Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/191

Rh torture of unsatisfied longing. How I do bewail the fact that I have this abnormal passion which cries out for appeasement! It is not I who wish the gratification, I call God to witness. I wish all passion annihilated in me, and to spend my days in study and in doing good I have been celibate five months, and expected to continue so forever, but I now suspect such a life to be contrary to God's will. All my hopes of leading an honorable life have been dissipated. All the indications are that God does not call me to preach the Gospel"

A few mornings later I happened to be reading in the 23d Street Y. M.C. A. A poorly clad adolescent brushed lightly against me and I felt myself electrified. Looking up furtively, I recognized a Bowery favorite of six months before. To me his face appeared to be lighted up with an unearthly radiance, and a halo of glory encircled his head. As my identity was known at the Y. M. C. A., and as I was wearing my valuables, I did not dare reveal myself. But I was acutely lovesick the remainder of the day, pining to run across my friend again under circumstances such that I could greet him.

It actually chanced the following morning that I again encountered him, this time on the street several blocks distant from the Y. M. C. A. Though clad as a prosperous citizen, I would have greeted him on the street if he had not this time been accompanied by a malevolent-looking pal. After we had passed without either giving any sign of recognition, he came up behind, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: "Hello! Don't you remember me? Don't you remember meeting me on Doyers Street?"