Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/223

 said in a tone that showed how much he was moved at this strange confession, "Herr von Selbitz all this seems to me so very strange. I beg you to feel sure that I have never had the least idea of—what you tell me!"

"Oh, call me "Thou", not "You"! exclaimed Franz, "you can do that now—for am I not dying!"

"I will get the surgeon—"

"No, no! Stay thou with me! Be thou my physician! See, see, Andreas! I am quitting this mortal life, and never have l known what is its highest joy. I am twenty years old; and yet never have I come into touch with what men call love for woman! God has kept my heart open only for—friendship! Thou, thou, art mine all! my life—my love! Here, now, on the edge of my grave, I throw off the unnatural mask, for now I shall have dared to clasp thee with the arms of love—I can go Home satisfied."

Andreas felt something like a well-stream flowing to his breast from the heart of this dying comrade. All other emotions had fled; bending over Franz von Selbitz he exclaimed "My friend! My brother! For, so do I greet thee!"

"—In death and in life!" whispered Franz.

Von Selbitz fell back on his bed, and lay there still, in a swoon of exhaustion. Andreas summoned help, forgetting his own perrilous condition, living only for the friend who had given his very soul up to him, as so unexpected an offering …

That little attic-room, where Franz had been lying, must needs now shelter both these friends. The Angel of Death hovered over first one of the pair, then the other; he touched their young foreheads, but his cold finger was not laid upon their hearts. They grew well of their wounds slowly—slowly. But by the coming of the Spring, they could leave their sick-room … Their comrades greeted them gladly, once more of their old circle. Often, often did talk busy itself with the strange change—two men once such bitter enemies now such affectionate friends".

The remainder of the novel deals with the sacrifices of Franz von Selbitz as he finds that Andreas Walt, who is a Dionian-Uranian at most, loves a young girl and wishes to marry. The torments of wounded hopes, of jealousy, of separation, all are of course inevitable to this situation. Yet Franz, who is the superiour nature, realizes that respect for the more normal temperament of Andreas, and regard for his happiness, alike demand