The Merchant of Berlin: An Historical Novel

by L. Mühlbach

But Gotzkowsky was not as yet able to attain this resignation. This repose was to him an annihilating torment, and the inactive vegetation a living death. With each day the torture increased, the soreness of his heart became more corroding and painful. At times he felt as if he must scream out aloud in the agony of his despair. He would strike his chest with his clinched fists, and cry to God in the overflow of his sufferings. He who his whole life long had been active, was now condemned to idleness; he who through his whole life had worked for others, was now obliged to lay his hands in his lap, and allow others to labor for him. How had he deserved this? What crime had he committed, that after he had toiled and worked honestly, he should go down, whilst others who had enriched themselves by fraud and lying, by cunning and malice, should drive through the streets in splendid carriages, surrounded by elegance and wealth, while he was obliged to creep along, bowed down with sorrow? He had gone down, while Ephraim had risen higher and higher. He had become poor because he was honest; but Ephraim had grown rich on usury. His firm had failed, while Ephraim continued to coin money. What did the Jew care that his name was branded by the people, that they spoke with cutting sarcasm of the pewter-money to which he had so skilfully imparted the appearance of silver coin, and that he was derided by all? Gotzkowsky's name, too, had been scoffed at, and he had been a benefactor of the people, while Ephraim had been their blood-sucking leech.

At last, Gotzkowsky came to a firm determination that he would have revenge—yes, revenge on this ungrateful generation which had betrayed and forsaken him—revenge on the men who had shown themselves so small and pitiful. He wanted to remind those who were flourishing in pride and splendor, of their meanness and ingratitude. He would accuse no one, but his whole life was an indictment, not against individual men, but whole communities and cities, against the king himself. They had all been ungrateful toward him. They were all his debtors, and in presence of the whole world he would cast their ingratitude, their meanness, their malice, and knavery in their face, and humble them by recalling the past. He wrote for that purpose The History of his Life, not in anger and scorn; he did not dip his pen in gall, he made no ill-natured reflections, no contemptuous remarks. He did nothing more than quietly and simply, clearly and truthfully, describe his life and his deeds, and whenever it was necessary, confirm his assertions by quotations from the official documents relating thereto.[1]

The very simplicity and truthfulness of this "Biography of a Patriotic Merchant" procured for it an enormous success, and made the long-forgotten, much-calumniated Gotzkowsky for a while the topic of conversation, not only in Berlin, but throughout all Germany. Every one wanted to read the book. All wished to have the malicious pleasure of seeing how much people of rank, communities, cities, and princes, were indebted to this man, and how pitilessly they had let him sink.

The natural consequence was that the book, though written simply and with reserve, gave great offence. Gotzkowsky had accused no one, but the facts accused. His present poverty and need condemned the proud, high-born people, and showed to the world their cold-heartedness and miserable conduct. He had not exposed individuals to the judgment of the world; no—his book accused the whole magistracy of Berlin of deeds of ingratitude; and it even included the king, for whom he had bought a hundred thousand ducats' worth of pictures, and who had only paid him back a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

If his book had contained the smallest untruth, if there had been the least false statement in it, they would have stigmatized him as a calumniator and scandalizer of majesty. But Gotzkowsky had only told the truth. They could not, therefore, punish him as a false witness or slanderer. Consequently they had to content themselves with suppressing "The Life of a Patriotic Merchant."

The booksellers in Berlin were therefore ordered to give up all the copies, and even Gotzkowsky received an order to return those in his possession. He did so; he gave up the book to the authorities, who persecuted him because they had cause to blush before him; but his memory he could not surrender. His memory remained faithful to him, and was his support and consolation, whenever he felt ready to despair; this made him proud in his misfortune, and free in the bonds of poverty. And now they were really poor; and penury, with all its horrors, its humiliations and sufferings, crept in upon them.

Gotzkowsky's book had awakened all those who envied and hated him, and they vowed his ruin. It showed how much the merchants of Berlin were indebted to him, and how little of this indebtedness they had cancelled. It was therefore an accusation against the wealthy merchants of Berlin, against which they could not defend themselves, but for which they could wreak revenge. Not on him, for he had nothing they could take from him—no wealth, no name, no credit, and, in their mercantile eyes, no honor. But they revenged themselves on his family—on his son-in-law. The rich factory-lord, whose book-keeper Bertram had been, deprived him of his situation; and in consequence of a preconcerted arrangement, he could find no situation elsewhere. How could he now support his family? He was willing to work his fingers to the bone for his wife, for his father, for his child; who looked up so lovingly to him with its large, clear, innocent eyes, and dreamt not of the anxiety of its father, nor of the sighs which told of the anguish of its young mother. But nowhere could he procure employment—nowhere was there a situation for the son-in-law of Gotzkowsky, who had accused the merchants, the magistrates, yea, even the king! And now they were indeed poor, for they had no work; but, condemned to inactivity, to comfortless brooding, they shudderingly asked themselves what was to become of them—how this life of privation was to end.

But while Bertram and Elise remained sad and dispirited, Gotzkowsky suddenly brightened up. For a long time he had walked up and down in silent thought. Now, of a sudden, his countenance assumed the cheerful expression of former days, and energetic self-reliance was expressed in his features. Elise looked on with astonishment. He drew out from his chest the last remains of by-gone days, the silver oak-wreath set with diamonds, presented him by the town of Berlin, and the golden goblet given by the town of Leipsic. He looked at them for a long time attentively, and then went out, leaving Elise alone, to weep and pray to God to send them help, and to console Bertram when he came home from his fruitless search after a situation.

It was some hours before Gotzkowsky returned, but his countenance still retained its cheerfulness, and his features exhibited the energy and activity of past days. He stretched out his hands to both of his children, and drew them affectionately toward him and embraced them. "Are we then really poor, possessing one another? I say that we are still rich, for our hearts are yet warm, and our honor is not yet lost. But we have not yet learned to bear the indigence of our outer life, We have covered our poverty with the gloss of respectability; we have been ashamed to appear in the streets in coarse clothes; we have not yet learned to distinguish the necessary from the superfluous; we have endeavored to be poor, and yet happy, in a city. That has been our mistake. The happiness of poverty does not reside within the cold walls of a town. It is not sown among the paving-stones of a street. It is only in Nature, who is rich enough to nourish and give to all those who trustingly cast themselves on her bosom—only in Nature, and the privacy of country life, that we can find rest and peace. Come, my children, let us leave this town; let us have the courage to become children of Nature and free citizens of poverty. Let us cast the show and glitter of a city life behind us, and wander forth, not over the sea nor into the desert, but to a cottage in a wood. I have stripped off the last vestige of the past, and the silver wreath and the golden goblet have been of some use, for they have furnished us the means to found a new existence. Bertram, have you the courage to commence life anew and become a peasant?"

Bertram smiled. "I have both the courage and the strength, for I am hearty and able to work."