“This is truth the poet sings,   That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.”
                                 —TENNYSON: Locksley Hall.
On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on the Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to England, with the understanding that his education was finished, and that he was somehow to take his place in English society; but though, in deference¹ to Sir Hugo’s wish, and to fence off idleness, he had begun to read law, this apparent decision had been without other result than to deepen the roots of indecision. His old love of boating had revived with the more force now that he was in town with the Mallingers, because he could nowhere else get the same still seclusion² which the river gave him. He had a boat of his own at Putney, and whenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief holiday to row till past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that he was in a sentimental³ stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day—that of questioning whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor⁴ of questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be hampered⁵ with ideas which, since they left an accomplished⁶ Whig like himself unobstructed, could be no better than spectral⁷ illusions; especially as Deronda set himself against authorship—a vocation⁸ which is understood to turn foolish thinking into funds.
 
Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped, his mouth beset⁹ with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised traces of the seraphic boy “trailing clouds of glory.” Still, even one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity¹⁰ of the gaze which Gwendolen chose to call “dreadful,” though it had really a very mild sort of scrutiny¹¹. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued¹² snatches of song, had turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at his lithe¹⁴, powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor¹⁵ such as nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his hands: they are not small and dimpled, with tapering¹⁶ fingers that seem to have only a deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as Titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of refinement¹⁷ with force. And there is something of a likeness¹⁸, too, between the faces belonging to the hands—in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the perpendicular¹⁹ brow, the calmly penetrating²⁰ eyes. Not seraphic any longer: thoroughly²¹ terrestrial and manly²²; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations.
 
Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman, for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to answer our question about the road. And often the grand meanings of faces as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the impressions that happen just now to be of importance in relation to Deronda, rowing on the Thames in a very ordinary equipment for a young Englishman at leisure, and passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of an adventure in which his appearance was likely to play any part. In fact, he objected very strongly to the notion, which others had not allowed him to escape, that his appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this, intended to be complimentary²³, found an angry resonance²⁴ in him, coming from mingled²⁵ experiences, to which a clue has already been given. His own face in the glass had during many years associated for him with thoughts of some one whom he must be like—one about whose character and lot he continually wondered, and never dared to ask.
 
In the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o’clock, the river was no solitude²⁶. Several persons were sauntering on the towing-path, and here and there a boat was plying²⁷. Deronda had been rowing fast to get over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great barge²⁹ advancing toward him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar³⁰ within a couple of yards of the river-brink³¹. He was all the while unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river—the gondolier’s song in the Otello, where Rossini has worthily³² set to music the immortal³³ words of Dante,
 
          “Nessun maggior dolore
  Che ricordarsi del tempo³⁴ felice
  Nella miseria”:
[Footnote: Dante’s words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at the head of the chapter.]
 
and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic³⁵ wail³⁶ “nella miseria” was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three or four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman in the boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal³⁷ sounds came with more significance than if they had been an insect-murmur amidst the sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the barge, now turning his head to the river-side, and saw at a few yards’ distant from him a figure which might have been an impersonation of the misery³⁸ he was unconsciously giving voice to: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of low slim figure, with most delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large black hat, a long woolen³⁹ cloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging down clasped before her, and her eyes were fixed⁴⁰ on the river with a look of immovable, statue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention made him cease singing: apparently⁴¹ his voice had entered her inner world without her taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased she changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened glance, met Deronda’s face. It was but a couple of moments, but that seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her look was something like that of a fawn⁴² or other gentle animal before it turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In fact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of bewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion⁴³ toward her; but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring bench under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed, melancholy⁴⁴ women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty, picturesque⁴⁵ lines and color of the image that was exceptional, and these conditions made it more markedly impossible that he should obtrude⁴⁶ his interest upon her. He began to row away and was soon far up the river; but no other thoughts were busy enough quite to expel that pale image of unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to speculating on the probable romance that lay behind that loneliness and look of desolation; then to smile at his own share in the prejudice that interesting faces must have interesting adventures; then to justify⁴⁷ himself for feeling that sorrow was the more tragic⁴⁸ when it befell delicate, childlike beauty.
 
“I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly and vulgar,” he said to himself. But there was no denying that the attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to him as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small, small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over the girl-tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as if they were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless drag wounded wings forsakenly, and streak⁵⁰ the shadowed moss⁵¹ with the red moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary⁵² excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties⁵³ about his own course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont⁵⁴ to have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that the new image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed to him the strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting into that routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its wrong-doing, and take opinions as mere¹³ professional equipment—why he should not draw strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled⁵⁵ scheme of things.
 
He used his oars⁵⁶ little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which easily comes with the lengthening⁵⁷ shadows and mellow⁵⁸ light, when thinking and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what in other hours may have seemed argument takes the quality of passionate⁵⁹ vision. By the time he had come back again with the tide past Richmond Bridge the sun was near setting: and the approach of his favorite hour—with its deepening stillness and darkening masses of tree and building between the double glow of the sky and the river—disposed him to linger as if they had been an unfinished strain of music. He looked out for a perfectly⁶⁰ solitary spot where he could lodge⁶¹ his boat against the bank, and, throwing himself on his back with his head propped⁶² on the cushions, could watch out the light of sunset and the opening of that bead-roll which some oriental poet describes as God’s call to the little stars, who each answer, “Here am I.” He chose a spot in the bend of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the sky, while he himself was in shadow. He lay with his hands behind his head, propped on a level with the boat’s edge, so that he could see all round him, but could not be seen by any one at a few yards’ distance; and for a long while he never turned his eyes from the view right in front of him. He was forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-involuntary identification of himself with the objects he was looking at, thinking how far it might be possible habitually⁶³ to shift his centre till his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape—when the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was bordered by a line of willow⁶⁴ bushes, made him turn his glance thitherward. In the first moment he had a darting⁶⁶ presentiment⁶⁷ about the moving figure; and now he could see the small face with the strange dying sunlight upon it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, and watched her with motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed only to gather security from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among the willows⁶⁸, and immediately took off her woolen cloak. Presently she seated herself and deliberately⁶⁹ dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there a little while, then taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. By this time Deronda felt sure that s............