Part 3

He detested politics, as might be divined. He "loved" his Apostolic King and his country much as do some children their nearest relatives; that is to say, on general principles, and to the sustaining of a correct attitude before himself and the world. On this matter, also he and I had many passages-at-arms. He had not much "religion." But he was a firm believer in God; in helping one's neighbour, even to most injudicious generosity; in avoiding debts "when one could possibly do so" (a reserve that I regretted to find out was not his case any more than it is usually the case with young Hungarian officers living in a capital city, with small home-subventions); in honour; in womanly virtue; in a true tongue and a clean one. His sense of fun was not limited to the kind that may pass between a rector of the Establishment and his daughters over afternoon-tea. But Lieutenant Imre von N.... had no relish for the stupid-smutty sallies and stock _racontars_ of the officers' mess and the barracks. Unless a "story" really possessed wit and humour, he had absolutely dull ears for it.

He wrote a shameful handwriting, with invariable hurry-scurry; he 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."