Gotzkowsky did not answer immediately. He stood for an instant motionless, as if paralyzed in his inmost being. His soul was crushed, and he scarcely felt his grief. He only felt and knew that he was a lost man, and that the proud edifice of his fortune was crumbling under him, and would bury him in its ruins. He folded his hands and raised his disconsolate looks on high; he murmured: You see my suffering, O God! I have done my utmost! I have humbled myself to begging—to pitiful complaining. My God! my God! will no helping hand stretch itself once more to me out of the cloud?"
"You should have prayed before to God," said Itzig, with cruel mockery. "You should have begged Him for prudence and foresight."
Gotzkowsky did not heed him. He fought and struggled with his immense suffering, and, being a noble and a brave man, he at length conquered it. For a moment he had been cowed and downcast, but now he recovered all the power of his energetic nature. He raised again his bowed head, and his look was once more determined and defiant. "Well, then, I have tried every thing; now I accept my fate. Listen, then, Herr Itzig, I am going to suspend payment; my house must fail!"
Itzig shuddered with a sudden terror. "My God!" cried he, "only yesterday I bought a draft of yours. You will not pay it?"
"I will not do it, because I cannot; and I would not do it, if I could. I have humbled myself before you in the dust, and you have stretched out no hand to raise me. Farewell, and may that now happen which you would not prevent when you could! You punish yourself. Farewell!"
Itzig held him convulsively back, and cried, in a voice drowned by rage, "You will pay my draft?"
"I will not," said Gotzkowsky. "You have judged; take now your reward." He threw Itzig's hands from him, and hastened from the spot.
Behind him sounded the wailing and raging of Itzig, who implored Heaven and hell to punish the criminal who had cheated him of his money.
* * * * *