Chapter Sixty-six
When the father Lapidoth quitted his daughter at the doorstep, he was ruled by that lure of gambling which left no care for alternative prospects or resolutions. Until he had lost everything, he never considered whether he would apply to Mirah again or whether he would brave his son’s presence. In the first moment he had shrunk from encountering Ezra; and the possession of Mirah’s purse was enough to banish the thought of future necessities. The gambling appetite is more absolutely dominant than hunger. In its final, imperious stage, it seems the joyless dissipation of demons, seeking diversion amidst the burning rocks of hell.
But every form of selfishness requires the support of at least one meal a day; and though Lapidoth’s appetite for food and drink was extremely moderate, he had slipped into a shabby form of life in which he could not eat without some ready money. When, in a brief visit to a gambling-house, he had first doubled and trebled and finally lost Mirah’s thirty shillings, he went out with her empty purse in his pocket, wondering whether he should get another stake by pawning the purse, or go back to her, giving himself a good countenance by restoring the purse, and declaring that he had used the money in paying a debt.
Lapidoth felt himself to have a claim on any property his children might possess. After all, to take up his lodging with his children was the best thing he could do; and the more he thought of meeting Ezra the less he winced from it, influenced more by the chances of getting money without exertion, than by the threat of a private humiliation. Luck had been against him lately; he expected it to turn – and might not the turn begin with some supplies from his daughter and the good friends she had spoken of? Lapidoth counted on the fascination of his cleverness: it is not only women who are unaware of their diminished charm, or imagine that they can feign not to be worn out.
The result was that he went toward the little square in Brompton in hope of catching sight of Mirah. It was evening, two days after he had first seen her; and on coming near the house he knew that she was at home: he heard her singing.
Mirah, seated at the piano, was pouring forth “Herz, mein Herz,” while Ezra was listening, when Mrs. Adam opened the door, and said in some embarrassment,
“A gentleman below says he is your father, miss.”
“I will go down to him,” said Mirah, starting up immediately.
“No, Mirah, not so,” said Ezra, with decision. “Let him come up.”
Mirah stood, feeling sick with anxiety. Ezra had also risen, evidently much shaken. But there was a severe expression in his face which she had never seen before.
Mrs Adam brought up Lapidoth. He had put on a melancholy expression, but there was some real wincing in his frame as he said–
“Well, Ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years.”
“I know you too well – father,” said Ezra, with a slow biting solemnity which made the word father a reproach.
“Ah, you are not pleased with me. I don’t wonder at it. When a man gets into straits he can’t do just as he would by others. I’ve suffered enough, I know,” said Lapidoth glibly; and turning toward Mirah, he said, “Here’s your purse, my dear. I thought you’d be anxious about it because of that bit of writing. I’ve emptied it, for I had a debt to pay for food and lodging. I knew you would like me to clear myself, and here I stand – without a farthing – at the mercy of my children. You can turn me out if you like. Say the word, Mirah; say, ‘Father, I’ve had enough of you; you made a pet of me, and spent your all on me; but I can do without you now,’ – say that, and I’m gone out like a spark. I shan’t spoil your pleasure again.” The tears were in his voice before he had finished.
“You know I could never say it, father,” answered Mirah, with not the less anguish because she felt the falsity of his speech.
“Mirah, my sister, leave us!” said Ezra, with authority.
She looked at her brother beseechingly – in awe, yet unable to go without making a plea for this father who was like something that had grown painfully in her flesh. Going close to her brother, she said, “Remember, Ezra – you said my mother would not have shut him out.”
“Trust me, and go,” said Ezra.
She left the room, but sat a little way up the stairs, with a palpitating heart.
Lapidoth had some sense of what was being prepared for him in his son’s mind, but he was beginning to adjust himself to a cool superiority. This haggard son, speaking as from a sepulchre, had an incongruous appearance to his selfish levity. Whatever preaching his son might deliver must be taken for a matter of course, as a man finding shelter from hail in an open cathedral might take a little religious howling that happened to be going on there.
Lapidoth was not born with this sort of callousness: he had achieved it.
“This home that we have here,” Ezra began, “is maintained partly by the generosity of a beloved friend, and partly by the labours of my sister. While we have a home we will not shut you out from it. For you are our father, and though you have broken your bond, we acknowledge ours. But I will never trust you. You absconded with money, leaving your debts unpaid; you forsook my mother; you robbed her of her little child and broke her heart; you have become a gambler, and where shame and conscience were there sits an insatiable desire; you were ready to sell my sister – you had sold her, but the price was denied you. The man who has done these things must never expect to be trusted any more. We will share our food with you – you shall have a bed, and clothing, because you are our father. But you will never be trusted. You are an evil man: you made the misery of our mother. That such a man is our father is a painful brand on our flesh. But the Eternal has laid it upon us; and though human justice were to flog you for crimes, and your body fell helpless before public scorn, we would still say, ‘This is our father; make way, that we may carry him out of your sight.’”
Lapidoth, in adjusting himself to what was coming, had not been able to foresee the intensity of the lightning or the exact course it would take – that it would not fall outside his frame but through it. He could not foresee this voice from the soul of his son. It touched his spring of hysterical excitability. He threw himself into a chair and cried like a woman, burying his face – and yet, strangely, while this hysterical crying was a reaction under the stress of his son’s words, it was also a conscious resource in a difficulty; just as in early life, when he was a bright-faced curly-haired young man, he had been used to avail himself of his ready tears to turn the edge of disapproval.
Ezra sat down again and said nothing – exhausted by the outburst of feelings which for years he had borne in silence. His thin hands trembled on the arms of the chair; he felt as if he had taken a step toward beckoning Death. Meanwhile Mirah recognized the sound of weeping, and opened the door. But her immediate alarm was for Ezra, and it was to his side that she went, taking his trembling hand, which he pressed without looking at her.
The father was conscious that Mirah had entered, and presently lifted up his head, pressed his handkerchief against his eyes, and said with plaintive hoarseness, “Good-bye, Mirah; your father will not trouble you again. He deserves to die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. If your mother had lived, she would have forgiven me, and we should have spent our old age together. But I haven’t deserved it. Good-bye.”
He rose from the chair. Mirah, frightened and awe-struck, cried out–
“No, father, no!” Then turning to her brother, “Ezra, you have not forbidden him? I cannot bear it. How can I say to my father, ‘Go and die!’”
“I have not said it,” Ezra answered, with great effort. “I have said, stay and be sheltered.”
“Then you will stay, father – and be taken care of – and come with me,” said Mirah, drawing him toward the door.
This was really what Lapidoth wanted. And for the moment he felt a sort of comfort in his daughter’s care that made a change of habits seem possible. She led him down to the parlour below, and said–
“This is my sitting-roo
m when I am not with Ezra, and there is a bedroom behind which shall be yours. You will stay and be good, father. Think that you are come back to my mother, and that she has forgiven you through me.” Mirah’s tones were imploring.
Lapidoth quickly recovered his composure, and began to speak to Mirah of the improvement in her voice. When Mrs. Adam came to lay out his supper, he talked to her to show her that he was not a common person, though his clothes were just now against him.
But that night, he fell to wondering what money Mirah had by her, and went back over old times at Roulette, reproducing the method of his play, and the chances that had frustrated it.
These were the stronger visions of the night with Lapidoth, and not the worn frame of his son uttering a terrible judgment. Ezra did pass across the gaming-table, and his words were audible; but he passed like an insubstantial ghost, and his words had the heart eaten out of them by numbers that seemed to make the very tissue of Lapidoth’s consciousness.