Utzel is the story of a man who is extremely lazy and does not work. He always lies down on his broken-down cot and says, "Other people are lucky. They have money without working. I am cursed". His wife died for poverty and his irresponsibility. He does not have any sense of responsibility. Whenever anyone wanted to give him a job to do, his answer was always the same: "Not today". He has a daughter named Poverty, she is tall, broad, and heavy. Her feet are the size of a man's and puffy with fat. The villagers maintain that the lazier Utzel gets, the more Poverty grows. Utzel constantly reproaches Poverty for not making friends and not going out with young men, but she continually says, "How can I go out in rags and bare feet?". Someday Utzel learns that a certain charitable society in the village loans poor people money and he could borrow five gulden. Since he thinks that shoes are Poverty's key to attract a wealthy young man who provides her and him as his father-in-law. From the charitable society, Utzel goes directly to the shoemaker and askes whether he still has Poverty's measurements. The shoes have been made but they are not fit, In the months since the measurements had been taken, Poverty's feet have become even larger than they were before. At this point, the shoemaker exclaims, "you were poor but by this debt of the charitable society, you will be poorer. There is only one way out for you, go to work. From borrowing one gets poorer and from work one gets richer." Utzel and Poverty both determine to look for a job then they find and it was pleasurable for them. At last, they understand that all a man possess he gains through work, and not by lying in bed and being idle. In Utzel later years he becomes so respected and he becomes a warden of a charitable society, on the wall of his office there hang the framed motto: "whatever you can do today, don't put off till tomorrow".