“You must want to get into your mouth all the dust I picked up off the road yesterday.”
“That’s just what I do. Its coming into contact with your dear body has transformed it and etherialized it. Oh, I love you so much! So much! No other girl ever worshipped her lord as I worship you. I know it is wrong to hate, and I pray God to forgive me, but I now feel only hatred toward everybody who stands in the way of our being one, and living out our lives together.”
After some time, as a last resort, pretending to be very angry, he kicked me, and ordered me to go down to the other end of the boat. Such treatment humiliated and saddened me, because I thought it an evidence that I was despised. I immediately became repentant for having so imposed on his good nature, asked his pardon, and departed.
In My Twenty-Fifth Year.
When I left, I expected never to set eyes on him again. The next morning I purposely lay abed very late, in order that he might have taken his departure before I should leave my state-room. I was afraid he might encounter me with my employer, and in some way betray to the latter my sexual peculiarity. But as it happened, he also did not leave the boat until late, and caught sight of me seated at the breakfast table with my employer. On seeing him approach, I was stricken with terror, fearing he might denounce me. As he passed, I hardly dared look at him. He made a sign for me to rise and follow him. For fear my employer might somehow suspect something, and in order to discourage any farther approach, I appeared not to notice his beckoning. Moreover, I did not dare follow him immediately, though I would have given a fortune to have been at full liberty to do so. I realized that I might be losing forever a companion and mate for life whom I slavishly adored.
Five minutes afterward, as soon as I felt I could leave my employer’s side without exciting his suspicion, I followed in the direction the young man had taken, but saw nothing of him. Wringing my hands in desperation, I rushed all over the vessel, peering into every nook and corner. Then I went out on the wharf, and looked everywhere there. I returned on board, and searched the whole boat from top to bottom three times before giving up in despair. What a pang went through my heart when I found he had gone and I not heard the message he had evidently wished to give me! Never before in my life had I regretted anything as much as not having inquired his name and address. As I was unwilling to give my own, I did not like to ask for his. Furthermore, during our evening together, I did not anticipate we could ever meet again, and so thought it useless to ask. He, probably, as well as I, preferred that his identity remain unknown.
Loss of My Best Chance.
I had rarely felt more disconsolate, or more angry with the world, and I experienced but little pleasure during my week in Boston. All the time, the thought uppermost in my mind was to run across this young man again. I spent as much time as possible in the most frequented localities, peering into the face of every young man who passed to see if he were not the one for whom I was pining. Several nights, after my employer had retired, I stole out of my room, and seated myself on the steps of the most frequented subway station until midnight, in the forlorn hope of meeting by chance one particular individual out of the million in the Boston metropolitan district.
He had informed me that he was an electrician. I spent many hours in calling at shops where such workmen had their headquarters. Under some pretext, I obtained permission to go through the works, and looked over every young man employed there. I wrote letters to a number of his trade whose names I found in the city directory, inquiring whether I had met them on the steamer. On returning to New York, I engaged an electrical apprentice to continue the search, but all my efforts proved fruitless.