Nathan obtained a divorce in the course of a few days, and a few weeks after, Chane--now Christine--married Herr von Negrusz.
There had not been such a scandal in the neighborhood for years. Curses and malevolence followed Chane to her new home; and even those who wished her well, shook their heads over the marriage.
The reader already knows that the curses were fruitless, and the fears of the benevolent unfounded. That Chane lived, a happy wife and mother, in the same house, on the threshold of which Esther Freudenthal had died because she had loved a Christian. This time love had triumphed over creed. It seemed to work miracles: for not only did it overlap barriers, but in spite of the objectionable features of the case, and the dissimilarity of the husband and wife, theirs was a happy marriage. For theirs was true love, and true love is a mighty power, a divine gift, without which it is a sin against God and man to enter into any marriage.
Christine von Negrusz has only one sorrow. It is not that Frau Emilie will hardly speak to her, or that the three elderly "Graces" look the other way when they chance to meet; nor is it the sardonic smile with which Herr von Bolwinski accompanies the words--"I was the first to notice it, ho, ho!" whenever he has the opportunity. None of these things distress her; but a real shadow lies upon her otherwise happy life.
This is the wrath of her father, which will probably never cease until the lonely, disappointed old man finds peace in the grave.
Nathan took great pains to save her this one sorrow, but he was not successful. He does not yet give up hope of a reconciliation, and every time he revisits Barnow, he tries to soften the old man's heart.
But Nathan is seldom at Barnow, and when he returns there two or three times in the year, his visits are short. His business in the little town is managed for him by a cousin, and he travels to distant countries. He is no longer a small shop-keeper, but one of the richest wine-merchants in the country.
He has never married again. Once it was supposed that he was engaged to a girl in Czernowitz, but it was not the case. Only one person knew the reason of his solitude, and this was Frau Christine.