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 MEA CULPA
 
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 MEA CULPA 
 
 A WOMAN'S LAST WORD 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY H ARLAN D 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 1891 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 i 
 
 TH. BENTZON: 
 
 IK IN THE PAGES THAT FOLLOW I HAVE FAILED TO 
 
 POINT A MORAL, MAY I AT LEAST MAKE 
 
 SURE OF ADORNING A TALE BY 
 
 BEGINNING MINE WITH 
 
 YOUR BRILLIANT 
 
 NAME? 
 
 645981
 
 MEA CULPA: 
 
 A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 I. 
 
 THIS narrative, which will be true in all its 
 details, the most incidental as well as the 
 most intimate and essential true in letter as 
 in spirit reaches its catastrophe and con 
 clusion here in London in the summer of the 
 year 1890. But it must begin in Paris in 
 the month of March seven years before. 
 
 We had lived in Paris, my father and I, 
 since 1879. First, I will explain, very 
 briefly, why we lived there ; secondly, I will 
 describe the manner of our life there. 
 
 My father, Paul Mikhaelovitch Banakin, 
 had never associated himself, directly or in 
 directly, with the revolutionary movement in
 
 4 MEA CULPA. 
 
 Russia. He was, indeed, a man of liberal 
 views ; a Radical, even, in the sense that, 
 despising ready-made formulas and loving 
 realities, he went to the root of every question 
 that he pretended to touch ; a Republican, 
 if you wish, in his political ideals ; and as for 
 religion, though he was "neither an atheist 
 nor an agnostic, he had convictions of his 
 own which prevented him from finding the 
 least spiritual satisfaction in the ceremonial 
 religion of the Russian Church. In so far, 
 then, he was perhaps of the same stuff as the 
 active members of the revolutionary party ; 
 but in so far only. For of the aims, the 
 methods, and the cardinal principles of the 
 revolutionists he totally disapproved. ' The 
 revolutionary programme/ I have often 
 heard him say, ' has been conceived in folly, 
 and must be executed, if at all, in crime. It 
 is the production of brains that have been but 
 half baked. It illustrates what a dangerous
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 5 
 
 thing a little learning is. It authors are men 
 who have rapidly swallowed, without digest 
 ing, the most obvious and superficial de 
 ductions of modern scientific thought, but 
 have never even caught the aroma of its 
 more occult significance, its deeper ten 
 dencies, or its remoter corollaries. They 
 would endeavour to force at once, by violence, 
 changes which, in the nature of things, must 
 come to pass slowly, by a process of growth. 
 For me, I am too much of a philosopher, I 
 have read my history too thoroughly, to 
 share their theories ; and with their practice 
 how can any civilized human being feel the 
 slightest sympathy ? To Tsar - murder, 
 terrorism, dynamite in one word, to warfare 
 by stealth I pronounce myself an unre 
 lenting foe.' 
 
 Such, roughly, was my father's attitude 
 towards the revolutionary agitation in Russia. 
 Yet in 1879 he had, at a moment's notice,
 
 MEA CULPA. 
 
 to fly from his country, like a thief in the 
 night, and seek an asylum in France, lest 
 he should be arrested and transported to 
 Siberia as a political offender. 
 
 Why? 
 
 Because one evening, in the early spring 
 of that year, we received a domiciliary visit 
 from the police, at our apartment in St. 
 Petersburg; and (my father being an omni 
 vorous reader) there, in plain evidence, upon 
 the table and in the shelves of our library, 
 lay certain books, pamphlets, and periodicals 
 which it was forbidden for Russian subjects 
 to have in their possession, as well as certain 
 manuscripts in which my father had set down 
 the results of his speculations in various 
 branches of political science, theology, and 
 metaphysics. All this compromising litera 
 ture, printed and written, the police seized ; 
 but, since they did not at once deprive my 
 father of his liberty, he, the most optimistic
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 7 
 
 and hopeful of men, believed that the matter 
 would end there, and made light of my 
 anxiety lest something more serious might 
 come of it. 
 
 In this, however, as the event proved, he 
 was mistaken. 
 
 Suddenly, one day, a week or so later, he 
 received a communication from a friend of 
 his, a functionary of the highest rank, and 
 one who would surely know whereof he spoke, 
 warning him that his arrest and deportation 
 to Siberia had been determined upon, and 
 urging him to leave Russia without an hour's 
 delay. ' I enclose passports with false names 
 for you and Monica Paulovna,' his friend 
 concluded. . . . 
 
 So, with a few hundred roubles in his 
 pocket, and such clothing as could hastily 
 be thrown into a portmanteau, my father, 
 accompanied, of course, by me, his only 
 child, took the first train for the frontier ;
 
 8 MEA CULPA. 
 
 and a few days later we were in the French 
 capital. 
 
 That is why we lived in Paris. 
 
 The manner of our life there. . . . ! Ak, 
 Dieu de dieu, voila une histoire ! 
 
 At first we lived in sufficient comfort at 
 one of the hotels in the neighbourhood of 
 the Opera ; for my father did not so much as 
 dream that his properties would be put under 
 the seal of the Government, and fully ex 
 pected to touch his income as regularly 
 henceforth abroad as formerly at home. But 
 in this he was very soon undeceived. 
 Writing to the manager of his estates to 
 command remittances, he was informed by 
 return of post that his revenues had been 
 stopped by the authorities, pending his ap 
 pearance in St. Petersburg to answer the 
 charges of political untrustworthiness there 
 lying against him. 
 
 After that, the question of ways and
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 9 
 
 means became for us of the most pressing 
 nature. 
 
 The little ready money that he had taken 
 with him upon our flight had rapidly dwindled, 
 until now less than a thousand francs re 
 mained ; and where more was to come from 
 was a dubious and appalling problem. My 
 father, a Russian noble of the old style, was 
 the incarnation of the unpractical : intensely 
 proud, sensitive to the point of effeminacy, 
 accustomed to every luxury, and as irre 
 sponsible as a child in the handling of 
 money; a man who had never earned, nor 
 thought of earning, a kopeck, yet who had 
 never hesitated to throw away a hundred 
 roubles ; a man, in fact, who had done 
 nothing all his life but dream, read, talk, and 
 spend ; than whom there could be no one 
 more amiable, more polished, or more in 
 efficient. He was gifted with a fine in 
 tellect, and in the face of an abstract theory
 
 IO MEA CULPA. 
 
 of any kind was all enlightenment and pene 
 tration ; but the smallest concrete difficulty 
 left him as dismayed and as helpless as a 
 baby. How was such a man to provide 
 food, clothing, and a home for himself and 
 his eighteen-year-old daughter ? . . . This was 
 an enigma over which my father pondered 
 much, about which he discoursed much, but 
 in relation to which he did nothing, except 
 wring his hands and weep. 
 
 Gradually I came to realize that the duties 
 of breadwinner must necessarily devolve 
 upon me. 
 
 What could I do ? 
 
 I was a good pianist. I could teach music, 
 if I could find pupils. 
 
 I had had an English or, rather, an 
 American governess from the time I was 
 five till I was fifteen years old ; therefore I 
 could also teach English, or I could translate. 
 
 I had finally a little talent for drawing and
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. I I 
 
 painting, which might possibly be turned to 
 some practical account. 
 
 That was what I felt I could do. But 
 there was another question for me to face, 
 almost equally grave : What would my father 
 allow me to do ? I knew that he would 
 object passionately to my doing any work at 
 all for pay. I knew that, upon my broaching 
 the subject, he would cry out, ' I would 
 rather starve !' . . . I knew, in one word, that 
 we should have a struggle. 
 
 To cut a long story short, we had a 
 struggle that lasted several days ; for two 
 of those days my father would not speak to 
 me, thinking in that way to make me feel 
 his displeasure and to break my will ; but 
 in the end my obstinacy proved to be of 
 sterner stuff than his, and I gained my point. 
 At least, he said : ' Do as you please, do as 
 you please.' 
 
 Then I began to work.
 
 12 MEA CULPA. 
 
 I gave lessons in music and in English to the 
 pupils whom I was able to procure ; I trans 
 lated sensation novels, English and American, 
 into French, receiving four hundred francs for 
 each volume from a publisher in the Palais 
 Royal ; and I coloured photographs for a 
 photographer in the Rue de Rivoli. (Since 
 my marriage, I may say in passing, that pub 
 lisher has caused to be printed upon the title- 
 pages of the novels I anonymously translated 
 for him, ' Traduit de V anglais par Madame 
 la Princesse Ltonticheff : whether to the 
 greater annoyance of Prince Leonticheff or 
 myself it would be difficult to tell.) Thus I 
 contrived to gain a livelihood for my father 
 and myself; but, believe me, it was a most 
 meagre, shabby, and precarious livelihood. 
 For my own part, however, I must own that 
 I was not altogether unhappy. It was my 
 youth, no doubt, which enabled me to adapt 
 myself to our changed conditions without too
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 13 
 
 much discomfort. Besides, I was thoroughly 
 occupied ; I had no time, no strength, for 
 discontent. Indeed, had it not been for the 
 constant sense of care and responsibility that 
 I carried with me, I should have had little 
 to complain of. But my poor father ! For 
 him, as he often said, it was scarcely less 
 than purgatory. Deprived of all that ease 
 and largeness of existence to which from his 
 cradle he had been habituated, he suffered 
 keenly also from the humiliation of finding 
 himself dependent for his daily bread upon 
 the exertions of his daughter. His only 
 solace lay in devising schemes by which to 
 re-establish the family fortune. . . . oh, but 
 schemes ! At last he put one of them in 
 operation. After the assassination of the 
 Emperor he began to write a history of 
 Russia, from the earliest times to the present 
 day. Once completed, he was sure, the pub 
 lishers would vie with each other to purchase
 
 14 MEA CULPA. 
 
 his manuscript. At all events, it kept him 
 busy, and so perhaps rendered him less 
 conscious of the privations of his life than 
 he would otherwise have been. 
 
 In the matter of lodgings we had gone 
 steadily from bad to worse, until now, in 
 1883, we had two communicating rooms up 
 four flights of winding stairs in the Hotel du 
 St. Esprit, a dingy maison garnie, inhabited 
 chiefly by students, in the Rue St. Jacques ; 
 certainly, in view of my sex, not the most 
 desirable quarter of Paris, but, considering 
 our requirements, the cheapest. Our morn 
 ing coffee and our mid-day breakfast I pre 
 pared over a spirit-stove ; for our dinner we 
 went to a restaurant in the Boulevard St. 
 Michel, where a table d'hote of a merit by 
 no means extraordinary, it is true was to 
 be had for one franc twenty-five. For the 
 society of congenial human beings, I confess, 
 we pined. The French students by whom
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 15 
 
 we were surrounded we had no reason to 
 love. Almost our only friend was the com 
 poser Armidis, half Greek, half English, an 
 inspired musician, an exquisite poet, and the 
 handsomest, the shabbiest, the most im 
 probable, whimsical, and entertaining man I 
 have ever known. He dwelt on the other 
 side of the Seine, but he came frequently to 
 see us, and would often meet us at the 
 ordinary where we dined. The worst dinner, 
 with Armidis at the table, was always a 
 merry and delightful affair. He was in 
 receipt of an excellent income, and had no 
 one but himself to spend it on ; yet one of 
 his eccentricities forbade his ever buying a 
 suit of clothes. He always wore the cast-off 
 garments of his friends ! The effect was 
 generally fearful and wonderful. Seeing him 
 from behind, you would have thought, 'A 
 beggar/ But the moment you beheld his 
 face, with his snow-white hair and beard, his
 
 1 6 MEA CULPA. 
 
 fresh complexion, his fine, proud features, 
 his large eyes, full of colour, daring, and in 
 telligence, you would have corrected yourself: 
 ' No ; a man of genius and distinction, a 
 poet, an artist, a prince among artists, in 
 masquerade.' 
 
 We were, it must be admitted, Bohemians ; 
 but Bohemians from necessity, not from 
 choice. Even I, resigned as I was to our 
 circumstances, would have been surprised if 
 anybody had told me that I was happy. 
 Yet now I know that those were almost the 
 happiest days of my life.
 
 II. 
 
 MY father's duties as the historian of Russia 
 required him to go a good deal to the 
 public libraries, for the purpose of consulting 
 authorities. He would frequently leave the 
 Hotel du St. Esprit directly after his morn 
 ing coffee, and not return till towards the 
 hour for dinner. On these occasions he 
 would take his second breakfast at some 
 cheap restaurant in the quarter where he was 
 at work. 
 
 One evening in the early part of March, 
 1883, when he came home from a day spent 
 abroad like this, I saw, the instant he entered 
 our rooms, that something had happened to 
 
 VOL. i. 2
 
 1 8 MEA CULPA. 
 
 disturb his tranquillity. He was manifestly 
 in a state of great nervous excitement, which 
 he was doing his utmost to conceal, but 
 which anybody with the smallest faculty for 
 observation could not have failed to discover 
 at a single glance : excitement, moreover, 
 which was plainly of a sorrowful, not of a 
 joyful nature. A spot of scarlet burned in 
 either cheek. He kept his eyes persistently 
 averted from mine ; but now and then I 
 caught a glimpse of them, in spite of him, 
 and then I saw that they were red and 
 swollen, as if he had been weeping. At 
 dinner, though he tried hard to eat, it was 
 evident that he had no appetite ; his hands 
 shook, that held his knife and fork ; when he 
 spoke, which he did but seldom and briefly, 
 though he was ordinarily a voluble talker, 
 his voice trembled, and it had a peculiar 
 strained ring. After dinner he sat for two 
 hours or more motionless before our fire-
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 19 
 
 place, glaring at the coals, once in awhile 
 breathing a prodigious sigh, but never utter 
 ing a syllable. I was puzzled and frightened, 
 yet something withheld me from questioning 
 him. I felt that it would be better to wait 
 until in his own time he should volunteer 
 an explanation : which I did not doubt that 
 he would sooner or later do, for he was 
 a man who craved sympathy in all his 
 emotions, sad or glad, as irresistibly as his 
 body craved food, drink, or sleep. ... At last, 
 however, still without a word, he rose, put 
 on his overcoat, and took his hat and stick. 
 
 At that I could hold in no longer. 
 
 ' You are going out ?' I inquired. 
 
 ' You see it, do you not ?' he answered 
 a little petulantly. 
 
 ' Where are you going ?' 
 
 ' Where ? What is that to you ? Must I 
 account to you for all my movements ?' 
 
 ' Certainly not. Only, I should like to 
 
 2 2
 
 2O MEA CULPA. 
 
 know ; and I had no reason to suppose that 
 you would object to telling me that is all.' 
 
 ' Well, I am going nowhere anywhere 
 to walk.' 
 
 ' It is late. It is past eleven. You had 
 better go to bed.' 
 
 ' Bed !' he cried, in his strained, unnatural 
 voice. ' And what for, pray ?' 
 
 * To sleep, of course,' said I. 
 
 My father could never bring himself to 
 realize that I was a grown-up woman ; he 
 invariably treated me, and doubtless thought 
 of me, as a little silly girl in pinafores. . . . 
 
 ' My child,' he now replied, with an accent 
 of profound solemnity, ' I shall never be 
 able to sleep again. You, who are young 
 you, who do not know what care and re 
 sponsibility mean you may sleep. For me, 
 I have that upon my mind which renders 
 the very name of sleep preposterous.' 
 
 Also, at his moments of emotional dis-
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 21 
 
 turbance, he was prone to don, in approach 
 ing me, an armour of magniloquence, to 
 become oracular and rhetorical, if not even 
 a little theatrical. 
 
 ' You had better tell me what it is,' I 
 urged. ' You had better share your trouble 
 with me. Two pairs of shoulders can bear 
 it more easily than one.' 
 
 He looked at me very hard for an instant ; 
 his eyes began to blink, his lips to pucker ; 
 he burst into tears. 
 
 ' What is it ? What is it, father ?' I en 
 treated. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, and, with a 
 despairing gesture, cried out, ' I am a ruined 
 man, a ruined man ! When you stopper! 
 me, do you know what I was going to do ?' 
 he asked. ' I was going out to put an end 
 to my existence. Within a few minutes I 
 should have been lying dead at the bottom 
 of the Seine. To-morrow you would have
 
 22 MEA GULP A. 
 
 found my lifeless corpse upon the marbles 
 of the Morgue.' 
 
 He sank into his old seat before the fire, 
 and passively allowed me to take his hat 
 and stick. For some minutes he wept 
 silently, without speaking. I knelt at his 
 side, and held his hand, and waited. 
 
 By-and-by, always with a certain magnilo 
 quence, and employing the tone that one 
 would naturally use in explaining the affairs 
 of an adult to a little child addressing 
 me, that is to say, de haut en has he pro 
 ceeded to make the following confession, in 
 his studied, old-fashioned French : 
 
 ' I am, as I have already told you, a 
 ruined man. The story is of the shortest, the 
 simplest, the most tragical. Young as you 
 are, I believe that you had better hear it, so 
 that you may understand the fatal combina 
 tion of circumstances that drive your father 
 to a premature and ignominious grave. . . . '
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 23 
 
 His voice died out, and for a breathing- 
 space he was silent. Then he went on : 
 
 ' Figure to yourself that to-day, at noon, 
 as I was leaving the Bibliotheque Nationale, 
 to go to breakfast at a neighbouring table- 
 d'hote, I had no sooner set my foot in the 
 street than I ran almost into the arms of 
 . . . whom do you think ? My old friend 
 Sagoskin, Serge Petrovitch Sagoskin, the 
 author of " Russ and Finn," whom I had 
 not seen for a matter of five years. He 
 greeted me with the utmost effusiveness, 
 inquired cordially about you, and insisted 
 upon my accompanying him to his hotel, 
 
 to meet the distinguished novelists Z 
 
 and X , whom he had invited to break 
 fast. I assented with pleasure ; and we had 
 a most delightful meal, diversified by conver 
 sation as edifying as it was entertaining, 
 and in which, you will be glad to learn, 
 your father did not shine only as a listener.'
 
 2q. MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' Yes ? yes ?' I prompted, as he paused 
 again. 
 
 ' Well, my child, as we were taking our 
 coffee, Sagoskin proposed a little turn 
 at Zinkalinka a proposition which was 
 generally received with acclamation, and to 
 which I, for one, agreed the more readily, 
 because, invariably enjoying good fortune 
 at cards, I was confident that I should lose 
 nothing, and hopeful, my dear, of winning 
 enough to constitute an acceptable addition 
 to our fund of ready money though, in 
 deed, the game being undertaken for amuse 
 ment purely and simply, was projected upon 
 so small a scale that no one could win 
 enough to talk about. But see how things 
 turn out ! From the beginning I lost ; and 
 contrary to every reasonable probability, I 
 lost constantly to the end. It was a com 
 plete d^veine. Reluctant to show the white 
 feather to my antagonists, and animated by
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 25 
 
 the conviction that the luck must infallibly 
 change, as well as by the desire to retrieve 
 my losses, if not to come away a gainer, I 
 continued to play until I found that I owed 
 the bank, which was held by Sagoskin him 
 self, a matter of five hundred francs. Then, 
 in despair, I pleaded an appointment with 
 you, and took my leave. I explained to 
 my host that I did not happen to have five 
 hundred francs upon my person, and gave 
 him my note-of-hand for the amount, promis 
 ing to redeem it to-morrow morning. . . . 
 Such, in fine, is the dilemma in which I find 
 myself placed. Inspired by the ambition, 
 not ignoble, to contribute what I might to the 
 expenses of my family, and having every 
 reason to believe that Providence had put 
 in my way an opportunity for doing so, I 
 am, by an entirely unprecedented and 
 anomalous run of ill-luck, reduced to this 
 desperate alternative : either I must pay
 
 26 MEA CULPA. 
 
 Sagoskin five hundred francs to-morrow, or 
 I must avoid dishonour by taking my life.' 
 
 He drew a long breath and flourished his 
 hand, to indicate that his narrative was 
 finished. Clearly he did not reproach him 
 self; it was not for me to reproach him. 
 
 Presently he added, in the tone of a man 
 moralizing upon a perfectly impersonal 
 event : ' It is one of those incomprehen 
 sible examples of the apparently blind and 
 wanton brutality of Fate, which force certain 
 thinkers to accept the atheistic and pessi 
 mistic hypothesis of life, that you should 
 lose a father, that Russia should lose an 
 historian, and that I should be cut off in 
 the very prime of my career, all for a paltry 
 consideration of five hundred francs !' 
 
 In a moment he demanded, ' How much 
 money have you in hand ?' 
 
 ' Less than two hundred francs,' I an 
 swered ; ' and we shall need every penny
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 2J 
 
 of that to pay our way to the end of the 
 month.' 
 
 ' Have we any property that . . . that you 
 could exchange for money at the Mont de 
 Piete ?' 
 
 ' Alas, my father, I have already pledged 
 everything that we had of value in the world. 
 Our jewellery is all gone. Only our clothing 
 is left ; and you know as well as I do how 
 much, or rather how little, that is worth.' 
 
 ' But your furs ?' 
 
 ' Sold as long ago as November.' 
 
 ' Eh bien, it is then as I supposed. I 
 must die.' 
 
 I paid little heed to his talk of suicide, 
 for I knew that it was but a figure of speech. 
 ' If you should go to Serge Petrovitch,' I 
 ventured, ' and frankly explain to him your 
 circumstances, and ask to be forgiven a debt 
 which is, after all, only a card debt, and not 
 one contracted for an equivalent ?'
 
 28 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' Seigneur Dieu f he exclaimed. ' Is my 
 daughter, then, devoid of the least senti 
 ment of pride, of honour ? . . . Monica, I 
 would rather die a hundred deaths !' 
 
 'Well, then . . . ?' I questioned. 
 
 ' It comes to this : we must borrow.' 
 
 ' Whom can we borrow from ?' 
 
 ' Reflect a moment. You will see that 
 there is but one person in Paris to whom 
 we can apply for a loan.' 
 
 ' Who is that ? I cannot think of any 
 one.' 
 
 ' Why, Armidis, of course.' 
 
 ' Oh !' I cried. 
 
 ' Yes ; we must borrow five hundred 
 francs from Armidis. He will gladly lend 
 them, I am sure. He is all good-nature.' 
 
 ' But how are we ever to repay him ?' 
 
 My father shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 ' Oh. we must somehow achieve the im 
 possible. Or perhaps something will turn up.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 29 
 
 But that is a question for the future. For 
 the present our dilemma stands thus : we 
 must borrow five hundred francs from 
 Armidis, or I must take my life.' 
 
 ' Very good/ I acquiesced, though with a 
 heart by no means light. ' Then you must 
 go to Armidis in the morning and borrow 
 the money.' 
 
 4 / ?' my father almost screamed, starting 
 half-way to his feet. ' / go to him ? . . . Are 
 you mad ? Or is it that you have not the 
 faintest comprehension of my character ? 
 Rather than ask Armidis to lend me a sou 
 I would cut out my tongue !' 
 
 ' But then . . . ?' I faltered. 
 
 ' No ; it is you, my child, you who are 
 young, and who do not feel these things as 
 I feel them it is you who must go to 
 Armidis. Go to him in the morning, 
 raconte lui quelque histoire, and bring 
 the money home to me. . . . Do not
 
 3O MEA CULPA. 
 
 refuse/ he implored passionately. ' I exact 
 it by right of my position as your 
 parent,' he added with an accent of autho 
 rity. 
 
 'If I go to Armidis for you,' I returned, 
 ' I cannot tell him a story. I must tell him 
 the truth.' 
 
 ' In other words, you will sacrifice your 
 father's honour !' he cried wildly. 
 
 ' I can't see how your honour will be 
 involved. You have done nothing dis 
 honourable,' said I. 
 
 ' You are right,' he agreed, his excite 
 ment suddenly subsiding. ' Armidis, though 
 not a man of the world, has sense and 
 reason. He will understand. . . . Then you 
 will go ?' 
 
 * Yes, I will go.' 
 
 ' Ah-h-h !' sighed my father, a long sigh 
 of relief. 
 
 His relief presently intensified into a
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 3! 
 
 complete reaction of spirits. He opened 
 a bottle of wine, and demanded something 
 to eat. 
 
 1 We will sup, ma fille. We will forget 
 our late annoyances in a little feast. . . . Oh, 
 you are a good girl ' he took my chin in 
 his hands and smiled into my eyes ' yes, 
 a very good little girl. I cannot complain 
 of you. You are, as the English say, a chip 
 of the old block.' 
 
 He was very merry and good-natured for 
 the rest of the night. 
 
 'If I had played a little longer,' he 
 declared, ' the luck would certainly have 
 changed. It was bound to do so by the 
 immutable law of chances. Yes, I conclude 
 that I was foolish to withdraw from the 
 game. If I had persevered I might have 
 brought you home . . . who knows how many 
 hundreds, how many thousands, of francs ?' 
 
 After I had kissed him good-night, and
 
 32 MEA CULPA. 
 
 had reached the threshold of his room, 
 on the way to my own, he called me back ; 
 and holding his candle above his head, so 
 that it cleared my face and left his own in 
 shadow, ' If if you should ask Armidis for 
 a thousand, instead of five hundred ?' he 
 suggested. 
 
 I was perplexed. ' But why ? What for ?' 
 I queried. 
 
 ' Why, then I could resume the game to 
 morrow, and take my revenge.' 
 
 'Oh!' 
 
 ' Well ?' 
 
 ' Oh, no, I cannot. It is out of the 
 question.' 
 
 ' But be reasonable. It is the quickest 
 way of repaying him. I should expect to 
 win twice, three times, as much. By the 
 law of chances I can prove to you that the 
 probabilities are as one million to one against 
 my losing.'
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 33 
 
 4 No, no, no,' I insisted. 
 
 He gave a gesture of impatience. Then 
 he paused, and seemed to meditate for a 
 moment. In the end, ' I will speak to you 
 again in the morning,' he said. ' Good 
 night/ 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 III. 
 
 HE was as good as his word ; and in the 
 
 morning, surely enough, he renewed his 
 
 efforts to persuade me to ask Armidis for 
 
 double the amount of his indebtedness to 
 
 Sagoskin. He began by commanding me to 
 
 do so, by virtue of his position as my father. 
 
 Failing in that, he sought by argument to 
 
 convince me that it would be wise and right. 
 
 Finally, he addressed his appeal to my love 
 
 for him, not to deny him what he so earnestly 
 
 desired. But I was firm in my refusal. 
 
 ' Very well/ he said at last. ' I must 
 submit to your feminine unreasonableness
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 35 
 
 and obstinacy. I must suffer, though I 
 should be hypocritical if I pretended to 
 forgive, your unfilial disobedience. Go, then, 
 at once, and fetch the money. I will wait 
 for you here. You ought not to be gone 
 longer than a couple of hours at the 
 furthest. . . . Go. Why do you delay ?' 
 
 ' My dearest father/ I returned, speaking 
 as gently as I could, yet fearing that my 
 words would provoke a storm, ' I implore 
 you not to be angry with me ; but it is im 
 possible ... let me explain ... it is impossible 
 for me to go at once. This, as you know, is 
 my busiest day in all the week. I have 
 lessons continuously till three o'clock. If I 
 disappoint my pupils, I not only lose the 
 price of their lessons which we could ill 
 afford at any time but I run the risk of 
 being dismissed from their employment. 
 That would be to fly in the face of Provi 
 dence, especially in view of our present 
 
 32
 
 36 MEA CULPA. 
 
 difficulty. I cannot reach Armidis's house 
 before this afternoon.' 
 
 ' In that case,' said he, with an effect of 
 the calmness of despair, ' you need not go at 
 all. Debts of this nature must be liquidated 
 within twenty-four hours, or the debtor is 
 for ever dishonoured. I must hand the 
 money to Sagoskin before five o'clock this 
 evening, or I must die. Since you deem 
 your lessons to be of superior importance to 
 your father's honour, even to his life, go 
 to them. That is my last word, . . . except 
 adieu.' 
 
 ' Au revoir, mon cher petit pere] I said, 
 kissing him on the forehead, and stroking his 
 fleecy thin white hair. ' I will have the 
 money here by half-past four at the latest. 
 It will not take you more than half an hour 
 to go to Sagoskin's hotel, so that before 
 five o'clock you and he will be quits. Au 
 revoir'
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 37 
 
 * A^i revoir, ma fille] he responded, re 
 lapsing suddenly into his simple, cheerful 
 self. ' I shall spend the day quietly at home, 
 arranging the notes I took at the library 
 yesterday morning.' 
 
 I had never been at Armidis's lodgings, 
 but I knew that he lived at No. 239, Avenue 
 de la Grande Armee, away out beyond the 
 Arc de 1'Iitoile, near the Porte Maillot. It 
 was a quarter-past three when I inquired for 
 him of the concierge. 
 
 ' Yes, madame ; Monsieur Armidis is at 
 home/ the concierge informed me. ' At the 
 bottom of the court, staircase A, fourth 
 story, at the left." 
 
 I crossed a damp and dirty courtyard, 
 which reeked dreadfully of the stables by 
 which it was surrounded, and in which a 
 stableman, who treated me to an inquisitive 
 stare, was busy washing a carriage ; passed
 
 38 MEA CULPA. 
 
 through a narrow, dirty doorway, distin 
 guished by a huge A in red paint ; climbed 
 four flights of dark back stairs, that smelled 
 forcibly of cooking, whereof onions and 
 cabbages seemed to furnish the basis ; and 
 pulled the bell-cord at the left-hand side of 
 the last landing. 
 
 My heart was beating strenuously. I felt 
 that I had come upon a very delicate and 
 painful errand, and I prayed mentally for 
 strength and courage to perform it. Though 
 my poor dear father chose not to acknow 
 ledge it, I believe that I was naturally as 
 proud and as sensitive as himself, and that I 
 shrank as fearfully as he could have done 
 from the humiliation of asking Armidis to 
 lend me money. I tried to think how I had 
 better word my request ; and the possibility 
 of a refusal, of a rebuff, was constantly 
 present to my imagination. It was also 
 entirely possible that he might not have five
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 39 
 
 hundred francs to lend, in which case . . . ! 
 Several minutes passed, and the bell had not 
 been answered. I rang again. What if he 
 should be absent, after all ? The concierge 
 might easily have made a mistake. Again 
 I waited several minutes, and still the door 
 remained closed in my face. A good deal 
 disheartened, I rang for a third time. 
 
 At last came the sound of footsteps from 
 within. Then, from behind the door, 
 Armidis's lusty voice, with an accent of 
 plaintive remonstrance, called out in French, 
 'Yes, yes. I hear. I'm awake. No need 
 to ring a thousand times ! I'm not, upon my 
 word, I'm not the Sleeping Beauty. Now 
 go away, and in ten minutes you may bring 
 me my coffee.' 
 
 'Mr. Armidis,' I said in English, 'it is I 
 Monica Banakin.' 
 
 'Oh! You don't say so! Is it really? 
 Why, how do you do ? I thought it was
 
 4O MEA CULPA. 
 
 the concierge come to wake me up. And I 
 was vexed with him for ringing so many 
 times. As if I were deaf! It seemed so 
 unfeeling of him. Oh, they're a bad lot, ces 
 concierges. Outrageous ! . . . You you don't 
 mind, do you ? Say that you don't mind.' 
 
 ' Mind ! Mind what ?' 
 
 ' Why, my having thought it was the 
 concierge. I never would have thought it 
 if I had known that it was you. But, you 
 see, I really couldn't know, could I ? I was 
 expecting him. I'm so sorry. I hope you 
 don't feel hurt about it.' 
 
 'Oh no, not in the least/ I assured him, 
 laughing. 
 
 1 So good of you. I was sure you wouldn't. 
 You've got such a kind heart under your 
 forbidding exterior. You couldn't nurse 
 resentment when no offence was intended. 
 But I thank you very much, all the same. 
 And it's really Monica Banakin really?
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 41 
 
 You're not trying to deceive me ? Of course, 
 I'm helplessly at your mercy, not being able 
 to see through the door.' 
 ' It's really I,' I said. 
 
 ' Well, then, do you know, you've had an 
 inspiration. The arrival of a kindred spirit 
 is just what I've been longing for. Only I 
 didn't dare to hope for it ; and now it seems 
 too good to be true. There ! I don't believe 
 it is you, after all.' 
 
 ' Who do you think it is, then ?' 
 ' Ah, now I'm sure. Yes ; it's your voice, 
 your own liquid accents. Oh, it's too de 
 lightful ! Do you know, I was going over 
 to your shop this evening, just on purpose to 
 see you. I was really.' 
 
 ' I hope you won't let that good resolution 
 be shaken by my coming here.' 
 
 ' Oh, how nice of you ! Very flattering ! 
 Bocca, bocca bella / But I don't know. You 
 see, it's this way. I was up all night com-
 
 42 MEA CULPA. 
 
 posing a little melody, writing a little verse ; 
 and I wanted to try its effect on you. You'll 
 give me your honest opinion, won't you ? 
 You must bind yourself to that beforehand. 
 Let no false kindness temper your ex 
 pression. It's the best thing, by all means 
 the best thing, I've ever done : a master 
 piece, in parvo, destined to live till the trump 
 of doom. That's what I think to-day, mind. 
 That's what one always thinks when one's 
 latest production is still warm. To-morrow 
 it will be cold. Then I shall probably re 
 cognise it as just one failure more. Agony ! 
 You shall anticipate my to-morrow's judgment 
 for me, eh ?' 
 
 ' Are you going to perform it at me from 
 behind closed doors ?' I asked. 
 
 * Oh, now, how unkind you are !' he 
 grieved. ' So heartless ! How can I open 
 the door ? I I've just got out of bed. I'm 
 not presentable. It wouldn't be proper. It
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 43 
 
 would compromise me so. Oh dear, what 
 shall I do ?' 
 
 In the face of a practical emergency, 
 Armidis always assumed the helplessness of 
 a big child : partly, I think, for the sake of 
 the drollery of it, but partly because he 
 really was, when it came to practical matters, 
 simply a great, big, overgrown baby. 
 
 ' You might go and dress/ I suggested. 
 ' I'll wait here on the landing.' 
 
 ' Oh, will you really ? Oh, how good you 
 are ! So much obliged ! Forgive what I 
 said about your being heartless ; it was said 
 in the stress of passion ; I never meant it. 
 I'll not keep you five minutes. Sculement 
 le temps cCendosser une robe de chambre. 
 Shall shall I throw you out something to 
 read ? You could turn your back, you 
 know, and I could lay it out on the floor.' 
 
 ' No, thanks. I don't want anything to 
 read. Now go.'
 
 44 MEA CULPA. 
 
 Presently the door was opened, and 
 Armidis stood before me, all smiles, and 
 held out both of his fat dimpled hands in 
 welcome hands just like a baby's, only 
 bigger. From throat to foot his tall and 
 robust figure was wrapped in a flannel 
 dressing-gown, of a soiled and faded, but 
 still sufficiently flamboyant, scarlet. 
 
 ' Come !' he cried. ' Come in. Soyez la 
 bienvenue. I see you're admiring my cos 
 tume. I look like a cardinal in it, don't I ? 
 It was given me by Marvellac, the painter. 
 I always put it on when I compose sacred 
 music. Not that I've been composing sacred 
 music to-day, though ; tutf altro ; very pro 
 fane. But I thought you'd enjoy the colour, 
 and take it as a compliment. Come this 
 way in here.' 
 
 He showed no curiosity to learn the occa 
 sion of my visit, but seemed to accept it as 
 a thing quite in the natural course of events.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 45 
 
 1 Ecco ! This is my laboratory. It is here 
 that the immortal works are executed.' 
 
 He preceded me into the untidiest, the 
 most disorderly little room I had ever 
 entered in my life. A vast table occupied 
 the middle of the floor, covered with a wild 
 litter of books, manuscripts, ink-bottles, pens, 
 tobacco-pipes, soiled cups and dishes, crusts 
 of bread, gloves, neck-ties ... in a word, all 
 manner of related and unrelated odds and 
 ends. The rest of the room was nearly rilled 
 up by a grand piano, over the top of which, as 
 well as over the seats of the chairs and 
 every available inch of the floor, were scat 
 tered loose sheets of music, pell-mell, as if 
 by the wind. The frame of the looking- 
 glass above the mantel was stuck all round 
 with gaudily-coloured cards, which proved 
 upon inspection to be advertisements of the 
 Bon Marche, the Petit St. Thomas, Vin 
 dc Bugeaud, and various patent medicines.
 
 46 MEA CULPA. 
 
 I inferred from its appearance that the room 
 had not been swept or dusted for months 
 and months. 
 
 He led me straight to the keyboard of his 
 piano. 
 
 ' Sit down is the chair high enough ? 
 shall I put a book ? and play it over once, 
 to familiarize yourself,' he said, laying some 
 manuscript-music upon the support. ' Then 
 I'll sing it to your accompaniment/ 
 
 His manuscript was rather blind indeed, 
 it looked at a rough glance simply like paper 
 spattered over at random with small dots of 
 violet ink and I blundered a good deal in 
 getting through it ; whilst he stood at the 
 other end of the piano, beating time, shout 
 ing out little words of guidance ' Softly,' 
 ' Faster,' 'Not so fast,' ' A lions done, plus 
 de feu /' clapping his hands now and then 
 to encourage me, and when I committed 
 a particularly brutal error, groaning and
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 47 
 
 writhing in an agony which, though face 
 tiously exaggerated, probably had a core 
 of reality. 
 
 When I had stumbled to the end of it, 
 ' Oh, murderess ! assassin !' he cried. ' To 
 mangle the poor child of my imagination 
 under my very beard like that ! But, now 
 then ! Now, once more ! Da capo. Smoothly, 
 easily ; kindly, discreetly ; with confidence, 
 with spirit ! Bramble - bush ! You have 
 scratched out my eyes ! Now, scratch them 
 in again !' 
 
 I began, as he bade me, da capo ; and on 
 this second trial naturally I did better. He 
 walked up and down the room, nodding his 
 head, waving his hand in fact, marking time 
 with his whole body and keeping his eyes 
 shut, while an expression of beatitude shone 
 upon his face. 
 
 ' Brava ! Bravissima ! I forgive you 
 everything. You did it nobly. You have
 
 48 MEA CULPA. 
 
 atoned. . . . Well,' he declared, ' it's not so 
 good as I hoped, nor so bad as I feared. 
 You you don't think it's altogether bad, 
 do you ?' he demanded eagerly, becoming 
 motionless, and scanning my face as if his 
 life hung upon my answer. 
 
 ' On the contrary, I like it very much. I 
 think it's charming,' I assured him. 
 
 ' Charming ! Did you say charming ? Oh, 
 how perfunctory, how banale ! Charming, 
 quotha. How undiscriminating ! Oh, that 
 is the most unkindest cut of all ! I never 
 would have thought you capable of calling 
 it charming. What injury have I ever 
 done to you to be snubbed like that ? You 
 cruel thing !' 
 
 ' I'm sorry if the word offends you. I 
 think it is delightful full of colour, passion, 
 imagination. And the harmonies are delicious, 
 and very novel.' 
 
 1 Ah, that is better. Now you see it.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 49 
 
 The harmonies ! Of course ! But wait, 
 wait. I will sing it to you. It's meant for 
 a woman, but I'll attempt it all the same. 
 Tout artiste est un peu femme. Now! Are 
 you ready ! One, two, three ; one, two, 
 three ! Excellent !' 
 
 He sang it to my accompaniment in his 
 wonderful sweet baritone, joining to the 
 technique of a capital executant the fervour 
 and the intelligence of the creative artist. 
 
 ' And now, Sybil, wise woman, speak. 
 Pronounce its fate.' 
 
 He appeared to be delighted with the 
 admiration that I expressed, dancing around 
 the room, and insisting, ' Really ? Really ? 
 You're not saying it to please me ? You 
 really mean it ?' And when I had satisfied 
 him of my sincerity, ' Very good ! You shall 
 take the consequences of your words. I 
 shall dedicate it to you,' he announced. 
 ' Dedicated to Monica Paulovna Banakin 
 
 VOL. i. 4
 
 5O MEA CULPA. 
 
 by her ardent though aged admirer, the 
 Perpetrator I Won't that be fine ? Romantic, 
 eh ? ... Enfin, it is settled. I throw it off 
 my mind. And now you may tell me, if 
 you wish, to what I am indebted for the 
 unprecedented honour of this visit. I do not 
 attribute it to pure benevolence ; the desire 
 to afford me the pleasure of your society. 
 Nothing wrong, I hope, with the Lily of the 
 Field ?' 
 
 That was his nick-name for my father, who 
 was very punctilious about his dress, who 
 was even, to be frank, a good deal of a 
 dandy ; and of whom Armidis who could 
 never deny himself an opportunity to say 
 a sharp thing, or to do a kind one had 
 remarked, ' He toils not, neither does he 
 spin ; yet I'll bet a shilling that Solomon 
 in all his glory couldn't have held a candle 
 to him.' 
 
 I summoned my courage, told him the
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 51 
 
 story of my father's encounter with Sagoskin, 
 and asked him to lend me five hundred francs. 
 
 To my surprise, he took it as a great joke, 
 laughing immoderately, and crying, ' Oh, 
 how sweet ! How ecstatic ! Oh, that Paul 
 Mikhaelovitch ! Wasn't it just like him ? 
 You know, he solemnly thought he was 
 doing a shrewd, a prudent, even a noble 
 thing. I'll wager he thinks so still. Ah, 
 you Russians are absolutely the most ex 
 quisite creations on the face of the earth. 
 Children ! Why, for pure juvenility you beat 
 even the Italians. Oh, I wouldn't have 
 missed this for anything in the world. 
 Thanks so very much. Here . . . here is the 
 money.' 
 
 From the clutter upon his table he fished 
 out a tin box that had once held Egyptian 
 cigarettes ; and from the interior of that he 
 took five one hundred franc notes, and 
 handed them to me. 
 
 42
 
 52 MEA CULPA. 
 
 I began to stammer out some words of 
 thanks, but he cut me short. 
 
 ' Come, come ; time is precious, and I 
 want to show you my smelting works,' he 
 cried. ' See ! Here is a crucible, the common 
 or garden sort that you can buy of any 
 chemist for considerably less than a song. 
 Here is a spirit-stove. Here is a sheet of 
 tinfoil. Now observe. Watch.' 
 
 He lighted the wick of the spirit-stove, 
 and placed the crucible, with the tinfoil in it, 
 upon the support. In a minute the tinfoil 
 was melted. Then he poured the liquid 
 metal out into a goblet of water that stood 
 near by, and exhorted me to notice the 
 beautiful and grotesque shapes that it took 
 in hardening. 
 
 ' Isn't it adorable ? Isn't it fairy-like ?' he 
 pleaded. ' Have you ever seen anything so 
 lovely ? I pick up and treasure all the bits 
 of tinfoil I can lay my hands on, for the pure
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 53 
 
 joy of doing this. Of course a Philistine 
 wouldn't appreciate it. But you Fm sure 
 you do ; don't you ?' 
 
 ' And yet you call my father a child !' I 
 laughed. 
 
 1 Oh, don't, don't,' he groaned. ' Don't 
 say you think it childish. That would be 
 more than I could bear. Another illusion 
 shattered ! Let me retain my respect for 
 you, my faith in you. I have felt drawn 
 towards you, I have felt an affinity for you ; 
 I have taken you to be a pure idealist, 
 strictly inconsequential, like myself. Don't 
 be logical, don't demand a reason for things ; 
 I couldn't bear it, really. Understand that 
 if I had a reason for it, I wouldn't do it ; the 
 joy would be poisoned, the zest destroyed. . . . 
 But there ! You belie yourself. You were 
 dissembling. You were only making believe. 
 Your secret heart thrills with the rapture of 
 it as keenly as mine does. Enfin, I will see
 
 54 MEA CULPA. 
 
 you this evening at the Concombre Rose. 
 Good-bye.' 
 
 The Concombre Rose was the restaurant 
 in the Boulevard St. Michel, where we 
 dined. 
 
 I found that it was past four o'clock when 
 I left Armidis. To be punctual at home, 
 therefore, and to spare my father the anxiety 
 of waiting for me, I committed the extra 
 vagance of a cab. 
 
 'Ah, it is you,' he said, looking up from 
 his writing-table, as I entered the room. 
 'Well, do not interrupt me now. I am in 
 the middle of a paragraph. I will speak with 
 you presently.' 
 
 ' But you wanted to put the money into 
 Serge Petrovitch's hands before five o'clock. 
 You will have barely time to do so, if you 
 start at once.' 
 
 * Hush, hush ; you disturb my train of
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 55 
 
 thought. An hour later, more or less, will 
 not matter.' 
 
 Armidis kept his promise to meet us at 
 the Concombre Rose which was rather 
 surprising, for he could never be counted 
 upon to remember a promise of that nature 
 and my father, who had seen Sagoskin, and 
 paid his debt, was in such high spirits that 
 he insisted upon ordering a bottle of cham 
 pagne, in which to pledge the friend who, he 
 said, had come to the rescue of his honour. 
 Afterwards, he invited us to go with him to 
 the Od6on, where they were playing La Vie 
 de Bo/idme. But Armidis was considerate 
 enough to decline ; so, instead, we went to 
 our rooms, and spent the evening over the 
 piano. 
 
 After our guest had left us, when we were 
 on the point of separating for the night, ' Ah, 
 Monica/ sighed my father, ' if you had only
 
 56 MEA CULPA. 
 
 asked him for a thousand ! You see, he 
 thought nothing of it. He is so good-natured. 
 It is as well to get in debt for a sheep as for 
 a lamb. And with that capital to start with, 
 who knows what I might have won ? Sago- 
 skin offered to give me my revenge to 
 morrow. He even offered on the spot to 
 throw the dice, and make it double or quits. 
 He could not conceal his astonishment when 
 I declined. I would rather die than let him 
 suspect that my true reason was poverty 
 You see, you have made a mistake. After 
 this, let me trust, you will be guided by one 
 who is older and wiser than yourself. . . . 
 Kiss me good-night.'
 
 IV. 
 
 AND now, of course, the question that I had 
 to face was this : How am I to pay our debt 
 to Armidis ? By what means shall I be able 
 to save five hundred francs ? 
 
 Not an easy question to answer, because, 
 in the first place, our actual living expenses 
 swallowed up every penny that I could earn, 
 and, in the second, we were already living as 
 economically as it seemed possible for two 
 people to do who desired at least a show of 
 decency, if not of comfort. I knew that 
 Armidis would not be an importunate 
 creditor, that indeed he would be the most 
 lenient ; I was sure that he would give me
 
 58 MEA CULPA. 
 
 plenty of time, that he would let me pay him 
 little by little, in instalments : but all the 
 same, the fact remained that we owed him 
 five hundred francs, and that somehow, some 
 time, our scores must be cleared. It came 
 to this : either I must contrive to increase 
 my earnings, or to diminish our expenses, or 
 I must do both. How to increase my earn 
 ings I could not think. In what way, then, 
 could we lessen our expenses ? 
 
 The first item in which it appeared to me 
 that a reduction would be feasible was that 
 of rent. As I have said, we had two com 
 municating rooms on the fourth story. For 
 the larger of the two, which my father used 
 as a bedroom and study, and which we used 
 in common as a sitting-room, we paid fifty 
 francs a month. For the smaller of the two, 
 my bedroom, we paid thirty-five. It occurred 
 to me that I might be able to arrange with 
 Madame Pamparagoux, our landlady, to let
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 59 
 
 her give me a smaller room still, perhaps up 
 another flight of stairs, for a lower price. 
 Madame Pamparagoux was a warm-hearted 
 Meridionale, a brave and honest woman. 
 She said at once that she could let me have 
 a little room on the top story, looking into 
 the court, for twenty francs a month. Thus 
 a monthly saving of fifteen francs could be 
 effected at a single stroke not a very big 
 saving, certainly, but decidedly better than 
 nothing. Then I could give up the piano, 
 which feeling that if I aspired to gain our 
 livelihood as a teacher of music, I must 
 devote what time I could to practising, and 
 so keep myself efficient I had hired for ten 
 francs a month. Finally, perhaps I could 
 spare from two to three francs weekly by 
 walking to and from my lessons, instead of 
 taking the omnibus. But altogether I could 
 see no prospect of my being able to put aside 
 more than thirty or thirty- five francs a month ;
 
 60 MEA CULPA. 
 
 and at that rate, it would take me about a 
 year and a half to get quits with our friend. . . . 
 
 In truth, it was a dear experience, that 
 little turn at Zinkalinka, whereby my father 
 had hoped to contribute something to the 
 support of his family. 
 
 I say that I despaired of managing to 
 increase my earnings ; and this was because 
 already every hour of my day was occupied, 
 and I had not a moment of leisure in which 
 to undertake additional work. You see, 
 besides what I did for remuneration, I had 
 many duties of a domestic nature to perform. 
 For example, I had to mend my father's 
 clothes, and to make as well as mend my 
 own. I had to brew the coffee in the morn 
 ing, to go to market, to cook our mid-day 
 breakfast, to wash the dishes, etc., etc. On 
 the whole, I was as busy as, with the natural 
 limitations of time and of human endurance, 
 I could well be.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 6 1 
 
 When, however, I told my father of my 
 determination to change my room, and to 
 give up my piano, he protested that he would 
 not hear of it. 
 
 1 As for your piano, it is your tool, it is the 
 implement of your profession,' he urged, not 
 without reason. ' It is senseless, your inten 
 tion of doing without it. You would kill the 
 goose that lays the golden eggs. And as for 
 your plan of moving upstairs my child, 
 you do not consider the proprieties. Aside 
 from the fact that I cannot consent to let you 
 make yourself so uncomfortable by sleeping, 
 parbleu, in a room that is no bigger than a 
 closet, and which is as black as night even at 
 high noon, looking as it does into that narrow 
 court aside from all that, you must re 
 member that you are a young girl, and that 
 it would be unseemly to the last degree for 
 you to go so far away from me, your father 
 and natural protector, especially in an hotel
 
 62 MEA CULPA. 
 
 meublt like this. No, we must not be 
 separated, above all at night. As for your 
 indebtedness to Armidis it is a matter for 
 the future.' 
 
 ' Yes. But I must prepare for the future 
 in the present.' 
 
 ' Oh, piff ! You know perfectly well that 
 he will not press you ; on the contrary, he 
 will give you all the time that you can 
 possibly desire. What is it ? Five hundred 
 francs ? The merest bagatelle. It is a 
 matter for the future. As you are aware, I 
 refuse to regard our present straitened cir 
 cumstances as other than purely temporary, 
 arising from an absurd misunderstanding on 
 the part of the authorities in Russia. I am 
 in correspondence with various influential 
 friends of mine there, to the end of causing a 
 statement of my case to be laid before the 
 Emperor in person. Of course there are 
 inevitable delays, legal formalities, bureau-
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 63 
 
 cratic obstructions, and so forth and so forth ; 
 but eventually these will be terminated, my 
 affair will arrive, and I shall be reinstated in 
 the possession of my properties, if not in all 
 my rights and privileges as a loyal member 
 of the Nobility. Then I will enable you to 
 return this trifling sum to Armidis with 
 interest, if you please, at the rate of cent, per 
 cent' 
 
 ' It is not interest that Armidis wants, my 
 father ; and for the rest, here are four years 
 already that you have been hoping from day 
 to day to see justice done you by the 
 Emperor. It may easily be four years more 
 before your hopes are realized. We must 
 not keep Armidis waiting for four years.' 
 
 1 Well, then, think of this. I hold a ticket 
 of the value of twenty francs in the Royal 
 Italian Lottery. The drawing takes place in 
 a fortnight. I may be a winner to the 
 amount of a million francs.'
 
 64 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' Yes, but by your law of chances, what is 
 the likelihood that you will ?' 
 
 ' Ah, it is impossible to reason with you. 
 At all events, I hope you recognise that this 
 difficulty is one of your own creation. If 
 you had obeyed your father, and asked 
 Armidis for a thousand, instead of that 
 beggarly five hundred, we should to-day be 
 quits with him, and have a comfortable sum 
 in hand besides.' 
 
 ' What is the use of going back to that ?' 
 
 ' To impress the ill consequences of your 
 disobedience upon your mind, my child. But 
 now enough. I will tell you what I will do. 
 Rather than allow you to carry out the 
 quixotic plans that you have in mind, I will 
 humiliate myself so far as to write to my 
 cousin Ogareff, at Moscow, and ask him to 
 lend me the money.' 
 
 ' Borrow from Peter to pay Paul ! A quoi 
 ban ? It is simpler for me to move upstairs.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 65 
 
 I assure you I shall not mind the change. 
 The room up there is quite as good as the 
 one I have down here, only it is a little 
 smaller. And although it looks upon the 
 court, it is so high up that it gets plenty of 
 light. Besides, I shall never be in it, except 
 to sleep. All the rest of the time, when I 
 am at home, I am here in this room with 
 you.' 
 
 My father took my chin between his hands, 
 and looked me curiously in the face. 
 
 'Where do you get your obstinacy, I 
 should like to know,' he said. ' Not from 
 me, that is very certain. I can be firm, firm 
 as a rock ; but I cannot be obstinate. When 
 I discover in your face the expression that is 
 there at this moment, I recognise that to 
 reason with you will be futile. Very well, 
 then, I submit only, with this reservation. 
 It shall not be you who will move upstairs ; 
 I will do so. You will move in here ; I will 
 
 VOL. i. 5
 
 66 MEA CULPA. 
 
 move up there : and thus the affair will 
 arrange itself to our mutual satisfaction.' 
 
 But there was one insurmountable objection 
 to this plan : namely, my father had a pre 
 disposition to bronchial trouble ; and the 
 doctor had told him that he must always 
 sleep in a room that had the sun during the 
 day ; and the little room upstairs, looking 
 towards the north, had no sun ; whilst the 
 room downstairs, looking towards the south, 
 had the sun almost from the time it rose 
 until it set. This objection I at last per 
 suaded my father to admit, and to give way 
 before. 
 
 Accordingly, on the first of the next month, 
 I took possession of my new quarters ; and 
 on the same day the men came to remove 
 our piano which, I confess, I could not see 
 them do without a sinking of the heart. 
 
 A few evenings later Armidis called upon
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 67 
 
 us. I happened at the moment of his arrival 
 to be alone. My father had stepped out to 
 buy some cigarettes. 
 
 Looking into my eyes with a smile that 
 was at once quizzical and reproachful, wag 
 ging his great white head at me, and shaking 
 his finger, our visitor began to drawl, in his 
 most plaintive accents, ' Oh, you wicked 
 creature! I've found you out. So fair, so 
 guileless-seeming, yet already a past mistress 
 in iniquity ! Oh, you whitened sepulchre, 
 you generation of vipers !' 
 
 ' Why, what have I done ?' I asked. 
 
 'All night long,' he went on solemnly, 
 without noticing my question, ' I lay awake 
 thinking of your dreadful wickedness. It's 
 been a shocking blow to me. One more 
 illusion shattered. One more idol cast from 
 its base. Oh, you heartless thing 1 You 
 fair-spoken villain ! You premature mass of 
 sophistication !' 
 
 52
 
 68 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' But, really, what have I done ?' I re 
 peated. 
 
 ' Oh, don't, don't,' he expostulated, 
 grievously. ' Don't add hypocrisy to your 
 other vices. Don't look me in the face, and 
 pretend not to know. All night long I had 
 you on my conscience ; I couldn't close my 
 eyes, for the thought of how demoralised you 
 were. At last I said, I will go to her, I will 
 speak with her, I will labour with her, not in 
 anger but in sorrow, and try to move her to 
 repentance and amendment. But the hard, 
 cynical, burglarious gleam in your eye dis 
 heartens me. I'm afraid you're past regene 
 ration. The way you brazen it out ! G-give 
 me a glass of eau sucrte! 
 
 His voice broke in the travesty of a sob. 
 
 ' I haven't the remotest idea of what you 
 mean, you know/ I said, as I went about 
 preparing him a glass of eau sucrte. His 
 sweet tooth, by the way, was one of Armidis's
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 69 
 
 peculiarities. He always carried a box of 
 sweetmeats in his pocket, just as another 
 man would carry a packet of cigarettes. But 
 for that matter, he carried both. When he 
 wasn't munching a caramel, or drinking eau 
 sucrde, he would certainly be pouring volu 
 minous clouds of smoke from his nostrils. 
 
 Again he paid no heed to my protestation. 
 ' How could you do it ? How ever could 
 you do it ?' he exclaimed. ' It's past my 
 understanding. Only let me tell you this, 
 you cruel, heartless, conscienceless thing 
 don't you ever try to come your grand airs 
 of innocence and benevolence over me any 
 more. I've found you out, I know you for 
 what you are a reg'lar bad 'un. You shame 
 less inhabitant of a fifth floor back !' 
 
 Then of course I knew what it was. 
 
 1 Why, who told you ?' I cried. 
 
 He put on an inscrutable countenance, 
 and spoke in a tone of profound mystery :
 
 7O MEA CULPA. 
 
 1 Never mind, never mind. I'll say no more 
 about it. But the next time that you pre 
 meditate a crime, just remember this : re 
 member that the most skilfully conducted 
 murder will out, and that there's no concealing 
 anything from M E. That's all ; and here 
 comes your father, your poor, helpless, long- 
 enduring father. It's lucky for you I'm not 
 your father. If I were. . . . !' A threatening 
 frown and gesture completed his sentence.
 
 PART II. 
 
 JULIAN NORTH.
 
 I. 
 
 THERE came a day in that first week of April 
 which so fixed itself upon my memory that 
 whenever I have thought of it since it has 
 returned to my mind as vividly and freshly 
 as if it had been yesterday, and yet which, at 
 the time, I had no reason to suspect would 
 count for more in my life than any of the 
 days that had gone before it. 
 
 It was the first real spring day that we had 
 had that year. A wonderful soft breeze blew 
 from the south, all warmth and fragrance ; 
 the sky was of a tender shimmering blue, 
 whilst here and there clouds as white and 
 pure as pearls floated in it. The sunlight
 
 74 MEA CULPA. 
 
 was like a vapour of gold, in its rich thick 
 ardour almost palpable. The whole world 
 seemed to sing and quiver in an ecstasy of 
 renewed exuberant life. When you breathed, 
 you were pierced to the quick by an exquisite 
 but indescribable sensation, as if, instead of 
 common air, it were some subtle, heady ether 
 that you inhaled ; and your heart was stirred 
 by a multitude of sweet, indefinite regrets 
 and longings, like dim reminiscences or 
 vague presentiments of something very dear, 
 you could not tell what. Joyous forces that 
 had been long asleep in your blood, seemed 
 to awake and go coursing through your veins 
 with turbulent vigour ; yet all the while a 
 delicious languor pervaded your senses, so 
 that you felt no desire to do anything but 
 just bide still and exist. It was one of those 
 rare days of early spring when everything, 
 even the vulgarest or most familiar object, 
 becomes wrapped in a rose-coloured glamour,
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 75 
 
 when the ordinary noises of the street fall 
 upon your ears like music, and the faces of 
 the passers-by seem to glow with an inner 
 poetic light. 
 
 My last lesson that day was from two till 
 three in the Avenue Duquesne, near the 
 Invalides ; and when, at a little past three 
 o'clock, I left my pupil, and started to walk 
 home, the day was at the very summit of its 
 glory. The magic of it penetrated and en 
 thralled me. The shabby Rue de Babylone, 
 through which I took my way, seemed like 
 a street in fairy- land ; the ragged, dirty 
 children who played in the gutters were like 
 little Loves and Cherubs in disguise. I felt 
 as if I walked on air ; my heart was singing, 
 and it was as much as I could do to keep 
 from joining it with my voice, and really 
 singing aloud myself. 
 
 ' How strange !' I thought. ' It is as 
 though some great good fortune had be-
 
 76 MEA CULPA. 
 
 fallen me, I am so happy ; yet in reality 
 nothing has happened ; everything is just as it 
 was yesterday, just as it will be to-morrow.' 
 
 I felt surcharged, tingling to my finger 
 tips, with glad, buoyant vitality, as if I had 
 drunken a deep draught at the very fountain- 
 head of life. 
 
 The scarred and blackened front of St. 
 Sulpice glowed all mellow in the sunshine ; 
 and the shop-windows of the chasubliers 
 round about had somehow lost their ac 
 customed effect of garish tawdriness, and 
 acquired a dignity and richness of their own. 
 Somewhere out of sight a barrel-organ was 
 monotonously grinding forth the aria of 
 Ai nostri monti, from Trovatore ; even 
 over that my illusion extended itself, and it 
 sounded like dreamy, tender music. For 
 more than a fortnight the buds of the trees 
 in the Luxembourg had been swelling and 
 trying to burst ; now, this afternoon, the
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 77 
 
 whole garden looked as if it had been 
 sprinkled with a delicate green powder. 
 Through the prim alleys children in black 
 pinafores were chasing each other, and shout 
 ing in their delight. The terraces, the water, 
 the faade of the palace, the marble Queens 
 of France, bathing themselves in the sun, 
 made a picture that had an indescribable 
 charm and sentiment, like a scene from a 
 poem. When I came out upon the Boule 
 vard St. Michel, all at once my heart gave 
 a leap and thrill, for the air smelt of the 
 asphalte, and it was like a sudden plunge 
 into midsummer. Almost at the same 
 moment, the sun went behind a cloud ; a 
 few drops of warm rain pattered down not 
 enough to wet anybody, but just enough to 
 spice the air with a keen earthy odour. 
 
 The ' Boule-Miche ' was thronged with 
 people, whom the fine weather had tempted 
 out : soldiers, priests, children with their
 
 78 MEA CULPA. 
 
 bonnes, hatless shop-girls, and of course the 
 inevitable students and ttudiantes. Every 
 one looked happy and good-humoured. The 
 doors of the shops and cafes were all open, 
 and in many of them lounged the proprietors 
 or the proprietresses, enjoying the air. 
 
 As I entered the Hotel du St. Esprit, 
 and was about to go upstairs, Madame Pam- 
 paragoux darted out of her little box of 
 an office, on the ground-floor, and called 
 after me, * Mademoiselle ! Mademoiselle !' 
 
 ' Yes,' I responded, turning back. 
 
 ' I have a piece of news to announce to 
 you. Come in and rest for a minute. . . . 
 Ah! quelle belle jonrntfe, nest-ce pas? Un 
 vrai soleil du midi /' 
 
 She mixed a glass of water and sir op de 
 groseille, which she insisted upon rny drink 
 ing. 
 
 ' And what is your news ?' I asked. 
 
 1 1 have let your room, your old room.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 79 
 
 A young gentleman, a young painter, very 
 nice, very handsome, an Englishman, named 
 Norse, Monsieur Julien Norse. I thought 
 you would be glad to know.' 
 
 ' Yes, I am very glad indeed. I should 
 have been sorry if you had lost by the 
 change I made.' 
 
 That is all. And yet that day was one of 
 the red-letter days of my life. 
 
 The next day brought a relapse into 
 winter. The sky was heavy with lowering 
 slate-coloured clouds, and a harsh wind blew 
 from the east, and there were occasional 
 flurries of snow.
 
 II. 
 
 I AM going to be absolutely frank in this 
 confession : to subdue my pride, overcome 
 my reticence, and tell the whole truth, as 
 well as nothing but the truth. Otherwise it 
 would have no reason for being, it would 
 defeat its own purpose. Therefore I will 
 acknowledge at once what, if I obeyed my 
 woman's instinct, I should deny ; namely, 
 that the little piece of news which Madame 
 Pamparagoux imparted to me that afternoon 
 in her office inspired me with a certain 
 amount of curiosity concerning the young 
 English painter who was the hero of it. ...
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 8 1 
 
 oh, but a very tame, a very limited curiosity, 
 indeed, bien entendu. 
 
 Of course I did not betray this to Madame 
 Pamparagoux. My feminine nature, perhaps 
 my human nature, prompted me to assume a 
 perfect indifference, and withheld me from 
 asking a single question. Yet all the same, I 
 presently surprised myself speculating about 
 him . . . though in a quite mild and passive 
 way. 
 
 ' Un jeune monsieur, un jeune peintre, 
 tres gentil, tres beau, un anglais, nommd 
 Norse, Monsieur Julien Norse. 1 
 
 Such was the description she had given of 
 him. I found my imagination busy trying 
 to construct a theory of him from these 
 meagre hints. What would he be like ? I 
 remember I said to myself, ' I shall probably 
 see him some day, on the stairs, or some 
 where; and then I shall know. But Norse? 
 
 VOL. i. 6
 
 82 MEA CULPA. 
 
 Julien Norse ? It doesn't sound like a very 
 English name.' 
 
 That is honestly as far as my curiosity 
 about him went, at first. 
 
 But my father was more eager and less 
 reserved. 
 
 ' Let us hope,' said he, ' that he is a 
 possible person. Our world is so narrow, 
 any respectable man or woman would be a 
 welcome addition. I must avow, I suffer 
 from the monotony of our life. I ennuie 
 myself profoundly. A new face, a new voice, 
 mind, point of view it will give us a new 
 sensation, a new interest. He is an artist, 
 and he is an Englishman ; both of which 
 facts are in his favour. I will leave my card 
 upon him. Eh ?' 
 
 ' I wouldn't if I were you,' I said. 
 
 1 And why not ? You are the one who 
 always says, " No, don't let's." ; 
 
 'Well, at all events, I would wait until we
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 83 
 
 have seen him, until we have formed some 
 notion of his style. He may be, you know, 
 like our other neighbours, quite out of the 
 question.' 
 
 4 But Madame Pamparagoux describes him 
 as . . .' 
 
 ' Oh, Madame Pamparagoux ! Her stan 
 dard is so different to ours.' 
 
 ' True, true. Ah, well, we will leave it 
 to time, we will leave it to Destiny ! Che 
 sard sard.' 
 
 Many days passed, however, and he still 
 remained but a name to us. My father 
 would occasionally hear him, early in the 
 morning or late at night, moving about his 
 room ; but for the rest, he did not manifest 
 himself in any manner. 
 
 ' That young man in the next room to 
 your father's, how he works !' cried Madame 
 Pamparagoux, once when I met her in the 
 vestibule. ' He has his coffee every morn- 
 
 62
 
 84 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ing at seven, and leaves the house before 
 eight. He works all day at Julien's, and 
 never comes home before midnight. He 
 burns his candle at both ends. Some day he 
 will be sorry.' 
 
 At another time, as I was passing through 
 the hall, she ran out from her little office and 
 exclaimed, 'Tenez, Mademoiselle! It appears 
 that M'sieu' your father has made a conquest. 
 That young man in your old room, the young 
 English painter, Monsieur Norse, to-day he 
 asked me, " Who is the superb old gentleman 
 I have just passed upon the stairs ? He has 
 altogether the air of a grand seigneur, with 
 his noble carriage and magnificent head. I 
 should like to paint him. What a Bayard he 
 would make !" 
 
 My father did not disguise his pleasure 
 when I reported this compliment to him. 
 
 ' Something tells me that we shall like the 
 young fellow,' he said.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 85 
 
 But he protested that he could not remem 
 ber having passed any young man upon the 
 stairs. 
 
 Then for nearly a week my father was 
 confined to the house by an ugly cough, and 
 every evening I went alone to the Concombre 
 Rose, and had our dinner packed up in a 
 basket, which I brought away, to be eaten in 
 our room. 
 
 One evening I being rather later than 
 usual a young man left the restaurant at 
 the same moment with myself. When I 
 reached the Hotel du St. Esprit, behold . . . 
 the same young man entered it after me. I 
 heard his footstep behind me on the stairs. 
 As I had my hand upon the knob of my 
 father's door, the young man passed me, and 
 went into the next room. 
 
 ' So ! That is he. That is our young 
 English painter,' I said to myself. 
 
 ' Well, and what does he turn out to be
 
 86 MEA CULPA. 
 
 like ?' demanded my father, when I had told 
 him of our chance encounter. 
 
 'He is sufficiently well-looking, though 
 scarcely handsome, as Madame said. He is 
 tall and strongly built, but he stoops a good 
 deal. An intelligent face, nose rather aqui 
 line, deep-set eyes, whose colour I could not 
 distinguish, though they had the effect of 
 dark brown or black, dark complexion, and 
 dark brown hair, moustache, and beard, the 
 beard being trimmed to a point.' 
 
 ' S-s-s-s !' my father hissed, impatiently. 
 ' You give me a catalogue of material details 
 which signify nothing, being disorganised, 
 unsynthesised. What do I care for the 
 colour of his eyes, the shape of his beard ? 
 Does he look pleasant ? Does he look inter 
 esting ? Does he look possible ? Is he of 
 our kind ? Or is he insipid, commonplace, 
 vulgar, like the others ?' 
 
 ' Oh, no, he doesn't look insipid, and by
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 87 
 
 no means commonplace or vulgar. He looks 
 interesting, yes ; and refined. He has an 
 air. He looks clever, and like . . . well, a 
 gentleman, in short/ 
 
 4 You are very unsatisfactory. I am 
 surprised that, inheriting as you do excellent 
 powers of observation from me, you should 
 be so little able to convey your impressions 
 to another mind. I do not obtain the faintest 
 conception of him from all that you have 
 said. I despair of doing so ; therefore you 
 need make no further attempt to describe 
 him, but tell me in one word whether he 
 struck you as a man it would be agreeable 
 for us to make a friend of ?' 
 
 ' He struck me as a promising person, 
 a man who would have something to say, 
 yes.' 
 
 We had naturally spoken to Armidis of 
 our neighbour, and he had joined in our
 
 88 MEA CULPA. 
 
 conjectures anent him with a vivacity that 
 was characteristic of his fresh childlike tem 
 perament. 
 
 ' But/ he said, ' the fun of it all is that he 
 is just ten times as curious about you as you 
 can possibly be about him. He's just dying 
 to make your acquaintance, poor young man, 
 and he can't think how to set to work. Of 
 course Madame Pamparagoux has turned 
 herself inside out. A Russian nobleman in 
 exile, suspected of Nihilistic affiliations, and 
 a lovely Russian girl, his daughter. The 
 other fellow, the constant visitor, with the 
 peachy complexion, the white hair, the bland 
 smile, that is Armidis yes, Armidis the com 
 poser, whose songs you know and admire. 
 Is it romantic, at least ? Does it appeal to 
 the imagination ? Then he's been struck 
 by your appearance, remember. Who is 
 the superb old man ? A Bayard, parbleu ! 
 And the young woman, ah ! the young
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 89 
 
 woman with the eyes, and the skin, and the 
 hair ! . . .' 
 
 I tried here to interpolate a sarcasm to 
 the effect that these were very extraordinary 
 possessions indeed ; but Armidis hurried on 
 without heeding me. . . . 
 
 ' He's a painter, a painter mind you. 
 Therefore he has the artistic temperament, 
 he has a soul for colour. He would give his 
 right hand to know you. He is at his wits' 
 ends to find a method of attack. Why ? 
 Why can't he come up and scrape acquaint 
 ance with you without preliminaries ? Oh, 
 because this is such a horrid, self-conscious, 
 stupid, cut-and-dried, conventional world. 
 We haven't the courage of our instincts, of 
 our natural spontaneous impulses. We are 
 the slaves of tradition ; we wear our cere 
 monies like fetters. We daren't be our 
 selves. Ugh ! It is heart-rending.' 
 
 A few evenings later we had just
 
 9O MEA CULPA. 
 
 established ourselves, Armidis, my father, 
 and I, in our regular places at the Con- 
 combre Rose, when Mr. Julien Norse came 
 into the restaurant, and took a seat at a table 
 at the opposite side of the room. 
 
 * There he is,' I announced in an under 
 tone. ' That is he.' 
 
 ' Tiens /' cried my father, looking over at 
 him with all his eyes. 
 
 1 Oh, no, not really,' protested Armidis. 
 ' How can you seek so to practise on our 
 ignorance ?' 
 
 ' But it is, really,' I insisted. 
 
 ' Oh, but then, cruel ! What did you want 
 to libel the poor young creature for ? You 
 told us he was English.' 
 
 'Why, but so he is.' 
 
 ' Oh, no, never, never. He's never a Briton. 
 He may be a Russian, or a Frenchman, 
 Turk, or Prussian, but he's not an English 
 man. He hasn't the English cut at all.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 9 1 
 
 Not the English physiognomy, nor the 
 English way of moving, nor the English 
 anything. Moi, je connais fa comme ma 
 poche, vous saves. Heartless wretch ! You 
 might as well tell us he's Chinese.' 
 ' But Madame Pamparagoux. . . .' 
 1 Tut, tut ! Don't Madame Pamparagoux 
 me! How dare you? Her effrontery, pardieu! 
 Madame Pamparagoux, indeed ! As if I 
 didn't know ! Intimidation ! . . . However, the 
 slander shall be nailed. I'm going over to ask 
 him. I shan't allow him to rest under any such 
 imputation. At least I shall afford him an 
 opportunity to clear himself. Fair play ! 
 At the same time I shall say, " Look here, 
 my fine fellow, you're dying to know the 
 Banakins, and the Banakins are dying to 
 know you, especially Mademoiselle, who 
 pines for an interesting man. Allans, let us 
 put an end to this strained and ridiculous, 
 not to say pathetic, situation. Let us
 
 92 MEA CULPA. 
 
 emancipate ourselves. Come with me. I 
 will present you. You shall finish your 
 dinner at our table." ... He will want to 
 hug me.' 
 
 He rose to his feet, as if to carry out his 
 threat. 
 
 ' If you do anything of the kind,' I said 
 between my teeth, ' I will kill you.' 
 
 He flung me a defiant laugh from over his 
 shoulder, and, to the unspeakable consterna 
 tion of my father and myself, off he went, 
 with a comical mincing gait, straight across 
 the room to the table of the young man, 
 where he boldly sat down, and began to talk. 
 As he talked, the young man first looked 
 puzzled, then he smiled, then laughed out 
 right, finally got up, and next moment he 
 and Armidis were bearing down upon us, 
 arm in arm. 
 
 I felt as if my cheeks were afire. 
 
 ' Allow me, Mr. Banakin, Miss Banakin,
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 93 
 
 to present Mr. Julian North,' said Armidis, 
 with a grand flourish. ' It's been a chapter 
 of sad misunderstandings, from the first. 
 And all because you would accept the tes 
 timony of an incompetent witness. Let it 
 be a lesson to you. Julien Norse, forsooth ! 
 And English into the bargain ! Oh, dear, 
 what is the world coming to ? Mr. North is 
 an American, a free-born American, and he is 
 shameless enough to glory in it. Madame 
 Pamparagoux ! . . . Do you know ' - he 
 addressed the young man, but he pointed to 
 me, shaking his fat forefinger ' do you know, 
 she tried to bully and cower me into admit 
 ting that you were English. Fancy ! As 
 if I couldn't tell ! Oh, she's capable of any 
 thing, anything. Sit down. Here comes 
 your soup.' 
 
 Poor Mr. North looked rather em 
 barrassed, but he managed to make a 
 sufficiently graceful bow, and then to deposit
 
 94 M EA CULPA. 
 
 himself in a chair. There was a moment 
 of silence awkward enough. But Armidis 
 terminated it by beginning to laugh his 
 merry, musical, contagious laughter. We all 
 laughed. We had almost nfou-rire. It was 
 a good thing. It cleared the air. 
 
 ' We are very glad to know you, Mr. 
 North,' my father said. ' If you are from 
 America, no doubt we have acquaintances 
 in common. For ten years I had an 
 American instructress for my daughter, a 
 most talented and accomplished woman, 
 one Miss Goodale Miss Laura Goodale. 
 Perhaps you know her, or her family.' 
 
 ' No,' returned Mr. North, taking the 
 question, which seemed to me rather far 
 fetched, with the most respectful seriousness, 
 and speaking with an air of deliberation, ' I 
 cannot remember anybody of that name. 
 But perhaps perhaps we come from different 
 parts of the country.'
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 95 
 
 He had a singularly sweet voice, and 
 scarcely any American accent ; but he spoke 
 with a slight hesitation, not quite a drawl, 
 as if he might at one time have been 
 troubled with stammering, but had cured 
 himself. 
 
 ' She came from Boston,' said my father. 
 
 ' Ah, yes. I come from New York.' 
 
 4 Of which Boston is a suburb, no ?' 
 
 ' It would make a ... well, then, a ... a B ... 
 Bostonian feel very sad to hear me answer 
 yes,' he replied. 
 
 The difficulty that he had with the B of 
 Boston confirmed my impression that he 
 stammered a little. 
 
 ' Are you to be long in Paris ?' Armidis 
 inquired. 
 
 ' Six months or so. I have been here 
 three years and a half already, and I came to 
 stay four.' 
 
 * Oh, then you are an old Parisian ; and
 
 96 MEA CULPA. 
 
 we thought you had just arrived. Human 
 error !' 
 
 ' I have just changed my lodgings, that's 
 all. I was at the Hotel de Carthage, Rue 
 Gay-Lussac, but I had a misunderstanding 
 with the landlady, and had to move. I've 
 been dining here at the Concombre Rose 
 these two years on and off. I have often 
 seen you here, and wish . . . well, then, wish 
 . . . well, then, wished that I might know 
 you.' 
 
 When he hesitated in his speech, it was 
 his habit to help himself over the rough 
 place by repeating ' Well, then/ until he 
 could go on. I don't know why, but the 
 effect of his half-stammer was somehow 
 pleasant. 
 
 ' Oh, dear,' sighed Armidis, ' what a 
 contrary world ! Two years lost irrecover 
 ably ! Why why didn't you come up and 
 speak to us ?'
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 97 
 
 ' I never should have dared.' 
 
 ' De faudace, de faudace, et toujours de 
 laudace f cried Armidis. ' Consider me.' 
 
 ' Yes . . . but . . .pas trop cTaudace* rejoined 
 Mr. North. 
 
 ' Well, his impidence !' exclaimed Armidis, 
 drawing himself up with mock resentment, 
 and appealing to my father and me. ' I 
 like that. Trop d'audace, indeed ! To snub 
 me in this public manner !' 
 
 ' I have, as you see,' confessed Mr. North, 
 4 a great talent for ... well, as the French 
 say, for putting my foot in my plate.' 
 
 This set us all off laughing again. When 
 sobriety was restored, my father took the 
 word. 
 
 ' You had in mind, no doubt, Mr. North, 
 the inscriptions over the three gates of 
 Busyrane,' he suggested. 
 
 ' No. What were they ?' the young man 
 wondered. 
 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 98 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' They are quoted somewhere from Spenser 
 by your American writer Emerson. Over the 
 first gate it was written, Be bold. And over 
 the second gate, Be bold, be bold, and ever 
 more be bold. But then, over the third 
 gate, Be not too bold !' 
 
 My father made his little point with great 
 gusto, and in his stateliest, courtliest manner, 
 punctuating it with a bow. I could see that 
 the young man looked at him with admir 
 ing eyes, and listened to him with deference : 
 for all which I liked him none the less. My 
 father, perceiving the same thing, was en 
 couraged to continue. . . . 
 
 ' In happier days, sir, when I found my 
 dearest occupation and distraction in my 
 library, I was equally an earnest lover and 
 an industrious student of the works of your 
 immortal Emerson. I even translated some 
 of his poems, most inadequately, into the 
 Russian language. But nowadays, alas, I
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 99 
 
 have little time for such pleasures. My 
 daughter and I are both, in our respective 
 paths, condemned to take part in the struggle 
 for existence. You must know that we are 
 unfortunate enough to be in exile.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know that ; and I hope . . .' He 
 hesitated, and coloured up. ... 'I hope you 
 will let me say that I honour you for it. It 
 seems to me that no decent man could help 
 being a Nihilist, if he lived in Russia.' 
 
 ' Look out ! Where is your foot now ?' 
 cried Armidis, laughing. 
 
 ' A Nihilist ?' my father repeated, at the 
 same time. ' Oh, no, let us hope not. I 
 should like to explain to you. . . .' 
 
 And he seized the occasion to set forth in 
 some detail his differences with the Nihilists, 
 or Revolutionists, and to explain the causes 
 of his own residence abroad. 
 
 4 All the same," said Mr. North, when he 
 had done, * if you will allow me to say so, I 
 
 72
 
 1OO MEA CULPA. 
 
 think I should be a Nihilist, if I lived in 
 Russia. I could not take a reasonable 
 or philosophic view of things, if I lived 
 in Russia. I had a friend here in Paris, 
 a Russian, a sculptor he's dead now, poor 
 fellow ; died of consumption who prejudiced 
 me a good deal. It was a long story, but the 
 point of it was this. When he was a lad, 
 fifteen or sixteen years old, his mother was 
 . . . well, then . . . his mother was . . . well, 
 then . . . flogged to death, by order of the 
 Governor, or chief man, or whatever he is 
 called, of the district where they lived. I'm 
 sure I should be a Nihilist, I should be for 
 exterminating the whole tree, root and 
 branch, if I lived in a country where they do 
 things like that.' 
 
 ' Oh, how horrible, how horrible !' I cried 
 involuntarily. 
 
 ' My opinion sums itself up in three words,' 
 said my father. ' It is worse than futile to
 
 JULIAN NORTH. IO1 
 
 fight the Devil with fire. You cannot over 
 come evil with evil. Things are wrong in 
 Russia; that, unfortunately, must be admitted; 
 but dynamite, terrorism, anarchy, are equally 
 wrong ; and two wrongs do not make a right.' 
 ' Oh, goodness, gracious me !' expostulated 
 Armidis, grievously, writhing in his chair. 
 ' When are you going to finish ? I've stood it 
 in silence just as long as I can. So horrid ! 
 Such a shocking subject ! What have we 
 done to deserve it ? And at dinner, too ! 
 When we ought to forget that there are such 
 things as pain and evil in the world. Do 
 let's talk of something else. Let's smoke : 
 smoke's a disinfectant. Here here are 
 cigarettes.' Whilst he held out a paper 
 of cigarettes with one hand, he dropped five 
 lumps of sugar into his cup of black coffee 
 with the other. ' What shall we do to 
 recover our frivolity ? Let's let's go over 
 to my rooms and have some music.'
 
 IO2 MEA CULPA. 
 
 To this proposition, after some little 
 debate, we assented unanimously ; and, as 
 the evening was mild, we proceeded to the 
 Avenue de la Grande Armee on the roof of 
 an omnibus. Having seen us comfortably 
 established in his work-room, Armidis begged 
 us to excuse him for a little, alleging that he 
 had to go out to make a few emplettes it 
 was a favourite word of his ; I never knew 
 him to use the English, purchases. 
 
 ' What a joy he is,' said Mr. North, after 
 he had gone. ' I don't know when I have 
 met anybody so ... so invraisemblable, or 
 so fascinating.' 
 
 ' Invraisemblable ! It is exactly the word 
 for him,' cried my father. 
 
 'What's more, he's as good and kind as he 
 is surprising and entertaining,' said I. 
 
 ' Oh, for that pas mal,' my father 
 acquiesced. 
 
 ' Of course,' Mr. North went on, ' I've
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 1 03 
 
 known him by reputation this long while. 
 Everybody knows his music. But the man 
 himself is an experience. I had always 
 supposed he was French, or something. 
 The name sounds so Victor Armidis. Yet 
 he turns out to be an Englishman.' 
 
 ' Half English, half Greek,' I explained. 
 
 ' However, he is more English than any 
 thing else,' put in my father. ' He was born 
 in England, and educated there. He has 
 never lived in Greece ; I doubt if he has ever 
 even been there. Of late years he has spent 
 most of his time in France and Italy. But 
 he is really of no nation, of no class or 
 variety. He is sui generis. A freak of 
 nature. What you call a sport, a spontaneous 
 variation. He prides himself upon acknow 
 ledging no fatherland, upon being a citizen 
 of no country, a subject of no throne. I 
 remember once I quoted to him in jest those 
 lines of Sir Walter Scott
 
 IO4 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' "Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 This is my own, my native land ?" 
 
 whereupon Armidis instantly responded, 
 " Yes, I am that man." 
 
 '.I'm sure I never can thank him enough 
 for coming up and speaking to me this even 
 ing,' said Mr. North. 
 
 ' Oh, his sang-froid, his impudence, is un 
 rivalled/ observed my father. 'And that was 
 a fair specimen of it. I should be curious 
 to learn how he excused himself to you.' 
 
 'Why, that was just the beauty of it. He 
 didn't excuse himself at all. He simply sat 
 down at my table, and said quietly, as if it 
 were the most natural thing in the world, 
 "Good-evening. Hadn't you better come 
 and sit with us ? It's bad for the . . . bad for 
 the . . . well, then . . . the digestion to eat 
 alone. My companions you know who they 
 are, your neighbours. As for me, my name is
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 1 05 
 
 Armidis, Victor Armidis, if you set any store 
 by names. The Banakins will vouch for my 
 respectability, though appearances are against 
 me ; or I can refer you to my banker. I see 
 you're an American . . ." Of course I was 
 overjoyed.' 
 
 At this juncture we were interrupted by 
 the return of our host. 
 
 ' Well,' he demanded, ' is there anything 
 left of my character ? Or have you talked 
 it all to shreds and tatters ?... Materials 
 for a supper ; we'll be hungry by-and-by,' he 
 added, referring to a basket that he carried 
 on his arm. ' Now you two men,' he went 
 on, ' are only here as chaperons. Monica 
 Paulovna and I are going to make a joyful 
 noise, but you needn't feel under the 
 slightest obligation to listen. You may 
 talk together, if you like, or you may read. 
 Here's literature,' and he threw an armful of 
 books down upon the floor between them.
 
 106 MEA CULPA. 
 
 Then he led me to the piano, and began 
 to sing over various of his recent songs 
 to my accompaniment. After that he sang 
 several other songs, not of his own composi 
 tion. Finally, at his request, I played a 
 little. And so we went on till past eleven 
 o'clock. The two chaperons, meantime, dis 
 dained the books that Armidis had offered 
 them, and formed a very attentive audience, 
 giving us the benefit of their comments and 
 applause. 
 
 ' Now let us sup,' said our composer. 
 
 He cleared the litter from off his table, 
 sweeping most of it summarily upon the floor, 
 and opening his basket, proceeded to lay its 
 contents out in a row. First came a magnum 
 of champagne ; then a paper of sweet cakes 
 and pastries ; then a cube of galantine, a loaf 
 of bread, a pot of pate-de-foies-gras, a box of 
 marrons - glaces, and another of assorted 
 bonbons.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. IO7 
 
 After which he left the room for a minute, 
 and when he came back he bore a big tray, 
 covered with knives and forks, dishes and 
 glasses. 
 
 ' Now, then, to the table,' he cried. ' And 
 everyone to his taste.' 
 
 He popped the cork out of the magnum 
 and filled our glasses . . . 
 
 Oh, we had a merry supper. We sat 
 over it, talking and laughing, till almost one 
 o'clock. Armidis consumed an incredible 
 quantity of sweets, smoked an incredible 
 number of cigarettes, said an incredible 
 number of amusing things, and imbibed 
 quite half the champagne dissolving, if you 
 please, three or four lumps of sugar in every 
 glass, for which my father called him a 
 heathen, whilst he plaintively defended him 
 self by saying, ' I ngratitude ! I go and get 
 vin brut, sour enough to melt a Christian's 
 teeth, because I'm unselfish, and I know that
 
 IO8 MEA CULPA. 
 
 the Historian of Russia, being an ascetic, 
 prefers it so ; and then he makes faces and 
 snubs me and calls me naughty names, be 
 cause I temper it to the shorn lamb. Viper!' 
 And all the while his face, with its beautiful 
 bright eyes, its pink and white complexion, 
 and its fleecy hair and beard, glowed 
 like an incarnation of happiness and good- 
 humour. 
 
 ' I would as soon think of sugaring this 
 galantine,' said my father. 
 
 'Well, and why not?' retorted Armidis. 
 ' I assure you it's very good with sugar.' 
 
 'Good !' gasped my father. ' I believe there 
 is no length to which you would not go for 
 the sake of a paradox. I I defy you to 
 try it.' 
 
 ' Needless to defy me. I was going to do 
 it anyhow,' said Armidis, with perfect cool 
 ness. Whereupon, he cut off a generous 
 slice of galantine, snowed it over with soft
 
 JULIAN NORTH. IO9 
 
 sugar, and deliberately ate it, with every sign 
 of hearty relish. 
 
 ' It is too much, too much,' sighed my 
 father, rising. 'After that we must beat a 
 retreat. Who can tell what he may not do 
 next ? I cannot feel that we are safe in his 
 abode.' 
 
 So we put on our things to go home. 
 ' I'll escort you to your door/ said 
 Armidis. 
 
 And late as it was, he did so. He hailed 
 a Victoria in the street, and in that, while he 
 and Mr. North occupied the strapontin, we 
 were whirled across the town to the Rue St. 
 Jacques. 
 
 At our door he asked Mr. North, ' Are 
 you in a hurry to go to bed ? If not, prithee 
 come and take a walk with me. I, for my 
 part, never go to bed till daylight. The day 
 is the best time to sleep; and three or four 
 in the afternoon is the proper time for rising.
 
 I IO MEA CULPA. 
 
 Let us go for a walk. We will talk over 
 the Banakins.' 
 
 So, whilst my father and I were climbing 
 up stairs towards our bedrooms, he and Mr. 
 North were walking off arm in arm in the 
 direction of the Boulevard.
 
 III. 
 
 THENCEFORTH we saw a great deal of Julian 
 North. He became, in fact, a member of 
 our little circle. Almost every evening he 
 formed one of our party at the Concombre 
 Rose ; then, after dinner, he would very 
 likely go with us for a stroll through the 
 Luxembourg, in the soft spring twilight, and 
 when it got dark, perhaps he would return 
 with us to the H6tel du St.-Esprit, to finish 
 the evening in my father's room. As the 
 season advanced, moreover, we would spend 
 the fine Sundays that came in the country 
 somewhere, at Nogent-sur-Marne perhaps, 
 perhaps in the Bois de Meudon, sometimes
 
 112 MEA CULPA. 
 
 as far away as Fontainebleau, sometimes no 
 farther than Suresnes, and it was seldom 
 that Mr. North did not accompany us. 
 
 On that first night of our acquaintance the 
 ice between him and myself had scarcely got 
 broken. But only the next afternoon, as I 
 was leaving a house in the Boulevard Hauss- 
 mann, where 1 had given my last lesson for 
 that day, whom should I meet almost at the 
 door but Mr. North I And after we had 
 greeced each other, and exclaimed upon the 
 coincidence that had brought us together, it 
 turned out that we were both upon our way 
 home ; whereupon he said, laughing, ' Really, 
 I don't see but you will have to let me walk 
 with you.' 
 
 So we walked home together through the 
 lovely spring weather ; and as we walked we 
 talked ; and somehow we seemed to draw 
 each other out, so that very soon we were 
 talking as eagerly and freely as if we had
 
 JULIAN NORTH. I 13 
 
 been old friends. At first we talked of 
 Armidis, and he told me how the composer 
 had kept him up, tramping the streets with 
 him, till four o'clock in the morning, enter 
 taining him with a flow of quaint paradox 
 and whimsical drollery. Then we talked of 
 my father, for whom he professed an enthusi 
 astic admiration, saying that he was the most 
 beautiful old man he had ever seen. Then 
 we talked of Art, discovering upon that 
 theme many ideas, ideals, likes, and dislikes 
 in common ; then of Paris, of the Parisians, 
 of France and the French, of our Latin 
 Quarter, of the Hotel du St.-Esprit, the 
 Concombre Rose, the manifold pleasantnesses 
 and unpleasantnesses of Bohemia : at last of 
 ourselves. 
 
 I remember, while we were speaking of 
 the French, I said that I liked French women 
 very much, but that French men were odious 
 to me. He answered to this, ' Oh, no, you 
 
 VOL. i. 8
 
 I 14 MEA CU1.PA. 
 
 are a little unjust. Frenchmen, if you bar 
 out their attitude towards women, are very 
 good fellows. But a Frenchman regards a 
 woman as if she were a piece of bread.' 
 
 He paused, as if he had finished ; and I 
 asked, ' How do you mean ?' 
 
 ' Why, first he wants to butter her, and 
 then eat her,' he said, which struck me as 
 rather good. 
 
 At last we talked of ourselves. By insen 
 sible degrees we had drifted to the ground of 
 personalities and confidences ; and almost 
 before I was aware of what I had done, I 
 had told him of my work as a teacher, of its 
 difficulties and anxieties, of its compensations, 
 and of my secret aspirations as a musician ; 
 whilst he had told me of his work at Julien's, 
 of the studio he shared with two friends in 
 the Boulevard de Clichy, ' Whence I had 
 just come when I had the good fortune to 
 meet you,' he said, of the picture he had
 
 JULIAN NORTH. I I 5 
 
 sent to the Salon, and how he hoped it would 
 be well hung, but supposed it wouldn't be, 
 and how, if only somebody should be inspired 
 to buy it, he could prolong his stay in Paris 
 for a while, whereas, otherwise, he would 
 have to return to America in the autumn, 
 ' Because then I shall have finished my four 
 years as a Valentine prizeman, and my allow 
 ance will come to a deadly stand-still, and I 
 must go home to join in the scramble for 
 bread and butter.' A certain Mr. Valentine, 
 he explained, had died, and by his will had 
 left a sum of money to establish the Valentine 
 Prize Fund, the income of which was to 
 maintain perpetually four American art- 
 students in Paris, each receiving three 
 thousand francs a year for four years ; and 
 every autumn one of the scholarships fell 
 vacant, and was thrown open to competition ; 
 and in the competition of 1879 Mr. North 
 had been the winner. 
 
 82
 
 Il6 MEA CTILPA. 
 
 We did not walk very fast ; indeed, we 
 sauntered along in a most leisurely fashion, 
 stopping every now and then to look into a 
 shop-window, or to admire some street vista, 
 or some effect of light and shadow, or to 
 watch some of the many tragedies and 
 comedies that are always to be witnessed on 
 the Paris pavements ; and thus it took us 
 considerably more than an hour to reach the 
 Rue St. -Jacques ; and by that time we had 
 quite forgotten that we were mere acquaint 
 ances, who had only met the day before. 
 
 I remember that when I was alone in my 
 room, after that walk and talk, I felt wonder 
 fully exhilarated and elated, and that I could 
 not help singing as I went about the things I 
 had to do. 
 
 We all agreed that our life was fuller and 
 pleasanter for his entrance into it. My father 
 called him a precious acquisition. ' I cannot 
 quite make him out,' he added. ' He has
 
 JULIAN NORTH. I \J 
 
 perfectly the manners and the little traits and 
 habits of a man of our own world. In his 
 dress, in his carriage, in a thousand small 
 ways which cannot be defined, though they 
 are unmistakable, as well as in the fine draw 
 ing and modelling of his face, he reveals the 
 gentleman, the man not only with breeding 
 and education, but with a pedigree. You 
 cannot make a gentleman in one, two, no, 
 not even in three generations, any more than 
 you can make a gentleman's park. Some 
 centuries are required. This young man is 
 a gentleman in the old, the proper sense of 
 the word. Yet here he is living the life of 
 nothing more nor less than a poor Bohemian 
 art-student ; lodging in the Hotel du St- 
 Esprit, dining at the Concombre Rose, 
 evincing his poverty by a hundred signs. 
 Ca ivt intrigue. You know I am not romantic, 
 my reason is always paramount to my imagi 
 nation ; yet sometimes, when I observe him,
 
 I 1 8 MEA CULPA. 
 
 I say to myself, I will lay a wager that this is 
 some grand seigneur in disguise.' 
 
 ' They don't have grands seigneurs in 
 America,' said Armidis ; 'and as for your 
 sage observations about gentlemen and 
 gentlemen's parks, it seems to me that some 
 where in the course of my reading I have 
 once or twice before met with a like senti 
 ment, similarly expressed. . . . But North is 
 apparently a very respectable young person, 
 and certainly a good listener, which is more im 
 portant. He's disgracefully round-shouldered, 
 and he hasn't flesh enough, and he's too 
 enthusiastic, especially on the subject of 
 Whistler's painting, and on that of Monica 
 Paulovna's hair. But his eyes are honest 
 and intelligent, his forehead is well shaped, 
 he has a sweet mouth, and very nice nervous 
 hands. His voice is pleasant, his suppressed 
 stammer adds a note of pathos, and his 
 accent is singularly decent for an American.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. UQ 
 
 He has a good deal of humour, and keenly 
 appreciates my best things. Whether he 
 can paint or not, we'll know when the Salon 
 opens. Meantime, let's enjoy him.' 
 
 To me, when my father was not present, 
 Armidis said, with a quizzical laugh, ' For 
 you, my dear, he'll be a valuable, though 
 probably in the long run a painful experi 
 ence. Oh, I see how things are moving. 
 Fie, fie ! You pale women with the red hair 
 are the very deuce and all where men are 
 concerned ; and those melancholy, artistic, 
 grand-seigneurish fellows, with the pointed 
 beards, are terribly dangerous to female 
 hearts. But I'll thank you to remember 
 that except for me he'd have remained a 
 stranger to you. Poor young thing !' 
 
 I paid no attention to Armidis's insinua 
 tions. That they might have a soul of 
 seriousness under their appearance of levity, 
 did not occur to me. I liked Mr. North
 
 I2O MEA CULPA. 
 
 very much indeed. I found him extremely 
 interesting. His stammer, and a certain air 
 of sadness that he had, made me feel sorry 
 for him. And I realised that, until we knew 
 him, there had been a great void in my life, 
 due to my having no friend or companion of 
 anything like my own age, but of which I 
 had not been clearly conscious until now that 
 it was filled. It seemed perfectly natural 
 that in our little party of four he and I 
 should usually pair off together, leaving 
 Armidis and my father to each other. 
 
 When the Salon opened we all went with 
 him to see his picture. 
 
 ' It is on the line,' he said, ' which is 
 better luck than I ever dared to dream of . . . 
 For the rest . . . ?' 
 
 He expressed the point of interrogation 
 by a suspension of the voice, a shrug as of 
 resignation, and a glance as of questioning 
 despair.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 121 
 
 The title of his picture was Une Reverie ; 
 and it represented a woman, life-size, nude, 
 lying at full length upon a tiger skin, a 
 wealth of black hair in disarray over her 
 shoulders and down her breast, a half 
 emptied demie-tasse of coffee at her elbow, a 
 yellow-covered novel laid face downwards on 
 the floor at her side, with her right hand 
 resting on it, and between the pink fingers of 
 her other hand a lighted cigarette, while 
 from her lips a delicate stream of smoke 
 wound upwards, and her eyes followed it 
 with an expression of dreamy, sensuous 
 languor. It was painted in the most 
 advanced realistic manner, with a broad, free 
 stroke, very vigorous, very effective ; the 
 drawing was faultless, the flesh full of life 
 and blood, the atmosphere so palpable, so 
 warm and humid, that it never suggested 
 itself to you to think, ' She would be cold.' 
 
 ' Your technique deserves all praise,' said
 
 122 MEA CULPA. 
 
 my father. ' Drawing, modelling, colouring, 
 textures, values, are irreproachable. But, if 
 you will permit me to be frank, I do not like 
 your point of view. Mark that I find no 
 fault with your subject, a nude woman, 
 lazily enjoying herself with her novel and 
 her cigarette, is a perfectly good subject, 
 only with the point of view from which you 
 have treated it. It is too material, too 
 literal, it lacks that spiritual note which 
 should always be present in art. It repre 
 sents life, but it offers no criticism upon it.' 
 
 'Tut, tut!' cried Armidis. 'Heresy! The 
 point of view is right. Criticism of life ! 
 Philistine ! Bourgeois ! . . . Kindred spirit, 
 brother Pagan, accept the hand of fellowship.' 
 
 He shook the painter by the hand. 
 
 ' I regret but one thing,' he went on ; 
 ' and that is your title. Your title is literary, 
 it suggests a story, and is therefore to be 
 deplored. However, I forgive you that
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 123 
 
 offence, if you will never do so any more. 
 The treatment, if you will permit me to be 
 frank, is very fresh and discriminating, but a 
 little, just a little, young. It may receive an 
 honourable mention ; you see they have 
 hung it with respect ; it could not be better 
 hung. But if you hope that it will find a 
 purchaser, you are storing up a disappoint 
 ment for yourself. It is over the heads 
 of the people who buy pictures. They too 
 are Philistines. They too will demand a 
 criticism of life, a point of view. I see you 
 have French blood in your veins.' 
 
 ' Why, how can you tell that ?' Mr. 
 North queried, in manifest surprise. 
 
 ' Am I blind ? How can I tell that you 
 have a nose on your face ?' 
 
 ' Why, do I look French ? I never knew 
 that before.' 
 
 ' Look French indeed ! Hear him. 
 Vaniteux ! No, you look like a Yankee
 
 124 MEA CULPA. 
 
 of the Yankees, tout-ce qii'il y a de plus 
 Yankee. But you draw too well. The 
 French twist to your brush. And then no 
 Yankee, no Anglo-Saxon, could have been 
 so inexorably true to his art, could so 
 relentlessly have left the sentimental element 
 out of his picture, the criticism of life, the 
 point of view. No Teuton, in short. The 
 painter of pure Teutonic race must always 
 either preach a sermon or tell a story. You 
 have done neither. You have assimilated 
 the French idea too perfectly, not to have a 
 French ancestor somewhere up your family 
 tree.' 
 
 'How do you account for the fact that 
 the greatest living painter, he who is most 
 strictly and purely an Artist, and nothing 
 but an Artist, happens to be a Teuton, 
 an Anglo-Saxon, and a Yankee ?' 
 
 ' If it were true, I should account for it 
 simply by saying that no rules apply to great
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 125 
 
 geniuses, that Genius by its very nature is an 
 exception to all rules, and a law unto itself. 
 But, my dear fellow, your premisses are false : 
 the gentleman to whom you refer is not a 
 Teuton, is not an Anglo-Saxon. He may 
 have a tithe of Anglo-Saxon blood flowing 
 remotely somewhere in his body, but all that 
 goes to his brain is Celtic, which he inherits 
 from his ancestors the McNeills. How 
 ever, this is trifling. You evade my question. 
 Confess, are you not partially French ?' 
 
 ' Half French,' he confessed. ' My mother 
 was French.' 
 
 I thought, as he pronounced that word, 
 mother, his voice softened almost impercep 
 tibly, and trembled a little. 
 
 As we were walking home, my father 
 and Armidis leading us by some little dis 
 tance, he said to me, ' I see you didn't like 
 it. I don't wonder. I shall never paint any 
 thing in that vein again. Your father was
 
 126 MEA CULPA. 
 
 right. It's sordid, it's of the earth earthy. 
 It has no spirit, no significance, no point. 
 You look at it just as you would listen to an 
 anecdote ; then you ask, " Well, what of it ? 
 What's the point ?" I meant to paint a 
 woman ; I realise now that I have painted 
 simply an animal, the female of the genus 
 homo. But you see, I don't know whether 
 you will like what I am going to say, but it's 
 the truth, you see, I did it before . . . well, 
 then, before . . . before I knew you. Yes, that 
 is it. Before I knew you. My ideas have 
 changed a good deal since then. I've had 
 some new light.' 
 
 I made no reply to this speech of his. It 
 embarrassed me ; it filled me with a vague 
 uneasiness : yet neither the embarrassment 
 nor the uneasiness was altogether unpleasant. 
 It was as if he had touched an exquisitely 
 sensitive spot, that tingled at the touch, yet 
 somehow craved to be touched again.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 127 
 
 ' By Jove/ he exclaimed suddenly, ' when 
 I tell myself the simple fact, that only a fort 
 night ago we didn't know each other, had 
 never even spoken to each other, oh, it's 
 preposterous, it's incredible. How myste 
 rious it is, the way years pass, and you live 
 your life in a sufficiently contented fashion, 
 never realising that there is anything wanting 
 to it, and then one day you meet somebody, 
 in a most casual manner, a lot of sheer 
 accidents having led up to it, and, the first 
 thing you know, that person has become a 
 power in your life, perhaps the power, the 
 determining influence, in relation to whom all 
 the meaning and purpose of your life shape 
 themselves ! And then you can't realise that 
 you had ever really lived at all before that 
 day. Your former existence has sunken 
 away, into oblivion and indifference, like the 
 months before you were born. All your 
 former ambitions seem so trivial, your former
 
 128 MEA CULPA. 
 
 pains and pleasures, hopes and fears, so ab 
 surdly petty and insignificant. It's terrifying : 
 because you can't help thinking, What if that 
 accident hadn't happened to happen ? What, 
 for instance, what if I hadn't just hap 
 pened to hit on the Hotel du St.-Esprit, 
 among all the hotels of the Latin Quarter ? 
 What if I had gone elsewhere than to the 
 Concombre Rose for my dinner that night a 
 fortnight or so ago ! It takes my breath 
 away. How strange it is ! I can't help 
 half believing in destiny after all. Why, 
 it's too humiliating to believe that these 
 very most decisive crises in one's existence 
 are the results of pure blind chance, isn't 
 it?' 
 
 He said all this rather in the tone of a 
 man soliloquising, than in that of a man 
 addressing an interlocutor, so again I was 
 spared the necessity of answering. But his 
 words sank into my mind, and many times
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 129 
 
 afterwards came back to me, the subject of 
 reflection and speculation. 
 
 This much I may say with all truth : 
 that I supposed of course he meant by 
 the pronoun ' you ' not me alone, but 
 our party, Armidis and my father and 
 myself. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 IV. 
 
 ONE evening, in the Jardin du Luxembourg, 
 he told me something of his life before he 
 had come to Paris. 
 
 My father and Armidis were seated, smok 
 ing and chatting, at one of the tables of the 
 little caf6 : Mr. North and I were walking up 
 and down the terrace by the fountain, within 
 sight of them, but out of hearing. The air 
 was warm and still ; the distant, muffled 
 murmur of the town was like a soft under 
 tone, to which the occasional liquid notes of 
 the birds in the trees furnished a pleasant 
 desultory counterpoint; there was a dim pink 
 light in the sky above the house-tops, re-
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 131 
 
 fleeted from the sunset. I had spoken of 
 my mother, whom I could just vaguely re 
 member, a pale beautiful face smiling upon 
 me in my childhood. Then he spoke to 
 me of his. 
 
 She was French, he said ; not of France, 
 but of New Orleans, in America, a Creole. 
 In 1858 she had married his father, Eustace 
 North, and left the south to go and live 
 in New York, where her husband was a 
 barrister. . . . 
 
 ' It was the wildest sort of a love-match. 
 She belonged to a family of the most devout 
 Catholics, while his people were of the stern 
 est sect of New England Puritans. They 
 had to run away together, and it was years 
 before their parents relented, and then they 
 did so only in a half-hearted way. She was 
 eighteen when she married, and scarcely nine 
 teen when I was born. I never felt that she 
 was very much older than myself. She had 
 
 92
 
 132 MEA CULPA. 
 
 the gift of perpetual youth, of perpetual girl 
 hood. She died when she was thirty-eight, 
 and I was then almost a grown man.' 
 
 He said that she was not only the sweetest 
 and the gentlest woman he had known in all 
 his life, 'With that gentleness and sweetness 
 that are almost peculiar to a certain type of 
 Frenchwoman/ but she was also the most 
 beautiful and the most brilliant. . . . 
 
 ' I used to sit still and look at her for hours 
 at a stretch, just revelling in her wonderful 
 beauty; and I have never heard anyone, man 
 or woman, talk as she could talk : with such 
 wisdom, such wit, such lightness of touch, 
 such simplicity, and yet such warmth and 
 colour. She had temperament and imagina 
 tion. When I would read a story or a fairy 
 tale, I always thought of the heroine as being 
 like my mother. I loved her not only with 
 the tenderness, the affection, that one natu 
 rally gives one's mother, but with an intensity,
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 133 
 
 an ardour, that amounted to a passion, an 
 
 adoration. She fascinated me, dazzled me. 
 
 She was like one of my fairy-princesses in 
 
 flesh and blood. And so kind with it all, so 
 
 untiringly kind and good to me! . . . Well, 
 
 then, as time went on, as I grew older, I 
 
 began to realise that my father, . . . well, 
 
 then, . . . well, then, hate. . . well, then, that 
 
 my father hated me. He had always been 
 
 very stern and distant with me, and little by 
 
 little, as I cut my wisdom-teeth, it dawned 
 
 upon me, it was borne in upon me, that I 
 
 was hateful to him. He was a very quiet, 
 
 undemonstrative man, apparently very cold ; 
 
 but it was really a case of still waters running 
 
 deep, of fire in ice. He had an intensely 
 
 passionate nature, and he worshipped his 
 
 wife like a lover, and he hated me as a lover 
 
 might hate a rival. I came gradually to 
 
 understand this, and I saw that she knew it 
 
 too. If he was present, she would hardly
 
 134 MEA CULPA. 
 
 notice me, or would do so only a la ddrobte, 
 when his back was turned, or he didn't 
 happen to be looking. Then, when he was 
 absent, she would take me to her, and cover 
 me with kisses, and tears, and caresses, as if 
 to make up to me for her neglect. Oh, I 
 wasn't exuberantly happy. . . .' 
 
 He interrupted himself long enough to roll 
 a cigarette ; but when he had finished it, 
 instead of lighting it, he suddenly crumpled 
 it up in his hand, and threw it away. Then 
 he went on. . . . 
 
 1 She had always been very frail and 
 delicate ; and at last she began to keep to 
 the house, and then to her room, and then to 
 her bed. She was fading away little by little. 
 My father used to go about the house, 
 speaking to no one, wringing his hands, and 
 staggering almost as though he was drunk. 
 Oh, it was frightful. Just before Christmas, 
 1878, she died. ... I didn't see my father for
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 135 
 
 many days, nearly a fortnight. He hid him 
 self in his bedroom all that time. Then one 
 evening he sent word for me to come to him 
 in the library. He was very pale, and thin, 
 and old-looking ; and his eyes oh, they 
 were terrible, so wild, so desperate. I went 
 towards him, impulsively, with my hands 
 stretched out. But he stopped me. " Only 
 a word, only one word," he said. " I have 
 only one word to speak to you." I waited, 
 and at last he went on. This is what he 
 said to me. He said, " Your mother is dead. 
 You have killed her. Yes, just as certainly 
 as if you had stabbed her, as if you had 
 poisoned her. Why did you ever come into 
 the world, to thrust yourself between her and 
 me, to rob me of her, first of her love, and 
 then of her life ? You have killed her. She 
 never loved me after your birth as she had 
 before it ; and ever since, she has been 
 failing, failing. She never recovered from
 
 136 MEA CULPA. 
 
 the pain you caused her, yes, you ! For 
 nineteen years, nineteen years, I, I who loved 
 her, I have had to watch her dying inch by 
 inch, all thanks to you. And now she's 
 dead. Only thirty-eight years old, in the 
 very prime of her womanhood, and she is 
 dead. Oh, you may guess how I love you. . . . 
 Now I want you to go away. I can't bear 
 to see you, to feel that you are in the house. 
 Go away. Wherever you please, only some 
 where out of my sight, out of my hearing. I 
 will make you an allowance, as much as you 
 please. Only go. Go, and save me from 
 the necessity of seeing you, of being re 
 minded of you. That is all. That is what I 
 sent for you to say.'" 
 
 Mr. North paused for a moment ; then, 
 abruptly, he hurried on, ' Of course after 
 that, after he had spoken to me in that way, 
 I had no idea of taking an allowance from 
 him. I had known for a long time that he
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 137 
 
 wasn't fond of me, but I had never dreamed 
 that it was as bad as that ; that he held me 
 responsible for my mother's illness : he had 
 never spoken to me on the subject before, 
 and I had only felt in a general way that he 
 disliked me. Now, what he had said rankled. 
 My pride got up, and I was hot with resent 
 ment I was within a year or so of getting 
 
 my degree at Columbia College; but I'd 
 always wanted to be a painter, and I dare 
 say I had neglected my classics a good deal 
 to work in the studio of an old Frenchman, 
 Monsieur Oudinelle, who was established in 
 New York. So, after that talk with my 
 father, I left college, and went in for painting 
 in deadlier earnest than ever. And in 
 September I was lucky enough to win the 
 Valentine Prize. Meantime my father had 
 written to me, offering to settle an annuity 
 upon me, and I had written back, rather 
 fiercely I am afraid, declining. My pride
 
 138 MEA CULPA. 
 
 was still up. Now I wrote him again, just 
 three words, telling him that I was about to 
 go abroad. That letter he never answered. . . . 
 After I'd been here about a year, I received 
 one day by post from New York a document, 
 sealed with a red seal, which proved to be 
 what they call a citation to attend the probate 
 of his will. It was the first intimation I had 
 had of his death. By his will he left all of 
 his property to various charities, all of it, 
 nothing to me. Though, after all, I can't 
 say that I minded that especially ; I could 
 have contested the will, you know, and very 
 possibly broken it : but my pride was still up. 
 The worst of it is, I've never been able to 
 get it out of my mind that perhaps what he 
 said was true. I've never been able to get 
 that out of my mind. I see her face, her 
 beautiful, sad face, I see it white and worn 
 with suffering ; and then I think, Yes, very 
 likely what he said was true, and I was the
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 139 
 
 cause of it all. My life has been purchased 
 at the price of her broken health and 
 death.' 
 
 He told me this as we paced backwards 
 and forwards through the gathering dusk 
 along the terrace that borders the basin of 
 the great fountain in the Luxembourg. It 
 did not occur to me to think it strange that 
 he should be telling it to me ; it seemed the 
 most natural thing in the world. After he 
 had done we continued to walk up and down, 
 side by side, for a while, without speaking. 
 He had told his story with an attempt at 
 coolness, even indifference ; but it was plain 
 to me that he was deeply moved. My heart 
 yearned out towards him with a strong com 
 passionate emotion, that yet somehow was 
 not altogether sad. It was nearly dark ; 
 only a thin streak of dull red, low down in 
 the west, was left of the gloaming. Presently 
 he stood still, and leaned over the stone
 
 I4O MEA GULP A. 
 
 balustrade that fences the terrace, and looked 
 off across the water. I could see, dark as it 
 was, that he was very pale. I waited at his 
 side, not daring to speak, but longing in 
 some way to be of comfort to him. . . . 
 
 Suddenly, he put out his hand, and took 
 mine, and held it for a minute with a gentle 
 pressure. I did not think of drawing my 
 hand away, or of resenting his taking it. It 
 seemed as though the pity for him, pent in 
 my heart, somehow passed out to him at this 
 contact. He held my hand, and pressed it ; 
 and it was not till he had released it, that all 
 at once I felt a wild thrill and shock, and the 
 pulses in my temples began to beat so fast 
 and hard, it seemed as though all the strength 
 in my body was drawn to them, and as though 
 I should faint for weakness. 
 
 ' There ! You must forgive me for inflict 
 ing my stammering confidences upon you,' 
 he said. ' Only, perhaps it is as well that
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 141 
 
 you should know me for what I am, a 
 penniless adventurer.' He gave a dry little 
 laugh. ' I never regretted that money till 
 just these last few weeks. Perhaps you'll 
 think me sordid and mercenary to regret it 
 at all. I suppose your father will be wonder 
 ing what has become of us. It's got so 
 dark.' 
 
 Mechanically I followed him back to where 
 my father and Armidis were still seated, at 
 the cafe. Then all I wanted was to be alone : 
 a great eagerness to get away, by myself, in 
 my own room. Yet at the same time I felt 
 a strange reluctance to part with him, a 
 strange joy in the sense that he was present. 
 
 All that night I did not sleep. All night I 
 kept feeling that hand- pressure over and 
 over again ; and little things that he had 
 said, and little inflections of his voice, kept 
 coming back to me ; and a hundred times I 
 asked myself, ' What did he mean ? Did he
 
 142 MEA CULPA. 
 
 mean. . . ? Could he have meant. . . ? Oh, 
 no, that isn't possible. And yet. . . !' 
 
 I was miserable, and frightened, and be 
 wildered, and ashamed, and happier oh, 
 happier than I had ever supposed a woman 
 could be.
 
 V. 
 
 BUT the next morning brought a revulsion 
 of spirits, a reaction. All my happiness was 
 gone. Only the shame, and the fright, and 
 the misery were left, a horrible chill and 
 faintness at the heart. 
 
 ' What will he think of me ? What will 
 he think of me ?' 
 
 That question kept ringing through my 
 brain, over and over again, an obsession, like 
 some hateful tune that one has heard, and 
 cannot chase from one's memory. 
 
 ' He did not mean anything at all. Or 
 even if he did . . . ? It makes no difference. 
 But he didn't. It was simply his desire for
 
 144 MEA CULPA. 
 
 sympathy. If it had been anybody else, he 
 would have done the same thing. But 
 you . . . you . . . ! What you did ... oh ! 
 What will he think of you ? Oh, I wish I 
 had died, I would rather have died.' 
 
 When I remembered it, when I went 
 over it in its details, as I was constantly 
 forcing myself to do, it seemed as if at the 
 same time I was freezing and burning up, 
 and I felt as though I should like to sink 
 into the earth for shame. How I had not 
 withdrawn my hand, no, had not made the 
 faintest effort to withdraw it, but had 
 allowed him to hold it just as long as he 
 pleased, until, of his own accord, he had 
 dropped it ! 
 
 As the day dragged away, and the hour 
 approached nearer and nearer when I knew 
 that I should have to meet him, at the 
 restaurant, at dinner, a great sense of dread 
 began to torment me. From the prospect of
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 145 
 
 meeting him, when I shaped it in my mind, 
 I shrank unnerved and weak, as from the 
 prospect of physical pain. 
 
 ' I will plead a headache, and stay in my 
 room. I will not go to dinner at all,' I said. 
 
 And for a little while this plan afforded 
 me a great deal of relief. But then, 
 suddenly, it struck me as of all plans the 
 most foolish. 
 
 ' No, no ! If you do that, it will be like a 
 confession. If you do that, he will know, he 
 will know for certain ; whereas now at most 
 it can be only an inference with him, a 
 suspicion, which he cannot be sure is true. 
 No ; you must go and meet him, and behave 
 just as though nothing had happened. You 
 you must brazen it out, as Armidis would 
 say. You must meet him with such 
 nonchalance, you must treat him so naturally, 
 in such an unembarrassed, matter-of-fact, 
 amiably indifferent way, that he will not dare 
 
 VOL. i. 10
 
 H^ MEA CULPA. 
 
 to imagine anything, but will realise that he 
 was mistaken, and that you didn't mean 
 anything either, and that it made no 
 impression upon you, and that you simply 
 like him well enough as an ordinary 
 acquaintance, and nothing else at all.' 
 
 But I felt very nervous, very nervous and 
 ill at ease, as six o'clock drew near. Usually 
 at six o'clock he would rap at my father's 
 door ; then we would go on to the 
 Concombre Rose together. Now, at every 
 sound in the passage outside our room, I 
 started, and my heart began to palpitate. 
 ' You must be self-possessed, perfectly self- 
 possessed,' I kept thinking ; and I kept 
 rehearsing in my imagination the manner in 
 which I should accept and return his 
 greeting, the tone in which I must say good- 
 evening, and the way I must let him shake 
 hands with me, if he offered to shake 
 hands.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 147 
 
 Five minutes to six ... three minutes to 
 six ... six o'clock . . . five minutes past six ... 
 an eternity to me, waiting from second to 
 second to hear his rap at the door. 
 
 ' Well,' said my father, ' I don't believe Mr. 
 North is going to stop for us this evening. 
 It's past six. I don't think we had better 
 wait any longer. We might lose our table. 
 Come.' 
 
 Then it surprised me to find, much as I 
 dreaded meeting him, that I was decidedly 
 disappointed, when it occurred to me, ' What 
 if I should not see him at all to-night ?' 
 
 We went to the restaurant, and took our 
 seats at our accustomed table. Armidis was 
 already there, lolling back in his chair, 
 smoking a cigarette, and reading an evening 
 paper. 
 
 1 Ah, better late than never,' he cried. 
 1 For once in my life I was punctual ; and it 
 has taught me the truth of my favourite 
 
 10 2
 
 148 MEA CULPA. 
 
 adage, that punctuality is the thief of time. 
 I've lost five precious minutes waiting for you.' 
 
 We began our dinner. I could not take 
 my eyes off the door. Every time it 
 opened, my heart seemed to stop beating 
 and stand still, while I looked to see if the 
 new comer would be he ; then, when I saw 
 that it wasn't he, my heart sank with 
 deepened disappointment, as if sick for hope 
 deferred. 
 
 Armidis rallied me upon my silence. 
 ' Naughty ! She just sits still and pouts. 
 Furibonde / Because . . . Never mind. I 
 won't betray you. But I know, 1 know. 
 Don't look at me with that stony affectation of 
 indifference, of ignorance. Trying to stare 
 me down ! Browbeating ! Don't hope to 
 hoodwink me.' 
 
 Suddenly I ceased to hear Armidis's 
 voice. My heart had given a great bound, 
 and now it was beating so violently, it
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 149 
 
 seemed to suffocate me ; and I felt as if all 
 the blood in my body were burning in my 
 cheeks . . . 
 
 He had come in. He was making 
 straight for us, across the space between the 
 door and our table. 
 
 I did not dare to look up, after my first 
 glimpse of him. I bent my eyes upon my 
 plate ; my eyelids felt thick and heavy and 
 hot, like curtains of fiery lead. ' You must 
 be self-possessed, self-possessed,' the phrase 
 repeated itself to the rhythm of my pulses. 
 Yet I suppose there never was a less self- 
 possessed person in the world. 
 
 ' Good evening,' I heard him say. 
 
 ' Good evening,' my father responded. 
 ' We had almost given you up.' 
 
 'We were very dull,' said Armidis. 'We 
 couldn't do anything but just sit still and 
 pout.' 
 
 ' I was detained at the studio,' he
 
 I5O MEA GULP A. 
 
 explained, ' and then the busses were all full, 
 and I had to walk.' 
 
 ' If I don't notice him, or speak to him, 
 what will he think ?' I was saying to 
 myself. ' I must be nonchalant and self- 
 possessed. I must look up and speak.' 
 
 So, with the intention of giving him a 
 formal little recognition, I looked up. But I 
 had overestimated my courage. His eyes, 
 troubled and questioning, were fixed upon 
 my face. I could not bear them. I had to 
 look down again, forcing myself to murmur a 
 faint good- evening. 
 
 And yet I had determined to be un 
 embarrassed, natural, matter-of-fact ! 
 
 Now I was furious whether with him or 
 with myself I could not have told : perhaps 
 with both. ' Oh, I am a fool, a fool,' I 
 groaned inwardly. ' Now he will think . . . 
 things.' How to cover my confusion ? 
 How to retrieve that which I had already
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 
 
 shown ? All at once something seemed to 
 whisper to me, ' Talk ! Talk to Armidis. 
 Ignore him, and talk to Armidis. About 
 anything, no matter what : only as if the 
 thing you were talking about were the only 
 thing of interest to you in the world.' 
 
 Then I began to talk to Armidis. My 
 tongue was as if magically loosened. 
 Armidis met me half way. We tossed the 
 ball backwards and forwards between us, 
 never for an instant allowing it to rest. My 
 father sat still and listened, enjoying it as 
 though it were a play. Now and then Mr. 
 North would put in a word, but I would 
 never pay the least attention to him. All 
 the while I was conscious that he was 
 looking at me, with that troubled, questioning 
 expression in his eyes. I felt as if I were 
 under the influence of some exciting, 
 stimulating drug, black coffee raised to the 
 tenth power. My cheeks burned, my head
 
 CULPA. 
 
 whirled ; my voice sounded strange to me, in 
 a key higher than its natural one ; I was 
 talking not only with feverish volubility, but 
 with feverish gaiety, laughing a good deal, 
 with a laugh that seemed to me hollow and 
 artificial : yet I knew that I was talking 
 coherently and reasonably. And through it 
 all, under it all, my heart was full of a dull 
 pain, as if something were gnawing in it to 
 get out. 
 
 When we left the restaurant I took 
 Armidis's arm, and he and I walked on 
 ahead, leaving my father and Mr. North to 
 come behind. We went into the Luxem 
 bourg. 
 
 Armidis said, 'You must confess that I'm 
 very nice, the embodiment of complaisance, 
 eh?' 
 
 ' Of course, you're always very nice. But 
 I don't understand just what you mean by 
 the embodiment of complaisance.'
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 153 
 
 ' Oh, yes, you do. I hope you don't 
 imagine that I'm deceived. A mere 
 instrument, a mere tool, a cat's-paw, in your 
 dexterous hands. The weapon of your re 
 venge. I see, I see. Not highly flattering ! 
 To be made use of in this way ! Another 
 man might resent it. But I'm docile, I'm 
 long-suffering. Only, tell me, what has 
 the poor young creature done ? That's 
 my due, I think. If I'm to serve your 
 purposes, as you're compelling me to do, I 
 think it's my due to be initiated into the why 
 and wherefore. I want to know whether it's 
 a holy war. His sins should be as red as 
 scarlet to deserve such treatment as you're 
 dealing out to him. Or perhaps, you 
 have so many divine qualities, perhaps 
 you make it a practice to chasten those 
 you love.' 
 
 ' You are horribly blasphemous, Mr. 
 Armidis ; and I haven't the least idea what
 
 154 MEA CULPA. 
 
 you mean, or even what you're talking 
 about.' 
 
 * Fie, fie F he cried. ' Now you've gone 
 too far. Now I must punish you for your 
 shocking hypocrisy and untruthfulness. 
 Retribution ! I'll be the avenging angel. 
 I'll teach you.' 
 
 He halted and turned around. 
 
 * Banakin ! Banakin !' he called out to my 
 father. Presently my father and Mr. North 
 had come up with us. ' I want to talk to 
 you, Banakin, about a little matter, before I 
 forget it. Will you walk on with me ? Mr. 
 North can take charge of Monica Paulovna.' 
 
 Then he and my father went off together, 
 and I was left standing alone with Mr. 
 North. 
 
 There was an interval of silence, awkward, 
 painful. 
 
 Then, ' Shall we walk ?' I heard him ask.
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 155 
 
 ' I don't care,' I answered. In reality my 
 heart was fluttering with fright and nervous 
 ness, but I noticed that my voice sounded 
 ill-natured and sullen. 
 
 We began to walk, very slowly. For a 
 while he did not speak. 
 
 At last he said abruptly, ' I see that you 
 are angry with me about something, Miss 
 Banakin. I hope you will let me ask what ?' 
 
 ' Angry with you ? Oh, no, not in the 
 least.' 
 
 I forced the words out with an effort. My 
 voice shook perceptibly. 
 
 ' Well, perhaps that was giving myself too 
 much importance. Anyhow, I've managed to 
 displease you in some way, that's very 
 certain ; to get into your bad books. I don't 
 know, I can't think, what it can be. What 
 ever it is, I wish you would believe that . . . 
 well, then, that . . . that I did it unconsciously. 
 I wish you would tell me what it is.'
 
 156 MEA CULPA. 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't know what you mean, 
 Mr. North. What right would I have to be 
 displeased with you ?' 
 
 Again my voice sounded ill-natured, con 
 temptuous, sulky ; yet again I was aware of 
 no feeling save fright and nervousness. 
 
 ' Why, I might easily have done some 
 thing, without knowing it, in my stupid way, 
 I might have said something, without 
 meaning to, that has annoyed you, or 
 given you offence. I told you the first 
 evening we ever spoke together that I had 
 a talent for putting my foot in my plate. 
 You see, when a man stammers, he's always 
 saying the thing he didn't mean to. He 
 starts out to say something, but then as he 
 approaches the necessary words, and sees 
 them looming up threateningly before him, 
 he very likely gets scared away, and in order 
 to cover his embarrassment he seizes hold of 
 the first easy words he finds at hand, and the
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 157 
 
 result is that he says something quite different 
 to what he started out to say, something that 
 he hadn't in the least premeditated, and 
 something that is sure to be malapropos, and 
 very possibly worse. . . . Well, at all events, 
 it's certain that you haven't treated me this 
 evening with your usual friendliness and 
 frankness.' 
 
 ' Oh, I assure you, you are entirely mis 
 taken,' I replied. 
 
 'No, excuse me, I'm not mistaken, 
 I can't be mistaken. You've hardly noticed 
 me, hardly spoken to me or looked at me, all 
 the evening. I dare say I deserve it ; of 
 course, I must ; only, I ... I'd ... I'd like to 
 know, for the sake of my own conscience, 
 what I've done. Your good will and good 
 opinion are very precious to me. I can't 
 bear to think that I have lost them. But if 
 I have, why, it would afford me some dismal 
 satisfaction to be told why and how. I should
 
 158 MEA CULPA. 
 
 like an opportunity to explain, to make 
 amends. But of course I can't, if I don't 
 know what I've done.' 
 
 ' Shall shall we walk a little faster, to 
 catch up with my father ?' I said. 
 
 ' There !' he exclaimed. ' You wouldn't 
 speak to me like that, when you see how 
 anxious and unhappy I am, unless you were 
 angry with me, unless I had done something 
 to disgrace myself with you.' 
 
 ' Really, Mr. North, you seem to doubt 
 my word. I have told you that I am not 
 angry with you, and that I don't know what 
 you mean. I should think that would be 
 enough.' 
 
 'Well, but then will you tell me one thing 
 more ? If you're not angry with me, why do 
 you treat me in this way ?' 
 
 1 I'm not treating you in any way.' 
 
 He was silent for an instant. 
 
 4 1 should hate to believe that I haven't
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 159 
 
 done . . . that I haven't done . . . that I haven't 
 done anything to deserve it,' he said at last, 
 1 that you are making me miserable in sheer 
 ... in sheer . . . well, then, in sheer wanton 
 ness.' 
 
 1 Mr. North . . . /' I cried. 
 
 ' Oh, there ! Now you are angry,' he 
 groaned. ' I forgot myself. I couldn't help 
 it. I suppose it's useless for me to ask your 
 forgiveness for that.' 
 
 I could not answer him. I felt that 
 suddenly all my strength had deserted me ; 
 and I knew that if I tried to speak, or did 
 anything but just hold myself in, I should 
 begin to cry. 
 
 1 Won't you answer me ?' he pleaded, softly, 
 earnestly. ' I was beside myself. I didn't 
 realise what I was saying.' 
 
 ' Oh, don't, don't,' I cried Then, as I 
 
 felt myself trembling all over, and knew that 
 I couldn't keep my tears back any longer,
 
 I6O MEA CULPA. 
 
 and that I was going to make a ridiculous 
 spectacle of myself, I was so humiliated and 
 enraged that I said, without really under 
 standing what I was saying, ' Oh, I hate you, 
 you make me hate you.' 
 
 He started and stood still ; and though I 
 was half blind with tears by this time, I could 
 see that he winced, and that his face grew 
 pale, and that his eyes filled with pain and 
 terror, as if I had cut him with a knife. He 
 looked at me in a sort of blank anguish for a 
 moment ; and then he repeated, faltering, 
 ' You hate me ? Good God ! What what 
 have I done to make you hate me ?' 
 
 ' Oh, no, no,' I moaned, in sudden remorse 
 and alarm. ' Don't look at me like that. No, 
 no, I don't mean that. I don't mean that I 
 hate you. Only, why why do you. . . . Oh, 
 can't you let me be ?' 
 
 ' Oh, heavens, heavens !' he cried wildly. 
 ' What have I done ? You are crying. You
 
 JULIAN NORTH. l6l 
 
 are miserable. What have I done ? What 
 have I said ? I must have done something 
 dreadful, to make you cry.' 
 
 ' No, no, no,' I sobbed. ' You haven't 
 done anything. Only, I I am such a 
 oh, I don't know.' 
 
 I put out my hand, instinctively, to silence 
 him, to entreat him to let me alone. But he 
 must have misunderstood. He seized hold 
 of it, and kept it in his. 
 
 ' If you would only speak, if you would 
 only tell me,' he said, and pressed my hand 
 so hard that it hurt. 
 
 ' Let go, let go,' I begged, pulling it away. 
 
 'Is it is it because of what I said, of 
 what I did, last night ?' he asked, all at once. 
 ' Because, if it is, I can tell you, of course 
 I ought not to tell you, I have no right to 
 say it to you, only you had better know 
 the truth, rather than imagine things that are 
 not true, what I did last night I couldn't 
 
 VOL. I. I I
 
 1 62 MEA CULPA. 
 
 help doing, because oh, because for one 
 moment I lost control of myself, and my 
 my love for you, Monica, my love for you, 
 do you understand ? my love for you 
 got the better of me, and I couldn't keep it 
 in. Oh, my Love ! You know it now. You 
 know I love you. Love you ! Oh, but you 
 can never know how much !' 
 
 I thought my heart would burst, it swelled 
 so full with such a deep, unutterable, aching 
 
 'Oh, Monica! Monica! Oh, my Love!' 
 His voice was like a sigh, so low, so passion 
 ate. Then he took hold of my hand again, 
 and drew me towards him, very gently, very 
 slowly ; and then he put his arm around my 
 waist, and kissed me. It seemed as if all my 
 life trembled and thrilled in the breath I drew 
 while I felt his lips against mine.
 
 VI. 
 
 AND now there began for me a season of 
 happiness greater than any that I had ever 
 dreamed, a happiness as rich and as complete 
 as it was new : the happiness that must come 
 to every young girl, I suppose, into whose 
 life love has just entered for the first time. 
 Spring was deepening into summer, the 
 wonderful golden summer of France, with its 
 wealth of sunshine and colour and fragrance. 
 It was as if, somehow, the magic of the 
 summer had got into my heart, filling it with 
 warmth and light, and making it sing. 
 
 But, of course, 1 could not have been 
 happy at all, if he had not been happy too ; 
 
 II 2
 
 164 MEA CULPA. 
 
 and I am sure that he was happy, very 
 happy, perhaps as happy as myself: only . . . 
 Only, his happiness, though it may have been 
 as great as mine, was not so unalloyed. For 
 he could not do what I could do : he could . 
 not forget or banish from his mind certain 
 cruel and relentless facts of our position : 
 whereas to me they were, for a while at least, 
 as insignificant as words written in water. 
 He could not help brooding upon them, and 
 reasoning from them to their hateful con 
 sequences : whereas I had a blind confidence 
 that by some means or other we should be 
 enabled to triumph over them in due time, 
 a confidence, unfortunately, that was simply 
 born of my desire. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon we had gone to 
 Suresnes for dinner, and after dinner we 
 crossed the bridge to spend the twilight 
 in the Bois. My father and Armidis 
 were walking so far ahead of us that we
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 165 
 
 could talk together without fear of being 
 overheard. Julian, however, was morose and 
 monosyllabic ; it was easy to see that some 
 thing was troubling him, that he had, as we 
 say, something on his mind. 
 
 Then all at once he broke out with a 
 sort of groan : 'It's all wrong, all wrong. I 
 have no right to it. I feel like a thief.' 
 
 I did not know what he meant, and I was 
 frightened. 
 
 ' What is all wrong ? You have no right 
 to what ?' I asked. ' I do not under 
 stand.' 
 
 ' Oh, it's simple enough. No right to 
 anything, to all this happiness, to your love. 
 No more right to it than a thief has to his 
 stolen goods.' 
 
 ' I don't see what you mean. No right ? 
 Why haven't you a right ? Or how is it a 
 question of right ? You can't help it, if I 
 love you. One loves, just as one lives, willy-
 
 1 66 MEA CULPA. 
 
 nilly. You might as well say that you have 
 no right to life.' 
 
 ' Well, I'm not so sure that I have, if it 
 comes to that. But anyhow, the case is 
 different. One can't help loving, if you 
 please ; but one can help How shall I say 
 it ? One can't help feeling thirsty, for in 
 stance ; but one can very well help going 
 into a caf6, and ordering wine, and drinking 
 it, when one hasn't the money to pay for it. 
 Just as surely as people give themselves up 
 to the enjoyment of anything that they 
 haven't a right to, just so surely must they 
 pay for it some time in suffering. It's a law 
 of nature. I shouldn't mind paying, so far 
 as I'm concerned. I should consider any 
 price cheap. But you . . . ! I can't bear 
 to think of the pain we're storing up for 
 you.' 
 
 ' I don't understand that,' I said. 
 
 ' Why, do you realise what I am ? A poor
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 1 67 
 
 devil of a fifth-rate painter, without a penny 
 to his name.' 
 
 ' I dare say I'm very dense, but still I 
 don't understand. Is love a luxury, which 
 one can only enjoy if one is rich ?' 
 
 ' Yes. it is, emphatically. But the point is 
 that our paradise is a fool's paradise. Here 
 . . . We love each other, don't we, Monica ? 
 That's given ; that's our starting-point. Isn't 
 it ? But now look, consider. Unless two 
 people who love each other can marry, their 
 love must sooner or later become just an 
 unmitigated curse. As the world is con 
 stituted, if it is absolutely out of the question 
 for them to get married, if there is no pros 
 pect of their ever being able to marry, 
 their love is a curse, an agony. Well, 
 what am I ? A beggar, literally a beg 
 gar, without a sou in the world, without 
 even an honest trade whereby to earn a 
 son.'
 
 I 68 MEA CULl'A. 
 
 ' An honest trade indeed ! You have your 
 Art.' 
 
 ' Art ? Unless a miracle should happen, 
 it will be years and years before I can even 
 earn bread and cheese by my art. Perhaps 
 never. A painter ! Why, if I were a house- 
 painter, a sign-painter, our outlook would be 
 more hopeful. Anyhow, it reduces itself to 
 this : we love each other, and there's no 
 likelihood of our ever being able to marry. 
 Therefore, in letting you know that I love 
 you, in accepting your love, in allowing you 
 to care anything at all for me, I'm doing you 
 an injustice of the worst kind, a cowardly, 
 dishonourable injustice. That's the plain 
 English of it.' 
 
 ' In the first place,' I replied, ' you are just 
 too conceited. Allowing me to care for you 
 indeed ! Thank you. And suppose you 
 should forbid it ? That's very mannish. 
 And, in the second place, you say : Unless
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 169 
 
 a miracle should happen. Well, and why 
 shouldn't a miracle happen ? Hasn't one 
 miracle happened already ? Wasn't it a 
 miracle that we ever came to know each 
 other at all ? That among the millions and 
 millions of people in the world, we two 
 should just have found each other out ? I 
 don't believe that after God has brought us 
 together in this way, He will let us be sepa 
 rated. I am sure that a miracle will happen, 
 if it becomes necessary. But in the third 
 place, suppose we can't get married for the 
 present ? Aren't we happy enough now ? 
 Can't we wait ? Oh, I don't see anything to 
 worry about. Sufficient unto the day I' 
 
 ' Entre nous le passe" ne valait pas le diable, 
 favenir sera delectable, en attendant jouissons 
 du present? he said, quoting a favourite 
 maxim of my father's. ' That is all very 
 well. You have nothing on your conscience. 
 You're not to blame in any way. But I
 
 I7O MEA CULPA. 
 
 my case is dif . . . different. It's my fault. 
 I'm the criminal. And then, look : the pre 
 sent is going to be so short. It's now June, 
 isn't it? And in September, or October, at 
 the latest, ... do you realise what's got to 
 happen then ? I'll have to pack my traps, 
 and go back to America. Then our fool's 
 paradise will show up for what it is.' 
 
 1 1 don't see why you will have to go back 
 to America.' 
 
 ' Why, because I shall be dead-broke. 
 That's slang, and means that I shan't have 
 any more money.' 
 
 * But you will be no worse off with empty 
 pockets here in Paris, than you would be 
 over there.' 
 
 ' Ah, but here I can't earn a penny, not a 
 single penny. Over there, with the prestige 
 of my four years as a Valentine Prizeman 
 behind me, I can teach. I can probably earn 
 enough to keep body and soul together, if
 
 JULIAN NORTH. I 71 
 
 I'm not particular about the quality of the 
 bond. Why, I suppose, if I have good luck, 
 and am industrious, I can earn almost as 
 much as a day-labourer, say a couple of 
 thousand francs a year.' 
 
 ' Nonsense ! With your talent, with your 
 training! You'll earn a great deal more. 
 Then you will be very economical, you will 
 save ; and when you've got a certain amount 
 put by, you will come back.' 
 
 ' Ah, that shows how little you understand 
 the conditions. Art is paid poorly enough 
 the world over, and held in slight enough 
 esteem ; but in our great and glorious 
 Republic ... oh ! Barring a handful of 
 millionaires, parvenus, ignoramuses, who have 
 made their money in pork or railways, and 
 know as much about Art as they know about 
 Esoteric Buddhism, nobody thinks of buying 
 pictures in our country ; and ces messieurs 
 will buy nothing that isn't signed with a
 
 172 MEA CULPA. 
 
 world-renowned name. In America the artist 
 must teach, or he must starve ; and I have 
 never heard of anyone building up a fortune 
 as a teacher. . . . But apart from that, taking 
 it at its best, supposing that I can come back 
 some time, the separation will be pleasant, 
 won't it ? To be separated . . . who knows 
 how long ?' 
 
 ' Oh. it will be dreadful, horrible. But 
 never mind. I'll wait for you ... all my 
 life, if necessary.' 
 
 ' Oh, what have I done to deserve such 
 happiness ?' he cried. But then his face 
 darkened. ' That's just the point. There's 
 just where the wrong comes in. I have no 
 right to make you wait, to let you wait. 
 What right have I to let you waste the very 
 best years of your life waiting for me, when, 
 if you'd never had the misfortune to know 
 me, if your unlucky star hadn't sent me 
 across your path, you might have cared for
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 173 
 
 somebody else, somebody who would have 
 been less impossible ?' 
 
 ' It's outrageous for you to talk like that. 
 As though love were simply a matter of 
 chance," I cried. 'As though I could ever have 
 cared for anyone but you. As though I would 
 have given my love to the first comer ! . . . 
 I don't see how you can suggest such a thing.' 
 
 ' Oh, I didn't mean that. I only 
 meant . . . But there I What's the use of 
 discussing it ? I'm going to believe as you 
 do. Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
 thereof. Something will happen. I may 
 not have to go to America after all. 
 Suppose I should sell my Salon picture. Of 
 course, I might as well say, Suppose the 
 moon should fall : but let's suppose it. En 
 attendant jouissons du present f 
 
 Armidis seemed to have divined every 
 thing. One day he said to me, ' If I were
 
 174 MEA CULPA. 
 
 Julian North and Monica Banakin, do you 
 know what I would do ?' 
 ' No. What ?' I queried. 
 ' I would throw prudence to the dogs.' 
 ' As usual, you speak in riddles.' 
 ' I do that as a tribute to your intelligence, 
 it's so penetrating. Throw prudence to the 
 dogs. There's nothing so deadly harmful 
 in this world as prudence. It causes more 
 unhappiness annually than scandal, small 
 pox, and street-music piled together. I once 
 knew a young man, this was hundreds of 
 years ago, before you had even thought of 
 being born, a young man who loved a 
 young girl, and she loved him. Strange as 
 it may seem, hard as you may find it to 
 believe, their love was just as strong and 
 eager, just as burning a reality in their 
 hearts, as Julian North's and Monica 
 Banakin's is ; but they hadn't the price of 
 an old hat between them ; and they were
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 175 
 
 prudent. So, though it hurt a good deal to 
 do it, they said good-bye to each other ; and 
 presently she married another man, and 
 died ; and he went off, and was miserable all 
 the rest of his days ; and he realised that he 
 had ruined his life and hers, and made a 
 pitiful failure of everything, all because he 
 had been so prudent ; and though he was 
 never prudent again, it didn't do any good. 
 That first prudence was irrevocable ; its 
 consequences followed him always.' 
 
 I was silent. Somehow, though he spoke 
 in a jaunty, half-jesting tone, what he said 
 sent a pang into my heart. 
 
 ' I speak to you out of the depths of my 
 age and experience, Monica,' he went on. 
 * Give prudence the go-by. 'Tis a strained 
 quality. It falleth as the ruthless hail from 
 storm-clouds. It curses him that gives and 
 him that takes. Eschew it. It's for you to 
 take the initiative. You see, poor youth,
 
 176 MFA CULPA. 
 
 he's Anglo-Saxon. Yes, in spite of his 
 Creole mother, he's an Anglo-Saxon and a 
 Yankee. Therefore he is shackled with two 
 ridiculous inheritances : English common 
 sense, and Puritan conscience. He, accord 
 ingly, will be for prudence and morality. 
 Copy-book morality, shop-keepers' prudence. 
 But you are Russian ; to you belongs the 
 glorious privilege of being bold and 
 inconsequential ; that is to say, moral in a 
 broader and more human sense, and if not 
 prudent, wise. You may be impulsive. It's 
 just as comfortable, believe me, to starve d 
 deitx, as it is to starve singly, separately. 
 Go and get married, since marriage is the 
 fashion, and trust to Providence for the rest. 
 The Lord will provide.' 
 
 'Yes,' I said, ' but you forget that there is 
 my father.' 
 
 ' No, I don't. I forget nothing. What of 
 your father ?'
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 177 
 
 1 Why, this. Whit you say about starving 
 a deux is true enough ; but we're not two, 
 we're three. My father is the third person, 
 and we have no right to leave him out of 
 our reckoning. If I were to get married, 
 how would he be provided for ? You see, I 
 have no right to get married, unless the man 
 I marry will be able to support my father as 
 well as myself 
 
 ' Oh, dear me, what dreadful rubbish !' 
 grieved Armidis, suddenly assuming his most 
 plaintive manner. 'As if you couldn't go on 
 doing your work, earning your share of the 
 provender, just as well after marriage as 
 before it! As if, though a maid may toil, a 
 wife must simply sit still with folded hands 
 while her husband does double labour ! Such 
 conventionality ! Such Philistinism ! Evil 
 communications corrupt good manners. I 
 see, by constant association with your Mr. 
 North, you re becoming a thing of prudence 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 1/ MEA CULPA. 
 
 too. There's no telling where you'll end. 
 If if you should turn Anglo-Saxon ! Horror! 
 You, whom I have hitherto regarded as my 
 one sure refuge, my one kindred spirit, to 
 whom I could always look for understanding, 
 for sympathy, in my follies ! Rock of Ages, 
 cleft for me !' 
 
 ' Thank you,' I cried, laughing. Then I 
 added in all gravity, ' We are in no hurry to 
 get married, Mr. Armidis. We are very 
 happy as things are at present. We are 
 content to wait and hope. We are young ; 
 we have the future. You know my father's 
 maxim : Between ourselves the past wasn't 
 worth a button, the future will be delightful, 
 meanwhile let's enjoy the present. We have 
 adopted it. For my part, there's only one 
 thing that troubles me.' 
 
 ' And that is ?' 
 
 ' That we have to keep it all a secret from 
 my father. The feeling that we are de-
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 179 
 
 ceiving him, and the fear lest he may discover 
 it.' 
 
 ' Well, but what if he should discover it ? 
 What have you to fear ?' 
 
 ' Oh, he would never approve of it. He 
 would forbid our meeting, or seeing each 
 other, or having anything to do with each 
 other.' 
 
 Armidis stood still before me, eyeing me 
 with his quizzical searching gaze. 
 
 'And do you mean to say,' he demanded, 
 slowly, bearing upon each word, 'do you 
 mean to tell me that if your father forbade 
 your meeting, you would even dream of 
 obeying him ?. . . Look me in the eye, and 
 answer me that.' 
 
 ' What else would there be to do ?' I 
 answered. ' We have to live together, my 
 father and I. It would be insupportable if 
 we had to live together in a state of discord. 
 He has very old-fashioned ideas about the 
 
 12 2
 
 l8o MEA CULPA. 
 
 obedience that children, and especially 
 daughters, owe their parents, you know. 
 Besides which, he is very firm. When he 
 takes a stand of any kind, you could no more 
 move him than you could move a mountain. 
 If I should refuse to obey him in any matter 
 of serious importance, he would never rest, 
 he would never let me rest, until I had given 
 in to him.' 
 
 ' Enough ! Enough !' cried Armidis. ' Ca, 
 c'est le comble. You are determined to be 
 wretched ; and you too are firm ; and your 
 determinations are not to be shaken.' 
 
 ' But I am not wretched, I am very happy.' 
 ' Well, have it so if you wish. But a few 
 months hence ? And then for all the rest of 
 your life ! Oh, dear, oh, dear ! Ah, if I 
 were you, and Paul Mikhaelovitch Banakin 
 were my father, and I were in love with a 
 young man, and the young man returned the 
 compliment, and Paul Mikhaelovitch tried to
 
 JULIAN NORTH. l8l 
 
 interfere, do you know what I'd do ? I'd 
 bring him to reason quickly enough. I'd 
 starve him out. I'd strike. I'd say, "Very 
 good, my father ; we will bow to your august 
 desires. But I feel the need of a vacation. 
 I'm not going to give any more music lessons, 
 or translate any more sensation novels, or 
 colour any more photographs, for some time 
 to come. You may pitch in and earn our 
 living for a while." . . . That's what I'd say 
 to him ; and just as soon as the boot began 
 to pinch a little, he'd come round. Obedience, 
 indeed ! It's the member of the firm who 
 foots the little bills who's entitled to demand 
 obedience. There ! I've said my say.' 
 
 ' Yes. But I'm not up to such heroic 
 treatment. My father is my father, and I 
 love him. Besides, I trust in the future. I 
 am sure it will all come right in the end. I 
 don't want to spoil everything by any rash 
 action now.'
 
 1 82 MEA CULPA. 
 
 'Well, I wash my hands of you. I've 
 done my best, and failed. Now I disclaim 
 all responsibility. Understand that ; and 
 don't come and reproach me for the sorrows 
 you are sowing the seeds of now, when they 
 blossom in the time to be. I don't want to 
 croak, but blossom they will, and blossom 
 they must. And some fine day, after your 
 father has succeeded in separating you from 
 the man of your choice, and in uniting you to 
 the man of his, then you will remember the 
 advice I've lavished upon you to-day; and 
 oh, me ! how you will repent having spurned 
 it ! That's all.' 
 
 But I should convey an altogether false 
 idea of the situation if I allowed it to be 
 imagined that this somewhat dismal aspect of 
 our affair was constantly before our minds. 
 On the contrary, for the most part we were 
 able to forget it, and to give ourselves up
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 183 
 
 unreservedly to the happiness of the mo 
 ment. 
 
 We saw each other every day. As the 
 summer advanced, a good many of my pupils 
 left town. Then the time that I had formerly 
 spent teaching at their houses, I would spend 
 at home, working at my translations. To 
 wards five o'clock in the afternoon I would 
 put aside my manuscripts, and Julian would 
 come for us, and we would dedicate the 
 remaining hours of the day and evening to 
 the gods of pleasure. It was enough for him 
 and me that we were together ; what we did 
 made very little difference to us. We never 
 tired of our small daily routine ; it never 
 seemed humdrum or monotonous to us : the 
 Luxembourg, the Concombre Rose, a cafe in 
 the Boulevard St.-Michel, then the Hotel du 
 St.-Esprit, and good-night. . . . Sometimes, 
 though, we would vary it a little, by dining 
 on the other side of the Seine, and thence
 
 184 MEA CULPA. 
 
 betaking ourselves to Armidis's rooms, where 
 we would have music and supper. Then, as 
 I have already said, we would devote our 
 Sundays and holidays to little excursions into 
 the country. We would carry our breakfast 
 with us in a basket, and picnic in the open 
 air. This was primarily for the sake of 
 economy, though, I suspect, we enjoyed it 
 far better in this way, than we should have 
 done if we had taken it at a restaurant. . . . 
 But it did not matter what we did, or where 
 we went : so long as we were together, 
 within sight and hearing of each other, we 
 were happy. Mere existence in each other's 
 presence was a deep sweet ecstasy. Our 
 hearts were overflowing with the joy of life, 
 the joy of life and youth and love. The 
 whole outer world was transfigured for us ; 
 the simplest things, the most trivial happen 
 ings, were invested with a sort of celestial 
 glamour : so that when I shut my eyes, and
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 185 
 
 imagine myself back in that time now, a 
 delicious warmth seems to pervade my senses, 
 the air becomes sweet with a perfume like 
 that of roses, I seem to hear vague soft 
 music, and my heart trembles with an ex 
 quisite, unreasoning delight, all this with 
 the sunny streets of Paris, or the green banks 
 of the Seine, or the shadowy avenues of the 
 Bois de Meudon, for a background. 
 
 Our dissipations were always necessarily of 
 an inexpensive kind, and therefore they were 
 apt to be, as my father complained, ple 
 beian, and to smack of Bohemia. On the 
 night of the I4th July, for instance, Armidis 
 insisted upon our accompanying him to 
 an open-air ball that was in progress at 
 the Place d' Italic. My father very strenu 
 ously objected, but Armidis would not hear 
 him. 
 
 ' Very good. If you're above it, Banakin, 
 Monica and I, who aren't proud, will go
 
 1 86 MEA CULPA. 
 
 without you, and Mr. North shall come to 
 chaperone us. By-bye !' 
 
 ' It will be low, and very likely improper,' 
 my father urged. 
 
 ' Sich be our tastes,' retorted Armidis. 
 ' Allez. Put on your hat, and let us be 
 off.' 
 
 My father ended by obeying him. 
 
 It was great fun, and entirely harmless. 
 There were booths at which sweetmeats and 
 cheap ribbons and toys were sold ; and there 
 were merry-go-rounds, with painted wooden 
 elephants and horses, camels and tigers, all 
 of one size, where you could take a circular 
 ride for a penny ; and there were mysterious- 
 looking tents, into which voluble Merry- 
 Andrews, in paint and motley, eloquently 
 exhorted you to enter, and hear your fortune 
 told for a consideration of fifty centimes. 
 Of course there were Punch and Judy shows, 
 and of course no end of little soldiers and
 
 JULIAN NORTH. l8/ 
 
 people were dancing on the pavement to the 
 music of barrel-organs. 
 
 The best fun of all, however, was Armidis 
 himself, who enjoyed it like a child, and 
 whose pink and white face beamed with one 
 perpetual broad smile of beatitude. He 
 bought four tin trumpets at one of the booths 
 which made a trumpet apiece for each of us 
 and a pocketful of sweets at another ; and 
 then he went about blowing his trumpet and 
 munching his sweets, and was in the seventh 
 heaven. He led us all into one of the tents, 
 and had our fortunes told ; he engaged a 
 chariot on one of the merry-go-rounds oh, 
 but a chariot ! of gold and ivory, if you 
 please, and drawn by four terrific griffins 
 and kept us driving round and round till we 
 were giddy. Finally he bundled us into a 
 cab, and took us to the Foyot for a sup 
 per And from first to last he had seized 
 
 every opportunity to pair off with my father,
 
 1 88 MEA CULPA. 
 
 so that Julian and I could be alone together ; 
 for which kindness he had paid himself by 
 shooting at us every now and then a know 
 ing, confidential smile, and beginning to sing, 
 softly, as if in absence of mind, ' Gather ye 
 rose-buds while ye may !' 
 
 Oh, how happy we were, how happy ! 
 Indescribably happy ; impossibly happy, it 
 seems now. When, from thinking of those 
 days, and forgetting the years that have 
 passed since they were here, I come back to 
 the present, and realise that they are gone, 
 gone forever, gone as utterly as if they had 
 never been . . . oh, my God, my God ! how 
 can I live and bear it ?
 
 VII. 
 
 ONE morning in the first week of September 
 a commissionaire brought us a note from 
 Armidis, which read as follows : 
 
 ' My hated rival X ... has sent me a box 
 for this evening at the Opera Comique, 
 where they are performing his latest atrocity. 
 I invite you three companions of the St.- 
 Esprit to go and endure it with me. 
 Moral support ! Put on the full panoply of 
 your abiti neri e decorazioni^^nd expect me 
 between seven and eight. I'm afraid I 
 shan't be able to meet you at the Concombre 
 Rose. Bien a vous, Y.'
 
 1 90 MEA CULPA. 
 
 That was the rubric with which he always 
 signed his notes a V superimposed upon an 
 A, giving the effect of an elongated X. 
 
 ' Oh, yes, we will go, we will go,' said my 
 father. ' But what a droll fellow he is, to 
 be sure, this Armidis ! He bids us put on 
 our evening costume, which would go with 
 out saying, inasmuch as we are to occupy 
 a box, whereas he himself in what array 
 will he appear, I should like to know ? He 
 who, I will wager, has not a dress-suit to his 
 name. I tremble with apprehension. They 
 will not admit him, if he presents himself 
 in his customary rags, as he is entirely 
 capable of doing ; but what else does he 
 possess to put on ?' 
 
 ' Yes, I wonder what he will wear,' I 
 responded rather absently, for I had the 
 question of my own toilette to preoccupy 
 me. 
 
 ' I only hope,' pursued my father, ' that
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 19 1 
 
 he will not contrive to cast ridicule or odium 
 upon our whole party.' 
 
 ' Oh, that will be all right/ said Julian, 
 when my father had confided his trepidation 
 to him. ' Dress-suits can be hired. He'll 
 hire one for the occasion.' 
 
 After dinner we assembled in our room, to 
 wait for him. 
 
 ' Oh, how beautiful you are looking ! 
 What a pretty gown !' Julian had whispered 
 to me, thereby causing me a flutter of 
 pleasure and excitement. ' I never saw you 
 in anything so becoming before.' 
 
 It was the best gown I had, one that I 
 had made myself from materials purchased 
 at the Petit St.-Thomas at a bargain ; 
 but it was nothing very dazzling, I can 
 assure you. He had committed the extra 
 vagance of buying me a big bunch of 
 roses. 
 
 Presently there came a sharp, imperative
 
 IQ2 MEA CULPA. 
 
 rap-rap-rap at our door, which we recognised 
 at once for Armidis's. 
 
 ; EntreZy entrez] my father and I called out 
 in a breath. 
 
 The door opened, and Armidis advanced 
 into the room. . . . 
 
 At sight of him, we three others first 
 started back and gasped ; then for an 
 instant we stared at him in helpless silence, 
 as if petrified ; at last we broke into an un 
 controllable fit of laughter. 
 
 He was arrayed in the uniform of a captain 
 of the French army. 
 
 We were overcome by a fou-rire. We 
 laughed and laughed, till it seemed as if we 
 could never stop. He stood still and gazed 
 at us with a frown of injury and bewilderment, 
 as who should say, ' What in the world has 
 happened to you ? Have you all gone mad ?' 
 
 The uniform was rather worn and thread 
 bare ; the jacket was whitish along the seams ;
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 193 
 
 the golden shoulder-cords were tarnished ; 
 here and there a button was missing ; and 
 the whole affair was two or three sizes too 
 small for him, so that he looked painfully 
 compressed and squeezed in ; and you were 
 irresistibly reminded of a corpulent sausage 
 crowded into a skin far, far too tight, and you 
 could not help fearing that at any moment 
 the skin might burst. The effect of his 
 big feet and fat red hands protruding from 
 the short, snug sleeves and trousers, was 
 ludicrous enough ; but I can imagine nothing 
 more absurdly funny than the incongruity 
 between his pink, mild, infantile face, as 
 fresh and chubby and pacific as a cherub's, 
 softened by the vast mane and beard of 
 snow-white hair that surrounded it, and his 
 martial make-up. And then the air of blank 
 incomprehension, and of hurt and resent 
 ment, with which he waited for us to recover 
 our sobriety ! 
 
 VOL. i. 13
 
 IQ4 MEA CULPA. 
 
 'Well, really/ he began, with a certain 
 querulous jauntiness, by and by, ' when you 
 are quite ready, I should be glad to learn 
 what the joke is.' 
 
 ' Since when have you received your com 
 mission ?' gasped my father. 
 
 ' I'm sure, if you're laughing at my 
 uniform, you're very foolish,' the composer 
 said, with an accent of nonchalant superiority. 
 ' You can't be so ignorant of the usages of 
 Society as not to know that an officer's 
 uniform is the equivalent of a civilian's dress- 
 suit. I don't happen to have a dress-suit, so 
 I wear this instead. There's nothing to 
 laugh at.' 
 
 ' True enough, true enough. But where 
 did you get it ? How did you come by it ?' 
 my father pursued. 
 
 1 Oh, I came by it honestly. A friend of 
 mine, a captain, had outgrown it, had got too 
 stout for it, if you must know the fact, and
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 1 95 
 
 he gave it to me. I've only had it about a 
 fortnight, and this is the first time I've worn 
 it in public. I think it's exceedingly becom 
 ing, though perhaps it might fit a little 
 better. But the colour of the trousers ! A 
 perfect feast for the eye !' 
 
 ' Oh, as for the fit,' laughed Julian, * it fits 
 you like your skin.' 
 
 'Yes, but I assure you it's too small, 
 painfully too small. // faut souffrir pour 
 etre beau ; and it pinches me cruelly. But I 
 don't dare to sigh, lest it should burst.' 
 
 'Well, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer,' 
 said my father. ' But I'd be willing to 
 wager a good deal that you're violating some 
 section of the penal code by wearing it. If 
 you should be arrested . . . ?' 
 
 'Oh, bird of ill omen! Don't, don't I' 
 pleaded Armidis, becoming plaintive. ' How 
 can you be so unfeeling ? To suggest such 
 a thing ! Oh, you don't really think there's 
 
 132
 
 196 MEA CULPA. 
 
 any danger, do you ? Not really ? Say you 
 don't. I came from the house in a fiacre, so 
 that nobody saw me. I don't want to be 
 arrested. What shall I do ?' 
 
 ' Oh, now that you've gone so far, you 
 may as well go to the end,' my father 
 answered. ' Brazen it out. Put on your 
 grand air, and carry it off. Of course you 
 must take your chances. At the worst, it's 
 not a capital offence : only a few years' retire 
 ment from the world.' 
 
 ' Oh, I see ! You're only teasing. Cruel ! 
 At first I thought you might be in earnest, 
 and I was frightened . . . Well, shall we 
 start ? . . . Mercy upon me ! How fine we 
 are, with our silks and flowers and furbelows ! 
 Quite killing !' he concluded, addressing 
 me. 
 
 We set out to walk to the Place St.- 
 Michel, where we were to take the omnibus . . . 
 Almost the first persons we encountered, as
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 197 
 
 we turned into the Boulevard, were three 
 little soldiers, who, directly they beheld 
 Armidis, brought their hands to their caps, 
 in salute. 
 
 ' Oh, misery, misery !' he began to grieve, 
 as soon as they had passed. ' What am 
 I to do ? If all the soldiers we chance 
 to meet are going to salute me ! Surely 
 I'll betray myself, my imposture will be 
 unmasked, and perhaps they'll send me to 
 gaol. How absurd of them, how indelicate ! 
 To touch their caps to a man who doesn't 
 know them, who doesn't want to know them. 
 It's very pushing and presumptuous of them, 
 isn't it ?' 
 
 ' Oh, extremely so,' said Julian, sympa 
 thetically. 
 
 4 But what shall I do ?' he pursued, with 
 eagerness. ' It's a complication that I never 
 dreamed of, and I haven't the remotest 
 notion what to do. You, Monica, you who
 
 MEA CULPA. 
 
 are practical and ready-witted and far-seeing 
 and everything, tell me.' 
 
 ' Why not return their salute ?' I 
 suggested. 
 
 ' Oh, to be sure ! Return their salute ! 
 Why, of course ! Oh, thank you so very 
 much. Strange that I shouldn't have 
 thought of it myself, but I am so stupid 
 and inefficient. Yes, yes, I'll return their 
 salute.' 
 
 We passed a good many more soldiers 
 before the evening was over, whose cap- 
 touching Armidis graciously acknowledged 
 not only by touching his, but by adding to 
 that gesture a most affable smile and nod. 
 
 After the performance he begged us to go 
 home with him for supper ; but my father, 
 who seemed to be in a bad humour about 
 something, rather impatiently declined. 
 
 On our way to the H6tel du St.-Esprit 
 my father scarcely spoke. This caused me
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 199 
 
 a vague anxiety and disquiet, and I kept 
 wondering what could have gone wrong with 
 him. When we had said good-night to 
 Julian, and were alone together in our room, 
 I asked him. 
 
 ' I see that something is troubling you/ I 
 began. ' Will you tell me what it is ?' 
 
 1 What it is ?' he repeated, looking at me 
 with cold, ominous eyes. ' You ask me that? 
 Well, it is that my faith in human nature has 
 this evening received a blow from which it 
 will not soon recover. Do you understand ? 
 Or must I be more specific ? . . . Ah, you 
 blush, you turn pale. I do not wonder. 
 This evening, at one and the same instant, I 
 learn that my daughter has been deceiving 
 me, and that a young man whom I have 
 mistaken for a gentleman, and regarded as a 
 friend, and trusted accordingly, has been 
 abusing my confidence in the most shameful 
 and cowardly manner. Is that enough ?
 
 2OO MEA CULPA. 
 
 To be exact, in the box at the theatre, I 
 chanced to overhear something that Mr. 
 North had the impertinence to whisper in 
 your ear ; and I observed that, so far from 
 resenting it, you even welcomed it with a 
 smile. I was as much outraged as I was 
 astonished.' 
 
 He paused ; but, though every word that 
 he had spoken had stung me like a lash, 
 I could not answer. A thousand different 
 ideas, fears, hopes, impulses, resolutions, 
 went whirling through my brain in wild 
 confusion. In a little while he con 
 tinued. . . . 
 
 ' Owing to the exigencies of our position, 
 I have been compelled to accord to you a 
 degree of personal freedom to which young 
 unmarried women of your class are not 
 accustomed. I relied upon your own ap 
 preciation of the circumstances, upon your 
 honour, your self-respect, as well as upon
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 2OI 
 
 your common sense, not to take advantage 
 of my enforced indulgence. But what do 
 1 find ? I find that, forgetting what was 
 due to yourself, your father, your sex, your 
 position, you have, like any common girl of 
 the people, formed a disreputable, an im 
 possible connection with a young man. A 
 young man ? A young beggar ! An indi 
 vidual who has neither rank, nor fortune, 
 nor prospects ; a Bohemian, a vagabond, an 
 adventurer. And this, not only without the 
 sanction of your father, but without his 
 knowledge, secretly, covertly, a la cttrobte. 
 His conduct in thus clandestinely paying you 
 his addresses, I do not need to stigmatise ; 
 it speaks for itself. Of yours in accepting 
 them, I will only say that it has destroyed 
 the security and the happiness of my domestic 
 life. My daughter has deceived me once 
 in one thing : how can I avoid the inference 
 that she has deceived me often in many
 
 2O2 MEA CULPA. 
 
 things? Heaven knows how far you may 
 have gone !' 
 
 At this I found my tongue. 
 
 * We have gone no farther than to confess 
 our love to each other. We could not help 
 loving each other. I have not meant to 
 deceive you. I have simply held my tongue. 
 There was nothing to tell, except that we 
 loved each other. It would only have 
 troubled you, and brought misery to us. 
 I do not see why the happiness or the 
 security of your life should be affected.' 
 
 ' Never mind, never mind. I do not care 
 to discuss it with you, or to listen to your 
 evasions and excuses. You may hold your 
 opinion, I may hold mine. It is not a 
 matter for discussion, it is a matter for 
 action. Mr. North is in no position to 
 marry. Even if he were, I might still have 
 my objections to make to an alliance between 
 the daughter of one of the most illustrious
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 203 
 
 houses in the noblesse of Russia, and a 
 nameless American. But he is not, and that 
 is final. It is therefore incumbent upon me, 
 as your father, to forbid you to have any 
 thing further to do with him. You must 
 from this time forth treat him as a stranger. 
 I demand from you a promise of obedience. 
 If you refuse to promise, I shall take measures 
 accordingly. That is all.' 
 
 1 Of course I refuse to promise,' I cried. 
 ' You have no right to treat me like this 
 to try to deprive me of the only real happi 
 ness that has ever come into my life. Do 
 you wish me to be nothing but a slave, a 
 machine ? Am I entitled to none of the 
 ordinary experiences of life ? Why should 
 you begrudge me my one little joy ? Isn't 
 my life gloomy enough, narrow enough, hard 
 enough already ? Don't I do my duty by 
 you to the best of my powers ? Oh, it is too 
 unjust, too cruel !'
 
 2O4 MEA CULPA. 
 
 I was beside myself with pain and anger ; 
 therefore I spoke not very coherently, and I 
 said things that I ought never to have said 
 to my father. 
 
 ' I will have your obedience in this matter, 
 whatever it may cost me,' he retorted hotly. 
 ' You are of full age ; so I cannot shut you 
 up in a convent, as I might do if you were 
 still a minor. But there are moral measures 
 of restraint that I can take, which will be 
 effectual enough. This is a case where the 
 ends will justify the means. She would 
 betroth herself to a pauper, pardieu ! No, 
 no ; fa ne se fait pas dans notre famille. . . . 
 The only real happiness that has ever come 
 into your life, do you say ? It is intolerable, 
 your saying such a thing to me, your father, 
 a man who has lived for nothing but your 
 happiness ever since you were born. It is 
 your true, your ultimate happiness which I 
 am trying to assure to you now, but which
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 2O5 
 
 you, in the blindness of this impossible 
 infatuation, would destroy. . . . Now you may 
 leave me. I have nothing more to say to 
 you. Go to bed.' 
 
 But when, next morning, after a most 
 miserable, sleepless night, I came down 
 stairs to his room, I was surprised to be 
 greeted by him with as much kindness and 
 affection as if we had parted on the best 
 of terms. 
 
 ' Good morning, my dear,' he said. ' Come 
 and kiss me. There ! You have been cry 
 ing. Your eyes are all red and swollen. 
 You have lain awake all night ? So have I. 
 I have been thinking it over, thinking it 
 over ; and I have concluded that I was hasty 
 in the attitude I took last evening. You 
 see, the discovery had been so sudden ; I 
 hadn't had leisure in which to get over the 
 shock it caused me. And I was hurt at the
 
 2O6 MEA CULPA. 
 
 thought that you had concealed it from me. 
 It wounded me to think that you had not 
 been more frank and open with me. . . . 
 However, no more of that. Let bygones 
 be bygones. I've had plenty of time to con 
 sider it during the night, and I have deter 
 mined to make the best of it. I am willing 
 to concede as much as with any sort of pro 
 priety I can, provided that you and he, on 
 your side, will agree to behave like reason 
 able and mature human beings, and not like 
 children. But first of all I want you to 
 examine yourself, and tell me whether you 
 are entirely sure of your own mind. At your 
 age one is very apt to mistake a passing 
 caprice or fancy for a genuine passion. For 
 instance, suppose that there were no impedi 
 ments of any kind to a marriage between you, 
 are you quite sure that you would be willing 
 to become his wife ?' 
 
 What I answered to all this I do not need
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 
 
 to repeat. My father had suddenly lifted me 
 out of the deepest quagmire of the Slough 
 of Despond into the seventh circle of delight. 
 I was not chary of my expressions of grati 
 tude and affection ; I felt as though I could 
 never make due amends for my injurious 
 speeches of the night before. He kept pro 
 testing, with an air of embarrassment, 
 ' There, there ! That will do. Let bygones 
 be bygones. Say no more about it.' At last 
 he rang the bell, and when the gar$on had 
 responded to it, ' Will you rap at the door 
 of Mr. North,' my father asked, ' and if 
 he be in, convey to him my compliments, 
 and the request that he will favour me with 
 a visit before he leaves the house ?' 
 
 A minute or two later Julian entered the 
 room. 
 
 My father made him his most ceremonious 
 bow, and begged him to be seated. 
 
 Then, 'Since I saw you last evening, Mr.
 
 2O8 MEA CULPA. 
 
 North,' he said, ' my daughter has confided 
 to me the fact that you and she have formed 
 an attachment for each other. You are a 
 very young man, and I am getting to be 
 very old. I hope, therefore, you will not 
 take it amiss if I say to you, without 
 rancour, as a father might speak to a son 
 en bon papa, in fine that I should have 
 been better pleased if you had followed the 
 usages of the world a little more closely, 
 and opened your mind to me, before opening 
 your heart to her. I will not deny that 
 I have felt a little hurt at your lack of 
 frankness.' 
 
 1 The reason for my not speaking to you, 
 Mr. Banakin,' Julian rejoined, 'was simply 
 that I had nothing to say. There was no 
 use telling you that I loved your daughter, 
 unless I could ask you to consent to our 
 marrying, or, at least, becoming engaged. 
 But that I couldn't do, because, as you know,
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 2CX) 
 
 I'm disgustingly poor. I had never meant 
 to tell her that I loved her, either ; I realised 
 perfectly well that I had no manner of right 
 to do so. I ought to have gone away, 
 cleared out, and taken my secret with me. 
 But I hadn't the well, then the the grit. 
 One evening we were talking together, and 
 it came out before I knew it. I admit that it 
 was all wrong.' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know ; I don't know that I 
 should judge it quite so harshly as that,' my 
 father said. ' It was unfortunate, certainly, 
 that in the actual state of our circumstances, 
 yours and mine, she and you should have 
 come to care for each other ; but I do not 
 know that you can be blamed especially for 
 making a clean breast of it, when once the 
 mischief was done. Human nature must be 
 allowed for ; and we all know that secrets of 
 that sort are hard to keep. However, we 
 VOL. i. 14
 
 2IO MEA CULPA. 
 
 will not dwell on that aspect of the affair. 
 Let bygones be bygones. What we ought 
 to consider now, in a spirit of mutual friend 
 liness, are the practical difficulties, the material 
 obstacles, that it presents. You and Monica 
 love each other, but you are in no position to 
 get married. What, then, is to be done ?' 
 
 ' It is very good of you to take it in this 
 way. What is to be done ? Of course 
 there's only one thing for me to do, pack 
 up and leave. Go home to America. That's 
 not very pleasant, but it can't be helped. It's 
 been the only thing for me to do, the inevit 
 able thing, from the beginning. My four 
 years are up ; my money is all spent ; I have 
 barely enough left now to pay my passage to 
 New York. It's pretty hard to admit, but 
 it's desperately certain I must leave Paris, 
 and go to America. When I get there I'll 
 ... I'll seek my fortune. I'll set to work,
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 2 I I 
 
 and try to haul myself out of my hole. I'll 
 try to make a position and an income for 
 myself. If I succeed, I'll come back here, 
 and if she still cares for me, ask you 
 for Monica's hand with a clear conscience. 
 If I fail . . . well, God have mercy on 
 me.' 
 
 My father rose, and held out his hand to 
 Julian. 
 
 ' You speak like a man of sense, courage, 
 and honesty,' he said. ' Of your own accord 
 you have suggested precisely the course that 
 I was going to propose to you. . . I trust 
 that you, my daughter, perceive with us that 
 this is the only wise and promising step that 
 can be taken.' 
 
 ' Oh, I suppose it's wise,' I assented. And 
 it seemed as if I could hardly pronounce the 
 words, for the great aching lump that filled 
 my throat. ' Yes, I suppose it's wise, but 
 
 142
 
 212 MEA CULPA. 
 
 that does not make it any less terrible, any 
 easier to bear/ 
 
 * Hard to bear you will unquestionably find 
 it, both of you,' my father went on. ' But 
 life is made up for the most part of things 
 that are hard to bear. We may none of us 
 hope to escape them ; the most we can do is 
 to make the best of them, accepting them, 
 resignedly, reverently, as a part of the 
 mysterious discipline that an inscrutable 
 Providence has imposed upon us. But hard 
 as it seems, it is the only means possible to 
 your eventual happiness. The longer Mr. 
 North lingers here in Paris, the longer must 
 his ultimate success be delayed. The sooner 
 he leaves and begins his career, the sooner 
 will he be able to come back. . . . Yes, I 
 will permit you to write to each other, with 
 certain stipulations. You must not write 
 oftener than once a month, and the letters
 
 JULIAN NORTH. 213 
 
 must all be of a tone simply friendly, such as 
 I may read. Until you are actually betrothed, 
 which will not be, of course, until your cir 
 cumstances are more flourishing than at 
 present, I cannot sanction a correspondence 
 of a more intimate character. . . . Now that 
 is all settled. There is nothing further to 
 determine, except the date of your de 
 parture.' 
 
 1 Oh, if the wrench has got to come, there's 
 no use putting it off, I suppose,' said Julian, 
 in a dull, dry voice. ' It will hurt just as 
 much at one time as at another. I'll . . . I'll 
 sail . . . next Saturday.' 
 
 I shall never forget the face he turned 
 upon me as he spoke those words : it is 
 before me now as vividly as it was then : so 
 pale, so pale, with lips drawn in the ghost of 
 a smile, and eyes that burned with anguish, 
 and hopelessness, and a sort of dumb appeal. 
 For me, the coldness of death entered into
 
 214 MEA CULPA. 
 
 my heart. It was as if a skeleton-hand 
 griped it, so that each pulsation sent a wave 
 of pain throughout my body. 
 
 He left me on Friday, taking the train for 
 Rotterdam, whence he was to sail. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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 PIERRE AND JEAN. By GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 
 
 Translated from the French by CLARA BELL. In One 
 Volume, crown 8vo, 33. 6d. ; or Paper Covers, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette." So fine and faultless, so perfectly balanced, 
 so steadily progressive, so clear and simple and satisfying. It is 
 admirable from beginning to end." 
 
 Athenaeum. "Ranks amongst the best gems of modern French 
 fiction." 
 
 THE CHIEF JUSTICE. By KARL EMIL FRANZOS. 
 
 Author of "For the Right," &c. Translated from the 
 German by MILES CORBET. One Volume, crown 8vo, 
 38. 6d. ; or Paper Covers, 2s. 6d. 
 
 The New Review. " Few novels of recent times have a more 
 sustained and vivid human interest." 
 
 Christian World. A story of wonderful power ... as free from 
 anything objectionable as ' The Heart of Midlothian.'" 
 
 Manchester Guardian. "Simple, forcible, and intensely tragic. 
 It is a very powerful study, singularly grand in its simplicity." 
 
 Sunday Times. "A series of dramatic scenes welded together 
 with a never-failing interest and skill." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN-S LIST. 
 
 HERMANN'S INTERNATIONAL 
 
 WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT. By 
 
 COUNT LYOF TOLSTOI. Translated from the Russian by 
 E. J. DILLON, Ph.D. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 33. 6d. ; 
 or Paper Covers, 28. 6d. 
 
 Glasgow Herald. "Mr. Gosse gives a brief biographical sketch of 
 Tolstoi, and au interesting estimate of his literacy productions." 
 
 Scotsman. "It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the 
 simplicity and force with which the work is unfolded ; no one who 
 reads the book will dispute its author's greatness." 
 
 Liverpool Mercury. "Marked by all the old power of the great 
 Russian novelist." 
 
 Manchester Guardian. "Readable and well translated; full of 
 high and noble feeling." 
 
 FANTASY. By MATILDE SERAO. Translated from 
 the Italian by HENRY HARLAND and PAUL SYLVESTER. 
 In One Volume, crown 8vo, 33. 6d. ; or Paper Covers, 
 
 28. 6d. 
 
 Scottish Leader. "The book is full of a glowing and living 
 realism. . . . There is nothing like 'Fantasy 'in modern literature. 
 ... It is a work of elfish art, a mosaic of life and love, of right and 
 wrong, of human weakness and strength, and purity and wantonness, 
 pieced together in deft and witching precision." 
 
 Dally Graphic. " Clever beyond all need of praise." 
 
 FROTH. By DON ARMANDO PALACIO VALDES. 
 Translated from the Spanish by CLARA BELL. In One 
 Volume, crown 8vo, 33. 6d. ; or Paper Covers, 23. 6d. 
 
 Dally Telegraph. " Vigorous and powerful in the highest degree. 
 It abounds in forcible delineation of character, and describes scenes 
 with rare and graphic strength." 
 
 In the Press. 
 
 THE COMMODORE'S DAUGHTERS. By JONAS 
 
 LIK. Translated from the Norwegian by H. L. B&&K- 
 BTAD and GERTRUDE HUGHES. 
 
 FOSTERING A VIPER. By Louis COUPERUS. 
 
 Translated from the Dutch by CLARA BELL. 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 IRew Morfes of fiction. 
 THE BONDMAN. A New Saga. BY HALL 
 
 CAINE. Fourth Edition (Fifteenth Thousand). In One 
 Volume. Crown 8vo, 33. 6d. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. " The \ Bondman ' is a work of which I recognise 
 the freshness, vigour, and sustained interest no less than its integrity 
 of aim." 
 
 Count Tolstoi. " A book I have read with deep interest." 
 Standard. "Its argument is grand, and it is sustained with a 
 power that is almost marvellous." 
 
 IN THE VALLEY. A Novel. By HAROLD 
 
 FREDERIC, Author of "The Lawton Girl," "Seth's 
 Brother's Wife," &c. &c. In Three Volumes. Crown 
 8vo, with Illustrations. 
 
 Athenseum. "A romantic story, both graphic and exciting, not 
 merely in the central picture itself, but also in its weird surroundings. 
 This is a novel deserving to be read." 
 
 Manchester Examiner. " Certain to win the reader's admiration. 
 ' In the Valley ' is a novel that deserves to live." 
 
 Scotsman. "A work of real ability; it stands apart from the 
 common crowd of three- volume novels." 
 
 A MARKED MAN : Some Episodes in his 
 
 Life. By ADA CAMBRIDGE, Author of "Two Year?' 
 Time," "A Mere Chance," &c. &c. In Three Volumes, 
 crown 8vo. 
 
 Morning Post. "A depth of feeling, a knowledge of the human 
 heart, and an amount of tact that one rarely finds. Should take a 
 prominent place among the novels of the season." 
 
 Illustrated London News. "The moral tone of this story, rightly 
 considered, is pure and noble, though it deals with the problem of 
 an unhappy marriage." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "Contains one of the best written stories of a 
 misalliance that is to be found in modern fiction." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 IWew TKnorfes of fftctton. 
 THE MOMENT AFTER: A Tale of the Un- 
 
 seen. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. In One Volume, crown 
 8vo, i os. 6d. 
 
 Athenaeum." Should be read in daylight." 
 
 Observer." A clever tour de force." 
 
 Guardian. " Particularly impressive, graphic, and powerful." 
 
 Bristol Mercury. "Written with the same poetic feeling and 
 power which have given a rare charm to Mr. Buchanan's previous 
 prose writings." 
 
 COME FORTH ! By ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 and HERBERT D. WARD. In One Volume, imperial 
 i6mo, 73. 6d. 
 
 Scotsman, " 'Come Forth ! ' is the story of the raising of Lazarus, 
 amplified into a dramatic love-story. ... It has a simple, forthright 
 dramatic interest such as is seldom attained except in purely imagina 
 tive fiction." 
 
 THE MASTER OF THE MAGICIANS. By 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS and HERBERT D. WARD. 
 In One Volume, imperial i6mo, 73. 6d. 
 The Athenaeum. "A success in Biblical fiction." 
 
 THE DOMINANT SEVENTH: A Musical Story. 
 
 By KATE ELIZABETH CLARK. In One Volume, crown 
 8vo, 58. 
 Speaker. " A very romantic story." 
 
 A VERY STRANGE FAMILY: A Novel. By 
 
 F. W. ROBINSON, Author of "Grandmother's Money," 
 " Lazurus in London," &c. &c. In One Volume, crowu 
 8vo, 33. 6d. 
 
 Glasgow Herald. " An ingeniously-devised plot, of which the 
 interest is kept up to the very last page. A judicious blending of 
 humour and pathos further helps to make the book delightful reading 
 from start to finish." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. 13
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 mew Morfes of fiction. 
 HAUNTINGS: Fantastic Stories. By VERNON 
 
 LEE, Author of " Baldwin," " Miss Brown," &c. &c. In 
 One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. "Well imagined, cleverly constructed, power 
 fully executed. ' Dionea ' is a fine and impressive idea, and ' Oke of 
 Okehurst' a masterly story." 
 
 PASSION THE PLAYTHING. A Novel. By 
 
 R. MURRAY GILCHRIST. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Athenaeum. "This well-written story must be read to be appre 
 ciated." 
 Yorkshire Post." A book to lay hold of the reader." 
 
 IRccent publications, 
 THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 
 
 By RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., Associate in Political 
 Economy, Johns Hopkins University. In One Volume, 
 crown 8vo, 53. 
 
 Weekly Despatch. "There is much to interest and instruct." 
 Saturday Review. "Both interesting and valuable." 
 England. "Full of information and thought.'" 
 National Reformer. "Chapter iii. deals with the growth and 
 present condition of labour organisations in America . . . this forms 
 a most valuable page of history." 
 
 ARABIC AUTHORS: A Manual of Arabian 
 
 History and Literature. ByF.F. ARBUTHNOT,M.R.A.S., 
 Author of "Early Ideas," "Persian Portraits," &c. In 
 One Volume, 8vo, IDS. 
 
 Manchester Examiner. "The whole work has been carefully 
 indexed, and will prove a handbook of the highest value to the 
 student who wishes to gain a better acquaintance with Arabian 
 letters." 
 
 14 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 Recent {publications. 
 THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES 
 
 As pleasingly exemplified in many instances, wherein 
 the serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have 
 been prettily spurred on to indiscretions and unseemli 
 ness, while overcome by an undue sense of right. By J. 
 M'NEiL WHISTLER. In One Volume, pott 4to, los. 6d. 
 
 Punch, June 21. "The book in itself, in its binding, print, and 
 arrangement, is a work of art." 
 
 Punch, June 28. " A work of rare humour, a thing of beauty and 
 a joy for now and ever." 
 
 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU, 
 
 1890. By F. W. FARRAK, D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon and 
 Canon of Westminster, &c. &c. In One Volume, small 
 4to, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Spectator. "Among the manv accounts that hare been written 
 this year of ' The Passion Play,' one of the most picturesque, the most 
 interesting, and the most reasonable, is this sketch of Archdeacon 
 Farrar's. . . . This little book will be read with delight by those who 
 have, and by those who have not, visited Oberammergau." 
 
 THE GARDEN'S STORY; or, Pleasures and 
 Trials of an Amateur Gardener. By G. H. ELL- 
 
 WANQER. With an Introduction by the Rev. C. WOLLEY 
 DOD. In One Volume, ramo, with Illustrations, 53. 
 
 Scotsman. "Deserves every recommendation that a pleasant- 
 looking page can give it ; for it deals with a charming subject in a 
 charming manner. Mr. Ellwanger talks delightfully, with instruc 
 tion but without pedantry, of the flowers, the insects, and the birds. 
 ... It will give pleasure to ever)' reader who takes the smallest 
 interest in flowers, and ought to find many readers." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. 15
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 IRecent publications. 
 
 THE LIFE OF HENRIK IBSEN. By HENRIK 
 
 JAEGER. Translated by CLARA BELL. With the Verse 
 done into English from the Norwegian Original by 
 EDMUND GOSSE. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 St. James's Gazette. " Admirably translated. Deserves a cordial 
 and emphatic welcome." 
 
 Guardian. " Ibsen's dramas at present enjoy a considerable vogue, 
 and their admirers will rejoice to find full descriptions and criticisms 
 in Mr. Jaeger's book." 
 
 Academy. "We welcome it heartily. An unqualified boon to 
 the many English students of Ibsen." 
 
 COMMUNICATIONS ON A REMEDY FOR 
 
 TUBERCULOSIS. By Professor ROBERT KOCH, Berlin. 
 Authorised Translation. 8vo, Wrapper, is. ; or Limp 
 Cloth, is. 6d. 
 
 From The Times, leading article, November 17, 1890: "It has 
 been acknowledged, at any time during the last year or two, that the 
 discovery of a cure for tuberculosis was not only possible but even 
 likely ; and that which is now announced comes with the highest 
 recommendations and from the most trustworthy source. " 
 
 IDLE MUSINGS: Essays in Social Mosaic. 
 
 By E. CONDER GRAY, Author of "Wise Words and 
 Loving Deeds," &c. &c. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Saturday Review. "Light, brief, and bright are the 'essays in 
 social mosaic.' Mr. Gray ranges like a butterfly from high themes to 
 trivial with a good deal of dexterity and a profusion of illustrations." 
 
 Graphic. "Pleasantly written, will serve admirably to wile away 
 an idle half-hour or two." 
 
 IVY AND PASSION FLOWER: Poems. By 
 
 GERARD BEND ALL, Author of "Estelle," &c. &c. I2mo, 
 33. 6d. 
 
 Scotsman. "Will be read with pleasure." 
 
 Woman. "There is a delicacy of touch and simplicity about the 
 poems which is very attractive." 
 
 Musical World. "The poems are delicate specimens of art, grace 
 ful and polished." 
 
 VERSES. By GERTRUDE HALL. I2mo, 33. 6d. 
 
 Musical World. "Interesting volume of verse." 
 Woman. "Very sweet and musical." 
 
 Manchester Guardian. " "Will be welcome to every lover of poetry 
 who takes it up. '' 
 
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