Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/626

. He even went so far as to talk (Jan. 10, 1819) with Rotenhan of the necessity of their 'parting.' But the affectionate Rotenhan would not allow this. As it happened, there soon were various ups and downs in their intimacy; some passing differences; and they really saw less of each other temporarily. But somehow, the grew ever tenderer; and the situation ever more "heroic" for Platen. He had not made any explicit confession of homosexuality to Rotenhan, nor had Rotenhan ( who was emphatically "so," but cheerfully untroubled by conscience's misgivings) said in so many words anything to Platen. But to Rotenhan, Platen wrote the little poem,—often in the minds of homosexuals when with some near friend—"Erforsche mein Geheimneiss nie." Platen's sense of his own faults of character and manner, his facility in errors of conduct with friends and the world, awakened much under association with Herman von Rotenhan. One may say that Rotenhan's love, and this special struggle, taught Platen a modesty not till now practised. He wondered why in the world Rotenhan ever could care so much for him—an uninteresting, moody creature, "neither rich nor attractive." But the moral struggle was over before Rotenhan had to leave Erlangen. On March 16-17, Platen remarks, in a sad anticipation of his friend's going, … "I tell him everything that is in my heart … To part from him is immeasureably sad, and the more because he has so much to forgive me., My heart bleeds, and my eyes are constantly brimming over." Then of their last nights together, he records:—"My soul demands love, I cannot be without it. Herman gives it to me. Last night I stayed late with him. We sat, or rather we Jay, embraced on the sofa, and I did not hide from him anything—how dear he was to me … I cannot damn this relationship; it seems to me a dispensation that has finally granted to me to find sympathy in another being, after I have so long yearned for it vainly. I did not come here