 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Daniel Deronda by George Elliott. Chapter 59 I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends. Shakespeare Sir Hugo Malinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr. Gasquan had been, and Deronda on all accounts would not take his departure until he had seen the Baronette. There was not only Grandcourt's death, but also the late crisis in his own life to make reasons why his oldest friend would desire to have the unrestrained communication of speech with him. For in writing he had not felt able to give any details concerning the mother who had come and gone like an apparition. It was not till the fifth evening that Deronda, according to Telegram, waited for Sir Hugo at the station where he was to arrive between eight and nine. And while he was looking forward to the sight of the kind familiar face, which was part of his earliest memories, something like a smile in spite of his late tragic experience, might have been detected in his eyes and the curve of his lips at the idea of Sir Hugo's pleasure in being now master of his estates, able to leave them to his daughters, or at least, according to a view of inheritance which had just been strongly impressed on Deronda's imagination, to take makeshift feminine offspring as intermediate to a satisfactory heir in a grandson. We should be churlish creatures if we could have no joy in our fellow mortal's joy, unless we're in agreement with our theory of righteous distribution and our highest ideal of human good, what sour corners our mouths would get, our eyes, what frozen glances, and all the while our own possessions and desires would not exactly adjust themselves to our ideal. We must have some conred ship within perfection, and it is happily possible to feel gratitude even where we discern a mistake that may have been injurious, the vehicle of the mistake, being an affectionate intention prosecuted through a lifetime of kindly offices. Deronda's feeling and judgment were strongly against the action of Sir Hugo in making himself the agent of a falsity. Yes, a falsity! He could give no milder name to the concealment under which she had been reared, but the baronet had probably had no clear knowledge concerning the mother's breach of trust, and with his light, easy way of taking life, had held it a reasonable preference in her that her son should be made an English gentleman, seeing that she had the eccentricity of not carrying depart from her child and be to him as if she were not. Daniel's affectionate gratitude towards Sir Hugo made him wish to find grounds of excuse rather than blame, for it is as possible to be rigid in principle and tender in blame as it is to suffer from the sight of things hung awry and yet to be patient with the hanger who sees amiss. If Sir Hugo, in his bachelorhood, had been beguiled into regarding children chiefly as a product intended to make life more agreeable to the full grown, whose convenience alone was to be consulted in the disposal of them, why he had shared an assumption which, if not formally avowed, was massively acted on at that date of the world's history, and Deronda, with all his keen memory of the painful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, was able also to remember the many signs that his experience had been entirely shot out from Sir Hugo's conception. Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty, but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness, the most remote from Deronda's large imaginative lenience towards others, and perhaps now, after the searching scenes of the last ten days in which the curtain had been lifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was more than ever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment which has an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. When he saw Sir Hugo's familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the lifelong affection which had been well accustomed to make excuses flowed in and submerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed fresh ground for blame. Well, Dan, said Sir Hugo with a serious fervor grasping Deronda's hand, he uttered no other words of greeting, there was too strong a rush of mutual consciousness. The next thing was to give orders to the courier, and then to propose walking slowly in the mild evening, there being no hurry to get to the hotel. I have taken my journey easily and I am in excellent condition, he said, as he and Deronda came out under the starlight which was still faint with the lingering sheen of day. I didn't hurry in setting off because I wanted to inquire into things a little, and so I got sight of your letter to Lady Malinger before I started. But now how is the widow? Getting calmer, said Deronda, she seems to be escaping the bodily illness that one might have feared for her after her plunge and terrible excitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago and she is being well taken care of. Any prospect of an heir being born? From what Mr. Gasguan said to me, I conclude not. He spoke as if it were a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life. It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss of the husband. Said Sir Hugo, looking round at Deronda. The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her, said Deronda, quietly evading the question. I wonder whether Grand Court gave her any notion what were the provisions of his will. Said Sir Hugo. Do you know what they are, Sir? Parried Deronda. Yes, I do, said the baronet quickly. Gad, if there is no prospect of a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs. Glasher. You know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a sort of wife to him for a good many years. And there are three older children, girls. The boy is to take his father's name. He is Henley already, and he is to be Henley-Malinger Grand Court. The Malinger will be of no use to him, I'm happy to say. But the young dog will have more than enough with his fourteen years' minority. No need to have had holes filled up with my fifty thousand for Diplo that he had no right to. And meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up with a poor two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere. A nice kind of banishment for her if she chose to shut herself up there, which I don't think she will. The boy's mother has been living there of late years. I'm perfectly disgusted with Grand Court. I don't know that I'm obliged to think the better of him because he's drowned, though so far as my affairs are concerned, nothing in his life became him like the leaving it. In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife, not in leaving his estates to the son, said Deronda rather dryly. I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad, said Sir Hugo, but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a handsome provision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the rank he had raised her to. She ought to have had four or five thousand a year and the London house for her life. That's what I should have done for her. I suppose as she was penniless her friends couldn't stand out for a settlement, else it's ill trusting to the will a man may make after he's married. Even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze out of him in his will. My father did, I know, and if a fellow has any spite or tyranny in him he's likely to bottle off a good deal for keeping in that sort of document. It's quite clear Grand Court meant that his death should put an extinguisher on his wife if she bore him no air. And in the other case I suppose everything would have been reversed, ill legitimacy would have had the extinguisher, said Deronda with some scorn. Precisely, Gadsmere and the two thousand. It's queer. One nuisance is that Grand Court has made me an executor, but seeing he was the son of my only brother I can't refuse to act and I shall mind it less if I can be of any use to the widow. Lush thinks she was not in ignorance about the family under the rose and the purport of the will. He hints that there was no very good understanding between the couple. But I fancy you are the man who knew most about what Mrs. Grand Court felt or did not feel. Eh, Dan? Sir Hugo did not put this question with his usual jacoseness, but rather with a lowered tone of interested inquiry, and Deronda felt that any evasion would be misinterpreted. He answered gravely. She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as to the disposal of the property, from all I have seen of her I should predict that she will be quite contented with it. Then she is not much like the rest of her sex, that's all I can say, said Sir Hugo with a slight shrug. However, she ought to be something extraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscope and hers, eh? When that tremendous telegram came the first thing Lady Malinger said was, How very strange that it should be Daniel who sends it! But I have had something of the same sort in my own life. I was once at a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband without money. When I heard of it and came forward to help her, who should she be but an early flame of mine, who had been fool enough to marry an Austrian baron with a long moustache and short affection? But it was an affair of my own that called me there. Nothing to do with night air-entry any more than you coming to Genoa had to do with the Grandcourts. There was silence for a little while. Sir Hugo had begun to talk of the Grandcourts as the less difficult subject between himself and Duranda, but they were both wishing to overcome a reluctance to perfect frankness on the events which touched their relation to each other. Duranda felt that his letter, after the first interview with his mother, had been rather a thickening than a breaking of the ice, and that he ought to wait for the first opening to come from Sir Hugo. Just when they were about to lose sight of the port, the baronet turned, and pausing as if to get a last view, said in a tone of more serious feeling. And about the main business of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You have not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, I hope. There is nothing that you feel need change your position in any way. You know whatever happens to you must always be of importance to me. I desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir, said Duranda, but I can't answer those questions truly by a simple yes or no. Much that I have heard about the past has pained me, and it has been a pain to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state as I have been compelled to do. But it is no pain. It is rather a clearing up of doubts for which I am thankful to know my parentage. As to the effect on my position, there will be no change in my gratitude to you, sir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. But to know that I was born a Jew may have a momentous influence on my life, which I am hardly able to tell you of at present. Duranda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame some diffidence. He felt that the differences between Sir Hugo's nature and his own would have by and by to disclose themselves more markedly than had ever yet been needful. The baronet gave him a quick glance and turned to walk on. After a few moments' silence in which he had reviewed all the material in his memory, which would enable him to interpret Duranda's words, he said, I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan. But for God's sake, don't go into any eccentricities. I can tolerate any man's difference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself up as a lunatic. At this stage of the world, if a man wants to be taken seriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don't misunderstand me. I am not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I only think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, especially if he wanted defending. You have a passion for people who are pelted, Dan. I'm sorry for them, too, but so far as company goes it's a bad ground of selection. However, I don't ask you to anticipate your inclination in anything you have to tell me. When you make up your mind to a course that requires money, I have some sixteen thousand pounds that have been accumulating for you over and above what you have been having the interest of as income. And now I am calm, I suppose you want to get back to England as soon as you can. I must go first to Mainz to get away a chest of my grandfathers and perhaps to see a friend of his, said Duranda. Although the chest has been lying there these twenty years, I have an unreasonable sort of nervous eagerness to get it away under my care as if it were more likely now than before that something might happen to it. And perhaps I am the more uneasy because I lingered after my mother left instead of setting out immediately. Yet I can't regret that I was here. Else Mrs. Grandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her. Yes, yes, said Sir Hugo with a flippancy which was an escape of some vexation hidden under his more serious speech. I just hope you are not going to set a dead Jew above a living Christian. Duranda coloured and repressed a retort. They were just turning into the Italia. End of Chapter 59 This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Daniel Duranda by George Elliott Chapter 60 But I shall say no more of this at this time for this is to be felt and not to be talked of and they who never touched it with their fingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their hearts because of the wiser. Jeremy Taylor The Roman Emperor in the legend put to death ten learned Israelites to avenge the sale of Joseph by his brethren and there have always been enough of his kidney whose piety lies in punishing who can see the justice of grudges but not of gratitude for you shall never convince the stronger feeling that it hath not the stronger reason or incline him 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 Duranda presented his letter at the banking house in the Schusterstrasse at Mainz and asked for Joseph Kalonimos he was presently shown into an inner room where seated at a table arranging open letters was the white bearded man whom he had seen the year before in the synagogue at Frankfort he wore his hat it seemed to be the same old felt hat as before and near him was a packed portmanteau with a wrap and overcoat upon it unseeing Duranda enter he rose but did not advance or put out his hand looking at him with small penetrating eyes which glittered like black gems in the midst of his yellowish face and white hair he said in German Good! it is now you who seek me young man Yes, I seek you with gratitude as a friend of my grandfather said to Duranda and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself much trouble on my account he spoke without difficulty in that liberal German tongue which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom Kalonimos now put out his hand and said gorgelly Sir, you are no longer angry at being something more than an Englishman On the contrary for helping to save me from remaining in ignorance of my parentage and for taking care of the chest that my grandfather left in trust for me Sit down, sit down said Kalonimos in a quick undertone seating himself again and pointing to a chair near him then deliberately laying aside his hat and showing a head thickly covered with white hair he stroked and clutched his beard while he looked examiningly at them the moment wrought strongly on Duranda's imaginative susceptibility in the presence of one linked still in zealous friendship with 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 memorials which says Milton contain a potency of life in them to be as active as the soul whose progeny they are he seemed to himself to be touching or the scrutinizing look of Kalonimos with a delighted awe something like what one feels in the solemn commemoration of acts done long ago but still telling markedly on the life of today impossible for men of duller fiber men whose affection is not ready to diffuse itself through the wide travel of imagination to comprehend perhaps even to credit this sensibility of Duranda's but it subsisted like their own dullness notwithstanding their lack of belief in it and it gave his face an expression which seemed very satisfactory to the observer he said in Hebrew quoting from one of the fine hymns in the Hebrew liturgy as thy goodness has been great to the former generations even so may it be to the latter then after pausing a little he began young man I rejoiced that I was not yet set off again and that you were come in time for me to see the image of my friend as he was in his youth no longer perverted from the fellowship of your people no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who seemed to be claiming you as a Jew you come with thankfulness yourself to claim the kindred and heritage that wicked contrivance would have robbed you of you come with a willing soul to declare I am the grandson of Daniel Carisi is it not so? assuredly it is said Duranda but let me say that I should at no time have been inclined to treat a Jew within civility simply because he was a Jew you can understand that I shrink from saying to a stranger I know nothing of my mother a sin a sin said Colonimos putting up his hand and closing his eyes and disgust a robbery of our people as when our youths and maidens but it is frustrated I have frustrated it when Daniel Carisi may his rock and his redeemer guard him when Daniel Carisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above his shoulder we made a solemn vow always to be friends he said let us bind ourselves with duty as if we were sons of the same mother that was his bent from first to last as he said to fortify his soul with bonds it was a saying of his let us bind love with duty for duty is the love of law and law is the nature of the eternal so we bound ourselves and though we were much apart 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 that remainder of him which he had prized and preserved for his offspring and I have restored to him the offspring they had robbed him of I will bring you the chest forthwith Colonimos left the room for a few minutes and returned with a clerk who carried the chest set it down on the floor drew off a leather cover and went out again it was not very large but was made heavy by ornamental bracers and handles of gilt iron the wood was beautifully incised with Arabic lettering so said Colonimos and here is the curious key he added taking it from a small leathern bag bestow it carefully I trust you are methodic and wary he gave Duranda the monetary and slightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit any object to the keeping of youth I shall be more careful of this than of any other property said Duranda smiling and putting the key in his breast pocket I never before possessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished hope and effort and I shall never forget that the effort was partly yours have you time to tell me more of my grandfather or shall I be trespassing and staying longer stay yet a while in an hour and eighteen minutes I start for Trista said Colonimos looking at his watch and presently my sons will expect my attention will you let me make you known to them so that they may have the pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend's grandson they dwell here in ease and luxury though I choose to be a wanderer I shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for some future opportunity said Duranda there are pressing claims calling me to England friends who may be much in need of my presence I have been kept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances but to know more of you is enough to bring me again to Mainz good me you will hardly find for I am beyond my three score years and ten and I am a wanderer carrying my shroud with me but my sons and their children dwell here in wealth and unity the days are changed for us since Carl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring some tincture of knowledge to our rough German brethren I and my contemporaries have had to fight for it too our youth fell on evil days but this we have won we increase our wealth and safety and the learning of all Germany is fed and fattened by Jewish brains though they keep not always their Jewish hearts have you been left altogether ignorant of your people's life young man no said Duranda I have lately before I had any true suspicion of my parentage been led to study everything belonging to their history with more interest it turns out that I have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little he was anxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course of talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about age does not easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth needs to know distance seeming to level the objects of memory and keenly active as Joseph Colonimo showed himself in a wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to Beirut he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious observation but Duranda's last sentence answered its purpose so you would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had not hindered for you are like him in features yet not altogether young man he had an iron will in his face it braced up everybody about him when he was quite young one deep upright line in his brow I see none of that in you Daniel Carisi used to say better a wrong will than a wavering better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend better a false belief than no belief at all what he despised most was indifference he had longer reasons than I can give you yet his knowledge was not narrow said Duranda with a tacit reference to the usual excuse for indecision that it comes from knowing too much narrow no said Colonimo shaking his head with a compassionate smile from his childhood upward he drank in learning as easily as the plant sucks up water but he early took to medicine and theories about life and health he traveled to many countries and spent much of his substance in seeing and knowing what he used to insist on was that the strength and wealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness and communication and he was bitterly against our people losing themselves among the Gentiles it's no better said he than the many sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness he mingled all sorts of learning and in that he was like our Arabic writers in the golden time we studied together but he went beyond me though we were bosom friends he poured himself out to me we were as different as the inside and outside of the bowl I stood up for two notions of my own I took kareezy 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 were both faithful Jews thankful not to be Gentiles and since I was a right man I have been what I am now for all but age loving to wander in transactions loving to behold all things and caring nothing about hardship kareezy thought continually of our people's future he went with all his soul into that part of our religion I not so we have freedom I am content our people wandered before they were driven young man when I am in the east I lie much on deck and watch the greater stars the sight of them satisfies me and hunger not to know more kareezy was satisfied with no sight but pieced it out with what had been before and what would come after yet we loved each other and as he said he bound our love with duty we solemnly pledged ourselves to help and defend each other to the last I have fulfilled my pledge here Kolonimos rose and Aranda rising also said and in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me it would have been a robbery of me too that I should never have known of the inheritance he had prepared for me I thank you with my whole soul be worthy of him young man what is your vocation this question was put with a quick abruptness which embarrassed Aranda who did not feel it quite honest law reading as a vocation he answered I cannot say that I have any get one get one the Jew must be diligent you will call yourself a Jew and profess the faith of your fathers said Kolonimos putting his hand on Aranda's shoulder and looking sharply in his face I shall call myself a Jew said Aranda deliberately becoming slightly paler but I will not say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief and learned of other races but I think I can maintain my grandfather's notion of separateness with communication I hold that my first duty is to my own people and if there is anything to be done toward restoring or perfecting their common life I shall make that my vocation as a moment as it has often happened to others that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve his respect for the questioner would not let him decline to answer and by the necessity to answer he found out the truth for himself ah, you argue and look forward you are Daniel Carisi's grandson said Kolonimos adding a benediction in Hebrew with that they parted and almost as soon as they arrived in London the aged man was again on shipboard greeting the friendly stars without any eager curiosity end of chapter 60 this recording is in the public domain this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Daniel Deronda by George Elliott chapter 61 within the gentle heart love shelters him as birds within the green shade of the grove before the gentle heart in nature's scheme love was not nor the gentle heart air love Giro Gunicelli Rossetti's translation there was another house besides the White House at Pentecoat in which the news of Grand Court's death caused both strong agitation and the effort to repress it it was Hans Merrick's habit to send or bring in the times for his mother's reading she was a great reader of news from the widest reaching politics to the list of marriages the latter she said giving her the pleasant sense of finishing the fashionable novels without having read them and seeing the heroes on Wednesday there were reasons why Hans always chose to bring the paper and to do so about the time that Myra had nearly ended giving Mab her weekly lesson avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear Myra sing but on the particular Wednesday now in question after entering the house as quietly as usual with his latch key he reappeared in the parlor shaking the times aloft with a crackling noise with a panga with a remote imitation of her teacher piano and song ceased immediately Myra who had been playing the accompaniment involuntarily started up and turned round the crackling sound after the occasional trick of sound having seemed to her something thunderous and Mab said oh Hans why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing what on earth is the wonderful news in the room anything about Italy anything about the Austrians giving up Venice nothing about Italy but something from Italy said Hans with a peculiarity in his tone and manner which set his mother interpreting imagine how some of us feel and behave when an event not disagreeable seems to be confirming and carrying out our private constructions we say what do you think in a pregnant tone in the same boat with ours and finds our information flat nothing bad said Mrs. Merrick anxiously thinking immediately of Deronda and Myra's heart had been already clutched by the same thought not bad for anybody we care much about said Hans quickly rather uncommonly lucky I think I never knew anybody die conveniently before considering what a dear gazelle I am I am constantly wondering to find myself alive oh me Hans said Mab impatiently if you must talk of yourself let it be behind your own back what is it that has happened Duke Alfonso is drowned and the Duchess is alive that's all said Hans putting the paper before Mrs. Merrick with his finger against a paragraph but more than all is Deronda was at Genoa in the same hotel with them and he saw her brought in by the fisherman who had got her out of the water time enough to save her from any harm which was a less judicious action than I should have expected of the Duchess however Deronda is a lucky fellow and being there to take care of her Myra had sunk on the music stool again with her eyelids down and her hands tightly clasped and Mrs. Merrick giving up the paper to Mab said poor thing she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after him it was an inadvertence a little absence of mind said Hans creasing his face roguishly and throwing himself into a chair who can be fond of a jealous baritone with freezing glances always singing aside that was the husband's role depend upon it nothing can be neater than his getting drowned the Duchess is at liberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair and glances that will melt instead of freezing her and I shall be invited to the wedding here Myra started from her sitting posture and fixing her eyes on Hans with an angry gleam in them she said in a deeply shaken voice of indignation Mr. Hans you ought not to speak in that way Mr. Deronda would not like you to speak so why will you say he is lucky why will you use words of that sort about life and death when what is life to one is death to another how do you know it would be lucky if he loved Mrs. Grandcourt it might be a great evil to him she would take him away from my brother I know she would Mr. Deronda would not call that lucky to pierce my brother's heart all three were struck with a sudden transformation Myra's face with a look of anger that might have suited ethereal pale even to the lips that were usually so rich of tint was not far from poor Hans who sat transfixed blushing under it as if he had been a girl while he said nervously I am a fool and a brute and I withdraw every word I'll go in and hang myself like Judas if it's allowable to mention him even in Hans's sorrowful moments his improvised words had inevitably some drollery but Myra's anger was not appeased how could it be she had burst into indignant speech as creatures in intense pain bite and make their teeth meet even through their own flesh by way of making their agony bearable she said no more but seating herself at the piano pressed the sheet of music before her as if she thought of beginning to play again it was Mab who spoke while Mrs. Merrick's face seemed to reflect some of Hans's discomfort Myra is quite right to scold you Hans you are always taking Mr. Duranda's name in vain and it is horrible joking in that way about his marrying Mrs. Grandcourt men's minds must be very black I think ended Mab with much scorn quite true my dear said Hans in a low tone rising and turning on his heel to walk toward the back window we had better go on Mab you have not given your full time to the lesson said Myra in a higher tone than usual will you sing this again or shall I sing it to you oh please sing it to me said Mab rejoiced to take no more notice of what had happened and to Myra immediately sang Lacio Chao Pianga giving forth its melodious sobs and cries with new fullness Hans paused in his walk and leaned against the mantelpiece keeping his eyes carefully away from his mother's when Myra had sung her last note and touched the last chord she rose and said I must go home now Ezra expects me she gave her hand silently to Mrs. Merrick and hung back a little not daring to look at her instead of kissing her as usual but the little mother drew Myra's face to you my dear Myra felt that she had committed an offence against Mrs. Merrick by angrily rebuking Hans and mixed with the rest of her suffering was the sense that she had shown something like a proud ingratitude an unbecoming assertion of superiority and her friend had divine to this compunction meanwhile Hans had seized his wide awake and was ready to open the door now Hans said Mab as the sister's tenderness cunningly disguised you are not going to walk home with Myra I am sure she would rather not you're so dreadfully disagreeable today I shall go to take care of her if she does not forbid me said Hans opening the door Myra said nothing and when he had opened the outer door for her and closed it behind him he walked by her side unforbidden she had not the courage perhaps been unbecomingly severe in her words to him yet finding only severer words behind them in her heart besides she was pressed upon by a crowd of thoughts thrusting themselves forward as interpreters of that consciousness which still remained unaltered to herself Hans on his side had a mind equally busy Myra's anger had waked in him a new perception and with it the unpleasant sense that he was adult and clearly preoccupied with Deronda in another character than that of her own and her brother's benefactor the supposition was attended in Hans's mind with anxieties which to do him justice were not altogether selfish he had a strong persuasion which only direct evidence to the contrary could have dissipated and that was that there was a serious attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt he had pieced together many fragments of observation completed by what his sisters had heard from Anna Gasquan which convinced him not only that Mrs. Grandcourt had a passion for Deronda but also notwithstanding his friend's austere self-repression that Deronda's susceptibility about her was the sign of concealed love some men having such a conviction would have avoided illusions that could have roused that susceptibility but Hans's talk naturally fluttered toward mischief into a form of experiment on live animals which consisted in irritating his friends playfully his experiments had ended in satisfying him that what he thought likely was true on the other hand any susceptibility Deronda had manifested about a lover's attentions being shown to Myra Hans took to be sufficiently accounted for by the alleged reason namely her dependent position for he credited his friend with all possible unselfish anxiety for those whom he could rescue and protect and Deronda's insistence that Myra would never marry one who was not a Jew necessarily seemed to exclude himself since Hans shared the ordinary opinion which he knew nothing to disturb that Deronda was the son of Sir Hugo Malinger thus he felt himself in clearness about the state of Deronda's affections but now the events which really struck him as concurring toward the desirable union with Mrs. Grandcourt had called forth a flash of revelation from Myra a betrayal of her passionate feeling on this subject which had made him melancholy on her account as well as his own yet on the whole less melancholy than if he had imagined Deronda's hopes fixed on her it is not sublime but it is common for a man to see the beloved object unhappy because his rival loves another with more fortitude and a milder jealousy than if he saw her entirely happy in his rival at least it was so with the mercurial Hans who fluctuated between the contradictory states of feeling wounded because Myra was wounded and of being almost obliged to Deronda for loving somebody else it was impossible for him to give Myra any direct sign of the way in which he had understood her anger yet he longed that his speechless companionship should be eloquent in a tender, penitent sympathy which is an admissible form of wooing a bruised heart thus the two went side by side in a companionship that yet seemed an agitated communication like that of two cords whose quick vibrations lie outside our hearing but when they reached the door of Myra's home and Hans said goodbye putting out his hand with an appealing look of penitence she met the look with melancholy gentleness and said will you not come in and see my brother Hans could not but interpret this invitation as a sign of pardon he had not enough understanding of what Myra's nature had been wrought into by her early experience to divine how the very strength of her late excitement had made it pass more quickly into the resolute acceptance of pain when he had said if you will let me and they went in together half his grief was gone and he was spinning a little romance of how his devotion might make him indispensable to Myra in proportion as Deronda since his friend was provided for according to his own heart and on the question of Judaism Hans felt thoroughly fortified whoever heard in tale or history that a woman's love went in the track of her race and religion Muslim and Jewish damsels were always attracted toward Christians and now if Myra's heart had gone forth too precipitately toward Deronda here was another case in point Hans was wont to make merry with his own arguments like power and antithesis the soul clued to events but he believed a little in what he laughed at and thus his bird-like hope constructed on the lightest principles sort again in spite of heavy circumstances they found Mordecai looking singularly happy holding a closed letter in his hand his eyes glowing with a quiet triumph which in his emaciated face gave the idea of a conquest over a sailing death after the greeting between him and Hans Myra put her arm round her brother's neck and looked down at the letter in his hand without the courage to ask about it though she felt sure that it was the cause of his happiness a letter from Daniel Deronda said Mordecai answering her look brief only saying that he hoped soon to return unexpected claims have detained him the promise of seeing him again is like the bow and the cloud to me continued Mordecai saying Hans and to you it must be a gladness for who has two friends like him while Hans was answering Myra slipped away to her own room but not to indulge in any outburst of the passion within her if the angels once supposed to watch the toilette of women had entered the little chamber with her and let her shut the door behind them they would only have seen her take off her hat sit down and press her hands against her temples as if she had suddenly reflected that her head ached then rise to dash cold water on her eyes and brow and hair till her backward curls were full of crystal beads while she had dried her brow and looked out like a freshly opened flower from among the dewy tresses of the woodland then give deep size of relief and putting on her little slippers sit still after that action for a couple of minutes which seemed to her so long so full of things to come and rose with an air of recollection and went down to make tea something of the old life had returned she had been used to remember that she must learn her part must go to rehearsal must act and sing in the evening must hide her feelings from her father and the more painful her life grew the more she had been used to hide the force of her nature had long found its chief action in resolute endurance and today the violence of feeling which had caused the first jet of anger had quickly transformed itself into a steady facing of trouble the well-known companion of her young years but while she moved about and spoke as usual a close observer might have discerned a difference between this apparent calm which was the effect of restraining energy and the sweet genuine calm of the months when she first felt a return of her infantine happiness those who have been indulged and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others feel a blind and credulous rage at the reversal of their lot and half-believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm Myra felt no such surprise when familiar sorrow came back from brief absence and sat down with her according to the old use and want and this habit of expecting trouble rather than joy hindered her from having any persistent belief in opposition to the probabilities which were not merely suggested by Hans but were supported by her own private knowledge and long-growing presentiment an attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt to end in their future marriage had the aspect of a certainty for her feeling there had been no fault in him facts had ordered themselves so that there was a tie between him and this woman who belonged to another world and hers and Esra's nay who seemed another sort of being than Deronda something foreign that would be a disturbance in his life instead of blending with it well, well but if it could have been deferred so as to make no difference while Esra was there she did not know all the momentousness of the relation between Deronda and her brother but she had seen and instinctively felt enough that she could not afford at least this was the clothing that Myra first gave to her mortal repugnance but in the still quick action of her consciousness thoughts went on like changing states of sensation unbroken by her habitual acts and this inward language soon said distinctly that the mortal repugnance would remain even if Esra were secured from loss what I have read about and sung about this that I am feeling is the love that makes jealousy so impartially Myra summed up the charge against herself but what difference could this pain of hers make to anyone else it must remain as exclusively her own and hidden as her early yearning and devotion to her lost mother but unlike that devotion it was something that she felt to be a misfortune of her nature a discovery that what should have been pure gratitude and reverence had sunk into selfish pain that the feeling she had hitherto delighted to pour out in words was degraded into something she was ashamed to betray an absurd longing that she who had received all and given nothing should be of importance where she was of no importance an angry feeling toward another woman who possessed the good she wanted but what notion what vain reliance could it be of burning itself into sight as disappointment and jealousy it was as if her soul had been steeped in poisonous passion by forgotten dreams of deep sleep and now flamed out in this unaccountable misery for with her waking reason she had never entertained what seemed the wildly unfitting thought that Deronda could love her the uneasiness she had felt before had been comparatively vague and easily explained as part of a general regret that he was only a visitant in her and her brother's world from which the world where his homelay was as different as a portico with lights and lackeys was different from the door of a tent where the only splendor came from the mysterious inaccessible stars but her feeling was no longer vague the cause of her pain the image of Mrs. Grandcourt by Deronda's side drawing him farther and farther was as definite as pinchers on her flesh in the psyche mold of Myra's frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion sometimes rashly supposed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra her impressions had the thoroughness and tenacity that give to the first selection of passionate feeling the character of a lifelong faithfulness and now a selection had declared itself which gave love a cruel heart of jealousy she had been used to a strong repugnance towards certain objects that surrounded her and to walk inwardly aloof from them while they touched her sense and now her repugnance concentrated itself on Mrs. Grandcourt of whom she involuntarily conceived more evil than she knew I could bear everything that used to be but this is worse this is worse I used not to have horrible feelings said the poor child whisper to her pillow strange that she should have to pray against any feeling which concerned Duranda but this conclusion had been reached through an evening spent in attention to Mordecai whose exultation of spirit and the prospect of seeing his friend again disposed him to utter many thoughts allowed to Myra though such communication was often interrupted by intervals apparently filled with an inward utterance that animated his eyes and his lips one thought especially occupied him see as Thou Myra he said once after a long silence the Shema wherein we briefly confess the Divine Unity is the chief devotional exercise of the Hebrew and this made our religion the fundamental religion for the whole world for the Divine Unity embraced as its consequence the ultimate unity of mankind see then as the nation which has been scoffed at for its separateness has given a binding theory to the human race now in complete unity a part possesses the whole as the whole possesses every part and in this way human life is tending toward the image of the supreme unity for as our life becomes more spiritual by capacity of thought and joy therein possession tends to become more universal being independent of gross material contact so that in a brief day the soul of man may know in fuller volume the good which has been and is nay is to come then all he could possess in a whole life where he had to follow the creeping paths of the senses in this moment my sister I hold the joy of another's future within me a future which these eyes will not see and which my spirit may not then recognize as mine I recognize it now and love it so that I can lay down this poor life upon its altar and say burn burn indiscernible into that which shall be which is my love and not me does thou understand Myra a little said Myra faintly but my mind is too poor to have felt it and yet said Mordecai rather insistently women are specially framed for the love which feels possession in renouncing and is thus a fit image of what I mean somewhere in the later Midrash I think is the story of a Jewish maiden who loved a Gentile king so well that this was what she did she entered into prison and changed clothes with the woman who was beloved by the king that she might deliver that woman to death by dying in her stead and leave the king to be happy in his love which was not for her this is the surpassing love that loses self in the object of love no Ezra no said Myra with low toned intensity that was not it she wanted the king when she was dead to know what she had done and feel that she was better than the other it was her strong self wanting to conquer that made her die Mordecai was silent a little and then argued that might be Myra but if she acted so believing the king would never know you can make the story so in your mind Ezra because you are great and like to fancy the greatest that could be but I think it was not really like that the Jewish girl must have had jealousy in her heart and she wanted somehow to have the first place in the king's mind that is what she would die for my sister thou has read too many plays where the writers delight in showing the human passions as indwelling demons unmixed with the relenting and devout elements of the soul thou judges by the plays and not by thy own heart which is like our mothers Myra made no answer end of chapter 61 this recording is in the public domain this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Daniel Duranda by George Elliott Chapter 62 something which Myra had lately been watching for as the fulfillment of a threat seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which had lately come back bringing abundant luggage turning out of Night's Bridge after singing at a charitable morning concert in a wedding hall in a wedding hall in a wedding hall in a wedding hall in a wedding hall at a charitable morning concert in a wealthy house where she had been recommended by Klesmer and where there had been the usual groups outside to see the departing company she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an even pace with her own her concert dress being simple black over which she had thrown a desk cloak could not make her an object of unpleasant attention and render walking an imprudence but this reflection did not occur to Myra another kind of alarm lay uppermost in her mind she immediately thought of her father and could no more look round than if she had felt herself tracked by a ghost to turn and face him would be voluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which beforehand seemed intolerable if it were her father he must mean to claim recognition and he would oblige her to face him she must wait for that compulsion she walked on not quickening her pace of what use was that but picturing what was about to happen as if she had the full certainty that the man behind her was her father and along with her picturing went a regret that she had given her word to Mrs. Merrick not to use any concealment about him the regret at last urged her at least to try and hinder any sudden betrayal that would cause her brother an unnecessary shock under the pressure of this motive she resolved to turn before she reached her own door and firmly will the encounter instead of merely submitting to it she had already reached the entrance of the small square where her home lay and had made up her mind to turn when she felt her embodied presentiment getting closer to her then slipping to her side grasping her wrist and saying with a persuasive curl of accent Myra she paused at once without any start it was the voice she expected and she was meeting the expected eyes her face was as grave as if she had been looking at her executioner while his was adjusted to the intention of soothing and propitiating her once a handsome face with bright color it was now sallow and deep lined and had that peculiar impress of impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while accepting disrespect he was lightly made and active with something of youth about him which made the signs of age seem a disguise and in reality he was hardly 57 his dress was shabby as when she had seen him before the presence of this unreverent father now more than ever affected Myra with the mingled anguish of shame and grief repulsion and pity more than ever now that her own world was changed into one where there was no comradeship to fence him from scorn and contempt 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 which was meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance accompanied with various quick gestures like an abbreviated finger language what were you afraid of you knew I never made you do anything against your will in the Vorstad because I saw it didn't suit you and you repaid me by leaving me to the bad times that came in consequence I had made an easier engagement for you at the Vorstad theater in Dresden I didn't tell you because I wanted to take you by surprise and you left me planted there obliged to make myself scarce because I had broken contract that was hard lines for me after I had given up everything for the sake of getting you an education which was to be a fortune to you your father devoted himself to his daughter more than 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 was getting broken as a man must who has to fight his way with his brains you chose that time to leave me who else was it you owed everything to if not to me and where was your feeling in return for what my daughter cared I might have died in a ditch Lapidoth stopped short here in the mansion but because he had reached a pathetic climax and gave a sudden sob like a woman's taking out hastily and old yellow silk handkerchief he really felt that his daughter had treated him ill a sort of sensibility which is naturally strong in unscrupulous persons who put down what is owing to them without any per contra Myra in spite of that sob had energy enough not to let him suppose that he deceived her even 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 have trusted you I would have stayed with you and worked for you I never meant to deceive your mother Myra said Lapidoth putting back his handkerchief but beginning with a voice that seemed to struggle against further sobbing I meant to take you back to her in time and then there came information of her death it was better for you that I should stay where I was and your brother could take care of himself nobody had any claim on me but you I had word of your mother's death from a particular friend who had undertaken to manage things for me and I sent him over money to pay expenses there's one chance to be sure Lapidoth had quickly conceived that he must guard against something unlikely yet possible he may have written me lies for the sake of getting the money out of me Myra made no answer she could not bear to utter the only true one I don't believe a word of what you say and she simply showed a wish that they should walk on feeling that their standing still might draw down unpleasant notice even as they walked along their companionship might well have made a passerby turn back to look at them the figure of Myra with her beauty off by the quiet careful dress of an English lady made a strange pendant to this shabby foreign looking eager and gesticulating man who with all had an ineffacable jauntiness of air perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair the smallness of his hands and feet and his light walk you seem to have done well for yourself Myra you are in no want I see said the father looking at her with emphatic examination found me in distress have helped me to get work said Myra hardly knowing what she actually said from being occupied with what she would presently have to say I give lessons I have sung in private houses I have just been singing at a private concert she paused and then added with significance I have very good friends who know all about me and you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight no wonder but the chance of finding you it was a mad quest but a father's heart is superstitious feels a lodestone drawing at somewhere or other I might have done very well staying abroad when I hadn't you to take care of I could have rolled or settled as easily as a ball but it's hard being alone in the world when your spirit's beginning to break and I thought my little Myra would repent leaving her father when she came to look back I've had a sharp pinch to work my way I don't know what I shall come down to next Talents like mine are no use in this country when a man's getting out at elbows nobody will believe in him I couldn't get any decent employ with my appearance I've been obliged to get pretty low for a shilling already Myra's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into a further degradation which she was bound to hinder if she could but before she could answer his string of inventive sentences delivered with as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote he added promptly where do you live Myra here in this square we are not far from the house in lodgings yes anyone to take care of you yes said Myra again looking full at the keen face which was turned toward hers my brother fluttered as if the lightning had come across them and there was a slight movement of the shoulders but he said after just perceptible pause Ezra how do you know how did you find him that would take long to tell here we are at the door my brother would not wish me to close it on you Myra was already on the doorstep but had her face turned toward her father who stood below her on the pavement her heart had begun to beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of Ezra and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom she had been used to obey in this sight of him standing below her with a perceptible shrinking from the admission which she had been indirectly asking for she had a pang of the peculiar sympathetic humiliation and shame the stabbed heart of reverence which belongs to a nature intensely filial stay a minute Liebschen said Lapidoth speaking in a lowered tone what sort of man has Ezra turned out a good man a wonderful man said Myra with slow emphasis trying to master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went on she felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration of himself which awaited him for when my friends found him for 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 him back because because she had lost me and he went to her and took care of her through great trouble and worked for her till she died died in grief and Ezra too had lost his health and strength the cold had seized him coming back to my mother for years he has been getting weaker always poor always working but full of knowledge and great-minded all who come near him honor him to stand before him is like standing before a prophet of God Myra ended with difficulty her heart throbbing falsehoods are no use she had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she spoke the last words unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration that gathered in his face but he was nonetheless quick in invention and decision Myra, Libchen, he said in the old caressing way shouldn't you like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me if I had a little sum of money I could fit myself out and come home to you as your father ought and then I could offer myself for some decent place and coat on my back people would be glad enough to have me I could offer myself for a courier if I didn't look like a broken-down mount-a-bank I should like to be with my children and forget and forgive but you have never seen your father look like this before if you had ten pounds at hand or I could appoint you to bring it me somewhere I could fit myself out by the day after tomorrow Myra felt herself under a temptation which she must try to overcome and she started obliging herself to look at him again I don't like to deny what you ask father but I have given a promise not 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 new clothes and we can pay for them her practical sense made her see now what was Mrs. Merrick's wisdom in exacting a promise from her Lapidoth's good humor gave way a little he said with a sneer you are a hard and fast young lady you have been learning useful virtues keeping promises not to help your father with a pound or two when you are getting money to dress yourself up in silk your father who made an idol of you and gave up the best part of his life to providing for you it seems cruel I know it seems cruel said Myra feeling this a worse moment than when she had meant to drown herself her lips were suddenly pale but father it is more cruel to break the promises people trust in that broke my mother's heart it has broken Ezra's life you and I must eat now this bitterness from what has been bear it bear to come in and be cared for as you are tomorrow then said Lapidoth almost turning on his heel away from this pale trembling daughter who seemed now to have got the inconvenient world to back her but he quickly turned on it again with his hands feeling about restlessly in his pockets and said with some return to his appealing tone I'm a little cut up with all this Myra I shall get up my spirits by tomorrow if you have a little money in your pocket I suppose it isn't against your promise to give me a trifle to buy a cigar with Myra could not ask herself another question could not do anything else then put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her port money and hold it out Lapidoth grasped it at once pressed her fingers the while and said Goodbye my little girl tomorrow then and left her he had not taken many steps before he looked carefully into all the folds of the purse found two half sovereigns and odd silver and pasted against the folding cover a bit of paper on which Ezra had inscribed in a beautiful Hebrew character the name of his mother the days of her birth and the prayer may Myra be delivered from evil it was Myra's liking to have this little inscription on many articles that she used the father read it and had a quick vision of his marriage day and the bright unblamed young fellow he was at that time teaching many things but expecting by and by to get money more easily by writing and very fond of his beautiful bride, Sarah crying when she expected him to cry and reflecting every phase of her feeling with mimetic susceptibility Lapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self and thought of all that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory which was like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost the sense of touch or like morsels on an untasting pallet having shape and grain but no flavor among the things we may gamble away in a lazy selfish life is the capacity for truth, compunction or any unselfish regret which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to feel laceration rather than be conscious of a widening margin where consciousness once was Myra's purse was a handsome one a gift to her which she had been unable to reflect about giving away and Lapidoth presently found himself outside of his reverie considering what the purse would fetch in addition to the sum it contained and what prospect there was of his being able to get more from his daughter without submitting to adopt a penitential form of life under the eyes of that formidable son on such a subject his susceptibilities were still lively Meanwhile Myra had entered the house with her power of reticence overcome by the cruelty of her pain she found her brother quietly reading and sifting old manuscripts of his own which he meant to consign to Duranda in the reaction from the long effort to master herself she fell down before him and clasped his knees sobbing and crying Ezra, Ezra he did not speak his alarm for her spending itself on conceiving the cause of her distress the more striking from the novelty in her of this violent manifestation but Myra's own longing was to be able to speak and tell him the cause presently she raised her hand and still sobbing said brokenly Ezra, my father our father he followed me I wanted him to come in I said you would let him come in and he said no he would not, not now but tomorrow and he begged for money from me and I gave him my purse to myself to express all the misery she felt in them her brother found them less grievous than all his preconceptions and said gently wait for calm Myra and then tell me all putting off her hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head she felt the soothing influence and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she could all that had happened he will not come tomorrow said Mordecai they both thought namely that he might watch for Myra's outgoings and beg from her again seeest thou he presently added our lot is the lot of Israel the grief and the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame it is because we children have inherited the good that we feel the evil these things are wedded for us as our father was wedded to our mother the surroundings were of Brompton but the voice might have come from a rabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in Babli by which to our ears affectionate sounding diminutive is mentioned the voluminous Babylonian Talmud the omnipresent said a rabbi is occupied in making marriages the levity of the saying lies in the ear of him who hears it for by marriages the speaker meant all the wondrous combinations of the universe of our good and evil end of chapter 62 this recording is in the public domain this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Daniel Duranda by George Elliott chapter 63 Moses in the description of the art there was a great artist himself and a true artist only this artist was with him where his egyptian people only the colossal and unconsciously reported but not like the egyptian he formed his art works from buckstein and granite but he built human pyramids he made human obelisks he took a poor brick stone and carved out his people which should still be hundreds of years ago he carved israel from one of his writings imagine the difference in Duranda's state of mind when he left England and when he returned to it he had set out for Genoa in total uncertainty how far the actual bend of his wishes and affections brought him into new paths far away from the tracks his thoughts had lately been pursuing with a consent of desire which uncertainty made dangerous he came back with something like a discovered charter warranting the inherited right that his ambition had begun to yearn for he came back with what was better than freedom with a dubious bond which his experience had been preparing him to accept gladly even if it had been attended however yet allowed to grow into a hope but now he dared avow to himself the hidden selection of his love since the hour when he left the house at Chelsea in full hearted silence under the effect of Myrus farewell look and words their exquisite appealingness stirring in him that deep laid care for womanhood which had begun when his own lip was like a girl's her hold on his feeling had helped him to be blameless there seemed no likelihood that he could ever woo this creature who had become dear to him amidst associations that forbade wooing yet she had taken her place in his soul as a beloved type reducing the power of other fascination and making a difference in it that became deficiency the influence had been continually strengthened it had lain in the course of poor Gwendolyn's lot that her dependence on Deronda tended to rouse in him a self-martering pity rather than a personal love and his less constrained tenderness flowed with the fuller stream toward an indwelling image and all things unlike Gwendolyn still more his relation to Mordecai had brought with it a new nearness to Myra which was not the less agitating because there was no apparent change in his position toward her and she had inevitably been bound up in all the thoughts that made him shrink this process had not gone on unconsciously in Deronda he was conscious of it as we are of some covetousness that it would be better to nullify by encouraging other thoughts than to give it the insistency of confession even to ourselves but the jealous fire had leaped out at Hans's pretensions and when his mother accused him of being in love with the Jewish any evasion suddenly seemed an infidelity his mother had compelled him with a sense of acknowledgement of his love as Joseph Colognimos had compelled him to a definite expression of his resolve this new state of decision wrought on Deronda with the force which surprised even himself there was a release of all the energy which had long been spent in self-checking and suppression because of doubtful conditions and he was ready to laugh at his own impetuosity and he was more and more of an obstruction it was as if he had found an added soul in finding his ancestry his judgment no longer wandered in the mazes of impartial sympathy but choosing with that partiality which is man's best strength the closer fellowship that makes sympathy practical exchanging that bird's eye reasonableness which soars to avoid preference and loses all sense of quality for the generous reasonableness that he had with her with men of like inheritance he wanted now to be again with Mordecai to pour forth instead of restraining his feeling to admit agreement and maintain descent and all the while to find Myra's presence without the embarrassment of obviously seeking it to see her in the light of a new possibility to interpret her looks and words from a new starting point to the other presentiment that her feeling toward himself had from the first lane in a channel from which it was not likely to be diverted into love to astonish a woman by turning into her lover when she has been thinking of you merely as a Lord Chancellor is what a man naturally shrinks from he is anxious to create an easier transition what wonder that Deronda saw no other course than to go straight to nowhere in Brompton every argument was in favour of his losing no time he had promised to run down the next day to see Lady Malinger at the Abbey and it was already sunset he wished to deposit the precious chest with Mordecai who would study its contents both in his absence and in company with him and that he should pay this visit without pause would gratify Mordecai's heart the strongest tendencies of his nature were rushing in one current the fervent affectionateness which made him delight in meeting the wish of being sneer to him and the imaginative need of some far reaching relation to make the horizon of his immediate daily acts it has to be admitted that in this classical romantic world historic position of his bringing as it were from its hiding place his hereditary armor he wore ancient heroes whether Semitic or Geophetic the summer costume of his contemporaries he did not reflect that the drab tints were becoming to him for he rarely went to the expense of such thinking but his own depth of colouring which made the becomingness got an added radiance in the eyes a fleeting and returning glow in the skin as he entered the house wondering what exactly he should find he made his entrance the evening of that same afternoon on which Myra had had the interview with her father Mordecai penetrated by her grief and also the sad memories which the incident had awakened had not resumed his task of sifting papers some of them had fallen scattered on the floor in the first moments of anxiety and neither he nor Myra had thought of laying them in order again they had sat perfectly still together not knowing how long the light was fading Myra unable to think of the food that she ought to have been taking had not moved since she had thrown off her dust cloak and sat down beside Mordecai with her hand in his while he had lain his head backward with closed eyes and difficult breathing looking Myra thought as he would look when the soul within him could no longer live in its straightened home the thought that his death might be less in this way without its vivid animation and now to the rest of her grief was added the regret that she had been unable to control the violent outbursts which had shaken him she sat watching him her oval cheeks pallid her eyes with the sorrowful brilliancy left by young tears her curls in as much disorder as a just awakened child watching that emaciated face where it might have been imagined drawn never to be lifted as if it were her dead joy which had left her strong enough to live on in sorrow and life at that moment stretched before Myra with more than a repetition of former sadness the shadow of the father was there and more than that a double bereavement of one living as well as one dead but now the door was opened and one entered a well-known voice said Daniel Deronda may he come in come, come said Mordecai immediately rising with an irradiated face and opened eyes apparently as little surprise as if he had seen Deronda in the morning and expected this evening visit while Myra started up blushing with confused half alarmed expectation yet when Deronda entered him was like the clearness after rain no clouds to come could hinder the cherishing beam of that moment as he held on his right hand to Myra who was close to her brother's left he laid his other hand on Mordecai's right shoulder and stood so a moment holding them both at once uttering no word but reading their faces till he said anxiously to Myra has anything happened any trouble said Mordecai saving her from the need to answer there is joy in your face let the joy be ours Myra thought it is for something he cannot tell us but they all sat down Deronda drawing a chair close in front of Mordecai that is true he said emphatically I have a joy which will remain to us even in the worst trouble I did not tell you the reason of my journey abroad Mordecai because never mind I went to learn of my parentage and you are right I am a Jew the two men clasped hands with a movement that seemed part of the flash from Mordecai's eyes and passed through Myra like an electric shock but Deronda went on without pause speaking from Mordecai's mind as much as from his own we have the same people our souls have the same vocation we shall not be separated by life or by death Mordecai's answer was uttered in Hebrew and in no more than a loud whisper it was in the liturgical words which expressed the religious bond our God and the God of our fathers the weight of feeling pressed too strongly on that ready winged speech which usually moved in quick adaptation to every stirring of his fervor knees by her brother's side and looked at his now illuminated face which had just before been so deathly the action was an inevitable outlet of the violent reversal from despondency to a gladness which came over her as solemnly as if she had been beholding a religious right for the moment she thought of the effect on her own life only through the effect on her brother and it is not only that I am a Jew Deronda went on in one of those rare moments when our yearnings and our acts can be completely one and the real we behold is our ideal good but I come of a strain that has ardently maintained the fellowship of our race a line of Spanish Jews that bore many students and men of practical power and I possess what will give us a sort of communion with them my grandfather Daniel Carisi preserved manuscripts in the hands of his grandson and now his hope is fulfilled in spite of attempts to port it by hiding my parentage from me I possess the chest containing them with his own papers and it is down below in this house I mean to leave it with you Mordecai that you may help me to study the manuscripts some of them I can read easily enough those in Spanish and Italian others are in Hebrew and I think Arabic but there seem to be Latin translations I was only able to look at them cursorily while I stayed at Mainz we will study them together Deronda ended with that bright smile which beaming out from the habitual gravity of his face seemed a revelation the reverse of the continual smile that discredits all expression but when this happy glance passed from Mordecai to Reston Myra it acted like a little too much sunshine under her attitude she had knelt under an impulse with which any personal embarrassment was incongruous and especially any thoughts about how Mrs. Grandcourt might stand to this new aspect of things thoughts which made her color under Deronda's glance and rise to take her seat again in her usual posture of crossed hands and feet with the effort to look as quiet as possible Deronda equally sensitive imagined that the feeling had gone into his eyes and had been repugnant to her he was ready enough to believe that any unexpected manifestation might spoil her feeling toward him and then his precious relation to brother and sister would be marred if Myra could have no love for him any advances of love on his part would make her wretched in that continual contact with him which would remain inevitable while such feelings were pulsating quickly in Deronda and Myra Mordecai seeing nothing in his friend's presence and words but a blessed fulfillment was already speaking with his old sense of enlargement in utterance Daniel from the first I have said to you we know not all the pathways has there not been a meeting among them as of the operations in one soul where an idea of being born and breathing draws the elements toward it and is fed and glows for all things are bound together in that omnipresence which is the place and habitation of the world and events are of a glass where through our eyes see some of the pathways and if it seems that the airing and unloving wills of men have helped to prepare you as Moses was prepared to serve your people the better that depends on another order than the law which must guide for the evil will of man makes not a people's good except by stirring the righteous will of man and beneath all the clouds with which our thought encompasses the eternal this is clear that a people can be blessed only by having counselors and a multitude whose will moves in obedience to the laws of justice and love for see now it was your loving will that made a chief pathway and assisted the effect of evil for by her forming the duties of brotherhood to my sister and seeking out her brother in the flesh your soul has been prepared to receive with gladness this message of the eternal behold the multitude of your brethren it is quite true that you and Myra have been my teachers said to Rhonda if this revelation had been made to me before I knew you both would have rebelled against it perhaps I should have felt then if I could have chosen I would have not been a Jew what I feel now is that my whole being is a consent to the fact but it has been the gradual accord between your mind and mine which has brought about that full consent at the moment Rhonda was speaking that first evening in the book shop was vividly in his remembrance with all the struggling aloofness he had then felt from Mordecai's prophetic confidence it was his nature to delight and satisfying to the utmost the eagerly expectant soul which seemed to be looking out from the face before him like the long enduring watcher who at last seized the mountain signal flame and he went on with fuller fervor it is through your inspiration that I have discerned what may be my life's task and the true who have given shape to what I believe was an inherited yearning the effect of brooding passionate thoughts in many ancestors thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my grandfather suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe brought up in the city of the plain or one with an inherited genius for painting and born blind the ancestral life would lie within them as a dim longing for unknown objects and sensations and the spell bound habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly wrought musical instrument never played on but quivering throughout in uneasy mysterious meanings of its intricate structure that under the right touch gives music something like that I think has been my experience since I began to read and know I have always longed for some ideal task in which I might feel myself as a queen of a multitude some social captainship which would come to me as a duty and not be striven for as a personal prize you have raised the image of such a task for me to bind our race together in spite of heresy you have said to me our religion united us before it divided us it made us a people before it made rabbinites and carites to work in your spirit failure will not be ignoble but it would be ignoble for me not to try even as my brother that fed at the breasts of my mother said Mordecai falling back in his chair with a look of exultant repose as after some finished labor to estimate the effect of this ardent outpouring from Duranda we must remember his former reserve his careful avoidance and elusive encouragement which gave to this decided pledge of himself a sacramental solemnity both for his own mind and Mordecai's on Myra the effect was equally strong though with a difference she felt a surprise which had no place in her brother's mind at Duranda's suddenly revealed sense of nearness to them there seemed to be a breaking of day around her which might show her other facts unlike her forebodings but after a moment's silence Mordecai spoke again it has begun already the marriage of our souls it waits but the passing away of this body and then they who are betrothed shall unite in a stricter bond and what is mine shall be thine call nothing mine that I have written Daniel for though our masters delivered rightly that everything should be quoted in the name of him that said it does not exclude the willing marriage which melts soul into soul and makes thought fuller as the clear waters are made fuller where the fullness is inseparable and the clearness is inseparable for I have judged what I have written and I desire the body that gave my thought to pass away as this fleshly body will pass but let the thought be born again from our fuller soul which shall be called yours you must not ask me to promise that said Deronda Smiling I must be convinced first of special reasons for it in the writings themselves and I am too backward a pupil yet that blend transmission must go on without any choice of ours but what we can't hinder must not make our rule for what we ought to choose I think our duty is faithful tradition where we can attain it and so you would insist for anyone to ask that yourself don't ask me to deny my spiritual parentage when I am finding the clue of my life in the recognition of natural parentage I will ask for no promise till you see the reason said Mordecai you have said the truth I would obey the master's rule for another but for years my hope nay my confidence has been not that the imperfect image of my thought has shaped work of the youthful carver who has seen a heavenly pattern and trembles in imitating the vision not that this should live but that my vision and passion should enter into yours yay into yours for he whom I longed for afar was he not you whom I discerned as mine when you came near nevertheless you shall judge for my soul is satisfied Mordecai paused and then began in a changed tone reverting to previous suggestions from Deronda's disclosure what moved your parents but he immediately checked himself and added nay I ask not that you should tell me ought concerning others unless it is your pleasure some time gradually you will know all said Deronda but now tell me more about yourselves and how the time has passed I am sure there has been some trouble Myra has been in distress about something he looked at Myra but she immediately turned to her brother appealing to him to give the difficult answer she hoped he would not think it necessary to tell Deronda the facts about her father on such an evening as this just when Deronda had brought himself so near and identified himself with her brother it was cutting to her that he should hear of this disgrace clinging about them which seemed to have become partly his to relieve herself she rose to take up her hat and cloak thinking she would go to her own room perhaps they would speak more easily when she had left them but meanwhile Mordecai said today there has been a grief a duty which seemed to have gone far into the distance has come back and turned its face upon us and raised no gladness has raised a dread that we must submit to but for the moment we are delivered from any visible yoke let us defer speaking of it as if this evening which is deepening about us where the beginning of the festival in which we must offer the first fruits of our joy and mingle no morning with them Deronda divined the hinted grief and left it in silence rising as he saw Myra rise and saying to her are you going I must leave almost immediately when I and Mrs. Adam have mounted the precious chest and have delivered the key to Mordecai no Ezra may I call him Ezra now I have learned to think of him as Ezra since I have heard you call him so please call him Ezra said Myra faintly feeling a new timidity under Deronda's glance and near presence was there really something different about him or was the difference only in her feeling the strangely various emotions of the last few hours had exhausted her she was faint with fatigue and want of food Deronda observing her pallor and tremulousness longed to show more feeling but dared not she put out her hand with an effort to smile and then he opened the door for her that was all a man of refined pride shrinks from making a lover's approaches to a woman whose wealth or rank might make them appear presumptuous or low motive but Deronda was finding a more delicate difficulty in a position which superficially taken was the reverse of that though to an ardent reverential love the loved woman has always a kind of wealth and rank which makes a man keenly susceptible about the aspect of his addresses Deronda's difficulty was what any generous man might have felt in some degree but it affected him peculiarly through his imaginative sympathy with a mind in which gratitude was strong Myra he knew felt herself bound to him by deep obligations which to her sensibilities might give every wish of his the aspect of a claim and an inability to fulfill it would cause her a pain continually in their inevitable communion in care of Ezra here were fears not of pride only but of extreme tenderness altogether to have the character of a benefactor seemed to Deronda's anxiety an insurmountable obstacle to confessing himself a lover unless in some inconceivable way it could be revealed to him that Myra's heart had accepted him beforehand and the agitation on his own account was not small even a man who has practiced himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him skeptical may at last be overtaken by the lover's awe may tremble, stammer and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness how much more may that energetic timidity possess a man whose inward history has cherished his susceptibilities and has kept all the language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leafage about the hillside spring as for Myra her deer head lay on its pillow that night with its former suspicions thrown out of shape but still present like an ugly story which has been discredited but not therefore dissipated all that she was certain of about Deronda seemed to prove that he had no such fetters upon him as she had been allowing herself his whole manner as well as his words implied that there were no hidden bonds remaining to have any effect in determining his future but notwithstanding this plainly reasonable inference uneasiness still clung about Myra's heart Deronda was not to blame but he had an importance for Mrs. Grandcourt which must give her some hold on him and the thought of any close confidence between them stirred the little biting snake that had long lain curled and harmless in Myra's gentle bosom but did she this evening feel as completely as before that her jealousy was no less remote from any possibility for herself personally than if her human soul had been lodged in the body of a fawn that Deronda had saved from the archers hardly something indefinable had happened and made a difference the soft warm rain of blossoms which had fallen just where she was did it really come because she was there? what spirit was there among the boughs? end of chapter 63 this recording is in the public domain this recording is in the public domain