But months ago this Kalonymos saw you in the synagogue at Frankfort. He saw you enter the hotel, and he went to ask your name. There was nobody else in the world to whom the name would have told anything about me.


Then it is not my real name?


Oh, as real as another,


The Jews have always been changing their names. My father’s family had kept the name of Charisi: my husband was a Charisi. When I came out as a singer, we made it Alcharisi. But there had been a branch of the family my father had lost sight of who called themselves Deronda, and when I wanted a name for you, and Sir Hugo said, ‘Let it be a foreign name,’ I thought of Deronda. But Joseph Kalonymos had heard my father speak of the Deronda branch, and the name confirmed his suspicion. He began to suspect what had been done. It was as if everything had been whispered to him in the air. He found out where I was. He took a journey into Russia to see me; he found me weak and shattered. He had come back again, with his white hair, and with rage in his soul against me. He said I was going down to the grave clad in falsehood and robbery—falsehood to my father and robbery of my own child. He accused me of having kept the knowledge of your birth from you, and having brought you up as if you had been the son of an English gentleman. Well, it was true; and twenty years before I would have maintained that I had a right to do it. But I can maintain nothing now. No faith is strong within me. My father may have God on his side. This man’s words were like lion’s teeth upon me. My father’s threats eat into me with my pain. If I tell everything—if I deliver up everything—what else can be demanded of me? I cannot make myself love the people I have never loved—is it not enough that I lost the life I did love? Let it be a foreign name,


Mother, take comfort! Is it not possible that I could be near you often and comfort you?


No, not possible. I have a husband and five children. None of them know of your existence. You wonder why I married. I meant never to marry again. I meant to be free and to live for my art. I had parted with you. I had no bonds. For nine years I was a queen. I enjoyed the life I had longed for. But something befell me. It was like a fit of forgetfulness. I began to sing out of tune. They told me of it. Another woman was thrusting herself in my place. I could not endure the prospect of failure and decline. It was horrible to me. It drove me to marry. I made believe that I preferred being the wife of a Russian noble to being the greatest lyric actress of Europe; I made believe—I acted that part. It was because I felt my greatness sinking away from me, as I feel my life sinking now. I would not wait till men said, ‘She had better go.’ She had better go. I repented. It was a resolve taken in desperation. That singing out of tune was only like a fit of illness; it went away. I repented; but it was too late. I could not go back. All things hindered, me—all things. I can bear no more now. Stay. How do I know that I can see you again? I cannot bear to be seen when I am in pain. This is addressed to the banking-house in Mainz, where you are to go for your grandfather’s chest. It is a letter written by Joseph Kalonymos: if he is not there himself, this order of his will be obeyed. Kneel again, and let me kiss you. You see, I had no life left to love you with. But there is more fortune for you. Sir Hugo was to keep it in reserve. I gave you all your father’s fortune. They can never accuse me of robbery there.


If you had needed anything I would have worked for you,


I need nothing that the skill of man can give me. But perhaps now I have satisfied my father’s will, your face will come instead of his—your young, loving face.


But you will see me again?


Yes—perhaps. Wait, wait. Leave me now.


Meanwhile I am consoling myself for your absence by finding my advantage in it—shining like Hesperus when Hyperion has departed; sitting with our Hebrew prophet, and making a study of his head, in the hours when he used to be occupied with you—getting credit with him as a learned young Gentile, who would have been a Jew if he could—and agreeing with him in the general principle, that whatever is best is for that reason Jewish. I never held it my forte to be a severe reasoner, but I can see that if whatever is best is A, and B happens to be best, B must be A, however little you might have expected it beforehand. On that principle I could see the force of a pamphlet I once read to prove that all good art was Protestant. However, our prophet is an uncommonly interesting sitter—a better model than Rembrandt had for his Rabbi—and I never come away from him without a new discovery. For one thing, it is a constant wonder to me that, with all his fiery feeling for his race and their traditions, he is no straight-laced Jew, spitting after the word Christian, and enjoying the prospect that the Gentile mouth will water in vain for a slice of the roasted Leviathan, while Israel will be sending up plates for more, ad libitum, (You perceive that my studies had taught me what to expect from the orthodox Jew.) I confess that I have always held lightly by your account of Mordecai, as apologetic, and merely part of your disposition to make an antediluvian point of view lest you should do injustice to the megatherium. But now I have given ear to him in his proper person, I find him really a sort of philosophical-allegorical-mystical believer, and yet with a sharp dialectic point, so that any argumentative rattler of peas in a bladder might soon be pricked in silence by him. The mixture may be one of the Jewish prerogatives, for what I know. In fact, his mind seems so broad that I find my own correct opinions lying in it quite commodiously, and how they are to be brought into agreement with the vast remainder is his affair, not mine. I leave it to him to settle our basis, never yet having seen a basis which is not a world-supporting elephant, more or less powerful and expensive to keep. My means will not allow me to keep a private elephant. I go into mystery instead, as cheaper and more lasting—a sort of gas which is likely to be continually supplied by the decomposition of the elephants. And if I like the look of an opinion, I treat it civilly, without suspicious inquiries. I have quite a friendly feeling toward Mordecai’s notion that a whole Christian is three-fourths a Jew, and that from the Alexandrian time downward the most comprehensive minds have been Jewish; for I think of pointing out to Mirah that, Arabic and other incidents of life apart, there is really little difference between me and—Maimonides. But I have lately been finding out that it is your shallow lover who can’t help making a declaration. If Mirah’s ways were less distracting, and it were less of a heaven to be in her presence and watch her, I must long ago have flung myself at her feet, and requested her to tell me, with less indirectness, whether she wished me to blow my brains out. I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate in reversion, if one can keep from the temptation of turning it into certainty, which may spoil all. My Hope wanders among the orchard blossoms, feels the warm snow falling on it through the sunshine, and is in doubt of nothing; but, catching sight of Certainty in the distance, sees an ugly Janus-faced deity, with a dubious wink on the hither side of him, and turns quickly away. But you, with your supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification, and preparation for the worst—you know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation. (You observe my new vein of allegory?) Seriously, however, I must be permitted to allege that truth will prevail, that prejudice will melt before it, that diversity, accompanied by merit, will make itself felt as fascination, and that no virtuous aspiration will be frustrated—all which, if I mistake not, are doctrines of the schools, and they imply that the Jewess I prefer will prefer me. Any blockhead can cite generalities, but the mind-master discerns the particular cases they represent. I am less convinced that my society makes amends to Mordecai for your absence, but another substitute occasionally comes in the form of Jacob Cohen. It is worth while to catch our prophet’s expression when he has that remarkable type of young Israel on his knee, and pours forth some Semitic inspiration with a sublime look of melancholy patience and devoutness. Sometimes it occurs to Jacob that Hebrew will be more edifying to him if he stops his ears with his palms, and imitates the venerable sounds as heard through that muffled medium. When Mordecai gently draws down the little fists and holds them fast, Jacob’s features all take on an extraordinary activity, very much as if he was walking through a menagerie and trying to imitate every animal in turn, succeeding best with the owl and the peccary. But I dare say you have seen something of this. He treats me with the easiest familiarity, and seems in general to look at me as a second-hand Christian commodity, likely to come down in price; remarking on my disadvantages with a frankness which seems to imply some thoughts of future purchase. It is pretty, though, to see the change in him if Mirah happens to come in. He turns child suddenly—his age usually strikes one as being like the Israelitish garments in the desert, perhaps near forty, yet with an air of recent production. But, with Mirah, he reminds me of the dogs that have been brought up by women, and remain manageable by them only. Still, the dog is fond of Mordecai too, and brings sugar-plums to share with him, filling his own mouth to rather an embarrassing extent, and watching how Mordecai deals with a smaller supply. Judging from this modern Jacob at the age of six, my astonishment is that his race has not bought us all up long ago, and pocketed our feebler generations in the form of stock and scrip, as so much slave property. There is one Jewess I should not mind being slave to. But I wish I did not imagine that Mirah gets a little sadder, and tries all the while to hide it. It is natural enough, of course, while she has to watch the slow death of this brother, whom she has taken to worshipping with such looks of loving devoutness that I am ready to wish myself in his place.


No! are you?


A wretch so empty that if e’er there be In nature found the least vacuity ’Twill be in him.


My good fellow, your attempts at the historic and poetic are simply pitiable. Your brush is just that of a successful portrait-painter—it has a little truth and a great facility in falsehood—your idealism will never do for gods and goddesses and heroic story, but it may fetch a high price as flattery. Fate, my friend, has made you the hinder wheel—rota posterior curras, et in axe secundo—run behind, because you can’t help it.


O night, O blackness, etc., etc.


understood that sort of learning and what is writ about it.


hair is like a flock of goats on Mount Gilead


Already he is beginning to play at love: he is taking the whole affair as a comedy, he knows very well that there is no chance for him. Just like him—never opening his eyes on any possible objection I could have to receive his outpourings about Mirah. Poor old Hans! If we were under a fiery hail together he would howl like a Greek, and if I did not howl too it would never occur to him that I was as badly off as he. And yet he is tender-hearted and affectionate in intention, and I can’t say that he is not active in imagining what goes on in other people—but then he always imagines it to fit his own inclination.


Ezra, how is it? I am continually going to speak to Mr. Deronda as if he were a Jew?


I suppose it is because he treats us as if he were our brother. But he loves not to have the difference of birth dwelt upon.


He has never lived with his parents, Mr. Hans, says,


Seek not to know such things from Mr. Hans. What Daniel Deronda wishes us to know about himself is for him to tell us.


I see no one so great as my brother. It is difficult to think that he belongs to the same world as those people I used to live amongst. I told you once that they made life seem like a madhouse; but when I am with Ezra he makes me feel that his life is a great good, though he has suffered so much; not like me, who wanted to die because I had suffered a little, and only for a little while. His soul is so full, it is impossible for him to wish for death as I did. I get the same sort of feeling from him that I got yesterday, when I was tired, and came home through the park after the sweet rain had fallen and the sunshine lay on the grass and flowers. Everything in the sky and under the sky looked so pure and beautiful that the weariness and trouble and folly seemed only a small part of what is, and I became more patient and hopeful.


Is there any fresh trouble on your mind, my dear?


I am too ready to speak of troubles, I think. It seems unkind to put anything painful into other people’s minds, unless one were sure it would hinder something worse. And perhaps I am too hasty and fearful.


Oh, my dear, mothers are made to like pain and trouble for the sake of their children. Is it because the singing lessons are so few, and are likely to fall off when the season comes to an end? Success in these things can’t come all at once.


No, not that. I have been a little disappointed because so many ladies said they wanted me to give them or their daughters lessons, and then I never heard of them again, But perhaps after the holidays I shall teach in some schools. Besides, you know, I am as rich as a princess now. I have not touched the hundred pounds that Mrs. Klesmer gave me; and I should never be afraid that Ezra would be in want of anything, because there is Mr. Deronda, and he said, ‘It is the chief honor of my life that your brother will share anything with me.’ Oh, no! Ezra and I can have no fears for each other about such things as food and clothing. It is the chief honor of my life that your brother will share anything with me.


But there is some other fear on your mind, a fear of something that may disturb your peace. Don’t be forecasting evil, dear child, unless it is what you can guard against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can’t turn it into a defense. But there’s no defense against all the things that might be. Have you any more reason for being anxious now than you had a month ago?


Yes, I have. I have kept it from Ezra. I have not dared to tell him. Pray forgive me that I can’t do without telling you. I have more reason for being anxious. It is five days ago now. I am quite sure I saw my father. The year has changed him. He had already been much altered and worn in the time before I left him. You remember I said how he used sometimes to cry. He was always excited one way or the other. I have told Ezra everything that I told you, and he says that my father had taken to gambling, which makes people easily distressed, and then again exalted. And now—it was only a moment that I saw him—his face was more haggard, and his clothes were shabby. He was with a much worse-looking man, who carried something, and they were hurrying along after an omnibus.


Well, child, he did not see you, I hope?


No. I had just come from Mrs. Raymond’s, and I was waiting to cross near the Marble Arch. Soon he was on the omnibus and gone out of sight. It was a dreadful moment. My old life seemed to have come back again, and it was worse than it had ever been before. And I could not help feeling it a new deliverance that he was gone out of sight without knowing that I was there. And yet it hurt me that I was feeling so—it seemed hateful in me—almost like words I once had to speak in a play, that ‘I had warmed my hands in the blood of my kindred.’ For where might my father be going? What may become of him? And his having a daughter who would own him in spite of all, might have hindered the worst. Is there any pain like seeing what ought to be the best things in life turned into the worst? All those opposite feelings were meeting and pressing against each other, and took up all my strength. No one could act that. Acting is slow and poor to what we go through within. I don’t know how I called a cab. I only remember that I was in it when I began to think, ‘I cannot tell Ezra; he must not know.’ I had warmed my hands in the blood of my kindred.


I cannot tell Ezra; he must not know.


You are afraid of grieving him?


Yes—and there is something more. I want to tell you; I cannot tell any one else. I could not have told my own mother: I should have closed it up before her. I feel shame for my father, and it is perhaps strange—but the shame is greater before Ezra than before any one else in the world. He desired me to tell him all about my life, and I obeyed him. But it is always like a smart to me to know that those things about my father are in Ezra’s mind. And—can you believe it? when the thought haunts me how it would be if my father were to come and show himself before us both, what seems as if it would scorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before Ezra. That is the truth. I don’t know whether it is a right feeling. But I can’t help thinking that I would rather try to maintain my father in secret, and bear a great deal in that way, if I could hinder him from meeting my brother.


You must not encourage that feeling, Mirah. It would be very dangerous; it would be wrong. You must not have concealment of that sort.


But ought I now to tell Ezra that I have seen my father?


No. I don’t know that it is necessary to do that. Your father may go away with the birds. It is not clear that he came after you; you may never see him again. And then your brother will have been spared a useless anxiety. But promise me that if your father sees you—gets hold of you in any way again—and you will let us all know. Promise me that solemnly, Mirah. I have a right to ask it.


Since you ask it, I do promise. I will bear this feeling of shame. I have been so long used to think that I must bear that sort of inward pain. But the shame for my father burns me more when I think of his meeting Ezra. And we are his children—and he was once young like us—and my mother loved him. Oh! I cannot help seeing it all close, and it hurts me like a cruelty.


Think of our surprise, Mirah. We were speaking of Mr. Deronda and the Mallingers, and it turns out that Miss Gascoigne knows them.


I only knew about them. I have not even seen them. But some months ago, my cousin married Sir Hugo Mallinger’s nephew, Mr. Grandcourt, who lived in Sir Hugo’s place at Diplow, near us.


There! Something must come of that. Mrs. Grandcourt, the Vandyke duchess, is your cousin?


Oh, yes; I was her bridesmaid. Her mamma and mine are sisters. My aunt was much richer before last year, but then she and mamma lost all their fortune. Papa is a clergyman, you know, so it makes very little difference to us, except that we keep no carriage, and have no dinner parties—and I like it better. But it was very sad for poor Aunt Davilow, for she could not live with us, because she has four daughters besides Gwendolen; but then, when she married Mr. Grandcourt, it did not signify so much, because of his being so rich.


Oh, this finding out relationships is delightful! It is like a Chinese puzzle that one has to fit together. I feel sure something wonderful may be made of it, but I can’t tell what.


Dear me, Mab, relationships must branch out. The only difference is, that we happen to know some of the people concerned. Such things are going on every day.


And pray, Amy, why do you insist on the number nine being so wonderful? I am sure that is happening every day. Never mind, Miss Gascoigne; please go on. And Mr. Deronda?—have you never seen Mr. Deronda? You must bring him in.


No, I have not seen him, but he was at Diplow before my cousin was married, and I have heard my aunt speaking of him to papa. She said what you have been saying about him—only not so much: I mean, about Mr. Deronda living with Sir Hugo Mallinger, and being so nice, she thought. We talk a great deal about every one who comes near Pennicote, because it is so seldom there is any one new. But I remember, when I asked Gwendolen what she thought of Mr. Deronda, she said, ‘Don’t mention it, Anna: but I think his hair is dark.’ That was her droll way of answering: she was always so lively. It is really rather wonderful that I should come to hear so much about him, all through Mr. Hans knowing Rex, and then my having the pleasure of knowing you. Don’t mention it, Anna: but I think his hair is dark.


The pleasure is on our side too; but the wonder would have been, if you had come to this house without hearing of Mr. Deronda—wouldn’t it, Mirah? My son calls Mrs. Grandcourt the Vandyke duchess, he thinks her so striking and picturesque.


Yes. Gwendolen was always so beautiful—people fell dreadfully in love with her. I thought it a pity, because it made them unhappy.


And how do you like Mr. Grandcourt, the happy lover?


Papa approved of Gwendolen’s accepting him, and my aunt says he is very generous, else I should have thought he was not very nice—rather proud, and not at all lively, like Gwendolen. I should have thought some one younger and more lively would have suited her better. But, perhaps, having a brother who seems to us better than any one makes us think worse of others.


Wait till you see Mr. Deronda. Nobody’s brother will do after him.


Our brothers must do for people’s husbands, because they will not get Mr. Deronda. No woman will do for him to marry.


No woman ought to want him to marry him. I never should. Fancy finding out that he had a tailor’s bill, and used boot-hooks, like Hans. Who ever thought of his marrying?


I have. When I drew a wedding for a frontispiece to ‘Hearts and Diamonds,’ I made a sort of likeness to him for the bridegroom, and I went about looking for a grand woman who would do for his countess, but I saw none that would not be poor creatures by the side of him.


You should have seen this Mrs. Grandcourt then. Hans says that she and Mr. Deronda set each other off when they are side by side. She is tall and fair. But you know her, Mirah—you can always say something descriptive. What do you think of Mrs. Grandcourt?


I think she is the Princess of Eboli in Don Carlos,


Your comparison is a riddle for me, my dear,


You said that Mrs. Grandcourt was tall and fair. That is quite true.


Mrs. Grandcourt had thought of having lessons of Mirah. But many have talked of having lessons, and then have found no time. Fashionable ladies have too much work to do.


Ezra, does it ever hurt your love for Mr. Deronda that so much of his life was all hidden away from you—that he is amongst persons and cares about persons who are all so unlike us—I mean unlike you?


No, assuredly no. Rather it is a precious thought to me that he has a preparation which I lacked, and is an accomplished Egyptian. I have the more to give him, since his treasure differs from mine. That is a blessedness in friendship.


Still, it would be a trial to your love for him if that other part of his life were like a crowd in which he had got entangled, so that he was carried away from you—I mean in his thoughts, and not merely carried out of sight as he is now—and not merely for a little while, but continually. How should you bear that! Our religion commands us to bear. But how should you bear it?


Not well, my sister—not well; but it will never happen,


Shall I tell you what is the difference between you and me, Ezra? You are a spring in the drought, and I am an acorn-cup; the waters of heaven fill me, but the least little shake leaves me empty.


Why, what has shaken thee?


Thoughts, thoughts that come like the breeze and shake me—bad people, wrong things, misery—and how they might touch our life.


We must take our portion, Mirah. It is there. On whose shoulder would we lay it, that we might be free?


You are quite relieved now, I trust?


Yes, I am at ease again. Is there anything more that you would like to ask me?


Can I find the house in Genoa where you used to live with my grandfather?


No, it is pulled down—not to be found. But about our family, and where my father lived at various times—you will find all that among the papers in the chest, better than I can tell you. My father, I told you, was a physician. My mother was a Morteira. I used to hear all those things without listening. You will find them all. I was born amongst them without my will. I banished them as soon as I could.


Anything else that I should desire to know from you could only be what it is some satisfaction to your own feeling to tell me.


I think I have told you everything that could be demanded of me,


Then are we to part and I never be anything to you?


It is better so. There could be nothing but hard duty for you, even if it were possible for you to take the place of my son. You would not love me. Don’t deny it. I know what is the truth. You don’t like what I did. You are angry with me. You think I robbed you of something. You are on your grandfather’s side, and you will always have a condemnation of me in your heart. You are wrong to be angry with me. You are the better for what I did. And now tell me what you shall do?


Do you mean now, immediately, or as to the course of my future life?


I mean in the future. What difference will it make to you that I have told you about your birth?


A very great difference. I can hardly think of anything that would make a greater difference.


What shall you do then? Make yourself just like your grandfather—be what he wished you—turn yourself into a Jew like him?


That is impossible. The effect of my education can never be done away with. The Christian sympathies in which my mind was reared can never die out of me. But I consider it my duty—it is the impulse of my feeling—to identify myself, as far as possible, with my hereditary people, and if I can see any work to be done for them that I can give my soul and hand to I shall choose to do it.


You are in love with a Jewess.


My reasons would be independent of any such fact.


I know better. I have seen what men are. Tell me the truth. She is a Jewess who will not accept any one but a Jew. There are a few such. You love her as your father loved me, and she draws you after her as I drew him. But I was leading him the other way. And now your grandfather is getting his revenge.


Mother, don’t let us think of it in that way. I will admit that there may come some benefit from the education you chose for me. I prefer cherishing the benefit with gratitude, to dwelling with resentment on the injury. I think it would have been right that I should have been brought up with the consciousness that I was a Jew, but it must always have been a good to me to have as wide an instruction and sympathy as possible. And now, you have restored me my inheritance—events have brought a fuller restitution than you could have made—you have been saved from robbing my people of my service and me of my duty: can you not bring your whole soul to consent to this?


Not for me, no. I tell you, he never thought of his daughter except as an instrument. Because I had wants outside his purpose, I was to be put in a frame and tortured. If that is the right law for the world, I will not say that I love it. If my acts were wrong—if it is God who is exacting from me that I should deliver up what I withheld—who is punishing me because I deceived my father and did not warn him that I should contradict his trust—well, I have told everything. I have done what I could. And your soul consents. That is enough. I have after all been the instrument my father wanted.—‘I desire a grandson who shall have a true Jewish heart. Every Jew should rear his family as if he hoped that a Deliverer might spring from it.’


Were those my grandfather’s words?


Yes, yes; and you will find them written. I wanted to thwart him. You would have me love what I have hated from the time I was so high That can never be. But what does it matter? His yoke has been on me, whether I loved it or not. You are the grandson he wanted. You speak as men do—as if you felt yourself wise. What does it all mean?


Mother, don’t say that I feel myself wise. We are set in the midst of difficulties. I see no other way to get any clearness than by being truthful—not by keeping back facts which may—which should carry obligation within them—which should make the only guidance toward duty. No wonder if such facts come to reveal themselves in spite of concealments. The effects prepared by generations are likely to triumph over a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of self. Your will was strong, but my grandfather’s trust which you accepted and did not fulfill—what you call his yoke—is the expression of something stronger, with deeper, farther-spreading roots, knit into the foundations of sacredness for all men. You renounced me—you still banish me—as a son But that stronger Something has determined that I shall be all the more the grandson whom also you willed to annihilate.


Sit down again. You rebuke me. Well—I am the loser. And you are angry because I banish you. What could you do for me but weary your own patience? Your mother is a shattered woman. My sense of life is little more than a sense of what was—except when the pain is present. You reproach me that I parted with you. I had joy enough without you then. Now you are come back to me, and I cannot make you a joy. Have you the cursing spirit of the Jew in you? Are you not able to forgive me? Shall you be glad to think that I am punished because I was not a Jewish mother to you?


How can you ask me that? Have I not besought you that I might now at least be a son to you? My grief is that you have declared me helpless to comfort you. I would give up much that is dear for the sake of soothing your anguish.


You shall give up nothing. You shall be happy. You shall let me think of you as happy. I shall have done you no harm. You have no reason to curse me. You shall feel for me as they feel for the dead whom they say prayers for—you shall long that I may be freed from all suffering—from all punishment. And I shall see you instead of always seeing your grandfather. Will any harm come to me because I broke his trust in the daylight after he was gone into darkness? I cannot tell:—if you think Kaddish will help me—say it, say it. You will come between me and the dead. When I am in your mind, you will look as you do now—always as if you were a tender son—always—as if I had been a tender mother.


Is she beautiful?


Who?


The woman you love.


Yes.


Not ambitious?


No, I think not.


Not one who must have a path of her own?


I think her nature is not given to make great claims.


She is not like that? Had I not a rightful claim to be something more than a mere daughter and mother? The voice and the genius matched the face. Whatever else was wrong, acknowledge that I had a right to be an artist, though my father’s will was against it. My nature gave me a charter.


I do acknowledge that,


Will you take the portrait? If she is a kind woman, teach her to think of me kindly.


I shall be grateful for the portrait, but—I ought to say, I have no assurance that she whom I love will have any love for me. I have kept silence.


Who and what is she?


She was brought up as a singer for the stage. Her father took her away early from her mother, and her life has been unhappy. She is very young—only twenty. Her father wished to bring her up in disregard—even in dislike of her Jewish origin, but she has clung with all her affection to the memory of her mother and the fellowship of her people.


Ah, like you. She is attached to the Judaism she knows nothing of. That is poetry—fit to last through an opera night. Is she fond of her artist’s life—is her singing worth anything?


Her singing is exquisite. But her voice is not suited to the stage. I think that the artist’s life has been made repugnant to her.


Why, she is made for you then. Sir Hugo said you were bitterly against being a singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself be merged in a wife, as your father was.


I repeat. I repeat that I have no assurance of her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be united. Other things—painful issues may lie before me. I have always felt that I should prepare myself to renounce, not cherish that prospect. But I suppose I might feel so of happiness in general. Whether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.


Do you feel in that way? Poor boy!——I wonder how it would have been if I had kept you with me——whether you would have turned your heart to the old things against mine——and we should have quarreled——your grandfather would have been in you——and you would have hampered my life with your young growth from the old root.


I think my affection might have lasted through all our quarreling, and that would not have hampered—surely it would have enriched your life.


Not then, not then——I did not want it then——I might have been glad of it now, if I could have been glad of anything.


But you love your other children, and they love you?


Oh, yes. But. I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. It is a talent to love—I lack it. Others have loved me—and I have acted their love. I know very well what love makes of men and women—it is subjection. It takes another for a larger self, enclosing this one. I was never willingly subject to any man. Men have been subject to me.


Perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two,


Perhaps—but I was happy—for a few years I was happy. If I had not been afraid of defeat and failure, I might have gone on. I miscalculated. What then? It is all over. Another life! Men talk of ‘another life,’ as if it only began on the other side of the grave. I have long entered on another life. Good-bye, my son, good-bye. We shall hear no more of each other. Kiss me.


There’s a plantation of sugar-canes at the foot of that rock; should you like to look?


Yes, please,


Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing your remorse. * * * Take your fear as a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. It may make consequences passionately present to you.


I will not mind if I can keep from getting wicked. How long are we to be yachting?


What else should we do? I’m not tired of it. I don’t see why we shouldn’t stay out any length of time. There’s less to bore one in this way. And where would you go to? I’m sick of foreign places. And we shall have enough of Ryelands. Would you rather be at Ryelands?


Oh, no. I only wondered how long you would like this.


I like yachting longer than anything else, and I had none last year. I suppose you are beginning to tire of it. Women are so confoundedly whimsical. They expect everything to give way to them.


Oh, dear, no! I never expect you to give way.


Why should I? There’s been the devil’s own work in the night. The skipper says we shall have to stay at Genoa for a week while things are set right.


Do you mind that?


I should think so. Who wants to be broiling at Genoa?


It will be a change,


I don’t want any change. Besides, the place is intolerable; and one can’t move along the roads. I shall go out in a boat, as I used to do, and manage it myself. One can get a few hours every day in that way instead of striving in a damnable hotel.


A—just ring, please, and tell Gibbs to order some dinner for us at three. I’m going to send Angus to find a little sailing-boat for us to go out in; one that I can manage, with you at the tiller. It’s uncommonly pleasant these fine evenings—the least boring of anything we can do.


I would rather not go in the boat. Take some one else with you.


Very well; if you don’t go, I shall not go. We shall stay suffocating here, that’s all.


I can’t bear to go in a boat,


That is a sudden change. But, since you decline, we shall stay indoors.


Have you come round yet? or do you find it agreeable to be out of temper. You make things uncommonly pleasant for me.


Why do you want to make them unpleasant for me?


Now, will you be good enough to say what it is you have to complain of? Is it that I stay indoors when you stay? I hope this is useful. All I can say is, it’s most confoundedly unpleasant. What the devil women can see in this kind of thing, I don’t know. You see something to be got by it, of course. All I can see is, that we shall be shut up here when we might have been having a pleasant sail.


Let us go, then. Perhaps we shall be drowned.


Just be quiet and listen, will you? Let us understand each other. I know very well what this nonsense means. But if you suppose I am going to let you make a fool of me, just dismiss that notion from your mind. What are you looking forward to, if you can’t behave properly as my wife? There is disgrace for you, if you like to have it, but I don’t know anything else; and as to Deronda, it’s quite clear that he hangs back from you.


It’s all false! You don’t in the least imagine what is in my mind. I have seen enough of the disgrace that comes in that way. And you had better leave me at liberty to speak with any one I like. It will be better for you.


You will allow me to judge of that,


What decision have you come to? What orders shall I give?


Oh, let us go,


God help me!


What is the matter?


Oh, nothing,


Don’t you find this pleasant?


Very.


You admit now we couldn’t have done anything better?


No—I see nothing better. I think we shall go on always, like the Flying Dutchman,


If you like, we can go to Spezia in the morning, and let them take us up there.


No; I shall like nothing better than this.


Very well: we’ll do the same to-morrow. But we must be turning in soon. I shall put about.


It is come, it is come! He is dead!


Hush, hush! quiet yourself. I am a connection of this lady’s husband. If you will get her on to the Italia as quickly as possible, I will undertake everything else.


I beseech you to rest—not to stand,


Will you sit down near me? I want to speak very low. You know I am a guilty woman?


I know nothing.


He is dead.


Yes,


His face will not be seen above the water again,


No.


Not by any one else—only by me—a dead face—I shall never get away from it.


You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that I ought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I cannot have my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her know. I must tell you; but you will not say that any one else should know.


I can say nothing in my ignorance, except that I desire to help you.


I told you from the beginning—as soon as I could—I told you I was afraid of myself. I felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit—contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got worse—all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. And he came in. I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, and prayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?


Great God! don’t torture me needlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the water with the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This death was an accident that you could not have hindered.


Don’t be impatient with me. You said—you used to say—you felt more for those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you said they might get better—they might be scourged into something better. If you had not spoken in that way, everything would have been worse. I did remember all you said to me. It came to me always. It came to me at the very last—that was the reason why I—But now, if you cannot bear with me when I tell you everything—if you turn away from me and forsake me, what shall I do? Am I worse than I was when you found me and wanted to make me better? All the wrong I have done was in me then—and more—and more—if you had not come and been patient with me. And now—will you forsake me?


All sorts of contrivances in my mind—but all so difficult. And I fought against them—I was terrified at them—I saw his dead face ever so long ago I saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it terrified me. I was like two creatures. I could not speak—I wanted to kill—it was as strong as thirst—and then directly—I felt beforehand I had done something dreadful, unalterable—that would make me like an evil spirit. And it came—it came. It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you—when we were at the Abbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was the only thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about over everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams—all but one. I did one act—and I never undid it—it is there still—as long ago as when we were at Ryelands. There it was—something my fingers longed for among the beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir—small and sharp like a long willow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in the drawer of my dressing-case. I was continually haunted with it and how I should use it. I fancied myself putting it under my pillow. But I never did. I never looked at it again. I dared not unlock the drawer: it had a key all to itself; and not long ago, when we were in the yacht, I dropped the key into the deep water. It was my wish to drop it and deliver myself. After that I began to think how I could open the drawer without the key: and when I found we were to stay at Genoa, it came into my mind that I could get it opened privately at the hotel. But then, when we were going up the stairs, I met you; and I thought I should talk to you alone and tell you this—everything I could not tell you in town; and then I was forced to go out in the boat.


And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in your thought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?


No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you no falsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I used to think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if they were a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt wicked. And everything has been a punishment to me—all the things I used to wish for—it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very daylight has often been a punishment to me. Because—you know—I ought not to have married. That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one else. I broke my promise. I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it all turned to misery. I wanted to make my gain out of another’s loss—you remember?—it was like roulette—and the money burned into me. And I could not complain. It was as if I had prayed that another should lose and I should win. And I had won, I knew it all—I knew I was guilty. When we were on the sea, and I lay awake at night in the cabin, I sometimes felt that everything I had done lay open without excuse—nothing was hidden—how could anything be known to me only?—it was not my own knowledge, it was God’s that had entered into me, and even the stillness—everything held a punishment for me—everything but you. I always thought that you would not want me to be punished—you would have tried and helped me to be better. And only thinking of that helped me. You will not change—you will not want to punish me now?


God forbid!


That all made it so hard when I was forced to go in the boat. Because when I saw you it was an unexpected joy, and I thought I could tell you everything—about the locked-up drawer and what I had not told you before. And if I had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would have less power over me. I hoped and trusted in that. For after all my struggles and my crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that frightened me, the longing, the thirst for what I dreaded, always came back. And that disappointment—when I was quite shut out from speaking to you, and was driven to go in the boat—brought all the evil back, as if I had been locked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so long ago now since I stepped into that boat! I could have given up everything in that moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to strike him dead. If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here—and yet I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne contempt. I ought to have gone away—gone and wandered like a beggar rather than stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there was something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill me if I resisted his will. But now—his dead face is there, and I cannot bear it. I have been a cruel woman! What can I do but cry for help? I am sinking. Die—die—you are forsaken—go down, go down into darkness. Forsaken—no pity—I shall be forsaken.


I make you very unhappy.


Oh. There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most desire at this moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel it a relief to tell.


Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever you wish it?


No, no. I want to tell you what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of rage at being obliged to go—full of rage—and I could do nothing but sit there like a galley slave. And then we got away—out of the port—into the deep—and everything was still—and we never looked at each other, only he spoke to order me—and the very light about me seemed to hold me a prisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over me that when I was a child I used to fancy sailing away into a world where people were not forced to live with any one they did not like—I did not like my father-in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just the opposite had come to me. I had stepped into a boat, and my life was a sailing and sailing away—gliding on and no help—always into solitude with him, away from deliverance. And because I felt more helpless than ever, my thoughts went out over worse things—I longed for worse things—I had cruel wishes—I fancied impossible ways of—I did not want to die myself; I was afraid of our being drowned together. If it had been any use I should have prayed—I should have prayed that something might befall him. I should have prayed that he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way of killing him there, but I did, I did kill him in my thoughts. But yet, all the while I felt that I was getting more wicked. And what had been with me so much, came to me just then—what you once said—about dreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse—I should hope for nothing then. It was all like a writing of fire within me. Getting wicked was misery—being shut out forever from knowing what you—what better lives were. That had always been coming back to me then—but yet with a despair—a feeling that it was no use—evil wishes were too strong. I remember then letting go the tiller and saying ‘God help me!’ But then I was forced to take it again and go on; and the evil longings, the evil prayers came again and blotted everything else dim, till, in the midst of them—I don’t know how it was—he was turning the sail—there was a gust—he was struck—I know nothing—I only know that I saw my wish outside me. I saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of me. I think I did not move. I kept my hands tight. It was long enough for me to be glad, and yet to think it was no use—he would come up again. And he was come—farther off—the boat had moved. It was all like lightning. ‘The rope!’ he called out in a voice—not his own—I hear it now—and I stooped for the rope—I felt I must—I felt sure he could swim, and he would come back whether or not, and I dreaded him. That was in my mind—he would come back. But he was gone down again, and I had the rope in my hand—no, there he was again—his face above the water—and he cried again—and I held my hand, and my heart said, ‘Die!’—and he sank; and I felt ‘It is done—I am wicked, I am lost!—and I had the rope in my hand—I don’t know what I thought—I was leaping away from myself—I would have saved him then. I was leaping from my crime, and there it was—close to me as I fell—there was the dead face—dead, dead. It can never be altered. That was what happened. That was what I did. You know it all. It can never be altered.


You must rest now. Try to rest: try to sleep. And may I see you again this evening—to-morrow—when you have had some rest? Let us say no more now.


How long ago it is! Will you sit near me again a little while? You will not say that any one else should know?


Most decidedly not. There is no action that ought to be taken in consequence. There is no injury that could be righted in that way. There is no retribution that any mortal could apportion justly.


But if I had not had that murderous will—that moment—if I had thrown the rope on the instant—perhaps it would have hindered death?


No—I think not. If it were true that he could swim, he must have been seized with cramp. With your quickest, utmost effort, it seems impossible that you could have done anything to save him. That momentary murderous will cannot, I think, have altered the course of events. Its effect is confined to the motives in your own breast. Within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or later it works its way outside us—it may be in the vitiation that breeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings us into better striving.


I am saved from robbing others—there are others—they will have everything—they will have what they ought to have. I knew that some time before I left town. You do not suspect me of wrong desires about those things?


I had not thought of them. I was thinking too much of the other things.


Perhaps you don’t quite know the beginning of it all. There was some one else he ought to have married. And I knew it, and I told her I would not hinder it. And I went away—that was when you first saw me. But then we became poor all at once, and I was very miserable, and I was tempted. I thought, ‘I shall do as I like and make everything right.’ I persuaded myself. And it was all different. It was all dreadful. Then came hatred and wicked thoughts. That was how it all came. I told you I was afraid of myself. And I did what you told me—I did try to make my fear a safeguard. I thought of what would be if I—I felt what would come—how I should dread the morning—wishing it would be always night—and yet in the darkness always seeing something—seeing death. If you did not know how miserable I was, you might—but now it has all been no use. I can care for nothing but saving the rest from knowing—poor mamma, who has never been happy. You cannot bear to look at me any more. You think I am too wicked. You do not believe that I can become any better—worth anything—worthy enough—I shall always be too wicked to—


I believe that you may become worthier than you have ever yet been—worthy to lead a life that may be a blessing. No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. You have made efforts—you will go on making them.


But you were the beginning of them. You must not forsake me. I will bear any penance. I will lead any life you tell me. But you must not forsake me. You must be near. If you had been near me—if I could have said everything to you, I should have been different. You will not forsake me?


It could never be my impulse to forsake you,


I expect Sir Hugo Mallinger to arrive by to-morrow night at least; and I am not without hope that Mrs. Davilow may shortly follow him. Her presence will be the greatest comfort to you—it will give you a motive to save her from unnecessary pain?


Yes, yes—I will try. And you will not go away?


Not till after Sir Hugo has come.


But we shall all go to England?


As soon as possible,


You will always be with Sir Hugo now! You will always live at the Abbey—or else at Diplow?


I am quite uncertain where I shall live,


It is impossible to think how my life will go on. I think now it would be better for me to be poor and obliged to work.


New promptings will come as the days pass. When you are among your friends again, you will discern new duties. Make it a task now to get as well and calm—as much like yourself as you can, before—


Before my mother comes. Ah! I must be changed. I have not looked at myself. Should you have known me, if you had met me now?—should you have known me for the one you saw at Leubronn?


Yes, I should have known you. The outside change is not great. I should have seen at once that it was you, and that you had gone through some great sorrow.


Don’t wish now that you had never seen me; don’t wish that,


I should despise myself for wishing it. How could I know what I was wishing? We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what we imagine might have been. If I took to foolish wishing of that sort, I should wish—not that I had never seen you, but that I had been able to save you from this.


You have saved me from worse. I should have been worse if it had not been for you. If you had not been good, I should have been more wicked than I am.


It will be better for me to go now. Remember what we said of your task—to get well and calm before other friends come.


My dears, Mr. Grandcourt— Mr. Grandcourt is drowned.


Can I do anything, aunt? Can I carry any word to my father from you?


Yes, dear. Tell him I will be ready—he is very good. He says he will go with me to Genoa—he will be here at half-past six. Jocosa and Alice, help me to get ready. She is safe—Gwendolen is safe—but she must be ill. I am sure she must be very ill. Rex, dear—Rex and Anna—go and and tell your father I will be quite ready. I would not for the world lose another night. And bless him for being ready so soon. I can travel night and day till we get there.


Nannie, I will leave you to say everything to my father. If he wants me immediately, let me know. I shall stay in the shrubbery for ten minutes—only ten minutes.


She would never love me; and that is not the question—I could never approach her as a lover in her present position. I am exactly of no consequence at all, and am not likely to be of much consequence till my head is turning gray. But what has that to do with it? She would not have me on any terms, and I would not ask her. It is a meanness to be thinking about it now—no better than lurking about the battle-field to strip the dead; but there never was more gratuitous sinning. I have nothing to gain there—absolutely nothing. Then why can’t I face the facts, and behave as they demand, instead of leaving my father to suppose that there are matters he can’t speak to me about, though I might be useful in them? Can I be of any use, sir?


Yes, my boy; when I’m gone, just see to my letters, and answer where necessary, and send me word of everything. Dymock will manage the parish very well, and you will stay with your mother, or, at least, go up and down again, till I come back, whenever that may be.


You will hardly be very long, sir, I suppose. You will perhaps bring my cousin back to England?


That depends. Perhaps her mother may stay there with her, and I may come back very soon. This telegram leaves us in ignorance which is rather anxious. But no doubt the arrangements of the will lately made are satisfactory, and there may possibly be an heir yet to be born. In any case, I feel confident that Gwendolen will be liberally—I should expect, splendidly—provided for.


It must have been a great shock for her. I suppose he was a devoted husband.


No doubt of it. Few men of his position would have come forward as he did under the circumstances.


Well, Dan. I have taken my journey easily, and am in excellent condition. I didn’t hurry in setting off, because I wanted to inquire into things a little, and so I got sight of your letter to Lady Mallinger before I started. But now, how is the widow?


Getting calmer. She seems to be escaping the bodily illness that one might have feared for her, after her plunge and terrible excitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is being well taken care of.


Any prospect of an heir being born?


From what Mr. Gascoigne said to me, I conclude not. He spoke as if it were a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life.


It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss of the husband?


The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her,


I wonder whether Grandcourt gave her any notion what were the provisions of his will?


Do you know what they are, sir?


Yes, I do. Gad! if there is no prospect of a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs. Glasher; you know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a sort of wife to him for a good many years, and there are three older children—girls. The boy is to take his father’s name; he is Henleigh already, and he is to be Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt. The Mallinger will be of no use to him, I am happy to say; but the young dog will have more than enough with his fourteen years’ minority—no need to have had holes filled up with my fifty thousand for Diplow that he had no right to: and meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up with a poor two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere—a nice kind of banishment for her if she chose to shut herself up there, which I don’t think she will. The boy’s mother has been living there of late years. I’m perfectly disgusted with Grandcourt. I don’t know that I’m obliged to think the better of him because he’s drowned, though, so far as my affairs are concerned, nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.


In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife—not in leaving his estates to the son,


I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad, but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a handsome provision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the rank he had raised her to. She ought to have had four or five thousand a year and the London house for her life; that’s what I should have done for her. I suppose, as she was penniless, her friends couldn’t stand out for a settlement, else it’s ill trusting to the will a man may make after he’s married. Even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze out of him in his will—my father did, I know; and if a fellow has any spite or tyranny in him, he’s likely to bottle off a good deal for keeping in that sort of document. It’s quite clear Grandcourt meant that his death should put an extinguisher on his wife, if she bore him no heir.


And, in the other case, I suppose everything would have been reversed—illegitimacy would have had the extinguisher?


Precisely—Gadsmere and the two thousand. It’s queer. One nuisance is that Grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was the son of my only brother, I can’t refuse to act. And I shall mind it less if I can be of any use to the widow. Lush thinks she was not in ignorance about the family under the rose, and the purport of the will. He hints that there was no very good understanding between the couple. But I fancy you are the man who knew most about what Mrs. Grandcourt felt or did not feel—eh, Dan?


She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as to the disposal of the property—from all I have seen of her, I should predict that she will be quite contented with it.


Then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that’s all I can say. However, she ought to be something extraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscope and hers—eh?


How very strange that it should be Daniel who sends it!


And about the main business of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You have not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, I hope? There is nothing that you feel need change your position in any way? You know, whatever happens to you must always be of importance to me.


I desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir. But I can’t answer those questions truly by a simple yes or no. Much that I have heard about the past has pained me. And it has been a pain to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state, as I have been compelled to do. But it is no pain—it is rather a clearing up of doubts for which I am thankful, to know my parentage. As to the effect on my position, there will be no change in my gratitude to you, sir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. But to know that I was born a Jew, may have a momentous influence on my life, which I am hardly able to tell you of at present.


I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan; but, for God’s sake, don’t go into any eccentricities! I can tolerate any man’s difference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself up as a lunatic. At this stage of the world, if a man wants to be taken seriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I only think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, especially if he wanted defending. You have a passion for people who are pelted, Dan. I’m sorry for them too; but so far as company goes, it’s a bad ground of selection. However, I don’t ask you to anticipate your inclination in anything you have to tell me. When you make up your mind to a course that requires money, I have some sixteen thousand pounds that have been accumulating for you over and above what you have been having the interest of as income. And now I am come, I suppose you want to get back to England as soon as you can?


I must go first to Mainz to get away a chest of my grandfather’s, and perhaps to see a friend of his. Although the chest has been lying there these twenty years, I have an unreasonable sort of nervous eagerness to get it away under my care, as if it were more likely now than before that something might happen to it. And perhaps I am the more uneasy, because I lingered after my mother left, instead of setting out immediately. Yet I can’t regret that I was here—else Mrs. Grandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her.


Yes, yes. I hope you are not going to set a dead Jew above a living Christian.


Good! It is now you who seek me, young man.


Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather’s, and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself much trouble on my account.


So you are no longer angry at being something more than an Englishman?


On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me from remaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the chest that my grandfather left in trust for me.


Sit down, sit down,


As thy goodness has been great to the former generations, even so may it be to the latter. Young man, I rejoice that I was not yet set off again on my travels, and that you are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as he was in his youth—no longer perverted from the fellowship of your people—no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who seemed to be claiming you as a Jew. You come with thankfulness yourself to claim the kindred and heritage that wicked contrivance would have robbed you of. You come with a willing soul to declare, ‘I am the grandson of Daniel Charisi.’ Is it not so?


Assuredly it is. But let me say that I should at no time have been inclined to treat a Jew with incivility simply because he was a Jew. You can understand that I shrank from saying to a stranger, ‘I know nothing of my mother.’


A sin, a sin! A robbery of our people—as when our youths and maidens were reared for the Roman Edom. But it is frustrated. I have frustrated it. When Daniel Charisi—may his Rock and his Redeemer guard him!—when Daniel Charisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above his shoulder, we made a solemn vow always to be friends. He said, ‘Let us bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother.’ That was his bent from first to last—as he said, to fortify his soul with bonds. It was a saying of his, ‘Let us bind love with duty; for duty is the love of law; and law is the nature of the Eternal.’ So we bound ourselves. And though we were much apart in our later life, the bond has never been broken. When he was dead, they sought to rob him; but they could not rob him of me. I rescued that remainder of him which he had prized and preserved for his offspring. And I have restored to him the offspring they had robbed him of. I will bring you the chest forthwith. Let us bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother. Let us bind love with duty; for duty is the love of law; and law is the nature of the Eternal.


So! And here is the curious key. Bestow it carefully. I trust you are methodic and wary.


I shall be more careful of this than of any other property. I never before possessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished hope and effort. And I shall never forget that the effort was partly yours. Have you time to tell me more of my grandfather? Or shall I be trespassing in staying longer?


Stay yet a while. In an hour and eighteen minutes I start for Trieste, and presently my sons will expect my attention. Will you let me make you known to them, so that they may have the pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend’s grandson? They dwell here in ease and luxury, though I choose to be a wanderer.


I shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for some future opportunity. There are pressing claims calling me to England—friends who may be much in need of my presence. I have been kept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances. But to know more of you and your family would be motive enough to bring me again to Mainz.


Good! Me you will hardly find, for I am beyond my threescore years and ten, and I am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. But my sons and their children dwell here in wealth and unity. The days are changed for us since Karl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring some tincture of knowledge to our rough German brethren. I and my contemporaries have had to fight for it too. Our youth fell on evil days; but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the learning of all Germany is fed and fattened by Jewish brains—though they keep not always their Jewish hearts. Have you been left altogether ignorant of your people’s life, young man?


No. I have lately, before I had any true suspicion of my parentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history with more interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little.


Better, a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all. Yet his knowledge was not narrow?


Narrow? no,


It’s no better, than the many sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness.


And in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me. It would have been a robbery of me too that I should never have known of the inheritance he had prepared for me. I thank you with my whole soul.


Be worthy of him, young man. What is your vocation?


I cannot say that I have any.


Get one, get one. The Jew must be diligent. You will call yourself a Jew and profess the faith of your fathers?


I shall call myself a Jew. But I will not say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed. Our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief and learned of other races. But I think I can maintain my grandfather’s notion of separateness with communication. I hold that my first duty is to my own people, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring or perfecting their common life, I shall make that my vocation.


Ah, you argue and you look forward—you are Daniel Charisi’s grandson. Within the gentle heart Love shelters him, As birds within the green shade of the grove. Before the gentle heart, in Nature’s scheme, Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.


O-o-o, Hans! why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing?


What on earth is the wonderful news? Anything about Italy—anything about the Austrians giving up Venice?


Nothing about Italy, but something from Italy,


Nothing bad?


Not bad for anybody we care much about, rather uncommonly lucky, I think. I never knew anybody die conveniently before. Considering what a dear gazelle I am, I am constantly wondering to find myself alive.


Oh me, Hans! if you must talk of yourself, let it be behind your own back. What is it that has happened?


Duke Alfonso is drowned, and the Duchess is alive, that’s all. But more than all is—Deronda was at Genoa in the same hotel with them, and he saw her brought in by the fishermen who had got her out of the water time enough to save her from any harm. It seems they saw her jump in after her husband, which was a less judicious action than I should have expected of the Duchess. However Deronda is a lucky fellow in being there to take care of her.


Poor thing! she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after him.


It was an inadvertence—a little absence of mind. Who can be fond of a jealous baritone, with freezing glances, always singing asides?—that was the husband’s rôle, depend upon it. Nothing can be neater than his getting drowned. The Duchess is at liberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair, and glances that will melt instead of freezing her. And I shall be invited to the wedding.


Mr. Hans, you ought not to speak in that way. Mr. Deronda would not like you to speak so. Why will you say he is lucky—why will you use words of that sort about life and death—when what is life to one is death to another? How do you know it would be lucky if he loved Mrs. Grandcourt? It might be a great evil to him. She would take him away from my brother—I know she would. Mr. Deronda would not call that lucky to pierce my brother’s heart.


I am a fool and a brute, and I withdraw every word. I’ll go and hang myself like Judas—if it’s allowable to mention him.


Mirah is quite right to scold you, Hans. You are always taking Mr. Deronda’s name in vain. And it is horrible, joking in that way about his marrying Mrs. Grandcourt. Men’s minds must be very black, I think,


Quite true, my dear,


We had better go on, Mab; you have not given your full time to the lesson. Will you sing this again, or shall I sing it to you?


Oh, please sing it to me,


I must go home now. Ezra expects me.


God bless you, my dear.


Now, Hans, you are not going to walk home with Mirah. I am sure she would rather not. You are so dreadfully disagreeable to-day.


I shall go to take care of her, if she does not forbid me,


Good-bye,


Will you not come in and see my brother?


If you will let me,


A letter from Daniel Deronda. Brief—only saying that he hopes soon to return. Unexpected claims have detained him. The promise of seeing him again is like the bow in the cloud to me, and to you it must be a gladness. For who has two friends like him?


What I have read about and sung about and seen acted, is happening to me—this that I am feeling is the love that makes jealousy;


I could bear everything that used to be—but this is worse—this is worse,—I used not to have horrible feelings!


Seest thou, Mirah, the Shemah, wherein we briefly confess the divine Unity, is the chief devotional exercise of the Hebrew; and this made our religion the fundamental religion for the whole world; for the divine Unity embraced as its consequence the ultimate unity of mankind. See, then—the nation which has been scoffed at for its separateness, has given a binding theory to the human race. Now, in complete unity a part possesses the whole as the whole possesses every part: and in this way human life is tending toward the image of the Supreme Unity: for as our life becomes more spiritual by capacity of thought, and joy therein, possession tends to become more universal, being independent of gross material contact; so that in a brief day the soul of man may know in fuller volume the good which has been and is, nay, is to come, than all he could possess in a whole life where he had to follow the creeping paths of the senses. In this moment, my sister, I hold the joy of another’s future within me: a future which these eyes will not see, and which my spirit may not then recognize as mine. I recognize it now, and love it so, that I can lay down this poor life upon its altar and say: ‘Burn, burn indiscernibly into that which shall be, which is my love and not me.’ Dost thou understand, Mirah? Burn, burn indiscernibly into that which shall be, which is my love and not me.


A little, but my mind is too poor to have felt it.


And yet, women are specially framed for the love which feels possession in renouncing, and is thus a fit image of what I mean. Somewhere in the later Midrash, I think, is the story of a Jewish maiden who loved a Gentile king so well, that this was what she did:—she entered into prison and changed clothes with the woman who was beloved by the king, that she might deliver that woman from death by dying in her stead, and leave the king to be happy in his love which was not for her. This is the surpassing love, that loses self in the object of love.


No, Ezra, no, that was not it. She wanted the king when she was dead to know what she had done, and feel that she was better than the other. It was her strong self, wanting to conquer, that made her die.


That might be, Mirah. But if she acted so, believing the king would never know.


You can make the story so in your mind, Ezra, because you are great, and like to fancy the greatest that could be. But I think it was not really like that. The Jewish girl must have had jealousy in her heart, and she wanted somehow to have the first place in the king’s mind. That is what she would die for.


My sister, thou hast read too many plays, where the writers delight in showing the human passions as indwelling demons, unmixed with the relenting and devout elements of the soul. Thou judgest by the plays, and not by thy own heart, which is like our mother’s.


Das Glück ist eine leichte Dirne, Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort; Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne Und küsst dich rasch und flattert fort Frau Unglück hat im Gegentheile Dich liebefest an’s Herz gedrückt; Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile, Setzt sich zu dir an’s Bett und strickt.


Mirah!


It is you, father.


Why did you run away from me, child? What were you afraid of? You knew I never made you do anything against your will. It was for your sake I broke up your engagement in the Vorstadt, because I saw it didn’t suit you, and you repaid me by leaving me to the bad times that came in consequence. I had made an easier engagement for you at the Vorstadt Theater in Dresden: I didn’t tell you, because I wanted to take you by surprise. And you left me planted there—obliged to make myself scarce because I had broken contract. That was hard lines for me, after I had given up everything for the sake of getting you an education which was to be a fortune to you. What father devoted himself to his daughter more than I did to you? You know how I bore that disappointment in your voice, and made the best of it: and when I had nobody besides you, and was getting broken, as a man must who has had to fight his way with his brains—you chose that time to leave me. Who else was it you owed everything to, if not to me? and where was your feeling in return? For what my daughter cared, I might have died in a ditch.


You know why I left you, father; and I had reason to distrust you, because I felt sure that you had deceived my mother. If I could have trusted you, I would have stayed with you and worked for you.


I never meant to deceive your mother, Mirah. I meant to take you back to her, but chances hindered me just at the time, and then there came information of her death. It was better for you that I should stay where I was, and your brother could take care of himself. Nobody had any claim on me but you. I had word of your mother’s death from a particular friend, who had undertaken to manage things for me, and I sent him over money to pay expenses. There’s one chance to be sure— he may have written me lies for the sake of getting the money out of me.


I don’t believe one word of what you say


You seem to have done well for yourself, Mirah? You are in no want, I see,


Good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work. I give lessons. I have sung in private houses. I have just been singing at a private concert. I give lessons. I have sung in private houses. I have just been singing at a private concert. I have very good friends, who know all about me.


And you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight? No wonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of finding you. It was a mad quest; but a father’s heart is superstitious—feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might have done very well, staying abroad: when I hadn’t you to take care of, I could have rolled or settled as easily as a ball; but it’s hard being lonely in the world, when your spirit’s beginning to break. And I thought my little Mirah would repent leaving her father when she came to look back. I’ve had a sharp pinch to work my way; I don’t know what I shall come down to next. Talents like mine are no use in this country. When a man’s getting out at elbows nobody will believe in him. I couldn’t get any decent employ with my appearance. I’ve been obliged to get pretty low for a shilling already. Where do you live, Mirah?


Here, in this square. We are not far from the house.


In lodgings?


Yes.


Any one to take care of you?


Yes, my brother.


Ezra? How did you know—how did you find him?


That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother would not wish me to close it on you.


Stay a minute, Liebchen, what sort of man has Ezra turned out?


A good man—a wonderful man. But he was very poor when my friends found him for me—a poor workman. Once—twelve years ago—he was strong and happy, going to the East, which he loved to think of; and my mother called him back because—because she had lost me. And he went to her, and took care of her through great trouble, and worked for her till she died—died in grief. And Ezra, too, had lost his health and strength. The cold had seized him coming back to my mother, because she was forsaken. For years he has been getting weaker—always poor, always working—but full of knowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him honor him. To stand before him is like standing before a prophet of God falsehoods are no use.


Mirah, Liebchen, shouldn’t you like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me? If I had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to you as your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent place. With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad enough to have me. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn’t look like a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children, and forget and forgive. But you have never seen your father look like this before. If you had ten pounds at hand—or I could appoint you to bring it me somewhere—I could fit myself out by the day after to-morrow.


I don’t like to deny you what you ask, father; but I have given a promise not to do things for you in secret. It is hard to see you looking needy; but we will bear that for a little while; and then you can have new clothes, and we can pay for them.


You are a hard and fast young lady—you have been learning useful virtues—keeping promises not to help your father with a pound or two when you are getting money to dress yourself in silk—your father who made an idol of you, and gave up the best part of his life to providing for you.


It seems cruel—I know it seems cruel. But, father, it is more cruel to break the promises people trust in. That broke my mother’s heart—it has broken Ezra’s life. You and I must eat now this bitterness from what has been. Bear it. Bear to come in and be cared for as you are.


To-morrow, then. I’m a little cut up with all this, Mirah. I shall get up my spirits by to-morrow. If you’ve a little money in your pocket, I suppose it isn’t against your promise to give me a trifle—to buy a cigar with. Good-bye, my little girl—to-morrow then!


Ezra, Ezra! Ezra, my father! our father! He followed me. I wanted him to come in. I said you would let him come in. And he said No, he would not—not now, but to-morrow. And he begged for money from me. And I gave him my purse, and he went away.


Wait for calm, Mirah, and then tell me all. He will not come to-morrow. Seest thou, our lot is the lot of Israel. The grief and the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame. It is because we children have inherited the good that we feel the evil. These things are wedded for us, as our father was wedded to our mother.


The Omnipresent, is occupied in making marriages.


Daniel Deronda—may he come in?


Come! come!


Has anything happened?—any trouble?


Talk not of trouble now,


That is true. I have a joy which will remain to us even in the worst trouble. I did not tell you the reason of my journey abroad, Mordecai, because—never mind—I went to learn my parentage. And you were right. I am a Jew. We have the same people. Our souls have the same vocation. We shall not be separated by life or by death.


Our God and the God of our fathers.


And it is not only that I am a Jew, but I come of a strain that has ardently maintained the fellowship of our race—a line of Spanish Jews that has borne many students and men of practical power. And I possess what will give us a sort of communion with them. My grandfather, Daniel Charisi, preserved manuscripts, family records stretching far back, in the hope that they would pass into the hands of his grandson. And now his hope is fulfilled, in spite of attempts to thwart it by hiding my parentage from me. I possess the chest containing them, with his own papers, and it is down below in this house. I mean to leave it with you, Mordecai, that you may help me to study the manuscripts. Some of them I can read easily enough—those in Spanish and Italian. Others are in Hebrew, and, I think, Arabic; but there seem to be Latin translations. I was only able to look at them cursorily while I stayed at Mainz. We will study them together.


Daniel, from the first, I have said to you, we know not all the pathways. Has there not been a meeting among them, as of the operations in one soul, where an idea being born and breathing draws the elements toward it, and is fed and glows? For all things are bound together in that Omnipresence which is the place and habitation of the world, and events are of a glass wherethrough our eyes see some of the pathways. And if it seems that the erring and unloving wills of men have helped to prepare you, as Moses was prepared, to serve your people the better, that depends on another order than the law which must guide our footsteps. For the evil will of man makes not a people’s good except by stirring the righteous will of man; and beneath all the clouds with which our thought encompasses the Eternal, this is clear—that a people can be blessed only by having counsellors and a multitude whose will moves in obedience to the laws of justice and love. For see, now, it was your loving will that made a chief pathway, and resisted the effect of evil; for, by performing the duties of brotherhood to my sister, and seeking out her brother in the flesh, your soul has been prepared to receive with gladness this message of the Eternal, ‘behold the multitude of your brethren.’


It is quite true that you and Mirah have been my teachers. If this revelation had been made to me before I knew you both, I think my mind would have rebelled against it. Perhaps I should have felt then—‘If I could have chosen, I would not have been a Jew.’ What I feel now is—that my whole being is a consent to the fact. But it has been the gradual accord between your mind and mine which has brought about that full consent. It is through your inspiration that I have discerned what may be my life’s task. It is you who have given shape to what, I believe, was an inherited yearning—the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in many ancestors—thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my grandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for painting, and born blind—the ancestral life would lie within them as a dim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly-wrought musical instrument, never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy mysterious meanings of its intricate structure that, under the right touch, gives music. Something like that, I think, has been my experience. Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for some ideal task, in which I might feel myself the heart and brain of a multitude—some social captainship, which would come to me as a duty, and not be striven for as a personal prize. You have raised the image of such a task for me—to bind our race together in spite of heresy. You have said to me—‘Our religion united us before it divided us—it made us a people before it made Rabbanites and Karaites.’ I mean to try what can be done with that union—I mean to work in your spirit. Failure will not be ignoble, but it would be ignoble for me not to try.


Even as my brother that fed at the breasts of my mother,


It has begun already—the marriage of our souls. It waits but the passing away of this body, and then they who are betrothed shall unite in a stricter bond, and what is mine shall be thine. Call nothing mine that I have written, Daniel; for though our masters delivered rightly that everything should be quoted in the name of him that said it—and their rule is good—yet it does not exclude the willing marriage which melts soul into soul, and makes thought fuller as the clear waters are made fuller, where the fullness is inseparable and the clearness is inseparable. For I have judged what I have written, and I desire the body that I gave my thought to pass away as this fleshly body will pass; but let the thought be born again from our fuller soul which shall be called yours.


You must not ask me to promise that. I must be convinced first of special reasons for it in the writings themselves. And I am too backward a pupil yet. That blent transmission must go on without any choice of ours; but what we can’t hinder must not make our rule for what we ought to choose. I think our duty is faithful tradition where we can attain it. And so you would insist for any one but yourself. Don’t ask me to deny my spiritual parentage, when I am finding the clue of my life in the recognition of natural parentage.


I will ask for no promise till you see the reason. You have said the truth: I would obey the Master’s rule for another. But for years my hope, nay, my confidence, has been, not that the imperfect image of my thought, which is an ill-shaped work of the youthful carver who has seen a heavenly pattern, and trembles in imitating the vision—not that this should live, but that my vision and passion should enter into yours—yea, into yours; for he whom I longed for afar, was he not you whom I discerned as mine when you came near? Nevertheless, you shall judge. For my soul is satisfied. What moved your parents——? Nay, I ask not that you should tell me aught concerning others, unless it is your pleasure.


Some time—gradually—you will know all. But now tell me more about yourselves, and how the time has passed since I went away. I am sure there has been some trouble. Mirah has been in distress about something.


To-day there has been a grief. A duty which seemed to have gone far into the distance, has come back and turned its face upon us, and raised no gladness—has raised a dread that we must submit to. But for the moment we are delivered from any visible yoke. Let us defer speaking of it as if this evening which is deepening about us were the beginning of the festival in which we must offer the first fruits of our joy, and mingle no mourning with them.


Are you going? I must leave almost immediately—when I and Mrs. Adam have mounted the precious chest, and I have delivered the key to Mordecai—no, Ezra,—may I call him Ezra now? I have learned to think of him as Ezra since I have heard you call him so.


Please call him Ezra,


I shall never like to see the Mediterranean again,


Are you there, mamma?


Yes, dear; can I do anything for you?


No, thank you; only I like so to know you are there. Do you mind my waking you?


I was not asleep, darling.


It seemed not real that you were with me. I wanted to make it real. I can bear things if you are with me. But you must not lie awake, anxious about me. You must be happy now. You must let me make you happy now at last—else what shall I do?


God bless you, dear; I have the best happiness I can have, when you make much of me. Let me give you your sleeping-draught, Gwendolen.


No, mamma, thank you; I don’t want to sleep.


It would be so good for you to sleep more, my darling.


Don’t say what would be good for me, mamma. You don’t know what would be good for me. You and my uncle must not contradict me and tell me anything is good for me when I feel it is not good. I was always naughty to you, mamma.


No, dear, no.


Yes, I was. It is because I was always wicked that I am miserable now.


When a young man makes his will in health, he usually counts on living a long while. Probably Mr. Grandcourt did not believe that this will would ever have its present effect. The effect is painful in more ways than one. Female morality is likely to suffer from this marked advantage and prominence being given to illegitimate offspring.


Well, in point of fact, since the boy is there, this was really the best alternative for the disposal of the estates. Grandcourt had nobody nearer than his cousin. And it’s a chilling thought that you go out of this life only for the benefit of a cousin. A man gets a little pleasure in making his will, if it’s for the good of his own curly heads; but it’s a nuisance when you’re giving the bequeathing to a used-up fellow like yourself, and one you don’t care two straws for. It’s the next worse thing to having only a life interest in your estates. No; I forgive Grandcourt for that part of his will. But, between ourselves, what I don’t forgive him for, is the shabby way he has provided for your niece—our niece, I will say—no better a position than if she had been a doctor’s widow. Nothing grates on me more than that posthumous grudgingness toward a wife. A man ought to have some pride and fondness for his widow. I should, I know. I take it as a test of a man, that he feels the easier about his death when he can think of his wife and daughters being comfortable after it. I like that story of the fellows in the Crimean war, who were ready to go to the bottom of the sea if their widows were provided for.


It has certainly taken me by surprise, all the more because, as the one who stood in the place of father to my niece, I had shown my reliance on Mr. Grandcourt’s apparent liberality in money matters by making no claims for her beforehand. That seemed to me due to him under the circumstances. Probably you think me blamable.


Not blamable exactly. I respect a man for trusting another. But take my advice. If you marry another niece, though it may be to the Archbishop of Canterbury, bind him down. Your niece can’t be married for the first time twice over. And if he’s a good fellow, he’ll wish to be bound. But as to Mrs. Grandcourt, I can only say that I feel my relation to her all the nearer because I think that she has not been well treated. And I hope you will urge her to rely on me as a friend.


I hope you don’t expect that I am going to be rich and grand, mamma, perhaps I shall have nothing at all.


Oh yes, dear, you will have something. Sir Hugo knows all about the will.


That will not decide,


Surely, dear: Sir Hugo says you are to have two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere.


What I have will depend on what I accept. You and my uncle must not attempt to cross me and persuade me about this. I will do everything I can do to make you happy, but in anything about my husband I must not be interfered with. Is eight hundred a year enough for you, mamma?


More than enough, dear. You must not think of giving me so much. Do you know who is to have the estates and the rest of the money?


Yes. I know everything. It is all perfectly right, and I wish never to have it mentioned.


Come and sit nearer to me, mamma, and don’t be unhappy. I mean to be very wise; I do, really. And good—oh, so good to you, dear, old, sweet mamma, you won’t know me. Only you must not cry.


I shouldn’t mind about the soot myself. Nothing is more healthy. And if one’s business lay there, Gadsmere would be a paradise. It makes quite a feature in Scrogg’s history of the county, with the little tower and the fine piece of water—the prettiest print in the book.


A more important place than Offendene, I suppose?


Much. I was there with my poor brother—it is more than a quarter of a century ago, but I remember it very well. The rooms may not be larger, but the grounds are on a different scale.


Our poor dear Offendene is empty after all. When it came to the point, Mr. Haynes declared off, and there has been no one to take it since. I might as well have accepted Lord Brackenshaw’s kind offer that I should remain in it another year rent-free: for I should have kept the place aired and warmed.


I hope you’ve something snug instead.


A little too snug. You are rather thick upon the ground.


I don’t mind telling you,


Sir Hugo, I wish to see Mr. Deronda again as soon as possible. I don’t know his address. Will you tell it me, or let him know that I want to see him?


Upon my word, I don’t know whether he’s at his chambers or the Abbey at this moment. But I’ll make sure of him. I’ll send a note now to his chambers telling him to come, and if he’s at the Abbey I can give him your message and send him up at once. I am sure he will want to obey your wish,


It was good of you to come. Let us sit down. I asked you to come because I want you to tell me what I ought to do. Don’t be afraid of telling me what you think is right, because it seems hard. I have made up my mind to do it. I was afraid once of being poor; I could not bear to think of being under other people; and that was why I did something—why I married. I have borne worse things now. I think I could bear to be poor, if you think I ought. Do you know about my husband’s will?


Yes, Sir Hugo told me,


Ought I to take anything he has left me? I will tell you what I have been thinking. Perhaps you may not quite know that I really did think a good deal about my mother when I married. I was selfish, but I did love her, and feel about her poverty; and what comforted me most at first, when I was miserable, was her being better off because I had married. The thing that would be hardest to me now would be to see her in poverty again; and I have been thinking that if I took enough to provide for her, and no more—nothing for myself—it would not be wrong; for I was very precious to my mother—and he took me from her—and he meant—and if she had known—


Do not hurt yourself by speaking of that. There is no need; the case is very simple. I think I can hardly judge wrongly about it. You consult me because I am the only person to whom you have confided the most painful part of your experience: and I can understand your scruples. You are conscious of something which you feel to be a crime toward one who is dead. You think that you have forfeited all claim as a wife. You shrink from taking what was his. You want to keep yourself from profiting by his death. Your feeling even urges you to some self-punishment—some scourging of the self that disobeyed your better will—the will that struggled against temptation. I have known something of that myself. Do I understand you?


Yes—at least, I want to be good—not like what I have been. I will try to bear what you think I ought to bear. I have tried to tell you the worst about myself. What ought I to do?


If no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income. I should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful prompting; but I take as a guide now, your feeling about Mrs. Davilow, which seems to me quite just. I cannot think that your husband’s dues even to yourself are nullified by any act you have committed. He voluntarily entered into your life, and affected its course in what is always the most momentous way. But setting that aside, it was due from him in his position that he should provide for your mother, and he of course understood that if this will took effect she would share the provision he had made for you.


She has had eight hundred a year. What I thought of was to take that and leave the rest,


I think it is not your duty to fix a limit in that way. You would be making a painful enigma for Mrs. Davilow; an income from which you shut yourself out must be embittered to her. And your own course would become too difficult. We agreed at Genoa that the burden on your conscience is one what no one ought to be admitted to the knowledge of. The future beneficence of your life will be best furthered by your saving all others from the pain of that knowledge. In my opinion you ought simply to abide by the provisions of your husband’s will, and let your remorse tell only on the use that you will make of your monetary independence.


I will do what you tell me, but what else shall I do?


You will probably be soon going with Mrs. Davilow into the country.


Yes, in a week or ten days. I want to be kind to them all—they can be happier than I can. Is that the best I can do?