Chapter Chapter 17 · Chapter XVII

.

“This is true the poet sings,

That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow

Is remembering happier things.”

—TENNYSON: _In Memoriam_.

On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on

the Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to

England, with the understanding that his education was finished, and

that he was somehow to take his place in English society; but though,

in deference to Sir Hugo’s wish, and to fence off idleness, he had

begun to read law, this apparent decision had been without other result

than to deepen the roots of indecision. His old love of boating had

revived with the more force now that he was in town with the

Mallingers, because he could nowhere else get the same still seclusion

which the river gave him. He had a boat of his own at Putney, and

whenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief holiday to row

till past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that he was in a

sentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative mood

perhaps more common in the young men of our day—that of questioning

whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I

mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of

questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which

somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a

splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be

hampered with ideas which, since they left an accomplished Whig like

himself unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions;

especially as Deronda set himself against authorship—a vocation which

is understood to turn foolish thinking into funds.

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”:[*]

[* 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.