CHAPTER LXII.

"Das Gluck ist eine leichte Dirne,
Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort;
Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirn
Und kusst dich rasch und flattert fort

Frau Ungluck hat im Gegentheile
Dich liebefest an's Herz gedruckt;
Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile,
Setzt sich zu dir ans Bett und strickt."
--HEINE.


Something which Mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of a
threat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which had
lately come back, bringing abundant luggage.

Turning out of Knightsbridge, after singing at a charitable morning
concert in a wealthy house, where she had been recommended by Klesmer, and
where there had been the usual groups outside to see the departing
company, she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an even
pace with her own. Her concert dress being simple black, over which she
had thrown a dust cloak, could not make her an object of unpleasant
attention, and render walking an imprudence; but this reflection did not
occur to Mirah: another kind of alarm lay uppermost in her mind. She
immediately thought of her father, and could no more look round than if
she had felt herself tracked by a ghost. To turn and face him would be
voluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which beforehand seemed
intolerable. If it were her father he must mean to claim recognition, and
he would oblige her to face him. She must wait for that compulsion. She
walked on, not quickening her pace--of what use was that?--but picturing
what was about to happen as if she had the full certainty that the man
behind her was her father; and along with her picturing went a regret that
she had given her word to Mrs. Meyrick not to use any concealment about
him. The regret at last urged her, at least, to try and hinder any sudden
betrayal that would cause her brother an unnecessary shock. Under the
pressure of this motive, she resolved to turn before she reached her own
door, and firmly will the encounter instead of merely submitting to it.
She had already reached the entrance of the small square where her home
lay, and had made up her mind to turn, when she felt her embodied
presentiment getting closer to her, then slipping to her side, grasping
her wrist, and saying, with a persuasive curl of accent, "Mirah!"

She paused at once without any start; it was the voice she expected, and
she was meeting the expected eyes. Her face was as grave as if she had
been looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the intention
of soothing and propitiating her. Once a handsome face, with bright color,
it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar impress of
impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while accepting
disrespect. He was lightly made and active, with something of youth about
him which made the signs of age seem a disguise; and in reality he was
hardly fifty-seven. His dress was shabby, as when she had seen him before.
The presence of this unreverend father now, more than ever, affected Mirah
with the mingled anguish of shame and grief, repulsion and pity--more than
ever, now that her own world was changed into one where there was no
comradeship to fence him from scorn and contempt.

Slowly, with a sad, tremulous voice, she said, "It is you, father."

"Why did you run away from me, child?" he began with rapid speech which
was meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance, accompanied with various
quick gestures like an abbreviated finger-language. "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."

Lapidoth stopped short here, not from lack of invention, but because he
had reached a pathetic climax, and gave a sudden sob, like a woman's,
taking out hastily an old yellow silk handkerchief. He really felt that
his daughter had treated him ill--a sort of sensibility which is naturally
strong in unscrupulous persons, who put down what is owing to them,
without any _per contra_. Mirah, in spite of that sob, had energy enough
not to let him suppose that he deceived her. She answered more firmly,
though it was the first time she had ever used accusing words to him.

"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," said Lapidoth, putting back
his handkerchief, but beginning with a voice that seemed to struggle
against further sobbing. "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--" Lapidoth had quickly conceived
that he must guard against something unlikely, yet possible--"he may have
written me lies for the sake of getting the money out of me."

Mirah made no answer; she could not bear to utter the only true one--"I
don't believe one word of what you say"--and she simply showed a wish that
they should walk on, feeling that their standing still might draw down
unpleasant notice. Even as they walked along, their companionship might
well have made a passer-by turn back to look at them. The figure of Mirah,
with her beauty set off by the quiet, careful dress of an English lady,
made a strange pendant to this shabby, foreign-looking, eager, and
gesticulating man, who withal had an ineffaceable jauntiness of air,
perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair, the smallness of his
hands and feet, and his light walk.

"You seem to have done well for yourself, Mirah? _You_ are in no want, I
see," said the father, looking at her with emphatic examination.

"Good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work," said
Mirah, hardly knowing what she actually said, from being occupied with
what she would presently have to say. "I give lessons. I have sung in
private houses. I have just been singing at a private concert." She
paused, and then added, with significance, "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."

Mirah's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into a
further degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. But
before she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered with
as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added promptly---

"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," said Mirah again, looking full at the keen face which was turned
toward hers--"my brother."

The father's eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across them,
and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said, after a
just perceptible pause: "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."

Mirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward her
father, who stood below her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to beat
faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of Ezra; and
already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom she had been
used to obey--in this sight of him standing below her, with a perceptible
shrinking from the admission which he had been indirectly asking for, she
had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic humiliation and shame--the stabbed
heart of reverence--which belongs to a nature intensely filial.

"Stay a minute, _Liebchen_," said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone;
"what sort of man has Ezra turned out?"

"A good man--a wonderful man," said Mirah, with slow emphasis, trying to
master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went on.
She felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration of
himself which awaited him. "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"--Mirah ended with
difficulty, her heart throbbing--"falsehoods are no use."

She had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she
spoke the last words--unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration that
gathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention and
decision.

"Mirah, _Liebchen_," he said, in the old caressing way, "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."

Mirah felt herself under a temptation which she must try to overcome. She
answered, obliging herself to look at him again--

"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." Her practical sense made her see now
what was Mrs. Meyrick's wisdom in exacting a promise from her.

Lapidoth's good humor gave way a little. He said, with a sneer, "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," said Mirah, feeling this a worse
moment than when she meant to drown herself. Her lips were suddenly pale.
"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," said Lapidoth, almost turning on his heel away from
this pale, trembling daughter, who seemed now to have got the inconvenient
world to back her; but he quickly turned on it again, with his hands
feeling about restlessly in his pockets, and said, with some return to his
appealing tone, "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."

Mirah could not ask herself another question--could not do anything else
than put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her _portemonnaie_ and
hold it out. Lapidoth grasped it at once, pressed her fingers the while,
said, "Good-bye, my little girl--to-morrow then!" and left her. He had not
taken many steps before he looked carefully into all the folds of the
purse, found two half-sovereigns and odd silver, and, pasted against the
folding cover, a bit of paper on which Ezra had inscribed, in a beautiful
Hebrew character, the name of his mother, the days of her birth, marriage,
and death, and the prayer, "May Mirah be delivered from evil." It was
Mirah's liking to have this little inscription on many articles that she
used. The father read it, and had a quick vision of his marriage day, and
the bright, unblamed young fellow he was at that time; teaching many
things, but expecting by-and-by to get money more easily by writing; and
very fond of his beautiful bride Sara--crying when she expected him to
cry, and reflecting every phase of her feeling with mimetic
susceptibility. Lapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self, and
thought of all that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory,
which was like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost the
sense of touch, or like morsels on an untasting palate, having shape and
grain, but no flavor. Among the things we may gamble away in a lazy
selfish life is the capacity for truth, compunction, or any unselfish
regret--which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to feel
laceration, rather than be conscious of a widening margin where
consciousness once was. Mirah's purse was a handsome one--a gift to her,
which she had been unable to reflect about giving away--and Lapidoth
presently found himself outside of his reverie, considering what the purse
would fetch in addition to the sum it contained, and what prospect there
was of his being able to get more from his daughter without submitting to
adopt a penitential form of life under the eyes of that formidable son. On
such a subject his susceptibilities were still lively.

Meanwhile Mirah had entered the house with her power of reticence overcome
by the cruelty of her pain. She found her brother quietly reading and
sifting old manuscripts of his own, which he meant to consign to Deronda.
In the reaction from the long effort to master herself, she fell down
before him and clasped his knees, sobbing, and crying, "Ezra, Ezra!"

He did not speak. His alarm for her spending itself on conceiving the
cause of her distress, the more striking from the novelty in her of this
violent manifestation. But Mirah's own longing was to be able to speak and
tell him the cause. Presently she raised her hand, and still sobbing, said
brokenly--

"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."

Mirah's words seemed to herself to express all the misery she felt in
them. Her brother found them less grievous than his preconceptions, and
said gently, "Wait for calm, Mirah, and then tell me all,"--putting off
her hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head. She felt the soothing
influence, and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she could all that
had happened.

"He will not come to-morrow," said Mordecai. Neither of them said to the
other what they both thought, namely, that he might watch for Mirah's
outgoings and beg from her again.

"Seest thou," he presently added, "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 surroundings were of Brompton, but the voice might have come from a
Rabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in
_Babli_--by which (to our ears) affectionate-sounding diminutive is meant
the voluminous Babylonian Talmud. "The Omnipresent," said a Rabbi, "is
occupied in making marriages." The levity of the saying lies in the ear of
him who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all the wondrous
combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good and evil.