Page:Imre.pdf/191

189 bound up in them and to radiate from them! He had grown to have a horror of similisexual types, of all contacts with them. And yet, until lately, they could not be torn entirely out of his life. Most Uranists know why!

Still, they had been so expelled, finally. The turning-point had come with Karvaly. It meant the story of the development of a swift, admiring friendship from the younger soldier toward the older. But alas! this had gradually become a fierce, despairing homosexual love. This, at its height, had been as destructive of Imre's peace as it was hopeless. Of course, it was impossible of confession to its object. Karvaly was no narrow intellect; his affection for Imre was warm. but he would never have understood, not even as some sort of a diseased illusion, this sentiment in Imre. Much less would he have tolerated it for an instant. The inevitable rupture of their whole intimacy would have come with Imre's betrayal of his passion. So he had done wisely to hide every throb froom Karvaly. How sharply Karvaly