d because you threatened to attach my effects. From this time I
began to go downhill, I could no longer meet expenses, my family was
large, and I had to work for you to pay up the interest and rent. But
for some time back I had been unable to do as I wished. I could not
even sell any of my own property; for you were holding me fast,
and I was obliged to mortgage everything to you for a merely nominal
price. My cottage, my barn, my garden, and the field in front of my
house--worth at least two thousand florins--I had to give you a
mortgage upon for one thousand. The rest of my immovable property,
fields and meadows, you took. Nothing was left to me but the little hut
and what adjoined it. With respects, Mr. Shund, you had long since
sucked the very marrow from my bones, next you put the rope about my
neck, and now you are about to hang me."

"Hang you? Ha--ha! That's good, Holt! You are in fine humor," cried the
usurer, after hearing with a relish the simple account of his atrocious
deeds. "I have no hankering for your neck. Pay up, Holt, pay up, that
is all I want. Pay me over the trifle of a thousand florins and the
interest, and the house with everything pertaining to it shall be
yours. But if you cannot pay up, it will have to be sold at auction, so
that I may get my money."

"For heaven's sake, Mr. Shund, be merciful," entreated the wife. "We
have saved up the interest with much trouble; every farthing of it you
are to receive. For God's sake, do not drive us from our home, Mr.
Shund, we will gladly toil for you day and night. Take pity, Mr. Shund,
do take pity on my poor children!"

"Stop your whining. Pay up, money alone has any value in my
estimation--pay, all the rest is fudge. Pay up!"

"God knows, Mr. Shund," sobbed the woman, wringing her hands, "I would
give my heart's blood to keep my poor children out of misery--with my
life I would be willing to pay you. Oh! do have some commiseration, do
be merciful! Almighty God will requite you for it."

"Almighty God, nonsense! Don't mention such stuff to me. Stupid palaver
like that might go down with some bigoted fool, but it will not affect
a man of enlightenment. Pay up, and there's an end of it!"

"Is it your determination then, Mr. Shund, to cast us out mercilessly
under the open sky?" inquired the countryman with deep earnestness.

"I only want what belongs to me. Pay over the thousand florins with the
interest, and we shall be quits. That's my position,