Daniel Deronda

Chapter 17

Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped,

his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised

traces of the seraphic boy "trailing clouds of glory." Still, even one who

had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow

recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze which Gwendolen

chose to call "dreadful," though it had really a very mild sort of

scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches of song, had

turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at his lithe,

powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for

an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor such as

nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his hands: they are

not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem to have only a

deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as

Titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of

refinement with force. And there is something of a likeness, too, between

the faces belonging to the hands--in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the

perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer:

thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a

human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations.

Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman,

for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to

answer our question about the road. And often the grand meanings of faces

as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the impressions that happen

just now to be of importance in relation to Deronda, rowing on the Thames

in a very ordinary equipment for a young Englishman at leisure, and

passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of an adventure in which his

appearance was likely to play any part. In fact, he objected very strongly

to the notion, which others had not allowed him to escape, that his

appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this, intended to

be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him, coming from mingled

experiences, to which a clue has already been given. His own face in the

glass had during many years associated for him with thoughts of some one

whom he must be like--one about whose character and lot he continually

wondered, and never dared to ask.

In the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the

river was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the towing-path,

and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been rowing fast to get

over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great barge advancing toward

him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of

yards of the river-brink. He was all the while unconsciously continuing

the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river

--the gondolier's song in the "Otello," where Rossini has worthily set to

music the immortal words of Dante--

"Nessun maggior dolore

Che ricordarsi del tempo felice

Nella miseria":

[Footnote: Dante's words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at

the head of the chapter.]

and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail

"nella miseria" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three or

four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the

bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman in the

boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal sounds came

with more significance than if they had been an insect-murmur amidst the

sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the barge, now turning his head

to the river-side, and saw at a few yards' distant from him a figure which

might have been an impersonation of the misery he was unconsciously giving

voice to: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of low slim figure, with most

delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large

black hat, a long woolen cloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging

down clasped before her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look

of immovable, statue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention

made him cease singing: apparently his voice had entered her inner world

without her taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased

she changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened

glance, met Deronda's face. It was but a couple of moments, but that

seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her

look was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it

turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity

which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In

fact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her

surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of

bewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her;

but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring bench

under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed,

melancholy women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty,

picturesque lines and color of the image that was exceptional, and these

conditions made it more markedly impossible that he should obtrude his

interest upon her. He began to row away and was soon far up the river; but

no other thoughts were busy enough quite to expel that pale image of

unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to speculating on the probable

romance that lay behind that loneliness and look of desolation; then to

smile at his own share in the prejudice that interesting faces must have

interesting adventures; then to justify himself for feeling that sorrow

was the more tragic when it befell delicate, childlike beauty.

"I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly and

vulgar," he said to himself. But there was no denying that the

attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to him

as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small,

small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over the girl-

tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as if they

were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless drag

wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the red

moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary

excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own

course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont to

have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that the new

image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed to him the

strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting into that

routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its wrong-doing,

and take opinions as mere professional equipment--why he should not draw

strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled scheme of things.

He used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back

by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which

easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow light, when thinking

and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what in other hours may have

seemed argument takes the quality of passionate vision. By the time he had

come back again with the tide past Richmond Bridge the sun was near

setting: and the approach of his favorite hour--with its deepening

stillness and darkening masses of tree and building between the double

glow of the sky and the river--disposed him to linger as if they had been

an unfinished strain of music. He looked out for a perfectly solitary spot

where he could lodge his boat against the bank, and, throwing himself on

his back with his head propped on the cushions, could watch out the light

of sunset and the opening of that bead-roll which some oriental poet

describes as God's call to the little stars, who each answer, "Here am I."

He chose a spot in the bend of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where

he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the

sky, while he himself was in shadow. He lay with his hands behind his

head, propped on a level with the boat's edge, so that he could see all

round him, but could not be seen by any one at a few yards' distance; and

for a long while he never turned his eyes from the view right in front of

him. He was forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-

involuntary identification of himself with the objects he was looking at,

thinking how far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till

his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape--when

the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was

bordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance thitherward.

In the first moment he had a darting presentiment about the moving figure;

and now he could see the small face with the strange dying sunlight upon

it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, and watched her with

motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed only to gather security

from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among the willows, and immediately

took off her woolen cloak. Presently she seated herself and deliberately

dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there a little while, then

taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. By this

time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a

drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening

her. He rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a

little below him. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of

discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding

her cloak half out of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if

she kept a faint hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was

accidentally coming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her,

steadying his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently--

"Don't be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can do

to help you."

She raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the

light, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments

which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she said

in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested

foreignness and yet was not foreign, "I saw you before," and then added

dreamily, after a like pause, "nella miseria."

Deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed that

her mind was weakened by distress and hunger.

"It was you, singing?" she went on, hesitatingly--"Nessun maggior dolore."

The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones seemed to give

the melody to Deronda's ear.

"Ah, yes," he said, understanding now, "I am often singing them. But I

fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my

boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak--let me take it."

He would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he should

scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and clutched the

cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him with a question in

them as she said, "You look good. Perhaps it is God's command."

"Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm come

to you."

She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak and

then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired arms.

Her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands together

one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward while she

leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face, was

unspeakably touching.

"Great God!" the words escaped Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that

they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating

impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that lay

close to his deepest interest in the fates of women--"perhaps my mother

was like this one." The old thought had come now with a new impetus of

mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both East and West

have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of inexorable

calamity.

The low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the

hearer: she stepped forward close to the boat's side, and Deronda put out

his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. She had already

put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some new thought

struck her, and drawing back she said--

"I have nowhere to go--nobody belonging to me in all this land."

"I will take you to a lady who has daughters," said Deronda, immediately.

He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel

friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in the near

background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly than ever--

"Do you belong to the theatre?"

"No; I have nothing to do with the theatre," said Deronda, in a decided

tone. Then beseechingly, "I will put you in perfect safety at once; with a

lady, a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no time: you

will make yourself ill. Life may still become sweet to you. There are good

people--there are good women who will take care of you."

She drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used to

such action, and sat down on the cushions.

"You had a covering for your head," said Deronda.

"My hat?" (She lifted up her hands to her head.) "It is quite hidden in

the bush."

"I will find it," said Deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as she

attempted to rise. "The boat is fixed."

He jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, wringing

it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat.

"We must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed you

from thinking you have been drowned," he said, cheerfully, as he got in

again and presented the old hat to her. "I wish I had any other garment

than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over your

shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing to do,

when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps." He held

out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint melancholy

smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly.

"I have some biscuits--should you like them?" said Deronda.

"No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread."

He began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along

swiftly for many minutes without speaking. She did not look at him, but

was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if she

were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the prospect of

life instead of death. The twilight was deepening; the red flush was all

gone and the little stars were giving their answer one after another. The

moon was rising, but was still entangled among the trees and buildings.

The light was not such that he could distinctly discern the expression of

her features or her glance, but they were distinctly before him

nevertheless--features and a glance which seemed to have given a fuller

meaning for him to the human face. Among his anxieties one was dominant:

his first impression about her, that her mind might be disordered, had not

been quite dissipated: the project of suicide was unmistakable, and given

a deeper color to every other suspicious sign. He longed to begin a

conversation, but abstained, wishing to encourage the confidence that

might induce her to speak first. At last she did speak.

"I like to listen to the oar."

"So do I."

"If you had not come, I should have been dead now."

"I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry that I

came."

"I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The _maggior dolore_ and the

_miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_." She paused and then

went on dreamily,--"_Dolore--miseria_--I think those words are alive."

Deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he

shrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to treat

her with the less reverence because she was in distress. She went on

musingly--

"I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the Eternal. I

know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep

their souls pure. I meant it so. But now I am commanded to live. I cannot

see how I shall live."

"You will find friends. I will find them for you."

She shook her head and said mournfully, "Not my mother and brother. I

cannot find them."

"You are English? You must be--speaking English so perfectly."

She did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, straining to

see him in the double light. Until now she had been watching the oar. It

seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of her

impression was dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had benumbed

her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward and inward

was continually slipping away from her. Her look was full of wondering

timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have lifted to the

angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in anger or in

pity.

"You want to know if I am English?" she said at last, while Deronda was

reddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw.

"I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me," he said, still

uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. "Perhaps it is not good

for you to talk."

"Yes, I will tell you. I am English-born. But I am a Jewess."

Deronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to

himself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced Spanish girls

might simply have guessed her to be Spanish.

"Do you despise me for it?" she said presently in low tones, which had a

sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear.

"Why should I?" said Deronda. "I am not so foolish."

"I know many Jews are bad."

"So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to despise

me because of that."

"My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am come a

long way--from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot tell you--I cannot speak

of it. I thought I might find my mother again--God would guide me. But

then I despaired. This morning when the light came, I felt as if one word

kept sounding within me--Never! never! But now--I begin--to think--" her

words were broken by rising sobs--"I am commanded to live--perhaps we are

going to her."

With an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped

that this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. Meanwhile he

was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present himself

with her in Park Lane--the course which he had at first unreflectingly

determined on. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady Mallinger; but it

was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he had a shuddering

sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful image of womanhood--

of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps chilling suspicious

manners from lady's maid and housekeeper, that might scare the mind

already in a state of dangerous susceptibility. But to take her to any

other shelter than a home already known to him was not to be contemplated:

he was full of fears about the issue of the adventure which had brought on

him a responsibility all the heavier for the strong and agitating

impression this childlike creature had made on him. But another resource

came to mind: he could venture to take her to Mrs. Meyrick's--to the small

house at Chelsea--where he had been often enough since his return from

abroad to feel sure that he could appeal there to generous hearts, which

had a romantic readiness to believe in innocent need and to help it. Hans

Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and Deronda felt the comfort of presenting

himself with his charge at a house where he would be met by a motherly

figure of quakerish neatness, and three girls who hardly knew of any evil

closer to them than what lay in history-books, and dramas, and would at

once associate a lovely Jewess with Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," besides thinking

that everything they did at Deronda's request would be done for their

idol, Hans. The vision of the Chelsea home once raised, Deronda no longer

hesitated.

The rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed

long. Happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and

submitted like a tired child. When they were in the cab, she laid down her

hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not let it

rest. Still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first on one

side, then on the other.

"They are too good to have any fear about taking her in," thought Deronda.

Her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one strong appeal to

belief and tenderness. Yet what had been the history which had brought her

to this desolation? He was going on a strange errand--to ask shelter for

this waif. Then there occurred to him the beautiful story Plutarch

somewhere tells of the Delphic women: how when the Maenads, outworn with

their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep in the market-place, the

matrons came and stood silently round them to keep guard over their

slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to them tenderly and saw them

safely to their own borders. He could trust the women he was going to for

having hearts as good.

Deronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new

phase in finding a life to which his own had come--perhaps as a rescue;

but how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? The moment of

finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation

as the moment of finding an idea.