"But you can earn a great deal," said Gotzkowsky, with a faint smile.
"I wish to effect a loan from you. Take my word of honor as security."

"Your word of honor!" cried Itzig, thrusting back his hand. "What can
I do with your word of honor? I cannot advance any money on it."

"Consider! the honor of my name is concerned--and this, till now,
I have kept unsullied before God and man!" cried Gotzkowsky,
imploringly.

"And if my own honor was concerned," exclaimed Itzig, "I would rather
part with it than my money. Money makes me a man. I am a Jew. I have
nothing but money--it is my life, my honor! I cannot part with any of
it."

But Gotzkowsky did not allow himself to be repulsed. It seemed to him
that his future, his honor, his whole life hung upon this moment. He
felt like a gambler who has staked his last hope upon one throw of
the dice. If this fails, all hope is gone; no future, no life is left,
nothing but the grave awaits him. With impetuous violence he seized
the hand of the rich Itzig. "Oh!" said he, "remember the time when you
swore eternal gratitude to me."

"I never would have sworn it," cried Itzig--"no, by the Eternal, I
never would have done it, if I had thought you would ever have needed
it!"

"The honor of my name is at stake!" cried Gotzkowsky, in a tone of
heart-rending agony. "Do you not understand that this is to me my
life? Remember your vow! Let your heart for once feel sympathy--act as
a man toward his fellow-man. Advance me money upon my word of honor.
No, not on that alone--on my house, on all that belongs to me. Lend me
the sum I need. Oh! I will repay it in a princely manner. Help me over
only these shoals, and my gratitude to you will be without bounds. You
have a heart--take pity on me!"

Itzig looked with a malicious smile into his pale, agitated face.
"So the rich, the great Christian banker, in the hour of his trouble,
thinks that the poor derided Jew has a heart; I admit that I have a
heart--but what has that to do with money? When business begins, there
the heart stops. No, I have no heart to lend you money!"

Gotzkowsky did not answer immediately. He stood for an instant
motionless, as if paralyzed in his inmost being. His soul was crushed,
and he scarcely felt his grief. He only felt and knew that he was
a lost man, and that the proud edifice of his fortune was crumbling
under him, and would bury him in its ruins. He folded his hands
and raised his disconsolate looks on high;