第 三十三 章 · Chapter XXXIII

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“No man,” says a Rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, “may turn the

bones of his father and mother into spoons”—sure that his hearers

felt the checks against that form of economy. The market for spoons

has never expanded enough for any one to say, “Why not?” and to argue

that human progress lies in such an application of material. The only

check to be alleged is a sentiment, which will coerce none who do not

hold that sentiments are the better part of the world’s wealth.

Deronda meanwhile took to a less fashionable form of exercise than

riding in Rotten Row. He went often rambling in those parts of London

which are most inhabited by common Jews. He walked to the synagogues at

times of service, he looked into shops, he observed faces:—a process

not very promising of particular discovery. Why did he not address

himself to an influential Rabbi or other member of a Jewish community,

to consult on the chances of finding a mother named Cohen, with a son

named Ezra, and a lost daughter named Mirah? He thought of doing

so—after Christmas. The fact was, notwithstanding all his sense of

poetry in common things, Deronda, where a keen personal interest was

aroused, could not, more than the rest of us, continuously escape

suffering from the pressure of that hard unaccommodating Actual, which

has never consulted our taste and is entirely unselect. Enthusiasm, we

know, dwells at ease among ideas, tolerates garlic breathed in the

middle ages, and sees no shabbiness in the official trappings of

classic processions: it gets squeamish when ideals press upon it as

something warmly incarnate, and can hardly face them without fainting.

Lying dreamily in a boat, imagining one’s self in quest of a beautiful

maiden’s relatives in Cordova elbowed by Jews in the time of

Ibn-Gebirol, all the physical incidents can be borne without shock. Or

if the scenery of St. Mary Axe and Whitechapel were imaginatively

transported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the eleventh

century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the

Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and

in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand

the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic,

flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death—what

would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of

contemplative emotion? But the fervor of sympathy with which we

contemplate a grandiose martyrdom is feeble compared with the

enthusiasm that keeps unslacked where there is no danger, no

challenge—nothing but impartial midday falling on commonplace, perhaps

half-repulsive, objects which are really the beloved ideas made flesh.

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: in the force of

imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating

among cloud-pictures. To glory in a prophetic vision of knowledge

covering the earth, is an easier exercise of believing imagination than

to see its beginning in newspaper placards, staring at you from the

bridge beyond the corn-fields; and it might well happen to most of us

dainty people that we were in the thick of the battle of Armageddon

without being aware of anything more than the annoyance of a little

explosive smoke and struggling on the ground immediately about us.

It lay in Deronda’s nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious

sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with

Mirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care

for, he saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of a comparison

with her, and had a presentiment of the collision between her idea of

the unknown mother and brother and the discovered fact—a presentiment

all the keener in him because of a suppressed consciousness that a not

unlike possibility of collision might lie hidden in his own lot. Not

that he would have looked with more complacency of expectation at

wealthy Jews, outdoing the lords of the Philistines in their sports;

but since there was no likelihood of Mirah’s friends being found among

that class, their habits did not immediately affect him. In this mood

he rambled, without expectation of a more pregnant result than a little

preparation of his own mind, perhaps for future theorizing as well as

practice—very much as if, Mirah being related to Welsh miners, he had

gone to look more closely at the ways of those people, not without

wishing at the same time to get a little light of detail on the history

of Strikes.

He really did not long to find anybody in particular; and when, as his

habit was, he looked at the name over a shop door, he was well content

that it was not Ezra Cohen. I confess, he particularly desired that

Ezra Cohen should not keep a shop. Wishes are held to be ominous;

according to which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if

you have an impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more

likely to be born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a

squint you would not get it. This desponding view of probability the

hopeful entirely reject, taking their wishes as good and sufficient

security for all kinds of fulfilment. Who is absolutely neutral?

Deronda happening one morning to turn into a little side street out of

the noise and obstructions of Holborn, felt the scale dip on the

desponding side.

He was rather tired of the streets and had paused to hail a hansom cab

which he saw coming, when his attention was caught by some fine old

clasps in chased silver displayed in the window at his right hand. His

first thought was that Lady Mallinger, who had a strictly Protestant

taste for such Catholic spoils, might like to have these missal-clasps

turned into a bracelet: then his eyes traveled over the other contents

of the window, and he saw that the shop was that kind of pawnbroker’s

where the lead is given to jewelry, lace and all equivocal objects

introduced as _bric-à-brac_. A placard in one corner

announced—_Watches and Jewelry exchanged and repaired_. But his survey

had been noticed from within, and a figure appeared at the door,

looking round at him and saying in a tone of cordial encouragement,

“Good day, sir.” The instant was enough for Deronda to see the face,

unmistakably Jewish, belonged to a young man about thirty, and wincing

from the shopkeeper’s persuasiveness that would probably follow, he had

no sooner returned the “good day,” than he passed to the other side of

the street and beckoned to the cabman to draw up there. From that

station he saw the name over the shop window—_Ezra Cohen_.

There might be a hundred Ezra Cohens lettered above shop windows, but

Deronda had not seen them. Probably the young man interested in a

possible customer was Ezra himself; and he was about the age to be

expected in Mirah’s brother, who was grown up while she was still a

little child. But Deronda’s first endeavor as he drove homeward was to

convince himself that there was not the slightest warrantable

presumption of this Ezra being Mirah’s brother; and next, that even if,

in spite of good reasoning, he turned out to be that brother, while on

inquiry the mother was found to be dead, it was not

his—Deronda’s—duty to make known the discovery to Mirah. In

inconvenient disturbance of this conclusion there came his

lately-acquired knowledge that Mirah would have a religious desire to

know of her mother’s death, and also to learn whether her brother were

living. How far was he justified in determining another life by his own

notions? Was it not his secret complaint against the way in which

others had ordered his own life, that he had not open daylight on all

its relations, so that he had not, like other men, the full guidance of

primary duties?

The immediate relief from this inward debate was the reflection that he

had not yet made any real discovery, and that by looking into the facts

more closely he should be certified that there was no demand on him for

any decision whatever. He intended to return to that shop as soon as he

could conveniently, and buy the clasps for Lady Mallinger. But he was

hindered for several days by Sir Hugo, who, about to make an

after-dinner speech on a burning topic, wanted Deronda to forage for

him on the legal part of the question, besides wasting time every day

on argument which always ended in a drawn battle. As on many other

questions, they held different sides, but Sir Hugo did not mind this,

and when Deronda put his point well, said, with a mixture of

satisfaction and regret,

“Confound it, Dan! why don’t you make an opportunity of saying these

things in public? You’re wrong, you know. You won’t succeed. You’ve got

the massive sentiment—the heavy artillery of the country against you.

But it’s all the better ground for a young man to display himself on.

When I was your age, I should have taken it. And it would be quite as

well for you to be in opposition to me here and there. It would throw

you more into relief. If you would seize an occasion of this sort to

make an impression, you might be in Parliament in no time. And you know

that would gratify me.”

“I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir,” said Deronda. “But

I cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession.”

“Why not? if a man is not born into public life by his position in the

country, there’s no way for him but to embrace it by his own efforts.

The business of the country must be done—her Majesty’s Government

carried on, as the old Duke said. And it never could be, my boy, if

everybody looked at politics as if they were prophecy, and demanded an

inspired vocation. If you are to get into Parliament, it won’t do to

sit still and wait for a call either from heaven or constituents.”

“I don’t want to make a living out of opinions,” said Deronda;

“especially out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other

men. I dare say many better fellows than I don’t mind getting on to a

platform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honor for a

party.”

“I’ll tell you what, Dan,” said Sir Hugo, “a man who sets his face

against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable

fellow. There’s a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good

style—one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are

to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas; and I agree

with the Archbishop at Naples who had a St. Januarius procession

against the plague. It’s no use having an Order in Council against

popular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little

acting.”

“One may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity,” said

Deronda. “But it is one thing to say, ‘In this particular case I am

forced to put on this foolscap and grin,’ and another to buy a pocket

foolscap and practice myself in grinning. I can’t see any real public

expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of

deviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public

man I might mistake my success for public expediency.”

It was after this dialogue, which was rather jarring to him, that

Deronda set out on his meditated second visit to Ezra Cohen’s. He

entered the street at the end opposite to the Holborn entrance, and an

inward reluctance slackened his pace while his thoughts were

transferring what he had just been saying about public expediency to

the entirely private difficulty which brought him back again into this

unattractive thoroughfare. It might soon become an immediate practical

question with him how far he could call it a wise expediency to conceal

the fact of close kindred. Such questions turning up constantly in life

are often decided in a rough-and-ready way; and to many it will appear

an over-refinement in Deronda that he should make any great point of a

matter confined to his own knowledge. But we have seen the reasons why

he had come to regard concealment as a bane of life, and the necessity

of concealment as a mark by which lines of action were to be avoided.

The prospect of being urged against the confirmed habit of his mind was

naturally grating. He even paused here and there before the most

plausible shop-windows for a gentleman to look into, half inclined to

decide that he would not increase his knowledge about that modern Ezra,

who was certainly not a leader among his people—a hesitation which

proved how, in a man much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may

weigh more than the best-clad likelihood; for Deronda’s reasoning had

decided that all likelihood was against this man’s being Mirah’s

brother.

One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand

book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages

was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer

to the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was

judicious was apparent from Deronda’s finding in it something that he

wanted—namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the

Polish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his

pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for,

expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that

_nonchalance_ about sales which seems to belong universally to the

second-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men

who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even

a Jew will not urge Simson’s Euclid on you with an affectionate

assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes

he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led

to fear that a second-hand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class

of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by,

yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their

vocation.

But instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background

of books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling

in its unusualness. A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was

difficult to guess—from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh,

something like an old ivory carving—was seated on a stool against some

bookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more

remarkable than reading yesterday’s _Times_; but when he let the paper

rest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought

glanced through Deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might

possibly have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New

Hebrew poet of the mediæval time. It was a fine typical Jewish face,

wrought into intensity of expression apparently by a strenuous eager

experience in which all the satisfaction had been indirect and far off,

and perhaps by some bodily suffering also, which involved that absence

of ease in the present. The features were clear-cut, not large; the

brow not high but broad, and fully defined by the crisp black hair. It

might never have been a particularly handsome face, but it must always

have been forcible; and now with its dark, far-off gaze, and yellow

pallor in relief on the gloom of the backward shop, one might have

imagined one’s self coming upon it in some past prison of the

Inquisition, which a mob had suddenly burst upon; while the look fixed

on an incidental customer seemed eager and questioning enough to have

been turned on one who might have been a messenger either of delivery

or of death. The figure was probably familiar and unexciting enough to

the inhabitants of this street; but to Deronda’s mind it brought so

strange a blending of the unwonted with the common, that there was a

perceptible interval of mutual observation before he asked his

question; “What is the price of this book?”

After taking the book and examining the fly-leaves without rising, the

supposed bookseller said, “There is no mark, and Mr. Ram is not in now.

I am keeping the shop while he is gone to dinner. What are you disposed

to give for it?” He held the book close on his lap with his hand on it

and looked examiningly at Deronda, over whom there came the

disagreeable idea, that possibly this striking personage wanted to see

how much could be got out of a customer’s ignorance of prices. But

without further reflection he said, “Don’t you know how much it is

worth?”

“Not its market-price. May I ask have you read it?”

“No. I have read an account of it, which makes me want to buy it.”

“You are a man of learning—you are interested in Jewish history?” This

was said in a deepened tone of eager inquiry.

“I am certainly interested in Jewish history,” said Deronda, quietly,

curiosity overcoming his dislike to the sort of inspection as well as

questioning he was under.

But immediately the strange Jew rose from his sitting posture, and

Deronda felt a thin hand pressing his arm tightly, while a hoarse,

excited voice, not much above a loud whisper, said,

“You are perhaps of our race?”

Deronda colored deeply, not liking the grasp, and then answered with a

slight shake of the head, “No.” The grasp was relaxed, the hand

withdrawn, the eagerness of the face collapsed into uninterested

melancholy, as if some possessing spirit which had leaped into the eyes

and gestures had sunk back again to the inmost recesses of the frame;

and moving further off as he held out the little book, the stranger

said in a tone of distant civility, “I believe Mr. Ram will be

satisfied with half-a-crown, sir.”

The effect of this change on Deronda—he afterward smiled when he

recalled it—was oddly embarrassing and humiliating, as if some high

dignitary had found him deficient and given him his _congé_. There was

nothing further to be said, however: he paid his half-crown and carried

off his _Salomon Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte_ with a mere “good-morning.”

He felt some vexation at the sudden arrest of the interview, and the

apparent prohibition that he should know more of this man, who was

certainly something out of the common way—as different probably as a

Jew could well be from Ezra Cohen, through whose door Deronda was

presently entering, and whose flourishing face glistening on the way to

fatness was hanging over the counter in negotiation with some one on

the other side of the partition, concerning two plated stoppers and

three teaspoons, which lay spread before him. Seeing Deronda enter, he

called out “Mother! Mother!” and then with a familiar nod and smile,

said, “Coming, sir—coming directly.”

Deronda could not help looking toward the door from the back with some

anxiety, which was not soothed when he saw a vigorous woman beyond

fifty enter and approach to serve him. Not that there was anything very

repulsive about her: the worst that could be said was that she had that

look of having made her toilet with little water, and by twilight,

which is common to unyouthful people of her class, and of having

presumably slept in her large earrings, if not in her rings and

necklace. In fact, what caused a sinking of heart in Deronda was her

not being so coarse and ugly as to exclude the idea of her being

Mirah’s mother. Any one who has looked at a face to try and discern

signs of known kinship in it will understand his process of

conjecture—how he tried to think away the fat which had gradually

disguised the outlines of youth, and to discern what one may call the

elementary expressions of the face. He was sorry to see no absolute

negative to his fears. Just as it was conceivable that this Ezra,

brought up to trade, might resemble the scapegrace father in everything

but his knowledge and talent, so it was not impossible that this mother

might have had a lovely refined daughter whose type of feature and

expression was like Mirah’s. The eyebrows had a vexatious similarity of

line; and who shall decide how far a face may be masked when the

uncherishing years have thrust it far onward in the ever-new procession

of youth and age? The good-humor of the glance remained and shone out

in a motherly way at Deronda, as she said, in a mild guttural tone,

“How can I serve you, sir?”

“I should like to look at the silver clasps in the window,” said

Deronda; “the larger ones, please, in the corner there.”

They were not quite easy to get at from the mother’s station, and the

son seeing this called out, “I’ll reach ’em, mother; I’ll reach ’em,”

running forward with alacrity, and then handing the clasps to Deronda

with the smiling remark,

“Mother’s too proud: she wants to do everything herself. That’s why I

called her to wait on you, sir. When there’s a particular gentleman

customer, sir, I daren’t do any other than call her. But I can’t let

her do herself mischief with stretching.”

Here Mr. Cohen made way again for his parent, who gave a little

guttural, amiable laugh while she looked at Deronda, as much as to say,

“This boy will be at his jokes, but you see he’s the best son in the

world,” and evidently the son enjoyed pleasing her, though he also

wished to convey an apology to his distinguished customer for not

giving him the advantage of his own exclusive attention.

Deronda began to examine the clasps as if he had many points to observe

before he could come to a decision.

“They are only three guineas, sir,” said the mother, encouragingly.

“First-rate workmanship, sir—worth twice the money; only I get ’em a

bargain from Cologne,” said the son, parenthetically, from a distance.

Meanwhile two new customers entered, and the repeated call, “Addy!”

brought from the back of the shop a group that Deronda turned frankly

to stare at, feeling sure that the stare would be held complimentary.

The group consisted of a black-eyed young woman who carried a

black-eyed little one, its head already covered with black curls, and

deposited it on the counter, from which station it looked round with

even more than the usual intelligence of babies: also a robust boy of

six and a younger girl, both with black eyes and black-ringed

hair—looking more Semitic than their parents, as the puppy lions show

the spots of far-off progenitors. The young woman answering to

“Addy”—a sort of paroquet in a bright blue dress, with coral necklace

and earrings, her hair set up in a huge bush—looked as complacently

lively and unrefined as her husband; and by a certain difference from

the mother deepened in Deronda the unwelcome impression that the latter

was not so utterly common a Jewess as to exclude her being the mother

of Mirah. While that thought was glancing through his mind, the boy had

run forward into the shop with an energetic stamp, and setting himself

about four feet from Deronda, with his hands in the pockets of his

miniature knickerbockers, looked at him with a precocious air of

survey. Perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design to linger and

ingratiate himself that Deronda patted the boy’s head, saying,

“What is your name, sirrah?”

“Jacob Alexander Cohen,” said the small man, with much ease and

distinctness.

“You are not named after your father, then?”

“No, after my grandfather; he sells knives and razors and scissors—my

grandfather does,” said Jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with

that high connection. “He gave me this knife.” Here a pocket-knife was

drawn forth, and the small fingers, both naturally and artificially

dark, opened two blades and a cork-screw with much quickness.

“Is not that a dangerous plaything?” said Deronda, turning to the

grandmother.

“_He_’ll never hurt himself, bless you!” said she, contemplating her

grandson with placid rapture.

“Have _you_ got a knife?” says Jacob, coming closer. His small voice

was hoarse in its glibness, as if it belonged to an aged commercial

soul, fatigued with bargaining through many generations.

“Yes. Do you want to see it?” said Deronda, taking a small penknife

from his waistcoat-pocket.

Jacob seized it immediately and retreated a little, holding the two

knives in his palms and bending over them in meditative comparison. By

this time the other clients were gone, and the whole family had

gathered to the spot, centering their attention on the marvelous Jacob:

the father, mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held

staggering thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her

brother’s elbow to assist him in looking at the knives.

“Mine’s the best,” said Jacob, at last, returning Deronda’s knife as if

he had been entertaining the idea of exchange and had rejected it.

Father and mother laughed aloud with delight. “You won’t find Jacob

choosing the worst,” said Mr. Cohen, winking, with much confidence in

the customer’s admiration. Deronda, looking at the grandmother, who had

only an inward silent laugh, said,

“Are these the only grandchildren you have?”

“All. This is my only son,” she answered in a communicative tone,

Deronda’s glance and manner as usual conveying the impression of

sympathetic interest—which on this occasion answered his purpose well.

It seemed to come naturally enough that he should say,

“And you have no daughter?”

There was an instantaneous change in the mother’s face. Her lips closed

more firmly, she looked down, swept her hands outward on the counter,

and finally turned her back on Deronda to examine some Indian

handkerchiefs that hung in pawn behind her. Her son gave a significant

glance, set up his shoulders an instant and just put his fingers to his

lips,—then said quickly, “I think you’re a first-rate gentleman in the

city, sir, if I may be allowed to guess.”

“No,” said Deronda, with a preoccupied air, “I have nothing to do with

the city.”

“That’s a bad job. I thought you might be the young principal of a

first-rate firm,” said Mr. Cohen, wishing to make amends for the check

on his customer’s natural desire to know more of him and his. “But you

understand silver-work, I see.”

“A little,” said Deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them

down again. That unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his

mind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than

anything he had been aware of in his own conduct before. But the bare

possibility that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now

overpowered the inclination to rest in uncertainty.

“To tell you the truth,” he went on, “my errand is not so much to buy

as to borrow. I dare say you go into rather heavy transactions

occasionally.”

“Well, sir, I’ve accommodated gentlemen of distinction—I’m proud to

say it. I wouldn’t exchange my business with any in the world. There’s

none more honorable, nor more charitable, nor more necessary for all

classes, from the good lady who wants a little of the ready for the

baker, to a gentleman like yourself, sir, who may want it for

amusement. I like my business, I like my street, and I like my shop. I

wouldn’t have it a door further down. And I wouldn’t be without a

pawn-shop, sir, to be the Lord Mayor. It puts you in connection with

the world at large. I say it’s like the government revenue—it embraces

the brass as well as the gold of the country. And a man who doesn’t get

money, sir, can’t accommodate. Now, what can I do for _you_, sir?”

If an amiable self-satisfaction is the mark of earthly bliss, Solomon

in all his glory was a pitiable mortal compared with Mr. Cohen—clearly

one of those persons, who, being in excellent spirits about themselves,

are willing to cheer strangers by letting them know it. While he was

delivering himself with lively rapidity, he took the baby from his wife

and holding it on his arm presented his features to be explored by its

small fists. Deronda, not in a cheerful mood, was rashly pronouncing

this Ezra Cohen to be the most unpoetic Jew he had ever met with in

books or life: his phraseology was as little as possible like that of

the Old Testament: and no shadow of a suffering race distinguished his

vulgarity of soul from that of a prosperous, pink-and-white huckster of

the purest English lineage. It is naturally a Christian feeling that a

Jew ought not to be conceited. However, this was no reason for not

persevering in his project, and he answered at once in adventurous

ignorance of technicalities,

“I have a fine diamond ring to offer as security—not with me at this

moment, unfortunately, for I am not in the habit of wearing it. But I

will come again this evening and bring it with me. Fifty pounds at once

would be a convenience to me.”

“Well, you know, this evening is the Sabbath, young gentleman,” said

Cohen, “and I go to the _Shool_. The shop will be closed. But

accommodation is a work of charity; if you can’t get here before, and

are any ways pressed—why, I’ll look at your diamond. You’re perhaps

from the West End—a longish drive?”

“Yes; and your Sabbath begins early at this season. I could be here by

five—will that do?” Deronda had not been without hope that by asking

to come on a Friday evening he might get a better opportunity of

observing points in the family character, and might even be able to put

some decisive question.

Cohen assented; but here the marvelous Jacob, whose _physique_

supported a precocity that would have shattered a Gentile of his years,

showed that he had been listening with much comprehension by saying,

“You are coming again. Have you got any more knives at home?”

“I think I have one,” said Deronda, smiling down at him.

“Has it two blades and a hook—and a white handle like that?” said

Jacob, pointing to the waistcoat-pocket.

“I dare say it has.”

“Do you like a cork-screw?” said Jacob, exhibiting that article in his

own knife again, and looking up with serious inquiry.

“Yes,” said Deronda, experimentally.

“Bring your knife, then, and we’ll shwop,” said Jacob, returning the

knife to his pocket, and stamping about with the sense that he had

concluded a good transaction.

The grandmother had now recovered her usual manners, and the whole

family watched Deronda radiantly when he caressingly lifted the little

girl, to whom he had not hitherto given attention, and seating her on

the counter, asked for her name also. She looked at him in silence, and

put her fingers to her gold earrings, which he did not seem to have

noticed.

“Adelaide Rebekah is her name,” said her mother, proudly. “Speak to the

gentleman, lovey.”

“Shlav’m Shabbes fyock on,” said Adelaide Rebekah.

“Her Sabbath frock, she means,” said the father, in explanation.

“She’ll have her Sabbath frock on this evening.”

“And will you let me see you in it, Adelaide?” said Deronda, with that

gentle intonation which came very easily to him.

“Say yes, lovey—yes, if you please, sir,” said her mother, enchanted

with this handsome young gentleman, who appreciated remarkable children.

“And will you give me a kiss this evening?” said Deronda with a hand on

each of her little brown shoulders.

Adelaide Rebekah (her miniature crinoline and monumental features

corresponded with the combination of her names) immediately put up her

lips to pay the kiss in advance; whereupon her father rising in still

more glowing satisfaction with the general meritoriousness of his

circumstances, and with the stranger who was an admiring witness, said

cordially,

“You see there’s somebody will be disappointed if you don’t come this

evening, sir. You won’t mind sitting down in our family place and

waiting a bit for me, if I’m not in when you come, sir? I’ll stretch a

point to accommodate a gent of your sort. Bring the diamond, and I’ll

see what I can do for you.”

Deronda thus left the most favorable impression behind him, as a

preparation for more easy intercourse. But for his own part those

amenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. If these were

really Mirah’s relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid

filial piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such

as could be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. What did

this vaunting brother need? And with the most favorable supposition

about the hypothetic mother, Deronda shrank from the image of a first

meeting between her and Mirah, and still more from the idea of Mirah’s

domestication with this family. He took refuge in disbelief. To find an

Ezra Cohen when the name was running in your head was no more

extraordinary than to find a Josiah Smith under like circumstances; and

as to the coincidence about the daughter, it would probably turn out to

be a difference. If, however, further knowledge confirmed the more

undesirable conclusion, what would be wise expediency?—to try and

determine the best consequences by concealment, or to brave other

consequences for the sake of that openness which is the sweet fresh air

of our moral life.