Daniel Deronda
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LXII.
"Das Gluck ist eine leichte Dirne,Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort;Sie streicht das Haar dir von der StirnUnd kusst dich rasch und flattert fort
Frau Ungluck hat im GegentheileDich liebefest an's Herz gedruckt;Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile,Setzt sich zu dir ans Bett und strickt."--HEINE.
Something which Mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of athreat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which hadlately come back, bringing abundant luggage.
Turning out of Knightsbridge, after singing at a charitable morningconcert in a wealthy house, where she had been recommended by Klesmer, andwhere there had been the usual groups outside to see the departingcompany, she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an evenpace with her own. Her concert dress being simple black, over which shehad thrown a dust cloak, could not make her an object of unpleasantattention, and render walking an imprudence; but this reflection did notoccur to Mirah: another kind of alarm lay uppermost in her mind. Sheimmediately thought of her father, and could no more look round than ifshe had felt herself tracked by a ghost. To turn and face him would bevoluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which beforehand seemedintolerable. If it were her father he must mean to claim recognition, andhe would oblige her to face him. She must wait for that compulsion. Shewalked on, not quickening her pace--of what use was that?--but picturingwhat was about to happen as if she had the full certainty that the manbehind her was her father; and along with her picturing went a regret thatshe had given her word to Mrs. Meyrick not to use any concealment abouthim. The regret at last urged her, at least, to try and hinder any suddenbetrayal that would cause her brother an unnecessary shock. Under thepressure of this motive, she resolved to turn before she reached her owndoor, and firmly will the encounter instead of merely submitting to it.She had already reached the entrance of the small square where her homelay, and had made up her mind to turn, when she felt her embodiedpresentiment getting closer to her, then slipping to her side, graspingher wrist, and saying, with a persuasive curl of accent, "Mirah!"
She paused at once without any start; it was the voice she expected, andshe was meeting the expected eyes. Her face was as grave as if she hadbeen looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the intentionof soothing and propitiating her. Once a handsome face, with bright color,it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar impress ofimpudent suavity which comes from courting favor while acceptingdisrespect. He was lightly made and active, with something of youth abouthim which made the signs of age seem a disguise; and in reality he washardly fifty-seven. His dress was shabby, as when she had seen him before.The presence of this unreverend father now, more than ever, affected Mirahwith the mingled anguish of shame and grief, repulsion and pity--more thanever, now that her own world was changed into one where there was nocomradeship to fence him from scorn and contempt.
done well for yourself, Mirah? _You_ are in no want, Isee,
Slowly, with a sad, tremulous voice, she said, "It is you, father."
"Why did you run away from me, child?" he began with rapid speech whichwas meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance, accompanied with variousquick gestures like an abbreviated finger-language. "What were you afraidof? You knew I never made you do anything against your will. It was foryour sake I broke up your engagement in the Vorstadt, because I saw itdidn't suit you, and you repaid me by leaving me to the bad times thatcame in consequence. I had made an easier engagement for you at theVorstadt Theater in Dresden: I didn't tell you, because I wanted to takeyou by surprise. And you left me planted there--obliged to make myselfscarce because I had broken contract. That was hard lines for me, after Ihad given up everything for the sake of getting you an education which wasto be a fortune to you. What father devoted himself to his daughter morethan I did to you? You know how I bore that disappointment in your voice,and made the best of it: and when I had nobody besides you, and wasgetting broken, as a man must who has had to fight his way with hisbrains--you chose that time to leave me. Who else was it you owedeverything to, if not to me? and where was your feeling in return? Forwhat my daughter cared, I might have died in a ditch."
Lapidoth stopped short here, not from lack of invention, but because hehad reached a pathetic climax, and gave a sudden sob, like a woman's,taking out hastily an old yellow silk handkerchief. He really felt thathis daughter had treated him ill--a sort of sensibility which is naturallystrong in unscrupulous persons, who put down what is owing to them,without any _per contra_. Mirah, in spite of that sob, had energy enoughnot to let him suppose that he deceived her. She answered more firmly,though it was the first time she had ever used accusing words to him.
"You know why I left you, father; and I had reason to distrust you,because I felt sure that you had deceived my mother. If I could havetrusted you, I would have stayed with you and worked for you."
"I never meant to deceive your mother, Mirah," said Lapidoth, putting backhis handkerchief, but beginning with a voice that seemed to struggleagainst further sobbing. "I meant to take you back to her, but chanceshindered me just at the time, and then there came information of herdeath. It was better for you that I should stay where I was, and yourbrother could take care of himself. Nobody had any claim on me but you. Ihad word of your mother's death from a particular friend, who hadundertaken to manage things for me, and I sent him over money to payexpenses. There's one chance to be sure--" Lapidoth had quickly conceivedthat he must guard against something unlikely, yet possible--"he may havewritten me lies for the sake of getting the money out of me."
Mirah made no answer; she could not bear to utter the only true one--"Idon't believe one word of what you say"--and she simply showed a wish thatthey should walk on, feeling that their standing still might draw downunpleasant notice. Even as they walked along, their companionship mightwell have made a passer-by turn back to look at them. The figure of Mirah,with her beauty set off by the quiet, careful dress of an English lady,made a strange pendant to this shabby, foreign-looking, eager, andgesticulating man, who withal had an ineffaceable jauntiness of air,perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair, the smallness of hishands and feet, and his light walk.
"You seem to have done well for yourself, Mirah? _You_ are in no want, Isee," said the father, looking at her with emphatic examination.
"Good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work," saidMirah, hardly knowing what she actually said, from being occupied withwhat she would presently have to say. "I give lessons. I have sung inprivate houses. I have just been singing at a private concert." Shepaused, and then added, with significance, "I have very good friends, whoknow all about me."
"And you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight? Nowonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of finding you.It was a mad quest; but a father's heart is superstitious--feels aloadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might have done very well,staying abroad: when I hadn't you to take care of, I could have rolled orsettled as easily as a ball; but it's hard being lonely in the world, whenyour spirit's beginning to break. And I thought my little Mirah wouldrepent leaving her father when she came to look back. I've had a sharppinch to work my way; I don't know what I shall come down to next. Talentslike mine are no use in this country. When a man's getting out at elbowsnobody will believe in him. I couldn't get any decent employ with myappearance. I've been obliged to get pretty low for a shilling already."
Mirah's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into afurther degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. Butbefore she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered withas much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added promptly---
"Where do you live, Mirah?"
"Here, in this square. We are not far from the house."
"In lodgings?"
"Yes."
"Any one to take care of you?"
"Yes," said Mirah again, looking full at the keen face which was turnedtoward hers--"my brother."
The father's eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across them,and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said, after ajust perceptible pause: "Ezra? How did you know--how did you find him?"
"That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother wouldnot wish me to close it on you."
Mirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward herfather, who stood below her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to beatfaster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of Ezra; andalready in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom she had beenused to obey--in this sight of him standing below her, with a perceptibleshrinking from the admission which he had been indirectly asking for, shehad a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic humiliation and shame--the stabbedheart of reverence--which belongs to a nature intensely filial.
"Stay a minute, _Liebchen_," said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone;"what sort of man has Ezra turned out?"
"A good man--a wonderful man," said Mirah, with slow emphasis, trying tomaster the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went on.She felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration ofhimself which awaited him. "But he was very poor when my friends found himfor me--a poor workman. Once--twelve years ago--he was strong and happy,going to the East, which he loved to think of; and my mother called himback because--because she had lost me. And he went to her, and took careof her through great trouble, and worked for her till she died--died ingrief. And Ezra, too, had lost his health and strength. The cold hadseized him coming back to my mother, because she was forsaken. For yearshe has been getting weaker--always poor, always working--but full ofknowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him honor him. To standbefore him is like standing before a prophet of God"--Mirah ended withdifficulty, her heart throbbing--"falsehoods are no use."
She had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while shespoke the last words--unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration thatgathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention anddecision.
"Mirah, _Liebchen_," he said, in the old caressing way, "shouldn't youlike me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me? IfI had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to youas your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent place.With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad enough to haveme. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn't look like a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children, and forget andforgive. But you have never seen your father look like this before. If youhad ten pounds at hand--or I could appoint you to bring it me somewhere--Icould fit myself out by the day after to-morrow."
"I don't like to deny you what you ask, father; but I have given a promisenot to do things for you in secret. It _is_ hard to see you looking needy;but we will bear that for a little while; and then you can have newclothes, and we can pay for them." Her practical sense made her see nowwhat was Mrs. Meyrick's wisdom in exacting a promise from her.
Lapidoth's good humor gave way a little. He said, with a sneer, "You are ahard and fast young lady--you have been learning useful virtues--keepingpromises not to help your father with a pound or two when you are gettingmoney to dress yourself in silk--your father who made an idol of you, andgave up the best part of his life to providing for you."
"It seems cruel--I know it seems cruel," said Mirah, feeling this a worsemoment than when she meant to drown herself. Her lips were suddenly pale."But, father, it is more cruel to break the promises people trust in. Thatbroke my mother's heart--it has broken Ezra's life. You and I must eat nowthis bitterness from what has been. Bear it. Bear to come in and be caredfor as you are."
"To-morrow, then," said Lapidoth, almost turning on his heel away fromthis pale, trembling daughter, who seemed now to have got the inconvenientworld to back her; but he quickly turned on it again, with his handsfeeling about restlessly in his pockets, and said, with some return to hisappealing tone, "I'm a little cut up with all this, Mirah. I shall get upmy spirits by to-morrow. If you've a little money in your pocket, Isuppose it isn't against your promise to give me a trifle--to buy a cigarwith."
Mirah could not ask herself another question--could not do anything elsethan put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her _portemonnaie_ andhold it out. Lapidoth grasped it at once, pressed her fingers the while,said, "Good-bye, my little girl--to-morrow then!" and left her. He had nottaken many steps before he looked carefully into all the folds of thepurse, found two half-sovereigns and odd silver, and, pasted against thefolding cover, a bit of paper on which Ezra had inscribed, in a beautifulHebrew character, the name of his mother, the days of her birth, marriage,and death, and the prayer, "May Mirah be delivered from evil." It wasMirah's liking to have this little inscription on many articles that sheused. The father read it, and had a quick vision of his marriage day, andthe bright, unblamed young fellow he was at that time; teaching manythings, but expecting by-and-by to get money more easily by writing; andvery fond of his beautiful bride Sara--crying when she expected him tocry, and reflecting every phase of her feeling with mimeticsusceptibility. Lapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self, andthought of all that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory,which was like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost thesense of touch, or like morsels on an untasting palate, having shape andgrain, but no flavor. Among the things we may gamble away in a lazyselfish life is the capacity for truth, compunction, or any unselfishregret--which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to feellaceration, rather than be conscious of a widening margin whereconsciousness once was. Mirah's purse was a handsome one--a gift to her,which she had been unable to reflect about giving away--and Lapidothpresently found himself outside of his reverie, considering what the pursewould fetch in addition to the sum it contained, and what prospect therewas of his being able to get more from his daughter without submitting toadopt a penitential form of life under the eyes of that formidable son. Onsuch a subject his susceptibilities were still lively.
Meanwhile Mirah had entered the house with her power of reticence overcomeby the cruelty of her pain. She found her brother quietly reading andsifting old manuscripts of his own, which he meant to consign to Deronda.In the reaction from the long effort to master herself, she fell downbefore him and clasped his knees, sobbing, and crying, "Ezra, Ezra!"
He did not speak. His alarm for her spending itself on conceiving thecause of her distress, the more striking from the novelty in her of thisviolent manifestation. But Mirah's own longing was to be able to speak andtell him the cause. Presently she raised her hand, and still sobbing, saidbrokenly--
"Ezra, my father! our father! He followed me. I wanted him to come in. Isaid you would let him come in. And he said No, he would not--not now, butto-morrow. And he begged for money from me. And I gave him my purse, andhe went away."
Mirah's words seemed to herself to express all the misery she felt inthem. Her brother found them less grievous than his preconceptions, andsaid gently, "Wait for calm, Mirah, and then tell me all,"--putting offher hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head. She felt the soothinginfluence, and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she could all thathad happened.
"He will not come to-morrow," said Mordecai. Neither of them said to theother what they both thought, namely, that he might watch for Mirah'soutgoings and beg from her again.
"Seest thou," he presently added, "our lot is the lot of Israel. The griefand the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame. It is because wechildren have inherited the good that we feel the evil. These things arewedded for us, as our father was wedded to our mother."
The surroundings were of Brompton, but the voice might have come from aRabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in_Babli_--by which (to our ears) affectionate-sounding diminutive is meantthe voluminous Babylonian Talmud. "The Omnipresent," said a Rabbi, "isoccupied in making marriages." The levity of the saying lies in the ear ofhim who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all the wondrouscombinations of the universe whose issue makes our good and evil.