sohn was decidedly a
handsome man; but his eyes were somewhat too close together in his
face, and the bridge of his aquiline nose was not sharply cut, as
is mostly the case with such a nose on a Christian face. The olive
oval face was without doubt the face of a Jew, and the mouth was
greedy, and the teeth were perfect and bright, and the movement of
the man's body was the movement of a Jew.

This is not the typical description of the romantic hero of a Victorian
novel. Even so, Trollope's description of Anton is less derogatory than
his description of Ezekiel Brehgert, a character in a later novel, _The
Way We Live Now_:

He was a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about
fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark
purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very
bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in
his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout fat
all over rather than corpulent and had that look of command in his
face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long
intercourse with sheep and oxen.

The case for Trollope being anti-semitic is harder to support, however,
when one considers the behavior of his Jewish characters. Brehgert,
whose physical description above is stereotypic, is one of the few
characters in _The Way We Live Now_ whose actions are completely
honorable. Trollope wrote 16 novels before _Nina Balatka_; only two of
those contain Jewish characters. The first, who plays a minor role in
_Orley Farm_ (1862), is Soloman Aram, an attorney--a Victorian Rumpole
--known for defending the accused at the Old Bailey. His skill is needed
to defend Lady Mason against a charge of perjury, much to the distaste
of her Christian advisors. He acts with dignity and shows great
consideration for the personal comfort of Lady Mason during her trial.
The second Jewish character in Trollope's novels was Mr. Hart, a London
tailor who runs for a seat in Parliament in _Rachel Ray_ (1863). This
served no purpose in the plot; the situation probably was included
because legislation to allow Jews to serve in Parliament had been
passed only five years before, and the issue was still one of public
discussion. Mr. Hart's appearance is brief; he speaks only one or
two lines, and the reader is not told enough about him to judge his
character. Trollope descr