My Home is Burglarized.
One evening after we had lived together a month, I returned from work to find my apartment in the condition in which burglars would have left it, locked closets and drawers broken open, and their contents scattered around. All small objects of some value which could readily be pawned were missing. Particularly the carbon duplicate of this autobiography, the ink original having been sent to Berlin three years before and not heard from since on account of the war. I found the following note:
“Dear friend Ralph,
My friend over in Jersey City told me to do this what I have done. He may come over to see you tonight or soon, for he says I am doing wrong. He tells me you will get ten years for what you have done. I was drunk when I told him.”
I hardly slept that night. It was primarily a wife’s sorrow over desertion by an idolized husband, and secondarily the overwhelming fear of blackmail or else of disclosure with consequent loss of economic and social position. Moreover, I momentarily expected that the Jersey City friend—a former soldier—would call, possibly in order to put me under arrest. I kept my apartment in darkness the entire evening as I lay on my bed immersed in the deepest grief. My only utterance was, over and over again: “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The following evening I was amazed at learning that the manuscript of this autobiography had been returned by parcels post. The package had been inadvertently opened by my landlord, and I therefore decided to confess my androgynism. Moreover, on account of the expected call from criminally-minded blackmailers, it was desirable to appeal to him for protection. His marvellous and hardly expected sympathy greatly relieved my distress. I proposed vacating his house, but he would not hear of it.
Year 1917.
The next evening I was amazed at receiving by messenger a letter from my boy to come at once to his succor. I found him in a terrible plight, recovering from a spree. His “pal” had kicked him out of his home as soon as the money was gone received for my belongings. Blackmail and a ransom for my manuscript had been planned, but relinquished when they had skimmed the story of my life. My “son” had only discovered its existence after he broke the lock where it was in storage. I would have immediately taken him back into my home, but my landlord refused to let a thief and a drunkard into the house again. I supported him for another month, but as he rendered me almost continuously unhappy, I then put him on a train bound for his Illinois home.
To those who have not arrived at a correct estimate of androgynism, I state that if he had continued to live with me as my son, his life would have been enriched along all lines, in particular morally and religiously. In practically every act of my life, I have been guided by the highest moral and religious ideals. Outside of sexual delinquencies, my life has been entirely offenceless. An androgyne, even when living out his nature, can attain the same ethical and religious heights as any other individual.
