in bundles
and put back carefully into their place. There was not a paper in the
desk which did not pass under her eye, and as to which she did not come
to some conclusion, either to keep it or to burn it. There were no
love-letters there. Nina Balatka had never yet received such a letter
as that. She saw her lover too frequently to feel much the need of
written expressions of love; and such scraps of his writing as there
were in the bundles, referred altogether to small matters of business.
When she had thus arranged her papers, she too went to bed. On the next
morning, when she gave her father his breakfast, she was very silent.
She made for him a little chocolate, and cut for him a few slips of
white bread to dip into it. For herself, she cut a slice from a black
loaf made of rye flour, and mixed with water a small quantity of the
thin sour wine of the country. Her meal may have been worth perhaps a
couple of kreutzers, or something less than a penny, whereas that of
her father may have cost twice as much. Nina was a close and sparing
housekeeper, but with all her economy she could not feed three people
upon nothing. Latterly, from month to month, she had sold one thing out
of the house after another, knowing as each article went that provision
from such store as that must soon fail her. But anything was better
than taking money from her aunt whom she hated--except taking money
from the Jew whom she loved. From him she had taken none, though it had
been often offered. "You have lost more than enough by father," she had
said to him when the offer had been made. "What I give to the wife of
my bosom shall never be reckoned as lost," he had answered. She had
loved him for the words, and had pressed his hand in hers--but she had
not taken his money. From her aunt some small meagre supply had been
accepted from time to time--a florin or two now, and a florin or two
again--given with repeated intimations on aunt Sophie's part, that
her husband Karil could not be expected to maintain the house in the
Kleinseite. Nina had not felt herself justified in refusing such gifts
from her aunt to her father, but as each occasion came she told herself
that some speedy end must be put to this state of things. Her aunt's
generosity would not sustain her father, and her aunt's generosity
nearly killed herself. On this very morning she would do that which
should certainly put an end to a state of things so disagreeable.
After breakfast, the