“At the age of 16 a gardener, a married man with family, initiated me into mutual self-abuse.  He lived in the back house of the apartment house we then inhabited.  He was about 40 years of age, an ugly but muscularly developed man.  These practices took place in the cellar, to which there were three entrances.  I never allowed him to kiss me and the sight of his children always awoke in me a great feeling of nausea.  That was the natural reaction of a bad conscience.  For the man himself I had the utmost contempt.  This man told me of several parks and pissoirs where men met, and I went to these places now and again for erotic adventure.

“I must here relate that at the age of 16 my mother warned me against self-abuse.  It had the opposite effect, made me curious, so I began at once.  I have continued ever since, at least once a day. (I have never had an involuntary emission in my whole life.) Between 17 and 22 it became necessary for me to do so several times a day.  Working at art, painting, and above all music and beauty have a strong influence over me and set my erotic longings in violent motion.  I have never found this do me any harm.  Abstinence, on the other hand, has a very harmful effect on me, upsetting the whole nervous and physical system.  I often find that there is a something very much wanting in self-abuse:  the commingling of two human bodies who are mentally as well as physically in sympathy gives an electrical satisfaction which quiets the whole nervous system.  That at least has been my experience.

“The gardener left and moved to the country.  I then sometimes visited pissoirs or, as they are often called, ‘panoramas’ (because they are round and one sees much there).  What I saw in the parks during the long summer nights was quite a revelation.  During the summer, when the husbands had sent their families in the country, many of them led a very indiscreet life.  What I saw the first summer killed all the respect I had for elderly people.  I had always connected marriage and gray hairs with virtue and morals; then I learnt otherwise.  I must say I became about this time a sensual pig.  I knew how dangerous these places were on account of the police and blackmailers, but that gave the hunt a double zest.  At this time I led a double life and was always watching and analyzing myself.  I had to do with heaps of men of all classes.  I was often offered money, but that I would on no condition accept.  To pay or to be paid kills every sort of erotic feeling in me and always has done so.  I once wished to experiment with myself.  I was offered a small sum of money by a former schoolmaster.  I accepted this just to see how it would affect me.  The next moment I threw the money as far away as possible.  Then I saw I had none of the prostitute nature in me.  I was simply overwhelmed with sensuality.  I considered I was a criminal and wished to see