CHAPTER XVII.

"This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
--TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_.


On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on the
Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to England,
with the understanding that his education was finished, and that he was
somehow to take his place in English society; but though, in deference to
Sir Hugo's wish, and to fence off idleness, he had began to read law, this
apparent decision had been without other result than to deepen the roots
of indecision. His old love of boating had revived with the more force now
that he was in town with the Mallingers, because he could nowhere else get
the same still seclusion which the river gave him. He had a boat of his
own at Putney, and whenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief
holiday to row till past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that
he was in a sentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative
mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day--that of questioning
whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I
mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of
questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which
somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a
splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be hampered
with ideas which, since they left an accomplished Whig like himself
unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions; especially as
Deronda set himself against authorship--a vocation which is understood to
turn foolish thinking into funds.

Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped,
his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised
traces of the seraphic boy "trailing clouds of glory." Still, even one who
had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow
recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze which Gwendolen
chose to call "dreadful," though it had really a very mild sort of
scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches of song, had
turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at his lithe,
powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for
an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor such as
nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his hands: they are
not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem to have only a
deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as
Titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of
refinement with force. And there is something of a likeness, too, between
the faces belonging to the hands--in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the
perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer:
thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a
human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations.

Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman,
for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to
answer our question about the road. And often the grand meanings of faces
as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the impressions that happen
just now to be of importance in relation to Deronda, rowing on the Thames
in a very ordinary equipment for a young Englishman at leisure, and
passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of an adventure in which his
appearance was likely to play any part. In fact, he objected very strongly
to the notion, which others had not allowed him to escape, that his
appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this, intended to
be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him, coming from mingled
experiences, to which a clue has already been given. His own face in the
glass had during many years associated for him with thoughts of some one
whom he must be like--one about whose character and lot he continually
wondered, and never dared to ask.

In the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the
river was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the towing-path,
and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been rowing fast to get
over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great barge advancing toward
him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of
yards of the river-brink. He was all the while unconsciously continuing
the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river
--the gondolier's song in the "Otello," where Rossini has worthily set to
music the immortal words of Dante--

"Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria":
[Footnote: Dante's words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at
the head of the chapter.]

and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail
"nella miseria" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three or
four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the
bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman in the
boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal sounds came
with more significance than if they had been an insect-murmur amidst the
sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the barge, now turning his head
to the river-side, and saw at a few yards' distant from him a figure which
might have been an impersonation of the misery he was unconsciously giving
voice to: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of low slim figure, with most
delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large
black hat, a long woolen cloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging
down clasped before her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look
of immovable, statue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention
made him cease singing: apparently his voice had entered her inner world
without her taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased
she changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened
glance, met Deronda's face. It was but a couple of moments, but that
seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her
look was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it
turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity
which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In
fact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her
surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of
bewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her;
but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring bench
under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed,
melancholy women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty,
picturesque lines and color of the image that was exceptional, and these
conditions made it more markedly impossible that he should obtrude his
interest upon her. He began to row away and was soon far up the river; but
no other thoughts were busy enough quite to expel that pale image of
unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to speculating on the probable
romance that lay behind that loneliness and look of desolation; then to
smile at his own share in the prejudice that interesting faces must have
interesting adventures; then to justify himself for feeling that sorrow
was the more tragic when it befell delicate, childlike beauty.

"I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly and
vulgar," he said to himself. But there was no denying that the
attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to him
as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small,
small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over the girl-
tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as if they
were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless drag
wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the red
moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary
excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own
course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont to
have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that the new
image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed to him the
strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting into that
routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its wrong-doing,
and take opinions as mere professional equipment--why he should not draw
strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled scheme of things.

He used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back
by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which
easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow light, when thinking
and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what in other hours may have
seemed argument takes the quality of passionate vision. By the time he had
come back again with the tide past Richmond Bridge the sun was near
setting: and the approach of his favorite hour--with its deepening
stillness and darkening masses of tree and building between the double
glow of the sky and the river--disposed him to linger as if they had been
an unfinished strain of music. He looked out for a perfectly solitary spot
where he could lodge his boat against the bank, and, throwing himself on
his back with his head propped on the cushions, could watch out the light
of sunset and the opening of that bead-roll which some oriental poet
describes as God's call to the little stars, who each answer, "Here am I."
He chose a spot in the bend of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where
he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the
sky, while he himself was in shadow. He lay with his hands behind his
head, propped on a level with the boat's edge, so that he could see all
round him, but could not be seen by any one at a few yards' distance; and
for a long while he never turned his eyes from the view right in front of
him. He was forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-
involuntary identification of himself with the objects he was looking at,
thinking how far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till
his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape--when
the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was
bordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance thitherward.
In the first moment he had a darting presentiment about the moving figure;
and now he could see the small face with the strange dying sunlight upon
it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, and watched her with
motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed only to gather security
from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among the willows, and immediately
took off her woolen cloak. Presently she seated herself and deliberately
dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there a little while, then
taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. By this
time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a
drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening
her. He rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a
little below him. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of
discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding
her cloak half out of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if
she kept a faint hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was
accidentally coming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her,
steadying his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently--

"Don't be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can do
to help you."

She raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the
light, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments
which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she said
in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested
foreignness and yet was not foreign, "I saw you before," and then added
dreamily, after a like pause, "nella miseria."

Deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed that
her mind was weakened by distress and hunger.

"It was you, singing?" she went on, hesitatingly--"Nessun maggior dolore."
The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones seemed to give
the melody to Deronda's ear.

"Ah, yes," he said, understanding now, "I am often singing them. But I
fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my
boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak--let me take it."

He would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he should
scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and clutched the
cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him with a question in
them as she said, "You look good. Perhaps it is God's command."

"Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm come
to you."

She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak and
then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired arms.
Her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands together
one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward while she
leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face, was
unspeakably touching.

"Great God!" the words escaped Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that
they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating
impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that lay
close to his deepest interest in the fates of women--"perhaps my mother
was like this one." The old thought had come now with a new impetus of
mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both East and West
have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of inexorable
calamity.

The low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the
hearer: she stepped forward close to the boat's side, and Deronda put out
his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. She had already
put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some new thought
struck her, and drawing back she said--

"I have nowhere to go--nobody belonging to me in all this land."

"I will take you to a lady who has daughters," said Deronda, immediately.
He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel
friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in the near
background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly than ever--

"Do you belong to the theatre?"

"No; I have nothing to do with the theatre," said Deronda, in a decided
tone. Then beseechingly, "I will put you in perfect safety at once; with a
lady, a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no time: you
will make yourself ill. Life may still become sweet to you. There are good
people--there are good women who will take care of you."

She drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used to
such action, and sat down on the cushions.

"You had a covering for your head," said Deronda.

"My hat?" (She lifted up her hands to her head.) "It is quite hidden in
the bush."

"I will find it," said Deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as she
attempted to rise. "The boat is fixed."

He jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, wringing
it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat.

"We must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed you
from thinking you have been drowned," he said, cheerfully, as he got in
again and presented the old hat to her. "I wish I had any other garment
than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over your
shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing to do,
when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps." He held
out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint melancholy
smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly.

"I have some biscuits--should you like them?" said Deronda.

"No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread."

He began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along
swiftly for many minutes without speaking. She did not look at him, but
was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if she
were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the prospect of
life instead of death. The twilight was deepening; the red flush was all
gone and the little stars were giving their answer one after another. The
moon was rising, but was still entangled among the trees and buildings.
The light was not such that he could distinctly discern the expression of
her features or her glance, but they were distinctly before him
nevertheless--features and a glance which seemed to have given a fuller
meaning for him to the human face. Among his anxieties one was dominant:
his first impression about her, that her mind might be disordered, had not
been quite dissipated: the project of suicide was unmistakable, and given
a deeper color to every other suspicious sign. He longed to begin a
conversation, but abstained, wishing to encourage the confidence that
might induce her to speak first. At last she did speak.

"I like to listen to the oar."

"So do I."

"If you had not come, I should have been dead now."

"I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry that I
came."

"I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The _maggior dolore_ and the
_miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_." She paused and then
went on dreamily,--"_Dolore--miseria_--I think those words are alive."

Deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he
shrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to treat
her with the less reverence because she was in distress. She went on
musingly--

"I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the Eternal. I
know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep
their souls pure. I meant it so. But now I am commanded to live. I cannot
see how I shall live."

"You will find friends. I will find them for you."

She shook her head and said mournfully, "Not my mother and brother. I
cannot find them."

"You are English? You must be--speaking English so perfectly."

She did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, straining to
see him in the double light. Until now she had been watching the oar. It
seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of her
impression was dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had benumbed
her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward and inward
was continually slipping away from her. Her look was full of wondering
timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have lifted to the
angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in anger or in
pity.

"You want to know if I am English?" she said at last, while Deronda was
reddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw.

"I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me," he said, still
uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. "Perhaps it is not good
for you to talk."

"Yes, I will tell you. I am English-born. But I am a Jewess."

Deronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to
himself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced Spanish girls
might simply have guessed her to be Spanish.

"Do you despise me for it?" she said presently in low tones, which had a
sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear.

"Why should I?" said Deronda. "I am not so foolish."

"I know many Jews are bad."

"So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to despise
me because of that."

"My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am come a
long way--from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot tell you--I cannot speak
of it. I thought I might find my mother again--God would guide me. But
then I despaired. This morning when the light came, I felt as if one word
kept sounding within me--Never! never! But now--I begin--to think--" her
words were broken by rising sobs--"I am commanded to live--perhaps we are
going to her."

With an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped
that this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. Meanwhile he
was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present himself
with her in Park Lane--the course which he had at first unreflectingly
determined on. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady Mallinger; but it
was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he had a shuddering
sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful image of womanhood--
of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps chilling suspicious
manners from lady's maid and housekeeper, that might scare the mind
already in a state of dangerous susceptibility. But to take her to any
other shelter than a home already known to him was not to be contemplated:
he was full of fears about the issue of the adventure which had brought on
him a responsibility all the heavier for the strong and agitating
impression this childlike creature had made on him. But another resource
came to mind: he could venture to take her to Mrs. Meyrick's--to the small
house at Chelsea--where he had been often enough since his return from
abroad to feel sure that he could appeal there to generous hearts, which
had a romantic readiness to believe in innocent need and to help it. Hans
Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and Deronda felt the comfort of presenting
himself with his charge at a house where he would be met by a motherly
figure of quakerish neatness, and three girls who hardly knew of any evil
closer to them than what lay in history-books, and dramas, and would at
once associate a lovely Jewess with Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," besides thinking
that everything they did at Deronda's request would be done for their
idol, Hans. The vision of the Chelsea home once raised, Deronda no longer
hesitated.

The rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed
long. Happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and
submitted like a tired child. When they were in the cab, she laid down her
hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not let it
rest. Still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first on one
side, then on the other.

"They are too good to have any fear about taking her in," thought Deronda.
Her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one strong appeal to
belief and tenderness. Yet what had been the history which had brought her
to this desolation? He was going on a strange errand--to ask shelter for
this waif. Then there occurred to him the beautiful story Plutarch
somewhere tells of the Delphic women: how when the Maenads, outworn with
their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep in the market-place, the
matrons came and stood silently round them to keep guard over their
slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to them tenderly and saw them
safely to their own borders. He could trust the women he was going to for
having hearts as good.

Deronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new
phase in finding a life to which his own had come--perhaps as a rescue;
but how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? The moment of
finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation
as the moment of finding an idea.