She wrote to the psycho-analyst Dr. (man) and told him some symptoms; he wrote to her that she should be examined for he felt sure she had gonorrhea.
Alone in a strange city with no one in whom she could confide; she searched for a woman doctor, found none, finally went to the head of a social agency to whom one of the journalists had written much. She went not for charity but for advice. He was kind, got her a woman Doctor who finally had her go to a hospital where they regarded her as an outcast, had her eat on tin dishes in an off-porch, the nurses promiscuously spilled lysol on the floor here and there-the girl was wretched, miserable, alone; she wrote to the woman Doctor and the doctor took her away (the hospital said they would not have her) in the women's college hospital-after a night spent with a nurse, secured for forty dollars a week-(an ignorant, old inefficient Irish body R. C. who sang R. C. hymns) at a children's bureau house filled with bedbugs and with the girl paying food expenses. The nurse had nothing to do and did less, almost douched her with clear lysol by mistake instead of potassium permanganate- the only reason it didn't happen was because our girl saw it first!
The girl went through a great deal of spiritual discomfort, and mental distress with nobody doing the slightest to change conditions at all in the future.
Finally when able she hunted herself another job, and got one for another social agency as secretary to a female director; gave herself completely to the work, which was to help school-children; labored enthusiastically, industriously at less than she was worth "for the good of the cause" month by month paid off the accumulated debt, realized that much as she loved children and companionship evidently she was a fool in that line and marriage was not for her. She was in the hospital a month, undergoing treatment-infection was at the cervix, had not yet reached into the uterus-and the treatment was to prevent it doing so. She was pronounced cured but went to the doctor (the celebrated woman surgeon who took her over to the hospitaclass="underline" she was killed later in an auto accident) a youthful woman doctor successor (former helper) each month to make sure. After a year or more she took a course or two at a school of social work and there had one instructor who seemed very efficient, thorough, etc.
To make a long story short, they fell deeply, permanently, desperately, soulstirringly in love. And he was married to his first cousin (his mother's sister's daughter) both Jews, had two children, a girl and a boy; "Was no longer," (he said, swearing the truth) "married to the woman, lived daily, hourly in mind and soul with 'our girl'; planned to marry her!" They seemed to be perfectly mated in every way. He seemed to become younger-he was ten years older than she. However, like all men, this man seems to be a coward from the heel up. I omit all the heart-rending details, of his waving back and forth, of their not being sure that she was pregnant (the doctor said she could not become pregnant for a year) and upon a thorough examination (when later events showed that she had been three months pregnant) said she was not pregnant.
Eventually after much pain and sorrow at the defection of the adored one, the baby came.
Our girl had been in the valley of humiliation and death of spirit and even loving the man, decided she was not after "the past" worthy unless-so in all honesty, truthfulness and sincerity, she told him before even their "marriage" was consummated so that he could retreat if he wished to. Everything was talked over frankly and they reverenced and respected each other.
So therefore (he lied like a devil) he went back to his cousin and the girl paid all the bills of suffering, humiliation and anguish, always asking her to pity him, that he would never again be happy, that he loved only her, etc., etc., that be was poor (the girl did the economizing; he did the spending while talking of poverty), if he had money (he had a salary of $7,500 a year) it would all be different.
Meanwhile other men thinking our girl a widow are perfectly willing to offer themselves as lovers, provided it cost them nothing much in the way of responsibility, and they can get a "beautiful thrill" out of a most beautiful experience, and she has learned that men can be sudden and tempestuous and bold and brutal, and they can be sly and cunning and long-time-patient with that goal in view, and they can be devilishly unjust and mean and wicked when they don't get what they want-always talking nicely about "beauty" in such intimacy.
The head of the Children's Bureau, mentioned before, came to the front again, killed the man's love for his child, took him under his wing, to bring him back to his "holy family," told a lot of dirty, cowardly, fiendish, impossible lies about the girl (he said if the thing became known it would hurt social work in his city, so the man must be saved, regardless). And the man's megalomaniac wife had just had a miscarriage while the man does not pay for the support of his daughter by his beloved!
Our girl is supporting her child among many obstacles and hardships and can't run the risk of having a government put her in jail for writing to you.
Hence the anonymity.
You seem not to care much about children, or the next generation in your second volume, nor how you may be injuring a dear and beautiful girl-child in your quest for your own pleasure.
I liked your "Contemporary Portraits" and your "The Man Shakespeare" very much. And I liked a great deal of your "Life."
This letter appears to me to be an authentic human document, revealing curiously the average woman's point of view; it bears the imprint of reality on every page, partly because of its contempt of English usage in its ignorance of grammar; but it is quite exceptional in pain and suffering; not once does "the girl" describe, or even mention, the joys of sexual intercourse, and if she had few of the pleasures, she had assuredly more than a fair share of the suffering.
Finally, she gave herself out of love to a married man; she had a child by him, and was brutally abandoned-a sad, sad story.
I have enjoyed all the pleasures I could in life, while always seeking to do as much good as possible and as little harm to the girl or woman-partner. I believe that, with one exception, I have not done much harm to any one.
The reason why girls don't give themselves freely is the fear of getting a child: they are usually too ignorant or too trusting to feel the fear of getting some disease, though it is this fear which obsesses and scares the man; but the dread of becoming enceinte is even less founded: with a little care that catastrophe can be avoided. As a rule the man covers his sex with a French letter or else covers the neck of the woman's womb with a pessary; but both of these diminish the enjoyment and are not so sure as they might be, for the French letters sometimes burst, and the pessary falls off occasionally, and the result is that pregnancy may take place.
The method suggested in the Bible in the story of Onan is the one I think best: when Onan got excited, he withdrew his sex, and we are told that "he spilled his seed on the ground." I found out in Vienna that as a rule one needs only to do this after the first orgasm: in ordinary cases, there is little or no danger in the second or in following consecutive embraces. And usually this selfrestraint is worth practicing on the part of the man since it gives almost complete security to the girl.
But if the girl is caught and pregnancy results, to get rid of the foetus and bring on the monthly period is comparatively easy in the first two months, especially easy at the end of the first month: a dose of ergot usually suffices.