"Josef, answer for yourself like a man," said Madame Zamenoy. "Have you
not forbidden this marriage? Do you not forbid it now? Let me at any
rate hear you say that you have forbidden it." But Balatka found
silence to be his easiest course, and answered not at all. "What am I
to think of this?" continued Madame Zamenoy. "It cannot be that you
wish your child to be the wife of a Jew!"

"You are to think, aunt Sophie, that father is ill, and that he cannot
stand against your violence."

"Violence, you wicked girl! It is you that are violent."

"Will you come out into the parlour, aunt?"

"No, I will not come out into the parlour. I will not stir from
this spot till I have told your father all that I think about it.
Ill, indeed! What matters illness when it is a question of eternal
damnation!" Madame Zamenoy put so much stress upon the latter word
that her brother-in-law almost jumped from under the bed-clothes. Nina
raised herself, as she was standing, to her full height, and a smile of
derision came upon her face. "Oh, yes! I daresay you do not mind it,"
said Madame Zamenoy. "I daresay you can laugh now at all the pains of
hell. Castaways such as you are always blind to their own danger; but
your father, I hope, has not fallen so far as to care nothing for his
religion, though he seems to have forgotten what is due to his family."

"I have forgotten nothing," said old Balatka.

"Why then do you not forbid her to do this thing?" demanded Madame