Debit and Credit: Translated from the German of Gustav FreytagFreytag, Gustav
General
Debit and Credit: Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag
Freytag, Gustav
German fiction -- Translations into English; Mercantile system -- Germany -- Fiction; Social classes -- Germany -- Fiction
The baron had only to depart with this uncertain hope. As he dejectedly
entered his carriage, he called out to the coachman, "To the Councilor
Horn;" but on the way thither he gave counter orders, and returned to
his lodgings. A coolness had sprung up between him and his former legal
adviser; he shrunk from disclosing to him his never-ceasing
embarrassments, and had been offended by Horn's well-meant warnings. He
had often, therefore, applied for advice to other lawyers.
Itzig, in the tenderness of his heart, had rushed out of the office as
soon as he beheld the baron's horses, but now he put in his head again.
"How was he?" he inquired from Ehrenthal.
"How should he be?" answered Ehrenthal, ungraciously; "he was in a
great taking, and I had good cause to be angry. I have buried my gold in
his property, and I have as many cares about that property as I have
hairs on my head--all because I followed your advice."
"If you think that the ancestral inheritance of the baron is to come
swimming toward you like a fish with the stream, and that you have only
to reach out your hand and take it, I am sorry for you," replied Itzig,
spitefully.
"What am I doing with the factory?" cried Ehrenthal. "The land would
have been worth twice as much to me without the chimney."
"When once you have got the chimney you can sell the bricks," was
Itzig's ironical rejoinder. "I wanted to tell you that I expect a visit
to-morrow from an acquaintance out of my own district; I can not,
therefore, come to the office."
"You have this last year gone after your own affairs so often," rudely
replied Ehrenthal, "that I don't care how long you remain away."
"Do you know what you have just said?" Veitel broke out. "You have said,
'Itzig, I need you no longer; you may go;' but I shall go when it suits
me, not when it suits you."
"You are a bold man," cried Ehrenthal. "I forbid you to speak thus to
me. Who are you, young Itzig?"
"I am one who knows your whole business, who can ruin you if he will,
and one who means kindly toward you, better than you do toward yourself;
and, therefore, when I come to the office the day after to-morrow, you
will say, 'Good morning, Itzig.' Do you understand me now, Mr.
Ehrenthal?" and, seizing his cap, he hurried into the street, where his
suppressed wrath broke out into a flame, and, gesticulating wildly, he
muttered threatening words. And so did Ehrenthal alone in the office.
The baron returned to his daughter, threw himself heavily down on the
sofa, and scarcely heard her loving words. There was nothing to detain
him in town but the dread of communicating this intelligence to his
wife. He alternately brooded over plans for getting over the possible
loss, and painted its consequences in the blackest colors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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