Daniel Deronda, George Eliot [portable ebook reader .TXT] 📗

it when he’s got but one mother⁠—not if he’d ever so big an insurance on her.” He stroked his mother’s shoulder affectionately, and chuckled a little at his own humor.

“Your mother has been a widow a long while, perhaps,” said Deronda, seizing his opportunity. “That has made your care for her the more needful.”

“Ay, ay, it’s a good many yore-zeit since I had to manage for her and myself,” said Cohen quickly. “I went early to it. It’s that makes you a sharp knife.”

“What does⁠—what makes a sharp knife, father?” said Jacob, his cheek very much swollen with sweet-cake.

The father winked at his guest and said, “Having your nose put on the grindstone.”

Jacob slipped from his chair with the piece of sweet-cake in his hand, and going close up to Mordecai, who had been totally silent hitherto, said, “What does that mean⁠—putting my nose to the grindstone?”

“It means that you are to bear being hurt without making a noise,” said Mordecai, turning his eyes benignantly on the small face close to his. Jacob put the corner of the cake into Mordecai’s mouth as an invitation to bite, saying meanwhile, “I shan’t though,” and keeping his eyes on the cake to observe how much of it went in this act of generosity. Mordecai took a bite and smiled, evidently meaning to please the lad, and the little incident made them both look more lovable. Deronda, however, felt with some vexation that he had taken little by his question.

“I fancy that is the right quarter for learning,” said he, carrying on the subject that he might have an excuse for addressing Mordecai, to whom he turned and said, “You have been a great student, I imagine?”

“I have studied,” was the quiet answer. “And you?⁠—You know German by the book you were buying.”

“Yes, I have studied in Germany. Are you generally engaged in bookselling?” said Deronda.

“No; I only go to Mr. Ram’s shop every day to keep it while he goes to meals,” said Mordecai, who was now looking at Deronda with what seemed a revival of his original interest: it seemed as if the face had some attractive indication for him which now neutralized the former disappointment. After a slight pause, he said, “Perhaps you know Hebrew?”

“I am sorry to say, not at all.”

Mordecai’s countenance fell: he cast down his eyelids, looking at his hands, which lay crossed before him, and said no more. Deronda had now noticed more decisively than in their former interview a difficulty in breathing, which he thought must be a sign of consumption.

“I’ve had something else to do than to get book-learning.” said Mr. Cohen⁠—“I’ve had to make myself knowing about useful things. I know stones well,”⁠—here he pointed to Deronda’s ring. “I’m not afraid of taking that ring of yours at my own valuation. But now,” he added, with a certain drop in his voice to a lower, more familiar nasal, “what do you want for it?”

“Fifty or sixty pounds,” Deronda answered, rather too carelessly.

Cohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on Deronda a pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous guinea-pig, and said, “Couldn’t do you that. Happy to oblige, but couldn’t go that lengths. Forty pound⁠—say forty⁠—I’ll let you have forty on it.”

Deronda was aware that Mordecai had looked up again at the words implying a monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he said, “Very well, I shall redeem it in a month or so.”

“Good. I’ll make you out the ticket by-and-by,” said Cohen, indifferently. Then he held up his finger as a sign that conversation must be deferred. He, Mordecai and Jacob put on their hats, and Cohen opened a thanksgiving, which was carried on by responses, till Mordecai delivered himself alone at some length, in a solemn chanting tone, with his chin slightly uplifted and his thin hands clasped easily before him. Not only in his accent and tone, but in his freedom from the self-consciousness which has reference to others’ approbation, there could hardly have been a stronger contrast to the Jew at the other end of the table. It was an unaccountable conjunction⁠—the presence among these common, prosperous, shopkeeping types, of a man who, in an emaciated threadbare condition, imposed a certain awe on Deronda, and an embarrassment at not meeting his expectations.

No sooner had Mordecai finished his devotional strain, than rising, with a slight bend of his head to the stranger, he walked back into his room, and shut the door behind him.

“That seems to be rather a remarkable man,” said Deronda, turning to Cohen, who immediately set up his shoulders, put out his tongue slightly, and tapped his own brow. It was clearly to be understood that Mordecai did not come up to the standard of sanity which was set by Mr. Cohen’s view of men and things.

“Does he belong to your family?” said Deronda.

This idea appeared to be rather ludicrous to the ladies as well as to Cohen, and the family interchanged looks of amusement.

“No, no,” said Cohen. “Charity! charity! he worked for me, and when he got weaker and weaker I took him in. He’s an incumbrance; but he brings a blessing down, and he teaches the boy. Besides, he does the repairing at the watches and jewelry.”

Deronda hardly abstained from smiling at this mixture of kindliness and the desire to justify it in the light of a calculation; but his willingness to speak further of Mordecai, whose character was made the more enigmatically striking by these new details, was baffled. Mr. Cohen immediately dismissed the subject by reverting to the “accommodation,” which was also an act of charity, and proceeded to make out the ticket, get the forty pounds, and present them both in exchange for the diamond ring. Deronda, feeling that it would be hardly delicate to protract his visit beyond the settlement of the business which was its pretext, had to take his leave, with no more decided result than the advance of forty pounds and the