Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LVI.
"The pang, the curse with which they died,Had never passed away:I could not draw my eyes from theirs,Nor lift them up to pray."--COLERIDGE.
Deronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, afterinsisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed,had been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering,repressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sentfor him in the morning. Still, the possibility that a change might comeover her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and thesuspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effectwhich might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding withinhim. He mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself ready to becalled if there were any alarming change of symptoms, making it understoodby all concerned that he was in communication with her friends in England,and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on her behalf--a position whichit was the easier for him to assume, because he was well known toGrandcourt's valet, the only old servant who had come on the late voyage.
But when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at lastsent Deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morningdreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday's events, and finallywaked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety.
Still, it was morning, and there had been no summons--an augury whichcheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too earlyto send inquiries. Later, he learned that she had passed a too wakefulnight, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at lastsleeping. He wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so aliveto dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under theeffects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with adetermination of concealment. For his own part, he thought that hissensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in themeeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfillingclaims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. He had latelybeen living so keenly in an experience quite apart from Gwendolen's lot,that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes familiarin the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the inwardresponse to them.
Meanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognizedstatement from the fisherman who had rescued Gwendolen. Few details cameto light. The boat in which Grandcourt had gone out had been founddrifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. The fishermen thoughtit likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of the sailwhile putting about, and that he had not known how to swim; but, thoughthey were near, their attention had been first arrested by a cry whichseemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were hastening withtheir oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw her jump in.
On re-entering the hotel, Deronda was told that Gwendolen had risen, andwas desiring to see him. He was shown into a room darkened by blinds andcurtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped round her,looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily. But her longhair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through all, the bluestars in her ears had kept their place: as she started impulsively to herfull height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face and neck not lesswhite, except for a purple line under her eyes, her lips a little apartwith the peculiar expression of one accused and helpless, she looked likethe unhappy ghost of that Gwendolen Harleth whom Deronda had seen turningwith firm lips and proud self-possession from her losses at the gamingtable. The sight pierced him with pity, and the effects of all their pastrelations began to revive within him.
think a woman who cried, andprayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?"dead." She uttered.
"I beseech you to rest--not to stand," said Deronda, as he approached her;and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again.
"Will you sit down near me?" she said. "I want to speak very low."
She was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side.The action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full uponhis, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone, "You knowI am a guilty woman?"
Deronda himself turned paler as he said, "I know nothing." He did not dareto say more.
"He is dead." She uttered this with the same undertoned decision.
"Yes," said Deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant tospeak.
"His face will not be seen above the water again," said Gwendolen, in atone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she heldboth her hands clenched.
"No."
"Not by any one else--only by me--a dead face--I shall never get away fromit."
It was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spokethese last words, while she looked away from Deronda toward something at adistance from her on the floor. She was seeing the whole event--her ownacts included--through an exaggerating medium of excitement and horror?Was she in a state of delirium into which there entered a sense ofconcealment and necessity for self-repression? Such thoughts glancedthrough Deronda as a sort of hope. But imagine the conflict of feelingthat kept him silent. She was bent on confession, and he dreaded hearingher confession. Against his better will he shrank from the task that waslaid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked the wish as cowardly, that shecould bury her secrets in her own bosom. He was not a priest. He dreadedthe weight of this woman's soul flung upon his own with imploringdependence. But she spoke again, hurriedly, looking at him--
"You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that Iought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I cannothave my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her know. I musttell you; but you will not say that any one else should know."
"I can say nothing in my ignorance," said Deronda, mournfully, "exceptthat I desire to help you."
"I told you from the beginning--as soon as I could--I told you I wasafraid of myself." There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in whichDeronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. "I felt ahatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit--contrivingthings. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it gotworse--all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me intown. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. ButI could not tell everything. And _he_ came in."
She paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on.
"I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, andprayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?"
"Great God!" said Deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, "don't torture meneedlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the waterwith the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This death wasan accident that you could not have hindered."
"Don't be impatient with me." The tremor, the childlike beseeching inthese words compelled Deronda to turn his head and look at her face. Thepoor quivering lips went on. "You said--you used to say--you felt more forthose who had done something wicked and were miserable; you said theymight get better--they might be scourged into something better. If you hadnot spoken in that way, Everything would have been worse. I _did_ rememberall you said to me. It came to me always. It came to me at the very last--that was the reason why I--But now, if you cannot bear with me when I tellyou everything--if you turn away from me and forsake me, what shall I do?Am I worse than I was when you found me and wanted to make me better? Allthe wrong I have done was in me then--and more--and more--if you had notcome and been patient with me. And now--will you forsake me?"
Her hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, werenow helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. Herquivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. Deronda could notanswer; he was obliged to look away. He took one of her hands, and claspedit as if they were going to walk together like two children: it was theonly way in which he could answer, "I will not forsake you." And all thewhile he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank paper which mightbe filled up terribly. Their attitude, his adverted face with itsexpression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved to undergo, mighthave told half the truth of the situation to a beholder who had suddenlyentered.
That grasp was an entirely new experience to Gwendolen: she had neverbefore had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being hadneeded, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise ofinexhaustible patience and constancy. The stream of renewed strength madeit possible for her to go on as she had begun--with that fitful, wanderingconfession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify the sense oftime or of order in events. She began again in a fragmentary way--
"All sorts of contrivances in my mind--but all so difficult. And I foughtagainst them--I was terrified at them--I saw his dead face"--here hervoice sank almost to a whisper close to Deronda's ear--"ever so long agoI saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it terrified me. I was liketwo creatures. I could not speak--I wanted to kill--it was as strong asthirst--and then directly--I felt beforehand I had done somethingdreadful, unalterable--that would make me like an evil spirit. And itcame--it came."
She was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a webwhere each mesh drew all the rest.
"It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you--when we were at theAbbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was theonly thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about overeverything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams--all but one. I didone act--and I never undid it--it is there still--as long ago as when wewere at Ryelands. There it was--something my fingers longed for among thebeautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir--small and sharp like a longwillow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in the drawer of my dressing-case. I was continually haunted with it and how I should use it. I fanciedmyself putting it under my pillow. But I never did. I never looked at itagain. I dared not unlock the drawer: it had a key all to itself; and notlong ago, when we were in the yacht, I dropped the key into the deepwater. It was my wish to drop it and deliver myself. After that I began tothink how I could open the drawer without the key: and when I found wewere to stay at Genoa, it came into my mind that I could get it openedprivately at the hotel. But then, when we were going up the stairs, I metyou; and I thought I should talk to you alone and tell you this--everything I could not tell you in town; and then I was forced to go outin the boat."
A sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank backin her chair. The memory of that acute disappointment seemed for themoment to efface what had come since. Deronda did not look at her, but hesaid, insistently--
"And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in yourthought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?"
There was silence. The tears had rolled down her cheeks. She pressed herhandkerchief against them and sat upright. She was summoning herresolution; and again, leaning a little toward Deronda's ear, she began ina whisper--
"No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you nofalsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I usedto think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if theywere a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt wicked.And everything has been a punishment to me--all the things I used to wishfor--it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very daylight has oftenbeen a punishment to me. Because--you know--I ought not to have married.That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one else. I broke my promise.I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it all turned to misery. I wantedto make my gain out of another's loss--you remember?--it was likeroulette--and the money burned into me. And I could not complain. It wasas if I had prayed that another should lose and I should win. And I hadwon, I knew it all--I knew I was guilty. When we were on the sea, and Ilay awake at night in the cabin, I sometimes felt that everything I haddone lay open without excuse--nothing was hidden--how could anything beknown to me only?--it was not my own knowledge, it was God's that hadentered into me, and even the stillness--everything held a punishment forme--everything but you. I always thought that you would not want me to bepunished--you would have tried and helped me to be better. And onlythinking of that helped me. You will not change--you will not want topunish me now?"
Again a sob had risen.
"God forbid!" groaned Deronda. But he sat motionless.
This long wandering with the conscious-stricken one over her past wasdifficult to bear, but he dared not again urge her with a question. Hemust let her mind follow its own need. She unconsciously left intervals inher retrospect, not clearly distinguishing between what she said and whatshe had only an inward vision of. Her next words came after such aninterval.
"That all made it so hard when I was forced to go in the boat. Becausewhen I saw you it was an unexpected joy, and I thought I could tell youeverything--about the locked-up drawer and what I had not told you before.And if I had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would have lesspower over me. I hoped and trusted in that. For after all my struggles andmy crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that frightened me, thelonging, the thirst for what I dreaded, always came back. And thatdisappointment--when I was quite shut out from speaking to you, and wasdriven to go in the boat--brought all the evil back, as if I had beenlocked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so long ago nowsince I stepped into that boat! I could have given up everything in thatmoment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to strike him dead."
Some of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to findits way into her undertoned utterance. After a little silence she said,with agitated hurry--
"If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here--and yetI cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have bornecontempt. I ought to have gone away--gone and wandered like a beggarrather than to stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there wassomething I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill _me_ if Iresisted his will. But now--his dead face is there, and I cannot bear it."
Suddenly loosing Deronda's hand, she started up, stretching her arms totheir full length upward, and said with a sort of moan--
"I have been a cruel woman! What can _I_ do but cry for help? _I_ amsinking. Die--die--you are forsaken--go down, go down into darkness.Forsaken--no pity--_I_ shall be forsaken."
She sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. Even Deronda had no placein her consciousness at that moment. He was completely unmanned. Insteadof finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had dulled hissusceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of this youngcreature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood into this agonyof remorse he had had to behold in helplessness, pierced him the deeperbecause it came close upon another sad revelation of spiritual conflict:he was in one of those moments when the very anguish of passionate pitymakes us ready to choose that we will know pleasure no more, and live onlyfor the stricken and afflicted. He had risen from his seat while hewatched that terrible outburst--which seemed the more awful to himbecause, even in this supreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice ofone who confesses in secret. At last he felt impelled to turn his backtoward her and walk to a distance.
But presently there was stillness. Her mind had opened to the sense thathe had gone away from her. When Deronda turned round to approach heragain, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips parted.She was an image of timid forlorn beseeching--too timid to entreat inwords while he kept himself aloof from her. Was she forsaken by him--now--already? But his eyes met hers sorrowfully--met hers for the first timefully since she had said, "You know I am a guilty woman," and that fullglance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say, "I know it, but I shallall the less forsake you." He sat down by her side again in the sameattitude--without turning his face toward her and without again taking herhand.
Once more Gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow atthe Abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged her toconfess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret--
"I make you very unhappy."
Deronda gave an indistinct "Oh," just shrinking together and changing hisattitude a little, Then he had gathered resolution enough to say clearly,"There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most desire atthis moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel it a reliefto tell."
Devoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from her,and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of gettingnearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from a halo ofsuperiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble herself more.She was ready to throw herself on her knees before him; but no--herwonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that impulse, and she waskept silent and motionless by the pressure of opposing needs. Herstillness made Deronda at last say--
"Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever youwish it?"
"No, no," said Gwendolen--the dread of his leaving her bringing back herpower of speech. She went on with her low-toned eagerness, "I want to tellyou what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of rage atbeing obliged to go--full of rage--and I could do nothing but sit therelike a galley slave. And then we got away--out of the port--into the deep--and everything was still--and we never looked at each other, only hespoke to order me--and the very light about me seemed to hold me aprisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over me that when I was achild I used to fancy sailing away into a world where people were notforced to live with any one they did not like--I did not like my father-in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just the opposite had come to me.I had stepped into a boat, and my life was a sailing and sailing away--gliding on and no help--always into solitude with _him_, away fromdeliverance. And because I felt more helpless than ever, my thoughts wentout over worse things--I longed for worse things--I had cruel wishes--Ifancied impossible ways of--I did not want to die myself; I was afraid ofour being drowned together. If it had been any use I should have prayed--Ishould have prayed that something might befall him. I should have prayedthat he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way ofkilling hint there, but I did, I did kill him in my thoughts."
She sank into silence for a minute, submerged by the weight of memorywhich no words could represent.
"But yet, all the while I felt that I was getting more wicked. And whathad been with me so much, came to me just then--what you once said--aboutdreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse--I should hope fornothing then. It was all like a writing of fire within me. Getting wickedwas misery--being shut out forever from knowing what you--what betterlives were. That had always been coming back to me then--but yet with adespair--a feeling that it was no use--evil wishes were too strong. Iremember then letting go the tiller and saying 'God help me!' But then Iwas forced to take it again and go on; and the evil longings, the evilprayers came again and blotted everything else dim, till, in the midst ofthem--I don't know how it was--he was turning the sail--there was a gust--he was struck--I know nothing--I only know that I saw my wish outside me."
She began to speak more hurriedly, and in more of a whisper.
"I saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of me. Ithink I did not move. I kept my hands tight. It was long enough for me tobe glad, and yet to think it was no use--he would come up again. And he_was_ come--farther off--the boat had moved. It was all like lightning.'The rope!' he called out in a voice--not his own--I hear it now--and Istooped for the rope--I felt I must--I felt sure he could swim, and hewould come back whether or not, and I dreaded him. That was in my mind--hewould come back. But he was gone down again, and I had the rope in myhand--no, there he was again--his face above the water--and he criedagain--and I held my hand, and my heart said, 'Die!'--and he sank; and Ifelt 'It is done--I am wicked, I am lost!--and I had the rope in my hand--I don't know what I thought--I was leaping away from myself--I would havesaved him then. I was leaping from my crime, and there it was--close to meas I fell--there was the dead face--dead, dead. It can never be altered.That was what happened. That was what I did. You know it all. It can neverbe altered."
She sank back in her chair, exhausted with the agitation of memory andspeech. Deronda felt the burden on his spirit less heavy than theforegoing dread. The word "guilty" had held a possibility ofinterpretations worse than the fact; and Gwendolen's confession, for thevery reason that her conscience made her dwell on the determining power ofher evil thoughts, convinced him the more that there had been throughout acounterbalancing struggle of her better will. It seemed almost certainthat her murderous thought had had no outward effect--that, quite apartfrom it, the death was inevitable. Still, a question as to the outwardeffectiveness of a criminal desire dominant enough to impel even amomentary act, cannot alter our judgment of the desire; and Deronda shrankfrom putting that question forward in the first instance. He held itlikely that Gwendolen's remorse aggravated her inward guilt, and that shegave the character of decisive action to what had been an inappreciablyinstantaneous glance of desire. But her remorse was the precious sign of arecoverable nature; it was the culmination of that self-disapproval whichhad been the awakening of a new life within her; it marked her off fromthe criminals whose only regret is failure in securing their evil wish.Deronda could not utter one word to diminish that sacred aversion to herworst self--that thorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of thesorrowful better, suffering because of the worse. All this mingled thoughtand feeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured onrashly. There were no words of comfort that did not carry some sacrilege.If he had opened his lips to speak, he could only have echoed, "It cannever be altered--it remains unaltered, to alter other things." But he wassilent and motionless--he did not know how long--before he turned to lookat her, and saw her sunk back with closed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-beaten white doe, unable to rise and pursue its unguided way. He rose andstood before her. The movement touched her consciousness, and she openedher eyes with a slight quivering that seemed like fear.
"You must rest now. Try to rest: try to sleep. And may I see you againthis evening--to-morrow--when you have had some rest? Let us say no morenow."
The tears came, and she could not answer except by a slight movement ofthe head. Deronda rang for attendance, spoke urgently of the necessitythat she should be got to rest, and then left her.