Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER I.
Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Evenscience, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believeunit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when hissidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurategrandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle;but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very differentfrom his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward,divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Noughtreally sets off _in medias res_. No retrospect will take us tothe true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth,it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which ourstory sets out.
Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form orexpression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance? Was the good orthe evil genius dominant in those beams? Probably the evil; else why wasthe effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? Why was thewish to look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which thewhole being consents?
She who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda's mind was occupied ingambling: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on aruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but in one of those splendidresorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same speciesof pleasure at a heavy cost of guilt mouldings, dark-toned color andchubby nudities, all correspondingly heavy--forming a suitable condenserfor human breath belonging, in great part, to the highest fashion, and noteasily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere in the like proportion, atleast by persons of little fashion.
It was near four o'clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere waswell-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by alight rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasionalmonotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniouslyconstructed automaton. Round two long tables were gathered two serriedcrowds of human beings, all save one having their faces and attention benton the tables. The one exception was a melancholy little boy, with hisknees and calves simply in their natural clothing of epidermis, but forthe rest of his person in a fancy dress. He alone had his face turnedtoward the doorway, and fixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened childstationed as a masquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerantshow, stood close behind a lady deeply engaged at the roulette-table.
About this table fifty or sixty persons were assembled, many in the outerrows, where there was occasionally a deposit of new-comers, being merespectators, only that one of them, usually a woman, might now and then beobserved putting down a five-franc with a simpering air, just to see whatthe passion of gambling really was. Those who were taking their pleasureat a higher strength, and were absorbed in play, showed very distantvarieties of European type: Livonian and Spanish, Graeco-Italian andmiscellaneous German, English aristocratic and English plebeian. Herecertainly was a striking admission of human equality. The white bejewelledfingers of an English countess were very near touching a bony, yellow,crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist to clutch a heap of coin--a handeasy to sort with the square, gaunt face, deep-set eyes, grizzledeyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair which seemed a slight metamorphosisof the vulture. And where else would her ladyship have graciouslyconsented to sit by that dry-lipped feminine figure prematurely old,withered after short bloom like her artificial flowers, holding a shabbyvelvet reticule before her, and occasionally putting in her mouth thepoint with which she pricked her card? There too, very near the faircountess, was a respectable London tradesman, blonde and soft-handed, hissleek hair scrupulously parted behind and before, conscious of circularsaddressed to the nobility and gentry, whose distinguished patronageenabled him to take his holidays fashionably, and to a certain extent intheir distinguished company. Not his gambler's passion that nullifiesappetite, but a well-fed leisure, which, in the intervals of winning moneyin business and spending it showily, sees no better resource than winningmoney in play and spending it yet more showily--reflecting always thatProvidence had never manifested any disapprobation of his amusement, anddispassionate enough to leave off if the sweetness of winning much andseeing others lose had turned to the sourness of losing much and seeingothers win. For the vice of gambling lay in losing money at it. In hisbearing there might be something of the tradesman, but in his pleasures hewas fit to rank with the owners of the oldest titles. Standing close tohis chair was a handsome Italian, calm, statuesque, reaching across him toplace the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by anenvoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed overto an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There was aslight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old woman; butthe statuesque Italian remained impassive, and--probably secure in aninfallible system which placed his foot on the neck of chance--immediatelyprepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of an emaciated beau orworn-out libertine, who looked at life through one eye-glass, and held outhis hand tremulously when he asked for change. It could surely be noseverity of system, but rather some dream of white crows, or the inductionthat the eighth of the month was lucky, which inspired the fierce yettottering impulsiveness of his play.
But, while every single player differed markedly from every other, therewas a certain uniform negativeness of expression which had the effect of amask--as if they had all eaten of some root that for the time compelledthe brains of each to the same narrow monotony of action.
Deronda's first thought when his eyes fell on this scene of dull, gas-poisoned absorption, was that the gambling of Spanish shepherd-boys hadseemed to him more enviable:--so far Rousseau might be justified inmaintaining that art and science had done a poor service to mankind. Butsuddenly he felt the moment become dramatic. His attention was arrested bya young lady who, standing at an angle not far from him, was the last towhom his eyes traveled. She was bending and speaking English to a middle-aged lady seated at play beside her: but the next instant she returned toher play, and showed the full height of a graceful figure, with a facewhich might possibly be looked at without admiration, but could hardly bepassed with indifference.
The inward debate which she raised in Deronda gave to his eyes a growingexpression of scrutiny, tending farther and farther away from the glow ofmingled undefined sensibilities forming admiration. At one moment theyfollowed the movements of the figure, of the arms and hands, as thisproblematic sylph bent forward to deposit her stake with an air of firmchoice; and the next they returned to the face which, at presentunaffected by beholders, was directed steadily toward the game. The sylphwas a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in pale-gray,were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in order to passthem back again to the winning point, she looked round her with a surveytoo markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a little of that naturewhich we call art concealing an inward exultation.
But in the course of that survey her eyes met Deronda's, and instead ofaverting them as she would have desired to do, she was unpleasantlyconscious that they were arrested--how long? The darting sense that he wasmeasuring her and looking down on her as an inferior, that he was ofdifferent quality from the human dross around her, that he felt himself ina region outside and above her, and was examining her as a specimen of alower order, roused a tingling resentment which stretched the moment withconflict. It did not bring the blood to her cheeks, but it sent it awayfrom her lips. She controlled herself by the help of an inward defiance,and without other sign of emotion than this lip-paleness turned to herplay. But Deronda's gaze seemed to have acted as an evil eye. Her stakewas gone. No matter; she had been winning ever since she took to roulettewith a few napoleons at command, and had a considerable reserve. She hadbegun to believe in her luck, others had begun to believe in it: she hadvisions of being followed by a _cortège_ who would worship her as agoddess of luck and watch her play as a directing augury. Such things hadbeen known of male gamblers; why should not a woman have a like supremacy?Her friend and chaperon who had not wished her to play at first wasbeginning to approve, only administering the prudent advice to stop at theright moment and carry money back to England--advice to which Gwendolenhad replied that she cared for the excitement of play, not the winnings.On that supposition the present moment ought to have made the flood-tidein her eager experience of gambling. Yet, when her next stake was sweptaway, she felt the orbits of her eyes getting hot, and the certainty shehad (without looking) of that man still watching her was something like apressure which begins to be torturing. The more reason to her why sheshould not flinch, but go on playing as if she were indifferent to loss orgain. Her friend touched her elbow and proposed that they should quit thetable. For reply Gwendolen put ten louis on the same spot: she was in thatmood of defiance in which the mind loses sight of any end beyond thesatisfaction of enraged resistance; and with the puerile stupidity of adominant impulse includes luck among its objects of defiance. Since shewas not winning strikingly, the next best thing was to lose strikingly.She controlled her muscles, and showed no tremor of mouth or hands. Eachtime her stake was swept off she doubled it. Many were now watching her,but the sole observation she was conscious of was Deronda's, who, thoughshe never looked toward him, she was sure had not moved away. Such a dramatakes no long while to play out: development and catastrophe can often bemeasured by nothing clumsier than the moment-hand. "Faites votre jeu,mesdames et messieurs," said the automatic voice of destiny from betweenthe mustache and imperial of the croupier: and Gwendolen's arm wasstretched to deposit her last poor heap of napoleons. "Le jeu ne va plus,"said destiny. And in five seconds Gwendolen turned from the table, butturned resolutely with her face toward Deronda and looked at him. Therewas a smile of irony in his eyes as their glances met; but it was at leastbetter that he should have disregarded her as one of an insect swarm whohad no individual physiognomy. Besides, in spite of his superciliousnessand irony, it was difficult to believe that he did not admire her spiritas well as her person: he was young, handsome, distinguished inappearance--not one of these ridiculous and dowdy Philistines who thoughtit incumbent on them to blight the gaming-table with a sour look ofprotest as they passed by it. The general conviction that we are admirabledoes not easily give way before a single negative; rather when any ofVanity's large family, male or female, find their performance receivedcoldly, they are apt to believe that a little more of it will win over theunaccountable dissident. In Gwendolen's habits of mind it had been takenfor granted that she knew what was admirable and that she herself wasadmired. This basis of her thinking had received a disagreeableconcussion, and reeled a little, but was not easily to be overthrown.
In the evening the same room was more stiflingly heated, was brilliantwith gas and with the costumes of ladies who floated their trains along itor were seated on the ottomans.
know him?"Perhaps."ensemble du serpent_?"others."he an Englishman?"theterrace, !
The Nereid in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale sea-greenfeather fastened in silver falling backward over her green hat and lightbrown hair, was Gwendolen Harleth. She was under the wing, or rathersoared by the shoulder, of the lady who had sat by her at the roulette-table; and with them was a gentleman with a white mustache and clippedhair: solid-browed, stiff and German. They were walking about or standingto chat with acquaintances, and Gwendolen was much observed by the seatedgroups.
"A striking girl--that Miss Harleth--unlike others."
"Yes, she has got herself up as a sort of serpent now--all green andsilver, and winds her neck about a little more than usual."
"Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind ofgirl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty, Mr. Vandernoodt?"
"Very. A man might risk hanging for her--I mean a fool might."
Sir Hugo Mallinger?"distantvarieties of European type: Livonian and.
"You like a _nez retroussé_, then, and long narrow eyes?"
"When they go with such an _ensemble_."
"The _ensemble du serpent_?"
"If you will. Woman was tempted by a serpent; why not man?"
"She is certainly very graceful; but she wants a tinge of color in hercheeks. It is a sort of Lamia beauty she has."
"On the contrary, I think her complexion one of her chief charms. It is awarm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. And that delicate nose withits gradual little upward curve is distracting. And then her mouth--therenever was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so finely, eh,Mackworth?"
"Think so? I cannot endure that sort of mouth. It looks so self-complacent, as if it knew its own beauty--the curves are too immovable. Ilike a mouth that trembles more."
"For my part, I think her odious," said a dowager. "It is wonderful whatunpleasant girls get into vogue. Who are these Langens? Does anybody knowthem?"
"They are quite _comme il faut_. I have dined with them several times atthe _Russie_. The baroness is English. Miss Harleth calls her cousin. Thegirl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as possible."
"Dear me! and the baron?".
"A very good furniture picture."
"Your baroness is always at the roulette-table," said Mackworth. "I fancyshe has taught the girl to gamble."
"Oh, the old woman plays a very sober game; drops a ten-franc piece hereand there. The girl is more headlong. But it is only a freak."
"I hear she has lost all her winnings to-day. Are they rich? Who knows?"
"Ah, who knows? Who knows that about anybody?" said Mr. Vandernoodt,moving off to join the Langens.
The remark that Gwendolen wound her neck about more than usual thisevening was true. But it was not that she might carry out the serpent ideamore completely: it was that she watched for any chance of seeing Deronda,so that she might inquire about this stranger, under whose measuring gazeshe was still wincing. At last her opportunity came.
"Mr. Vandernoodt, you know everybody," said Gwendolen, not too eagerly,rather with a certain languor of utterance which she sometimes gave to herclear soprano. "Who is that near the door?"
"There are half a dozen near the door. Do you mean that old Adonis in theGeorge the Fourth wig?"
"No, no; the dark-haired young man on the right with the dreadfulexpression."
"Dreadful, do you call it? I think he is an uncommonly fine fellow."
"But who is he?"
"He is lately come to our hotel with Sir Hugo Mallinger."
"Sir Hugo Mallinger?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"No." (Gwendolen colored slightly.) "He has a place near us, but he nevercomes to it. What did you say was the name of that gentleman near thedoor?"
"Deronda--Mr. Deronda."
"What a delightful name! Is he an Englishman?"
"Yes. He is reported to be rather closely related to the baronet. You areinterested in him?"
"Yes. I think he is not like young men in general."
"And you don't admire young men in general?"
"Not in the least. I always know what they will say. I can't at all guesswhat this Mr. Deronda would say. What _does_ he say?"
"Nothing, chiefly. I sat with his party for a good hour last night on theterrace, and he never spoke--and was not smoking either. He looked bored."
"Another reason why I should like to know him. I am always bored."
"I should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. Shall I bringit about? Will you allow it, baroness?"
"Why not?--since he is related to Sir Hugo Mallinger. It is a new _rôle_of yours, Gwendolen, to be always bored," continued Madame von Langen,when Mr. Vandernoodt had moved away. "Until now you have always seemedeager about something from morning till night."
"That is just because I am bored to death. If I am to leave off play Imust break my arm or my collar-bone. I must make something happen; unlessyou will go into Switzerland and take me up the Matterhorn."
"Perhaps this Mr. Deronda's acquaintance will do instead of theMatterhorn."
"Perhaps."
But Gwendolen did not make Deronda's acquaintance on this occasion. Mr.Vandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, andwhen she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home.