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248 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
“Koppel-the-bear,� whispered Jäckele-the-fool, “can’t you see something shimmering and shining over there by the wall?�
“If you’re a fool, drink vinegar, ride broomsticks and milk billy goats, but leave me in peace. What you see is white stones gleaming in the moonlight.�
But at that moment the moon vanished behind dark clouds, and Koppel-the-bear realised that it wasn’t white stones that he could see over there just by the cemetery wall, but gleaming forms floating in the air, children in long white shifts, holding hands and dancing over the new graves. And above them, invisible to the human eye, was the Guardian Angel appointed by God to watch over them.
He reached a clearing, and was suddenly confronted by two huge, red-haired men with thick staves in their hands, and what he had taken for a fire of wood or charcoal turned out to be three gleaming piles, one of gold coins, one of silver talers, and one of thick copper pfennigs; and there were enough of these gold, silver and copper coins to fill three corn sacks.
To others, Meisl said to himself, making money often means great and often vain and painful efforts, and many staked their life on it and lost it. But to him it had always been merely a game. All his life money had chased him, had wooed and courted him and, when he had rejected it, it had come back. Sometimes he had tired of his good fortune, and sometimes it had actually frightened him. Money oppressed him, it wanted to be his and no one else’s, and when it became his it did not remain in his chests and strong boxes, but bustled about the world for him as his faithful servant. Yes, money loved him and subjected itself to him.