Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/337

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

lishers who particularize the literature of uranianism, scientific and popular. None of such recent stories are to be met in English translations, no matter if irreproachable in their aspects as belles-lettres. The present writer would be glad to cite passages from several of these newer romances—some evidently not merely romances—if space allowed. A few only can be briefly characterized:—

A recent story of the sort, with, a classical hellenic background and Greek types, is the "Eros" of Wilhelm Walloth, in which is depicted the tragic passion of the young sculptor Gorgias for Lykon, a trivial youth of great beauty, the sculptor's model. The boy, becomes entangled in a passing dionistic love for a woman-sculptor; partly in trying to do his friend a service of bad professional morality. But Lykon's uranian instinct returns; he repents his treason, and he commits suicide with Gorgias, the two casting themselves down from the roof of the Akropolis. This tale is typical of a special group in German.

Pernhaum,
Kupffer,
Kleist, Heyse,
Dilsner, Langer,
Kitir, Brand,
Evers, Friedrich,
Bahr, etc.

A story entirely homosexual in Leitmotif, and of considerable literary eloquence, artistic construction and taste, is the "Ercole Tomei" of Fritz Pernhaum. Like the majority of its congeners, it is tragic. Two uranian schoolmates begin life in a close physical and psychic bond, Tomei and his friend Buchner; the former a dionysian-uranian type, in some degree. They grow to manhood, and Tomei marries. Buchner's love for Tomei is disinterested enough to accept a situation acutely painful for him, though his adoration for Ercole is unchangeable. He frequents his friend's home; but now only as a friend, repressing any demonstrative sentiment which can disturb the happiness of Tomei. This quite usual permutation of the relationship might continue permanently, if fate would not bring into acquaintance with Tomei, a homosexual

— 319 —