But while she was struggling to speak, the other girl rose and knelt at Nina"s feet, putting her long tapering fingers upon Nina"s thread-bare arms, so that her forehead was almost close to Nina"s lips. "He does,"
said Rebecca. "It is true--quite true. He loves you, poor as you are, ten times--a hundred times--better than he loves me, who am not poor.
You have won it altogether by yourself, with nothing of outside art to back you. You have your triumph. Will not that be enough for a life"s contentment?"
"No--no, no," said Nina. "No, it will not be enough." But her voice now was not altogether sorrowful. There was in it something of a wild joy which had come to her heart from the generous admission which the Jewess made. She did triumph as she remembered that she had conquered with no other weapons than those which nature had given her.
"It is more of contentment than I shall ever have," said Rebecca.
"Listen to me. If you will say to me that you will release him from his promise, I will swear to you by the G.o.d whom we both worship, that I will never become his wife--that he shall never touch me or speak to me in love." She had risen before she made this proposal, and now stood before Nina with one hand raised, with her blue eyes fixed upon Nina"s face, and a solemnity in her manner which for a while startled Nina into silence. "You will believe my word, I am sure," said Rebecca.
"Yes, I would believe you," said Nina.
"Shall it be a bargain between us? Say so, and whatever is mine shall be mine and yours too. Though a Jew may not make a Christian his wife, a Jewish girl may love a Christian maiden; and then, Nina, we shall both know that we have done our very best for him whom we both love better than all the world beside."
Nina was again silent, considering the proposition that had been made to her. There was one thing that she did not see; one point of view in which the matter had not been presented to her. The cause for her sacrifice had been made plain to her, but why was the sacrifice of the other also to become necessary? By not yielding she might be able to keep her lover to herself; but if she were to be induced to abandon him --for his sake, so that he might not be ruined by his love for her-- why, in that case, should he not take the other girl for his wife? In such a case Nina told herself that there would be no world left for her. There would be nothing left for her beyond the accomplishment of Lotta Luxa"s prophecy. But yet, though she thought of this, though in her misery she half resolved that she would give up Anton, and not exact from Rebecca the oath which the Jewess had tendered, still, in spite of that feeling, the dread of a rival"s success helped to make her feel that she could never bring herself to yield.
"Shall it be as I say?" said Rebecca; "and shall we, dear, be friends while we live?"
"No," said Nina, suddenly.
"You cannot bring yourself to do so much for the man you love?"
"No, I cannot. Could you throw yourself from the bridge into the Moldau, and drown yourself?"
"Yes," said Rebecca, "I could. If it would serve him, I think that I could do so."
"What! in the dark, when it is so cold? The people would see you in the daytime."
"But I would live, that I might hear of his doings, and see his success."
"Ah! I could not live without feeling that he loved me."
"But what will you think of his love when it has ruined him? Will it be pleasant then? Were I to do that, then--then I should bethink myself of the cold river and the dark night, and the eyes of the pa.s.sers-by whom I should be afraid to meet in the daytime. I ask you to be as I am. Who is there that pities me? Think again, Nina. I know you would wish that he should be prosperous."
Nina did think again, and thought long. And she wept, and the Jewess comforted her, and many words were said between them beyond those which have been here set down; but, in the end, Nina could not bring herself to say that she would give him up. For his sake had she not given up her uncle and her aunt, and St John and St Nicholas--and the very Virgin herself, whose picture she had now removed from the wall beside her bed to a dark drawer? How could she give up that which was everything she had in the world--the very life of her bosom? "I will ask him--him himself," she said at last, hoa.r.s.ely. "I will ask him, and do as he bids me. I cannot do anything unless it is as he bids me."
"In this matter you must act on your own judgment, Nina."
"No, I will not. I have no judgment. He must judge for me in everything. If he says it is better that we should part, then--then-- then I will let him go."
After this Rebecca left the room and the house. Before she went, she kissed the Christian girl; but Nina did not remember that she had been kissed. Her mind was so full, not of thought, but of the suggestion that had been made to her, that it could now take no impression from anything else. She had been recommended to do a thing as her duty--as a paramount duty towards him who was everything to her--the doing of which it would be impossible that she should survive. So she told herself when she was once more alone, and had again seated herself in the chair by the window. She did not for a moment accuse Rebecca of dealing unfairly with her. It never occurred to her as possible that the Jewess had come to her with false views of her own fabrication.
Had she so believed, her suspicions would have done great injustice to her rival; but no such idea presented itself to Nina"s mind. All that Rebecca had said to her had come to her as though it were gospel. She did believe that Trendellsohn, as a Jew, would injure himself greatly by marrying a Christian. She did believe that the Jews of Prague would treat him somewhat as the Christians would treat herself. For herself such treatment would be nothing, if she were but once married; but she could understand that to him it would be ruinous. And Nina believed also that Rebecca had been entirely disinterested in her mission--that she came thither, not to gain a lover for herself, but to save from injury the man she loved, without reference to her own pa.s.sion. Nina knew that Rebecca was strong and good, and acknowledged also that she herself was weak and selfish. She thought that she ought to have been persuaded to make the sacrifice, and once or twice she almost resolved that she would follow Rebecca to the Jews" quarter and tell her that it should be made. But she could not do it. Were she to do so, what would be left to her? With him she could bear anything, everything. To starve would hardly be bitter to her, so that his arm could be round her waist, and that her head could be on his shoulder. And, moreover, was she not his to do with as he pleased? After all her promises to him, how could she take upon herself to dispose of herself otherwise than as he might direct?
But then some thought of the missing doc.u.ment came back upon her, and she remembered in her grief that he suspected her--that even now he had some frightful doubt as to her truth to him--her faith, which was, alas, alas! more firm and bright towards him than towards that heavenly Friend whose aid would certainly suffice to bring her through all her troubles, if only she could bring herself to trust as she asked it. But she could trust only in him, and he doubted her! Would it not be better to do as Rebecca said, and make the most of such contentment as might come to her from her triumph over herself? That would be better--ten times better than to be abandoned by him--to be deserted by her Jew lover, because the Jew would not trust her, a Christian! On either side there could be nothing for her but death; but there is a choice even of deaths. If she did the thing herself, she thought that there might be something sweet even in the sadness of her last hour--something of the flavour of sacrifice. But should it be done by him, in that way there lay nothing but the madness of desolation! It was her last resolve, as she still sat at the window counting the sparrows in the yard, that she would tell him everything, and leave it to him to decide. If he would say that it was better for them to part, then he might go; and Rebecca Loth might become his wife, if he so wished it.
CHAPTER XI
On one of these days old Trendellsohn went to the office of Karil Zamenoy, in the Ross Markt, with the full determination of learning in truth what there might be to be learned as to that deed which would be so necessary to him, or to those who would come after him, when Josef Balatka might die. He accused himself of having been foolishly soft-hearted in his transactions with this Christian, and reminded himself from time to time that no Jew in Prague would have been so treated by any Christian. And what was the return made to him? Among them they had now secreted that of which he should have enforced the rendering before he had parted with his own money; and this they did because they knew that he would be unwilling to take harsh legal proceedings against a bed-ridden old man! In this frame of mind he went to the Ross Markt, and there he was a.s.sured over and over again by Ziska Zamenoy--for Karil Zamenoy was not to be seen--that Nina Balatka had the deed in her own keeping. The name of Nina Balatka was becoming very grievous to the old man. Even he, when the matter had first been broached to him, had not recognised all the evils which would come from a marriage between his son and a Christian maiden; but of late his neighbours had been around him, and he had looked into the thing, and his eyes had been opened, and he had declared to himself that he would not take a Christian girl into his house as his daughter-in-law. He could not prevent the marriage. The law would be on his son"s side. The law of the Christian kingdom in which he lived allowed such marriages, and Anton, if he executed the contract which would make the marriage valid, would in truth be the girl"s husband. But--and Trendellsohn, as he remembered the power which was still in his hands, almost regretted that he held it--if this thing were done, his son must go out from his house, and be his son no longer.
The old man was very proud of his son. Rebecca had said truly that no Jew in Prague was so respected among Jews as Anton Trendellsohn. She might have added, also, that none was more highly esteemed among Christians. To lose such a son would be a loss indeed. "I will share everything with him, and he shall go away out of Bohemia," Trendellsohn had said to himself. "He has earned it, and he shall have it. He has worked for me--for us both--without asking me, his father, to bind myself with any bond. He shall have the wealth which is his own, but he shall not have it here. Ah! if he would but take that other one as his bride, he should have everything, and his father"s blessing--and then he would be the first instead of the last among his people." Such was the purpose of Stephen Trendellsohn towards his son; but this, his real purpose, did not hinder him from threatening worse things. To prevent the marriage was his great object; and if threats would prevent it, why should he not use them?
But now he had conceived the idea that Nina was deceiving his son--that Nina was in truth holding back the deed with some view which he could hardly fathom. Ziska Zamenoy had declared, with all the emphasis in his power, that the doc.u.ment was, to the best of his belief, in Nina"s hands; and though Ziska"s emphasis would not have gone far in convincing the Jew, had the Jew"s mind been turned in the other direction, now it had its effect. "And who gave it her?" Trendellsohn had asked. "Ah, there you must excuse me," Ziska had answered; "though, indeed, I could not tell you if I would. But we have nothing to do with the matter. We have no claim upon the houses. It is between you and the Balatkas." Then the Jew had left the Zamenoys" office, and had gone home, fully believing that the deed was in Nina"s hands.
"Yes, it is so--she is deceiving you," he said to his son that evening.
"No father. I think not."
"Very well. You will find, when it is too late, that my words are true.
Have you ever known a Christian who thought it wrong to rob a Jew?"
"I do not believe that Nina would rob me."
"Ah! that is the confidence of what you call love. She is honest, you think, because she has a pretty face."
"She is honest, I think, because she loves me."
"Bah! Does love make men honest, or women either? Do we not see every day how these Christians rob each other in their money dealings when they are marrying? What was the girl"s name?--old Thibolski"s daughter --how they robbed her when they married her, and how her people tried their best to rob the lad she married. Did we not see it all?"
"It was not the girl who did it--not the girl herself."
"Why should a woman be honester than a man? I tell you, Anton, that this girl has the deed."
"Ziska Zamenoy has told you so?"
"Yes, he has told me. But I am not a man to be deceived because such a one as Ziska wishes to deceive me. You, at least, know me better than that. That which I tell you, Ziska himself believes."
"But Ziska may believe wrongly."
"Why should he do so? Whose interest can it be to make this thing seem so, if it be not so? If the girl have the deed, you can get it more readily from her than from the Zamenoys. Believe me, Anton, the deed is with the girl."
"If it be so, I shall never believe again in the truth of a human being," said the son.
"Believe in the truth of your own people," said the father. "Why should you seek to be wiser than them all?"
The father did not convince the son, but the words which he had spoken helped to create a doubt which already had almost an existence of its own. Anton Trendellsohn was p.r.o.ne to suspicions, and now was beginning to suspect Nina, although he strove hard to keep his mind free from such taint. His better nature told him that it was impossible that she should deceive him. He had read the very inside of her heart, and knew that her only delight was in his love. He understood perfectly the weakness and faith and beauty of her feminine nature, and her trusting, leaning softness was to his harder spirit as water to a thirsting man in the desert. When she clung to him, promising to obey him in everything, the touch of her hands, and the sound of her voice, and the beseeching glance of her loving eyes, were food and drink to him. He knew that her presence refreshed him and cooled him--made him young as he was growing old, and filled his mind with sweet thoughts which hardly came to him but when she was with him. He had told himself over and over again that it must be good for him to have such a one for his wife, whether she were Jew or Christian. He knew himself to be a better man when she was with him than at other moments of his life. And then he loved her. He was thinking of her hourly, though his impatience to see her was not as hers to be with him. He loved her. But yet--yet-- what if she should be deceiving him? To be able to deceive others, but never to be deceived himself, was to him, unconsciously, the glory which he desired. To be deceived was to be disgraced. What was all his wit and acknowledged cunning if a girl--a Christian girl--could outwit him? For himself, he could see clearly enough into things to be aware that, as a rule, he could do better by truth than he could by falsehood. He was not p.r.o.ne to deceive others. But in such matters he desired ever to have the power with him to keep, as it were, the upper hand. He would fain read the hearts of others entirely, and know their wishes, and understand their schemes, whereas his own heart and his own desires and his own schemes should only be legible in part. What if, after all, he were unable to read the simple tablets of this girl"s mind--tablets which he had regarded as being altogether in his own keeping?
He went forth for a while, walking slowly through the streets, as he thought of this, wandering without an object, but turning over in his mind his father"s words. He knew that his father was anxious to prevent his marriage. He knew that every Jew around him--for now the Jews around him had all heard of it--was keenly anxious to prevent so great a disgrace. He knew all that his father had threatened, and he was well aware how complete was his father"s power. But he could stand against all that, if only Nina were true to him. He would go away from Prague.
What did it matter? Prague was not all the world. There were cities better, n.o.bler, richer than Prague, in which his brethren, the Jews, would not turn their backs upon him because he had married a Christian.
It might be that he would have to begin the world again; but for that, too, he would be prepared. Nina had shown that she could bear poverty.
Nina"s torn boots and threadbare dress, and the utter absence of any request ever made with regard to her own comfort, had not been lost upon him. He knew how n.o.ble she was in bearing--how doubly n.o.ble she was in never asking. If only there was nothing of deceit at the back to mar it all!
He pa.s.sed over the bridge, hardly knowing whither he was going, and turned directly down towards Balatka"s house. As he did so he observed that certain repairs were needed in an adjoining building which belonged to his father, and determined that a mason should be sent there on the next day. Then he turned in under the archway, not pa.s.sing through it into the court, and there he stood looking up at the window, in which Nina"s small solitary lamp was twinkling. He knew that she was sitting by the light, and that she was working. He knew that she would be raised almost to a seventh heaven of delight if he would only call her to the door and speak to her a dozen words before he returned to his home. But he had no thought of doing it. Was it possible that she should have this doc.u.ment in her keeping?--that was the thought that filled his mind. He had bribed Lotta Luxa, and Lotta had sworn by her Christian G.o.ds that the deed was in Nina"s hands. If the thing was false, why should they all conspire to tell the same falsehood? And yet he knew that they were false in their natures. Their manner, the words of each of them, betrayed something of falsehood to his well-tuned ear, to his acute eye, to his sharp senses. But with Nina--from Nina herself--everything that came from her spoke of truth. A sweet savour of honesty hung about her breath, and was a blessing to him when he was near enough to her to feel it. And yet he told himself that he was bound to doubt. He stood for some half-hour in the archway, leaning against the stonework at the side, and looking up at the window where Nina was sitting. What was he to do? How should he carry himself in this special period of his life? Great ideas about the destiny of his people were mingled in his mind with suspicions as to Nina, of which he should have been, and probably was, ashamed. He would certainly take her away from Prague. He had already perceived that his marriage with a Christian would be regarded in that stronghold of prejudice in which he lived with so much animosity as to impede, and perhaps destroy, the utility of his career. He would go away, taking Nina with him. And he would be careful that she should never know, by a word or a look, that he had in any way suffered for her sake. And he swore to himself that he would be soft to her, and gentle, loving her with a love more demonstrative than he had hitherto exhibited. He knew that he had been stern, exacting, and sometimes harsh. All that should be mended. He had learned her character, and perceived how absolutely she fed upon his love; and he would take care that the food should always be there, palpably there, for her sustenance. But--but he must try her yet once more before all this could be done for her. She must pa.s.s yet once again through the fire; and if then she should come forth as gold, she should be to him the one pure ingot which the earth contained. With how great a love would he not repay her in future days for all that she would have suffered for his sake?
But she must be made to go through the fire again. He would tax her with the possession of the missing deed, and call upon her to cleanse herself from the accusation which was made against her. Once again he would be harsh with her--harsh in appearance only--in order that his subsequent tenderness might be so much more tender! She had already borne much, and she must be made to endure once again. Did not he mean to endure much for her sake? Was he not prepared to recommence the troubles and toil of his life all from the beginning, in order that she might be that life"s companion? Surely he had the right to put her through the fire, and prove her as never gold was proved before.
At last the little light was quenched, and Anton Trendellsohn felt that he was alone. The unseen companion of his thoughts was no longer with him, and it was useless for him to remain there standing in the archway. He blew her a kiss from his lips, and blessed her in his heart, and protested to himself that he knew she would come out of the fire pure altogether and proved to be without dross. And then he went his way. In the mean time Nina, chill and wretched, crept to her cold bed, all unconscious of the happiness that had been so near her. "If he thinks I can be false to him, it will be better to die," she said to herself, as she drew the scanty clothing over her shivering shoulders.