8

That night when I lay in bed I cried because of my things being burnt. Then I started thinking that it was nice to be able to cry, and I felt better.

I thought I should leave home. If I did not, my father might end by killing me.

I would wait until I was twenty-one, and then I would get the money my mother had left for me, and I would be able to go away and try to live as a woman. People had done it before. I could do it.

I imagined going away and somehow getting enough money to have treatment and then coming back home. It was pleasant to think about that. I pictured myself coming into the house very well dressed and very pretty. I would be his daughter. He would be amazed when he saw how lovely and how delicate I was. The pictures were very clear. They made me glow. But then they stopped.

I did not want to go down to London. London was full of homosexuals. And I did not want to go on the stage. Every­thing would be made cheap on the stage. I wanted to feel that I was a real woman. There was need for formality. Without formality one knew that one was only pretending. That was why it was necessary to be dressed correctly in detail when one was dressed as a woman. If one left one’s back suspenders unfastened, one started thinking. I must be conservative because women were conservative.

I could get into reality.