Two of Voltaire’s best friends were gay, and I have my suspicions about a third, the Marquis d’Argenson, the creator of the Arsenal Library. The three of them were among those he called his “angels,” who helped him to vanquish his enemies. With his trademark tolerance and humanity, Voltaire accepted his gay friends with aplomb, created gay characters who were villainous for other reasons, and lived his final days succored, and loved, by intimate friends who were “anti-physiques.”

What made Kallman a better candidate for Auden’s affections than previous attachments was their shared class origins, Kallman’s precocious intelligence, and his passion for language.

Thomas Mann had had homosexual affairs before marrying Katia Pringsheim, and afterwards still had powerful, though repressed, yearnings for young men. His subtle homosexual themes appeared in Tonio Kröger and Death in Venice. In Mario and the Magician, the conjuror Cipolla hypnotizes the handsome young Mario, who is humiliated and forced to kiss him in public.