The rich merchant stared at him with contemptuous surprise; then, with a scornful laugh, he said:
'Yes, to be sure; the moon might fall down from the heavens, but it would not be necessary on that account to put up an umbrella. Don't tease me any more with such nonsense. Enough of it--Basta!'
Herr Kraft got better, and he resumed his accustomed rich man's life--the constant yearning and busy schemes to become richer; but in his cupidity he never thought of Providence.
The moon certainly did not fall from heaven, but within the space of three years, one fine morning, as Herr Kraft was lounging over his breakfast-table, and congratulating himself on being worth a very considerable sum of money, the postman brought him a large packet of letters. His spirits fell the moment he had read them, for they conveyed the startling and afflicting intelligence of a commercial crisis in a foreign country, which had caused the failure of many houses of old standing; and their failure had brought down several others. Among these sufferers was Herr Kraft himself. Yes, the wealthy Kraft, dragged down by others, was now _a bankrupt!_ At that time bankruptcy was a more serious matter than it is now-a-days; a bankrupt never raised himself to fortune a second time, and there were _then_ no instances of a man having failed several times, and yet being able to live on the fat of the land. However, credit, in those days, was a very different matter from what it is now.
Herr Kraft had failed--the honourable, ancient, commercial house was ruined, its riches and its lustre annihilated in a moment. What during a century, and by the zealous labour of several generations, had been gathered, had been destroyed by a single storm, and scattered like chaff before the wind! The cash-keeper suggested--and it was true what he said--that the ready money which was lying in their iron chest might be easily removed and placed somewhere else in security, and that _it_ alone would be sufficient to yield a competency to any man for life. But Herr Kraft was a rigidly honest man, and had not the fall of the house thrown the cash-keeper also out of bread, he would have discharged him for advising such a fraudulent measure. Everything was given up, and as an honourable and respected, but a poor and ruined man, the lately so wealthy and so envied Herr Kraft took his departure from his forefathers' abode.