Man Into Woman - Chapter 5 by Lili Elbe Lyrics
Andreas covers the short distance between the train station and the hotel on foot, accompanied by a luggage carrier.
"What a devilish cold here in Berlin. On March 1 no less," he confesses with surprise to the man carrying his two small suitcases. "It's spring already in Paris..."
"Yes, in Paris," the other man replied, staidly. "In Paris." And with that the conversation was over.
Andreas had put up his coat's collar. His teeth were literally chattering. He was overly tired after a sleepless night in the midst of a forеign world... But the unexpectеdly chilly temperature woke him up again. And he has to smile as he hears the luggage carrier repeat his conclusion: "Yes, in Paris." – And in addition to that, the small suitcases in the giant hands of the man.
Suddenly, before even reaching the hotel, a thought strikes him: "These two suitcases contain my very last clothes, suits, collars.... What a great thought..."
Like defiance awakening within him, as if the man in him was about to defend himself, the man in him. And this uproar comes up time and again during the days here in the "manliest metropolis in the world," which was what Andreas called Berlin earlier.
At the hotel, where he had been expected, he is treated with the utmost courtesy. He immediately asks if Professor Kreutz has possibly already arrived, since he used to frequent this hotel every weekend. This was not the case. He was disappointed. There also was no letter waiting for Andreas at the concierge.
A few minutes later he is in his room. He takes a hot bath. He blissfully stretches his limbs. He felt as if only now, taking a bath, he could be free of the eerie nightmare that had almost smothered him during the eternally long train ride...
And after breakfast, all that gloom is forgotten.
Elena's woman friend, the person who sent that fateful telegram which had caused his coming to Berlin, is the first human being who called him here.
"Welcome to Berlin," it sounded out of the telephone. Andreas immediately recognized the voice of Baroness Schildt, whom he had met before in Paris with Grete and a couple of friends. "We prepared everything well for you here. And so we're not wasting any time, a few specialists who Werner Kreutz has informed of your situation, will be in touch with you today or tomorrow..."
A few minutes later a medical practitioner unknown to him so far, Professor A., invited him for the next day around noon.
And just as this visit was arranged, the phone rang again. Nils Hvide an old friend from Copenhagen, a lawyer as well as a poet, and resident of Berlin for a few years, called him.
"Hello, Andreas..."
"How do you know, that..."
"Grete sent me a long telegram... yesterday... And this morning an express letter of hers arrived from Paris... So the letter raced you here... You have to come to our place right away. Inger and I will wait with our morning coffee until you arrive." Hastily directions are given to Andreas. And a few minutes later Andreas is seated in a taxi... Fate is having its way, he thought, a little dizzy from all the talking on the phone...
Half an hour later he has arrived at the friends' place.
A handsome man, this Nils, a purebred "ern Germanic Man" as he likes to stress it. A blonde giant from northern Jutland, where his family owns some old lands. He could have also been an English lord, one of those after whom the adage "here in England nobility is measured in yards" was coined.
Inger, his wife, is an example of the modern, very sophisticated woman. Her henna colored hair is a stark contrast to her big, almost childlike, blue eyes. And the vermillion red mouth is almost burning in the delicate porcelain like complexion of her face... She is an actress. They both were globetrotters. Grete and Andreas had frequently undertaken long and distant trips with them. But no matter how well acquainted they were, they did not know about Andreas' secret. Andreas' heart sinks a little at the thought of maybe having to let them in on it now... even if they are old companions from his youth...
He is received in the most heartfelt of ways. Breakfast is served and casual topics are discussed, as long as Inger is in the room. Only then does Nils get straight to the point.
"Grete told me something, but wasn't quite clear about it... Here... in this letter from this morning... you can of course go ahead and read it yourself..."
Andreas refuses. "No, that letter was meant for your eyes only."
"All right then..." The walls of the room are adorned with pictures painted... by Grete... by Andreas. Andreas can't quite keep himself from studying them. One of the paintings, made by Grete, shows... Lili.
"Yes," Nils begins, sensibly, "I understand a lot of those things that up to now seemed like a bizarre idea the two of you cooked up: to have you appear so frequently as a female model in Grete's paintings..."
And now Andreas found the courage to tell the friend all without holding back.
Both fall silent for a bit.
"Well then, old boy," Nils begins again in his funny way, "some of Grete's allusions she made to me in Paris last year showed me back then already that your life seemed to - - take an odd bend. Whether or not that is a lucky or unlucky turn of events that is now before you, one thing you need to know right now: you have entrusted your fate to the best, most dutiful hands around... Now it is up to you, if you have the strength to pull through... You look a bit tired... I understand... No need to explain. But," and now Nils laughed his funniest smile, "it is a quite irregular case for a person to be faced with the choice to continue living as Andreas or..." and now he pointed at the painting, "as Lili in this world of tumbling sensations." Andreas looked at the friend. "Faced with the choice you say... No, Nils, I don't believe that is it... but rather something much more serious, namely life and death... Because the man standing in front of you, you can believe it, is marked for death... And now the question is, if that creature there," he points at the painting on the wall, "can really step forward into life, freed from all disguises of body and soul, and take up the struggle with life..."
Nils looks into the friend's eye, sees his devastation.
He knows the friend needs to muster all possible strength for the coming days. He wants to give the conversation a joking bend.
"Oh my boy, there's no dying happening here. Here there's enduring so you can become a prime phenomenon..."
"Cut it out, Nils..." Still, Andreas has to smile.
"That's right. Laugh about it... So we remain at the prime phenomenon... I'm not talking about you, but that being on the wall. And I wish that..."
Andreas cuts him off: "...that she won't be a phenomenon, but a totally normal, ordinary, real girl."
"An ordinary, real girl... Don't you think you ask too much... And you need to take care that the dear gentlemen scientists don't go and put Lili under glass right after her birth and exhibit her as a curiosity..."
Andreas can't bear these words. "No, Nils, ...I know you mean well... But let's not talk about what could possibly happen, but..."
"Agreed, let's rather talk about your and your Lili's past..." Nils is very serious now. "See, that seems currently the most important thing. You need to be very clear on how this odd, fantastic change that you have gone through since childhood, for the duration of a normal human life, has happened... How Lili slowly gained the upper hand over Andreas..."
"All right," Andreas replies, and looks at his watch, "Now I have to go visit my first judge over life and death, Professor A... And once I'm done with him, I will probably need to go the whole round..."
"Agreed." Nils had found his relaxed laughter again, "And once you're done with today's activities, you come back to us here at once. Now, break a leg as we say around these parts."
***
Professor A., the inventor of a new method of analyzing blood, received Andreas in a very careful way that had to instill a sense of safety and confidence. He addressed a number of questions to Andreas, which he answered without shame, no matter how delicate they were.
After long and complicated examinations, most of which were designed to determine the life circumstances of Lili in Andreas, - during which Andreas had to use all of his willpower to turn off his thinking - the scholar lead him from his study into a cozily furnished salon. "If you want to smoke... please... Here you have the lightest of cigarettes, which even the daintiest of women can stomach." After a little small talk, Professor A. told his patient that he now had to be examined by a sexual psychologist friend of his, Dr. H. "He has a lot of experience regarding the "soul," - You may think about this in purely scientific terms, - I however don't want to pass the judgement of this specialist in the field in regards to your person. - Once you're done with colleague H., you have to go visit yet another colleague, Dr. K.. He and I have to scientifically determine the hormone contents of your blood, while colleague H.'s judgement on you and the person within yourself, whom you call Lili, will be purely psychological. - In any case, I implore you to come back to visit me tomorrow before noon. The result of these various "examinations" which we have to put you through will then be delivered to your protector, Professor Kreutz."
"Your protector" ...those words beat on Andreas' heart. And as he sat in the waiting room of the spacious "Institute for Psychology" he had to repeat the words quietly to himself, - lest all confidence left him.
Why was I sent here, he asked himself, what do I have to do here? ...He felt as if he were being delivered to some great unknown. He felt a moral discomfort. A club of abnormal humans appeared as if for a performance: women looking like men in costume, men of which it was hard to believe they were men... The way they conversed repulsed him. Their movements, their voices, the kind of costumes they wore. --Yes, there was not really another word for it, Andreas thought, these things caused a deep sensation of disgust.
Finally Dr. H. appeared and led him through his consulting room. For hours on end this man probed the state of Andreas' soul with a barrage of questions. He had to submit to an inquisition of the most ruthless kind. Whether he wanted to or not. The shame of shamelessness is real, he thought during those hours. He clang to the definition he had read some time ago in a work of philosophy, just to rid himself of the feeling of standing there as if pilloried. It was running a gauntlet for the soul that he went through... was forced to go through.
And when this torture was over, the inquisitor released him with the words: "I expect you back here, the same time tomorrow."
And then it was Dr. K.'s turn. Andreas had already acquired a kind of routine in answering the questions put before him. This examination however took place more in the shape of a conversation. And before Andreas really noticed, he found himself in the midst of a real "men's talk"; It was about the political relationship between France and Germany. And almost casually the doctor inserted a long, delicate syringe into Andreas' arm to take a blood sample.
Then Dr. K. too released him with the words: "I will see you here back again tomorrow."
Exhausted he returned to Nils and Inger Hvide that night.
"No." He exclaimed right away. "Don't ask me anything now. I can't go on with it. And my "life's report" you can't have either tonight. Let's rather take a long walk through your Babylon on the Spree around the Kurfürstendamm. I have to see people, healthy people."
Inger was already "engaged" for the evening. But Nils was still "available" and took up Andreas' suggestion with delight.
They began at an authentic Russian restaurant, where vodka and other heavy stuff flowed freely during a multicourse supper. Then came German, French, Hungarian and Spanish wines in the most diverse array of bars and cafes. Nils was a famous wine connoisseur. And to the surprise of both, Andreas was a good drinking buddy that night.
"To your health, Andreas," Nils said, who just had again wondered about his friend's ability to "hold his liquor." "You really are an odd fellow. Tonight you behave like a chap, and tomorrow you will probably be able to certify that I will have to treat you like a lady in the future. Looking at you, I can't quite wrap my head around it how all of these things worked out. ... But maybe we don't just possess two souls, as Goethe said, but two beings, two entire beings... I don't quite know how to say that..."
Andreas looked at him, calmly. "I understand your line of thinking. It is hard to understand this change, hard for me, so it is much harder for others. And the strangest thing of all is, that every being within me, believe it, is healthy in its emotional life, - Believe it, it is so, completely normal."
"And exactly that is probably the abnormal, the unknowable in your case," Nils stated. "I have known you for years now, I mean" and now he smiled, "you as in Andreas... Because Lili, yes you have kept from us friends so far... And as a man, you always struck me as healthy... I have seen it with my own eyes, how women like you. Which is the clearest proof of your being a real man..." He stopped, looked at the friend, and placed a hand on Andreas' shoulder. "You won't hold it against me if I asked you an frank question?"
Andreas looked at him. "Nils, if you knew the kind of questions I've been answering all day, you would not stand on ceremony as much now..."
"All right, Andreas. Have you ever had interest in... your own kind?... You know what I mean."
Andreas shakes his head calmly. "My word, Nils, not once in my life. And I can add, that such creatures never had an interest in me."
"Bravo, Andreas. Just as I thought."
"My dear Nils, I want to confess truthfully and with simple words: Everywhere and always I have liked women. Back then as today. A banal confession. But there you go."
Nils raised his glass: "And now let us drink to the coming day. Come what may. Stay strong! Stay with it! If you lived during the times of the ancient Greeks, they would have made a demigod of you. Well, they would have burned you at the stake in the middle ages. Because miracles were forbidden. At least today doctors are allowed to perform miracles... So let us drink to tomorrow."
And they drank. And spoke not another word.
Nils accompanied the friend to his hotel. When he was alone in his room, he collapsed from agony of the body and the soul.
**
The next morning Andreas had found his equilibrium again, at least superficially. He kept to himself what he went through the last night. It was a farewell...
He arrives at Professor A.'s on time.
"I have talked to my colleague Kreutz. We agree that a young colleague, an upstanding surgeon, should give you a pre-treatment here. Once that is done, nothing stands in the way of having you admitted to Dr. Kreutz' clinic. That does not mean you will be accepted there..."
"Not me?" Andreas exclaims the question with a tone of despair.
"Kreutz is the head of a gynecological practice, a women's clinic... And your case," Now the doctor smiled a little. "Your case is somewhat extraordinary... Even for us men of medicine... Which means that once the local surgeon releases you, you will no longer be Andreas Sparre, but..."
"But Lili…" Andreas silently sank into a chair.
"Indeed... As colleague H. has told me in the meantime, he sees the male in you as the quite lesser part of your being, which exhibits about eighty out of a hundred parts being female, in regards to the soul. The analysis of your blood yielded similar results. By the way, I will be present during the operation, which we will perform here in Berlin. Before that we will take a few pictures of you. For purely scientific reasons of course. Colleague H. still wants to take those pictures today. He is expecting you. Tomorrow morning please go to the clinic of the surgeon." Then Professor A. gave Andreas the exact address of the clinic. Andreas noted it all down as if in a dream, barely said thanks and wanted to leave.
"You look a bit tired. Please have confidence. What you still have to go through is hard. What you have gone through in all those past years was surely a lot harder still, harder than any of us, born with healthy bodies, is even capable of imagining. Balancing that however, you have received a richness of the soul and a breath of emotion that far exceed that of normal human perception and knowledge. Just have a little more patience, my friend. Au revoir et bon courage!"
Andreas shakes the hand of the good man wordlessly and goes about his way.
"What a devilish cold here in Berlin. On March 1 no less," he confesses with surprise to the man carrying his two small suitcases. "It's spring already in Paris..."
"Yes, in Paris," the other man replied, staidly. "In Paris." And with that the conversation was over.
Andreas had put up his coat's collar. His teeth were literally chattering. He was overly tired after a sleepless night in the midst of a forеign world... But the unexpectеdly chilly temperature woke him up again. And he has to smile as he hears the luggage carrier repeat his conclusion: "Yes, in Paris." – And in addition to that, the small suitcases in the giant hands of the man.
Suddenly, before even reaching the hotel, a thought strikes him: "These two suitcases contain my very last clothes, suits, collars.... What a great thought..."
Like defiance awakening within him, as if the man in him was about to defend himself, the man in him. And this uproar comes up time and again during the days here in the "manliest metropolis in the world," which was what Andreas called Berlin earlier.
At the hotel, where he had been expected, he is treated with the utmost courtesy. He immediately asks if Professor Kreutz has possibly already arrived, since he used to frequent this hotel every weekend. This was not the case. He was disappointed. There also was no letter waiting for Andreas at the concierge.
A few minutes later he is in his room. He takes a hot bath. He blissfully stretches his limbs. He felt as if only now, taking a bath, he could be free of the eerie nightmare that had almost smothered him during the eternally long train ride...
And after breakfast, all that gloom is forgotten.
Elena's woman friend, the person who sent that fateful telegram which had caused his coming to Berlin, is the first human being who called him here.
"Welcome to Berlin," it sounded out of the telephone. Andreas immediately recognized the voice of Baroness Schildt, whom he had met before in Paris with Grete and a couple of friends. "We prepared everything well for you here. And so we're not wasting any time, a few specialists who Werner Kreutz has informed of your situation, will be in touch with you today or tomorrow..."
A few minutes later a medical practitioner unknown to him so far, Professor A., invited him for the next day around noon.
And just as this visit was arranged, the phone rang again. Nils Hvide an old friend from Copenhagen, a lawyer as well as a poet, and resident of Berlin for a few years, called him.
"Hello, Andreas..."
"How do you know, that..."
"Grete sent me a long telegram... yesterday... And this morning an express letter of hers arrived from Paris... So the letter raced you here... You have to come to our place right away. Inger and I will wait with our morning coffee until you arrive." Hastily directions are given to Andreas. And a few minutes later Andreas is seated in a taxi... Fate is having its way, he thought, a little dizzy from all the talking on the phone...
Half an hour later he has arrived at the friends' place.
A handsome man, this Nils, a purebred "ern Germanic Man" as he likes to stress it. A blonde giant from northern Jutland, where his family owns some old lands. He could have also been an English lord, one of those after whom the adage "here in England nobility is measured in yards" was coined.
Inger, his wife, is an example of the modern, very sophisticated woman. Her henna colored hair is a stark contrast to her big, almost childlike, blue eyes. And the vermillion red mouth is almost burning in the delicate porcelain like complexion of her face... She is an actress. They both were globetrotters. Grete and Andreas had frequently undertaken long and distant trips with them. But no matter how well acquainted they were, they did not know about Andreas' secret. Andreas' heart sinks a little at the thought of maybe having to let them in on it now... even if they are old companions from his youth...
He is received in the most heartfelt of ways. Breakfast is served and casual topics are discussed, as long as Inger is in the room. Only then does Nils get straight to the point.
"Grete told me something, but wasn't quite clear about it... Here... in this letter from this morning... you can of course go ahead and read it yourself..."
Andreas refuses. "No, that letter was meant for your eyes only."
"All right then..." The walls of the room are adorned with pictures painted... by Grete... by Andreas. Andreas can't quite keep himself from studying them. One of the paintings, made by Grete, shows... Lili.
"Yes," Nils begins, sensibly, "I understand a lot of those things that up to now seemed like a bizarre idea the two of you cooked up: to have you appear so frequently as a female model in Grete's paintings..."
And now Andreas found the courage to tell the friend all without holding back.
Both fall silent for a bit.
"Well then, old boy," Nils begins again in his funny way, "some of Grete's allusions she made to me in Paris last year showed me back then already that your life seemed to - - take an odd bend. Whether or not that is a lucky or unlucky turn of events that is now before you, one thing you need to know right now: you have entrusted your fate to the best, most dutiful hands around... Now it is up to you, if you have the strength to pull through... You look a bit tired... I understand... No need to explain. But," and now Nils laughed his funniest smile, "it is a quite irregular case for a person to be faced with the choice to continue living as Andreas or..." and now he pointed at the painting, "as Lili in this world of tumbling sensations." Andreas looked at the friend. "Faced with the choice you say... No, Nils, I don't believe that is it... but rather something much more serious, namely life and death... Because the man standing in front of you, you can believe it, is marked for death... And now the question is, if that creature there," he points at the painting on the wall, "can really step forward into life, freed from all disguises of body and soul, and take up the struggle with life..."
Nils looks into the friend's eye, sees his devastation.
He knows the friend needs to muster all possible strength for the coming days. He wants to give the conversation a joking bend.
"Oh my boy, there's no dying happening here. Here there's enduring so you can become a prime phenomenon..."
"Cut it out, Nils..." Still, Andreas has to smile.
"That's right. Laugh about it... So we remain at the prime phenomenon... I'm not talking about you, but that being on the wall. And I wish that..."
Andreas cuts him off: "...that she won't be a phenomenon, but a totally normal, ordinary, real girl."
"An ordinary, real girl... Don't you think you ask too much... And you need to take care that the dear gentlemen scientists don't go and put Lili under glass right after her birth and exhibit her as a curiosity..."
Andreas can't bear these words. "No, Nils, ...I know you mean well... But let's not talk about what could possibly happen, but..."
"Agreed, let's rather talk about your and your Lili's past..." Nils is very serious now. "See, that seems currently the most important thing. You need to be very clear on how this odd, fantastic change that you have gone through since childhood, for the duration of a normal human life, has happened... How Lili slowly gained the upper hand over Andreas..."
"All right," Andreas replies, and looks at his watch, "Now I have to go visit my first judge over life and death, Professor A... And once I'm done with him, I will probably need to go the whole round..."
"Agreed." Nils had found his relaxed laughter again, "And once you're done with today's activities, you come back to us here at once. Now, break a leg as we say around these parts."
***
Professor A., the inventor of a new method of analyzing blood, received Andreas in a very careful way that had to instill a sense of safety and confidence. He addressed a number of questions to Andreas, which he answered without shame, no matter how delicate they were.
After long and complicated examinations, most of which were designed to determine the life circumstances of Lili in Andreas, - during which Andreas had to use all of his willpower to turn off his thinking - the scholar lead him from his study into a cozily furnished salon. "If you want to smoke... please... Here you have the lightest of cigarettes, which even the daintiest of women can stomach." After a little small talk, Professor A. told his patient that he now had to be examined by a sexual psychologist friend of his, Dr. H. "He has a lot of experience regarding the "soul," - You may think about this in purely scientific terms, - I however don't want to pass the judgement of this specialist in the field in regards to your person. - Once you're done with colleague H., you have to go visit yet another colleague, Dr. K.. He and I have to scientifically determine the hormone contents of your blood, while colleague H.'s judgement on you and the person within yourself, whom you call Lili, will be purely psychological. - In any case, I implore you to come back to visit me tomorrow before noon. The result of these various "examinations" which we have to put you through will then be delivered to your protector, Professor Kreutz."
"Your protector" ...those words beat on Andreas' heart. And as he sat in the waiting room of the spacious "Institute for Psychology" he had to repeat the words quietly to himself, - lest all confidence left him.
Why was I sent here, he asked himself, what do I have to do here? ...He felt as if he were being delivered to some great unknown. He felt a moral discomfort. A club of abnormal humans appeared as if for a performance: women looking like men in costume, men of which it was hard to believe they were men... The way they conversed repulsed him. Their movements, their voices, the kind of costumes they wore. --Yes, there was not really another word for it, Andreas thought, these things caused a deep sensation of disgust.
Finally Dr. H. appeared and led him through his consulting room. For hours on end this man probed the state of Andreas' soul with a barrage of questions. He had to submit to an inquisition of the most ruthless kind. Whether he wanted to or not. The shame of shamelessness is real, he thought during those hours. He clang to the definition he had read some time ago in a work of philosophy, just to rid himself of the feeling of standing there as if pilloried. It was running a gauntlet for the soul that he went through... was forced to go through.
And when this torture was over, the inquisitor released him with the words: "I expect you back here, the same time tomorrow."
And then it was Dr. K.'s turn. Andreas had already acquired a kind of routine in answering the questions put before him. This examination however took place more in the shape of a conversation. And before Andreas really noticed, he found himself in the midst of a real "men's talk"; It was about the political relationship between France and Germany. And almost casually the doctor inserted a long, delicate syringe into Andreas' arm to take a blood sample.
Then Dr. K. too released him with the words: "I will see you here back again tomorrow."
Exhausted he returned to Nils and Inger Hvide that night.
"No." He exclaimed right away. "Don't ask me anything now. I can't go on with it. And my "life's report" you can't have either tonight. Let's rather take a long walk through your Babylon on the Spree around the Kurfürstendamm. I have to see people, healthy people."
Inger was already "engaged" for the evening. But Nils was still "available" and took up Andreas' suggestion with delight.
They began at an authentic Russian restaurant, where vodka and other heavy stuff flowed freely during a multicourse supper. Then came German, French, Hungarian and Spanish wines in the most diverse array of bars and cafes. Nils was a famous wine connoisseur. And to the surprise of both, Andreas was a good drinking buddy that night.
"To your health, Andreas," Nils said, who just had again wondered about his friend's ability to "hold his liquor." "You really are an odd fellow. Tonight you behave like a chap, and tomorrow you will probably be able to certify that I will have to treat you like a lady in the future. Looking at you, I can't quite wrap my head around it how all of these things worked out. ... But maybe we don't just possess two souls, as Goethe said, but two beings, two entire beings... I don't quite know how to say that..."
Andreas looked at him, calmly. "I understand your line of thinking. It is hard to understand this change, hard for me, so it is much harder for others. And the strangest thing of all is, that every being within me, believe it, is healthy in its emotional life, - Believe it, it is so, completely normal."
"And exactly that is probably the abnormal, the unknowable in your case," Nils stated. "I have known you for years now, I mean" and now he smiled, "you as in Andreas... Because Lili, yes you have kept from us friends so far... And as a man, you always struck me as healthy... I have seen it with my own eyes, how women like you. Which is the clearest proof of your being a real man..." He stopped, looked at the friend, and placed a hand on Andreas' shoulder. "You won't hold it against me if I asked you an frank question?"
Andreas looked at him. "Nils, if you knew the kind of questions I've been answering all day, you would not stand on ceremony as much now..."
"All right, Andreas. Have you ever had interest in... your own kind?... You know what I mean."
Andreas shakes his head calmly. "My word, Nils, not once in my life. And I can add, that such creatures never had an interest in me."
"Bravo, Andreas. Just as I thought."
"My dear Nils, I want to confess truthfully and with simple words: Everywhere and always I have liked women. Back then as today. A banal confession. But there you go."
Nils raised his glass: "And now let us drink to the coming day. Come what may. Stay strong! Stay with it! If you lived during the times of the ancient Greeks, they would have made a demigod of you. Well, they would have burned you at the stake in the middle ages. Because miracles were forbidden. At least today doctors are allowed to perform miracles... So let us drink to tomorrow."
And they drank. And spoke not another word.
Nils accompanied the friend to his hotel. When he was alone in his room, he collapsed from agony of the body and the soul.
**
The next morning Andreas had found his equilibrium again, at least superficially. He kept to himself what he went through the last night. It was a farewell...
He arrives at Professor A.'s on time.
"I have talked to my colleague Kreutz. We agree that a young colleague, an upstanding surgeon, should give you a pre-treatment here. Once that is done, nothing stands in the way of having you admitted to Dr. Kreutz' clinic. That does not mean you will be accepted there..."
"Not me?" Andreas exclaims the question with a tone of despair.
"Kreutz is the head of a gynecological practice, a women's clinic... And your case," Now the doctor smiled a little. "Your case is somewhat extraordinary... Even for us men of medicine... Which means that once the local surgeon releases you, you will no longer be Andreas Sparre, but..."
"But Lili…" Andreas silently sank into a chair.
"Indeed... As colleague H. has told me in the meantime, he sees the male in you as the quite lesser part of your being, which exhibits about eighty out of a hundred parts being female, in regards to the soul. The analysis of your blood yielded similar results. By the way, I will be present during the operation, which we will perform here in Berlin. Before that we will take a few pictures of you. For purely scientific reasons of course. Colleague H. still wants to take those pictures today. He is expecting you. Tomorrow morning please go to the clinic of the surgeon." Then Professor A. gave Andreas the exact address of the clinic. Andreas noted it all down as if in a dream, barely said thanks and wanted to leave.
"You look a bit tired. Please have confidence. What you still have to go through is hard. What you have gone through in all those past years was surely a lot harder still, harder than any of us, born with healthy bodies, is even capable of imagining. Balancing that however, you have received a richness of the soul and a breath of emotion that far exceed that of normal human perception and knowledge. Just have a little more patience, my friend. Au revoir et bon courage!"
Andreas shakes the hand of the good man wordlessly and goes about his way.