Nina Balatka Part 19

"Look here, Nina. I do not know that there is a Christian in Prague who would feel it to be beneath him to rob a Jew, and I do not altogether blame them. They believe that we would rob them, and many of us do so.

We are very sharp, each on the other, dealing against each other always in hatred, never in love--never even in friendship."

"But, for all that, my father has never wronged you."

"He should not do so, for I am endeavouring to be kind to him. For your sake, Nina, I would treat him as though he were a Jew himself."

"He has never wronged you; I am sure that he has never wronged you."

"Nina, you are more to me than you are to him."

"Yes. I am--I am your own; but yet I will declare that he has never wronged you."

"And I should be more to you than he is."

"You are more--you are everything to me; but, still, I know that he has never wronged you."

Then the Jew paused again, still walking onwards through the dark colonnade with her hand upon his arm. They walked in silence the whole side of the large square. Nina waiting patiently to hear what would come next, and Trendellsohn considering what words he would use. He did suspect her father, and it was needful to his purpose that he should tell her so; and it was needful also, as he thought, that she should be made to understand that in her loyalty and truth to him she must give up her father, or even suspect her father, if his purpose required that she should do so. Though she were still a Christian herself, she must teach herself to look at other Christians, even at those belonging to herself, with Jewish eyes. Unless she could do so she would not be true and loyal to him with that troth and loyalty which he required. Poor Nina! It was the dearest wish of her heart to be true and loyal to him in all things; but it might be possible to put too hard a strain even upon such love as hers. "Nina," the Jew said, "I fear your father. I think that he is deceiving us."

"No, Anton, no! he is not deceiving you. My aunt and uncle and Ziska are deceiving you."

"They are trying to deceive me, no doubt; but as far as I can judge from their own words and looks, they do believe that at this moment the doc.u.ment which I want is in your father's house. As far as I can judge their thoughts from their words, they think that it is there."

"It is not there," said Nina, positively.

"That is what we must find out. Your uncle was silent. He said nothing, or next to nothing."

"He is the best of the three, by far," said Nina.

"Your aunt is a clever woman in spite her blunder about you; and had I dealt with her only I should have thought that she might have expressed herself as she did, and still have had the paper in her own keeping. I could not read her mind as I could read his. Women will lie better than men."

"But men can lie too," said Nina.

"Your cousin Ziska is a fool."

"He is a fox," said Nina.

"He is a fool in comparison with his mother. And I had him in my own house, under my thumb, as it were. Of course he lied. Of course he tried to deceive me. But, Nina, he believes that the doc.u.ment is here-- in your house. Whether it be there or not, Ziska thinks that it is there."

"Ziska is more fox than fool," said Nina.

"Let that be as it may. I tell you the truth of him. He thinks it is here. Now, Nina, you must search for it."

"It is not there, Anton. I tell you of my own knowledge, it is not in the house. Come and search yourself. Come to-morrow. Come to-night, if you will."

"It would be of no use. I could not search as you can do. Tell me, Nina; has your father no place locked up which is not open to you?"

"Yes; he has his old desk; you know it, where it stands in the parlour."

"You never open that?"

"No, never; but there is nothing there--nothing of that nature."

"How can you tell? Or he can keep it about his person?"

"He keeps it nowhere. He has not got it. Dear Anton, put it out of your head. You do not know my cousin Ziska. That he has it in his own hands I am now sure."

"And I, Nina, am sure that it is here in the Kleinseite--or at least am sure that he thinks it to be so. The question now is this: Will you obey me in what directions I may give you concerning it?" Nina could not bring herself to give an unqualified reply to this demand on the spur of the moment. Perhaps it occurred to her that the time for such implicit obedience on her part had hardly yet come--that as yet at least she must not be less true to her father than to her lover. She hesitated, therefore, in answering him. "Do you not understand me, Nina?" he said roughly. "I asked you whether you will do as I would have you do, and you make no reply. We two, Nina, must be one in all things, or else we must be apart--in all things."

"I do not know what it is you wish of me," she said, trembling.

"I wish you to obey me."

"But suppose--"

"I know that you must trust me first before you can obey me."

"I do trust you. You know that I trust you."

"Then you should obey me."

"But not to suspect my own father!"

"I do not ask you to suspect him."

"But you suspect him?"

"Yes; I do. I am older than you, and know more of men and their ways than you can do. I do suspect him. You must promise me that you will search for this deed."

Again she paused, but after a moment or two a thought struck her, and she replied eagerly, "Anton, I will tell you what I will do. I will ask him openly. He and I have always been open to each other."

"If he is concealing it, do you think he will tell you?"

"Yes, he would tell me. But he is not concealing it."

"Will you look?"

"I cannot take his keys from him and open his box."

"You mean that you will not do as I bid you?"

"I cannot do it. Consider of it, Anton. Could you treat your own father in such a way?"

"I would cling to you sooner than to him. I have told him so, and he has threatened to turn me penniless from his house. Still I shall cling to you, because you are my love. I shall do so if you are equally true to me. That is my idea of love. There can be no divided allegiance."

And this also was Nina's idea of love--an idea up to which she had striven to act and live when those around her had threatened her with all that earth and heaven could do to her if she would not abandon the Jew. But she had antic.i.p.ated no such trial as that which had now come upon her. "Dear Anton," she said, appealing to him weakly in her weakness, "if you did but know how I love you!"

"You must prove your love."