Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/267

Rh through my removal to a distant small city where such a career incognito would be impossible. I also now considered myself past the age for such a career, being in my thirty-second year. My suffering from practically total abstinence was now slight compared with earlier periods of isolation, and only such as multitudes of normal individuals endure whom the rules of society compel to celibacy. I no longer lost my self-control, nor was driven into the poor quarters to make a quest under the most unfavorable and hazardous conditions.

In 1907 I had occasion to make a trip in an uninhabited region. My adolescent companions, who had spent a large part of their lives in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, had prostitutes as the main subject of their conversation. The first hour of our travels, they recognized my inversion, began to refer to me in my hearing as "that ," and otherwise made it so disgreeable that I would _ have abandoned the travelling camp if it had been possible. . . . I tasted such depths of sorrow as not a human being out of a million ever tastes. One evening in particular I wandered off alone in the woods until out of hearing of the camp, though I actually saw that night several bears roaming within a hundred feet. I had a violent desire to die, and did not fear being torn to pieces. Continuously for about an hour, I wailed at the top of my voice over my terrible lot in life, that of a despised, hated, and outlawed degenerate, and over the possibly impending unfathomable disgrace among a party of men from whom I could not at present get away.

Not until after my thirty-third birthday did I attempt coitus cum puella. Up to this time the very thought was