Like Heine, I have always been puzzled by the sex restraints and prohibitions in men and women, and annoyed by their prudery in confessing their practices and desires. As I have told elsewhere in this volume, I studied medicine in Vienna when I was only twenty-three and devoted especial attention to all sex questions; and some friends now request me to tell what I know of these matters, for they interest everyone.
I was in doubt whether or not to do this when I received an anonymous letter from a girl in America, who, plainly to me, is telling the story of her own experiences, and very sad they are. If the girl had had a little more knowledge, she might have escaped the worst of her suffering, and so I place what little knowledge I have gained at the disposal of men and women who may need and desire it. She begins:
This is the woman's side of your volume two (the writer not having seen volume one). Not that this is meant to be a sermon-nor that "the writer" doesn't believe in frankness and in truth; (on the contrary, "the writer" has suffered much because others objected to truth instead of dissimulation).
A young girl born in a Roman Catholic community, where the Blessed Virgin Mary is a great patron, where virginity is considered a priceless jewel.
The girl with a bright mind, anxious to learn, easily surpassing classmates, liking to "think"-beginning to think about Catholic dogmas, until that culminated long afterwards in leaving the Church. Born poor, the girl had enough to do to work in order to be able to study, to go to a "select" (it happened) preparatory school, business school, Roman Catholic College, then a larger, leading women's college. Never had an opportunity to meet boys as social equals. Consequently had an idealized version of mankind in her mind. A good-looking girl, not of the "pretty" type, she did attract men, and it was a new land of not-known possibilities to her. However, she never met "eligible" people, nor naturally was she very "eligible" to "worthwhile" people, having no background but herself, no money but what she earned, etc.
Full of energy, enthusiasm, zeal for service, etc., after college, (during the senior year, met an impecunious, brilliant young man, who loved her ardently, brilliantly, youthfully, and exploringly, with much interchange of brilliant correspondence, exploring ideas, etc.-he was an irresponsible intellectual hero — the girl wanted strength and daring in every way in a man-a break, and the boy died of the flu).
Another plunge into an unknown group: uneducated, very young girl-nurses thrown into a knowledge of sex and bestiality. Our girl read up on surgery, watched operations, etc., got to know the "wise and kindly" older housephysician, a good surgeon, kindly and sometimes untiring. And this older house-physician had your view of sex, Frank Harris; and every virgin was an attraction to him, and no harm was ever done a girl (in his estimation) unless she were made pregnant, and of course he never did that. He was a pleasant kindly man, and new minds, with to-her-new experiences always interested "our girl." He gave lectures on anatomy to the half-fledged nurses with no education, which gave him a delightful opportunity to instill veiledly and very sinuously the idea that the sex organs must be used or they atrophy. He knew so much of what a virgin did not know, that when he showed strong emotion at the girl's telling him she was leaving the next day or so, he did persuade her to let him "have" her, after he had soothed her conscience by asking her to marry him; she with her zeal for service, thought of getting him to be a missionary, or such, with her. So the next night they registered as Mr. and Mrs.- in a small New York hotel he knew.
It was an anatomical experiment to her with a dear friend. When he wanted her to play with his "sex", she loved and fondled his dear head instead. It was a new knowledge to her that when she stroked his nude back, his "sex" throbbed with each stroke as he asked her to hold it. And he-afterwards- having kissed her with seeming reverence, deeply, lovingly on the mouth as she lay there, in the morning, insisted on putting a ten dollar note in her dress, when she said, surprisedly, "Why, darling, why don't you get me some dear little remembrance if you must." He had explained to her as a friend that servant girls "pick up" ten dollars or so a night from a pick-up on the street, and it helps out their income! And the unsuspecting "kid" (and she was over twenty-one) never dreamed he was a very loose liver.
That ended it for the man, or any man-n'est-ce pas? Not so with any woman, or this woman. As you know, sex in woman is very close to deep friendship and tenderness, and not a passing thing. They wrote. His idea was to have her spend week-ends with him as often as possible. With the education she had had-just that, with no idea of further responsibility-a life in common, interchange of ideal, and so on, was very cheapening. When a friend at the hospital (the only one not of the "cheap" gang of loose-nurses) wrote her that the Doctor had said in a class the reason he had not married was that he could not be faithful to any one woman-the girl wrote a letter to end the thing. And the Doctor did not come back!
Just before that, the girl had her first experience in "loving up." "Loving up" was a term new to her used by the hospital nurses. The friend, abovementioned, had asked her to join her in a party, three men and three girls, to take a ride in a big limousine. One man had the car, the other two were brothers, one of the girls was an ex-patient of hers. She dressed up "our girl" in some attractive clothes of her sister's, and rouged her, and "our girl" seemed to be very stunning and captivated the heart of her ex-patient's brother. It was a new experience to her, to be made physical love to, with long-drawnout kisses and a very new thing to have a man put her hand on his "sex" and to find it a hard big thing! and to have him try to put his hand up her clothes!
And it frightened her then, and later when he tried to get her again.
The girl took a course in a religious university and met a young British Presbyterian Minister of Scotch-Irish descent, that year. Said young man seemed rather sophisticated to her, and she was distant to him, didn't quite like the daring look in his eye. They talked a lot however; afterwards when he seemed to know so much more about the course (a radical current events course) he was invited to tea one day to finish a long talk in which he tried to find out all he could about her. He asked her to a dinner and dance afterwards, which was new and strange to "our girl." Since it happened that there was a surprise party on at home (at the training school-a beautiful place architecturally to live in by the way) she could not go, and surreptitiously slipped out to tell him at the corner she could not. However, she asked him later to go with her to a Tammany Hall ball, as a sociological experiment. He was marvelously dressed up in a skirted coat, smart cane, etc.-very handsome and gay and full of pep. She had gone to a movie with him once, and after it, walked in the park with him where he lightly jumped over a bench and did other physical strength stunts to her surprise. They ran a race together, and when he outstripped her, he ran backwards, and then caught her swiftly and turned her around, and lifted her (a big girl) high up in the air and carried her! All much to her surprise, and thrilling, too; he being, of course, a good man of high ideals, being a practicing Minister as well as a student!
They danced at the ball, and he was very, very passionate, to her surprise.
During a wait on the balcony between dances, he said sophisticated little things, and then a glance of their eyes suddenly met, said "I love you" to each other- strangely disturbing to the girl! They went home soon after-he said,
"It's getting too warm."
Then they stopped at a Chinese restaurant to get her some Chinese candy; but domineeringly he went to a table and said to her, "Sit there; come over here beside me." They had food; he ate ravenously. He flirted, and she was new at flirting. She toyed with sugar and said nonentities. He looked all around the place to see he was unobserved (she wore a large hat) and kissed her on the cheek, and to her very susceptible self, it seemed very insufficient.
Then they left to go home. Just outside of the door, upstairs on the landing, he caught her and kissed her most thoroughly, and she felt his sex getting close, close to hers (and he a Minister!) and herself being hugged as only a strong man could hug. To her amazement, he did not say: "Will you marry me?"
When they reached the street (a Chinaman coming up had made them part at last) she said, "What made you do that?" He said, (to her disappointment) "Oh, I am very passionate." They took a last bus, sat on the top-the only ones-and he finally took her on his lap and tried (as you say) to put a naughty hand up her dress, and she seemed a willing victim, and so he stopped. And he said, "We must not see so much of each other since we fall so hard for each other."
Again-to a man that ended the matter. To a girl it seemed to mean the beginning of a deeper friendship. You don't seem to understand what that may leave in a girl's mind of sorrow and disappointment.
Suddenly another married man, a Jew, met her, offered to teach her how to write, made love to her, tried to make her his mistress, never did succeed in getting her to go away with him. The unsophisticated girl went with him to his office in the building of the… School. He told her later he had asked her only in order to make love to her.
Our girl was almost killed with mere loneliness. One day on going into town she wore her new suit (quite attention-attracting), missed the train and took the trolley, having only a ten dollar bill (her month's wages) in her pocket.
Her seat-partner paid her fare and started to talk to her about the loneliness of a traveling man, district manager, etc., etc., of a shooting stall in Canada, etc. Finally he asked her to have dinner with him that evening. The lonely girl did. He talked liberally, of trial marriage, etc. Our lonely girl was susceptible to comradeship but not to trial marriage. He asked her to get another girl for another man. She got a girl and the girl's own man-friend- one she rarely saw; the four went to a new thing-a night restaurant roof garden where she saw astonishing things-little girls (very young) displaying their sex from the rear suddenly. It disturbed her; she pitied them, having studied children and loved them; they were such young girls and so ignorant looking. However, her newfound friend was a hospitable, bigtalking passionate person. He rushed her along on the street, he tore along to her friend's apartment, the friend gave the key, and persuaded the girl to let his sex touch hers. That one performance may have given her gonorrhea! He asked to come out next day. He tried to get her to come to the hotel but she did not.
During the week some man-friend of his called her up saying the man had left her telephone number and address and had asked him to call her up. This humiliated the girl and she hung up the receiver, and was very, very miserable.
The following Saturday she went to the station to take a train into a college club meeting (she hadn't money enough to join the college club, but this was a group meeting). On the way before she reached the station, a beautiful car stopped and the beautifully gotten up uniformed chauffeur said respectfully:
"Can't I give you a lift?" Parched in life at the awful estate place, she who had never taken a "lift" accepted, sat beside the person and was amused at his respectful awed talking to her, calling her "ma'am" telling of his travels over the world in the car for his young and wealthy master. The master sounded interesting. He said how lonely it was to ride around without a companion. He seemed to be having to do that for some reason or other. It was hot summer time and the breeze in hiding was grateful to "our girl." He said he would be glad to put his own car at her service any time she wished. He asked her if she would go to a beautiful place she had heard of but never seen. She wasn't sure so he asked her please to call him up. The next day she did and couldn't get him. The "house" evidently answered and said he was a servant and in the stable. However in the p. m. at the end of the lane leading to the beautiful estate where our girl languished, was a tin-canny car and the chauffeur; and with a text book on botany under her arm, our girl got in.
It was a beautiful ride, a beautiful place; the chauffeur was respectful! There was no one else who wanted our girl's companionship. On the way back he stopped the car on a woody place, laid out a newspaper and asked her to sit down. He put his initials on a tree, a place he used to visit as a boy, he said. He did not put the date so the girl offered to put on the date. As she had her arms raised, he suddenly kissed her! To her it seemed to say that he was lonely, and that was a weak spot in her. Enlarging the thing from him and her to a world more or less of lonely human beings (and she had been suffering the pangs of solitariness in the midst of people) she felt sorry-felt pity. He carried her (as said, she was not a slight thing) across a foot-path, and (there is no beauty to be described) used her for his pleasure like an animal, used her regardless of her pain. She was down-and-out with lack of hope (and yet a strange undirect insatiable ambition to be something was always in her); she went "home" (to the old maid-the only home she had); he wrote her an illiterate note meant to be kindly.
She wrote to the psycho-analyst Dr. (man) and told him some symptoms; he wrote to her that she should be examined for he felt sure she had gonorrhea.
Alone in a strange city with no one in whom she could confide; she searched for a woman doctor, found none, finally went to the head of a social agency to whom one of the journalists had written much. She went not for charity but for advice. He was kind, got her a woman Doctor who finally had her go to a hospital where they regarded her as an outcast, had her eat on tin dishes in an off-porch, the nurses promiscuously spilled lysol on the floor here and there-the girl was wretched, miserable, alone; she wrote to the woman Doctor and the doctor took her away (the hospital said they would not have her) in the women's college hospital-after a night spent with a nurse, secured for forty dollars a week-(an ignorant, old inefficient Irish body R. C. who sang R. C. hymns) at a children's bureau house filled with bedbugs and with the girl paying food expenses. The nurse had nothing to do and did less, almost douched her with clear lysol by mistake instead of potassium permanganate- the only reason it didn't happen was because our girl saw it first!
The girl went through a great deal of spiritual discomfort, and mental distress with nobody doing the slightest to change conditions at all in the future.
Finally when able she hunted herself another job, and got one for another social agency as secretary to a female director; gave herself completely to the work, which was to help school-children; labored enthusiastically, industriously at less than she was worth "for the good of the cause" month by month paid off the accumulated debt, realized that much as she loved children and companionship evidently she was a fool in that line and marriage was not for her. She was in the hospital a month, undergoing treatment-infection was at the cervix, had not yet reached into the uterus-and the treatment was to prevent it doing so. She was pronounced cured but went to the doctor (the celebrated woman surgeon who took her over to the hospital: she was killed later in an auto accident) a youthful woman doctor successor (former helper) each month to make sure. After a year or more she took a course or two at a school of social work and there had one instructor who seemed very efficient, thorough, etc.
To make a long story short, they fell deeply, permanently, desperately, soulstirringly in love. And he was married to his first cousin (his mother's sister's daughter) both Jews, had two children, a girl and a boy; "Was no longer," (he said, swearing the truth) "married to the woman, lived daily, hourly in mind and soul with 'our girl'; planned to marry her!" They seemed to be perfectly mated in every way. He seemed to become younger-he was ten years older than she. However, like all men, this man seems to be a coward from the heel up. I omit all the heart-rending details, of his waving back and forth, of their not being sure that she was pregnant (the doctor said she could not become pregnant for a year) and upon a thorough examination (when later events showed that she had been three months pregnant) said she was not pregnant.
Eventually after much pain and sorrow at the defection of the adored one, the baby came.
Our girl had been in the valley of humiliation and death of spirit and even loving the man, decided she was not after "the past" worthy unless-so in all honesty, truthfulness and sincerity, she told him before even their "marriage" was consummated so that he could retreat if he wished to. Everything was talked over frankly and they reverenced and respected each other.
So therefore (he lied like a devil) he went back to his cousin and the girl paid all the bills of suffering, humiliation and anguish, always asking her to pity him, that he would never again be happy, that he loved only her, etc., etc., that be was poor (the girl did the economizing; he did the spending while talking of poverty), if he had money (he had a salary of $7,500 a year) it would all be different.
Meanwhile other men thinking our girl a widow are perfectly willing to offer themselves as lovers, provided it cost them nothing much in the way of responsibility, and they can get a "beautiful thrill" out of a most beautiful experience, and she has learned that men can be sudden and tempestuous and bold and brutal, and they can be sly and cunning and long-time-patient with that goal in view, and they can be devilishly unjust and mean and wicked when they don't get what they want-always talking nicely about "beauty" in such intimacy.
The head of the Children's Bureau, mentioned before, came to the front again, killed the man's love for his child, took him under his wing, to bring him back to his "holy family," told a lot of dirty, cowardly, fiendish, impossible lies about the girl (he said if the thing became known it would hurt social work in his city, so the man must be saved, regardless). And the man's megalomaniac wife had just had a miscarriage while the man does not pay for the support of his daughter by his beloved!
Our girl is supporting her child among many obstacles and hardships and can't run the risk of having a government put her in jail for writing to you.
Hence the anonymity.
You seem not to care much about children, or the next generation in your second volume, nor how you may be injuring a dear and beautiful girl-child in your quest for your own pleasure.
I liked your "Contemporary Portraits" and your "The Man Shakespeare" very much. And I liked a great deal of your "Life."
This letter appears to me to be an authentic human document, revealing curiously the average woman's point of view; it bears the imprint of reality on every page, partly because of its contempt of English usage in its ignorance of grammar; but it is quite exceptional in pain and suffering; not once does "the girl" describe, or even mention, the joys of sexual intercourse, and if she had few of the pleasures, she had assuredly more than a fair share of the suffering.
Finally, she gave herself out of love to a married man; she had a child by him, and was brutally abandoned-a sad, sad story.
I have enjoyed all the pleasures I could in life, while always seeking to do as much good as possible and as little harm to the girl or woman-partner. I believe that, with one exception, I have not done much harm to any one.
The reason why girls don't give themselves freely is the fear of getting a child: they are usually too ignorant or too trusting to feel the fear of getting some disease, though it is this fear which obsesses and scares the man; but the dread of becoming enceinte is even less founded: with a little care that catastrophe can be avoided. As a rule the man covers his sex with a French letter or else covers the neck of the woman's womb with a pessary; but both of these diminish the enjoyment and are not so sure as they might be, for the French letters sometimes burst, and the pessary falls off occasionally, and the result is that pregnancy may take place.
The method suggested in the Bible in the story of Onan is the one I think best: when Onan got excited, he withdrew his sex, and we are told that "he spilled his seed on the ground." I found out in Vienna that as a rule one needs only to do this after the first orgasm: in ordinary cases, there is little or no danger in the second or in following consecutive embraces. And usually this selfrestraint is worth practicing on the part of the man since it gives almost complete security to the girl.
But if the girl is caught and pregnancy results, to get rid of the foetus and bring on the monthly period is comparatively easy in the first two months, especially easy at the end of the first month: a dose of ergot usually suffices.
Indeed, I have known jumping down two or three stairs to bring about the desired result; but as a rule, the girl does not act energetically this first month, and the difficulty is enormously increased by leaving the matter for two months; but it is still easy to bring it about the second month, and without much danger of inflammation or consequent illness; the third, fourth, and fifth months are excessively dangerous, and abortion then should be carried out by a skilled hand, for as soon as the foetus adheres to the side of the womb, it is not easy to get rid of; even when a miscarriage is brought about, one must take care to remove all the filaments attached to the side of the womb with a silver spoon, of course perfectly disinfected; a skilled hand is needed in this case. In the sixth, seventh, eight, and ninth months, abortion is comparatively easy, but there is life in the child.
We had in Vienna a method of bringing about abortion, especially at the end of the first, or even the second month, which had no ill effects; we made a pointed pencil of certain ingredients which swell with the heat of the body; this pencil would be introduced slowly and carefully into the neck of the womb; as soon as it began to swell, the abortion was begun: nature then made its own effort and got rid of the intruding semen.
Of course, in all cases in which the girl seeks to bring about abortion she ought, if possible, to have the advice and skilled assistance of a good doctor; and in spite of the insane legal prohibitions, it is not difficult to find such help.
I am now going to complete this chapter by giving a personal experience which may have a certain interest as revealing the depths over which ordinary life is built.
When I first went to Berlin as a student, nearly fifty years ago, now, I went out looking for rooms not too far from the university and near the great avenue, Unter den Linden. I soon found two excellent rooms and a bathroom on the third floor, which were let by a nice looking woman of about forty or fortyfive.
"Who will attend to me?" I asked, for the price was rather high. "Either I myself or my daughter," said the woman, and going to the door she called,
"Katchen!" A pretty girl of sixteen or so came running and bowed to me smiling. "All right," I said, "I'll take the rooms and move in this afternoon." In a few hours I came in and the mother and daughter helped me to arrange everything and make myself comfortable.
The woman brought me my coffee in the morning at eight o'clock, got my bath ready and went away. I was perfectly content, and even better satisfied when, after a couple of mornings, Katchen brought me my coffee, arranged the bath, chatting to me the while.
Everything went perfectly for about a month: Katchen and I had become great friends and I had already taught her that kissing sweetened service. To do her justice, she seemed eager to profit by the teaching, but at the same time showed a fear of being caught, I thought by her mother; and that seemed to me extraordinary.
One Sunday morning she hurried away and the mother came in her stead.
"Where's Katchen?" I asked.
"Her father's there," the woman replied, "and he doesn't like her to serve anyone."
"Send your younger daughter, Lisabeth!" I said cheekily, and the woman, as if scared, answered, "Oh, that would be worse!"
"Why worse?" I went on. "I won't eat her, and surely your husband can't want the three girls to attend to him."
"Please, please, Sir," she cried, "don't speak so loud. He might hear and then our good times would be over."
"Over?" I questioned. "Is he such a brute?"
"Oh, Sir," she cried with tears in her voice, "forgive me! I'll tell you everything tomorrow. Now I must go," and away she hurried, evidently in extreme excitement or fear.
The next morning in came the mother again, and she told me the father was very suspicious and had told her that I was too young for Katchen to wait upon me. "Nonsense!" I cried. "I want Katchen to come out with me to the theatre."
"Oh, Sir, please not!" cried the mother passionately. "Then he'd be sure to know and he'd be furious. Be content with me for a week or so and he may forget-and I'll send Katchen to you again."
"All right;" I said, "it's idiotic," but I had a good deal of work to do and wasn't sorry to be forced to get on with it.
Three or four days more elapsed and Katchen brought me my coffee again and sat on my bed talking with me. I had my arm round her pretty, slim waist and was kissing her, when a knock came on the door and a man's voice called her loudly. She sprang from the bed with white face and frightened eyes and vanished.
I got up, bathed and dressed quickly, and then rang to have the breakfast things taken away. The mother came in; evidently she had been crying.
"Please, please Sir, take care," she said. "He's in one of his mad rages: he came back from work on purpose to catch Katchen. Oh, Sir, take care and don't go out till noon."
"I'm going out very soon," I said, carelessly, "and shan't put it off for anyone."
"I pray you go very quietly," she said in a low voice. "We all want you to stay."
"I don't understand," I said, feeling bewildered, for there were not many students who could pay what I was paying.
"Nobody could understand," she cried, "how unhappy I am. Please Sir," she added imploringly.
"All right," I said, laughing to reassure her. "I'll slip out like a mouse and return just as quietly-"
"Please come back before six," she said. I promised and went.
That evening I got back about five and saw the mother. I asked for Katchen.
The mother said, "I'll send her, Sir, but please let her go soon; he comes home from work soon after six."
Katchen came and was more loving than before, though manifestly on the qui vive, listening for every sound. Before six, even, she kissed me and said she'd have to go and I took her to the door; there the kissing began again and lasted, I suppose, longer than we thought, for just as I opened the door that gave on the passage to her room, there was a man at the bottom of the short flight of stairs; he sprang up them as the girl ran into the door to the right leading to her apartment. The man came straight to me. He was about my height and sturdily built, plainly a man of forty-five at least, or fifty.
"You can leave this house tomorrow," he said in a low hoarse voice.
"Who are you to give me orders?" I asked.
"I'm the master here," he replied, "and I tell you, you had better go."
"My month's only beginning," I replied, "and I want the usual notice."
"If you don't go tomorrow," he said, "you'll be carried out-"
"You're a fool to threaten," I said. "To go soon would be to prove that I was afraid of you and I'm not."
"If you had more sense, you would be," he replied.
"Get out of my way," I retorted, "I'm going."
"You go," he said, "and don't come back."
As he didn't move I pushed him slightly. He at once seized my right arm and struck savagely at my face.
As a trained athlete, I had already weighed the possibilities; as he pulled my arm I went with it to destroy his balance. As he struck I threw my head aside and my left foot behind him. The next moment he over-balanced, and slipping back to recover himself, slipped on the stairs and went with a crash to the bottom and lay still.
At once the neighboring door opened and the mother and Katchen rushed out. I had already sprung down and lifted the man; his nose was bleeding, but his head was not seriously hurt. He would be quit for a painful bruise and a headache, and so I informed the woman, who seemed scared to death. With her help, I carried him into his bedroom, and on the way saw the two younger daughters: Lisabeth, whom I knew slightly, an ordinary girl of thirteen or so, and Marie a pretty child of ten, who, to my surprise, stared while Katchen wept.
That evening I got a letter from the mother, asking me to go, saying the Father threatened to kill me, and she was frightened. "Pray, pray, go," she ended. "I don't want any money, dear Mr. Harris, and forgive me."
Next morning she came in with my breakfast. "He's gone to work," she said,
"in a silent, black rage; he says if you don't go, he'll kill you. Please, dear Mr.
Harris, do go. You'll easily get other rooms."
"I won't go a foot," I said, "and tell him if he tries to kill me, he'll get badly hurt. I thought I had taught him that." To my wonder she broke into a storm of tears.
"I'm the most unhappy creature in the world. I wish he'd kill me."
"Don't cry," I said, "of course, if you really want it I'll go, but-"
She seized my hand and kissed it, wetting it with tears. "I'll tell you everything," she said. "I owe it to you. I don't know how to begin. I loved my husband and at first was very happy with him. He has lots of good qualities.
He works hard and he thinks of his home, but I don't know how to tell it. One day, when Katchen was about twelve, she came to me and said her father kissed her funnily and since then-Oh, I can't tell you. He took her into my bed! Oh, it is dreadful! Fancy, in my bed. I know I can trust you not to tell anybody, but I am the most unhappy woman in all the world. My dear children, ruined by their father! Was ever anyone so unhappy! What am I to do? If I had told you at first, it might have made all the difference, but I couldn't bear to. But now forgive us and forget us. Oh, I am so-miserable."
I comforted her as best I could. I was horror stricken and filled with disgust for the man. Perhaps a point of envy sharpened my hatred of him. It ended by my saying, "I'll go within a week and I will write it so that you can show it to him, but I must get a place and I can't get one in a moment. In a week or so I'll be gone."
Strange, the fact that her father had used her killed my liking for Katchen.
But Lisabeth more than filled her place. One morning Lisabeth came in with my coffee. "Oh, I'm glad you've come," I said. "What good wind blew you in?"
"They're all crying," she said. "Father's been raging; but I wouldn't care what he said."
"Suppose I ask you for a kiss," I said, smiling and holding out my hand, "would you be afraid to give it?"
"Not I," she cried, coming to my side at once and giving me not one kiss, but a dozen. "You see," she said, sitting on the edge of my bed, Father has scared them, but he can't scare me and he knows it. He tried to kiss me the other day, but I wouldn't have it."
"Go to mother," I said, "or Kate, but leave me alone."
"There he is now!" she exclaimed, and at that moment the father's voice was heard in peremptory tone.
"Lisabeth, you're wanted."
"I'm not either," she replied cheekily; "you go away!" And to my astonishment he went off grumbling.
Lisabeth appealed to me and came to me in my new lodging, and I gave her dresses and trinkets as soon as I found that she was perfectly free of her father's influence. "I never liked him," she said to me once. "As soon as I saw how he made mother suffer, I was through with him. Kate can stand him, but I can't."
I found Lisabeth an engaging practical mistress. Although so young, she reckoned everything in cash. "I want a purse," she used to say, "and when I've ten thousand marks in it, I'll feel safer." And before she was fifteen she had the ten thousand marks. She was very well made, but had not nearly so pretty a face as her sister Kate; yet, in worldly wisdom, was a hundred years ahead of her.
For some reason or other, I didn't get a place in a week, but I told the woman I had seen one that would do and it would be free in two or three days. I hadn't seen Katchen in the meantime. One afternoon I had been out, and I had given the order to send for my things in the morning to transfer them to my new lodging. At that time it was very difficult to get two rooms and a bathroom without getting a whole apartment, and I had been lucky to find a good one.
In the evening I went out for a walk. I meant to go up Unter den Linden, through the great arch and into the Tiergarten: I went and had my walk and returned. Coming back under the arch, I noticed the light of one of the hotels shining into the darkness and looked away. For some reason or other, a few seconds later, when I was in the middle of the arch and complete darkness, I looked again and saw quite close to me a flash! For a moment I didn't know what it was and stopped. The next second I knew it was a big knife-like a carving knife-and I stepped to the right just in tune, for the man rushed at me and stabbed. My side step was just right, and as his knife came down, I struck him under the jaw as hard as I could and he went down like a log. In a second I had picked up the knife and saw that the man was Katchen's father. I was furious. His face was all distorted by his hatred and by my blow. His nose was bleeding and he looked a sorry sight, but the danger made me furious. I couldn't help it-I drew back and hit him as hard as ever I could, and down he went again. This time he lay still and I had to drag him by the legs out into the light. As he lay there, I kicked him two or three times and thought of calling the police. Thinking of his unhappy wife and children, I thought he had perhaps had punishment enough for once, so I lifted him up and sat him against the arch. In a few minutes he came to himself.
"You damn fool," I said, "you had better get home and behave better to your wife and children. It is lucky for you that I had given the order to leave your house, or I'd break every bone in your body. You murderous cur."
"You go," he muttered, "or I'll kill you, you damned Englishman."
"It's lucky for you," I said, "that I'm going to sleep somewhere else tonight, but the police ought to be notified about you."
He got up on his feet and was evidently pretty shaky. "I'm taking the knife," I said, "just as a memento."
"I sharpened it for you," said he, glaring at me.
As I went down Unter den Linden, it really seemed to me as if the man was mad. There was madness in his distorted face and in his growling voice. "His wife will have to patch up his eye, and his jaw will prevent his eating for a few days," I thought. But as I grew cooler, I suddenly noticed that I had taken the skin off the knuckles of both hands and they were smarting. What insanity! I could still see the woman's face and hear her voice: "I'm so unhappy! No one in the world is so miserable. To have my dear little children ruined by their father!"
In my experience, incest is infinitely commoner among the Germanic peoples than it is among the Latins or Slavs. It is curious that in spite of the poverty and the fact that in some homes large families have to live in one room, incest is almost unknown among the Celts. But then I am of the opinion that the Irish and Scotch and even the Welsh Celts are far more moral in the highest sense of the word than their English neighbors.
Several of my men correspondents in America and in England have asked me to say something about venereal diseases, especially to tell them whether syphilis is curable. I am going to tell elsewhere how I met Ehrlich at the medical congress in London, I think, in 1913. He was the discoverer of salvarsan, or as he called it later "606." I was one of the few who could talk German to him, so we became real pals. Since his death a good deal of doubt has been cast on the efficacy of "606"; but the best knowledge of today justifies me in saying that diligently used and followed by treatment with mercury, it can cure syphilis; cure it so completely that there isn't a trace in the blood, and that even subsequent offspring are perfectly healthy.
Ehrlich, as I shall tell in my portrait of him, was one of the great benefactors of humanity.
Gonorrhea is much more common and much more easily cured: a great deal of rest, and unlimited drinks of strong barley water, and no sign of wine, spirits or beer, should bring about a complete cure in a month, but during the month it is very distressing, very painful, very dirty, and there is always danger of worse developments if it isn't taken seriously.
One little story may find a place here. I remember a young friend of mine who had caught syphilis in New York and who showed me a loaded revolver with which he intended to kill the woman who had infected him. I laughed at him. "The poor girl may not even have known she was ill," I said. "Don't be a fool; take my advice and always blame yourself for the mishaps of life, and no one else."