A day came on which his trade seemed to come to a halt. The weavers in
all the land complained that they could not keep their old pace. It was
as though a creeping paralysis had come upon them. The market prices
suddenly dropped, and the character of the goods was changed.
This took place toward the end of the eighteen hundred and fifties, when
the new power looms were being introduced from America. No toil profited
anything. The cheap product which the machines could furnish destroyed
the sale of the hand-made weaves.
At first Gottfried Nothafft refused to be cast down. Thus the wheel of a
machine will run on for a space after the power has been cut off. But
gradually his courage failed. His hair turned grey in a single winter,
and at the age of forty-five he was a broken man.
And just as poverty appeared threatening at their door, and the soul of
Marian began to be stained by hatred, the longing of the couple was
fulfilled, and the wife became pregnant in the tenth year of their
marriage.
The hatred which she nourished was directed against the power loom. In
her dreams she saw the machine as a monster with thighs of steel, which
screamed out its malignity and devoured the hearts of men. She was
embittered by the injustice of a process which gave to impudence and
sloth the product that had once come thoughtfully and naturally from the
careful hands of men.
One journeyman after another had to be discharged, and one hand-loom
after another to be stored in the attic. On many days Marian would slip
up the stairs and crouch for hours beside the looms, which had once been
set in motion by a determinable and beneficent exertion and were like
corpses now.
Gottfried wandered across country, peddling the stock of goods he had on
hand. Once on his return he brought with him a piece of machine-made
cloth which a merchant of Noerdlingen had given him. "Look, Marian, see
what sort of stuff it is," he said, and handed it to her. But Marian
drew her hand away, and shuddered as though she had seen the booty of a
murderer.
After the birth of her boy she lost these morbid feelings; Gottfried on
the other hand seemed to dwindle from month to month. Though he
outlasted the years, there was no cheer left in him and he got no
comfort even from his growing boy. When he had sold all his own wares,
he took those of others, and dragged himself wearily in summer and
winter from village to village.
In spite of the scarcity that prevailed in the house, Marian was
convinced that Gottfried had put by money, and certain hints which he
threw out confirmed her in this hope. It was one of his peculiar views
that it was better to leave his wife in the dark regarding the true
state of their fortunes. As their circumstances grew worse, he became
wholly silent on this point.