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didn’t have the ugliness of an exploiter because his own state of degradation put him on a level with the natives and made him sympathetically picturesque. But this was a colonial situation, nevertheless. The behavior of many Cosy Corner clients was ugly because it was sentimental. Not content with hiring the boys’ bodies—which was at least a straightforward commercial transaction—they sentimentally expected gratitude, even love, thrown into the bargain. Not getting either, they turned nasty, called the boys whores and begrudged the money they had spent on them. One of the least sentimental of the clients used to tell a story against himself: In the midst of a quarrel with a boy, he had heard himself exclaim: “I don’t give a damn about the money—it’s you I want!” He had involuntarily said what he had been wishing the boy would say to him.
    There was one thing the boys had to offer that very few clients wanted: their friendship. Most boys dreamed of a Friend—that sacred German concept. This friend would help them with money, of course, but he would also—and this was far more important to them—offer them serious interest, advice, encouragement. Sometimes, when a client had shown him unexpected kindness, a boy would put this concept into awkward words. The client might indulge him in his friendship talk, but as one indulges a sufferer from a terminal illness. From the average client’s point of view, these boys had no future; therefore, one couldn’t allow oneself to care what became of them.
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    During the Christmas season, a great costume ball was held in one of the dance halls of In den Zelten: a ball for men. Many of them wore female clothes. There was a famous character who had inherited a whole wardrobe of beautiful family ball gowns, seventy or eighty years old. These he was wearing out at the rate of one a year. At each ball, he encouraged his friends to rip his gown off his body in handfuls until he had nothing but a few rags to return home in.
    Christopher went to the ball with Francis. He had dressed himself in some clothes lent him by a boy from the Cosy Corner—a big sweater with a collar and a pair of sailor’s bell-bottomed trousers. It gave him an erotic thrill to masquerade thus as his own sex partner. A little makeup applied by Francis took the necessary five years off his age; the effect was so convincing that a friend of Karl Giese, who didn’t know Christopher, later protested to Karl that Francis had really gone too far—bringing a common street hustler into this respectable social gathering.
    The respectability of the ball was open to doubt. But it did have one dazzling guest: Conrad Veidt. The great film star sat apart at his own table, impeccable in evening tails. He watched the dancing benevolently through his monocle as he sipped champagne and smoked a cigarette in a long holder. He seemed a supernatural figure, the guardian god of these festivities, who was graciously manifesting himself to his devotees. A few favored ones approached and talked to him but without presuming to sit down.
    Veidt had appeared in two films dealing with the problems of the homosexual; hence the appropriateness of his presence at this ball. The first of these films was Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), produced in 1919. Performances of it had often been broken up by the Nazis. In Vienna, one of them had fired a revolver into the audience, wounding several people. The second film, Gesetze der Liebe (Laws of Love), was produced in 1927. This was, in many respects, a remake of Anders als die Andern.
    Christopher had been shown one of these films at the Institute, or perhaps both, I can’t be sure. Three scenes remain in my memory. One is a ball at which the dancers, all male, are standing fully clothed in what seems about to become a daisy chain. It is here that the character played by Veidt meets