<h2><SPAN name="2HCH0046"></SPAN> CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
<p class="poem">
“If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel
it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, ‘Because it was
he, because it was I.’ There is, beyond what I am able to say, I know not
what inexplicable power that brought on this
union.”—M<small>ONTAIGNE</small>: <i>On Friendship</i>.</p>
<p>The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the restored sister
and for the change of abode which was desirable before Mirah’s meeting
with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had confided everything except
Mordecai’s peculiar relation to himself, had been active in helping him
to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not many minutes’ walk from her
own house, so that the brother and sister would be within reach of her motherly
care. Her happy mixture of Scottish fervor and Gaelic liveliness had enabled
her to keep the secret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal
to them being likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating
suspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to secure her
independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more arduous and
dignified forms of our dependence. And both Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda had more
reasons than they could have expressed for desiring that Mirah should be able
to maintain herself. Perhaps “the little mother” was rather helped
in her secrecy by some dubiousness in her sentiment about the remarkable
brother described to her; and certainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory
admiration, it was due to her faith in Deronda’s judgment. The
consumption was a sorrowful fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was
she to be very glad of an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only
contemplate as Jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction
among them all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and
encouraging than that of Scott’s Covenanters? Her mind was anything but
prosaic, and had her soberer share of Mab’s delight in the romance of
Mirah’s story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual in
real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about
Sakya-Mouni, St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be glad for
any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still more, to reveal
himself as a new relation, is quite another affair. Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had
hoped, as her children did, that the intensity of Mirah’s feeling about
Judaism would slowly subside, and be merged in the gradually deepening current
of loving interchange with her new friends. In fact, her secret favorite
continuation of the romance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but
something much more favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. And
now—here was a brother who would dip Mirah’s mind over again in the
deepest dye of Jewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda,</p>
<p>“I am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there
are Ezras and Ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think that all
Jews are not like those shopkeepers who <i>will not</i> let you get out of
their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother and sister makes
me bless him. I am sure he’s good. But I never did like anything
fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching in my youth and lost
my palate for it.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think you will find that Mordecai obtrudes any
preaching,” said Deronda. “He is not what I should call fanatical.
I call a man fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he
has no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men who
are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; I should like to keep that
word for the highest order of minds—those who care supremely for grand
and general benefits to mankind. He is not a strictly orthodox Jew, and is full
of allowances for others; his conformity in many things is an allowance for the
condition of other Jews. The people he lives with are as fond of him as
possible, and they can’t in the least understand his ideas.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, I can live up to the level of the pawnbroker’s mother,
and like him for what I see to be good in him; and for what I don’t see
the merits of I will take your word. According to your definition, I suppose
one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor husband used to
say the world would be a poor place if there were nothing but common-sense in
it. However, Mirah’s brother will have good bedding—that I have
taken care of; and I shall have this extra window pasted up with paper to
prevent draughts.” (The conversation was taking place in the destined
lodging.) “It is a comfort to think that the people of the house are no
strangers to me—no hypocritical harpies. And when the children know, we
shall be able to make the rooms much prettier.”</p>
<p>“The next stage of the affair is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him to
move—which may be a more difficult business,” said Deronda.</p>
<p>“And will you tell Mirah before I say anything to the children?”
said Mrs. Meyrick. But Deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of
persuasive deliberation—“No, I think not. Let me tell Hans and the
girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?”</p>
<p>“Yes, that will be best. But do justice to my account of
Mordecai—or Ezra, as I suppose Mirah will wish to call him: don’t
assist their imagination by referring to Habakkuk Mucklewrath,” said
Deronda, smiling—Mrs. Meyrick herself having used the comparison of the
Covenanters.</p>
<p>“Trust me, trust me,” said the little mother. “I shall have
to persuade them so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself. When I am
frightened I find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for not
being brave: it warms the blood.”</p>
<p>Deronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view to be
taken of Mirah’s brother, if he had been less anxiously preoccupied with
the more important task immediately before him, which he desired to acquit
himself of without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai, by a memorable answer, had
made it evident that he would be keenly alive to any inadvertance in relation
to their feelings. In the interval, he had been meeting Mordecai at the <i>Hand
and Banner</i>, but now after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had
particular reasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and
would beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the Cohens would not
regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the understanding that if there
were any objection, Mordecai would accompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in
this way to create a little expectation that would have a preparatory effect.</p>
<p>He was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in the
women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering which even
in Cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence—the guest’s
transactions with Mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was rather proud to
think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed his own understanding. But
when Deronda said, “I suppose Mordecai is at home and expecting
me,” Jacob, who had profited by the family remarks, went up to his knee
and said, “What do you want to talk to Mordecai about?”</p>
<p>“Something that is very interesting to him,” said Deronda, pinching
the lad’s ear, “but that you can’t understand.”</p>
<p>“Can you say this?” said Jacob, immediately giving forth a string
of his rote-learned Hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty and
the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense of giving
formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual position.</p>
<p>“No, really,” said Deronda, keeping grave; “I can’t say
anything like it.”</p>
<p>“I thought not,” said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his
small scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep pockets of
his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight hint of his
resources; after which, running to the door of the workroom, he opened it wide,
set his back against it, and said, “Mordecai, here’s the young
swell”—a copying of his father’s phrase, which seemed to him
well fitted to cap the recitation of Hebrew.</p>
<p>He was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and Deronda, entering
and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had been laid down, a
chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in sign of the Cohens’
respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was struck with the air of
solemn expectation in his face, such as would have seemed perfectly natural if
his letter had declared that some revelation was to be made about the lost
sister. Neither of them spoke, till Deronda, with his usual tenderness of
manner, had drawn the vacant chair from the opposite side of the hearth and had
seated himself near to Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty,</p>
<p>“You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for.”</p>
<p>“It is true I have something very weighty to tell you—something I
trust that you will rejoice in,” said Deronda, on his guard against the
probability that Mordecai had been preparing himself for something quite
different from the fact.</p>
<p>“It is all revealed—it is made clear to you,” said Mordecai,
more eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. “You are even as my
brother that sucked the breasts of my mother—the heritage is
yours—there is no doubt to divide us.”</p>
<p>“I have learned nothing new about myself,” said Deronda. The
disappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be strained
longer in a mistaken hope.</p>
<p>Mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was really
coming. The whole day his mind had been in a state of tension toward one
fulfillment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his eyes.</p>
<p>“Except,” Deronda went on gently, after a
pause,—“except that I had really some time ago come into another
sort of hidden connection with you, besides what you have spoken of as existing
in your own feeling.”</p>
<p>The eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids.</p>
<p>“I had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested.”</p>
<p>“One who is closely related to your departed mother,” Deronda went
on wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking movement in
Mordecai, he added—“whom she and you held dear above all
others.”</p>
<p>Mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda’s wrist;
there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. A tremor was
perceptible in his clear tones as he said,</p>
<p>“What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from
evil.”</p>
<p>Mordecai’s grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless
sob.</p>
<p>Deronda went on: “Your sister is worthy of the mother you honored.”</p>
<p>He waited there, and Mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair, again
closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some minutes in Hebrew,
and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence. Deronda, watching the
expression in his uplifted face, could have imagined that he was speaking with
some beloved object: there was a new suffused sweetness, something like that on
the faces of the beautiful dead. For the first time Deronda thought he
discerned a family resemblance to Mirah.</p>
<p>Presently when Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in
accounting for Mirah’s flight he made the statement about the
father’s conduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her
yearning to come to England as the place where she might find her mother. Also
he kept back the fact of Mirah’s intention to drown herself, and his own
part in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with friends of
his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had shared. What he dwelt on
finally was Mirah’s feeling about her mother and brother; and in relation
to this he tried to give every detail.</p>
<p>“It was in search of them,” said Deronda, smiling, “that I
turned into this house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting
name in the world to me. I confess I had fear for a long while. Perhaps you
will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder Mrs.
Cohen’s daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah’s
friends to be. But I had found a brother worthy of her when I knew that her
Ezra was disguised under the name of Mordecai.”</p>
<p>“Mordecai is really my name—Ezra Mordecai Cohen.”</p>
<p>“Is there any kinship between this family and yours?” said Deronda.</p>
<p>“Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have
sheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in Jewish
hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the outer air. It
is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound to them in gratitude,
that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of the Jewish million, and not
put impatient knowledge in the stead of loving wisdom.”</p>
<p>“But you don’t feel bound to continue with them now there is a
closer tie to draw you?” said Deronda, not without fear that he might
find an obstacle to overcome. “It seems to me right now—is it
not?—that you should live with your sister; and I have prepared a home to
take you to in the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there.
Pray grant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours
when Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the chief
reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you ought to give
her the guardianship of a brother’s presence. You shall have books about
you. I shall want to learn of you, and to take you out to see the river and
trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that you will be more and more in
need of—nay, that I need for you. This is the claim I make on you, now
that we have found each other.”</p>
<p>Deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he might
have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai’s eyes were fixed on him
with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a little while after
Deronda had ceased to speak. Then he said, with an almost reproachful emphasis,</p>
<p>“And you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a Jew! Have
we not from the first touched each other with invisible fibres—have we
not quivered together like the leaves from a common stem with stirring from a
common root? I know what I am outwardly, I am one among the crowd of
poor—I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls know each other. They gazed
in silence as those who have long been parted and meet again, but when they
found voice they were assured, and all their speech is understanding. The life
of Israel is in your veins.”</p>
<p>Deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. It was impossible
either to deny or assent. He waited, hoping that Mordecai would presently give
him a more direct answer. And after a pause of meditation he did say, firmly,</p>
<p>“What you wish of me I will do. And our mother—may the blessing of
the Eternal be with her in our souls!—would have wished it too. I will
accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah’s home shall be
mine.” He paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone,
“But I shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. You
must tell them, for my heart would fail me.”</p>
<p>“I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now at
once?” said Deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance.</p>
<p>“Yes; let us not defer it. It must be done,” said Mordecai, rising
with the air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. Then came, as an
afterthought, “But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful.”</p>
<p>When they entered the parlor he said to the alert Jacob, “Ask your father
to come, and tell Sarah to mind the shop. My friend has something to
say,” he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. It seemed part of
Mordecai’s eccentricity that he should call this gentleman his friend;
and the two women tried to show their better manners by warm politeness in
begging Deronda to seat himself in the best place.</p>
<p>When Cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and said with
loud satisfaction, “Well, sir! I’m glad you’re doing us the
honor to join our family party again. We are pretty comfortable, I
think.”</p>
<p>He looked round with shiny gladness. And when all were seated on the hearth the
scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby under her scarlet quilt in
the corner being rocked by the young mother, and Adelaide Rebekah seated on the
grandmother’s knee; on the other, Jacob between his father’s legs;
while the two markedly different figures of Deronda and Mordecai were in the
middle—Mordecai a little backward in the shade, anxious to conceal his
agitated susceptibility to what was going on around him. The chief light came
from the fire, which brought out the rich color on a depth of shadow, and
seemed to turn into speech the dark gems of eyes that looked at each other
kindly.</p>
<p>“I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great change
in his life,” Deronda began, “but I hope you will agree with me
that it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he wishes
me to tell you for him at once.”</p>
<p>“Relations with money, sir?” burst in Cohen, feeling a power of
divination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact.</p>
<p>“No; not exactly,” said Deronda, smiling. “But a very
precious relation wishes to be reunited to him—a very good and lovely
young sister, who will care for his comfort in every way.”</p>
<p>“Married, sir?”</p>
<p>“No, not married.”</p>
<p>“But with a maintenance?”</p>
<p>“With talents which will secure her a maintenance. A home is already
provided for Mordecai.”</p>
<p>There was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a wailing
tone,</p>
<p>“Well, well! and so you’re going away from us, Mordecai.”</p>
<p>“And where there’s no children as there is here,” said the
mother, catching the wail.</p>
<p>“No Jacob, and no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!” wailed the grandmother
again.</p>
<p>“Ay, ay, Jacob’s learning ’ill all wear out of him. He must
go to school. It’ll be hard times for Jacob,” said Cohen, in a tone
of decision.</p>
<p>In the wide-open ears of Jacob his father’s words sounded like a doom,
giving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole announcement. His
face had been gathering a wondering incredulous sorrow at the notion of
Mordecai’s going away: he was unable to imagine the change as anything
lasting; but at the mention of “hard times for Jacob” there was no
further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in loud lamentation. Adelaide
Rebekah always cried when her brother cried, and now began to howl with
astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby awaking contributed angry screams, and
required to be taken out of the cradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary,
and Mordecai feeling the cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in
the midst of his tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general
observation. His father, who had been saying, “Never mind, old man; you
shall go to the riders,” now released him, and he went to Mordecai, who
clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without speaking. But
Cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make some apology for all
this weakness, and that the occasion called for a speech, addressed Deronda
with some elevation of pitch, squaring his elbows and resting a hand on each
knee:</p>
<p>“It’s not as we’re the people to grudge anybody’s good
luck, sir, or the portion of their cup being made fuller, as I may say.
I’m not an envious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a
shop of my sort two doors lower down, <i>I</i> shouldn’t make wry faces
about it. I’m not one of them that had need have a poor opinion of
themselves, and be frightened at anybody else getting a chance. If I’m
offal, let a wise man come and tell me, for I’ve never heard it yet. And
in point of business, I’m not a class of goods to be in danger. If
anybody takes to rolling me, I can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find
my feet when I’m let alone. And though, as I may say, you’re taking
some of our good works from us, which is property bearing interest, I’m
not saying but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good
will to wish and do for Mordecai to the last; and a Jew must not be like a
servant who works for reward—though I see nothing against a reward if I
can get it. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I’m neither poor nor
greedy—I wouldn’t hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown
neither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of Mordecai.
You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A Jewish man is bound to
thank God, day by day, that he was not made a woman; but a woman has to thank
God that He has made her according to His will. And we all know what He has
made her—a child-bearing, tender-hearted thing is the woman of our
people. Her children are mostly stout, as I think you’ll say Addy’s
are, and she’s not mushy, but her heart is tender. So you must excuse
present company, sir, for not being glad all at once. And as to this young
lady—for by what you say ‘young lady’ is the proper
term”—Cohen here threw some additional emphasis into his look and
tone—“we shall all be glad for Mordecai’s sake by-and-by,
when we cast up our accounts and see where we are.”</p>
<p>Before Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech, Mordecai
exclaimed,</p>
<p>“Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have
sought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel with love;
and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even in the last months
of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad. But now I am as one who
had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and used himself to making the grave
his bed, when the divine command sounded in his ears, ‘Arise, and go
forth; the night is not yet come.’ For no light matter would I have
turned away from your kindness to take another’s. But it has been taught
us, as you know, that <i>the reward of one duty is the power to fulfill
another</i>—so said Ben Azai. You have made your duty to one of the poor
among your brethren a joy to you and me; and your reward shall be that you will
not rest without the joy of like deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob
come and visit me?”</p>
<p>Mordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said,</p>
<p>“Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton.”</p>
<p>Jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going
forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word
“visit” having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at
his grandfather’s, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai,
and took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands in
his knickerbockers.</p>
<p>“Well,” said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, “I
hope there’ll be nothing in the way of your getting <i>kosher</i> meat,
Mordecai. For you’ll have to trust to those you live with.”</p>
<p>“That’s all right, that’s all right, you may be sure,
mother,” said Cohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which
he was uncertain of the guest’s position. “So, sir,” he
added, turning with a look of amused enlightenment to Deronda, “it was
better than learning you had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered to myself at
the time. I thought somehow there was a something.”</p>
<p>“Mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that I was seeking
him,” said Deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he
spoke.</p>
<p>It was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on the next
day but one; but when he was going Mordecai begged to walk with him to the end
of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and comforter. It was a March
evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him go far, but he understood the wish
to be outside the house with him in communicative silence, after the exciting
speech that had been filling the last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda
had proposed parting, when he said,</p>
<p>“Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. You would wish
her to do so—to come and see them, would you not?”</p>
<p>Mordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said,</p>
<p>“I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of my
sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. There is a daughter
and sister who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who knows the pathways?
We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers—and men in their careless
deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and pleadings made in vain. In my
ears I have the prayers of generations past and to come. My life is as nothing
to me but the beginning of fulfilment. And yet I am only another
prayer—which you will fulfil.”</p>
<p>Deronda pressed his hand, and they parted.</p>
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