"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.