Daniel Deronda George Eliot (best book clubs TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
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âPerfectly,â said Hans, turning his face into a good-humored smile. âYou have the very justifiable opinion of me that I am likely to shatter all the glass in my way, and break my own skull into the bargain. Quite fair. Since I got into the scrape of being born, everything I have liked best has been a scrape either for myself or somebody else. Everything I have taken to heartily has somehow turned into a scrape. My painting is the last scrape; and I shall be all my life getting out of it. You think now I shall get into a scrape at home. No; I am regenerate. You think I must be over head and ears in love with Mirah. Quite right; so I am. But you think I shall scream and plunge and spoil everything. There you are mistakenâ âexcusably, but transcendently mistaken. I have undergone baptism by immersion. Awe takes care of me. Ask the little mother.â
âYou donât reckon a hopeless love among your scrapes, then,â said Deronda, whose voice seemed to get deeper as Hansâs went higher.
âI donât mean to call mine hopeless,â said Hans, with provoking coolness, laying down his tools, thrusting his thumbs into his belt, and moving away a little, as if to contemplate his picture more deliberately.
âMy dear fellow, you are only preparing misery for yourself,â said Deronda, decisively. âShe would not marry a Christian, even if she loved him. Have you heard herâ âof course you haveâ âheard her speak of her people and her religion?â
âThat canât last,â said Hans. âShe will see no Jew who is tolerable. Every male of that race is insupportableâ ââinsupportably advancingââ âhis nose.â
âShe may rejoin her family. That is what she longs for. Her mother and brother are probably strict Jews.â
âIâll turn proselyte, if she wishes it,â said Hans, with a shrug and a laugh.
âDonât talk nonsense, Hans. I thought you professed a serious love for her,â said Deronda, getting heated.
âSo I do. You think it desperate, but I donât.â
âI know nothing; I canât tell what has happened. We must be prepared for surprises. But I can hardly imagine a greater surprise to me than that there should have seemed to be anything in Mirahâs sentiments for you to found a romantic hope on.â Deronda felt that he was too contemptuous.
âI donât found my romantic hopes on a womanâs sentiments,â said Hans, perversely inclined to be the merrier when he was addressed with gravity. âI go to science and philosophy for my romance. Nature designed Mirah to fall in love with me. The amalgamation of races demands itâ âthe mitigation of human ugliness demands itâ âthe affinity of contrasts assures it. I am the utmost contrast to Mirahâ âa bleached Christian, who canât sing two notes in tune. Who has a chance against me?â
âI see now; it was all persiflage. You donât mean a word you say, Meyrick,â said Deronda, laying his hand on Meyrickâs shoulder, and speaking in a tone of cordial relief. âI was a wiseacre to answer you seriously.â
âUpon my honor I do mean it, though,â said Hans, facing round and laying his left hand on Derondaâs shoulder, so that their eyes fronted each other closely. âI am at the confessional. I meant to tell you as soon as you came. My mother says you are Mirahâs guardian, and she thinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on Mirah in her house. Well, I love herâ âI worship herâ âI wonât despairâ âI mean to deserve her.â
âMy dear fellow, you canât do it,â said Deronda, quickly.
âI should have said, I mean to try.â
âYou canât keep your resolve, Hans. You used to resolve what you would do for your mother and sisters.â
âYou have a right to reproach me, old fellow,â said Hans, gently.
âPerhaps I am ungenerous,â said Deronda, not apologetically, however. âYet it canât be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad, quixotic expectations.â
âWho will be hurt but myself, then?â said Hans, putting out his lip. âI am not going to say anything to her unless I felt sure of the answer. I dare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as Sir Thomas Browne might say. I would rather run my chance there and lose, than be sure of winning anywhere else. And I donât mean to swallow the poison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. I am giving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity.â
âWith all my heart, if it will do you any good,â said Deronda, loosing Hansâs shoulder, with a little push. He made his tone kindly, but his words were from the lip only. As to his real feeling he was silenced.
He was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes befall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentorâ âthe irritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the same plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. Throughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hansâs egotism, but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, had soon forgotten it. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgentâ ânay, satisfied. But
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