Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/467

 Vienna, used to seek diversion in much lower planes of non-Uranistic society. Here is another chapter:

"… After this, we two used to frequent the smartest balls, and that without a man ever recognizing our sex, in our rich costumes … But once on a time there was a Coachman's Ball, in one of the Viennese suburbs. Among the Viennese hack-drivers are good-looking, lively fellows. They like to have a jolly girl at supper with them. Now the laundry-girls also go to those coachmen's balls, absurdly dressed-up, though frequently such girls are real beauties. So we put on four to six rows of underskirts … red-flowered gowns, tight satin bodices to make our waists small, dressed our hair in the correct scalloppy sort of way, tied on screaming orange-yellow head-kerchiefs, painted our faces with rouge and white—and you had in us a pair of laundry-maids handsome enough for an artist's eye! Into the ball we marched, two laundry-girls without escorts! The women present all pulled us to bits with their eyes, angrily. But the men broke out into a general buzz of admiration. They got up on the, tables while wo sat down—just to get a good look at the "two pretty washers". They stared as if we had been wild animals, at a show. The real girls grew angrier and angrier. Then a couple of handsomely dressed younS men came to our table, and began to chaff with us. (Such fellows of better sort often appear in these popular balls as spectators.) This provoked the hackmen. A lively, handsome black-eyed chap drew near. "Well, my yellow-kerchiefed darling!" he said to me, "would you favour me?" So up I got to dance, gave my skirts a shake, and put my hand in his. I noticed that everybody was again getting up on the tables to watch. The band played a polka-mazurka, at that time a dance in which few were practised. My young man and I hardly had danced down that hall once, when a regular storm of applause came,-just as in a theater. So the ice was really broken. The young women ground their teeth, in their jealous anger. But the young fellows just swarmed after us! We were victors!"

"And my friend and I knew how to chaff the men in a way not to be beaten. When, toward midnight, we and our two hackmen began to sing "Jodel" songs, with a zither-accompaniment, in our artificial soprano and alto, there was no end of a jollification. The fellows kissed us to their very heart's content, treated us to refreshments, were delighted if we would sit in their laps. One wished to buy me a splendid shawl … another made me a serious proposal. I do not understand now how we could carry the affair so far, in some details. For instance, as the better sort of the male guests and