Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/171

Rh are an outcast from society."

All hope for the future and all courage for battling with the world were gone, and every day on my return from several hours' fruitless search, I would throw myself on the bed and give vent to my feelings in a violent fit of weeping. While walking the street, I would weep aloud and be on the borderline of hysterical screaming. I repeatedly entertained thoughts of suicide.

In a few weeks I was penniless and a shelterless wanderer on the streets in midwinter. I was driven for shelter to the Bowery, because there alone lodging could be obtained for fifteen cents, and a big meal of coarse and even disgusting food for ten cents. 'Thus I was compelled to live for nine weeks before a way was opened to something better.

During the nine weeks I was of the opinion that I must pass the rest of my days as an outcast from society, while of course living out the "Jennie-June" life to which I was apparently predestined. I was grateful to Providence that it was I and not one of my sisters who was predetermined to the life of a fille de joie and an outcast. In suffering such a fate, I believed that I was paying the penalty to God for the sin of some progenitor. I believed myself appointed by the God who visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to live out the rest of my life in mourning and paroxysms of grief, such as then visited me every day.

The manner of life of a high-class fairie has been described. I was fated also to trace out the life of a low-class one. But even in my present extreme poverty, I