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Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope
page 22 of 272 (08%)
the outward types of his race there could be no doubt that Anton
Trendellsohn was a very Jew among Jews. He was certainly a handsome
man, not now very young, having reached some year certainly in advance
of thirty, and his face was full of intellect. He was slightly made,
below the middle height, but was well made in every limb, with small
feet and hands, and small ears, and a well-turned neck. He was very
dark--dark as a man can be, and yet show no sign of colour in his
blood. No white man could be more dark and swarthy than Anton
Trendellsohn. His eyes, however, which were quite black, were very
bright. His jet-black hair, as it clustered round his ears, had in it
something of a curl. Had it been allowed to grow, it would almost have
hung in ringlets; but it was worn very short, as though its owner were
jealous even of the curl. Anton Trendellsohn 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. But not the less on that account had he behaved with
Christian forbearance to his Christian debtor, Josef Balatka, and with
Christian chivalry to Balatka's daughter, till that chivalry had turned
itself into love.

"Nina," he said, putting out his hand, and holding hers as he spoke, "I
hardly expected you this evening; but I am glad to see you--very glad."

"I hope I am not troubling you, Anton?"

"How can you trouble me? The sun does not trouble us when we want light
and heat."
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