could not draw a pot-hook straight, and he took uncertain because
untaught interest in painting. Sculpture, and architecture appealed
more to him, though also in an untaught way. But he was a most
excellent practical musician; playing the piano-forte superbly well,
as to general effect, with an amazingly bad technic of his own
evolution, got together without any teaching; and not reading well
and rapidly at sight. Indeed, his musical enthusiasm, his musical
insight and memory, they were all of a piece; the rich and perilous
endowment of the born son of Orpheus. His singing-voice was a full
baritone.... smooth and sweet, like his irresistible speaking-voice. He
would play or sing for hours together, quite alone in his rooms, of an
evening. He would go without his dinner (he often did) to pay for his
concert-ticket or standing-place in the Royal Opera. He did not care
for the society of professional musicians, or of the theaterfolk in
general. "They really are not worth while," he used to say... "art is
one thing to me and artists another--or nothing at all--off the
stage." As for more general society, why, he said frankly that
nowadays the N.... family simply were too poor to go into it, and
that he had no time for it. So he was to be met in only a few of the
Szent-Istvánhely drawing rooms. Yet he was passionately fond of
dancing.... anything from a waltz to a _csárdás_. But, à-propos of
Imre's amusement, let me note here (for I dare say, the incredulity
of persons who have stock-ideas of what belongs to soldier-life and
soldier-nature) that three usual pleasures were not his; for he
abominated cards, indeed never played them; he did not smoke; and he
seldom drank out his glass of wine or beer, having no taste for
liquors of any sort. This in a champion athlete and an "all-round"
active soldier... at least externally thoroughly such... in a smart
regiment, is not common. I should have mentioned above that he was
oddly indifferent to the theater, as the theater; declaring that he
never could find "any great illusion" in it. He much liked billiards,
and was invincible in them. His feeling for whatever was natural,
simple, out-of-doors was great. He loved to walk, to walk alone, in
the open country, in the woodlands and fields... to talk with peasants,
who invariably "took to" him at once. He loved children, and was a
born animal-friend; in fact, between him and beasts little and big,
there appeared to be a regular understanding. Never forthputting,
he could delight, in a quiet way in the liveliest company. That
buoyancy of his temperament, so in contrast with the other elements
of his nature, was a vast blessing to him. He certainly had a supply
of personal subjects sufficiently sobering for home-consumption, some
of which I soon knew; others not spoken till later. The gloom in his
parents' house, the various might-have-beens in his own young life,
the wearisome struggle to do his duty in a professional career whereto
he had been called without its being chosen by him; weightier still
the fact that he was in the hands of a couple of usurers on account
of his generous share of the deficit in a foolish brother officer's
finances, to the extent of some thousands of florins.... these were not
trifles for Imre's private meditations. I could quite well understand
his remarking... "I have tried to cultivate cheerfulness on just about
the same principle that when a man hasn't a _korona_ in his pocket he
does well to dress himself in his best clothes and swagger in the
Officers' Casino as if he were a millionaire. For the time, he forgets
that he isn't one... poor devil!"
But I am belated, I see, in alluding to two traits in our acquaintance,
_ab initio,_ which are of significance in my outline of Imre's
personality while new to me: and more than trifles in their weight.
There were two subjects as to which remarkably little was said between
us during the first ten days of my going-about so much with him.
"Remarkably little" I say, because of Imre's own frank references to
one matter, on our first meeting; and because we were both men, and
neither of us octogenarians, nor troubled with super-sensitiveness in
talking about all sorts of things. The first of these overpassed
topics was the friendship between Imre and the absent Karvaly Miklos.
Since the afternoon on which we had met, Imre referred so little
to Karvaly.... he seemed so indifferent to his absence, all at
once... indeed he appeared to be shunning the topic... that I avoided
it completely. It gradually was borne in upon me that he wished me
to avoid it. So no more expansiveness on the perfections and gifts
of the exile! Of Karvaly's young bride, on the other hand, the
fascinating Bohemian lady who sang Brahms' songs so beautifully, Imre
was still distinctly eloquent; alluding often to one or another of
her shining attributes... paragon that she may have been! I write
'may have been'; because to this day I know her, like Shakespeare's
Olivia,--"only by her good report".
The other matter of our reticence was an instance of the difference
between the general and the particular. Very early in my meeting with
Imre's more immediate circle of soldier-friends, I heard over and over
again that to Imre, as one of the officers most distinguished in all
the town for personal beauty, there attached a reputation of being an
ever-campaigning and ever-victorious Don Juan... if withal one of most
exceptional discretion. Right and left, he was referred to as a
wholesale enemy to the peace of heart and to the virtue of dozens of
the fair citizenesses of Szent-Istvánhely. Two of these romances, the
heroine of one of them being an extremely beautiful and refined
_déclassée_ whose sudden suicide had been the gossip of the clubs,
were heightened by the touch of the tragic. But along with them, and
the more ordinary chatter about a young man's _bonnes fortunes,_ or
what were taken to be them, there were surmises and assertions of
vague, aristocratic, deep, unconfessed ties and adventures. The
Germans use the terms "Weiberfreund" and "Weiberfeind" in rather
a special sense sometimes. Now, I knew that Imre von N... was no
woman-hater. He admired, and had a circle of admiring, women-friends
enough to dismiss at once such an ungallant accusation. Never was
there a sharper eye, not even in Magyarország, for an harmonious
female figure, a graceful carriage, a charming face.... he was a
_connaisseur de race!_
But when it came to his alluding, when we were by ourselves, to
anything like really intimate sentimental--I would best plainly say
amorous--relations with the other sex, Imre never opened his mouth
for a word of the least real significance! He referred to himself,
casually, now and then, and as it appeared to me in precisely the
right key, as one to whom woman was a sufficiently definite social
and physical attraction.... necessity... quite as essentially as is
to be expected with a young soldier of normal health and robust
constitution. When it suited his mixed society, he had as many
"discreet stories" as Poins. But when he and I were alone, no matter
whatever else he spoke of... so unreservedly, so temperamentally!--he
never did what is commonly called "talk women." He never so much
alluded to a light-o' love, to an "affair", to any distinctly sexual
interest in a ballerina or--a princess! And when third parties were
pleased to compliment him, or to question him, as to such a thing,
Imre "smiling put the question by." His special reserve concerning
these topics, so rare in men of his profession and age, was as
emphatic as in the instance of the average English gentleman. I
admired it, certainly not wishing it less. I often thought how well
it became Imre's general refinement of disposition, manners and
temperamental bias... most of all, suiting that surprising want of
vanity as to his person, his character, his entire individuality.
* * * * *
In this connection, came a bit of an incident that has its
significance... as things came to pass later in our acquaintance. One
evening, while I was dressing for dinner, with Imre making a random
visit, I lapsed into hearty irritation as to a marvellously ill-fitting
new garment, that was to be worn for the first time. Imre was pleased
to be facetious. "You ought to go into the tailoring-line yourself,"
he observed... "then you can adorn yourself as perfectly as you
would wish!" I threw out some sort of a return-banter that his own
carelessness as to his looks was "the pride that apes humility."
"One would really suppose," I remarked, "that you do not know why a
pretty woman makes eyes at you!... Are you under the impression that
you are admired on account of the Three Christian Graces and the Four
Theological Virtues?--all on sight! Come now, my dear fellow, you
really need not carry the pose so far!"
Imre opened his lips as if about to say something or other; and then
made no remark. Once more he gave me the idea that he was minded to
speak, but hesitated. So I suspended operations with my hairbrushes.
"You appear to be labouring with a remarkably difficult idea," said I.
He answered abruptly: "There are some things it is hard for a man to
judge of, even in another fellow... at least people say so. See here,
you! I wish... I wish you would tell me something.... you won't think me
a conceited ass? Do you... for instance... do you... find me _really_
specially good-looking... when you look around the lot of other men one
sees.... in comparison with _plenty_ of others, I mean?"
"Do you want an answer in chaff, or seriously?"
"Seriously."
"I most certainly think you 'specially' such, N...."
"And you are of the opinion that most people... women... men... sculptors,
for instance, or painters..: a photographer, if you like.... ought to be
of your opinion?"
"But yes, assuredly," I replied, laughing at what seemed the naiveté
and uncalled-for earnestness in his tone. "You do not need to put me
on oath, such a newcomer, too, into your society, to give you the
conviction. Or, stay... how would you like me to draft you a kind of
technical schedule, my dear fellow, stating how and why you are--not
repulsive? I could give it to you, if I thought it would be good for
you, and if you would listen to it. For you are one of those lucky
ones in the world whose good-looks can be demonstrated, categorically,
so to say--trait by trait--passport-style. Come, come, N--! Don't be
so depressed because you are so beautiful! Cheer up! Probably there
will always be somebody in the wide world who will not care to bestow
even an half-eye on you!... some being who remains, first and last,
totally unimpressed, brutally unmoved, by all your manly charms! I
dare say that if you consult that individual you will be assured that
you are the most ordinary-looking creature in creation."
As I spoke, Imre who had been sitting, three-quarters turned from me,
over at a window, whisked himself about quickly and gave me what I
thought was a most inexplicable look. "Have I offended him?" I asked
myself; ridiculous to me, even at so early a stage of our intimacy,
as was the notion. But I saw that his look was not one of surprised
irritation. It was not one of dissent. He continued looking at
me... ah, his serious eyes!... whatever else he was seeing in his
perturbed mind.
"Well," I continued, "isn't that probable? Have I made you angry by
hinting at such a stupidity.... such an aesthetic tragedy?"
"No, no," he returned hastily,--"of course not!" And then with a
laugh as curious as that look of his, for it was not his real, his
cheerful and heart-glad laugh, but one that rang false even to being
ill-humored, he added... "By God, you have spoken the truth! Yes, to
the dot on the _i_!"
I did not pursue the subject. I saw that it was one, whatever else
was part of it, that was better left for Imre himself to take up at
some other time; or not at all. Apparently, I had stumbled on one
little romance; possibly on a _grande passion_! In either case it
was a matter not dead, if moribund it might be. Imre could open
himself to me thereon, or not: I was not curious, nor a purveyor of
reading-matter to fashionable London journals.
* * * * *
Two matters more in this diagnosis... shall I call it so?... of my
friend. Let me rather say that it is a memorandum and guidebook of
Imre's emotional topography.
Something has been said of the spontaneous warmth of his
temperament, and of his enthusiasm for his closer friends. But his
undemonstrativeness also mentioned, seemed to me more and more
curiously accentuated. Imre might have been an Englishman, if it came
to outward signs of his innermost feelings. He neither embraced,
kissed, caressed nor what else his friends; and, as I had surmised,
when first being with him and them, he did not appear to like what in
his part of the world are ordinary degrees of "demonstrativeness". He
never invited nor returned (to speak as Brutus)--"the shows of love in
other men". There was a certain captain in the A.... Regiment, a
man that Imre much liked and, what is more, had more than once
admired in good set terms, when with me. ("He is as beautiful as
a statue, I think!") This brother-soldier being suddenly returned to
Szent-Istvánhely, after a couple of years of absence, hurried up to
Imre and fairly threw his arms about him. Imre was cordiality itself.
But after Captain R.... had left him, Imre made a wry face at me, and
said... "The best fellow in the world! and generally speaking, most
rational! But I do wish he had forgotten to kiss men! It is so
hideously womanish!" Another time we were talking of letters between
intimate friends. "I hate... I absolutely hate... to write letters, even
to my nearest friends", he protested, "in fact, I never write unless
there is no getting-out of it! Five words on a post-card, once a month
or so... two or three months, maybe... and lucky if they get that! How
do I write? Something like this... 'I am here and well. How are you.
We are very busy. I saw your cousin, Csodaszép Kisasszony yesterday.
No time to-day for more! Kindest regards. _Alá szolgája!_ N....'.
Now there you have my style to a dot. What more in the world is
really called-for? As for sentiment... sentiment! in letters to my
friends!... well, I simply cannot squeeze _that_ out, or in. Nobody need
expect it from your most obedient servant! My correspondence is like
telegrams."
"Thanks much," I returned, smiling, "your remarks are most timely,
considering that you and I have agreed to keep in touch with each
other by post, after I leave here. Forewarned is forearmed! Might I
ask, by the by, whether you are as laconic in writing, to--say, your
friend Karvaly, over there in China? And if he is satisfied?"
"Karvaly? Certainly. He happens to like precisely that sort of
communications particularly well. I never give him ten words where
five will do." To which statement I retorted that it was a vast
blessing that some persons were easily pleased, as well as so
likeminded; and that perhaps it would be quite as wise under such
conditions, not to write at all; except maybe on All-Souls Day!
"Perhaps," assented Imre.
So much, then, of your outward individuality and environment, with
somewhat of your inner self, my dear Imre!... chiefly as I looked upon
you and strove to sum you up during those first days. But was there
not one thing more, one most special point of personal interest?... of
peculiar solicitude?.. one supreme undercurrent of query and wondering
in my mind, as we were thus thrown together, and as I felt my thoughts
more and more busied with what was our mutual liking and instinctive
trust? Surely there was! I should find myself turning aside from the
path of straightest truth which I would hold-to in these pages, if I
did not find _that_ question written down early and frankly here, with
the rest. It _must_ be written, or be this record broken now and here!
Was Imre von N... what is called among psychiaters of our day, an
homosexual? an Urning?--in his instincts and feelings and life?--in
his psychic and physical attitude toward women and men? Was he an
Uranian? Or was he sexually entirely normal and Dionian? Or, a blend
of the two types, a Dionian-Uranian? Or what,... or what not? For that
something of a special sexual attitude, hidden, instinctive, was
maintained by him, no matter what might be the outward conduct of his
life--this I could not help believing, at least at times.
Uranian? Similisexual? Homosexual? Dionian?
Profound and often all too oppressive, even terrible, can be
the significance of those cold psychic-sexual terms to the man
who.... _"knows." To the man who "knows!"_ Even more terrible to those
who understand them not, may be the human natures of which they are
but new and clumsy technical symbols, the mere labels of psychiatric
study, within a few decades of medical explorers.
What, then, was my new friend?
* * * * *
I could not determine! The more I reflected, the less I perceived.
It is so easy to be deceived by just such a mingling of psychic and
physic and temperamental traits; easy to dismiss too readily the
counterbalancing qualities. I had learned that much. Long before now,
I had found it out as a practical psychiater, in my own interests and
necessities, by painful experience. Precisely how suggestive, and yet
how adverse... where quite vaguely?.. where with a fairly clear
accent?.. was inference in Imre's case to be drawn or thrown aside,
those who are intelligent in the subtle problems of Uranianism or its
absence, can appreciate best. I had been a good deal struck with the
passionate--as it seemed--note in Imre's friendship for the absentee,
Karvaly Mihály. I noticed the dominance that men, simply as men,
seemed to maintain in Imre's daily life and ideals. I studied his
reserved relations toward the other sex; the general scope of his
tastes, likes and dislikes, his emotional constitution. But all these
suffice not to prove... to _prove_... the deeply-buried mystery of a
heart's uranistic impulses, the mingling in the firm, manly nature
of another inborn sexual essence which can be mercifully dormant; or
can wax unquiet even to a whole life's unbroken anguish!...
And, after all, why should I... I... seek to drag out from him such a
secret of his individuality? Was that for me? Hardly, even if I,
probably, of all those who now stood near to Imre von N.... But there!
I had _no_ right! Even if I..... But there! I swore to myself that I
had _no_ wish!
It was Imre himself who gave me a sort of determinative, just
as--after the oaths at which love laughs--I was querying with myself
what I might do believe.
One evening, we were walking home, after an hour or so with his father
and mother. As we turned the corner of a certain brilliantly-lighted
café, a man of perhaps forty years, with the unmistakeable suggestion
of a soldier about him, and of much distinction of person along with
it, but in civilian's dress, came out and passed us. He looked at Imre
as if almost startled. Then he bowed. Imre returned his salutation
with so particular a coldness, an immediate change of expression, that
I noticed it.
"Who is he?" I asked. "Somehow I fancy he is not in your best books."
"No, I can't say that he is," responded Imre. After a moment of
silence he went on. "That gentleman used to be a captain in our
regiment. He was asked to leave the service. So he left it--about
three years ago."
"Why?"
"On account of..." here Imre's voice took on a most disagreeable
sneer.. "of a little love-affair."
"Really? Since when was a little love-affair a topic for the action
of a regimental Ehrenrath?"
"It happened to be his little love-affair with a.... cadet. You
understand?"
"Ah, yes, now I understand. A great scandal, I presume?"
"Scarcely any at all. In fact, nobody, to this day, knows how far
the... intimacy really went. But gradually some sort of a story got
about... as to the discovery of "relations"... perhaps really amounting
to only a trifling incident... But, the man's character was smirched.
The regiment's Council didn't go into details... didn't even ask for
the facts. He simply was requested privately to give up his charge.
You know, or perhaps you do not know, how specially sensitive... indeed
implacable.. the Service is on _that_ topic. Anything but a hint of
_it_! There mustn't be a suspicion, a breath! One is simply ruined!"
I stopped to pay our tolls for the long Suspension Bridge. As we
pursued our walk, Imre said:
"Do you have any such affairs in England?"
"Yes. Certainly."
"In military life?"
"In military and civil life. In every kind of life."
"Indeed. And.. how do _you_ understand that sort of thing?"
"What sort of thing?"
"A... a man's feeling _that_ way for another man? What's the
explanation?--the excuse for it?"
"Oh, I don't pretend to understand it. There are things we would
better not try to _understand_..."
Ah, had I only finished that the sentence as I certainly meant to do
in beginning it!... with some such words as "--so much as often to
pardon." But the sentence remained open; and I know that it sounded as
if it was meant to end with some such phrase as "... because they are
so beyond any understanding, beyond any excuse!"
Imre walked on beside me, whistling softly. Just two or three notes,
over and over, no tune. Then he remarked abruptly:
"Did you ever happen to meet with... that sort of a man... _person_...
yourself... in your own circle of friends?"
Again the small detail, this time one of commission, not omission, on
my part! Through it this narrative is, I suspect, twice as long as
otherwise it would have been. "Did I ever know such a man... a
'person'... in my own circle of friends?" Irony could no farther go! I
laughed, not in mirth, not in contempt, but in sheer bitterness of
retrospect. There are instants when it may be said of other men than
Cassius:
"And when he smiles, he smiles in such a sort
As if he mocked himself..."
Yes, I laughed. And unfortunately Imre von N... thought that I
sneered; that I sneered at my fellow-men!
"Yes," I replied, "I knew such a man, such a 'person.' On the whole,
pretty well. He had other rather acceptable qualities, you see; so I
didn't allow myself to be too much stirred up by... that remarkably
queer one."
"Lately?" Imre asked.
"Oh, yes, very lately," I returned flippantly.
Imre spoke no word for several steps. Then, hesitatingly...
"Perhaps you didn't know him quite as thoroughly as you supposed.
Were you quite sure?"
"Quite sure." Then, sharply in another sentence that was uttered on
impulse and with more of the equivocal in it which afterward I
understood, I added, "I think we will not talk any more about him: I
mean in that respect... Imre."
Again silence. One-two, one-two--on we went, step and step, over the
resonant, deserted bridge. I had an impression that Imre turned his
head, looking sharply at me in the fluttering gas-light... then
glancing quickly away. I had other thoughts, far, far removed from
him! I had well-nigh forgot when I was!--forgot him, forgot
Szent-Istvánhely........!
But now he laughed out, too, as if in angry derision.
"I say! I knew such a fellow, too.. two or three years ago. And I beg
to tell you that he fell in love with.. me! No less! He was absolutely
_bódult_ over your humble servant. Did you ever!"
"Really? What did you do? Slap his face, and give him the address of
a... doctor of nervous diseases?"
"Oh, Lord, no! I merely declined with thanks the.... honour of his
farther acquaintance. I told him never to speak me. He left town. I
had rather liked him. But I heard he had been compromised already. I
have no use for that particular brand of fool!"
Are there perverse demons, demons delighting to make mortal men
blunderers in simplest word and action... that haunt the breezy
Lánczhíd in Szent-Istvánhely? If so, some of us would better cross
that long bridge in haste and solitary silence after nightfall. For:
"You surprise me," I said lightly. I was thinking of one of his own
jests as well of his unbelief in his personal attractions. "How
inconsistent for _you_! Now _you_ are just the very individual I
should suspect!...... yes, yes, I _am_ surprised!"
To my astonishment, Imre stopped full in his steps, drew himself up,
and faced me with instant formality.
"Will you be so good as to tell me _why_ you are surprised?" asked he,
in a tone that was--I will not write sharp, but which suggested to me
immediately that I had spoken mal-à-propos or misleadingly; the more
so in view of what Imre had mentioned of his _ex professio_ and
personal sensitiveness to the general topic. "Do you observe anything
particularly womanish--abnormal--about me, if you please?"
Now, as it happened my remark, as I have said, was made in consequence
of an impersonal and amusing incident, which I had supposed Imre would
at once remember.
"Womanish? Abnormal? Certainly not. But you seem to forget what
you yourself said to Captain Molten this afternoon... in the
billiard-room... about the menage-cooks... don't you remember?"