Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER XLII. Page 1
"Wenn es eine Stutenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die höchsteStaffel erstiegen; wen die Dauer der Schmerzen und die Geduld, mitwelcher sie ertragen werden, adeln, so nehmen es die Juden mit denHochgeborenen aller Länder auf; wenn eine Literatur reich genanntwird, die wenige klassische Trauerspiele besitzt, welcher Platzgebührt dann einer Tragodie die anderthalb Jahrtausende wahrt,gedichtet und dargestellt von den Helden selber?"--ZUNZ: _DieSynagogale Poesie des Mittelalters._
"If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all thenations--if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they areborne ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land--if aliterature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies,what shall we say to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years,in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?"
Deronda had lately been reading that passage of Zunz, and it occurred tohim by way of contrast when he was going to the Cohens, who certainly boreno obvious stamp of distinction in sorrow or in any other form ofaristocracy. Ezra Cohen was not clad in the sublime pathos of the martyr,and his taste for money-getting seemed to be favored with that successwhich has been the most exasperating difference in the greed of Jewsduring all the ages of their dispersion. This Jeshurun of a pawnbroker wasnot a symbol of the great Jewish tragedy; and yet was there not somethingtypical in the fact that a life like Mordecai's--a frail incorporation ofthe national consciousness, breathing with difficult breath--was nested inthe self-gratulating ignorant prosperity of the Cohens?
Glistening was the gladness in their faces when Deronda reappeared amongthem. Cohen himself took occasion to intimate that although the diamondring, let alone a little longer, would have bred more money, he did notmind _that_--not a sixpence--when compared with the pleasure of the womenand children in seeing a young gentleman whose first visit had been soagreeable that they had "done nothing but talk of it ever since." YoungMrs. Cohen was very sorry that baby was asleep, and then very glad thatAdelaide was not yet gone to bed, entreating Deronda not to stay in theshop, but to go forthwith into the parlor to see "mother and thechildren." He willingly accepted the invitation, having provided himselfwith portable presents; a set of paper figures for Adelaide, and an ivorycup and ball for Jacob.
The grandmother had a pack of cards before her and was making "plates"with the children. A plate had just been thrown down and kept itselfwhole.
"Stop!" said Jacob, running to Deronda as he entered. "Don't tread on myplate. Stop and see me throw it up again."
Deronda complied, exchanging a smile of understanding with thegrandmother, and the plate bore several tossings before it came to pieces;then the visitor was allowed to come forward and seat himself. He observedthat the door from which Mordecai had issued on the former visit was nowclosed, but he wished to show his interest in the Cohens before disclosinga yet stronger interest in their singular inmate.
It was not until he had Adelaide on his knee, and was setting up the paperfigures in their dance on the table, while Jacob was already practicingwith the cup and ball, that Deronda said--
"Is Mordecai in just now?"
"Where is he, Addy?" said Cohen, who had seized an interval of business tocome and look on.
"In the workroom there," said his wife, nodding toward the closed door.
"The fact is, sir," said Cohen, "we don't know what's come to him thislast day or two. He's always what I may call a little touched, you know"--here Cohen pointed to his own forehead--"not quite so rational in allthings, like you and me; but he's mostly wonderful regular and industriousso far as a poor creature can be, and takes as much delight in the boy asanybody could. But this last day or two he's been moving about like asleep-walker, or else sitting as still as a wax figure."
"It's the disease, poor dear creature," said the grandmother, tenderly. "Idoubt whether he can stand long against it."
"No; I think its only something he's got in his head." said Mrs. Cohen theyounger. "He's been turning over writing continually, and when I speak tohim it takes him ever so long to hear and answer."
"You may think us a little weak ourselves," said Cohen, apologetically."But my wife and mother wouldn't part with him if he was a still worseencumbrance. It isn't that we don't know the long and short of matters,but it's our principle. There's fools do business at a loss and don't knowit. I'm not one of 'em."
"Oh, Mordecai carries a blessing inside him," said the grandmother.
"He's got something the matter inside him," said Jacob, coming up tocorrect this erratum of his grandmother's. "He said he couldn't talk tome, and he wouldn't have a bit o' bun."
"So far from wondering at your feeling for him," said Deronda, "I alreadyfeel something of the same sort myself. I have lately talked to him atRam's book-shop--in fact, I promised to call for him here, that we mightgo out together."
"That's it, then!" said Cohen, slapping his knee. "He's been expectingyou, and it's taken hold of him. I suppose he talks about his learning toyou. It's uncommonly kind of _you_, sir; for I don't suppose there's muchto be got out of it, else it wouldn't have left him where he is. Butthere's the shop." Cohen hurried out, and Jacob, who had been listeninginconveniently near to Deronda's elbow, said to him with obligingfamiliarity, "I'll call Mordecai for you, if you like."
"No, Jacob," said his mother; "open the door for the gentleman, and lethim go in himself Hush! don't make a noise."
Skillful Jacob seemed to enter into the play, and turned the handle of thedoor as noiselessly as possible, while Deronda went behind him and stoodon the threshold. The small room was lit only by a dying fire and onecandle with a shade over it. On the board fixed under the window, variousobjects of jewelry were scattered: some books were heaped in the cornerbeyond them. Mordecai was seated on a high chair at the board with hisback to the door, his hands resting on each other and on the board, awatch propped on a stand before him. He was in a state of expectation assickening as that of a prisoner listening for the delayed deliverance--when he heard Deronda's voice saying, "I am come for you. Are you ready?"
Immediately he turned without speaking, seized his furred cap which laynear, and moved to join Deronda. It was but a moment before they were bothin the sitting-room, and Jacob, noticing the change in his friend's airand expression, seized him by the arm and said, "See my cup and ball!"sending the ball up close to Mordecai's face, as something likely to cheera convalescent. It was a sign of the relieved tension in Mordecai's mindthat he could smile and say, "Fine, fine!"
"You have forgotten your greatcoat and comforter," said young Mrs. Cohen,and he went back into the work-room and got them.
"He's come to life again, do you see?" said Cohen, who had re-entered--speaking in an undertone. "I told you so: I'm mostly right." Then in hisusual voice, "Well, sir, we mustn't detain you now, I suppose; but I hopethis isn't the last time we shall see you."
"Shall you come again?" said Jacob, advancing. "See, I can catch the ball;I'll bet I catch it without stopping, if you come again."
"He has clever hands," said Deronda, looking at the grandmother. "Whichside of the family does he get them from?"
But the grandmother only nodded towards her son, who said promptly, "Myside. My wife's family are not in that line. But bless your soul! ours isa sort of cleverness as good as gutta percha; you can twist it which wayyou like. There's nothing some old gentlemen won't do if you set 'em toit." Here Cohen winked down at Jacob's back, but it was doubtful whetherthis judicious allusiveness answered its purpose, for its subject gave anasal whinnying laugh and stamped about singing, "Old gentlemen, oldgentlemen," in chiming cadence.
Deronda thought, "I shall never know anything decisive about these peopleuntil I ask Cohen pointblank whether he lost a sister named Mirah when shewas six years old." The decisive moment did not yet seem easy for him toface. Still his first sense of repulsion at the commonness of these peoplewas beginning to be tempered with kindlier feeling. However unrefinedtheir airs and speech might be, he was forced to admit some moralrefinement in their treatment of the consumptive workman, whose mentaldistinction impressed them chiefly as a harmless, silent raving.
"The Cohens seem to have an affection for you," said Deronda, as soon ashe and Mordecai were off the doorstep.
"And I for them," was the immediate answer. "They have the heart of theIsraelite within them, though they are as the horse and the mule, withoutunderstanding beyond the narrow path they tread."
"I have caused you some uneasiness, I fear," said Deronda, "by my slownessin fulfilling my promise. I wished to come yesterday, but I found itimpossible."
"Yes--yes, I trusted you. But it is true I have been uneasy, for thespirit of my youth has been stirred within me, and this body is not strongenough to bear the beating of its wings. I am as a man bound andimprisoned through long years: behold him brought to speech of his fellowand his limbs set free: he weeps, he totters, the joy within him threatensto break and overthrow the tabernacle of flesh."
"You must not speak too much in this evening air," said Deronda, feelingMordecai's words of reliance like so many cords binding him painfully."Cover your mouth with the woolen scarf. We are going to the _Hand andBanner_, I suppose, and shall be in private there?"
"No, that is my trouble that you did not come yesterday. For this is theevening of the club I spoke of, and we might not have any minutes aloneuntil late, when all the rest are gone. Perhaps we had better seek anotherplace. But I am used to that only. In new places the outer world presseson me and narrows the inward vision. And the people there are familiarwith my face."
"I don't mind the club if I am allowed to go in," said Deronda. "It isenough that you like this place best. If we have not enough time I willcome again. What sort of club is it?"
haze of smoke on what to Derondawas a new and striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various ages.
"It is called 'The Philosophers.' They are few--like the cedars ofLebanon--poor men given to thought. But none so poor as I am: andsometimes visitors of higher worldly rank have been brought. We areallowed to introduce a friend, who is interested in our topics. Eachorders beer or some other kind of drink, in payment for the room. Most ofthem smoke. I have gone when I could, for there are other men of my racewho come, and sometimes I have broken silence. I have pleased myself witha faint likeness between these poor philosophers and the Masters whohanded down the thought of our race--the great Transmitters, who laboredwith their hands for scant bread, but preserved and enlarged for us theheritage of memory, and saved the soul of Israel alive as a seed among thetombs. The heart pleases itself with faint resemblances."
"I shall be very glad to go and sit among them, if that will suit you. Itis a sort of meeting I should like to join in," said Deronda, not withoutrelief in the prospect of an interval before he went through the strain ofhis next private conversation with Mordecai.
In three minutes they had opened the glazed door with the red curtain, andwere in the little parlor, hardly much more than fifteen feet square,where the gaslight shone through a slight haze of smoke on what to Derondawas a new and striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various ages, frombetween twenty and thirty to fifty, all shabbily dressed, most of themwith clay pipes in their mouths, were listening with a look ofconcentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress, with blondehair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who, holding hispipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his knee with theright, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley (the comparison of theavalanche in his "Prometheus Unbound")
"As thought by thought is piled, till some great truthIs loosened, and the nations echo round."
"I have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects," saidMordecai. "He has traveled and studied much."
"Is the gentlemen anonymous? Is he a Great 'Unknown?'" said the broad-chested quoter of Shelley, with a humorous air.
"My name is Daniel Deronda. I am unknown, but not in any sense great." Thesmile breaking over the stranger's grave face as he said this was soagreeable that there was a general indistinct murmur, equivalent to a"Hear, hear," and the broad man said--
"You recommend the name, sir, and are welcome. Here, Mordecai, come tothis corner against me," he added, evidently wishing to give the coziestplace to the one who most needed it.
Deronda was well satisfied to get a seat on the opposite side, where hisgeneral survey of the party easily included Mordecai, who remained aneminently striking object in this group of sharply-characterized figures,more than one of whom, even to Daniel's little exercised discrimination,seemed probably of Jewish descent.
In fact pure English blood (if leech or lancet can furnish us with theprecise product) did not declare itself predominantly in the party atpresent assembled. Miller, the broad man, an exceptional second-handbookseller who knew the insides of books, had at least grand-parents whocalled themselves German, and possibly far-away ancestors who deniedthemselves to be Jews; Buchan, the saddler, was Scotch; Pash, thewatchmaker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked Jew; Gideon, theoptical instrument maker, was a Jew of the red-haired, generous-featuredtype easily passing for Englishmen of unusually cordial manners: andCroop, the dark-eyed shoemaker, was probably more Celtic than he knew.Only three would have been discernable everywhere as Englishman: the wood-inlayer Goodwin, well-built, open-faced, pleasant-voiced; the floridlaboratory assistant Marrables; and Lily, the pale, neat-faced copying-clerk, whose light-brown hair was set up in a small parallelogram abovehis well-filled forehead, and whose shirt, taken with an otherwise seedycostume, had a freshness that might be called insular, and perhaps evensomething narrower.
Certainly a company select of the select among poor men, being drawntogether by a taste not prevalent even among the privileged heirs oflearning and its institutions; and not likely to amuse any gentleman insearch of crime or low comedy as the ground of interest in people whoseweekly income is only divisible into shillings. Deronda, even if he hadnot been more than usually inclined to gravity under the influence of whatwas pending between him and Mordecai, would not have set himself to findfood for laughter in the various shades of departure from the tone ofpolished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of these menwho had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch indulgences,making the utmost of scant opportunity. He looked around him with thequiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered whisky andwater, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which,characteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ever used for hisown behoof, having reasons for not smoking himself, but liking to indulgeothers. Perhaps it was his weakness to be afraid of seeming straight-laced, and turning himself into a sort of diagram instead of a growthwhich can exercise the guiding attraction of fellowship. That he made adecidedly winning impression on the company was proved by their showingthemselves no less at ease than before, and desirous of quickly resumingtheir interrupted talk.
"This is what I call one of our touch-and-go nights, sir," said Miller,who was implicitly accepted as a sort of moderator--on addressing Derondaby way of explanation, and nodding toward each person whose name hementioned. "Sometimes we stick pretty close to the point. But tonight ourfriend Pash, there, brought up the law of progress; and we got onstatistics; then Lily, there, saying we knew well enough before countingthat in the same state of society the same sort of things would happen,and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain the same, thanthat qualities should remain the same, for in relation to society numbersare qualities--the number of drunkards is a quality in society--thenumbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no instruction, onlysetting us to consider the causes of difference between different socialstates--Lily saying this, we went off on the causes of social change, andwhen you came in I was going upon the power of ideas, which I hold to bethe main transforming cause."
"I don't hold with you there, Miller," said Goodwin, the inlayer, moreconcerned to carry on the subject than to wait for a word from the newguest. "For either you mean so many sorts of things by ideas that I get noknowledge by what you say, any more than if you said light was a cause; orelse you mean a particular sort of ideas, and then I go against yourmeaning as too narrow. For, look at it in one way, all actions men put abit of thought into are ideas--say, sowing seed, or making a canoe, orbaking clay; and such ideas as these work themselves into life and go ongrowing with it, but they can't go apart from the material that set themto work and makes a medium for them. It's the nature of wood and stoneyielding to the knife that raises the idea of shaping them, and withplenty of wood and stone the shaping will go on. I look at it, that suchideas as are mixed straight away with all the other elements of life arepowerful along with 'em. The slower the mixing, the less power they have.And as to the causes of social change, I look at it in this way--ideas area sort of parliament, but there's a commonwealth outside and a good dealof the commonwealth is working at change without knowing what theparliament is doing."
"But if you take ready mixing as your test of power," said Pash, "some ofthe least practical ideas beat everything. They spread without beingunderstood, and enter into the language without being thought of."
"They may act by changing the distribution of gases," said Marrables;"instruments are getting so fine now, men may come to register the spreadof a theory by observed changes in the atmosphere and correspondingchanges in the nerves."
"Yes," said Pash, his dark face lighting up rather impishly, "there is theidea of nationalities; I dare say the wild asses are snuffing it, andgetting more gregarious."