"Both father and mother will consent. There need be no hindrance if Nina will agree. I did not know that you were so badly off. I did not indeed, or I would have come to you myself and seen to it."
Old Balatka did not answer for a while, having turned himself in his bed to think of the proposition which had been made to him. "Would you not like to have me for a son-in-law better than a Jew, uncle Josef?" said Ziska, pleading for himself as best he knew how to plead.
"Have you ever spoken to Nina?" said the old man.
"Well, no; not exactly to say what I have said to you. When one loves a girl as I love her, somehow — I don't know how — But I am ready to do so at once.
"Ah, Ziska, if you had done it sooner!"
"But is it too late? You say she has taken up with this man because you are both so poor. She cannot like a Jew best."
"But she is true — so true!"
"If you mean about her promise to Trendellsohn, Father Jerome would tell her in a minute that she should not keep such a promise to a Jew."
"She would not mind Father Jerome."
"And what does she mind? Will she not mind you?"