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, therefore, she started at once for the house in the
Windberg-gasse, leaving her father still in his bed. She walked very
quick, looking neither to the right nor the left, across the bridge,
along the river-side, and then up into the straight ugly streets of the
New Town. The distance from her father's house was nearly two miles,
and yet the journey was made in half an hour. She had never walked so
quickly through the streets of Prague before; and when she reached the
end of the Windberg-gasse, she had to pause a moment to collect her
thoughts and her breath. But it was only for a moment, and then the
bell was rung.