© 01.2008 by Daphne Laprov

Balthasar's Extract - Part IV   Evelyn Westcott's Turn of the Century Diary It was an age of new things — the automobile, the aero- plane, social consciousness, moving pictures, mental hygiene and ragtime. Women were dumping the corset and demanding the vote, kicking over the pedestals upon which Victorian Sensibility had placed them. A time of creativity and experimentation in the natural sciences, of rapidly growing comprehension of how 'internal secretions' regulated human physiology. Our heroine, Evelyn Westcott, born Edward Tucker, is now seventeen and in the full bloom of youth. She and her friends are awakening to social injustice and sensual pleasures, spreading their wings, setting forth to conquer the widening world.

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Part IV
The Story So Far
Evelyn Westcott is not your average turn-of-the-20th-century girl. She didn't want to be a woman, 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 hormones 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 youngsters) 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.

As Part IV opens, Evelyn has survived a night in jail, been graduated from Bryn Mawr, lost her virginity, and is about to make 'the Grand Tour' of Europe with Aunt Enid.

Part IV of Evi's story, like all the other parts, was made far better through the kind advice of BCTS friends -- Jan S., RiotGrrl and Edyen in particular this time. btw, I expect there will be three or four more chapters and then this story will climax and END, and I shall go back to living in the 21st Century.. Hugs, Daphne
 

June 18. I slipped into the Science Building today to dismantle my laboratory. It is scarcely a week since we girls of the class of ’09 were graduated from Bryn Mawr School. Now they are shutting down the school for the summer, and I must bid adieu to my dear little guinea pigs.

As I chloroformed them one by one, I thanked each for its contribution to our understanding of the internal secretions that make some of us humans men and some of us women. “And some of us,” I did not add, “neither/nor” or, perhaps, even "both."

It is just in this last year, Diary, that I have come to realize how strange is this condition of mine — or ours, I suppose, if one counts Rachel and some others of ‘Tottie’s Girls.’ Tottie called us ‘intersexed,’ which I suppose is as good a term as any, and I suppose as well that objectively there is nothing unnatural but simply rare about being neither one sex nor the other. The problem begins with this business of expectations. Society does not admit of ambiguity. Science may, but Society does not!! One must be either one or the other, and convincingly so, else one’s life becomes a living hell by puberty if not before.

I endured such a hell (there is no other word that would do it justice) by the accident of my parents assuming (and not looking too closely, certainly) that if my external genitalia seemed to be like those of a boy, there could be no reason to doubt that I was indeed such. Nor, looking back on my childhood, can I identify moments when I was clearly not a boy, though perhaps not so boyish a boy as my father might have wished. I loved to read and daydream, and I enjoyed helping my mother in the kitchen equally as much as I did love a tramp over the hills with my big brothers or helping my father to midwife when one of our cows dropped a calf.

It was only through the kindness and compassion of my aunt, I reflected as I dispatched the last of the guinea pigs, that I had safely weathered the trauma of my puberty. Just after I passed my 13th birthday, I had became the target of relentless baiting by the boys of my own age in Perkinstown, Pa. And why, indeed? Because though my male parts changed not one whit — in fact, they had seemed relatively to shrink — my breast buds sprouted, my hips began to widen and my voice clung stubbornly to the soprano register! Aunt Enid had provided me refuge.

I was cleaning up — emptying the cages and such — when a rap at the door of the laboratory announced a visitor. I recognized her at once; it was our Headmistress’s sister, Dr. Alice Hamilton, the picture of health and good sense in a cotton twill walking dress, lace collar, low-heeled boots and broad brimmed hat.

“You are Evelyn Westcott, I think” said she. “Yes, ma’am,” demurely replied I.

“This is indeed fortunate. I have been meaning to telephone or write to you all week, but — no matter! — how pleasant it is to meet you here now!”

Ordinary mortals often speak like that, Diary, but I really was confounded to hear such words from the lips of a demigoddess. For that is what Dr. Alice is — a graduate of German universities, Miss Jane Addams’ indispensable assistant and counselor at Hull House, and a great expert on industrial diseases.

For the next hour and more, Dr. Alice Hamilton grilled me about my little guinea pigs, the chemicals I have fed them, the surgery I performed, and the changes these provoked. She did not ask my reasons for doing this research nor mention its possible usefulness with regard to humans. From her expression, however, I believe she must know something of my own history.

Though Dr. Alice gave no hint of what she thought beyond an occasional "Hmmmm," at length she smiled and asked my plans. When I told her I was to travel in Europe next year with my Aunt Enid and would attempt there to secure my foundation in German, she said that was an excellent idea. I should take some scientific courses, too, she said. To assist me, she would give me letters to her old Docktorvater in Munich and to some of her correspondents.

I confessed that it troubles me that my work did not seem to help the poor as hers and Miss Addams' did. Dr. Alice Hamilton laughed and told me I was very wrong to think that. In her opinion my explorations will help many who now suffer, and that will help all mankind. (Need I say I nearly fainted to hear such encouraging words? My heart is still pounding!)

June 21. My faithful beau, Martin Tolliver, though back to Baltimore for a brief visit, is already keen to return to Mr. Glenn Curtiss’s aeronautical works at Hammondsport, New York. I told Martin that I had heard on reliable authority (his mother, whom I met at the greengrocer’s a fortnight ago) that he stands first or second in his class at the Cornell College of Engineering. Martin blushed but did not deny it. Mr. Curtiss has invited Martin to accompany him and the Curtiss Works’ new machine, the Golden Flyer, to France as second engineer. There is to be a great competition, une Grande Semaine de l’Aviation, at Reims, with prizes for fastest, highest, furthest, and so on. Martin says they are sure to win some trophies for the Stars and Stripes.

Martin and I spent this morning battering tennis balls about, and winning twice at mixed doubles. Afterward, we lunched at the club. With all the time in the world today, we reminisced. It was dear Martin who took me under his wing when I first came to Baltimore, Diary — surely you remember? I was such a nervous thing, then, kitted out as a girl at my aunt’s behest but scarcely believing myself one. If Martin is to be relied upon, however, it has never crossed his mind that I am anything less than 100% female or, for him, the only one worth considering as his life’s companion. No matter how often I explain to Martin that he should not count on such a thing, that we are yet young, that I too have ambitions, it is like grains of sand pelting the pyramids. He is not worn down. My Martin smiles and points out that we have endured two years already and he likes me more than ever. I confessed that I had greatly enjoyed my visit to Ithaca two months ago. Were I to choose a man, I told him, surely it would be a one with a character no less noble than Martin’s.

Having reached such an awkward impasse, our conversation turned by mutual consent to Europe. I promised that I would ask — nay, beseech — Aunt Enid to take us to Reims to watch the great air show.

June 26, Saturday. Aunt Enid is preparing for our trip to Europe in earnest. We will take only one steamer trunk and one valise each, so it is necessary to choose very carefully the items we will pack. Of course we will add more clothes once we are on the other side of the Atlantic. I can hardly wait to shop in Paris!

Pegeen is as excited as I. All the Moriaritys and Hallorans are giving her advice on how she should act and what she should do whilst in the great cities of Europe. Wisely, she checks everything she is told with Aunt Enid and her cousin Harry. It is because Pegeen has such sense, I think, that Aunt chose her to accompany us and serve us both as lady’s maid.

Patsy, our downstairs maid, will keep 1319 Eutaw Place in readiness for our return next spring or summer. Balthasar Bishop will continue to use the laboratory in the basement for the refinement of his extract. (I suppose it might be called “our extract” now. My work with the guinea pigs has allowed him to produce a more concentrated elixir in both liquid and pill form. We call it “Gynol.” Dorothy Downey, Alexandra Cooper and I have taken the improved elixir for several months. It is at least as effective, and certainly less painful than injections. Dorothy reports that she no longer suffers the headaches that regularly followed an injection of the original extract, which is wonderful news.)

O, and Cook, who has been in my aunt’s service for 27 years, will return home to Bellagio in Italy for a visit, or possibly for good. She has her third class steamer ticket to Genoa in hand, a gift from Aunt Enid.

June 29. I went this morning for a medical check-up at Dr. Nathan Weiss’s dispensary. He poked and prodded me, peered into my cavities, osculated and palpitated and had me produce donations of urine, blood and mucus for his laboratory assistant. After half an hour of this, Dr. Weiss bade me dress and join him in his office. It is a tiny place, barely a closet. He dusted off a chair that I might have a place to sit.

“You appear to be, as before, in robust good health,” he said. “Now tell me about your emotional and mental state. Does anything trouble you?”

I replied, truthfully, that I seemed to be about as well as was possible under the circumstances. With my Aunt Enid’s kind support, I had found emotional balance as a girl, or now, I supposed I might say, a woman. Occasionally I had strange dreams, but perceived them to be no stranger than others’. Dr. Weiss seemed interested, so I recalled for him my ‘parade’ dream. I have had it thrice now — images of thousands of people, throbbing music, a fantastic city landscape — all these strange people marching, as I understood it, for ‘sexual freedom.’

He made some notes and then — pausing to say that if I found any of his questions distasteful I should not answer them — asked if ‘sexual freedom’ had a definite meaning for me.

I have very quickly come to trust this young man, Diary. Rachel of course adores her uncle, who championed her cause against her other uncle, the rabbi. Dr. Weiss has taken quite good care of several of Tottie’s Girls. Dorothy relies on him implicitly for assistance in caring for the health and mental hygiene of us all.

I replied that there seemed to be rather a large gap between the principle of sexual choice and its practicality, Diary. One cannot simply switch one’s sexual identity as though one were changing a hat. Nor are ordinary men and women, in the future any more than now, likely to tolerate one who is neither/nor.

“I quite agree with you,” Dr. Weiss answered, “but that was not exactly what I meant by my question. Perhaps I should state it more directly. Have you been sexually ‘active’ or do you intend to be in the near future?

I confessed that I had been unable to restrain my curiosity to the point of sharing a long and enjoyable afternoon in a hotel room with a boy my age. I had been relieved to find that I could be both aroused and fulfilled.

Dr. Weiss then inquired, ever so gently, if I should want surgical intervention to give my genitals an appearance appropriate to the sex I present to the world. That is a matter I have long pondered, Diary. I replied that having confirmed that my organs do function in their own way, I should not want any alteration that would sabotage the pleasure they could give me . . . unless, perhaps, it should render me capable of bearing children. I understood that to be a vain hope; Dr. Weiss confirmed it with a wan smile and a shake of his head.

O, and Dr. Weiss says we may start providing Gynol to the rest of Tottie’s Girls.

June 30. A letter from Billy Barkell arrived this morning. Billy will never be much of a writer, but the thought is clear: he thinks of me constantly, he says, with the greatest affection, and selfishly wishes that I were not going to spend all of the next year in Europe. I wrote back in time for the afternoon post to assure him that when I return, I shall be more worldly wise, perhaps, but no less eager to resume our acquaintance.

There was a postcard from ‘Henrietta’ as well. The Ella Shields troupe will return to Baltimore on the 2nd of July. Fresh from their success in England, they have been playing to packed halls in Boston, Providence, and New Haven.

July 1. Dr. Weiss and I discussed another matter, Diary, which I have neglected to report. He is acquainted with some doctors in Vienna — fellow students at the medical university there — who are becoming well-known for their treatment of people with mental disorders linked to sexual dysfunctions and abnormalities. He believed that their research could profit from taking the history of one such as me. He proposed to write his friend Dr. Rank, and describe me as a promising researcher who through force of character and intelligence has overcome a particularly difficult circumstance.

I corrected Dr. Weiss — it was mainly a matter of my good fortune, I said, to have had the help of my compassionate — and wealthy -- aunt and other understanding adults, plus the timely care of my late dear friend, Dr. Tottie Clathrop.

He acknowledged the pertinence of my remarks; that led to my explaining my recent research on ‘Gynol,’ and his proposal that whilst in Vienna, I should also call on the very same Dr. Steinach whose work had given me some clues. Letters of introduction to both Rank and Steinach will be in their hands by the time we arrive in Vienna in September!

July 3. Harry ‘Henrietta’ Halloran has returned not a moment too late. I have a great favor to ask him concerning Dorothy Downey. My dear friend is in an absolute swivet as she contemplates her pending appointment at the French Embassy in Washington. She must go there so that the papers relating to her inheritance can be ‘notarized.’ Without such official confirmation, she cannot receive the monies left to her by father, the late rubber baron of Cochin China (and I understand, Diary, that it is a fabulous sum)!

What Dorothy dreads, of course, is that she must appear as the young man, Arthur Downey. That is the name on her birth certificate and in her father’s will. Yet, never but for a brief and tragic interval has Dorothy worn trousers nor ever wished to; now she conceives that however she may present herself, her disguise will be instantly penetrated by the perceptive French diplomats.

July 4 — I rang Harry at the Shields’ troupe’s hotel this morning to propose he join us for an early dinner, followed by the fireworks at Druid Park. “Wonderful,” he replied, “how should I come?”

“O, by trolley, I suppose,” I answered, not taking his meaning.

“No, you goose . . . . Shall I come as Harry or as Etta?”

“I hope you don’t mind appearing as Harry. I’ll need an escort. Ted won’t do at all for three ladies. He’s much too wrapped up in Dorothy. O, and there’s a service you can do us.”

Always a gentleman at heart, Harry replied that he would be delighted to oblige, whatever my command.

“Harry, I need your help with Dorothy. She must present herself at the Embassy of France on Wednesday in the guise of a lad. The poor girl is paralyzed by even the thought!” Quickly, I filled in the details of Doro’s predicament.

“Aha!” I could imagine Harry smiling. “Fear not! We shall transform her, I believe.”

Harry arrived at 1319 Eutaw Place promptly at seven. He was the complete young gentleman in a seersucker cotton suit, a four-in-hand cravat and Arrow shirt, set off by spats and a Panama hat. “Great news!” he announced. “Miss Ella has agreed to assist in the gentrification of Miss Downey.”

By “Miss Ella,” Harry meant Ella Shields, his mentor, the celebrated male impersonator and impresario. “Come to her suite at the Greville Plaza Hotel at eight-thirty tomorrow,” he proposed to Dorothy — “you and Evelyn. We shall make a man of you, at least for a day.”

“It will never succeed,” moaned Dorothy in reply.

“Au contraire, darling!” answered Harry in a voice that I immediately recognized as Henrietta’s, though now more contralto than soprano. “It is entirely a matter of attitude. We shall give you confidence and you shall triumph.”

Later. We secured a good vantage on Calvert Hill for the firework show. With tomorrow’s engagement in mind, I insisted on an early bedtime for Doro and me. Yet now here I sit at my desk, excited, unable to sleep.

I have learnt two surprising things about Ted Rawlings, the first of them whispered by Dorothy. He knows that she is not a girl but rather — by consequence of her own desperate, terrible act nearly three years ago — a girlish eunuchoid. That, she swears, distresses him not in the least. Second, Ted is absolutely fascinated by Harry Halloran. It is a fact still lost on Dorothy, but I could not fail to observe the slight withholding of his breath whenever Harry addresses him, or the way Ted’s painterly eyes study Harry’s every move.

July 5 (Monday morning). Dorothy and I arrived five minutes before the appointed time at the Greville Plaza Hotel and found Harry — no, Henrietta — awaiting us in the lobby. If before Miss Henrietta Hawkins had been winsome and charming, after six months of stardom in the music halls of England she could only be described as strikingly beautiful. She was dressed and plumed to the height of fashion. Etta has grown at least two inches since the winter, and uses her height to advantage. She commands the room.

By an electric elevator, presently we gained Miss Ella’s suite and were shown in. No sooner had we removed our hats when we were greeted by her male persona, Baltimore Bertie. “Hello, hello! So glad to see ya!” Her — O, I should say his — voice boomed. “Come in, my dears! You are all so lovely! Dorothy, let me look at ya. Yes — please stand, walk over t’the winda, turn around and walk back ta me.”

My friend complied, and shortly Miss Shields pronounced that we should certainly “bring it off,” and have great fun to boot. She outlined her plan.

For the rest of the morning, ‘Baltimore Bertie’ trained Dorothy how to move about like a man, to address the world as a man would and indeed, she insisted, to see the world as a man. At her behest, Doro and I had stripped to our chemises and knickers, and donned a sort of pantelet and slippers.

For me, this was refresher training. I had been a boy till my 14th year — it was only a matter of slipping back into old ways, or so I fancied. Miss Ella told us to talk and joke with each other as boys would. After observing us for five minutes or so, and making some notes, Miss Ella soon relieved me of the notion that I was more manly than Dorothy. “Evelyn, I’m amazed. You mince about like a nance and talk like you were brought up in a convent. Harry says you were raised a boy. Were you much abused by the other boys?”

I nodded, my cheeks burning. The true story was too complicated to share. “I’m not surprised,” Miss Ella said.

“Look here,” she said, addressing us both. “A woman just borrows space. A man owns it. Like this.” She stood easily, arms akimbo, legs and boots also striking a proprietary stance. “Men. . . take up space. They are nurtured to think of it as their natural right, a right they must be instantly prepared to defend. I imagine it must (as Mr. Toynbee suggests) go back to the very dawn of time.”

“Like this?” I asked, coming in close and staring insolently at “Bertie.” She straightened herself, narrowed the distance between us further, and returned the glare. “Exactly,” she breathed. “Would you make something of it?”

“Or like this?” I continued, striking an imperious pose like Henrietta’s in the hotel lobby, the sort that would (if I were not dressed in a mere camisole and pantalettes) reduce a predator to panting supplication. “Yeah, that would work OK too,” said Bertie.

It was funny . . . even more amusing when Doro proved she was a quick study. Dorothy is not so much womanly as she is etheral, sexless, yet under Miss Ella’s tutelage she soon ceased to float. She took possession of the space she occupied as if by right. Instead of drawing back in a defensive crouch, Dorothy leant forward. She swaggered across the floor. She projected her spirit outwards as our tutor required, not remarking where or what it bumped against.

“Lovely,” concluded Miss Ella as the clock struck noon. “I think you have the idea. Now let’s attack our midday meal without restraint, as gentlemen will.”

While we were eating, Henrietta returned with a porter who wheeled in a rack of garments suitable for young blades and a tailor with a tape and chalk. Etta bade the tailor take Dorothy’s measurements exactly. “It is for our show,” he explained. “Miss Downey is new to the troupe, she makes her debut next week, so by tomorrow afternoon you must clothe her exactly in the guise of a sporting young man.”

“Now choose your costumes for the afternoon,” Miss Ella bade us as the tailor left, indicating the rack. “Whatever you wish, as long as it suits you.”

A quarter of an hour after, she regarded us through her monocle. “Master Arthur Downey” had found an assortment of clothes that suited him well, I thought, and I the same.

“It’s time for your haircut,” she said to Arthur.

“What!” shrieked back my friend, throwing up her arms protectively.

“Of course you shall have your hair cut short,” declared Miss Shields. “There’s no other course that guarantees success. With the money you will inherit, you can buy the best wigs in Baltimore!”

Now, Diary, Dorothy’s tresses were not so long. It is not yet three years that they were sacrificed so that she might matriculate at Boys’ Latin — an ill-fated plan that led to the tragic act to which I have referred. Her chestnut locks had at last regained a length and luxuriance in which she might rejoice. I grimaced as the barber attacked them with his shears. Doro held herself rigid, biting her lip as tears streamed down her cheeks.

July 6. We have practiced again, and I have begun to believe Dorothy will pull it off. Her beau Ted attended today, solicitous of Doro but also — it was terribly obvious — extremely interested when Miss Ella spoke of what in the eyes of the world made men men and women only women.

“To convince the crowd,” repeated ‘Baltimore Bertie,’ trapping Doro and me in a manly hug, “ya’ gotta have attitude. From the inside, ya’ get it? If ya’ think yer a poser — so will all the world. Ya convince yerself yer the real thing — ain’t nobody’s gonna doubt ya’.”

July 8. Aboard the Pennsylvania Flyer. Dorothy and Ted, Alexandra Cooper, Sally Campbell and some others of my friends have just seen Aunt Enid and me and our steamer trunks away for New York City. We will arrive in time for an early dinner, a good night’s rest at the Bellevue Hotel, and our embarkation aboard the Mauretania in the morning.

O, and Dorothy has carried it off! It was all over in twenty minutes, she said. Yesterday, with her mother and Ted Rawlings as an escort, Arthur/Dorothy reported to the Juridical Unit of the Consular Section of the French Embassy in Washington. She presented her birth certificate, which a clerk checked for — well, whatever it is they check. Then she and her mother were ushered into a cluttered little office, where a French diplomat with soup stains on his vest and (though it was morning) wine on his breath asked her if, perchance, M. Arthur spoke French. Doro replied by seizing the the hand of the fonctionnaire and, shaking it effusively, offered him a torrent of semi-grammatical pleasantries. Recoiling and taking refuge in English, he asked her please to sit.

Deuxieme Secretaire Pascal Levigne (for such was his name and title) presented Doro with forms that, taking her maleness for granted (for so it indeed must have appeared to him at that instant), accorded her the right to an inheritance of two hundred thousand-plus dollars. ‘Arthur’ signed. With scarcely another glance at the dapper youth who sat before him, M. Levigne signed and stamped. She pumped his arm vigorously and then, papers in hand, she, Ted and her mother fled to Union Station by motor cab. They arrived in Baltimore shortly before two, “all the time with the sensation that the Embassy must have already detected my ruse and sent a squad of gendarmes after us,” said Dorothy. Proceeding directly to the Maryland Trust Bank, “Arthur” presented the documents, a telegram was sent to New York, and by four p.m., the transfer of the funds had been effected!

She found me after tea yesterday packing the last of my things for our Grand Tour. I was happy of Dorothy’s news, and happier yet of her declaration that henceforth she would assume responsibility for half of the expenses of 3319 Eutaw Place’s cottage industry, the manufacture of Balthasar’s extract. I led her to my Aunt Enid’s rooms that the agreement might be general. My aunt has most handsomely been the underwriter of the enterprise till now; henceforth Balthasar will continue to use the cellar of 3319 as his laboratory but Dorothy will bear half the cost of producing the substance and its distribution to we ‘girls’ who depend on it. At my recommendation, moreover, Balthasar’s stipend will be increased.

Doro is about to begin her last year at Bryn Mawr. Beyond that she is torn. Perhaps Dorothy will go on to take classes at the Maryland Institute; she has become a gifted painter and illustrator under Ted’s tutelage. Or, it seems equally possible, Dorothy will enroll in the social work program at Hopkins or Goucher College. Well, whichever she decides, she has already proven her mettle. No one — and certainly not I — could have been a more attentive and compassionate correspondent to Tottie’s thirteen daughters!

And poor Tottie! It is scarcely a year since my dear friend was hounded to her tragic death. In Tottie’s memory and for the welfare of us ‘girls,’ I am resolved to seek out the famous Dr. Steinach. From what I have read, he must be close already to deciphering the chemical clues that govern sexual development.

July 9. The Mauretania has weighed anchor; we are leaving the Statue of Liberty behind us at this moment. By happy coincidence, my classmate Winifred Clem and her father, Professor Cuthbert Clem, are also aboard this giant vessel. They are returning home to London after Prof. Clem’s sabbatical year at Johns Hopkins.

Just before our ship left the pier, I sent ashore a hastily penned letter to Dorothy. After a fitful sleep, I deemed it my duty to put her on guard. She should know Harry Halloran’s suspicions about Ted Rawlings — just in case Ted’s intentions may not be entirely true. Harry is sure that Dorothy’s beau takes great happiness in the act, or perhaps just in the idea, of wearing womens’ apparel. “For me,” Harry said, “it is an act and a craft that I enjoy perfecting. For Ted, I think it is a passion.”

July 10. Rupert Alistair FitzWilliam Roark entered my life this forenoon, and Winifred’s too. The gawky youth is an English baronet or something, who has been to Oxford with nothing much to show for it, and now to the United States, with nothing to show for that, either. He is despondent, for though he and his mother have scoured the East Coast as far inland as Pittsburgh and as far south as Charleston in search of an heiress, they have found none unable to resist the allure of his title which, in addition to a crumbling castle and a great many sheep, are all he has to offer.

Of all the several thousand possible courses of study, Rupert elected to master the Phoenician language whilst at Oxford. To prove it, he has recited, no, chanted a burial hymn from the 8th or 9th century before Christ. While he did so, I raised a quizzical eyebrow at Winifred Clem. Rupert’s is the sort of education which in Britain, she has told me, fits one for an appointment as a country cleric or perhaps a barrister’s living — neither of which, swears Rupert, interest him even slightly. I expected a positive sneer; instead my friend was regarding the young man with what could only be called ‘awe.’
Rupert had burst upon us like some sort of puppy that had accidentally slipped its leash (in this case, his mother’s fond gaze) and larruped over to see what lies beyond the bushes (in this case, Winifred and me, arranging ourselves on deck chairs with a small stack of books, steamer blankets and a vacuum bottle of tea). “Hallo,” says he, “what’s this? Not one but two comely maidens!”

I lifted my eyes from the orotund observations of Mr. Henry James to the earnest, pinkly aristocratic countenance of the source of this witty remark. “Are we acquainted,” I asked, knowing well that we were not.

“Ooh, damme, I am sorry, of course we are not, at least not yet, but please, fair Goddess, allow me, in the informality of the quarterdeck, to introduce myself, I am Rupert Roark and you and your studiously aloof friend there are, I hope, the remedy for what otherwise may be a most deadly passage.”

With that, this odd young man perched beside us and proceeded to relate the particulars already recorded. With little encouragement from us, he was at last beginning to run down when by some chance he mentioned Palestine. At that, Win perked up, and asked if the language of the Phoenicians was by any chance related to that of the Philistines of the Bible. “O, indeed they are,” Rupert cried, “as alike as French and Italian.”

“My mother,” Win said with a small sigh, “has done a great deal of excavating work at Askelon . . . .”

“My word! You don’t say? Then your mother must be Lady Violet Davyss, the celebrated archeologist; why didn’t you tell me?!”

“I just now did,” Winifred observed. “You know my mother, then?”

“I had the honour of making her acquaintance when she lectured at Brasenose. In fact, she imagined that my facility with Phoenician might assist in the decipherment of her Philistine shards. But Mother had other plans for me. . . .” Rupert finished with a helpless shrug.

The lady just mentioned was at that instant making insistent gestures toward Rupert from her own deck chair, to which I called his attention. “Oh, dear — she must want me to fetch her pills. May I hope to see you ever again?”

Whilst I bit my cheek to keep from laughing, having just imagined how the belles of Charleston must have reacted to Rupert’s declamation in Phoenician, Winifred answered demurely that it “would be a pleasure.” Winifred!

July 11. The Mauretania is indeed a city afloat. As it slices through the cold green waters of the North Atlantic, driven by Heaven knows how many horsepower transmitted through its four screw propellers from the great steam engines far below, we of the leisure class wander about its top decks, meet, eat, drink and dance in its salons, waited upon by hundreds of uniformed staff. For a week, we on the top decks form an accidental — and for reason of that randomness and in apprehension of the journey’s end, perhaps a bit more energetic — society of Europeans and Americans armed with that essential mark of modern gentility: the price of a first-class ticket. Peering over the rail at the decks below, we see the respectable folk on the second class deck, and far below, faces upturned straining for patches of air and light, those who have barely scraped together the coins for a passage in “steerage.”

Travel causes one to think, it is said; that may be its chiefest virtue.

I have been meditating on the arbitrary conventions of ‘society,’ and particularly on the restrictions that my embrace of femininity has put on my freedom in the general opinion of mankind.

- A proper young woman ought not go anywhere unless under the protection of a relative or married lady friend.

- She may not use the Underground for fear of catching her skirts in the moving stairway. Her clothing in fact seems designed to limit her freedom, or perhaps it has evolved that way because she is seen to have no need for clothing that permits her freedom of movement.

- Her professional ambitions are generally restricted to those occupations that spare her the rough and tumble of competition or overtaxing her brain. The latter organ is deemed capable of doing sums but not higher mathematics, of arranging a seven-course dinner party but not a contract. The proper young woman is these days permitted to type a letter or answer a telephone, but she may not give orders or decide destinies. She may lead the choir, for she is musical, but may not ascend the pulpit for she is not equipped for moral philosophy. She may nurse the sick but not perform surgery upon them. Her character is known to be ruled by her emotions; therefore she can neither vote nor lead a great enterprise.

- Married, she and all she brings to the union become the property of her husband, for him to arrange and dispose of as he sees fit.
That being the general opinion, I suppose I shall not be a proper young lady.

July 12. Strange are the ways of women, O Diary! Rupert has bewitched my pal Winifred and she, whose notion of toilette till now has been to scrub herself pink with Pears’ Soap and then brush her hair into submission, now wants to look “less frowdy.” Fortunately, the Mauretania is well-equipped with hairdressers and costumers. We spent the morning in a sort of spa. Win took my advice that she should make only incremental changes. Her hair has been cut and lightly dressed, her nails well-manicured, her eyebrows ever so subtly sculptured. The effect is really quite pleasant. I urged her to invest as well in some garments that show her figure to better advantage, and she returned from luncheon with her father all smiles. “Daddy’s given me  £50; let’s do it!”

It was past teatime when, at last, we had spent it all on combinations, dresses, shirts, jackets, skirts and of course several sets of silk undergarments, hose and shoes that the former Winifred would have thought much too frivolous indeed.

“Ooh, I can hardly wait for dinner! Will you help me dress? Will you, Evelyn?”

July 13. Winifred Clem is positively blooming! There is no other word for it. Rupert has been rendered helpless. She radiates confidence and basks in his devotion.

Professor Clem is bemused. We fell into conversation at the rail today. His daughter’s metamorphosis is an event he had hoped for but had no idea how to set in motion. Now he apprehends: the missing element was of course the admiration and constant attention of a young man.

Our conversation wandered to the ways that organisms adapt. No, it did not wander, Diary. I steered it there. Win’s father is an eminent botanist, and I wished to pick his brain. Adaptation is driven by mutation, a successful adaptation is a million-to-one event, and yet in the eons of time, the evolution of species has progressed by countless small steps.

“Consider,” Professor Clem said, “a group of rocky islands far from land. How many millions of years must pass before the action of sea, rain and salt, or the arrival of dust borne on the air, can fill a few small clefts with soil? How long until a passing bird or storm may deposit a few seeds there, seeds perhaps that find germination and growth just barely possible under the hostile conditions of this desert island? How many generations must then pass before the accumulation of organic matter and chance mutations enable the plant to adapt and thrive, positively thrive in that environment?”

I introduced the subject of human mutation. Could it be accelerated or even guided, I asked the learned scientist, now that we understood the mechanisms of evolution? He frowned, puzzled; I reminded him that a factor governing the success of mutations is happy accident — a circumstance of soil or climate for which the mutated organism is better adapted than its parent. Humans, unlike plants, are able to modify our circumstances, in effect to create a nurturing climate for our mutations.

“Alas,” Professor Clem answered after a moment of thought. “It is more likely that we should do the opposite. Mankind has been murdering its ‘unnatural’ offspring since history began. Consider the fate of ‘witches’ and ‘freaks.’”

July 14. Aunt Enid and I were breakfasting together in the solitude of our cabin when there arose in me such a regard for her! “I am not certain I know how to say this,” I ventured, “but I am most sensible of your kindness in allowing me to find my own way.”

For once I had surprised her, for my observation had been prompted not by our breakfast chatter but by my spontaneous recollection of a novel I have been reading. “Whatever do you mean, Evelyn?”

“That you do not try to marry me off, somehow.”

“Do you think that would be wise, in view of your. . . peculiar situation?” My aunt alluded to my plumbing, of course.

“That can be fixed in a fortnight. I thought you knew. Two different doctors have explained that to me.”

“And you have not assented?”

“Not at all,” I replied, “for they give no assurance that I shall retain those sensations that — elemental as they may be — give me much pleasure.” I regarded my aunt earnestly, hoping that she took my meaning, for I would be hard pressed to state it with greater clarity. It appeared that she did.

“I have thought it my duty,” Aunt Enid said with the appearance of choosing her words carefully, “to guard you from those who would divert you from the destiny you choose yourself, only that much. And I believe you will excel at whatever that may be.”
Tears came to my eyes; I could only grasp my aunt’s hand and press it to my lips.

July 14, bis. I thought I should finish several novels on this passage; as it is, we are but hours from Liverpool, I have managed but the one I mentioned, and it has irritated me no end. I wonder why Mr. Henry James must dwell so much on American girls whose wings are clipped, purses emptied, and hearts broken by European gentleman scoundrels. I certainly have no intention of succumbing like his Isabel Archer -- well, I have some advantages that she did not. For one thing, it is nearly 40 years since the tragedy that Mr. James imagined, and it is no longer thought odd for a woman of breeding to have a vocation. Nor have I wealth of my own, but only the kindness of my aunt, so I don’t count for much as prey. I’m not nearly so “interesting” as Mr. James made his Isabel to be, either, so I shall be safe, won’t I be, Diary? And that’s a good thing, for were I to be captured, I should have a devil of a time explaining the tangle of parts that pass for my sexual equipment!

July 15. So this is England! On the whole, I think I prefer Baltimore to Liverpool.

With a tearful embrace, I have seen Winifred off; she and her father departed on the afternoon express for London. Rupert conveniently secured seats for himself and his mother as well on the same train. Mrs. Roark, if she has not yet embraced Rupert’s fond feelings for Winifred, is at least civil to Professor Clem and his daughter. Rupert believes he will ere long wear down his mother’s grandiose ambitions.

July 19. We passed the last few days enjoying the bucholic hospitality of the Wiggins, cousins of Mr. Westcott, Aunt Enid’s long-deceased husband. They are gentlemen-farmers in Staffordshire. I went on long tramps with the children of the family. If the valley of the River Trent is typical, the English countryside is poetic in its perfection, a vista of neat farms, hedgerows, hummocks, woods and streams. What struck me most was its antiquity. People have been tilling these fields for over two thousand years! The parish church of Wombley on Trent was built in the 8th century. For an American, even one from our long-settled Eastern coast, such continuity with the past is intimidating.

And now we are in London, a sprawling metropolis of three million people!

July 20. My aunt’s liberality makes travelling in her company a pleasure. Her many acquaintances are on the whole interesting, but elderly; she knows that I should soon tire of nothing but their company. Thus she has seen that there are bills and coins in my purse and encouraged me to explore the gentler parts of London, bidding me however to “keep your wits about you and be back before teatime.”

Winifred is due at our hotel in half an hour. She is taking me to meet her cousin Christabel Pankhurst at the headquarters of the Womens’ Social and Political Union. Miss Pankhurst is its Organizing Secretary.

July 22. London is a blur of movement, color and incessant noise. I have seen the Crystal Palace and Saint James Park, Westminster Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and the towers of Parliament. And there is so much more to see!
Miss Pankhurst, her mother and other stalwarts of the WSPU listened with great interest as Winifred related our caper in Baltimore not two months before, the invasion of the Memorial Day Parade by a floatful of Bryn Mawr girls bearing suffrage banners. Appreciative “ahs” greeted her account of our night in the jail.

For now at least, Win and I have declined Miss Pankhurst’s invitation to join one of her “riots.” She has been jailed countless times, Diary, for disrupting political meetings and ceremonies — it is the WSPU’s deliberate plan. They reason that the spectacle of ladies being hauled off roughly to incarceration will arouse the sympathy of the general public for womens’ suffrage.

July 23. We have descended on Harrod’s Department Store, Win and I. A night at the theatre beckons, escorted by Rupert Roark (come up to London from Cambridge) and his mate at Brasenose College, Toby Whyfford. We shall see a revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. I have bought Italian kid gloves that pass my elbows, clockworked silk stockings and an extravagant little tiara.

July 24. Leaving aside that my so-called escort drank too much wine at dinner, too much champagne at the intermission, and snored through the entire fourth act, the play was a great deal of fun. Oscar Wilde was a genius — as the scandal of his life recedes into the mists of the previous century, it is more and more being acknowledged.
When the play ended, though I argued for leaving Toby sprawled in his seat, Win and Rupert felt obliged to put him in a cab. So much for my chance of marrying a peer. Though Lord and Lady Whyfford — our hosts to a pre-theatre dinner — had been very pleasant, they did not bequeath sufficient brain or temperance to their son to make him interesting to me.

July 25. My aunt is tiring of London. Though she is impatient to move on, I insisted that we visit the Kew Gardens. There are huge greenhouses there, filled with tropical trees and flowering plants from the entire world. By presenting a note from Professor Clem, we were able to tour the Plant Breeding Laboratory. They are doing some remarkable things with orchids and cheritas. Cheritas are a cunning and extremely adaptable genus of flowering plants from the Asian archipelago. I had never seen them before.

July 26, Calais. We embarked from Victoria Station at 10 o’clock, reached Dover at half eleven, and crossed the Channel without incident. The cliffs are quite white, as advertised. In a few minutes Aunt Enid and I will board the express for Paris. Though she speaks not a word of French, Pegeen has our things quite well organized.

I myself constructed a few sentences (desiring to know, for example, where one should discover the lavatory of women) but they have not much impressed the Frenchmen to whom they were hopefully addressed. (That is to say I was answered in English.)

July 27. London impressed me, but Paris, O my heavens Diary, what can one say! Could there be a grander city anywhere? I am drunk on its beauty. We have spent most of the day touring the central arondissments by caléche. Aunt Enid had arranged a suite of rooms in the 16th, close to the Bois de Boulogne, so we started there while the day was still fresh. The “Bois” goes on and on; it is a great oasis full of lakes and dells and cozy little restaurants. It is far larger than our dear Druid Park back in Baltimore, and heaps more elegant. Then we went onward to the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysee and the Eiffel Tower! The Champs de Mars and L’Invalides, where Napoleon I lies at rest. Luncheon at the Tour d’Argent, followed by a lazy peregrination on foot through the Latin Quarter (St. Germain des Prá¨s was a disappointment) and the Ile de la Cité (gorgeous stained glass at St. Chapelle!), then homeward by coach via the Tuileries and the Faubourge St. Honoré. It is fourteen years since Aunt last saw Paris, and she was nearly as excited as I.

July 29. Yesterday Etienne Downey called on Aunt and me at our hotel. He is Dorothy Downey’s half-brother by her father’s liaison with an Annamese lady, exquisitely slim and light-boned, with straight, jet-black hair and dusky complexion — in short, he does not take after his father. Etienne resembles my chum Dorothy only in his high cheekbones and delicate features. For three years now, he has been enrolled at a lycée established near Paris for young men from the colonies. At first he was dreadfully homesick. Now he has nearly lost the habits of Annam, he confessed in exquisite French.

July 30. A telegram from Martin! Mr. Glenn Curtiss and he have arrived at Le Havre. The new aeroplane is safely off the boat. As time is short, the Curtiss team will bypass Paris. We will meet in Reims.

August 1. Paris is emptying. The entire population of the capital, it seems, leaves it during the month of August for their country homes and estates, abandoning this splendid city to waves of foreign tourists. Aunt Enid’s friends the Devinats and the Broussards are no exception to the rule. Mme Alexis Bezroukoff-LeBlanc, a Slavic lady of long residence in the 14th arondissment and my aunt’s special friend here, has delayed her own departure for Lorraine after exacting my aunt’s promise that we shall accompany her there in a few more days. That is a blessing for us, for Mme Alexis is a great familiar of establissements like Worth and Lanvin, where one can count on excellent taste and service. She has taken on the the renovation of my aunt’s wardrobe and the virtual creation of my own as her own special task and challenge. I have spent many days now in consultations, measurings and fittings. Soon I shall be splendidly equipped to waltz through the Viennese winter with ball gowns and tea gowns of chiffon, lace and yards of tulle. O, and an opera cloak; it is divine, a satin extravaganza fastened by silken frogs.

The couturiers pleaded that I should accept the corset, O, the lightest, slightest of these, they assured me, that I might be a la mode. And would not Mademoiselle consider one or two afternoon suits featuring the ‘hobble skirt’ that, they insisted, is now the choice of toute Paris? Gravely, I regarded their drawings and declined to be squeezed and shaped to resemble a pigeon on a pedestal. “Surely,” I said, “my curves are already ample.”

“Ah, oui, mademoiselle, but your waist — we can easily reduce it to 55 centimeters from its present 62 — would you not like that? Try this on, if you will.”

I stood my ground. “Non, je regrette — it is not for me. I shall diet instead.”

I have ordered, too, a selection of costumes appropriate for a serious student of medicine and German — five and seven-gored skirts that I can top with a severe woolen jacket of brown or gray or, if I am feeling more frivolous, an embroidered walking jacket of purple velvet heavily embroidered with dark red arabesques.

The evening gowns require that my breasts have some support; there is no getting around it, but there is a solution. An ingenious woman who doubtless shares my abhorrence of the corset has devised a garment of rubberized cloth called the bustiere, or brassiere. The effect is quite startling. I have bought two of them.

There are several high-waisted summer dresses also, light and airy, perfect for strolling or picking berries. I’ll wear them with a ribboned Leghorn hat and low-heeled shoes.
Aunt Enid and I have bought another steamer trunk. We are filling it with our acquisitions — a heap of silken lingerie, boots, shoes, scarves, purses, umbrellas — all the paraphenalia a woman must have ere she is equipped to step outside her house. It is the hats that pose the greatest problem; each requires its own box. Well, I shall limit myself to two chapeaux, a great one with fur and feathers, and another for my classes at the Akademie. That’s not counting my summer hats, of course -- the broad-brimmed Leghorn with the green ribbon and and the organdy bonnet.

August 2. I left Aunt’s and my cards at the Cone sisters’ apartment on Thursday, and this morning we have received their invitation to tea at half-past four. The Cones are Jewish ladies from Baltimore, elder cousins of my friend Rachel Klimintz.

August 3. Rachel told me her cousins are serious collectors of art, but I hardly expected the extraordinary paintings that populate their apartment on the rue Boileau. There is nothing like them at the Academy of Fine Arts or the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The young artists of Paris have declared war on artistic tradition. My aunt finds it all rather jarring, but I am fascinated by these modern experiments. They are painting feeling and mood. “Anyone can make a picture,” Edith Cone explained. “It only requires a camera, but representation is not art. It has no soul.”

This morning, hungry for more experience of “abstractions,” I donned a lightweight walking suit and sensible boots, twirled my parasol, and set off for the Petit Palais. It is 15 minutes, with one change, by Metro from our rooms on the rue de la Tour. A wing of the Palais is given over to an exhibition of the works of young artists and sculptors. Few were so avant-garde as the Cone sisters’ acquisitions, but it all burned with an iconoclastic spirit that excites me a good deal. My companion was a niece of the Cones. I did not like her. Particularly after I confessed my ambition of becoming a doctor, she patronized me. I imagine she believed keeping me company was a duty to be discharged to her aunts, and I could not possibly be “interesting.” Well, for my part, I found Gertrude Stein arrogant and unkempt, even though (as you know, Diary) I am a tolerant sort of girl.

August 5. We are packing for our sortie to the country home of the LeBlancs. She is eager to depart. “There is nothing to do now in Paris,” she complains. “The ballet, the Opera have taken their vacances, the city is filled with foreigners, tous le monde has left!”

We are to rendezvous at the LeBlanc estate with Mme Alexis’ sister-in-law, Madame Olivia Bezroukoff from Vienna, and her children.

Winifred Clem has written. All is well with Rupert but she and her cousin Christabel have had a rupture. Win judges Christabel a nasty snob and social climber. It seems that she and her mother refuse to admit women of small means or station to the WPSU, and this has forced a schism in the suffrage movement.

August 7. We are settled in the countryside for two weeks, not far from Epernay, which itself is not far from Reims. La Chauveliere is a huge farmhouse, a so-called ‘petit chateau’ with thick walls and tall, narrow windows to keep out brigands. Its name means literally the ‘Bat Cote.’ Parts of it date to the 15th Century. There is a family of falcons nesting under the eaves.

Besides the main house, there are several outbuildings that have been renovated as comfortable apartments. Madame Alexis has installed Aunt Enid, Pegeen and me in one of them.

August 10, Tuesday. Altogether at la Chauveliere there are Aunt Enid, Mme Alexis, her sister Mme Olivia, a kaleidoscopic assortment of husbands, children nieces and nephews, a runabout grandchild and me. The LeBlancs include Mme Alexis’ daughter Lucie and son-in-law Guillame, her sons Jean-Christophe and Nicholas, and her unmarried daughter Frieda. The Bezroukoffs are Austro-Hungarian; they have a vast estate somewhere near the Serbian border. Madame Olivia Bezroukoff, the sister of Mme Alexis, is recently widowed. With her are her children Lara, Sasha, little Adele and Raymond, the heir to the Bezroukoff fortune. The families have been summering together at La Chauveliere for years.

I have been having an exquisitely lazy time. Often I recline in a hammock watching the birds on their parental errands. Inevitably, and in two minutes or less, one of the Bezroukoffs or LeBlancs seizes the opportunity to practice English. I should be more patient with them, I suppose, but really it is my French that needs work though no one here seems to think there’s much point in my even trying! Raymond is especially persistent. It is a shame that he has no ‘ear’ for English. He and I end up joking and teasing in German.

We have been bicycling and berrypicking, fishing in the river and going to the village for sweet buns, paté, sausages and vegetables. Bread — long crisp baguettes, fat batards and round, dense pain de campagne — is delivered fresh every morning. M. Hubert LeBlanc, le Seigneur, has been flirting shamelessly with my aunt. In Paris he is Monsieur le Directeur of who knows how many companies; on holiday, he is a little boy that Mme Alexis regards indulgently, quite certain that Aunt Enid will grant him the simple pleasures of the chase but not of the kill.

Madame’s sons and nephews are cut from the same cloth — I am their quarry and I take my cue from my aunt. “A tramp over the hills — mais, oui! — but let us invite the pretty little cousins as well. Ah, yes, bring a blanket and some wine, but don’t forget the bread and cheese; we shall picque-nique five or six together. Ah, you imagined a tete-a-tete? We have hardly just met, alors! Later, perhaps. . . .”

Guilliame, Madame’s son-in-law and the resident manager, spent most of yesterday morning showing me the grapes. They are growing heavy with nectar; Guilliame must decide when to harvest each field. The longer he delays, the greater the chance that the grapes may be destroyed by a storm or soured by a virus; yet also the sweeter they will grow if neither tragedy should intervene.

Guilliame takes a bit of soil and rolls it between his fingers, tastes it. He studies the underside of the grape leaves, hefts the gravid bunches, squashes a berry, sniffs its odor, rolls it on his palate. I am his eager pupil. I venture that some day perhaps we shall succeed in growing fine wines in America. Guillame ridicules the thought. In that, he is regrettably French.

By eleven, it is quite warm and we are inspecting the last grapeyard. I admire Guilliame’s craftsmanship as he continues his methodical survey of the Pinot Blancs. Alas! I sense Guilliame is distracted; his scent is sharper and more acrid, it has darkened the underarms of his broadcloth shirt.

With no more warning than that, Guilliame turns, embraces me and clamps his lips to mine. I parry his assault by digging my nails into the flesh of his flanks. Still he persists; I have no choice but to plant my left boot and swing my right leg upward to maximum effect. The blow parts our lips, as I intended, but I am strangely concerned that I have hurt my host. He steps back, glares but says nothing. I take my handkerchief and wipe away some beads of sweat from Guilliame’s brow. “What would your sweet wife Lucie think?” I murmur.

In the evening Guilliame and I are partnered at whist and sweep all three tables. I sense that the force of our arousal (yes, Diary, I too was aroused, if you must know!) was displaced into this game of cards. And that’s what the conventions of society are, after all — an elaborate game of cards, with rules that well brought up people dare not break. They have their uses, when all’s said and done.

August 11. A boy has brought a telegram from the village. It is for me from Martin. He, Mr. Curtiss and others of the team will arrive at la Chauveliere before luncheon tomorrow.

August 12. The American flyers are the object of solicitous interest from the various Le Blancs and Bezroukoffs. It is well-known that France leads the world in aeronautics. Hasn’t Louis Bleriot just crossed the Channel to England in merely 38 minutes? Haven’t Henri Farmand and Louis Poulhan obliterated all speed and distance records?

The food is good, the wine better. The American contingent, all six of them, don’t mind being patronized.

I catch Martin’s eye. We leave the others toasting, and wander to the orchard on the western flank of the farm. Martin is again taller and I think more muscular. Each of my nerves is a-quiver. He is being a perfect gentleman, so much that I regret my former coldness to my oldest friend from Baltimore. (This is a feature of foreign travel, I think. The farther we go from home, the more attractive people from home become.)

I am still aroused by the thought of Guilliame, sweaty and scented by the chalky soil of his vineyards. I wish Martin had some of Guilliame’s physicality. Instead, he channels his youthful vigor into engineering, supplemented no doubt by frequent cold showers.
It occurs to me to take Martin’s hand in mine as we walk. Sparing me no details of the crew’s effort to tune the Golden Flyer to its most competitive edge, Martin fails to notice my brazen gesture. I consider pressing on to the next level, but no words escape my lips. Try as I might, alone with Martin in that fecund orchard, I cannot say to him “Kiss me. Kiss me, O my dear!” I am so well brought up — no, that’s not it; it is something about Martin — that I can only think it while feigning interest in the mechanics of the carburetor or the alignment of steering cables.

August 13. The Abbaye de Montriche — favored 150 years before by the Marquis de Sade — is quite near by our country refuge. I do wish, Diary, that Mme Alexis had not shared this information. In fact, she seemed quite intent on sharing it. De Sade, Madame has told me, went to the heart of things. He understood — says Madame -- that just as greed and fear are the mainsprings of our economic life, pain — whether inflicted or received — is the force that drives our sexual life. I have not myself sufficient experience to say Mme Alexis yea or nay, but I hope she is wrong.

Aunt Enid, from whom I sought comfort after that unnerving conversation with Madame, says I may refuse her invitations to explore the pleasures of pain. Mme Alexis made no secret of her fondness for the lash, whether blows are inflicted (she) or received (several of her nephews and their friends, I gather). I am invited to join an ‘evening’ tomorrow. Aunt was not surprised, she said (evidently she had seen hints of this tendency Mme Alexis many years before). It is a game they play here regularly, she believes, one that no longer amuses her. I should join only if I wished.

O, damn, Diary! What am I to do? My curiosity has got the better of me!

August 15. Mme Alexis was an altogether fearsome creature last night. Fearsome, that is, were her coup de theatre more than play. If one were serious about doing harm to an enemy, would one wish an audience? Yet there I was last night in the salle de la danse of her little chateau with several of the girls, there by invitation to see Madame humiliate the boys: my aunt’s godchild, Raymond Bezroukoff, his brother Sasha, and Madame’s own Jean-Christophe and Nicholas.

In the uniform of an officer of hussars, Madame cracked a whip above the heads of her nephews. They replied by curtseying, Raymond unfortunately not fast enough for Madame. She drew near; he trembled. She abused him — his dress was torn, it fitted ill, he was a most wretched specimen of humanity, she said, let alone of femininity. O, need I mention Diary, that Mme’s nephews had been dressed as maidens? Nor were they at all unattractive. It was evident that Raymond and his cousins had gone to some considerable trouble to satisfy Mme Alexis, but to no avail — she would not be satisfied. All of them must be tied in a humiliating posture by her assistants, their skirts raised so that their buttocks faced the lash, and whipped for their failure to satisfy Madame’s standards.

We girls gasped as our friends and cousins suffered the lash without hope of escape, bound as they were to the barre.

And then Mme Alexis addressed the gallery. She had noticed that some of us girls showed scant enthusiasm for the punishment of infractions. This was to her perplexing; she would put to us a problem. If we girls chose to remain passive, she would deal with each of the cousins at length, according each the punishment he deserved. Or, Madame offered, she would allow us to ransom each truant at the price of three strokes — she would be the judge — that we ourselves should deliver across his buttocks.

I was quivering with fear for the boys. The other girls were also agitated. Little Adele, in particular, could not resist sobs as she observed her cousin Nicholas. As befit his age, the lad was clad in a schoolgirl’s navy jumper and white chambray cotton blouse. His hair was tied back with a satin ribbon that matched his sash, his legs encased in silk hose and his feet shod in low patent pumps. Who, I wondered, had dressed Nicholas so prettily? Bent cruelly to the rail, the lad had stifled the sobs that sought to escape as the lash kissed his boyish buttocks.

The other boys’ dresses signalled the advancing age of each by the length of the hemline and the tightness of their corsets. Imagine, Diary — we girls rebelled against corsets years ago; I in fact have never worn one — yet here were four youths who could hardly breath, so tightly were they laced! As the breasts of the boys heaved, no doubt from the pain that had coursed upward from their tortured buttocks, we girls shared that grievous hurt vicariously.

“I will ransom Jean-Christophe,” sighed one of the girls. “Give me the whip.”

Whip in hand, she whispered to her cousin. He steeled himself, gripping the bar, as she raised the lash. There could be no saving of the blow — the girls knew, I sensed, that leniency would be counted against the victim. Whap! and whap! Jean-Christophe’s silk-clad limbs buckled, mascara ran in rivulets on his tender cheeks, yet not a sound escaped his rubied lips. Madame nodded; the boy was remanded to the care of the maiden whose strong arm had secured his freedom.

Save one, the rest of the boys were freed in the same way. As little Adele led off her sweet — and now slightly limping -- young Nicholas, and Frieda rescued Sasha, I was uncomfortably aware that of the petticoated youths, only Raymond remained bound to the barre, and only I remained in the gallery. “You may leave us, Evelyn,” said Mme Alexis. “I am aware that our custom is not to your American appetite.” Her words, delivered as though stating a scientific law, aroused my fury. “No, Madame — I will not let you abuse Raymond further. Give me the whip!”

She handed it over. I took it, approached the barre, and spoke to Raymond. “Hit me hard,” he replied. “I will explain later.”

What could I do? If I rebelled, we might both be punished. I raised the lash, then brought it down heavily upon Raymond’s corseted waist. He stifled a groan.

“That will not count. You must hit flesh. His buttocks or thighs!” Madame Alexis bade her assistant pull Raymond’s skirts above his head. “Three more . . . hard strokes!”
Tears coursed down my cheeks as I raised the lash again. One! — a welt arose immediately between the two angry red streaks that Madame had inflicted. Again! This stroke overlapped Madame’s, and my Raymond could not surpress a gasp.

Two more!” said Mme Alexis. I regarded her in surprise. “He is not to cry out,” she said. “If he so much as whimpers, he earns another stroke.”

‘My God,’ I thought. ‘Will this never end?’ I knelt to Raymond and whispered “Be brave, dear heart. Endure two strokes for me.” Tears welled in Raymond’s eyes; Imagining his tears to be of gratitude, I smote Raymond’s buttocks twice more — hard enough to satisfy Madame, yet not so hard that they forced another cry from Raymond.

“Enough,” she said. “Take him now and show him kindness. He will be abjectly grateful; it will amaze you.”

Raymond was released; the lad rose to standing position with difficulty. One of Madame’s servants fussed over his costume until, weakly, he pushed her away and sought my arm.
Raymond and I were led to a room not far from the scene of his whipping. A bath had been drawn, and the covers turned back on a commodious bed. Raymond hobbled beside me and had barely gained the door before he collapsed. “The corset,” he whispered hoarsely. “I can take it no longer.” My fingers flew to loosen the cruel stays as Raymond knelt on all fours upon the polished floor.

He righted himself, regarded me, and smoothed his skirts. “Ah, that is so much better. Thank you, my dear, for saving me from my monstress of an aunt. You must think us quite the oddest family?”

Gravely, I nodded. It was indeed strange. There was no mistaking that Raymond was a youth in a frock, tarted up to a fare-thee-well, and yet I found him attractive. In fact, I was growing decidedly damp between my loins. There is no arguing with such things.

“Odd, yes, but not incomprehensible,” I answered. “You have shared me your secret. Now I will share mine, knowing that you cannot possibly dare betray me.”

I undressed deliberately, arranging my dress on a hangar, folding my undergarments on a chair. Raymond sat dumbly on the floor. “Will you get out of those things or not?” I asked him. Still dumb, he hurried to comply.

“Trim the light,” I commanded. Raymond turned the valve until the gas just glowed. He gaped as though he had never seen breasts. I waited until our eyes had adjusted to the gloom, then dropped my petticoat and drawers.

Raymond did not run. I did not think he would. He simply gasped.

“Yes, I am neither man nor woman. I am something of both — and I am capable of giving pleasure and — most importantly — of receiving it.

“You will give me pleasure. I am sure you wish to do so. Now undress and come to bed!”

I fancy that I taught Raymond a great deal last night. Notwithstanding the influence of his aunt, or perhaps, perversely, because of it, Raymond is a sweet boy. He confessed that he — all of them, in fact, especially including the girls — have come to savor these evenings. Mme Alexis organizes them elaborately four times each year — one is the 30th of December, another — yesternight’s — on the evening before the Feast of the Assumption, one on the third Thursday of Lent, and the last near All Hallows’ Eve, I forget exactly when. This is only the second time Nicholas has been allowed to participate.

“Why the frocks?” I asked.

“O,” he said. “We have all been used to them, Jean-Christophe and Sasha and Nicholas and I, and Guilliame too before he was married. Here at La Chauveliere each summer, they have gone on immediately if we crossed our aunts and mamas or disobeyed our nannies, and so . . . .”

“And so, what?” I asked, already guessing his reply.

“And so, nothing arouses me more acutely than the pain of a corset and a lash. I wonder, indeed, if I shall ever be able to function without the stimulus of one or the other.”
“Your cousins and brother — is it the same for them?”

“For Jean-Christophe, yes. Perhaps Guilliame also. About Nicholas, it is hard to say; he is still very young and it is good that he has Adele for a friend. Sasha is different.”
“What do you mean?”

“Ask him yourself. Tell him I told you to.”

August 16. Sasha Bezroukoff is Raymond’s brother. Raymond, heir to the family’s estates in the Banat of Temesvar, is nineteen. Sasha is hardly sixteen. Their sister Lara is seventeen. Sasha has sad eyes with long eyelashes, thick brown hair that encases his sweet face like a casque, supple limbs and a fine, erect posture — it is as though he has long been accustomed to corsets.

Today, after the midday meal, Sasha and I rested in a gazebo. The barest of breezes carried to us the ripe scents of the French summer. Whilst bees, butterflies and dragonflies attended to their business, I drew from this odd boy his story. He claims always to have preferred the cozy comforts of the nursery or drawing room to the woods or the playing field. “My earliest memory: I was amusing myself happily under the piano while my mother played upon it. The sun was warm through the windows of the conservatory, the air heavy with Mama’s scent, her slippered feet working the pedals. It was then that I was unmistakably aware that I am, that my nature is . . . that of a girl. As long as I can remember, I have been a fearful sissy; it upset my soldier Father greatly, but he is dead now, killed in the fighting in Macedonia.

“Mama does not mind my lack of manliness at all, as long as Raymond plays that part. I cede it to him gladly. I know I shall be happier without a title, as long as I have an income and can live as decadently as I please in Vienna.”

Whereas for Sasha’s brother and his cousin Jean Christophe, to be dressed as girls and whipped is but an aid to their carnal pleasures, it — the imposture of femininity, at least — is Sasha’s greatest pleasure, for which he will gladly endure the lash.

“And as you wish to play the role of the daughter and sister, does it not bother you that daily you become more of a man?” I regarded Sasha intently; as I expected, there came to his eyelash a tear, and then another.

“I do not like to think of that, Evelyn, for there is no defense — is there? There are times that I lie awake crying, dreading the future — the thickening of my beard and roughening of my voice, the dozens of ways my body will impose its traitorous will.
“Well, then — I shall deal with it as I can when I must, and for the present, I shall savor the sweetness of youth.”

“I am sure you will find your way,” I murmured, at a loss for an intelligent reply.
“O, Evi,” Sasha burst out, seizing my hand. “Be my friend! I will show you Vienna! It is the most wonderful of cities; you will love it.”

August 19. We arose before six today; an early start was essential if we were to arrive near the ‘aerodrome’ before ten, when the speed trials were to begin. La Chauveliere is only 20 kilometers from Reims, the ancient capital of the Champagne region. According to the newspaper, a huge crowd has gathered there for La Grande Semaine de l’Aviation. Rooms simply cannot be had at any price. At stake today is a prize of $25,000 donated by Mr. Bennett, the publisher of the Paris Herald.

In Madame Alexis’ great four-in-hand landau were Aunt Enid and a Mr. Prescott, Lara, Sasha and I. Mr. Prescott is an Englishman who is spending a fortnight with his family in the village near la Chauveliere. A driver and a footman sat on the front bench and managed the team, while we five sat ensconced vis-á -vis in the spacious open body of the coach. Lara’s maid and our own Pegeen took the rumble seat behind us.

Emboldened by our intimate conversation of the previous noon, Sasha had determined to come en femme, and a pretty, lively girl he made. Like Lara and me, Sasha had chosen a cotton day dress. Seeming not to regard this as even a bit extraordinary, Lara fussed fondly over her brother’s hair ribbon. I commented on the absence of a corset. “I do not like them especially,” Sasha replied, “nor do I need one to feel I am feminine. It is my aunt who insists we wear the vile things at her ‘parties.’”

It had dawned on Mr. Prescott that I was related to Aunt Enid. “O, that’s your niece, you say? Blimey! She shprekens the Deutsch with those other girls like a regular Heinie!” (By tacit agreement, Lara, Sasha and I had abandoned French for German, in which I am much better able to keep up.) I bit my tongue; sometimes we women must make do with whatever male escort comes to hand.

The heat of the sun was soon felt; we put away our shawls and raised our parasols. At nine-fifteen, we were within half a mile of our goal. We stopped briefly to refresh ourselves at a teahouse while Mr. Prescott and the driver inquired of the best vantage point. It was decided that we should observe the speed competition from a small hill that gave an excellent view of the plain. Already, two dozen carriages were standing along a narrow road, and a hundred people or more had claimed stations along the crest of the hill.

As we climbed carefully to avoid damage to our skirts, we could see ripe fields of wheat and swelling sugar beets stretched out below us. To the north were visible the famous chalk slopes, heavy with grapevines. The aerodrome was easily visible through our binoculars half a kilometer distant, and beyond it, the city of Reims, dominated by its cathedral.

“Louis Bleriot’s the chap to beat,” Mr. Prescott announced. “Farman or Paulhan could give him a run; they’ve already won some prizes. Your American chap really hasn’t a chance, I’m afraid, but I’m sure the experience of competition will be salubrious. . . .”

Undeniably, our escort is a pompous ass. Aunt Enid gave Mr. Prescott a withering glare; I seconded it. He affected not to notice.

The first of the competitors made his ascent and headed north. It was a biplane, but not the Golden Flyer — I was quite sure of that by Martin’s description. I imagined Martin and Tom making last minute adjustments to the mechanical gear as Mr. Curtiss was harnessed into the driver’s seat. A second aeroplane took off, black and silver; it had barely cleared the treeline before the engine began to smoke. We held our collective breath until the pilot wrestled his craft back to the edge of the aerodrome and set it down — heavily but without accident, it appeared.

Then it was the Golden Flyer’s turn. There could be no mistake about it. The American standard bearer was a trim double-winger with rudders fore and aft. Through the binoculars, I could make out Mr. Curtiss at the controls. The Flyer lifted neatly off the runway, climbed swiftly and soon was but a shining speck on the horizon, hot in pursuit of the leader.

One by one, four others gained the sky. The second aeroplane — the one that crashed — had now burst into flames, but only after the pilot was well clear. Someone said that it was Paulhan’s craft.

We could see that the Golden Flyer had nearly breasted the first aeroplane as both craft made the second and final turn beyond the spire of a church only a kilometer or less distant. The last of the competitors — a Bleriot monoplane — had taken off as the Flyer overtook its rival and settled gracefully onto the aerodrome.

“Blimey!” said Mr. Prescott. “Only eight minutes around the course!”

There were still the craft that took off after the Flyer — within a moment or two, we perceived that only the monoplane had a chance of besting Mr. Curtiss. It passed our knoll within a few hundred meters; yes, it was the conqueror of the English Channel, the heroic Louis Bleriot himself. Cheers rose from the crowd, then turned to gasps as the monoplane sputtered and sank heavily just short of the aerodrome. We collectively held our breath — ah, Bleriot had escaped without injury.

Sweet victory! The Curtiss aeroplane has won the Gordon Bennett Cup — and $25,000 — for the United States! I am thrilled for Martin.

We did not return to La Chauveliere until well after sundown, for it was simply mandatory that we congratulate our American friends. When the landau could make no further headway, Sasha, Lara and I abandoned it and continued on foot toward a tent above which the Stars and Stripes waved triumphantly. Alas, the throng was too dense — I had nearly given up hope when Tom Armstrong saw me waving frantically and pushed his way through the crowd to us.

“Evelyn! O, this is wonderful! You saw it, did you?”

As, still gasping, I made introductions, he guided the three of us to the Curtiss’ tent. A celebration was in process that required the liberal spraying of champagne by each member of the Flyer’s team upon the others. After men in the crowd had carried him around the field on their shoulders, Mr. Curtiss had been presented with the huge cup and, on regaining the tent, was himself soaked by jets of the bubbly fluid.

Leaving Sasha and Lara to flirt with Tom, Martin and I stepped outside. “We may not see each other again for some time,” I said, stating the obvious.

“You have told me that you have your own ambitions, Evelyn — for that I have the greatest respect, of course, and yet. . . . Well, I’ll miss you a lot, I guess.”

“Darling, Martin, I am sure you will be a brilliant engineer, and I believe I shall be inclined to marry you if — here I took both his hands and drawing close, gazed directly into Martin’s hazel eyes — if you will but wait a few years, and allow me a career also.”
“Of course,” he answered. “It is settled then?”

Without waiting for my reply, Martin kissed me on the lips. I returned his kiss as firmly as a well-bred girl might in the midst of a throng.

I suppose that we have an understanding, now, Martin and I.

August 20. Entering the parlor of the main house in search of a book I’d left there, I found Aunt Enid and the sisters Bezroukoff in heated conversation. Of course, I hurried to make my retreat. “No, Evelyn, stay,” bade my aunt. “You will find this argument of interest, I think. Mme Alexis is expounding the merits of ‘petticoat discipline.’”

Not at all sure I would, I sat on a stool to listen.

“Surely you will admit, dear Enid, that men are fundamentally brutes?” — it was Madame Olivia who spoke.

“There are many of whom I have been fond,” answered my aunt, “men that I believe were never coerced into behaving properly and respectfully.”

“O, I shall grant you that most ‘gentlemen’ acquire a veneer of decency without coercion, but it is by no means genuine, in my view, nor does it touch them all,” offered Madame Alexis. “Too often one encounters men who are unpleasant in general and rude to women in particular. All of us — even Evelyn, I venture,” she said with a nod to me, “know men whose manner communicates their conviction that it is their right and duty to order us about, to manage our affairs as though we were simpletons, and — Evelyn, close your ears! — to take us roughly in bed whenever they wish.”

Madame Alexis regarded all of us, the sharp glance of a woman used to getting her way. As none of us made a move to demur, she continued. “I would not countenance or chance such a thing in my own household. For the sake of argument, I will concede that perhaps I was overzealous in Hubert’s case. He has always been a man of excellent character, but . . . it was only shortly after our marriage that I apprehended a danger, the beginnings of disregard, of his not taking me seriously. I would not endure that he should humiliate me.

“Was it not from then, dear Alexis, that Hubert habitually has worn a corset and the same silky undergarments we love?” asked Madame Olivia.

“Not quite then. I was pondering how I might assert command of our private life when Hubert presented me a golden opportunity. He returned to our rooms very late one night, disgustingly inebriated. The maid had gone off to visit her mother, so I had to tend to my drunken husband myself. Not wishing him in our bed, I led Hubert to a couch, bade him remove his coat and went to fetch a blanket.

“Returning then to the salon, I found him fumbling furtively with something. ‘What is that you have, Hubert? Give it to me!’ I demanded. He pretended not to hear, concealing the object, so I wrenched it from his hand.

“It was a pair of scarlet silk knickers of the sort favored by can-can dancers. Without an instant’s reflection, I slapped Hubert’s face. My husband passed out then and there. It was more from the liquor than from the force of my blow, I am sure. I left him sprawled across the divan and retired to our bedroom, where I sat in bed all night, turning these events over in my mind, fuming.”

“At six I roused Hubert by yanking off his blanket. The drink had quite worn off; he struggled to sit, grinning stupidly. Disgusted (for he stank), I waited for my spouse to apologize. Several minutes passed in silence before I realized that I could endure no more.

“’Up, you species of shit,’” I said. “‘Go and wash yourself. Shave well, and then don the clothing you will find waits for you.’”

“My husband shuffled off to his bath. I had thoughtfully drawn the tub. Once he had entered it, I arranged his penitential wardrobe.

“Hubert emerged scarcely ten minutes later, his nakedness barely disguised by a towel.
“’Where are the lovely garments I put out for you? Why have you failed to shave? Is it possible that you did . . . not . . . understand that the life that you knew . . . is over?’”

“’Please, Alexis,’” he whimpered, “’I can explain everything.’”

“’No,’” I replied. “’You have betrayed me.’”

“’O,’ he moaned. ‘Forgive me!’”

“How stupid he appeared, clutching a towel to his vital parts, an expression near to panic contorting his face.

“’We shall see,’ I said. ‘Now get back into the bathroom and put on the clothes I have chosen for you. Now!’”

“If Hubert had refused, then and there, I might have lost the game. Instead, he was the one to buckle.”

“Ten minutes later, my lawful spouse emerged again. He was this time dressed as I wished. Hubert had even, I was touched to see, attempted to arrange his hair.

“And so, my dears, I closed the trap. I led Hubert, in his full set of ladies’ undergarments, into our bedroom where I held back nothing. I gave him greater pleasure than ever before, than ever he could imagine. I left Hubert under no illusion; this happiness would endure, I said precisely, if he were to subject himself absolutely to me, and grant me carte blanche to raise our children according to my own methods.”

Mme Alexis sat preening herself like a fat tabby cat on the piano bench.

“Ah, Alexis, I never tire of hearing that story,” said Mme Olivia. “And now, ladies — afternoon tea awaits us.”

August 21. I have been brooding about Mme Alexis’ methods. Surely they are no less brutish than the behavior she deplores in men? Should I have objected? My aunt was uncomfortable, too, I think — yet she bade me stay. She almost encouraged me to sample the whipping “game,” too. It is too complicated for me to comprehend. In all other ways, Mme Alexis has been the most gracious of hostesses — and as I am still but a girl, may I presume to challenge her? O Diary, I don’t know what to think!

August 22. Tearful goodbyes all round today. Aunt Enid, Pegeen and I are off to Vienna. All our new clothes have been sent up from Paris, so there is no need to return there. After taking leave of Mme Alexis and Mme Olivia at La Chauveliere, we boarded the Orient Express at the station in Metz, waved off there by Raymond, Sasha, Lara and Jean-Christophe.

Aunt, who believes that travel is sufficient trouble that we should not have to endure it with strangers, had secured for us a private compartment in a Wagons-Lits car. We had been underway for perhaps an hour when we passed the German border and began to climb over low mountains toward Strasburg and the Rhein. We were now in the province wrested by Prussia from France nearly 40 years before. As my Aunt browsed magazines she had providently brought aboard, I examined the passing countryside, hoping to decipher whether Alsace was truly French or essentially German.

Aunt and I lunched simply in our cabin on soup and a cutlet, followed by cheese, a compote of pears, and excellent coffee. As the steward cleared away the wreckage of our meal, my aunt smiled wanly at me and asked if I had enjoyed these past weeks at La Chauveliere.

I replied guardedly. “It was a grand thrill to see the Golden Flyer win the cup, of course. The countryside, the village and farms about La Chauveliere are lovely at this season. It has been a pleasure to explore them with the other young people. . . .”
“Tell me what you really think.” My aunt does not beat about the bush.

“It is quite confusing,” I replied. “Mme Alexis and her methods disturb me a great deal. I hardly know what I think, about the whipping especially, and how she treats her husband. I am sure she is wrong to condemn all men as brutes. I think she takes too much pleasure from hurting the boys. I am troubled by the situation of Sasha as well. It is as though his mother and Madame Alexis have contrived to resex him.”

“Is that what he said?”

“O, no — quite the contrary! He claims to have ‘always known’ that he is ‘really a girl.’ Evidence that he is not — he is beginning to have a beard, for example — distresses Sasha a great deal.”

“You need not see Sasha or any of the Bezroukoffs in Vienna if it makes you uncomfortable,” said Aunt Enid.

“It is not that. It is because I could help Sasha. If he were to have a daily dose of Balthasar’s elixir. . . as you know, I have brought a large quantity . . . yet I doubt it would be wise. Sasha’s fondness for feminine imposture has not come normally, no matter what he says.”

Still August 22. Fortunately we had reserved a table in the first class dining car; it was already quite full when we arrived there for afternoon tea. As Aunt Enid and I were being seated, I heard a man, undeniably American by his accent, regretting that the oysters were not half so fresh or flavorsome as Chincoteagues. Of course I could not help but turn to the source of this remark. A delighted gasp escaped me as I saw who it was — Mr. William Hodgson, and with him Mrs. Hodgson and my chum Christy.

I had not seen Christy since the St. Tim’s hockey squad met ours in mortal combat in May — she had captained our rivals. We fell into each other’s arms with barely suppressed squeals of pleasure. My aunt is of course well-acquainted with the older Hodgsons. Thanks to the ingenuity of the stewards, we soon were able to share a larger table and exchange news from home. The Hodgsons left Baltimore two weeks behind us, enroute to Bayreuth, near Munich, for the festival directed there by Richard Wagner, the great German composer and conductor. Of course they stopped in Paris to shop. Christy and I complimented each other with perfect sincerity on the elegance of our new frocks and our radiant good health. Let the French think what they might, she too had refused to be corseted.

It is such a nice thing to find friends from home when you are far from there. The German countryside faded to black, dotted here and there by the glow of cottage windows, as we reminisced of our cruise two summers ago on the “Best Revenge” and of the epic battles between the teams of Bryn Mawr School and St. Timothy’s. Christy related that her sister Eleanor is now working with Miss Jane Addams at her famous institution in Chicago. Mark is doing well at Princeton. Mr. Hodgson hopes he will join him in directing the family’s business — the manufacture of sail-cloth, as I recall.

At length, a steward whispered something to Mr. Hodgson; he nodded, and said to us all “The train will arrive in Munich within half an hour, so we must bid you good night, and prepare to disembark.” There followed much embracing and promising to write; I told Christy that I would love her forever if she would send me but one page each month with news of home.

Monday, August 23. The Orient Express had gained the Danube by the time the first rays of the rising sun woke me. Aunt and I hastened to complete our toilettes; we should arrive in Vienna at eight-thirty, and she wished to have a leisurely breakfast first.

The steward came by to return our compartment to its daytime state as a sitting room and then brought tea and toast. Aunt Enid meanwhile sent Pegeen forward to find and watch our baggage lest any should be left aboard when the Orient Express stopped in Vienna. My aunt is a seasoned traveller; I am not. It occured to me that I should very likely have been daydreaming in my berth right up until a rap on the door announced our imminent arrival.

We had broken our fast and were ready to disembark, yet fully half an hour remained before we should be in Vienna. From the window of the Wagons-Lit coach, I watched tidy Austrian villages speed past. “The Hodgsons. How pleasant it was to encounter them by chance,” I murmured as Christy’s honest face floated into my thoughts. “They are the most decent of people.”

“Yes, I suppose they are,” replied my aunt. I noticed that she “supposed” it — she did not think it.

“You did not find it pleasant, then?”

“O, no — you mistake my meaning. Of course they are very decent people. I was wondering what you make of your aunt by comparison. Next to the Hodgsons, I sense myself ridiculously exotic.”

“Well, you are exotic by Baltimore standards. I would not have it any other way. Were you not exotic and daring and possessed of an imagination, I should still be Edward Tucker, the most miserable youth in Perkinstown, Pennsylvania, I am sure of it — instead of a fine young lady about to pass half a year in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”

“Madame Olivia Bezroukoff invited us to stay with her, Evelyn — an invitation extended the morning after she realized that I have no other heir. I think she hopes you may find my godson Raymond attractive. In any event, I have turned her down.”

“O” I said. I was relieved, but wondered might follow.

“I have arranged to take a suite of rooms in Vienna very near the Petersplatz that I learned of through the Devinats. Thereby we shall retain our freedom from obligations that might prove tiresome — or too exotic. It is a lovely neighborhood. You’ll find our flat very convenient to the Akademie.”

My aunt referred to the Goethe Akademie, an institution that claims remarkable success in teaching German to foreigners. I intend to register there on the morrow.

“How will you arrange our household? Will it be just you, me and Pegeen?”

“Of course not, Evelyn. We shall need a cook and a footman; both are easily hired.”

“And how shall you govern me? I should like,” I said experiencing the smallest of tremors “that you should trust me to manage myself appropriately.”

“I have already decided that,” Aunt Enid replied. “You may come and go mostly as you like. I have no intention of saddling you with a chaperone. Without freedom to explore, one cannot learn — as you just said — to manage oneself.”

Unable to restrain a broad grin, I leaned forward and hugged my Aunt’s knees. Our train was entering the Vienna Hofbann, slowing, hissing, sighing to a stop. “You are the most wonderful of aunts, the best of guardians. Thank you for my freedom. I hope I shall not disappoint you.”

“O, tut, child! When I arrived in Vienna thirty years ago with my dear friend and benefactor Mary Elizabeth Garrett, I was far less prepared to you. If the truth be said, I was a rank adventuress. You will be fine. You will experience things you cannot yet imagine. You have a fine head, and a compassionate heart to match. I trust you to use them both to best advantage.”

End of Part IV