Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LV.
"Ritorna a tua scienzaChe vuoi, quanto la cosa e più perfettaPiù senta if bene, e cosi la doglienza."--DANTE.
When Deronda met Gwendolen and Grandcourt on the staircase, his mind wasseriously preoccupied. He had just been summoned to the second interviewwith his mother.
In two hours after his parting from her he knew that the Princess Halm-Eberstein had left the hotel, and so far as the purpose of his journey toGenoa was concerned, he might himself have set off on his way to Mainz, todeliver the letter from Joseph Kalonymos, and get possession of the familychest. But mixed mental conditions, which did not resolve themselves intodefinite reasons, hindered him from departure. Long after the farewell hewas kept passive by a weight of retrospective feeling. He lived again,with the new keenness of emotive memory, through the exciting scenes whichseemed past only in the sense of preparation for their actual presence inhis soul. He allowed himself in his solitude to sob, with perhaps morethan a woman's acuteness of compassion, over that woman's life so near tohis, and yet so remote. He beheld the world changed for him by thecertitude of ties that altered the poise of hopes and fears, and gave hima new sense of fellowship, as if under cover of the night he had joinedthe wrong band of wanderers, and found with the rise of morning that thetents of his kindred were grouped far off. He had a quivering imaginativesense of close relation to the grandfather who had been animated by strongimpulses and beloved thoughts, which were now perhaps being roused fromtheir slumber within himself. And through all this passionate meditationMordecai and Mirah were always present, as beings who clasped hands withhim in sympathetic silence.
Of such quick, responsive fibre was Deronda made, under that mantle ofself-controlled reserve into which early experience had thrown so much ofhis young strength.
When the persistent ringing of a bell as a signal reminded him of the hourhe thought of looking into _Bradshaw_, and making the brief necessarypreparations for starting by the next train--thought of it, but made nomovement in consequence. Wishes went to Mainz and what he was to getpossession of there--to London and the beings there who made the strongestattachments of his life; but there were other wishes that clung in thesemoments to Genoa, and they kept him where he was by that force which urgesus to linger over an interview that carries a presentiment of finalfarewell or of overshadowing sorrow. Deronda did not formally say, "I willstay over to-night, because it is Friday, and I should like to go to theevening service at the synagogue where they must all have gone; andbesides, I may see the Grandcourts again." But simply, instead of packingand ringing for his bill, he sat doing nothing at all, while his mind wentto the synagogue and saw faces there probably little different from thoseof his grandfather's time, and heard the Spanish-Hebrew liturgy which hadlasted through the seasons of wandering generations like a plant withwandering seed, that gives the far-off lands a kinship to the exile'shome--while, also, his mind went toward Gwendolen, with anxiousremembrance of what had been, and with a half-admitted impression that itwould be hardness in him willingly to go away at once without making someeffort, in spite of Grandcourt's probable dislike, to manifest thecontinuance of his sympathy with her since their abrupt parting.
In this state of mind he deferred departure, ate his dinner without senseof flavor, rose from it quickly to find the synagogue, and in passing theporter asked if Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt were still in the hotel, and whatwas the number of their apartment. The porter gave him the number, butadded that they were gone out boating. That information had somehow powerenough over Deronda to divide his thoughts with the memories wakened amongthe sparse _talithim_ and keen dark faces of worshippers whose way oftaking awful prayers and invocations with the easy familiarity which mightbe called Hebrew dyed Italian, made him reflect that his grandfather,according to the Princess's hints of his character, must have been almostas exceptional a Jew as Mordecai. But were not men of ardent zeal and far-reaching hope everywhere exceptional? the men who had the visions which,as Mordecai said, were the creators and feeders of the world--moulding andfeeding the more passive life which without them would dwindle and shrivelinto the narrow tenacity of insects, unshaken by thoughts beyond the reachof their antennae. Something of a mournful impatience perhaps added itselfto the solicitude about Gwendolen (a solicitude that had room to grow inhis present release from immediate cares) as an incitement to hasten fromthe synagogue and choose to take his evening walk toward the quay, alwaysa favorite haunt with him, and just now attractive with the possibilitythat he might be in time to see the Grandcourts come in from theirboating. In this case, he resolved that he would advance to greet themdeliberately, and ignore any grounds that the husband might have forwishing him elsewhere.
The sun had set behind a bank of cloud, and only a faint yellow light wasgiving its farewell kisses to the waves, which were agitated by an activebreeze. Deronda, sauntering slowly within sight of what took place on thestrand, observed the groups there concentrating their attention on asailing-boat which was advancing swiftly landward, being rowed by two men.Amidst the clamorous talk in various languages, Deronda held it the surermeans of getting information not to ask questions, but to elbow his way tothe foreground and be an unobstructed witness of what was occurring.Telescopes were being used, and loud statements made that the boat heldsomebody who had been drowned. One said it was the _milord_ who had goneout in a sailing boat; another maintained that the prostrate figure hediscerned was _miladi_; a Frenchman who had no glass would rather say thatit was _milord_ who had probably taken his wife out to drown her,according to the national practice--a remark which an English skipperimmediately commented on in our native idiom (as nonsense which--hadundergone a mining operation), and further dismissed by the decision thatthe reclining figure was a woman. For Deronda, terribly excited byfluctuating fears, the strokes of the oars as he watched them were dividedby swift visions of events, possible and impossible, which might havebrought about this issue, or this broken-off fragment of an issue, with aworse half undisclosed--if this woman apparently snatched from the waterswere really Mrs. Grandcourt.
But soon there was no longer any doubt: the boat was being pulled to land,and he saw Gwendolen half raising herself on her hands, by her own effort,under her heavy covering of tarpaulin and pea-jackets--pale as one of thesheeted dead, shivering, with wet hair streaming, a wild amazedconsciousness in her eyes, as if she had waked up in a world where somejudgment was impending, and the beings she saw around were coming to seizeher. The first rower who jumped to land was also wet through, and ran off;the sailors, close about the boat, hindered Deronda from advancing, and hecould only look on while Gwendolen gave sacred glances, and seemed toshrink with terror as she was carefully, tenderly helped out, and led onby the strong arms of those rough, bronzed men, her wet clothes clingingabout her limbs, and adding to the impediment of her weakness. Suddenlyher wandering eyes fell on Deronda, standing before her, and immediately,as if she had been expecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretchout her arms, which were held back by her supporters, saying, in a muffledvoice--
"It is come, it is come! He is dead!"
"Hush, hush!" said Deronda, in a tone of authority; "quiet yourself." Thento the men who were assisting her, "I am a connection of this lady'shusband. If you will get her on to the _Italia_ as quickly as possible, Iwill undertake everything else."
He stayed behind to hear from the remaining boatman that her husband hadgone down irrecoverably, and that his boat was left floating empty. He andhis comrade had heard a cry, had come up in time to see the lady jump inafter her husband, and had got her out fast enough to save her from muchdamage.
After this, Deronda hastened to the hotel to assure himself that the bestmedical help would be provided; and being satisfied on this point, hetelegraphed the event to Sir Hugo, begging him to come forthwith, and alsoto Mr. Gascoigne, whose address at the rectory made his nearest known wayof getting the information to Gwendolen's mother. Certain words ofGwendolen's in the past had come back to him with the effectiveness of aninspiration: in moments of agitated confession she had spoken of hermother's presence, as a possible help, if she could have had it.