Nina Balatka
by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #8897 · 421,354 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Nina Balatka
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release date: September 1, 2005 [eBook #8897]
Most recently updated: January 2, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8897
Credits: E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NINA BALATKA ***
E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
NINA BALATKA
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
INTRODUCTION
Anthony Trollope was an established novelist of great renown when _Nina
Balatka_ was published in 1866, twenty years after his first novel.
Except for _La Vendee_, his third novel, set in France during the
Revolution, all his previous works were set in England or Ireland and
dealt with the upper levels of society: the nobility and the landed
gentry (wealthy or impoverished), and a few well-to-do merchants--people
several strata above the social levels of the characters popularized by
his contemporary Dickens. Most of Trollope's early novels were set in
the countryside or in provincial towns, with occasional forays into
London. The first of his political novels, _Can You Forgive Her_, dealing
with the Pallisers was published in 1864, two years before _Nina_. By the
time he began writing _Nina_, shortly after a tour of Europe, Trollope
was a master at chronicling the habits, foibles, customs, and ways of
life of his chosen subjects.
_Nina Balatka_ is, on the surface, a love story--not an unusual theme for
Trollope. Romance and courtship were woven throughout all his previous
works, often with two, three, or even more pairs of lovers per novel.
Most of his heroes and heroines, after facing numerous hurdles, often
of their own making, were eventually happily united by the next-to-last
chapter. A few were doomed to disappointment (Johnny Eames never won
the heart of Lily Dale through two of the "Barsetshire" novels), but
marital bliss--or at least the prospect of bliss--was the usual outcome.
Even so, the reader of Trollope soon notices his analytical description
of Victorian courtship and marriage. In the circles of Trollope's
characters, only the wealthy could afford to marry for love; those
without wealth had to marry for money, sometimes with disastrous
consequences. By the time of _Nina_, Trollope's best exploration of
this subject was the marriage between Plantagenet Palliser and Lady
Glencora M'Cluskie, the former a cold fish and the latter a hot-blooded
heiress in love with a penniless scoundrel (_Can You Forgive Her?_
1865). Yet to come was the disastrous marriage of intelligent Lady
Laura Standish to the wealthy but old-maidish Robert Kennedy in _Phineas
Finn_ and its sequel.
But _Nina Balatka_ is different from Trollope's previous novels in four
respects. First, Trollope was accustomed to include in his novels his
own witty editorial comments about various subjects, often paragraphs
or even several pages long. No such comments are found in _Nina_.
Second, the story is set in Prague instead of the British isles. Third,
the hero and heroine are already in love and engaged to one another
at the opening; we are not told any details about their falling in
love. The hero, Anton Trendellsohn is a successful businessman in his
mid-thirties--not the typical Trollopian hero in his early twenties, still
finding himself, and besotted with love. Anton is rather cold as lovers
go, seldom whispering words of endearment to Nina. But it is the fourth
difference which really sets this novel apart and makes it both a
masterpiece and an enigma. That fourth--and most important--difference
is clearly stated in the remarkable opening sentence of the novel:
Nina Balatka was a maiden of Prague, born of Christian parents,
and herself a Christian--but she loved a Jew; and this is her
story.
Marriage--even worse, love--between a Christian and a Jew would have
been unacceptable to Victorian British readers. Blatant anti-semitism
was prevalent--perhaps ubiquitous--among the upper classes.
Let us consider the origins of this anti-semitism. Jews were first
allowed into England by William the Conqueror. For a while they
prospered, largely through money-lending, an occupation to which
they were restricted. In the 13th century a series of increasingly
oppressive laws and taxes reduced the Jewish community to poverty, and
the Jews were expelled from England in 1290. They were not allowed to
return until 1656, when Oliver Cromwell authorized their entry over
the objections of British merchants. Legal protection for the Jews
increased gradually; even the "Act for the More Effectual Suppressing
of Blasphemy and Profaneness" (1698) recognized the practice of Judaism
as legal, but there were probably only a few hundred Jews in the entire
country. The British Jewish community grew gradually, and efforts to
emancipate the Jews were included in various "Reform Acts" in the first
half of the 19th century, although many failed to become law. Gradually
Jews were admitted to the bar and other professions. Full citizenship
and rights, including the right to sit in Parliament, were granted in
1858--only seven years before Trollope began writing _Nina Balatka_. By
this time wealthy Jewish families were growing in number. This upward
mobility and increasing economic and political power no doubt made the
British upper classes envious and resentful, fuelling anti-semitism.
Trollope chose to have _Nina_ published anonymously in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ for reasons which he described in his autobiography:
From the commencement of my success as a writer . . . I had
always felt an injustice in literary affairs which had never
afflicted me or even suggested itself to me while I was
unsuccessful. It seemed to me that a name once earned carried
with it too much favour . . . The injustice which struck me did
not consist in that which was withheld from me, but in that which
was given to me. I felt that aspirants coming up below me might
do work as good as mine, and probably much better work, and yet
fail to have it appreciated. In order to test this, I determined
to be such an aspirant myself, and to begin a course of novels
anonymously, in order that I might see whether I could succeed in
obtaining a second identity,--whether as I had made one mark by
such literary ability as I possessed, I might succeed in doing so
again. [1]
Why did Trollope start his "new" career with a novel whose central theme
was a subject of distaste at best--more likely revulsion--to the vast
majority of the reading public? Perhaps the nature of the novel itself
led him to consider publishing it anonymously, although we know he was
not averse to controversial subjects. In his first book, _The Macdermots
of Ballycloran_, which he thought had the best plot of all his novels,
the principal female character is seduced by a scoundrel and dies giving
birth to an illegitimate child.
Certainly _Nina_ was well-suited for the experiment because of it's
different setting and subject matter. Perhaps further to disguise his
authorship, Trollope wrote _Nina_ in a style of prose that reads almost
like a translation from a foreign language.
The experiment did not last long enough to test Trollope's hypothesis.
Mr. Hutton, critic for the _Spectator_, recognized Trollope as the author
and so stated in his review. Trollope did not deny the accusation.
One cannot discuss _Nina Balatka_ without addressing the question, was
Trollope himself anti-semitic? A careful reading of his works does not
provide a clear answer. Jews appear in some of his books and are referred
to in others, often as disreputable characters or money-lenders. They are
seldom mentioned by his Christian characters with respect, probably
realistically reflecting the sentiments of the classes he wrote about.
Some of his greatest villains in his later novels--Melmotte in _The Way
We Live Now_ (1875) and Lopez in _The Prime Minister_ (1876)--are rumored
to be Jewish, but Trollope never unequivocally identifies them as Jewish.
Perhaps his Christian characters expect them to be Jewish because they
are foreigners and villains.
However, if one ignores the dialogue of his characters, even the
descriptive and editorial comments by Trollope himself at first seem
anti-semitic. He consistently uses "Jew" as a pejorative adjective
instead of "Jewish." His descriptions of the appearance of Jewish
characters are usually unflattering and stereotypical. Even Anton
Trendellsohn, the hero of _Nina Balatka_, is described as follows:
To those who know the outward types of his race there could be no
doubt that Anton Trendellsohn was a very Jew among Jews. He was
certainly a handsome man, not now very young, having reached some
year certainly in advance of thirty, and his face was full of
intellect. He was slightly made, below the middle height, but was
well made in every limb, with small feet and hands, and small
ears, and a well-turned neck. He was very dark--dark as a man can
be, and yet show no sign of colour in his blood. No white man
could be more dark and swarthy than Anton Trendellsohn. His eyes,
however, which were quite black, were very bright. His jet-black
hair, as it clustered round his ears, had in it something of a
curl. Had it been allowed to grow, it would almost have hung in
ringlets; but it was worn very short, as though its owner were
jealous even of the curl. Anton Trendellsohn was decidedly a
handsome man; but his eyes were somewhat too close together in his
face, and the bridge of his aquiline nose was not sharply cut, as
is mostly the case with such a nose on a Christian face. The olive
oval face was without doubt the face of a Jew, and the mouth was
greedy, and the teeth were perfect and bright, and the movement of
the man's body was the movement of a Jew.
This is not the typical description of the romantic hero of a Victorian
novel. Even so, Trollope's description of Anton is less derogatory than
his description of Ezekiel Brehgert, a character in a later novel, _The
Way We Live Now_:
He was a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about
fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark
purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very
bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in
his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout fat
all over rather than corpulent and had that look of command in his
face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long
intercourse with sheep and oxen.
The case for Trollope being anti-semitic is harder to support, however,
when one considers the behavior of his Jewish characters. Brehgert,
whose physical description above is stereotypic, is one of the few
characters in _The Way We Live Now_ whose actions are completely
honorable. Trollope wrote 16 novels before _Nina Balatka_; only two of
those contain Jewish characters. The first, who plays a minor role in
_Orley Farm_ (1862), is Soloman Aram, an attorney--a Victorian Rumpole
--known for defending the accused at the Old Bailey. His skill is needed
to defend Lady Mason against a charge of perjury, much to the distaste
of her Christian advisors. He acts with dignity and shows great
consideration for the personal comfort of Lady Mason during her trial.
The second Jewish character in Trollope's novels was Mr. Hart, a London
tailor who runs for a seat in Parliament in _Rachel Ray_ (1863). This
served no purpose in the plot; the situation probably was included
because legislation to allow Jews to serve in Parliament had been
passed only five years before, and the issue was still one of public
discussion. Mr. Hart's appearance is brief; he speaks only one or
two lines, and the reader is not told enough about him to judge his
character. Trollope describes him thus:
. . . and then the Jewish hero, the tailor himself, came among
them, and astonished their minds by the ease and volubility of his
speeches. He did not pronounce his words with any of those soft
slushy Judaic utterances by which they had been taught to believe
he would disgrace himself. His nose was not hookey, with any
especial hook, nor was it thicker at the bridge than was becoming.
He was a dapper little man, with bright eyes, quick motion, ready
tongue, and a very new hat. It seemed that he knew well how to
canvass. He had a smile and a good word for all--enemies as well
as friends.
In that novel, Trollope, himself, comments on prejudice and bigotry:
. . . Mrs. Ray, in her quiet way, expressed much joy that Mr.
Comfort's son-in-law should have been successful, and that
Baslehurst should not have disgraced itself by any connection
with a Jew. To her it had appeared monstrous that such a one
should have been even permitted to show himself in the town as a
candidate for its representation. To such she would have denied
all civil rights, and almost all social rights. For a true spirit
of persecution one should always go to a woman; and the milder,
the sweeter, the more loving, the more womanly the woman, the
stronger will be that spirit within her. Strong love for the thing
loved necessitates strong hatred for the thing hated, and thence
comes the spirit of persecution. They in England who are now
keenest against the Jews, who would again take from them rights
that they have lately won, are certainly those who think most of
the faith of a Christian. The most deadly enemies of the Roman
Catholics are they who love best their religion as Protestants.
When we look to individuals we always find it so, though it
hardly suits us to admit as much when we discuss these subjects
broadly. To Mrs. Ray it was wonderful that a Jew should have been
entertained in Baslehurst as a future member for the borough, and
that he should have been admitted to speak aloud within a few
yards of the church tower!
_Nina Balatka_ presents a sharp contrast between the behaviors of the
Jewish and Christian characters. Nina and her father Josef Balatka
live on the edge of poverty; he was cheated out of his business by his
Christian brother-in-law, who is now wealthy. Josef's only source of
money was to sell his house to Anton Trendellsohn's father, who for many
years has allowed Josef and Nina to remain in the house without paying
any rent. Nina's Christian relatives use every form of deceit in their
attempt to turn Anton against Nina. Nina's Aunt Sophie spews invective
in every direction. She tells Nina, "Impudent girl!--brazen-faced,
impudent, bad girl! Do you not know that you would bring disgrace upon
us all?" To Nina's father she says, "Tell me that at once, Josef,
that I may know. Has she your sanction for--for--for this accursed
abomination?" To her husband she says, "Oh, I hate them! I do hate them!
Anything is fair against a Jew." And during a meeting with Anton she
exclaims, "How dares he come here to talk of his love? It is filthy--it
is worse than filthy--it is profane."
Anton's family also opposes the marriage, but Anton's father's behavior
toward Nina is in sharp contrast to that of her aunt:
The old man's heart was softened towards her. He could not bring
himself to say a word to her of direct encouragement, but he
kissed her before she went, telling her that she was a good girl,
and bidding her have no care as to the house in the Kleinseite. As
long as he lived, and her father, her father should not be
disturbed.
Anton, being more a businessman than a lover, at times behaves
insensitively toward Nina. Otherwise, throughout the novel, the Jewish
characters act with honesty and kindness. Even the Jewish maiden who
wants to marry Anton does not scheme to break up his engagement to Nina
but rather befriends Nina and eventually saves her life. One has to
wonder whether Trollope intended this contrast to induce his readers to
reconsider their prejudices. Consider his perception of his duty as a
writer:
. . . And the criticism [of my work offered by Hawthorne],
whether just or unjust, describes with wonderful accuracy the
purport that I have ever had in view in my writing. I have always
desired to 'hew out some lump of the earth', and to make men and
women walk upon it just as they do walk here among us,--with not
more of excellence, nor with exaggerated baseness,--so that my
readers might recognise human beings like to themselves, and not
feel themselves to be carried away among gods or demons. If I
could do this, then I thought I might succeed in impregnating the
mind of the novel-reader with a feeling that honesty is the best
policy; that truth prevails while falsehood fails; that a girl
will be loved as she is pure, and sweet, and unselfish; that a man
will be honoured as he is true, and honest, and brave of heart;
that things meanly done are ugly and odious, and things nobly done
beautiful and gracious. . . There are many who would laugh at the
idea of a novelist teaching either virtue or nobility,--those, for
instance, who regard the reading of novels as a sin, and those
also who think it to be simply an idle pastime. They look upon the
tellers of stories as among the tribe of those who pander to the
wicked pleasures of a wicked world. I have regarded my art from so
different a point of view that I have ever thought of myself as a
preacher of sermons, and my pulpit as one which I could make both
salutary and agreeable to my audience. I do believe that no girl
has risen from the reading of my pages less modest than she was
before, and that some may have learned from them that modesty is
a charm well worth preserving. I think that no youth has been
taught that in falseness and flashness is to be found the road to
manliness; but some may perhaps have learned from me that it is
to be found in truth and a high but gentle spirit. Such are the
lessons I have striven to teach; and I have thought that it might
best be done by representing to my readers characters like
themselves,--or to which they might liken themselves. [1]
Given Trollope's philosophy, it is reasonable to believe that the
actions of his characters should speak louder than their words. If
so, Trollope might well have been holding up a mirror to his audience
that they might examine their own prejudices. Unfortunately, we shall
never know.
[1] Anthony Trollope. _An Autobiography_. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1950.
Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
Midland, 2003
Copyright (C) 2003 Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
This Introduction to _Nina Balatka_ is protected by
copyright and/or other applicable law. Any use of the
work other than as authorized in "The Legal Small Print"
section (found at the end of the book) is prohibited.
NINA BALATKA
VOLUME I
CHAPTER I
Nina Balatka was a maiden of Prague, born of Christian parents, and
herself a Christian--but she loved a Jew; and this is her story.
Nina Balatka was the daughter of one Josef Balatka, an old merchant
of Prague, who was living at the time of this story; but Nina's mother
was dead. Josef, in the course of his business, had become closely
connected with a certain Jew named Trendellsohn, who lived in a mean
house in the Jews' quarter in Prague--habitation in that one allotted
portion of the town having been the enforced custom with the Jews then,
as it still is now. In business with Trendellsohn, the father, there
was Anton, his son; and Anton Trendellsohn was the Jew whom Nina
Balatka loved. Now it had so happened that Josef Balatka, Nina's
father, had drifted out of a partnership with Karil Zamenoy, a wealthy
Christian merchant of Prague, and had drifted into a partnership with
Trendellsohn. How this had come to pass needs not to be told here, as
it had all occurred in years when Nina was an infant. But in these
shiftings Balatka became a ruined man, and at the time of which I write
he and his daughter were almost penniless. The reader must know that
Karil Zamenoy and Josef Balatka had married sisters. Josef's wife,
Nina's mother, had long been dead, having died--so said Sophie Zamenoy,
her sister--of a broken heart; of a heart that had broken itself in
grief, because her husband had joined his fortunes with those of a Jew.
Whether the disgrace of the alliance or its disastrous result may have
broken the lady's heart, or whether she may have died of a pleurisy, as
the doctors said, we need not inquire here. Her soul had been long at
rest, and her spirit, we may hope, had ceased to fret itself in horror
at contact with a Jew. But Sophie Zamenoy was alive and strong, and
could still hate a Jew as intensely as Jews ever were hated in those
earlier days in which hatred could satisfy itself with persecution. In
her time but little power was left to Madame Zamenoy to persecute the
Trendellsohns other than that which nature had given to her in the
bitterness of her tongue. She could revile them behind their back, or,
if opportunity offered, to their faces; and both she had done often,
telling the world of Prague that the Trendellsohns had killed her
sister, and robbed her foolish brother-in-law. But hitherto the full
vial of her wrath had not been emptied, as it came to be emptied
afterwards; for she had not yet learned the mad iniquity of her niece.
But at the moment of which I now speak, Nina herself knew her own
iniquity, hardly knowing, however, whether her love did or did not
disgrace her. But she did know that any thought as to that was too
late. She loved the man, and had told him so; and were he gipsy as well
as Jew, it would be required of her that she should go out with him
into the wilderness. And Nina Balatka was prepared to go out into the
wilderness. Karil Zamenoy and his wife were prosperous people, and
lived in a comfortable modern house in the New Town. It stood in
a straight street, and at the back of the house there ran another
straight street. This part of the city is very little like that old
Prague, which may not be so comfortable, but which, of all cities on
the earth, is surely the most picturesque. Here lived Sophie Zamenoy;
and so far up in the world had she mounted, that she had a coach of
her own in which to be drawn about the thoroughfares of Prague and its
suburbs, and a stout little pair of Bohemian horses--ponies they were
called by those who wished to detract somewhat from Madame Zamenoy's
position. Madame Zamenoy had been at Paris, and took much delight
in telling her friends that the carriage also was Parisian; but, in
truth, it had come no further than from Dresden. Josef Balatka and
his daughter were very, very poor; but, poor as they were, they lived
in a large house, which, at least nominally, belonged to old Balatka
himself, and which had been his residence in the days of his better
fortunes. It was in the Kleinseite, that narrow portion of the town,
which lies on the other side of the river Moldau--the further side,
that is, from the so-called Old and New Town, on the western side of
the river, immediately under the great hill of the Hradschin. The
Old Town and the New Town are thus on one side of the river, and the
Kleinseite and the Hradschin on the other. To those who know Prague,
it need not here be explained that the streets of the Kleinseite are
wonderful in their picturesque architecture, wonderful in their lights
and shades, wonderful in their strange mixture of shops and palaces--
and now, alas! also of Austrian barracks--and wonderful in their
intricacy and great steepness of ascent. Balatka's house stood in a
small courtyard near to the river, but altogether hidden from it,
somewhat to the right of the main street of the Kleinseite as you pass
over the bridge. A lane, for it is little more, turning from the main
street between the side walls of what were once two palaces, comes
suddenly into a small square, and from a corner of this square there is
an open stone archway leading into a court. In this court is the door,
or doors, as I may say, of the house in which Balatka lived with his
daughter Nina. Opposite to these two doors was the blind wall of
another residence. Balatka's house occupied two sides of the court,
and no other window, therefore, besides his own looked either upon it
or upon him. The aspect of the place is such as to strike with wonder a
stranger to Prague--that in the heart of so large a city there should
be an abode so sequestered, so isolated, so desolate, and yet so close
to the thickest throng of life. But there are others such, perhaps many
others such, in Prague; and Nina Balatka, who had been born there,
thought nothing of the quaintness of her abode. Immediately over the
little square stood the palace of the Hradschin, the wide-spreading
residence of the old kings of Bohemia, now the habitation of an
ex-emperor of the House of Hapsburg, who must surely find the thousand
chambers of the royal mansion all too wide a retreat for the use of his
old age. So immediately did the imperial hill tower over the spot on
which Balatka lived, that it would seem at night, when the moon was
shining as it shines only at Prague, that the colonnades of the palace
were the upper storeys of some enormous edifice, of which the broken
merchant's small courtyard formed a lower portion. The long rows of
windows would glimmer in the sheen of the night, and Nina would stand
in the gloom of the archway counting them till they would seem to be
uncountable, and wondering what might be the thoughts of those who
abode there. But those who abode there were few in number, and their
thoughts were hardly worthy of Nina's speculation. The windows of
kings' palaces look out from many chambers. The windows of the
Hradschin look out, as we are told, from a thousand. But the rooms
within have seldom many tenants, nor the tenants, perhaps, many
thoughts. Chamber after chamber, you shall pass through them by the
score, and know by signs unconsciously recognised that there is not,
and never has been, true habitation within them. Windows almost
innumerable are there, that they may be seen from the outside--and such
is the use of palaces. But Nina, as she would look, would people the
rooms with throngs of bright inhabitants, and would think of the joys
of happy girls who were loved by Christian youths, and who could dare
to tell their friends of their love. But Nina Balatka was no coward,
and she had already determined that she would at once tell her love to
those who had a right to know in what way she intended to dispose of
herself. As to her father, if only he could have been alone in the
matter, she would have had some hope of a compromise which would have
made it not absolutely necessary that she should separate herself from
him for ever in giving herself to Anton Trendellsohn. Josef Balatka
would doubtless express horror, and would feel shame that his daughter
should love a Jew--though he had not scrupled to allow Nina to go
frequently among these people, and to use her services with them for
staving off the ill consequences of his own idleness and ill-fortune;
but he was a meek, broken man, and was so accustomed to yield to Nina
that at last he might have yielded to her even in this. There was,
however, that Madame Zamenoy, her aunt--her aunt with the bitter tongue;
and there was Ziska Zamenoy, her cousin--her rich and handsome cousin,
who would so soon declare himself willing to become more than cousin,
if Nina would but give him one nod of encouragement, or half a smile of
welcome. But Nina hated her Christian lover, cousin though he was, as
warmly as she loved the Jew. Nina, indeed, loved none of the Zamenoys--
neither her cousin Ziska, nor her very Christian aunt Sophie with the
bitter tongue, nor her prosperous, money-loving, acutely mercantile
uncle Karil; but, nevertheless, she was in some degree so subject to
them, that she knew that she was bound to tell them what path in life
she meant to tread. Madame Zamenoy had offered to take her niece to
the prosperous house in the Windberg-gasse when the old house in the
Kleinseite had become poor and desolate; and though this generous offer
had been most fatuously declined--most wickedly declined, as aunt
Sophie used to declare--nevertheless other favours had been vouchsafed;
and other favours had been accepted, with sore injury to Nina's pride.
As she thought of this, standing in the gloom of the evening under the
archway, she remembered that the very frock she wore had been sent to
her by her aunt. But I in spite of the bitter tongue, and in spite of
Ziska's derision, she would tell her tale, and would tell it soon. She
knew her own courage, and trusted it; and, dreadful as the hour would
be, she would not put it off by one moment. As soon as Anton should
desire her to declare her purpose, she would declare it; and as he who
stands on a precipice, contemplating the expediency of throwing himself
from the rock, will feel himself gradually seized by a mad desire to do
the deed out of hand at once, so did Nina feel anxious to walk off to
the Windberg-gasse, and dare and endure all that the Zamenoys could say
or do. She knew, or thought she knew, that persecution could not go now
beyond the work of the tongue. No priest could immure her. No law could
touch her because she was minded to marry a Jew. Even the people in
these days were mild and forbearing in their usages with the Jews, and
she thought that the girls of the Kleinseite would not tear her clothes
from her back even when they knew of her love. One thing, however, was
certain. Though every rag should be torn from her--though some priest
might have special power given him to persecute her--though the
Zamenoys in their wrath should be able to crush her--even though her
own father should refuse to see her, she would be true to the Jew. Love
to her should be so sacred that no other sacredness should be able to
touch its sanctity. She had thought much of love, but had never loved
before. Now she loved, and, heart and soul, she belonged to him to whom
she had devoted herself. Whatever suffering might be before her, though
it were suffering unto death, she would endure it if her lover demanded
such endurance. Hitherto, there was but one person who suspected her.
In her father's house there still remained an old dependant, who,
though he was a man, was cook and housemaid, and washer-woman and
servant-of-all-work; or perhaps it would be more true to say that
he and Nina between them did all that the requirements of the house
demanded. Souchey--for that was his name--was very faithful, but with
his fidelity had come a want of reverence towards his master and
mistress, and an absence of all respectful demeanour. The enjoyment of
this apparent independence by Souchey himself went far, perhaps, in
lieu of wages.
"Nina," he said to her one morning, "you are seeing too much of Anton
Trendellsohn."
"What do you mean by that, Souchey?" said the girl, sharply.
"You are seeing too much of Anton Trendellsohn," repeated the old man.
"I have to see him on father's account. You know that. You know that,
Souchey, and you shouldn't say such things."
"You are seeing too much of Anton Trendellsohn," said Souchey for the
third time. "Anton Trendellsohn is a Jew."
Then Nina knew that Souchey had read her secret, and was sure that it
would spread from him through Lotta Luxa, her aunt's confidential maid,
up to her aunt's ears. Not that Souchey would be untrue to her on
behalf of Madame Zamenoy, whom he hated; but that he would think
himself bound by his religious duty--he who never went near priest or
mass himself--to save his mistress from the perils of the Jew. The
story of her love must be told, and Nina preferred to tell it herself
to having it told for her by her servant Souchey. She must see Anton.
When the evening therefore had come, and there was sufficient dusk upon
the bridge to allow of her passing over without observation, she put
her old cloak upon her shoulders, with the hood drawn over her head,
and, crossing the river, turned to the left and made her way through
the narrow crooked streets which led to the Jews' quarter. She knew the
path well, and could have found it with blindfolded eyes. In the middle
of that close and densely populated region of Prague stands the old
Jewish synagogue--the oldest place of worship belonging to the Jews in
Europe, as they delight to tell you; and in a pinched-up, high-gabled
house immediately behind the synagogue, at the corner of two streets,
each so narrow as hardly to admit a vehicle, dwelt the Trendellsohns.
On the basement floor there had once been a shop. There was no shop
now, for the Trendellsohns were rich, and no longer dealt in retail
matters; but there had been no care, or perhaps no ambition, at work,
to alter the appearance of their residence, and the old shutters were
upon the window, making the house look as though it were deserted.
There was a high-pitched sharp roof over the gable, which, as
the building stood alone fronting upon the synagogue, made it so
remarkable, that all who knew Prague well, knew the house in which the
Trendellsohns lived. Nina had often wished, as in latter days she had
entered it, that it was less remarkable, so that she might have gone in
and out with smaller risk of observation. It was now the beginning of
September, and the clocks of the town had just struck eight as Nina put
her hand on the lock of the Jew's door. As usual it was not bolted,
and she was able to enter without waiting in the street for a servant
to come to her. She went at once along the narrow passage and up the
gloomy wooden stairs, at the foot of which there hung a small lamp,
giving just light enough to expel the actual blackness of night. On the
first landing Nina knocked at a door, and was desired to enter by a
soft female voice. The only occupant of the room when she entered was a
dark-haired child, some twelve years old perhaps, but small in stature
and delicate, and, as appeared to the eye, almost wan. "Well, Ruth
dear," said Nina, "is Anton at home this evening?"
"He is up-stairs with grandfather, Nina. Shall I tell him?"
"If you will, dear," said Nina, stooping down and kissing her.
"Nice Nina, dear Nina, good Nina," said the girl, rubbing her glossy
curls against her friend's cheeks. "Ah, dear, how I wish you lived
here!"
"But I have a father, as you have a grandfather, Ruth."
"And he is a Christian."
"And so am I, Ruth."
"But you like us, and are good, and nice, and dear--and oh, Nina, you
are so beautiful! I wish you were one of us, and lived here. There is
Miriam Harter--her hair is as light as yours, and her eyes are as
grey."
"What has that to do with it?"
"Only I am so dark, and most of us are dark here in Prague. Anton says
that away in Palestine our girls are as fair as the girls in Saxony."
"And does not Anton like girls to be dark?"
"Anton likes fair hair--such as yours--and bright grey eyes such as
you have got. I said they were green, and he pulled my ears. But now
I look, Nina, I think they are green. And so bright! I can see my own
in them, though it is so dark. That is what they call looking babies."
"Go to your uncle, Ruth, and tell him that I want him--on business."
"I will, and he'll come to you. He won't let me come down again, so
kiss me, Nina; good-bye."
Nina kissed the child again, and then was left alone in the room. It
was a comfortable chamber, having in it sofas and arm-chairs--much more
comfortable, Nina used to think, than her aunt's grand drawing-room in
the Windberg-gasse, which was covered all over with a carpet, after the
fashion of drawing-rooms in Paris; but the Jew's sitting-room was dark,
with walls painted a gloomy green colour, and there was but one small
lamp of oil upon the table. But yet Nina loved the room, and as she sat
there waiting for her lover, she wished that it had been her lot to
have been born a Jewess. Only, had that been so, her hair might perhaps
have been black, and her eyes dark, and Anton would not have liked her.
She put her hand up for a moment to her rich brown tresses, and felt
them as she took joy in thinking that Anton Trendellsohn loved to look
upon fair beauty.
After a short while Anton Trendellsohn came down. To those who know
the outward types of his race there could be no doubt that Anton
Trendellsohn was a very Jew among Jews. He was certainly a handsome
man, not now very young, having reached some year certainly in advance
of thirty, and his face was full of intellect. He was slightly made,
below the middle height, but was well made in every limb, with small
feet and hands, and small ears, and a well-turned neck. He was very
dark--dark as a man can be, and yet show no sign of colour in his
blood. No white man could be more dark and swarthy than Anton
Trendellsohn. His eyes, however, which were quite black, were very
bright. His jet-black hair, as it clustered round his ears, had in it
something of a curl. Had it been allowed to grow, it would almost have
hung in ringlets; but it was worn very short, as though its owner were
jealous even of the curl. Anton Trendellsohn was decidedly a handsome
man; but his eyes were somewhat too close together in his face, and the
bridge of his aquiline nose was not sharply cut, as is mostly the case
with such a nose on a Christian face. The olive oval face was without
doubt the face of a Jew, and the mouth was greedy, and the teeth were
perfect and bright, and the movement of the man's body was the movement
of a Jew. But not the less on that account had he behaved with
Christian forbearance to his Christian debtor, Josef Balatka, and with
Christian chivalry to Balatka's daughter, till that chivalry had turned
itself into love.
"Nina," he said, putting out his hand, and holding hers as he spoke, "I
hardly expected you this evening; but I am glad to see you--very glad."
"I hope I am not troubling you, Anton?"
"How can you trouble me? The sun does not trouble us when we want light
and heat."
"Can I give you light and heat?"
"The light and heat I love best, Nina."
"If I thought that--if I could really think that--I would be happy
still, and would mind nothing."
"And what is it you do mind?"
"There are things to trouble us, of course. When aunt Sophie says that
all of us have our troubles--even she--I suppose that even she speaks
the truth."
"Your aunt Sophie is a fool."
"I should not mind if she were only a fool. But a fool can sometimes be
right."
"And she has been scolding you because--you--prefer a Jew to a
Christian."
"No--not yet, Anton. She does not know it yet; but she must know it."
"Sit down, Nina." He was still holding her by the hand; and now, as he
spoke, he led her to a sofa which stood between the two windows. There
he seated her, and sat by her side, still holding her hand in his.
"Yes," he said, "she must know it of course--when the time comes; and
if she guesses it before, you must put up with her guesses. A few sharp
words from a foolish woman will not frighten you, I hope."
"No words will frighten me out of my love, if you mean that--neither
words nor anything else."
"I believe you. You are brave, Nina. I know that. Though you will cry
if one but frowns at you, yet you are brave."
"Do not you frown at me, Anton."
"I am one of those that do frown at times, I suppose; but I will be
true to you, Nina, if you will be true to me."
"I will be true to you--true as the sun."
As she made her promise she turned her sweet face up to his, and he
leaned over her, and kissed her.
"And what is it that has disturbed you now, Nina? What has Madame
Zamenoy said to you?"
"She has said nothing--as yet. She suspects nothing--as yet."
"Then let her remain as she is."
"But, Anton, Souchey knows, and he will talk."
"Souchey! And do you care for that?"
"I care for nothing--for nothing; for nothing, that is, in the way of
preventing me. Do what they will, they cannot tear my love from my
heart."
"Nor can they take you away, or lock you up."
"I fear nothing of that sort, Anton. All that I really fear is secrecy.
Would it not be best that I should tell father?"
"What!--now, at once?"
"If you will let me. I suppose he must know it soon."
"You can if you please."
"Souchey will tell him."
"Will Souchey dare to speak of you like that?" asked the Jew.
"Oh, yes; Souchey dares to say anything to father now. Besides, it is
true. Why should not Souchey say it?"
"But you have not spoken to Souchey; you have not told him?"
"I! No indeed. I have spoken never a word to anyone about that--only to
you. How should I speak to another without your bidding? But when they
speak to me I must answer them. If father asks me whether there be
aught between you and me, shall I not tell him then?"
"It would be better to be silent for a while."
"But shall I lie to him? I should not mind Souchey nor aunt Sophie
much; but I never yet told a lie to father."
"I do not tell you to lie."
"Let me tell it all. Anton, and then, whatever they may say, whatever
they may do, I shall not mind. I wish that they knew it, and then I
could stand up against them. Then I could tell Ziska that which would
make him hold his tongue for ever."
"Ziska! Who cares for Ziska?"
"You need not, at any rate."
"The truth is, Nina, that I cannot be married till I have settled all
this about the houses in the Kleinseite. The very fact that you would
be your father's heir prevents my doing so."
"Do you think that I wish to hurry you? I would rather stay as I am,
knowing that you love me."
"Dear Nina! But when your aunt shall once know your secret, she will
give you no peace till you are out of her power. She will leave no
stone unturned to make you give up your Jew lover."
"She may as well leave the turning of such stones alone."
"But if she heard nothing of it till she heard that we were married--"
"Ah! but that is impossible. I could not do that without telling
father, and father would surely tell my aunt."
"You may do as you will, Nina; but it may be, when they shall know it,
that therefore there may be new difficulty made about the houses. Karil
Zamenoy has the papers, which are in truth mine--or my father's--which
should be here in my iron box." And Trendellsohn, as he spoke, put his
hand forcibly on the seat beside him, as though the iron box to which
he alluded were within his reach.
"I know they are yours," said Nina.
"Yes; and without them, should your father die, I could not claim my
property. The Zamenoys might say they held it on your behalf--and you
my wife at the time! Do you see, Nina? I could not stand that--I would
not stand that."
"I understand it well, Anton."
"The houses are mine--or ours, rather. Your father has long since had
the money, and more than the money. He knew that the houses were to be
ours."
"He knows it well. You do not think that he is holding back the
papers?"
"He should get them for me. He should not drive me to press him for
them. I know they are at Karil Zamenoy's counting-house; but your uncle
told me, when I spoke to him, that he had no business with me; if I had
a claim on him, there was the law. I have no claim on him. But I let
your father have the money when he wanted it, on his promise that the
deeds should be forthcoming. A Christian would not have been such a
fool."
"Oh, Anton, do not speak to me like that."
"But was I not a fool? See how it is now. Were you and I to become man
and wife, they would never give them up, though they are my own--my
own. No; we must wait; and you--you must demand them from your uncle."
"I will demand them. And as for waiting, I care nothing for that if you
love me."
"I do love you."
"Then all shall be well with me; and I will ask for the papers. Father,
I know, wishes that you should have all that is your own. He would
leave the house to-morrow if you desired it."
"He is welcome to remain there."
"And now, Anton, good-night."
"Good-night, Nina."
"When shall I see you again?"
"When you please, and as often. Have I not said that you are light
and heat to me? Can the sun rise too often for those who love it?"
Then she held her hand up to be kissed, and kissed his in return, and
went silently down the stairs into the street. He had said once in
the course of the conversation--nay, twice, as she came to remember
in thinking over it--that she might do as she would about telling
her friends; and she had been almost craftily careful to say nothing
herself, and to draw nothing from him, which could be held as
militating against this authority, or as subsequently negativing the
permission so given. She would undoubtedly tell her father--and her
aunt; and would as certainly demand from her uncle those documents of
which Anton Trendellsohn had spoken to her.
CHAPTER II
Nina, as she returned home from the Jews' quarter to her father's
house in the Kleinseite, paused for a while on the bridge to make some
resolution--some resolution that should be fixed--as to her immediate
conduct. Should she first tell her story to her father, or first to her
aunt Sophie? There were reasons for and against either plan. And if to
her father first, then should she tell it to-night? She was nervously
anxious to rush at once at her difficulties, and to be known to all
who belonged to her as the girl who had given herself to the Jew. It
was now late in the evening, and the moon was shining brightly on the
palace over against her. The colonnades seemed to be so close to her
that there could hardly be room for any portion of the city to cluster
itself between them and the river. She stood looking up at the great
building, and fell again into her trick of counting the windows,
thereby saving herself a while from the difficult task of following out
the train of her thoughts. But what were the windows of the palace to
her? So she walked on again till she reached a spot on the bridge at
which she almost always paused a moment to perform a little act of
devotion. There, having a place in the long row of huge statues which
adorn the bridge, is the figure of the martyr St John Nepomucene, who
at this spot was thrown into the river because he would not betray the
secrets of a queen's confession, and was drowned, and who has ever
been, from that period downwards, the favourite saint of Prague--and
of bridges. On the balustrade, near the figure, there is a small plate
inserted in the stone-work and good Catholics, as they pass over the
river, put their hands upon the plate, and then kiss their fingers. So
shall they be saved from drowning and from all perils of the water--as
far, at least, as that special transit of the river may be perilous.
Nina, as a child, had always touched the stone, and then touched her
lips, and did the act without much thought as to the saving power of St
John Nepomucene. But now, as she carried her hand up to her face, she
did think of the deed. Had she, who was about to marry a Jew, any right
to ask for the assistance of a Christian saint? And would such a deed
that she now proposed to herself put her beyond the pale of Christian
aid? Would the Madonna herself desert her should she marry a Jew? If
she were to become truer than ever to her faith--more diligent, more
thoughtful, more constant in all acts of devotion--would the blessed
Mary help to save her, even though she should commit this great sin?
Would the mild-eyed, sweet Saviour, who had forgiven so many women, who
had saved from a cruel death the woman taken in adultery, who had been
so gracious to the Samaritan woman at the well--would He turn from her
the graciousness of His dear eyes, and bid her go out for ever from
among the faithful? Madame Zamenoy would tell her so, and so would
Sister Teresa, an old nun, who was on most friendly terms with Madame
Zamenoy, and whom Nina altogether hated; and so would the priest, to
whom, alas! she would be bound to give faith. And if this were so,
whither should she turn for comfort? She could not become a Jewess! She
might call herself one; but how could she be a Jewess with her strong
faith in St Nicholas, who was the saint of her own Church, and in St
John of the River, and in the Madonna? No; she must be an outcast from
all religions, a Pariah, one devoted absolutely to the everlasting
torments which lie beyond Purgatory--unless, indeed, unless that
mild-eyed Saviour would be content to take her faith and her acts of
hidden worship, despite her aunt, despite that odious nun, and despite
the very priest himself! She did not know how this might be with her,
but she did know that all the teaching of her life was against any such
hope.
But what was--what could be the good of such thoughts to her? Had not
things gone too far with her for such thoughts to be useful? She loved
the Jew, and had told him so; and not all the penalties with which the
priests might threaten her could lessen her love, or make her think of
her safety here or hereafter, as a thing to be compared with her love.
Religion was much to her; the fear of the everlasting wrath of Heaven
was much to her; but love was paramount! What if it were her soul?
Would she not give even her soul for her love, if, for her love's sake,
her soul should be required from her? When she reached the archway, she
had made up her mind that she would tell her aunt first, and that she
would do so early on the following day. Were she to tell her father
first, her father might probably forbid her to speak on the subject to
Madame Zamenoy, thinking that his own eloquence and that of the priest
might prevail to put an end to so terrible an iniquity, and that so
Madame Zamenoy might never learn the tidings. Nina, thinking of all
this, and being quite determined that the Zamenoys should know what
she intended to tell them, resolved that she would say nothing on that
night at home.
"You are very late, Nina," said her father to her, crossly, as soon
as she entered the room in which they lived. It was a wide apartment,
having in it now but little furniture--two rickety tables, a few
chairs, an old bureau in which Balatka kept, under lock and key, all
that still belonged to him personally, and a little desk, which was
Nina's own repository.
"Yes, father, I am late; but not very late. I have been with Anton
Trendellsohn."
"And what have you been there for now?"
"Anton Trendellsohn has been talking to me about the papers which uncle
Karil has. He wants to have them himself. He says they are his."
"I suppose he means that we are to be turned out of the old house."
"No, father; he does not mean that. He is not a cruel man. But he says
that--that he cannot settle anything about the property without having
the papers. I suppose that is true."
"He has the rent of the other houses," said Balatka.
"Yes; but if the papers are his, he ought to have them."
"Did he send for them?"
"No, father; he did not send."
"And what made you go?"
"I am so of often going there. He had spoken to me before about this.
He thinks you do not like him to come here, and you never go there
yourself."
After this there was a pause for a few minutes, and Nina was settling
herself to her work. Then the old man spoke again.
"Nina, I fear you see too much of Anton Trendellsohn." The words were
the very words of Souchey; and Nina was sure that her father and the
servant had been discussing her conduct. It was no more than she had
expected, but her father's words had come very quickly upon Souchey's
speech to herself. What did it signify? Everybody would know it all
before twenty-four hours had passed by. Nina, however, was determined
to defend herself at the present moment, thinking that there was
something of injustice in her father's remarks. "As for seeing him
often, father, I have done it because your business has required it.
When you were ill in April I had to be there almost daily."
"But you need not have gone to-night. He did not send for you."
"But it is needful that something should be done to get for him that
which is his own." As she said this there came to her a sting of
conscience, a thought that reminded her that, though she was not lying
to her father in words, she was in fact deceiving him; and remembering
her assertion to her lover that she had never spoken falsely to her
father, she blushed with shame as she sat in the darkness of her seat.
"To-morrow father," she said, "I will talk to you more about this, and
you shall not at any rate say that I keep anything from you."
"I have never said so, Nina."
"It is late now, father. Will you not go to bed?"
Old Balatka yielded to this suggestion, and went to his bed; and Nina,
after some hour or two, went to hers. But before doing so she opened
the little desk that stood in the corner of their sitting-room, of
which the key was always in her pocket, and took out everything that it
contained. There were many letters there, of which most were on matters
of business--letters which in few houses would come into the hands of
such a one as Nina Balatka, but which, through the weakness of her
father's health, had come into hers. Many of these she now read; some
few she tore and burned in the stove, and others she tied in bundles
and put back carefully into their place. There was not a paper in the
desk which did not pass under her eye, and as to which she did not come
to some conclusion, either to keep it or to burn it. There were no
love-letters there. Nina Balatka had never yet received such a letter
as that. She saw her lover too frequently to feel much the need of
written expressions of love; and such scraps of his writing as there
were in the bundles, referred altogether to small matters of business.
When she had thus arranged her papers, she too went to bed. On the next
morning, when she gave her father his breakfast, she was very silent.
She made for him a little chocolate, and cut for him a few slips of
white bread to dip into it. For herself, she cut a slice from a black
loaf made of rye flour, and mixed with water a small quantity of the
thin sour wine of the country. Her meal may have been worth perhaps a
couple of kreutzers, or something less than a penny, whereas that of
her father may have cost twice as much. Nina was a close and sparing
housekeeper, but with all her economy she could not feed three people
upon nothing. Latterly, from month to month, she had sold one thing out
of the house after another, knowing as each article went that provision
from such store as that must soon fail her. But anything was better
than taking money from her aunt whom she hated--except taking money
from the Jew whom she loved. From him she had taken none, though it had
been often offered. "You have lost more than enough by father," she had
said to him when the offer had been made. "What I give to the wife of
my bosom shall never be reckoned as lost," he had answered. She had
loved him for the words, and had pressed his hand in hers--but she had
not taken his money. From her aunt some small meagre supply had been
accepted from time to time--a florin or two now, and a florin or two
again--given with repeated intimations on aunt Sophie's part, that
her husband Karil could not be expected to maintain the house in the
Kleinseite. Nina had not felt herself justified in refusing such gifts
from her aunt to her father, but as each occasion came she told herself
that some speedy end must be put to this state of things. Her aunt's
generosity would not sustain her father, and her aunt's generosity
nearly killed herself. On this very morning she would do that which
should certainly put an end to a state of things so disagreeable.
After breakfast, therefore, she started at once for the house in the
Windberg-gasse, leaving her father still in his bed. She walked very
quick, looking neither to the right nor the left, across the bridge,
along the river-side, and then up into the straight ugly streets of the
New Town. The distance from her father's house was nearly two miles,
and yet the journey was made in half an hour. She had never walked so
quickly through the streets of Prague before; and when she reached the
end of the Windberg-gasse, she had to pause a moment to collect her
thoughts and her breath. But it was only for a moment, and then the
bell was rung.
Yes; her aunt was at home. At ten in the morning that was a matter of
course. She was shown, not into the grand drawing-room, which was only
used on grand occasions, but into a little back parlour which, in spite
of the wealth and magnificence of the Zamenoys, was not so clean as the
room in the Kleinseite, and certainly not so comfortable as the Jew's
apartment. There was no carpet; but that was not much, as carpets in
Prague were not in common use. There were two tables crowded with
things needed for household purposes, half-a-dozen chairs of different
patterns, a box of sawdust close under the wall, placed there that
papa Zamenoy might spit into it when it pleased him. There was a crowd
of clothes and linen hanging round the stove, which projected far into
the room; and spread upon the table, close to which was placed mamma
Zamenoy's chair, was an article of papa Zamenoy's dress, on which mamma
Zamenoy was about to employ her talents in the art of tailoring. All
this, however, was nothing to Nina, nor was the dirt on the floor much
to her, though she had often thought that if she were to go and live
with aunt Sophie, she would contrive to make some improvement as to the
cleanliness of the house.
"Your aunt will be down soon," said Lotta Luxa as they passed through
the passage. "She is very angry, Nina, at not seeing you all the last
week."
"I don't know why she should be angry, Lotta. I did not say I would
come."
Lotta Luxa was a sharp little woman, over forty years of age, with
quick green eyes and thin red-tipped nose, looking as though Paris
might have been the town of her birth rather than Prague. She wore
short petticoats, clean stockings, an old pair of slippers; and in the
back of her hair she still carried that Diana's dart which maidens wear
in those parts when they are not only maidens unmarried, but maidens
also disengaged. No one had yet succeeded in drawing Lotta Luxa's arrow
from her head, though Souchey, from the other side of the river, had
made repeated attempts to do so. For Lotta Luxa had a little money of
her own, and poor Souchey had none. Lotta muttered something about the
thoughtless thanklessness of young people, and then took herself
down-stairs. Nina opened the door of the back parlour, and found her
cousin Ziska sitting alone with his feet propped upon the stove.
"What, Ziska," she said, "you not at work by ten o'clock!"
"I was not well last night, and took physic this morning," said Ziska.
"Something had disagreed with me."
"I'm sorry for that, Ziska. You eat too much fruit, I suppose."
"Lotta says it was the sausage, but I don't think it was. I'm very fond
of sausage, and everybody must be ill sometimes. She'll be down here
again directly;" and Ziska with his head nodded at the chair in which
his mother was wont to sit.
Nina, whose mind was quite full of her business, was determined to go
to work at once. "I'm glad to have you alone for a moment, Ziska," she
said.
"And so am I very glad; only I wish I had not taken physic, it makes
one so uncomfortable."
At this moment Nina had in her heart no charity towards her cousin, and
did not care for his discomfort. "Ziska," she said, "Anton Trendellsohn
wants to have the papers about the houses in the Kleinseite. He says
that they are his, and you have them."
Ziska hated Anton Trendellsohn, hardly knowing why he hated him. "If
Trendellsohn wants anything of us," said he, "why does he not come to
the office? He knows where to find us."
"Yes, Ziska, he knows where to find you; but, as he says, he has no
business with you--no business as to which he can make a demand. He
thinks, therefore, you would merely bid him begone."
"Very likely. One doesn't want to see more of a Jew than one can help."
"That Jew, Ziska, owns the house in which father lives. That Jew,
Ziska, is the best friend that--that--that father has."
"I'm sorry you think so, Nina."
"How can I help thinking it? You can't deny, nor can uncle, that the
houses belong to him. The papers got into uncle's hands when he and
father were together, and I think they ought to be given up now. Father
thinks that the Trendellsohns should have them. Even though they are
Jews, they have a right to their own."
"You know nothing about it, Nina. How should you know about such things
as that?"
"I am driven to know. Father is ill, and cannot come himself."
"Oh, laws! I am so uncomfortable. I never will take stuff from Lotta
Luxa again. She thinks a man is the same as a horse."
This little episode put a stop to the conversation about the
title-deeds, and then Madame Zamenoy entered the room. Madame Zamenoy
was a woman of a portly demeanour, well fitted to do honour by her
personal presence to that carriage and horses with which Providence and
an indulgent husband had blessed her. And when she was dressed in her
full panoply of French millinery--the materials of which had come from
England, and the manufacture of which had taken place in Prague--she
looked the carriage and horses well enough. But of a morning she was
accustomed to go about the house in a pale-tinted wrapper, which,
pale-tinted as it was, should have been in the washing-tub much oftener
than was the case with it--if not for cleanliness, then for mere decency
of appearance.
And the mode in which she carried her matutinal curls, done up with
black pins, very visible to the eye, was not in itself becoming. The
handkerchief which she wore in lieu of cap, might have been excused on
the score of its ugliness, as Madame Zamenoy was no longer young, had
it not been open to such manifest condemnation for other sins. And in
this guise she would go about the house from morning to night on days
not made sacred by the use of the carriage. Now Lotta Luxa was clean in
the midst of her work; and one would have thought that the cleanliness
of the maid would have shamed the slatternly ways of the mistress. But
Madame Zamenoy and Lotta Luxa had lived together long, and probably
knew each other well.
"Well, Nina," she said, "so you've come at last?"
"Yes; I've come, aunt. And as I want to say something very particular
to you yourself, perhaps Ziska won't mind going out of the room for a
minute." Nina had not sat down since she had been in the room, and was
now standing before her aunt with almost militant firmness. She was
resolved to rush at once at the terrible subject which she had in hand,
but she could not do so in the presence of her cousin Ziska.
Ziska groaned audibly. "Ziska isn't well this morning," said Madame
Zamenoy, "and I do not wish to have him disturbed."
"Then perhaps you'll come into the front parlour, aunt."
"What can there be that you cannot say before Ziska?"
"There is something, aunt," said Nina.
If there were a secret, Madame Zamenoy decidedly wished to hear it, and
therefore, after pausing to consider the matter for a moment or two,
she led the way into the front parlour.
"And now, Nina, what is it? I hope you have not disturbed me in this
way for anything that is a trifle."
"It is no trifle to me, aunt. I am going to be married to--Anton
Trendellsohn." She said the words slowly, standing bolt-upright, at her
greatest height, as she spoke them, and looking her aunt full in the
face with something of defiance both in her eyes and in the tone of
her voice. She had almost said, "Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew;" and when
her speech was finished, and admitted of no addition, she reproached
herself with pusillanimity in that she had omitted the word which had
always been so odious, and would now be doubly odious--odious to her
aunt in a tenfold degree.
Madame Zamenoy stood for a while speechless--struck with horror.
The tidings which she heard were so unexpected, so strange, and so
abominable, that they seemed at first to crush her. Nina was her
niece--her sister's child; and though she might be repudiated,
reviled, persecuted, and perhaps punished, still she must retain her
relationship to her injured relatives. And it seemed to Madame Zamenoy
as though the marriage of which Nina spoke was a thing to be done at
once, out of hand--as though the disgusting nuptials were to take place
on that day or on the next, and could not now be avoided. It occurred
to her that old Balatka himself was a consenting party, and that utter
degradation was to fall upon the family instantly. There was that in
Nina's air and manner, as she spoke of her own iniquity, which made the
elder woman feel for the moment that she was helpless to prevent the
evil with which she was threatened.
"Anton Trendellsohn--a Jew," she said, at last.
"Yes, aunt; Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew. I am engaged to him as his
wife."
There was a something of doubtful futurity in the word engaged, which
gave a slight feeling of relief to Madame Zamenoy, and taught her to
entertain a hope that there might be yet room for escape. "Marry a Jew,
Nina," she said; "it cannot be possible!"
"It is possible, aunt. Other Jews in Prague have married Christians."
"Yes, I know it. There have been outcasts among us low enough so to
degrade themselves--low women who were called Christians. There has
been no girl connected with decent people who has ever so degraded
herself. Does your father know of this?"
"Not yet."
"Your father knows nothing of it, and you come and tell me that you are
engaged--to a Jew!" Madame Zamenoy had so far recovered herself that
she was now able to let her anger mount above her misery. "You wicked
girl! Why have you come to me with such a story as this?"
"Because it is well that you should know it. I did not like to deceive
you, even by secrecy. You will not be hurt. You need not notice me any
longer. I shall be lost to you, and that will be all."
"If you were to do such a thing you would disgrace us. But you will not
be allowed to do it."
"But I shall do it."
"Nina!"
"Yes, aunt. I shall do it. Do you think I will be false to my troth?"
"Your troth to a Jew is nothing. Father Jerome will tell you so."
"I shall not ask Father Jerome. Father Jerome, of course, will condemn
me; but I shall not ask him whether or not I am to keep my promise--my
solemn promise."
"And why not?"
Then Nina paused a moment before she answered. But she did answer, and
answered with that bold defiant air which at first had disconcerted her
aunt.
"I will ask no one, aunt Sophie, because I love Anton Trendellsohn, and
have told him that I love him."
"Pshaw!"
"I have nothing more to say, aunt. I thought it right to tell you, and
now I will go."
She had turned to the door, and had her hand upon the lock when her
aunt stopped her. "Wait a moment, Nina. You have had your say; now you
must hear me."
"I will hear you if you say nothing against him."
"I shall say what I please."
"Then I will not hear you." Nina again made for the door, but her aunt
intercepted her retreat. "Of course you can stop me, aunt, in that way
if you choose."
"You bold, bad girl!"
"You may say what you please about myself."
"You are a bold, bad girl!"
"Perhaps I am. Father Jerome says we are all bad. And as for boldness,
I have to be bold."
"You are bold and brazen. Marry a Jew! It is the worst thing a
Christian girl could do."
"No, it is not. There are things ten times worse than that."
"How you could dare to come and tell me!"
"I did dare, you see. If I had not told you, you would have called me
sly."
"You are sly."
"I am not sly. You tell me I am bad and bold and brazen."
"So you are."
"Very likely. I do not say I am not. But I am not sly. Now, will you
let me go, aunt Sophie?"
"Yes, you may go--you may go; but you may not come here again till this
thing has been put an end to. Of course I shall see your father and
Father Jerome, and your uncle will see the police. You will be locked
up, and Anton Trendellsohn will be sent out of Bohemia. That is how it
will end. Now you may go." And Nina went her way.
Her aunt's threat of seeing her father and the priest was nothing to
Nina. It was the natural course for her aunt to take, and a course in
opposition to which Nina was prepared to stand her ground firmly. But
the allusion to the police did frighten her. She had thought of the
power which the law might have over her very often, and had spoken of
it in awe to her lover. He had reassured her, explaining to her that,
as the law now stood in Austria, no one but her father could prevent
her marriage with a Jew, and that he could only do so till she was of
age. Now Nina would be twenty-one on the first of the coming month, and
therefore would be free, as Anton told her, to do with herself as she
pleased. But still there came over her a cold feeling of fear when her
aunt spoke to her of the police. The law might give the police no power
over her; but was there not a power in the hands of those armed men
whom she saw around her on every side, and who were seldom countrymen
of her own, over and above the law? Were there not still dark dungeons
and steel locks and hard hearts? Though the law might justify her, how
would that serve her, if men--if men and women, were determined to
persecute her? As she walked home, however, she resolved that dark
dungeons and steel locks and hard hearts might do their worst against
her. She had set her will upon one thing in this world, and from
that one thing no persecution should drive her. They might kill her,
perhaps. Yes, they might kill her; and then there would be an end of
it. But to that end she would force them to come before she would
yield. So much she swore to herself as she walked home on that morning
to the Kleinseite.
Madame Zamenoy, when Nina left her, sat in solitary consideration for
some twenty minutes, and then called for her chief confidant, Lotta
Luxa. With many expressions of awe, and with much denunciation of her
niece's iniquity, she told to Lotta what she had heard, speaking of
Nina as one who was utterly lost and abandoned. Lotta, however, did not
express so much indignant surprise as her mistress expected, though she
was willing enough to join in abuse against Nina Balatka.
"That comes of letting girls go about just as they please among the
men," said Lotta.
"But a Jew!" said Madame Zamenoy. "If it had been any kind of a
Christian, I could understand it."
"Trendellsohn has such a hold upon her, and upon her father," said
Lotta.
"But a Jew! She has been to confession, has she not?"
"Regularly," said Lotta Luxa.
"Dear, dear! what a false hypocrite! And at mass?"
"Four mornings a-week always."
"And to tell me, after it all, that she means to marry a Jew. Of
course, Lotta, we must prevent it."
"But how? Her father will do whatever she bids him."
"Father Jerome would do anything for me."
"Father Jerome can do little or nothing if she has the bit between her
teeth," said Lotta. "She is as obstinate as a mule when she pleases. She
is not like other girls. You cannot frighten her out of anything."
"I'll try, at least," said Madame Zamenoy.
"Yes, we can try," said Lotta.
"Would not the mayor help us--that is, if we were driven to go to
that?"
"I doubt if he could do anything. He would be afraid to use a high
hand. He is Bohemian. The head of the police might do something, if
we could get at him."
"She might be taken away."
"Where could they take her?" asked Lotta. "No; they could not take her
anywhere."
"Not into a convent--out of the way somewhere in Italy?"
"Oh, heaven, no! They are afraid of that sort of thing now. All Prague
would know of it, and would talk; and the Jews would be stronger than
the priests; and the English people would hear of it, and there would
be the very mischief."
"The times have come to be very bad, Lotta."
"That's as may be," said Lotta as though she had her doubts upon the
subject. "That's as may be. But it isn't easy to put a young woman
away now without her will. Things have changed--partly for the worse,
perhaps, and partly for the better. Things are changing every day. My
wonder is that he should wish to many her."
"The men think her very pretty. Ziska is mad about her," said Madame
Zamenoy.
"But Ziska is a calf to Anton Trendellsohn. Anton Trendellsohn has cut
his wise teeth. Like them all, he loves his money; and she has not got
a kreutzer."
"But he has promised to marry her. You may be sure of that."
"Very likely. A man always promises that when he wants a girl to be
kind to him. But why should he stick to it? What can he get by marrying
Nina--a penniless girl, with a pauper for a father? The Trendellsohns
have squeezed that sponge dry already."
This was a new light to Madame Zamenoy, and one that was not altogether
unpleasant to her eyes. That her niece should have promised herself to
a Jew was dreadful, and that her niece should be afterwards jilted by
the Jew was a poor remedy. But still it was a remedy, and therefore she
listened.
"If nothing else can be done, we could perhaps put him against it,"
said Lotta Luxa.
Madame Zamenoy on that occasion said but little more, but she agreed
with her servant that it would be better to resort to any means than
to submit to the degradation of an alliance with the Jew.
CHAPTER III
On the third day after Nina's visit to her aunt, Ziska Zamenoy came
across to the Kleinseite on a visit to old Balatka. In the mean time
Nina had told the story of her love to her father, and the effect on
Balatka had simply been that he had not got out of his bed since. For
himself he would have cared, perhaps, but little as to the Jewish
marriage, had he not known that those belonging to him would have cared
so much. He had no strong religious prejudice of his own, nor indeed
had he strong feeling of any kind. He loved his daughter, and wished
her well; but even for her he had been unable to exert himself in his
younger days, and now simply expected from her hands all the comfort
which remained to him in this world. The priest he knew would attack
him, and to the priest he would be able to make no answer. But to
Trendellsohn, Jew as he was, he would trust in worldly matters, rather
than to the Zamenoys; and were it not that he feared the Zamenoys, and
could not escape from his close connection with them, he would have
been half inclined to let the girl marry the Jew. Souchey, indeed, had
frightened him on the subject when it had first been mentioned to him;
and Nina, coming with her own assurance so quickly after Souchey's
suspicion, had upset him; but his feeling in regard to Nina had none
of that bitter anger, no touch of that abhorrence which animated the
breast of his sister-in-law. When Ziska came to him he was alone in
his bedroom. Ziska had heard the news, as had all the household in the
Windberg-gasse, and had come over to his uncle's house to see what he
could do, by his own diplomacy, to put an end to an engagement which
was to him doubly calamitous. "Uncle Josef," he said, sitting by the
old man's bed, "have you heard what Nina is doing?"
"What she is doing!" said the uncle. "What is she doing?" Balatka
feared all the Zamenoys, down to Lotta Luxa; but he feared Ziska less
than he feared any other of the household.
"Have you heard of Anton Trendellsohn?"
"What of Anton Trendellsohn? I have been hearing of Anton Trendellsohn
for the last thirty years. I have known him since he was born."
"Do you wish to have him for a son-in-law?"
"For a son-in-law?"
"Yes, for a son-in-law--Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew. Would he be a good
husband for our Nina? You say nothing, uncle Josef."
"What am I to say?"
"You have heard of it, then? Why can you not answer me, uncle Josef?
Have you heard that Trendellsohn has dared to ask Nina to be his wife?"
"There is not so much of daring in it, Ziska. Among you all the poor
girl is a beggar. If some one does not take pity on her, she will
starve soon."
"Take pity on her! Do not we all take pity on her?"
"No," said Josef Balatka, turning angrily against his nephew; "not a
scrap of pity--not a morsel of love. You cannot rid yourself of her
quite--of her or me--and that is your pity."
"You are wrong there."
"Very well; then let me be wrong. I can understand what is before my
eyes. Look round the house and see what we are coming to. Nina at the
present moment has not got a florin in her purse. We are starving, or
next to it, and yet you wonder that she should be willing to marry an
honest man who has plenty of money."
"But he is a Jew!"
"Yes; he is a Jew. I know that."
"And Nina knows it."
"Of course she does. Do you go home and eat nothing for a week, and
then see whether a Jew's bread will poison you."
"But to marry him, uncle Josef!"
"It is very bad. I know it is bad, but what can I do? If she says she
will do it, how can I help it? She has been a good child to me--a very
good child; and am I to lie here and see her starve? You would not give
to your dog the morsel of bread which she ate this morning before she
went out."
All this was a new light to Ziska. He knew that his uncle and cousin
were very poor, and had halted in his love because he was ashamed
of their poverty; but he had never thought of them as people hungry
from want of food, or cold from want of clothes. It may be said of
him, to his credit, that his love had been too strong for his shame,
and that he had made up his mind to marry his cousin Nina in spite
of her poverty. When Lotta Luxa had called him a calf she had
not inappropriately defined one side of his character. He was a
good-looking well-grown young man, not very wise, quickly susceptible
to female influences, and gifted with eyes capable of convincing him
that Nina Balatka was by far the prettiest woman whom he ever saw. But,
in connection with such calf-like propensities, Ziska was endowed with
something of his mother's bitterness and of his father's persistency;
and the old Zamenoys did not fear but that the fortunes of the family
would prosper in the hands of their son. And when it was known to
Madame Zamenoy and to her husband Karil that Ziska had set his heart
upon having his cousin, they had expressed no displeasure at the
prospect, poor as the Balatkas were. "There is no knowing how it may
go about the houses in the Kleinseite," Karil Zamenoy had said. "Old
Trendellsohn gets the rent and the interest, but he has little or
nothing to show for them--merely a written surrender from Josef,
which is worth nothing." No hindrance, therefore was placed in the
way of Ziska's suit, and Nina might have been already accepted in the
Windberg-gasse had Nina chosen to smile upon Ziska. Now Ziska was told
that the girl he loved was to marry a Jew because she was starving,
and the tidings threw a new light upon him. Why had he not offered
assistance to Nina? It was not surprising that Nina should be so hard
to him--to him who had as yet offered her nothing in her poverty but
a few cold compliments.
"She shall have bread enough, if that is what she wants," said Ziska.
"Bread and kindness," said the old man.
"She shall have kindness too, uncle Josef. I love Nina better than any
Jew in Prague can love her."
"Why should not a Jew love? I believe the man loves her well. Why else
should he wish to make her his wife?"
"And I love her well--and I would make her my wife."
"You want to marry Nina!"
"Yes, uncle Josef. I wish to marry Nina. I will marry her to-morrow--
or, for that matter, to-day--if she will have me."
"You! Ziska Zamenoy!"
"I, Ziska Zamenoy."
"And what would your mother say?"
"Both father and mother will consent. There need be no hindrance if
Nina will agree. I did not know that you were so badly off. I did not
indeed, or I would have come to you myself and seen to it."
Old Balatka did not answer for a while, having turned himself in his
bed to think of the proposition which had been made to him. "Would you
not like to have me for a son-in-law better than a Jew, uncle Josef?"
said Ziska, pleading for himself as best he knew how to plead.
"Have you ever spoken to Nina?" said the old man.
"Well, no; not exactly to say what I have said to you. When one loves a
girl as I love her, somehow--I don't know how--But I am ready to do so
at once.
"Ah, Ziska, if you had done it sooner!"
"But is it too late? You say she has taken up with this man because you
are both so poor. She cannot like a Jew best."
"But she is true--so true!"
"If you mean about her promise to Trendellsohn, Father Jerome would
tell her in a minute that she should not keep such a promise to a Jew."
"She would not mind Father Jerome."
"And what does she mind? Will she not mind you?"
"Me; yes--she will mind me, to give me my food."
"Will she not obey you?"
"How am I to bid her obey me? But I will try, Ziska."
"You would not wish her to marry a Jew?"
"No, Ziska; certainly I should not wish it."
"And you will give me your consent?"
"Yes, if it be any good to you."
"It will be good if you will be round with her, telling her that she
must not do such a thing as this. Love a Jew! It is impossible. As
you have been so very poor, she may be forgiven for having thought of
it. Tell her that, uncle Josef; and whatever you do, be firm with her."
"There she is in the next room," said the father, who had heard his
daughter's entrance. Ziska's face had assumed something of a defiant
look while he was recommending firmness to the old man; but now that
the girl of whom he had spoken was so near at hand, there returned to
his brow the young calf-like expression with which Lotta Luxa was so
well acquainted. "There she is, and you will speak to her yourself
now," said Balatka.
Ziska got up to go, but as he did so he fumbled in his pocket and
brought forth a little bundle of bank-notes. A bundle of bank-notes in
Prague may be not little, and yet represent very little money. When
bank-notes are passed for two-pence and become thick with use, a man
may have a great mass of paper currency in his pocket without being
rich. On this occasion, however, Ziska tendered to his uncle no
two-penny notes. There was a note for five florins, and two or three
for two florins, and perhaps half-a-dozen for a florin each, so that
the total amount offered was sufficient to be of real importance to
one so poor as Josef Balatka.
"This will help you awhile," said Ziska, "and if Nina will come round
and be a good girl, neither you nor she shall want anything; and she
need not be afraid of mother, if she will only do as I say." Balatka
had put out his hand and had taken the money, when the bedroom door was
opened, and Nina came in.
"What, Ziska," said she, "are you here?"
"Why not? why should I not see my uncle?"
"It is very good of you, certainly; only, as you never came before--"
"I mean it for kindness, now I have come, at any rate," said Ziska.
"Then I will take it for kindness," said Nina.
"Why should there be quarrelling among relatives?" said the old man
from among the bed-clothes.
"Why, indeed?" said Ziska.
"Why, indeed," said Nina, "--if it could be helped?"
She knew that the outward serenity of the words spoken was too good to
be a fair representation of thoughts below in the mind of any of them.
It could not be that Ziska had come there to express even his own
consent to her marriage with Anton Trendellsohn; and without such
consent there must of necessity be a continuation of quarrelling. "Have
you been speaking to father, Ziska, about those papers?" Nina was
determined that there should be no glozing of matters, no soft words
used effectually to stop her in her projected course. So she rushed at
once at the subject which she thought most important in Ziska's
presence.
"What papers?" said Ziska.
"The papers which belong to Anton Trendellsohn about this house and the
others. They are his, and you would not wish to keep things which
belong to another, even though he should be a--Jew."
Then it occurred to Ziska that Trendellsohn might be willing to give
up Nina if he got the papers, and that Nina might be willing to be
free from the Jew by the same arrangement. It could not be that such a
girl as Nina Balatka should prefer the love of a Jew to the love of a
Christian. So at least Ziska argued in his own mind. "I do not want to
keep anything that belongs to anybody," said Ziska. "If the papers are
with us, I am willing that they should be given up--that is, if it be
right that they should be given up."
"It is right," said Nina.
"I believe the Trendellsohns should have them--either father or son,"
said old Balatka.
"Of course they should have them," said Nina; "either father or son--it
makes no matter which."
"I will try and see to it," said Ziska.
"Pray do," said Nina; "it will be only just; and one would not wish
to rob even a Jew, I suppose." Ziska understood nothing of what was
intended by the tone of her voice, and began to think that there might
really be ground for hope.
"Nina," he said, "your father is not quite well. I want you to speak to
me in the next room."
"Certainly, Ziska, if you wish it. Father, I will come again to you
soon. Souchey is making your soup, and I will bring it to you when it
is ready." Then she led the way into the sitting-room, and as Ziska
came through, she carefully shut the door. The walls dividing the rooms
were very thick, and the door stood in a deep recess, so that no sound
could be heard from one room to another. Nina did not wish that her
father should hear what might now pass between herself and her cousin,
and therefore she was careful to shut the door close.
"Ziska," said she, as soon as they were together, "I am very glad that
you have come here. My aunt is so angry with me that I cannot speak
with her, and uncle Karil only snubs me if I say a word to him about
business. He would snub me, no doubt, worse than ever now; and yet who
is there here to speak of such matters if I may not do so? You see how
it is with father."
"He is not able to do much, I suppose."
"He is able to do nothing, and there is nothing for him to do--nothing
that can be of any use. But of course he should see that those who have
been good to him are not--are not injured because of their kindness."
"You mean those Jews--the Trendellsohns."
"Yes, those Jews the Trendellsohns! You would not rob a man because he
is a Jew," said she, repeating the old words.
"They know how to take care of themselves, Nina."
"Very likely."
"They have managed to get all your father's property between them."
"I don't know how that is. Father says that the business which uncle
and you have was once his, and that he made it. In these matters the
weakest always goes to the wall. Father has no son to help him, as
uncle Karil has--and old Trendellsohn."
"You may help him better than any son."
"I will help him if I can. Will you and uncle give up those papers
which you have kept since father left them with uncle Karil, just that
they might be safe?"
This question Ziska would not answer at once. The matter was one on
which he wished to negotiate, and he was driven to the necessity of
considering what might be the best line for his diplomacy. "I am sure,
Ziska," continued Nina, "you will understand why I ask this. Father is
too weak to make the demand, and uncle would listen to nothing that
Anton Trendellsohn would say to him."
"They say that you have betrothed yourself to this Jew, Nina."
"It is true. But that has nothing to do with it."
"He is very anxious to have the deeds?"
"Of course he is anxious. Father is old and poorly; and what would he
do if father were to die?"
"Nina, he shall have them--if he will give you up."
Nina turned away from her cousin and looked out from the window into
the little court. Ziska could not see her face; but had he done so he
would not have been able to read the smile of triumph with which for a
moment or two it became brilliant. No; Anton would make no such bargain
as that! Anton loved her better than any title-deeds. Had he not told
her that she was his sun--the sun that gave to him light and heat? "If
they are his own, why should he be asked to make any such bargain?"
said Nina.
"Nina," said Ziska, throwing all his passion into his voice, as he best
knew how, "it cannot be that you should love this man."
"Why not love him?"
"A Jew!"
"Yes--a Jew! I do love him."
"Nina!"
"What have you to say, Ziska? Whatever you say, do not abuse him. It is
my affair, not yours. You may think what you like of me for taking such
a husband, but remember that he is to be my husband."
"Nina, let me be your husband."
"No, Ziska; that cannot be."
"I love you. I love you fifty times better than he can do. Is not a
Christian's love better than a Jew's?"
"Because I do not love you. Can there be any other reason in such a
matter? I do not love you. I do not care if I never see you. But him I
love with all my heart. To see him is the only delight of my life. To
sit beside him, with his hand in mine, and my head on his shoulder, is
heaven to me. To obey him is my duty; to serve him is my pleasure. To
be loved by him is the only good thing which God has given me on earth.
Now, Ziska, you will know why I cannot be your wife." Still she stood
before him, and still she looked up into his face, keeping her gaze
upon him even after her words were finished.
"Accursed Jew!" said Ziska.
"That is right, Ziska; curse him; it is so easy."
"And you too will be cursed--here and hereafter. If you marry a Jew you
will be accursed to all eternity."
"That, too, is very easy to say."
"It is not I who say it. The priest will tell you the same."
"Let him tell me so; it is his business, but it is not yours. You say
it because you cannot have what you want yourself; that is all. When
shall I call in the Ross Markt for the papers?" In the Ross Markt was
the house of business of Karil Zamenoy, and there, as Nina well knew,
were kept the documents which she was so anxious to obtain. But the
demand at this moment was made simply with the object of vexing Ziska,
and urging him on to further anger.
"Unless you will give up Anton Trendellsohn, you had better not come to
the Ross Markt."
"I will never give him up."
"We will see. Perhaps he will give you up after a while. It will be a
fine thing to be jilted by a Jew."
"The Jew, at any rate, shall not be jilted by the Christian. And now,
if you please, I will ask you to go. I do not choose to be insulted in
father's house. It is his house still."
"Nina, I will give you one more chance."
"You can give me no chance that will do you or me any good. If you will
go, that is all I want of you now."
For a moment or two Ziska stood in doubt as to what he would next do
or say. Then he took up his hat and went away without another word. On
that same evening some one rang the bell at the door of the house in
the Windberg-gasse in a most humble manner--with that weak, hesitating
hand which, by the tone which it produces, seems to insinuate that no
one need hurry to answer such an appeal, and that the answer, when
made, may be made by the lowest personage in the house. In this
instance, however, Lotta Luxa did answer the bell, and not the stout
Bohemian girl who acted in the household of Madame Zamenoy as assistant
and fag to Lotta. And Lotta found Nina at the door, enveloped in her
cloak. "Lotta," she said, "will you kindly give this to my cousin
Ziska?" Then, not waiting for a word, she started away so quickly that
Lotta had not a chance of speaking to her, no power of uttering an
audible word of abuse. When Ziska opened the parcel thus brought to
him, he found it to contain all the notes which he had given to Josef
Balatka.
CHAPTER IV
When Nina returned to her father after Ziska's departure, a very few
words made everything clear between them. "I would not have him if
there was not another man in the world," Nina had said. "He thinks that
it is only Anton Trendellsohn that prevents it, but he knows nothing
about what a girl feels. He thinks that because we are poor I am to be
bought, this way or that way, by a little money. Is that a man, father,
that any girl can love?" Then the father had confessed his receipt of
the bank-notes from Ziska, and we already know to what result that
confession had led.
Till she had delivered her packet into the hands of Lotta Luxa, she
maintained her spirits by the excitement of the thing she was doing.
Though she should die in the streets of hunger, she would take no money
from Ziska Zamenoy. But the question now was not only of her wants, but
of her father's. That she, for herself, would be justified in returning
Ziska's money there could be no doubt; but was she equally justified in
giving back money that had been given to her father? As she walked to
the Windberg-gasse, still holding the parcel of notes in her hand, she
had no such qualms of conscience; but as she returned, when it was
altogether too late for repentance, she made pictures to herself of
terrible scenes in which her father suffered all the pangs of want,
because she had compelled him to part with this money. If she were to
say one word to Anton Trendellsohn, all her trouble on that head would
be over. Anton Trendellsohn would at once give her enough to satisfy
their immediate wants. In a month or two, when she would be Anton's
wife, she would not be ashamed to take everything from his hand; and
why should she be ashamed now to take something from him to whom she
was prepared to give everything? But she was ashamed to do so. She felt
that she could not go to him and ask him for bread. One other resource
she had. There remained to her of her mother's property a necklace,
which was all that was left to her from her mother. And when this
had been given to her at her mother's death, she had been specially
enjoined not to part with it. Her father then had been too deeply
plunged in grief to say any words on such a subject, and the gift had
been put into her hands by her aunt Sophie. Even aunt Sophie had been
softened at that moment, and had shown some tenderness to the orphan
child. "You are to keep it always for her sake," aunt Sophie had said;
and Nina had hitherto kept the trinket, when all other things were
gone, in remembrance of her mother. She had hitherto reconciled herself
to keeping her little treasure, when all other things were going, by
the sacredness of the deposit; and had told herself that even for her
father's sake she must not part with the gift which had come to her
from her mother. But now she comforted herself by the reflection that
the necklace would produce for her enough to repay her father that
present from Ziska which she had taken from him. Her father had pleaded
sorely to be allowed to keep the notes. In her emotion at the moment
she had been imperative with him, and her resolution had prevailed. But
she thought of his entreaties as she returned home, and of his poverty
and wants, and she determined that the necklace should go. It would
produce for her at any rate as much as Ziska had given. She wished that
she had brought it with her, as she passed the open door of a certain
pawnbroker, which she had entered often during the last six months, and
whither she intended to take her treasure, so that she might comfort
her father on her return with the sight of the money. But she had it
not, and she went home empty-handed. "And now, Nina, I suppose we may
starve," said her father, whom she found sitting close to the stove in
the kitchen, while Souchey was kneeling before it, putting in at the
little open door morsels of fuel which were lamentably insufficient for
the poor man's purpose of raising a fire. The weather, indeed, was as
yet warm--so warm that in the middle of the day the heat was matter of
complaint to Josef Balatka; but in the evening he would become chill;
and as there existed some small necessity for cooking, he would beg
that he might thus enjoy the warmth of the kitchen.
"Yes, we shall starve now," said Souchey, complacently. "There is not
much doubt about our starving."
"Souchey, I wonder you should speak like that before father," said
Nina.
"And why shouldn't he speak?" said Balatka. "I think he has as much
right as any one."
"He has no right to make things worse than they are."
"I don't know how I could do that, Nina," said the servant. "What made
you take that money back to your aunt?"
"I didn't take it back to my aunt."
"Well, to any of the family then? I suppose it came from your aunt?"
"It came from my cousin Ziska, and I thought it better to give it back.
Souchey, do not you come in between father and me. There are troubles
enough; do not you make them worse."
"If I had been here you should never have taken it back again," said
Souchey, obstinately.
"Father," said Nina, appealing to the old man, "how could I have kept
it? You knew why it was given."
"Who is to help us if we may not take it from them?"
"To-morrow," said Nina, "I can get as much as he brought. And I will,
and you shall see it."
"Who will give it you, Nina?"
"Never mind, father, I will have it."
"She will beg it from her Jew lover," said Souchey.
"Souchey," said she, with her eyes flashing fire at him, "if you cannot
treat your master's daughter better than that, you may as well go."
"Is it not true?" demanded Souchey.
"No, it is not true; it is false. I have never taken money from Anton;
nor shall I do so till we are married."
"And that will be never," said Souchey. "It is as well to speak out at
once. The priest will not let it be done."
"All the priests in Prague cannot hinder it," said Nina.
"That is true," said Balatka.
"We shall see," said Souchey. "And in the mean time what is the good
of fighting with the Zamenoys? They are your only friends, Nina, and
therefore you take delight in quarrelling with them. When people have
money, they should be allowed to have a little pride." Nina said
nothing further on the occasion, though Souchey and her father went
on grumbling for an hour. She discovered, however, from various words
that her father allowed to fall from him, that his opposition to her
marriage had nearly faded away. It seemed to be his opinion that if she
were to marry the Jew, the sooner she did it the better. Now, Nina was
determined that she would marry the Jew, though heaven and earth should
meet in consequence. She would marry him if he would marry her. They
had told her that the Jew would jilt her. She did not put much faith in
the threat; but even that was more probable than that she should jilt
him.
On the following morning Souchey, in return, as it were, for his
cruelty to his young mistress on the preceding day, produced some small
store of coin which he declared to be the result of a further sale of
the last relics of his master's property; and Nina's journey with the
necklace to the pawnbroker was again postponed. That day and the next
were passed in the old house without anything to make them memorable
except their wearisome misery, and then Nina again went out to visit
the Jews' quarter. She told herself that she was taken there by the
duties of her position; but in truth she could hardly bear her life
without the comfort of seeing the only person who would speak kindly
to her. She was engaged to marry this man, but she did not know when
she was to be married. She would ask no question of her lover on that
matter; but she could tell him--and she felt herself bound to tell him
--what was really her own position, and also all that she knew of his
affairs. He had given her to understand that he could not marry her
till he had obtained possession of certain documents which he believed
to be in the possession of her uncle. And for these documents she, with
his permission, had made application. She had at any rate discovered
that they certainly were at the office in the Ross Markt. So much she
had learned from Ziska; and so much, at any rate, she was bound to make
known to her lover. And, moreover, since she had seen him she had told
all her relatives of her engagement. They all knew now that she loved
the Jew, and that she had resolved to marry him; and of this also it
was her duty to give him tidings. The result of her communication to
her father and her relatives in the Windberg-gasse had been by no means
so terrible as she had anticipated. The heavens and the earth had not
as yet shown any symptoms of coming together. Her aunt, indeed, had
been very angry; and Lotta Luxa and Souchey had told her that such a
marriage would not be allowed. Ziska, too, had said some sharp words;
and her father, for the first day or two, had expostulated. But the
threats had been weak threats, and she did not find herself to be
annihilated--indeed, hardly to be oppressed--by the scolding of any
of them. What the priest might say she had not yet experienced; but
opposition from other quarters had not as yet come upon her in any
form that was not endurable. Her aunt had intended to consume her with
wrath, but Nina had not found herself to be consumed. All this it was
necessary that she should tell to Anton Trendellsohn. It was grievous
to her that it should be always her lot to go to her lover, and that he
should never--almost never--be able to seek her. It would in truth be
never now, unless she could induce her father to receive Anton openly
as his acknowledged future son-in-law; and she could hardly hope that
her father would yield so far as that. Other girls, she knew, stayed
till their lovers came to them, or met them abroad in public places--at
the gardens and music-halls, or perhaps at church; but no such joys as
these were within reach of Nina. The public gardens, indeed, were open
to her and to Anton Trendellsohn as they were to others; but she knew
that she would not dare to be seen in public with her Jew lover till
the thing was done and she and the Jew had become man and wife. On this
occasion, before she left her home, she was careful to tell her father
where she was going. "Have you any message to the Trendellsohns?" she
asked.
"So you are going there again?" her father said.
"Yes, I must see them. I told you that I had a commission from them to
the Zamenoys, which I have performed, and I must let them know what I
did. Besides, father, if this man is to be my husband, is it not well
that I should see him?" Old Balatka groaned, but said nothing further,
and Nina went forth to the Jews' quarter.
On this occasion she found Trendellsohn the elder standing at the door
of his own house.
"You want to see Anton," said the Jew. "Anton is out. He is away
somewhere in the city--on business."
"I shall be glad to see you, father, if you can spare me a minute."
"Certainly, my child--an hour if it will serve you. Hours are not
scarce with me now, as they used to be when I was Anton's age, and as
they are with him now. Hours, and minutes too, are very scarce with
Anton in these days. Then he led the way up the dark stairs to the
sitting-room, and Nina followed him. Nina and the elder Trendellsohn
had always hitherto been friends. Before her engagement with his son
they had been affectionate friends, and since that had been made known
to him there had been no quarrel between them. But the old man had
hardly approved of his son's purpose, thinking that a Jew should look
for the wife of his bosom among his own people, and thinking also,
perhaps, that one who had so much of worldly wealth to offer as his
son should receive something also of the same in his marriage. Old
Trendellsohn had never uttered a word of complaint to Nina--had said
nothing to make her suppose that she was not welcome to the house; but
he had never spoken to her with happy, joy-giving words, as the future
bride of his son. He still called her his daughter, as he had done
before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate
familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden. He was a small, aged
man, very thin and meagre in aspect--so meagre as to conceal in part,
by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature.
He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, much to her
surprise. His hair was grizzled, rather than grey, and the beard on his
thin, wiry, wizened face was always close shorn. He was scrupulously
clean in his person, and seemed, even at his age, to take a pride in
the purity and fineness of his linen. He was much older than Nina's
father--more than ten years older, as he would sometimes boast; but he
was still strong and active, while Nina's father was worn out with age.
Old Trendellsohn was eighty, and yet he would be seen trudging about
through the streets of Prague, intent upon his business of money-making;
and it was said that his son Anton was not even as yet actually in
partnership with him, or fully trusted by him in all his plans.
"Father," Nina said, "I am glad that Anton is out, as now I can speak a
word to you."
"My dear, you shall speak fifty words."
"That is very good of you. Of course I know that the house we live in
does in truth belong to you and Anton."
"Yes, it belongs to me," said the Jew.
"And we can pay no rent for it."
"Is it of that you have come to speak, Nina? If so, do not trouble
yourself. For certain reasons, which Anton can explain, I am willing
that your father should live there without rent."
Nina blushed as she found herself compelled to thank the Jew for his
charity. "I know how kind you have been to father," she said.
"Nay, my daughter, there has been no great kindness in it. Your father
has been unfortunate, and, Jew as I am, I would not turn him into the
street. Do not trouble yourself to think of it."
"But it was not altogether about that, father. Anton spoke to me the
other day about some deeds which should belong to you."
"They do belong to me," said Trendellsohn.
"But you have them not in your own keeping."
"No, we have not. It is, I believe, the creed of a Christian that
he may deal dishonestly with a Jew, though the Jew who shall deal
dishonestly with a Christian is to be hanged. It is strange what
latitude men will give themselves under the cloak of their religion!
But why has Anton spoken to you of this? I did not bid him."
"He sent me with a message to my aunt Sophie."
"He was wrong; he was very foolish; he should have gone himself."
"But, father, I have found out that the papers you want are certainly
in my uncle's keeping in the Ross Markt."
"Of course they are, my dear. Anton might have known that without
employing you."
So far Nina had performed but a small part of the task which she had
before her. She found it easier to talk to the old man about the
title-deeds of the house in the Kleinseite than she did to tell him of
her own affairs. But the thing was to be done, though the doing of it
was difficult; and, after a pause, she persevered. "And I told aunt
Sophie," she said, with her eyes turned upon the ground, "of my
engagement with Anton."
"You did?"
"Yes; and I told father."
"And what did your father say?"
"Father did not say much. He is poorly and weak."
"Yes, yes; not strong enough to fight against the abomination of a Jew
son-in-law. And what did your aunt say? She is strong enough to fight
anybody."
"She was very angry."
"I suppose so, I suppose so. Well, she is right. As the world goes in
Prague, my child, you will degrade yourself by marrying a Jew."
"I want nothing prouder than to be Anton's wife," said Nina.
"And to speak sooth," said the old man, "the Jew will degrade himself
fully as much by marrying you."
"Father, I would not have that. If I thought that my love would injure
him, I would leave him."
"He must judge for himself," said Trendellsohn, relenting somewhat.
"He must judge for himself and for me too," said Nina.
"He will be able, at any rate, to keep a house over your head."
"It is not for that," said Nina, thinking of her cousin Ziska's offer.
She need not want for a house and money if she were willing to sell
herself for such things as them.
"Anton will be rich, Nina, and you are very poor."
"Can I help that, father? Such as I am, I am his. If all Prague were
mine I would give it to him."
The old man shook his head. "A Christian thinks that it is too much
honour for a Jew to marry a Christian, though he be rich, and she have
not a ducat for her dower."
"Father, your words are cruel. Do you believe I would give Anton my
hand if I did not love him? I do not know much of his wealth; but,
father, I might be the promised wife of a Christian to-morrow, who is,
perhaps, as rich as he--if that were anything."
"And who is that other lover, Nina?"
"It matters not. He can be nothing to me--nothing in that way. I love
Anton Trendellsohn, and I could not be the wife of any other but him."
"I wish it were otherwise. I tell you so plainly to your face. I wish
it were otherwise. Jews and Christians have married in Prague, I know,
but good has never come of it. Anton should find a wife among his own
people; and you--it would be better for you to take that other offer of
which you spoke."
"It is too late, father."
"No, Nina, it is not too late. If Anton would be wise, it is not too
late."
"Anton can do as he pleases. It is too late for me. If Anton thinks it
well to change his mind, I shall not reproach him. You can tell him so,
father--from me."
"He knows my mind already, Nina. I will tell him, however, what you say
of your own friends. They have heard of your engagement, and are angry
with you, of course."
"Aunt Sophie and her people are angry."
"Of course they will oppose it. They will set their priests at you, and
frighten you almost to death. They will drive the life out of your
young heart with their curses. You do not know what sorrows are before
you."
"I can bear all that. There is only one sorrow that I fear. If Anton is
true to me, I will not mind all the rest."
The old man's heart was softened towards her. He could not bring
himself to say a word to her of direct encouragement, but he kissed her
before she went, telling her that she was a good girl, and bidding her
have no care as to the house in the Kleinseite. As long as he lived,
and her father, her father should not be disturbed. And as for deeds,
he declared, with something of a grim smile on his old visage, that
though a Jew had always a hard fight to get his own from a Christian,
the hard fighting did generally prevail at last. "We shall get them,
Nina, when they have put us to such trouble and expense as their
laws may be able to devise. Anton knows that as well as I do."
At the door of the house Nina found the old man's grand-daughter
waiting for her. Ruth Jacobi was the girl's name, and she was the
orphaned child of a daughter of old Trendellsohn. Father and mother
were both dead; and of her father, who had been dead long, Ruth had
no memory. But she still wore some remains of the black garments which
had been given to her at her mother's funeral; and she still grieved
bitterly for her mother, having no woman with her in that gloomy house,
and no other child to comfort her. Her grandfather and her uncle were
kind to her--kind after their own gloomy fashion; but it was a sad
house for a young girl, and Ruth, though she knew nothing of any better
abode, found the days to be very long, and the months to be very
wearisome.
"What has he been saying to you, Nina?" the girl asked, taking hold of
her friend's dress, to prevent her escape into the street. "You need
not be in a hurry for a minute. He will not come down."
"I am not afraid of him. Ruth."
"I am, then. But perhaps he is not cross to you."
"Why should he be cross to me?"
"I know why, Nina, but I will not say. Uncle Anton has been out all the
day, and was not home to dinner. It is much worse when he is away."
"Is Anton ever cross to you, Ruth?"
"Indeed he is--sometimes. He scolds much more than grandfather. But he
is younger, you know."
"Yes; he is younger, certainly."
"Not but what he is very old, too; much too old for you, Nina. When I
have a lover I will never have an old man."
"But Anton is not old."
"Not like grandfather, of course. But I should like a lover who would
laugh and be gay. Uncle Anton is never gay. My lover shall be only two
years older than myself. Uncle Anton must be twenty years older than
you, Nina."
"Not more than ten--or twelve at the most."
"He is too old to laugh and dance."
"Not at all, dear; but he thinks of other things."
"I should like a lover to think of the things that I think about. It is
all very well being steady when you have got babies of your own; but
that should be after ever so long. I should like to keep my lover as a
lover for two years. And all that time he should like to dance with me,
and to hear music, and to go about just where I would like to go."
"And what then, Ruth?"
"Then? Why, then I suppose I should marry him, and become stupid like
the rest. But I should have the two years to look back at and to
remember. Do you think, Nina, that you will ever come and live here
when you are married?"
"I do not know that I shall ever be married, Ruth."
"But you mean to marry uncle Anton?"
"I cannot say. It may be so."
"But you love him, Nina?"
"Yes, I love him. I love him with all my heart. I love him better than
all the world besides. Ruth, you cannot tell how I love him. I would
lie down and die if he were to bid me."
"He will never bid you do that."
"You think that he is old, and dull, and silent, and cross. But when he
will sit still and not say a word to me for an hour together, I think
that I almost love him the best. I only want to be near him, Ruth."
"But you do not like him to be cross."
"Yes, I do. That is, I like him to scold me if he is angry. If he were
angry, and did not scold a little, I should think that he was really
vexed with me."
"Then you must be very much in love, Nina?"
"I am in love--very much."
"And does it make you happy?"
"Happy! Happiness depends on so many things. But it makes me feel that
there can only be one real unhappiness; and unless that should come to
me, I shall care for nothing. Good-bye, love. Tell your uncle that I
was here, and say--say to him when no one else can hear, that I went
away with a sad heart because I had not seen him."
It was late in the evening when Anton Trendellsohn came home, but Ruth
remembered the message that had been intrusted to her, and managed to
find a moment in which to deliver it. But her uncle took it amiss, and
scolded her. "You two have been talking nonsense together here half the
day, I suppose."
"I spoke to her for five minutes, uncle; that was all."
"Did you do your lessons with Madame Pulsky?"
"Yes, I did, uncle--of course. You know that."
"I know that it is a pity you should not be better looked after."
"Bring Nina home here and she will look after me."
"Go to bed, miss--at once, do you hear?"
Then Ruth went off to her bed, wondering at Nina's choice, and
declaring to herself, that if ever she took in hand a lover at all, he
should be a lover very different from her uncle, Anton Trendellsohn.
CHAPTER V
The more Madame Zamenoy thought of the terrible tidings which had
reached her, the more determined did she become to prevent the
degradation of the connection with which she was threatened. She
declared to her husband and son that all Prague were already talking
of the horror, forgetting, perhaps, that any knowledge which Prague had
on the subject must have come from herself. She had, indeed, consulted
various persons on the subject in the strictest confidence. We have
already seen that she had told Lotta Luxa and her son, and she had, of
course, complained frequently on the matter to her husband. She had
unbosomed herself to one or two trusty female friends who lived near
her, and she had applied for advice and assistance to two priests.
To Father Jerome she had gone as Nina's confessor, and she had also
applied to the reverend pastor who had the charge of her own little
peccadilloes. The small amount of assistance which her clerical allies
offered to her had surprised her very much. She had, indeed, gone so
far as to declare to Lotta that she was shocked by their indifference.
Her own confessor had simply told her that the matter was in the hands
of Father Jerome, as far as it could be said to belong to the Church at
all; and had satisfied his conscience by advising his dear friend to
use all the resources which female persecution put at her command. "You
will frighten her out of it, Madame Zamenoy, if you go the right way
about it," said the priest. Madame Zamenoy was well inclined to go the
right way about it, if she only knew how. She would make Nina's life a
burden to her if she could only get hold of the girl, and would scruple
at no threats as to this world or the next. But she thought that her
priest ought to have done more for her in such a crisis than simply
giving her such ordinary counsel. Things were not as they used to be,
she knew; but there was even yet something of the prestige of power
left to the Church, and there were convents with locks and bars, and
excommunication might still be made terrible, and public opinion, in
the shape of outside persecution, might, as Madame Zamenoy thought,
have been brought to bear. Nor did she get much more comfort from
Father Jerome. His reliance was placed chiefly on operations to be
carried on with the Jew; and, failing them, on the opposition which
the Jew would experience among his own people. "They think more of it
than we do," said Father Jerome.
"How can that be, Father Jerome?"
"Well, they do. He would lose caste among all his friends by such a
marriage, and would, I think, destroy all his influence among them.
When he perceives this more fully he will be shy enough about it
himself. Besides, what is he to get?"
"He will get nothing."
"He will think better of it. And you might manage something with those
deeds. Of course he should have them sooner or later, but they might be
surrendered as the price of his giving her up. I should say it might be
managed."
All this was not comfortable for Madame Zamenoy; and she fretted and
fumed till her husband had no peace in his house, and Ziska almost
wished that he might hear no more of the Jew and his betrothal. She
could not even commence her system of persecution, as Nina did not go
near her, and had already told Lotta Luxa that she must decline to
discuss the question of her marriage any further. So, at last, Madame
Zamenoy found herself obliged to go over in person to the house in the
Kleinseite. Such visits had for many years been very rare with her.
Since her sister's death and the days in which the Balatkas had been
prosperous, she had preferred that all intercourse between the two
families should take place at her own house; and thus, as Josef Balatka
himself rarely left his own door, she had not seen him for more than
two years. Frequent intercourse, however, had been maintained, and aunt
Sophie knew very well how things were going on in the Kleinseite. Lotta
had no compunctions as to visiting the house, and Lotta's eyes were
very sharp. And Nina had been frequently in the Windberg-gasse, having
hitherto believed it to be her duty to attend to her aunt's behests.
But Nina was no longer obedient, and Madame Zamenoy was compelled to
go herself to her brother-in-law, unless she was disposed to leave the
Balatkas absolutely to their fate. Let her do what she would, Nina must
be her niece, and therefore she would yet make a struggle.
On this occasion Madame Zamenoy walked on foot, thinking that her
carriage and horses might be too conspicuous at the arched gate in
the little square. The carriage did not often make its way over the
bridge into the Kleinseite, being used chiefly among the suburbs of the
New Town, where it was now well known and quickly recognised; and she
did not think that this was a good opportunity for breaking into new
ground with her equipage. She summoned Lotta to attend her, and after
her one o'clock dinner took her umbrella in her hand and went forth.
She was a stout woman, probably not more than forty-five years of age,
but a little heavy, perhaps from too much indulgence with her carriage.
She walked slowly, therefore; and Lotta, who was nimble of foot and
quick in all her ways, thanked her stars that it did not suit her
mistress to walk often through the city.
"How very long the bridge is, Lotta!" said Madame Zamenoy.
"Not longer, ma'am, than it always has been," said Lotta, pertly.
"Of course it is not longer than it always has been; I know that; but
still I say it is very long. Bridges are not so long in other places."
"Not where the rivers are narrower," said Lotta. Madame Zamenoy trudged
on, finding that she could get no comfort from her servant, and at last
reached Balatka's door. Lotta, who was familiar with the place, entered
the house first, and her mistress followed her. Hanging about the broad
passage which communicated with all the rooms on the ground-floor, they
found Souchey, who told them that his master was in bed, and that Nina
was at work by his bedside. He was sent in to announce the grand
arrival, and when Madame Zamenoy entered the sitting-room Nina was
there to meet her.
"Child," she said, "I have come to see your father."
"Father is in bed, but you can come in," said Nina.
"Of course I can go in," said Madame Zamenoy, "but before I go in let
me know this. Has he heard of the disgrace which you purpose to bring
upon him?"
Nina drew herself up and made no answer; whereupon Lotta spoke. "The
old gentleman knows all about it, ma'am, as well as you do."
"Lotta, let the child speak for herself. Nina, have you had the
audacity to tell your father--that which you told me?"
"I have told him everything," said Nina; "will you come into his room?"
Then Madame Zamenoy lifted up the hem of her garment and stepped
proudly into the old man's chamber.
By this time Balatka knew what was about to befall him, and was making
himself ready for the visit. He was well aware that he should be sorely
perplexed as to what he should say in the coming interview. He could
not speak lightly of such an evil as this marriage with a Jew; nor when
his sister-in-law should abuse the Jews could he dare to defend them.
But neither could he bring himself to say evil words of Nina, or to
hear evil words spoken of her without making some attempt to screen
her. It might be best, perhaps, to lie under the bed-clothes and say
nothing, if only his sister-in-law would allow him to lie there. "Am
I to come in with you, aunt Sophie?" said Nina. "Yes child," said the
aunt; "come and hear what I have to say to your father." So Nina
followed her aunt, and Lotta and Souchey were left in the sitting-room.
"And how are you, Souchey?" said Lotta, with unusual kindness of tone.
"I suppose you are not so busy but you can stay with me a few minutes
while she is in there?"
"There is not so much to do that I cannot spare the time," said
Souchey.
"Nothing to do, I suppose, and less to get?" said Lotta.
"That's about it, Lotta; but you wouldn't have had me leave them?"
"A man has to look after himself in the world; but you were always
easy-minded, Souchey."
"I don't know about being so easy-minded. I know what would make me
easy-minded enough."
"You'll have to be servant to a Jew now."
"No; I'll never be that."
"I suppose he gives you something at odd times?"
"Who? Trendellsohn? I never saw the colour of his money yet, and do not
wish to see it."
"But he comes here--sometimes?"
"Never, Lotta. I haven't seen Anton Trendellsohn within the doors these
six months."
"But she goes to him?"
"Yes; she goes to him."
"That's worse--a deal worse."
"I told her how it was when I saw her trotting off so often to the
Jews' quarter. 'You see too much of Anton Trendellsohn,' I said to her;
but it didn't do any good."
"You should have come to us, and have told us."
"What, Madame there? I could never have brought myself to that; she is
so upsetting, Lotta."
"She is upsetting, no doubt; but she don't upset me. Why didn't you
tell me, Souchey?"
"Well, I thought that if I said a word to her, perhaps that would be
enough. Who could believe that she would throw herself at once into a
Jew's arms--such a fellow as Anton Trendellsohn, too, old enough to be
her father, and she the bonniest girl in all Prague?"
"Handsome is that handsome does, Souchey."
"I say she's the sweetest girl in all Prague; and more's the pity she
should have taken such a fancy as this."
"She mustn't marry him, of course, Souchey."
"Not if it can be helped, Lotta."
"It must be helped. You and I must help it, if no one else can do so."
"That's easy said, Lotta."
"We can do it, if we are minded--that is, if you are minded. Only think
what a thing it would be for her to be the wife of a Jew! Think of her
soul, Souchey!"
Souchey shuddered. He did not like being told of people's souls,
feeling probably that the misfortunes of this world were quite
heavy enough for a poor wight like himself, without any addition in
anticipation of futurity. "Think of her soul, Souchey," repeated Lotta,
who was at all points a good churchwoman.
"It's bad enough any way," said Souchey.
"And there's our Ziska would take her to-morrow in spite of the Jew."
"Would he now?"
"That he would, without anything but what she stands up in. And he'd
behave very handsome to anyone that would help him."
"He'd be the first of his name that ever did, then. I have known the
time when old Balatka there, poor as he is now, would give a florin
when Karil Zamenoy begrudged six kreutzers."
"And what has come of such giving? Josef Balatka is poor, and Karil
Zamenoy bids fair to be as rich as any merchant in Prague. But no
matter about that. Will you give a helping hand? There is nothing I
wouldn't do for you, Souchey, if we could manage this between us."
"Would you now?" And Souchey drew near, as though some closer bargain
might be practicable between them.
"I would indeed; but, Souchey, talking won't do it."
"What will do it?"
Lotta paused a moment, looking round the room carefully, till suddenly
her eyes fell on a certain article which lay on Nina's work-table.
"What am I to do?" said Souchey, anxious to be at work with the
prospect of so great a reward.
"Never mind," said Lotta, whose tone of voice was suddenly changed.
"Never mind it now at least. And, Souchey, I think you'd better
go to your work. We've been gossiping here ever so long."
"Perhaps five minutes; and what does it signify?"
"She'd think it so odd to find us here together in the parlour."
"Not odd at all."
"Just as though we'd been listening to what they'd been saying. Go
now, Souchey--there's a good fellow; and I'll come again the day after
to-morrow and tell you. Go, I say. There are things that I must think
of by myself." And in this way she got Souchey to leave the room.
"Josef," said Madame Zamenoy, as she took her place standing by
Balatka's bedside--"Josef, this is very terrible." Nina also was
standing close by her father's head, with her hand upon her father's
pillow. Balatka groaned, but made no immediate answer.
"It is terrible, horrible, abominable, and damnable," said Madame
Zamenoy, bringing out one epithet after the other with renewed energy.
Balatka groaned again. What could he say in reply to such an address?
"Aunt Sophie," said Nina, "do not speak to father like that. He is
ill."
"Child," said Madame Zamenoy, "I shall speak as I please. I shall speak
as my duty bids me speak. Josef, this that I hear is very terrible. It
is hardly to be believed that any Christian girl should think of
marrying--a Jew."
"What can I do?" said the father. "How can I prevent her?"
"How can you prevent her, Josef? Is she not your daughter? Does she
mean to say, standing there, that she will not obey her father? Tell
me. Nina, will you or will you not obey your father?"
"That is his affair, aunt Sophie; not yours."
"His affair! It is his affair, and my affair, and all our affairs.
Impudent girl!--brazen-faced, impudent, bad girl! Do you not know that
you would bring disgrace upon us all?"
"You are thinking about yourself, aunt Sophie; and I must think for
myself."
"You do not regard your father, then?"
"Yes, I do regard my father. He knows that I regard him. Father, is it
true that I do not regard you?"
"She is a good daughter," said the father.
"A good daughter, and talk of marrying a Jew!" said Madame Zamenoy.
"Has she your permission for such a marriage? Tell me that at once,
Josef, that I may know. Has she your sanction for--for--for this
accursed abomination?" Then there was silence in the room for a few
moments. "You can at any rate answer a plain question, Josef,"
continued Madame Zamenoy. "Has Nina your leave to betroth herself to
the Jew, Trendellsohn?"
"No, I have not got his leave," said Nina.
"I am speaking to your father, miss," said the enraged aunt.
"Yes; you are speaking very roughly to father, and he is ill. Therefore
I answer for him."
"And has he not forbidden you to think of marrying this Jew?"
"No, he has not," said Nina.
"Josef, answer for yourself like a man," said Madame Zamenoy. "Have you
not forbidden this marriage? Do you not forbid it now? Let me at any
rate hear you say that you have forbidden it." But Balatka found
silence to be his easiest course, and answered not at all. "What am I
to think of this?" continued Madame Zamenoy. "It cannot be that you
wish your child to be the wife of a Jew!"
"You are to think, aunt Sophie, that father is ill, and that he cannot
stand against your violence."
"Violence, you wicked girl! It is you that are violent."
"Will you come out into the parlour, aunt?"
"No, I will not come out into the parlour. I will not stir from
this spot till I have told your father all that I think about it.
Ill, indeed! What matters illness when it is a question of eternal
damnation!" Madame Zamenoy put so much stress upon the latter word
that her brother-in-law almost jumped from under the bed-clothes. Nina
raised herself, as she was standing, to her full height, and a smile of
derision came upon her face. "Oh, yes! I daresay you do not mind it,"
said Madame Zamenoy. "I daresay you can laugh now at all the pains of
hell. Castaways such as you are always blind to their own danger; but
your father, I hope, has not fallen so far as to care nothing for his
religion, though he seems to have forgotten what is due to his family."
"I have forgotten nothing," said old Balatka.
"Why then do you not forbid her to do this thing?" demanded Madame
Zamenoy. But the old man had recognised too well the comparative
security of silence to be drawn into argument, and therefore merely hid
himself more completely among the clothes. "Am I to get no answer from
you, Josef?" said Madame Zamenoy. No answer came, and therefore she was
driven to turn again upon Nina.
"Why are you doing this thing, you poor deluded creature? Is it the
man's money that tempts you?"
"It is not the man's money. If money could tempt me, I could have it
elsewhere, as you know."
"It cannot be love for such a man as that. Do you not know that he and
his father between them have robbed your father of everything?"
"I know nothing of the kind."
"They have; and he is now making a fool of you in order that he may get
whatever remains."
"Nothing remains. He will get nothing."
"Nor will you. I do not believe that after all he will ever marry you.
He will not be such a fool."
"Perhaps not, aunt; and in that case you will have your wish."
"But no one can ever speak to you again after such a condition. Do you
think that I or your uncle could have you at our house when all the
world shall know that you have been jilted by a Jew?"
"I will not trouble you by going to your house."
"And is that all the satisfaction I am to have?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say that you will give this man up, and return to your
duty as a Christian."
"I will never give him up--never. I would sooner die."
"Very well. Then I shall know how to act. You will not be a bit nearer
marrying him; I can promise you that. You are mistaken if you think
that in such a matter as this a girl like you can do just as she
pleases." Then she turned again upon the poor man in bed. "Josef
Balatka, I am ashamed of you. I am indeed--I am ashamed of you."
"Aunt Sophie," said Nina, "now that you are here, you can say what you
please to me; but you might as well spare father."
"I will not spare him. I am ashamed of him--thoroughly ashamed of him.
What can I think of him when he will lie there and not say a word to
save his daughter from the machinations of a filthy Jew?"
"Anton Trendellsohn is not a filthy Jew."
"He is a robber. He has cheated your father out of everything."
"He is no robber. He has cheated no one. I know who has cheated father,
if you come to that."
"Whom do you mean, hussey?"
"I shall not answer you; but you need not tell me any more about the
Jews cheating us. Christians can cheat as well as Jews, and can rob
from their own flesh and blood too. I do not care for your threats,
aunt Sophie, nor for your frowns. I did care for them, but you have
said that which makes it impossible that I should regard them any
further."
"And this is what I get for all my trouble--for all your uncle's
generosity!" Again Nina smiled. "But I suppose the Jew gives more than
we have given, and therefore is preferred. You poor creature--poor
wretched creature!"
During all this time Balatka remained silent; and at last, after very
much more scolding, in which Madame Zamenoy urged again and again the
terrible threat of eternal punishment, she prepared herself for going.
"Lotta Luxa," she said, "--where is Lotta Luxa?" She opened the door,
and found Lotta Luxa seated demurely by the window. "Lotta," she said,
"I shall go now, and shall never come back to this unfortunate house.
You hear what I say; I shall never return here. As she makes her bed,
so must she lie on it. It is her own doing, and no one can save her.
For my part, I think that the Jew has bewitched her."
"Like enough," said Lotta.
"When once we stray from the Holy Church, there is no knowing what
terrible evils may come upon us," said Madame Zamenoy.
"No indeed, ma'am," said Lotta Luxa.
"But I have done all in my power."
"That you have, ma'am."
"I feel quite sure, Lotta, that the Jew will never marry her. Why
should a man like that, who loves money better than his soul, marry a
girl who has not a kreutzer to bless herself?"
"Why indeed, ma'am! It's my mind that he don't think of marrying her."
"And, Jew as he is, he cares for his religion. He will not bring
trouble upon everybody belonging to him by taking a Christian for his
wife."
"That he will not, ma'am, you may be sure," said Lotta.
"And where will she be then? Only fancy, Lotta--to have been jilted by
a Jew!" Then Madame Zamenoy, without addressing herself directly to
Nina, walked out of the room; but as she did so she paused in the
doorway, and again spoke to Lotta. "To be jilted by a Jew, Lotta! Think
of that."
"I should drown myself," said Lotta Luxa. And then they both were gone.
The idea that the Jew might jilt her disturbed Nina more than all her
aunt's anger, or than any threats as to the penalties she might have
to encounter in the next world. She felt a certain delight, an inward
satisfaction, in giving up everything for her Jew lover--a satisfaction
which was the more intense, the more absolute was the rejection and the
more crushing the scorn which she encountered on his behalf from her
own people. But to encounter this rejection and scorn, and then to be
thrown over by the Jew, was more than she could endure. And would it,
could it, be so? She sat down to think of it; and as she thought of it
terrible fears came upon her. Old Trendellsohn had told her that such a
marriage on his son's part would bring him into great trouble; and old
Trendellsohn was not harsh with her as her aunt was harsh. The old
man, in his own communications with her, had always been kind and
forbearing. And then Anton himself was severe to her. Though he would
now and again say some dear, well-to-be-remembered happy word, as when
he told her that she was his sun, and that he looked to her for warmth
and light, such soft speakings were few with him and far between.
And then he never mentioned any time as the probable date of their
marriage. If only a time could be fixed, let it be ever so distant,
Nina thought that she could still endure all the cutting taunts of her
enemies. But what would she do if Anton were to announce to her some
day that he found himself, as a Jew, unable to marry with her as a
Christian? In such a case she thought that she must drown herself, as
Lotta had suggested to her.
As she sat thinking of this, her eyes suddenly fell upon the one key
which she herself possessed, and which, with a woman's acuteness of
memory, she perceived to have been moved from the spot on which she had
left it. It was the key of the little desk which stood in the corner of
the parlour, and in which, on the top of all the papers, was deposited
the necklace with which she intended to relieve the immediate
necessities of their household. She at once remembered that Lotta
had been left for a long time in the room, and with anxious, quick
suspicion she went to the desk. But her suspicions had wronged Lotta.
There, lying on a bundle of letters, was the necklace, in the exact
position in which she had left it. She kissed the trinket, which had
come to her from her mother, replaced it carefully, and put the key
into her pocket.
What should she do next? How should she conduct herself in her present
circumstances? Her heart prompted her to go off at once to Anton
Trendellsohn and tell him everything; but she greatly feared that Anton
would not be glad to see her. She knew that it was not well that a girl
should run after her lover; but yet how was she to live without seeing
him? What other comfort had she? and from whom else could she look for
guidance? She declared to herself at last that she, in her position,
would not be stayed by ordinary feelings of maiden reserve. She would
tell him everything, even to the threat on which her aunt had so much
depended, and would then ask him for his counsel. She would describe
to him, if words from her could describe them, all her difficulties,
and would promise to be guided by him absolutely in everything.
"Everything," she would say to him, "I have given up for you. I am
yours entirely, body and soul. Do with me as you will." If he should
then tell her that he would not have her, that he did not want the
sacrifice, she would go away from him--and drown herself. But she would
not go to him to-day--no, not to-day; not perhaps to-morrow. It was
but a day or two as yet since she had been over at the Trendellsohns'
house, and though on that occasion she had not seen Anton, Anton of
course would know that she had been there. She did not wish him to
think that she was hunting him. She would wait yet two or three days--
till the next Sunday morning perhaps--and then she would go again to
the Jews' quarter. On the Christian Sabbath Anton was always at home,
as on that day business is suspended in Prague both for Christian and
Jew.
Then she went back to her father. He was still lying with his face
turned to the wall, and Nina, thinking that he slept, took up her work
and sat by his side. But he was awake, and watching. "Is she gone?" he
said, before her needle had been plied a dozen times.
"Aunt Sophie? Yes, father, she has gone."
"I hope she will not come again."
"She says that she will never come again."
"What is the use of her coming here? We are lost and are perishing. We
are utterly gone. She will not help us, and why should she disturb us
with her curses?"
"Father, there may be better days for us yet."
"How can there be better days when you are bringing down the Jew upon
us? Better days for yourself, perhaps, if mere eating and drinking will
serve you."
"Oh, father!"
"Have you not ruined everything with your Jew lover? Did you not hear
how I was treated? What could I say to your aunt when she stood there
and reviled us?"
"Father, I was so grateful to you for saying nothing!"
"But I knew that she was right. A Christian should not marry a Jew. She
said it was abominable; and so it is."
"Father, father, do not speak like that! I thought that you had
forgiven me. You said to aunt Sophie that I was a good daughter. Will
you not say the same to me--to me myself?"
"It is not good to love a Jew."
"I do love him, father. How can I help it now? I cannot change my
heart."
"I suppose I shall be dead soon," said old Balatka, "and then it will
not matter. You will become one of them, and I shall be forgotten."
"Father, have I ever forgotten you?" said Nina, throwing herself upon
him on his bed. "Have I not always loved you? Have I not been good to
you? Oh, father, we have been true to each other through it all. Do not
speak to me like that at last."
CHAPTER VI
Anton Trendellsohn had learned from his father that Nina had spoken to
her aunt about the title-deeds of the houses in the Kleinseite, and
that thus, in a roundabout way, a demand had been made for them. "Of
course, they will not give them up," he had said to his father. "Why
should they, unless the law makes them? They have no idea of honour or
honesty to one of us." The elder Jew had then expressed his opinion
that Josef Balatka should be required to make the demand as a matter of
business, to enforce a legal right; but to this Anton had replied that
the old man in the Kleinseite was not in a condition to act efficiently
in the matter himself. It was to him that the money had been advanced,
but to the Zamenoys that it had in truth been paid; and Anton declared
his purpose of going to Karil Zamenoy and himself making his demand.
And then there had been a discussion, almost amounting to a quarrel,
between the two Trendellsohns as to Nina Balatka. Poor Nina need not
have added another to her many causes of suffering by doubting her
lover's truth. Anton Trendellsohn, though not given to speak of his
love with that demonstrative vehemence to which Nina had trusted in her
attempts to make her friends understand that she could not be talked
out of her engagement, was nevertheless sufficiently firm in his
purpose. He was a man very constant in all his purposes, whom none
who knew him would have supposed likely to jeopardise his worldly
interests for the love of a Christian girl, but who was very little
apt to abandon aught to which he had set his hand because the voices
of those around him might be against him. He had thought much of his
position as a Jew before he had spoken of love to the penniless
Christian maiden who frequented his father's house, pleading for her
father in his poverty; but the words when spoken meant much, and Nina
need not have feared that he would forget them. He was a man not much
given to dalliance, not requiring from day to day the soft sweetness of
a woman's presence to keep his love warm; but his love could maintain
its own heat, without any softness or dalliance. Had it not been so,
such a girl as Nina would hardly have surrendered to him her whole
heart as she had done.
"You will fall into trouble about the maiden," the elder Trendellsohn
had said.
"True, father; there will be trouble enough. In what that we do is
there not trouble?"
"A man in the business of his life must encounter labour and grief and
disappointment. He should take to him a wife to give him ease in these
things, not one who will be an increase to his sorrows."
"That which is done is done."
"My son, this thing is not done."
"She has my plighted word, father. Is not that enough?"
"Nina is a good girl. I will say for her that she is very good. I have
wished that you might have brought to my house as your wife the child
of my old friend Baltazar Loth; but if that may not be, I would have
taken Nina willingly by the hand--had she been one of us."
"It may be that God will open her eyes."
"Anton, I would not have her eyes opened by anything so weak as her
love for a man. But I have said that she was good. She will hear
reason; and when she shall know that her marriage among us would bring
trouble on us, she will restrain her wishes. Speak to her, Anton, and
see if it be not so."
"Not for all the wealth which all our people own in Bohemia! Father, to
do so would be to demand, not to ask. If she love me, could she refuse
such a request were I to ask it?"
"I will speak a word to Nina, my son, and the request shall come from
her."
"And if it does, I will never yield to it. For her sake I would not
yield, for I know she loves me. Neither for my own would I yield; for
as truly as I worship God, I love her better than all the world beside.
She is to me my cup of water when I am hot and athirst, my morsel of
bread when I am faint with hunger. Her voice is the only music which I
love. The touch of her hand is so fresh that it cools me when I am in
fever. The kiss of her lips is so sweet and balmy that it cures when
I shake with an ague fit. To think of her when I am out among men
fighting for my own, is such a joy, that now, methinks now, that I have
had it belonging to me, I could no longer fight were I to lose it. No.
father; she shall not be taken from me. I love her, and I will keep
her."
Oh that Nina could have heard him! How would all her sorrows have fled
from her, and left her happy in her poverty! But Anton Trendellsohn,
though he could speak after this manner to his father, could hardly
bring himself to talk of his feelings to the woman who would have given
her eyes, could she for his sake have spared them, to hear him. Now and
again, indeed, he would say a word, and then would frown and become
gloomy, as though angry with himself for such outward womanly
expression of what he felt. As it was, the words fell upon ears which
they delighted not. "Then, my son, you will live to rue the day in
which you first saw her," said the elder Jew. "She will be a bone of
contention in your way that will separate you from all your friends.
You will become neither Jew nor Christian, and will be odious alike to
both. And she will be the same."
"Then, father, we will bear our sorrows together."
"Yes; and what happens when sorrows come from such causes? The man
learns to hate the woman who has caused them, and ill-uses her, and
feels himself to be a Cain upon the earth, condemned by all, but by
none so much as by himself. Do you think that you have strength to bear
the contempt of all those around you?"
Anton waited a moment or two before he answered, and then spoke very
slowly. "If it be necessary to bear so much, I will at least make the
effort. It may be that I shall find the strength."
"Nothing then that your father says to you avails aught?"
"Nothing, father, on that matter. You should have spoken sooner."
"Then you must go your own way. As for me, I must look for another son
to bear the burden of my years." And so they parted.
Anton Trendellsohn understood well the meaning of the old man's threat.
He was quite alive to the fact that his father had expressed his
intention to give his wealth and his standing in trade and the business
of his house to some younger Jew, who would be more true than his own
son to the traditional customs of their tribes. There was Ruth Jacobi,
his granddaughter--the only child of the house--who had already reached
an age at which she might be betrothed; and there was Samuel Loth,
the son of Baltazar Loth, old Trendellsohn's oldest friend. Anton
Trendellsohn did not doubt who might be the adopted child to be taken
to fill his place. It has been already explained that there was no
partnership actually existing between the two Trendellsohns. By degrees
the son had slipt into the father's place, and the business by which
the house had grown rich had for the last five or six years been
managed chiefly by him. But the actual results of the son's industry
and the son's thrift were still in the possession of the father. The
old man might no doubt go far towards ruining his son if he were so
minded.
Dreams of a high ambition had, from very early years, flitted across
the mind of the younger Trendellsohn till they had nearly formed
themselves into a settled purpose. He had heard of Jews in Vienna, in
Paris, and in London, who were as true to their religion as any Jew of
Prague, but who did not live immured in a Jews' quarter, like lepers
separate and alone in some loathed corner of a city otherwise clean.
These men went abroad into the world as men, using the wealth with
which their industry had been blessed, openly as the Christians used
it. And they lived among Christians as one man should live with his
fellow-men--on equal terms, giving and taking, honouring and honoured.
As yet it was not so with the Jews of Prague, who were still bound to
their old narrow streets, to their dark houses, to their mean modes
of living, and who, worst of all, were still subject to the isolated
ignominy of Judaism. In Prague a Jew was still a Pariah. Anton's father
was rich--very rich. Anton hardly knew what was the extent of his
father's wealth, but he did know that it was great. In his father's
time, however, no change could be made. He did not scruple to speak to
the old man of these things; but he spoke of them rather as dreams, or
as distant hopes, than as being the basis of any purpose of his own.
His father would merely say that the old house, looking out upon the
ancient synagogue, must last him his time, and that the changes of
which Anton spoke must be postponed--not till he died--but till such
time as he should feel it right to give up the things of this world.
Anton Trendellsohn, who knew his father well, had resolved that he
would wait patiently for everything till his father should have gone to
his last home, knowing that nothing but death would close the old man's
interest in the work of his life. But he had been content to wait--to
wait, to think, to dream, and only in part to hope. He still communed
with himself daily as to that House of Trendellsohn which might,
perhaps, be heard of in cities greater than Prague, and which might
rival in the grandeur of its wealth those mighty commercial names which
had drowned the old shame of the Jew in the new glory of their great
doings. To be a Jew in London, they had told him, was almost better
than to be a Christian, provided that he was rich, and knew the ways
of trade--was better for such purposes as were his purposes. Anton
Trendellsohn believed that he would be rich, and was sure that he knew
the ways of trade; and therefore he nursed his ambition, and meditated
what his action should be when the days of his freedom should come to
him.
Then Nina Balatka had come across his path. To be a Jew, always a Jew,
in all things a Jew, had been ever a part of his great dream. It was as
impossible to him as it would be to his father to forswear the religion
of his people. To go forth and be great in commerce by deserting his
creed would have been nothing to him. His ambition did not desire
wealth so much as the possession of wealth in Jewish hands, without
those restrictions upon its enjoyment to which Jews under his own eye
had ever been subjected. It would have delighted him to think that, by
means of his work, there should no longer be a Jews' quarter in Prague,
but that all Prague should be ennobled and civilised and made beautiful
by the wealth of Jews. Wealth must be his means, and therefore he was
greedy; but wealth was not his last or only aim, and therefore his
greed did not utterly destroy his heart. Then Nina Balatka had come
across his path, and he was compelled to shape his dreams anew. How
could a Jew among Jews hold up his head as such who had taken to his
bosom a Christian wife?
But again he shaped his dreams aright--so far aright that he could
still build the castles of his imagination to his own liking. Nina
should be his wife. It might be that she would follow the creed of her
husband, and then all would be well. In those far cities to which he
would go, it would hardly in such case be known that she had been born
a Christian; or else he would show the world around him, both Jews and
Christians, how well a Christian and a Jew might live together. To
crush the prejudice which had dealt so hardly with his people--to make
a Jew equal in all things to a Christian--this was his desire; and how
could this better be fulfilled than by his union with a Christian? One
thing at least was fixed with him--one thing was fixed, even though it
should mar his dreams. He had taken the Christian girl to be part of
himself, and nothing should separate them. His father had spoken often
to him of the danger which he would incur by marrying a Christian, but
had never before uttered any word approaching to a personal threat.
Anton had felt himself to be so completely the mainspring of the
business in which they were both engaged--was so perfectly aware that
he was so regarded by all the commercial men of Prague--that he had
hardly regarded the absence of any positive possession in his father's
wealth as detrimental to him. He had been willing that it should be his
father's while his father lived, knowing that any division would be
detrimental to them both. He had never even asked his father for a
partnership, taking everything for granted. Even now he could not quite
believe that his father was in earnest. It could hardly be possible
that the work of his own hands should be taken from him because he had
chosen a bride for himself! But this he felt, that should his father
persevere in the intention which he had expressed, he would be upheld
in it by every Jew of Prague. "Dark, ignorant, and foolish," Anton said
to himself, speaking of those among whom he lived; "it is their pride
to live in disgrace, while all the honours of the world are open to
them if they chose to take them!"
He did not for a moment think of altering his course of action in
consequence of what his father had said to him. Indeed, as regarded the
business of the house, it would stand still altogether were he to alter
it. No successor could take up the work when he should leave it. No
other hand could continue the webs which were of his weaving. So he
went forth, as the errands of the day called him, soon after his
father's last words were spoken, and went through his work as though
his own interest in it were in no danger.
On that evening nothing was said on the subject between him and his
father, and on the next morning he started immediately after breakfast
for the Ross Markt, in order that he might see Karil Zamenoy, as he had
said that he would do. The papers, should he get them, would belong to
his father, and would at once be put into his father's hands. But the
feeling that it might not be for his own personal advantage to place
them there did not deter him. His father was an old man, and old men
were given to threaten. He at least would go on with his duty.
It was about eleven o'clock in the day when he entered the open door of
the office in the Ross Markt, and found Ziska and a young clerk sitting
opposite to each other at their desks. Anton took off his hat and bowed
to Ziska, whom he knew slightly, and asked the young man if his father
were within.
"My father is here," said Ziska, "but I do not know whether he can see
you."
"You will ask him, perhaps," said Trendellsohn.
"Well, he is engaged. There is a lady with him."
"Perhaps he will make an appointment with me, and I will call again. If
he will name an hour, I will come at his own time."
"Cannot you say to me, Herr Trendellsohn, that which you wish to say to
him?"
"Not very well."
"You know that I am in partnership with my father."
"He and you are happy to be so placed together. But if your father can
spare me five minutes, I will take it from him as a favour."
Then, with apparent reluctance, Ziska came down from his seat and went
into the inner room. There he remained some time, while Trendellsohn
was standing, hat in hand, in the outer office. If the changes which
he hoped to effect among his brethren could be made, a Jew in Prague
should, before long, be asked to sit down as readily as a Christian.
But he had not been asked to sit, and he therefore stood holding his
hat in his hand during the ten minutes that Ziska was away. At last
young Zamenoy returned, and, opening the door, signified to the Jew
that his father would see him at once if he would enter. Nothing more
had been said about the lady, and there, when Trendellsohn went into
the room, he found the lady, who was no other than Madame Zamenoy
herself. A little family council had been held, and it had been settled
among them that the Jew should be seen and heard.
"So, sir, you are Anton Trendellsohn," began Madame Zamenoy, as soon as
Ziska was gone--for Ziska had been told to go--and the door was shut.
"Yes, madame; I am Anton Trendellsohn. I had not expected the honour of
seeing you, but I wish to say a few words on business to your husband."
"There he is; you can speak to him."
"Anything that I can do, I shall be very happy," said Karil Zamenoy,
who had risen from his chair to prevent the necessity of having to ask
the Jew to sit down.
"Herr Zamenoy," began the Jew, "you are, I think, aware that my father
has purchased from your friend and brother-in-law, Josef Balatka,
certain houses in the Kleinseite, in one of which the old man still
lives."
"Upon my word, I know nothing about it," said Zamenoy--"nothing, that
is to say, in the way of business;" and the man of business laughed.
"Mind I do not at all deny that you did so--you or your father, or the
two together. Your people are getting into their hands lots of houses
all over the town; but how they do it nobody knows. They are not bought
in fair open market."
"This purchase was made by contract, and the price was paid in full
before the houses were put into our hands."
"They are not in your hands now, as far as I know."
"Not the one, certainly, in which Balatka lives. Motives of
friendship--"
"Friendship!" said Madame Zamenoy, with a sneer.
"And now motives of love," continued Anton, "have induced us to leave
the use of that house with Josef Balatka."
"Love!" said Madame Zamenoy, springing from her chair; love indeed! "Do
not talk to me of love for a Jew."
"My dear, my dear!" said her husband, expostulating.
"How dares he come here to talk of his love? It is filthy--it is worse
than filthy--it is profane."
"I came here, madame," continued Anton, "not to talk of my love, but of
certain documents or title-deeds respecting those houses, which should
be at present in my father's custody. I am told that your husband has
them in his safe custody."
"My husband has them not," said Madame Zamenoy.
"Stop, my dear--stop," said the husband.
"Not that he would be bound to give them up to you if he had got them,
or that he would do so; but he has them not."
"In whose hands are they then?"
"That is for you to find out, not for us to tell you."
"Why should not all the world be told, so that the proper owner may
have his own?"
"It is not always so easy to find out who is the proper owner," said
Zamenoy the elder.
"You have seen this contract before, I think, said Trendellsohn,
bringing forth a written paper.
"I will not look at it now at any rate. I have nothing to do with it,
and I will have nothing to do with it. You have heard Madame Zamenoy
declare that the deed which you seek is not here. I cannot say whether
it is here or no. I do not say--as you will be pleased to remember. If
it were here it would be in safe keeping for my brother-in-law, and
only to him could it be given."
"But will you not say whether it is in your hands? You know well that
Josef Balatka is ill, and cannot attend to such matters."
"And who has made him ill, and what has made him ill?" said Madame
Zamenoy. "Ill! of course he is ill. Is it not enough to make any man
ill to be told that his daughter is to marry a Jew?"
"I have not come hither to speak of that," said Trendellsohn.
"But I speak of it; and I tell you this, Anton Trendellsohn--you shall
never marry that girl."
"Be it so; but let me at any rate have that which is my own."
"Will you give her up if it is given to you?"
"It is here then?"
"No; it is not here. But will you abandon this mad thought if I tell
you where it is?"
"No; certainly not."
"What a fool the man is!" said Madame Zamenoy. "He comes to us for what
he calls his property because he wants to marry the girl, and she is
deceiving him all the while. Go to Nina Balatka, Trendellsohn, and she
will tell you who has the document. She will tell you where it is, if
it suits her to do so."
"She has told me, and she knows that it is here."
"She knows nothing of the kind, and she has lied. She has lied in order
that she may rob you. Jew as you are, she will be too many for you. She
will rob you, with all her seeming simplicity."
"I trust her as I do my own soul," said Trendellsohn.
"Very well; I tell you that she, and she only, knows where these
papers are. For aught I know, she has them herself. I believe that she
has them. Ziska," said Madame Zamenoy, calling aloud--"Ziska, come
hither;" and Ziska entered the room. "Ziska, who has the title-deeds
of your uncle's houses in the Kleinseite?" Ziska hesitated a moment
without answering. "You know, if anybody does," said his mother; "tell
this man, since he is so anxious, who has got them."
"I do not know why I should tell him my cousin's secrets."
"Tell him, I say. It is well that he should know."
"Nina has them, as I believe," said Ziska, still hesitating.
"Nina has them!" said Trendellsohn.
"Yes; Nina Balatka," said Madame Zamenoy. "We tell you, to the best of
our knowledge at least. At any rate, they are not here."
"It is impossible that Nina should have them," said Trendellsohn. "How
should she have got them?"
"That is nothing to us," said Madame Zamenoy. "The whole thing is
nothing to us. You have heard all that we can tell you, and you had
better go."
"You have heard more than I would have told you myself," said Ziska,
"had I been left to my opinion."
Trendellsohn stood pausing for a moment, and then he turned to the
elder Zamenoy. "What do you say, sir? Is it true that these papers are
at the house in the Kleinseite?"
"I say nothing," said Karil Zamenoy. "It seems to me that too much has
been said already."
"A great deal too much," said the lady. "I do not know why I should
have allowed myself to be surprised into giving you any information at
all. You wish to do us the heaviest injury that one man can do another,
and I do not know why we should speak to you at all. Now you had better
go."
"Yes; you had better go," said Ziska, holding the door open, and
looking as though he were inclined to threaten. Trendellsohn paused
for a moment on the threshold, fixing his eyes full upon those of his
rival; but Ziska neither spoke nor made any further gesture, and then
the Jew left the house.
"I would have told him nothing," said the elder Zamenoy when they were
left alone.
"My dear, you don't understand; indeed you do not," said his wife. "No
stone should be left unturned to prevent such a horrid marriage as
this. There is nothing I would not say--nothing I would not do."
"But I do not see that you are doing anything."
"Leave this little thing to me, my dear--to me and Ziska. It is
impossible that you should do everything yourself. In such a matter as
this, believe me that a woman is best."
"But I hate anything that is really dishonest."
"There shall be no dishonesty--none in the world. You don't suppose
that I want to get the dirty old tumble-down houses. God forbid! But
you would not give up everything to a Jew! Oh, I hate them! I do hate
them! Anything is fair against a Jew." If such was Madame Zamenoy's
ordinary doctrine, it may well be understood that she would scruple at
using no weapon against a Jew who was meditating so great an injury
against her as this marriage with her niece. After this little
discussion old Zamenoy said no more, and Madame Zamenoy went home to
the Windberg-gasse.
Trendellsohn, as he walked homewards, was lost in amazement. He wholly
disbelieved the statement that the document he desired was in Nina's
hands, but he thought it possible that it might be in the house in
the Kleinseite. It was, after all, on the cards that old Balatka was
deceiving him. The Jew was by nature suspicious, though he was also
generous. He could be noble in his confidence, and at the same time
could become at a moment distrustful. He could give without grudging,
and yet grudge the benefits which came of his giving. Neither he
nor his father had ever positively known in whose custody were the
title-deeds which he was so anxious to get into his own hands. Balatka
had said that they must be with the Zamenoys, but even Balatka had never
spoken as of absolute knowledge. Nina, indeed, had declared positively
that they were in the Ross Markt, saying that Ziska had so stated in
direct terms; but there might be a mistake in this. At any rate he
would interrogate Nina, and if there were need, would not spare the old
man any questions that could lead to the truth. Trendellsohn, as he
thought of the possibility of such treachery on Balatka's part, felt
that, without compunction, he could be very cruel, even to an old man,
under such circumstances as those.
CHAPTER VII
Madame Zamenoy and her son no doubt understood each other's purposes,
and there was another person in the house who understood them--Lotta
Luxa, namely; but Karil Zamenoy had been kept somewhat in the dark.
Touching that piece of parchment as to which so much anxiety had been
expressed, he only knew that he had, at his wife's instigation, given
it into her hand in order that she might use it in some way for putting
an end to the foul betrothal between Nina and the Jew. The elder
Zamenoy no doubt understood that Anton Trendellsohn was to be bought
off by the document; and he was not unwilling to buy him off so
cheaply, knowing as he did that the houses were in truth the Jew's
property; but Madame Zamenoy's scheme was deeper than this. She did
not believe that the Jew was to be bought off at so cheap a price; but
she did believe that it might be possible to create such a feeling in
his mind as would make him abandon Nina out of the workings of his own
heart. Ziska and his mother were equally anxious to save Nina from the
Jew, but not exactly with the same motives. He had received a promise,
both from his father and mother, before anything was known of the Jew's
love, that Nina should be received as a daughter-in-law, if she would
accept his suit; and this promise was still in force. That the girl
whom he loved should love a Jew distressed and disgusted Ziska; but it
did not deter him from his old purpose. It was shocking, very shocking,
that Nina should so disgrace herself; but she was not on that account
less pretty or less charming in her cousin's eyes. Madame Zamenoy,
could she have had her own will, would have rescued Nina from the Jew--
firstly, because Nina was known all over Prague to be her niece--and,
secondly, for the good of Christianity generally; but the girl herself,
when rescued, she would willingly have left to starve in the poverty of
the old house in the Kleinseite, as a punishment for her sin in having
listened to a Jew.
"I would have nothing more to say to her," said the mother to her son.
"Nor I either," said Lotta, who was present. "She has demeaned herself
far too much to be a fit wife for Ziska."
"Hold your tongue, Lotta; what business have you to speak about such a
matter?" said the young man.
"All the same, Ziska, if I were you, I would give her up," said the
mother.
"If you were me, mother, you would not give her up. If every man is to
give up the girl he likes because somebody else interferes with him,
how is anybody to get married at all? It's the way with them all."
"But a Jew, Ziska!"
"So much the more reason for taking her away from him." Then Ziska went
forth on a certain errand, the expediency of which he had discussed
with his mother.
"I never thought he'd be so firm about it, ma'am," said Lotta to her
mistress.
"If we could get Trendellsohn to turn her off, he would not think much
of her afterwards," said the mother. "He wouldn't care to take the
Jew's leavings."
"But he seems to be so obstinate," said Lotta. "Indeed I did not think
there was so much obstinacy in him."
"Of course he is obstinate while he thinks the other man is to have
her," said the mistress; "but all that will be changed when the girl is
alone in the world."
It was a Saturday morning, and Ziska had gone out with a certain fixed
object. Much had been said between him and his mother since Anton
Trendellsohn's visit to the office, and it had been decided that he
should now go and see the Jew in his own home. He should see him and
speak him fair, and make him understand if possible that the whole
question of the property should be settled as he wished it--if he would
only give up his insane purpose of marrying a Christian girl. Ziska
would endeavour also to fill the Jew's mind with suspicion against
Nina. The former scheme was Ziska's own; the second was that in which
Ziska's mother put her chief trust. "If once he can be made to think
that the girl is deceiving him, he will quarrel with her utterly,"
Madame Zamenoy had said.
On Saturday there is but little business done in Prague, because
Saturday is the Sabbath of the Jews. The shops are of course open in
the main streets of the town, but banks and counting-houses are closed,
because the Jews will not do business on that day--so great is the
preponderance of the wealth of Prague in the hands of that people! It
suited Ziska, therefore, to make his visit on a Saturday, both because
he had but little himself to do on that day, and because he would be
almost sure to find Trendellsohn at home. As he made his way across the
bottom of the Kalowrat-strasse and through the centre of the city to
the narrow ways of the Jews' quarter, his heart somewhat misgave him as
to the result of his visit. He knew very well that a Christian was safe
among the Jews from any personal ill-usage; but he knew also that such
a one as he would be known personally to many of them as a Christian
rival, and probably as a Christian enemy in the same city, and he
thought that they would look at him askance. Living in Prague all his
life, he had hardly been above once or twice in the narrow streets
which he was now threading. Strangers who come to Prague visit the
Jews' quarter as a matter of course, and to such strangers the Jews of
Prague are invariably courteous. But the Christians of the city seldom
walk through the heart of the Jews' locality, or hang about the Jews'
synagogue, or are seen among their houses unless they have special
business. The Jews' quarter, though it is a banishment to the Jews from
the fairer portions of the city, is also a separate and somewhat sacred
castle in which they may live after their old fashion undisturbed. As
Ziska went on, he became aware that the throng of people was unusually
great, and that the day was in some sort more peculiar than the
ordinary Jewish Sabbath. That the young men and girls should be dressed
in their best clothes was, as a matter of course, incidental to the
day; but he could perceive that there was an outward appearance of gala
festivity about them which could not take place every week. The tall
bright-eyed black-haired girls stood talking in the streets, with
something of boldness in their gait and bearing, dressed many of them
in white muslin, with bright ribbons and full petticoats, and that
small bewitching Hungarian hat which they delight to wear. They stood
talking somewhat loudly to each other, or sat at the open windows;
while the young men in black frock-coats and black hats, with crimson
cravats, clustered by themselves, wishing, but not daring so early in
the day, to devote themselves to the girls, who appeared, or attempted
to appear, unaware of their presence. Who can say why it is that those
encounters, which are so ardently desired by both sides, are so rarely
able to get themselves commenced till the enemies have been long in
sight of each other? But so it is among Jews and Christians, among rich
and poor, out under the open sky, and even in the atmosphere of the
ball-room, consecrated though it be to such purposes. Go into any
public dancing-room of Vienna, where the girls from the shops and the
young men from their desks congregate to waltz and make love, and you
shall observe that from ten to twelve they will dance as vigorously as
at a later hour, but that they will hardly talk to each other till the
mellowness of the small morning hours has come upon them.
Among these groups in the Jewish quarter Ziska made his way, conscious
that the girls eyed him and whispered to each other something as to
his presence, and conscious also that the young men eyed him also,
though they did so without speaking of him as he passed. He knew that
Trendellsohn lived close to the synagogue, and to the synagogue he made
his way. And as he approached the narrow door of the Jews' church, he
saw that a crowd of men stood round it, some in high caps and some in
black hats, but all habited in short muslin shirts, which they wore
over their coats. Such dresses he had seen before, and he knew that
these men were taking part from time to time in some service within
the synagogue. He did not dare to ask of one of them which was
Trendellsohn's house, but went on till he met an old man alone just at
the back of the building, dressed also in a high cap and shirt, which
shirt, however, was longer than those he had seen before. Plucking up
his courage, he asked of the old man which was the house of Anton
Trendellsohn.
"Anton Trendellsohn has no house," said the old man; "but that is his
father's house, and there Anton Trendellsohn lives. I am Stephen
Trendellsohn, and Anton is my son."
Ziska thanked him, and, crossing the street to the house, found that
the door was open, and that two girls were standing just within the
passage. The old man had gone, and Ziska, turning, had perceived that
he was out of sight before he reached the house.
"I cannot come till my uncle returns," said the younger girl.
"But, Ruth, he will be in the synagogue all day," said the elder, who
was that Rebecca Loth of whom the old Jew had spoken to his son.
"Then all day I must remain," said Ruth; "but it may be he will be in
by one." Then Ziska addressed them, and asked if Anton Trendellsohn did
not live there.
"Yes; he lives there," said Ruth, almost trembling, as she answered the
handsome stranger.
"And is he at home?"
"He is in the synagogue," said Ruth. "You will find him there if you
will go in."
"But they are at worship there," said Ziska, doubtingly.
"They will be at worship all day, because it is our festival," said
Rebecca, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; "but if you are a
Christian they will not object to your going in. They like that
Christians should see them. They are not ashamed."
Ziska, looking into the girl's face, saw that she was very beautiful;
and he saw also at once that she was exactly the opposite of Nina,
though they were both of a height. Nina was fair, with grey eyes, and
smooth brown hair which seemed to demand no special admiration, though
it did in truth add greatly to the sweet delicacy of her face; and she
was soft in her gait, and appeared to be yielding and flexible in all
the motions of her body. You would think that if you were permitted to
embrace her, the outlines of her body would form themselves to yours,
as though she would in all things fit herself to him who might be
blessed by her love. But Rebecca Loth was dark, with large dark-blue
eyes and jet black tresses, which spoke out loud to the beholder of
their own loveliness. You could not fail to think of her hair and of
her eyes, as though they were things almost separate from herself. And
she stood like a queen, who knew herself to be all a queen, strong on
her limbs, wanting no support, somewhat hard withal, with a repellant
beauty that seemed to disdain while it courted admiration, and utterly
rejected the idea of that caressing assistance which men always love
to give, and which women often love to receive. At the present moment
she was dressed in a frock of white muslin, looped round the skirt,
and bright with ruby ribbons. She had on her feet coloured boots,
which fitted them to a marvel, and on her glossy hair a small new hat,
ornamented with the plumage of some strange bird. On her shoulders she
wore a coloured jacket, open down the front, sparkling with jewelled
buttons, over which there hung a chain with a locket. In her ears she
carried long heavy earrings of gold. Were it not that Ziska had seen
others as gay in their apparel on his way, he would have fancied that
she was tricked out for the playing of some special part, and that she
should hardly have shown herself in the streets with her gala finery.
Such was Rebecca Loth the Jewess, and Ziska almost admitted to himself
that she was more beautiful than Nina Balatka.
"And are you also of the family?" Ziska asked.
"No; she is not of the family," said Ruth. "She is my particular
friend, Rebecca Loth. She does not live here. She lives with her
brother and her mother."
"Ruth, how foolish you are! What does it signify to the gentleman?"
"But he asked, and so I supposed he wanted to know."
"I have to apologise for intruding on you with any questions young
ladies," said Ziska; "especially on a day which seems to be solemn."
"That does not matter at all," said Rebecca. "Here is my brother,
and he will take you into the synagogue if you wish to see Anton
Trendellsohn." Samuel Loth, her brother, then came up and readily
offered to take Ziska into the midst of the worshippers. Ziska would
have escaped now from the project could he have done so without remark;
but he was ashamed to seem afraid to enter the building, as the
girls seemed to make so light of his doing so. He therefore followed
Rebecca's brother, and in a minute or two was inside the narrow door.
The door was very low and narrow, and seemed to be choked up by men
with short white surplices, but nevertheless he found himself inside,
jammed among a crowd of Jews; and a sound of many voices, going
together in a sing-song wail or dirge, met his ears. His first impulse
was to take off his hat, but that was immediately replaced upon his
head, he knew not by whom; and then he observed that all within the
building were covered. His guide did not follow him, but whispered to
some one what it was that the stranger required. He could see that
those inside the building were all clothed in muslin shirts of
different lengths, and that it was filled with men, all of whom had
before them some sort of desk, from which they were reading, or rather
wailing out their litany. Though this was the chief synagogue in
Prague, and, as being the so-called oldest in Europe, is a building
of some consequence in the Jewish world, it was very small. There was
no ceiling, and the high-pitched roof, which had once probably been
coloured, and the walls, which had once certainly been white, were
black with the dirt of ages. In the centre there was a cage, as it
were, or iron grille, within which five or six old Jews were placed,
who seemed to wail louder than the others. Round the walls there was
a row of men inside stationary desks, and outside them another row,
before each of whom there was a small movable standing desk, on which
there was a portion of the law of Moses. There seemed to be no possible
way by which Ziska could advance, and he would have been glad to
retreat had retreat been possible. But first one Jew and then another
moved their desks for him, so that he was forced to advance, and some
among them pointed to the spot where Anton Trendellsohn was standing.
But as they pointed, and as they moved their desks to make a pathway,
they still sang and wailed continuously, never ceasing for an instant
in their long, loud, melancholy song of prayer. At the further end
there seemed to be some altar, in front of which the High Priest wailed
louder than all, louder even than the old men within the cage; and even
he, the High Priest, was forced to move his desk to make way for Ziska.
But, apparently without displeasure, he moved it with his left hand,
while he swayed his right hand backwards and forwards as though
regulating the melody of the wail. Beyond the High Priest Ziska saw
Anton Trendellsohn, and close to the son he saw the old man whom he
had met in the street, and whom he recognised as Anton's father. Old
Trendellsohn seemed to take no notice of him, but Anton had watched him
from his entrance, and was prepared to speak to him, though he did not
discontinue his part in the dirge till the last moment.
"I had a few words to say to you, if it would suit you," said Ziska, in
a low voice.
"Are they of import?" Trendellsohn asked. "If so, I will come to you."
Ziska then turned to make his way back, but he saw that this was not
to be his road for retreat. Behind him the movable phalanx had again
formed itself into close rank, but before him the wailing wearers of
the white shirts were preparing for the commotion of his passage by
grasping the upright stick of their movable desks in their hands. So he
passed on, making the entire round of the synagogue; and when he got
outside the crowded door, he found that the younger Trendellsohn had
followed him. "We had better go into the house," said Anton; "it will
not be well for us to talk here on any matter of business. Will you
follow me?"
Then he led the way into the old house, and there at the front door
still stood the two girls talking to each other.
"You have come back, uncle," said Ruth.
"Yes; for a few moments, to speak to this gentleman."
"And will you return to the synagogue?"
"Of course I shall return to the synagogue."
"Because Rebecca wishes me to go out with her," said the younger girl,
in a plaintive voice.
"You cannot go out now. Your grandfather will want you when he
returns."
"But, uncle Anton, he will not come till sunset."
"My mother wished to have Ruth with her this afternoon if it were
possible," said Rebecca, hardly looking at Anton as she spoke to him;
"but of course if you will not give her leave I must return without
her."
"Do you not know, Rebecca," said Anton, "that she is needful to her
grandfather?"
"She could be back before sunset."
"I will trust to you, then, that she is brought back." Ruth, as soon
as she heard the words, scampered up-stairs to array herself in such
finery as she possessed, while Rebecca still stood at the door.
"Will you not come in, Rebecca, while you wait for her?" said Anton.
"Thank you, I will stand here. I am very well here."
"But the child will be ever so long making herself ready. Surely you
will come in."
But Rebecca was obstinate, and kept her place at the door. "He has that
Christian girl there with him day after day," she said to Ruth as they
went away together. "I will never enter the house while she is allowed
to come there."
"But Nina is very good," said Ruth.
"I do not care for her goodness."
"Do you not know that she is to be uncle Anton's wife?"
"They have told me so, but she shall be no friend of mine, Ruth. Is it
not shameful that he should wish to marry a Christian?"
When the two men had reached the sitting-room in the Jew's house, and
Ziska had seated himself, Anton Trendellsohn closed the door, and
asked, not quite in anger, but with something of sternness in his
voice, why he had been disturbed while engaged in an act of worship.
"They told me that you would not mind my going in to you," said Ziska,
deprecating his wrath.
"That depends on your business. What is it that you have to say to me?"
"It is this. When you came to us the other day in the Ross Markt, we
were hardly prepared for you. We did not expect you."
"Your mother could hardly have received me better had she expected me
for a twelvemonth."
"You cannot be surprised that my mother should be vexed. Besides, you
would not be angry with a lady for what she might say."
"I care but little what she says. But words, my friend, are things,
and are often things of great moment. All that, however, matters very
little. Why have you done us the honour of coming to our house?"
Even Ziska could perceive, though his powers of perception in such
matters were perhaps not very great, that the Jew in the Jews' quarter,
and the Jew in the Ross Markt, were very different persons. Ziska was
now sitting while Anton Trendellsohn was standing over him. Ziska, when
he remembered that Anton had not been seated in his father's office--
had not been asked to sit down--would have risen himself, and have
stood during the interview, but he did not know how to leave his seat.
And when the Jew called him his friend, he felt that the Jew was
getting the better of him--was already obtaining the ascendant. "Of
course we wish to prevent this marriage," said Ziska, dashing at once
at his subject.
"You cannot prevent it. The law allows it. If that is what you have to
come to do, you may as well return."
"But listen to me, my friend," said Ziska, taking a leaf out of the
Jew's book. "Only listen to me, and then I shall go."
"Speak, then, and I will listen; but be quick."
"You want, of course, to be made right about those houses?"
"My father, to whom they belong, wishes to be made right, as you call
it."
"It is all the same thing. Now, look here. The truth is this.
Everything shall be settled for you, and the whole thing given up
regularly into your hands, if you will only give over about Nina
Balatka."
"But I will not give over about Nina Balatka. Am I to be bribed out of
my love by an offer of that which is already mine own? But that you are
in my father's house, I would be wrathful with you for making me such
an offer."
"Why should you seek a Christian wife, with such maidens among you as
her whom I saw at the door?"
"Do not mind the maiden whom you saw at the door. She is nothing to
you."
"No; she is nothing to me. Of course, the lady is nothing to me. If I
were to come here looking for her, you would be angry, and would bid me
seek for beauty among my own people. Would you not do so? Answer me
now."
"Like enough. Rebecca Loth has many friends who would take her part."
"And why should we not take Nina's part--we who are her friends?"
"Have you taken her part? Have you comforted her when she was in
sorrow? Have you wiped her tears when she wept? Have you taken from her
the stings of poverty, and striven to make the world to her a pleasant
garden? She has no mother of her own. Has yours been a mother to her?
Why is it that Nina Balatka has cared to receive the sympathy and the
love of a Jew? Ask that girl whom you saw at the door for some corner
in her heart, and she will scorn you. She, a Jewess, will scorn you, a
Christian. She would so look at you that you would not dare to repeat
your prayer. Why is it that Nina has not so scorned me? We are lodged
poorly here, while Nina's aunt has a fine house in the New Town. She
has a carriage and horses, and the world around her is gay and bright.
Why did Nina come to the Jews' quarter for sympathy, seeing that she,
too, has friends of her own persuasion? Take Nina's part, indeed! It is
too late now for you to take her part. She has chosen for herself, and
her resting-place is to be here." Trendellsohn, as he spoke, put his
hand upon his breast, within the fold of his waistcoat; but Ziska
hardly understood that his doing so had any special meaning. Ziska
supposed that the "here" of which the Jew spoke was the old house in
which they were at that moment talking to each other.
"I am sure we have meant to be kind to her," said Ziska.
"You see the effect of your kindness. I tell you this only in answer to
what you said as to the young woman whom you saw at the door. Have you
aught else to say to me? I utterly decline that small matter of traffic
which you have proposed to me."
"It was not traffic exactly."
"Very well. What else is there that I can do for you?"
"I hardly know how to go on, as you are so--so hard in all that you
say."
"You will not be able to soften me, I fear."
"About the houses--though you say that I am trafficking, I really wish
to be honest with you."
"Say what you have to say, then, and be honest."
"I have never seen but one document which conveys the ownership of
those houses."
"Let my father, then, have that one document."
"It is in Balatka's house."
"That can hardly be possible," said Trendellsohn.
"As I am a Christian gentleman," said Ziska, "I believe it to be in
that house."
"As I am a Jew, sir, fearing God," said the other, "I do not believe
it. Who in that house has the charge of it?"
Ziska hesitated before he replied. "Nina, as I think," he said at last.
"I suppose Nina has it herself."
"Then she would be a traitor to me."
"What am I to say as to that?" said Ziska, smiling. Trendellsohn came
to him and sat down close at his side, looking closely into his face.
Ziska would have moved away from the Jew, but the elbow of the sofa
did not admit of his receding; and then, while he was thinking that he
would escape by rising from his seat, Anton spoke again in a low voice
--so low that it was almost a whisper, but the words seemed to fall
direct into Ziska's ears, and to hurt him. "What are you to say? You
called yourself just now a Christian gentleman. Neither the one name
nor the other goes for aught with me. I am neither the one nor the
other. But I am a man; and I ask you, as another man, whether it be
true that Nina Balatka has that paper in her possession--in her own
possession, mind you, I say." Ziska had hesitated before, but his
hesitation now was much more palpable. "Why do you not answer me?"
continued the Jew. "You have made this accusation against her. Is
the accusation true?"
"I think she has it," said Ziska. "Indeed I feel sure of it."
"In her own hands?"
"Oh yes; in her own hands. Of course it must be in her own hands."
"Christian gentleman," said Anton, rising again from his seat, and now
standing opposite to Ziska, "I disbelieve you. I think that you are
lying to me. Despite your Christianity, and despite your gentility--you
are a liar. Now, sir, unless you have anything further to say to me,
you may go."
Ziska, when thus addressed, rose of course from his seat. By nature he
was not a coward, but he was unready, and knew not what to do or to say
on the spur of the moment. "I did not come here to be insulted," he
said.
"No; you came to insult me, with two falsehoods in your mouth, either
of which proves the other to be a lie. You offer to give me up the
deeds on certain conditions, and then tell me that they are with the
girl! If she has them, how can you surrender them? I do not know
whether so silly a story might prevail between two Christians, but we
Jews have been taught among you to be somewhat observant. Sir, it is
my belief that the document belonging to my father is in your father's
desk in the Ross Markt."
"By heaven, it is in the house in the Kleinseite."
"How could you then have surrendered it?"
"It could have been managed."
It was now the Jew's turn to pause and hesitate. In the general
conclusion to which his mind had come, he was not far wrong. He
thought that Ziska was endeavouring to deceive him in the spirit of
what he said, but that as regarded the letter, the young man was
endeavouring to adhere to some fact for the salvation of his conscience
as a Christian. If Anton Trendellsohn could but find out in what lay
the quibble, the discovery might be very serviceable to him. "It could
have been managed--could it?" he said, speaking very slowly. "Between
you and her, perhaps."
"Well, yes; between me and Nina--or between some of us," said Ziska.
"And cannot it be managed now?"
"Nina is not one of us now. How can we deal with her?"
"Then I will deal with her myself. I will manage it if it is to be
managed. And, sir, if I find that in this matter you have told me the
simple truth--not the truth, mind you, as from a gentleman, or the
truth as from a Christian, for I suspect both--but the simple truth as
from man to man, then I will express my sorrow for the harsh words I
have used to you." As he finished speaking, Trendellsohn held the door
of the room open in his hand, and Ziska, not being ready with any
answer, passed through it and descended the stairs. The Jew followed
him and also held open the house door, but did not speak again as Ziska
went out. Nor did Ziska say a word, the proper words not being ready to
his tongue. The Jew returned at once into the synagogue, having during
the interview with Ziska worn the short white surplice in which he had
been found; and Ziska returned at once to his own house in the
Windberg-gasse.
CHAPTER VIII
Early on the following morning--the morning of the Christian Sunday--
Nina Balatka received a note, a very short note, from her lover the
Jew. "Dearest, meet me on the bridge this evening at eight. I will be
at your end on the right-hand pathway exactly at eight. Thine, ever and
always, A. T." Nina, directly she had read the words, rushed out to the
door in order that she might give assurance to the messenger that she
would do as she was bidden; but the messenger was gone, and Nina was
obliged to reconcile herself to the prospect of silent obedience. The
note, however, had made her very happy, and the prospect pleased her
well. It was on this very day that she had intended to go to her lover;
but it was in all respects much pleasanter to her that her lover should
come to her. And then, to walk with him was of all things the most
delightful, especially in the gloom of the evening, when no eyes could
see her--no eyes but his own. She could hang upon his arm, and in this
way she could talk more freely with him than in any other. And then the
note had in it more of the sweetness of a love-letter than any written
words which she had hitherto received from him. It was very short, no
doubt, but he had called her "Dearest," instead of "Dear Nina," as had
been his custom, and then he had declared that he was hers ever and
always. No words could have been sweeter. She was glad that the note
was so short, because there was nothing in it to mar her pleasure. Yes,
she would be there at eight. She was quite determined that she would
not keep him waiting.
At half-past seven she was on the bridge. There could be no reason, she
thought, why she should not walk across it to the other side and then
retrace her steps, though in doing so she was forced, by the rule of
the road upon the bridge, to pass to the Old Town by the right-hand
pathway in going, while he must come to her by the opposite side. But
she would walk very quickly and watch very closely. If she did not see
him as she crossed and recrossed, she would at any rate be on the spot
indicated at the time named. The autumn evenings had become somewhat
chilly, and she wrapped her thin cloak close round her, as she felt the
night air as she came upon the open bridge. But she was not cold. She
told herself that she could not and would not be cold. How could she be
cold when she was going to meet her lover? The night was dark, for the
moon was now gone and the wind was blowing; but there were a few stars
bright in the heaven, and when she looked down through the parapets of
the bridge, there was just light enough for her to see the black water
flowing fast beneath her. She crossed quickly to the figure of St John,
that she might look closely on those passing on the other side, and
after a few moments recrossed the road. It was the figure of the saint,
St John Nepomucene, who was thrown from this very bridge and drowned,
and who has ever since been the protector of good Christians from the
fate which he himself had suffered. Then Nina bethought herself whether
she was a good Christian, and whether St John of the Bridge would be
justified in interposing on her behalf, should she be in want of him.
She had strong doubts as to the validity of her own Christianity, now
that she loved a Jew; and feared that it was more than probable that St
John would do nothing for her, were she in such a strait as that in
which he was supposed to interfere. But why now should she think of any
such danger? Lotta Luxa had told her to drown herself when she should
find herself to have been jilted by her Jew lover; but her Jew lover
was true to her; she had his dear words at that moment in her bosom,
and in a few moments her hand would be resting on his arm. So she
passed on from the statue of St John, with her mind made up that
she did not want St John's aid. Some other saint she would want, no
doubt, and she prayed a little silent prayer to St Nicholas, that he
would allow her to marry the Jew without taking offence at her. Her
circumstances had been very hard, as the saint must know, and she had
meant to do her best. Might it not be possible, if the saint would help
her, that she might convert her husband? But as she thought of this,
she shook her head. Anton Trendellsohn was not a man to be changed in
his religion by any words which she could use. It would be much more
probable, she knew, that the conversion would be the other way. And she
thought she would not mind that, if only it could be a real conversion.
But if she were induced to say that she was a Jewess, while she still
believed in St Nicholas and St John, and in the beautiful face of the
dear Virgin--if to please her husband she were to call herself a Jewess
while she was at heart a Christian--then her state would be very
wretched. She prayed again to St Nicholas to keep her from that state.
If she were to become a Jewess, she hoped that St Nicholas would let
her go altogether, heart and soul, into Judaism.
When she reached the end of the long bridge she looked anxiously up the
street by which she knew that he must come, endeavouring to discover
his figure by the glimmering light of an oil-lamp that hung at an angle
in the street, or by the brighter glare which came from the gas in a
shop-window by which he must pass. She stood thus looking and looking
till she thought he would never come. Then she heard the clock in the
old watch-tower of the bridge over her head strike three-quarters, and
she became aware that, instead of her lover being after his time, she
had yet to wait a quarter of an hour for the exact moment which he
had appointed. She did not in the least mind waiting. She had been
a little uneasy when she thought that he had neglected or forgotten
his ow
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