Mea culpa; a woman's last word

Part I. Father And Daughter

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TH. BENTZON:

IF 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 ?

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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 conclusion 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 indirectly, with the revolutionary movement in 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 thing a

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little learning is. It authors are men who have rapidly swallowed, without digesting, the most obvious and superficial deductions of modern scientific thought, but have never even caught the aroma of its more occult significance, its deeper tendencies, or its remoter corollaries. They would endeavor 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 unrelenting foe.”

Such, roughly, was my father’s attitude toward the revolutionary agitation in Russia. Yet in 1879 he had, at a moment’s notice, 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 omnivorous 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 literature, printed and written, the police seized ; but, since they did not at once deprive my father of his liberty, he, the most optimistic and hopeful of men, believed that the matter would end there, and made light

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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 rubles 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 ; and a few days later we were in the French capital.

That is why we lived in Paris.

The manner of our life there. . . . Ah, Dieu de

dieu , voild une histoire !

At first we lived in sufficient comfort at one of the hotels in the neighborhood 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 expected 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 appearance in St. Petersburg to answer the charges of political untrustworthiness there lying against him.

After that, the question of ways and 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 remained ; and where more was to come

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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 irresponsible as a child in the handing of money ; a man who had never earned, nor thought of earning, a kopeck, yet who had never hesitated to throw away a hundred rubles ; 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 inefficient. He was gifted with a fine intellect, and in the face of an abstract theory of any kind was all enlightenment and penetration ; 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 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

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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.

I gave lessons in music and in English to the pupils whom I was able to procure ; I translated sensation novels, English and American, into French, receiving four hundred francs for each volume from a publisher in the Palais Royal ; and I colored photographs for a photographer in the Rue de Rivoli. (Since my marriage, I may say in passing, that publisher 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 Leonticheff : ” 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 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 suf-

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fered 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 publishers would vie with each other to purchase 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. J acques ; certainly, in view of my sex, not the most desirable quarter of Paris, but considering our requirements, the cheapest. Our morning coffee and our mid-day breakfast I prepared 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 we were surrounded we had no reason to love. Almost our only friend was the composer Armidis, half Greek, half English, an inspired musician, an exquisite poet, and the handsomest, the shabbiest, the most improbable, whimsical, and entertaining man I had ever known. He dwelt on the other side of the Seine, but he came frequently to see us, and w'ould 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

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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 its snow-white hair and beard, his fresh complexion, his fine, proud features, his large eyes, full of color, daring, and intelligence, 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 morning coffee, and not return till toward 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 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 fireplace, glaring at the coals, once in a while breathing a prodigious sigh, but never uttering a syllable,

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IT

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 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 responsibility 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 disturbance, he was 2

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prone to don, in approaching me, an armor 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 entreated.

He shrugged his shoulders, and, with a despairing gesture, cried out, “ I am a ruined man, a ruined man ! When you stopped 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 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 magniloquence, 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 proceeded 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 combination of circumstances that drive your father to a premature and ignominious grave.” . . .

His voice died out, and for a breathing-space he was silent. Then he went on :

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“ Figure to yourself that to-day, at noon, as I was leaving the Bibliotheque Nationale, to go to breakfast at a neighboring 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 breakfast. I assented

with pleasure ; and we had a most delightful meal, diversified by conversation as edifying as it was entertaining, and in which, you will be glad to learn, your father did not shine only as a listener.”

“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, indeed, the game being undertaken for amusement 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 complete deveine. Reluctant to show the white feather to my antagonists, and animated by 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 himself, a matter of five hundred francs. Then, in de-

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spair, 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, promising to redeem it to-morrow morning. . . . Such, in fine, is the di-

lemma 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 Sagoskin five hundred francs to-morrow, or I must avoid dishonor 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 himself ; 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 incomprehensible examples of the apparently blind and wanton brutality of Fate, which force certain thinkers to accept the atheistic and pessimistic 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 answered ; “ and we shall need every penny 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.

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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 ? ”

“ Seigneur Dieu ! ” he exclaimed. “ Is my daughter, then, devoid of the least sentiment of pride, of honor?

. . . 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 impossible. Or perhaps something will turn up. 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.”

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“I?” my father almost screamed, starting half-way to his feet. “ I 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 hisioire, and bring the money home to me. . . . Do not refuse,” he implored passionately. “ I

exact it by right of my position as your parent,” he added with an accent of authority.

“ 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 honor ! ” he cried, wildly.

“I can’t see how your honor will be involved. You have done nothing dishonorable,” said I.

“ You are right,” he agreed, his excitement 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 complete reaction of spirits. He opened a bottle of wine and demanded something to eat.

“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.

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“ 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 kissed him good-night, and 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.”

“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.”

“ No, no, no,” I insisted.

He gave a gesture of impatience. Then he paused, and seemed to meditate fora moment. In the end, “I will speak to you again in the morning,” he said. “ Good-night.”

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 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 impossible ... 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 Providence, especially in view of our present difficulty. I cannot reach Armidis’s house before this afternoon.”

“ In that case,” said he, with an effect of the calmness

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of despair, “ you need not go at all. Debts of this nature must be liquidated within twenty-four hours, or the debtor is forever dishonored. 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 honor, even to his life, go to them. That is my last word, . . . except adieu.”