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.