Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/225

Rh as a woman might love her bridegroom. But I cannot say this for myself; for I still believed that I was but a depressed man, who would come to himself, and find himself out by marriage. But, even on my marriage-night, I felt that I was only a woman in man’s form; sub femina locum meum esse mihi visum est. On the whole, we lived contented and happy, and for two years were childless. After a difficult pregnancy, during which I was in mortal fear of death, the first boy was born in a difficult labor,—a boy on whom a melancholy nature still hangs; who is still of melancholy disposition. Then came a second, who is very quiet; a third, full of peculiarities; a fourth, a fifth; and all have predisposition to neurasthenia. Since I always felt out of my own place, I went much in gay society; but I always worked as much as human strength would allow. I studied and operated; and I experimented with many drugs and methods of cure, always on myself. I left the regulation of the house to my wife, as she understood house-keeping very well. My marital duties I performed as well as I could, but without personal satisfaction. Since the first coitus, the masculine position in it has been repugnant, and, too, difficult for me. I should have much preferred to have the other rôle. When I had to deliver my wife, it almost broke my heart; for I knew how to appreciate her pain. Thus we lived long together, until severe gout drove me to various baths, and made me neurasthenic. At the same time, I became so anæmic that every few months I had to take iron for some time; otherwise I would be almost chlorotic or hysterical, or both. Stenocardia often troubled me; then came unilateral cramps of chin, nose, neck, and larynx; hemicrania and cramps of the diaphragm and chest-muscles. For about three years I had a feeling as if the prostate were enlarged,—a bearing-down feeling, as if giving birth to something; and, also, pain in the hips, constant pain in the back, and the like. Yet, with the strength of despair, I fought against these complaints, which impressed me as being female or effeminate, until three years ago, when a severe attack of arthritis completely broke me down.

“But before this terrible attack of gout occurred, in despair, to lessen the pain of gout, I had taken hot baths, as near the temperature of the body as possible. On one of these occasions it happened that I suddenly changed, and seemed to be near death. I sprang with all my remaining strength out of the bath: I had felt exactly like a woman with libido. Too, at the time when the extract of Indian hemp came into vogue, and was highly prized, in a state of fear of a threatened attack of gout (feeling perfectly indifferent about life), I took three or four times the usual dose of it, and almost died of haschisch poisoning. Convulsive laughter, a feeling of unheard of strength and swiftness, a peculiar feeling in brain and eyes, millions of sparks streaming from the brain through the skin,—all these feelings occurred. But I could not force myself to speak. All at once I saw myself a woman from my toes