Nina Balatka Part 22

"Well--what is it?"

"I have seen every paper and every morsel of everything that is in father's desk, and there is no sign of the deed you want."

"And how did you see them?"

"He showed them to me."

"You told him, then, what I had said to you?"

"No; I told him nothing about it. He gave me the key, and desired me to fetch him all the papers. He wanted to find a letter which uncle Karil wrote him ever so long ago. In that letter uncle Karil acknowledges that he has the deed."

"I do not doubt that in the least."

"And what is it you do doubt, Anton?"

"I do not say I doubt anything."

"Do you doubt me, Anton?"

There was a little pause before he answered her--the slightest moment of hesitation. But had it been but half as much, Nina's ear and Nina's heart would have detected it. "No," said Anton, "I am not saying that I doubt any one."

"If you doubt me, you will kill me. I am at any rate true to you. What is it you want? What is it you think?"

"They tell me that the doc.u.ment is in the house in the Kleinseite."

"Who are they? Who is it that tells you?"

"More than one. Your uncle and aunt said so--and Ziska Zamenoy came to me on purpose to repeat the same."

"And would you believe what Ziska says? I have hardly thought it worth my while to tell you that Ziska--"

"To tell me what of Ziska?"

"That Ziska pretends to--to want that I should be his wife. I would not look at him if there were not another man in Prague. I hate him. He is a liar. Would you believe Ziska?"

"And another has told me."

"Another?" said Nina, considering.

"Yes, another."

"Lotta Luxa, I suppose."

"Never mind. They say indeed that it is you who have the deed."

"And you believe them?"

"No, I do not believe them. But why do they say so?"

"Must I explain that? How can I tell? Anton, do you not believe that the woman who loves you will be true to you?"

Then he paused again--"Nina, sometimes I think that I have been mad to love a Christian."

"What have I been then? But I do love you, Anton--I love you better than all the world. I care nothing for Jew or Christian. When I think of you, I care nothing for heaven or earth. You are everything to me, because I love you. How could I deceive you?"

"Nina, Nina, my own one!" he said.

"And as I love you, so do you love me? Say that you love me also."

"I do," said he--"I love you as I love my own soul."

Then they parted; and Nina, as she went home, tried to make herself happy with the a.s.surance which had been given to her by the last words her lover had spoken; but still there remained with her that suspicion of a doubt which, if it really existed, would be so cruel an injury to her love.

CHAPTER X

Some days pa.s.sed on after the visit to the jeweller's shop--perhaps ten or twelve--before Nina heard from or saw her lover again; and during that time she had no tidings from her relatives in the Windberg-ga.s.se.

Life went on very quietly in the old house, and not the less quietly because the proceeds of the necklace saved Nina from any further immediate necessity of searching for money. The cold weather had come, or rather weather that was cold in the morning and cold in the evening, and old Balatka kept his bed altogether. His state was such that no one could say why he should not get up and dress himself, and he himself continued to speak of some future time when he would do so; but there he was, lying in his bed, and Nina told herself that in all probability she would never see him about the house again. For herself, she was becoming painfully anxious that some day should be fixed for her marriage. She knew that she was, herself, ignorant in such matters; and she knew also that there was no woman near her from whom she could seek counsel. Were she to go to some matron of the neighbourhood, her neighbour would only rebuke her, because she loved a Jew. She had boldly told her relatives of her love, and by doing so had shut herself out from all a.s.sistance from them. From even her father she could get no sympathy; though with him her engagement had become so far a thing sanctioned, that he had ceased to speak of it in words of reproach.

But when was it to be? She had more than once made up her mind that she would ask her lover, but her courage had never as yet mounted high enough in his presence to allow her to do so. When he was with her, their conversation always took such a turn that before she left him she was happy enough if she could only draw from him an a.s.surance that he was not forgetting to love her. Of any final time for her marriage he never said a word. In the mean time she and her father might starve!

They could not live on the price of a necklace for ever. She had not made up her mind--she never could make up her mind--as to what might be best for her father when she should be married; but she had made up her mind that when that happy time should come, she would simply obey her husband. He would tell her what would be best for her father. But in the mean time there was no word of her marriage; and now she had been ten days in the Kleinseite without once having had so much as a message from her lover. How was it possible that she should continue to live in such a condition as this?

She was sitting one morning very forlorn in the big parlour, looking out upon the birds who were pecking among the dust in the courtyard below, when her eye just caught the drapery of the dress of some woman who had entered the arched gateway. Nina, from her place by the window, could see out through the arch, and no one therefore could come through their gate while she was at her seat without pa.s.sing under her eye; but on this occasion the birds had distracted her attention, and she had not caught a sight of the woman's face or figure. Could it be her aunt come to torture her again--her and her father? She knew that Souchey was down-stairs, hanging somewhere in idleness about the door, and therefore she did not leave her place. If it were indeed her aunt, her aunt might come up there to seek her. Or it might possibly be Lotta Luxa, who, next to her aunt, was of all women the most disagreeable to Nina. Lotta, indeed, was not so hard to bear as aunt Sophie, because Lotta could be answered sharply, and could be told to go, if matters proceeded to extremities. In such a case Lotta no doubt would not go; but still the power of desiring her to do so was much. Then Nina remembered that Lotta never wore her petticoats so full as was the morsel of drapery which she had seen. And as she thought of this there came a low knock at the door. Nina, without rising, desired the stranger to come in. Then the door was gently opened, and Rebecca Loth the Jewess stood before her. Nina had seen Rebecca, but had never spoken to her. Each girl had heard much of the other from their younger friend Ruth Jacobi. Ruth was very intimate with them both, and Nina had been willing enough to be told of Rebecca, as had Rebecca also to be told of Nina. "Grandfather wants Anton to marry Rebecca," Ruth had said more than once; and thus Nina knew well that Rebecca was her rival. "I think he loves her better than his own eyes," Ruth had said to Rebecca, speaking of her uncle and Nina. But Rebecca had heard from a thousand sources of information that he who was to have been her lover had forgotten his own people and his own religion, and had given himself to a Christian girl. Each, therefore, now knew that she looked upon an enemy and a rival; but each was anxious to be very courteous to her enemy.

Nina rose from her chair directly she saw her visitor, and came forward to meet her. "I suppose you hardly know who I am, Fraeulein?" said Rebecca.

"Oh, yes," said Nina, with her pleasantest smile; "you are Rebecca Loth."

"Yes, I am Rebecca Loth, the Jewess."

"I like the Jews," said Nina.

Rebecca was not dressed now as she had been dressed on that gala occasion when we saw her in the Jews' quarter. Then she had been as smart as white muslin and bright ribbons and velvet could make her. Now she was clad almost entirely in black, and over her shoulders she wore a dark shawl, drawn closely round her neck. But she had on her head, now as then, that peculiar Hungarian hat which looks almost like a coronet in front, and gives an aspect to the girl who wears it half defiant and half attractive; and there were there, of course, the long, glossy, black curls, and the dark-blue eyes, and the turn of the face, which was so completely Jewish in its hard, bold, almost repellant beauty. Nina had said that she liked the Jews, but when the words were spoken she remembered that they might be open to misconstruction, and she blushed. The same idea occurred to Rebecca, but she scorned to take advantage of even a successful rival on such a point as that. She would not twit Nina by any hint that this a.s.sumed liking for the Jews was simply a special predilection for one Jew in particular. "We are not ungrateful to you for coming among us and knowing us," said Rebecca.

Then there was a slight pause, for Nina hardly knew what to say to her visitor. But Rebecca continued to speak. "We hear that in other countries the prejudice against us is dying away, and that Christians stay with Jews in their houses, and Jews with Christians, eating with them, and drinking with them. I fear it will never be so in Prague."

"And why not in Prague? I hope it may. Why should we not do in Prague as they do elsewhere?"

"Ah, the feeling is so firmly settled here. We have our own quarter, and live altogether apart. A Christian here will hardly walk with a Jew, unless it be from counter to counter, or from bank to bank. As for their living together--or even eating in the same room--do you ever see it?"

Nina of course understood the meaning of this. That which the girl said to her was intended to prove to her how impossible it was that she should marry a Jew, and live in Prague with a Jew as his wife; but she, who stood her ground before aunt Sophie, who had never flinched for a moment before all the threats which could be showered upon her from the Christian side, was not going to quail before the opposition of a Jewess, and that Jewess a rival!

"I do not know why we should not live to see it," said Nina.

"It must take long first--very long," said Rebecca. "Even now, Fraeulein, I fear you will think that I am very intrusive in coming to you. I know that a Jewess has no right to push her acquaintance upon a Christian girl." The Jewess spoke very humbly of herself and of her people; but in every word she uttered there was a slight touch of irony which was not lost upon Nina. Nina could not but bethink herself that she was poor--so poor that everything around her, on her, and about her, told of poverty; while Rebecca was very rich, and showed her wealth even in the sombre garments which she had chosen for her morning visit. No idea of Nina's poverty had crossed Rebecca's mind, but Nina herself could not but remember it when she felt the sarcasm implied in her visitor's self-humiliation.

"I am glad that you have come to me--very glad indeed, if you have come in friends.h.i.+p." Then she blushed as she continued, "To me, situated as I am, the friends.h.i.+p of a Jewish maiden would be a treasure indeed."