Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LXVII.
"And you must love him ere to youHe will seem worthy of your love."--WORDSWORTH.
One might be tempted to envy Deronda providing new clothes for Mordecai,and pleasing himself as if he were sketching a picture in imagining theeffect of the fine gray flannel shirts and a dressing-gown very much likea Franciscan's brown frock, with Mordecai's head and neck above them. Halfhis pleasure was the sense of seeing Mirah's brother through her eyes, andsecuring her fervid joy from any perturbing impression. And yet, after hehad made all things ready, he was visited with doubt whether he were notmistaking her, and putting the lower effect for the higher: was she notjust as capable as he himself had been of feeling the impressivedistinction in her brother all the more for that aspect of poverty whichwas among the memorials of his past? But there were the Meyricks to bepropitiated toward this too Judaic brother; and Deronda detected himselfpiqued into getting out of sight everything that might feed the readyrepugnance in minds unblessed with that precious "seeing," that bathing ofall objects in a solemnity as of sun-set glow, which is begotten of aloving reverential emotion.
And his inclination would have been the more confirmed if he had heard thedialogue round Mrs. Meyrick's fire late in the evening, after Mirah hadgone to her room. Hans, settled now in his Chelsea rooms, had stayed late,and Mrs. Meyrick, poking the fire into a blaze, said--
"Now, Kate, put out your candle, and all come round the fire cosily. Hans,dear, do leave off laughing at those poems for the ninety-ninth time, andcome too. I have something wonderful to tell."
"As if I didn't know that, ma. I have seen it in the corner of your eyeever so long, and in your pretense of errands," said Kate, while the girlscame up to put their feet on the fender, and Hans, pushing his chair nearthem, sat astride it, resting his fists and chin on the back.
"Well, then, if you are so wise, perhaps you know that Mirah's brother isfound!" said Mrs. Meyrick, in her clearest accents.
"Oh, confound it!" said Hans, in the same moment.
"Hans, that is wicked," said Mab. "Suppose we had lost you?"
"I _cannot_ help being rather sorry," said Kate. "And her mother?--where isshe?"
"Her mother is dead."
"I hope the brother is not a bad man," said Amy.
"Nor a fellow all smiles and jewelry--a Crystal Palace Assyrian with a haton," said Hans, in the worst humor.
"Were there ever such unfeeling children?" said Mrs. Meyrick, a littlestrengthened by the need for opposition. "You don't think the least bit ofMirah's joy in the matter."
"You know, ma, Mirah hardly remembers her brother," said Kate.
"People who are lost for twelve years should never come back again," saidHans. "They are always in the way."
"Hans!" said Mrs. Meyrick, reproachfully. "If you had lost me for _twenty_years, I should have thought--"
"I said twelve years," Hans broke in. "Anywhere about twelve years is thetime at which lost relations should keep out of the way."
"Well, but it's nice finding people--there is something to tell," saidMab, clasping her knees. "Did Prince Camaralzaman find him?"
Then Mrs. Meyrick, in her neat, narrative way, told all she knew withoutinterruption. "Mr. Deronda has the highest admiration for him," she ended--"seems quite to look up to him. And he says Mirah is just the sister tounderstand this brother."
"Deronda is getting perfectly preposterous about those Jews," said Hanswith disgust, rising and setting his chair away with a bang. "He wants todo everything he can to encourage Mirah in her prejudices."
"Oh, for shame, Hans!--to speak in that way of Mr. Deronda," said Mab. AndMrs. Meyrick's face showed something like an under-current of expressionnot allowed to get to the surface.
"And now we shall never be all together," Hans went on, walking about withhis hands thrust into the pockets of his brown velveteen coat, "but wemust have this prophet Elijah to tea with us, and Mirah will think ofnothing but sitting on the ruins of Jerusalem. She will be spoiled as anartist--mind that--she will get as narrow as a nun. Everything will bespoiled--our home and everything. I shall take to drinking."
"Oh, really, Hans," said Kate, impatiently. "I do think men are the mostcontemptible animals in all creation. Every one of them must haveeverything to his mind, else he is unbearable."
"Oh, oh, oh, it's very dreadful!" cried Mab. "I feel as if ancient Ninevehwere come again."
"I should like to know what is the good of having gone to the universityand knowing everything, if you are so childish, Hans," said Amy. "Youought to put up with a man that Providence sends you to be kind to. _We_shall have to put up with him."
"I hope you will all of you like the new Lamentations of Jeremiah--'to becontinued in our next'--that's all," said Hans, seizing his wide-awake."It's no use being one thing more than another if one has to endure thecompany of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly at you, andrequiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their text. If you'reto be under a petrifying wall, you'd better be an old boot. I don't feelmyself an old boot." Then abruptly, "Good night, little mother," bending tokiss her brow in a hasty, desperate manner, and condescendingly, on hisway to the door, "Good-night, girls."
"Suppose Mirah knew how you are behaving," said Kate. But her answer was aslam of the door. "I _should_ like to see Mirah when Mr. Deronda tellsher," she went on to her mother. "I know she will look so beautiful."
But Deronda, on second thoughts, had written a letter, which Mrs. Meyrickreceived the next morning, begging her to make the revelation instead ofwaiting for him, not giving the real reason--that he shrank from goingagain through a narrative in which he seemed to be making himselfimportant and giving himself a character of general beneficence--butsaying that he wished to remain with Mordecai while Mrs. Meyrick wouldbring Mirah on what was to be understood as a visit, so that there mightbe a little interval before that change of abode which he expected thatMirah herself would propose.
Deronda secretly felt some wondering anxiety how far Mordecai, after yearsof solitary preoccupation with ideas likely to have become the moreexclusive from continual diminution of bodily strength, would allow him tofeel a tender interest in his sister over and above the rendering of piousduties. His feeling for the Cohens, and especially for little Jacob,showed a persistent activity of affection; but these objects had enteredinto his daily life for years; and Deronda felt it noticeable thatMordecai asked no new questions about Mirah, maintaining, indeed, anunusual silence on all subjects, and appearing simply to submit to thechanges that were coming over his personal life. He donned the new clothesobediently, but said afterward to Deronda, with a faint smile, "I mustkeep my old garments by me for a remembrance." And when they were seated,awaiting Mirah, he uttered no word, keeping his eyelids closed, but yetshowing restless feeling in his face and hands. In fact, Mordecai wasundergoing that peculiar nervous perturbation only known to those whoseminds, long and habitually moving with strong impetus in one current, aresuddenly compelled into a new or reopened channel. Susceptible people,whose strength has been long absorbed by dormant bias, dread an interviewthat imperiously revives the past, as they would dread a threateningillness. Joy may be there, but joy, too, is terrible.
Deronda felt the infection of excitement, and when he heard the ring atthe door, he went out, not knowing exactly why, that he might see andgreet Mirah beforehand. He was startled to find that she had on the hatand cloak in which he had first seen her--the memorable cloak that hadonce been wetted for a winding-sheet. She had come down-stairs equipped inthis way; and when Mrs. Meyrick said, in a tone of question, "You like togo in that dress, dear?" she answered, "My brother is poor, and I want tolook as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from me"--imagining that she should meet him in the workman's dress. Deronda couldnot make any remark, but felt secretly rather ashamed of his ownfastidious arrangements. They shook hands silently, for Mirah looked paleand awed.
When Deronda opened the door for her, Mordecai had risen, and had his eyesturned toward it with an eager gaze. Mirah took only two or three steps,and then stood still. They looked at each other, motionless. It was lesstheir own presence that they felt than another's; they were meeting firstin memories, compared with which touch was no union. Mirah was the firstto break the silence, standing where she was.
ofnothing but sitting on the ruins.
"Ezra," she said, in exactly the same tone as when she was telling of hermother's call to him.
Mordecai with a sudden movement advanced and laid his hand on hershoulders. He was the head taller, and looked down at her tenderly whilehe said, "That was our mother's voice. You remember her calling me?"
"Yes, and how you answered her--'Mother!'--and I knew you loved her."Mirah threw her arms round her brother's neck, clasped her little handsbehind it, and drew down his face, kissing it with childlike lavishness,Her hat fell backward on the ground and disclosed all her curls.
"Ah, the dear head, the dear head?" said Mordecai, in a low loving tone,laying his thin hand gently on the curls.
"You are very ill, Ezra," said Mirah, sadly looking at him with moreobservation.
"Yes, dear child, I shall not be long with you in the body," was the quietanswer.
"Oh, I will love you and we will talk to each other," said Mirah, with asweet outpouring of her words, as spontaneous as bird-notes. "I will tellyou everything, and you will teach me:--you will teach me to be a goodJewess--what she would have liked me to be. I shall always be with youwhen I am not working. For I work now. I shall get money to keep us. Oh, Ihave had such good friends."
Mirah until now had quite forgotten that any one was by, but here sheturned with the prettiest attitude, keeping one hand on her brother's armwhile she looked at Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda. The little mother's happyemotion in witnessing this meeting of brother and sister had already wonher to Mordecai, who seemed to her really to have more dignity andrefinement than she had felt obliged to believe in from Deronda's account.
"See this dear lady!" said Mirah. "I was a stranger, a poor wanderer, andshe believed in me, and has treated me as a daughter. Please give mybrother your hand," she added, beseechingly, taking Mrs. Meyrick's handand putting it in Mordecai's, then pressing them both with her own andlifting them to her lips.
"The Eternal Goodness has been with you," said Mordecai. "You have helpedto fulfill our mother's prayer."
"I think we will go now, shall we?--and return later," said Deronda,laying a gentle pressure on Mrs. Meyrick's arm, and she immediatelycomplied. He was afraid of any reference to the facts about himself whichhe had kept back from Mordecai, and he felt no uneasiness now in thethought of the brother and sister being alone together.