Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LI. Page 2
"Where was my grandfather's home?"
"Here in Genoa, where I was married; and his family had lived heregenerations ago. But my father had been in various countries."
"You must surely have lived in England?"
"My mother was English--a Jewess of Portuguese descent. My father marriedher in England. Certain circumstances of that marriage made all thedifference in my life: through that marriage my father thwarted his ownplans. My mother's sister was a singer, and afterward she married theEnglish partner of a merchant's house here in Genoa, and they came andlived here eleven years. My mother died when I was eight years old, and myfather allowed me to be continually with my Aunt Leonora and be taughtunder her eyes, as if he had not minded the danger of her encouraging mywish to be a singer, as she had been. But this was it--I saw it again andagain in my father:--he did not guard against consequences, because hefelt sure he could hinder them if he liked. Before my aunt left Genoa, Ihad had enough teaching to bring out the born singer and actress withinme: my father did not know everything that was done; but he knew that Iwas taught music and singing--he knew my inclination. That was nothing tohim: he meant that I should obey his will. And he was resolved that Ishould marry my cousin Ephraim, the only one left of my father's familythat he knew. I wanted not to marry. I thought of all plans to resist it,but at last I found that I could rule my cousin, and I consented. Myfather died three weeks after we were married, and then I had my way!"She uttered these words almost exultantly; but after a little pause herface changed, and she said in a biting tone, "It has not lasted, though.My father is getting his way now."
She began to look more contemplatively again at her son, and presentlysaid--
"You are like him--but milder--there is something of your own father inyou; and he made it the labor of his life to devote himself to me: woundup his money-changing and banking, and lived to wait upon me--he wentagainst his conscience for me. As I loved the life of my art, so he lovedme. Let me look at your hand again: the hand with the ring on. It was yourfather's ring."
He drew his chair nearer to her and gave her his hand. We know what kindof a hand it was: her own, very much smaller, was of the same type. As hefelt the smaller hand holding his, as he saw nearer to him the face thatheld the likeness of his own, aged not by time but by intensity, thestrong bent of his nature toward a reverential tenderness asserted itselfabove every other impression and in his most fervent tone he said--
"Mother! take us all into your heart--the living and the dead. Forgiveevery thing that hurts you in the past. Take my affection."
She looked at him admiringly rather than lovingly, then kissed him on thebrow, and saying sadly, "I reject nothing, but I have nothing to give,"she released his hand and sank back on her cushions. Deronda turned palewith what seems always more of a sensation than an emotion--the pain ofrepulsed tenderness. She noticed the expression of pain, and said, stillwith melodious melancholy in her tones--
"It is better so. We must part again soon and you owe me no duties. I didnot wish you to be born. I parted with you willingly. When your fatherdied I resolved that I would have no more ties, but such as I could freemyself from. I was the Alcharisi you have heard of: the name had magicwherever it was carried. Men courted me. Sir Hugo Mallinger was one whowished to marry me. He was madly in love with me. One day I asked him, 'Isthere a man capable of doing something for love of me, and expectingnothing in return?' He said: 'What is it you want done?' I said, 'Take myboy and bring him up as an Englishman, and never let him know anythingabout his parents.' You were little more than two years old, and weresitting on his foot. He declared that he would pay money to have such aboy. I had not meditated much on the plan beforehand, but as soon as I hadspoken about it, it took possession of me as something I could not restwithout doing. At first he thought I was not serious, but I convinced him,and he was never surprised at anything. He agreed that it would be foryour good, and the finest thing for you. A great singer and actress is aqueen, but she gives no royalty to her son. All that happened at Naples.And afterward I made Sir Hugo the trustee of your fortune. That is what Idid; and I had a joy in doing it. My father had tyrannized over me--hecared more about a grandson to come than he did about me: I counted asnothing. You were to be such a Jew as he; you were to be what he wanted.But you were my son, and it was my turn to say what you should be. I saidyou should not know you were a Jew."
"And for months events have been preparing me to be glad that I am a Jew,"said--Deronda, his opposition roused again. The point touched the quick ofhis experience. "It would always have been better that I should have knownthe truth. I have always been rebelling against the secrecy that lookedlike shame. It is no shame to have Jewish parents--the shame is to disownit."
"You say it was a shame to me, then, that I used that secrecy," said hismother, with a flash of new anger. "There is no shame attaching to me. Ihave no reason to be ashamed. I rid myself of the Jewish tatters andgibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if we weretattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as theirs. Idelivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues Jewish separateness.I am not ashamed that I did it. It was the better for you."
"Then why have you now undone the secrecy?--no, not undone it--the effectswill never be undone. But why have you now sent for me to tell me that Iam a Jew?" said Deronda, with an intensity of opposition in feeling thatwas almost bitter. It seemed as if her words had called out a latentobstinacy of race in him.
"Why?--ah, why?" said the Princess, rising quickly and walking to theother side of the room, where she turned round and slowly approached him,as he, too, stood up. Then she began to speak again in a more veiledvoice. "I can't explain; I can only say what is. I don't love my father'sreligion now any more than I did then. Before I married the second time Iwas baptized; I made myself like the people I lived among. I had a rightto do it; I was not like a brute, obliged to go with my own herd. I havenot repented; I will not say that I have repented. But yet"--here she hadcome near to her son, and paused; then again retreated a little and stoodstill, as if resolute not to give way utterly to an imperious influence;but, as she went on speaking, she became more and more unconscious ofanything but the awe that subdued her voice. "It is illness, I don't doubtthat it has been gathering illness--my mind has gone back: more than ayear ago it began. You see my gray hair, my worn look: it has all comefast. Sometimes I am in an agony of pain--I dare say I shall be to-night.Then it is as if all the life I have chosen to live, all thoughts, allwill, forsook me and left me alone in spots of memory, and I can't getaway: my pain seems to keep me there. My childhood--my girlhood--the dayof my marriage--the day of my father's death--there seems to be nothingsince. Then a great horror comes over me: what do I know of life or death?and what my father called 'right' may be a power that is laying hold ofme--that is clutching me now. Well, I will satisfy him. I cannot go intothe darkness without satisfying him. I have hidden what was his. I thoughtonce I would burn it. I have not burned it. I thank God I have not burnedit!"
She threw herself on her cushions again, visibly fatigued. Deronda, movedtoo strongly by her suffering for other impulses to act within him, drewnear her, and said, entreatingly--
"Will you not spare yourself this evening? Let us leave the rest till to-morrow."
"No," she said decisively. "I will confess it all, now that I have come upto it. Often when I am at ease it all fades away; my whole self comesquite back; but I know it will sink away again, and the other will come--the poor, solitary, forsaken remains of self, that can resist nothing. Itwas my nature to resist, and say, 'I have a right to resist.' Well, I sayso still when I have any strength in me. You have heard me say it, and Idon't withdraw it. But when my strength goes, some other right forcesitself upon me like iron in an inexorable hand; and even when I am atease, it is beginning to make ghosts upon the daylight. And now you havemade it worse for me," she said, with a sudden return of impetuosity; "butI shall have told you everything. And what reproach is there against me,"she added bitterly, "since I have made you glad to be a Jew? JosephKalonymos reproached me: he said you had been turned into a proudEnglishman, who resented being touched by a Jew. I wish you had!" sheended, with a new marvelous alternation. It was as if her mind werebreaking into several, one jarring the other into impulsive action.
"Who is Joseph Kalonymos?" said Deronda, with a darting recollection ofthat Jew who touched his arm in the Frankfort synagogue.
"Ah! some vengeance sent him back from the East, that he might see you andcome to reproach me. He was my father's friend. He knew of your birth: heknew of my husband's death, and once, twenty years ago, after he had beenaway in the Levant, he came to see me and inquire about you. I told himthat you were dead: I meant you to be dead to all the world of mychildhood. If I had said that your were living, he would have interferedwith my plans: he would have taken on him to represent my father, and havetried to make me recall what I had done. What could I do but say you weredead? The act was done. If I had told him of it there would have beentrouble and scandal--and all to conquer me, who would not have beenconquered. I was strong then, and I would have had my will, though theremight have been a hard fight against me. I took the way to have it withoutany fight. I felt then that I was not really deceiving: it would have cometo the same in the end; or if not to the same, to something worse. Hebelieved me and begged that I would give up to him the chest that myfather had charged me and my husband to deliver to our eldest son. I knewwhat was in the chest--things that had been dinned in my ears since I hadhad any understanding--things that were thrust on my mind that I mightfeel them like a wall around my life--my life that was growing like atree. Once, after my husband died, I was going to burn the chest. But itwas difficult to burn; and burning a chest and papers looks like ashameful act. I have committed no shameful act--except what Jews wouldcall shameful. I had kept the chest, and I gave it to Joseph Kalonymos. Hewent away mournful, and said, 'If you marry again, and if another grandsonis born to him who is departed, I will deliver up the chest to him.' Ibowed in silence. I meant not to marry again--no more than I meant to bethe shattered woman that I am now."
She ceased speaking, and her head sank back while she looked vaguelybefore her. Her thought was traveling through the years, and when shebegan to speak again her voice had lost its argumentative spirit, and hadfallen into a veiled tone of distress.
"But months ago this Kalonymos saw you in the synagogue at Frankfort. Hesaw you enter the hotel, and he went to ask your name. There was nobodyelse in the world to whom the name would have told anything about me."
"Then it is not my real name?" said Deronda, with a dislike even to thistrifling part of the disguise which had been thrown round him.
"Oh, as real as another," said his mother, indifferently. "The Jews havealways been changing their names. My father's family had kept the name ofCharisi: my husband was a Charisi. When I came out as a singer, we made itAlcharisi. But there had been a branch of the family my father had lostsight of who called themselves Deronda, and when I wanted a name for you,and Sir Hugo said, 'Let it be a foreign name,' I thought of Deronda. ButJoseph Kalonymos had heard my father speak of the Deronda branch, and thename confirmed his suspicion. He began to suspect what had been done. Itwas as if everything had been whispered to him in the air. He found outwhere I was. He took a journey into Russia to see me; he found me weak andshattered. He had come back again, with his white hair, and with rage inhis soul against me. He said I was going down to the grave clad infalsehood and robbery--falsehood to my father and robbery of my own child.He accused me of having kept the knowledge of your birth from you, andhaving brought you up as if you had been the son of an English gentleman.Well, it was true; and twenty years before I would have maintained that Ihad a right to do it. But I can maintain nothing now. No faith is strongwithin me. My father may have God on his side. This man's words were likelion's teeth upon me. My father's threats eat into me with my pain. If Itell everything--if I deliver up everything--what else can be demanded ofme? I cannot make myself love the people I have never loved--is it notenough that I lost the life I did love?"
She had leaned forward a little in her low-toned pleading, that seemedlike a smothered cry: her arms and hands were stretched out at fulllength, as if strained in beseeching, Deronda's soul was absorbed in theanguish of compassion. He could not mind now that he had been repulsedbefore. His pity made a flood of forgiveness within him. His singleimpulse was to kneel by her and take her hand gently, between his palms,while he said in that exquisite voice of soothing which expresses onenesswith the sufferer--
"Mother, take comfort!"
She did not seem inclined to repulse him now, but looked down at him andlet him take both her hands to fold between his. Gradually tears gathered,but she pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and then leaned hercheek against his brow, as if she wished that they should not look at eachother.
"Is it not possible that I could be near you often and comfort you?" saidDeronda. He was under that stress of pity that propels us on sacrifices.
"No, not possible," she answered, lifting up her head again andwithdrawing her hand as if she wished him to move away. "I have a husbandand five children. None of them know of your existence."
Deronda felt painfully silenced. He rose and stood at a little distance.
"You wonder why I married," she went on presently, under the influence ofa newly-recurring thought. "I meant never to marry again. I meant to befree and to live for my art. I had parted with you. I had no bonds. Fornine years I was a queen. I enjoyed the life I had longed for. Butsomething befell me. It was like a fit of forgetfulness. I began to singout of tune. They told me of it. Another woman was thrusting herself in myplace. I could not endure the prospect of failure and decline. It washorrible to me." She started up again, with a shudder, and liftedscreening hands like one who dreads missiles. "It drove me to marry. Imade believe that I preferred being the wife of a Russian noble to beingthe greatest lyric actress of Europe; I made believe--I acted that part.It was because I felt my greatness sinking away from me, as I feel my lifesinking now. I would not wait till men said, 'She had better go.'"
She sank into her seat again, and looked at the evening sky as she wenton: "I repented. It was a resolve taken in desperation. That singing outof tune was only like a fit of illness; it went away. I repented; but itwas too late. I could not go back. All things hindered, me--all things."
A new haggardness had come in her face, but her son refrained from againurging her to leave further speech till the morrow: there was evidentlysome mental relief for her in an outpouring such as she could never haveallowed herself before. He stood still while she maintained silence longerthan she knew, and the light was perceptibly fading. At last she turned tohim and said--
"I can bear no more now." She put out her hand, but then quickly withdrewit saying, "Stay. How do I know that I can see you again? I cannot bear tobe seen when I am in pain."
She drew forth a pocket-book, and taking out a letter said, "This isaddressed to the banking-house in Mainz, where you are to go for yourgrandfather's chest. It is a letter written by Joseph Kalonymos: if he isnot there himself, this order of his will be obeyed."
When Deronda had taken the letter, she said, with effort but more gentlythan before, "Kneel again, and let me kiss you."
He obeyed, and holding his head between her hands, she kissed him solemnlyon the brow. "You see, I had no life left to love you with," she said, ina low murmur. "But there is more fortune for you. Sir Hugo was to keep itin reserve. I gave you all your father's fortune. They can never accuse meof robbery there."
"If you had needed anything I would have worked for you," said Deronda,conscious of disappointed yearning--a shutting out forever from long earlyvistas of affectionate imagination.
"I need nothing that the skill of man can give me," said his mother, stillholding his head, and perusing his features. "But perhaps now I havesatisfied my father's will, your face will come instead of his--youryoung, loving face."
wenton: "I repented. It was a resolve taken in desperation. That singing outof tune was only like a fit?
"But you will see me again?" said Deronda, anxiously.
"Yes--perhaps. Wait, wait. Leave me now."