Chương Chương 39 · Chapter XXXIX

.

“Vor den Wissenden sich stellen,

Sicher ist’s in allen Fällen!

Wenn du lange dich gequälet,

Weiß er gleich, wo dir es fehlet.

Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen;

Denn er weiß, wo du’s getroffen.”

—GOETHE: _West-östlicher Divan_.

Momentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to

the small house at Chelsea, when there was the discussion about Mirah’s

public name. But for the family group there, what appeared to be the

chief sequence connected with it occurred two days afterward. About

four o’clock wheels paused before the door, and there came one of those

knocks with an accompanying ring which serve to magnify the sense of

social existence in a region where the most enlivening signals are

usually those of the muffin-man. All the girls were at home, and the

two rooms were thrown together to make space for Kate’s drawing, as

well as a great length of embroidery which had taken the place of the

satin cushions—a sort of _pièce de résistance_ in the courses of

needlework, taken up by any clever fingers that happened to be at

liberty. It stretched across the front room picturesquely enough, Mrs.

Meyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab in the middle, and Amy at

the other end. Mirah, whose performances in point of sewing were on the

make-shift level of the tailor-bird’s, her education in that branch

having been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated

on a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate as model for a

title-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in the

successive volumes of the family tea-table. She was giving forth with

charming distinctness the delightful Essay of Elia, “The Praise of

Chimney-Sweeps,” and all were smiling over the “innocent blackness,”

when the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier

spheres, and they looked up in wonderment.

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Meyrick; “can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a

grand carriage, Amy?”

“No—only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman.”

“The Prime Minister, I should think,” said Kate dryly. “Hans says the

greatest man in London may get into a hansom cab.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Mab. “Suppose it should be Lord Russell!”

The five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant

bringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there

was seen bowing toward Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the

respected Premier—tall and physically impressive even in his kid and

kerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in

fact, as Mrs. Meyrick saw from the card, _Julius Klesmer_.

Even embarrassment could hardly have made the “little mother” awkward,

but quick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation,

and felt well satisfied that the great personage had come to Mirah

instead of requiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active

interest. But when he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the

cottage piano, Mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire

family existence as petty and private as an establishment of mice in

the Tuileries. Klesmer’s personality, especially his way of glancing

round him, immediately suggested vast areas and a multitudinous

audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his

consciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual

locus where there is a presence of other souls, and those who take in a

larger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seem mightily vain and

affected. Klesmer was vain, but not more so than many contemporaries of

heavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles one like a spear out

of a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures, these were as

natural to him as the length of his fingers; and the rankest

affectation he could have shown would have been to look diffident and

demure. While his grandiose air was making Mab feel herself a

ridiculous toy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in the details

around him with a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. He remembered a

home no longer than this on the outskirts of Bohemia; and in the

figurative Bohemia too he had had large acquaintance with the variety

and romance which belong to small incomes. He addressed Mrs. Meyrick

with the utmost deference.

“I hope I have not taken too great a freedom. Being in the

neighborhood, I ventured to save time by calling. Our friend, Mr.

Deronda, mentioned to me an understanding that I was to have the honor

of becoming acquainted with a young lady here—Miss Lapidoth.”

Klesmer had really discerned Mirah in the first moment of entering,

but, with subtle politeness, he looked round bowingly at the three

sisters as if he were uncertain which was the young lady in question.

“Those are my daughters: this is Miss Lapidoth,” said Mrs. Meyrick,

waving her hand toward Mirah.

“Ah,” said Klesmer, in a tone of gratified expectation, turning a

radiant smile and deep bow to Mirah, who, instead of being in the least

taken by surprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. She liked the look

of Klesmer, feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician

and a kind man.

“You will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me,”

he added, aware that they would all be relieved by getting rid of

preliminaries.

“I shall be very glad. It is good of you to be willing to listen to

me,” said Mirah, moving to the piano. “Shall I accompany myself?”

“By all means,” said Klesmer, seating himself, at Mrs. Meyrick’s

invitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acute

little mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she really

said to herself, “He will like her singing better if he sees her.”

All the feminine hearts except Mirah’s were beating fast with anxiety,

thinking Klesmer terrific as he sat with his listening frown on, and

only daring to look at him furtively. If he did say anything severe it

would be so hard for them all. They could only comfort themselves with

thinking that Prince Camaralzaman, who had heard the finest things,

preferred Mirah’s singing to any other: also she appeared to be doing

her very best, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual.

The song she had chosen was a fine setting of some words selected from

Leopardi’s grand Ode to Italy:,

“_O patria mia, vedo le mura c gli archi

E le colonne e i simula-cri e l’erme

Torridegli avi nostri_”,

This was recitative: then followed,

“_Ma la gloria—non vedo_”,

a mournful melody, a rhythmic plaint. After this came a climax of

devout triumph—passing from the subdued adoration of a happy Andante

in the words,

“_Beatissimi voi.

Che offriste il petto alle nemiche lance

Per amor di costei che al sol vi diede_”,

to the joyous outburst of an exultant Allegro in,

“_Oh viva, oh viva:

Beatissimi voi

Mentre nel monde si favelli o scriva._”

When she had ended, Klesmer said after a moment,

“That is old Leo’s music.”

“Yes, he was my last master—at Vienna: so fierce and so good,” said

Mirah, with a melancholy smile. “He prophesied that my voice would not

do for the stage. And he was right.”

“_Con_tinue, if you please,” said Klesmer, putting out his lips and

shaking his long fingers, while he went on with a smothered

articulation quite unintelligible to the audience.

The three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word of

praise. Mrs. Meyrick was a little alarmed.

Mirah, simply bent on doing what Klesmer desired, and imagining that he

would now like to hear her sing some German, went through Prince

Radzivill’s music to Gretchen’s songs in the _Faust_, one after the

other without any interrogatory pause. When she had finished he rose

and walked to the extremity of the small space at command, then walked

back to the piano, where Mirah had risen from her seat and stood

looking toward him with her little hands crossed before her, meekly

awaiting judgment; then with a sudden unknitting of his brow and with

beaming eyes, he stretched out his hand and said abruptly, “Let us

shake hands: you are a musician.”

Mab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held Klesmer

adorable. Mrs. Meyrick took a long breath.

But straightway the frown came again, the long hand, back uppermost,

was stretched out in quite a different sense to touch with finger-tip

the back of Mirah’s, and with protruded lip he said,

“Not for great tasks. No high roofs. We are no skylarks. We must be

modest.” Klesmer paused here. And Mab ceased to think him adorable: “as

if Mirah had shown the least sign of conceit!”

Mirah was silent, knowing that there was a specific opinion to be

waited for, and Klesmer presently went on—“I would not advise—I would

not further your singing in any larger space than a private

drawing-room. But you will do there. And here in London that is one of

the best careers open. Lessons will follow. Will you come and sing at a

private concert at my house on Wednesday?”

“Oh, I shall be grateful,” said Mirah, putting her hands together

devoutly. “I would rather get my bread in that way than by anything

more public. I will try to improve. What should I work at most?”

Klesmer made a preliminary answer in noises which sounded like words

bitten in two and swallowed before they were half out, shaking his

fingers the while, before he said, quite distinctly, “I shall introduce

you to Astorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give

you advice.” Then addressing Mrs. Meyrick, he added, “Mrs. Klesmer will

call before Wednesday, with your permission.”

“We shall feel that to be a great kindness,” said Mrs. Meyrick.

“You will sing to her,” said Klesmer, turning again to Mirah. “She is a

thorough musician, and has a soul with more ears to it than you will

often get in a musician. Your singing will satisfy her:

‘Vor den Wissenden sich stellen;’

you know the rest?”

“‘Sicher ist’s in allen Fällen.’”

said Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying “Schön!” put out his hand

again as a good-by.

He had certainly chosen the most delicate way of praising Mirah, and

the Meyrick girls had now given him all their esteem. But imagine Mab’s

feeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, “That

young lady is musical, I see!” She was a mere blush and sense of

scorching.

“Yes,” said Mirah, on her behalf. “And she has a touch.”

“Oh, please, Mirah—a scramble, not a touch,” said Mab, in anguish,

with a horrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadful

divining personage—evidently Satan in gray trousers—might order her

to sit down to the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the

midst of her. But this was cheap payment for her amazed joy when

Klesmer said benignantly, turning to Mrs. Meyrick, “Will she like to

accompany Miss Lapidoth and hear the music on Wednesday?”

“There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her,” said Mrs. Meyrick.

“She will be most glad and grateful.”

Thereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than

they had ever been bowed to before. Altogether it was an amusing

picture—the little room with so much of its diagonal taken up in

Klesmer’s magnificent bend to the small feminine figures like images a

little less than life-size, the grave Holbein faces on the walls, as

many as were not otherwise occupied, looking hard at this stranger who

by his face seemed a dignified contemporary of their own, but whose

garments seemed a deplorable mockery of the human form.

Mrs. Meyrick could not help going out of the room with Klesmer and

closing the door behind her. He understood her, and said with a

frowning nod,

“She will do: if she doesn’t attempt too much and her voice holds out,

she can make an income. I know that is the great point: Deronda told

me. You are taking care of her. She looks like a good girl.”

“She is an angel,” said the warm-hearted woman.

“No,” said Klesmer, with a playful nod; “she is a pretty Jewess: the

angels must not get the credit of her. But I think she has found a

guardian angel,” he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way.

The four young creatures had looked at each other mutely till the door

banged and Mrs. Meyrick re-entered. Then there was an explosion. Mab

clapped her hands and danced everywhere inconveniently; Mrs. Meyrick

kissed Mirah and blessed her; Amy said emphatically, “We can never get

her a new dress before Wednesday!” and Kate exclaimed, “Thank heaven my

table is not knocked over!”

Mirah had reseated herself on the music-stool without speaking, and the

tears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her friends.

“Now, now, Mab!” said Mrs. Meyrick; “come and sit down reasonably and

let us talk?”

“Yes, let us talk,” said Mab, cordially, coming back to her low seat

and caressing her knees. “I am beginning to feel large again. Hans said

he was coming this afternoon. I wish he had been here—only there would

have been no room for him. Mirah, what are you looking sad for?”

“I am too happy,” said Mirah. “I feel so full of gratitude to you all;

and he was so very kind.”

“Yes, at last,” said Mab, sharply. “But he might have said something

encouraging sooner. I thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning,

and only said, ‘_Con_tinue.’ I hated him all the long way from the top

of his hair to the toe of his polished boot.”

“Nonsense, Mab; he has a splendid profile,” said Kate.

“_Now_, but not _then_. I cannot bear people to keep their minds

bottled up for the sake of letting them off with a pop. They seem to

grudge making you happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand.

However, I forgive him everything,” said Mab, with a magnanimous air,

“but he has invited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one?

Was it because I have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it

like a newt from under a stone?”

“It was your way of listening to the singing, child,” said Mrs.

Meyrick. “He has magic spectacles and sees everything through them,

depend upon it. But what was that German quotation you were so ready

with, Mirah—you learned puss?”

“Oh, that was not learning,” said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into

an amused smile. “I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that

it is safer to do anything—singing or anything else—before those who

know and understand all about it.”

“That was why you were not one bit frightened, I suppose,” said Amy.

“But now, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on Wednesday.”

“I don’t want anything better than this black merino,” said Mirah,

rising to show the effect. “Some white gloves and some new _bottines_.”

She put out her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper.

“There comes Hans,” said Mrs. Meyrick. “Stand still, and let us hear

what he says about the dress. Artists are the best people to consult

about such things.”

“You don’t consult me, ma,” said Kate, lifting up her eyebrow with a

playful complainingness. “I notice mothers are like the people I deal

with—the girls’ doings are always priced low.”

“My dear child, the boys are such a trouble—we could never put up with

them, if we didn’t make believe they were worth more,” said Mrs.

Meyrick, just as her boy entered. “Hans, we want your opinion about

Mirah’s dress. A great event has happened. Klesmer has been here, and

she is going to sing at his house on Wednesday among grand people. She

thinks this dress will do.”

“Let me see,” said Hans. Mirah in her childlike way turned toward him

to be looked at; and he, going to a little further distance, knelt with

one knee on a hassock to survey her.

“This would be thought a very good stage-dress for me,” she said,

pleadingly, “in a part where I was to come on as a poor Jewess and sing

to fashionable Christians.”

“It would be effective,” said Hans, with a considering air; “it would

stand out well among the fashionable _chiffons_.”

“But you ought not to claim all the poverty on your side, Mirah,” said

Amy. “There are plenty of poor Christians and dreadfully rich Jews and

fashionable Jewesses.”

“I didn’t mean any harm,” said Mirah. “Only I have been used to

thinking about my dress for parts in plays. And I almost always had a

part with a plain dress.”

“That makes me think it questionable,” said Hans, who had suddenly

become as fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had

thought Deronda was, apropos of the Berenice-pictures. “It looks a

little too theatrical. We must not make you a _rôle_ of the poor

Jewess—or of being a Jewess at all.” Hans had a secret desire to

neutralize the Jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not

keeping secret.

“But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall

never be anything else,” said Mirah. “I always feel myself a Jewess.”

“But we can’t feel that about you,” said Hans, with a devout look.

“What does it signify whether a perfect woman is a Jewess or not?”

“That is your kind way of praising me; I never was praised so before,”

said Mirah, with a smile, which was rather maddening to Hans and made

him feel still more of a cosmopolitan.

“People don’t think of me as a British Christian,” he said, his face

creasing merrily. “They think of me as an imperfectly handsome young

man and an unpromising painter.”

“But you are wandering from the dress,” said Amy. “If that will not do,

how are we to get another before Wednesday? and to-morrow Sunday?”

“Indeed this will do,” said Mirah, entreatingly. “It is all real, you

know,” here she looked at Hans—“even if it seemed theatrical. Poor

Berenice sitting on the ruins—any one might say that was theatrical,

but I know that this is just what she would do.”

“I am a scoundrel,” said Hans, overcome by this misplaced trust. “That

is my invention. Nobody knows that she did that. Shall you forgive me

for not saying so before?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. “You knew

it was what she would be sure to do—a Jewess who had not been

faithful—who had done what she did and was penitent. She could have no

joy but to afflict herself; and where else would she go? I think it is

very beautiful that you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel.”

“The Jewesses of that time sat on ruins,” said Hans, starting up with a

sense of being checkmated. “That makes them convenient for pictures.”

“But the dress—the dress,” said Amy; “is it settled?”

“Yes; is it not?” said Mirah, looking doubtfully at Mrs. Meyrick, who

in her turn looked up at her son, and said, “What do you think, Hans?”

“That dress will not do,” said Hans, decisively. “She is not going to

sit on ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go

to Regent Street. It’s plenty of time to get anything you like—a black

silk dress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of

charity. She has talents to make people indebted to her.”

“I think it is what Mr. Deronda would like—for her to have a handsome

dress,” said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating.

“Of course it is,” said Hans, with some sharpness. “You may take my

word for what a gentleman would feel.”

“I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like me to do,” said Mirah,

gravely, seeing that Mrs. Meyrick looked toward her; and Hans, turning

on his heel, went to Kate’s table and took up one of her drawings as if

his interest needed a new direction.

“Shouldn’t you like to make a study of Klesmer’s head, Hans?” said

Kate. “I suppose you have often seen him?”

“Seen him!” exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his head and

mane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were

surveying an amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down

perpendicularly toward the keys. But then in another instant he wheeled

round on the stool, looked at Mirah and said, half timidly—“Perhaps

you don’t like this mimicry; you must always stop my nonsense when you

don’t like it.”

Mirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still,

but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said—“Thank

you. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think he

could, belonging to you,” she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick.

In this way Hans got food for his hope. How could the rose help it when

several bees in succession took its sweet odor as a sign of personal

attachment?