BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. DCIX.

JULY 1866.

VOL. C.

NINA BALATKA: THE STORY OF A MAIDEN OF PRAGUE.-PART I.

THE PERSONS OF THE STORY.

STEPHEN TRENDELLSOHN,-A Jew in Prague.

ANTON TRENDELLSOHN,-His Son.

KARIL ZAMENOY,-A Christian Merchant of Prague.

MADAME ZAMENOY,-His Wife.

ZISKA ZAMENOY,-Their Son.

JOSEF BALATKA,-A Broken Merchant of Prague, also a Christian.
NINA BALATKA,-His Daughter.

RUTH JACOBI,- Granddaughter of the Jew.

REBECCA LOTH,-A Jewess.

FATHER JEROME,—A Priest.

RAPINSKI, A Jeweller.

LOTTA LUXA,-Servant to Madame Zamenoy.
SOUCHEY,-Servant to Josef Balatka.

CHAPTER I.

NINA BALATKA was a maiden of Prague, born of Christian parents, and herself a Christian -but she loved a Jew; and this is her story.

Nina Balatka was the daughter of one Josef Balatka, an old merchant of Prague, who was living at the time of this story; but Nina's mother was dead. Josef, in the course of his business, had become closely connected with a certain Jew named Trendellsohn, who lived in

VOL, C.-NO. DCIX.

a mean house in the Jews' quarter in Prague-habitation in that one allotted portion of the town having been the enforced custom with the Jews then, as it still is now. In business with Trendellsohn, the father, there was Anton, his son; and Anton Trendellsohn was the Jew whom Nina Balatka loved. Now it had so happened that Josef Balatka, Nina's father, had drifted out of a partnership with Karil

A

She loved the man, and had told him so; and were he gipsy as well as Jew, it would be required of her that she should go out with him into the wilderness. And Nina Balatka was prepared to go out into the wilderness. Karil Zamenoy and his wife were prosperous people, and lived in a comfortable modern house in the New Town. It stood in a straight street, and at the back of the house there ran another straight street. This part of the city is very little like that old

Zamenoy, a wealthy Christian mer-
chant of Prague, and had drifted
into a partnership with Trendell
sohn. How this had come to pass
needs not to be told here, as it had
all occurred in years when Nina
was an infant. But in these shift-
ings Balatka became a ruined man,
and at the time of which I write
he and his daughter were almost
penniless. The reader must know
that Karil Zamenoy and Josef Ba-
latka had married sisters. Josef's
wife, Nina's mother, had long been
dead, having died-so said Sophie Prague, which may not be so com-
Zamenoy, her sister-of a broken
heart; of a heart that had broken
itself in grief, because her husband
had joined his fortunes with those
of a Jew. Whether the disgrace of
the alliance or its disastrous result
may have broken the lady's heart,
or whether she may have died of a
pleurisy, as the doctors said, we
need not inquire here. Her soul
had been long at rest, and her
spirit, we may hope, had ceased to
fret itself in horror at contact with
a Jew.
But Sophie Zamenoy was
alive and strong, and could still
hate a Jew as intensely as Jews
ever were hated in those earlier
days in which hatred could satisfy
itself with persecution. In her
time but little power was left
to Madame Zamenoy to persecute
the Trendellsohns other than that
which nature had given to her in
the bitterness of her tongue. She
could revile them behind their
back, or, if opportunity offered, to
their faces; and both she had done
often, telling the world of Prague
that the Trendellsohns had killed
her sister, and robbed her foolish
brother-in-law. But hitherto the
full vial of her wrath had not been
emptied, as it came to be emptied
afterwards; for she had not yet the river, and the Kleinseite and
learned the mad iniquity of her
niece. But at the moment of which
I now speak, Nina herself knew her
own iniquity, hardly knowing, how-
ever, whether her love did or did not
disgrace her. But she did know that
any thought as to that was too late.

fortable, but which, of all cities on
the earth, is surely the most pic-
turesque. Here lived Sophie Za-
menoy; and so far up in the world
had she mounted, that she had a
coach of her own in which to be
drawn about the thoroughfares of
Prague and its suburbs, and a stout
little pair of Bohemian horses—
ponies they were called by those
who wished to detract somewhat
from Madame Zamenoy's position.
Madame Zamenoy had been at Paris,
and took much delight in telling her
friends that the carriage also was
Parisian; but, in truth, it had come
no further than from Dresden.
Josef Balatka and his daughter
were very, very poor; but, poor as
they were, they lived in a large
house, which, at least nominally,
belonged to old Balatka himself,
and which had been his residence in
the days of his better fortunes.
was in the Kleinseite, that narrow
portion of the town which lies on
the other side of the river Moldau—
the further side, that is, from the
so-called Old and New Town, on the
western side of the river, immedi-
ately under the great hill of the
Hradschin. The Old Town and the
New Town are thus on one side of

It

the Hradschin on the other. To those who know Prague, it need not here be explained that the streets of the Kleinseite are wonderful in their picturesque architecture, wonderful in their lights and shades, wonderful in their strange mixture of shops

and palaces-and now, alas! also of sheen of the night, and Nina would Austrian barracks - and wonderful stand in the gloom of the archway in their intricacy and great steep- counting them till they would seem ness of ascent. Balatka's house to be uncountable, and wondering stood in a small courtyard near to what might be the thoughts of those the river, but altogether hidden who abode there. But those who from it, somewhat to the right of abode there were few in number, the main street of the Kleinseite as and their thoughts were hardly you pass over the bridge. A lane, worthy of Nina's speculation. The for it is little more, turning from windows of kings' palaces look out the main street between the side- from many chambers. The windows walls of what were once two palaces, of the Hradschin look out, as we comes suddenly into a small square, are told, from a thousand. But the and from a corner of this square rooms within have seldom many there is an open stone archway tenants, nor the tenants, perhaps, leading into a court. In this court many thoughts. Chamber after

is the door, or doors, as I may say, chamber, you shall pass through of the house in which Balatka lived them by the score, and know by with his daughter Nina. Opposite signs unconsciously recognised that to these two doors was the blind there is not, and never has been, wall of another residence. Balatka's true habitation within them. Winhouse occupied two sides of the dows almost innumerable are there, court, and no other window, there- that they may be seen from the fore, besides his own looked either outside and such is the use of upon it or upon him. The aspect palaces. But Nina, as she would of the place is such as to strike look, would people the rooms with with wonder a stranger to Prague,— throngs of bright inhabitants, and that in the heart of so large a city would think of the joys of happy there should be an abode so seques- girls who were loved by Christian tered, so isolated, so desolate, and youths, and who could dare to tell yet so close to the thickest throng their friends of their love. But of life. But there are others such, Nina Balatka was no coward, and perhaps many others such, in Prague; she had already determined that and Nina Balatka, who had been she would at once tell her love to born there, thought nothing of the those who had a right to know in quaintness of her abode. Immedi- what way she intended to dispose of ately over the little square stood herself. As to her father, if only he the palace of the Hradschin, the could have been alone in the matwide-spreading residence of the old ter, she would have had some hope kings of Bohemia, now the habita- of a compromise which would have tion of an ex-emperor of the House made it not absolutely necessary of Hapsburg, who must surely find that she should separate herself the thousand chambers of the royal from him forever in giving herself mansion all too wide a retreat for to Anton Trendellsohn. Josef the use of his old age. So immedi- Balatka would doubtless express ately did the imperial hill tower horror, and would feel shame that over the spot on which Balatka his daughter should love a Jewlived, that it would seem at night, though he had not scrupled to when the moon was shining as it allow Nina to go frequently among shines only at Prague, that the these people, and to use her sercolonnades of the palace were the vices with them for staving off the upper storeys of some enormous ill consequences of his own idleness edifice, of which the broken mer- and ill-fortune; but he was a meek, chant's small courtyard formed a broken man, and was SO accuslower portion. The long rows of tomed to yield to Nina that at last windows would glimmer in the be might have yielded to her even

of her love. One thing, however, was certain. Though every rag should be torn from her though some priest might have special power given him to persecute her

in this. There was, however, that the Windberg Gasse, and dare and Madame Zamenoy, her aunt-her endure all that the Zamenoys could aunt with the bitter tongue; and say or do. She knew, or thought there was Ziska Zamenoy, her cousin she knew, that persecution could -her rich and handsome cousin, not go now beyond the work of the who would so soon declare himself tongue. No priest could immure willing to become more than cousin, her No law could touch her beif Nina would but give him one cause she was minded to marry a nod of encouragement, or half a Jew. Even the people in these smile of welcome. But Nina hated days were mild and forbearing in her Christian lover, cousin though their usages with the Jews, and he was, as warmly as she loved the she thought that the girls of the Jew. Nina, indeed, loved none of Kleinseite would not tear her clothes. the Zamenoys-neither her cousin from her back even when they knew Ziska, nor her very Christian aunt Sophie with the bitter tongue, nor her prosperous, money-loving, acutely mercantile uncle Karil; but, nevertheless, she was in some degree so subject to them, that she though the Zamenoys in their knew that she was bound to tell wrath should be able to crush herthem what path in life she meant even though her own father should to tread. Madame Zamenoy had refuse to see her, she would be true offered to take her niece to the to the Jew. Love to her should prosperous house in the Wind- be so sacred that no other sacredberg Gasse when the old house in ness should be able to touch its the Kleinseite had become poor and sanctity. She had thought much desolate; and though this generous of love, but had never loved before. offer had been most fatuously de- Now she loved, and, heart and soul, clined-most wickedly declined, as she belonged to him to whom she aunt Sophie used to declare- had devoted herself. Whatever nevertheless other favours had been suffering might be before her, vouchsafed; and other favours had though it were suffering unto been accepted, with sore injury to death, she would endure it if her Nina's pride. As she thought of lover demanded such endurance. this, standing in the gloom of the Hitherto, there was but one person evening under the archway, she who suspected her. In her father's remembered that the very frock house there still remained an old she wore had been sent to her by dependant, who, though he was a her aunt. But in spite of the bitter man, was cook and housemaid, and tongue, and in spite of Ziska's de- washerwoman and servant-of-allrision, she would tell her tale, and work; or perhaps it would be more would tell it soon. She knew her true to say that he and Nina between own courage and trusted it; and, them did all that the requirements dreadful as the hour would be, of the house demanded. Souchey she would not put it off by for that was his name was very one moment. As soon as Anton faithful, but with his fidelity had should desire her to declare come a want of reverence towards her purpose, she would declare his master and mistress, and an abit; and as he who stands sence of all respectful demeanour. on a precipice, contemplating the The enjoyment of this apparent expediency of throwing himself independence by Souchey himself from the rock, will feel himself went far, perhaps, in lieu of wages. gradually seized by a mad desire to do the deed out of hand at once, so did Nina feel anxious to walk off to

one

"Nina," he said to her morning, "you are seeing too much of Anton Trendellsohn."