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

I dreaded, always came back. And that disappointment⁠—when I was quite shut out from speaking to you, and was driven to go in the boat⁠—brought all the evil back, as if I had been locked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so long ago now since I stepped into that boat! I could have given up everything in that moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to strike him dead.”

Some of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to find its way into her undertoned utterance. After a little silence she said, with agitated hurry,

“If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here⁠—and yet I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne contempt. I ought to have gone away⁠—gone and wandered like a beggar rather than stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there was something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill me if I resisted his will. But now⁠—his dead face is there, and I cannot bear it.”

Suddenly loosing Deronda’s hand, she started up, stretching her arms to their full length upward, and said with a sort of moan,

“I have been a cruel woman! What can I do but cry for help? I am sinking. Die⁠—die⁠—you are forsaken⁠—go down, go down into darkness. Forsaken⁠—no pity⁠—I shall be forsaken.”

She sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. Even Deronda had no place in her consciousness at that moment. He was completely unmanned. Instead of finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had dulled his susceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of this young creature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood into this agony of remorse he had had to behold in helplessness, pierced him the deeper because it came close upon another sad revelation of spiritual conflict: he was in one of those moments when the very anguish of passionate pity makes us ready to choose that we will know pleasure no more, and live only for the stricken and afflicted. He had risen from his seat while he watched that terrible outburst⁠—which seemed the more awful to him because, even in this supreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice of one who confesses in secret. At last he felt impelled to turn his back toward her and walk to a distance.

But presently there was stillness. Her mind had opened to the sense that he had gone away from her. When Deronda turned round to approach her again, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips parted. She was an image of timid forlorn beseeching⁠—too timid to entreat in words while he kept himself aloof from her. Was she forsaken by him⁠—now⁠—already? But his eyes met hers sorrowfully⁠—met hers for the first time fully since she had said, “You know I am a guilty woman,” and that full glance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say, “I know it, but I shall all the less forsake you.” He sat down by her side again in the same attitude⁠—without turning his face toward her and without again taking her hand.

Once more Gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow at the Abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged her to confess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret,

“I make you very unhappy.”

Deronda gave an indistinct “Oh,” just shrinking together and changing his attitude a little. Then he had gathered resolution enough to say clearly, “There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most desire at this moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel it a relief to tell.”

Devoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from her, and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of getting nearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from a halo of superiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble herself more. She was ready to throw herself on her knees before him; but no⁠—her wonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that impulse, and she was kept silent and motionless by the pressure of opposing needs. Her stillness made Deronda at last say,

“Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever you wish it?”

“No, no,” said Gwendolen⁠—the dread of his leaving her bringing back her power of speech. She went on with her low-toned eagerness, “I want to tell you what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of rage at being obliged to go⁠—full of rage⁠—and I could do nothing but sit there like a galley slave. And then we got away⁠—out of the port⁠—into the deep⁠—and everything was still⁠—and we never looked at each other, only he spoke to order me⁠—and the very light about me seemed to hold me a prisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over me that when I was a child I used to fancy sailing away into a world where people were not forced to live with anyone they did not like⁠—I did not like my father-in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just the opposite had come to me. I had stepped into a boat, and my life was a sailing and sailing away⁠—gliding on and no help⁠—always into solitude with him, away from deliverance. And because I felt more helpless than ever, my thoughts went out over worse things⁠—I longed for worse things⁠—I had cruel wishes⁠—I fancied impossible ways of⁠—I did not want to die myself; I was afraid of our being drowned together. If it had been any use I should have prayed⁠—I should have prayed that something might befall him. I should have prayed that he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way