NINA BALATKA




VOLUME I




CHAPTER I


Nina Balatka was a maiden of Prague, born of Christian parents, and
herself a Christian--but she loved a Jew; and this is her story.

Nina Balatka was the daughter of one Josef Balatka, an old merchant
of Prague, who was living at the time of this story; but Nina's mother
was dead. Josef, in the course of his business, had become closely
connected with a certain Jew named Trendellsohn, who lived in a mean
house in the Jews' quarter in Prague--habitation in that one allotted
portion of the town having been the enforced custom with the Jews then,
as it still is now. In business with Trendellsohn, the father, there
was Anton, his son; and Anton Trendellsohn was the Jew whom Nina
Balatka loved. Now it had so happened that Josef Balatka, Nina's