Man Into Woman - Foreword by Lili Elbe Lyrics
There aren't a lot of people that really live their life. Most stumble through existence like the blind – and if they happen upon a fanciful book, and finish reading it, they say: "Things like that only happen in novels" in order to clear their own conscience.
The few that go through life with their eyes wide open, know, that life itself is richer and stranger than any novel in this world. And openly they say to thеmselves: "Werе I to write this or that in a novel, everybody would think that it is not more than the fabrication of a bold and overheated poet's mind." Artists are among these few. They see, hear and feel with a greater intensity than others, which is why their lives are often adventures. They are connected to life and nature in a deep and mysterious way – this bond is so strong, that they have to try and give it a tangible, visible form.
In a way, the gods have made them to be the chosen ones of this existence, allowing them to peek behind the curtain that hides the mysterious forces stirring within man and nature from others. In turn the gods have imposed on their souls a merciless power that forces them to express everything that they have seen and felt – in order to guide those, that walk through life blindly.
I am not boastful, no, I also do not think that this book, this report, is a work of art. I wrote all of this down, because I couldn't help myself.
It is the wonderful, strange fairytale of my life, the most wonderful of all fairytales, not only because it is a true fairytale, but also because I am the first human being on this earth, whose fate it was to live first as a man and then become a woman.
The first person, not to be born unconsciously through their Mother's pangs but consciously through their own pain.
A hermaphrodite, Andreas Sparre, or as known by his public name, Einar Wegener, according to civil laws lived as a man for many, many years. He was an artist, a painter – he was married. As the division within him had become so strong that he cannot live any longer, he, a fatally ill human being, meets an ingenious surgeon, who is willing to take on the responsibility for this unprecedented experiment.
A young and rejuvenated woman is resurrected out of Andreas' "sick and decrepit body."
A year has passed. It was a difficult year, because within a society that is only accustomed to the normal, conventional and everyday things I am the only being existing outside of any law, meaning not having previously been taken into consideration by any lawmakers.
But now I feel, that the battle has been won.
My unique fate has been discussed in the newspapers of all countries and in all languages. They wrote about a miracle, yet, almost always, regarded me as a degenerate and sad creature.
Whoever did that, was wrong. Only those who have never seen me, would speak about me like that.
I am healthy, joyful and happy.
And as a healthy, joyful and happy person I have written this Confession – about Andreas Sparre and me, Lili Elbe, we who were two distinct beings in one body. Only the body was degenerated, and its condition worsened the more the bisection prevailed, creating a morbid condition.
For as long as the rest Andreas Sparre was a man, that loved women in a natural and normal way, – and I am a woman that as a matter of course is attracted to the male character in the same way. We were two beings in one body.
During the long period of transition, this body was too ill and exhausted from the dual male and female functions within, than that it could focus on the sensations of emotional life. Therefore, he who is expecting anything erotic in this book, will be disappointed. He should not pick up this book.
There are some cases, where young women have actually been men. And it was always their erotic inclinations that drew attention to them, and through a minor surgical procedure they became what they essentially had been from the very beginning. The individual underwent a change in appearance, without this change having any major effect on the personality or affinities of said individual.
I am now fully a woman, but a man with a man's mindset and inclinations lived in my body. This fate has yet to happen to anyone else. Even though the change within me is so significant, that the memory of Andreas Sparre's life and feelings has gradually almost completely vanished, so that oftentimes, in the part of the book dealing with Andreas, I would have to turn to Grete, his former wife until his extinction, and her memories of him, – I still believe that emotionally I am able to understand him better than other people could. And perhaps there is a bridge of consciousness inside of me that conquers the abyss that usually separates man and woman. And the consciousness of this emotional connection between the two sexes, this consciousness in my blood, which now flows through a woman's heart, my heart, just like it previously flowed through a man's heart, Andreas Sparre's heart, which from time to time through colorful, aching mists swelled up into cringing knowledge, this foreboding knowledge I carried into my fated confession – tentative and yet oh so true. It may be put into insufficient, tentative, meager words – and if sometimes those words only suggest, sometimes even conceal something, then this emanates from restrained shame... Despite the flaws in my confession, because after all, this is a confession, I still believe that here and there I have disclosed some virgin soil of the soul to some who are reading these pages.
With this book I also wanted to thank my helper and actual creator, the great German doctor and humanitarian in my hour of need, whose name I have concealed behind the Professor Kreutz of my book. I have given him and all other people wandering through my book aliases – need I even mention why?- out of an easily explained discretion.
August 1931
Lili Elbe
The few that go through life with their eyes wide open, know, that life itself is richer and stranger than any novel in this world. And openly they say to thеmselves: "Werе I to write this or that in a novel, everybody would think that it is not more than the fabrication of a bold and overheated poet's mind." Artists are among these few. They see, hear and feel with a greater intensity than others, which is why their lives are often adventures. They are connected to life and nature in a deep and mysterious way – this bond is so strong, that they have to try and give it a tangible, visible form.
In a way, the gods have made them to be the chosen ones of this existence, allowing them to peek behind the curtain that hides the mysterious forces stirring within man and nature from others. In turn the gods have imposed on their souls a merciless power that forces them to express everything that they have seen and felt – in order to guide those, that walk through life blindly.
I am not boastful, no, I also do not think that this book, this report, is a work of art. I wrote all of this down, because I couldn't help myself.
It is the wonderful, strange fairytale of my life, the most wonderful of all fairytales, not only because it is a true fairytale, but also because I am the first human being on this earth, whose fate it was to live first as a man and then become a woman.
The first person, not to be born unconsciously through their Mother's pangs but consciously through their own pain.
A hermaphrodite, Andreas Sparre, or as known by his public name, Einar Wegener, according to civil laws lived as a man for many, many years. He was an artist, a painter – he was married. As the division within him had become so strong that he cannot live any longer, he, a fatally ill human being, meets an ingenious surgeon, who is willing to take on the responsibility for this unprecedented experiment.
A young and rejuvenated woman is resurrected out of Andreas' "sick and decrepit body."
A year has passed. It was a difficult year, because within a society that is only accustomed to the normal, conventional and everyday things I am the only being existing outside of any law, meaning not having previously been taken into consideration by any lawmakers.
But now I feel, that the battle has been won.
My unique fate has been discussed in the newspapers of all countries and in all languages. They wrote about a miracle, yet, almost always, regarded me as a degenerate and sad creature.
Whoever did that, was wrong. Only those who have never seen me, would speak about me like that.
I am healthy, joyful and happy.
And as a healthy, joyful and happy person I have written this Confession – about Andreas Sparre and me, Lili Elbe, we who were two distinct beings in one body. Only the body was degenerated, and its condition worsened the more the bisection prevailed, creating a morbid condition.
For as long as the rest Andreas Sparre was a man, that loved women in a natural and normal way, – and I am a woman that as a matter of course is attracted to the male character in the same way. We were two beings in one body.
During the long period of transition, this body was too ill and exhausted from the dual male and female functions within, than that it could focus on the sensations of emotional life. Therefore, he who is expecting anything erotic in this book, will be disappointed. He should not pick up this book.
There are some cases, where young women have actually been men. And it was always their erotic inclinations that drew attention to them, and through a minor surgical procedure they became what they essentially had been from the very beginning. The individual underwent a change in appearance, without this change having any major effect on the personality or affinities of said individual.
I am now fully a woman, but a man with a man's mindset and inclinations lived in my body. This fate has yet to happen to anyone else. Even though the change within me is so significant, that the memory of Andreas Sparre's life and feelings has gradually almost completely vanished, so that oftentimes, in the part of the book dealing with Andreas, I would have to turn to Grete, his former wife until his extinction, and her memories of him, – I still believe that emotionally I am able to understand him better than other people could. And perhaps there is a bridge of consciousness inside of me that conquers the abyss that usually separates man and woman. And the consciousness of this emotional connection between the two sexes, this consciousness in my blood, which now flows through a woman's heart, my heart, just like it previously flowed through a man's heart, Andreas Sparre's heart, which from time to time through colorful, aching mists swelled up into cringing knowledge, this foreboding knowledge I carried into my fated confession – tentative and yet oh so true. It may be put into insufficient, tentative, meager words – and if sometimes those words only suggest, sometimes even conceal something, then this emanates from restrained shame... Despite the flaws in my confession, because after all, this is a confession, I still believe that here and there I have disclosed some virgin soil of the soul to some who are reading these pages.
With this book I also wanted to thank my helper and actual creator, the great German doctor and humanitarian in my hour of need, whose name I have concealed behind the Professor Kreutz of my book. I have given him and all other people wandering through my book aliases – need I even mention why?- out of an easily explained discretion.
August 1931
Lili Elbe