Debit and Credit Part 59

Veitel locked up the papers in his desk, and, with a shrug of his shoulders, said ironically, "At all events, I have paid the whole sum to the parties herein named. Accordingly, I shall summon you to pay me to-morrow and the next day."

The officer was silent for a while, and a flush slowly overspread his sunken cheeks. At last, after a hard struggle, he began: "I beg of you, Mr. Itzig, to give me a little more time."

Veitel took up his amber pipe and leisurely turned it round. "I can give you no further credit," said he.

"Come, Itzig, be reasonable," said the officer, with forced familiarity.

"I shall very probably soon be able to pay you."

"You will have as little money in a few weeks' time as you have now,"

replied Veitel, rudely.

"I am ready to write an I.O.U. for a larger sum, if you will have patience."

"I never enter into any transactions of the kind," lied Veitel.

"I will procure you an acknowledgment of the debt from my father."

"The Baron Rothsattel would obtain as little credit with me as yourself."

The lieutenant angrily struck the floor with his sword: "And supposing I do not pay?" he broke out; "you know that I am not legally compelled to do so."

"I know," quietly replied Veitel. "Will you pay to-morrow and the next day?"

"I can not!" exclaimed Eugene, in despair.

"Then take care of the coat on your back," said Veitel, turning away.

"Wohlfart was right to warn me against you," cried Eugene, beside himself. "You are an obdurate--" he suppressed the last word.

"Speak your mind freely," said Itzig; "no one hears you. Your words are like the fire in my stove; it crackles now, in an hour it will be burned to ashes. What you say to me in private, the people in the street will say to you in three days' time if you do not pay."

Eugene turned away with a curse. On reaching the door he stood still for a moment, then rushed down stairs.

Veitel looked round triumphantly. "The son as well as the father! He, too, is safely noosed," said he to himself; "he can never procure the money. There is an end of the Rothsattels, and their Wohlfart will not be able to sustain them. When I am married to Rosalie, Ehrenthal's mortgages will be mine. That will be the time, too, for finding the vanished notes of hand among my father-in-law's papers. Then I shall have the baron completely in my power, and the estate will be mine."

After this soliloquy he opened the door that had shut out Mr. Hippus from the distinguished visitor--the sunken from the sinking--and he found the little advocate fast asleep over the deed. Itzig looked at him with hearty contempt, and said, "He grows burdensome. He said he was death; I wish he were dead, and I freed from him." Then roughly shaking up the old man, he screamed out to him, "You are fit for nothing but to sleep; why must you come here to snore? Go home; I will give you the deed when you are sober."

The advocate accordingly reeled away, promising to return the following afternoon. Itzig proceeded to brush his silk hat with enviable dexterity; he then put on his best coat, gave his hair its most graceful curve, and went to the house of his antagonist Ehrenthal. As he entered the hall he cast a shy glance at the office door, and hurried on to the staircase. But he stopped on the lowest step. "There he is, sitting again in the office," said he, listening. "I hear him mutter; he often mutters so when he is alone. I will venture in; perhaps I can make something of him." So he stepped slowly to the door and listened again; then taking heart, he opened it suddenly. In the dimly-lighted room sat a stooping figure in a leathern chair, a shapeless hat on its head. The figure kept constantly nodding, and muttering unintelligible words. How changed was Hirsch Ehrenthal in the course of the past year! When he last drove over the baron's estate, he was a stout, respectable-looking man, a fresh, well-preserved man, who knew how to stick in his breast-pin to the best advantage, and cut a figure in ladies' eyes. Now the head that was constantly nodding in nervous debility was that of an old man, and the beard that hung down from his furrowed face had been untrimmed for weeks. He was a picture of that most lamentable decay, when the mind precedes the body on the way to second childhood.

The agent stood at the door and looked in dismay at his former master.

Then, advancing nearer, he said, "I wish to speak to you, Mr.

Ehrenthal."

The old man continued to nod his head, and answered in a trembling voice, "Hirsch Ehrenthal is my name; what have you to say to me?"

"I wish to speak to you on important business," continued Itzig.

"I hear," returned Ehrenthal, without looking up; "if the business be important, why do you not speak?"

"Do you know me, Hirsch Ehrenthal?" said Itzig, bending down and raising his voice.

The man in the leathern chair looked at him with languid eyes, and at length recognized him. He got up in all haste, and stood, his head still nodding, with a glance full of hatred and terror in his eyes. "What do you want here in my office?" cried he, with a quivering voice. "How can you come before me? Get out, man! get out!"

Itzig remained stationary. "Don't scream so; I am not doing any thing to you; I only want to speak to you on important subjects, if you will be calm as a man of your years should be."

"It is Itzig," murmured the old man; "he wants to speak on important subjects, and I am to be calm. How can I be calm," screamed he again, "when I see you before me? You are my enemy; you have ruined me here and ruined me there; you have been to me like the evil spirit with the sword, on which hangs the drop of gall. I opened my mouth, you pierced me with your sword, the gall has reached my heart; I needs must tremble when I see you."

"Be quiet," said Itzig; "and when you are so, listen to me."

"Is his name Itzig?" mumbled the old man to himself. "His name is Itzig, but the dogs bark at him as he walks through the streets. I will not see you," he again exclaimed. "Get out! I loathe the sight of you: I would rather have to do with a spider than with you."

To this Veitel replied in a resigned voice, "What has happened, Ehrenthal, has happened, and it's no use talking of it. You behaved unkindly to me, and I acted against you; both are true."

"He ate every Sabbath at my table," growled the old man.

"If you remember that," continued Itzig, "why, so will I. True, I have eaten at your table, and on that account I am sorry to be on bad terms with you. I have always felt a great attachment to your family."

"You have shown your attachment, young Itzig," continued the old man.

"You are he who came into my house, and killed me before I am laid in my grave."

"What nonsense are you talking?" continued Veitel, impatiently. "Why do you always speak as if you were dead, and I the evil spirit with the sword? I am here, and I wish your prosperous life, and not your death. I will so contrive that you shall yet occupy a good position among our people, and that they who pa.s.s you in the street shall again take off their hats to you, as they did before Hirsch Ehrenthal became childish."

Ehrenthal mechanically took off his hat and sat down again. His hair had grown white.

"There ought to be friends.h.i.+p between you and me," continued Veitel, persuasively, "and your business ought to be as mine. I have sent to you more than one man of our connection, and have told you my wishes through him, and Mrs. Ehrenthal, your wife, has told you them too. I am become a man who can rank with the best men of business; I can show you a safe capital larger than you imagine. Why should we not put our money together? If you will give me your daughter Rosalie to wife, I shall be able to act for you as your son-in-law."

Old Ehrenthal looked at the suitor with a glance in which something of his old cunning shone through his half-wittedness. "If you want my daughter Rosalie," replied he, "hear the only question I have to put: What will you give me if I give you Rosalie?"

"I will reckon it up to you at once," cried Veitel.

"You can reckon up a good deal, I dare say," said Ehrenthal, declining the statement, "but I will only require one thing: if you can give me back my son Bernhard, you may have my daughter. If you can not bring Bernhard out of the grave, so long as I have any voice left I shall say, 'Get out with you! get out of my office!' Get out!" screamed he, in a sudden transport of rage, clenching both fists against the suitor.

Veitel quietly retreated into the shadow cast by the door, the old man sunk down again on his chair, and threatened and muttered to himself.

Itzig watched him till his words again became unintelligible, when he shrugged his shoulders and left the room.

As he went up stairs to pay his visit to the ladies, he repeated the movement occasionally, to express his utter contempt of the poor imbecile below. He rang the bell, and was admitted by the untidy cook with a familiar smile.

Meanwhile Eugene drifted helplessly from one officer's room to another.

He went to Feroni's; the oysters were flavorless, the Burgundy tasted like ink. Again he paced up and down the streets, the sweat of anguish on his brow. At last he sat down in a confectioner's shop, tired to death, and revolved every possible contingency. If Wohlfart were only here! But there was no time to write to him. These agents had put him off from day to day; it was only last night that they had both finally referred him to Mr. Itzig. But, though it was too late to write to Anton, might not this obliging friend have some acquaintance in the town? In recommending young Sturm, Anton had told him that the future bailiff's father was a safe man, not without substance. Perhaps he could get money from the father of a hussar now in the service of his family, if, indeed, the old man had any money. That was the question.

He turned to the Directory, and found John Sturm, porter, Island Street, No. 17. He drove thither in a drosky. A loud "Come in" was the reply to his hurried knock. The sore-pressed officer crossed the threshold of the porter. Father Sturm sat alone with his can of beer, a small daily paper in his hand. "A hussar!" cried he, remaining seated through very astonishment. The officer, on his part, was astonished at the colossal form now contemplating him, and both were silent.

"To be sure!" said the giant. "A hussar of my Karl's regiment--the coat is the same, the epaulettes the same; you are welcome, comrade!" and he rose. Then for the first time perceiving the metal of the epaulettes, he exclaimed, "As I live, an officer!"

"My name is Eugene von Rothsattel," began the lieutenant. "I am an acquaintance of Mr. Wohlfart."

"Of Mr. Wohlfart and of my son Karl," said Sturm, eagerly; "sit down, sir; it is an exceeding pleasure and honor to me to see you." He brought out a chair, and thumped it down in his zeal so as to make the door shake again.

Eugene was going to sit down. "Not yet," said Sturm; "I will first wipe it, that the uniform take no harm. Since my Karl went away, things are a little dusty here."