Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/483

 has embodied? But I collected myself; I hurried in my despair to a confidential heterosexual friend whom I have mentioned, that he might give me sympathy, and calm me. From another quarter, however, that later I decided.to turn to, came the advice to enable me to get rid of the two blackmailers by going to the police and a law-court; or otherwise I would have been simply a permanent victim."

"I took that advice: but not till after two whole months, when the "Cologner", and this time quite by himself, came to my lodgings. Before he opened the door, I had put on the chain. But he put his foot forward so that I could not shut the door after I had recognized him. He also tried to force the door open by throwing himself against it, which he could not succeed in doing as I held myself against it. Three times I ordered him away—he refused, and struck me with his cane as I pushed off his hand—wounding me on the cheek and using the most vulgar language, and uttering fresh threats. As I warned him that I would call the police, he answered that he would rather be arrested than go away. I stepped back from the door quickly, seized a garden-stick, and struck him, through the open door. He sprang back, I shut the door. But he threw himself against it several times, so that I had to press steadily against it to hold it in place. He rang the bell again, demanding entrance, used more abusive language, and finally when he saw that he was not able to succeed in his attack, then he asked for "one Mark",—to go home" … if he did not get that, then he "would charge me before the police with bodily injuries to him." So in order to finish the scene, I threw him the money through the post-slit in the door: and then he really went away." …

After describing his agitation and despair, now meditating suicide as his only relief from above disgrace, the narrator did at last what he ought to have done first. He went to police, disclosed himself as the subject of extortion under threats, and demanded aid. His tormentors were arrested and tried. The "Friseur" received six months imprisonment at hard labour, and the "Cologner" two years. The victim's charge was so managed by the authorities, that he did not incriminate himself. In fact, this accent is manageable in such processes, if the police-justice and jury are intelligent as to the philosophy of homosexualism. Many high germanic authorities, both medical