Solum circiter triginta voluerunt duo aut tres eadem nocte, atque nemo plus. In ninety-five per cent. of cases, incubuimus solum from twenty to thirty minutes. I never took the initiative in parting, although I was generally quite reconciled. Even in the less than five per cent. of cases where we passed the night in the same house, I nearly always—because of my inability to fall asleep otherwise—occupied a separate bed except for one hour after retiring and another hour prior to rising.
To return to the events of my Fourteenth Street days, I would sometimes, in the public parlors of the houses of assignation in that vicinity, be a member of a jolly party of adolescents and filles de joie. Everybody would be exceedingly kind and courteous to me, and in general displayed toward one another the most extreme politeness. I have never been in a more charming circle, and would experience the highest earthly bliss. The young men would hold me on their laps and fondle me before the eyes of all, even of strange parties of patrons who were simultaneously occupying the large parlors or drinking saloons. I feared some member of these other parties might recognize me. Occasionally we repaired to a private chamber. In my fairie apprenticeship and during my career around the military posts, I was the financier. But during the present period, that function fell entirely to my associates.
On other occasions, my associates were boisterous and outrageously indecent in their conduct toward me in the public parlors. The following are quotations from my journal: “I have to weep when I reflect that I, a scholar, a litterateur, and a philosopher, am so often made the sport and laughing-stock of the immoral and godless crowd which assembles in the parlor of the X—— Hotel. To think of my acting like a simpleton, and being looked upon as a simpleton by those greatly inferior to me in mental ability!”
Conflict of My Two Lives.
“I am satiated with sensual pleasure. It is the vanity of vanities. Good deeds done our fellow men are the best investment in life. I pray God to send forth laborers into His harvest, and to let me be one. When I see the multitude of young people wandering astray, as sheep without a shepherd, the words of scripture ring through my ears, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people!’ Sometimes I seem to have a clairvoyant vision into the future, and behold myself, finally saved from animality, commissioned by the great I AM to be a proclaimer of the blessed Gospel of peace and good will among men.”
One evening a strange adolescent accosted me on the street: “You are a fairie, aren’t you?”
“What makes you think so?”
“No one but a fairie would stare at a fellow like you do. Don’t you want to take a walk with me over to the East River?” [Where the streets were entirely deserted at night.]