Christopher and His Kind Read Online Free PDF

it, for the good of their souls. Perhaps, in his fantasies, he even imagined himself tricking such people into going to bed with infected partners.
    Theoretically, Christopher rather sympathized with this attitude. He saw Francis as an unwitting missionary of the gospel of Homer Lane, trying to teach the world that prophylaxis is one of the Devil’s devices. Nevertheless, though he knew he was being priggish and squeamish, Christopher begged to be excused; he did want to defy the Devil but he didn’t want to do it by getting syphilis, if that could possibly be avoided. Francis tolerated Christopher’s squeamishness good-humoredly. No doubt he felt confident that syphilis would catch up with Christopher sooner or later, because of his sexual promiscuity.
    They got along well together. Francis’s life was such that he seldom had the chance of talking to a fellow countryman who was like-minded in many respects. Christopher was eager to know everything that Francis could tell him about Berlin, including the weird idioms of Berlinerisch slang. Francis wasn’t really interested in Germany, however. He never felt truly at home, he said, except in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. It was there that he could pull himself together and work. Christopher, who had seen him only in an atmosphere of disorder and self-indulgence, was surprised to discover that he had a serious profession—although, admittedly, he practiced it by fits and starts. He was a trained archaeologist. He had directed archaeological digs in Palestine and elsewhere and written articles on his findings for scientific journals. Francis knew a vast amount about prehistoric Greece. He spoke of it often, with a quiet understated passion which Christopher found curiously moving. It was as if part of his mind dwelt continually in that world.
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    As the short winter afternoon began to darken, they would visit Karl Giese for coffee and gossip. The atmosphere of Karl’s sitting room had none of the Institute’s noble seriousness; it was a cozy little nest, lined with photographs and souvenirs.
    In repose, Karl’s long handsome face was melancholy. But soon he would be giggling and rolling his eyes. Touching the back of his head with his fingertips, as if patting bobbed curls, he would strike an It-Girl pose. This dedicated, earnest, intelligent campaigner for sexual freedom had an extraordinary innocence at such moments. Christopher saw in him the sturdy peasant youth with a girl’s heart who, long ago, had fallen in love with Hirschfeld, his father image. Karl still referred to Hirschfeld as “Papa.”
    He told Christopher that all working-class boys who are homosexual have a natural urge to get themselves educated; therefore, they have to climb into the middle class. This was what Karl had done. Christopher felt shocked by his statement and didn’t want to admit that it was true. Why couldn’t a working-class boy become educated without acquiring bourgeois airs and graces? If his nature required him to be a queen, why couldn’t he be a working-class queen? The fact was that Christopher, the upper-class boy, was now trying to disown his class. Because he hated it, he despised the middle class for aping its ways. That left him with nothing to admire but the working class; so he declared it to be forthright, without frills, altogether on the path of truth. Karl had no such illusions.
    One of Karl’s friends—the one Christopher liked best—was not only homosexual and fairly well educated but unashamedly proletarian. This was Erwin Hansen. He was a big muscular man with blond hair close-cropped, Army-style. He had been a gymnastic instructor in the Army; now he did various jobs around the Institute and was running to fat. He was good-humored, with rough and ready manners and pale roving blue eyes. He used to grin sexily at Christopher and sometimes pinch his bottom. Erwin was