Man Into Woman - Chapter 6 by Lili Elbe Lyrics
Andreas is back with Nils and Inger that night.
After the three ate dinner, Andreas lights an after-dinner cigarette, gets up and extinguishes all superfluous light, so that only one electric candle remains shining dimly as a signal in the corner of an alcove. The friends had intentionally avoided asking about the results of the various fateful medical examinations.
He sits down in the comfortable armchair in the alcove corner and begins without great introductions and quite uncеremoniously:
"I have thought about your words thoroughly yestеrday, my dear Nils."
"About my words?"
"Yes, when you said: currently the most important thing was for me to understand how this – to use your words – strange, fantastical change, that I have gone through since childhood, happened. . ."
"Right, how she... Lili gained the upper hand over you," Nils adds.
"Well, I have thought about this last night... since it is not impossible to think that tonight is the last night of..."
"Humbug," Miss Inger interjects.
"Let it be, Inger," Nils interrupts her, "I know what Andreas is talking about..."
Andreas smiles. "Whatever happens, Miss Inger, it is a night of farewells... And so you understand that well, I want to relate how this came to pass, given that you two have as much patience as I do... I made a couple of notes, so I won't lose the thread of the story. Who knows how I will be tomorrow... If I will still be me tomorrow, or if I will have become erased as Andreas, this being sitting in front of you, which I begin to lose my memory of, to make place for a completely different being."
Nils has gotten up, paces around, stops in front of Andreas. He too has gotten serious now.
"I thought about this as well, if a bit nebulously, my dear boy. And since you know me as quite a down-to-earth person who takes things at face value, without too much sentiment, -also, I'm a lawyer, and a very sober lawyer,- I have not forgotten how to take shorthand from my time at law school, so, I want to make a suggestion- I could, without hurting your feelings, take down in shorthand the curriculum vitae you are about to tell us..." Now he laughed. Andreas caught his laughter. Even Miss Inger had to smile.
"An excellent idea," Andreas exclaimed amused. "I won't be ‘offended' by your shorthand, neither my feelings nor anything else. On the contrary. We have to think of posterity."
"All right, then let's go - With this I take up the honorary role of Tacitus." With these words Nils sat down on a comfortable lounge chair, and took out a notebook and a pencil. Miss Inger was already laying on a divan, casually smoking her cigarette.
"Let's begin with my parents, both of whom you have met," Andreas begins. "I want to go and confess my life to you like a correct chronicler. If I get too broad or too introspective, then..."
"As your Tacitus, don't worry, I will let the blue pen do its work afterwards," Nils interjected... For the last time, for now, during this night of saying farewell.
"So, my father's ancestors came from Mallorca to Jutland. I have my dark eyes from him. He was not a very steeled nature, a little delicate and very involved with his own well-being. My mother on the other hand was very neat with healthy nerves, a real Nordic, blonde kind of person, maybe even a bit harsh in her nature, an industrious person and a good mother. She died before Father, quite suddenly. Father could not find solace over her death. Their marriage had weathered many storms. After Mother's passing, Father honored her like a saint.
She had four children, two sons and two daughters. I was the youngest...
And now I will have to talk about me.
I was a very happy child. I got spoiled by everyone. Even from my siblings. I was quite the gourmet. I ate only my favorite foods. I never heard a harsh word from Father. If I needed a slap, it would be delivered by my mother. Otherwise she competed with Father to spoil me rotten – just like all the youngest kids get spoiled in the nest. Mother loved cleaning me up. I was never dressed well enough. And due to my "fine clothes" I was not allowed to run around with my peers. That was my biggest pain. When I was a small lad, I had long, blonde locks and snow-white skin, combined with the dark eyes, many strangers thought me a girl. In Kindergarten I was the most industrious child in crocheting and knitting, the only boy along with eleven girls. When I was five I received my first "official award" for that. For needlework...
When I was eight my brothers mocked me often for my "girly voice." I took those insults to heart and ever since tried my best to develop a real bratty bass.
Now that I think of it, my child's voice was the first time I pretended being something else...
Otherwise my childhood was nothing but sunshine. I played with my brothers and their tin soldiers, - and with my sister's dolls... I had a happy, worry free disposition. Nobody saw anything special in my pushing my sister's doll carriage... Many brothers who have sisters do that...
When I was nine years old, I went to the high school in the small town I was growing up in. My brothers went to the same school. None of us were model students. But our principal could not stand model students, even despised them in secret. ‘None of them will bring it to anything in life,' he once said about others. And in many cases he would be right. - French and Latin were my favorite subjects... Also I was one of the most frequent patrons of the school library, much to the joy of our "principal". Nevertheless I was usually the second-best student of my class. In French we were instructed by the Old Man. His French was peculiar. Once, after he had spent some time in Paris over summer break he told us angrily how he could not stand the Parisians, since neither they understood him nor he them. He closed his report by stating: "And you know, boys, I can speak French."
Yes, he was quite the personality. Very different from my Latin teacher. He was a very modern man, who did not just instruct us in the language, but also tried to induct us into the ancients' world of ideas, and the arts of antiquity. It was him who opened my eyes to the immaculate beauty of the Greek sculptures. It was just a distant, dim understanding... But I still remember as if it were today, when I was out swimming with my peers, and then beheld another's not very well proportioned boy's body and compared it to my own, smooth, delicate body in the water's reflection, I often quietly blushed. I was a built a lot more delicately and flexibly than most of my peers. And then I thought of the boy statues of Praxiteles, our Latin teacher had told us about a few days earlier. We had a few plaster casts of those in our painting room. Which reminds me of a small scene. A few girls went to our high school already back then. One of them was in my class. During recess she once put her girl's hat on my head. "Look, he looks like a real girl," she exclaimed and my companions laughed along with her. Suddenly our Latin teacher appeared in front of us. I was so in shock I did not have the time to take off the girl's hat. And before I know what happens, I am getting quite the beating. I was completely beside myself after that, and only realized many years later, why my old teacher believed he had to punish me then and there... We poor people... What do we know about ourselves... how much less about ... our neighbors.
By the way, I was a real boy. I was "in the middle" of altercations. I was willfully more courageous, especially because I was more delicate than my buddies, which led to a couple of sprained fingers.
Meanwhile I went on long hikes with my sister. And if I knew none of the boys could see me, - like in the forest by the town, - I would take over pushing the doll carriage, our constant companion...
During puberty my interest in the arts only increased. When I was seventeen years old, I began reading art magazines and visiting art exhibitions. My father who didn't think much of a career as an artist what with him being an aging salesman, tried a few times to guide my life towards more "practical pursuits." So he arranged for me to become first a trader's and then a painter's apprentice, but without having any other effect than to increase my will to do art.
At the same time I had, like all adolescents, my "flame," well, to be quite honest I should rather talk of "flames." That lasted well into my twenties...
When Father finally accepted that it was hopeless to try and get me interested in anything "practical," I was sent to Copenhagen at the age of nineteen where I was a student at the art academy. Here a few good mates took me under their wing and took care that I lost my provincial naiveté and inhibition, and that I became quite brutally "demystified"... I got to know Grete back then...
It was a love at first sight, in the words' most daring meaning.
Yes, we had an almost mystical attraction to each other from the first moment on. Grete had just arrived at the art academy. Also from the provinces... The both of us immediately became inseparable. We attended all lectures together at night. Back then lectures were still separated by gender for male and female students.
We were introduced by a friend.
When he found out one day, that we had gotten engaged, he became raving with jealousy. Not because of Grete, though, and I only noted that a few years later, - but because of me.... But even such a thing happening is not out of the ordinary... How many friends have made similar experiences when a woman steps between them...
A year after our first encounter, Grete and I married. We were still so young... I was barely twenty, Grete was a few years younger... What did we know of life, of people... We were indescribably happy with one another.
I still remember ... it was the first years of our marriage ... one evening, we lived in a wonderfully situated atelier, with a wide view of Copenhagen, Grete read to me an ancient fairy tale from antiquity. It went something like this: "Hermes, the darling of the gods, had a son, and Aphrodite, the divinely beautiful, had a daughter. Both children were exemplars of beauty. Both had never seen each other before when one day they find each other eye to eye in the Forest of the Gods. The girl was aglow for the boy immediately. But the boy ran from her. No matter how loud she cried out for him, he wouldn't stop. Desperately the divine girl went to Zeus and complained to him of her love affliction. "I love him, Father, but he fled from me. He doesn't want to know me. Oh Father, allow me to become one with him." And Zeus heard the pleading of the god's child and raised his arm, and the next moment, Hermes' shy son appeared before the Olympian, Aphrodite's daughter rejoiced with delight, enfolded the quivering youngling - and again Zeus raised his arm -- and both of them disappeared into each other --- And as Hermes and Aphrodite searched for their children, they found a blissfully smiling child. "It is my son," Hermes exclaimed. "No, it is my daughter," said Aphrodite. And they were both right... ‘See,' Grete said to me that distant night, ‘I love you so much, I wish that you and I, we were one being.' And I looked at her gleefully... just very happy... And clueless in regard to the deeper meaning of her words, just like she herself.
Around this time Grete was painting the portrait of the most well beloved actress in old Copenhagen, Anna Larsen. One day she could not make it to one of the scheduled appointments. On the phone she asked Grete, who was a bit cross with her: "Couldn't Andreas model for the lower part of the picture? His legs and feet are as pretty as mine."
Grete laughed, as she did. Once I had, and Anna Larsen knew that, ‘helped out' Grete with a woman's portrait. But back then this had been about the arrangement of the folds. "You have quite pretty woman's legs." Grete had said to me, jokingly.
While Grete was on the phone with Anna L., I was about to clean my palette, smoked a cigar and didn't really listen as Grete told Anna Larsen this suggestion. Initially I quite harshly rejected.
Grete laughed at me, called me self-centered, begged me, caressed me… and a few minutes later I was standing there in a dress, high heels and so on, in the atelier and we both laughed as if over a good joke. And to complete the disguise, Grete dug up an old carnival wig from the depths of a chest and pulled it over my head. It was a blonde wig, with a lot of curls. Then she brought in powder and make-up. I let it all happen willingly.
And when everything was done, we barely believed our eyes. I turned and stretched in front of a mirror, again and again, tried to recognize myself. Was it possible for me to look this good, I asked myself. Grete clapped her hands gleefully. "The most perfect lady model." She exclaimed one time after the other. "As if you never wore anything but women's clothing."
It was strange – I can't deny it when I soberly remember that scene – I liked myself in that dress-up role... I perceived the light women's clothes as something indeed pleasant, something natural... I felt at home in them. From the first moment on. And Grete began to paint.
The doorbell rang out in the hallway. And a moment later Anna Larsen rushes into the atelier. She apparently had found the time... She looks at me... does not recognize the strange woman ... on top of it all one who is wearing her own dress. But then she lets out a cry of joy and hugs me hard.
"I've not experienced something this funny in a long time," she concludes and applauds me. Then she beholds me from all sides, I had to turn and twist and take all kinds of positions. And then Anna Larsen began anew: I would be a much prettier girl than a man. Women's clothes looked so much better on me than men's stuff. And finally she says, and I have never been able to forget the words: "You know, Andreas, you surely were a girl in an earlier existence... Or nature has made quite the mistake with you."
Those were her words. She had spoken very slowly and thoughtfully. Grete and I noted that she was feeling stranger and stranger the longer she beheld me.
Finally Grete gave me a sign to get rid of the costume, so that Anna Larsen herself could model for her.
I want to withdraw. Anna Larsen grabs me. "No," she exclaims, "I would not be able to stomach seeing Andreas again today. Let's not even speak of him! You hear! And now I want to baptize you, my little girl, you should receive an especially lovely, ringing name. For example ... Lili...
What do you think of Lili?...From now on, I will call you Lili... And that we have to celebrate! What do you say, Grete?"- -
Grete just nodded, looked at her, then at the baptismal child... with wondering eyes... And then we three had a fun feast, deep into the night, Lili's christening night...
That's how Lili came to be... And the name stuck...
And not just the name...
It began with this boisterous fun, an idea only artists could come up with... And many years we played our game with Lili, until the game turned serious...
But let me not take events out of order. A few weeks after Lili's baptism the artists' carnival took place.
Grete suggested Lili take part in the carnival, and through that have her introduction to the world. Grete designed a delightful pierette-costume... And with loudly beating heart Lili made her "Entrée dans le monde."
The success was complete. Lili was one of the most sought after dancers. An army officer especially had his eye on her. Eventually he came for her for every dance. Towards midnight he got impetuous. Finally Lili tried to "air" her secret. Which didn't help her much. The army officer simply wouldn't believe her. Just as she had escaped him, she jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. A new cavalier simply grabbed her and wouldn't let her go, demanded right then and there to at the very least be allowed to kiss her neck. When she finally managed to escape his grasp, the pierette-costume was missing some pieces of lace...
Incidentally, on this night that was unforgettable in more than one way, I had the first opportunity to experience the brutality of men against women in the flesh. It would not remain the only time.
Lili had made another, strange observation during the festivities: the position of the female sex towards her, she had herself looked upon women whom she regarded as beautiful, with a friendly smile. But most of the time her trustful gaze was rejected with icy scorn. She was clueless, eventually asked Grete if she had behaved badly, if she was looking bad, and so forth. Grete only caressed Lili indulgently and said, smiling: "This stupid Lili is still so young. She does not know the malice and distrust of us women towards other women. She will get to know it eventually."
These words left a deep, unforgettable impression on Lili. It was the first time she felt as her own being. And so this funny idea turned into something of a premonition... How often did I have to think of this distant night.
But this night held yet another lesson, one not less distinctive.
Grete and Lili wanted to go home. Looking for her coat Lili runs into the arms of one of the painters from the academy. It was one of my four atelier buddies! For heaven's sake! How to behave so the secret doesn't come out? - Lili pretends not to see him. He grabs her, pushes her against him and kisses her neck half a dozen times. This time I come to Lili's rescue. The ruffian gets a few well aimed slaps to the face. He retreats immediately, and hurriedly... Hauwitz was the man's name.
As I step into the atelier class the next day, the companions are in the midst of discussing the events of carnival night. Hauwitz is most agitated. He tells of all of his adventures.
"But where were you yesterday?" he immediately attacks me. The others too ask why I didn't participate, especially since Grete had been there.
I explain that I had not been feeling too well. And by the way I had heard the colleagues had entertained themselves quite well, especially Hauwitz, who was very busy courting a pierette.
How did I know that, Hauwitz threw in, flattered, and apparently it is impossible for one to move around without gossip being spread about oneself; who was it that was this indiscreet, to tell me of his little adventures...
"You just are one outrageous heartbreaker," I said, admiringly. "Well, tell me about it then..."
Initially, Hauwitz deflected, cavalierly. "One is a gentleman, there are things that should not be talked of. By the way this Pierette was a marvelous person. At least..."
He lights a new cigarette, smirking mysteriously, winking at me ominously, and everyone surrounds him more closely. "Go on, Hauwitz," they encourage him.
"Well, Sparre seems to know what's up. Stick with him then," He replies, quite clearly.
"But, my dear Hauwitz. Don't get me wrong. I would be the last one here to make any allusions," I replied, and then asked this very daring question: "was she really that pretty?"
"You can allude to all you like," Hauwitz began anew, "You simply cannot go too far in your speculations. Truly an unheard of thing..."
Following this, Hauwitz again wrapped himself in silence, which said more than the rudest brag...
I confessed to my most intimate friends the identity of the Pierette afterwards...
Hauwitz was inducted not much later, after he had gotten more opportunities to get comfortable in the role of the somewhat doubtful Casanova and to further embarrass himself...
This dance was followed by others, during which Lili became more comfortable in her role. Grete dolled her up each time, so that this newly surfaced being began to raise a furor in the artistic circles of Copenhagen... And not just that. Lili slowly turned into Grete's indispensable plaything... Because, no matter how strange this may sound now, not I dressed up as Lili, but for both me and Grete Lili soon turned into her fully independent person, a playmate of Grete's, her actual playmate and a toy at the same time.
Lili and I, we became two different beings. If Lili wasn't there, we spoke of her in the third person. And if Lili was there, meaning if I wasn't, then I was talked about in the third person between Grete and her. And soon our most intimate friends learned this too. But it was still a game for many, many years...
Grete was deep in her being quite melancholic. To get over these moods from here on out, she called for her playmate Lili. Lili was carelessness and serenity personified. Gradually, Lili became more and more important as a model for her mistress. Today I can say that, yes, Lili was Grete's favorite model. If it was chance or not, Grete had more success with paintings for which Lili had modeled. And she began to see Lili as a sort of mascot, a talisman.
A big series of Grete's pictures and drawings was created in our first atelier in Copenhagen, in which Lili appeared in hundreds of variations as a model. Grete's reputation as an artist grew. Lili's reputation as a model did likewise. But nobody knew who was behind the model. Legends began to form. Gossip began its whisper, but without getting close to the secret.
A well-known writer claimed Lili was not even a being of flesh and blood, but instead nothing but a type of woman which Grete's imagination had zeroed in on. An empty caprice...
Just a few suspected a connection. But nobody knew anything concrete about the mystery of Lili, – except for Anna Larsen, who had sworn absolute confidentiality. She had kept her word.
One day Grete received an invitation from Paris to exhibit her "Lili drawings" there...
And so us three were transplanted to Paris: Grete, Lili and – me.
After the three ate dinner, Andreas lights an after-dinner cigarette, gets up and extinguishes all superfluous light, so that only one electric candle remains shining dimly as a signal in the corner of an alcove. The friends had intentionally avoided asking about the results of the various fateful medical examinations.
He sits down in the comfortable armchair in the alcove corner and begins without great introductions and quite uncеremoniously:
"I have thought about your words thoroughly yestеrday, my dear Nils."
"About my words?"
"Yes, when you said: currently the most important thing was for me to understand how this – to use your words – strange, fantastical change, that I have gone through since childhood, happened. . ."
"Right, how she... Lili gained the upper hand over you," Nils adds.
"Well, I have thought about this last night... since it is not impossible to think that tonight is the last night of..."
"Humbug," Miss Inger interjects.
"Let it be, Inger," Nils interrupts her, "I know what Andreas is talking about..."
Andreas smiles. "Whatever happens, Miss Inger, it is a night of farewells... And so you understand that well, I want to relate how this came to pass, given that you two have as much patience as I do... I made a couple of notes, so I won't lose the thread of the story. Who knows how I will be tomorrow... If I will still be me tomorrow, or if I will have become erased as Andreas, this being sitting in front of you, which I begin to lose my memory of, to make place for a completely different being."
Nils has gotten up, paces around, stops in front of Andreas. He too has gotten serious now.
"I thought about this as well, if a bit nebulously, my dear boy. And since you know me as quite a down-to-earth person who takes things at face value, without too much sentiment, -also, I'm a lawyer, and a very sober lawyer,- I have not forgotten how to take shorthand from my time at law school, so, I want to make a suggestion- I could, without hurting your feelings, take down in shorthand the curriculum vitae you are about to tell us..." Now he laughed. Andreas caught his laughter. Even Miss Inger had to smile.
"An excellent idea," Andreas exclaimed amused. "I won't be ‘offended' by your shorthand, neither my feelings nor anything else. On the contrary. We have to think of posterity."
"All right, then let's go - With this I take up the honorary role of Tacitus." With these words Nils sat down on a comfortable lounge chair, and took out a notebook and a pencil. Miss Inger was already laying on a divan, casually smoking her cigarette.
"Let's begin with my parents, both of whom you have met," Andreas begins. "I want to go and confess my life to you like a correct chronicler. If I get too broad or too introspective, then..."
"As your Tacitus, don't worry, I will let the blue pen do its work afterwards," Nils interjected... For the last time, for now, during this night of saying farewell.
"So, my father's ancestors came from Mallorca to Jutland. I have my dark eyes from him. He was not a very steeled nature, a little delicate and very involved with his own well-being. My mother on the other hand was very neat with healthy nerves, a real Nordic, blonde kind of person, maybe even a bit harsh in her nature, an industrious person and a good mother. She died before Father, quite suddenly. Father could not find solace over her death. Their marriage had weathered many storms. After Mother's passing, Father honored her like a saint.
She had four children, two sons and two daughters. I was the youngest...
And now I will have to talk about me.
I was a very happy child. I got spoiled by everyone. Even from my siblings. I was quite the gourmet. I ate only my favorite foods. I never heard a harsh word from Father. If I needed a slap, it would be delivered by my mother. Otherwise she competed with Father to spoil me rotten – just like all the youngest kids get spoiled in the nest. Mother loved cleaning me up. I was never dressed well enough. And due to my "fine clothes" I was not allowed to run around with my peers. That was my biggest pain. When I was a small lad, I had long, blonde locks and snow-white skin, combined with the dark eyes, many strangers thought me a girl. In Kindergarten I was the most industrious child in crocheting and knitting, the only boy along with eleven girls. When I was five I received my first "official award" for that. For needlework...
When I was eight my brothers mocked me often for my "girly voice." I took those insults to heart and ever since tried my best to develop a real bratty bass.
Now that I think of it, my child's voice was the first time I pretended being something else...
Otherwise my childhood was nothing but sunshine. I played with my brothers and their tin soldiers, - and with my sister's dolls... I had a happy, worry free disposition. Nobody saw anything special in my pushing my sister's doll carriage... Many brothers who have sisters do that...
When I was nine years old, I went to the high school in the small town I was growing up in. My brothers went to the same school. None of us were model students. But our principal could not stand model students, even despised them in secret. ‘None of them will bring it to anything in life,' he once said about others. And in many cases he would be right. - French and Latin were my favorite subjects... Also I was one of the most frequent patrons of the school library, much to the joy of our "principal". Nevertheless I was usually the second-best student of my class. In French we were instructed by the Old Man. His French was peculiar. Once, after he had spent some time in Paris over summer break he told us angrily how he could not stand the Parisians, since neither they understood him nor he them. He closed his report by stating: "And you know, boys, I can speak French."
Yes, he was quite the personality. Very different from my Latin teacher. He was a very modern man, who did not just instruct us in the language, but also tried to induct us into the ancients' world of ideas, and the arts of antiquity. It was him who opened my eyes to the immaculate beauty of the Greek sculptures. It was just a distant, dim understanding... But I still remember as if it were today, when I was out swimming with my peers, and then beheld another's not very well proportioned boy's body and compared it to my own, smooth, delicate body in the water's reflection, I often quietly blushed. I was a built a lot more delicately and flexibly than most of my peers. And then I thought of the boy statues of Praxiteles, our Latin teacher had told us about a few days earlier. We had a few plaster casts of those in our painting room. Which reminds me of a small scene. A few girls went to our high school already back then. One of them was in my class. During recess she once put her girl's hat on my head. "Look, he looks like a real girl," she exclaimed and my companions laughed along with her. Suddenly our Latin teacher appeared in front of us. I was so in shock I did not have the time to take off the girl's hat. And before I know what happens, I am getting quite the beating. I was completely beside myself after that, and only realized many years later, why my old teacher believed he had to punish me then and there... We poor people... What do we know about ourselves... how much less about ... our neighbors.
By the way, I was a real boy. I was "in the middle" of altercations. I was willfully more courageous, especially because I was more delicate than my buddies, which led to a couple of sprained fingers.
Meanwhile I went on long hikes with my sister. And if I knew none of the boys could see me, - like in the forest by the town, - I would take over pushing the doll carriage, our constant companion...
During puberty my interest in the arts only increased. When I was seventeen years old, I began reading art magazines and visiting art exhibitions. My father who didn't think much of a career as an artist what with him being an aging salesman, tried a few times to guide my life towards more "practical pursuits." So he arranged for me to become first a trader's and then a painter's apprentice, but without having any other effect than to increase my will to do art.
At the same time I had, like all adolescents, my "flame," well, to be quite honest I should rather talk of "flames." That lasted well into my twenties...
When Father finally accepted that it was hopeless to try and get me interested in anything "practical," I was sent to Copenhagen at the age of nineteen where I was a student at the art academy. Here a few good mates took me under their wing and took care that I lost my provincial naiveté and inhibition, and that I became quite brutally "demystified"... I got to know Grete back then...
It was a love at first sight, in the words' most daring meaning.
Yes, we had an almost mystical attraction to each other from the first moment on. Grete had just arrived at the art academy. Also from the provinces... The both of us immediately became inseparable. We attended all lectures together at night. Back then lectures were still separated by gender for male and female students.
We were introduced by a friend.
When he found out one day, that we had gotten engaged, he became raving with jealousy. Not because of Grete, though, and I only noted that a few years later, - but because of me.... But even such a thing happening is not out of the ordinary... How many friends have made similar experiences when a woman steps between them...
A year after our first encounter, Grete and I married. We were still so young... I was barely twenty, Grete was a few years younger... What did we know of life, of people... We were indescribably happy with one another.
I still remember ... it was the first years of our marriage ... one evening, we lived in a wonderfully situated atelier, with a wide view of Copenhagen, Grete read to me an ancient fairy tale from antiquity. It went something like this: "Hermes, the darling of the gods, had a son, and Aphrodite, the divinely beautiful, had a daughter. Both children were exemplars of beauty. Both had never seen each other before when one day they find each other eye to eye in the Forest of the Gods. The girl was aglow for the boy immediately. But the boy ran from her. No matter how loud she cried out for him, he wouldn't stop. Desperately the divine girl went to Zeus and complained to him of her love affliction. "I love him, Father, but he fled from me. He doesn't want to know me. Oh Father, allow me to become one with him." And Zeus heard the pleading of the god's child and raised his arm, and the next moment, Hermes' shy son appeared before the Olympian, Aphrodite's daughter rejoiced with delight, enfolded the quivering youngling - and again Zeus raised his arm -- and both of them disappeared into each other --- And as Hermes and Aphrodite searched for their children, they found a blissfully smiling child. "It is my son," Hermes exclaimed. "No, it is my daughter," said Aphrodite. And they were both right... ‘See,' Grete said to me that distant night, ‘I love you so much, I wish that you and I, we were one being.' And I looked at her gleefully... just very happy... And clueless in regard to the deeper meaning of her words, just like she herself.
Around this time Grete was painting the portrait of the most well beloved actress in old Copenhagen, Anna Larsen. One day she could not make it to one of the scheduled appointments. On the phone she asked Grete, who was a bit cross with her: "Couldn't Andreas model for the lower part of the picture? His legs and feet are as pretty as mine."
Grete laughed, as she did. Once I had, and Anna Larsen knew that, ‘helped out' Grete with a woman's portrait. But back then this had been about the arrangement of the folds. "You have quite pretty woman's legs." Grete had said to me, jokingly.
While Grete was on the phone with Anna L., I was about to clean my palette, smoked a cigar and didn't really listen as Grete told Anna Larsen this suggestion. Initially I quite harshly rejected.
Grete laughed at me, called me self-centered, begged me, caressed me… and a few minutes later I was standing there in a dress, high heels and so on, in the atelier and we both laughed as if over a good joke. And to complete the disguise, Grete dug up an old carnival wig from the depths of a chest and pulled it over my head. It was a blonde wig, with a lot of curls. Then she brought in powder and make-up. I let it all happen willingly.
And when everything was done, we barely believed our eyes. I turned and stretched in front of a mirror, again and again, tried to recognize myself. Was it possible for me to look this good, I asked myself. Grete clapped her hands gleefully. "The most perfect lady model." She exclaimed one time after the other. "As if you never wore anything but women's clothing."
It was strange – I can't deny it when I soberly remember that scene – I liked myself in that dress-up role... I perceived the light women's clothes as something indeed pleasant, something natural... I felt at home in them. From the first moment on. And Grete began to paint.
The doorbell rang out in the hallway. And a moment later Anna Larsen rushes into the atelier. She apparently had found the time... She looks at me... does not recognize the strange woman ... on top of it all one who is wearing her own dress. But then she lets out a cry of joy and hugs me hard.
"I've not experienced something this funny in a long time," she concludes and applauds me. Then she beholds me from all sides, I had to turn and twist and take all kinds of positions. And then Anna Larsen began anew: I would be a much prettier girl than a man. Women's clothes looked so much better on me than men's stuff. And finally she says, and I have never been able to forget the words: "You know, Andreas, you surely were a girl in an earlier existence... Or nature has made quite the mistake with you."
Those were her words. She had spoken very slowly and thoughtfully. Grete and I noted that she was feeling stranger and stranger the longer she beheld me.
Finally Grete gave me a sign to get rid of the costume, so that Anna Larsen herself could model for her.
I want to withdraw. Anna Larsen grabs me. "No," she exclaims, "I would not be able to stomach seeing Andreas again today. Let's not even speak of him! You hear! And now I want to baptize you, my little girl, you should receive an especially lovely, ringing name. For example ... Lili...
What do you think of Lili?...From now on, I will call you Lili... And that we have to celebrate! What do you say, Grete?"- -
Grete just nodded, looked at her, then at the baptismal child... with wondering eyes... And then we three had a fun feast, deep into the night, Lili's christening night...
That's how Lili came to be... And the name stuck...
And not just the name...
It began with this boisterous fun, an idea only artists could come up with... And many years we played our game with Lili, until the game turned serious...
But let me not take events out of order. A few weeks after Lili's baptism the artists' carnival took place.
Grete suggested Lili take part in the carnival, and through that have her introduction to the world. Grete designed a delightful pierette-costume... And with loudly beating heart Lili made her "Entrée dans le monde."
The success was complete. Lili was one of the most sought after dancers. An army officer especially had his eye on her. Eventually he came for her for every dance. Towards midnight he got impetuous. Finally Lili tried to "air" her secret. Which didn't help her much. The army officer simply wouldn't believe her. Just as she had escaped him, she jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. A new cavalier simply grabbed her and wouldn't let her go, demanded right then and there to at the very least be allowed to kiss her neck. When she finally managed to escape his grasp, the pierette-costume was missing some pieces of lace...
Incidentally, on this night that was unforgettable in more than one way, I had the first opportunity to experience the brutality of men against women in the flesh. It would not remain the only time.
Lili had made another, strange observation during the festivities: the position of the female sex towards her, she had herself looked upon women whom she regarded as beautiful, with a friendly smile. But most of the time her trustful gaze was rejected with icy scorn. She was clueless, eventually asked Grete if she had behaved badly, if she was looking bad, and so forth. Grete only caressed Lili indulgently and said, smiling: "This stupid Lili is still so young. She does not know the malice and distrust of us women towards other women. She will get to know it eventually."
These words left a deep, unforgettable impression on Lili. It was the first time she felt as her own being. And so this funny idea turned into something of a premonition... How often did I have to think of this distant night.
But this night held yet another lesson, one not less distinctive.
Grete and Lili wanted to go home. Looking for her coat Lili runs into the arms of one of the painters from the academy. It was one of my four atelier buddies! For heaven's sake! How to behave so the secret doesn't come out? - Lili pretends not to see him. He grabs her, pushes her against him and kisses her neck half a dozen times. This time I come to Lili's rescue. The ruffian gets a few well aimed slaps to the face. He retreats immediately, and hurriedly... Hauwitz was the man's name.
As I step into the atelier class the next day, the companions are in the midst of discussing the events of carnival night. Hauwitz is most agitated. He tells of all of his adventures.
"But where were you yesterday?" he immediately attacks me. The others too ask why I didn't participate, especially since Grete had been there.
I explain that I had not been feeling too well. And by the way I had heard the colleagues had entertained themselves quite well, especially Hauwitz, who was very busy courting a pierette.
How did I know that, Hauwitz threw in, flattered, and apparently it is impossible for one to move around without gossip being spread about oneself; who was it that was this indiscreet, to tell me of his little adventures...
"You just are one outrageous heartbreaker," I said, admiringly. "Well, tell me about it then..."
Initially, Hauwitz deflected, cavalierly. "One is a gentleman, there are things that should not be talked of. By the way this Pierette was a marvelous person. At least..."
He lights a new cigarette, smirking mysteriously, winking at me ominously, and everyone surrounds him more closely. "Go on, Hauwitz," they encourage him.
"Well, Sparre seems to know what's up. Stick with him then," He replies, quite clearly.
"But, my dear Hauwitz. Don't get me wrong. I would be the last one here to make any allusions," I replied, and then asked this very daring question: "was she really that pretty?"
"You can allude to all you like," Hauwitz began anew, "You simply cannot go too far in your speculations. Truly an unheard of thing..."
Following this, Hauwitz again wrapped himself in silence, which said more than the rudest brag...
I confessed to my most intimate friends the identity of the Pierette afterwards...
Hauwitz was inducted not much later, after he had gotten more opportunities to get comfortable in the role of the somewhat doubtful Casanova and to further embarrass himself...
This dance was followed by others, during which Lili became more comfortable in her role. Grete dolled her up each time, so that this newly surfaced being began to raise a furor in the artistic circles of Copenhagen... And not just that. Lili slowly turned into Grete's indispensable plaything... Because, no matter how strange this may sound now, not I dressed up as Lili, but for both me and Grete Lili soon turned into her fully independent person, a playmate of Grete's, her actual playmate and a toy at the same time.
Lili and I, we became two different beings. If Lili wasn't there, we spoke of her in the third person. And if Lili was there, meaning if I wasn't, then I was talked about in the third person between Grete and her. And soon our most intimate friends learned this too. But it was still a game for many, many years...
Grete was deep in her being quite melancholic. To get over these moods from here on out, she called for her playmate Lili. Lili was carelessness and serenity personified. Gradually, Lili became more and more important as a model for her mistress. Today I can say that, yes, Lili was Grete's favorite model. If it was chance or not, Grete had more success with paintings for which Lili had modeled. And she began to see Lili as a sort of mascot, a talisman.
A big series of Grete's pictures and drawings was created in our first atelier in Copenhagen, in which Lili appeared in hundreds of variations as a model. Grete's reputation as an artist grew. Lili's reputation as a model did likewise. But nobody knew who was behind the model. Legends began to form. Gossip began its whisper, but without getting close to the secret.
A well-known writer claimed Lili was not even a being of flesh and blood, but instead nothing but a type of woman which Grete's imagination had zeroed in on. An empty caprice...
Just a few suspected a connection. But nobody knew anything concrete about the mystery of Lili, – except for Anna Larsen, who had sworn absolute confidentiality. She had kept her word.
One day Grete received an invitation from Paris to exhibit her "Lili drawings" there...
And so us three were transplanted to Paris: Grete, Lili and – me.