"Are you going, then, to leave us forever?" said Balthazar mournfully.
"No, my children, I remain among you, in the midst of you. I am only going to exchange this large house for a smaller one."
"Come," cried Balthazar, "come, my friends, we will escort our father, Gotzkowsky, to his new house. The town of Berlin shall see that only rich people are ungrateful, and that the poor never forget their benefactor and their friend. Come, let us take out the horses. We will draw Father Gotzkowsky through the streets."
The crowd answered with a thundering hurrah; and with busy haste they proceeded to the work. The horses were unharnessed, and twelve of the most powerful workmen crowded around the pole. In vain did Gotzkowsky beg them to refrain, not to make him an object of general curiosity. But the people paid no heed to his request—it was a necessity to their hearts to give him a public proof of their love. Almost by force they raised him into the carriage, and compelled Bertram and Elise, who had mixed with the crowd for the purpose of escaping attention, to take their seats beside him. And now the procession advanced. Women and workmen went on before, rejoicing and jumping about merrily at the side of the carriage; and when they met other workmen, these latter stopped and waved their hats, and greeted Gotzkowsky, calling him the great factory-lord, the father of his workmen, the benefactor of Berlin. Especially when the procession came to the low houses and the poor cottages, the small dusty windows were thrown open, and sun-browned faces looked out, and toil-hardened hands greeted and waved.
The forsaken, the ruined Gotzkowsky celebrated this day a splendid triumph. The jubilant voice that thus did him homage was that of the people—and the voice of the people is the voice of God!
[Footnote 1: With these words Gotzkowsky closes his autobiography.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE AUCTION.
All was now over—the curtain had fallen: Gotzkowsky had run his brilliant career, and retired into oblivion. His fall was for some days the topic of conversation of the good Berliners; but it was soon superseded by some other novelty, and without either sympathy or ill-feeling they passed by the deserted house with the closed windows which had once been Gotzkowsky's residence. The king had purchased it, in order to carry on, at the expense of the royal government, the porcelain factory which Gotzkowsky had founded.