n was a feebly sensuous interest in the physical
character of boys--in their feminine resemblances especially. To
this interest I opposed no discountenance; for wantonness with
women under many and diverse conditions having long ago medicined
my sexual conscience to lethargy, no access of reasons came to me
now for its refreshment. On the other hand, intellectual delight
in the promises of the new world, as well as sensuality, conduced
to its deliberate exploration. Still, for a year, the yearning
settled with true lust upon no object more concrete than youths
whose only habitation was my fancy.

"A young surgeon, having read my copy of _Psychopathia Sexualis_,
fell one evening to discussing inverts with such relish that I
inquired ingenuously if he himself was one. He colored, whether
confirmatively or otherwise I could not guess, in spite of his
vehement no. Presently he very subtly recanted his denial. But to
his counter-question I maintained my own no, lest he propose some
sexual act, a point the esthetics of my developing inversion
would not yet concede, the boys of my imagination being still
predominant.

"One evening, soon after this, he convoyed me to several of the
cafe's where inverts are accustomed to foregather. These trysting
places were much alike: a long hall, with sparse orchestra at one
end, marble-topped tables lining the walls, leaving the floor
free for dancing. Round the tables sat boys and youths, Adonises
both by art and nature, ready for a drink or a chat with the
chance Samaritan, and shyly importunate for the pleasures for
which, upstairs, were small rooms to let. One of the boys,
supported by the orchestra, sang the 'Jewel Song' out of
'_Faust_.' His voice had the limpid, treble purity of a
clarinet, and his face the beauty of an angel. The song
concluded, we invited him to our table, where he sat sipping neat
brandy, as he mockingly encountered my book-begotten queries. The
boy-prostitutes gracing these halls, he apprised us, bore
fanciful names, some of well-known actresses, others of heroes in
fiction, his own being Dorian Gray. Rivals, he complained, had
assumed the same appellation, but he was the original Dorian; the
others were jealous impostors. His curly hair was golden; his
cheeks were pink; his lips, coral red, parted incessantly to