Madame Zamenoy and her son no doubt understood each other’s purposes, and there was another person in the house who understood them — Lotta Luxa, namely; but Karil Zamenoy had been kept somewhat in the dark. Touching¹ that piece of parchment as to which so much anxiety had been expressed, he only knew that he had, at his wife’s instigation, given it into her hand in order that she might use it in some way for putting an end to the foul² betrothal³ between Nina and the Jew. The elder Zamenoy no doubt understood that Anton Trendellsohn was to be bought off by the document; and he was not unwilling⁴ to buy him off so cheaply, knowing as he did that the houses were in truth the Jew’s property; but Madame Zamenoy’s scheme was deeper than this. She did not believe that the Jew was to be bought off at so cheap a price; but she did believe that it might be possible to create such a feeling in his mind as would make him abandon Nina out of the workings of his own heart. Ziska and his mother were equally anxious to save Nina from the Jew, but not exactly with the same motives⁵. He had received a promise, both from his father and mother, before anything was known of the Jew’s love, that Nina should be received as a daughter-inlaw, if she would accept his suit; and this promise was still in force. That the girl whom he loved should love a Jew distressed⁶ and disgusted Ziska; but it did not deter⁷ him from his old purpose. It was shocking, very shocking, that Nina should so disgrace herself; but she was not on that account less pretty or less charming in her cousin’s eyes. Madame Zamenoy, could she have had her own will, would have rescued Nina from the Jew — firstly, because Nina was known all over Prague to be her niece — and, secondly⁸, for the good of Christianity generally; but the girl herself, when rescued, she would willingly have left to starve in the poverty of the old house in the Kleinseite, as a punishment for her sin in having listened to a Jew.

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