"I know it, sire."
The king looked at him with astonishment. "And yet you do it?"
"Yes, sire, I do it because I relied on the kind, noble heart of my king, and because humanity bade me not to fear your majesty's anger, when it became a question of mercy to the oppressed."
"And for this reason you wanted to bribe me with your bits of porcelain. Oh, you are a reckoner, but this time you have reckoned without your host. No pity for these obstinate Leipsigers. They must pay the eleven hundred thousand dollars, or—"
"Or what?" asked Gotzkowsky, as he hesitated.
The king looked angrily at him. "You are very bold," said he, "to interrupt me. The Leipsigers must pay, for I need the money for my soldiers, and they are rich; they are able to pay!"
"They are not able to pay, sire! They are as little able to pay as Berlin is if Russia insists upon her demands, and her magnanimous king does not come to her assistance. But your majesty certainly does not wish that the world and history shall say that Russia acted with more forbearance and clemency toward Berlin than Prussia did toward Leipsic? To be sure, the Russians carried off the Jewish elders into captivity because they could not pay, but then they treated these poor victims of their avarice like human beings. They did not make them sleep on rotten straw; they did not let them starve, and die of misery and filth; they did not have them scourged and tortured until they wet with their tears the bit of bread thrown to them."
"Who does that?" cried the king, with thundering voice and flashing eye.
Gotzkowsky bowed low. "Your majesty, the King of Prussia does that!"
Frederick uttered a cry of anger, and advanced with his arm raised on Gotzkowsky, who looked at him quietly and firmly. "You lie! retract!" thundered the king.