Page:Imre.pdf/113

111 I had half-divined it in the music of a Beethoven and a Tschaikowsky before knowing facts in the life-stories of either of them—or of an hundred other tone-autobiographists."

"And I had recognized what it all meant to most people today!—from the disgust, scorn and laughter of my fellow-men when such an emotion was hinted at! I understood perfectly that a man must wear the Mask, if he, poor wretch! could neither abide at the bound of ordinary warmth of feeling for some friend of friends, that drew on his innermost nature; or if he were not content because the other stayed within that bound. Love between two men, however absorbing, however passional, must not be—so one was assured—solemnly or in disgusted incredulity—a sexual love, a physical impulse and bond. That was now as ever, a nameless horror—a thing against all civilization, sanity, sex, Nature, God! Therefore, I was, of course,.. what then was I? Oh, I perceived it! I was that anachronism from old—that incomprehensible incident in God's human creation... the man-loving man! The man-lov-