Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XXXVI. Page 3
sentencemore urgently; he felt as if he were seizing.
The next day, recovered from the shuddering fit of this evening scene, shedetermined to use the charter which Grandcourt had scornfully given her,and to talk as much as she liked with Deronda; but no opportunitiesoccurred, and any little devices she could imagine for creating them wererejected by her pride, which was now doubly active. Not toward Derondahimself--she was singularly free from alarm lest he should think heropenness wanting in dignity: it was part of his power over her that shebelieved him free from all misunderstanding as to the way in which sheappealed to him; or rather, that he should misunderstand her had neverentered into her mind. But the last morning came, and still she had neverbeen able to take up the dropped thread of their talk, and she was withoutdevices. She and Grandcourt were to leave at three o'clock. It was tooirritating that after a walk in the grounds had been planned in Deronda'shearing, he did not present himself to join in it. Grandcourt was gonewith Sir Hugo to King's Topping, to see the old manor-house; others of thegentlemen were shooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and thewaterfowl, and everything else that she least wanted to see, with theladies, with old Lord Pentreath and his anecdotes, with Mr. Vandernoodtand his admiring manners. The irritation became too strong for her;without premeditation, she took advantage of the winding road to linger alittle out of sight, and then set off back to the house, almost runningwhen she was safe from observation. She entered by a side door, and thelibrary was on her left hand; Deronda, she knew, was often there; whymight she not turn in there as well as into any other room in the house?She had been taken there expressly to see the illuminated family tree, andother remarkable things--what more natural than that she should like tolook in again? The thing most to be feared was that the room would beempty of Deronda, for the door was ajar. She pushed it gently, and lookedround it. He was there, writing busily at a distant table, with his backtoward the door (in fact, Sir Hugo had asked him to answer someconstituents' letters which had become pressing). An enormous log fire,with the scent of Russia from the books, made the great room as warmlyodorous as a private chapel in which the censors have been swinging. Itseemed too daring to go in--too rude to speak and interrupt him; yet shewent in on the noiseless carpet, and stood still for two or three minutes,till Deronda, having finished a letter, pushed it aside for signature, andthrew himself back to consider whether there were anything else for him todo, or whether he could walk out for the chance of meeting the party whichincluded Gwendolen, when he heard her voice saying, "Mr. Deronda."
It was certainly startling. He rose hastily, turned round, and pushed awayhis chair with a strong expression of surprise.
"Am I wrong to come in?" said Gwendolen.
"I thought you were far on your walk," said Deronda.
"I turned back," said Gwendolen.
"Do you intend to go out again? I could join you now, if you would allowme."
"No; I want to say something, and I can't stay long," said Gwendolen,speaking quickly in a subdued tone, while she walked forward and restedher arms and muff on the back of the chair he had pushed away from him. "Iwant to tell you that it is really so--I can't help feeling remorse forhaving injured others. That was what I meant when I said that I had doneworse than gamble again and pawn the necklace again--something moreinjurious, as you called it. And I can't alter it. I am punished, but Ican't alter it. You said I could do many things. Tell me again. Whatshould you do--what should you feel if you were in my place?"
The hurried directness with which she spoke--the absence of all her littleairs, as if she were only concerned to use the time in getting an answerthat would guide her, made her appeal unspeakably touching.
Deronda said,--"I should feel something of what you feel--deep sorrow."
"But what would you try to do?" said Gwendolen, with urgent quickness.
"Order my life so as to make any possible amends, and keep away from doingany sort of injury again," said Deronda, catching her sense that the timefor speech was brief.
"But I can't--I can't; I must go on," said Gwendolen, in a passionate loudwhisper. "I have thrust out others--I have made my gain out of their loss--tried to make it--tried. And I must go on. I can't alter it."
It was impossible to answer this instantaneously. Her words had confirmedhis conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in swift imagesbefore him. His feeling for those who had been thrust out sanctioned herremorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart was full of pityfor her. But as soon as he could he answered--taking up her last words--
"That is the bitterest of all--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.But if you submitted to that as men submit to maiming or life-longincurable disease?--and made the unalterable wrong a reason for moreeffort toward a good, that may do something to counterbalance the evil?One who has committed irremediable errors may be scourged by thatconsciousness into a higher course than is common. There are manyexamples. Feeling what it is to have spoiled one life may well make uslong to save other lives from being spoiled."
"But you have not wronged any one, or spoiled their lives," saidGwendolen, hastily. "It is only others who have wronged _you_."
Deronda colored slightly, but said immediately--"I suppose our keenfeeling for ourselves might end in giving us a keen feeling for others,if, when we are suffering acutely, we were to consider that others gothrough the same sharp experience. That is a sort of remorse beforecommission. Can't you understand that?"
"I think I do--now," said Gwendolen. "But you were right--I _am_ selfish.I have never thought much of any one's feelings, except my mother's. Ihave not been fond of people. But what can I do?" she went on, morequickly. "I must get up in the morning and do what every one else does. Itis all like a dance set beforehand. I seem to see all that can be--and Iam tired and sick of it. And the world is all confusion to me"--she made agesture of disgust. "You say I am ignorant. But what is the good of tryingto know more, unless life were worth more?"
"This good," said Deronda promptly, with a touch of indignant severity,which he was inclined to encourage as his own safeguard; "life _would_ beworth more to you: some real knowledge would give you an interest in theworld beyond the small drama of personal desires. It is the curse of yourlife--forgive me--of so many lives, that all passion is spent in thatnarrow round, for want of ideas and sympathies to make a larger home forit. Is there any single occupation of mind that you care about withpassionate delight or even independent interest?"
Deronda paused, but Gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by anelectric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently--
"I take what you said of music for a small example--it answers for alllarger things--you will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy init. What sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in it forsouls pauperized by inaction? If one firmament has no stimulus for ourattention and awe, I don't see how four would have it. We should stampevery possible world with the flatness of our own inanity--which isnecessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. The refuge you areneeding from personal trouble is the higher, the religious life, whichholds an enthusiasm for something more than our own appetites andvanities. The few may find themselves in it simply by an elevation offeeling; but for us who have to struggle for our wisdom, the higher lifemust be a region in which the affections are clad with knowledge."
The half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in Deronda's voice came, asoften happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather thanfrom severity toward Gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial effect on herthan any soothings. Nothing is feebler than the indolent rebellion ofcomplaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is comparative activity.For the moment she felt like a shaken child--shaken out of its wailinginto awe, and she said humbly--
"I will try. I will think."
They both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence hadarrested them,--for Deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure whichis apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering around us,--till Gwendolen began again--
"You said affection was the best thing, and I have hardly any--none aboutme. If I could, I would have mamma; but that is impossible. Things havechanged to me so--in such a short time. What I used not to like I long fornow. I think I am almost getting fond of the old things now they aregone." Her lip trembled.
"Take the present suffering as a painful letting in of light," saidDeronda, more gently. "You are conscious of more beyond the round of yourown inclinations--you know more of the way in which your life presses onothers, and their life on yours. I don't think you could have escaped thepainful process in some form or other."
"But it is a very cruel form," said Gwendolen, beating her foot on theground with returning agitation. "I am frightened at everything. I amfrightened at myself. When my blood is fired I can do daring things--takeany leap; but that makes me frightened at myself." She was looking atnothing outside her; but her eyes were directed toward the window, awayfrom Deronda, who, with quick comprehension said--
"Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea ofincreasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. Fixed meditation may doa great deal toward defining our longing or dread. We are not always in astate of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our memories andgradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our tastes. Take your fearas a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. It may make consequencespassionately present to you. Try to take hold of your sensibility, and useit as if it were a faculty, like vision." Deronda uttered each sentencemore urgently; he felt as if he were seizing a faint chance of rescuingher from some indefinite danger.
"Yes, I know; I understand what you mean," said Gwendolen in her loudwhisper, not turning her eyes, but lifting up her small gloved hand andwaving it in deprecation of the notion that it was easy to obey thatadvice. "But if feelings rose--there are some feelings--hatred and anger--how can I be good when they keep rising? And if there came a moment when Ifelt stifled and could bear it no longer----" She broke off, and withagitated lips looked at Deronda, but the expression on his face piercedher with an entirely new feeling. He was under the baffling difficulty ofdiscerning, that what he had been urging on her was thrown into the palliddistance of mere thought before the outburst of her habitual emotion. Itwas as if he saw her drowning while his limbs were bound. The painedcompassion which was spread over his features as he watched her, affectedher with a compunction unlike any she had felt before, and in a changedand imploring tone she said--
"I am grieving you. I am ungrateful. You _can_ help me. I will think ofeverything. I will try. Tell me--it will not be a pain to you that I havedared to speak of my trouble to you? You began it, you know, when yourebuked me." There was a melancholy smile on her lips as she said that,but she added more entreatingly, "It will not be a pain to you?"
"Not if it does anything to save you from an evil to come," said Deronda,with strong emphasis; "otherwise, it will be a lasting pain."
"No--no--it shall not be. It may be--it shall be better with me because Ihave known you." She turned immediately, and quitted the room.
When she was on the first landing of the staircase, Sir Hugo passed acrossthe hall on his way to the library, and saw her. Grandcourt was not withhim.
Deronda, when the baronet entered, was standing in his ordinary attitude,grasping his coat-collar, with his back to the table, and with thatindefinable expression by which we judge that a man is still in the shadowof a scene which he has just gone through. He moved, however, and began toarrange the letters.
"Has Mrs. Grandcourt been in here?" said Sir Hugo.
"Yes, she has."
"Where are the others?"
"I believe she left them somewhere in the grounds."
After a moment's silence, in which Sir Hugo looked at a letter withoutreading it, he said "I hope you are not playing with fire, Dan--youunderstand me?"
"I believe I do, sir," said Deronda, after a slight hesitation, which hadsome repressed anger in it. "But there is nothing answering to yourmetaphor--no fire, and therefore no chance of scorching."
Sir Hugo looked searchingly at him, and then said, "So much the better.For, between ourselves, I fancy there may be some hidden gunpowder in thatestablishment."