(The Titanic Era Diary of Evelyn Westcott)

Evi Westcott (born Edward Tucker) is a turn-of-the-20th Century Alpha female, impatient with the roles polite society has assigned to women — including accidental women like herself — and in a hurry to set things straight. Evi is eighteen. Touring Europe with Auntie Enid, she’s learning about Life in its astonishing diversity and seeking the key to a safe future for herself and the rest of ‘Tottie’s Girls’ — the dozen gender-dsyphoric youth who like Evelyn depend for their happiness on a secure supply of ‘Balthasar’s extract.’

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

Join Evi as she and Aunt Enid arrive in Vienna — sophisticated, elegant and decadent to the core. Of, if you are new to this series, begin at the beginning (some 75,000 words ago) or go to the end of this chapter for a very short synopsis of the story so far.

August 23, still. Two minutes ahead of schedule, the Orient Express slid smoothly into Vienna’s cavernous Nordbahnhof. Herr Dinckeldorf, whose apartment Aunt Enid has engaged, waited on the platform to greet us. He sent us ahead in a cab, following with our maid Pegeen on a wagon with the baggage. All the way to 42 Brandstadtstrasse I could only gasp at the elegance of this city — indeed it rivals Paris — while Aunt Enid marvelled at the improvements since she left Vienna in 1886, twenty-four years ago.

As soon as we were in possession of our rooms — and they are quite grand, Diary, with tall windows that face south toward a cathedral — I hurried to pick up our mail. In the three weeks since we left Paris, they have been piling up for us at the American Express office.

Several dozen envelopes awaited my inquiry. Certain that Aunt Enid and Pegeen were no less eager for news of friends, I repressed an impulse to open my mail then and there, and hurried back to our apartment.

Two letters were from Dorothy Downey. Slicing them open, I felt a tremor of worry that she might have taken offense at the fears I expressed about her beau, Ted Rawlings. My dear friend was not in the least upset, she hastened to assure me. Dorothy knew my concern is motivated only by affection, she said. She has long been aware of Ted’s ‘kink’; her own example is not its cause. Only a week after Miss Ella’s masquerade ball — O, that was eight months ago — Ted confessed that he has been abstracting items of clothing from his mother’s and sister’s closets for years, and wearing these in secret. It gives him pleasure. Who is she to take offense, Dorothy asks. Ted, at least, can get pleasure from sex. . . . She has given him leave to dress as he likes in the privacy of their studio, and with practice and her tutelage, ‘Teddy’ no longer seems entirely odd when garbed in items of women’s clothing.

In her second letter, Dorothy reports that all is well at Balthasar’s ‘laboratory’ and shares wonderful news: Ted’s oil portrait, a la Mr. Sargeant, of “Miss Henrietta Halloran,” has won a first at the Charcoal Club’s annual show. Ted posed Harry in the salon of the Rawlings’ townhouse, beside a full-length mirror seen from an angle. Dressed to the height of fashion, ‘Henrietta’ gazes intently at a mask she holds in her hand. The reflection in the glass mirrors her exactly, except — the image is of Harry, Henrietta’s real self! Miss Ella has purchased the painting for $500! O, I cannot wait to see it!

August 25. I am enrolled at the Goá«the Akademie, where I will grapple with German at the “advanced intermediate” level for three hours a day. Classes begin on Monday.

August 31. As I feared, my foundation in German has serious structural weaknesses. Frau Schnickel has prescribed extra work each day to repair the pernicious effects of an American accent. So now, in addition to group classes from ten to twelve and two to three, I have an hour of an hour of private tutoring beginning at precisely 08:30!

I do enjoy my class. We are a diverse group: a Turk and a Greek, a Belgian couple, a Polish Jew from Russia, a Swedish musician and even a Japanese! Achmed the Turk and Sophia the Greek sit as far apart as possible and avoid addressing each other; otherwise after only two days, we are all aready becoming quite chummy.

The Japanese boy fascinates me. He is, slim, swarthy of course, exquisitely mannered, and clearly accustomed to Western dress — in these respects, Hiro reminds me of Dorothy’s Annamese half-brother, Etienne. He has come to Austria to study law.

“Why not English law,” I asked Hiro during a break in our morning class. My question triggered a passionate outpouring. The British aim to dominate the East, he said. Their ‘enlightened’ rule of the subcontinent has brought only misery to the mass of Indians; now they aim to encompass China as well. The Empire of Japan must prepare for an inevitable war with England, Hiro insisted, with Germany as its ally.

September 9. At the Brá¤unerhof Café, as we shared an unctuous sacher-torte, my dainty chum Sasha Bezroukoff described the Banat of Temesvar. “It is a backward, brutal place. If you were to visit, you would think it was 1410, not 1910! My father took us there when I was six or seven. Great-grandfather had returned to the Banat — to die, he said — and was on the point of realizing that ambition. I think he was the last of our family to feel any connection to the province. His own father was the hereditary Prince.

“O, Evi, the place was gruesome. The houses were dirty, even the beds were full of dust and I don’t know what. I remember that a lot of our peasants looked sick and could barely find the strength to doff their caps as father’s carriage passed by. Hardly anyone in the Banat understands German. The women struck me as uniformly ugly. There was no proper bread, just disgusting brown stuff that with a sort of goulash seemed to be the entire diet of the province.

“Nothing could persuade me to go there again!”

September 13. I am studying German all day long. Four hours of class, another four hours of homework. Achmed and Sophia have ceased to glower at each other, the Belgians have dropped out, Hiro is struggling. I have been to see the Registrar of the medical college at the university. I was told I may take classes there in the winter quarter if my German is good enough.

Evenings and Sundays I go for longish walks, sometimes with my aunt, and occasionally with friends from my language class. Vienna is a kaleidescope of treats for the eye and ear. Erik (the Swedish boy) and I have been to several concerts. He is devoted to Mozart and says he will play for me on his French horn. There are museums and art galleries everywhere in the First District, and magnificent churches. Once I saw Franz Ferdinand in a coach escorted by cavalry. The Archduke is popular; there was no end of cheering as he and his family passed by.

September 18. Letters have arrived from Martin, now back at Cornell University after the great triumph at the ‘Grande Semaine de l’Aviation.’ My Martin is studying to be an aeronautical engineer, not a poet. His letters are often tediously ‘mechanical,’ and so it is especially charming to hear him wax poetic on the subject of the future of aerial travel. In our own lifetimes, he says, we shall voyage from New York to London in the span of a single day upon ‘airborne Mauretanias.’

The science is already well enough understood that we can be confident of such a future, he insists. The shaped wing lifts the steel vessel, it is propelled forward with great force through the yielding air by three, four, six mighty turbines. Meanwhile, hundreds of passengers chat, read, dine, and watch the latest moving pictures in the comfort of a grand salon sailing ten thousand feet above the angry sea. The fantastic dreams of engineers!

At the end of a letter, Martin confesses his joy that we have reached an ‘understanding.’ I suppose I should be elated, too, Diary, and yet that feeling eludes me. I have asked Martin to keep our engagement a secret between us for now. Before all else, I must find the courage to tell Martin that I am not the girl he imagines I am.

Friday evening, September 24. An encounter of scarcely five minutes leaves me shuddering hours later.

Classes at the Akademie let out at precisely three-thirty. I knew my Aunt was taking tea today at Mrs. Blanchett’s, so I accepted the invitation of fellow-students to share a snack. At a café fronting on the Printzgarten, we ordered up cups of decadent, cream-crusted Viennese coffee and slices of Schwartzertorte. We were a decidedly mixed group. Having little in common but our youth, high spirits and heartfelt frustration with the German conditional subjunctive, we passed a merry hour. Then, as if apprehending a collective signal, my companions made excuses and hurried homeward in the fading light of a midwinter afternoon.

Gaining the street with the last of my new friends, I bade them good-bye and lingered to study some water colors on display at the curbside.

“Your work is rather good,” I murmured pleasantly to the intense young man whoI took to be their painter.

“Thank you,” he replied. “May I ask you — you knew your companions to be Jews?”

“O,” I replied, “it had not crossed my mind. Is it so important?”

The painter nodded. He was below medium height and terribly thin; possessed most remarkably, I remember, with a piercing stare.

“You are American, I think. Your accent gives you away. You Americans do not understand the question of racial purity as we do, though you should.”

“I would rather discuss your art, Herr, Herr . . . .

“Hitler,” he supplied. “The small ones are six crowns each, and the larger, ten.”

I purchased one of the smaller paintings: a rough cottage in a mountain fen, radiant in the soft light of a spring afternoon. How strange to think such a violent person could create a scene so lovely. It is signed quite boldly, ‘A. Hitler.’ What an upsetting little man he was, Diary.

September 28. Sasha and his needs are wearing me down. He knows my secrets, and that explains why I fascinate him. After our strange night at the LeBlanc’s country home, Sasha’s older brother Raymond betrayed my confidences. He told Sasha that I am possessed of the most miscellaneous sexual organs, knowledge that has quickened the boy’s interest to the boiling point. I have become his life raft. Sometimes it appears he is in love with me, and at other times I believe he is telling the truth when he says that I am the only one who understands what he is and what it means to be Sasha in Vienna in 1910.

I think Sasha is very much like my friends Rachel Klimintz and Alexandra Cooper — that is, he was a child born with the body of a boy but by some quirk bearing the mind of a girl. I suppose that’s very hard for the general run of humans to comprehend; they think you must be in both mind and body one or the other. By far the great majority of people are perfectly happy in the sex they are born into, and I suppose that assuming this to be a universal truth is easier for them.

As for the difficulties of being sexually conflicted in 1910 Vienna, I have little sympathy for poor Sasha. This is the most tolerant city on earth. I am sure of that. Insofar as I can perceive, Sasha may present himself — or herself — however he — or she — wishes with neither legal nor social sanction.

Yesterday I told Sasha that had he been born almost anywhere else since Christianity became the religion of Rome, and been moved to ‘express his true nature,’ he should have been tortured and executed with no compunction whatsoever, let alone sympathy. To drive home the point, I added that throughout most of the world, it is still no different. Some societies give the differently sexed a special status — thus the ‘berdache’ of America’s Plains Indians or the shamans of Siberia, the female roles consigned to men on the Japanese and Chinese stage, the sacerdotal status assigned to men who take the role of women at certain shrines in India, the British fondness for theatrical impersonators. Those are the exceptions, not the rule. The more ‘modern’ the civilization, the more strictly it insists on either/or in the general run of things, and the less it gives sympathetic consideration to those who may fall between the poles of sexual expression.

My young friend seems to take all this in without questioning. He is hardly 16; though I am scarcely two years older, Sasha regards me as a fount of knowledge. Perhaps I am — through the kindness and understanding of my aunt, I at least have safely crossed that great gulf between the world’s conception of ‘male’ and ‘female.’

Sasha came to me looking for validation of the thoughts that haunt him by day and direct his dreams at night. Instead, I challenged them, telling Sasha very directly that to choose to be a woman is to elect an inferior role, to circumscribe one’s horizons and live dependent on the good nature of a husband or of society in general. Very few women escape that fate. I shall escape it, but Sasha, I think, lacks such fortitude. “Ah, no!” he cried when I limned what one must do to be both female and free. “I should be pleased to have a friend, a lover and guardian to whom I can submit and devote myself, save that it be as a true wife or companion.”

Greatly dissatisfied by his weakness of character, I posited to Sasha that he was was very likely inverted, and should be quite well served if some man were to take him under his wing, so to speak, and teach him manliness. My young friend bit his lower lip; tears filled his eyes and his crestfallen expression said to me “you, too, Evelyn? I had thought you at least understood the difference.” A difference I do understand, of course. I cannot imagine making love for an evening with Sasha’s brother Raymond or an afternoon with Billy Barkell were I to come to either one as a man. It must be as a woman, and they must treat me as one.

“I do, my dear, I do,” I confessed, “and it is essential that you also understand who you are. Tell me, how do you know?”

“I, I have lain with men. Not many, but enough of them to be sure. Some were gentle, yet it made no difference. They despised women. They believed that I wished for petticoats and their protection only to gratify a sexual urge. It is, is not like that for me at all.”

“In that respect, my dear Sasha, you have gone beyond me. The men I have known regard me as female to the core.”

October 1. A Japanese ‘opera’ troupe has come to Vienna. It is touring the European capitals. All of the roles are played by men — like the English theatre in Shakespeare’s time, I suppose.

My chum from German class was our guest. Though Hiro has hardly a penny to spend on himself, he refused my invitation until I explained he might do us a service by explaining the action of the ‘Kabuki.’ It is reminiscent of Shakespeare — lots of intrigue and bloodshed! There was a Lady MacBeth-like character who was stunningly wicked. Hiro said the actors have trained since childhood. Their gestures and voices are highly mannered and the ‘kimonos’ worn by the actors are gorgeous beyond description. Though I knew the female roles were played by men and boys, their art deceived my senses perfectly.

October 5. Sasha proposes that I accompany him on an evening “out.” He means an evening among the demimonde. Certain that Aunt Enid would object, I have not consulted her. I have pretended instead that I shall spend this Friday night preparing for exams with a junior tutor at the Akademie, Madeleine Spielvogel. Madeleine promised to provide an alibi for me after extracting my pledge to do as much for her on another occasion.

October 8. Momo’s cannot be described; it must be experienced. I am told that there are at least at least a dozen “travesten kabaretten” within the Ringstrasse, but Momo’s is the one that the others aspire to be — the place where toute Vienne adores to play at sexual ambiguity and inversion. To tell the truth, I saw last night that neither Sasha nor I had gotten it ‘right.’ At first or even second glance, no one would take either of us for men or even boys. I expect that is an important distinction between those who are like us and the truly inverted. We dearly hope to be thought nothing but women, whereas those who think themselves male make a joke of impersonating women. Their clothes, gestures and props are exaggerated; they appear as caracatures of real women; and in fact I think many of them actually hate women.

Last evening, Sasha arrived to collect me at Madeline’s with a “lady” that he introduced to a credulous Mme Spielvogel as his aunt. Satisfied that the conventions were properly observed (and looking none too closely), Mme Spielvogel bade us and our chaperone good evening while Madeleine (who has not the slightest suspicion that I myself am anything less than perfectly female) doubled over behind her mother to suppress a fit of giggles.

A two crown note, discreetly tendered, gained us instant admission at Momo’s. Inside, “Aunt” was quickly whisked onto the dance floor by her admirer of long standing, a banker, I think she said. That left Sasha and me sipping champagne, watching the predators circle their prey from the safety of a shadowed corner. Several times gentlemen drew close enough to survey us both. I stared back, and they retreated. “Evelyn, you mustn’t . . . be so bold. It is not the sensation that they seek,” said my young friend.

“Very well,” I answered, relaxing onto the plush sofa we had chosen. “Show me how it is done.” I gave Sasha my undivided attention. He — or rather she, this evening — had chosen a slim gown that made the most of an ambiguous figure. Though she declined the corset, Sasha’s curves had been amplified. Her wig was indistinguishable from a head of real hair, scalloped and pinned high, exposing a graceful neck. I had no doubt that the emerald earrings and the brooch that hung on a necklace were indeed real; on inquiring if they were Lara’s jewels or Sasha’s mother’s, I learned they were “neither — they are the gift of an admirer. I see him now, over there. I believe you have scared him off.”

I did my best to appear inoffensive. Sasha withdrew a small mirror from her purse and adjusted a ringlet or two. Seconds later, two men approached our table and bowed.

Squeezing my hand beneath the cloth, Sasha beamed with delight at the younger of the two, and informed me that he was her dear friend Franz. That left the older for me, and not wishing to be boorish, I invited him to sit beside me. The gentleman was perceptably confused. Sasha he knew to be a boy — the most feminine of boys, but a boy withal — because Franz had said it was so. I, insofar as he could tell, seemed fully female and hence out as out of place at Momo’s as a Hindoo priest might be at a Baptist picnic.

Oskar (for that, he said, was his name) ordered another round of champagne and as soon as we had all drunk each others’ health, groped under the table for my leg. I took his wrist and returned his hand to his own lap. “I am not, I take it, your ‘type,’” he asked. “No,” I replied, “though for a man, you are not unattractive.”

“Ah, now I see,” said Oskar. “Franz was mistaken. Excuse me for a brief moment.”
I was left alone, Sasha having pulled Franz onto the dance floor when the orchestra struck up a fast waltz. I was mesmerized by the fantastic scene before me. I smiled to think how all these strange creatures might appear in the hard light of morning as they hurried to their school or workplace, or set about the social round that occupies the leisure class.

“Bitte, fraulein.” It was Oskar again. “May I present . . .”

The gentleman who accompanied Oskar was drop-dead gorgeous. Six feet tall, certainly, and immaculate in perfectly-tailored evening dress. A monocle glinted above his cheek, and a fragrant blossom adorned his lapel. Our eyes locked. “It is my honor to present,” Oskar began again, “my dear friend Catherine Strasser.”

“Call me Charles, or Kat if you’d rather” she said, offering me her ungloved hand, and then at my invitation taking the seat so recently occupied by Oskar (who took his leave immediately).

Americans in Europe have a reputation for speaking their minds. On this occasion, I lived up to it. “You are exquisitely elegant,” I said. “I think I should fall under your spell at the slightest provocation.”

Kat’s hand found my leg. I took her wrist and moved her hand directly to the valley between my thighs, wondering if she would sense the warmth rising therefrom.

“Let us not be precipitate,” she said. “Every courtship has a progression. Have you studied the mating dance of the preying mantis, for example?”

Meekly, I acknowledged that I had.

“Do you tango, Evelyn?”

I confessed that I did, but not well, I felt sure. Kat took my arm and led me to the dance floor.

I have danced, Diary, with boys I fancy — Martin and Billy in particular — and dozens of others. None have commanded me, thrilled me like Kat. For the first time, I recognized the tango for what it is, the most sensual of dances.

I was wound to a fever pitch when, at last, we regained our table. If Kat had proposed that we leave immediately, I should not have hesitated, but she was not a creature of impulse. Few predators are, I imagine. Instead, she chose to stalk me.

“Tell me, who are you?” [‘What are you?’ I knew she meant, and I was powerless to deceive her.]

“I was raised a boy, until I was 14 and it became evident that I was as much girl as boy. Subsequently, I have become certain that in my manner of thinking, I am mostly girl.”
“Has a woman ever made love to you?”

“One has tried. I was not ready then.”

“Are you ready now?”

“I should like to tango with you again, first.”

October 14. I dreamed that fantastic dream again last night. The parade went on forever, floats and bands and chanting marchers, but it was not a parade like the Easter Parade in Baltimore nor a solemn appeal for womens’ suffrage. It was more like a celebration, Diary, proud and defiant, and O, what a gay and vivid scene it was! I did not doubt that I dreamed a city of the future, something Mr. H. G. Wells might imagine — and a time when people who are ‘different’ in their sexuality had claimed their right to celebrate it. This time I recognized some of the marchers — Ted and Doro were there, and all of Miss Ella’s troupe riding on a fire engine, and Fiona and my new friend Kat arm in arm. And, atop a float, resplendent in a crimson gown and a tiara, waving and blowing kisses, poor Sasha, having the time of his life!

October 16. I have written to Doktor Reinhold Steinach, the famous specialist on internal secretions, asking if I might visit him in his laboratory to acquaint him with some work recently done in America. Diary, I shudder to put myself forward so, yet there is no other way. My friend Madeleine corrected my errors in German, so at least the renowned Doktor will not rate me for that.

October 24. I can fairly describe Kat’s house, for I have now been there several times — whenever she summons me, if the truth be out. It is what we could call a townhouse in Baltimore, and very near the Rupertskirche. When it was built, the only dwellings in Baltimore were wigwams. There are several elegant rooms that a maid keeps clear of dust, and a dozen more that have been sealed off, there being no one to inhabit them. Kat lives alone. She has the revenues from an estate somewhere near Krakow and neither siblings nor, since several years ago, parents.

I usually arrive direct from my classes, and remove my hat and coat. She takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. There is no small talk as we undress each other. As often as not, Kat is attired as a man. She prefers trousers though she is quite stunning in a well-cut woman’s suit. Soft fabrics, the ones I prefer, would not do for Kat.

She is amused by the tangle of bits that serve for my sexual parts, and has allowed me to demonstrate how she can give me great pleasure. She has taught me what pleases her also, knowledge likely to be of wide utility, I suspect, if expressed less forcefully.

Once, as I lay exhausted in Kat’s arms, she asked me “you know, don’t you, why I choose to be called Kat?”

“Your appetite is such that I am reminded of Catharine the Great of Russia. She kept a whole regiment of hand-picked hussars to service her. Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly right, my sweet Evelyn. Now remain perfectly still. I am going to lick all your parts and wind you up again, because I am not yet satisfied . . . not at all.”

October 25. Aunt Enid never ceases to amaze me, Diary. Gustav Klimt, Vienna’s artist-colossus, was once her lover! Last night as we enjoyed an evening before the fire, my aunt confessed that she intends to seek him out. “Such a huge appetite Gustav had for love, Evelyn. He was unknown and penniless then, the sort of young man a baroness might, um, sponsor. I never deluded myself that he was mine alone — if you credit the stories, he has lain with half the ladies of Vienna.

“What I wish to do is buy one of Gustav’s paintings for old times sake. Will you go with me to meet him?”

I agreed readily. I have seen — no, been hypnotized by -- Klimt’s decorations at the University Library. I want to meet this man.

October 28. I have an appointment to meet Dr. Steinach next Thursday afternoon at the Biological Institute. He wrote back that he found the paper I sent him ‘interesting.’

November 1. On Thursday, Madeleine Spielvogel tested me for forty-five minutes, the longest forty-five minutes of my life, I think, before she pronounced my German ‘good enough’ for University classes. Frau Schnickel has agreed and given me a certificate that says so. . . .

Madeleine and I celebrated my advancement last night at an English ‘pub’ near the Akademie. It being All Hallows Eve, I went there in my costume as Ganymede, the maiden in As You Like It who disguises herself as a boy. My costume fools no one, but it is attractive. It was Madeleine’s first experience of ‘Halloween’ as we Anglo-Saxons celebrate it; thus she essayed only a slightly risque gown and a domino mask. Within moments, Madeleine was into the swing of it. We returned home late and somewhat tipsy on one too many steins of Pilsner, escorted by some charming boys whose names I cannot recall.

November 4. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose, Diary, but I had hoped for more from Doktor Steinach. My interview went badly from the moment he realized that I was not, as he had imagined, a university researcher but a mere high school graduate — an abiturient. I had said as much in my letter, but he had not read it as such, I think.

I told Dr. Steinach that when an untimely accident had struck her down, Dr. Tottie Clathrop and her colleague, Balthasar Bishop, were on the verge of isolating the secretions that determine the development of female characteristics. Then I began to describe my experiments with the male guinea pigs. Their anomalous development after removal of their external genitalia and injections with Balthasar’s extract seemed to confirm Tottie’s conjecture, I started to say, when the famous researcher interrupted me. Rising from his desk, he said it was evident that first Tottie and Balthasar, and then Balthasar and I, had copied his work.

Well, I recoiled in shock, Diary. The famous Austrian researcher is not an imposing man, but I could not help shrinking into my chair as I saw him, red-faced, searching for the precise words that would drive home the extent of my impudence. How had I learned of his trail-blazing experiments, for which only now was the report being prepared for publication in Zentralblatt fá¼r Physiologie? How did I dare — a mere child, and a girl at that — dare to claim credit for tracing the linkage between secondary sexual functions and the secretions of the gonads?

What had I to lose? “Dr. Steinach,” I answered as soon as I might, and standing to face him, “you are wrong to bully me and you are wrong in your assumption. Our work has obviously proceeded along parallel lines. If anything, Dr. Clathrop’s results confirm and strengthen your own arguments; you should embrace them!”

For an instant, I thought him persuaded. Then he replied “Pfui, it is not so interesting, anyway. Why should anyone waste time making little girls out of little boys? It is a disgusting idea.

“Listen, Fraulein Vestcott, if you are serious about this research, enroll yourself in the University. I shall recommend you. After you have been properly trained for three or four years, I shall let you join my team. We are closing in on the secret of eternal virility! Imagine the glory, the accolades that shall be ours!”

I had thought, Diary, to share with this Doktor Steinach and his colleagues the ingenious method by which Balthasar now produced the extract on which I and Tottie’s other ‘girls’ depend for our physical well-being and indeed the preservation of our physiological and psychological equilibrium. I am sure that in Europe as in America, there are hundreds at least, probably thousands, of people whose happiness it might secure. It had seemed to me that if the Extract were to be manufactured in Europe under the imprimatur of a leading scientist, the way might be cleared for its general circulation in the United States as well. Listening to Doktor Steinach rave, however, I shelved that thought. Better that Balthasar should labor in the shadows than we should be subject to the whims of a megalomaniac!

November 6. I have registered to attend two courses of lectures at the University. One is an “introduction to psychological processes,” taught by Doktor Otto Rank; the other is on “childhood development,” the specialty of a Doktor Joachim Lubitz. Attempting a laboratory course is beyond me at this point, I think.

November 14. Herr Gustav Klimt’s studio reeks of the man’s sexuality. Did I mention that he paints only women? Men bore him, he says. Herr Klimt was at work when we arrived yesterday, sketching a half-draped girl of eighteen or twenty. The famous artist wore nothing but sandals and a long robe. (Beneath which, I have heard, he wears nothing at all!) When we arrived, he threw aside his paints and brushes to embrace my aunt as though they had parted as lovers not twenty-five years ago, but only yesterday.

We had tea — Aunt Enid, Herr Klimt and I. After some reminiscence and a once-over-lightly of the years since the Baron de Bligny died and my widowed aunt, now wealthy, returned to become a pillar of Baltimore society, she put the question: would the Meister sell her a painting?

“No,” he said, absolutely not. He would have to ask too much, and though no doubt my aunt could afford his price, she would think he did not cherish her memory. Herr Klimt wished to propose instead that . . . he give her a painting and in exchange, that I (yes, me!) allow him to sketch me in the nude.

My aunt did not reply at once; in fact, I apprehended that she was waiting for a sign from me. I suppose, Diary, that at that point I should have blushed. In fact, I was greatly charmed by the thought of achieving immortality through the simple act of posing for an hour. “I should like that . . . very much,” I said, “provided I may cover my hips.”

November 19. I sat for Herr Klimt today. Praise God his studio is well-heated! He sketched vigorously, covering four or five sheets. Then he laid aside his tools, handed me a robe, and sought to kiss me. I explained that as a matter of principle, it would not do to become intimate with a friend of my aunt. With evident reluctance, the Meister acknowledged that was so.

November 23. I returned from the University toward teatime today to find my Aunt entertaining a male visitor. He wore a splendid uniform and sat ramrod stiff on the edge of his chair. Their voices died as soon as my approach was heard; doubtless they had been engaged in intimate conversation.

“My dear, I present you Leá¼tnant-Kommander Já¶rgen Hauptmann of the Imperial German Navy. I have known Já¶rgen since he was a baby — in fact, I helped to raise him.”

“No, madam, ‘helped’ is far too modest a term. You were the only mother I have known,” added the visitor quickly in German. Turning to me, he regretted that he “had not English speaking.” A great smile brightened his face when I answered in his mother tongue.

“I have some more explaining to do, Evelyn. Já¶rgen is the son of my first husband, the Baron de Bligny. He was born not long before I met the Baron, the unexpected product of a tragic liaison that ended in the death of Já¶rgen’s mother from complications of childbirth. I think perhaps what charmed Charles most about me was that I took instantly to his tiny waif.

“Já¶rgen is . . . then . . . the same little boy whose likeness you have kept upon your dressing table all these years?” Often I had remarked on it — a miniature of a charming blonde child, still clad in the manner of the time in a dress and long ringlets but, I fancied, impatient to be breeched and shorn.

“Ah, yes. That is Já¶rgen at nine. Such a sweet little boy. I was so reluctant to see him sent off to school that I kept him in dresses overlong, I suppose. Friends admonished me; they said that it would make a weakling of him. As you see, they could not have been more wrong.”

“I do not harbor any regrets, Maman Enid. I remember that time as idyllic. Soon afterward, of course, Father died, my grandfather took me away, and you returned to America.

“I was sent off to the Naval Training School very soon thereafter,” Já¶rgen explained to me. “My mother’s parents preferred to keep the family’s scandal far from their sight.”

I regarded Leá¼tnant-Kommander Hauptmann with heightened interest. He must be, I calculated, thirty-four or thirty-five. So slim and erect that I would have thought him much younger were it not for a touch of gray at the temples.

“You are far from any ocean,” I remarked not at all cleverly, but I could think of nothing more profound, so agitated was my mind at that moment.

“Yes, I was regretting to your aunt that my wish for a post on one of our new battle cruisers has been refused; instead I have been sent to Vienna as assistant naval attache. Now, at least, there is a silver lining!”

“And what of your wife and children — surely you must be married?” I suppressed an involuntary tremor.

“No, Fraulein Evelyn, I have not yet had that good fortune. Perhaps that is why fate has sent me to Vienna.”

November 25. In the University, there is but a handful of women. We are barely tolerated, for our presence is believed to threaten the ability of the male students to concentrate upon their lessons. By common consent, we women attend lectures in drab costumes, self-segregate in a corner of the hall, and never pose questions. It is my impression that this experience makes us ever more fiercely intent on mastering the course material. I have never been so studious!

I have made a friend of one of the women in my course on early childhood development. Anna Freud is barely sixteen — not really a woman but a very precocious girl. Her father is the famous Doktor Sigmund Freud. Doubtless it is his influence that secured her permission to attend the lectures despite her tender age. Anna, tall, thin, blonde, with a high forehead and softly carved features, is fascinated by my ‘boldness.’ She attributes this to my being an American woman. She longs to travel in ‘the New World,’ she says, ‘where everything is possible.’ I have gently answered that she should not believe everything she reads in novels, especially the parts about the red-skinned savages.

“O, I do not read novels,” she replied. “There are ever so many other books. Besides, Papa would not allow it.”

November 29. I have begged off evening excursions with Sasha a number of times, pleading the pressure of my studies. We have met twice for coffee. On both occasions, Sasha arrived in womens’ costume. With his mother’s fond indulgence, Sasha almost always presents as a woman now, he says, and indeed he is stunning. I wish I could achieve such elegance!

Sasha claims to be living a wonderful life. He is at the cabarets every night. Even so, my young friend seems increasingly erratic and desperate. The lad is perceptibly taller and broader at the shoulders than he was only last summer; that is the source of his anguish. Sasha lacks my friend Henry Halloran’s quiet confidence that his art will prevail over the inevitable treason of his body.

Diary, should I share my store of ‘Gynol’ with Sasha? I have enough of the pills for at least another year. If Sasha takes them regularly, they surely will arrest his manly development as effectively as they have mine own. I expect he would seize on them as a drunkard clings to his bottle. And yet, Diary, dare I take Sasha’s life into my on hands? For that is what it is — once he is started on Balthasar’s elixir, I must ensure its supply. . . .

December 2. Aunt Enid was purring like a kitten when I returned to our rooms at teatime. On a low cabinet was propped a handsomely executed and perfectly boring landscape. With evident pride, she introduced it as the work of Herr Klimt. On a settee was a rolled sketch. Upon inspection, it proved to be one of the sketches he did of me! O, I like it! It is me, or more than me, as though I have been perfected.

December 3. For both of my university courses, I must write a paper. Anna, who is merely auditing Professor Lubitz’s lectures, has agreed to help me get the German grammar right. In return, I shall owe her English lessons.

I still read German much too slowly!

December 6. I have found the solution. I shall write two papers based on the same research. For Professor Rank, I will submit a paper on “Social Construction of Sexual Identity,” and for Professor Lubitz, “Learned Habits of Sexual Differention in Pre-Pubescent Children.”

December 9. Anna has brought me books and papers from her father’s library to aid my work.

December 11. Christmas is already in the air. The shops are decorated and filled with so many lovely things! I wonder if the packages that I mailed in September have arrived in Perkinstown and Baltimore?

December 16. Today, my young friend Anna seemed quite depressed. I prescribed the universal remedy, chocolate. At the Grienstendhal Café, we each had a huge piece of rehrá¼cken cake and coffee with whipped cream. Anna confessed that her ‘dear Papa’ is angry with her for lending materials from his library without his permission. He is especially upset that she took a book by Professor Krafft-Ebing of Humboldt University. I have promised to return that book, Psychopathia Sexualis, when our class meets again on Tuesday.

December 19. O Lord, I am so tired! I was up all night reading Psychopathia Sexualis. If only there were a machine that could make me pictures of its pages! So many of them bear on the subject of my papers. I have filled another copybook with notes!

There was no alternative — I had to telephone to the Freud home. I spoke to Anna, pleading for leave to keep the book for another week. Then I could hear scraps of a muffled conversation.

Anna spoke to me again. ‘Papa says you may keep the book until Thursday afternoon, at which time you must come with it for tea. Afterward, you and Papa will have a private consultation. If he is satisfied, you shall be allowed to keep it longer.’

So, Diary, on Thursday I shall meet the Great Man himself.

December 22. Herr Doktor Professor Sigmund Freud is quite the lord of his castle. Anna dotes on him, and he on her — perhaps too much, I suspect. I was quite hospitably received at the Freuds’ apartment. It is by a canal in the Second District, the quarter where most of Vienna’s Jewish population lives. After half an hour of polite chat over tea, Professor Freud invited me into his study, where he grilled me on my reasons for borrowing the Krafft-Ebing book and my relationship with Anna, all the time scribbling. I told him the truth, but I believe he heard only as he wished. I can imagine the notes he has made:

E, a 20 year-old hermaphrodite, habitually presenting as a woman, in excellent physical health and with the straightforward manner one associates with Americans. Now studying in Vienna. “Her” understanding of psychiatric science and command of German quite impressive. Expresses some nostalgia for her boyish past and is conflicted over what she said is an attraction to women. What could I say? I told E both feelings were quite normal and encouraged her to work them out when circumstances permit. E then confessed that ‘she’ has conceived an attachment to my own daughter, Anna. I thereupon insisted that ‘she’ leave immediately, and leave Krafft-Ebing’s book behind.

Subsequently, I bade Anna to keep well clear of “Miss” E.

Did Doktor Freud record as well, I wonder, the request I vainly made of him? In desperation, I confessed to him the hope that brought me to Vienna, hope that I might find a means to relieve the misery of boys and young men (like Sasha) who are desperately unhappy in their sex. I related my conversations with Dr. Steinach.

“Steinach,” said the eminent psychiatrist, “is a rogue and a quack. Stay well clear of him. As for sex chemicals, there is no need of them. We have only to expose faulty subconscious thoughts to cure young men of the delusion they are really women.” He proceeded to tell me of a cure he had recently effected on one “H.”

Heavens knows what impelled me to invoke my friendship with Anna as a reason why the eminent Doktor should assist my quest. His countenance reddened, then purpled; I realized instantly that I had trespassed on sacred ground. I had scarcely commented that she is a child who is at once naíve (without experience), yet profoundly sophisticated (in her theoretical understanding of human nature). This I meant as a compliment to her father’s tutelage. He however must have taken it as a reference to deeper feelings. If such there are, they are on Anna’s part — I could not pursue a sixteen year-old!

A moment later, Doktor Freud, imperiously waving the guiltless Anna aside, practically propelled me out the door of his apartment.

December 23. Anna has snuck out, on what pretext I can only guess. She wished to apologize for her father’s hostile behavior, she said. We wandered amongst the crowds on Ká¤rtnerstrasse and then Mariahilferstrasse, trying to understand. “I envy Christians,” she said, “Christmas is such a joyful holiday. Our Jewish holidays are soaked in sorrow. Perhaps if Papa were not a Jew he would not have such a strong objection to you. O, he does not, . . . he is not . . . religious, but he is full of prejudices. He absolutely hissed at me, ‘Anna, that . . . perssson’ (meaning you, just like that, Evi!) ‘is evil.’ As if you could ever be evil! He told me you are a hermaphrodite. I told him we have talked a lot about your research. I said I knew you have parts of both sexes and ‘so what?’ I asked. Papa only answered that it is best that I have nothing to do with you. I wonder what he might have said if you were a boy? Probably the same thing, I think. My father cannot abide competition for my affections, the poor silly dear. I must love him just the same. It will kill him if I do not.”

We had reached the doors of Saint Stephen’s, Vienna’s glorious Gothic cathedral. “If your father is certain that I shall corrupt you, than corrupt you I shall,” I murmured in Anna’s ear. “Come, my sweet — it is the Saint Matthew’s Passion they are about to perform within. Bach has written nothing finer. Perhaps he can transport me to a place that I shall forgive your father.”

In the event, not even J. S. Bach had that power. Anna was nervous; never before had she set foot within a church. Sensing her agitation, reading Anna’s mind perhaps, I led her outside as the choir launched into the magnificent Agnus Dei.

We found a darkened crevice in the Blautpfasse nearby. I wiped Anna’s tears with my kerchief. then searched her eyes. “It is, not you or that big church,” she said. “I am angry with Father, and doubly angry because I am sure I was recognized by one of his friends an hour ago on the Ká¤rtnerstrasse.”

“I will be guided by you,” I answered. “My only wish is to meet you again, and often.” With that, I bestowed a tender kiss on Anna’s lips. She did not pull away.

A moment passed before Anna murmured “Evi, I must go. Whatever happens, do not forget me.”

“How could I ever,” I asked her in reply.

December 28, 1910. Cristtag — Christmas Day — passed quietly. My aunt and I exchanged a few presents (hers as usual were exactly what I need but would not buy for myself). We have been guests here and there; Aunt Enid is well-remembered in Vienna and is never at a loss for amusement. Last night we ourselves entertained some friends. Aunt allowed me to include Madeleine and a few others others from the Academie Goethe. I confess I was plotting. If Já¶rgen were to find Madeleine attractive, perhaps he would be less bothersome to me. Alas, my attempt to pair them off failed. She is lovely, charming and cultivated, so it must be that she is not wealthy enough for Já¶rgen. . . .

December 30. My aunt and I have been all day at the Bezroukoff ‘datcha.’ It is a rambling old cottage deep in the Wienerwald, the sort of place that requires several roaring fires to make it pleasant — which was the case this afternoon. When we returned to the house after an hour’s tramp in the snow, Mme Olivia Bezroukoff had seen to it that the tables were heaped high with treats and there was plenty of champagne and glá¼gg.

I had not seen Raymond Bezroukoff for months; he has been off in the Banat trying to introduce modern methods at the family’s estate. Raymond was quite attentive to me, attentions that I quite enjoyed, and so I have accepted his invitation to the Coffee Grinders’ Ball a month hence. Lara too greeted me warmly and introduced her fiance, a baron from somewhere in Hungary. He and I competed at “my German is worse than yours” and he won — poor Lara! As for Sasha Bezroukoff, what can I say? He was most elegantly gowned, tall on three inch heels, tightly corseted, in a high-necked tunic and hobble skirt of moss-green shantung silk. None of his finery or his airs seemed to disconcert Raymond, Lara or his mother at all — in fact, Mme Olivia practically doted on him.

After dinner, as coffee was being served, Sasha drew me aside. “I upset you, I think,” he said. “Do not be angry, Evi. I cannot be what I am not.” I wanted to explain that I only feared that . . . what? . . his house of cards will come tumbling down, but Sasha would not give me leave. “No, do not argue! Congratulate me, for I have found a man who loves me, truly loves me, the girl in me, as I am.” What could I do then, Diary? I wished the poor boy well.

January 1. Another year. What lies ahead in 1911? Today is dark and damp, the kind of day Madeleine says is the norm for Central Europe in mid-winter. I am writing a pile of letters to people back in Baltimore that I promised I would write . . . and haven’t.

January 3. Damn! Damn! O, double Damn! Anna is being sent off. Her letter came by the morning post. ‘Papa’ has decreed that she should go to Italy “for her health.” Fiddlesticks! Anna is in perfect health; her head is fine too, it is ‘Papa’ who needs a change of scene. Someplace where he cannot play God Almighty. . . .

Anna said she will find a way to stay in touch, if I will but be patient.

January 7. Letters from home. Balthasar’s nephew, Caesar, has been sent home from Howard University, Dorothy says. He did not apply himself to his studies. The Bishop family’s hopes rest on Caesar. Balthasar is angry that a boy with so much natural talent has wasted his time in honkeytonks and pool halls.

Dorothy encloses a note from our mutual friend. It says in part that ‘I hope that you will permit me to give Caesar employment in the laboratory. In truth, I am not so spry as I was, and am starting to need help with the heavier work. I think I can teach the boy some practical chemistry, Miss Evelyn, in anticipation of a time that I can no longer be of service to you and the other young ladies. Caesar is a handy lad, and smart enough, too, though he has disappointed me in his lack of application to his schoolwork.’

I have already posted my agreement to Balthasar’s proposal. I reminded him of my great admiration for his skill as a chemist and my appreciation of all his kindnesses. Requesting Balthasar to leave Caesar under no misapprehension that this was employment which he could not take for granted, but for which he must prove his worth, I sent my love to my colored friend and his family.

January 10. A whole week has passed without word of Anna. I am angry, frustrated, unable to concentrate. Even so, I have turned in my papers for the university classes.

January 13. A letter from Anna at last. She must write clandestinely. Anna is in Rome, under the protection of Dr. Freud’s cousin. They have enrolled her at a convent school where she is being taught Italian, deportment and water color painting. Anna misses me utterly, she says, and has begged ‘dear Papa’ to forgive her and me. She encloses an address where I may write to her. I scribble a reply. I do not want her father’s forgiveness. I wish the old fraud (bad play on words!) would rot in hell. I tear that letter up, and instead send Anna a tender, loving one.

January 20. It is the beginning of the ‘ball season.’ Until Ash Wednesday, says my Baedecker, “the seductive pulse of the Vienna waltz and the glitter of mirrors and chandeliers lit with hundreds of candles will dispel the gloom of winter.”

January 24. O, Great Merciful Heavens, save me! I am in a terrible mess, Diary. I have let Leá¼tnant-Kommander Já¶rgen escort me to the Opera Ball and now he gives every sign of being enamoured of me. There is no lesser word. Já¶rgen builds castles in the air, not to house the real me, but to serve as a prison for a girl he conceives that I might become, his German wife.

I have to confess that notwithstanding his absurd prejudices, I had grown fond of my poor orphan ‘cousin’ in a way. He is lonely and feels awkward — all his savoir faire and bragging are a bluff. Poor Já¶rgen wants to be liked, and I have treated him nicely.

Now I must at all costs prevent him from falling in love with me. Já¶rgen’s idea of bliss is a comfortable Teutonic domesticity, with six or eight kinder and me growing plump on my own cakes and strudels. Leaving aside the little matter of my ambiguous sex (of which he knows nothing unless my aunt has broken faith with me),leaving that aside,I am certain Já¶rgen could not abide the real me — the me who revels in in new things, radical notions, in the infinite variety of human nature.

Aunt Enid is no help. She is too fond of a Já¶rgen who for her is but the larger version of her nine year-old pet. In vain I reminded my Aunt that even were I smitten with Já¶rgen, and indeed I am not, there is no way that I could supply him with the flock of ‘kinder’ he imagines. In fact, I told her, one look at my privates and he will be instantly repelled. But “no,” she said; “He is a nice boy, and he will understand. I will help him to understand.”

It is three days since the Opera Ball, and with each day that passes, I am more certain that I must discourage my Prussian cavalier. So why o why, Diary, did I accept his invitation to ride on Sunday in the Wienerwald? What was I thinking of?

January 25. I could not sleep last night. I lay between sleeping and waking, rehearsing in my mind vignettes from the Opera Ball:

• “What have you got to do with that fairyboy?” Já¶rgen asks after Sasha — quite handsome in perfectly tailored evening dress — stops by the German Embassy’s boxes to pay me a compliment. “He is . . . (I dissemble) . . . the son of one of my Aunt’s friends (and then add, unnecessarily) Aunt Enid is quite catholic in her acquaintances.”

  “I am quite aware of young Bezroukoff,” Já¶rgen confides. “Your aunt had best not receive him. He is a notorious pervert. All Vienna laughs when he goes about in dresses.”

• Another friend greets me. “Who was that man,” Já¶rgen wishes to know. “Oh, I think you’d like him,” I reply. “He’s a philosopher of sorts. He told me the other day, the last time we met, that Germany’s greatness — now and much more in the future — lies in the perfect integration of German spirit and Jewish intellect. . . .”

  “What is his name?”

  “Oh, Isaac something — I hardly know him, but . . . .”

  Já¶rgen stops me again in mid-sentence. “I do not like your associating with Jews,” he says. “Perhaps in America, it is done. . . .”

• The band strikes up a familiar, pulsing beat. “Come, Já¶rgen, you can dance the tango, can you not?”

  “I can, but I will not have you do it. I am sure you know why.”

  The truth is, I do not, unless it is that Já¶rgen finds it ‘unladylike.’

January 27. What is so splendid about life, I think, is that just when one begins to feel truly desperate, it throws one a life preserver. In this case, it was a telephone call from Kat. I do not see her anymore. It was she who dropped me; I must confess it hurt. Sasha says she never continues a relationship more than a month (in that case, I hold the record), it is her Catherine the Great complex, he thinks. One day she announced it was time to move on, and our affair ended as abruptly as it began.

And now, a telephone call. There is a man I should meet, Kat says, a Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. I should come to Momo’s at nine. She would introduce us, and Dr. Hirschfeld may help me to solve the problem of Balthasar’s Elixir.

I was supposed to have my hair cut and dressed this evening; it is the eve of the Coffee Grinders’ Ball. But now — this errand — I must manage for myself. With difficulty, I have rescheduled my appointment chez le coiffeur for tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of eight a.m. Aunt Enid’s misgivings were palpable but unspoken when I told her I should be going out alone this evening, but she has not, thank God, forbidden me.

January 28. I am dressed already (and must admit that my ball gown, one of two we had made in Paris, is absolutely splendid!), and have half an hour before Raymond Bezroukoff will arrive to escort me to the Coffee Grinders’ Ball. Enough time, perhaps, to describe Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and our agreement.

Hirschfeld is a solidly built fellow of about 40, sporting a huge mustache and a monocle, a German from Silesia visiting Vienna ‘on business.’ Kat told me that he is fond of dressing in womens’ clothes; I imagine that must be quite a spectacle, but in the event, yesterday evening he had quite an ordinary male look about him.

Things were just getting started at Momo’s Kabaret, in fact the band was not yet in tune, when Kat introduced us. Her duty done, Kat quickly vanished in search of prey. Dr. Hirschfeld quizzed me; in reply, I confirmed what Kat had told him: that through a singular set of circumstances, I have detailed knowledge of naturally-secreted chemical compounds which, purified and taken in calibrated doses, feminize the male (or in my own case, the quasi-male) body.

Immdiately, my companion proposed that we seek a more private venue. I paused, at a loss for an answer, perceiving which he assured me that I was perfectly safe; he is aroused only by young, beautiful boys, most especially boys in uniform. Impressed by his candor, I assented to supper a deux in one of Momo’s private rooms with the eminent exponent of ‘homosexual rights’ (for so he described himself), Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld.

He was nearly in rapture. “I have long been convinced,” Dr. Hirschfeld said, that homosexuality is at root hormonal in nature, the consequence of some surfeit or deficit of glandular secretions. I have urged Steinach to pursue such a line of inquiry; so far he has refused, but I hoped I might find a way to persuade him otherwise.

“Now the bastard can go to his own priapic hell,” chortled Hirschfeld as he downed his second dozen of oysters. “It seems you have the answer.”

“I do not,” I replied while flaking off bits of a poached fish. “I have a clue, and a significant body of empirical evidence, but characterizing the chemical, explaining how it works, and producing it purely and in large amounts — that requires far more sophisticated resources and favorable circumstances that I can hope to find in the United States. I pin my hopes on Europe, a far more advanced continent.”

“O, you should not doubt, young lady, that in its vaunted sophistication, Europe is capable of cruelties unimaginable in the New World. Few can doubt anymore the existence of a ‘third sex,’ by which I mean that many amongst us are not instinctively binary in our sexuality — but ‘society’ succeeds in willing itself to ignore this truth, does it not? How many so-called leaders and thinkers instead visit the gravest punishments on those so impudent as to assert that they are in fact, different?”

With a twinge of apprehension for poor Sasha, recalling brave Oscar Wilde so recently dead, I dabbed away a tear or two.

I found myself liking this man Hirschfeld. We have made a contract. He will carry my proposition to a number of the great German pharmaceutical houses — Merck, Bayer, Schering. Their competition is so great, the drive of each to steal a march on the other so urgent, that Dr. Hirschfeld is confident that one of these firms will undertake to synthesize what I call “Gynol,” i.e, a pure essence of the active element of Balthasar’s elixir. When he has elicited strong interest, Dr. Hirschfeld will send for me . . . .

Raymond has arrived below; I can hear Aunt fawning over him. I am off to the ball, Diary!

January 30. Well, it is done, Diary. After a lovely night of waltzing with Raymond and his friends, I regretted more than ever my promise to Já¶rgen. Still, I forced myself from bed at half-past ten and dressed for our ride in the Wienerwald.

He arrived promptly at noon, elegant in his riding costume. I fancy Já¶rgen and I made a pretty pair, but I did not feel at all pretty, but in fact I was full of dread. Perhaps Já¶rgen sensed my unease? Was it possible, O merciful Heaven, that he would put aside his fond illusion of bliss with me?

The athletic fraction of Vienna’s population was enjoying the woods in large numbers, it being Sunday and a rare sunny day to boot. All about there were hikers, snow-shoers, sleighs, sleds, parties of merry-makers toasting with schnapps and grilling sausages, even a mens’ chorus practicing in the open air.

A fine pair of horses awaited us at the German Embassy club. Já¶rgen assisted me onto mine, a pretty roan, vaulted onto his own black stallion, and we were off. The trail he chose led along the course of a rocky stream, here and there iced over. Stupidly, I kept thinking that my riding habit — purchased in Paris last summer — is too tight and the color a bad match for my horse. From time to time, Já¶rgen would pause so that I could keep up with him, regard me fondly, and then lead us on, deeper into the woods.

At last — we must have been riding for half an hour — he pulled up at a clearing where a wooden bridge arches over the stream. “We shall walk a little, perhaps, while the horses are given a rest?”

“Here it comes,” I thought. “Courage, Evelyn.”

Já¶rgen led me out onto the bridge. Snow and ice reflected the bright sunlight, the brook literally babbled, it was a picture-perfect setting. I laid a gloved hand on his arm. He turned to me, about to speak . . . .

And I spoke first. “You are under a misapprehension, I fear. I am fond of you, Leá¼tnant-Kommander — it could not be otherwise, for you are a gallant gentleman and much loved by my aunt.”

Sensing the drift of my words, Já¶rgen attempted to speak, but I stayed him. “I very much hope we shall remain friends, for we cannot be more than friends.”

“You are refusing my proposal before I have made it? Without knowing that night and day you fill my thoughts? I have imagined that we might be very happy together. I have the prospect of a brilliant career; with you at my side, life might be wonderful.”

Já¶rgen’s expression was desolate. He knows it is hopeless, I thought. Did I detect a tear, summoned by thoughts of the kinder I would not bear him, the kuchen I would not bake him, the leider I would not hum as I darned his socks by the fire?

“Imagination,” I said softly, “is a wondrous thing. It builds for us castles in the sky. Yet you and I should make a terrible match, I am sure.”

He was staring stolidly at the water below. “Já¶rgen, look at me, please.”

He turned toward me. Yes, the tear was there! Before my resolve crumbled, I forced out more words. I fancy they fell like blows. “I am an American girl, and a modern girl. I shall attend university, become a doctor — for years, that has been my dream. I should never, never be happy were I to give it up.”

“O, but you can study in Germany. We have the best universities. . . .”

“Já¶rgen, my dear friend, there is more. I cannot bear children.

“Yes, I know that. ‘Maman’ told me as much. It is not so important.”

Would he not desist! “And then, you do not know me. Believe me, Já¶rgen — I have given this matter much thought, perhaps as much as you. We do not share the same interests or ideals. I fear — no I do not fear — I am certain . . . that I should disappoint you.”

“There is no hope that you should change your mind, then?”

“No, there is not. Now be a gentleman, and take me back to the stable, and then directly home, I think.”

Again Já¶rgen stared at the dark water below, his face in shadow, doubtless thinking dark thoughts. His big hands gripped the rail; I imagined them gripping my neck. It was an unkind thought. After a moment, having recovered his composure, Já¶rgen said to me “Well, that’s it, then. As you wish.”

We rode back slowly, in a silence hardly broken by conversation. In truth, we had nothing more to say. He brooded, and out of respect for his feelings, I stifled my own elation (to give the sensation a name) that I had escaped certain disaster.

Aunt Enid was waiting in the parlor when I returned. “I see Já¶rgen is not with you. You’ve sent him packing, then?”

“You knew everything? Did you put him up to . . . .”

“Pfff! Of course not. I told him you wouldn’t have him. Now take some tea, Evelyn, and tell me what you have told him — I trust it was not everything -- so that I can salve the poor lad’s wounds when I see him next.”

February 2. There is a letter from Anna at last. They have got her locked up in a convent, well it is a sort of ‘finishing school.’ The nuns have been told that she has had a great shock, and needs to be sheltered until her health returns. In vain, Anna claims to be in perfect health, merely lonesome for her friends. The nuns just smile.

Anna says she is not angry at her father. She understands him better than anyone, more than her mother, certainly. He cannot help his jealousy and he is a genius. Anna begs me to understand as well. What I understand is that he is selfish and in matters close to him, oblivious of the suffering he causes. I suffer because Anna puts her genius father ahead of her own happiness!

There is an address to which I can send letters. They will be relayed to Anna unopened, she says. She begs me to forgive her (as though she were to blame!) and not to abandon her.

And there is also a photograph. It is of Anna and her brute of a father in the Italian Alps. It was taken last summer, she says. O, she is adorable, her soft brown hair waving about her face, dressed in the country style in a cotton chintz dress, broadcloth shirt and apron. What is marvelous about the ‘photo’ is her posture and Doktor Freud’s. He regards the camera possessively, as though he owns his daughter, cane in one hand, pipe in another, kitted out like the country squire he is not. Anna, meanwhile, though her hand touches her father’s elbow, looks away from him, denying his ownership of her, a sweet, winsome glance that says (at least I fondly hope) “I am not entirely his.”

February 3. This morning, a week after we handed in our papers, I received a telephone call from Professor Rank. We had not spoken since the short interview that persuaded him to admit me to his course. “Miss Westcott,” he said, “yours is a most remarkable essay. I should like to know more about you. Will you meet me in my office on Thursday at three?”

February 9. I arrived at the Schule fá¼r vorgerá¼ckte Sozialstudien at the appointed hour and presented myself to the receptionist. Dr. Otto Rank was informed of my presence. Smallish, clad in a three piece suit that wanted a good dry-cleaning, peering at me through thick lenses, he is no more imposing at close quarters than from the balcony of the lecture hall. After greeting me, Dr. Rank led me to his office, ostentatiously leaving the door ajar.

Without preliminaries, he said “You have made an enemy of Freud by befriending his daughter.”

“Anna is in great distress. I merely listened sympathetically.”

“And she told you what a jealous despot he is, I have no doubt.”

“I don’t think I should repeat . . . .”

“O, come, Miss Westcott. I am Freud’s favorite disciple. No man knows him better, no man less desires him to appear . . . no, to be . . . ridiculous.”

I confessed that I had found the great Doktor to be, well, paranoid.

Rank turned the conversation to my paper. From his questions, it was evident that he had read it carefully. I had referred to Steinach, judging him overly influenced by Lamarckism; “Why? Rank asked. I explained, and he murmured his agreement.

Encouraged, I elaborated my view, apropos of Darwin, that fundamental change occurs only thru a glacial process, and that each child is a unique organism that must be taught anew the traits essential to a productive and social life.

He nodded. “You would not know, of course, of theories of the radical educationalist Maria Montessori. She shares your views — it is more evidence of convergent evolution, I suppose. She is putting them into practice in a school in Rome.”

February 10. I sent a letter today to Dr. Nathan Weiss, friend and physician to me and the rest of ‘Tottie’s Girls,’ telling him in part that

“Yes, I have met Dr. Freud. He remembers you and was pleased to know that you have put his insights to work in your practice in Baltimore. He was not sure where Baltimore is, so I drew him a little map.

“I have learned on the best of authority that not all of those insights are the fruits of his psychoanalytical work with patients. He has studied himself as well. If you were to re-read Chapter IV of Interpretation of Dreams, knowing what I now know about his feelings about his youngest daughter, you would see it and Dr. Freud in an entirely changed and more sombre light.”

February 13. On a whim, I telephoned Kat. “Who are you taking to the Rainbow Ball?” I brazenly asked. “I have a gown I have not worn yet. It is rather daring — you would like it.”

“Evelyn! This is a pleasant surprise. Your timing is excellent. I have just sent off someone who bored me. Has your tango improved at all?”

I confessed that it was probably worse for lack of practice.

“Then,” said Kat, “we shall strike a bargain. Today is Monday. If you will take private lessons with my friend Marko every afternoon until Saturday, yes, I shall be very pleased to be your escort.”

‘Marko’ is a famous ‘travesti’ — her real name is Fraulein Monika Vá¶rgspraut. No one in Vienna can tango like Marko. I have seen her at the Boite des Bijoux with her partner, in fact, I have imagined how divine it would be to dance with her. Lessons will not come cheap on short notice and at this season. I do not care. “I shall do it,” I said.

February 16. I am exhausted after another 90 minutes with Marko. She is hard as nails, so strong she can give lessons all day long, I think. I plead that studying too much has put me out of shape. That elicits no sympathy. If she was not a friend of Kat’s, a schoolmate in fact, I think she might have whipped me out her door on the first day. Instead, we have persevered to the scratchy rhythms of ‘records’ imported from Buenos Aires, and I am much improved. I am learning to move without conscious thought, to anticipate my partner’s lead.

February 22. Kat has phoned to confirm our outing, and sent two dozen white roses. She says that Marko has given me an excellent report.

February 26. O, last night was wonderful. I shall remember Vienna, I think, through the lens of the Rainbow Ball.

This ball is not, apparently, officially recognized, but the organisers are having to beat off those who would attend simply to pose and gawk. Seeing the room last night, it was easy to imagine that half of Vienna is outside the line that is considered to be the ‘norm.’

I knew a few, Sasha resplendent among them on the arm of his ‘friend.’ So many more — men, women, people in between -- were friends of Kat.

She herself was absolutely gorgeous, Diary. My Kat had dressed as a man — splendidly, in top hat and cutaway — yet her costume was tailored so that there could be no misunderstanding that she is entirely woman. She was — does this seem right? — swanker than any man could be. Diamond studs glittered in Kat’s ears, her heels were a little high, her cheeks unusually red, her lips on the lush side.

I had dressed in a long, full skirt, paired with a bodice cut daringly low, as Marko had counseled, the better to tango with.

As Kat and I waltzed, it occurred to me that I have never felt so happy in the movements of my own body as I am with Kat. She commands; I gladly follow. Surely for her, too, it was an electric experience. We awaited the chords of a tango impatiently. When at last they were sounded, I was practically damp with anticipation.

“O my God, I am going to . . . I mean, right here,” I whispered. “Shut up and dance,” she replied.

Well, I bottled it up while Kat made love to me with her body, me in a trance moving as Marko taught me till the last chords sounded and I realized that we were alone on the dance floor, Kat and I, and from all sides, from all of those dear people, the ‘different’ people of Vienna, came applause.

“I hear you have a special friend,” Kat murmured as she guided me back to our seats. “How?” I asked. “Sasha told me,” she said.

“It might have been you, had you encouraged my affection,” I replied, embracing her fondly.

“I know,” Kat replied. “You I loved especially. But you know I am not the kind for permanent alliances . . . .”

March 12. It is the third anniversary of Tottie Clathrop’s death. The famous Vienna ball season is ended. I am dreadfully unhappy today. I should not be sitting here, listless, uncertain, allowing time to pass unused, yet here I sit in a funk. It has been ten days since I have heard from Anna. Hirschfeld has not written either; nearly a year has passed and I am no closer to achieving the pure form of Gynol. I am not worthy of dear Tottie.

March 14. At last a letter from Anna! She has been ill — truly ill, poor dear! A horrible cold, headaches, fever, rheum — but it has nearly run its course, she writes, and it is already spring in Rome. Anna is allowed out of the convent on weekends in the care of her uncle and aunt, so the regime — her father’s so-called ‘rest cure,’ is not so horrible: “This enforced idyll has done wonders for my piano playing and French. I can speak a bit of Italian now, too. O, Evi — do come to Rome! If you were here, I would contrive to evade my guardians quite brazenly, you will see!”

March 20. I have harvested another crop of letters from the American Express, among them one from Mrs. Eustis Rawlings in Baltimore. She is, of course, the mother of Ted, the painter on whom my chum Doro so dotes, and Fiona, my Aunt’s goddaughter, the glamorous college girl who caused my own heart to flutter so.

Mrs. Rawlings’ geography was lacking but her motherly concern was not. She has scarcely heard from Fiona, she wrote, only erratic, odd letters prompting worry. Hence she was impelled to write to Aunt Enid and me in Vienna, which appears to be, if truth be said, as close to Rome on the maps commonly consulted in Baltimore as that city is to Washington. Doubtless she perceives Milan, Florence, Venice to be no more than crossroads or hamlets, the European equivalent of Taneytown or Rockville. . . .

And so, asked Mrs. Rawlings, would my aunt and I do her the great service of calling on Fiona in Rome?

I passed the letter to Aunt Enid, and sat silently while my mind raced. She read it to the end, and then looked at me with a sly grin. “The Lord knows I am beginning to weary of this dull, damp Austrian winter,” she said. “Let’s do it!”

“Oh, Aunt,” I replied with unstinted enthusiasm, “let us indeed!”

March 28. We have been packing for three days. How did I accumulate so many things I simply cannot do without? I vacillate: do I keep this or not? If so, how shall I wrap it? In which trunk shall I put it? Shall I need it again before we have reached Baltimore? Shall I actually need it there? Pegeen is quite cross; I am sure she thinks I have far too many clothes and books already!

April 1. Sasha and I have been to the famous Prater. I persuaded him that I could not leave Vienna without a ride on the giant Ferris Wheel. It is a trap for tourists, he replied, and thus boring. “But,” he added with a laugh as though the idea had just occurred to him, “I shall go there with you, Evelyn, if you will consent to be seen with me as I really am.” Of course I knew what he meant.

“Yes, all right, dear Miss Sasha — this once. Just try not to be too outrageous. . . .”

Sasha cannot help but be outrageous, it is his essence. Now that toute Vienne knows he adores dressing as a woman, he makes no effort to hide it. But Sasha has, as well, a wonderful sense of style.

For our outing today, he might have stepped off a page from the latest number of La Mode Illustreé. He wore a closely fitting overdress of fine wool, trimmed with velvet bands, over an exquisite lace jabot that covered his bosom and neck. The overdress reached to the approximate region of Sasha’s knees; below extended a pleated silk skirt trimmed at the hem with the same velvet. Sasha had a monstrous big hat — yards of gray tulle and big pink tulle ‘roses’ blooming upon a foundation of woven straw, earrings of amethyst and white gold and — I am sure of it — a touch of color on his lips and cheeks.

Next to Sasha, I was but a little mouse, but a happy mouse. In only four more days, Aunt and Pegeen and I shall be on our way to Rome. O, I shall miss poor Sasha and other friends here but . . . who knows what adventures lie ahead? Anna is there; I have missed her terribly; she writes as much to me.

It being Sunday, there was a great crowd of merry-makers at the Lusthaus, or ‘Pleasure Pavilion.’ At the giant Wheel, the line was endless. Sasha and I had nearly given up the idea of a ride into the heavens when a young man stepped out from near the front of the line. I confess I’d noticed him giving us ‘the eye.’ Very dapper in his bowler and striped shirt, to tell the truth.

“Misses — do you speak English?” His accent was unmistakeably American. Boston, I guessed, and I was right. He turned out to be Charles Fenwick, lately graduated from Harvard College, touring Europe with his cousin Oliver Peabody. In no time, Sasha and I were sharing a cabin with the two boys, rising up and up some more on the giant wheel, until we might have been birds, the sensation was so strong that we were being buoyed up by nothing more than air!

The boys were charming. Sasha, the little minx, had them fooled; ‘she’ flirted shamelessly; they were completely taken in by ‘her’ feminine wiles. Oliver was entranced. I, meanwhile, played with Charles at finding a mutual friend or two among my acquaintances and those of these boys from Boston. Did he know Sally Campbell’s cousin, also a Harvard man? Or Tom Shoesmith at MIT? Anyone at all from Baltimore? Well, yes, in a way, said Charles. His second cousin had graduated from Johns Hopkins University. She was a brilliant chemist, he’d been told. Had I ever heard of Dr. Charlotte Clathrop?

O my God, Diary! Tottie’s cousin! It was all I could do to breath. I stared grimly out the window of our swaying cabin, struggling to quiet my heart and my churning stomach.

My discomfort had passed without event by the time we regained terra firma. I had to know more. “Charles,” I said with the strength of desperation, “if you and Oliver are not pressed by another engagement, perhaps you would allow Fraulein Sasha and me to take you to tea — in repayment of the favor you have done us by allowing us to share your cabin on the Giant Wheel.”

Sasha knows about two hundred words of English; they had been sufficient to captivate Oliver. Charles, too, assented readily.

“I cannot tell you much about ‘Cousin Tottie,’” he said as we divided a Zimtschneke literally bursting with nuts and jam. “My sister Allie was her age, and knew her far better. It has been three years already since she. . . I think . . . or so I heard . . . that she slew herself.”

“She died,” I answered, “the victim of a foul slander, because she believed taking her own life the only way to guard the confidences of a number of girls and young women. I was one of them. Her medical research literally gave me a new life.

“I owe it to Tottie Clathrop to carry on as she would have,” I said.

It has grown very late, Diary; I must close. Suffice it to say that Charles and I have exchanged addresses; if he wishes to know more, I daresay he will write me when he is back in Boston.

I have not done with Sasha. More tomorrow!

April 2. It was only by dint of kicking Sasha fiercely under the tablecloth that I deterred him from accepting Oliver’s proposal of an evening ‘on the town.’ I wanted the boy all to myself; for this once he could give up male company.

I took Sasha to our apartment, where Aunt Enid greeted him pleasantly, complimenting him on his lovely dress and asking him to convey her fond regard to his mother before she retired to her bedroom, leaving us alone in the parlor.

“Now, Sasha dear,” I said, “whatever is to become of you?”

“You have a poet in America,” he said, “a woman named Vincent something. She wrote this. “’Mein kerze . . . my candle burns at both ends. It cannot last the night. But ah, my friends and oh, my foes, it gives a lovely light.’ That is me.”

A fire burned on the hearth. I trimmed the rest of the lamps, and Sasha and I snuggled together on a chaise lounge rendered toasty warm by the blaze.

“You were having a jolly time with Oliver today. He had not the slightest suspicion that you are really a boy. Tell me, Sasha” I asked, “were there such a thing as true magic, and were a magician to offer to transform you into a woman, would you choose to be re-sexed?”

“O, damn’t Evi, I don’t know! I suppose not. I like the men who like me now, and I do not suppose they would like me if I were not a sort of bon bon — creamy candy on the outside, crunchy toffee within.”

I have often thought I should share my stock of Balthasar’s elixir with Sasha. I still have a year’s supply of the pills, and I will be back home in scarcely two months’ time.

“How is it for you?” he whispered, laying his perfumed head on my shoulder. I took Sasha’s meaning, of course; many months ago his brother Raymond, with whom I lay one night last summer, told Sasha that I am a hermaphrodite. “I thank Heaven daily,” I replied, “that my Aunt is liberal both in her habits of thought and in her provision for me. I would rather be entirely a woman, I suppose, but since I cannot be that, I shall accept my lot. I shall try to be a loyal friend to those who love me, and to make something of myself.”

“You really are set on becoming a doctor,” aren’t you? “I wish I had your strength of will. You are twice the ‘man’ I am, Evi, and all woman, too.”

I will make one more attempt, I thought. “Sasha, help me to understand. You would not give up your . . . the tool of your true sex . . . under any circumstance?”

My friend stared pensively at the flames. He had thrown off his jacket and opened the buttons of his bodice. The glow of the dying fire tinted his face and neck, and revealed a boy — no, a girl by every appearance, including pushed up breasts supported I know not how — tortured by the contradictions of his essence. Gravely, he shook his head.

I reached across and pulled the pins from his hair, freeing Sasha’s blonde wig. He buried his head in my lap. “I shall always remember you thus,” I whispered.

If Aunt Enid was surprised to find Sasha joining us at breakfast this morning, she gave no hint of it, nor had she cause for concern from that quarter. We had shared my bed as chastely as any two maidens might and now, fortified by café au lait and a beugel croissant, with fervent promises that we shall meet again, Sasha has taken his leave of us.

April 4. Everything is in readiness; we leave Vienna on the morrow. á¶eine came by today to bid me adieu, and also Hiro and Erik from my German class. American Express will see that our mail is forwarded to Rome until April 12, and then to London. Now, in the evening, I am all alone. Aunt Enid retired early, advising me and Pegeen to do the same, but I cannot sleep.

I keep thinking about the Dream. It came again last night, as real as life. Each time I dream it, there are more details. Now it is like one of those paintings by Breugel, full of life, full of people absorbed in their merrymaking.

Again, Diary, it is a city of the future I dream. I know it is the future because I see sleek motorcars, bullet-like electric trains and shiny aeroplanes. The buildings are tall cylinders constructed entirely of glass, it seems. The people in my dream are golden and glittering, they wear marvellous garments, and yet I know these people. There are my friends from Baltimore, Teddi and Dorothy, gowned as though they were sisters, and dark Alexandra Cooper resplendent in a white dress. Harry Halloran, gotten up splendidly as Henrietta, Miss Ella Spears as Bertie and the rest of her vaudeville troupe pass by on a float followed by a band blaring a hypnotically percussive tune. Behind it are the rest of Tottie’s girls — Rachel and Hannah, Helen and Ingrid, Eilidh, Alicia and all the rest — and Dr. Nathan Weiss, our doctor. Here then comes Kat on a fire engine, surrounded by a dozen of her conquests, and Sasha resplendent as a phoenix hen rising from her fiery nest. I see Ms Olivia Bezroukoff and her sister, Mme LeBlanc, their whips flashing in the sun. I see all this from above, Diary — I am high above the street with Martin Tolliver in the swaying basket of a balloon, throwing kisses to the crowd.

Nor are all of the marchers ‘different.’ My ‘normal’ friends are there too, Diary — Balthasar Bishop, Miss Alice, Sally and Flora, Martin and Billy, Miss Alice, Winnie Clem and big, ungainly Rupert, all cheering us on. It is a marvellous, triumphant parade, except — and here I awaken suddenly, seized by dread — Anna is missing! She is not there. Everyone is in my dream but Anna.

What can this mean?

April 7. We are in Rome at last. It is the eve of Holy Week. The Rapido brought us here from Florence overnight. All the second class cars were crowded with pilgrims, whole families, come for the Pope’s blessing.

Rome is as new to Aunt Enid as it is to me. We understand hardly a word of Italian and must depend on the Baedecker Guide I have purchased. Our maid Pegeen is a wonder, though. I wonder how we should have managed without her. She speaks Italian — the rough dialect of Naples, learnt on the back streets of Baltimore! Pegeen is not fluent, of course, but she recalls enough to make herself, our needs, understood to the draymen and cab drivers who have brought us to the Villa Caracalla.

The Villa C is a ‘pensione.’ The rooms are lovely, bright and sunny. I cannot get enough sunshine, after long gray months in Vienna. We shall take most of our meals here in company with the other guests. Luncheon was excellent; that augers well.

Straightaway, Aunt struck up a conversation with a couple from California. Professor Morrison is an antiquarian; he and Mrs. Morrison (“Oh, do call me Hilda”) are travelling extensively during his sabbatical year. It is one of those friendly alliances one is apt to make when far from home, and never think of making when secure in one’s own milieu.

For once I have trumped my aunt in the matter of acquaintances. After Aunt Enid and Mrs. Morrison sought in vain to find someone they know in common, quite a rare thing for my aunt, I inquired if the Morrisons had visited the Holy Land. “Yes, indeed, for six whole weeks.” And had they, perchance, encountered Lady Violet Davyss, the English archaeologist? “Oh, my heavens yes! We went to Ashkelon specifically to meet her. She is a phenom, indeed!”

I explained that I knew of her only by reputation — she is the mother of my chum, Winifred. “You are in luck, then,” was Professor Morrison’s ready reply. “Lady Violet and her assistant are enroute home to England. They have pledged to stop with us in Rome. We expect them on Wednesday.”

April 8. From Sunday night to Saturday morning, Anna Freud is locked up in a convent that claims to be a sort of finishing school for young ladies. I should hate it. The nuns read her letters. She is allowed only on weekends under the protection of her fathers’ cousin. Nor is Anna resigned to her imprisonment. With exquisite circumspection, she and I contrived to meet at the Palazzo Borghese at half past two this afternoon.

My eyes misted over, Diary, when I perceived dear Anna among the throng in the foyer of the Palazzo, a museum specially noted for its Renaissance masterpieces. My Viennese friend was fashionably fitted out in a day dress of flowered peplum, low-heeled court shoes, silk scarf and parasol. Her hair was up, secured by a small hat and large hatpin. Anna’s transformation from little Austrian schoolgirl to debutante was startling. With dismay, I perceived that she was wearing a corset.

As pre-arranged, I greeted Fraulein Anna in the guise of a Museum guide whose services she had contracted. She was accompanied by a lad of ten or twelve, her second cousin, sent along as her chaperone.

Massimo, a smallish boy with a big name, seemed sensibly impressed by the duty of escorting his older cousin. Fortunately for us, he knew not a word of German.

Grasping my hand more fondly than the pretense of our meeting would dictate, Anna whispered “You would hardly believe, dear Evi, that scarcely a year ago this gentle lad was a true hellion! He is a perfect subject for your research.”

I perceived that Anna referred to my paper for her father’s disciple, Professor Doktor Otto Rank, on “Social Construction of Sexual Identity.” Still, I stared at her uncomprehendingly.

“Massimo has only lately been emancipated. His mother was compelled to dress him as a girl in order to reform him.”

I regarded the lad with more interest, recalling that a similar ‘punishment’ had been visited on my dear friend Harry ‘Henrietta’ Halloran.

Dressed in the nautical garb that is de rigeur now for boys, a cream colored cotton suit with blue piping, Massimo seemed unusual only in his good manners in our presence. I remarked on that to Anna. “Yes,” she replied. “That is the point.” The wife of my cousin believed, Anna said, that “the only way to impress upon Massimo a decent respect for the fairer and ‘more civilized’ sex [was] to have him experience life as a girl. She maintains that putting refractory boys in petticoats is a common practice in her own country.”

“Oh, she is English, then?”

Startled by my deduction, Anna nodded.

“And of course you speak English well,” I continued, addressing myself to young Massimo in his mother’s tongue.

“Yes, Miss, I do. Are you from England?”

“No, I am from Baltimore, a city in America. Thank you for escorting us today.”

“It is my pleasure. You and Anna are both beautiful and, I am sure, kind young ladies.”

“How nice of you to believe so, Massimo! Now I must attend to Fraulein Anna, who has engaged me to show her the pictures, but afterward, I should like to know you better, too. Would you mind that?”

“No, of course not,” he replied shyly. “I shall wait for you both over there near the fountain.”

Anna and I picked up exactly as we had left off in Vienna; if anything, our separation has strengthened our mutual affection. The art and sculpture on display at the ‘Borghese’ is overwhelming in its quantity and magnificence, but I must confess that I remember little of it.

We wandered among the galleries absorbed in conversation, oblivious to the grandeur of the paintings hanging there. There was Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of the young David, of course, and some paintings I vaguely recall as being especially fine, but the truth is, Diary, I could hardly divert my eyes from Anna Freud.

She is to remain at the seminary until the summer, when Rome becomes unbearably hot. It is her father’s conviction, she says, that she requires time for reflection before launching again into the world. “In other words, he is punishing me for being too ready to form a connection with such as you, dearest Evi.

“I love my Papa dearly, but I fear his jealousy may prove an impossible burden for me to bear. It is strange, is it not, that he who sees so clearly the causes of the obsessions of others is so oblivious to his own?”

“No, not at all,” I declared. “Men have always been better at prescribing for others than at curing themselves. I suppose your father regards his relations with you as the quite natural exercise of his right of governance, not as a selfish act.”

“Papa writes me the most piteous letters. He is ‘miserable without me,’” he says, “’but this separation is for my own good.’ I resent his presumption, but I feel sorry for him, too.”

A sudden thought caused me to shudder, Diary. “Anna,” I said, “I must ask you something — only this once. Is your father, in his expression of his sympathies for you — is he invariably . . . correct?”

My question elicited a gasp. “O, Evi, how could you think such a thing!”

I have no doubt that Anna was quite shocked by my question. She paused a moment to regain her composure, then continued "It is not my body that my father wishes to control. Consciously or not, he has a compulsion to govern my mind. In this, I am no different from his other disciples. Once one of them advances original ideas, quarrels with him, he is denied my father’s affection, indeed, he is expelled from Father’s presence. And. . . Evi. . . I could not bear such a fate.”

There is an alcove, Diary, in one of the more remote galleries of the great Palazzo, that afforded Anna and me some shelter. Laying her head on my shoulder, Anna wept great wet tears of frustration and repressed sentiment. Opposite was a large painting by Lucivorno Fratelli that depicts the Rape of the Sabine Women. That debauched scene spread its gloom over us as I rocked my friend in my arms, seeking vainly to give her comfort while watching anxiously least we be disturbed. At length, perceiving no other means of solace, I allowed my lips to find Anna’s.

She responded immediately, with a fervor that signalled her wish that I should kiss her deeply, fiercely and without restraint.

We were both weeping now, Diary, overcome by certain knowledge that our affection, however pure and true it might seem, could not prevail against the circumstances that must ineluctably separate us. I blotted Anna’s tears with my handkerchief, she mine own on her shawl, both of us still planting kisses upon each other’s cheeks, necks, ears and lips with an intensity I have never felt before — not with Kat, nor Billy Barkell, nor Frank Campbell nor certainly with my noble, naíve Martin.

It was over an hour later before we regained the fountain where Massimo awaited us patiently, his nose in a book.

April 11. Returning from a morning walk on the hill above the Coliseum, I perceived Mr. and Mrs. Morrison in conversation with two youths who had, from the evidence of their baggage, just arrived at the Villa Caracalla. One I recognized immediately — it was my chum Winifred’s erstwhile swain! “Rupert!” I gasped. “How on earth . . . ?”

“O, by Jove, Evelyn, is that really you? Here, in Rome! This is too wonderful!” Rupert seized my hand. “I must introduce you to my mentor and mother-to-be. Lady Violet, this is Evelyn Westcott. She is Winnie’s great chum.”

I must confess that I stared, Diary. Lady Violet was got up as a young man — rather broad of beam but nonetheless convincing in a sack suit of tan poplin — khaki, I think the material is called. “There, is that better?” she asked, removing her cap to free a mass of red curls and ripping a false mustache from her upper lip.

“Yes,” I replied, amazed. “You had me completely taken in.”

“O, I always travel like this,” Lady Violet explained with a wry grin. “It is much safer in the East, and one has a great deal more freedom.

“And now I am dying for a bath! Pray, let us get these bags upstairs, Rupert. We shall see you all at teatime,” Lady Violet added with a nod to me and the Morrisons. She followed Rupert and the several ushers that staggered under the weight of their bags up the grand staircase of the Villa Caracella.

April 13. On the strength of my Baedecker’s assurance that it affords a marvelous view of the sinuous Tiber, Rupert and I set out early to climb the Janiculum Hill. We had nearly reached the top when he said to me off-handedly “Do you know what, Evi? I am to become a relative of Sigmund Freud.”

Well, knock me down with a feather! I had to steady myself with the aid of a small tree.

“I say, are you all right? Do you want some water?” Rupert added, offering his flask.

“Thank you, I am just a little winded. Pray tell, what is the relationship?”

‘It would be a fourth — no, a fifth degree relationship. Lady Violet’s cousin is Signora Morabbi, on whom we called yesterday. The Signora is as English as I am, her maiden name was Beatrice Beaufort, but she has married a man whose family has lived in Rome since the first century B.C., would you believe that? He is a prominent member of the Hebrew community, and very cultured.

“Now Morabbi, you see Evelyn, is a cousin of Freud himself! The great doctor’s daughter is presently a ward of the family. She’s a lovely girl that we met yesterday. Poor Anna is shut up in a convent most of the time but, this being Holy Week, lessons are suspended and the girls that can are allowed to return to their families.

“So, how do you like that? Perhaps Cousin Sigmund will analyze me . . . .”

I liked that very much, Diary, but of course I did not tell Rupert why. The view of the river and Rome’s ancient center was as fine as advertised, but I fear I did not take it all in, my brain was racing so fast!

By the time we regained the Villa Caracalla, I had thought out a plan. As I changed my costume for luncheon, I tested it on Aunt Enid. Had she heard of the gardens of the Villa d’Este, I asked? She had not. I related that Baedecker spoke highly of them; they are lush with fountains and always cool.

“How nice that would be,” my Aunt replied. “This Italian heat is beginning to annoy me greatly.”

Encouraged, I plunged onward. “The villa is not in the city. It lies in the hills to the east, about 20 miles from here.”

“So far! And you want to spend a whole day getting there and back?”

“O, yes, Aunt, let’s! We can form up a party for an excursion, and have a splendid picnic!”

“Well then, let us see what the Morrisons and Lady Violet think. Rupert will follow you anywhere, I suppose.”

April 14, Good Friday. It is all arranged. We shall set forth in the cool of the morning at half past seven in two open coaches. The Villa Caracalla has arranged them for us. Fiona Rawlings has agreed to go too, and several of the Morabbis will join us with their own coach. We shall arrive at the Villa d’Este within three hours.

Later. I think I am remarkably handsome in Lady Violet’s lounge suit. When I ventured to her that I should like to essay her practice of travelling incognito in the guise of a young man, she lent it to me immediately. If I can ‘pull it off,’ I told Lady Violet, the trick should come in handy when I travel to wilder and ruder places. “O yes,” she exclaimed, and proceeded to tell me at great length of her travels in the Levant, Anatolia and the Caucausus. And indeed, Diary, Winnie’s mum has had some marvellous adventures. . . .

It is not the khaki suit that Lady Violet has lent me, but her spare one, a light gray fabric that goes well with my coloring. She also provided me a garment that binds up my breasts, a cravat, a handsome high-collared, striped shirt of fine Egyptian broadcloth, and a soft, broad-brimmed hat that conceals my hair nicely. If one does not regard me too closely — if, for example, one does not remark that my low boots are in fact cut for a woman or that my lobes have been pierced to admit earrings — I fancy that I make a charming boy of, perhaps, seventeen years.

Anna is just sixteen.

My Aunt is annoyed. She has already sorted through the evidence. “This is an elaborate ruse to see your little Jewish girl friend again, isn’t it,” she said. “Really, Evelyn, I wish you would confide more in me. You may need my help to save you embarrassment when one of your schemes blows up.”

Aunt Enid is right. I must trust her. She is not like other adults, and I owe all my happiness to her. [It occurs to me, Diary, that I am very nearly 19 and therefore an adult too. Or am I?]

Evening. My heavens, what a day this has been!

My American friend Fiona Rawlings arrived at the Villa Caracalla barely in time this morning. How wonderful to see her again after nearly two years! Fiona was wearing an Italian peasant’s dress and a mobcap of sorts; the effect was charmingly bohemian. She behaved herself, but only barely. We had scarcely reached at the Palazzo Morabbi (and I was greeted fondly by Anna) than Fiona pulled me aside. “Who is that morsel,” she demanded.

“She is my friend and she is but sixteen,” I replied, “and I shall think badly of you if you should try to take advantage.”

“I did not take advantage of you when you were her age,” replied Fiona, “though you begged that I should. Pray you remember that.”

Thus reminded, I asked Fiona’s pardon, squeezed her arm, and asked her how she liked my get-up for our outing.

“It is rather blatant, I’d say,” said she. “It would appear that you have gained some knowledge of the world, and not all of it from men.”

I confessed to Fiona that I had indeed sought and gained such knowledge.

“What have you and that Dorothy person done to Ted?” asked Fiona suddenly. “I hear he has taken to dressing up as Miss Theodora.”

The alarm I felt must have registered on my face, for my friend immediately grinned and added “He’s always been a bit of a sissy. I am not surprised. Mother’s made him promise not to make a public spectacle of himself. I suppose he hasn’t, so far.”

I assured Fiona that dressing en femme was entirely Ted’s idea, not Dorothy’s.

We had arrived at the Palazzo Morabbi. Anna and a little girl climbed into our carriage. I immediately perceived that the child was her protégé, young Massimo, and so introduced Anna to my Aunt, and her niece. . . . “Marisa,” he obligingly supplied when I paused, claiming the seat beside Aunt Enid.

Suppose one has a cuddly pet that makes intelligent conversation? That is Anna, at least whenever her minders in one of the other coaches were unable to watch us. She was amused by my garb, and ‘enchanted,’ she said, by Fiona’s peasant finery. In the lead carriage, we are Fiona, me in my disguise, Anna, Aunt Enid, and young Massimo — or rather ‘Marisa’ today. One of us a maiden, originally a boy and who though tricked out as a dandy of her original sex who seems to fool no one, and one of us a little boy whose imposture is artless and perfectly deceiving.

Anna whispers to me in one ear, dreamy stuff, the sort I suppose she also tells her father. Meanwhile, ‘Marisa’ is explaining things to my aunt that I am straining to overhear.

“It is like this, you see. Mama said she should have to put me back in dresses could I not behave. Of course I could behave, but it came to me that today, I should very like to go out as a girl, so I put it to my Mama. ‘What would I do that you should have to punish me so?’ ‘O,’ she replied, ‘that you should speak ill of girls or women. I would have you back in dresses in an instant.’”

“And so I spoke ill of girls, of Cousin Anna, in fact. I said she had been so much enamoured of the guide at the museum that she had quite ignored me.”

My aunt regarded Massimo as though he were an exotic growth of some sort. I thought him not a bit odd myself, merely a pretty boy having a jolly outing attired in skirts. But then, Diary, my thoughts on such matters are most assuredly not ‘normal.’ Our young friend’s mother — whose laugh I could hear pealing from time to time from the carriage just behind — had dressed her son to the height of juvenile fashion. He wore an Empire frock of cotton batiste, the neck cut high, the sleeves puffed and finished with a cuff, the skirt rather short, and gathered and flounced. To ward off the sun, Massimo — ‘Marisa’ — was equipped with a broad woven straw hat, and a parasol to boot. “You are extremely attractive as a girl” I could not help but murmur to the lad. “Would that I were as convincing a youth.”

“O, Miss Evelyn, I know!” was all he replied, blushing.

It was already distinctly hot when our carriages gained Tivoli. Though it is charming, we did not stop at the village but pressed on to the Gardens a short distance beyond. They were as handsome and, O wonder!, as refreshing as they were advertised in my Baedecker.

At once the ladies hastened to avail themselves of the Villa d’Este’s amenities. I too was impatient for relief, but hesitated uncertain which door to choose whilst attired as a youth. The one marked ‘Signori’ opened and Rupert emerged. He realized at once my discomfort. “Use a stall within,” he whispered. “I shall stand guard — as I have done often for Lady Violet.”

I found when I emerged that our party in general had disappeared into the Garden, which is a maze of luxuriant flora and dozens — no, a hundred at least -- of water follies and fountains. One of the ladies had lagged behind; it was Beatrice Morabbi, Massimo’s mother. She motioned for me to take her arm and stroll with her.

“You are not such a monster,” she said.

Not waiting for me to reply (and what could I say?), Signora Beatrice continued. “Sigmund is quite paranoid; obviously Gustavo and I cannot tell him that you and Anna have had a reunion. Will you behave yourself with her?”

“My affection for Anna is entirely platonic,” I lied.

“He would be beside himself were he to know that you court his daughter in the guise of a youth.”

That was doubtless so, I acknowledged.

There followed a longish pause whilst Signora Beatrice pondered matters. Unable to bear the silence, I offered the solution. “My aunt and I shall be off to England within a week’s time, and will sail for the United States by the end of the month. Anna is not so foolish as to pine for me.

“In the meantime, I beg you to allow me her friendship.”

“Of course,” she replied, “but behave yourself.”

I expressed my gratitude for the Signora’s kindness, and then without premeditation asked if I might say a word or two about Massimo. She turned to me attentively, nodding.

“He is an exquisitely mannered and sensitive child,” I said. “I have known some others like him . . . in my own country, boys whose constitutions are by some chance, whether nature or nurture I am not sure, essentially feminine.

“You can see that Massimo is delighted to play the female part. He may tire of it; it may be but a phase in his growing up. Or, it may persist, and I do not presume to advise you how you should respond in that event.

“One thing, though, Signora . . . .“ I regarded Massimo’s mother directly, and she nodded. “It could be tragic if your son were to associate his greatest pleasure with punishment and pain.” Gravely, she nodded again.

We had arrived at the place where our luncheon was being set out by servants from the Palazzo Morabbi, a lovely buffet. Signora Beatrice excused herself to supervise. Seeing Anna head to head with Fiona in a leafy alcove, I appropriated three glasses of cold white wine and joined them.

“Hello, Evelyn. We are talking about you behind your back,” offered Fiona.

“Evi, do you know what? Fiona is living in sin in Trastavere with a Marchioness!”

“Yes, and we are dirt poor. Giuletta’s father has cut her off, my own parents will not listen to reason, the merchants will not extend more credit and so — you see I am starving!”

Though Fiona is in truth quite buxom, I had no doubt she was as hungry as I after such an early start this morning. Fortunately, plates of antipasti arrived before starvation set in. Between morsels of baby octopus, olives, prosciutto and goat cheese on toast points, Fiona added details of her love life. “So you see,” she concluded, “there is no possibility I should wish to return to Baltimore.”

Fiona pronounced our hometown’s name as though it were a backward, disease-ridden venue for pogroms rather than one of the most progressive cities in America. “The less you tell me of yourself and Giulietta, the less I shall have to lie to your mother,” I told her. “Tell me instead about your work.”

My life is full of coincidences, Diary. Fiona is working as an aide to the celebrated Maria Montessori, the Italian woman who is overturning all the conventional wisdom about early childhood development — the very person whose work Dr. Rank commended to me some months ago. I made Fiona promise to take me to the Montessori School. “And me as well,” demanded Anna. “Tomorrow! Please?”

Subject to the approval of the great educatress, it is agreed.

Luncheon was ended. We had spread blankets on a bit of grass under some huge trees. Fiona was scribbling a note to Signorina Montessori while Anna and I, made drowsy by the good food, were repressing yawns when Aunt Enid approached hand-in-hand with Massimo. They made a pretty pair. Though she is nearly three score, my aunt carries herself well and dresses á¡ lá  mode. She would be a brilliant grandmother — I regret that I cannot give her the pleasure of spoiling my own children.

“I have been trying to explain to ‘Marisa’ why you care to wear mens’ clothes today. The best I can do is to say that you have become so secure in your life as a woman that reverting to pants is a bit of a lark.”

“If I might, I would never wear pants again” declared Massimo with a pout. “You are fortunate, Miss Evi, not to have remained a boy.”

“It is not so simple as that,” I replied. “You, I think, may grow up to be a very handsome boy if you set your mind to it.”

Massimo made a face, an expression of dread that haunts me still. Perhaps Aunt is right — she believes the child ‘s best hope is a daily dose of Balthasar’s elixir.

April 15. Fiona prevailed upon Signora Montessori to invite Anna and me to the Casa dei Bambini, her school in the Trastavere District. We were expected at nine, such a wretched hour after our exertions of the day before.

I have not yet related the last of the events of yesterday. Having regained our pensione from the Villa d’Este only at dusk, Rupert and I changed our costumes in haste and bolted a light supper. Then we set out for the Palatine Hill, joining thousands of Romans and visitors to await the great Good Friday procession. For a few hundred lira each, we secured seats on a raised platform by the Via Crucis, and just in time indeed. Solemn, sorrowful chants announced the arrival of the Pope himself, accompanying a great cross and escorted by thousands of torchbearers. Pius X, though extremely old, still walks without asssistance. He paused to pray at one of the stations -- I understood it to be the place where Christ falls the third time — and as he rose, there arose with him a heavenly lamentation, soprano voices descanting above the baritones and bases. One does not have to be a Romish Catholic, Diary, to be transported by such a spectacle.

This morning, though awfully weary, and having dragooned Rupert to escort us, Anna and I arrived at the school. Having heard that discipline is scarcely administered there, I had expected a sort of guided pandemonium. Instead, there was a strange calm. Several hundred children — the youngest but three or four, and the oldest perhaps twelve — were busily absorbed in their tasks.

“You are amazed, no?” Signorina Montessori greeted us. “Work is children’s play. When they are truly learning, they are quiet as mice. When they have learned a task, they will teach it to others — there, do you see?” She pointed to a couple of seven year olds who were quizzing smaller children, using block letters to make simple words.

After a brief tour of the Casa dei Bambini, during which we were joined by Fiona, the Signorina sent Fiona off with Rupert to observe a class while she detained Anna and me. “Come, sit with me and tell me what it is you have been doing in Vienna. Fiona has tried to explain, but . . . .”

Signorina Montessori is a broad-hipped woman with large, expressive gestures. Her features are pleasant enough; she makes no particular effort to improve them. She speaks English slowly and carefully, as many foreigners do when they fear they will not be understood.

I said that I was especially pleased to meet her. Helped by Anna, I had done some reading and thinking about the ways that children learn through stages to think of themselves as either boys or girls, and to adopt characteristic behaviors. “My paper is titled ‘Sexual Differentiation among Children’ (here I pointed to the words in German) but in fact, I think it is not really sex but something purer and more elemental — a consciousness of ‘gender,’ if one may use that term.”

Signorina Montessori picked up my paper and studied the table of contents. I related my professor’s observation that I had stumbled upon a concept of early childhood learning that was in close accord with the Signorina’s own insights and borne out by her experiments. “Of course,” I added hopefully, “I want to learn more about the Montessori Method.”

“O, yes. Perhaps like Fiona you will work with me? How long do you stay in Rome?”

We had, I regretted, but a few more days. “You will come back here on Tuesday, then? We shall have a long, good talk. Meanwhile, I will practice my German on your paper for my friend, Doktor Rank.”

Were I not so tired, Diary, I would also describe the flat that Fiona shares with her outrageous companion, the Marchioness Giulietta Sampi-something, and the sounds, smells and tastes of their neighborhood. It is crowded, noisy, pungent — it occurs to me that Trastavere is East Baltimore one hundred times more vivid and full of life.

Suffice it for me to record here, most importantly before I sleep, that I am thoroughly, hopelessly in love. I do not know how I shall be able to say goodbye to Anna.

Easter Sunday, 1911. Though we are neither of us Romish in our inclinations, if it can be said that we are religiously inclined at all, Aunt Enid and I were determined to experience Easter Sunday in all its Catholic glory. Rather than brave the crowds at the Vatican, we attended the service at the parish church of the Villa Caracalla, a 12th Century structure called San Giovanni in Oleo. My Baedecker, always ready with answers, explains that the name refers to a miracle in Roman times. Saint John, passing by, had been seized for some trifling infraction and boiled in oil. Evidently, with God’s aid, the event was for him a pleasant outing akin to a nice hot bath. At length he arose, wiped his loins, and gave a really good sermon.

I expect that the priest gave a great sermon, too. Easter is a really happy event for Christian believers, especially after all the angst of the week preceding. The crowd, mostly people from the neighborhood, was evidently fond of the priest, a young man in a splendid white cassock. He was preaching in Italian, however. I still cannot make any sense of it, so I studied the frescos instead. There were lots of gruesome scenes within easy view, about equally divided between Old and New Testament stories.

The singing was spectacular, from the introit to the glorious hallelujahs that ended the service. Baedecker says this church is a training site for the magnificent choirs of St. John’s Lateran. As far as I can tell, the boys and men who sang today are ready for promotion.

It was not so hot today, so Aunt Enid and I decided to return to the Villa Caracalla on foot. For fifty paces or so, my aunt seemed deep in thought. I imagined she was meditating on the splendid choristry.

She spoke abruptly. “You are quite taken with the girl, I suppose?” I knew at once she referred to Anna.

“Anna is like no other,” I said. “You have noticed that we are . . . that there is . . . O, what shall I say? Yes, Aunt Enid, yes, I have fallen in love with Anna Freud. There are boys I like, but none ever so much as Anna.”

“Well, my dear, I think I know you well enough,” said my aunt, taking my arm in hers. “You must prepare yourself for heartbreak. Between women there can be the greatest affection and the most intimate relations, but without the sanction of society, these liaisons are liable to break at the slightest of shocks.”

“Anna has already told me that her dear Papa must always come first,” I replied gloomily, “and he hates me.”

“Let us walk faster, then. As we have only three days left in Rome, I am sure you will wish to spend them with your Anna rather than me. Another time, perhaps, I shall tell you a story or two.”

A few moments later, we had regained the Villa Caracalla where, as I hoped, Pegeen caught my eye. Leaving my aunt in conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Morrison, I joined our servant. “Is it arranged, then?” I asked. “Yes, Miss, she replied. “Miss Anna will meet you at the Castella Brava. It is a famous place for ice cream. Sit under the awning and enjoy a gelati. Whenever you wish, leave two thousand lira on the table and signal for the waiter with a purple boutonniere. His name is Francesco, and he has become a friend of mine. He will lead you through the restaurant and into a garden in the back, which in turn leads to a tiny hotel. It is the sort of place that specializes in such meetings. My friend says their discretion is absolute.”

Once again, just as in church but an hour past, I heard the exultation of the angels.

I found the Castella Brava all right, and had scarce been seated when I spied Anna alighting from a cab. Marvel of marvels, she was without a chaperone — allowed by what ruse I could not imagine until, while ravishing a lemon sorbet, Anna explained that she and her cousin Elena were believed to be at a class in flower arranging. If necessary, the instructor will swear for their sake that they were both present for a full two and a half hours; meanwhile, Elena was keeping a rendezvous of her own.

“And now what,” Anna asked. “You said you have a surprise for me.”

“I do,” I replied “but only if you wish it as much as I.”

She wrinkled her delightful nose. “How much is that, pray?”

“More, I think, than I have ever yet wished anything.”

“O, I am sure that I can match you, Evi.” Anna was silent for a moment. “You see, I do love you.”

I whispered that I had contrived, were she game for it, for us to be alone together. Anna’s hand found mine beneath the tablecloth. “O, yes, darling, I know I will be safe with you,” she whispered back.

At that instant, almost, a waiter obtruded into my field of vision, a man wearing a purple boutonniere. “Francesco?” I said. “At your service, Signorini,” he replied, pocketing the banknotes I had placed under the wallet that held our service check. “Perhaps you will follow me within.”

And so, Diary, not so much later, with the greatest tenderness that my raging desire would allow, after many sweet kisses and caresses had brought her to an extreme of tumidity and desire, I deflowered my dear sweet Anna.

We lay, legs still entangled on the bed of our rented room, a small room but clean and decorated with taste. Through an open window from the garden came the scent of roses, and from Anna, and me as well I suppose, came the scent of women who have been well loved. “Is it always like this?” asked Anna.

“It is rarely so sweet,” I replied. “No, in fact it has never before been so sweet for me. I suppose that is because I have not been in love as I am now.

“Love and sex are very different things,” I mused, “each is possible without the other, and yet . . . neither one is half so grand as both together.”

Anna rolled closer and wrapped a slender arm about my shoulder. “You must leave Rome on Wednesday? There is no forestalling it?”

“I have considered a thousand ploys to prevent our departure. Save throwing myself in front of an omnibus and landing in the hospital, I doubt that I should succeed. My aunt has made promises that to her are sacred, and so we have reservations to sail for New York in three weeks’ time.”

I kissed Anna on her eyes, her nose, ears, neck, shoulderblades, nipples. I buried my face in her soft brown hair and breathed its sweet odor. She stroked my back and my naked buttocks; engorged, I lay back and pulled my sweet friend atop me. Anna sucked at my nipples until I could bear no more. I pulled her higher, till her pelvic mount met mine, and I rocked her as Kat had taught me, deep strokes, engaging my diminutive penis as well as my clitoris to give Anna pleasure.

Her orgasm came again an instant before mine, and then she began to cry. Crying is contagious; I was soon weeping too. Anna and I regarded each other through a film of tears, overcome by the thought of giving up such pleasure so soon after we had found it, oppressed by the thought that an entire ocean would separate us.

From not so far away, a bell began to chime. We held our breaths and counted the strokes. Five of them. “O, my darling, I must go. They will have been expecting me for tea for at least half an hour already” said Anna. She jumped from the bed and thrust her coltish limbs back into her chemise and knickers. I assisted her to dress, and she me; all the while we could not take our eyes off each other.

“What shall I say happened to my hair,” said Anna with a rueful glance at the mirror. “Watch,” I said, “I can roll it like this (here I executed an artful twist), secure it with your hatpin, and voila, once again the proper schoolgirl!

“If I am disowned, I shall essay a career as a hairdresser,” I added. “And now, let us fly.” And so we did, past the hotel clerk who accepted my envelope without making eye contact, back through the ice cream parlor as though we had just availed ourselves of its powder room, and soon Francesco (of the purple boutonniere) had handed first Anna and then with a wink, me into separate cabs.

April 17. My last day with Anna has been spent as innocently as yesterday was not. Aunt Enid and I were the guests of the Morabbis at luncheon — though I was given to believe that this was at Anna’s express request, we were permitted only a few moments alone in a corner of the garden. Just long enough for me to give to Anna the ring of white gold chased with lilies that I had purchased that morning.

She regarded it as though she had never seen a finer ornament. “We are not allowed jewelry within the convent, so I shall secure it on a chain about my neck, underneath my blouse. O, Evi,” Anna exclaimed with delight, “it is inscribed. Je reviens — what does that mean? You know my French is terrible!”

“It means,” I said, clasping Anna’s hands in mine and giving her a tender kiss, “it means ‘I will return,’ and indeed some day I shall.”

“I too have something for you,” said Anna, reaching into her purse to find a packet. “It is not half so nice, I fear, but perhaps this will bring back a memory of the garden — yesterday’s garden, outside our window. Go ahead, open it!”

I did as I was bidden, to find a tiny crystal atomizer filled with scent — a perfume unmistakeably of roses. “Thank you, dear Anna. I shall make this and the memory last until I see you again.”

Young Massimo’s sudden arrival brought our idyll to an all too sudden end. “Miss Evelyn, come! I have been looking all over for you. You and Anna are wanted for croquet. I want you to play on my side.”

The rest of the afternoon passed far too quickly. Massimo, again today in boy’s attire — a velvet suit and lace collar that bespoke his Mother’s fond wish that he not grow up too soon — is a terror at croquet. We won handily, just in time for tea.

My aunt and I then took our leave, a departure replete with protestations of eternal friendship and vows to meet again — mere sociability, perhaps, for our elders, but for me and for Anna a sacred promise.

April 18. My Anna is shut up again in the convent. Though he supposedly blazes the world’s way to a future when we shall all be free of ‘neuroses,’ I cannot regard my dear one’s father as anything more than a medieval despot.

I should have spent the day brooding, were it not for my appointment with Signorina Montessori. I arrived at the Casa dei Bambini a few minutes early. She came to greet me as soon as she learned of my arrival, with a broad smile that set me at ease. “Your paper is wonderful,” she said. I have looked forward to our interview from the moment I read it on Saturday.”

“You should not praise it so much, Signorina” I murmured. “I think the better part of it is just common sense.”

“Exactly!” she replied. “Which is exactly what is lacking in traditional education. Your name is Evelyn? What do your friends call you? Please do not be formal. I am Maria, and you?

“Evi, thank you. . . Maria. May I ask you,” I said, about ‘Montessori children’? Are they as apt to think of sex as binary? Do they instinctively enforce the division of the human race into male and female, boy and girl?”

I hoped, Diary, that Maria would shake her head, laugh and tell me “of course not!” But she did not. Peering intently at me instead through thick glasses in their tortoise frames, she replied “we have only begun our revolution. My bambini learn well, quickly, and they learn especially to help, to consider each other. They cannot escape the world outside, however. I have the children for eight hours, five or six days a week. Their families have them for the rest of the time, and so, ‘Montessori children’ or not, they absorb the attitudes, the prejudices of the world before they are old enough to reflect on them.

“From nine to eleven years, yes, before their puberty begins, the children are already desperate to stake out and secure their claim to maleness or femaleness. Many, alas, get trampled in the process — just as you have written.”

She said those things, Diary, and I was suddenly certain of her understanding.

“Maria,” I replied, I shall confide in you as I have in only a handful of other friends, not including Doctor Rank, our mutual acquaintance. Not all of the examples I cite were found in the university library. I have lived some of them, and some are the stories of my friends. I was raised as a boy until my 13th year, a rough and tumble, outdoors sort of farm boy, not one of your velvet or satin-suited laddies. I hardly imagined any other future until maidenhood was forced upon me by the treason of my body. I suppose I might say that I was compelled by circumstances, and yet, Maria, it did not seem such an awful thing once I got over my fear of being ‘found out.’”

“And could you then, now, imagine yourself equally a man?” she said.

An image flashed into my mind of dear Anna on my arm, me in frock coat and trousers, taking the air in Druid Park . . . . “Ah, yes, I could,” I said with a smile, “but I imagine too that I should be a ludicrous one. At eighteen, my body is no longer so plastic.”

“I believe,” Maria offered, “that you understand exactly a fundamental objective of my scheme of education. We must raise boys who are not afraid to have feelings, and girls who do not hesitate to assert themselves.

“What will you do now? I would like you to stay here to work with me.”

“I am deeply conscious of your consideration . . . ,” I started. “Oh, that’s too formal! Maria, I would love to do that, but I have obligations back home . . . (here I thought again of Tottie’s Girls and faithful Balthasar) and I am to enter university in September, to study medicine.”

“Ah, good! You will be a brilliant success, and in 1915 or 1916, when you are graduated, you will come back to Rome to work with me — make to me a promise!”

I wonder, Diary. 1915 seems such a long way off; it’s as long a period as I have already been a girl, four years. “I shall try,” I said, silently adding “if Anna is here too.”

END OF PART V

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

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

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

In Part IV, having survived a night in jail, been graduated from Bryn Mawr School and lost her virginity, Evi embarks on ‘the Grand Tour’ with Aunt Enid. In Europe, she hopes she will find greater tolerance and understanding of ‘different’ people — in the event, she finds more differences, a touch more tolerance, but no more understanding. Part V opens as Evelyn, still hopeful of finding a manufacturer for the feminizing drug, Gynol, and her Aunt Enid are arriving in Vienna, the glittering, decadent capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire.