BALTHASAR’S EXTRACT (The Titanic Era Diary of Evelyn Westcott) Part VIIEvi 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.’

Rejoin Evi just as she and Dr. Nathan Weiss have learned the tragic secret of Gynol, the wonder drug on which she and the rest of ‘Tottie’s Girls’ depend. Or, if you are new to this series, perhaps you’d rather begin at the beginning (Part I, some 116,000 words ago), review the list of characters (see 'The People in Evi Westcott's Diary') or go to the end of this chapter for a very short synopsis of the story so far. Copyright August 2009 - Daphne Laprov

August 11, 1911. My dear God, Diary, what are we to do? Nathan says the evidence can no longer be denied. Balthasar’s elixir, that is, Gynol, is not only a life-saving drug; it harbors a potent toxin as well — a contaminant, perhaps — that subverts the function of the kidneys.

I have written to Anna, pouring distress from my heart, but it is unfair to burden her so. My Anna has enough problems of her own in Vienna. I will not post the letter. The act of writing it, though, has cleared my head. Last evening I could hardly link two coherent thoughts. Now at least this is clear: the girls must all be alerted to the risk we run if we continue to use the drug. Each of Tottie’s Girls must decide in her own mind whether to discontinue the daily dose. What a fearful choice! Cease, and masculine traits will reveal themselves within months. Continue, and our kidneys may fail at any time!

Nathan will continue the autopsies through the weekend with Igar’s assistance. I doubt that I am able yet to be of much help. Yesterday, as the evidence piled up with each dissection, neither Rachel nor I could suppress waves of nausea. (A fine doctor I shall be!) Nathan has excused us from further attendance at the dissection table; in fact, he and Igar Ludjak have seen all the guinea pig cadavers, well-iced, removed in a cart to the Hopkins Hospital laboratory. They believe the advanced apparatus there may permit them to discover the action of the pernicious element in our serum, and thereby give us a clue to its nature.

August 13, Sunday. Billy Barkell came up from Annapolis yesterday afternoon. He pressed me to accompany him ‘home’ to Perkinstown and without enthusiasm I have agreed. I do love my parents, Diary, and should of course be eager to see them again — it has been nearly two years! Burdened as I am with my own cares and fears, however, I shall be dreadful company for Billy and scant support for my mother in her bereavement. It is generally conceded that my father is dying. He was ill in the spring, rallied, and now has fallen gravely ill again. Billy and I will leave by the first train on Wednesday and attain Perkinstown late on the same day.

I have confided my own awful news to Aunt Enid though not to Billy. My aunt received it gravely, of course. She professes that whatever I may decide, I shall turn it right. Should I need them, she added, all her resources are at my disposal. Would that I had her faith in my own capacities!

August 14. Now Dorothy Downey and her mother know as well. I acquainted them with the facts of our experiments this morning. For Dorothy there is no dilemma. Come what may, she will continue daily doses of Gynol. “If I cannot be a girl, I would rather be dead,” she says. “You will never make a man of me!”

We have agreed that Dorothy will summon the girls for a meeting at the Downey’s home on the 27th, in the afternoon. It is a Sunday so all should be able to attend.

August 16, aboard the Susquehanna Flyer. Billy has absented himself to the smoking car for the hour before our train reaches Harrisburg. As always perceptive, he realizes that I need some time alone with my thoughts. So, I suppose, does he after our conversation just now — a conversation I have anticipated might occur.

Soon after we were settled in our compartment, Billy, with the most earnestly charming expression, commenced to confide to me sentiments of affection, sentiments, he said, that go far beyond mere friendship. Everything about me captivates him, Billy claimed — my bearing, my industry in improving myself, my intelligence and, most of all, my ‘perfect femininity.’

“Billy,” I said, “dear Billy Barkell, you have known me since I was a boy. You know I am a perfect fraud.”

“You are not a fraud, Evelyn. You are the most wonderfully female person I ever have known.”

“Ah, Billy, you do not know me all so well as that. I am deeply conscious of your affection; indeed I can imagine no man whose nature would suit me better, no man I could love so well as you. But, my dear, my ambition does not allow me to love a man. I have already said as much to two other suitors. It saddens me that I must say as much to you: marriage is not for Evelyn Westcott.

Had he pressed further, I was prepared to confess that I did indeed love another, my dear sweet Anna Freud. I would have told Billy that with Anna I had learned that whilst the company of well-mannered men is quite nice, I can find true happiness only with a kindred, female soul. And that I am pledged to Annika, now so far away.

But Billy did not press. He said only that he hoped I might change my mind some day, and that we might continue to be friends. I replied that I should be quite miserable if he or I should feel the least constraint hereafter on account of our honest expression of sentiments. We had always been friends and the fact that we shall not become lovers as well ought not now come between us. And so now Billy is off smoking a cigar, brooding a bit perhaps, while I sneak fond glances at the photograph I always carry of slyly smiling Anna in her dirndl skirt.

August 17. Eben met us at the station. Perkinstown is much citified since completion of the branch rail line. It has been wonderful for commerce, Eben says; he can ship his vegetables and hay overnight either to Philadelphia or Baltimore. Indeed, my big brother is the image of prosperity, with a new gabardine suit, a smart carriage and team, and the beginning of a paunch. I was on the point of teasing him about it when I recalled the sad occasion for my overdue journey.

“Father is unlikely to last the month,” Eben replied in answer to the question I posed as soon as we had dropped Billy off at his parents’ drive. “Lately he is at peace with the idea, and professes confidence that Geoff and I shall look after Mother as sons ought to.

“He has asked about you, too. I doubt that you are ever far from his thoughts. It will do Father good to see you. And Mother too — but I must warn you, Evelyn, you will find she is much diminished herself, not from sickness but from worry and the work of tending an invalid.”

So, after this consequential conversation, Eben and I arrived at Tucker Farm last night, where I found things just as he had described.

Awakening this morning to the mingled aromas of bacon and maple syrup, I dressed hastily and ran to the kitchen to find my mother already laying breakfast on the table. Seeing me, she put her finger to her lips and I perceived that Father must be sleeping on the bed that has been made up for him in the parlor. “It’s good you are here, dear,” she said in a hushed voice. “I have gotten out of the habit of eating properly.”

“I fear that I am only another burden to you, Mama. I ought to have been here to help.”

I meant that I had been remiss in not waking with the roosters, but intuiting a larger meaning, my mother regarded me tenderly. “It’s all right, Evelyn. Perkinstown wasn’t the right place for you. We all expect you’ll do great things. Your father said to me just the other day, a time will come that they’ll put up a sign bragging that Perkinstown is the birthplace of the famous Doctor Evelyn Westcott. What do you think?”

I started to sniffle.

Father awoke towards nine. Bidding me wait, Mother attended to him and then told him that I had arrived from Baltimore.

Distinctly, I heard through the door to the parlor “Thunderation, ‘Bella, where is she then?”

“Oh, Father, here I am!” I said, flinging myself through the door to Father’s bedside, and there I hesitated, not sure how to embrace him without causing pain. I took his hand instead. He was much shrunken, save for his swollen abdomen. His eyes were cloudy with what I supposed was a morphine haze.

“I hoped I’d last until you got here. Aren’t you cold? It’s cold, isn’t it?”

I was wearing only a cotton shirtwaist and skirt, and already outdoors it was nearly eighty degrees.

“No, Father, it’s a lovely summer day.”

“Well, I’d rather die in the summertime, I guess, as long as there’s plenty of ice to keep me from stinking at the funeral.” My face must have expressed pure horror, for Father added quickly “O, come on, child — we both know it’s awful close. It’s nice to see you.”

Then my sobs came, the woeful sobs that guilt induces, guilt and knowing that what was wrong couldn’t be put right. Father lay quietly, regarding me until they subsided to a sniffle, and then he spoke again.

“Now listen to me, child. I haven’t got a lot of strength left so let’s not waste it me trying to stop you from blubbering. I just want to tell you that I understand. Perkinstown is your past, and that means bad memories as well as some good ones, and you can’t sort out the one from the other, so maybe you just needed to stay away so you could get on with your life.”

Yes, Father — that’s it exactly.

“ ‘Sides, your mom and I didn’t need another boy. Already had two. We just want you to be a good, happy girl who . . . gets to live out her dreams.”

I took a tissue, folded it and mopped my father’s brow, and kissed him there.

“So quit sniffling about me and make me feel good instead by telling me about medical college, and all your traveling in Europe with Enid.”

We talked, or rather I talked, Diary, for most of the day. My mother sat with us, occasionally absenting herself to see to a chore, and Father drifted in and out of a light sleep. He’d wake up, however, whenever I stopped, so in an almost disembodied murmur, I revisited the events of my life as a girl and young woman, my amazing odyssey since -- as 14 year-old Edward Tucker — I left Perkinstown, Pennsylvania to become Evelyn Westcott. I told him of my friends — Dorothy and Rachel and the rest of ‘Tottie’s girls,’ Billy, Ted Rawlings, Balthasar Bishop, Dr. Nathan Weiss, Harry Halloran, Ella Shields, my chums from Bryn Mawr School, Winnie and Rupert in London, Sasha, Kat and Anna in Vienna, Fiona Rawlings and little Massimo Morabbi in Rome — all dear and in large part ‘different.’ I rambled on about Dr. Tottie Clathrop and Aunt Enid and the Hamilton sisters — the strong women who’d kindled my ambition — and of my brave plans to study the psychology of children and youth. I told my father about Otto Rank and Maria Montessori, Sigmund Freud and even that mountebank, Magnus Hirschfield. I confessed that I’d been — still was — in love. I shared my fear that I’d not live up to the hope that others have invested in me. At last, it seemed that there was nothing more to say.

“Give me your hand, child.” I gave him both. My father’s eyes were clear now, brilliantly blue in the afternoon sunlight that now flooded the parlor, his sickroom. “Don’t worry and for Pete’s sake, don’t cry. God has blessed you with great and special gifts. Use them for good.”

Just then we heard we heard my brothers and their families stealing into the kitchen. My dear father raised his voice as much as he could and called out, "I'm not dead yet," then he whispered, "Only very, very tired," and with that he drifted off.

Our meal was almost festive, consumed in the dining room only a few steps from Father’s sickbed. Once he awoke, and it gave him evident pleasure to see us all together. Scarcely an hour after our meal, however, Father took a turn for the worse. When Eben went to touch his hand by way of farewell, he found my father unconscious.

August 18 — Father’s death. Breathing hoarsely, Father slept fitfully all night as we (Mother, me and my brothers’ wives) took turns keeping vigil by his bedside. This morning Father regained consciousness. He was well enough — barely — to acknowledge Pastor Watson and some friends from neighboring farms who came by to pay their respects. Seeing Doctor Cutter arrive, Father said “I’m not dead yet,” grinned weakly, sucked in a great breath and passed away thereupon.

August 19. The wake will be on Sunday evening and the funeral Monday morning. Have telegraphed Aunt Enid. Cleaning house furiously with Ruth while Mother and Alice bake pies.

August 20. If anyone in Perkinstown remembers Edward Tucker, they are keeping it a secret from me. After church this morning, quite a few girls near to my age stopped me to say hello and show off their husbands and babies. Billy hovered close, perhaps to intercept any young man who might be tempted say something awkward. As the congregation dispersed, I thanked Billy for insisting that I come ‘home.’ I am sad, but would be far sadder, I told him, had I not taken leave of Father.

August 21. Half the population of Perkinstown must have been at Father’s funeral to hear Pastor Watson extol his virtues and utter hearty ‘amens.’ Aunt Enid arrived just in time to join the throng, having taken the night train.

Then, satisfied that Father was well-buried, bearing casseroles, bottles and salads, at least a hundred souls followed us home for a noonday meal, as is the country custom. Ruth and Alice and I hurried to set out the food and drink. Father’s friends were in a convivial mood, and there was much toasting of the dearly departed.

Having grown rather weary, I detached myself from the crowd for a moment to rest against a porch rail. Immediately I was approached by a handsome young man. Evidently he had been waiting for an opportunity; he came bearing two glasses, smiled warmly and said “I wonder if you’d accept some lemonade and a heartfelt apology. I was a heartless cad when we were young, and I want you to know I regret very much the bullying I inflicted on you.” Only then, Diary, did I recognize my childhood nemesis, Finney Baker. “O, it is you!” is all I could stammer in reply.

“The same, but I hope a better person now,” he replied. “Barkell has acquainted me with some facts that make my behavior back then doubly reprehensible. Please believe that could I undo it, I surely would.”

Perhaps I ought to have been kinder, Diary, but instead I told him the truth. “I suffered unspeakable torments, confounded by my own body’s betrayal, the loss of my innocence, thinking perhaps your relentless ragging was merited. For years, I blamed and hated you, Finney. In my thoughts, I consigned you to a special hell for bullies."

“And of course, no one deserved such punishment more. I think I must have been envious of you, Miss Evelyn, jealous of your intelligence and good manners.”

“That’s long ago, and you are forgiven. What are you doing now?” I asked.

“Perhaps you’ll find this hard to believe,” he answered. “I was graduated from the normal school in Shippingsport last year, and this year I will teach eighth grade in Perkinstown.”

Yes, it is hard to believe.

Later, after we’d cleaned up with the help of some of the neighbor women, I found Aunt Enid and Mama deep in conversation. “Help me here, Evelyn,” my aunt said. “I’m trying to persuade your mother to come down to Baltimore for a long visit in the autumn when things have settled down.”

“Enid, not once in forty years do you come back to Perkinstown, and now you think it’s my turn to visit you! Fiddlesticks!” grumbled my mother. “I’ll think it over.”

August 23. Night had fallen when Aunt Enid and I reached home on Eutaw Place at last. Awaiting us were notes of condolence from friends and an urgent message from Nathan Weiss. Would I please telephone him as soon as I was fit to do so?

Notwithstanding the hour, I ‘phoned immediately. “Evelyn, is that you?” I heard him say as soon as he picked up the instrument. “I want you to hear this first of all from me. Steel yourself. Dorothy is ill.”

August 24. I visited my chum today. Though visibly weak and wan, she was stoutly opposed to putting off the meeting with the rest of Tottie’s girls. “Nathan suspects it’s my kidneys,” she said. “All the girls need to know the truth. I suppose that if it persists, this illness of mine will be a lesson for us all.

August 27. Jane Ellen Webb straggled in a few minutes after two, the fourteenth and last, and I called the meeting to order. “Girls, I fear that we must attend to serious business,” I said. “Since our last meeting, we have succeeded in resuming production of Gynol. If anything, it is a purer drug than ever, and as efficacious. But — I cannot vouch for its safety.

“You all know Dr. Weiss. We have no greater friend, as he has proved again and again since the, um, incident early in May. Most recently, Dr. Weiss and a chemist from Johns Hopkins Hospital have supervised important research into the effects of the drug. I am acquainted with the results of that research; they are of great consequence for each of us. Accordingly, I have asked Dr. Weiss to discuss them today.”

With this introduction, Nathan reviewed our experiment on the guinea pigs. The sample was sufficiently large, he emphasized, that there could no longer be doubt that guinea pig kidneys are severely stressed by Gynol when it is ingested in large amounts. There is, further, no significant physiological difference in the function of guinea pig and human kidneys. One was forced to the conclusion that to some as yet undetermined degree, reliance on Gynol by humans in amounts sufficient to suppress ‘male’ characteristics and stimulate ‘female’ ones poses an elevated risk of kidney disfunction. Was that clear?

Nathan was peppered with questions until all the girls understood. Gynol inhibits the development of beards, deepened voices, and characteristically masculine musculature, not to mention typically boisterous or aggressive behavior. It promotes curves, softness and a gentle, nurturing disposition, in short, the marks of femininity. A disinterested study of the individuals treated by Dr. Tottie Clathrop would provide ample evidence that for this population, Gynol has been a miracle drug, with dramatic therapeutic impact on crises of sexual identity. Gynol might well have application, Nathan speculated, in the treatment of a much larger number of women who for some reason suffer an irregularity of their internal secretions.

That is not Gynol’s only impact, however. Nathan explained that already three of the seventeen individuals who have taken a daily dose of the drug have shown symptoms of kidney dysfunction. One — young Benjamin Blacknell — was dead, possibly because Gynol triggered an intensely antipathetic reaction. Autopsy had revealed tumors on both kidneys. Maeve Binchey was operated on in 1910 to remove a grossly swollen kidney which was, by subsequent evidence, harboring a malignant tumor. So far, Nathan said with a wink at Maeve, that operation must be deemed a great success.

Lately, he continued, another of our number was showing impairment of renal, that is, kidney, function. Taken with the evidence of the guinea pigs, the risk is palpable. As our physician, he could no longer recommend Gynol. Nor would he refuse to prescribe it. The decision to continue or not was ours alone.

Gravely, hardly breathing, we girls regarded each other. “I must tell you, my dear friends,” said Dorothy at last. “It is I who am ill.” Audible gasps greeted her revelation, followed by general tears. “I am not afraid,” Doro said. “God willing, and with the aid of your prayers, it will come to nothing.”

August 30. It is as I guessed. Nathan has heard from each of us. Not one of our group are willing to discontinue Gynol. I suppose ‘normal’ people would find it hard to understand why we are so attached to our hard-won femininity, but were any proof wanting of our resolve, there it is.

We shall, however, reduce the daily dose. It is essential to verify the minimum level that will enable us to remain unambiguously ‘female.’

Dorothy is slightly better, but not nearly well enough for a Labor Day Weekend excursion to the Campbell farm. Nor would it be proper for me to join them so soon after losing Father. After consulting Ted Rawlings and advising Billy, I have phoned Sally Campbell to tender regrets for all of us.

I am miserable, thinking of my dear ones in Perkinstown. Fearing (baselessly it has turned out) ridicule from persons who knew me as a child, I wasted so many opportunities to know my father in the fullness of my own adolescence and now adulthood. And now Father is gone forever. O, I do hope that Mother will consent to visit us soon!

September 2. Be still, o my wildly thumping heart! Glorious news has arrived in a letter from Anna. Her father has agreed that she may accompany him in his trip to America in her accustomed role as his secretary! They will arrive in mid-October for two weeks — Dr. Sigmund Freud, Anna, and two of his disciples, a Hungarian named Ferenczy and a Swiss named Jung. Freud will give five lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

O, but of course there is a problem. I know it already, but Anna has underlined it. “I dearly hope that you shall be able to manage the demands of medical school so that we shall be able to meet,” she writes. “I hope for you so much, and feel so eager for you . . . that the expectation once more to see your face again, makes me feel hot and feverish. However, at all costs, Father must not suspect that we are even in touch.

“With diligent obedience to his needs, I have at last quieted Father’s jealous apprehension, but the merest hint of continued affection between us would result in my being left behind in Europe. I would not be surprised if he were to send me back to that horrid convent in the event his suspicions were aroused.”

By stunning coincidence, Clark University is Nathan’s alma mater.

September 3. I visited Nathan this morning to broach my scheme. Not without considerable trepidation, I explained to him the circumstances of my attachment to Anna. I fancy that my story surprised him — after all, young women are not in the habit of advertising their romantic liaisons. Perhaps Nathan blinked once or twice, but after hearing me out, he agreed to my audacious proposal. Accordingly, Nathan has posted a special delivery letter to President Hall at Clark, requesting permission to attend the lectures with his protégé, a youth recently returned from study in Europe who is not only fluent in German but conversant with psychiatric concepts and terms. He had no reservations, Nathan wrote, in proposing that ‘Edward Tucker’ be recruited to assist the visitors from Europe.

It is the only way, Diary. If Dr. Freud were to see me as I am, I am sure he would recognize me. Yes, I made a profound impression on the old tyrant that afternoon in Vienna scarce nine months ago. A disguise is imperative. Miss Ella Shields and Harry Halloran have taught me to ‘play the youth.’ At least, I shall try it, and please God, I shall succeed brilliantly!

September 5. The Johns Hopkins Medical School Class of 1913 was convoked today — eighteen men and three women. We did not need Dean Welch’s warning that the course will require all our strength and stamina to complete, but he took pains to issue it nonetheless. Lectures three days a week, mountains of books to study and lists to memorize — that is our ‘life’ for the year ahead. Yet, here I am already plotting to be absent for ten days!

September 6. Nathan has received a telegram from President Hall at Clark in response to his letter. His plan is enthusiastically acclaimed. Would Nathan and young ‘Mr. Tucker’ be able to join him on October 5 to meet the SS Kaiser Freidrich der Grosse on its arrival in New York City and assist by escorting the distinguished guests to Worcester?

September 15. A letter arrived from Sasha Bezroukoff in Vienna today, as charmingly insouciant as ever but, for all that, tinged by sadness. For some months, he has been the pet and consort of “a wonderful, generous man, Evi, noble in manner as well as of birth.” However, he senses that his grande amour is losing interest in little Sasha’s tender caresses. “Alas, it is no longer so easy for me to play the part of a girl. The mirror reports to me the ineluctable treason of my body. I must resort to greater and greater artifice. Evi, I am taking lessons to train my voice not to break, and I have found the most brilliant dressmaker — she is able to to add a bit here and take away something there so that, expertly corseted and stayed, I retain the figure I must.” Sasha sends dix mille bizous, greetings as well from his mother and sisters, and a charming photograph. It shows him on the steps of the Burg-Theatre in a stylishly slim walking dress and huge feathered hat and on the arm of his “Kurt,” an officer of the hussars who is quite manly, if not handsome. I imagine they are about to take in a matinée, or to promenade on the Ringstrasse.

There is also a letter from Hirschfeld, posted from Berlin. He has by dint of great effort, he reports, succeeded in arranging interviews at the headquarters of the Hoescht and Chimie Fabrik chemical companies. Both are ‘interested’ in Gynol, he relates, but demand scientific data to analyze — details on the precipitation process, he means — before they will agree to talk business. “You should send such information forthwith,” Hirschfeld adds with an underline. He encloses his bill for services rendered: 400 Deutschmarks.

September 24. Friends have been asking about Dorothy. Word of her illness has spread all over Baltimore. I pass on what I have learned from Ted Rawlings; she is not well at present but is getting the best of medical care and surely will recover.

September 30. “This gentleman is Master Dinh,” Etienne explained in French. “He is a very skilled practitioner of our medicine, which incorporates the wisdom of three thousand years. My mother has brought Master Dinh from Paris to assist in curing Miss Dorothy.’

I eyed Master Dinh skeptically — in fact, rudely, I suppose, so surprised was I by the thought that he might treat Dorothy. If he took offense at my stare, he did not show it; indeed, he seemed quite at ease, showing just the shadow of a smile on an otherwise impassive countenance. This Annamese ‘doctor’ was dressed all in black — tunic, silk trousers, and a flat turban that I took to be his badge of authority.

“Master Dinh has already examined Dorothy. Her, uh, metabolic system is severely out of balance. He believes he can help restore a more harmonious relationship among her . . . vital humours. It is not easy for me to explain,” Etienne added with an apologetic smile.

Master Dinh leaned forward and, touching both Etienne and me on the forearm ever so lightly, he murmured something to Etienne in their singsong tongue. As he did so, I caught Nathan’s eye. “It is all right. Let’s see what he has to say,” he whispered.

“The Master says I am to explain that there is a great dislocation in the flow of Miss Dorothy’s ‘chi’ — her vital humours. He has seen similar cases many times. Almost certainly her kidneys are greatly weakened.”

Nathan and I both gasped involuntarily.

October 6. I must say that I am surprisingly handsome in a frock coat and wing collar, but I do not care one bit for the sensation. The coat and trousers — black, of course, and with a crape band on the sleeve, for I am in mourning — are so stiff and scratchy, for one thing, and for another my breasts are tightly wrapped in elastic bandages. I have silk lingerie underneath, of course, but my feet are encased in thick-soled boots and my curls, most cruelly shorn to just above shoulder length, are wedged into a ‘homberg’ hat.

Past weeks have sped by in a blur of memorization. The 17th edition of Gray’s Anatomy compasses over 600 pages! I have been a diligent student; I can ingest and regurgitate the Latin names of muscles, ligaments and bones better than any of my classmates, I dare think, but the work of memorization leaves hardly time to sleep, let alone scribble in my diary. I fancy my brain is swelling like the livers of those French geese who are force-fed on corn.

And now, at last, Nathan and I are in a first class car of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, already halfway to New York City. He has been speculating that we proud worshippers at the altar of ‘scientific method’ may learn much from the medicine men of the Orient if we were to approach them with respect and an open mind. What other conclusion could a reasonable man reach after witnessing Dorothy’s remarkable improvement under the ministrations of Master Dinh?

If only her remission is permanent!

Now to happier thoughts. . . . In six hours, at most, I shall see my Annika! She, her father and the two other psychoanalysts will arrive direct from Bremen.

Nathan has been a kind, dear and true friend. I don’t know how I should have managed this adventure without him. It seems that he is as keen for it as I am, and a great deal more impressed than I by the prospect of meeting Dr. Freud himself.

Nathan has bought himself a new suit of clothes — a well-cut black frock coat and matching trousers, set off by a rather splendid nut-brown and gold striped vest and a derby hat. It looks wondrous good on him. I had to tease Nathan, so used are we to seeing him absent-mindedly attired in a drab sack coat and weskit that have seen much better days. “At last you appear to be a doctor of some consequence,” I ventured. “Might your friends surmise that there is a lady whom you want to impress?”

“O, you might surmise that,” he replied, “but wouldn’t the honor of greeting an eminent foreign personage suffice?” It was all Rachel’s doing, he confessed — she’d badgered him until he agreed to visit a tailor — she accompanied him as his advisor — and voila, Diary, the result — an extremely presentable gentleman!

October 6, again. I was nervous as a cat when the great man disembarked, apprehending that he should see through my disguise in an instant. I hardly dared to look him in the eye as I squeaked out a reply to his greeting. No matter — Dr. Freud noticed me not at all and gave Nathan hardly a second glance as he addressed his attentions to President Hall, his host.

Twenty minutes passed before I could exchange even a few polite words with Anna. She was still laughing hard at my appearance and my discomfiture. How gay she was in a smart new travelling suit, her fair hair loosely coiffed below an absurd felted hat with a feather cockade! The young Hungarian, Ferenczy, hovered protectively. I longed to throw my arms about Anna but could not, perforce, do more than offer my arm. She but give it a friendly squeeze as we descended from the station to a waiting cab, and then were whisked off to the Hotel Manhattan.

Father and daughter are sharing a room! She must suffer his snores and cigar smoke so that he may save $2.50 a night!

October 7. The great man and his party appeared at eight-thirty. Dr. Hall soon took his leave — he is returning to his college see to the preparations for the conference — and the rest of us betook ourselves the Metropolitan Museum at Freud’s behest to view some recently acquired Cyprian bronzes.

The Hungarian is an awful pest, hovering about Anna as though he possesses her, or wishes to do so. At last Nathan managed to draw ‘Sandor’ away on the pretext of showing him and the others something quite fascinating about dinosaur fossils, whereupon I was able to whisper my exquisite joy to Anna at our reunion, and she to reply with a similar sentiment.

“Don’t worry a bit,” she said. “Father doesn’t suspect a thing -- nor will he if you behave yourself and prove a useful interpreter. Now let us hurry; they are probably waiting for you with a question that wants translation!”

And so it has gone all day, Diary. I am bound to interpret for Drs. Freud and Jung whilst Ferenczy, who knows a few words of English, flirts with Anna in German. Tonight we dine at Hammerstein’s Bavarian Roof Garden. Tomorrow we leave New York for Worcester, Massachusetts.

October 8. It is Indian summer as we speed across Connecticut. Our compartment is hot; the fan works imperfectly and I am perspiring profusely within my woolen frock coat. The men have taken their coats off and relax informally in shirtsleeves. I dare not emulate them. Though my breasts are bound, still my figure is less than manly. Anna is enchanting in a high-necked, sashed cotton dress; she has tied her hair in a bow to match the sash. Unbeknownst to her father or the rest of her travelling companions, her pretty boots are brazenly brushing up against my brogans whilst she quizzes me in her schoolgirl English about America. At what age do ‘nice’ American girls marry, she asks. Are they allowed to choose their own male friends? To attend university? To work in the professions? To live independently, perhaps with a woman friend? To manage their own financial affairs?

I choose my answers carefully, aware that they are to be replayed later in conversation between father and daughter — Anna seeking to loosen the unseen cords that bind her to her father, and he fearing the consequences not so much for her, I think, as for himself if he loses her constant assistance, the acquiescence to his demands that he takes for granted.

October 9. Dr. Freud is working on his lectures. He is to give five this week, beginning tomorrow, and only one is ready. He uses Anna as his scribe/slave. Jealous, I apply myself to memorizing the Latin names of the arteries and veins. Tonight there is a gala welcoming banquet.

Nathan sought me out to introduce me to other psychologists who are gathering to hear Dr. Freud. What a waste — can you imagine, Diary, that on encountering these same gentlemen some years hence, and presuming on prior acquaintance, I should confess that I had attended their conclave disguised as a young man? What psychosexual theories should they spin out to ‘explain’ my bizarre behavior? Would they believe that it was all for love?

I am particularly glad to meet one of them, however, a Dr. Ernest Jones who has come down from Canada. His command of German is excellent and it is he, rather than I, who will interpret the pending lectures. Though Nathan and I shall continue to serve as interpreter for informal conversations, I feel that a heavy burden has been lifted from my shoulders.

Meanwhile, Nathan and I have formed a plan. Anna, to whom I conveyed its essence in a note, has signified her agreement with a nod!

October 10. Dr. Freud gave his first lecture today on ‘The Origins of Psychoanalysis.’ I admit that he spoke well — conversationally, without notes — and has charmed his American audience. Would they like him so much if they knew he misses few opportunities to disparage American culture to his friends?

Consider this rude rant to Dr. Hall, which I was compelled to interpret: You are ruled by women in America. Your young men go to college with girls, fall in love and marry at an age when girls are usually much more mature then the men. They lead the men around by the nose, make fools of them, and the result is matriarchy. That is why marriage is so unsuccessful in America -- that is why your divorce rate is so high. Your average American man approaches marriage without any experience at all. You wouldn't expect a person to step up to an orchestra and play first fiddle without some training. . . . In Europe, things are different. Men take the lead. They are not mentally feminized. That is as it should be. . . . [Equality in marriage] is a practical impossibility. There must be inequality, and the superiority of the man is the lesser of two evils.

This morning the great Doktor ‘slept in.’ Anna says he is greatly bothered by intestinal disorders which he attributes to ‘American cooking.’ At mid-morning, Jung was sent out in search of ‘real German food’ while Freud worked with Ferenczy preparing another lecture. They hardly noticed as Anna and I slipped out for a walk.

The campus was indeed lovely this morning; its oaks, elms and maples are garbed in autumnal splendor, the sky was bright and blue, and fresh-faced students hurried past us on their way to class. None paid us the slightest heed; at last I had the joy of Anna’s exclusive company. We wandered into a wooded area, conversing animatedly in German.

“You make a rather odd boy, my dear,” Anna confided, “with not even the hint of a beard. Father commented on it. He is quite satisfied by your discharge of your interpreting duties, though. And I . . . I should adore to rip those awful clothes off you entirely!”

“Nothing could please me more,” I replied. “This week has reconfirmed to me that in all but the most technical sense, I am entirely a woman. I cannot abide this charade a moment longer than necessary.”

As Anna and I walked, I outlined the plan that Nathan and I have formed. It turns upon Professor Nathaniel Fenwick’s enthusiasm for psychoanalytic theories and Dr. Freud’s dyspepsia. Professor Fenwick, you see, Diary, is the father of Charles Fenwick, one of the young men that Sasha and I so wickedly duped in Vienna.

Charles is a forgiving soul. He bears no grudge for my part in his deception, and so I felt no embarrassment when I telephoned to recruit him into our conspiracy. I have induced Charles to persuade his father — the incumbent of a distinguished chair of pyschology at Harvard University — to invite Doktor Freud, et al., to visit Harvard and Boston.

The invitation will be duly extended, and my only fear is that Dr. Freud will not only refuse it but require that Anna remain by his side as his nurse.

O, Diary, I must add that Anna’s kisses — stolen as we paused in a secluded bower — are as sweet as ever.

October 13. The lecture room, half-empty on Tuesday, is on Friday full to crowding. Dr. Freud is explaining how he conceived his theory of sexual psychopathology. A round dozen of newspapermen, including some from New York, are scribbling furiously. Dr. Hall is watching them apprehensively. In two hours, I shall be on a train bound for Boston.

October 14. Nathan has just telephoned to me at the Fenwicks; he, Anna, Freud, Jung and Ferenczy are about to board the Boston express. They will disembark in Cambridge at half-past ten. I must hurry to complete my toilette. Ah, Diary, how wonderful was this morning’s bath! It has washed away all the nasty manliness I have been compelled to pretend this past week.

The Fenwicks have welcomed me graciously as a friend and protégé of their deceased niece and cousin, Tottie Clathrop. I arrived last night still in the guise of a young man; Charles and his sister Allie, who met me at Cambridge Station, spirited me into the Fenwick home without disturbing the servants. The two of them also conspired to support my stealthy transformation back into my true identity, and so it was as Evelyn Westcott that I was enabled to greet Dr. and Mrs Fenwick at breakfast this morning.

Allie Fewick is Tottie’s age — that is, the age Tottie would be — and a lepidopterist of growing renown; this morning after breakfast she bade me recall in detail what I could of her dear cousin’s great and greatly misunderstood research into the chemical basis of ‘gender attributes.’ Feeling a little as though I were a specimen under her glass, I told Allie truthfully that I had understood only a little at the time, and only a little more now, of Tottie’s motivations. She was twenty-seven, I then but fourteen and hence oblivious to deeper sensibilities. In my estimation, I said, Tottie was a saint whose sacrifice made it possible for at least a few souls to find peace on earth. I hoped to continue and extend that work.

“By that,” Allie Fenwick answered, “I suppose you mean unlocking the chemical secrets that make boys boys and girls girls?

“That is the point,” I said. “Tottie was not merely a curious researcher. She understood the horror experienced by one who is essentially female in nature, but compelled by anatomy to live as a male. I am sure of it.”

“And so her research made possible Evelyn Westcott and a number of others,” added Charles thoughtfully. “I would never have conceived you a boy — as you know already, you fox!”

October 16. O damn, damn, damn! Yesterday, Diary, I was raised to the heavens and then dashed back to earth. Anna and I have been living a dream, or so she claims to believe.

As I’d hoped, her father and his colleagues hardly nodded when I was introduced as a visiting friend of the Fenwick family, so intent were they on their conversation with Professor Fenwick. Charles then proposed that Anna join ‘us younger folk’ on an outing. Dr. Freud seemed troubled. ‘O, please Papa — I’ve hardly seen anything of America’ whispered Anna, leaning over his chair, and extracted his permission.

We set out from Rowe’s Wharf on the Boston waterfront. It seemed that half the city was aboard the steamer bound for Provincetown, hurrying to take advantage of perhaps the last splendid days of autumn. I gladly would have left Ferenczy behind, but he had insinuated himself among our number and could not be refused. We were, altogether, seven, counting also Nathan and a friend of Allie’s.

Provincetown is not so large a town, more like a village cradled inside a gigantic arc of sand that shelters it from the worst of the ‘nor’easter’ storms. We — Anna and I, Charles and Allie and friends -- waltzed, polka-ed and chattered together as the ferry ploughed its way across Cape Cod Bay. Then, intent on feasting on oysters, the others hardly noticed when Anna and I broke away from the group to rent bicycles.

We rode out behind the dunes on a narrow boardwalk, pedaling until at last we were alone but for the gulls and sandpipers. I spread a blanket in the valley between two large dunes and sat to remove my boots and stockings. Anna, however, remained standing beside her bicycle. ‘Isn’t this place lovely, dear?’ I said, wondering what caused Anna to regard me so gravely. “Come, give me a kiss, and then we’ll go wading.”

‘I cannot think what to say,’ she answered sadly. “Forgive me darling Evelyn, for every word I say, my heart is full of you. Only you are in my thoughts, but when I seek to say something to you not for the world, words fail me.”

“O Annika, we need not talk at all,” I said. “Come here, let our eyes whisper for us, and if you will but give me your sweet kisses, we would not ask for language.” Rising, barefoot, I seized both her hands and pulled her near me. Instantly we fell into a passionate embrace.

Long moments passed, our kisses interrupted only by pauses to discard unnecessary clothing. I helped Anna to rearrange her skirt — it was full like my own — so that we might entwine our bared legs while preserving, at least if seen from some distance, a minimum of modesty. She unbuttoned my blouse and camisole so that her lips could have full purchase on my breasts.

At length, exhausted and frustrated, we broke apart and lay panting on the blanket.

“Do you know,” she said, “that if you touch me, or even only speak to me there is not a nerve of fibre in my body that does not respond with a thrill of delight?”

“It is no less for me,” I replied, guiding her hand beneath my skirt to where my instrument of pleasure now stood to attention, a small brave soldier. “Touch me there.”

“Achtung, Evelyn! Someone is coming!”

Anna and I rearranged ourselves hastily, and waved back to a passing party of bicyclists. I sought then to entice her into a renewed embrace, but the moment had passed. This time Anna resisted, turning her back to me, gazing at the line where sea met sky.

“Are you looking for Europe, dearest?” I teased. “Stay with me here in the new world!”

Now Anna turned to regard me, and I saw that her darling brown eyes were brimming with tears. I gave her my handkerchief. “You know I cannot do that,” she said piteously as her tears overflooded. “I have been thinking all week that I must tell you . . . .” A racking sob stifled Anna’s thought.

I guessed what she must be trying to say and began myself to whimper as tears started down my cheeks. “O, no, no my dear. Do not , God forbid. . . .”

“Evelyn, I must . . . face the truth . . . that I shall have no life outside my father’s orbit. You are ever so dear, I can hardly conceive that I shall be able to endure losing your love, but you must forget me. I have been thinking this all week. You must let me go. Papa needs me.”

“He has no right to keep you as his slave,” I muttered bitterly.

“But Evelyn, he does! He is, . . . I am condemned to serve him. Perhaps here in America, it is a fate you may avoid, but if you know that the genius of your father can change so many sad lives for the better, would you refuse it?

“So, you see? You must let me go. I treasure your pledge to me, but now I relieve you of it.”

O, Diary, how miserable I am! I wanted so to reason with Anna until she relented, but seeing something in her reddened eyes that was not there before — resolve, I suppose, or surrender to her destiny -- I simply sat there weeping. Anna also. We embraced, weeping still. I write these words and weep anew.

October 17, on the New Haven Railroad train. Dr. Nathan Weiss, again my travelling companion, perceives that something is greatly wrong. I can sense his jaw working as he labors to find words suitable for asking me the cause of my agitation. Nathan, who is never lost for words!

Anna and I had scarcely a moment alone this morning before Nathan and I were waved away to the station by the admirable Fenwick family, just long enough for me to tell her that I accepted her command and for her to slip me a note. I wish she had not done so, or at the least had omitted mention of her father’s wish that she ‘should consider’ Ferenczy. He has no manners to speak of, and will make her miserable. If she marries him, she must say goodbye to any thought of distinguishing herself. Of course I am agitated! I am so angry I could spit fire and brimstone.

Later, somewhere in New Jersey. Nathan is ever the discreet gentleman. I wish he would ask me why I am fretful. Talk would help. There is pressure in my chest and my stomach churns. Ferenczy, for heaven’s sake!

October 18. I took the bull by its horns when our train paused in Philadelphia and the couple that had shared our compartment disembarked. “Nathan, I need to talk to someone. I am a very miserable girl, a girl who has everything but that which she most dearly wishes.”

“She has bidden you adieu, then?”

“Yes,” I wailed, fumbling for my handkerchief until he supplied his own, a huge sheet of fine linen, to catch the flood of tears that burst forth with this admission.

Somehow, it seems right that Nathan’s strong arms encircled me as I sobbed out the bitter denoument of my liaison with Sigmund Freud’s daughter, my Annika, forced to deny not just her love of a woman — an American woman — but probably doomed as well to forego all friendships incompatible with her father’s expansive ego.

Nathan neither chided me nor attempted consolation. I felt comforted, burying my tear-streaked face against his chest. His strong, surgeon’s fingers smoothed my cropped curls as I wept for the loss of Anna and of my dear kind father, too. I recall something Nathan told me once: people need to grieve before they can heal. Well, I shall bear the grief and try to heal myself through study, Diary. I have missed a week of classes and must apply myself to anatomical memorization again.

October 20. Doro is sensibly better. Her appetite has revived, and hence also much of her former vigor. She attributes her recovery to the infusions the Annamite physician has prepared for her and his daily massage. Though Etienne and his mother have returned to Paris, Master Dinh remains in attendance at the Downey home. Dorothy has resumed painting with Ted, and says they will exhibit jointly in the spring. Pray that it is true!

By dint of many hours in the cellar laboratory at Eutaw Place, Igar Lutjak has reconstituted our stocks of Gynol. He wishes dearly to set up a proper ‘factory’ elsewhere. Distracted, and doubtful as well that we shall ever wish more Gynol than we now can produce in small batches, I have given him no encouragement. Nathan has given Igar a sympathetic hearing, however — more because Igar is Rachel’s unofficial fiance, I think, than because he finds merit in the chemist’s speculation that the contaminant in Gynol may proceed from some flux or miasma that cannot be suppressed in our damp cellar.

The two men have grown close. They are making plans to reorganize and expand Nathan’s clinic in East Baltimore. Igar is to become its laboratorist, and a second doctor will be recruited, perhaps the young man who has filled in for Nathan while we travelled to New York and New England. Rachel has determined to earn a social work diploma; she will take charge of ‘outreach’ to the families of the neighborhood. It is greatly needed. Most are newly-arrived immigrants with little experience of modern cities and little English. Nathan has wondered aloud, would I join them when I am ready to practice? I think not; I should have a devil of a time overcoming the immigrants’ natural shyness of white Protestant Americans. However, I have simply answered that it is too soon to decide.

October 24. A letter from Anna arrived today, posted just before the Kaiser Wilhelm sailed. She is sad, she says, but it is better this way. She prays for my understanding of her position. Very well, so be it. I must memorize the parts of the neurological system and catch up on my dissection work. My ‘lab’ partners are amused by my new haircut . They have been made impatient by my ‘holiday,’ as they call it. I have no time to brood.

October 30. Our Dorothy has been struck down! She collapsed yesterday afternoon at the Rawlings’ and was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital. Of course I went there immediately on receiving Ted’s call early this morning. I found Ted near collapse himself after a sleepless night there. Dorothy has not regained consciousness. I cornered the attending physician and by telling him I am a medical student, extracted his somber assessment: she is in shock; her kidneys have failed entirely and death is certain. Dinh, the Annamite ‘doctor,’ concurs: Dorothy’s residual maleness has taken its revenge and the disequilibrium of her vital humours is beyond rectification, he says. Mrs. Downey will not be consoled.

November 1 — All Saints Day. My sweetest, kindest friend is gone. Her funeral will be on the 4th, Saturday. It falls to me to notify all the Girls.

November 3. I have prevailed on Mrs. Downey to invite Alexandra Bishop to sing at the service tomorrow, and on Alex to accept her invitation.

November 4. St. Bartholomew’s Church was filled near to overflowing with Dorothy’s friends. The rector did his best to evoke her spirit, but it was evident that the poor man hardly knew her. Indeed it was a relief when, after Alexandra soloed in Steal Away to Jesus, Miss Edith Hamilton rose to speak. Her theme was character — the moral qualities that enable a young person to hold to a goal, to swim against the tide until the far shore is attained, to conceive each day as an opportunity to make the world a better and more congenial place. Dorothy had a ‘special sight,’ our former headmistress continued. Few of us, she ventured, would ever have to make the choices Dorothy could not avoid, and few of us, so burdened, would manage them with Dorothy’s grace.

Perceiving that she might have only a short time to live, Miss Hamilton said, Dorothy had called upon her with a proposal. She wished her fortune to serve others and to that end had contributed an endowment for the education of ‘young people of modest means, rare intelligence and singular determination,’ two such persons in each class for as long as Bryn Mawr School should endure.

Miss Hamilton finished, the organ sounded softly the opening bars of Amazing Grace. Alex Bishop’s amazing soprano carried the first verse, the choir joined in on the second, and the entire congregation on the triumphal conclusion.

Later, after we had all marched from the church to the cemetary to witness Dorothy’s interment and drop a flower or two on her coffin, I convened a meeting of Tottie’s Girls, using a room lent me by St. Bartholomew’s. Knowing that most of the Girls must be even more afraid than I, and equally bereft, I willed myself to speak calmly and quietly about the threat that hangs over each of us. I reminded them of our meeting in August, acknowledging that the loss of Dorothy confirmed our fears. I would not, I said, urge anyone to discontinue their daily dose of Gynol, though that remained an option. On Nathan’s advice, I said that healthful living is our best defense against the stress Gynol evidently puts on our kidneys. Plenty of sleep, nourishing food, daily exercises and, finally, regular checkups. In this respect, I added, there was a little bit of good news. Mrs. Downey wished to honor Dorothy’s memory, in part, by endowing free medical care for ‘boys who do not identify as such’ — people like us, in other words. Mrs. Enid Westcott, my aunt, would be the charity’s first chairman, and Nathan Weiss, MD, its medical director.

November 9. Dorothy’s untimely passing has prompted the most melancholy feelings. I think not only of her invariable kindnesses but, of course, her death reminds me of Father’s too. At least in Dorothy’s case, I was — I believe -- ever a faithful and attentive friend.

All this week, I have buried myself in my text books. Today, however, something impelled me to telephone Frank Campbell. Frank spoke to me after Dorothy’s funeral, conveying Christy Hodgson’s sympathy and his own. I had not seen him since a dreary, disenchanting afternoon eighteen — no, nineteen -- months ago. Like everyone else, I had heard of Frank’s recent engagement to Christy, who is now away studying at Swarthmore College.

I conceived that I needed to talk to Frank because, having grown up considerably in the interim, I should like to understand the meaning of his conduct that April evening. Though I feigned simple desire to renew an old friendship, Frank intuited my purpose immediately. “As I recall,” he said over the telephone, “some time ago you told me that you ‘should not wish to see me again.’ However, I should be delighted at an opportunity to explain myself.” Yes — that’s exactly what I want Frank to do — and if he cannot satisfy me, I am honor-bound to share my foreboding with Christy.

November 11. After my last class today, Frank and I met at the Peabody Institute, where there is a nice and very public tea shop. A student trio was scraping out a Mozart sonata in the atrium when I arrived. I found Frank already in possession of a table just tall enough to shelter his long cowboy legs. He is still devish handsome; I could not deny it.

There was some initial sparring. We went at it in earnest after the tea arrived. “You did not offer me an opportunity to explain myself,” he said, “and I have often thought about that. In fact, I do not know how I should explain myself. The evidence, to your eyes, must have been quite damning.”

I nodded and waited.

“The fact is — and I should appreciate it if you keep this strictly to yourself, Evelyn. The lady you saw me with — Mrs. Hutchings — is, er, was my father’s mistress. After my sister Sally’s birth, which was even harder on my mother than my own, she could not bear the prospect of another pregnancy. That was not easy on my father; his needs were importunate, and after an interval, he made the acquaintance of the woman you saw with me that evening.

“Mrs. Hutchings was never mentioned in our home, of course. I vaguely sensed her existence from — oh, je ne sais quoi. Anyway, when I was 15, I made her acquaintance, at Father’s initiative.

“’You are old enough now to understand, Frank,’ Father said, “and I would have you be aware, in event of need, that there is another dimension of my life, a dimension that I have cherished, though it must necessarily remain in the shadows.’ He spoke then of his tie to Mrs. Hutching, a relationship both simple and affectionate, and shortly afterward, he introduced me to the lady herself.

“I suppose some sons might have found such ‘disloyalty’ to their mother reproachful. I did not; Mrs. Hutchings regarded me kindly and, in fact, I appreciated my father’s discretion in the matter. And so, when Father passed away, I was not surprised to find, in a letter left behind for me, his request that I seek out Mrs. Hutchings and aquaint her with the arrangements that Father had made to ensure that she would not be troubled thereafter by want of money.

“In fact, I had only just discharged that duty when you observed me taking leave of my father’s friend at the trolley stop.

I must confess that I blushed, Diary, recalling how angry I had been that day. “I am sorry, Frank, my thoughts were unkind.”

“They were entirely understandable. I could not think then how to explain myself, and you already knew me for something of a roué. That’s changed now. Christy has reformed me brilliantly.”

Hopefully, I said I was sure of that.

“But,” continued Frank, “confess that you missed me a little bit!”

“You were — up to that time — the most exciting person that had every entered my life. Of course I missed you!”

“And so did I miss you,” he said. “And now it is my turn to ask a question, if you will permit me.”

“Yes,” I answered. “Wipe that crumb from your mustache, first, and then fire away.”

“Um,” Frank said, wiping. “Uh, . . . er, this too is a delicate matter, you needn’t answer if . . . .”

I had never seen him so flustered. “Mercy’s sake, Frank! What is it?”

It tumbled out. “Evelyn, it is said that you are actually a boy. At least, that is, some of your friends understand that you were raised as a lad, before, uh, you came to Baltimore.”

“Go on,” I said, hardly breathing.

“I heard that by chance, sometime after, uh, we stopped seeing each other. It made not the slightest difference in my regard for you. I see nothing but a wonderously attractive girl.”

Unclenching my knuckles, I took a breath. “The rumor is true, Frank.”

“I mention this,” he said, “only to put you on your guard, lest something slips out. None of your friends would wish that. They love you and respect your privacy. And yet, we live in times when . . . .”

“. . . when people like Mr. Hearst would adore to publish such a disclosure,” I finished Frank’s sentence. He nodded.

“I trust you as my friend, Frank, and to forestall unfounded conjecture, I shall tell you this much. God has seen fit to bring some people — no more than one or two in a thousand, I should think — into the world with ambiguous genitalia. When I was born, I appeared to my parents and the doctor who delivered me to be a boy. Later on, it became obvious that I was not one. That is all.”

Frank smiled. “I expected it was something like that.”

“You have my permission, dear Frank, to correct the impression of my friends, should the need arise. Or you may send them to me. And now it is getting late. Will you see me to the trolley?”

November 12. Mother has come to the city for a fortnight. She is still swathed in black crape, of course, but has not been laid as low as I feared. Though Aunt Enid and my mother have never been close, Father’s death seems to have brought them together. My aunt has been taking her all about town — they will succeed in ‘doing’ all the museums and some shows, too.

November 19. It is three months and a day since Father’s death, and not yet three weeks since Dorothy’s. I accompanied Mother to church this morning and prayed quite hard for the souls of both my dear ones. In the afternoon, I put aside my textbooks to pass the afternoon with Mother in reminiscence. I have never until now had an ‘adult’ conversation with her — which experience has revealed Mother to me as a profoundly more insightful person than, drawing on my childish memories, I’d imagined.

She will be all right. Father’s long illness prepared her for the fact of his passing, indeed to regard it as a blessed release from suffering, and my brothers are constant in their solicitude. Ruth and Eben and their children will move to the big house this winter, so Mother will rarely be alone. She insists that I not “waste time worrying.”

With Frank Campbell’s disclosure very much in mind, I asked Mother her thoughts when she sent me to Baltimore. My mother told me that neither she nor Father had been surprised when soon afterward I reported to them my decision — with Aunt Enid’s active encouragement — to begin my life as a girl. “You were never ‘all boy,’” she said, “perhaps not even mostly boy. My little Edward was a delicate, sensitive child, often lost in his daydreams. Do you remember that you cried for days when your calf died? And you were always so aware of the moods of the people around you! Even when you were just five or six, you knew immediately if I was sad or worried, and would offer to help me with the house chores or pluck me flowers from the garden.”

“O, Mama,” I replied, winking back tears, “at school I was always teased for being the teacher’s pet, or for crying when someone was mean to me. It seemed so unfair that the girls could be smart at their lessons or read lots of books and express their feelings, and no one thought anything about it, but if a boy was that way, he was laughed at.”

“I remember,” she said, “but I think you’ve forgotten it — there was a day you came home from school with such a woeful expression that I sat you down and asked you what was wrong. You must have been seven or eight. You bit your lip and answered in a barely audible voice ‘I think God made a mistake. I think I was supposed to be a girl.’”

“I said that?”

Well, Diary, it seems I did. And I was right. I wasn’t rude enough to be a boy. My conscience was always telling me I should be gentle, truthful and kind to others. I could hardly help exclaiming at a beautiful sunset or a sad story. The more I acted like I felt, the more the other boys would call me a ‘sissy’ or ‘Edna.’ They’d tell me to ‘go play with the girls.’ Well, I might have wanted to — but I had to pretend I didn’t!

“And because you saw these things in me, Mother, is that why you determined to send me to Aunt Enid?”

“We knew things had to change for you, Evelyn. You were so high-strung, I was sure you were going to have a nervous breakdown. Papa and I never imagined, however, that our gentle, timid boy would become a vivacious, smart young woman!”

It is hard to believe that even now, I suppose.

November 26. Aunt Enid and Mother and I have passed a quiet and rather bleak Thanksgiving. This morning we put Mother aboard the Susquehanna Flyer. She is fretting to be back to Perkinstown. As the train pulled away, I confessed to Aunt Enid that both my parents were a great deal more interesting people than I had recalled, which she answered by pointing out that I had them to thank for my own native intelligence, what did I expect?

November 29. It is hard to sustain a proper Diary when one studies 12 or 14 hours a day and, in addition, there is a dearth of pleasant things to record. Dorothy’s ghost haunts me. It is not just the memory of her thoughtfulness and sweet manner. I am reminded how prone to failure our bodily systems are to failure every time I sit down, apprehensively, upon the toilet. And, though I have sworn to forget her, Anna’s betrayal haunts me as well. I remember my father’s indomitable spirit as his end neared. Would that I could be so strong! The days are growing short and gray, my spirit gray with them, winter has fallen upon it.

And now my eccentric English chum, Winifred Clem, has sent me another of her ‘Alison Ainsley’ books. It is dedicated to ‘E.W.’ and has a very fine photograph of Winnie on the flyleaf. I swear she must have jotted down everything she ever heard me say at school. It is hugely odd when one’s artless remarks are dressed up and transposed into the mouth of the daredevil heroine of a series of schoolgirl romances. In The Mystery of the Missing McGuffin, it seems that my doppelgá¤nger must disguise herself as a boy to evade arrest while she solves the crime for which she herself is suspected. I suppose this book, too, will fly out of the bookstores and onto the pillows of a million schoolgirls in Britain and America.

December 3. Nathan Weiss telephoned this morning just as I was leaving for the medical school laboratory. Would I accompany him to see the holiday greens at the Conservatory? No, I would not, I replied; I have an appointment with the cadaver of a dog. My friend would not take ‘no’ for an answer. It was too long since we had talked, Nathan said. He would bring a picnic meal to the ‘lab.’ We would feast there at noon and then take the trolley car to Druid Hill. What could I do — Nathan is irresistible when he has built up a head of steam! Laughing in spite of myself, I bargained for an extra hour with Rover, so it was not until one — precisely — that he rapped on the door of the laboratory bearing a sack of hot dogs, root beer and cream puffs.

“This is not the ‘nourishing food’ you have prescribed for me, Doctor Weiss,” I teased him, extracting myself from a hug. “Ah,” he replied, ‘this is food for the soul, to cheer you up. I have made inquiries about you, Miss Westcott, and I have learned that you have buried yourself in work. The only sure antidote to a steady diet of medical school is cream puffs.”

There was a contagion of Christmas spirit at the enormous glass house. Our Druid Hill Conservatory is really splendid during the holidays, chock-a-block with ‘ladies, gentlemen and children of all ages’ in a festive mood. Nathan, Hebrew to the core and only a generation removed from Eastern Europe, was having a fine time humming along with a group of carolers. “Suppose your father were to peep down at you from his synagogue in heaven?” I whispered.

“O, he’d wonder what else I have done to win the esteem of such a beautiful young woman, I’m sure. You’d tell him I’ve been well-behaved, won’t you?”

“I might, but first you’d have to tell me what’s in your mind. Nothing you do is as impromptu as it may seem.” I pointed at the tea room in the sunny vestibule of the greenhouse.

“Now, talk” I commanded once we had our tea (lapsang souchong for me, darjeeling for him).

“I guess you have me cornered, m’am, so I’ll have to spill the beans. I’ve arranged for you to take off the spring term at Hopkins so you can travel to Europe with me.”

I nearly dropped my teacup.

(More later, Diary — I am so awfully sleepy!)

dawn, December 4. The long and short of it is that Nathan thinks we need to take our problem with Gynol to the big German chemists. He doesn’t trust Hirschfeld, my supposed representative in Europe, and neither do I. He said he’d explained all this to Dean Welch and to Aunt Enid and they’d agreed he’d better not delay, before more of us fall ill.

“You forget one thing,” I said, “one important thing. We are not married. This may be 1911, and you and I may be very modern, but insofar as I am aware, the World still looks askance when a young woman travels with a man who is not her relative.”

“The World will understand that you travel abroad on business, an errand of mercy.”

“The World will see a brazen young hussy. Some will be forgiving, because I am obviously rich, but not all.”

“In that case, Evelyn, you give me no choice. Will you marry me?”

Nathan reached in his pocket and extracted a small, square box.

“Put that away!” I exclaimed, feeling suddenly flushed. “If you are going to propose to me, I insist that you do it right. It’s no good marrying someone under a, a pretext!

“Besides,” I continued, “I’m still in mourning for Anna and Father and Dorothy, and for all you know, I’m only partial to girls.

“And anyway,” I concluded, “I need time to think things over. I think you should take me home now.”

“Whatever you say, my dear,” Nathan answered, batting his eyelashes earnestly. “In all seriousity, however, and as improbable as it may seem to you, I have fallen in love.”

A Synopsis of Balthasar’s Elixir up to Part VII:

Evelyn Westcott is not your average turn-of-the-20th-century American girl. She didn’t want to be a woman, at least not 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,’ a gender-dysphoric group that 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.

In Vienna, 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. And that's where things start to unravel.

Evi returns home to Baltimore in May 1911, to find things have gone to hell in a handbasket. Balthasar’s in jail, his son Caesar’s on the run, and the lab has been padlocked. No sooner do those things get sorted out, then it becomes apparent that Gynol’s not as safe a feminizing drug as was thought. Some of the girls are having side effects — can Evi, her chum Rachel, Rachel’s uncle Nathan and the émigré chemist Igar Lutjak find the sinister contaminant ? As Part VI ends, ten dozen guinea pigs are about to do their bit for science.

Hugs, everyone! Daphne