Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 Chapter XIV
Nina had spoken to Father Jerome about her engagement when the priest had
come to see her father. Contrary to her expectations Father Jerome had been
very mild with her. She felt much happier and told Souchey that Father
Jerome didn’t think so badly of her as did the others. Souchey must have
been surprised at this, so he went to the Zamenoys and told Lotta. He was
given quite a lecture and was finally convinced that he must save his
mistress from marrying a Jew. Almost whatever was necessary would be right.
Souchey was invited to dine again at the Zamenoys by Lotta and when he went
there he was spoken to by Madame Zamenoy herself, who had brought another
priest to discuss the affair. This other priest gave his opinion that
“..things would go very badly with any Christian girl who might marry a
Jew.” Souchey accepted this and took on a little commission from Madame
Zamenoy which had been arranged by Lotta. Souchey did not take bribes and
so Lotta nearly had to promise to marry him before he would take it.
Souchey then went to Trendellsohn’s house in the late afternoon. He was not
at ease in going to the Jewish quarter. Trollope comments that as a good
Christian, Souchey “..believed that the Jew had obtained Balatka’s money by
robbery and fraud.” Lotta had told him that he could do his commission as
well with the old man as with Anton. On his own ground Souchey could even
be a little insolent to Anton, but he did not dare to be like this to Anton
in the Trendellsohn house. He hoped to see the old man and not Anton. The
door was open but Souchey missed the bell and so went into the dark passage
lit only by a small oil-lamp. He walked slowly and gave a start as he saw a
man in front of him. It was Anton who had heard Souchey come in without
ringing the bell.
Anton recognised him and asked after Josef Balatka. Souchey replied that
although the old man was better today, he would only last another day or so,
and that both the doctor and priest said so. Anton then asked whether
Souchey had brought any message from Nina. Souchey said that he had not,
but that he wanted to speak a word about Nina to Anton. It was very
particular. It could really only be whispered into Anton’s ear.
Anton then led Souchey into an adjoining room and asked what Souchey had to
tell him. Souchey then told the story, ever afterwards remembering the
gloomy chamber and Anton’s silence throughout his story. When he had
finished Anton spoke, asking Souchey how much he was to pay him for this
information. Souchey answered that Anton was to pay nothing. Anton then
replies with surprise, “What! You betray your mistress gratis?” Souchey was
at a loss here and said that he loved his mistress and had not betrayed her.
Anton then rightly asked him why he had come with this story. Souchey did
not know how to answer this and almost told Anton the whole story. However
he checked himself, said nothing and left the room and house abruptly.
The next day Nina was attending to her father’s bedside when she heard Anton’s footsteps.
She was so pleased that she forgot about needing to forgive
him for not trusting her. Anton came in, kissed her and then asked after
her father. He was surprised when he heard that the jelly and soup had been
brought by Rebecca. He told Nina that they would not stay in Prague when
married and that he would not give her back her promises to marry him. Nina
was enraptured, but then he asked about the paper, the deeds of the house.
Anton said that he did not think that she had it and he thought that she
knew nothing of it. Nina asked why he brought this up again. Anton said
that he was perplexed about the whole matter, but that Souchey had come
yesterday and told him that it was in Nina’s desk. Nina replied that
Souchey had to be a liar. Anton said he agreed but said that the desk
should be examined so they could know whether it was a lie or not. He then
asked Nina whether she would open it or let him Anton open it.
Nina said that she would not unlock it and threw the key on the table.
Anton then unlocked the desk and took out the papers. Nina asked whether
all her letters were to be read, to which he replied that nothing was to be
read. Anton of course found the deed. Nina was shocked, and asked how it
got there. He said that obviously Souchey, her aunt and Lotta were not
liars when they told him that Nina had the deeds. Then she looked at him
and asked him whether he thought that she had robbed him.
This is where Anton says the wrong thing, when he says “I do not know what
to think.” Nina picks up the papers and the key and locks her desk again,
asking him whether he had finished with her also. Again he says that he
wants time to think about what he will do next. Nina asked him at once to
tell her what he believed of her. Anton said that he could not tell her
that moment but he would send Rebecca over next day. Nina said that she
would not see Rebecca, and that she had nothing more to say to him. Then
she left him and went to her father. Her father spoke a little but did say
that he wished her husband to be was not a Jew.
Anton had gone from the house. Nina thought much about the search and
finding of the deeds. She decided that she would never see Anton again, but
it hurt her to think that her aunt and Ziska had triumphed over her. She
spent most of the day with her father who finally came to his end that
night. Souchey helped her but the “.. thought of his treachery was heavy at
his heart;” but Nina bore with him and Souchey took over when the old man
died. Next morning, her aunt and Lotta came and said that they would leave
her there for just one day. The thought of their charity and triumph hurt
her; it was a long day. Finally in the evening she gave Souchey a note to
take to Anton Trendellsohn. It said that her father was dead and that he
could take possession of the property without being bothered by her.
Geoff Swainson
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 One minute Nina is in seventh heaven, the next, just the opposite. Souchey is subjected to a
violent change in emotion when he goes from one
barracks to another. Trollope's basket trick is an emotional polarization of Jewish males and
females: within one minute's time, we find the girls admirable and the guys
hateful. There is polarization between Anton and his father.
Anton rushes out of his house, going from one emotional extreme to another
under the archway.
Richard
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 Chapter XV
Souchey had not liked to take Nina’s note to Anton Trendellsohn that night,
but he went. Nina listened and heard him go out and cross the square. It
was about eight o’clock and a cold and windy night. She put on her hat and
cloak and took the key out of her pocket and put it into the lock of her
desk. Then she went to the door of her father’s room, stopped a moment and
then went down the stairs and out of the house.
She had decided to make an end of herself by jumping off the bridge into the
river. She didn’t want anyone to see her, and kept in the darkness. At the
causeway she heard a familiar sound; people were singing vespers. Nina had
done this herself before she was engaged to Anton. Now she felt that she
could sing vespers again as she was not going to marry Anton. She stopped
and sang, but also remembered that if she did do away with herself, the
singing would be no help.
But then she thought that perhaps the deed might not be done. Perhaps the
saint might after all do something for her. She put a ten kreutzer coin on
to the collection plate and saw that the friar recognised her. He at least
would be able to say something next day, when her aunt would make inquiries.
So she walked on down the bridge. As she was on the wrong side of the
bridge she would have to cross over to reach the statue. As the moon
suddenly appeared she had to go on and walk to the end of the bridge before
crossing over and then returning across the bridge on the same side as the
saint’s statue.
She went slowly and had to stop to hear the water passing under the bridge.
After much thinking about it, she finally put her hand on the inlaid cross
below the statue, and kissed her hand. She heard the last of the vespers
being sung, and determined that she would persevere. She thought much about
her troubles and decided that the anger of all the saints would be better
than any future troubles on earth. She perhaps felt that she would be
revenged on Anton. And then she pondered whether the saint might yet save
her. She climbed up but took fright when she was on the actual brink and
carefully stepped down to think it over again. But then she went back up to
the ledge again, and almost made herself let go. She was very cold and
thought much about how sinful it was. And then in the darkness she heard a
voice. It was Souchey and he was with Rebecca. As they were by the statue,
the clouds suddenly cleared and the moon shone bright. Souchey saw his
mistress and screamed, but Rebecca leaped forward and grabbed Nina’s skirt.
She managed to get Nina down and began to warm her hands and feet. Rebecca
then took Nina to her mother’s house, saying that Anton had sent her when
they had received the note.
Souchey had then told Anton that it was Lotta who had put the paper in the
desk, and that Nina knew nothing about it. Anton’s conscience then troubled
him. Rebecca told Nina some of this, but also told her that Anton loved
her. She took Nina home with her to her own bed and told Anton that he
would hear the rest of the story tomorrow.
Geoff Swainson
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 Nina's attention is occupied by the vesper-singing voices, but it's the voice
of the very human Souchey and that of the warm Rebecca which save the day.
Dagny has presented some good, interesting pictures at the home site. The
Gothic tower is very impressive and imposing, but I don't see any use for it
(the Tower) other than to impress and cast shadows---making the cold colder and
the gloom gloomier. The Tower is overtopped by the presence of Souchey and
Rebecca.
Richard
Re: Nina Balatka: The Near Suicide There are a couple of women suicides in Trollope's oeuvre. The
most powerful is that of the young girl in "La Mere Bauche" who
jumps over a cliff rather than be married to a man distasteful
to her whom her "guardian-employer" is forcing on her to prevent
her from marrying this guardian-employer's son. The situation
and character types are closely analogous to those we'll find
in Linda Tressel. Linda Tressel is franker and different by
one: putting the sexual harassment of the girl and accusation
of her having sexual appetites (and therefore being foul) at
the center of the story; and two) by using the story to explore
how religion can be used to veil hatred, bigotry and fear of
sex and freedom.
Nina uses drowning. Barbara Gates's book and others have
recorded how suicide through drowning was the chosen mode
for women in the 19th century. Men will shoot themselves
through the head; they will be more violent on themselves.
Prints at the time and painting series also play upon this
reality.
I find the chapter where Nina comes close one of the most
powerful and moving in all Trollope. Her "long day" is echoed
in Mr Harding's moving "long day" in London in The Warden,
but the Warden skirts the tragic for a tragic pattern. This
novella comes to the heart of tragedy and then swerves
away. The exploration possible by coming so close is part
of its greatness.
This time through I was very impressed by Nina's simply
shutting Anton out. If he can distrust her to the extent of believing
someone who he knows was sent to poison his mind, he's
a shallow nothing. He can have no center of integrity in his
mind with regard to her. It makes one wonder what will happen
when they marry. I am not sure the ending is as happy as
people make out. Trollope once (it's said) mistakenly called
Nina tragic. Maybe it's not. They do escape Prague.
The two novels center on religious bigotry. I've thought that
this was so daring in Trollope's time it's one reason he sought
anonymity so strikingly for these two. Several of his novellas
utterly ignore the expectations and image of himself (especially
in the Barsetshire series) that he thought made his readers
buy his books. Alas, this image is still the popular one. Even
if film adaptations are changing this, the new image being
substituted is no more accurate than the old.
Ellen
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 Prague Pictures in Trollope-l Photo Archives
Here is the information on three of the "extra" pictures that I
put in the Nina folder at Trollope-l:
Palais Kolowrat in der Waldsteingasse (I. Palliardi).
Kolowrat Palace
Loretto. This former place of pilgrimage with a copy of Santa Casa was
built in 1626-31, and the Baroque Church of the Nativity of Our
Lord was added in 1734-35. The facade of the front wing was
rebuilt by K. I. Dienzenhofer in 172O-22. The tower contains 30
loretto bells which play the Song of Our Lady. The most valuable
item of the liturgical treasury is the so-called Prague Sun, a
monstrance weighing over 12 kg and embellished with more than
6,000 diamonds.
The Old-Town Hall with the Astronomical Clock (horologe) =
AstroClock. The Town Hall was founded in 1338. In 1364 the tower was joined
to the chapel, and in 1470 the Town Hall was refurbished in
Gothic style. The clock dates from the beginning of the 15th
century; on the hour, a procession of the Twelve Apostles
appears in the window in the upper part. In the lower part are
12 medallions with the signs of the zodiac, created by Josef
Manes.
Dagny
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 Chapter XVI
This final short chapter tells us that early in the following year Anton and
his wife Nina left Prague to go to one “.. of the great cities of the west.”
On the day before, Nina and her friend Rebecca had said farewell. They
promised to each other to write often and Nina also promised that if she had
a daughter she would name the girl Rebecca.
Rebecca told Anton that she knew he would become rich and great but she
asked him not to forget Prague. Anton himself told Nina as they were going
that he was leaving behind much that he could not forget.
Nina herself had stayed with Rebecca until her marriage. The Zamenoys had
made a statement to the police that Nina was being kept against her will in
the Jewish quarter, but Trollope says that “..the accusation was too
manifestly false to receive attention even when made against a Jew,”. Nina
certainly did not wish to see her aunt or any of the Zamenoys again. She
had once come across Lotta Luxa when walking in the street, but had run away
with Ruth when Lotta tried to speak to her.
Souchey repented thoroughly of his treachery and spoke his mind to Lotta.
He would never now marry her even if she were ten times as rich, for Lotta
had nearly driven him to be the murderer of his mistress.
Geoff Swainson
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 Thank you to Richard, Geoff and others for their posts on Nina
Balatka. There has been some speculation on whether all would end
happily ever after for Nina and Anton. Earlier in the book, I had
serious doubts but have now come to the conclusion that their
marriage will be a success.
First I thought that Nina must love Anton much more than was
reciprocated. I now think that Anton loves Nina very much indeed.
Anton thinks with his head whereas Nina thinks with her heart.
Anton's actions are not spontaneous but thought out, as when he was
under the archway but didn't go to the door.
Nina wants a husband that will take charge and make all decisions.
She always wanted to abide by Anton's wishes even before they were
married.
And Anton? I believe he has learned a very valuable lesson. He will
never again doubt Nina, come what may. No matter what evidence might
be shown to his intellect, I think in the future that as far as Nina
is concerned, he will have complete faith and trust in her.
Dagny
To Trollope-l
August 20, 2004
Re: Nina Balatka: What Will Happen Now: The happiness of exile, a new life:
Lady Anna and Nina I was thinking that one of the many ways in which Nina
reads like a contemporary novel is its equation of exile
with happiness. Only by escaping the virulence of nationalism,
religious bigotry and the memories of past, can a couple or
individual create a new life. Anton's early speech about
his dream of standing equal among men in the marketplace
situates himself in London.
The ending of Lady Anna is analogous: there too the young
couple cannot escape the attitudes of everyone around them
to her having been a lady or illegitimate and to his having been
a tailor. They elect to go to Australia. It's been said from
Trollope's letters and the ending of that book he had in mind
a sequel and perhaps a cycle of novels set in Australia.
It's revealing that Andrew Davies's ending for his The Way
We Live Now shows us Paul and Hetta running hand-in-hand
(reminiscent of the closing scene in Paradise Lost, one
echoed by Dickens in his Little Dorrit) to a train to take
them to the USA. It's really to anywhere far away from this
place where there can be no fresh ideas, no tolerance, no
way to create a better life for the pair as a pair.
Exile and the press of history and memory are very typical
themes of novels being written today. Sometimes the couple
fails to escape; sometimes they go back to the earlier place
of memory and the past. We see this in a 19th century
novel too: at the close of Daniel Deronda we are to
imagine Daniel and his new bride going to Jerusalem.
Eliot has been severely criticized by many critics (among
them Edward Said) for her naivete in not imagining Palestine
was filled with Arabs and non-Jews; this is so. But the
motif or trope is the result of a book that attempts to
deal with the fanaticisms of nationalism and religion.
The permutations and results various, but the motif or trope is
modern. I think it significant that Trollope wrote the novel
just after his trip to Prague and the publication of G. H. Lewes's
piece on realism and locating fictions in other countries and
dealing with social and cultural issues seriously that way.
I'd like to end on quoting the ending of the chapter in my book on
Lady Anna:
Trollope was fascinated by the inability of people to escape
the value others impose on them, and he took up the damage and
difficulties one's status in society can burden human relationships
with in many of his stories. Even if two spouses or two partners (to
use a modern term for people who undertake to live together as a couple
without marrying) or two family members or long-standing friends
understand how inadequate and uncomprehending are the world's labels or
measuring rods, can they resist valuing one another more or less
because one of them becomes more or less respected by others as the
years pass? To understand how relevant the Keswick poet's remarks are
in today's terms one need only substitute for the single word, 'rank',
the words, 'one's position in a firm' and 'one's salary'. Tony Tanner
talks of how in The Way We Live Now Trollope reveals other
people will even be energetic in their urge to 'mangle and repress and
distort other people's lives according to their ideas' so as to
validate how they have lived.
Daniel and Anna know this. While they cannot rid themselves
of their 'sore hearts' and memories, like Anton and Nina Trendellsohn
at the close of Nina Balatka, at the close of Lady
Anna, hero and heroine become exiles. The difference is the mood
of the earlier book emphasises a coming hard struggle and need for
endurance; the mood of the later is more hopeful about the young
married pair. Trollope meant us to see in Daniel and Anna two people
who would see many things and grow wiser as they reclaim themselves (in
Milton's phrase at the close of Lycidas) in 'fresh woods and
pastures new'. Alas that he didn't write down 'their further doings'
(p. 513). Ellen
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 To recap my previous posting, Nina and Lady Anna are closely
similar in mood and thrust
and they have an analogous intermarriage. Instead of
crossing religious lines, the married couple crosses
several steps of class lines. I've long thought the conventional
splitting and lumping of Trollope's novels obscures the
deeper and enlightening connections between the texts.
In Lady Anna this ambiguity is underlined when Anna
tries to say goodbye to her mother and reconcile her
mother to her marriage. The mother will not, refuses
adamently to say she has accepted the marriage, and
will not even pretend to reconcile herself to it. This
penultimate scene in the novel is painful. In Nina
by contrast the presence of Rebecca is an important
softener. However, Nina's father is dead and we have
no reason to believe she is comfortable with Judaism;
indeed far from this, she is instrincally we are to
feel very religious and has not been part of a secular
world.
If we widen out to the heroine's text we've read this
summer, Miss
Mackenzie, we can see that it's
characteristic of these plot-designs which contain
so much misogyny that the ending be ambiguous.
This is very like life; it also coheres with the presentation
of women's lots and fates in these novels. We do
have a depiction of the powerlessness of women.
Miss Mackenzie's fate is further ironic as the person
who will wither her existence is the "monster" type
woman Trollope often uses as a typical woman.
Moving out yet to one further heroine's text -- Rachel
Ray -- there the ambiguity of the close comes from
the heroine's detaching herself from a timid yet loving
mother yet freeing herself of rigid inhibitory and hypocritical
fundamentalist religion. She too has a more than
tyrannically inclined husband, passionate, upward
aspiring. The cheer there comes from her not having
to leave her cultural group or the social niche she
was born to.
Woolf famously said that Middlemarch was the
first adult English novel. I think she had a limited
definition of "adult" in mind.
Ellen Moody
From: "Geoffrey Swainson"
Subject: Nina Balatka: Chapter XIV: The Pendulum
Subject: [trollope-l] Polarization in Nina Balatka
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Nina Balatka: Chapter XV: The Near-Suicide
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Nina Balatka, Chap. XV
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
She had always been conscious, since the idea
had entered her mind, that she would lack the
power to step boldly up on to the parapet and go
over at once . . . She had known that she must
crouch, and pause, and think of it, and look at
it, and nerve herself with the memory of her
wrongs. Then, at some moment in which her heart
was wrung to the utmost, she would gradually
slacken her hold, and the dark, black, silent
river should take her. She climbed up into
the niche, and found that the river was very far
from her, though death was so near to her and
the fall would be easy. When she became aware
that there was nothing between her and the void
space below her, nothing to guard her, nothing
left in the world to protect her, she retreated,
and descended again to the pavement. And never
in her life had she moved with more care, lest,
inadvertently, a foot or a hand might slip, and
she might tumble to her doom against her will.
Nina Balatka (pp. 183-4)
From: Dagny
Subject: [trollope-l] Nina Balatka: Chapter XVI: A New Life? A Fresh Start
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Nina: What will happen now?
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
Of course an argument which will be familiar to people who
have read other novels by Trollope is Trollope's own that love will not
last unless accompanied by social acceptance and by enough money to
maintain in comfort and respectability the family that marriage will
create. In Lady Anna lawyers, gentry and, in a remarkable
speech, a radical Keswick poet all tell Daniel and Anna that 'constancy
in love' is not possible when two people are ranked differently by
their society. Says the poet: time and life's difficulties will take
their toll. While Anna will regret not marrying Daniel, and know
'remorse' and 'sorrow', she will 'yield' to the compromise and learn to
love Frederick, her titled husband. When the poet insists about Daniel
and Anna's relationship after marriage that 'she is noble, and she will
think of it', he is implying that neither Lady Anna nor Daniel will be
able to dismiss from their minds the value that others will attribute
to her and not attribute to Daniel (pp. 272-73).
Subject: [trollope-l] Nina and "heroine's texts" by Trollope
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
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