Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XVI. Page 3
The circumstances arose out of an enthusiastic friendship which extendedinto his after-life. Of the same year with himself, and occupying smallrooms close to his, was a youth who had come as an exhibitioner fromChrist's Hospital, and had eccentricities enough for a Charles Lamb. Onlyto look at his pinched features and blonde hair hanging over his collarreminded one of pale quaint heads by early German painters; and when thisfaint coloring was lit up by a joke, there came sudden creases about themouth and eyes which might have been moulded by the soul of an agedhumorist. His father, an engraver of some distinction, had been deadeleven years, and his mother had three girls to educate and maintain on ameagre annuity. Hans Meyrick--he had been daringly christened afterHolbein--felt himself the pillar, or rather the knotted and twisted trunk,round which these feeble climbing plants must cling. There was no want ofability or of honest well-meaning affection to make the prop trustworthy:the ease and quickness with which he studied might serve him to win prizesat Cambridge, as he had done among the Blue Coats, in spite ofirregularities. The only danger was, that the incalculable tendencies inhim might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might befrustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious,scattered impulses. He could not be said to have any one bad habit; yet atlonger or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and didthings that would have made the worst habits.
Hans in his right mind, however, was a lovable creature, and in Deronda hehad happened to find a friend who was likely to stand by him with the moreconstancy, from compassion for these brief aberrations that might bring along repentance. Hans, indeed, shared Deronda's rooms nearly as much as heused his own: to Deronda he poured himself out on his studies, hisaffairs, his hopes; the poverty of his home, and his love for thecreatures there; the itching of his fingers to draw, and his determinationto fight it away for the sake of getting some sort of a plum that he mightdivide with his mother and the girls. He wanted no confidence in return,but seemed to take Deronda as an Olympian who needed nothing--an egotismin friendship which is common enough with mercurial, expansive natures.Deronda was content, and gave Meyrick all the interest he claimed, gettingat last a brotherly anxiety about him, looking after him in his erraticmoments, and contriving by adroitly delicate devices not only to make upfor his friend's lack of pence, but to save him from threatening chances.Such friendship easily becomes tender: the one spreads strong shelteringwings that delight in spreading, the other gets the warm protection whichis also a delight. Meyrick was going in for a classical scholarship, andhis success, in various ways momentous, was the more probable from thesteadying influence of Deronda's friendship.
But an imprudence of Meyrick's, committed at the beginning of the autumnterm, threatened to disappoint his hopes. With his usual alternationbetween unnecessary expense and self-privation, he had given too muchmoney for an old engraving which fascinated him, and to make up for it,had come from London in a third-class carriage with his eyes exposed to abitter wind and any irritating particles the wind might drive before it.The consequence was a severe inflammation of the eyes, which for some timehung over him the threat of a lasting injury. This crushing trouble calledout all Deronda's readiness to devote himself, and he made every otheroccupation secondary to that of being companion and eyes to Hans, workingwith him and for him at his classics, that if possible his chance of theclassical scholarship might be saved. Hans, to keep the knowledge of hissuffering from his mother and sisters, alleged his work as a reason forpassing the Christmas at Cambridge, and his friend stayed up with him.
Meanwhile Deronda relaxed his hold on his mathematics, and Hans,reflecting on this, at length said: "Old fellow, while you are hoisting meyou are risking yourself. With your mathematical cram one may be likeMoses or Mahomet or somebody of that sort who had to cram, and forgot inone day what it had taken him forty to learn."
Deronda would not admit that he cared about the risk, and he had reallybeen beguiled into a little indifference by double sympathy: he was veryanxious that Hans should not miss the much-needed scholarship, and he felta revival of interest in the old studies. Still, when Hans, rather late inthe day, got able to use his own eyes, Deronda had tenacity enough to tryhard and recover his lost ground. He failed, however; but he had thesatisfaction of seeing Meyrick win.
Success, as a sort of beginning that urged completion, might havereconciled Deronda to his university course; but the emptiness of allthings, from politics to pastimes, is never so striking to us as when wefail in them. The loss of the personal triumph had no severity for him,but the sense of having spent his time ineffectively in a mode of workingwhich had been against the grain, gave him a distaste for any renewal ofthe process, which turned his imagined project of quitting Cambridge intoa serious intention. In speaking of his intention to Meyrick he made itappear that he was glad of the turn events had taken--glad to have thebalance dip decidedly, and feel freed from his hesitations; but heobserved that he must of course submit to any strong objection on the partof Sir Hugo.
Meyrick's joy and gratitude were disturbed by much uneasiness. He believedin Deronda's alleged preference, but he felt keenly that in serving himDaniel had placed himself at a disadvantage in Sir Hugo's opinion, and hesaid mournfully, "If you had got the scholarship, Sir Hugo would havethought that you asked to leave us with a better grace. You have spoiledyour luck for my sake, and I can do nothing to amend it."
"Yes, you can; you are to be a first-rate fellow. I call that a first-rateinvestment of my luck."
"Oh, confound it! You save an ugly mongrel from drowning, and expect himto cut a fine figure. The poets have made tragedies enough about signingone's self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something plummy; Ishall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to be good, andwas uncomfortable ever after."
But Hans lost no time in secretly writing the history of the affair to SirHugo, making it plain that but for Deronda's generous devotion he couldhardly have failed to win the prize he had been working for.
The two friends went up to town together: Meyrick to rejoice with hismother and the girls in their little home at Chelsea; Deronda to carry outthe less easy task of opening his mind to Sir Hugo. He relied a little onthe baronet's general tolerance of eccentricities, but he expected moreopposition than he met with. He was received with even warmer kindnessthan usual, the failure was passed over lightly, and when he detailed hisreasons for wishing to quit the university and go to study abroad. SirHugo sat for some time in a silence which was rather meditative thansurprised. At last he said, looking at Daniel with examination, "So youdon't want to be an Englishman to the backbone after all?"
"I want to be an Englishman, but I want to understand other points ofview. And I want to get rid of a merely English attitude in studies."
"I see; you don't want to be turned out in the same mould as every otheryoungster. And I have nothing to say against your doffing some of ournational prejudices. I feel the better myself for having spent a good dealof my time abroad. But, for God's sake, keep an English cut, and don'tbecome indifferent to bad tobacco! And, my dear boy, it is good to beunselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. It will not do togive yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; youmust know where to find yourself. However, I shall put no vote on yourgoing. Wait until I can get off Committee, and I'll run over with you."
So Deronda went according to his will. But not before he had spent somehours with Hans Meyrick, and been introduced to the mother and sisters inthe Chelsea home. The shy girls watched and registered every look of theirbrother's friend, declared by Hans to have been the salvation of him, afellow like nobody else, and, in fine, a brick. They so thoroughlyaccepted Deronda as an ideal, that when he was gone the youngest set towork, under the criticism of the two elder girls, to paint him as PrinceCamaralzaman.