Nina Balatka Part 25

As she did so her lover walked home, and having come to a resolution which was intended to be definite as to his love, he allowed his thoughts to run away with him to other subjects. After all, it would be no evil to him to leave Prague. At Prague how little was there of progress either in thought or in things material! At Prague a Jew could earn money, and become rich--might own half the city; and yet at Prague he could only live as an outcast. As regarded the laws of the land, he, as a Jew, might fix his residence anywhere in Prague or around Prague; he might have gardens, and lands, and all the results of money; he might put his wife into a carriage twice as splendid as that which const.i.tuted the great social triumph of Madame Zamenoy--but so strong against such a mode of life were the traditional prejudices of both Jews and Christians, that any such fas.h.i.+on of living would be absolutely impossible to him. It would not be good for him that he should remain at Prague. Knowing his father as he did, he could not believe that the old man would be so unjust as to let him go altogether empty-handed. He had toiled, and had been successful; and something of the corn which he had garnered would surely be rendered to him. With this--or, if need be, without it--he and his Christian wife would go forth and see if the world was not wide enough to find them a spot on which they might live without the contempt of those around them.

Though Nina had quenched her lamp and had gone to bed, it was not late when Trendellsohn reached his home, and he knew that he should find his father waiting for him. But his father was not alone. Rebecca Loth was sitting with the old man, and they had just supped together when Anton entered the room. Ruth Jacobi was also there, waiting till her friend should go, before she also went to her bed.

"How are you, Anton?" said Rebecca, giving her hand to the man she loved. "It is strange to see you in these days."

"The strangeness, Rebecca, comes from no fault of my own. Few men, I fancy, are more constant to their homes than I am."

"You sleep here and eat here, I daresay."

"My business lies mostly out, about the town."

"Have you been about business now, uncle Anton?" said Ruth.

"Do not ask forward questions, Ruth," said the uncle. "Rebecca, I fear, teaches you to forget that you are still a child."

"Do not scold her," said the old man. "She is a good girl."

"It is Anton that forgets that nature is making Ruth a young woman,"

said Rebecca.

"I do not want to be a young woman a bit before uncle Anton likes it,"

said Ruth. "I don't mind waiting ever so long for him. When he is married he will not care what I am."

"If that be so, you may be a woman very soon," said Rebecca.

"That is more than you know," said Anton, turning very sharply on her.

"What do you know of my marriage, or when it will be?"

"Are you scolding her too?" said the elder Trendellsohn.

"Nay, father; let him do so," said Rebecca. "He has known me long enough to scold me if he thinks that I deserve it. You are gentle to me and spoil me, and it is only well that one among my old friends should be sincere enough to be ungentle."

"I beg your pardon, Rebecca, if I have been uncourteous."

"There can be no pardon where there is no offence."

"If you are ashamed to hear of your marriage," said the father, "you should be ashamed to think of it."

Then there was silence for a few seconds before anyone spoke. The girls did not dare to speak after words so serious from the father to the son. It was known to both of them that Anton could hardly bring himself to bear a rebuke even from his father, and they felt that such a rebuke as this, given in their presence, would be altogether unendurable.

Every one in the room understood the exact position in which each stood to the other. That Rebecca would willingly have become Anton's wife, that she had refused various offers of marriage in order that ultimately it might be so, was known to Stephen Trendellsohn, and to Anton himself, and to Ruth Jacobi. There had not been the pretence of any secret among them in the matter. But the subject was one which could hardly be discussed by them openly. "Father," said Anton, after a while, during which the black thunder-cloud which had for an instant settled on his brow had managed to dispel itself without bursting into a visible storm--"father, I am neither ashamed to think of my intended marriage nor to speak of it. There is no question of shame. But it is unpleasant to make such a subject matter of general conversation when it is a source of trouble instead of joy among us. I wish I could have made you happy by my marriage."

"You will make me very wretched."

"Then let us not talk about it. It cannot be altered. You would not have me false to my plighted word?"

Again there was silence for some minutes, and then Rebecca spoke--the words coming from her in the lowest possible accents.

"It can be altered without breach of your plighted word. Ask the young woman what she herself thinks. You will find that she knows that you are both wrong."

"Of course she knows it," said the father.

"I will ask her nothing of the kind," said the son.

"It would be of no use," said Ruth.

After this Rebecca rose to take her leave, saying something of the falseness of her brother Samuel, who had promised to come for her and to take her home. "But he is with Miriam Harter," said Rebecca, "and, of course, he will forget me."

"I will go home with you," said Anton.

"Indeed you shall not. Do you think I cannot walk alone through our own streets in the dark without being afraid?"

"I am well aware that you are afraid of nothing; but nevertheless, if you will allow me, I will accompany you." There was no sufficient cause for her to refuse his company, and the two left the house together.

As they descended the stairs, Rebecca determined that she would have the first word in what might now be said between them. She had suggested that this marriage with the Christian girl might be abandoned without the disgrace upon Anton of having broken his troth, and she had thereby laid herself open to a suspicion of having worked for her own ends--of having done so with unmaidenly eagerness to gratify her own love. Something on the subject must be said--would be said by him if not by her--and therefore she would explain herself at once. She spoke as soon as she found herself by his side in the street. "I regretted what I said up-stairs, Anton, as soon as the words were out of my mouth."

"I do not know that you said anything to regret."

"I told you that if in truth you thought this marriage to be wrong--"

"Which I do not."

"Pardon me, my friend, for a moment. If you had so thought, I said that there was a mode of escape without falsehood or disgrace. In saying so I must have seemed to urge you to break away from Nina Balatka."

"You are all urging me to do that."

"Coming from the others, such advice cannot even seem to have an improper motive." Here she paused, feeling the difficulty of her task-- aware that she could not conclude it without an admission which no woman willingly makes. But she shook away the impediment, bracing herself to the work, and went on steadily with her speech. "Coming from me, such motive may be imputed--nay, it must be imputed."

"No motive is imputed that is not believed by me to be good and healthy and friendly."

"Our friends," continued Rebecca, "have wished that you and I should be husband and wife. That is now impossible."

"It is impossible--because Nina will be my wife."

"It is impossible, whether Nina should become your wife or should not become your wife. I do not say this from any girlish pride. Before I knew that you loved a Christian woman, I would willingly have been--as our friends wished. You see I can trust you enough for candour. When I was young they told me to love you, and I obeyed them. They told me that I was to be your wife, and I taught myself to be happy in believing them. I now know that they were wrong, and I will endeavour to teach myself another happiness."

"Rebecca, if I have been in fault--"

"You have never been in fault. You are by nature too stern to fall into such faults. It has been my misfortune--perhaps rather I should say my difficulty--that till of late you have given me no sign by which I could foresee my lot. I was still young, and I still believed what they told me, even though you did not come to me as lovers come. Now I know it all; and as any such thoughts--or wishes, if you will--as those I used to have can never return to me, I may perhaps be felt by you to be free to use what liberty of counsel old friends.h.i.+p may give me. I know you will not misunderstand me--and that is all. Do not come further with me."

He called to her, but she was gone, escaping from him with quick running feet through the dark night; and he returned to his father's house, thinking of the girl that had left him.

CHAPTER XII

Again some days pa.s.sed by without any meeting between Nina and her lover, and things were going very badly with the Balatkas in the old house. The money that had come from the jeweller was not indeed all expended, but Nina looked upon it as her last resource, till marriage should come to relieve her; and the time of her marriage seemed to be as far from her as ever. So the kreutzers were husbanded as only a woman can husband them, and new attempts were made to reduce the little expenses of the little household.