"No, no," he returned hastily,—"of course not!" And then with a laugh as curious as that look of his, for it was not his real, his cheerful and heart-glad laugh, but one that rang false even to being ill-humored, he added... "By God, you have spoken the truth! Yes, to the dot on the i!"
I did not pursue the subject. I saw that it was one, whatever else was part of it, that was better left for Imre himself to take up at some other time; or not at all. Apparently, I had stumbled on one little romance; possibly on a grande passion! In either case it was a matter not dead, if moribund it might be. Imre could open himself to me thereon, or not: I was not curious, nor a purveyor of reading-matter to fashionable London journals.
Two matters more in this diagnosis... shall I call it so?... of my friend. Let me rather say that it is a memorandum and guidebook of Imre's emotional topography.
Something has been said of the spontaneous warmth of his temperament, and of his enthusiasm for his closer friends. But his undemonstrativeness also mentioned, seemed to me more and more curiously accentuated. Imre might have been an Englishman, if it came to outward signs of his innermost feelings. He neither embraced, kissed, caressed nor what else his friends; and, as I had surmised, when first being with him and them, he did not appear to like what in his part of the world are ordinary degrees of "demonstrativeness". He never invited nor returned (to speak as Brutus)—"the shows of love in other men". There was a certain captain in the A.... Regiment, a man that Imre much liked and, what is more, had more than once admired in good set terms, when with me. ("He is as beautiful as a statue, I think!") This brother-soldier being suddenly returned to Szent-Istvánhely, after a couple of years of absence, hurried up to Imre and fairly threw his arms about him. Imre was cordiality itself. But after Captain R.... had left him, Imre made a wry face at me, and said... "The best fellow in the world! and generally speaking, most rational! But I do wish he had forgotten to kiss men! It is so hideously womanish!" Another time we were talking of letters between intimate friends. "I hate... I absolutely hate... to write letters, even to my nearest friends", he protested, "in fact, I never write unless there is no getting-out of it! Five words on a post-card, once a month or so... two or three months, maybe... and lucky if they get that! How do I write? Something like this... 'I am here and well. How are you. We are very busy. I saw your cousin, Csodaszép Kisasszony yesterday. No time to-day for more! Kindest regards. Alá szolgája! N....'. Now there you have my style to a dot. What more in the world is really called-for? As for sentiment... sentiment! in letters to my friends!... well, I simply cannot squeeze that out, or in. Nobody need expect it from your most obedient servant! My correspondence is like telegrams."
"Thanks much," I returned, smiling, "your remarks are most timely, considering that you and I have agreed to keep in touch with each other by post, after I leave here. Forewarned is forearmed! Might I ask, by the by, whether you are as laconic in writing, to—say, your friend Karvaly, over there in China? And if he is satisfied?"
"Karvaly? Certainly. He happens to like precisely that sort of communications particularly well. I never give him ten words where five will do." To which statement I retorted that it was a vast blessing that some persons were easily pleased, as well as so likeminded; and that perhaps it would be quite as wise under such conditions, not to write at all; except maybe on All-Souls Day!
"Perhaps," assented Imre.
So much, then, of your outward individuality and environment, with somewhat of your inner self, my dear Imre!... chiefly as I looked upon you and strove to sum you up during those first days. But was there not one thing more, one most special point of personal interest?... of peculiar solicitude?.. one supreme undercurrent of query and wondering in my mind, as we were thus thrown together, and as I felt my thoughts more and more busied with what was our mutual liking and instinctive trust? Surely there was! I should find myself turning aside from the path of straightest truth which I would hold-to in these pages, if I did not find that question written down early and frankly here, with the rest. It must be written, or be this record broken now and here!
Was Imre von N... what is called among psychiaters of our day, an homosexual? an Urning?—in his instincts and feelings and life?—in his psychic and physical attitude toward women and men? Was he an Uranian? Or was he sexually entirely normal and Dionian? Or, a blend of the two types, a Dionian-Uranian? Or what,... or what not? For that something of a special sexual attitude, hidden, instinctive, was maintained by him, no matter what might be the outward conduct of his life—this I could not help believing, at least at times.