g for me. I can remember how I used to fling my
arms round his neck and cover his face with kisses. I would then
draw his head down on my pillow and he would tell me fairy-tales
and I would go off to sleep quite happy.

"At 7 years of age, while staying in the country, a very
good-looking groom, about 25 years of age, misbehaved himself
with me. I often used to visit him in the stables, as this man
had a strange attraction for me. One day he tickled me. While
doing so he produced my penis and also his own, which was in full
erection. He tried in every way to excite my feelings, in vain.
For him the occasion terminated in an ejaculation. He forbade me
to tell anyone, and I did not do so, but tried to find out all I
could on the subject, with little or no result. From that day I
hated the groom and I felt a sort of guilt, as if I had 'lost
something.' Not till I was 12 years did I understand.

"From my earliest childhood I had one ideal of a man. From that
ideal I have never swerved. At the age of 30 I found a friend
who, though quite heterosexual, has, without giving me any sexual
intercourse, given me the love I have always needed. He has been
for the last couple of years a second mother, father, sister,
brother, and lover. Through him I have regained my health, my
love of nature, and he has helped to deaden my hatred toward
human nature and my bitterness. A better friend I never wish to
find. It has made up for all the years of mental and physical
suffering. One strange thing is that the feeling is mutual. He
has had a tragic life, for his wife, whom he loved beyond
everything, died under very sad circumstances. He says I am the
best male friend he has ever had. While with him, much of the
lower nature in me was stamped out. I shall always look upon him
as the turning point in my life. I think he wrought some of his
finest influence through his music. He played Beethoven and
Wagner for me for a couple of hours every day for months, and
thus opened up a new world to me.... He is six years older than I
am.

"At 10 years of age we moved to Sweden, a country I hated from
first to last. About this time I began to notice that there was
something strange about myself. I felt myself an alien, and have
done so ever since. An event of importance in my life was, I feel
sure, w