Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
There be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a Prometheus Bound not_after_ but _before_ he had well got the celestial fire intothe _narthex_ whereby it might be conveyed to mortals: thrust bythe Kratos and Bia of instituted methods into a solitude of despisedideas, fastened in throbbing helplessness by the fatal pressure ofpoverty and disease--a solitude where many pass by, but none regard.
"Second-sight" is a flag over disputed ground. But it is matter ofknowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions--nay,traveled conclusions--continually take the form of images which have aforeshadowing power; the deed they would do starts up before them incomplete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or dreadrises into vision with a seed-like growth, feeding itself fast onunnumbered impressions. They are not always the less capable of theargumentative process, nor less sane than the commonplace calculators ofthe market: sometimes it may be that their natures have manifold openings,like the hundred-gated Thebes, where there may naturally be a greater andmore miscellaneous inrush than through a narrow beadle-watched portal. Nodoubt there are abject specimens of the visionary, as there is a minimmammal which you might imprison in the finger of your glove. That smallrelative of the elephant has no harm in him; but what great mental orsocial type is free from specimens whose insignificance is both ugly andnoxious? One is afraid to think of all that the genus "patriot" embraces;or of the elbowing there might be at the day of judgment for those whoranked as authors, and brought volumes either in their hands or on trucks.
This apology for inevitable kinship is meant to usher in some facts aboutMordecai, whose figure had bitten itself into Deronda's mind as a newquestion which he felt an interest in getting answered. But the interestwas no more than a vaguely-expectant suspense: the consumptive-lookingJew, apparently a fervid student of some kind, getting his crust by aquiet handicraft, like Spinoza, fitted into none of Deronda'santicipations.
It was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on Mordecai. For manywinters, while he had been conscious of an ebbing physical life, and aswidening spiritual loneliness, all his passionate desire had concentrateditself in the yearning for some young ear into which he could pour hismind as a testament, some soul kindred enough to accept the spiritualproduct of his own brief, painful life, as a mission to be executed. Itwas remarkable that the hopefulness which is often the beneficent illusionof consumptive patients, was in Mordecai wholly diverted from the prospectof bodily recovery and carried into the current of this yearning fortransmission. The yearning, which had panted upward from out of over-whelming discouragements, had grown into a hope--the hope into a confidentbelief, which, instead of being checked by the clear conception he had ofhis hastening decline, took rather the intensity of expectant faith in aprophecy which has only brief space to get fulfilled in.
Some years had now gone since he had first begun to measure men with akeen glance, searching for a possibility which became more and more adistinct conception. Such distinctness as it had at first was reachedchiefly by a method of contrast: he wanted to find a man who differed fromhimself. Tracing reasons in that self for the rebuffs he had met with andthe hindrances that beset him, he imagined a man who would have all theelements necessary for sympathy with him, but in an embodiment unlike hisown: he must be a Jew, intellectually cultured, morally fervid--in allthis a nature ready to be plenished from Mordecai's; but his face andframe must be beautiful and strong, he must have been used to all therefinements of social life, his voice must flow with a full and easycurrent, his circumstances be free from sordid need: he must glorify thepossibilities of the Jew, not sit and wonder as Mordecai did, bearing thestamp of his people amid the sign of poverty and waning breath. Sensitiveto physical characteristics, he had, both abroad and in England, lookedat pictures as well as men, and in a vacant hour he had sometimes lingeredin the National Gallery in search of paintings which might feed hishopefulness with grave and noble types of the human form, such as mightwell belong to men of his own race. But he returned in disappointment. Theinstances are scattered but thinly over the galleries of Europe, in whichthe fortune or selection even of the chief masters has given to art a faceat once young, grand, and beautiful, where, if there is any melancholy, itis no feeble passivity, but enters into the foreshadowed capability ofheroism.
a solitude where many pass by, but none regard.interestwas no more than a vaguely-expectant suspense: the consumptive-lookingJew, apparently a fervid student of some kind, getting his crust by aquiet handicraft, like Spinoza, fitted into.
Some observant persons may perhaps remember his emaciated figure, and darkeyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front of a picture that hadtouched him either to new or habitual meditation: he commonly wore a clothcap with black fur round it, which no painter would have asked him to takeoff. But spectators would be likely to think of him as an odd-looking Jewwho probably got money out of pictures; and Mordecai, when he looked atthem, was perfectly aware of the impression he made. Experience hadrendered him morbidly alive to the effect of a man's poverty and otherphysical disadvantages in cheapening his ideas, unless they are those of aPeter the Hermit who has a tocsin for the rabble. But he was too sane andgenerous to attribute his spiritual banishment solely to the excusableprejudices of others; certain incapacities of his own had made thesentence of exclusion; and hence it was that his imagination hadconstructed another man who would be something more ample than the secondsoul bestowed, according to the notion of the Cabbalists, to help out theinsufficient first--who would be a blooming human life, ready toincorporate all that was worthiest in an existence whose visible, palpablepart was burning itself fast away. His inward need for the conception ofthis expanded, prolonged self was reflected as an outward necessity. Thethoughts of his heart (that ancient phrase best shadows the truth) seemedto him too precious, too closely interwoven with the growth of things notto have a further destiny. And as the more beautiful, the stronger, themore executive self took shape in his mind, he loved it beforehand with anaffection half identifying, half contemplative and grateful.
Mordecai's mind wrought so constantly in images, that his coherent trainsof thought often resembled the significant dreams attributed to sleepersby waking persons in their most inventive moments: nay, they oftenresembled genuine dreams in their way of breaking off the passage from theknown to the unknown. Thus, for a long while, he habitually thought of theBeing answering to his need as one distantly approaching or turning hisback toward him, darkly painted against a golden sky. The reason of thegolden sky lay in one of Mordecai's habits. He was keenly alive to somepoetic aspects of London; and a favorite resort of his, when strength andleisure allowed, was to some of the bridges, especially about sunrise orsunset. Even when he was bending over watch-wheels and trinkets, or seatedin a small upper room looking out on dingy bricks and dingy crackedwindows, his imagination spontaneously planted him on some spot where hehad a far-stretching scene; his thoughts went on in wide spaces; andwhenever he could, he tried to have in reality the influences of a largesky. Leaning on the parapet of Blackfriar's Bridge, and gazingmeditatively, the breadth and calm of the river, with its long vista halfhazy, half luminous, the grand dim masses of tall forms of buildings whichwere the signs of world-commerce, the oncoming of boats and barges fromthe still distance into sound and color, entered into his mood and blentthemselves indistinguishably with his thinking, as a fine symphony towhich we can hardly be said to listen, makes a medium that bears up ourspiritual wings. Thus it happened that the figure representative ofMordecai's longing was mentally seen darkened by the excess of light inthe aerial background. But in the inevitable progress of his imaginationtoward fuller detail, he ceased to see the figure with its back towardhim. It began to advance, and a face became discernible; the words youth,beauty, refinement, Jewish birth, noble gravity, turned into hardlyindividual but typical form and color: gathered from his memory of facesseen among the Jews of Holland and Bohemia, and from the paintings whichrevived that memory. Reverently let it be said of this mature spiritualneed that it was akin to the boy's and girl's picturing of the futurebeloved; but the stirrings of such young desire are feeble compared withthe passionate current of an ideal life straining to embody itself, madeintense by resistance to imminent dissolution. The visionary form became acompanion and auditor; keeping a place not only in the waking imagination,but in those dreams of lighter slumber of which it is truest to say, "Isleep, but my heart waketh"--when the disturbing trivial story ofyesterday is charged with the impassioned purpose of years.
Of late the urgency of irremediable time, measured by the gradual chokingof life, had turned Mordecai's trust into an agitated watch for thefulfillment that must be at hand. Was the bell on the verge of tolling,the sentence about to be executed? The deliverer's footstep must be near--the deliverer who was to rescue Mordecai's spiritual travail fromoblivion, and give it an abiding-place in the best heritage of his people.An insane exaggeration of his own value, even if his ideas had been astrue and precious as those of Columbus or Newton, many would have countedthis yearning, taking it as the sublimer part for a man to say, "If not I,then another," and to hold cheap the meaning of his own life. But thefuller nature desires to be an agent, to create, and not merely to lookon: strong love hungers to bless, and not merely to behold blessing. Andwhile there is warmth enough in the sun to feed an energetic life, therewill still be men to feel, "I am lord of this moment's change, and willcharge it with my soul."
But with that mingling of inconsequence which belongs to us all, and notunhappily, since it saves us from many effects of mistake, Mordecai'sconfidence in the friend to come did not suffice to make him passive, andhe tried expedients, pathetically humble, such as happened to be withinhis reach, for communicating something of himself. It was now two yearssince he had taken up his abode under Ezra Cohen's roof, where he wasregarded with much good-will as a compound of workman, dominie, vessel ofcharity, inspired idiot, man of piety, and (if he were inquired into)dangerous heretic. During that time little Jacob had advanced intoknickerbockers, and into that quickness of apprehension which has beenalready made manifest in relation to hardware and exchange. He had alsoadvanced in attachment to Mordecai, regarding him as an inferior, butliking him none the worse, and taking his helpful cleverness as he mighthave taken the services of an enslaved Djinn. As for Mordecai, he hadgiven Jacob his first lessons, and his habitual tenderness easily turnedinto the teacher's fatherhood. Though he was fully conscious of thespiritual distance between the parents and himself, and would never haveattempted any communication to them from his peculiar world, the boy movedhim with that idealizing affection which merges the qualities of theindividual child in the glory of childhood and the possibilities of a longfuture. And this feeling had drawn him on, at first without premeditation,and afterward with conscious purpose, to a sort of outpouring in the earof the boy which might have seemed wild enough to any excellent man ofbusiness who overheard it. But none overheard when Jacob went up toMordecai's room one day, for example, in which there was little work to bedone, or at an hour when the work was ended, and after a brief lesson inEnglish reading or in numeration, was induced to remain standing at histeacher's knees, or chose to jump astride them, often to the patientfatigue of the wasted limbs. The inducement was perhaps the mending of atoy, or some little mechanical device in which Mordecai's well-practicedfinger-tips had an exceptional skill; and with the boy thus tethered, hewould begin to repeat a Hebrew poem of his own, into which years before hehad poured his first youthful ardors for that conception of a blended pastand future which was the mistress of his soul, telling Jacob to say thewords after him.
"The boy will get them engraved within him," thought Mordecai; "it is away of printing."
"My words may rule him some day. Their meaning may flash out on him. It isso with a nation--after many days."
Meanwhile Jacob's sense of power was increased and his time enlivened by astore of magical articulation with which he made the baby crow, or drovethe large cat into a dark corner, or promised himself to frighten anyincidental Christian of his own years. One week he had unfortunately seena street mountebank, and this carried off his muscular imitativeness insad divergence from New Hebrew poetry, after the model of Jehuda ha-Levi.Mordecai had arrived at a fresh passage in his poem; for as soon as Jacobhad got well used to one portion, he was led on to another, and a freshcombination of sounds generally answered better in keeping him fast for afew minutes. The consumptive voice, generally a strong high baritone, withits variously mingling hoarseness, like a haze amidst illuminations, andits occasional incipient gasp had more than the usual excitement, while itgave forth Hebrew verses with a meaning something like this:--
"Away from me the garment of forgetfulness.Withering the heart;The oil and wine from presses of the Goyim,Poisoned with scorn.Solitude is on the sides of Mount Nebo,In its heart a tomb:There the buried ark and golden cherubimMake hidden light:There the solemn gaze unchanged,The wings are spread unbroken:Shut beneath in silent awful speechThe Law lies graven.Solitude and darkness are my covering,And my heart a tomb;Smite and shatter it, O Gabriel!Shatter it as the clay of the founderAround the golden image."
In the absorbing enthusiasm with which Mordecai had intoned rather thanspoken this last invocation, he was unconscious that Jacob had ceased tofollow him and had started away from his knees; but pausing he saw, as bya sudden flash, that the lad had thrown himself on his hands with his feetin the air, mountebank fashion, and was picking up with his lips a brightfarthing which was a favorite among his pocket treasures. This might havebeen reckoned among the tricks Mordecai was used to, but at this moment itjarred him horribly, as if it had been a Satanic grin upon his prayer.
"Child! child!" he called out with a strange cry that startled Jacob tohis feet, and then he sank backward with a shudder, closing his eyes.
"What?" said Jacob, quickly. Then, not getting an immediate answer, hepressed Mordecai's knees with a shaking movement, in order to rouse him.Mordecai opened his eyes with a fierce expression in them, leaned forward,grasped the little shoulders, and said in a quick, hoarse whisper--
"A curse is on your generation, child. They will open the mountain anddrag forth the golden wings and coin them into money, and the solemn facesthey will break up into ear-rings for wanton women! And they shall getthemselves a new name, but the angel of ignominy, with the fiery brand,shall know them, and their heart shall be the tomb of dead desires thatturn their life to rottenness."
The aspect and action of Mordecai were so new and mysterious to Jacob--they carried such a burden of obscure threat--it was as if the patient,indulgent companion had turned into something unknown and terrific: thesunken dark eyes and hoarse accents close to him, the thin grapplingfingers, shook Jacob's little frame into awe, and while Mordecai wasspeaking he stood trembling with a sense that the house was tumbling inand they were not going to have dinner any more. But when the terriblespeech had ended and the pinch was relaxed, the shock resolved itself intotears; Jacob lifted up his small patriarchal countenance and wept aloud.This sign of childish grief at once recalled Mordecai to his usual gentleself: he was not able to speak again at present, but with a maternalaction he drew the curly head toward him and pressed it tenderly againsthis breast. On this Jacob, feeling the danger well-nigh over, howled atease, beginning to imitate his own performance and improve upon it--a sortof transition from impulse into art often observable. Indeed, the next dayhe undertook to terrify Adelaide Rebekah in like manner, and succeededvery well.
But Mordecai suffered a check which lasted long, from the consciousness ofa misapplied agitation; sane as well as excitable, he judged severely hismoments of aberration into futile eagerness, and felt discredited withhimself. All the more his mind was strained toward the discernment of thatfriend to come, with whom he would have a calm certainty of fellowship andunderstanding.
It was just then that, in his usual midday guardianship of the old book-shop, he was struck by the appearance of Deronda, and it is perhapscomprehensible now why Mordecai's glance took on a sudden eager interestas he looked at the new-comer: he saw a face and frame which seemed to himto realize the long-conceived type. But the disclaimer of Jewish birth wasfor the moment a backward thrust of double severity, the particulardisappointment tending to shake his confidence in the more indefiniteexpectation. Nevertheless, when he found Deronda seated at the Cohens'table, the disclaimer was for the moment nullified: the first impressionreturned with added force, seeming to be guaranteed by this second meetingunder circumstance more peculiar than the former; and in asking Deronda ifhe knew Hebrew, Mordecai was so possessed by the new inrush of belief,that he had forgotten the absence of any other condition to thefulfillment of his hopes. But the answering "No" struck them all downagain, and the frustration was more painful than before. After turning hisback on the visitor that Sabbath evening, Mordecai went through days of adeep discouragement, like that of men on a doomed ship, who havingstrained their eyes after a sail, and beheld it with rejoicing, behold itnever advance, and say, "Our sick eyes make it." But the long-contemplatedfigure had come as an emotional sequence of Mordecai's firmest theoreticconvictions; it had been wrought from the imagery of his most passionatelife; and it inevitably reappeared--reappeared in a more specific self-asserting form than ever. Deronda had that sort of resemblance to thepreconceived type which a finely individual bust or portrait has to themore generalized copy left in our minds after a long interval: we renewour memory with delight, but we hardly know with how much correction. Andnow, his face met Mordecai's inward gaze as it had always belonged to theawaited friend, raying out, moreover, some of that influence which belongsto breathing flesh; till by-and-by it seemed that discouragement hadturned into a new obstinacy of resistance, and the ever-recurrent visionhad the force of an outward call to disregard counter-evidence, and keepexpectation awake. It was Deronda now who was seen in the often painfulnight-watches, when we are all liable to be held with the clutch of asingle thought--whose figure, never with its back turned, was seen inmoments of soothed reverie or soothed dozing, painted on that golden skywhich was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approachingrest.
Mordecai knew that the nameless stranger was to come and redeem his ring;and, in spite of contrary chances, the wish to see him again was growinginto a belief that he should see him. In the January weeks, he felt anincreasing agitation of that subdued hidden quality which hinders nervouspeople from any steady occupation on the eve of an anticipated change. Hecould not go on with his printing of Hebrew on little Jacob's mind; orwith his attendance at a weekly club, which was another effort of the sameforlorn hope: something else was coming. The one thing he longed for wasto get as far as the river, which he could do but seldom and withdifficulty. He yearned with a poet's yearning for the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and fluctuating lights on the waterwhich seems to breathe with a life that can shiver and mourn, be comfortedand rejoice.