Man Into Woman - Chapter 12
An older nurse clad in white stood in the entrance to the private practice, hugging a lady. This was Lili's first impression of the "Women's Clinic." And that impression remained. Because it was right.

The older nurse was the Matron. She was bidding farewell to a patient.

Then she received the three foreigners with great kindness and lead them into a long hospital corridor. Dusk had already set in, a soft, ocean green shimmer fell in through thе green glass panes of the big double door at thе end of the corridor, that reflected on the sheer hardwood floors and on the many white painted doors.

"The Professor will be in soon," said the Matron.

Close to the big double door were a few armchairs and a small table, lit by a lamp. There a doctor wearing a white coat conversed with a few ladies.

Grete grabbed Lili's hand. "That is Professor Kreutz, isn't it," she whispered.

"You are mistaken, Grete," Niels said. "Besides, you have never seen him. That is certainly just an assistant doctor."

"Grete is right, it is Professor Kreutz," Lili whispered, her voice quaking.

While he accompanied the two ladies to the director's office, he paused for a moment and greeted the new arrivals with ceremonious courtesy, and asked them to take a seat. They sat down around the round table, and Lili became quiet. She didn't hear or see anything. Grete and Nils talked about inconsequential things. White nurses came and and went wished them good day.

Lili saw nothing, heard nothing.

Just when the door to the director's office opened again, and the two ladies were led out by the Professor, did she awake to a new consciousness.
The Matron gave them a sign, and Nils took Lili's hand, to lead them inside. Grete remained sitting in the armchair.

A few months ago, in Paris, Professor Kreutz had seen Andreas before him a single occasion. Today Lili stood before him for the first time. The Professor accompanied them into the director's office, and then went outside to welcome Grete.

Lili, who had suddenly turned very quiet, looked around the room. It was a big room, resembling a study as well as an operating theater. In front of the tall window that overlooked the white birches of the garden stood an examination chair, in front of the wall a desk, full of papers. Everything in the room was blindingly white.

When the Professor returned, he sat down opposite Lili. She began talking about her stay in Berlin somewhat distractedly. Suddenly he interrupted her with a question. His somewhat earnest face showed a smile:

"Did Professor A. tell you the results of his chemical and microscopical analysis?"

"No, Professor."

"Well, then I can give you the good news, that all analyses were good. Everything confirms our assumptions."

And with a quickly thrown down, very factual remark he proved to Lili that he knew of the minutiae of the procedures undertaken in Berlin better than she did herself. And she breathed a sigh of relief. So she did not have to give him any explanation.

And she listened to his odd, veiled voice. A feeling of happiness came over her. The Professor spoke so sympathetically of everything concerning her, that she grew courageous. And suddenly she began telling him of her experience with Dr. K. in Berlin. However when she looked up and into Professor Kreutz' eyes, in those eyes which were bright and dark at the same time, - for just a second she endured that gaze, then the words died on her lips. She could not keep on talking. Suddenly she recalled that Andreas could converse with the Professor in Paris without any inhibition. Why could she not do that?

Professor Kreutz looked at her questioningly, apparently waiting for her to continue her narration. But when that did not happen, he broke the silence.

"You should have come into the private practice, but unexpectedly everything is occupied at the moment. But it doesn't hurt that we have to wait a little with the operation. Because I am still looking for some especially good glands for you ..."

Lili winced at this factual reasoning. She did not know where to turn her eyes. She felt a boundless shame. She was totally confused.

The Professor did not seem to recognize this, because he continued very factually:
"Besides, it will do you well to spend a few days at the hotel, see the city and our museums. Also, you could also paint something. You will find many motifs here. Such a distraction should be most beneficial for you."

Lili seemed to lose all footing. The thought of not being accepted at the clinic right away, but to have to spend days in a foreign hotel seemed monstrous to her, like an undeserved punishment. She wanted to beg the Professor to allow her to stay. She also wanted to protest against his decision. And she looked at the Professor looking for help, and could not say anything other than:

"Yes, Professor."

With that the consultation was over. The Professor shook their hands and went out with them to Grete, told them of a hotel close to "the Women's Clinic" and bade them farewell very formally. And in the next moment he had vanished behind the door to the director's office.

Lili stood before Grete, speechless. She felt as if she had suffered a devastating defeat. A single glance of that man had taken all of her spirits – she felt as if through this man all of her personality had been shattered. With a single glance he had obliterated her. Something was rebelling within her. She felt like a schoolgirl who had just been scolded by a beloved teacher. She still heard the voice of the Professor in her ear. She felt a curious weakness in all her limbs. She stood as if in a fog and understood nothing. But later, when she reflected on the moment, she found the explanation: it had been the first time, that her woman's heart had quaked in front of her lord and master, before the man who had made himself her protector, and she understood, why she had already submitted to his will back then.

- - -

The hotel Professor Kreutz had told them of was located in a wide square, surrounded by trees. A garden surrounded the hotel. It was a quiet, genteel building and barely ten minutes away from the "Women's Clinic".

Lili and Grete got a big, bright room that overlooked the square. Nils installed himself in another room. Those were heavy and depressing days for Lili. She could not believe that they had not immediately accepted her at the clinic. She was firmly convinced that Professor Kreutz found her unsympathetic, that he was disgusted by her and that she appeared revolting to him.

And Grete wrote in her diary:

"Lili is completely desperate. She believes the Professor sees in her nothing but a disguised man, namely Andreas. She is imagining that she looks ugly and repulsive, and that every normal human being has to be disgusted by her. She cries incessantly. We went out a few times. But as if possessed by a fixated idea Lili believed she saw a confirmation of Professor Kreutz' disgust in the looks of every passerby. Of course we foreigners raise attention here in D., but Lili sees this condition only in reference to herself. She is beside herself that the Professor said she should paint something in the meantime. That was the worst thing he could have said to her. Everything that relates to Andreas she hates, especially painting. To get away from Andreas she should refrain from all the things that he had done, especially painting. The Professor should have known that, says Lili, or else he just wanted to express with that statement that he sees nothing else in Lili but Andreas in disguise."

The day after, Grete wrote in her diary:

"Nils is certainly right when he says that what the Professor is now doing with Lili is nothing but a spiritual modelling. Before the physical modelling into a woman. Up to now Lili was like clay, prepared by others, and that the Professor had now given form and life just through a fleeting touch. With a single glance the Professor had brought her heart to life, to a life with all the instincts of a woman .... The more I think about this, the more deeply I have to agree with Nils. Lili is now quiet and completely locked up within herself. She still cries to herself quietly now and then, but that is crying from homesickness. She does not know what is happening to her, and I can't do anything else but stand by her with kind words and patience ..."

The next page had the following entry:
"Lili said to me last night: "it is certainly not right that I think bitterly about Andreas. But sometimes I have to think of him and then I just don't know what to call him. I think I have to call him my dead brother. I have to get used to this. So much so that I don't even know in my mind that he and I once inhabited the same body, and that this body is now mine alone." Then she said: "Maybe I am the murderer of Andreas, and that thought torments me terribly. Because I notice that I might be much less worthy than he. He was a creative person. He was a painter, who had already some achievements behind him. And just because of this I am afraid wanting to achieve anything. Because if I were to paint some time and see that I could only do less than he could, then that would shatter me, so that I would have to commit suicide." Suddenly she said: "Grete, I see the clothes of Andreas that we left in Berlin, before me. I see every piece of garment. That is what I thought about at night. And I was scared to fall asleep again, because I was scared that I could slip into these clothes in a dream ..."

A whole week passed like this. A deep melancholia descended over Lili. And this melancholia rose to icy horror when a few letter from Copenhagen arrived from the "Women's Clinic addressed to Mr. Andreas Sparre from Paris. Lili felt completely compromised: letters addressed to a man, sent to the "Women's Clinic". Lili did not dare to even touch the letters. Grete, too, was not allowed to read them. Nils had to burn them. And now Lili was convinced she could never enter the "Women's Clinic."

"The letters have made it impossible for me. Let us disappear from here. Let us find a place, where I can die, ..." begged Lili without tears in her eyes, firmly determined to go into hiding somewhere in silence.

Then like a salvation the news came from the "Women's Clinic" that there now was a room open for Lili. Lili immediately left the hotel, and Grete wandered along with her in silence and very quietly the short way to the "Women's Clinic". And as Lili stepped through the garden with the silver birches, she believed she had found the promised land. The day after Nils drove back to Berlin.