The garden, which stretched from behind Gotzkowsky’s house to the limits of the city, was really of artistic beauty, and he had spent thousands in creating a park out of this dead level of sand.  Now, his work was completed, and all Berlin spoke with praise and admiration of this garden, which ranked among the lions to be visited by every traveller.  The most splendid groups of trees were seen here and there, interspersed among green plats of grass, ornamented by marble statues or graceful fountains; in other places, trimmed hedges stretched along, and from the conservatories exotic plants filled the air with perfume.

On this day, however, the garden presented a peculiarly lively spectacle.  On the lawn, the young girls and lads were dancing to the music of a fiddle and bass-viol, while the older workmen and their wives had seated themselves around tables, on which all kinds of refreshments were spread.

At the largest of these tables, ornamented with flowers, was seated the betrothed couple, the workman Balthazar and Gretchen his young bride, who bashfully and affectionately clung to his side.  They had loved each other long and faithfully in silence, but without hope, for they were both poor, and had to support themselves and their parents by the work of their hands.  But Gotzkowsky had come to them as a helping benefactor; he had given Balthazar a considerable sum of money, and his daughter Elise had bestowed a dower upon the bride.  On this day, Elise’s eighteenth birthday, was to be celebrated the marriage of the happy couple.  No wonder, then, that they regarded Gotzkowsky with feelings almost of adoration, and that this young girl appeared to them as a benevolent angel.

Elise had just come into the garden with her father, and had taken her seat at the table of the bridal pair.  Next to her sat a young man, whose mild and noble countenance seemed to be lighted up with happiness and adoration whenever he looked upon her.  He followed every one of her motions with watchful eyes, and the most trifling shade, the slightest change in the expression of her countenance, did not escape him.  At times he sighed, reading perhaps in her features the secret thoughts of her soul, and these thoughts saddened him, and clouded his bright clear eye.

This young man, who sat at Elise’s side, was Bertram, Gotzkowsky’s head book-keeper.  From his earliest youth he had been in the house of the rich manufacturer, who had adopted the poor orphan, and treated him as a tender father would have done, and Bertram loved him with all the affection of a son.  And never by the lips of a true son was the name of father pronounced with more warmth and tenderness than by this son, adopted and won by deeds of generosity.