Chapter Sixty
When Deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in Mainz, and asked for Joseph Kalonymos, he was shown into an inner room. There, seated at a table arranging letters, was the white-bearded man whom he had seen the year before in the synagogue at Frankfort. Near him was a packed suitcase with a wrap and overcoat upon it. On seeing Deronda enter, he rose, and looking at him with small penetrating eyes, he said in German–
“Good! It is now you who seek me, young man.”
“Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather’s,” said Deronda, speaking in fluent German.
Kalonymos put out his hand and said cordially, “So you are no longer angry at being something more than an Englishman?”
“On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me from remaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the chest that my grandfather left in trust for me.”
“Sit down, sit down,” said Kalonymos. Laying aside his hat, he examined the young face before him. The presence of his grandfather’s friend affected Deronda deeply; he seemed to be touching the electric chain of his own ancestry, and he bore the scrutiny of Kalonymos with delighted awe. This sensibility of Deronda’s gave his face an expression which seemed very satisfactory to his observer.
Kalonymos said in Hebrew, quoting from a hymn, “As thy goodness has been great to the former generations, even so may it be to the latter.” Then he began, “Young man, I rejoice that you are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as he was in his youth – no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who seemed to claim you as a Jew. You come with thankfulness to claim the heritage that wicked contrivance would have robbed you of. You come with a willing soul to declare, ‘I am the grandson of Daniel Charisi.’ Is it not so?”
“Assuredly,” said Deronda. “But let me say that I should never have been inclined to treat a Jew with incivility simply because he was a Jew. I shrank from saying to a stranger, ‘I know nothing of my mother.’”
“A sin, a sin!” said Kalonymos in disgust. “A robbery of our people – but it is frustrated. When Daniel Charisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above his shoulder, we made a solemn vow always to be friends. He said, ‘Let us bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother.’ So we bound ourselves. And though we were much apart in our later life, the bond has never been broken. When he was dead, they sought to rob him; but they could not rob him of me. I rescued that remainder of him which he had prized and preserved for his offspring. I will bring you the chest forthwith.”
Kalonymos left the room, and returned with a clerk who carried the chest and set it down on the floor. It was not very large, but was made heavy by ornamental bracers and handles of gilt iron. The wood was beautifully incised with Arabic lettering.
“So!” said Kalonymos. “Here is the key,” he added, taking it from a small leathern bag. “Bestow it carefully. I trust you are methodical and wary.” He gave Deronda the slightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit any object to the keeping of youth.
“I shall be more careful of this than of any other property,” said Deronda, smiling and putting the key in his breast-pocket. “I never before possessed anything that was a sign of so much cherished hope and effort. Have you time to tell me more of my grandfather?”
“In an hour and eighteen minutes I start for Trieste,” said Kalonymos, looking at his watch, “I am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. But my sons and their children dwell here in wealth and unity. The days are changed for us since Karl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring some knowledge to our rough German brethren. Our youth fell on evil days; but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the learning of all Germany is fed by Jewish brains. Have you been left altogether ignorant of your people’s life, young man?”
“No,” said Deronda, “I have lately been led to study their history with interest. It turns out that I have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather.” He was anxious to learn more about his grandfather, and his last sentence answered its purpose.
“You would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had not hindered it; for you are like him in features:– yet not altogether. He had an iron will in his face. I see none of that in you. Daniel Charisi used to say, ‘Better a wrong will than a wavering; better a false belief than no belief at all.’ What he despised most was indifference.”
“Yet his knowledge was not narrow?” said Deronda.
“Narrow? no,” said Kalonymos. “He drank in learning as easily as the plant sucks up water. But he early took to medicine and theories about life and health. He travelled to many countries, and he was bitterly against our people losing themselves among the Gentiles; ‘It’s no better,’ said he, ‘than the many sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness.’ He mingled all sorts of learning; and in that he was like our Arabic writers in the golden time. We studied together, but he went beyond me. Though we were bosom friends, we were as different as the inside and outside of the bowl. Charisi thought continually of our people’s future: he went with all his soul into that part of our religion: I, not. If we have freedom, I am content. Our people wandered before they were driven. But Charisi was not satisfied with that, but thought of what would come after. Yet we loved each other, and bound our love with duty; we solemnly pledged to help and defend each other to the last. I have fulfilled my pledge.” Here Kalonymos rose, and Deronda, rising also, said–
“I thank you with my whole soul.”
“Be worthy of him, young man. What is your vocation?” This question embarrassed Deronda, who did not feel it honest to allege his law-reading as a vocation. He answered–
“I cannot say that I have any.”
“Get one, get one. The Jew must be diligent. You will call yourself a Jew and profess the faith of your fathers?” said Kalonymos, looking sharply in his face.
“I shall call myself a Jew,” said Deronda, deliberately, becoming slightly paler under those piercing eyes. “But I will not say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed. Our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief and learned of other races. I hold that my first duty is to my own people, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring or perfecting their common life, I shall make that my vocation.”
It happened to Deronda at that moment, that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve. By the necessity to answer he found out the truth for himself.
“Ah, you argue and you look forward – you are Daniel Charisi’s grandson,” said Kalonymos, adding a benediction in Hebrew.
With that they parted.