I think so. It is a duty that cannot be doubtful. Other duties will spring from it. Looking at your life as a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance; but it cannot really be so. What makes life dreary is the want of motive: but once beginning to act with that penitential, loving purpose you have in your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions—there will be newly-opening needs—continually coming to carry you on from day to day. You will find your life growing like a plant. This sorrow, which has cut down to the root, has come to you while you are so young—try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as a preparation for it. Let it be a preparation—— See! you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come from your marriage, which you feel was wrong. You have had a vision of injurious, selfish action—a vision of possible degradation; think that a severe angel, seeing you along the road of error, grasped you by the wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. And it has come to you in your spring-time. Think of it as a preparation. You can, you will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that they were born.


I must not weary you. You look ill yet—unlike yourself,


I can’t sleep much. Things repeat themselves in me so. They come back—they will all come back,


By degrees they will be less insistent,


Sir Hugo says he shall come to stay at Diplow. You will come too.


Probably. Yes, I shall come,


And not again here, before I leave town?


If I can be of any use—if you wish me—certainly I will.


I must wish it, you know I must wish it. What strength have I? Who else is there?


I will certainly come.


Don’t be unhappy about me. I shall remember your words—every one of them. I shall remember what you believe about me; I shall try.


A gentleman below says he is your father, miss.


I will go down to him,


No, Mirah, not so. Let him come up, Mrs. Adam.


Father, sure enough.


Well, Ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years.


I know you—too well—father,


Ah, you are not pleased with me. I don’t wonder at it. Appearances have been against me. When a man gets into straits he can’t do just as he would by himself or anybody else, I’ve suffered enough, I know. Here’s your little purse, my dear. I thought you’d be anxious about it because of that bit of writing. I’ve emptied it, you’ll see, for I had a score to pay for food and lodging. I knew you would like me to clear myself, and here I stand—without a single farthing in my pocket—at the mercy of my children. You can turn me out if you like, without getting a policeman. Say the word, Mirah; say, ‘Father, I’ve had enough of you; you made a pet of me, and spent your all on me, when I couldn’t have done without you; but I can do better without you now,’—say that, and I’m gone out like a spark. I shan’t spoil your pleasure again.


You know I could never say it, father,


Mirah, my sister, leave us!


Remember, Ezra—you said my mother would not have shut him out.


Trust me, and go,


This is our father; make way, that we may carry him out of your sight.


Good-bye, Mirah; your father will not trouble you again. He deserves to die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. If your mother had lived, she would have forgiven me—thirty-four years ago I put the ring on her finger under the Chuppa, and we were made one. She would have forgiven me, and we should have spent our old age together. But I haven’t deserved it. Good-bye. good-bye.


No, father, no! Ezra, you have not forbidden him?—Stay, father, and leave off wrong things. Ezra, I cannot bear it. How can I say to my father, ‘Go and die!’


I have not said it. I have said, stay and be sheltered.


Then you will stay, father—and be taken care of—and come with me. This is my sitting-room when I am not with Ezra, and there is a bedroom behind which shall be yours. You will stay and be good, father. Think that you are come back to my mother, and that she has forgiven you—she speaks to you through me.


Let all the writing be done here; for I cannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by burning or otherwise.


You don’t look much as if you had been in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to?


No. I’ve been to I-don’t-know-where—No man’s land—and a mortally unpleasant country it is.


You don’t mean to say you have been drinking, Hans,


Nothing so good. I’ve been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having found myself just now rather out of other bliss, I thought it judicious to seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a cask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution.


What has been the matter? You were in good spirits enough when you wrote to me.


Oh, nothing in particular. The world began to look seedy—a sort of cabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. A malady of genius, you may be sure, and, in fact, I was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot London weather.


Nothing else? No real vexation? I came to tell you of my own affairs, but I can’t do it with a good grace if you are to hide yours.


Haven’t an affair in the world, except a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man. Besides, as it is the first time in our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are only beginning to pay a pretty long debt.


You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans. It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I had never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa to meet my mother. My father has been long dead—died when I was an infant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew; my father was her cousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a probability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that I was glad of it—glad to find myself a Jew.


You must not expect me to look surprised, Deronda,


You knew it?


My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had been there—brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can’t rejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be glad of in the end—when exactly the end may be I can’t predict,


I quite understand that you can’t share my feeling, but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new light over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai’s ideas, and I mean to try and carry them out, so far as one man’s efforts can go. I dare say I shall by and by travel to the East and be away for some years.


Excuse the question, but does Mrs. Grandcourt know of all this?


No; and I must beg of you, Hans, to cease joking on that subject. Any notions you have are wide of the truth—are the very reverse of the truth.


I am no more inclined to joke than I shall be at my own funeral. But I am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions on that subject.


Perhaps not. But let me say, once for all, that in relation to Mrs. Grandcourt, I never have had, and never shall have the position of a lover. If you have ever seriously put that interpretation on anything you have observed, you are supremely mistaken.


Perhaps I have been mistaken in another interpretation, also,


What is that?


That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another woman, who is neither wife nor widow.


I can’t pretend not to understand you, Meyrick. It is painful that our wishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for supposing that you would succeed.


That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Deronda,


Why superfluous?


Because you are perfectly convinced on the subject—and probably have had the very best evidence to convince you.


I will be more frank with you than you are with me. I have never had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact, I have very little hope. And in our present situation. I don’t see how I can deliberately make known my feeling to her. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best comfort; for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we should have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than a mischievous animal.


I don’t know that I have ever betrayed my feeling to her,


You mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me.


Oh, not the slightest. You have measured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages.


I am a nuisance to you, Meyrick. I am sorry, but I can’t help it. After what passed between us before, I wished to have this explanation; and I don’t see that any pretensions of mine have made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any pleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. Now the father is there—did you know that the father is there?


Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to damn him—with faint praise, I mean,


She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her feeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Neither you nor I have injured the other, that I can see. We must put up with this sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to nothing. Our friendship can bear that strain, surely.


No, it can’t. Our friendship—my friendship—can’t bear the strain of behaving to you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. For you are the happiest dog in the world. If Mirah loves anybody better than her brother, you are the man.


It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans.


I am not in a good-natured mood. I assure you I found the fact disagreeable when it was thrust on me—all the more, or perhaps all the less, because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the duchess. But now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right place—a Jew—and everything eligible.


Tell me what convinced you—there’s a good fellow,


Don’t ask. Little mother was witness. The upshot is, that Mirah is jealous of the duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the better. There! I’ve cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to swear at you for getting what you deserve—which is just the very best luck I know of.


God bless you, Hans!


This little room is too close for you, Ezra. The week’s heat we sometimes get here is worse than the heat in Genoa, where one sits in the shaded coolness of large rooms. You must have a better home now. I shall do as I like with you, being the stronger half.


I am straitened for nothing except breath. But you, who might be in a spacious palace, with the wide green country around you, find this a narrow prison. Nevertheless, I cannot say, ‘Go.’


Oh, the country would be a banishment while you are here. This is the happiest room in the world to me. Besides, I will imagine myself in the East, since I am getting ready to go there some day. Only I will not wear a cravat and a heavy ring there. I have been wearing my memorable ring ever since I came home. But I am such a Sybarite that I constantly put it off as a burden when I am doing anything. I understand why the Romans had summer rings—if they had them. Now then, I shall get on better.


I only came in to see that Ezra had his new draught. I must go directly to Mrs. Meyrick’s to fetch something.


Pray allow me to walk with you. I must not tire Ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. I want to go to Mrs. Meyrick’s: may I go with you?


Oh, yes,


Pray excuse my dishabille—I did not mean you to see it. Good heavens, where is my ring gone?


Did you lay it down?


Yes,


Was my father here? You have not found it?


I perhaps put it in my pocket,


It is not there?—you put it on the table,


Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours—that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. Say you will not reject me—say you will take me to share all things with you. Say you will promise to be my wife—say it now. I have been in doubt so long—I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love.


Let us go and comfort Ezra.


Oh, nonsense, my dear! depend upon it, Dan will not make a fool of himself. He has large notions about Judaism—political views which you can’t understand. No fear but Dan will keep himself head uppermost.


If it is an unkind cut to the poor thing (meaning Gwendolen), the longer she is without knowing it the better, in her present nervous state. And she will best learn it from Dan himself.


his metal had given a better ring than he would have sworn to beforehand.


When did you come down, Hans?


Oh, ten days ago; before the time Sir Hugo fixed. I ran down with Rex Gascoigne and stayed at the rectory a day or two. I’m up in all the gossip of these parts; I know the state of the wheelwright’s interior, and have assisted at an infant school examination. Sister Anna, with the good upper lip, escorted me, else I should have been mobbed by three urchins and an idiot, because of my long hair and a general appearance which departs from the Pennicote type of the beautiful. Altogether, the village is idyllic. Its only fault is a dark curate with broad shoulders and broad trousers who ought to have gone into the heavy drapery line. The Gascoignes are perfect—besides being related to the Vandyke duchess. I caught a glimpse of her in her black robes at a distance, though she doesn’t show to visitors.


She was not staying at the rectory?


No; but I was taken to Offendene to see the old house, and as a consequence I saw the duchess’ family. I suppose you have been there and know all about them?


Yes, I have been there,


A fine old place. An excellent setting for a widow with romantic fortunes. And she seems to have had several romances. I think I have found out that there was one between her and my friend Rex.


Not long before her marriage, then? for they had only been a year at Offendene. How came you to know anything of it?


Oh—not ignorant of what it is to be a miserable devil, I learn to gloat on the signs of misery in others. I found out that Rex never goes to Offendene, and has never seen the duchess since she came back; and Miss Gascoigne let fall something in our talk about charade-acting—for I went through some of my nonsense to please the young ones—something that proved to me that Rex was once hovering about his fair cousin close enough to get singed. I don’t know what was her part in the affair. Perhaps the duke came in and carried her off. That is always the way when an exceptionally worthy young man forms an attachment. I understand now why Gascoigne talks of making the law his mistress and remaining a bachelor. But these are green resolves. Since the duke did not get himself drowned for your sake, it may turn out to be for my friend Rex’s sake. Who knows?


Is it absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grandcourt should marry again?


You monster! do you want her to wear weeds for you all her life—burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and merry? Why didn’t she fall in love with me? She would have had no rivals. No woman ever wanted to discuss theology with me.


You were afraid of coming to see me, because I was so full of grief and despair the last time. But I am not so to-day. I have been sorry ever since. I have been making it a reason why I should keep up my hope and be as cheerful as I can, because I would not give you any pain about me.


I am in some trouble to-day, but it is because I have things to tell you which you will almost think it a want of confidence on my part not to have spoken of before. They are things affecting my own life—my own future. I shall seem to have made an ill return to you for the trust you have placed in me—never to have given you an idea of events that make great changes for me. But when we have been together we have hardly had time to enter into subjects which at the moment were really less pressing to me than the trials you have been going through.


You never thought of anything but what you could do to help me; and I was so troublesome. How could you tell me things?


It will perhaps astonish you, that I have only quite lately known who were my parents. The reason why you found me in Italy was that I had gone there to learn that—in fact, to meet my mother. It was by her wish that I was brought up in ignorance of my parentage. She parted with me after my father’s death, when I was a little creature. But she is now very ill, and she felt that the secrecy ought not to be any longer maintained. Her chief reason had been that she did not wish me to know I was a Jew.


A Jew! What difference need that have made?


It has made a great difference to me that I have known it,


I hope there is nothing to make you mind. You are just the same as if you were not a Jew.


The discovery was far from being painful to me. I had been gradually prepared for it, and I was glad of it. I had been prepared for it by becoming intimate with a very remarkable Jew, whose ideas have attracted me so much that I think of devoting the best part of my life to some effort at giving them effect.


That is an object, which will by-and-by force me to leave England for some time—for some years. I have purposes which will take me to the East.


But you will come back?


If I live, some time.


What are you going to do? Can I understand the ideas, or am I too ignorant?


I am going to the East to become better acquainted with the condition of my race in various countries there. The idea that I am possessed with is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a national center, such as the English have, though they too are scattered over the face of the globe. That is a task which presents itself to me as a duty; I am resolved to begin it, however feebly. I am resolved to devote my life to it. At the least, I may awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened in my own.


Is that all you can tell me?


The Jew whom I mentioned just now, the remarkable man who has greatly influenced my mind, has not perhaps been totally unheard of by you. He is the brother of Miss Lapidoth, whom you have often heard sing. He is very ill—very near death now,


Did she tell you that I went to her?


No. I don’t understand you.


But can you marry?


Yes. I am going to marry.


I said I should be forsaken. I have been a cruel woman. And I am forsaken.


I am cruel, too, I am cruel,


I said—I said—it should be better—better with me—for having known you.


We shall not be quite parted. I will write to you always, when I can, and you will answer?


I will try.


I shall be more with you than I used to be. If we had been much together before, we should have felt our differences more, and seemed to get farther apart. Now we can perhaps never see each other again. But our minds may get nearer.


You have been very good to me. I have deserved nothing. I will try—try to live. I shall think of you. What good have I been? Only harm. Don’t let me be harm to you. It shall be the better for me—


Gwendolen, dearest, you look very ill,


Yes, mamma. But don’t be afraid. I am going to live. Don’t be afraid. I shall live. I mean to live. Ah, poor mamma! You have been sitting up with me. Don’t be unhappy. I shall live. I shall be better.


Never mind where I die, so that I am with you. Do not quit me to-day. I shall die before it is ended.


Death is coming to me as the divine kiss which is both parting and reunion—which takes me from your bodily eyes and gives me full presence in your soul. Where thou goest, Daniel, I shall go. Is it not begun? Have I not breathed my soul into you? We shall live together.