roma. Or, if you are new to this series, begin at the beginning (Part I, some 95,000 words ago) or go to the end of this chapter for a very short synopsis of the story so far.

Copyright August 2008 - Daphne Laprov

April 18, 1911. By the time I returned to the Villa Caracalla, it was long past luncheon. Steamer trunks and portemanteaus lay open all about our rooms. Aunt Enid and Pegeen were wrestling clothes into them. “Where have you been,” my aunt grumbled. “I am at my wit’s end in this heat. All these presents. . . .” She regarded a life-sized gilt cherub doubtfully. “This thing — whatever was Gustavo Morabbi thinking? Well, there is no helping it. We shall need another steamer trunk just for gifts that we could not refuse.”

April 19. We are gone from Rome. A mad dash this morning, and then the four of us — Aunt Enid, Lady Violet Davyss-Clem, Rupert Roark and I, plus Pegeen of course -- and our great heap of luggage were aboard the Rapido fully 15 minutes before it departed the Terminale. The rail journey to Paris, the conductor has just stopped by to say, will take twenty-nine hours at an average speed of 50 kilometers an hour. After Milan, we will pass through the Mount Cenis Tunnel beneath the Alps. Our car is one of the newest Wagons-Lit; we shall be quite cozy, there can be no doubt of it.

They are trying to coax me into a game of cards. I would much rather dream of my dear Anna.

April 20. Exhausted, I have slept much of the way from Rome. My aunt and I will pass only three nights in Paris, so we have taken rooms at the Victoria Regina, a new hotel named for Britain’s late sovereign. We shall see the dressmakers for alterations and repairs. My aunt will visit again with Mme Alexis LeBlanc and her other Parisian friends of long standing. I shall call at the Cone sisters’ and Etienne Downey and his mother will call upon us. Rupert and Lady Violet, meanwhile, have pushed on to England. Rupert was quivering — there’s no other word for it — with anticipation of his reunion with Winifred Clem!

April 21. Etienne Downey, the Annamite step-brother of my dearest chum, has become a handsome youth. His French now far outshines mine. He is trying to grow a moustache with scant success. Etienne’s mother’s name is not “Bik-Nok,” as Mrs. Downey reported, but “Bá­ch Ngọc,” which means “blue pearl” in her language. Etienne corrected my spelling, but threw up his hands at teaching me to pronounce her name properly. She has but lately arrived in Paris for an extended visit and wisely has not adopted European costume. Mme. Bá­ch Ngọc is utterly graceful in her long silken dress. It is cut tight about the bodice, whilst the skirt is slit on either side to the hip and worn over long silk pantaloons. It is alluring and modest at the same time. She wears her hair up, in a braid wrapped in a cylinder of black velvet. Etienne says that only unmarried girls wear their hair loose in his country.

Now we have even more objects to fill our bulging trunks. Mme. Bá­ch Ngọc Downey has pressed upon me teas and strings of pearls, exquisite lacquer bowls and yards of raw silk in a luscious celadon shade. She has brought it all the way from Saigon; now I am to take to Dorothy and her mother, the original and therefore senior Mrs. Downey. For me and my aunt, there are cunningly beaded slippers and candied fruits.

O, I was at quite a loss to reciprocate until I remembered the several dozens of fine kidskin gloves I have bought in Rome for friends in America. Happily, the smallest sizes fit the Annamite lady’s hands quite well. She professed herself delighted. After another cup of tea, still bowing and understanding scarcely a word I said, wearing the gloves, she took her leave with her son.

April 22. I have called at American Express for our letters. None are from Anna. Martin Tolliver reports he is well and will work again this summer with the famous aviator, Mr. Glenn Curtiss. Winnie promises me a ‘jolly time’ in London. From Vienna, Sasha reports that he has made a new friend, another ‘man who appreciates me (i.e., Sasha) for what I am.’ There is an alarming note from Dorothy. She visited the laboratory to review accounts with Balthasar, and found our friend clearly upset — why, he would not say, but Doro is sure it pertains to Caesar. The boy was positively ‘skulking and scowling,’ she says. It is good that at last I am on my way home, my chum adds — she will be overjoyed to see me and have my help again managing “our business.’

Magnus Hirschfeld reports he has met with representatives of the great German chemical company, GMBH Merck. They are interested in Balthasar’s elixir, he reports, and request samples for their analysis. He proposes that I send, at the least, an outline of the chemical processes and a sum of money to defray his marketing expenses. I am seriously annoyed! Dr. Hirschfeld knows he is putting the cart before the horse. Whilst still in Vienna, I told him that at the right time, I will supply Dr. Nathan Weiss’s summaries of ‘Gynol’s’ therapeutic effects, but I will not reveal the details of its chemistry until there is a firm agreement as to the ownership and use of this knowledge. Replying rather stiffly to Hirschfeld’s presumptuous letter, I told him that when Merck or Schering or Hoechst is ready to make a proper contract, I will come to Germany to meet them, with the samples — and not until then.

April 23. Aunt Enid and I are enroute to Calais and the ferry for Dover. Wrapped with Gustav Klimt’s drawings of me is now yet another sketch, the work of the avante-garde artist who styles himself ‘Picasso.’ He is a great friend of Clarabel and Etta Cone. When I called at their apartment yesterday morning to pick up some packages for Rachel Klimintz in Baltimore, Seá±or Picasso was there, holding the sisters in thrall with bombastic declamations such as (if I understood his broken French properly) "There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." When he finally settled down, I said I had admired his work at the Petit Palais last summer. Picasso was not shy; he proposed on the spot that I should sit for him in the nude. I assented, charmed by his impudence. In the afternoon at his studio, Picasso dashed off several sketches, then gave me my choice of them.

I think in America there is not yet anything quite like these sketches. They are as though I were refracted and reassembled so that I am seen from every aspect at once. The new technique is called ‘cubism.’ Miss Etta, who kindly accompanied me to the studio as my protector from the ‘greatest satyr in Paris,’ says that M. Picasso and another artist named Braque are its foremost practitioners.

April 25. Our journey is now a film winding backwards towards America and Baltimore. London is lovely, lush and green with the spring rains. Aunt and I have refused the Clems’ gracious invitation and tucked in instead at the Mayfair, which is nearby on Grosvenor Square opposite the American Embassy. Winifred Clem and I have had a joyous reunion. Win has amused herself by writing a novel for girls; it takes place at a thinly-disguised American school, and its heroine is a sort of perfected version of — me! (100 percent girl, of course! — Win has no idea that I am anything but.) The book is already in its third printing, and ‘Ooh, it’s bringing in heaps of money,’ she giggled. A sequel is imminent, and an American edition is selling well.

Win and Rupert have reached an understanding. All the while he was assisting at Lady Violet’s excavations in Palestine, Rupert bombarded Win with the most clever and passionate letters. They are to be married as soon as he has secured a proper academic appointment. His brilliant success decoding the Philistine shards practically assures it. The parents on both sides approve the match.

And, Diary, I have met a friend of ‘Henrietta’ Halloran. Miss Beatrix Triscuit-Cheevers claims to be the best young swordswoman in England; indeed she may be. I have just missed Harry; Beatrix answered when I ‘phoned’ his flat. Miss Ella’s travesty troupe is off to North America again after another triumphant winter in London.

Beatrix is tall and slim. She wears her hair bobbed, and it’s as easy to imagine her in tights and doublet, fighting off a gang of robbers, as it is to imagine Harry in one of his ‘Henrietta’ roles. Beatrix has been a student at Miss Ella’s new school of impersonation. For tuition, she gave Harry lessons for a new act in which the lovely ‘Henrietta’ fends off a brigand who has climbed into her chamber until help (in the form of Beatrix, as the noble youth D’Arcy D’Absynthe) arrives and then somehow, after a general melee, the robbers are entirely foiled.

Beatrix is extremely fond of Henry (and she says, he of her) but marriage is out of the question; Papa (the inventor of the cracker that bears his name --Triscuit, not Cheevers, and very popular in Britain) will settle  £20,000 annually on her but only if she marries as he wishes. “You Americans are quite romantic about marriage, aren’t you?” she asked me. “Some of us are,” I said, “and some of us are so hopelessly romantic that marriage is beyond our imagination.”

April 26. A letter from Anna has caught up with me! It is dated April 18, the day I left Rome. She has cried all night, she says, but is trying to be brave. The ring I gave her is her talisman and the token of my promised return, Anna says.

A telephone call from Rupert interrupted my reverie. “Winnie and I are going round to visit some friends of ours this evening, the Stephen girls. Wouldn’t you like to come?”

I answered yes, I would like that. “Ripping. Look, a friend from Cambridge will come along too. Don’t worry, he’s not a quarter so boring as Toby Whyfford. Can be charming. Other than Winnie, I think Lytton Strachey’s the only person in the world who’s confessed to falling in love with me. Regrettably, I could not indulge him — it’s just not the way I am. He’s a splendid chap.”

The “Stephen girls” turned out to be a pair of sisters, Vanessa and Virginia. They keep a sort of open house for a collection of literary friends and other ex-Cambridge boys. “Evi, please don’t mention my book,” whispered Winnie; “these are serious writers.”

Rupert overheard her. “Not one has published a thing one would want to read, just impenetrable essays and poems in obscure magazines. I should think they’d be jealous of you, pet.”

The four of us were shown into a large room where a dozen or so young men and women were in boisterous conversation. “Hey, what!” cried one, “Scratchey’s brought Rupert, back from the digs!”

“That isn’t the half of it,” replied Lytton. “May I present the creator of Alison Ainsley -- and her real-life prototype? Here’s Rupert’s fiancee, Winifred Clem, the only writer amongst us who has made any real money, and Evelyn Westcott, model for the heroine of The New Girl.

The evening was great fun. Of the ‘Bloomsburies’ (as they style themselves). Virginia Stephen is particularly appealing. She is a slim, intense woman with large, luminous eyes, a great intellect and a habit of asking direct questions. I think she might scare off a lot of men. Virginia had read Winnie’s book “of course, at one go,” and then gone out to buy copies for her nieces. “It was because of you,” she added. “If you are but half as terrific as Alison Ainsley, you are the daredevil girl we all wanted to be. My nieces loved the book, too, and cannot endure waiting for the next one.”

“I seem to be the only one who hasn’t read it yet,” I replied with a shrug, “yet I assure you that Win must have prettied me up beyond recognition.”

“Are you here for long? My nieces would adore to meet you.”

“No,” I said, “we leave for America on the 30th.”

“Well, then, come back soon. Come in the summer; we’ll invite you down to Cornwall.”

April 28. A flurry of repacking today whilst chatting with Win. She is plotting the chapters of two more Alison Ainsley books. “I think I’ll have you disguised as a boy for the stunt at the windmill — what do you think? Or maybe infiltrate you into St. Dunstan’s to steal their mascot? And Evi, tell me again about your friends’ masquerade ball — the one you attended as Shakespeare’s Ganymede.”

Good grief! Has she somehow latched on to who I really am? “O, Winnie, do compose yourself. I am . . . not . . . Alison Ainsley, supergirl.”

My friend put down her notebook, rose and stood directly before me. She put a hand on each of my shoulders and said “to me, Evelyn, you are indeed Supergirl. You changed my life. I was a frumpy little thing, a mouse, until I met you — until you became my friend and my inspiration.”

Of course this moment dissolved into a fond hug. “You silly goose,” was all I could think to say. “Your achievements will put us all to shame.”

April 29. Aunt Enid and I have missed our express train for Liverpool and must take the ordinary that leaves in an hour. We were slowed by a huge demonstration at Leicester Square, damnably ill-timed. Both the suffragettes and the police were out in force, rumors of a bomb planted, traffic all tied up of course.

April 30. What a relief, after a wretched, sleepless night on the train, at last to be on board the Lusitania!

May 1. It must be lovely in Baltimore now, the magnolias in full flower and the dogwood trees in Druid Park just beginning their show. I am so eager to be home, to see Dorothy and Rachel, Alexandra Cooper, Balthasar Bishop, Eleanor and Sally Campbell and so many other friends again. Billy Barkell’s a second year Midshipman now. And what shall I do about poor, dear, dull Martin Tolliver? I fear I have allowed him to cherish a hopeless dream.

And what awaits me, Diary, after nearly a year abroad? Most of all, I have pinned my hopes on a letter from the University of Chicago admitting me to its medical college. Although the people at Johns Hopkins will not concede it, by many accounts Chicago is the best in the nation, perhaps even the world.

May 2. I am thinking sadly of Anna. I posted her a letter just before we sailed. Whatever may befall us both, nothing can dim my memory of our sweet times together, I said. No one, man nor woman, has set me on fire like my sweet, smart, loving Anna. I return to America, I said, resolved to ‘make something’ of myself, but absolutely firm in my conviction that we shall, must be reunited some glorious day ere long.

May 3. We saw icebergs today. Assistant Purser Scott said it is late in the season, but there they were, great massive floating islands of dark ice. Nine-tenths of their mass is below the surface. I shuddered to think what might happen if a ship — even a vessel as large as the Lusitania — should collide with one in the night. The Assistant Purser dismissed my fears. It has never happened he reasoned, and were it to happen, the great liners have so many watertight compartments that they are unsinkable.

May 4. Edward Westcott was born nineteen years ago today. Aunt Enid and I have celebrated his (and therefore my own) birthday with champagne, and reminisced about my first days as her ward. “In truth, when I agreed to take you in,” she said, “I had not the slightest idea what to do with you. Certainly I did not intend to convert you into a girl, but [here my aunt paused]. . . once I observed that your manner was unconsciously somewhat feminine, and how very sad you were, it seemed the only solution. A desperate one indeed, and yet, now look at you, Evelyn! What a lovely and well-bred young woman you have become.”

I could only blush. I do love my aunt so.

May 5. Tomorrow morning we shall disembark in New York. Aunt Enid has promised me we will stay overnight to see Harry Halloran on stage as the celebrated Miss Henrietta. Harry wrote to me in England that the Ella Shields troupe has sold out the house (one of the grand theatres on 14th Street) since mid-March. Word of their brilliant success in London has made the revue a must-see; fortunately, Harry has tickets arranged for us. I have long white kid gloves for Henrietta, and for him from Beatrix Triscuit-Cheevers, a large tin of those crackers.

May 6. A Western Union boy banged on our stateroom door at dawn with a urgent telegram from Dorothy. I must have read her words a hundred times; still the message was the same. “Please come at once! Balthasar is arrested, the laboratory sealed as ‘evidence.’ Don’t know why, can’t think what to do! Urgently, Dorothy.”

It took us forever to disembark. Of course I ran for the telephone, but all I could learn, when Dorothy at last lifted the receiver, is that narcotic drugs were found, that Caesar Bishop has gone missing, and that the police wish to question Aunt Enid and me.

Telegraphing regrets to Harry, we dashed for Pennsylvania Station. Aunt Enid and I will be back in Baltimore by six pm, a day early, after ten full months abroad.

Later. Finding 1319 Eutaw Place quite dark, we shouted up the servants and left Pegeen behind to supervise the unloading of our trunks. Aunt Enid and I have gone straight to the Downey house on Bolton Street to spend the night.

May 7. The Dorothy who greeted us was gaunt bordering on ghastly. My chum has not slept for four days, she said, not since the police broke down the door of the basement laboratory with axes and crowbars. She herself has been questioned twice. Balthasar is in police custody and has been questioned how many times one can only guess. The men in blue have ‘leaked’ to the newspapers that Aunt Enid’s house concealed a ‘huge laboratory for the production of illicit narcotic drugs.’

May 8. Oliver Stokes, Esquire, arrived at the Downeys’ at eight-fifteen. My aunt keeps her solicitor on a generous retainer and so he was appropriately quick and [awful pun!] solicitous. Since her telephone call yesterday, Mr. Stokes has been studying the new laws on “narcotic drugs.” Considering that probably half the spinsters and widows in Baltimore are fond of dosing themselves with codeine or worse, the Harrison Act is quite draconian. It went into effect at the first of the year. The Baltimore boys in blue are determined to make an example of Balthasar. It is their first prosecution under the new law.

Mr. Stokes has arranged for Aunt and me to talk with Balthasar on the morrow. The judge who rules on such things would not even hear his plea that Balthasar be released on bail.

May 9. Tears streamed down Balthasar’s dear brown cheeks when we met our old friend at the Downtown Jail. It is the same lock-up that housed me and my friends from Bryn Mawr School after we disrupted the Memorial Day parade with our suffrage banners. Balthasar is being held in the colored section, of course. He said his treatment is “all right.”

Mr. Stokes said we could speak freely. The police are strictly forbidden from eavesdropping on conversations. I have my doubts, Diary. Anyway, I leaned very close to the grill, and so did Balthasar, where he told me of the dreadful events since January.

I ought to have given attention to the worried letter Doro sent me back then. Instead, besotted by Anna Freud, I let it lie!

Later. We assembled at the Downey home on Bolton Street for a council of war — me, Dorothy, Mrs. Downey, Dr. Nathan Weiss, Aunt Enid and her lawyer, Mr. Stokes. “Well, Evelyn,” observed my aunt, “while you and I were gallivanting about Europe, it appears that the do-gooders have been busy transforming American society. On the face of it, this new Harrison Act only obliges physicians to report when they prescribe heroin, morphine or some other drug of that ilk. Its actual effect — perfectly predictable knowing the cowardice of most doctors — has been to dry up the supply of these ‘comfort drugs.’

“Now imagine how many people have used them to relieve pain — I don’t care whether it is physical or emotional pain — and become dependent on their regular daily dose? Suddenly their doctor will no longer prescribe it. They apply to other doctors, and again the answer is no. They can’t even buy a Coca-Cola with real cocaine in it anymore. What is a one-legged veteran or a melancholic widow to do as the distress of giving up their painkiller grows increasingly unbearable? “

“They will find some other way to obtain it,” Dr. Weiss offered. “Already there is a well-articulated underground system of supply in East Baltimore.”

“Exactly,” replied my aunt. “Thus, though I am absolutely furious that Balthasar’s son should have put us all at risk, it’s also obvious that he must have conceived it a marvelous opportunity to profit from the idiocy of our new law. Had I myself just been dismissed from university, thereby dashing my father’s fondest hope, I daresay I should have found it hard to resist the temptation myself.

“Imagine, Evelyn — suppose your father takes you into his laboratory as an apprentice. It — that is, the basement of our house at 1319 Eutaw Place — is a fully-equipped factory for the production of that extract of hog urine that you depend on. I mean the chemical that Doctor Tottie Clathrop and our friend Balthasar discovered and you and Balthasar further refined, the ‘Gynol’ that has proven so efficacious as the stimulant of feminine characteristics in you and many other youth of ambiguous or conflicted sexual natures.

“Young Caesar, then, assists his father. Anxious to regain his father’s respect and ease his burden, Caesar zealously fulfills his duties. He bids his father return home early each evening, assuring him that he will attend to the cleaning up chores. Before long a routine is established that permits Caesar to produce a growing volume of clandestine narcotic drugs. For a boy skilled in the routine of the laboratory, the technology is elementary; the money irresistable. The challenge is to retain his father’s unwitting trust.

“Balthasar, too, wishes the best. Perhaps willfully so, Balthasar pays little heed to what is happening in a darker corner of the lab.

“Months pass, and run through honkey-tonks and I know not where else, Caesar’s business on the side has prospered. But somewhere he has slipped up. Acting on a tip, the Baltimore Police intervene, Caesar goes missing, and it is up to you, me, Dorothy, Balthasar (and Caesar if he is found) to explain our circumstances.”

I acknowledged the logic of my Aunt’s analysis; we all did.

“How, then, do we deal with this situation,” she asked. “Dorothy, what is the condition of the laboratory?”

“It is quite a mess, I am afraid, Mrs. Westcott. The police swooped down with several wagons and carted off a great deal of ‘evidence,’ including several hundred dozen of the Gynol pills and over 30 liters of the liquid essence. Altogether, they have impounded over six months’ supply of Balthasar’s extract.

“The good news is that Mother had allowed me to store four months’ supply at our house. I can’t say exactly why — Balthasar suggested it, because we were running out of storage space at the lab. Moving some pills here seemed prudent at the time, and now I suppose it was prescient.” Dorothy grinned weakly. I smiled back to reassure her.

“Is it all our own elixirs?” I asked. “There are no narcotic drugs intermixed?”

“O, golly, Evi, I hope not!” replied my chum.

As if on cue, we all regarded Aunt’s attorney, Oliver Stokes, Esquire.

“I have read the text of the new law,” he said, “and the Congressional Record account of the debates on it. Possession of codeine or morphine is not a crime. There is no case unless the State can prove that Caesar was producing and/or distributing the narcotic drugs for his personal gain.”

“Flight when under warrant is a de facto admission of guilt,” observed Aunt Enid.

“Quite right, Madam,” replied her attorney. “I suggest the importance of separating whatever the boy was up to from your own affairs. Let us say, perhaps, you had no knowledge of a clandestine drug laboratory operating in the basement of your home while you were abroad. I am confident that the City will excuse you of any penalties if you pledge that these activities will be strictly discontinued.”

“Well, Oliver, it’s perfectly evident that you only half understand what’s going on there.

“Evelyn, I’m worn out from talking,” Aunt Enid continued. “Would you mind explaining to Mr. Stokes why the laboratory is essential?”

So, Diary, it fell to me to recall for everyone present the story of what Dr. Tottie Clathrop dubbed ‘Balthasar’s Extract,’ and which now, in its purer form, we call ‘Gynol.’

“Mr. Stokes, the first thing you should know is that I have the immature genitalia of a boy. I grew up believing I was a boy, as did my parents and everyone else. When I was twelve, however, I began developing anomalously. My parents sent me to Aunt Enid, who afforded me refuge and arranged for my treatment at the Johns Hopkins Institute of Mental Hygiene. Psychological examination and testing confirmed my aunt’s guess that I should fare better if I were to assume the dress and manner of a girl. Coincidentally at Hopkins, Dr. Charlotte Clathrop and her colleagues were unlocking the chemical secrets of sexual development.”

I recounted how I had participated in experimental trials of an extract refined from the urine of pregnant sows. It had proven effective in inducing feminine characteristics in lower orders of mammals.

Fifteen young people participated in the trials. Eight of us had been thought by the external evidence of our genitals to be boys. Six others, raised as girls for the same reason, were developing masculine traits. I learned later that all of us had been in various ways severely distressed in our physical and emotional development. (At this point, I glanced questioningly at Dorothy; she nodded.) No case, I supposed, had been more unusual, and none more distraught than the fifteenth of us, the person who subsequently became my dear friend Dorothy Downey.

The drug was startlingly effective, I continued. With regular injections and psychological counseling, most of us soon appeared to the world to be normal adolescent females — and in fact, that is what we were, leaving aside technicalities.

There was one exception, a youth from Catonsville. For reasons that have never come clear, he fell deathly ill and passed away just after Christmas, 1907. The parents blamed the feminizing drug, and threatened legal action against Hopkins. Fearing unfriendly publicity, the university took the coward’s way out: it terminated Dr. Clathrop’s contract and program.

I paused, recalling Tottie’s dear, kind face, and within seconds tears began to flow uncontrollably. Handing me his clean handkerchief, Dr. Nathan Weiss murmured “If I may, Evelyn,” and took up the tragic story.

Nathan related how Tottie, burdened with family secrets and the collapse of a brilliant career, had taken her own life. “Before that tragic event,” he continued, “Dr. Clathrop devised a scheme to provide for the girls’ continued care. It required only Mrs. Enid Westcott’s generous sponsorship. It is she who provided the means for Dr. Clathrop’s perennial assistant, Mr. Balthasar Bishop, to continue to produce the fluid on which the girls depended for their happiness.”

“One of the girls is my niece, Rachel, born Joshua. Joshua was a miserable little boy; Rachel is now a most lovely and accomplished young lady. I was already a believer in Dr. Clathrop’s course of treatment when, at Rachel’s prompting, Evelyn came to request my help. The girls needed a physician they could all trust, she said, and I readily agreed to serve in that capacity.

“In the cases of Rachel, Dorothy and Evelyn and the other girls, Mr. Stokes, there is eloquent testimony that whatever ‘the world’ may conceive about the immutable and binary nature of the sexes, there is in fact substantial plasticity. From these successful experiments, we can conclude that a way lies open to save many poor souls — people who for whatever reason are conflicted in their sexual identity — from a lifetime of misery.”

“Are there so many, then?” asked Stokes.

“I should hazard a guess that there might be as many as one in five hundred. If so, that would be nearly 20,000 persons in the present population of the United States. A significant, suffering minority, and an irresistable subject of titillation and scandal for the sensational press.”

Dorothy spoke up. “I won’t trouble you with the details, Mr. Stokes. Suffice it that you know that had not Balthasar’s elixir been available to me, I should have taken my own life long ago.”

All of us were speechless for a moment.

“The laboratory must continue its honest work, then,” ventured Stokes at last. “Nothing less will do. And, yet . . . can such work bear the scrutiny of an unkind public?”

I winced at the thought of my photograph and a sensational story in one of the Pulitzer or Hearst’s newspapers. Dorothy’s eyes caught mine, despairingly. “Be brave,” I mouthed to her.

Aunt Enid interrupted. “No! We will not have a public spectacle. That is the point of this meeting. It is out of the question.” She glared at Mr. Stokes. “It is vitally important that all the girls be shielded from notoriety,” my aunt continued. “Some are still in a fragile mental state. I cannot vouch for their safety if . . . .”

“Excuse me, madam,” said Stokes. “I agree with you entirely. I was simply thinking out loud. I suppose this situation is manageable. We must redirect the attention of the police.”

I felt I had to speak up, Diary. “There is another consideration,” I said. “I fear greatly for Balthasar’s health if his son Caesar is arrested and brought to trial.”

With difficulty, I held my point over others’ objections. However reprehensible the boy’s behavior, every effort will be made to shield him from the consequences. Is it too much to hope that we may effect his redemption?

So it is decided. Lawyer Stokes and Aunt Enid will undertake a quiet campaign. My aunt has been a pillar of Baltimore society for twenty years, and a liberal donor to its causes. Now it is time to cash in some of her ‘investments.’

May 10. I went to the Bishops’ house on Brunt Street this morning. It was ‘staked out’ by reporters. Ignoring their shouted questions, I climbed the stoop and was relieved to find Alexandra Cooper there. Balthasar’s niece is one of us, and also an accomplished musician. Alex has agreed to escort me to the Downtown Jail on the morrow. Though distinctly discomforted by the thought of requesting an interview with Balthasar in a room where, I have no doubt, there lurk many more newspaper representatives or their informants, I conceive it my duty to apprise him of yesterday’s meeting. We agreed that to throw the reporters off the track, my colored friend will tell them I am a social worker.

May 11. I was wishing that, just this once, Alexandra and I had been Moslems and might have visited Balthasar in full ‘purdah.’ In the event, I wore a dark veil in hope of avoiding recognition.

My old friend was in better spirits when we left, buoyed by my report of the meeting two days ago. I told Balthasar that Mr. Stokes is preparing a writ of habeas corpus.

A pack of reporters ambushed us as we exited the jail. Ignoring their shouted questions, I whispered to my friend “Alexandra, think! Where can we go?” It is not such an easy question. Nearly all Baltimore establishments refuse entrance to negroes, but Alex had a ready answer. “We’re going to the Colored Girls Y, if you don’t mind that.”

Twenty minutes later, we were in a corner of its locker room. Alex had brought along a bathing costume, and I had rented another and some towels.

Inevitably, we regarded each others’ private parts with bashful interest. Both of us have a modest male appendage and inconsequential testicles; I have something else besides.

“Oh my goodness, Evelyn! You have a vagina!”

I acknowledged that was so. “It leads to nowhere,” I said, “but it is pleasant to have.”

“Was it . . . made?” she asked.

“No, it just grew that way. I don’t think I should care for surgery, though Dr. Weiss has suggested it. I won’t chance losing the sensations I like so much.”

Alexandra’s eyes grew distinctly larger. “You, . . .you have sensations?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Don’t you?”

“Well,” she replied after some hesitation, “I suppose I might. I don’t know for sure. I try not to touch myself down there.”

“And you haven’t a boy friend?” I asked.

“Good heavens, no! What would one think if . . . ?”

Alexandra sat prettily on a bench, seemingly dazed by new knowledge. Her thought hung in the air.

“You may think me a frightful adventuress,” I said softly, “but I have had occasion to learn something of my own and others’ natures, and I do not regret that. Allow me to show you this,” I continued, sitting beside her on the bench and taking her hand in mine, I guided it until it enfolded her diminuative penis. “Do you feel something there?” I asked as I commenced a gentle stroking. Sensing her nod, I quickened the pace, still guiding Alex’s hand. “You see, though you cannot become a parent, you are not denied the pleasant feelings of sex.” Alex was breathing hard, gripping my free hand, her eyes shut when, an instant later, her instrument shuddered and spurted forth its molten cargo. I was ready with a tissue.

Alex turned to me wonderingly. “My Lord, Evi, I never guessed. . . . And in the YWCA, too. Was that sinning? I hope not.”

“No, my dear, it is the sweetest feeling one can have, and yours to command. Surely God would not have allowed it only to tempt and tantalize us.

“And now, dear heart, let us have a good swim!”

Forty-five minutes later, bathed and dressed, Alexandra Cooper and I left unnoticed from the small service door at the back of the Colored Girls’ Y.

May 13. These recent days have been so fraught that I have scarcely thought to notice my home town. Baltimore is clothed in vernal splendor, the dogwood, the late magnolia and the early azaleas all competing for pride of place. At 1319 Eutaw Place, spring cleaning is underway. In vain did Patsy protest that she had already scrubbed and shined; it must be done again to my aunt’s high standard. Whilst Patsy and Pegeen polish the windows and mirrors, Aunt Enid interviews applicants for the vacant post of ‘Cook’ and I try to be useful by sorting the contents of my steamer trunks into dressers and closets.

Early today, a deputy sheriff came to remove the locks and seals from the laboratory. His visit is a fruit of Aunt’s persuasion campaign. The deputy attracted quite a crowd. I watched discreetly through a screen on an upstairs window, having no wish to provide sport for the photo-journalists.

May 14. By telephone, I summoned Dorothy to investigate the laboratory with me. We sent Pegeen outside to enter through the door under 1319’s front steps and within seconds, she admitted us both by the interior door.

It was gruesome in there, Diary. The light of an electric torch affirmed the testimony of our noses: several broken bottles of the elixir gave forth a stench of the utmost redolence. Guinea pigs — our brave little scientific pets — mewed pitifully in an extremity of thirst. Some were already dead, and the others will not survive, I fear. Still, I was relieved that there was little vandalism by the officers of the law who searched the lab. Most of the equipment is intact. It should take only a few days to set our laboratory straight.

May 16. Balthasar is home! Details later, when I am surer of them.

May 17. I often think, Diary, that I am marvellously well protected — not just by my aunt and her friends, but by Divine Providence as well. It seems that the business of the laboratory has been settled. The scandal we have feared has been averted. The sensational press will not have the pleasure of exposing a ‘ring of perversion,’ a ‘depraved conspiracy’ or whatever else they might choose to call ‘Tottie’s kids.’

On Sunday afternoon, two days ago, Mr. Stokes took a call from the Police Department. Would he and Mrs. Westcott, they asked, do the Deputy Commissioner the great favor of calling on him the next morning?

Without a word to me, Aunt went to bargain for our privacy. She and Mr. Stokes learned that Caesar Bishop had been taken into police custody in North Carolina. Out of money and desperate from hunger, he had robbed a store but was immediately apprehended. Caesar has confessed everything, absolutely exonerating his father. Balthasar knew nothing of his morphine distillery — that at least is what the police have agreed to believe. Perhaps it is closer to the truth to say that my old friend did not wish to know.

My aunt says that if Caesar tells the police everything he knows about the underground drug trade, that is about the system of supply, he will receive light punishment — perhaps even a suspended sentence on condition that he enlist in the Army.

May 18. Joy! Unalloyed joy! The Medical College of the University of Chicago has admitted me to its September class, and with ‘advanced standing on the strength of your excellent reports from Vienna and Bryn Mawr School.’ I shall have my degree a year earlier than I thought! Enough writing. I am going to telephone everyone I know with the good news!

May 20. In the drab costume of a ‘social worker,’ I visited the Bishops today. There was no need for dissimulation, however — the reporters are gone from their encampment under the elm across the street.

Ten days’ imprisonment has left a mark on Balthasar; he also grieves for his son. Mrs. Portia Bishop, Alexandra and her little cousins are doing their best to cheer him up, but I fear his spirit is broken. Dear Balthasar received the news of my admission to Chicago numbly, as though hearing of an obscure event in some far-off land.

May 23. Dorothy and I have decided to close up the laboratory until things are clearer. All the guinea pigs are dead now. I put the last of them out of their misery, and have wrapped and frozen several of their number for later dissection. With some difficulty, I have found the addresses of our suppliers of the feedstock — the urine of pregnant sows — and written to advise them that it may some months before we are able to resume purchases.

Yesterday afternoon, Dorothy hosted a meeting of ‘Tottie’s Girls’ at the Downey home. Twelve of the original fifteen remain, plus Alexandra Cooper and Eilidh’s new ‘sister,’ Alicia. We have lost contact with Ingrid and Helen, and the last was poor Benjamin Blacknell, whose tragic death led, some months later, to Tottie’s self-destruction.

Ours is a very democratic group — that is, of the fourteen of us who gathered at Doro’s, all classes and many races are represented — indeed, we are a cross-section of the American population! We are all in our late ‘teen years, we all ‘present’ as women, and we all depend for our happiness in part on a daily dose of Gynol, Balthasar’s elixir.

Begging the girls to save gossip for later, Dorothy went straight to business. She related the unfortunate circumstance that stopped work at the laboratory in the basement of my aunt’s house. There was no cause for alarm, she said; a stockpile of Gynol tablets would last us all for at least four months. As I nodded in agreement, Dorothy said that surely within that time, dear old Balthasar would be able to resume production of the drug.

There was evident disquiet at this news, notwithstanding the positive way Dorothy presented it. Cecily Young and Sylvia Spagnuolo in particular persisted in posing ‘what if’ questions — speculation that simply drove us all into a funk. “Girls, please!” I said at length. “Cheer up! This is a worry, I shall be the first to admit it, but we shall manage it. The generosity of my aunt and of Dorothy herself ensure that we have ample financial support. I personally shall be responsible for resurrecting the laboratory. You know that Balthasar and I have worked together many hours in the past; I know what has to be done there, and we shall do it,” I affirmed whilst, out of view behind my back to all but Doro, my fingers were crossed.

The business of the meeting over, tea was brought in, and we turned to ‘catching up’ on each others’ lives. I had missed several meetings while travelling with Aunt Enid, so, much as I wanted to hear the others’ stories, I was required to relate first my own adventures in England, France, Austria and Italy. I gave a selective and not altogether coherent account of these past ten months, touching in particular on attending the theatre in London, shopping in Paris, witnessing Mr. Glenn Curtiss’ triumph at the great air show, the magnificent balls in Vienna, the pomp of Easter Week in Rome. I said that some research in Vienna has persuaded me that one or another of the great German chemical companies may take on the challenge of refining Gynol to its pure essence, a feat beyond our capabilities in our tiny laboratory. A friend of ours, I said (that fellow Hirschfeld), is making inquiries on our behalf. Yes, I confessed in reply to questions, I had received a proposal of marriage, and had turned it down. No, I did not see the King of England, but I did often see Archduke Ferdinand and some of the other Austrian royals. And Pope Pius, of course. And yes, I had fallen in love — perhaps a hopeless attraction, but mutual and intense — I would not disclose details; the girls should pray for us. What next? I would study medicine at the University of Chicago beginning in September.

Then the gossip became general. Julia Herz and Margaret Stickney’s dressmaking business is well-launched in a smart shop near the Lexington Market; we all took cards and promised to bring them business. Eilidh Owens claims to be heartily sick of learning accounting. Both she and 15 year-old Alicia are unmistakably sisters, willowy, graceful, Celtic in their coloring.

Maeve Moreland said that Dr. Weiss has helped her understand the attraction she feels to women; she has accepted that she is ‘different,’ and now shares a home with a very dear friend. Rachel Klimintz has passed a happy first year at Baltimore City College, she said, and must decide on a major subject of study. Jane Ellen Webb, who was so sickly, is now in robust good health and working in a dairy near Towson. There is a boy who wishes to marry her. He is persistent and she cannot imagine what to do about him. Cecily has graduated from Miss Gibbs’ Secretarial College, and looked quite the stylish stenographer in a starched, high-collared waist and ‘business costume.’ Sylvia is preoccupied by care of her mother, who has been quite ill for over a year, and looking after her younger siblings. Ingrid Svensen, in a letter postmarked Buffalo, NY, had begged Dorothy to discontinue further efforts to contact her. “But,” Doro added, “I have a bit of good news on my own part. I have been accepted by Goucher College to learn social work.”

Alexandra reported that her Uncle Balthasar has been sunk in gloom since his release from prison, brooding on the tragedy that Caesar’s greed has brought upon their family. “My cousin is not a bad boy,” Alexandra said, “but he is a foolish one who thinks doing well is a matter of luck and seizing the main chance rather than of discipline and hard work. I fear the worst; he will be punished harder because he is a black man.” Hoping to divert Alex to a happier subject, I asked about her musical studies at Oberlin. “They were all right,” was all she offered. Something is wrong there, too; I must find out.

May 26. I have been ‘out and around,’ hunting up old friends. Many said they expected I would marry some European gentleman and never come back to Baltimore. A few have asked, ever so delicately, about the ‘incident’ at 1319 Eutaw Place. As Aunt Enid and I have agreed, I passed it off as much ado about nothing — only some misbehavior by hired help, now settled.

My school chums are doing well. Sally Campbell is in her second year at Hopkins and wants to be a crusading journalist like Ida Tarbell. True to her Quaker roots, Christy Hodgson chose to enter Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia. She has three beaus, Christy says, and can’t make up her mind between the smart one, the handsome one and the clever one.

“Who is the clever one?” I asked Christy. “O, you know him,” she said. “It’s Frank Campbell, Sally’s brother. I believe he used to be sweet on you. I shall probably marry him.” An unpleasant memory flashed through my mind, Diary — a rainy night in April, more than a year ago, a glimpse of Frank where he ought not have been. “Frank will be a lucky man if he lands you,” I said.

May 29. I had tea with Mrs. Eustis Rawlings today, as was my duty. Sunshine filtered through new leaves cast a warm glow over the parlor of the Rawlings’ rambling frame house in Cold Spring. Several of Ted’s paintings graced the room, including one of Mrs. Rawlings so new that the oils are still redolent. I remarked with all sincerity that Ted has real talent; his portraits are in no way inferior to many I saw hanging in the museums of Europe.

“I do not doubt that Ted will make a living as a painter, perhaps a good one, if he does not fail as a man,” Mrs. Rawlings replied. She gazed pensively at a small tempura, unframed on an easel. My eye followed hers, and I realized that the portrait was of Ted. The style was not his. “O, what a fine likeness. Is it . . . ?

“Yes, it is Dorothy Downey’s work. I am quite fond of Dorothy. Without her inspiration, I fear Ted should be something of a layabout. And yet, I wish she would not indulge his . . . penchant for dressing up as a woman.”

“You have seen him so?” I asked softly.

“Yes, several times. Once I thought to take some lemonade and cake to the studio (here Mrs. Rawlings gestured toward the barn half-visible from a parlor window) and surprised him with Dorothy, somewhat deshabilleé in peignoire and dressing gown.

“He wishes for my indulgence, but I cannot support him in his . . . perversion. O, Evelyn, I suppose he and Dorothy will marry. Will they still carry on like that? I imagine horrid things — my own grandchildren with two ‘mommies.’ What can I do to dissuade them? The world will never tolerate such a thing!”

Well aware that Dorothy can never bear children, it was an easy thing to express confidence that Mrs. Rawlings’ fears would never come to pass. “I have no closer friend than Dorothy,” I said. “She has a fine, feminine understanding of such things and good sense. I assure you, she will manage Ted.”

“I do hope so, Evelyn. Ted will not listen to me, anymore than he would obey his father when Eustis was still alive.” She dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief. “Do take another cup of tea, and tell me about my mad, mad Fiona.”

“Well,” I said, reaching into my reticule, “she has sent you this.” Mrs. Rawlings eagerly opened the package to find a golden case, and within it a cameo of Fiona. There was no missing the likeness; Fiona’s partner Giulietta is an accomplished miniaturist. I recall her joking that she shall have to survive on that talent now that her family has disowned her. “It is by Fiona’s great friend, the Marchioness Scampidarosso.”

“Your daughter is thriving in Rome,” I rushed on. “The city, with all its noise, smells, liberality and extraordinary sights, suits her perfectly. And the educator with whom Fiona works is a true genius.”

“Did you go to the school, then?” asked Mrs. Rawlings.

“Yes, twice,” I replied. “Signorina Montessori received me very kindly, and I was so very impressed by her methods.”

“Fiona has written that the world should be a much nicer place if all children were trained in Montessori schools.”

“I am sure of that,” I answered.

“There are no men in her life, then?” asked Mrs. Rawlings.

I blinked, then realized that she referred to Fiona, and not to Signorina Montessori. “No, I suppose not,” I said.

“What a pity, then. How old are you? Eighteen? So many boys were after her when she was your age.”

Making my excuses, I fled, leaving Mrs. Rawlings alone with her worries. I have plenty of worries of my own.

Memorial Day. The telephone rang this morning with a summons from Miss Edith Hamilton. “Evelyn, where have you been? Will you come to tea today? Alice is here visiting. We both want to hear about your adventures,” said the Headmistress of Bryn Mawr School.

Useless to protest that I left my calling card at Miss Hamilton’s nearly a fortnight ago, the same day I learned of my admission to the medical college at the University of Chicago. Miss Hamilton is a busy woman, and ready for me when she is ready. Dutifully, I wrapped two pairs of the fine kidskin gloves I’d bought in Rome and then, on a whim, added a copy of The New Girl.

The school seemed unchanged since I last saw it. I reached Miss Edith’s house, where she and her sister greeted me fondly.

“Well now, Evelyn! It was exactly a year ago that you stopped the Memorial Day Parade with that demonstration and nearly stopped my heart, too. And look at you now — why, you are thoroughly elegant! One would hardly believe this extraordinarily elegant young lady is capable of causing mayhem, even for a good cause like womens’ right to vote, wouldn’t you agree, Alice?”

It was true, Diary. I was overdressed and deserved the implied reproach of this very sensible woman. I had been unable to resist wearing a summer ensemble from Lanvin’s of Paris, the skirt and jacket elegantly slim, all white with black trim, with white boots and a huge hat trimmed to match. In fact, I had hounded Pegeen to exhume the costume from a steamer trunk and steam iron it just so.

“Don’t tease Evelyn, dear heart,” said Dr. Alice. “She is quite splendid, and when is it more appropriate to sparkle than when one is young and talented?

Blushing hotly, I thrust forward the letter from Chicago. “Look, my dream came true,” I stammered.

The letter, after an instant’s glance, elicited whoops of pleasure from both women. “This is wonderful. They only accept two women each year,” said Dr. Alice. “You must call on me often in Chicago.”

“Yes, it is wonderful. I am sure I have both of you to thank, and yet now I have come to doubt that I shall profit by this opportunity.”

The sisters stared at me. “There is trouble. I cannot tell you more, but I have responsibilities here in Baltimore that I cannot evade.”

They would not take a hint. “It is this business of the laboratory, isn’t it, Evelyn? And that is . . . somehow related to your . . . sexuality, am I right?” It was Dr. Alice speaking, while thoughts whirled confusedly in my head. I began to cry.

“Alice, gently! Let the poor child be! Evelyn need not confide in us, if she . . . .”

“Oh, no!” I burst out, interrupting. “I do so want to confide in you, both of you! I am feeling so . . . overwhelmed. Everything was perfect and then, suddenly, it is all bits and pieces in my lap.”

“Evelyn, I am sorry.” It was Dr. Alice speaking now. “Edith told me quite some time ago about the circumstances that brought you to Bryn Mawr School, and also what she knew of the research at Hopkins that ended in tragedy. I took it on myself to find out more from Dr. Reuben Crawford — I suppose you know he is on the staff at the Mayo Clinic now?

“So, when I interviewed you here a year ago, I already had an inkling of why you were so intent on your experiments with the guinea pigs.

“Can Edith and I help?”

My composure having recovered somewhat, I related as best I could the events of the last months, Balthasar’s deep depression, and my reluctant conclusion that not just for my own sake, but also for the sake of my dozen ‘sisters,’ I must stay in Baltimore until a stable supply of the drug is assured.

“If Chicago is impossible, then, Hopkins must do” said Edith, “though it is quite late.”

“I have . . . issues with Hopkins,” I sniffled. “I swore never again to have any connection with that university. They killed Tottie Clathrop.”

“She means,” Alice explained to a puzzled Edith, “that by shutting down Dr. Clathrop’s laboratory and in effect disowning her brilliant work, Adolph Meyer drove Dr. Clathrop to suicide. Of course he never intended so. Young Clathrop was a gifted researcher. Crawford said she had identified a drug that brings out feminine characteristics.”

“Oh, yes, now I see,” answered Miss Edith. “That was three years ago. Adolph was quite distraught. I must admit I comforted him. I saw the matter as he did — when the school to which one has dedicated one’s life is threatened, one must act ruthlessly to save it. The Hopkins Institute of Mental Hygiene has been controversial since it was founded. Dr. Meyer could not allow a scandal.”

Miss Edith saw that I was again close to losing my composure. “I am so sorry, Evelyn. At that time, I had no idea that the business at Dr. Meyers’ institute touched you or Dorothy. And it must be that this drug — you were making it in the laboratory of your aunt’s house?”

“No, not me. Balthasar makes it. For all of the girls.”

“I think, my dear, that this is much too heavy a burden for you to carry unaided. I am inclined to lean on Adolph quite forcefully. Let me ask you this: if Hopkins were again to facilitate preparation of your friend Balthasar’s remarkable extract and his inquiry into its properties, would you, as a medical student there, guide and assist that work?

“Or, on the other hand, dear Evelyn, will you stand on principle until the game is lost?

“What do you suppose Alison Ainsley would do?” she added with a grin.

May 31. Re-reading yesterday’s entry, Diary, I see that I omitted to explain about Winnie Clem’s preposterous book. I need not to have taken a copy to Miss Alice. She already has a copy of the first edition signed by the author. Win wrote to beg her pardon for the egregious appropriation of Bryn Mawr’s attributes for her imagined “Meadowbrook Academy.” Miss Alice wrote back her amusement that Win had also appropriated Evelyn Westcott’s persona and embellished it further. They are thinking about erecting a statue of Alison Ainsley at Bryn Mawr, Miss Edith said; applications for next year’s class have doubled since publication of the American edition of “The New Girl.” If only they could find a fitting model for the statue, she mused. Entering into the spirit of the thing, I proposed my friend ‘Henrietta Hawkins’ Halloran as a perfect choice.

June 2. Great heavens! Caesar is dead! There was some sort of row at the prison, and he was grievously hurt — knifed, I think. Alexandra came to tell me. Her eyes are sunk deep in their sockets and red from weeping. She has had no sleep since the family was summoned to collect Caesar’s corpse yesterday afternoon. I bade her rest for ten minutes while I changed my dress, that I might go back with her to help.

“No — stay away, Evelyn. There are hard feelings right now. It wouldn’t be safe for you in my neighborhood. Come to Caesar’s funeral on Monday, if you want to.

June 3. Well, the deed is done. I have written to Chicago declining my position in the new class of the Medical College, weeping a little as I did so. I explained that events beyond my control compel me to remain in Baltimore, however much I wished it otherwise.

Alexandra Cooper helped me see my duty. After a year’s study there, Alexandra has withdrawn from the Conservatory at Oberlin College. “I’m not going back,” she said. “I’ve had it with white folks. I don’t mean you, Evelyn, or your aunt; I mean my pretending that if I get ‘white’ enough, the rules will change.

“Those coppers promised Caesar they’d take care of him; they milked him for everything he knew, promising they’d protect him if he spilled it; and then they let him get killed right there in that jail. And that’s just about killed my uncle, too. I have got to help take care of him and the children, so I have transferred to Morgan College. It’s where I should have been all along, with my own race.”

“But,” I objected, trying not to show my dismay, “what of your musical training?”

“I’m going to be in the teachers’ school. I’ll have plenty of chances to sing real music — the kind we colored folks like.”

Alexandra left me alone with my thoughts. Her bitterness is quite real, I’m sure, but it also helps her justify doing what she must do. Her aunt, uncle and cousins need her care. I’m sure Aunt Enid will continue to help Alex meet her college costs. And where does that leave me, Diary? I cannot traipse off to Chicago, leaving the happiness of a dozen other girls like me at risk, when Johns Hopkins Medical College is here at hand.

June 5. Caesar Bishop was laid to rest today. The Hallelujah Tabernacle on Dolphin Street was filled to overflowing with friends of the Bishop family; among the weeping crowd, Dorothy, Aunt Enid and I were the sole representatives of the white race.

It serves no good purpose today to reason that Caesar was caught up in an ugly business, or that his murder was at the hands of another of his race. When one of us goes astray, we all share the responsibility. As, I suppose, funeral services are meant to be, the mourners were exhorted to believe he has gone to a better place, reunited with our Good Shephard. Even Hell, I imagine, may be no worse than the mens’ section of the Downtown Jail. Whatever his immortal destination, Caesar has been sent there on clouds of hauntingly sorrowful, beautiful music.

June 7. At last, a letter from Anna. “Dearest Evelyn,” she writes. “Forgive me for it being so long between letters. The nuns have been observing me closely — perhaps I seem suspiciously happy when I think of you. I cried when I read your news about poor Balthasar and your laboratory, but you will soon fix things up, I know. My ‘rest cure’ at the convent will be ending soon; I shall say farewell to Rome and go to join Mama and Papa at our summer cottage in the Tirol. Evi, I know you dislike Papa. Please do not be unfair. He is selfish — especially in his need for my company and assistance — but Papa is not evil. I think that like all great men, he is so intent on achieving his ‘mission in life’ that he is nearly blind to the convenience of others. Put it differently: others, whatever their own needs may be, are merely a convenience to Papa. All of us dread being inconvenient to him. When he is angry, he is cold. He casts out the offender. Papa would not speak to my cousin Johannes for three years! Evi, please understand. I cannot bear for Papa to be angry with me. It would be as terrible, I think, as if you were to hate me. Please, Evi, let us remember Rome, and try to be happy. With so much love, Annika.”

June 8. I have had a medical exam at Dr. Nathan Weiss’s clinic. He is the saint of East Baltimore. Rachel says his waiting room is always full because he treats so many for free, or almost free. Today Nathan probed me with unusual care, it seemed. Was my liver enlarged? Were my kidneys distended? Had I experienced any unusual discharges or pains? Of course I asked him what he feared. “It would seem,” Dr. Nathan answered, “that among Tottie’s children, there may be an elevated risk of malignant tumors. Maeve is gravely ill, and she is not the first.”

I shot Nathan a severely questioning look.

“I have searched out the coroner’s papers, and then tracked down the family’s physician in Catonsville. When young Blacknell died, both his kidneys were tumorous. It was that which killed him. Brace yourself, Evi — we cannot exclude that Charlotte Clathrop’s medications were instrumental in his death.”

June 9. Aunt Edith has had both of the drawings of me framed, along with her landscape by Maestro Klimt (a somber study in gray, green & brown). Where do I think the drawings should be hung, she asks. Should they hang together? Which one of them am I anyway, I ask myself — Klimt’s serenely confident young dancer, or the ‘deconstructed’ harlot desperately trying to preserve her inner integrity? I fear it is Picasso who saw me more truly.

I could not sleep all night, tormented by Nathan’s terrible conjectures. No, conjectures is my word. He seems persuaded there is a problem with the Gynol. Is it an impurity or does the same secretion that impels the development of female characteristics place an extreme burden on the kidneys? I have promised him the cadavers of my dead guinea pigs for autopsy. Did Tottie know? Was that why she and Dr. Meyer had that awful fight? O, my dear God, Diary, I am so miserable!

June 13. Dorothy’s 20th birthday. We have celebrated by getting tipsy over lunch in a private room at the Cock and Bull, two handsome young women who consumed many oysters and bared our souls to each other.

Doro ‘was terrified’ the entire time I was abroad, she said, that she would not manage things properly — it was well-founded fear, as I have seen. Watching out for Tottie’s girls, keeping everyone’s spirits up — that comes easy to Dorothy. Not so the ‘scientific part.’ For that, she could only rely on Balthasar and his nephew.

No, I said, responsibility for the troubles at the lab was mine, if anyone’s. I confided that I shall not go to Chicago after all. Though Doro expressed regrets on my account, she’s clearly very happy for her own sake that I will remain in Baltimore. “O, Evi, I am relieved. You will manage everything, I am sure of it. You always do.”

Do I, Diary? Will I?

Our conversation became more intimate. At Dorothy’s urging, I talked of Paris, Vienna and Rome, of Sasha, Jorgen, Kat, Anna, Fiona, young Massimo and other friends. “I have learned that there is a great diversity of people in this world, Dorothy. You and I are not so odd, after all — or Ted, either. Tell me about you and Ted.”

And so she did. Dorothy is sure that Heaven has brought them together. Ted is not especially manly, she said, that is to say that his interest in women is not so much sexual as worshipful. He loves everything about women; this impels him to imitate them. He does it well, O not so well as Harry Halloran, of course, but well for a youth nearly six feet in height. For Ted, Dorothy’s own situation is, well, ideal. (Remember, she is in fact a eunuch, Diary, having by her own hand removed the offending member. That was, O, more than four years ago. One could hardly blame Dorothy, she was then in a total funk at the thought of spending the rest of her life as a man) Doro is able to satisfy all Ted’s companiable needs, and he thinks it splendid that she, though born a boy, was raised to be in every respect a perfect girl.

“My mother adores Ted,” she added. “I wish Mrs. Rawlings would like me as much.”

“I wonder if you should confide in her,” I answered, and recounted my conversation with Ted’s mother.

June 16. Well, it is done. I have filled out an application to the Medical College at Hopkins. Dr. Alice Hamilton has taken on the challenge of securing me a place in the new class, for it is of course much too late to apply in the ordinary course of things.

I visited Balthasar today. Too soon, I know. It is only nine days since Caesar’s funeral, but I cannot put off the lab work any longer. Balthasar is most unwell, brooding, almost catatonic. Hoping to restore his energy, I brought along his lab notes, returned by the police after Caesar’s confession. I could not rouse his interest in them; in fact, I realized almost immediately that it is hopeless. With Mrs. Bishop’s consent, I have kept these notebooks — slim volumes that trace the hundreds of experiments that resulted in ‘Gynol.’ Balthasar’s ingenuity, abetted by Tottie’s genius and a few lucky deductions of my own, has resulted in a much purified extract — put another way, we have eliminated 98% by volume of the matter that is in the urine of pregnant sows — and it is indeed efficacious. Administered to young people soon enough, that is, by their 14th year, it totally suppresses the expression of masculine characteristics and either permits or perhaps even stimulates — I am not sure which, Diary — the development of those traits of body and character that we consider feminine. I was quite persuaded of this by my experiments on my dear little guinea pigs but now I have found further confirmation in the form of a letter to Balthasar from ‘Oliver Borgmann.’

"I suppose," she wrote him late last year, "that it would be useful for you to know how I am, in that I was Dr. Clathrop’s patient and then yours. I was known as Helen then, and at first quite content with being a lass. Taking the medicine, there was no reason for anyone to doubt me, neither. Still, I wasn’t comfortable, and having an eye for other girls, I resolved to quit taking the pills. Six months later, I have now become quite mannish, with a deepened voice, a beard that’s growing and a good many muscles from helping my Dad about the farm. In short, I am back to being a boy and quite alright.

“Please don’t tell Dorothy or the others. They think they are doing the right thing for themselves; I don’t want to trouble them with second thoughts.”

Well, Diary, I have three months exactly to retrace Balthasar’s path. Rachel has volunteered to work with me this summer as a laboratory assistant. She has had a little chemistry and will do her best. Hardly less than I, Rachel comprehends the enormity of our task: our very fates as women depend on restoring production of the drug.

June 19. "Dear Miss Westcott," his letter began. "We are not acquainted, but I hope you will do me the honor of consenting to a meeting. Via mutual friends, I am, in the broadest sense, aware of your situation. I hope that I might be of help — but only if you consent. Yours, sincerely, Archibald Black, The Baltimore Sun."

I have replied, of course, that there is nothing about me that would be of interest to the press. What does he want, I wonder? Is our secret ‘out’?

June 22. Now the ‘Sage of Baltimore’ has written to me! "Though my own character and those of the Fourth Estate in general are with ample reason considered to be thoroughly disreputable, I can assure you that Archie Black is innocent of all bad traits. He is a thoroughbred and, except for his regrettable involvement in the newspaper business, a gentleman. You should meet him. Yours sincerely, H. L. Mencken (p.s. — he is devilish handsome.)"

Mr. Mencken supported us girls a year ago when we made our mad assault on the Memorial Day Parade. I cannot refuse him, and so I have agreed to lunch on Saturday with Mr. Archibald Black.

June 24. Archie Black is handsome! And charming! And Sally Campbell’s fiancé!

We met for lunch at Harrison’s. Archie ordered wine; it was excellent. He mentioned mutual friends and hinted at a view of the world not unlike mine own. Resolving not to be charmed, I asked why he found me interesting.

“Well, I’ll ‘fess up.’ Sally Campbell and I are engaged to be married, which is why I am working here for my dad at the Sun and not back home in California. Sally says the story’s going around that you are in trouble, that you have a secret and it might pop. She doesn’t want that to happen, none of your friends do, and that includes me.”

Seeing the perplexity I could not hide, Archie continued “I didn’t mention that Sally and I are engaged for fear you’d feel obliged, but now that’s out and no harm done, I hope.

“Anyway, Sally says that a lot of people believe you were raised as a boy, and only since you came to Baltimore have you been Evelyn Westcott. And, she says, there was speculation that when you went with your Aunt to Europe, it was for some kind of operation to . . . uh, deal with that.”

A silent moment, perhaps two of them, passed. Slowly taking in two or three great gulps of air, I managed to recover my composure. “Yes, . . . and no,” I replied.

“I was believed to be a boy when I was born, and was raised so until, when I attained my 13th year, it became apparent to all that I was not male, at least not in the sense that I expect you are. My Aunt Enid kindly took me in and gave me a new life . . . as a girl, the girl you see.

“No operations were necessary, however, only the regular administration of certain medications. Some research at Hopkins was . . . .” I paused, searching for words.

“. . . had pointed the way,” he supplied, “through the development of a drug that suppressed the expression of masculine characteristics. Is that it?”

“We don’t know, actually,” I replied, shedding my restraint. “It may be that Gynol simply promotes the feminine characteristics, and that in turn inhibits the male ones. In any event, it clearly is effective and has helped quite a few unfortunate souls.”

“Are there so many?” Archie asked.

“More than a dozen girls,” I replied. “And they are looking to me to supply them the drug. It must be taken regularly.”

“So,” he probed, “the laboratory was critically important.”

“The lab and the technique itself,” I answered. “The fellow who has manufactured it for us until now has had a nervous breakdown and cannot help. I am not at all equipped to take over his place.”

‘And it may not be safe,’ I was thinking. ‘It may kill us all.’

“So that explains the business about the laboratory. It’s said that Hopkins is your only hope,” Archie murmured. I did not answer. “We could threaten to expose . . . certain things, which is what the American would do. Hopkins, however, is not stupid — Dr. Adolph Meyer in particular. They know that giving into threats only exposes them to more.

“So instead, we at the Sun may promise Hopkins the fine publicity it desires if it does the right thing.”

“And the right thing, as you conceive it is . . . ?” I replied.

“. . . Hopkins acknowledges its moral obligation to you and the rest of Doctor Charlotte Clathrop’s patients, and assists you to resume production of the drug.”

“Yes, we are desperately in need of such help,” I acknowledged.

Later, still June 24. I cannot clear my mind of Archie Black, not that I shall encourage his attentions in the least. He is pledged to Sally, and that is that, but O my heavens, Diary, what an attractive man! Archie is unconsciously charming, handsome as a moving picture star, and smart as a whip, too. I thought things had sorted themselves out, first with Kat Strasser and then with Anna Freud; I was certain it is women who attract me, not men. Now I am no longer sure, not at all!

June 29. Martin Tolliver is home from Cornell University. We have not met since the great Air Show at Reims, but Martin has been a regular correspondent, sharing bits of his life at Cornell University. He is confident he will have his degree in aeronautical engineering by this time next year. My letters to Martin have been less regular — long silences punctuated by rambling, deliberately incomplete accounts of my life in Rome or Vienna. Martin continues to profess the most sincere affection for me. Nothing that I do or say seems to shake his conviction that we are destined for each other, and that we shall wed as soon as I have earned my medical degree. I am very fond of Martin. He is handsome, manly and kind. He will have a brilliant career and loyal friends. I just do not love him; in fact, he does not excite me at all.

More and more this past year I have regretted my consent to Martin’s desire for an ‘understanding.’ It was impulsive; I was carried away by the excitement of the Golden Flyer’s splendid triumph. Now, however, I am not sure that I shall love any man, and quite sure that I would be bored to death with my Martin. Not to omit that he knows nothing of my imposture — I am nearly certain of that, and O, it is strange, when so many people are aware that my sexual bits are odd, that this news has never reached Martin. I wonder what he would think if he knew that I was once a boy? Perhaps he would not recoil in horror; Martin is too much a gentleman. And yet, when he knows, if he knows, the idea must disgust him. So, Diary, I have dreaded this reunion, knowing that I must dash poor Martin’s fond expectation.

Martin called on me yesterday afternoon at our house on Eutaw Place. Quite dapper in Panama hat and a striped shirt, a fraternity stickpin in his cravat, Martin chatted for fifteen minutes or so with with my Aunt Enid, insisting that she try the toffees he brought her, a specialty of Ithaca, NY, his college town. Then Martin proposed that we walk over to Madison Avenue for an ice cream cone at the new Dobreiner’s branch there.

I was, Diary, more than a little nervous, uncomfortably reminded of that winter afternoon not so long ago in the Vienna Woods with another ardent swain. And just as then, before panic set in, I seized the initiative. “Martin, I have given our friendship much thought,” I started. How phoney it sounded. “Martin,” I started again, while he gazed at me, waiting, “you and I, the fact is, it won’t work. I can’t, I’ll never, give you what you want.”

“I just want what you want, dear Evelyn” he replied unhelpfully.

“No” I almost screamed. “You want all the conventional things. A cottage, a wife who mends your socks, reads stories to your children, edits your reports, rejoices in your accomplishments and — let me be honest — will be content to shine in your reflected glory.”

“No, Evelyn. You shall be a doctor. It is a worthy ambition, and I support it.”

“I shall not be just ‘a doctor.’ I intend to be the best doctor I can be, the kind of doctor whose ambition is all-consuming, who has no time for marriage. Do you understand me, Martin? Do you remember that I told you, even if I wished, I cannot bear children?

“Yes, that is o-kay. You have some kind of birth defect. Perhaps we shall adopt a child or two.”

Even Já¶rgen was not so dense as Martin. “Martin,” I started again. “These past months, I have come to know myself. I am not . . . a conventional . . . girl, Martin. The fact is, I need many things that are beyond your imagination and — though you are wonderfully talented — beyond your ability to supply.

“We were meant to be friends, not partners for life. I have let you expect more than I can give. Please, let us not be obliged to each other.”

“You are . . . is this . . . we aren’t to be engaged?”

“No, my dear . . . and you will always be dear to me. I am too ambitious to promise anything to you, or any other man, so I must require you to free me.”

I have hurt Martin. I know that. Less than perfectly gallant for once, he returned me home, bid me a curt goodnight, and, turning on his heel, hurled the stump of his double-scoop pistachio ice cream cone into the gutter. Yes, Martin is capable of anger.

June 30. My talk with Martin was not at all rehearsed, but it was informed by Anna’s latest letter. My darling wrote on an evening when, she said, she “could not suppress the deepest yearning for your kiss, for the touch of my breasts against yours, the caress of your hips, joined to mine.”

I wonder, Diary, shall I ever feel more deeply than I did those few days in Rome? Is it any longer imaginable that a mere man can move me as Anna Freud has done?

July 2, Sunday evening. Balthasar kept few notes, and the notes he kept are damnably telegraphic. Day after day, Rachel and I labor to recreate the process he worked out through own painstaking experimentation. We are not making headway on steps 57 to 62, the crucial part of the process that permits conversion of the reduced liquid to pill form. I have tried more than a dozen variations and still it is impossible to precipitate out the chemicals. The work is exhausting. Thank God for Rachel, who is unfailingly optimistic and puts up with my mood swings.

I have been to the Bishops’, where I begged Balthasar to come back to help. We sat together in the parlor of his tiny row house, fanning ourselves and sipping iced tea. Balthasar was sweet, friendly and oblivious to my pleas. He stared off into the trees that line the street. The man’s heart has been broken.

O, Dr. Meyer at the Mental Hygiene Institute has asked me to come meet him after the 4th. I suppose we are to be friends again, and then I shall have a place at Hopkins.

Independence Day. Spent the holiday in the lab up to suppertime. As darkness fell, Pegeen and I persuaded Aunt Enid to join us and our new cook (another Italian lady, Theresa) on the roof of 1719 Eutaw to watch the fireworks over Druid Hill Park. Theresa says the fireworks are better in Siena, her hometown.

July 6. Dr. Adolph Meyer is more than a little bit self-important. I went in determined not to accommodate his ego needs, as Anna would put it, but softened when I perceived that he was genuinely troubled.

“I am going to reveal some details of the Blacknell affair,” he said, “that I must depend on you absolutely to keep secret. Do I have your pledge?”

“Unless the lives or happiness of others depend on it,” I replied.

“That will have to do, I suppose, Evelyn. There is reason to believe that young Blacknell died primarily from the effects of the injections of the extract that Dr. Clathrop administered to him. Tottie and I differed vigorously on that point; she also maintained that bringing happiness to fourteen or fifteen others was the truer objective, a success that vastly outweighed the occasional failure.

“I reminded her of the Hippocratic Oath — the injunction to ‘above all, do no harm.’ That was when she marched out, slamming the door on me.”

I sat silent for a moment. Nathan had hinted at much the same. Tottie was like the rest of the human race, imperfect. I loved her none the less.

“Dr. Meyer,” I began, “we need your help. Forgive me if I seem impertinent, but Hopkins cannot just wish away the legacy of Tottie’s research. She and Mr. Bishop opened a door to rational understanding of human sexual development. Her experiments surpassed anything being done in Europe.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” I continued. “I have made it my business to find out. You see, sir, unlike Hopkins, I cannot turn my back on Tottie’s work. The happiness of a dozen young women, myself included — indeed, perhaps our very lives — depend on my producing a pure and form of ‘Gynol.’”

“Miss Wescott — Evelyn -- I am only a psychologist, not a chemist. What are you saying?”

“I am saying, Dr. Meyer, that shortly after Tottie’s tragic death, my aunt provided the means for Balthasar Bishop to continue to extract the drug from the urine of pregnant sows, that I have worked with him, and that we have had several important successes — in particular the attainment of a substantially higher level of purification and the stabilization of the vital element in tablet form. And now, sir . . . .” Pausing, I leaned forward in my chair and regarded Dr. Adolph Meyer intently.

“And now?” he echoed.

“Mr. Bishop is no longer able to work with me. I require the assistance of a skilled chemist and the friendly interest of other specialists — endocrinology and nephrology in particular. If you would exert your influence to produce such a result, sir, we should be most particularly grateful.”

Another silence. Having gotten out what I had to say, I could hardly breath. At last, a smile. “You are charmingly impudent,” said the great professor, “and I have no doubt that you are as talented as others — including the new publisher of the Sun — say you are. If I were to manage things so that your request is satisfied, I should require something of you in return.” He paused, still smiling.

Disconcerted, I said the conventional thing. “If it is something within my ability to give, of course I shall be pleased to do so. Is it a matter of money?”

“Only in a small way. It is more a matter of ‘burying the hatchet’ with Hopkins. The dean of the Medical College has asked me to inquire on his behalf if you would accept a place in the class that begins in September.”

So there it is, Diary. Dr. Meyer is to ‘manage things’ and I am to study medicine at Hopkins. O, and that supposes that we succeed in resuming production of Gynol before our dwindling reserves of the pills are exhausted. At least now I will have some expert advice.

July 10. I have a dozen dozen baby guinea pigs and their mothers to tend — forty-three litters all born in a five day interval. Samson and Attila, my stud pigs, are looking very virile and pleased with themselves. Rachel and I were down in the lab this morning; while we cleaned the cages, I was explaining my plans for the pigs when Patsy came down the back stairs to announce a gentleman visitor.

We washed our hands, doffed our aprons and smoothed our hair, and ascended to the parlor where Igar Lutjak awaited us. One glance confirmed my hope: Mr. Lutjak is a practical chemist. Both his hands bore the stains of many a dye or reagent, and there was unmistakably an acid burn on his waistcoat.

I introduced myself and Rachel. “Ess,” he replied, smiling broadly. “I come from Hopkins Hospital at order of Dr. A. Meyer. You are needing chemist to help.”

“We do indeed,” I answered. “Please accompany us to the laboratory, and mind your head on the stairs.”

The lab, I must have explained already, Diary, is a largish room in the basement of my Aunt’s house, directly under its back parlor and dining room. It is well-equipped with work tables lit by electric lamps, and there are plenty of cabinets and a large sink. There’s a full kit of flasks, flagons, beakers, tubes, titrators, burners, reagents and other chemical gear. Against a wall to the back are cages for the guinea pigs. The lab can be accessed from a door under the front steps, by a corridor that leads from the yard and carriage house, and from the kitchen by the aforementioned stairs. By dint of considerable elbow grease, Rachel and Patsy and I have returned the place to a rather remarkable state of order and cleanliness.

Lutjak was impressed. I could see his eyes pop out.

“What then, that you wish me to do? Dr. Meyer only telled . . . told me you want me now to help.”

“We aim,” I answered, “to produce a pure form of what I call Gynol. It is the internal secretion that is responsible for the development and maintenance of feminine characteristics. I suppose Gynol can some day be synthesized, but we dare not aim so high at present. For now we need only to replicate the many steps that our friend Balthasar has worked out to extract it from the urine of pregnant sows. We must do it urgently.”

“So, good” Lutjak said, smiling. “Where we are now?”

“Here are Balthasar’s notebooks” I replied, “and here is my own attempt to state precisely each step of the refining process. You will see that steps 56 through 63 are especially problematic — the proteins do not precipitate as completely as they should — and this frustrates the reification of the extract into powder form at step 71.”

He gave me a puzzled look. I wondered if I’d used the wrong words . . . .

“Sorry,” Lutjak said. “I am too soon off boat from old country. Perhaps can I read notebooks?”

Several hours passed, punctuated by a simple meal of soup and sandwiches in the kitchen upstairs. When Rachel and I finished with the cages, I set her to helping Lutjak puzzle out Balthasar’s spidery handwriting while I worked on my protocol for testing Gynol in massive doses on the little guinea pigs.

I was interrupted by a whoop from Rachel. “Evi, O this is marvellous! You can explain our work to Igar in German!”

Why hadn’t I thought to ask? Wunderlicht! Our chemist speaks beautifully precise German, learned at school in Zagreb. He knows so many scientific and laboratory words that I do not.

It was past seven when I bid Mr. Lutjak good night. Rachel was long gone — her mama frets if she is not home by six. Lutjak and I were both grinning in pleasant anticipation of the work ahead. Though such a great deal remains to be done, I believe now that we shall find the clues we need. Lutjak radiates confidence.

July 14. On Wednesday, two days ago, we started over from the beginning. Igar Lutjak is convinced that we have missed something in the early steps. There is a contaminant — something organic — that throws off the pyritic reduction in steps 27-29. It is painstaking work — he takes no shortcuts, and all the equipment must be ‘just so.’ Poor Rachel is constantly washing and sterilizing the glassware.

And I am so weary of this unrelenting toil, Diary! Vienna, London and especially Rome seem so far away. Life has grown so serious, deadly serious. If it were not for Anna’s letters, I think I should be sick with depression and anxiety. My dearest one finds a way to post me a letter every week.

We must have a new supply of the extract in two weeks to test it on the guinea pigs.

July 15. Billy Barkell is back! A card posted from Norfolk, Virginia, announces his imminent arrival in Annapolis. The second year cadets have been on an extended voyage on the Naval Academy’s training ship, American Eagle. Billy says he will ‘look me up’ in Baltimore next weekend.

July 17. Mr. Holtzell has brought us six gallons of fresh sow’s urine from his pig farm. He has supplied us for three years, and Tottie’s lab before that.

July 18. I visited Balthasar again today. Though hardly sixty, he is much diminished. Mrs. Bishop says he will not eat properly and hardly speaks; my old friend sits all day gazing at the traffic on Brunt Street, as if by some miracle he will see Caesar coming around the corner, returning home.

“He knows the boy is dead, but he won’t accept so, and it’s killing him,” Mrs. Bishop said. “My husband’s sick with grief and shame. There’s no more use your coming ‘round. He won’t tell you anything. Won’t talk to anybody.”

“That’s not my purpose,” I answered. “Your husband is one of the finest people I know. I am wondering if you would allow me to arrange for a doctor to examine Balthasar — one who specializes in, uh, helping people to come to grips with traumatic events.”

“You mean one of those crazy doctors? No way. No thank you. My husband isn’t crazy. He’s just got the droops in a big way. By and by, he’ll come around all right.”

“Aunt Portia, you ought to listen to Evi” came a familiar voice from the kitchen. Alexandra emerged, shedding an apron.

“I’m sorry, Evi. I was there all along. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see you. Heck, I’m ashamed too, and angry.

“Auntie P,” she added taking her aunt’s hands in hers, “he’s even more angry than me or you. He doesn’t know how to let it out. All that anger — that’s what’s killing him. Maybe a doctor could help.”

“It ain’t . . . isn’t going to bring our boy back. Every time colored folks get in trouble with the Man, one of us ends up dead. Your uncle thought he’d gotten above that. Now he knows different.”

I know what she meant by ‘the Man.’ It’s me, and all other white people, everybody who makes the rules the colored people have to live by. I could only say “Ma’am, think about what I suggested. If it should sound any better to you, I’d like to help.”

“Evelyn, you’re a good girl and a friend, and I thank you for that, but all the same, we don’t need no more help.”

“Alex,” I said. “I guess that’s that. Uh, that ice cream shop down on Argyle Avenue . . . how about walking me down there for a chocolate fudge sundae?” Fearing Alexandra would turn me away too, I waited for her answer.

“Sure, Ev, let’s do that. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let me fetch my parasol.”

No one at the ice cream parlor seemed to mind that I was a white girl. We lingered there for over an hour; it was a reunion that we both needed. Alexandra is a beautiful young woman, inside and out. I wish Tottie could know what a miracle the regular administration of ‘Gynol’ has effected on the child she knew as Balthasar’s desperately awkward nephew.

I recounted our labors in the basement at Eutaw Place. Alex said she’d come now and then to give Rachel a hand with the cleaning and sterilizing.

“Oh, hey, Evi — I want to ask you something,” Alexandra said as though she’d just thought of it. Something told me I might have passed a test. “You ever hear of Mr. Eubie Blake?”

I confessed that I had not, and waited.

“He’s just the best musician in Baltimore, that’s who he is. Do you like jazz music?”

Another confession — I don’t know what ‘jazz music’ is. “Is it something like ragtime?”

“Well, it’s freer, and noisier and . . . (here a sly smile) sexier.”

“I’m going to be singing with Mr. Eubie Blake at a club downtown every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night for the rest of the summer.”

“O, that sounds wonderful,” I ventured.

“You don’t sound convinced of that. Evi, you have to come hear us! Hear me sing!”

Well, I have promised that. I’ll get Billy to take me.

July 23. Billy Barkell visited me on Sunday afternoon, quite splendid in his ‘dress whites.’ My oldest friend has grown muscular and self-assured. I believe I am the only one he allows still to call him ‘Billy.’ It has been over a year since our boldly erotic exploration of each other’s bodies one afternoon at the Savoy Hotel. I fancy that I have become adept at lovemaking since then. Billy has had opportunities to learn more finesse also, I dare say — if not with the girls of Annapolis or Perkinstown, Pennsylvania, . . . the Eagle has just recently called at a dozen Latin American ports.

“So how are you, Evi? I always knew you’d grow up to be smart, but gorgeous is still a big surprise,” Billy said once we were alone. My aunt had discreetly absented herself from the garden after accepting Billy’s greetings and a package of the best Brazilian coffee beans.

“O, life has been good to me,” I replied truthfully, “though the way here from Perkinstown has not been without its bumps. Here’s to old friendships,” I said, raising my glass of lemonade.

“Here’s to friendships that never end,” he answered, clinking his glass to mine.

Our conversation meandered from Baltimore and Annapolis to Vienna and Paris, and then to Trinidad, Havana and Rio. At length, it got back to Perkinstown. I had to confess to neglecting correspondence with my family. “It’s just, Billy, I haven’t much to say to them anymore. I feel uneasy when I visit. They still remember me as a shy little boy. So do all the neighbors, though they are kind enough to pretend that they don’t.”

“You ought to go home again soon, Evi. I stopped by when I was up there at Easter week. To tell the truth, your Pa looked quite poorly. He and your mother and your brothers all spoke fondly of you.”

A long pause. Pensively I regarded the toes of my shoes, peeping out at me from under the hem of my skirt, avoiding Billy’s warm eyes, afraid that if I looked at him, Billy’d charm me into a journey that would stir up too many old ghosts. “We have two weeks’ leave in late August, Evi, before classes begin again. If you’d like then, I could see you got safe to Perkinstown.”

My hand crept into his, but still I avoided Billy’s eyes. “Thanks,” I heard myself answering. “Things are horridly uncertain at the moment. Maybe I can clear them up by late August. And if I can’t, thank you for being thoughtful.”

And then Billy was off to meet some classmates for God knows what kind of carousing, turning down Aunt Enid’s invitation to dinner, but not before we’d agreed to spend Saturday together two weeks from now. O, damn, Diary! He is so handsome and kind; if I do not take care, I shall break my vow to Anna!

July 24. Igar Lutjak has done it. Well, Rachel and I can share some of the credit. Just in time, we have an extract that’s purer than Balthasar’s best, and just in time. Sixty-eight little boy guinea pigs are about to become little girls.

July 26. Dr. Nathan Weiss, who has helped me with the testing protocol, came over to help with surgery today. We have sorted the litters into ten groups of, well, guinea pigs. Group one, males, will receive a ‘normal’ dose of Gynol each day. Group two, also males, will be castrated and receive the same dose. Group three, uncastrated males, will receive ten times the normal dose, and so will Group four, castrated males. Group five, again uncastrated males, will receive what Nathan calls a ‘megadose’ — one hundred times as much Gynol as is needed to stifle male development and induce female characteristics. Group six, castrati, will receive the same ‘megadose.’ Groups seven through ten are ‘controls’ — seven is females who will receive a 10x dose; eight is females who will receive a 100x dose, nine is castrated but undosed males; and ten is undosed, uncastrated males.

We hope we will find that Gynol is benign. It will be almost a month until we know for sure, . . . well, as best we can.

Nathan and Igar Lutjak do not get along. As we sat around the kitchen table eating lunch, Nathan deflected all efforts to initiate a general conversation. Pointedly he avoided Igar, and that surprised me. Usually Nathan is a very polite man.

I had to know, so I signalled Rachel that it was time to powder our noses.

“I was going to tell you, Evi. In fact, I was going to ask what you would do. Igar and I have become good friends. Nathan disapproves, of course. He’s the only one in my family who knows anything at all about us. My father would die of shock, I think.“

“So?”

“Igar’s Roman Catholic, and thinks everything will be dandy if I just convert to his religion. Well — maybe with his family. To my own, I’d be dead. It won’t work at all and yet — O, God, Evi, I think I’m in love!”

July 28. I gave Igar the day off so that Rachel and I could be alone together. His work is nearly finished, anyway. Hardly speaking, both burdened by our thoughts, Rachel cleaned out our nearly empty supplies closet while I tended the guinea pigs. I fancied the little castrati would still be feeling the pain of their loss, but they ate as eagerly as their brothers and sisters.

By ten, we’d finished our chores. Time for tea, and a serious conversation. “Do you want to tell me about it?” I asked. Rachel nodded. Tears were welling in her eyes.

“O, Evi, what ever am I going to do!”

Rachel and Igar both live on the East side. He has a room in a house near Hopkins Hospital; it is farther along the trolley line that Rachel uses to come here. There was, therefore, opportunity for friendly conversation; Rachel noticed that Igar was timing his departure from our laboratory to coincide with hers. On their fourth trolley ride together, he asked if she would help him improve his English. She agreed. They have spent most of two Sundays improving it.

Igar told Rachel about his home in Croatia, a region of Catholic Slavs to the south of Austria proper (the German part). There he has a family ‘as large as a village,’ he said, but here in Baltimore, Igar is all alone. “America is, all people say, ‘land of opportunity.’ In Zagreb, I am university graduate. Good chemist, but I cannot find work. Everyone cries but me when I say I am going to America. Especially the girls cry.”

Rachel could picture this, she said. It seems that half of Europe is moving to America. Her families — both her father’s and mother’s — have lived in Plzn, a city in Bohemia, for hundreds of years. There are three synagogues, a Yeshiva and a secular Jewish school, a strong and vibrant Hebrew community. “Everyone cried when my grandfather left for America, too. That was in 1849. The police were rounding up Socialists, and looking for Baba — my grandfather. He packed a suitcase, kissed his brothers and sisters, and left. By 1856, Baba had a good business here in Baltimore, buying and selling leather. He wrote home, and a year later, my grandmother arrived; at last Baba could have a good Jewish home. Ten years later, there were five children — Isaac, Yakob, Ruth, Sarah and Nathan.

Sarah is Rachel’s mother. Her father, also a Pilzner Jew, came from New York City to court her, with letters of introduction from a rabbi there.

“Papa and Mama, maybe I could manage. Ruth’s husband’s family, the Cones — they’d accept him. Uncle Nathan I can persuade; he and Igar are both educated, modern men. But Uncles Isaac and Yakob — never, not even if Igar converted and I kept the best kosher kitchen in East Baltimore.”

“And so?” I asked.

“And so it is hopeless. I have told him so.“ Rachel broke down in tears, her thin shoulders heaving. I felt as though I should take her in my lap and rock her. “And O, Evi, no other boy has even looked at me before. He is so handsome and kind and gentle. He does not even try to kiss me.”

Well, Diary, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Igar is actually rather homely.

“Rachel, I have to ask this. Has Igar put two and two together?”

She stared at me through wet spectacles, uncomprehending.

“Does he know you were a boy?”

“I suppose he must. Don’t you think so?”

July 29. At last I can take a rest from the laboratory, other than tending to the guinea pigs. This weekend I shall catch up on my correspondence, starting with dear Sasha.

Yesterday evening I was startled me from an after dinner reverie by my Aunt’s gasping laughter. She had a letter in her hands. “Evelyn! Why didn’t you tell me you know Charles Fenwick?”

I struggled to remember. O, yes. The Harvard boy at the Prater.

“You know Charles too?”

“No — I know his great aunt, who married Count Sarkozcy not long after I married the Baron. You remember Countess Sarkozcy, don’t you?”

Dimly, I recalled a large woman with a taste for diamonds who was chummy with Aunt Enid while we were in Vienna. “Yes,” I said, and waited.

“Well, I have just opened Ilene’s letter. She says you made quite an impression on the boy, and (here my aunt winked) his friend Oliver was absolutely smitten by your wicked friend Sasha!”

“Only considerably afterward, after the boys left Vienna, after she herself was charmed and fooled — and I suppose this must be the point of her letter – did Ilene learn that ‘Sasha’ is the notorious Sasha Bezroukoff!”

“Sasha,” I replied, choosing my words carefully, “has a gift. In mimickry, he is not quite the equal of Harry Halloran. Unlike Harry, however, Sasha is female to the core. When he is in costume, it is impossible not to think him a woman.”

“I worried about your befriending him, fearing that he might lead you into waters too deep for comfort.”

“Au contraire, Aunt — it was I who tethered Sasha to solid ground. Without me to hold on, he is likely to sail into space.”

So now, Diary, I must write to Sasha to tell him he is not at all forgotten.

July 30. Well, Diary, I have been up since six and have written a sheaf of letters.

To Winnie Clem in London, overdue congratulations on her engagement, an account of my visit to the Misses Edith and Alice Hamilton at Bryn Mawr School and the popularity of her Alison Ainsley books here, a postscript to the effect that I have decided to matriculate at Hopkins after all and that if she and Rupert do honeymoon in North America, I will give a splendid party for them in Baltimore.

To little Sasha Bezroukoff, trepidatious inquiries. He skates on such thin ice. I pad out my letter with a hopeful account of my life since I last wrote (from London) and remind Sasha that a letter from him is long overdue.

To Harry Halloran, my regret that we missed each other in New York and thanks for his postcard from Denver. I hoped the Etta Shields Travestic Revue was as big a hit on the West Coast as it has been here in the jaded East. Was the story I’d read in the Sun true — Miss Ella was about to take the troupe to Japan and China? What a splendid idea that is -- both countries have a tradition of theatrical impersonation, so the Shields Troupe will no doubt be a huge hit on the stages of the Far East.

To Madeleine Spielvogel, thanks for her welcome letter and, I fear, too bland an update on my life from Rome through Paris and London and back to Baltimore. I add that I am regularly practicing German with a young chemist from Zagreb.

Letters both to Dr. Otto Rank in Vienna and Signorina Maria Montessori in Rome, offering belated thanks for their professional kindness. I report that I will enter medical college a month hence, where I intend to specialize in psychiatric medicine and hope in time to justify their faith in me.

To dear Kat Strasser in Vienna, thanks for her warning about Hirschfeld. He is a scoundrel, but that is not a surprise. Fortunately, if it comes to that, I have nothing to hide and so he has no opportunity to blackmail me.

To “Doktor” Magnus Hirschfeld, sharp words. I will not send him either a bank transfer or the recipe for Gynol. He will have to be content with detailed reports on its marvelous effects — in fact, I will have more to send within a month. When and if, I underlined, a pharmaceutical company is seriously considering investing in research on Gynol, he should inform me. I will then travel to Europe at my earliest opportunity and there present more evidence and negotiate an appropriate contract. (The man is a fool, for he takes me for a fool.)

To Charles Fenwick in Peabody, Massachusetts, an apology. I had abetted my friend Sasha’s deception of his cousin Oliver, and perhaps I had not been as honest as I ought to have been about myself. Would he allow that our play was innocent? I hoped, I said, he will remain my friend. In particular, I should like to pursue our conversation about his cousin, and my mentor and friend, the late Dr. Tottie Clathrop.

And last of all, a long letter to my dearest Anna, still high in the Tirolian Alps with her family. I post to her via Anna’s cousin Beckah in Salzburg. She and Beckah have been intimate since they were toddlers, Anna says, so our love is safe in her care. With Beckah’s kind assistance, my letters will reach Anna whenever they can be forwarded safely. This is annoying, of course, but I must accept that Anna’s father is for now a fact of our life that, since he cannot be challenged, must be maneuvered around.

In Anna’s last letter, she said that Dr. Freud has been invited to lecture at the annual dinner of the American Psychiatric Association and to be the guest of William James at Harvard University. Is it possible, I ask, that her father will bring her with him to New York and Boston? Or were his hints just another cruel enticement? No — I didn’t mean that, forgive me. I understand, dearest Anna, what you have said about your father. You are his personal obsession and, most probably, the neurotic inspiration for some of his most profound insights. I will not speak ill of the eminent Doktor. I resent only that he has made you, my little bird, his captive. Ah, my soul, I do love you and miss you so awfully.

July 31. I told Rachel not to come today, so that I could talk to Igar alone. This is the beginning of training for my career as a psychologist, I suppose.

‘Til 10 am we had been reviewing and editing Igar’s reformation of Balthasar’s notes. He has typed them out, double-spaced, ungrammatically but intelligibly. Then I made tea, strong and on the bitter side, the way we both like it, and sat down opposite him.

“So, Igar,” I said in German, “have you put two and two together?”

He stared at me blankly, so I threw him a line. “You are very fond of Rachel, so fond that you believe love can overcome all barriers.”

“Yes, it is so. In the old country, this never can happen. Maybe a Croat will marry an Italian or a Serb or perhaps a German. Even that is discouraged. Absolutely never a Turk or a Jew. Everybody works together, the different kinds get along — but they do not intermarry.

“America iss different, iss land uff opportunity.” Igar added in English, smiling blissfully.

“It is easy for you to think so,” I said. “You have left your family behind. Rachel’s family is here.”

“So maybe I shall become a Jew, just for the wedding.” Triumphant smile. I let it pass.

“Igar, it won’t be so easy. All of Rachel’s family know she was born a boy. She’s already in trouble with Jewish beliefs, but they sort of look the other way. Her getting married — especially to a Catholic boy — would be more than they could handle. Her family would throw her out.”

“Please say that again. The first part.”

I began to repeat. He cut me off. “What you mean, ‘born a boy?’”

“I mean like me, and everyone else who depends on Gynol! We are only girls by our appearance and disposition. No Gynol, I grow a beard. Rachel grows a beard and a deep voice. Our chests go flat. Surely this is not a surprise, Igar?”

I could see it was.

“You, Miss Evi, yes. . . I know it. But not Rachel! She is so . . . feminine. She is just helping you, I think. Tell me it is not so, please!”

“Rachel tried to explain. You didn’t want to hear, so she asked me to explain to you.” Which I then did, in German, telling Igar the whole story; how Rachel and I and a dozen others were miserable little boys, most of us freaks, until we were rescued by Tottie’s brilliant research on the internal secretions that determine secondary sexual characteristics.

It was nearing lunchtime when Igar stopped asking me questions. “So go home now, and think about this,” I told him. “I know you are smitten by Rachel, and that proves you are a man of taste and discernment. Now decide if, knowing Rachel has a little boy’s penis and testicles, knowing she can never give you sex in the ordinary way or give you children, do you still wish her for your life’s companion?”

“I think I shall talk to Rachel,” he said. “You will see.”

Yes, Diary. We shall see.

August 2. Dead silence for two full days from both Rachel and Igar. Wrote Rachel a note. Guinea pigs all doing fine.

August 3. Flora Cooper telephoned me today to propose a Labor Day Weekend party at the Coopers’ farm on the Chester River, across the Bay from Baltimore. Just us young people, she said — Christy Hodgson and her beau Frank Campbell, Sally Campbell and Archie Black, her fiancé, Flora and “a boy I’ve known for ages, sort of a cousin,” and, to cast a veil of propriety over the long weekend, her married brother and his wife. I could invite Martin Tolliver, or anyone else I wished, and O, were Dorothy Downey and I still good friends? Charmed by the idea of a party with my ‘normal’ friends, I agreed. So it would not be too normal, I encouraged Flora in her notion to include Dorothy and Ted Rawlings. Now, who can I invite, Diary? Certainly not Martin. Billy? I have a couple of weeks to figure this out.

I am worried sick about Rachel.

August 4. I could hear the doorbell ring upstairs, and Patsy hurrying to answer. Something told me our caller must be Rachel Klimintz. I ran up the steps to the kitchen, doffing my apron as I climbed, and reached the hall just in time to see Rachel faint into Patsy’s arms.

There is a daybed in the back parlor, onto which Patsy and I maneuvered my friend. She revived before Patsy returned with the smelling salts and flashed me a weak grin. “O heavens, Evi, did I pass out?” I nodded, waiting in silence. “My body is rebelling,” Rachel continued. “It has been such an awful week I’ve had. I knew you must be worried.”

Patsy wanted very much to stay and listen, I am sure, but I sent her for iced tea and a bit of cake.

“There’s been an awful row with my parents. O, and first Igar and I argued and cried most of Tuesday night. It was after one a.m. when he brought me home. Papa and Mama were still up, waiting. My father called me terrible names until the sun came up.

“I could not eat all day long, even when Mama begged me to take food. I knew what I must do. When father returned home from the shop in the evening, I did not wait for him to call me. I went to the kitchen and said ‘Papa, I have something to tell you and Mama — and my brothers if you will allow them to listen.’

“They could not deny me that. I said that I had no intention of it happening but I have fallen in love with a young man, a kind and educated gentleman, someone I knew they would like if they would just give him a chance, if only for the sake of my happiness.

“’So,’ said my Papa. “It is a goy.’ That just means a gentile, Evi, but my father said it like a dirty word. He didn’t want to hear anything else and started calling me names again and soon I couldn’t stop crying and ran to my room. I sat there until the sun went down and then I lay awake in my bed. I heard someone take away the tray of food . . . they’d left it by the door . . . of course I could not eat but I am not stupid, I drank the water. Then my little sister Minnie — she’s fourteen — crept into my bed. I supposed they’d sent her to spy on me and so I refused to talk to her until I fell asleep. About two, her snuffling woke me up.

‘You think I hate you too, don’t you,’ she whispered. ‘Well, I don’t. Rachel . . . I love you. We all do. It’s just that it’s too terrible for Mama or Papa to imagine . . . .’

“’They will drive me away,’ I answered her. ‘I will not wait for Papa to cast me out.’”

Suddenly, Rachel was wracked by sobs. I steadied her as best I could and waited till the fit passed. “O, Evi, why does Papa think he must pass judgment on us like one of our prophets? Why can’t he just talk to Igar?

“Evi, do you know what I’ve done? Yesterday morning, I stole out of the house with just some things in a little bag. I went to the library and sat and thought all day. Then at four-thirty I got on the trolley and went to Igar’s boarding house. The landlady, you can imagine, she was all curiousity; I wouldn’t tell her anything so she must have speculated a great many dreadful things. Meanwhile, I was waiting for Igar and worried what he’d think when he saw me.

“O, and God is merciful, Evi, he was happy to see me. He was positively radiant! Evi, he got a bag and some things and he took me to a hotel. I’m a fallen woman! Not really, all we did was kiss and hold each other. I’ve never kissed anyone before. It is wonderful. I know I sound silly; you kiss boys all the time, don’t you, but Evi he is such a sweet, wonderful man and he doesn’t care a bit if I am not 100% girl, I am all the girl he wants to love he says!
We don’t care what my mama and papa say, we are going to get married, Evi, not now but later when Igar is a PhD. and I have my degree too, just a BA so I can teach but that’s good enough and then I’ll be 23 they’ll have to let me, won’t they?”

“Shh,” I said. “Take a breath, dear Eat some of this cake. I am happy for you. Do you need a place to stay?”

Rachel sat up. “No thank you, Evi. I am going home. Tonight is Shabbat. I shall not let them chase away from the table.

“You know what? I think Papa will come around in three years, don’t you?”

August 5. On Saturday evenings in midsummer, merrymaking spills from a hundred doorways on Pennsylvania Avenue south of Dolphin Street. It’s a part of Baltimore that no respectable woman, black or white, young or old, will visit without an escort. The Carolina Club fills up a cavernous basement. The air inside is thick with smoke, not just of cigarettes. Notwithstanding the electric fans, the heat is oppressive; all the customers have removed their coats, and most of the men have loosened their ties and rolled their sleeves. Scantily clad waitresses hurry with overpriced drinks and snacks. Upstairs from the club, there’s evidently another sort of business.

The Eubie Blake Trio — pianist, bass fiddler and drummer — was about to play as Billy and I squeezed into our seats, three dapper young men in bowler hats, open-collared shirts and bright vests. Billy ordered us a couple of ales and proceeded to talk about nothing in particular. “Hush,” I ordered. “I promised Alex Cooper I’d pay attention to the music.” Mr. Blake had begun a series of rhythms and piano riffs that were like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Nor Billy: now he too was transfixed by this music, this sensual melody that soared freely above the throbbing, driving rhythms of bass and drum.

After his second number, Eubie Blake rose from the piano seat and raised his hand to still general applause. “Tonight, my dear friends, there is a special treat. Though she’s been singing with us only a few weeks, many of you know her already. Years from now, all of you are going to brag you knew her now. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Chesapeake warbler, Miss Alexandra Cooper!”

General and genuine applause greeted Alex. She was dressed all in white — a deliberately virginal choice, I perceived. “I am untouchable, beyond the reach of all of you, beyond your fondest dreams, a goddess,” was Alex’s message even as she launched into the first bars of a sultry, sexy hymn to love gone badly astray.

I have heard Saint James Infirmary and Frankie and Johnny before on Dorothy’s Victrola, played by a honkey tonk band from New Orleans. That was fun, a little risque. By comparison, the songs Alex was singing fit no categories I knew, defied description, her music blended pain and longing and a touch of hope, speaking to each person’s heart. She sang six songs, then two more as encores; each won greater applause.

After her set, Alex came out to sit with Billy and me while Mr. Eubie Blake and his trio played on. “’Scuse me,” said Billy without waiting for my introduction. “You are just plain wonderful, Miss. My name’s Billy Barkell, and I’ve known Evi forever — since we used to steal apples from Mr. Pinckney’s backyard. What would you think of doing a concert at the Naval Academy?”

“Well, Billy,” Alex laughed, fishing in her purse for a package of cigarettes, “Look around you. You figure out how that’s going to happen, and if the money’s good enough, I guess I’ll show up to get it.

“Want one of these things, Evi?”

I didn’t. Billy took a cigarette, though, and held the candle while they both lit up. I just sat there with a goofy grin, happy to be young and feel risqué with two of my favorite people.

“Y’know, Alex” I said, more a question than a statement, “I guess you spare your aunt and uncle all this.”

“O, Aunt Portia’s been here. She was right with me offstage last week. Said she knows a colored girl’s got to find some kind of living, and as long as I stay off drugs, don’t jazz up any gospel hymns and make it to church on Sunday, she guesses it’s all right.

“So, how’s it going,” I asked.

“I’m making it to church.”

August 7. Rachel was back to work in the lab today, less bedraggled than on Friday but still with great dark circles beneath her eyes. “You look terrible,” I said.

“I know. I had to come to ‘work’ to get away from the house. They are watching me all the time — but it is better than before. Papa is calming down. Uncle Nathan is talking to him a lot.

“Evelyn? I’m really tired. May I just take a nap?”

August 8. Nathan — Dr. Weiss — came today to plan Thursday’s business. We will euthanize and examine twelve dozen guinea pigs: girls and boy/girls. They are all happy, squealing adolescents, almost fully mature. Most of them have been ingesting huge doses of Gynol. O, Diary, it is so depressing to contemplate their massacre, even for science. So many of them! Nathan requires a large number of victims to rule out other causes for anomalies we may find.

Plans complete and roles assigned (this afternoon I shall ready the surgical theatre for tomorrow), I poured tea and asked Nathan if he has met Igar Ludjak. “Yes, matter of fact. Seems like a decent chap.”

“That’s high praise, I guess, from a man.”

Nathan thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it is. Things may work out, if they are patient. My brother Shmuel . . . Samuel’s not an unreasonable man. It’s a tribal reflex. If we welcome outsiders into our tents, how can we Jews survive?

“He came here yesterday,” I said. “I mean Igar, of course. Except for the public library, they have nowhere else to meet. Rachel says they do not know Igar is helping us, and so allow her to continue helping me.”

“We’ll need the help of both of them on Thursday,” Nathan replied, packing his pipe.

“Tell me again. What’s the worst thing we may find?” I knew what Nathan feared, but I wanted to hear it again.

He lit the pipe, then answered. “Necrosis, kidney disease, or gross enlargements. Possibly liver damage. All corrolated to the amount of Gynol the pigs’ve been ingesting.”

“And if so, what then?”

“You must desist from using it, if you want to live long.”

“That is too dreadful to contemplate.”

“The mind resists facts, and the inevitable conclusions that facts compel,” said Nathan, applying a second flame to his pipe. “Suppose, Evelyn, it was found beyond reasonable doubt that smoking tobacco reduced a man’s lifespan by three years on the average. How many smokers would consider the facts soberly and throw away their cigars, their packages of cigarettes, their pipes?” (Here Nathan regarded his own pipe wryly.) “No, we would deny the evidence, imagine flaws in the research, find reasons (doubtless planted by the cigarette manufacturers) to believe that our own circumstance is an exception to the general rule. We should scoff at the pleas of our family and friends that we should desist from smoking.”

“Doubtless some, in the instance you describe, would attempt to shake off their dependency,” I suggested.

“Yes, and a very few might succeed, but the rest of us would find ourselves so miserable without our friend Tobacco that the experience would fortify our resolve to ignore the counsels of the medical community.”

“Let’s pray we find nothing amiss on Thursday.”

END OF PART VI

The Story So Far — Evelyn Westcott is not your average turn-of-the-20th-century American girl. She didn’t want to be a woman, at least consciously, but when Edward’s body betrayed him, he had no other sensible choice. Fortunately, rich & sophisticated Aunt Enid was able to sort everything out. Within a few months after Edward arrived in Baltimore, he was making a game go of it as Evi Westcott, a sophomore at the elite Bryn Mawr School.

In Evi’s day, the mystery of ‘internal secretions’ was only beginning to be unravelled. Our fortunate heroine becomes the patient of the brilliant young researcher, Eleanor “Tottie” Clathrop and her assistant, Balthasar Bishop. When a tragedy claims Tottie, Evelyn carries on her work with Balthasar’s help. She is the ringleader of ‘Tottie’s girls.’ The gender-dysphoric group includes her dear friends Dorothy Downey and, later, Rachel Klimintz and Alexandra Bishop.

Evi is brilliantly popular at school. She develops an interest in serious things: scientific research (into hormones, of course), women’s suffrage and (like all young people) sex. Friendships develop and multiply. The men in Evi’s life include a boy scoutish aeronaut, a female impersonator, an artist (and secret cross-dresser), a sexy midshipman and a cad. She's also strangely attracted to a racy poetess.

In Part IV, having survived a night in jail, been graduated from Bryn Mawr School and lost her virginity, Evi embarks on ‘the Grand Tour’ with Aunt Enid. In Europe, she hopes she will find greater tolerance and understanding of ‘different’ people — in the event, she finds more differences, a touch more tolerance, but no more understanding. Part V opens as Evelyn, still hopeful of finding a manufacturer for the feminizing drug, Gynol, and her Aunt Enid are arriving in Vienna, the glittering, decadent capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. There she learns there are many kinds of love, and finds lovers and at last a true love. Anna’s autocratic father attempts to break up the liaison by sending her off to a convent. Evi follows Anna to Rome and a tender, joyful reunion marked by pledges of eternal affection.

Yet again, the readability of this epic owes much to the kind help of my Beta readers, Riottgrrl and Jan S. Hugs, Daphne