cts 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 whi