Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LX.
"But I shall say no more of this at this time; for this is to be feltand not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with theirfingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their hearts and be neverthe wiser."--JEREMY TAYLOR.
yellowish face and white hair, he said inGerman--was bitterly against our people losing themselvesamong .
The Roman Emperor in the legend put to death ten learned Israelites toavenge the sale of Joseph by his brethren. And there have always beenenough of his kidney, whose piety lies in punishing who can see thejustice of grudges but not of gratitude. For you shall never convincethe stronger feeling that it hath not the stronger reason, or inclinehim who hath no love to believe that there is good ground for loving.As we may learn from the order of word-making, wherein _love_precedeth _lovable_.
When Deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in the _SchusterStrasse_ at Mainz, and asked for Joseph Kalonymos, he was presently showninto an inner room, where, seated at a table arranging open letters, wasthe white-bearded man whom he had seen the year before in the synagogue atFrankfort. He wore his hat--it seemed to be the same old felt hat asbefore--and near him was a packed portmanteau with a wrap and overcoatupon it. On seeing Deronda enter he rose, but did not advance or put outhis hand. Looking at him with small penetrating eyes which glittered likeblack gems in the midst of his yellowish face and white hair, he said inGerman--
"Good! It is now you who seek me, young man."
"Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather's," saidDeronda, "and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself muchtrouble on my account." He spoke without difficulty in that liberal Germantongue which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom.
Kalonymos now put out his hand and said cordially, "So you are no longerangry at being something more than an Englishman?"
"On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me fromremaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the chestthat my grandfather left in trust for me."
"Sit down, sit down," said Kalonymos, in a quick undertone, seatinghimself again, and pointing to a chair near him. Then deliberately layingaside his hat and showing a head thickly covered, with white hair, hestroked and clutched his beard while he looked examiningly at the youngface before him. The moment wrought strongly on Deronda's imaginativesusceptibility: in the presence of one linked still in zealous friendshipwith the grandfather whose hope had yearned toward him when he was unborn,and who, though dead, was yet to speak with him in those written memorialswhich, says Milton, "contain a potency of life in them to be as active asthat soul whose progeny they are," he seemed to himself to be touching theelectric chain of his own ancestry; and he bore the scrutinizing look ofKalonymos with a delighted awe, something like what one feels in thesolemn commemoration of acts done long ago but still telling markedly onthe life of to-day. Impossible for men of duller, fibre--men whoseaffection is not ready to diffuse itself through the wide travel ofimagination, to comprehend, perhaps even to credit this sensibility ofDeronda's; but it subsisted, like their own dullness, notwithstandingtheir lack of belief in it--and it gave his face an expression whichseemed very satisfactory to the observer.
He said in Hebrew, quoting from one of the fine hymns in the Hebrewliturgy, "As thy goodness has been great to the former generations, evenso may it be to the latter." Then after pausing a little he began, "Youngman, I rejoice that I was not yet set off again on my travels, and thatyou are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as he was in hisyouth--no longer perverted from the fellowship of your people--no longershrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who seemed to be claimingyou as a Jew. You come with thankfulness yourself to claim the kindred andheritage that wicked contrivance would have robbed you of. You come with awilling soul to declare, 'I am the grandson of Daniel Charisi.' Is it notso?"
"Assuredly it is," said Deronda. "But let me say that I should at no timehave been inclined to treat a Jew with incivility simply because he was aJew. You can understand that I shrank from saying to a stranger, 'I knownothing of my mother,'"
"A sin, a sin!" said Kalonymos, putting up his hand and closing his eyesin disgust. "A robbery of our people--as when our youths and maidens werereared for the Roman Edom. But it is frustrated. I have frustrated it.When Daniel Charisi--may his Rock and his Redeemer guard him!--when DanielCharisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above his shoulder, we madea solemn vow always to be friends. He said, 'Let us bind ourselves withduty, as if we were sons of the same mother.' That was his bent from firstto last--as he said, to fortify his soul with bonds. It was a saying ofhis, 'Let us bind love with duty; for duty is the love of law; and law isthe nature of the Eternal.' So we bound ourselves. And though we were muchapart in our later life, the bond has never been broken. When he was dead,they sought to rob him; but they could not rob him of me. I rescued thatremainder of him which he had prized and preserved for his offspring. AndI have restored to him the offspring they had robbed him of. I will bringyou the chest forthwith."
Kalonymos left the room for a few minutes, and returned with a clerk whocarried the chest, set it down on the floor, drew off a leather cover, andwent out again. It was not very large, but was made heavy by ornamentalbracers and handles of gilt iron. The wood was beautifully incised withArabic lettering.
"So!" said Kalonymos, returning to his seat. "And here is the curiouskey," he added, taking it from a small leathern bag. "Bestow it carefully.I trust you are methodic and wary." He gave Deronda the monitory andslightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit any object to thekeeping of youth.
"I shall be more careful of this than of any other property," saidDeronda, smiling and putting the key in his breast-pocket. "I never beforepossessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished hope andeffort. And I shall never forget that the effort was partly yours. Haveyou time to tell me more of my grandfather? Or shall I be trespassing instaying longer?"
"Stay yet a while. In an hour and eighteen minutes I start for Trieste,"said Kalonymos, looking at his watch, "and presently my sons will expect myattention. Will you let me make you known to them, so that they may havethe pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend's grandson? They dwellhere in ease and luxury, though I choose to be a wanderer."
"I shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for somefuture opportunity," said Deronda. "There are pressing claims calling meto England--friends who may be much in need of my presence. I have beenkept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances. But to know moreof you and your family would be motive enough to bring me again to Mainz."
"Good! Me you will hardly find, for I am beyond my threescore years andten, and I am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. But my sons andtheir children dwell here in wealth and unity. The days are changed for ussince Karl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring sometincture of knowledge to our rough German brethren. I and mycontemporaries have had to fight for it too. Our youth fell on evil days;but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the learningof all Germany is fed and fattened by Jewish brains--though they keep notalways their Jewish hearts. Have you been left altogether ignorant of yourpeople's life, young man?"
"No," said Deronda, "I have lately, before I had any true suspicion of myparentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history withmore interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have been makingmyself ready to understand my grandfather a little." He was anxious lessthe time should be consumed before this circuitous course of talk couldlead them back to the topic he most cared about. Age does not easilydistinguish between what it needs to express and what youth needs to know-distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active asJoseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong place would havehindered his imagination from getting to Beyrout: he had been used tounite restless travel with punctilious observation. But Deronda's lastsentence answered its purpose.
"So-you would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had nothindered; for you are like him in features:--yet not altogether, youngman. He had an iron will in his face: it braced up everybody about him.When he was quite young he had already got one deep upright line in hisbrow. I see none of that in you. Daniel Charisi used to say, 'Better, awrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertainfriend; better a false belief than no belief at all.' What he despisedmost was indifference. He had longer reasons than I can give you."
"Yet his knowledge was not narrow?" said Deronda, with a tacit referenceto the usual excuse for indecision--that it comes from knowing too much.
"Narrow? no," said Kalonymos, shaking his head with a compassionate smile"From his childhood upward, he drank in learning as easily as the plantsucks up water. But he early took to medicine and theories about life andhealth. He traveled to many countries, and spent much of his substance inseeing and knowing. What he used to insist on was that the strength andwealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness andcommunication, and he was bitterly against our people losing themselvesamong the Gentiles; 'It's no better,' said he, 'than the many sorts ofgrain going back from their variety into sameness.' He mingled all sortsof learning; and in that he was like our Arabic writers in the goldentime. We studied together, but he went beyond me. Though we were bosomfriends, and he poured himself out to me, we were as different as theinside and outside of the bowl. I stood up for two notions of my own: Itook Charisi's sayings as I took the shape of the trees: they were there,not to be disputed about. It came to the same thing in both of us; we wereboth faithful Jews, thankful not to be Gentiles. And since I was a ripeman, I have been what I am now, for all but age-loving to wander, lovingtransactions, loving to behold all things, and caring nothing abouthardship. Charisi thought continually of our people's future: he went withall his soul into that part of our religion: I, not. So we have freedom, Iam content. Our people wandered before they were driven. Young man when Iam in the East, I lie much on deck and watch the greater stars. The sightof them satisfies me. I know them as they rise, and hunger not to knowmore. Charisi was satisfied with no sight, but pieced it out with what hadbeen before and what would come after. Yet we loved each other, and as hesaid, he bound our love with duty; we solemnly pledged ourselves to helpand defend each other to the last. I have fulfilled my pledge." HereKalonymos rose, and Deronda, rising also, said--
"And in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me. Itwould have been a robbery of me too that I should never have known of theinheritance he had prepared for me. I thank you with my whole soul."
"Be worthy of him, young man. What is your vocation?" This question wasput with a quick abruptness which embarrassed Deronda, who did not feel itquite honest to allege his law-reading as a vocation. He answered--
"I cannot say that I have any."
hope andeffort. And I shall never forget that the effort was partly yours. Haveyou time to tell me more of my grandfather? Or .
"Get one, get one. The Jew must be diligent. You will call yourself a Jewand profess the faith of your fathers?" said Kalonymos, putting his handon Deronda's shoulder and looking sharply in his face.
"I shall call myself a Jew," said Deronda, deliberately, becoming slightlypaler under the piercing eyes of his questioner. "But I will not say thatI shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed. Ourfathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief and learned ofother races. But I think I can maintain my grandfather's notion ofseparateness with communication. I hold that my first duty is to my ownpeople, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring or perfectingtheir common life, I shall make that my vocation."
It happened to Deronda at that moment, as it has often happened to others,that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve. His respect for thequestioner would not let him decline to answer, and by the necessity toanswer he found out the truth for himself.
"Ah, you argue and you look forward--you are Daniel Charisi's grandson,"said Kalonymos, adding a benediction in Hebrew.
With that they parted; and almost as soon as Deronda was in London, theaged man was again on shipboard, greeting the friendly stars without anyeager curiosity.