第 四十六 章 · Chapter XLVI

.

“If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I

feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer,

‘Because it was he, because it was I.’ There is, beyond what I am able

to say, I know not what inexplicable power that brought on this

union.”—MONTAIGNE: _On Friendship_.

The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the

restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before

Mirah’s meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had

confided everything except Mordecai’s peculiar relation to himself, had

been active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not

many minutes’ walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister

would be within reach of her motherly care. Her happy mixture of

Scottish fervor and Gaelic liveliness had enabled her to keep the

secret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal to them

being likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating

suspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to

secure her independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more

arduous and dignified forms of our dependence. And both Mrs. Meyrick

and Deronda had more reasons than they could have expressed for

desiring that Mirah should be able to maintain herself. Perhaps “the

little mother” was rather helped in her secrecy by some dubiousness in

her sentiment about the remarkable brother described to her; and

certainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory admiration, it was due

to her faith in Deronda’s judgment. The consumption was a sorrowful

fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be very glad

of an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only contemplate

as Jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction among

them all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and

encouraging than that of Scott’s Covenanters? Her mind was anything but

prosaic, and had her soberer share of Mab’s delight in the romance of

Mirah’s story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual

in real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about

Sakya-Mouni, St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be

glad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still

more, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair.

Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the

intensity of Mirah’s feeling about Judaism would slowly subside, and be

merged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with

her new friends. In fact, her secret favorite continuation of the

romance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but something much

more favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. And now—here was a

brother who would dip Mirah’s mind over again in the deepest dye of

Jewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda,

“I am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there

are Ezras and Ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think

that all Jews are not like those shopkeepers who _will not_ let you get

out of their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother

and sister makes me bless him. I am sure he’s good. But I never did

like anything fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching

in my youth and lost my palate for it.”

“I don’t think you will find that Mordecai obtrudes any preaching,”

said Deronda. “He is not what I should call fanatical. I call a man

fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has

no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men

who are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; I should like

to keep that word for the highest order of minds—those who care

supremely for grand and general benefits to mankind. He is not a

strictly orthodox Jew, and is full of allowances for others; his

conformity in many things is an allowance for the condition of other

Jews. The people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, and they

can’t in the least understand his ideas.”

“Oh, well, I can live up to the level of the pawnbroker’s mother, and

like him for what I see to be good in him; and for what I don’t see the

merits of I will take your word. According to your definition, I

suppose one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor

husband used to say the world would be a poor place if there were

nothing but common-sense in it. However, Mirah’s brother will have good

bedding—that I have taken care of; and I shall have this extra window

pasted up with paper to prevent draughts.” (The conversation was taking

place in the destined lodging.) “It is a comfort to think that the

people of the house are no strangers to me—no hypocritical harpies.

And when the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much

prettier.”

“The next stage of the affair is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him

to move—which may be a more difficult business,” said Deronda.

“And will you tell Mirah before I say anything to the children?” said

Mrs. Meyrick. But Deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of

persuasive deliberation—“No, I think not. Let me tell Hans and the

girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?”

“Yes, that will be best. But do justice to my account of Mordecai—or

Ezra, as I suppose Mirah will wish to call him: don’t assist their

imagination by referring to Habakkuk Mucklewrath,” said Deronda,

smiling—Mrs. Meyrick herself having used the comparison of the

Covenanters.

“Trust me, trust me,” said the little mother. “I shall have to persuade

them so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself. When I am

frightened I find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for

not being brave: it warms the blood.”

Deronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view

to be taken of Mirah’s brother, if he had been less anxiously

preoccupied with the more important task immediately before him, which

he desired to acquit himself of without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai,

by a memorable answer, had made it evident that he would be keenly

alive to any inadvertance in relation to their feelings. In the

interval, he had been meeting Mordecai at the _Hand and Banner_, but

now after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had particular

reasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and

would beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the Cohens

would not regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the

understanding that if there were any objection, Mordecai would

accompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in this way to create a little

expectation that would have a preparatory effect.

He was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in

the women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering

which even in Cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence—the

guest’s transactions with Mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was

rather proud to think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed

his own understanding. But when Deronda said, “I suppose Mordecai is at

home and expecting me,” Jacob, who had profited by the family remarks,

went up to his knee and said, “What do you want to talk to Mordecai

about?”

“Something that is very interesting to him,” said Deronda, pinching the

lad’s ear, “but that you can’t understand.”

“Can you say this?” said Jacob, immediately giving forth a string of

his rote-learned Hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty

and the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense

of giving formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual

position.

“No, really,” said Deronda, keeping grave; “I can’t say anything like

it.”

“I thought not,” said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his

small scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep

pockets of his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight

hint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the

workroom, he opened it wide, set his back against it, and said,

“Mordecai, here’s the young swell”—a copying of his father’s phrase,

which seemed to him well fitted to cap the recitation of Hebrew.

He was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and Deronda,

entering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had

been laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in

sign of the Cohens’ respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was

struck with the air of solemn expectation in his face, such as would

have seemed perfectly natural if his letter had declared that some

revelation was to be made about the lost sister. Neither of them spoke,

till Deronda, with his usual tenderness of manner, had drawn the vacant

chair from the opposite side of the hearth and had seated himself near

to Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty,

“You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for.”

“It is true I have something very weighty to tell you—something I

trust that you will rejoice in,” said Deronda, on his guard against the

probability that Mordecai had been preparing himself for something

quite different from the fact.

“It is all revealed—it is made clear to you,” said Mordecai, more

eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. “You are even as my

brother that sucked the breasts of my mother—the heritage is

yours—there is no doubt to divide us.”

“I have learned nothing new about myself,” said Deronda. The

disappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be

strained longer in a mistaken hope.

Mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was

really coming. The whole day his mind had been in a state of tension

toward one fulfillment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his

eyes.

“Except,” Deronda went on gently, after a pause,—“except that I had

really some time ago come into another sort of hidden connection with

you, besides what you have spoken of as existing in your own feeling.”

The eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids.

“I had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested.”

“One who is closely related to your departed mother,” Deronda went on

wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking

movement in Mordecai, he added—“whom she and you held dear above all

others.”

Mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda’s

wrist; there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. A

tremor was perceptible in his clear tones as he said,

“What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from

evil.”

Mordecai’s grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless

sob.

Deronda went on: “Your sister is worthy of the mother you honored.”

He waited there, and Mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair,

again closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some

minutes in Hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence.

Deronda, watching the expression in his uplifted face, could have

imagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: there was a new

suffused sweetness, something like that on the faces of the beautiful

dead. For the first time Deronda thought he discerned a family

resemblance to Mirah.

Presently when Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in

accounting for Mirah’s flight he made the statement about the father’s

conduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her yearning to

come to England as the place where she might find her mother. Also he

kept back the fact of Mirah’s intention to drown herself, and his own

part in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with

friends of his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had

shared. What he dwelt on finally was Mirah’s feeling about her mother

and brother; and in relation to this he tried to give every detail.

“It was in search of them,” said Deronda, smiling, “that I turned into

this house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting name

in the world to me. I confess I had fear for a long while. Perhaps you

will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder

Mrs. Cohen’s daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah’s

friends to be. But I had found a brother worthy of her when I knew that

her Ezra was disguised under the name of Mordecai.”

“Mordecai is really my name—Ezra Mordecai Cohen.”

“Is there any kinship between this family and yours?” said Deronda.

“Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have

sheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in

Jewish hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the

outer air. It is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound

to them in gratitude, that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of

the Jewish million, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of

loving wisdom.”

“But you don’t feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer

tie to draw you?” said Deronda, not without fear that he might find an

obstacle to overcome. “It seems to me right now—is it not?—that you

should live with your sister; and I have prepared a home to take you to

in the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there. Pray

grant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours

when Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the

chief reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you

ought to give her the guardianship of a brother’s presence. You shall

have books about you. I shall want to learn of you, and to take you out

to see the river and trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that

you will be more and more in need of—nay, that I need for you. This is

the claim I make on you, now that we have found each other.”

Deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he

might have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai’s eyes were

fixed on him with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a

little while after Deronda had ceased to speak. Then he said, with an

almost reproachful emphasis,

“And you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a Jew!

Have we not from the first touched each other with invisible

fibres—have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common

stem with stirring from a common root? I know what I am outwardly, I am

one among the crowd of poor—I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls

know each other. They gazed in silence as those who have long been

parted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and

all their speech is understanding. The life of Israel is in your veins.”

Deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. It was

impossible either to deny or assent. He waited, hoping that Mordecai

would presently give him a more direct answer. And after a pause of

meditation he did say, firmly,

“What you wish of me I will do. And our mother—may the blessing of the

Eternal be with her in our souls!—would have wished it too. I will

accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah’s home shall

be mine.” He paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone,

“But I shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. You

must tell them, for my heart would fail me.”

“I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now at once?”

said Deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance.

“Yes; let us not defer it. It must be done,” said Mordecai, rising with

the air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. Then came, as an

afterthought, “But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful.”

When they entered the parlor he said to the alert Jacob, “Ask your

father to come, and tell Sarah to mind the shop. My friend has

something to say,” he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. It

seemed part of Mordecai’s eccentricity that he should call this

gentleman his friend; and the two women tried to show their better

manners by warm politeness in begging Deronda to seat himself in the

best place.

When Cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and

said with loud satisfaction, “Well, sir! I’m glad you’re doing us the

honor to join our family party again. We are pretty comfortable, I

think.”

He looked round with shiny gladness. And when all were seated on the

hearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby under her

scarlet quilt in the corner being rocked by the young mother, and

Adelaide Rebekah seated on the grandmother’s knee; on the other, Jacob

between his father’s legs; while the two markedly different figures of

Deronda and Mordecai were in the middle—Mordecai a little backward in

the shade, anxious to conceal his agitated susceptibility to what was

going on around him. The chief light came from the fire, which brought

out the rich color on a depth of shadow, and seemed to turn into speech

the dark gems of eyes that looked at each other kindly.

“I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great

change in his life,” Deronda began, “but I hope you will agree with me

that it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he

wishes me to tell you for him at once.”

“Relations with money, sir?” burst in Cohen, feeling a power of

divination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact.

“No; not exactly,” said Deronda, smiling. “But a very precious relation

wishes to be reunited to him—a very good and lovely young sister, who

will care for his comfort in every way.”

“Married, sir?”

“No, not married.”

“But with a maintenance?”

“With talents which will secure her a maintenance. A home is already

provided for Mordecai.”

There was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a

wailing tone,

“Well, well! and so you’re going away from us, Mordecai.”

“And where there’s no children as there is here,” said the mother,

catching the wail.

“No Jacob, and no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!” wailed the grandmother

again.

“Ay, ay, Jacob’s learning ’ill all wear out of him. He must go to

school. It’ll be hard times for Jacob,” said Cohen, in a tone of

decision.

In the wide-open ears of Jacob his father’s words sounded like a doom,

giving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole

announcement. His face had been gathering a wondering incredulous

sorrow at the notion of Mordecai’s going away: he was unable to imagine

the change as anything lasting; but at the mention of “hard times for

Jacob” there was no further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in

loud lamentation. Adelaide Rebekah always cried when her brother cried,

and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby

awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the

cradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai feeling the

cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in the midst of his

tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general

observation. His father, who had been saying, “Never mind, old man;

you shall go to the riders,” now released him, and he went to Mordecai,

who clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without

speaking. But Cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make

some apology for all this weakness, and that the occasion called for a

speech, addressed Deronda with some elevation of pitch, squaring his

elbows and resting a hand on each knee:

“It’s not as we’re the people to grudge anybody’s good luck, sir, or

the portion of their cup being made fuller, as I may say. I’m not an

envious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a shop of my

sort two doors lower down, _I_ shouldn’t make wry faces about it. I’m

not one of them that had need have a poor opinion of themselves, and be

frightened at anybody else getting a chance. If I’m offal, let a wise

man come and tell me, for I’ve never heard it yet. And in point of

business, I’m not a class of goods to be in danger. If anybody takes to

rolling me, I can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find my feet

when I’m let alone. And though, as I may say, you’re taking some of our

good works from us, which is property bearing interest, I’m not saying

but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will

to wish and do for Mordecai to the last; and a Jew must not be like a

servant who works for reward—though I see nothing against a reward if

I can get it. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I’m neither poor

nor greedy—I wouldn’t hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown

neither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of

Mordecai. You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A

Jewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a

woman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to

His will. And we all know what He has made her—a child-bearing,

tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. Her children are

mostly stout, as I think you’ll say Addy’s are, and she’s not mushy,

but her heart is tender. So you must excuse present company, sir, for

not being glad all at once. And as to this young lady—for by what you

say ‘young lady’ is the proper term”—Cohen here threw some additional

emphasis into his look and tone—“we shall all be glad for Mordecai’s

sake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are.”

Before Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech,

Mordecai exclaimed,

“Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have

sought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel

with love; and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even

in the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad.

But now I am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and

used himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command

sounded in his ears, ‘Arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.’

For no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness to take

another’s. But it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of

one duty is the power to fulfill another_—so said Ben Azai. You have

made your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and

me; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of

like deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob come and visit me?”

Mordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said,

“Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton.”

Jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going

forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word “visit”

having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his

grandfather’s, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai, and

took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands

in his knickerbockers.

“Well,” said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, “I hope

there’ll be nothing in the way of your getting _kosher_ meat, Mordecai.

For you’ll have to trust to those you live with.”

“That’s all right, that’s all right, you may be sure, mother,” said

Cohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which he was

uncertain of the guest’s position. “So, sir,” he added, turning with a

look of amused enlightenment to Deronda, “it was better than learning

you had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered to myself at the time. I

thought somehow there was a something.”

“Mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that I was seeking

him,” said Deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he

spoke.

It was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on

the next day but one; but when he was going Mordecai begged to walk

with him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and

comforter. It was a March evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him

go far, but he understood the wish to be outside the house with him in

communicative silence, after the exciting speech that had been filling

the last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda had proposed parting,

when he said,

“Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. You would

wish her to do so—to come and see them, would you not?”

Mordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said,

“I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of

my sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. There is a

daughter and sister who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who

knows the pathways? We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers—and

men in their careless deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and

pleadings made in vain. In my ears I have the prayers of generations

past and to come. My life is as nothing to me but the beginning of

fulfilment. And yet I am only another prayer—which you will fulfil.”

Deronda pressed his hand, and they parted.