Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XXXIX.
"Vor den Wissenden sich stellenSicher ist's in alien Fällen!Wenn du lange dich gequäletWeiss er gleich wo dir es fehlet;Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen,Denn er weiss wo du's getroffen,"--GOETHE: _West-östlicker Divan_.
Momentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to thesmall house at Chelsea, when there was the discussion about Mirah's publicname. But for the family group there, what appeared to be the chiefsequence connected with it occurred two days afterward. About four o'clockwheels paused before the door, and there came one of those knocks with anaccompanying ring which serve to magnify the sense of social existence ina region where the most enlivening signals are usually those of themuffin-man. All the girls were at home, and the two rooms were throwntogether to make space for Kate's drawing, as well as a great length ofembroidery which had taken the place of the satin cushions--a sort of_pièce de résistance_ in the courses of needlework, taken up by any cleverfingers that happened to be at liberty. It stretched across the front roompicturesquely enough, Mrs. Meyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab inthe middle, and Amy at the other end. Mirah, whose performances in pointof sewing were on the make-shift level of the tailor-bird's, her educationin that branch having been much neglected, was acting as reader to theparty, seated on a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate asmodel for a title-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in thesuccessive volumes of the family tea-table. She was giving forth withcharming distinctness the delightful Essay of Elia, "The Praise ofChimney-Sweeps," and all we're smiling over the "innocent blackness," whenthe imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier spheres, andthey looked up in wonderment.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Meyrick; "can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a grandcarriage, Amy?"
"No--only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman."
survey her.and imagining that hewould now.
"The Prime Minister, I should think," said Kate dryly. "Hans says thegreatest man in London may get into a hansom cab."
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Mab. "Suppose it should be Lord Russell!"
The five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servantbringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there wasseen bowing toward Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of therespected Premier--tall and physically impressive even in his kid andkerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: infact, as Mrs. Meyrick saw from the card, _Julius Klesmer_.
Even embarrassment could hardly have made the "little mother" awkward, butquick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation, and feltwell satisfied that the great personage had come to Mirah instead ofrequiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active interest. Butwhen he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the cottage piano, Mabthought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire family existence as pettyand private as an establishment of mice in the Tuileries. Klesmer'spersonality, especially his way of glancing round him, immediatelysuggested vast areas and a multitudinous audience, and probably they madethe usual scenery of his consciousness, for we all of us carry on ourthinking in some habitual locus where there is a presence of other souls,and those who take in a larger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seemmightily vain and affected. Klesmer was vain, but not more so than manycontemporaries of heavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles onelike a spear out of a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures,these were as natural to him as the length of his fingers; and the rankestaffectation he could have shown would have been to look diffident anddemure. While his grandiose air was making Mab feel herself a ridiculoustoy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in the details around himwith a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. He remembered a home nolonger than this on the outskirts of Bohemia; and in the figurativeBohemia too he had had large acquaintance with the variety and romancewhich belong to small incomes. He addressed Mrs. Meyrick with the utmostdeference.
"I hope I have not taken too great a freedom. Being in the neighborhood, Iventured to save time by calling. Our friend, Mr. Deronda, mentioned to mean understanding that I was to have the honor of becoming acquainted witha young lady here--Miss Lapidoth."
Klesmer had really discerned Mirah in the first moment of entering, but,with subtle politeness, he looked round bowingly at the three sisters asif he were uncertain which was the young lady in question.
"Those are my daughters: this is Miss Lapidoth," said Mrs. Meyrick, wavingher hand toward Mirah.
"Ah," said Klesmer, in a tone of gratified expectation, turning a radiantsmile and deep bow to Mirah, who, instead of being in the least taken bysurprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. She liked the look of Klesmer,feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician and a kindman.
"You will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me," headded, aware that they would all be relieved by getting rid ofpreliminaries.
"I shall be very glad. It is good of you to be willing to listen to me,"said Mirah, moving to the piano. "Shall I accompany myself?"
"By all means," said Klesmer, seating himself, at Mrs. Meyrick'sinvitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acutelittle mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she reallysaid to herself, "He will like her singing better if he sees her."
All the feminine hearts except Mirah's were beating fast with anxiety,thinking Klesmer terrific as he sat with his listening frown on, and onlydaring to look at him furtively. If he did say anything severe it would beso hard for them all. They could only comfort themselves with thinkingthat Prince Camaralzaman, who had heard the finest things, preferredMirah's singing to any other:--also she appeared to be doing her verybest, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual.
The song she had chosen was a fine setting of some words selected fromLeopardi's grand Ode to Italy:--
This was recitative: then followed--
magic spectacles and sees everything.
"_Ma la gloria--non vedo_"--
a mournful melody, a rhythmic plaint. After this came a climax of devouttriumph--passing from the subdued adoration of a happy Andante in thewords--
fine setting of some words selected fromLeopardi.
"_Beatissimi voi.Che offriste il petto alle nemiche lancePer amor di costei che al sol vi diede_"--
to the joyous outburst of an exultant Allegro in--
"_Oh viva, oh viva:Beatissimi voiMentre nel monde si favelli o scriva._"
When she had ended, Klesmer said after a moment--
"That is Joseph Leo's music."
"Yes, he was my last master--at Vienna: so fierce and so good," saidMirah, with a melancholy smile. "He prophesied that my voice would not dofor the stage. And he was right."
"_Con_tinue, if you please," said Klesmer, putting out his lips andshaking his long fingers, while he went on with a smothered articulationquite unintelligible to the audience.
The three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word ofpraise. Mrs. Meyrick was a little alarmed.
toward him tobe looked at; and he, going to a little.
Mirah, simply bent on doing what Klesmer desired, and imagining that hewould now like to hear her sing some German, went through PrinceRadzivill's music to Gretchen's songs in the "Faust," one after the otherwithout any interrogatory pause. When she had finished he rose and walkedto the extremity of the small space at command, then walked back to thepiano, where Mirah had risen from her seat and stood looking toward himwith her little hands crossed before her, meekly awaiting judgment; thenwith a sudden unknitting of his brow and with beaming eyes, he stretchedout his hand and said abruptly, "Let us shake hands: you are a musician."
Mab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held Klesmeradorable. Mrs. Meyrick took a long breath.
But straightway the frown came again, the long hand, back uppermost, wasstretched out in quite a different sense to touch with finger-tip the backof Mirah's, and with protruded lip he said--
"Not for great tasks. No high roofs. We are no skylarks. We must bemodest." Klesmer paused here. And Mab ceased to think him adorable: "as ifMirah had shown the least sign of conceit!"
Mirah was silent, knowing that there was a specific opinion to be waitedfor, and Klesmer presently went on--"I would not advise--I would notfurther your singing in any larger space than a private drawing-room. Butyou will do there. And here in London that is one of the best careersopen. Lessons will follow. Will you come and sing at a private concert atmy house on Wednesday?"
"Oh, I shall be grateful," said Mirah, putting her hands togetherdevoutly. "I would rather get my bread in that way than by anything morepublic. I will try to improve. What should I work at most?"
Klesmer made a preliminary answer in noises which sounded like wordsbitten in two and swallowed before they were half out, shaking his fingersthe while, before he said, quite distinctly, "I shall introduce you toAstorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give youadvice." Then addressing Mrs. Meyrick, he added, "Mrs. Klesmer will callbefore Wednesday, with your permission."
"We shall feel that to be a great kindness," said Mrs. Meyrick.
'Vor den Wissenden sich stellen;'
bysurprise, had a calm pleasure.
you know the rest?"
"'Sicher ist's in alien Fällen.'"
said Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying "Schön!" put out his hand againas a good-bye.
He had certainly chosen the most delicate way of praising Mirah, and theMeyrick girls had now given him all their esteem. But imagine Mab'sfeeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, "Thatyoung lady is musical, I see!" She was a mere blush and sense ofscorching.
"Yes," said Mirah, on her behalf. "And she has a touch."
"Oh, please, Mirah--a scramble, not a touch," said Mab, in anguish, with ahorrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadful diviningpersonage--evidently Satan in gray trousers--might order her to sit downto the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the midst of her. Butthis was cheap payment for her amazed joy when Klesmer said benignantly,turning to Mrs. Meyrick, "Will she like to accompany Miss Lapidoth andhear the music on Wednesday?"
"There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her," said Mrs. Meyrick."She will be most glad and grateful."
Thereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than theyhad ever been bowed to before. Altogether it was an amusing picture--thelittle room with so much of its diagonal taken up in Klesmer's magnificentbend to the small feminine figures like images a little less than life-size, the grave Holbein faces on the walls, as many as were not otherwiseoccupied, looking hard at this stranger who by his face seemed a dignifiedcontemporary of their own, but whose garments seemed a deplorable mockeryof the human form.
Mrs. Meyrick could not help going out of the room with Klesmer and closingthe door behind her. He understood her, and said with a frowning nod--
"She will do: if she doesn't attempt too much and her voice holds out, shecan make an income. I know that is the great point: Deronda told me. Youare taking care of her. She looks like a good girl."
"She is an angel," said the warm-hearted woman.
"No," said Klesmer, with a playful nod; "she is a pretty Jewess: theangels must not get the credit of her. But I think she has found aguardian angel," he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way.
The four young creatures had looked at each other mutely till the doorbanged and Mrs. Meyrick re-entered. Then there was an explosion. Mabclapped her hands and danced everywhere inconveniently; Mrs. Meyrickkissed Mirah and blessed her; Amy said emphatically, "We can never get hera new dress before Wednesday!" and Kate exclaimed, "Thank heaven my tableis not knocked over!"
Mirah had reseated herself on the music-stool without speaking, and thetears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her friends.
"Now, now, Mab!" said Mrs. Meyrick; "come and sit down reasonably and letus talk?"
"Yes, let us talk," said Mab, cordially, coming back to her low seat andcaressing her knees. "I am beginning to feel large again. Hans said he wascoming this afternoon. I wish he had been here--only there would have beenno room for him. Mirah, what are you looking sad for?"
convenient for pictures."thepiano, where Mirah had risen from her.
"I am too happy," said Mirah. "I feel so full of gratitude to you all; andhe was so very kind."
"Yes, at last," said Mab, sharply. "But he might have said somethingencouraging sooner. I thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning,and only said, '_Con_tinue.' I hated him all the long way from the top ofhis hair to the toe of his polished boot."
"Nonsense, Mab; he has a splendid profile," said Kate.
"_Now_, but not _then_. I cannot bear people to keep their minds bottledup for the sake of letting them off with a pop. They seem to grudge makingyou happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand. However, Iforgive him everything," said Mab, with a magnanimous air, "but he hasinvited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one? Was it becauseI have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it like a newt fromunder a stone?"
"It was your way of listening to the singing, child," said Mrs. Meyrick."He has magic spectacles and sees everything through them, depend upon it.But what was that German quotation you were so ready with, Mirah--youlearned puss?"
"Oh, that was not learning," said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into anamused smile. "I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that it issafer to do anything--singing or anything else--before those who know andunderstand all about it."
"That was why you were not one bit frightened, I suppose," said Amy. "Butnow, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on Wednesday."
"I don't want anything better than this black merino," said Mirah, risingto show the effect. "Some white gloves and some new _bottines_." She putout her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper.
"There comes Hans," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Stand still, and let us hear whathe says about the dress. Artists are the best people to consult about suchthings."
"You don't consult me, ma," said Kate, lifting up her eyebrow with aplayful complainingness. "I notice mothers are like the people I dealwith--the girls' doings are always priced low."
it than you will oftenget in a musician.
"My dear child, the boys are such a trouble--we could never put up withthem, if we didn't make believe they were worth more," said Mrs. Meyrick,just as her boy entered. "Hans, we want your opinion about Mirah's dress.A great event has happened. Klesmer has been here, and she is going tosing at his house on Wednesday among grand people. She thinks this dresswill do."
"Let me see," said Hans. Mirah in her childlike way turned toward him tobe looked at; and he, going to a little further distance, knelt with oneknee on a hassock to survey her.
"This would be thought a very good stage-dress for me," she said,pleadingly, "in a part where I was to come on as a poor Jewess and sing tofashionable Christians."
"It would be effective," said Hans, with a considering air; "it wouldstand out well among the fashionable _chiffons_."
"But you ought not to claim all the poverty on your side, Mirah," saidAmy. "There are plenty of poor Christians and dreadfully rich Jews andfashionable Jewesses."
"I didn't mean any harm," said Mirah. "Only I have been used to thinkingabout my dress for parts in plays. And I almost always had a part with aplain dress."
"That makes me think it questionable," said Hans, who had suddenly becomeas fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had thought Derondawas, apropos of the Berenice-pictures. "It looks a little too theatrical.We must not make you a _rôle_ of the poor Jewess--or of being a Jewess atall." Hans had a secret desire to neutralize the Jewess in private life,which he was in danger of not keeping secret.
"But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall neverbe anything else," said Mirah. "I always feel myself a Jewess."
"But we can't feel that about you," said Hans, with a devout look. "Whatdoes it signify whether a perfect woman is a Jewess or not?"
"That is your kind way of praising me; I never was praised so before,"said Mirah, with a smile, which was rather maddening to Hans and made himfeel still more of a cosmopolitan.
"People don't think of me as a British Christian," he said, his facecreasing merrily. "They think of me as an imperfectly handsome young manand an unpromising painter."
"But you are wandering from the dress," said Amy. "If that will not do,how are we to get another before Wednesday? and to-morrow Sunday?"
"Indeed this will do," said Mirah, entreatingly. "It is all real, youknow," here she looked at Hans--"even if it seemed theatrical. PoorBerenice sitting on the ruins--any one might say that was theatrical, butI know that this is just what she would do."
"I am a scoundrel," said Hans, overcome by this misplaced trust. "That ismy invention. Nobody knows that she did that. Shall you forgive me for notsaying so before?"
"Oh, yes," said Mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. "You knew itwas what she would be sure to do--a Jewess who had not been faithful--whohad done what she did and was penitent. She could have no joy but toafflict herself; and where else would she go? I think it is very beautifulthat you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel."
"The Jewesses of that time sat on ruins," said Hans, starting up with asense of being checkmated. "That makes them convenient for pictures."
"But the dress--the dress," said Amy; "is it settled?"
"Yes; is it not?" said Mirah, looking doubtfully at Mrs. Meyrick, who inher turn looked up at her son, and said, "What do you think, Hans?"
"That dress will not do," said Hans, decisively. "She is not going to siton ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go toRegent Street. It's plenty of time to get anything you like--a black silkdress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of charity.She has talents to make people indebted to her."
"I think it is what Mr. Deronda would like--for her to have a handsomedress," said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating.
"Of course it is," said Hans, with some sharpness. "You may take my wordfor what a gentleman would feel."
"I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like me to do," said Mirah, gravely,seeing that Mrs. Meyrick looked toward her; and Hans, turning on his heel,went to Kate's table and took up one of her drawings as if his interestneeded a new direction.
am beginning to feel large again.
"Shouldn't you like to make a study of Klesmer's head, Hans?" said Kate."I suppose you have often seen him?"
"Seen him!" exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his head and mane,seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were surveyingan amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down perpendicularly toward thekeys. But then in another instant he wheeled round on the stool, looked atMirah and said, half timidly--"Perhaps you don't like this mimicry; youmust always stop my nonsense when you don't like it."
Mirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still,but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said--"Thankyou. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think hecould, belonging to you," she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick.
In this way Hans got food for his hope. How could the rose help it whenseveral bees in succession took its sweet odor as a sign of personalattachment?