Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LIII.
"My desolation does begin to makeA better life."--SHAKESPEARE: _Antony and Cleopatra._
Before Deronda was summoned to a second interview with his mother, a dayhad passed in which she had only sent him a message to say that she wasnot yet well enough to receive him again; but on the third morning he hada note saying, "I leave to-day. Come and see me at once."
He was shown into the same room as before; but it was much darkened withblinds and curtains. The Princess was not there, but she presentlyentered, dressed in a loose wrap of some soft silk, in color a duskyorange, her head again with black lace floating about it, her arms showingthemselves bare from under her wide sleeves. Her face seemed even moreimpressive in the sombre light, the eyes larger, the lines more vigorous.You might have imagined her a sorceress who would stretch forth herwonderful hand and arm to mix youth-potions for others, but scorned to mixthem for herself, having had enough of youth.
She put her arms on her son's shoulders at once, and kissed him on bothcheeks, then seated herself among her cushions with an air of assuredfirmness and dignity unlike her fitfulness in their first interview, andtold Deronda to sit down by her. He obeyed, saying, "You are quiterelieved now, I trust?"
"Yes, I am at ease again. Is there anything more that you would like toask me?" she said, with the matter of a queen rather than of a mother.
"Can I find the house in Genoa where you used to live with mygrandfather?" said Deronda.
"No," she answered, with a deprecating movement of her arm, "it is pulleddown--not to be found. But about our family, and where my father lived atvarious times--you will find all that among the papers in the chest,better than I can tell you. My father, I told you, was a physician. Mymother was a Morteira. I used to hear all those things without listening.You will find them all. I was born amongst them without my will. Ibanished them as soon as I could."
Deronda tried to hide his pained feeling, and said, "Anything else that Ishould desire to know from you could only be what it is some satisfactionto your own feeling to tell me."
deeper tone,----"I amnot a loving woman. ?
"I think I have told you everything that could be demanded of me," saidthe Princess, looking coldly meditative. It seemed as if she had exhaustedher emotion in their former interview. The fact was, she had said toherself, "I have done it all. I have confessed all. I will not go throughit again. I will save myself from agitation." And she was acting out thatscheme.
But to Deronda's nature the moment was cruel; it made the filial yearningof his life a disappointed pilgrimage to a shrine where there were nolonger the symbols of sacredness. It seemed that all the woman lacking inher was present in him, as he said, with some tremor in his voice--
"Then are we to part and I never be anything to you?"
"It is better so," said the Princess, in a softer, mellower voice. "Therecould be nothing but hard duty for you, even if it were possible for youto take the place of my son. You would not love me. Don't deny it," shesaid, abruptly, putting up her hand. "I know what is the truth. You don'tlike what I did. You are angry with me. You think I robbed you ofsomething. You are on your grandfather's side, and you will always have acondemnation of me in your heart."
Deronda felt himself under a ban of silence. He rose from his seat by her,preferring to stand, if he had to obey that imperious prohibition of anytenderness. But his mother now looked up at him with a new admiration inher glance, saying--
"You are wrong to be angry with me. You are the better for what I did."After pausing a little, she added, abruptly, "And now tell me what youshall do?"
"Do you mean now, immediately," said Deronda; "or as to the course of myfuture life?"
"I mean in the future. What difference will it make to you that I havetold you about your birth?"
"A very great difference," said Deronda, emphatically. "I can hardly thinkof anything that would make a greater difference."
"What shall you do then?" said the Princess, with more sharpness. "Makeyourself just like your grandfather--be what he wished you--turn yourselfinto a Jew like him?"
"That is impossible. The effect of my education can never be done awaywith. The Christian sympathies in which my mind was reared can never dieout of me," said Deronda, with increasing tenacity of tone. "But Iconsider it my duty--it is the impulse of my feeling--to identify myself,as far as possible, with my hereditary people, and if I can see any workto be done for them that I can give my soul and hand to I shall choose todo it."
His mother had her eyes fixed on him with a wondering speculation,examining his face as if she thought that by close attention she couldread a difficult language there. He bore her gaze very firmly, sustainedby a resolute opposition, which was the expression of his fullest self.She bent toward him a little, and said, with a decisive emphasis--
"You are in love with a Jewess."
Deronda colored and said, "My reasons would be independent of any suchfact."
"I know better. I have seen what men are," said the Princess,peremptorily. "Tell me the truth. She is a Jewess who will not accept anyone but a Jew. There _are_ a few such," she added, with a touch of scorn.
Deronda had that objection to answer which we all have known in speakingto those who are too certain of their own fixed interpretations to beenlightened by anything we may say. But besides this, the pointimmediately in question was one on which he felt a repugnance either todeny or affirm. He remained silent, and she presently said--
"You love her as your father loved me, and she draws you after her as Idrew him."
said, "My reasons would be independent of any suchfact." his.
Those words touched Deronda's filial imagination, and some tenderness inhis glance was taken by his mother as an assent. She went on with risingpassion: "But I was leading him the other way. And now your grandfather isgetting his revenge."
"Mother," said Deronda, remonstrantly, "don't let us think of it in thatway. I will admit that there may come some benefit from the education youchose for me. I prefer cherishing the benefit with gratitude, to dwellingwith resentment on the injury. I think it would have been right that Ishould have been brought up with the consciousness that I was a Jew, butit must always have been a good to me to have as wide an instruction andsympathy as possible. And now, you have restored me my inheritance--eventshave brought a fuller restitution than you could have made--you have beensaved from robbing my people of my service and me of my duty: can you notbring your whole soul to consent to this?"
Deronda paused in his pleading: his mother looked at him listeningly, asif the cadence of his voice were taking her ear, yet she shook her headslowly. He began again, even more urgently.
"You have told me that you sought what you held the best for me: open yourheart to relenting and love toward my grandfather, who sought what he heldthe best for you."
"Not for me, no," she said, shaking her head with more absolute denial,and folding her arms tightly. "I tell you, he never thought of hisdaughter except as an instrument. Because I had wants outside his purpose,I was to be put in a frame and tortured. If that is the right law for theworld, I will not say that I love it. If my acts were wrong--if it is Godwho is exacting from me that I should deliver up what I withheld--who ispunishing me because I deceived my father and did not warn him that Ishould contradict his trust--well, I have told everything. I have donewhat I could. And _your_ soul consents. That is enough. I have after allbeen the instrument my father wanted.--'I desire a grandson who shall havea true Jewish heart. Every Jew should rear his family as if he hoped thata Deliverer might spring from it.'"
In uttering these last sentences the Princess narrowed her eyes, waved herhead up and down, and spoke slowly with a new kind of chest-voice, as ifshe were quoting unwillingly.
"Were those my grandfather's words?" said Deronda.
"Yes, yes; and you will find them written. I wanted to thwart him," saidthe Princess, with a sudden outburst of the passion she had shown in theformer interview. Then she added more slowly, "You would have me love whatI have hated from the time I was so high"--here she held her left hand ayard from the floor.--"That can never be. But what does it matter? Hisyoke has been on me, whether I loved it or not. You are the grandson hewanted. You speak as men do--as if you felt yourself wise. What does itall mean?"
Her tone was abrupt and scornful. Deronda, in his pained feeling, andunder the solemn urgency of the moment, had to keep a clutchingremembrance of their relationship, lest his words should become cruel. Hebegan in a deep entreating tone:
"Mother, don't say that I feel myself wise. We are set in the midst ofdifficulties. I see no other way to get any clearness than by beingtruthful--not by keeping back facts which may--which should carryobligation within them--which should make the only guidance toward duty.No wonder if such facts come to reveal themselves in spite ofconcealments. The effects prepared by generations are likely to triumphover a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of self.Your will was strong, but my grandfather's trust which you accepted anddid not fulfill--what you call his yoke--is the expression of somethingstronger, with deeper, farther-spreading roots, knit into the foundationsof sacredness for all men. You renounced me--you still banish me--as ason"--there was an involuntary movement of indignation in Deronda's voice--"But that stronger Something has determined that I shall be all the morethe grandson whom also you willed to annihilate."
His mother was watching him fixedly, and again her face gatheredadmiration. After a moment's silence she said, in a low, persuasive tone--
"Sit down again," and he obeyed, placing himself beside her. She laid herhand on his shoulder and went on--
"You rebuke me. Well--I am the loser. And you are angry because I banishyou. What could you do for me but weary your own patience? Your mother isa shattered woman. My sense of life is little more than a sense of whatwas--except when the pain is present. You reproach me that I parted withyou. I had joy enough without you then. Now you are come back to me, and Icannot make you a joy. Have you the cursing spirit of the Jew in you? Areyou not able to forgive me? Shall you be glad to think that I am punishedbecause I was not a Jewish mother to you?"
decisive emphasis--singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself?
"How can you ask me that?" said Deronda, remonstrantly. "Have I notbesought you that I might now at least be a son to you? My grief is thatyou have declared me helpless to comfort you. I would give up much that isdear for the sake of soothing your anguish."
"You shall give up nothing," said his mother, with the hurry of agitation."You shall be happy. You shall let me think of you as happy. I shall havedone you no harm. You have no reason to curse me. You shall feel for me asthey feel for the dead whom they say prayers for--you shall long that Imay be freed from all suffering--from all punishment. And I shall see youinstead of always seeing your grandfather. Will any harm come to mebecause I broke his trust in the daylight after he was gone into darkness?I cannot tell:--if you think _Kaddish_ will help me--say it, say it. Youwill come between me and the dead. When I am in your mind, you will lookas you do now--always as if you were a tender son--always--as if I hadbeen a tender mother."
She seemed resolved that her agitation should not conquer her, but he felther hand trembling on his shoulder. Deep, deep compassion hemmed in allwords. With a face of beseeching he put his arm around her and pressed herhead tenderly under his. They sat so for some moments. Then she lifted herhead again and rose from her seat with a great sigh, as if in that breathshe were dismissing a weight of thoughts. Deronda, standing in front ofher, felt that the parting was near. But one of her swift alternations hadcome upon his mother.
"Is she beautiful?" she said, abruptly.
"Who?" said Deronda, changing color.
"The woman you love."
It was not a moment for deliberate explanation. He was obliged to say,"Yes."
"Not ambitious?"
"No, I think not."
"Not one who must have a path of her own?"
"I think her nature is not given to make great claims."
"She is not like that?" said the Princess, taking from her wallet aminiature with jewels around it, and holding it before her son. It was herown in all the fire of youth, and as Deronda looked at it with admiringsadness, she said, "Had I not a rightful claim to be something more than amere daughter and mother? The voice and the genius matched the face.Whatever else was wrong, acknowledge that I had a right to be an artist,though my father's will was against it. My nature gave me a charter."
"I do acknowledge that," said Deronda, looking from the miniature to herface, which even in its worn pallor had an expression of living forcebeyond anything that the pencil could show.
"Will you take the portrait?" said the Princess, more gently. "If she is akind woman, teach her to think of me kindly."
"I shall be grateful for the portrait," said Deronda, "but--I ought tosay, I have no assurance that she whom I love will have any love for me. Ihave kept silence."
"Who and what is she?" said the mother. The question seemed a command.
"She was brought up as a singer for the stage," said Deronda, with inwardreluctance. "Her father took her away early from her mother, and her lifehas been unhappy. She is very young--only twenty. Her father wished tobring her up in disregard--even in dislike of her Jewish origin, but shehas clung with all her affection to the memory of her mother and thefellowship of her people."
"Ah, like you. She is attached to the Judaism she knows nothing of," saidthe Princess, peremptorily. "That is poetry--fit to last through an operanight. Is she fond of her artist's life--is her singing worth anything?"
"Her singing is exquisite. But her voice is not suited to the stage. Ithink that the artist's life has been made repugnant to her."
"Why, she is made for you then. Sir Hugo said you were bitterly againstbeing a singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself bemerged in a wife, as your father was."
"I repeat," said Deronda, emphatically--"I repeat that I have no assuranceof her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be united. Otherthings--painful issues may lie before me. I have always felt that I shouldprepare myself to renounce, not cherish that prospect. But I suppose Imight feel so of happiness in general. Whether it may come or not, oneshould try and prepare one's self to do without it."
"Do you feel in that way?" said his mother, laying her hands on hisshoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditativetone, pausing between her sentences. "Poor boy!----I wonder how it wouldhave been if I had kept you with me----whether you would have turned yourheart to the old things against mine----and we should have quarreled----your grandfather would have been in you----and you would have hampered mylife with your young growth from the old root."
"I think my affection might have lasted through all our quarreling," saidDeronda, saddened more and more, "and that would not have hampered--surelyit would have enriched your life."
"Not then, not then----I did not want it then----I might have been glad ofit now," said the mother, with a bitter melancholy, "if I could have beenglad of anything."
"But you love your other children, and they love you?" said Deronda,anxiously.
"Oh, yes," she answered, as to a question about a matter of course, whileshe folded her arms again. "But,"----she added in a deeper tone,----"I amnot a loving woman. That is the truth. It is a talent to love--I lack it.Others have loved me--and I have acted their love. I know very well whatlove makes of men and women--it is subjection. It takes another for alarger self, enclosing this one,"--she pointed to her own bosom. "I wasnever willingly subject to any man. Men have been subject to me."
"Perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two," saidDeronda--not with a smile, but with a grave, sad sense of his mother'sprivation.
"Perhaps--but I _was_ happy--for a few years I was happy. If I had notbeen afraid of defeat and failure, I might have gone on. I miscalculated.What then? It is all over. Another life! Men talk of 'another life,' as ifit only began on the other side of the grave. I have long entered onanother life." With the last words she raised her arms till they were bareto the elbow, her brow was contracted in one deep fold, her eyes wereclosed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky flame-colored garment, shelooked like a dreamed visitant from some region of departed mortals.
Deronda's feeling was wrought to a pitch of acuteness in which he was nolonger quite master of himself. He gave an audible sob. His mother, openedher eyes, and letting her hands again rest on his shoulders, said--
"Good-bye, my son, good-bye. We shall hear no more of each other. Kissme."
He clasped his arms round her neck, and they kissed each other.
Deronda did not know how he got out of the room. He felt an older man. Allhis boyish yearnings and anxieties about his mother had vanished. He hadgone through a tragic experience which must forever solemnize his life anddeepen the significance of the acts by which he bound himself to others.