The Equinox (Volume I, Number VII)

HIS SECRET SIN He thrust it into the empty grate, lit the paper frills, watched all blaze up. Then, gulping down a sob, he went to the drawer of a cabinet and pulled out the revolver which he had bought (and loaded, under the shopman’s guidance) against burglars. Yes, he must kill himself. He drew back the hammer. Cold sweat beaded his flabby face. He could not; and any- how, how did one? He thought of many stories of people who had shot themselves ineffectively. He felt for his heart and failed to find it, wondered if it had stopped and he were dying, had a fit of fear paralysing all his will. He thought of himself lying dead. ”No, by God! I can't do it!” he cried, and flung the pistol back into the drawer. As luck would have it, the weapon exploded. The bullet broke his jaw, tore away four molars, smashed the cheek-bone, pulped the right eye, and, glancing from the frontal bone, found its billet in the ceiling. He lost consciousness and fell. His head struck the grate where yet smouldered the ashes of the photograph. It was three months before he recovered, and then with only half a face to face the world with. He still thinks that Gertrude gave him away, for the street-boys have taken to calling him “old Venus." But he is wrong; the boys have their aesthetic reasons for the name. Gertrude in any case is much too busy to bother her head about him; for, after a year in the Latin Quarter, if she has failed to surpass Degas and Manet and O‘Conor, she has at least conquered the great pianist VVlodywewsky, and it 59