Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/224

 that the marriage must come. "I have suffered frightfully, Andreas", he writes … "I have battled with my heart, I have won. Go, love this woman, marry her! Sooner or later that would have to be. I have seen the girl, and though she does not seem to me worthy thee (for when could any woman be worthy of a man?)—still, she is not unsuited to thee, Andreas. So—farewell forever! I cannot live near thee, knowing that I now have only half thy heart. Nothing on earth is there more wretched than a half-heart! I want either all my heaven; or else all hell" … The separation however is maintained with difficulty. One meeting between the pair of friends is particularly moving. The military course of the story is resumed. The two men are ordered to Leipzig. In that great battle they are both severely wounded. Franz von Selbitz dies in the arms of Walt, just as he has long desired to do; while Walt survives Franz only during a few hours.

In Sternberg's other tale, "Die Beiden Schützen" ("The Two Shots") are again two protagonists, both young men; the brown-eyed Tony Wickye, a Neuchatellois, and Friedrich Forst, from far-away Pomerania. The deep affection between these two, and their solemn pledge that it shall never fail of anything in life and in death, are sketched in a succession of manly and graceful incidents, during their soldier-service. Once, when Tony overstays his furlough, his alert friend contrives to transfer the punishment to himself, and so willingly suffers arrest for Tony. Friedrich Forst is, in fact, ever the more unselfish nature of the pair—more perfectly uranistic, intersexual. A feminine pleasure in self-sacrifice marks his sentiment. Forst has, too, a portent that he is to die early. One night, while possessed by a sort of revery, when on watch-duty, he counts the grated bars of a cemeterygate near him, and finding them to be eighteen and a half, he feels strongly the conviction that he will not