The godhead in us wrings our noble deeds
From our reluctant selves.
It was an unpleasant surprise to Deronda when he returned from the
Abbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at
Brompton. Mirah had felt it necessary to speak of Deronda to her
father, and even to make him as fully aware as she could of the way in
which the friendship with Ezra had begun, and of the sympathy which had
cemented it. She passed more lightly over what Deronda had done for
her, omitting altogether the rescue from drowning, and speaking of the
shelter she had found in Mrs. Meyrick’s family so as to leave her
father to suppose that it was through these friends Deronda had become
acquainted with her. She could not persuade herself to more
completeness in her narrative: she could not let the breath of her
father’s soul pass over her relation to Deronda. And Lapidoth, for
reasons, was not eager in his questioning about the circumstances of
her flight and arrival in England. But he was much interested in the
fact of his children having a beneficent friend apparently high in the
world.
It was the brother who told Deronda of this new condition added to
their life. “I am become calm in beholding him now,” Ezra ended, “and I
try to think it possible that my sister’s tenderness, and the daily
tasting a life of peace, may win him to remain aloof from temptation. I
have enjoined her, and she has promised, to trust him with no money. I
have convinced her that he will buy with it his own destruction.”
Deronda first came on the third day from Lapidoth’s arrival. The new
clothes for which he had been measured were not yet ready, and wishing
to make a favorable impression, he did not choose to present himself in
the old ones. He watched for Deronda’s departure, and, getting a view
of him from the window, was rather surprised at his youthfulness, which
Mirah had not mentioned, and which he had somehow thought out of the
question in a personage who had taken up a grave friendship and hoary
studies with the sepulchral Ezra. Lapidoth began to imagine that
Deronda’s real or chief motive must be that he was in love with Mirah.
And so much the better; for a tie to Mirah had more promise of
indulgence for her father than a tie to Ezra: and Lapidoth was not
without the hope of recommending himself to Deronda, and of softening
any hard prepossessions. He was behaving with much amiability, and
trying in all ways at his command to get himself into easy
domestication with his children—entering into Mirah’s music, showing
himself docile about smoking, which Mrs. Adam could not tolerate in her
parlor, and walking out in the square with his German pipe, and the
tobacco with which Mirah supplied him. He was too acute to offer any
present remonstrance against the refusal of money, which Mirah told him
that she must persist in as a solemn duty promised to her brother. He
was comfortable enough to wait.
The next time Deronda came, Lapidoth, equipped in his new clothes, and
satisfied with his own appearance, was in the room with Ezra, who was
teaching himself, as a part of his severe duty, to tolerate his
father’s presence whenever it was imposed. Deronda was cold and
distant, the first sight of this man, who had blighted the lives of his
wife and children, creating in him a repulsion that was even a physical
discomfort. But Lapidoth did not let himself be discouraged, asked
leave to stay and hear the reading of papers from the old chest, and
actually made himself useful in helping to decipher some difficult
German manuscript. This led him to suggest that it might be desirable
to make a transcription of the manuscript, and he offered his services
for this purpose, and also to make copies of any papers in Roman
characters. Though Ezra’s young eyes he observed were getting weak, his
own were still strong. Deronda accepted the offer, thinking that
Lapidoth showed a sign of grace in the willingness to be employed
usefully; and he saw a gratified expression in Ezra’s face, who,
however, presently said, “Let all the writing be done here; for I
cannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by
burning or otherwise.” Poor Ezra felt very much as if he had a convict
on leave under his charge. Unless he saw his father working, it was not
possible to believe that he would work in good faith. But by this
arrangement he fastened on himself the burden of his father’s presence,
which was made painful not only through his deepest, longest
associations, but also through Lapidoth’s restlessness of temperament,
which showed itself the more as he become familiarized with his
situation, and lost any awe he had felt of his son. The fact was, he
was putting a strong constraint on himself in confining his attention
for the sake of winning Deronda’s favor; and like a man in an
uncomfortable garment he gave himself relief at every opportunity,
going out to smoke, or moving about and talking, or throwing himself
back in his chair and remaining silent, but incessantly carrying on a
dumb language of facial movement or gesticulation: and if Mirah were in
the room, he would fall into his old habit of talk with her, gossiping
about their former doings and companions, or repeating quirks and
stories, and plots of the plays he used to adapt, in the belief that he
could at will command the vivacity of his earlier time. All this was a
mortal infliction to Ezra; and when Mirah was at home she tried to
relieve him, by getting her father down into the parlor and keeping
watch over him there. What duty is made of a single difficult resolve?
The difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences
that mar the blessed return of morning with the prospect of irritation
to be suppressed or shame to be endured. And such consequences were
being borne by these, as by many other heroic children of an unworthy
father—with the prospect, at least to Mirah, of their stretching
onward through the solid part of life.
Meanwhile Lapidoth’s presence had raised a new impalpable partition
between Deronda and Mirah—each of them dreading the soiling inferences
of his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve
and diffidence of the other. But it was not very long before some light
came to Deronda.
As soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the Abbey,
he had called at Hans Meyrick’s rooms, feeling it, on more grounds than
one, a due of friendship that Hans should be at once acquainted with
the reasons of his late journey, and the changes of intention it had
brought about. Hans was not there; he was said to be in the country for
a few days; and Deronda, after leaving a note, waited a week, rather
expecting a note in return. But receiving no word, and fearing some
freak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible Hans, whose proposed
sojourn at the Abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a
second call, and was admitted into the painting-room, where he found
his friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat, his long hair still
wet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wizened—anything but
country-like. He had taken up his palette and brushes, and stood before
his easel when Deronda entered, but the equipment and attitude seemed
to have been got up on short notice.
As they shook hands, Deronda said, “You don’t look much as if you had
been in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to?”
“No,” said Hans, curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one
who has begun to feign by mistake; then pushing forward a chair for
Deronda, he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his
hands behind his head, while he went on, “I’ve been to
I-don’t-know-where—No man’s land—and a mortally unpleasant country it
is.”
“You don’t mean to say you have been drinking, Hans,” said Deronda, who
had seated himself opposite, in anxious survey.
“Nothing so good. I’ve been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some
time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having
found myself just now rather out of other bliss, I thought it judicious
to seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a
cask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution.”
“What has been the matter? You were in good spirits enough when you
wrote to me.”
“Oh, nothing in particular. The world began to look seedy—a sort of
cabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. A malady of genius, you may
be sure,” said Hans, creasing his face into a smile; “and, in fact, I
was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot
London weather.”
“Nothing else? No real vexation?” said Deronda.
Hans shook his head.
“I came to tell you of my own affairs, but I can’t do it with a good
grace if you are to hide yours.”
“Haven’t an affair in the world,” said Hans, in a flighty way, “except
a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man. Besides, as it is the first time in
our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are
only beginning to pay a pretty long debt.”
Deronda felt convinced that Hans was behaving artificially, but he
trusted to a return of the old frankness by-and-by if he gave his own
confidence.
“You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans,” he began.
“It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I
had never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa
to meet my mother. My father has been long dead—died when I was an
infant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew; my father was her
cousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a
probability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that
I was glad of it—glad to find myself a Jew.”
“You must not expect me to look surprised, Deronda,” said Hans, who had
changed his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the
heel of his slipper.
“You knew it?”
“My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had
been there—brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can’t
rejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be
glad of in the end—_when_ exactly the end may be I can’t predict,”
said Hans, speaking in a low tone, which was as usual with him as it
was to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss
about it.
“I quite understand that you can’t share my feeling,” said Deronda;
“but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new
light over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai’s ideas, and I
mean to try and carry them out, so far as one man’s efforts can go. I
dare say I shall by and by travel to the East and be away for some
years.”
Hans said nothing, but rose, seized his palette and began to work his
brush on it, standing before his picture with his back to Deronda, who
also felt himself at a break in his path embarrassed by Hans’s
embarrassment.
Presently Hans said, again speaking low, and without turning, “Excuse
the question, but does Mrs. Grandcourt know of all this?”
“No; and I must beg of you, Hans,” said Deronda, rather angrily, “to
cease joking on that subject. Any notions you have are wide of the
truth—are the very reverse of the truth.”
“I am no more inclined to joke than I shall be at my own funeral,” said
Hans. “But I am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions
on that subject.”
“Perhaps not,” said Deronda. “But let me say, once for all, that in
relation to Mrs. Grandcourt, I never have had, and never shall have the
position of a lover. If you have ever seriously put that interpretation
on anything you have observed, you are supremely mistaken.”
There was silence a little while, and to each the silence was like an
irritating air, exaggerating discomfort.
“Perhaps I have been mistaken in another interpretation, also,” said
Hans, presently.
“What is that?”
“That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another
woman, who is neither wife nor widow.”
“I can’t pretend not to understand you, Meyrick. It is painful that our
wishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for
supposing that you would succeed.”
“That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Deronda,” said
Hans, with some irritation.
“Why superfluous?”
“Because you are perfectly convinced on the subject—and probably have
had the very best evidence to convince you.”
“I will be more frank with you than you are with me,” said Deronda,
still heated by Hans’ show of temper, and yet sorry for him. “I have
never had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact,
I have very little hope.”
Hans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his
picture again.
“And in our present situation,” said Deronda, hurt by the idea that
Hans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to
his words, “I don’t see how I can deliberately make known my feeling to
her. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best
comfort; for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we
should have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of
pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than
a mischievous animal.”
“I don’t know that I have ever betrayed _my_ feeling to her,” said
Hans, as if he were vindicating himself.
“You mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me.”
“Oh, not the slightest,” said Hans, with bitter irony. “You have
measured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages.”
“I am a nuisance to you, Meyrick. I am sorry, but I can’t help it,”
said Deronda, rising. “After what passed between us before, I wished to
have this explanation; and I don’t see that any pretensions of mine
have made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any
pleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. Now the
father is there—did you know that the father is there?”
“Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to damn him—with
faint praise, I mean,” said Hans, but with no smile.
“She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on
in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her
feeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Neither
you nor I have injured the other, that I can see. We must put up with
this sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to
nothing. Our friendship can bear that strain, surely.”
“No, it can’t,” said Hans, impetuously, throwing down his tools,
thrusting his hands into his coat-pockets, and turning round to face
Deronda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. Hans
went on in the same tone,
“Our friendship—my friendship—can’t bear the strain of behaving to
you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. For you
_are_ the happiest dog in the world. If Mirah loves anybody better than
her brother, _you are the man_.”
Hans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at
Deronda with an expression the reverse of tender. Something like a
shock passed through Deronda, and, after an instant, he said,
“It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans.”
“I am not in a good-natured mood. I assure you I found the fact
disagreeable when it was thrust on me—all the more, or perhaps all the
less, because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the
duchess. But now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right
place—a Jew—and everything eligible.”
“Tell me what convinced you—there’s a good fellow,” said Deronda,
distrusting a delight that he was unused to.
“Don’t ask. Little mother was witness. The upshot is, that Mirah is
jealous of the duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the
better. There! I’ve cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to
swear at you for getting what you deserve—which is just the very best
luck I know of.”
“God bless you, Hans!” said Deronda, putting out his hand, which the
other took and wrung in silence.