All this was a new light to Ziska. He knew that his uncle and cousin
were very poor, and had halted in his love because he was ashamed
of their poverty; but he had never thought of them as people hungry
from want of food, or cold from want of clothes. It may be said of
him, to his credit, that his love had been too strong for his shame,
and that he had made up his mind to marry his cousin Nina in spite
of her poverty. When Lotta Luxa had called him a calf she had not
inappropriately defined one side of his character. He was a good-
looking well-grown young man, not very wise, quickly susceptible to
female influences, and gifted with eyes capable of convincing him
that Nina Balatka was by far the prettiest woman whom he ever saw. But,
in connection with such calf-like propensities, Ziska was endowed with
something of his mother's bitterness and of his father's persistency;
and the old Zamenoys did not fear but that the fortunes of the family
would prosper in the hands of their son. And when it was known to
Madame Zamenoy and to her husband Karil that Ziska had set his heart
upon having his cousin, they had expressed no displeasure at the
prospect, poor as the Balatkas were. "There is no knowing how it may
go about the houses in the Kleinseite," Karil Zamenoy had said. "Old
Trendellsohn gets the rent and the interest, but he has little or
nothing to show for them--merely a written surrender from Josef,
which is worth nothing." No hindrance, therefore was placed in the
way of Ziska's suit, and Nina might have been already accepted in the
Windberg-gasse had Nina chosen to smile upon Ziska. Now Ziska was told
that the girl he loved was to marry a Jew because she was starving,
and the tidings threw a new light upon him. Why had he not offered
assistance to Nina? It was not surprising that Nina should be so hard
to him--to him who had as yet offered her nothing in her poverty but
a few cold compliments.