“It is too much, it is too much!” cried Prince Feodor; and as if hunted by the furies, he rushed out, his fists clinched, ready to crush any one who should try to stop him.

[Footnote 1:  Gotzkowsky paid his debt to Russia with thirty thousand dollars cash; a set of diamonds; and pictures which were taken by Russia at a valuation of eighty thousand dollars, and formed the first basis of the imperial gallery at St. Petersburg.  Among these were some of the finest paintings of Titian, some of the best pieces of Rubens, and one of Rembrandt’s most highly executed works—­the portrait of his old mother.]

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CHAPTER XVII.

TARDY GRATITUDE.

John Gotzkowsky, the rich merchant of Berlin, had determined to struggle no longer with Fate; no longer to undergo the daily martyrdom of an endangered honor, of a threatened name.  Like the brave Sickenhagen, he said to himself, “Better a terrible end than an endless terror,” and he preferred casting himself down the abyss at once, to be slowly hurled from cliff to cliff.  He had given notice to the authorities of his failure, and of his intention of making over all his property to his creditors.  He was now waiting to hand over the assets to the assignees, and leave the house which was no longer his.  Not secretly, however, but openly, in the broad daylight, he would cross the threshold to pass through the streets of that town which was so much indebted to him, and which had formerly hailed him as her savior and preserver.  It was inevitable—­he must fall, but his fall should at the same time be his revenge.  For the last time he would open the state apartments of his house; for the last time receive his guests.  But these guests would be the legal authorities, who were to be his heirs while he was yet alive, and who were to consign his name to oblivion before death had inscribed it on any tomb-stone.

The announcement of his fall had spread rapidly through the town, and seemed at last to have broken through the hardened crust which collects around men’s hearts.  The promptings of conscience seemed for a moment to overcome the voice of egotism.  The magistrates were ashamed of their ingratitude; and even the Jews of the mint, Ephraim and Itzig, had perceived that it would have been better to have avoided notoriety, and to have raised up the humbled Gotzkowsky, than to have trodden him in the dust entirely.

Instead of the officials whom he had expected, however, a committee of the Council, accompanied by Ephraim and Itzig, entered his house and asked to speak with him.  He received them in his apartments of state, with his children at his side.  His figure was erect, his head proudly raised, and he regarded them, not as an unfortunate, downcast man, but as a superior would regard his inferiors; and they lowered their eyes before his penetrating glances, ashamed and conscious of wrong.