Part 7

"And indeed the zest of these things, their reason for being mine, seemed dead.... asphyxiated! For, they had grown to be so much a part of what had been the very tissue of intimacy, of life, with _him_! I fled them all. Never now did my foot cross the threshold of a picture-gallery, never did I look twice at the placard of a theater, never would I enter a concert-room or an opera-house, never did I care to read a romance, a poem, or to speak with any living creature of aesthetics that had once so appealed to me! Above all did my aversion to music (for so many years a peculiar interest for me)--become now a dull hatred,..... a detestation, a contempt, a horror!... super-neurotic, quintessently sexual, perniciously homosexual art--mystery--that music is! For me, no more symphonies, no more sonatas, no more songs!... No more exultations, elegies, questions to Fate of any orchestra!... Nevermore!"

"And yet, involuntarily, sub-consciously, I was always hoping... seeking--_something._ Hoping..., seeking.... what? Another such man as I? Sometimes I cried out as to _that,_ 'God forbid it!' For I dreaded such a chance now; realizing the more what it would most likely _not_ offer me. And really unless a miracle of miracles were to be wrought just for me, unless I should light upon another human creature who in sympathies, idealisms, noble impulses, manliness and a virile life could fill, and could wish to fill, the desolate solitudes of mine, could confirm all that was deepest fixed in my soul as the concept of true similisexual masculinity.... oh, far better meet none! For such a miracle of miracles I should not hope. Even traversing all the devious ways of life may not bring us face to face with such a friend. Yet I was hoping--seeking--I say: even if there was no vigour of expectancy, but rather in my mind the melancholy lines of the poet:

"And are there found two souls, that each the other Wholly shall understand? Long must man search In that deep riddle--seek that Other soul Until he dies! Seeking, despairing--dies!"

"Or, how easy to meet such a man, he also 'seeking, despairing' and not to recognize him, any more than he recognizes us! The Mask--the eternal social Mask for the homosexual!--worn before our nearest and dearest, or we are ruined and cast out! I resolved to be content with tranquility... pleasant friendships. Something like a kindly apathy, often possessed me."

"And nevertheless, the Type that still so stirred my nature? The man that is.... inevitably.. to be _loved,_ not merely liked; to be feared while yet sought; the friend from whom I can expect nothing, from whom never again will I expect anything, more than calm regard, his sympathy, his mere leave for my calling him '_barátom_'--my brother-friend? He, by whom I should at least be respected as an upright fellow-creature from the workshop of God, not from the hand of the Devil; be taken into companionship because of what in me is worthily companionable? The fellow-man who will accept what of good in me is like the rest of men, nor draw away from me, as from a leper? Have I really ceased to dream of this grace for me, this vision--as years have passed?"

"Never, alas! I have been haunted by it; however suppressed in my heart. And something like its embodiment has crossed my way, really nearly granted me again; more than once. There was a young English officer, with whom I was thrown for many weeks, in a remote Northern city. We became friends; and the confidence between us was so great that I trusted him with the knowledge of what I am. And therewith had I in turn, a confession from him of a like misfortune, the story of his passion for a brother-officer in a foreign service, that made him one of the most wretched men on the face of the world--while everyone in his circle of home-intimates and regimental friends fancied that he had not a trouble in life! There was, too, one summer in Bosnia, a meeting with a young Austrian architect; a fellow of noble beauty and of high, rich nature. There was a Polish friend, a physician--now far off in Galizien. There was an Italian painter in Rome. But such incidents were not full in the key. Hence, they moved me only so far and no farther. Other passings and meetings came. Warm friendship often grew out of them; tranquil, lasting, sustaining friendship!--that soul-bond not over-common with _us,_ but, when really welded, so beautiful, so true, so enduring!..."

"But one thing I had sworn, Imre; and I have kept my word! That so surely as ever again I may find myself even half-way drawn to a man by the inner passion of an Uranian love--not by the mere friendship of a colder psychic complexion--if that man really shows me that he cares for me with respect, with intimate affection, with trust... then he shall know absolutely what manner of man I am! He shall be shown frankly with what deeper than common regard he has become a part of my soul and life! He shall be put to a test!... with no shrinkings on my part. Better break apart early, than later... if he say that we break! Never again, if unquiet with such a passion, would I attempt to wear to the end the mask, to fight out the lie, the struggle! I must be taken as I am, pardoned for what I am; or neither pardoned nor taken. I have learned my lesson once and well. But the need of my maintaining such painful honesty has come seldom. I have been growing in to expecting no more of life, no realizing whatever of the Type that had been my undoing, that must mean always my peace or my deepest unrest... till I met you, Imre! Till I met you!"

"Met you! Yes, and a strange matter in my immediately passionate interest in you... another one of the coincidences in our interest for each other... is the racial blood that runs in your veins. You are a Magyar. You have not now to be told of the unexplainable, the mysterious affinity between myself and your race and nation; of my sensitiveness, ever since I was a child, to the chord which Magyarország and the Magyar sound in my heart. Years have only added to it, till thy land, thy people, Imre, are they not almost my land, my people? Now I have met thee. Thou wert _to be;_ somewhat, at least, to be for me! That thou wast ordained to come into the world that I should love thee, no matter what thy race... that I believe! But, see! Fate also has willed that thou shouldst be Magyar, one of the Children of Emesa, one of the Folk of Árpád!"

"I cannot tell thee, Imre,... oh, I have no need now to try!.... what _thou_ hast become for me. My Search ended when thou and I met. Never has my dream given me what is this reality of thyself. I love this world now only because thou art in it. I respect thee wholly--I respect myself--certain, too, of that coming time, however far away now, when no man shall ever meet any intelligent civilization's disrespect simply _because_ he is similisexual, Uranian! But--oh, Imre, Imre!--I _love_ thee, as can love only the Uranian... once more helpless, and therewith hopeless!--but this time no longer silent, before the Friendship which is Love, the Love which is Friendship."

"Speak my sentence. I make no plea. I have kept my pledge to confess myself tonight. But I would have fulfilled it only a little later, were I not going away from thee tomorrow. I ask nothing, except what I asked long ago of that other, of whom I have told thee! Endure my memory, as thy friend! Friend? That at least! For, I would say farewell, believing that I shall still have the right to call thee 'friend'--even--O God!--when I remember tonight. But whether that right is to be mine, or not, is for thee to say. Tell me!"

I stopped.

Full darkness was now about us. Stillness had so deepened that the ceasing of my own low voice made it the more suspenseful. The sweep of the night-wind rose among the acacias. The birds of shadow flitted about us. The gloom seemed to have entered my soul--as Death into Life. Would Imre ever speak?

His voice came at last. Never had I heard it so moved, so melancholy. A profound tenderness was in every syllable.

"If I could... my God! if I only could!.. say to thee what I cannot. Perhaps... some time.... Forgive me, but thou breakest my heart!.... Not because I care less for thee as my friend.... no, above all else, not that reason! We stay together, Oswald!... We shall always be what we have become to each other! Oh, _we_ cannot change, not through all our lives! Not in death, not in anything! Oh, Oswald! that thou couldst think, for an instant, that I--I--would dream of turning away from thee... suffer a break for us two... because thou art made in thy nature as God makes mankind--as each and all, or not as each and all! We are what we are!... This terrible life of ours... this existence that men insist on believing is almost _all_ to be understood nowadays--probed through and through--decided!... but that ever was and will be just mystery, _all_!...... Friendship between us? Oh, whether we are near or far! Forever! Forever, Oswald!... Here, take my hand! As long as I live... and beyond _then_! Yes, by God above us, by God in us!... Only, only, for the sake of the bond between us from this night, promise me that thou wilt never speak again of what thou hast told me of thyself--never, unless I break the silence. Nevermore a word of--of thy--thy--feeling for me. There are other things for us to talk of, my dear brother? Thou wilt promise?"

With his hand in mine, my heart so lightened that I was as a new creature, forgetting even the separation before me, I promised. Gladly, too. For, instead of loss, with this parting, what gain was mine! Imre knew me now as myself!--he really knew me: and yet was now rather the more my friend than less, so I could believe, after this tale of mine had been told him! His sympathy--his respect--his confidence--his affection--his continued and deeper share in my strange and lonely life--even if lands and seas should divide us two--ah, in those instants of my reaction and relief, it seemed to me that I had everything that my heart had ever sought of him, or would seek! I made the promise too, gladly with all my soul. Why should he or I ever speak of any stranger emotions again?

Abruptly, after another long pressure of my hand, my friend started up.

"Oswald we must go home!" he exclaimed. "It's nearly nine o'clock, surely. I have a regimental report to look at before ten... this affair of mine tomorrow."

Nearly the whole of our return-ride we were silent. The tram was full as before with noisy pleasure-trippers. Even after quitting the vehicle, neither of us said more than a few sentences... the beauty of the night, the charm of the old Z... park, and so on. But again Imre kept his arm in mine, all the way we walked. It was, I knew, not accident. It was the slight sign of earnest thoughts, that he did not care to utter in so many words.

We came toward my hotel.

"I shall not say farewell tonight, Oswald," said Imre, "you know how I hate farewells at any time... hate them as much as you. There is more than enough of such a business. Much better to be sensible.. to add as few as one can to the list.... I will look in on you tomorrow... about ten o'clock. I don't start till past midday."

I assented. I was no longer disturbed by any mortal concerns, not even by the sense of the coming sundering. Distrust--loneliness--the one was past, even if the other were to come!

The hotel-portier handed me a telegram, as we halted in the light of the doorway.

"Wait till I read this," I said.

The dispatch ran: "Situation changed. Your coming unnecessary. Await my letter. Am starting for Scotland."

I gave an exclamation of pleasure, and translated the words to Imre.

"What! Then you need not leave Szent-Istvánhely?" he asked quickly, in the tone of heartiest pleasure that a friend could wish to hear. "_Teremtette!_ I am as happy as you!.... What a good thing, too, that we were so sensible as not to allow ourselves to make a dumpish, dismal afternoon of it, over there at the Z.... You see, I am right, my dear fellow.. I am always right!... Philosophy, divine philosophy! Nothing like it! It makes all the world go round."......

With which Imre touched his _csákó_, laughed his jolliest laugh, and hurried away to the Commando of the regiment.

I went upstairs, not aware of there being stairs to climb... unless they might be steps to the stars. In fact the stars, it seemed to me, could not only shine their clearest in Szent-Istvánhely; but, after all, could take clement as well as unfriendly courses, in mortal destiny.

III.

FACES--HEARTS--SOULS.

"Think'st thou that I could bear to part With thee?--and learn to halve my heart?"

"No more reproach, no more despair!"

BYRON

".... Et deduxit eos in portum voluntatis sorum".

_Psalm._ CVI, 30.

Next morning, before I was dressed, came this note:

"I have just received word that I must take my company out to the camp at once. Please excuse my not coming. It does not make so much difference, now that you are to stay. Will write you from the Camp. Only a few days absence. I shall think of you.

Imre.

P. S. Please write me."

I was amused, as well as pleased, at this characteristic missive.

My day passed rather busily. I had not time to send even a card to Imre; I had no reason to do so. To my surprise, the omission was noticed. For, on the following morning I was in receipt of a lively military _Ansichtskarte_ with a few words scratched on it; and at evening came the ensuing communication; which, by the by, was neither begun with the "address of courtesy", as the "Complete Letter-Book" calls it, nor ended with the "salute of ceremony", recommended by the same useful volume; they being both of them details which Imre had particularly told me he omitted with his intimate "friends who were not prigs." He wrote:

"Well, how goes it with you? With me it is dull and fatiguing enough out here. You know how I hate all this business, even if you and Karvaly insist on my trying to like it. I have a great deal to say to you this evening that I really cannot write. Today was hot and it rained hard. Dear Oswald, you do not know how I value your friendship. Yesterday I saw the very largest frog that ever was created. He looked the very image of our big vis-a-vis in the Casino, Hofkapellan Számbor. Why in God's name do you not write? The whole city is full of _tiz-filléres_ picture-postcards! Buy one, charge it to my account, write me on it.--

Imre.

P. S. I think of you often, Oswald."

This communication, like its predecessor, was written in a tenth-century kind of hand, with a blunt lead-pencil! I sent its authour a few lines, of quite as laconical a tone as he had given me to understand he so much preferred.

The next day, yet another communication from the P... Camp! Three billets in as many days, from a person who "hated to write letters," and "never wrote them when he could get out of it!" Clearly, Imre in camp was not Imre in Szent-Istvánhely!

"Thank you, dear Oswald, for your note. Do not think too much of that old nonsense (_azon régi bolondság_) about not writing letters. _It depends._ I send my this in a spare moment. But I have nothing whatever to say. Weather here warm and rainy. Oswald, you are a great deal in my thoughts. I hope I am often in yours. I shall not return tomorrow, but I intend to be with you on Sunday. Life is wearisome. But so long as one has a friend, one can get on with much that is part of the burden; or possibly with _all_ of it.--Yours ever--

Imre"

I have neglected to mention that the second person of intimate Magyar address, the "thou" and "thee", was used in these epistles of Imre, in my answers, with the same instinctiveness that had brought it to our lips on that evening in the Z... park. I shall not try to translate it systematically, however; any more than I shall note with system its disused English equivalents in the dialogue that occurs in the remainder of this record. More than once before the evening named, Imre and I had exchanged this familiarity, half in fun. But now it had come to stay. Thenceforth we adhered to it; a kind of serious symbolism as well as intimate sweetness in it.

I looked at that note with attention: first, because it was so opposed in tenor to the Imre von N... "model". Second, because there appeared to have been a stroke under the commonplace words "Yours ever". That stroke had been smirched out, or erased. Was it like Imre to be sentimental, for an instant, in a letter?--even in the most ordinary accent? Well, if he had given way to it, to try to conceal such a sign of the failing, particularly without re-writing the letter... why, that was characteristic enough! In sending him a newspaper-clipping, along with a word or so, I referred to the unnecessary briskness of our correspondence. ".... Pray do not trouble yourself, my dear N..., to change your habits on my account. Do not write, now or ever, only because a word from you is a pleasure to me. Besides I am not yet on my homeward-journey. Save your postal artillery."

To the foregoing from me, Imre's response was this:

"It is three o'clock in the morning, and everybody in this camp must be sound asleep, except your most humble servant. You know that I sometimes do not sleep well, Lord knows why. So I sit here, and scrawl this to thee, dear Oswald... All the more willingly because I am _awfully_ out of sorts with myself..... I have nothing special to write thee; and nevertheless how much I would _now_ be glad to _say_ to thee, were we together. See, dearest friend... thou hast walked from that other world of thine into my life, and I have taken my place in thine, because for thee and for me there shall be, I believe, a happiness henceforth that not otherwise could come to us. I have known what it is to suffer, just because there has been no man to whom I could speak or write as to thee. Dear friend, we are much to one another, and we shall be more and more... No, would not write if it were not a pleasure to me to do it. I promise thee so. We had a great regimental athletic contest this afternoon, and I took two prizes. I will try to sleep now, for I must be on my feet very early. Good night, or rather good-morning, and remember...

Thine own Imre."

This letter gave me many reflections. There was no need for its closing injunction. To tell the truth, Imre von N... was beginning to bewilder me!--this Imre of the P... Camp and of the mail-bag, so unlike the Imre of our daily conversations and moods when vis-à-vis. There was certainly a curious, a growing psychic difference. The naïveté, the sincerity of the speaking and of the acting Imre was written into his lines spontaneously enough. But there was that odd new touch of an equally spontaneous something, a suppressed emotion--that I could not define. My own letters to Imre certainly did not ring to the like key. On the contrary (I may as well mention that it was not of mere accident, but in view of a resolution carefully considered, and held-to) the few lines which I sent him during those days were wholly lacking in any such personal utterances as his. If Imre chose to be inconsistent, I would be steadfast.

All such cogitations as to Imre's letters were however soon unnecessary, inasmuch as on the tenth day of his Camp-service, he wrote:

"Expect me tomorrow. I am well. I have much to tell thee. After all, a camp is not a bad place for reflections. It is a tiresome, rainy day here. I took the second prize for shooting at long range today.

Imre."

Now, I did not suppose that Imre's pent-up communicativeness was likely to burst out on the topic of the Hungarian local weather, much less with reference to his feats with a rifle, or in lifting heavy weights. I certainly could not fancy just what meditations promoted that remark about the Camp! So far as I knew anything, of such localities, camps were not favourable to much consecutive thinking except about the day's work.

I did not expect him till the afternoon should close. I was busy with my English letters. It was a warm August noon, and even when coat and waistcoat had been thrown aside, I was oppressed. My high-ceiled, spacious room was certainly amongst the cooler corners of Szent-Istvánhely; but the typical ardour of any Central-Hungary midsummer is almost Italian. Outside, in the hotel-court, the fountain trickled sleepily. Even the river steamers seemed too torpid to signal loudly. But suddenly there came a most wide-awake sort of knock; and Imre, with an exclamation of delight--Imre, erect, bronzed, flushed, with eyes flashing--with that smile of his which was almost as flashing as his eyes--Imre, more beautiful than ever, came to me, with both hands outstretched.

"At last.... and really!" I exclaimed as he hurried over the wide room, fairly beaming, as with contentment at being once more out of camp-routine. "And back five hours ahead of time!"

"Five hours ahead of time indeed!" he echoed, laughing. "Thou art glad? I know I am!"

"Dear Imre, I am immeasurably happy", I replied.

He leaned forward, and lightly kissed my cheek.

What!--he Imre von N--, who so had questioned the warm-hearted greetings of his friend--Captain M--! An odd lapse indeed!

"I am in a state of regular shipwreck," he exclaimed; standing up particularly straight again, after a demonstration that so confounded me as to leave me wordless!--"I have had no breakfast, no luncheon, nothing to eat since five o'clock. I am tired as a dog, and hungry--_oh, mint egy vén Kárpáti medve!"_ [Literally, "as an old Carpathian bear".] "I stopped to have a bath at the Officers' Baths.. you should see the dust between here and the Camp... and to change, and write a note to my father. So, if you don't mind, the sooner I have something to eat and perhaps a nap, why the better. I am done up!"

In a few moments we were at table. Imre manifestly was not too fagged to talk and laugh a great deal; with a truly Homeric exhibition of his appetite. The budget of experiences at the Camp was immediately drawn upon, with much vivacity. But as luncheon ended, my guest admitted that the fatigues of the hot morning-march with his troop, from P.... (during which several sunstrokes had occurred, those too-ordinary incidents of Hungarian army-movements in summer) were reacting on him. So I went to the Bank, as usual, for letters; transacted some other business on the way; and left Imre to himself. When I returned to my room an hour or so later, he was stretched out, sound asleep, on the long green sofa. His sword and his close-fitting fatigue-blouse were thrown on a chair. The collarless, unstarched shirt (that is so much an improvement on our civilian garment) was unbuttoned at the throat; the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, in unconscious emphasizing of the deepened sun-tan of his fine skin. The long brown eye-lashes lying motionless, against his cheek, his physical abandonment, his deep, regular, soundless breathing... all betokened how the day had spent itself on his young strength. Once left alone, he had fallen asleep where he had sat down.