Nina Balatka

by Anthony Trollope

INTRODUCTION

Anthony Trollope was an established novelist of great renown when Nina Balatka was published in 1866, twenty years after his first novel. Except for La Vendée, his third novel, set in France during the Revolution, all his previous works were set in England or Ireland and dealt with the upper levels of society: the nobility and the landed gentry (wealthy or impoverished), and a few well-to-do merchants — people several strata above the social levels of the characters popularized by his contemporary Dickens. Most of Trollope's early novels were set in the countryside or in provincial towns, with occasional forays into London. The first of his political novels, Can You Forgive Her, dealing with the Pallisers was published in 1864, two years before Nina. By the time he began writing Nina, shortly after a tour of Europe, Trollope was a master at chronicling the habits, foibles, customs, and ways of life of his chosen subjects.

Nina Balatka is, on the surface, a love story — not an unusual theme for Trollope. Romance and courtship were woven throughout all his previous works, often with two, three, or even more pairs of lovers per novel. Most of his heroes and heroines, after facing numerous hurdles, often of their own making, were eventually happily united by the next-to-last chapter. A few were doomed to disappointment (Johnny Eames never won the heart of Lily Dale through two of the "Barsetshire" novels), but marital bliss — or at least the prospect of bliss — was the usual outcome. Even so, the reader of Trollope soon notices his analytical description of Victorian courtship and marriage. In the circles of Trollope's characters, only the wealthy could afford to marry for love; those without wealth had to marry for money, sometimes with disastrous consequences. By the time of Nina, Trollope's best exploration of this subject was the marriage between Plantagenet Palliser and Lady Glencora M'Cluskie, the former a cold fish and the latter a hot-blooded heiress in love with a penniless scoundrel (Can You Forgive Her? 1865). Yet to come was the disastrous marriage of intelligent Lady Laura Standish to the wealthy but old-maidish Robert Kennedy in Phineas Finn and its sequel.

But Nina Balatka is different from Trollope's previous novels in four respects. First, Trollope was accustomed to include in his novels his own witty editorial comments about various subjects, often paragraphs or even several pages long. No such comments are found in Nina. Second, the story is set in Prague instead of the British isles. Third, the hero and heroine are already in love and engaged to one another at the opening; we are not told any details about their falling in love. The hero, Anton Trendellsohn is a successful businessman in his mid-thirties — not the typical Trollopian hero in his early twenties, still finding himself, and besotted with love. Anton is rather cold as lovers go, seldom whispering words of endearment to Nina. But it is the fourth difference which really sets this novel apart and makes it both a masterpiece and an enigma. That fourth — and most important — difference is clearly stated in the remarkable opening sentence of the novel:

Nina Balatka was a maiden of Prague, born of Christian parents, and herself a Christian — but she loved a Jew; and this is her story.

Marriage — even worse, love — between a Christian and a Jew would have been unacceptable to Victorian British readers. Blatant anti-semitism was prevalent — perhaps ubiquitous — among the upper classes.

Let us consider the origins of this anti-semitism. Jews were first allowed into England by William the Conqueror. For a while they prospered, largely through money-lending, an occupation to which they were restricted. In the 13th century a series of increasingly oppressive laws and taxes reduced the Jewish community to poverty, and the Jews were expelled from England in 1290. They were not allowed to return until 1656, when Oliver Cromwell authorized their entry over the objections of British merchants. Legal protection for the Jews increased gradually; even the "Act for the More Effectual Suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness" (1698) recognized the practice of Judaism as legal, but there were probably only a few hundred Jews in the entire country. The British Jewish community grew gradually, and efforts to emancipate the Jews were included in various "Reform Acts" in the first half of the 19th century, although many failed to become law. Gradually Jews were admitted to the bar and other professions. Full citizenship and rights, including the right to sit in Parliament, were granted in 1858 — only seven years before Trollope began writing Nina Balatka. By this time wealthy Jewish families were growing in number. This upward mobility and increasing economic and political power no doubt made the British upper classes envious and resentful, fuelling anti-semitism.

Trollope chose to have Nina published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine for reasons which he described in his autobiography:

From the commencement of my success as a writer . . . I had always felt an injustice in literary affairs which had never afflicted me or even suggested itself to me while I was unsuccessful. It seemed to me that a name once earned carried with it too much favour . . . The injustice which struck me did not consist in that which was withheld from me, but in that which was given to me. I felt that aspirants coming up below me might do work as good as mine, and probably much better work, and yet fail to have it appreciated. In order to test this, I determined to be such an aspirant myself, and to begin a course of novels anonymously, in order that I might see whether I could succeed in obtaining a second identity, — whether as I had made one mark by such literary ability as I possessed, I might succeed in doing so again. [1]

Why did Trollope start his "new" career with a novel whose central theme was a subject of distaste at best — more likely revulsion — to the vast majority of the reading public? Perhaps the nature of the novel itself led him to consider publishing it anonymously, although we know he was not averse to controversial subjects. In his first book, The Macdermots of Ballycloran, which he thought had the best plot of all his novels, the principal female character is seduced by a scoundrel and dies giving birth to an illegitimate child.

Certainly Nina was well-suited for the experiment because of it's different setting and subject matter. Perhaps further to disguise his authorship, Trollope wrote Nina in a style of prose that reads almost like a translation from a foreign language.

The experiment did not last long enough to test Trollope's hypothesis. Mr. Hutton, critic for the Spectator, recognized Trollope as the author and so stated in his review. Trollope did not deny the accusation.

One cannot discuss Nina Balatka without addressing the question, was Trollope himself anti-semitic? A careful reading of his works does not provide a clear answer. Jews appear in some of his books and are referred to in others, often as disreputable characters or money-lenders. They are seldom mentioned by his Christian characters with respect, probably realistically reflecting the sentiments of the classes he wrote about. Some of his greatest villains in his later novels — Melmotte in The Way We Live Now (1875) and Lopez in The Prime Minister (1876) — are rumored to be Jewish, but Trollope never unequivocally identifies them as Jewish. Perhaps his Christian characters expect them to be Jewish because they are foreigners and villains.

However, if one ignores the dialogue of his characters, even the descriptive and editorial comments by Trollope himself at first seem anti-semitic. He consistently uses "Jew" as a pejorative adjective instead of "Jewish." His descriptions of the appearance of Jewish characters are usually unflattering and stereotypical. Even Anton Trendellsohn, the hero of Nina Balatka, is described as follows:

To those who know 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.

This is not the typical description of the romantic hero of a Victorian novel. Even so, Trollope's description of Anton is less derogatory than his description of Ezekiel Brehgert, a character in a later novel, The Way We Live Now:

He was a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout fat all over rather than corpulent and had that look of command in his face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long intercourse with sheep and oxen.

The case for Trollope being anti-semitic is harder to support, however, when one considers the behavior of his Jewish characters. Brehgert, whose physical description above is stereotypic, is one of the few characters in The Way We Live Now whose actions are completely honorable. Trollope wrote 16 novels before Nina Balatka; only two of those contain Jewish characters. The first, who plays a minor role in Orley Farm (1862), is Soloman Aram, an attorney — a Victorian Rumpole — known for defending the accused at the Old Bailey. His skill is needed to defend Lady Mason against a charge of perjury, much to the distaste of her Christian advisors. He acts with dignity and shows great consideration for the personal comfort of Lady Mason during her trial. The second Jewish character in Trollope's novels was Mr. Hart, a London tailor who runs for a seat in Parliament in Rachel Ray (1863). This served no purpose in the plot; the situation probably was included because legislation to allow Jews to serve in Parliament had been passed only five years before, and the issue was still one of public discussion. Mr. Hart's appearance is brief; he speaks only one or two lines, and the reader is not told enough about him to judge his character. Trollope describes him thus:

. . . and then the Jewish hero, the tailor himself, came among them, and astonished their minds by the ease and volubility of his speeches. He did not pronounce his words with any of those soft slushy Judaic utterances by which they had been taught to believe he would disgrace himself. His nose was not hookey, with any especial hook, nor was it thicker at the bridge than was becoming. He was a dapper little man, with bright eyes, quick motion, ready tongue, and a very new hat. It seemed that he knew well how to canvass. He had a smile and a good word for all — enemies as well as friends.

In that novel, Trollope, himself, comments on prejudice and bigotry:

. . . Mrs. Ray, in her quiet way, expressed much joy that Mr. Comfort's son-in-law should have been successful, and that Baslehurst should not have disgraced itself by any connection with a Jew. To her it had appeared monstrous that such a one should have been even permitted to show himself in the town as a candidate for its representation. To such she would have denied all civil rights, and almost all social rights. For a true spirit of persecution one should always go to a woman; and the milder, the sweeter, the more loving, the more womanly the woman, the stronger will be that spirit within her. Strong love for the thing loved necessitates strong hatred for the thing hated, and thence comes the spirit of persecution. They in England who are now keenest against the Jews, who would again take from them rights that they have lately won, are certainly those who think most of the faith of a Christian. The most deadly enemies of the Roman Catholics are they who love best their religion as Protestants. When we look to individuals we always find it so, though it hardly suits us to admit as much when we discuss these subjects broadly. To Mrs. Ray it was wonderful that a Jew should have been entertained in Baslehurst as a future member for the borough, and that he should have been admitted to speak aloud within a few yards of the church tower!

Nina Balatka presents a sharp contrast between the behaviors of the Jewish and Christian characters. Nina and her father Josef Balatka live on the edge of poverty; he was cheated out of his business by his Christian brother-in-law, who is now wealthy. Josef's only source of money was to sell his house to Anton Trendellsohn's father, who for many years has allowed Josef and Nina to remain in the house without paying any rent. Nina's Christian relatives use every form of deceit in their attempt to turn Anton against Nina. Nina's Aunt Sophie spews invective in every direction. She tells Nina, "Impudent girl! — brazen-faced, impudent, bad girl! Do you not know that you would bring disgrace upon us all?" To Nina's father she says, "Tell me that at once, Josef, that I may know. Has she your sanction for — for — for this accursed abomination?" To her husband she says, "Oh, I hate them! I do hate them! Anything is fair against a Jew." And during a meeting with Anton she exclaims, "How dares he come here to talk of his love? It is filthy — it is worse than filthy — it is profane."

Anton's family also opposes the marriage, but Anton's father's behavior toward Nina is in sharp contrast to that of her aunt:

The old man's heart was softened towards her. He could not bring himself to say a word to her of direct encouragement, but he kissed her before she went, telling her that she was a good girl, and bidding her have no care as to the house in the Kleinseite. As long as he lived, and her father, her father should not be disturbed.

Anton, being more a businessman than a lover, at times behaves insensitively toward Nina. Otherwise, throughout the novel, the Jewish characters act with honesty and kindness. Even the Jewish maiden who wants to marry Anton does not scheme to break up his engagement to Nina but rather befriends Nina and eventually saves her life. One has to wonder whether Trollope intended this contrast to induce his readers to reconsider their prejudices. Consider his perception of his duty as a writer:

. . . And the criticism [of my work offered by Hawthorne], whether just or unjust, describes with wonderful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in view in my writing. I have always desired to 'hew out some lump of the earth', and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walk here among us, — with not more of excellence, nor with exaggerated baseness, — so that my readers might recognise human beings like to themselves, and not feel themselves to be carried away among gods or demons. If I could do this, then I thought I might succeed in impregnating the mind of the novel-reader with a feeling that honesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while falsehood fails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure, and sweet, and unselfish; that a man will be honoured as he is true, and honest, and brave of heart; that things meanly done are ugly and odious, and things nobly done beautiful and gracious. . . There are many who would laugh at the idea of a novelist teaching either virtue or nobility, — those, for instance, who regard the reading of novels as a sin, and those also who think it to be simply an idle pastime. They look upon the tellers of stories as among the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures of a wicked world. I have regarded my art from so different a point of view that I have ever thought of myself as a preacher of sermons, and my pulpit as one which I could make both salutary and agreeable to my audience. I do believe that no girl has risen from the reading of my pages less modest than she was before, and that some may have learned from them that modesty is a charm well worth preserving. I think that no youth has been taught that in falseness and flashness is to be found the road to manliness; but some may perhaps have learned from me that it is to be found in truth and a high but gentle spirit. Such are the lessons I have striven to teach; and I have thought that it might best be done by representing to my readers characters like themselves, — or to which they might liken themselves. [1]

Given Trollope's philosophy, it is reasonable to believe that the actions of his characters should speak louder than their words. If so, Trollope might well have been holding up a mirror to his audience that they might examine their own prejudices. Unfortunately, we shall never know.

[1] Anthony Trollope. An Autobiography. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1950.

	Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
	Midland, 2003

Copyright © 2003 Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. This Introduction to Nina Balatka is protected by copyright and/or other applicable law. Any use of the work other than as authorized in ["The Legal Small Print"] section (found at the end of the book) is prohibited.