to him as it would be to his father to forswear the religion
of his people. To go forth and be great in commerce by deserting his
creed would have been nothing to him. His ambition did not desire
wealth so much as the possession of wealth in Jewish hands, without
those restrictions upon its enjoyment to which Jews under his own eye
had ever been subjected. It would have delighted him to think that, by
means of his work, there should no longer be a Jews' quarter in Prague,
but that all Prague should be ennobled and civilised and made beautiful
by the wealth of Jews. Wealth must be his means, and therefore he was
greedy; but wealth was not his last or only aim, and therefore his
greed did not utterly destroy his heart. Then Nina Balatka had come
across his path, and he was compelled to shape his dreams anew. How
could a Jew among Jews hold up his head as such who had taken to his
bosom a Christian wife?

But again he shaped his dreams aright--so far aright that he could
still build the castles of his imagination to his own liking. Nina
should be his wife. It might be that she would follow the creed of her
husband, and then all would be well. In those far cities to which he
would go, it would hardly in such case be known that she had been born
a Christian; or else he would show the world around him, both Jews and
Christians, how well a Christian and a Jew might live together. To
crush the prejudice which had dealt so hardly with his people--to make
a Jew equal in all things to a Christian--this was his desire; and how
could this better be fulfilled than by his union with a Christian? One
thing at least was fixed with him--one thing was fixed, even though it
should mar his dreams. He had taken the Christian girl to be part of
himself, and nothing should separate them. His father had spoken often
to him of the danger which he would incur by marrying a Christian, but
had never before uttered any word approaching to a personal threat.
Anton had felt himself to be so completely the mainspring of the
business in which they were both engaged--was so perfectly aware that
he was so regarded by all the commercial men of Prague--that he had
hardly regarded the absence of any positive possession in his father's
wealth as detrimental to him. He had been willing that it should be his
father's while his father lived, knowing that any division would be
detrimental to them both. He had never even asked his father for a
partnership, taking