Instead of the
noble house of Rothsattel we have the ancient and highly esteemed
commercial firm of Heggelund, whose chief falls into the toils of the
scoundrel, Stuwitz, very much as Baron Rothsattel was dragged to ruin by
the Jew Veitel Itzig. But no more than Freytag can find it in his heart
to award the victory to the Hebrew usurer, can Lie violate the
proprieties of fiction by permitting Stuwitz to fatten on his spoil. He
could not, like the German novelist, conjure up a noble gentleman of
democratic sympathies and practical ability (like von Finck) and make
him emerge in the nick of time as the heir of the ancient gentry,
justifying the dignities which he enjoys in the state by the uses which
he fulfils. In Norway there is no nobility; and Lie, therefore, had to
make his able and industrious plebeian, Morten Jonsen (the equivalent of
Anton Wohlfahrt in _Soll und Haben_) the inheritor of the future. He
accordingly awards to him the hand of Miss Edele Heggelund; but not
until he has put Jacob to shame by the amount and character of the work
by which he earns his Rachel.
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