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A scandal was rocking the universities of Europe. On June 8th, 1768, Johann Joachim Winkelmann, a great historian of classical Greek art, had been murdered. The gruesome circumstances of his death captured the public imagination. Some said he was murdered by a highwayman; others proclaimed derisively that the man who killed Winkelmann had been his ex-lover. Winkelmann was a known whoopsy, and the public consensus seemed to be that the scandal of his death was befitting to the travesty of his life.
Herr Doctor Thomas Plass, an honorable professor of classical studies at the University of Heidelberg, was conspicuously silent as his colleagues gossiped about Winkelmann’s fate. Thomas resented the shallow prejudices of his peers. He was of the conviction that anyone with a decent eye for the art of Ancient Greece must necessarily have an eye for male beauty. Those who deplored Winkelmann, with their blind allegiance to Christian dogmas worn so smugly all over their faces-they could not possibly understand the fine aesthetic appreciation for the male physique that pervaded the culture of pagan Greece.
Thomas had to admit, though, that his affinity for Winkelmann’s work was not entirely academic, nor was it divorced from his own personal proclivities. Thomas had a weakness for beautiful young men. He always had. When he gazed at the elegant male figures of Ancient Greek art, a hot desire pulsated beneath his skin, throbbing insistently in his veins. His eyes would linger for a split second too long on the manly chest of a Greek statue, enraptured by the perfection of its flat expanse. How supple, how strong! The fine musculature conjured inside the marble, its solidity and plasticity in perfect symbiosis, sent a flush to his face and a rush to his stomach.
A conviction that Winkelmann’s work had been judged unfairly propelled Thomas to make his own small-scale attempt to salvage Winkelmann’s legacy. Two weeks after the news of Winkelmann’s death reached Heidelberg, Thomas decided to discuss his writing in his Classics colloquium. If he could convince just one student in the value of Winkelmann’s legacy, then perhaps his work would live on.
“Now,” he addressed the seminar, “I wonder if we might deliberate Winkelmann’s claim that Ancient Greek art can be divided into two types: one seeking an ideal representation of abstract forms, another seeking an embodied representation of sensual beauty.” He looked around the class, at the cadre of young men with their scholar’s robes and eager faces, and called on a round-faced man in the front row whose had had shot up as soon as Thomas had finished speaking. “Yes, Herr Brinkmann?”
The man opined in a loud voice, “I beg your pardon, Herr Plass, but Winkelmann’s idea of ‘sensual beauty’ does not seem quite relevant to the Christian values of the civilized world.”
Thomas worked hard to conceal his grimace. “Oh?” He responded. “How so?”
“Why, it is…it is obscene. It is glorified and gravely misdirected Lust.”
“That it is!” Chimed in another of the young men. “Told by a man who, it would seem, had no regard for purity, for morality-“
“That is enough!” Thomas interrupted the man before he could finish. He was beginning to feel hot. His lips were pursed and the knuckles of his clenched fist were white. It had been a mistake to bring Winkelmann’s writing to class, he thought to himself despairingly. He should never have done it, not so soon after the scandal of his death. He was weighing the possibility of ending the class right then and there when he saw a hesitant hand go up in the back corner of the room. “Herr Keller?”
The young man spoke in a clear, steady tenor, seeming to measure the weight of his words as he said them. “Winkelmann was a true Greek, that’s what I think,” he began. “If we were to denounce any Greek who sodomized, we’d have a very short list of authors indeed.”
Thomas barely concealed his smile. One student, at least, could see through the humdrum anti-intellectual haze of Christian morality. Thomas had not paid much attention to the young Herr Keller before, who had joined the classics colloquium only recently. He looked at him now, as if seeing him for the first time. The boy was, in fact, quite beautiful. Thomas took note of his slender figure, his high cheekbones and long eyelashes. His was a Mannerist beauty, Thomas mused; it was refined in its elongated features. There was something captivating in the androgyny of his body, with its feminine plasticity undercut by masculine steadiness. “Indeed, Herr Keller,” Thomas responded. “And what do you believe we have to gain by examination of Winkelmann’s writing?”
The young man smiled and continued in the same deliberate tone. “As my classmates say, Winkelmann does entertain a kind of lust. But a lust for what? For the beauty of the human figure; the creativity of the human soul. That to me is worth considering.” He directed his statement at Thomas, offering him a shy smile as he did so. Thomas’s heart fluttered.
The class continued bonus veren siteler in ponderous debate. Several other students in the class offered insights on the value of Winkelmann’s work, but no one spoke quite as pithily or struck Thomas quite as intimately as Herr Keller had. Thomas found that his eyes kept wandering over to the corner where the young man sat, lingering on minute details of Herr Keller’s figure: his slim, knowing smile, his relaxed posture, his spindly fingers. The boy’s quickness to defend Winkelmann despite his homosexuality suggested that this was a subject he had thought about before. It suggested that Herr Keller might have a personal stake in the debate, that he might in fact have been rationalizing his own desires when he spoke about Winkelmann and the Greeks. Or was that just wishful thinking?
Over the next several weeks, Thomas observed the young Herr Keller closely. In addition to his beauty, the young man possessed a grace of articulation beyond his years, with which Thomas was quite taken. Herr Keller was more mild-mannered than his classmates. Whereas most of the students exhibited a desperate desire to impress their professors with big words and obscure references, Herr Keller seemed to have no interest in playing their game. He was soft-spoken, but when he did speak, his observations were acute, precise, and incisive. Indeed, the young man’s restraint was admirable. In an intellectual milieu in which grand statements about time and beauty were seductively easy to make, Herr Keller’s unwavering commitment to specificity was a rare gift.
It was during the week the class discussed Plato’s Republic that Herr Keller ventured to approach Thomas after class. As Thomas was packing his bag to leave the classroom, he noticed Herr Keller’s figure hesitating in front of him. Thomas gave a start, then offered him a nervous smile. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Please, call me Jens,” the boy said.
“Well then, Jens,” Thomas replied, “what is it I can do for you?”
Jens seemed to search for the correct words, finally settling on, “I very much enjoyed your lecture today, sir. I enjoy your lectures every week.”
Thomas blushed. His heart raced. What was behind this compliment? Was it a simple statement of satisfaction, or was there perhaps hidden intent? “Why thank you, Jens. Thank you very much. You don’t know how satisfying it is to hear one’s work appreciated. I enjoy your participation in the seminar too, you know. Your comments are always quite on point.”
“Thank you.” It was Jens’s turn to blush. He stood in front of Thomas’s desk as if unsure what to say next.
It’s now or never, Thomas thought to himself. “We read the Symposium next week,” he began. “I think you might have some interesting thoughts to share about Plato’s discussion of love.” He felt his heart beat in his throat as he made the offer: “Would you like to come to my house after class next week and discuss with me further?” It was as far as he dared go to communicate his interest to Jens.
“Yes,” Jens answered immediately. “I’d like that very much.”
***
Jens made his way back to his apartment in the center of Heidelberg, his mind abuzz with the possibilities of what his professor had just suggested to him. Herr Plass had asked him over to his house to discuss Plato’s theories on love. There could be no question about what the invitation really meant; the proposition was so thinly veiled that it seemed as if the professor had not even tried to conceal it. Jens scolded himself as he walked home. Why the hell did I say yes?
He walked up the stairs of his landlady’s building and set his satchel down in the room he rented from her. He sighed and looked around the little room. It was certainly nothing as nice as the rooms in the colleges where his classmates lived, but for Jens’s purpose, privacy was the prize commodity. Before settling himself in for the night, he began his nightly routine of undressing. He removed his powdered wig first, running a hand through his short-cropped hair. He removed his coat, his breeches, his stockings, and his shirt. Finally, he went to work unwrapping the tight cloth that bound his chest.
Jens took a deep breath as he looked at himself in the mirror. There she was, appearing as she did every night in Jens’s mirror and looking just as alien—that woman with the little waist and the drooping breasts whose body Jens inhabited. He turned away and put on his nightshirt. If the professor only knew the real features of the body he had taken an interest in, Jens was sure he would not be so forward with his interest. Forget Winkelmann’s ideals of classical male beauty: there were far more basic deficiencies to worry about.
So why did I say yes? Attraction. Jens hated to admit it, even to himself. Simple, foolish attraction. No matter how impossible an intimacy with Herr Plass would be, Jens could not avoid the immutable fact that he wanted it. He found the professor’s effortless mastery bahis of the classroom formidable and his wit charming. Even in his middle age, the professor embodied a delightful solidity. His body seemed to truly exist in the world, more materially than other bodies around it. Other people around him were drawn off course by its gravity, like heavenly bodies, Jens mused. Yes, just for a moment, Jens had been so captivated by his professor’s magnetism that he had momentarily disregarded his better judgment and assented to his invitation.
Of course, he could not actually go through with it. Jens made up his mind that he would go with Herr Plass to his house, as he had agreed, but he would leave if the evening showed any sign of turning into something of a more intimate nature.
***
As Jens accompanied Thomas back to his house the next week after class, they began discussing Plato’s Symposium. “The dialogue seems to center Socrates as the only person in the room who really understands the topic of love,” Jens began. “But if Socrates is such an authority, then why does he say that he learned of his ideas on love from someone else? From the prophetess Diotima?”
“I think the character’s motives here are partly didactic,” Thomas responded. “Socrates is showing his audience how he came to learn the logic of love so that they might learn in the same way.”
“Isn’t it strange though, don’t you think, that in this entire conversation between educated men, it is a woman who comes out as the authority on the topic? A woman who is not even present at the table?”
Thomas had never considered this question before, and he did not have a ready answer. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.
“Is there a particularly feminine insight, perhaps, in the Symposium’s discussion of love, pain, and beauty?”
“Perhaps.”
They had reached Thomas’s house, a modest country house by the river with an old-fashioned cross-hatch pattern on the front. Jens was charmed by its folkiness; it felt more authentically German than the fashionable French-inspired Rococo decorations Jens had grown up with on his father’s estate. Thomas let Jens in and asked the servant to bring dinner up to his study. “You have a lovely house, Herr Plass” Jens commented.
“Please,” Thomas replied, “Call me Thomas.” He walked with Jens up to his study and offered the young man a seat at the table in the center of the room. “It’s been in the family for years, this house. Where’s your family from, Jens?”
“I’m from Saxony originally.” Jens fidgeted in his chair. He’d like to steer the conversation away from his personal background as much as he could. “So what do you make of the last part of Plato’s dialogue? After Alcibiades’s entrance?”
“Now that is an interesting question…” Thomas began to explain his opinions on Alcibiades, and the subject of Jens’s personal life was momentarily dropped. The two exchanged comments, but all too soon for Jens’s taste, Thomas began probing Jens again. “You’re something of a mystery, you know that, Jens? You live by yourself, you come from obscurity. And yet I don’t hesitate to say that you’re the smartest student in my class.”
Jens’s heart fluttered. “Really?”
“My hand to God. Not one of those other boys in my class thinks like you do. Where do you get it from? Your father?”
Jens was not sure how to respond. “I…I believe I take after my mother, actually,” he offered.
“Do you have ambitions of one day joining our ranks here at the university?”
“Yes,” Jens breathed. “More than anything.”
“I’d like…I’d like to be your friend, Jens. Your mentor.”
The servant entered with dinner on a platter—roast beef, red cabbage, and potato dumplings. He ladled two portions onto plates for Thomas and Jens. “I’d appreciate that very much,” Jens said as he took a bite.
Thomas had not yet touched his food. He gazed at Jens with a furious determination as he attempted to craft the correct way of saying what he wanted to say, “When Socrates spoke so prosaically about love,” he began, “when he said that the purpose of love was to give birth to beauty…he was not only speaking of love between men and women.”
Jens swallowed his bite of food with difficulty. Yes, here it was, the request to which he could not possibly assent. “I know,” he said softly. He looked down at his food, avoiding Thomas’s eyes.
“There is a…a very fruitful intimacy that builds between men. A unity of the soul. Of the intellect. And sometimes of the body.” It took tremendous effort for Thomas to get the words out, but he did so with a level, unwavering tone. His heart racing, he waited what seemed an interminable moment for Jens’s response.
Jens set his fork down. Get out now, his instincts told him. He stood up. “Thomas, I…I’m sorry. I can’t. I just can’t. I’m so sorry. I can’t be the companion you’re looking for.” He was backing away toward the door.
Thomas stood up as well. “You don’t need to run away, Jens.” Jens turned deneme bonusu to leave. “Please!” Thomas called out desperately. “Don’t go yet. Listen, I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to…I thought you found me…”
Jens breathed a tight-lipped sigh. “I do. I want you too much.”
“You don’t need to deny yourself like this.”
“I’m afraid I do. I can’t tell you why but I do.”
“What a way to live is that?” Thomas had no further argument he could make. He sat down again in his chair, defeated. He had been so close. “I meant what I said,” he offered finally, “about being your mentor. That hasn’t changed. If you like, we can sit down, have dinner, talk about Plato, and pretend this little…misunderstanding never happened.”
“Thank you.” Jens lingered warily by the door.
Thomas shook his head. “What is your secret, Jens? Whatever it is, you can tell me. I of all people should understand. As you can see, I have secrets of my own.”
“I don’t think you would understand.”
“You can’t keep secrets inside yourself forever. You have to confide in someone eventually. Why not confide in me?”
Jens searched the professor’s face, trying to read him. He was right: Jens wanted to confide in somebody. He wanted it desperately. It gnawed on him incessantly, the loneliness of his secret, the intimacy it precluded. Could he tell the professor? Would he dare? So much hung in the balance of Jens’s decision: his career, Thomas’s respect, his life as a man. It was a dreadful gamble. But Thomas was right: Jens could not keep his secret bottled up inside him forever. He had to tell someone. If not the professor, then whom?
He walked slowly back to his seat at the table across from Thomas and sat down on it gingerly. He took a swig of ale, ate a large bite of food, then he cleared his throat and began to speak.
“I’m not a man,” he said at last.
Thomas smiled kindly. “You mean you haven’t had sex.”
“No. I mean that I am excluded from the category by definition.”
Thomas looked puzzled. “By whose definition?”
I could still leave while he doesn’t understand, Jens thought to himself. There is still time. But no, he stayed where he was. In words that were very precise yet nevertheless seemed hopelessly limited, he began to explain. “What is it that makes a man? Bravery? Wisdom? Virility? We can list out virtues all we like. I like to think that I possess some of these masculine virtues myself. Independent spirit; intellectual curiosity. But, categorically, what makes a man? The only thing that truly distinguishes men and women is the physical attributes of the sexes. In that sense, I am…lacking.”
Thomas was trying to follow. “You mean you’re a castrado?” That would explain the youth’s androgynous features, he thought.
“Strictly speaking, I am a woman.” Jens looked down at his food, waiting for the words to sink in.
“You’re joking. You’re pulling my leg.”
“Mind you,” Jens continued, “I am a woman only in the most narrow sense of the term: my sex. But in spirit, and in actions, I am a man. I have lived as a man for years.” He glanced up at Thomas.
Thomas looked back at Jens, dumbfounded. He studied the young man’s—young woman’s?—face as if seeing it for the first time. He could see it now, what he had neglected to notice before: the femininity of its features, the soft jaw-line, the little nose. How stupid he had been not to have seen it earlier! He’d been duped. Duped into believing that Jens was something he was not, duped into offering him that special love the Ancient Greeks had reserved only for the masculine sex.
“Say something,” Jens pleaded.
“You…you deceived me…”
“Yes,” Jens concurred. “But surely not entirely. Surely there are…some regards in which I can claim to have been honest.”
It was as if Jens was metamorphosing before Thomas’s eyes; his masculine traits were suddenly revealing themselves to be feminine ones. Masculine restraint became feminine temperance; masculine incisiveness became feminine intuitiveness. How small a shift it was, and yet how totally it encompassed Thomas’s perception of Jens!
“Is my secret safe with you, at least?” Jens was asking.
“Yes,” Thomas promised. He mustered up a half-smile to direct at Jens. “What, tell the university and lose my best student?”
Jens’s mind was flooded with relief. “Thank God.”
Thomas furrowed his brow. He liked to think of himself as a man of reason. At first sight, Jens’s claim to possess a spiritual affinity with the masculine sex seemed utterly unreasonable, averse to the laws of nature which so clearly demarcated one sex from the other. And yet all laws had their slippages. Plato himself had seen a place for some women among the ranks of the philosophers in his Republic. Could he simply take Jens’s view of himself at face value? That masculinity could be chosen, not endowed? Jens wore it so naturally, the masculine guise, as if stepping into a shoe that was made to fit his feet.
“I…I want to believe you, Jens,” Thomas said. “The affinity you say you have with masculinity.”
“I have no proof, no evidence besides my own conviction. You can take my word or not. But I’d like it if you did.” Jens smiled at Thomas with hopeful timidity.
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