There he was standing in the same place, in his top-hat and seedy black coat. I saw at once that things were not right with him. His clothes seemed to hang on him as if he were merely an old clothes prop; his old bowed shoulders sloped more than ever. His face was grey, pasty, terribly lined, and his nose more white and shiny than ever. Seedy was the word for him, seedy inside and out, seedy through and through. He was beaten, degraded, down, gone under, gone all to bits. And yet somehow he looked as if that was just what hadn't happened--he hadn't gone all to bits: there was something in him that still stood up and held him together, something like a rock which, beaten and buffeted, still held out indomitable. "Well, and how are you?" I asked. "Poorly," he said in a flat voice, "poorly--I'm not what I was." "Nothing serious, I hope?" "Vell, I'm not on my back yet." "And the boys? They're still doing well, I hope." A sort of rigidity came over him: he eyed me furtively and yet sternly. "Boys? I've only one boy." "Ah, I'm sorry, very sorry to--" "No, no, it's not what you think, not that. I've had trouble, but not that. That eldest boy of mine, he's no longer my son----I have done with him; I have only one son now." There was nothing dejected, nothing humble in him now. He seemed to draw himself together, to become taller. A stiff-necked race, I thought! "If you ask me how many sons I've got, I say only one, only one. That fellow isn't my son at all. I had a servant girl here working in my house, a Christian serving girl--and he married her behind my back. He asks me to sit down to meat with a girl, a Christian girl, who worked in my house--I can't do it. I'm not proud, but there are some things--If he had come to me and said: "Dad, I want to marry a girl"--a really nice girl--"but she's not one of us: will you give me your permission and blessing?" Well I don't believe in it. Our women are as good, better than Christian women. Aren't they as beautiful, as clever, as good wives? I know my poor mother, God rest her soul, used to say: "My son," she said, "if you come to me and say you want to marry a good girl, a Jewess, I don't care whether she hasn't a chemise to her back, I'll welcome her--but if you marry a Christian, if she's as rich as Solomon, I've done with you--don't you ever dare to come into my house again." Vell, I don't go as far as that, though I understand it. Times change: I might have received his wife, even though she was a Goy. But a servant girl who washed my dishes! I couldn't do it. One must have some dignity." He stood there upright, stern, noble: a battered scarred old rock, but immovable under his seedy black coat. I couldn't offer him a shilling; I shook his hand, and left him brooding over his son and his graves. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE MARK ON THE WALL By VIRGINIA WOOLF