Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/329

 common problem for the Dionysian-Uranian—his divided inclination, now toward the male, now toward the female, if with the sentiment stronger for the male type. The brisk humour of the book skilfully alternates, with its graver notes. When dramatized for Vienna, as "Die Reise nach Riva," its performance created scandal, though nowhere does it too overtly condone homosexualism. A typical instance is a serious scene in the third chapter of the tale; Professor Fridolin's "confession" to his former "flame" (but ever fast friend), young Leopold—in the moonlight, in the park, after a lively studio-supper; describing how he is swayed so troublesomely by what electricians call 'alternating currents' of his dual sexualism—how he cannot marry, as he sometimes would like to do, because he lives already in a sort of "secret marriage"—with himself. His male psychos is wedded to his feminine one, both disputing his individuality, though neither of them suffices to each other; so that Fridolin is continually falling in love with now a youth now a maiden. This bit of self-study, in the mouth of Professor Fridolin, is a masterpiece of dexterous, swift, witty, analysis.

More suggestive even is an episode toward the conclusion of the story. The bisexual Fridolin after being fairly engaged to a charming girl, with whom he fancied himself "really and permanently" in love—all his boy-loves forever relinquishing his heart—is humiliated to find that uranianism reasserts its power. He fairly deserts the field, in a sort of panic, under circumstances—unknown to him—that make grave complications in the chaperonage and protection of the slighted young lady. They bring Fridolin face to face for the first time, with Ferdinand, the brother of the deserted fiancée; a handsome, manly boy of about eighteen, who has indignantly come to hunt out the fugitive Fridolin, to call the latter to strict account for his conduct to FraüleinFraulein [sic] Ottilie. But Ferdinand is even more beautiful in his anger than when in amiable