an enough to be so false."
"All Prague says so."
"All Prague! I know what that means. And did all Prague go to the Jews'
quarter last Saturday, to tell Anton Trendellsohn that the paper which
he wants, and which is his own, was in father's keeping? Was it all
Prague told that falsehood also?" There was a scorn in her face as she
spoke which distressed Ziska greatly, but which he did not know how to
meet or how to answer. He wanted to be brave before her; and he wanted
also to show his affection for her, if only he knew how to do so,
without making himself humble in her presence.
"Shall I tell you, Nina, why I went to the Jews' quarter on Saturday?"
"No; tell me nothing. I wish to hear nothing from you. I know enough
without your telling me."
"I wish to save you if it be possible, because--because I love you."
"And I--I never wish to see you again, because I hate you. I hate you,
because you have been cruel. But let me tell you this; poor as we are,
I have never taken a farthing of Anton's money. When I am his wife, as
I hope to be--as I hope to be--I will take what he gives me as though
it came from heaven. From you!--I would sooner die in the street
than take a crust of bread from you." Then she darted from him, and
succeeded in escaping without hearing the words with which he replied
to her angry taunts. She was woman enough to understand that her
keenest weapon for wounding him would be an expression of unbounded
love and confidence as to the man who was his rival; and therefore,
though she was compelled to deny that she had lived on the charity of
her lover, she had coupled her denial with an assurance of her faith
and affection, which was, no doubt, bitter enough in Ziska's ears. "I
do believe that she is witched," he said, as he turned away towards his
own house. And then he reflected wisely on the backward tendency of the
world in general, and regretted much that there was no longer given to
priests in Bohemia the power of treating with salutary ecclesiastical
severity patients suffering in the way in which his cousin Nina was
afflicted.
Nina had hardly got out of the Grosser Ring into the narrow street
which leads from thence towards the bridge, when she encountered her
other lover. He was walking slowly down the centre of the street when
she passed him, or would have passed him, had not she recognized his
figure through the gloom. "Anton," she said, coming up to him and
touching his arm as lightl
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