Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/230

202 misty fog of thick smoke! Filthy incense! Heads look as though they were detached from bodies and floating beneath the waves.

At first sight, as one comes upon this assemblage, one thinks of conventicles and witches' sabbaths. Never did a fen of thirsty frogs croak in so swelling a chorus its prayer for rain. But these batracians implore a heavy rain of gold.

Little by little one succeeds in being able to distinguish the various groups of business men and petty traders.

In one corner is the place where the great wholesale merchants habitually congregate on the Exchange. They transact business while affecting to talk of other things, or transfer that responsibility to some assistant, who, from time to time, comes up to the "boss" to receive orders. So does the plenipotentiary consult the potentate. Here, enthroned, the billionaire magis, the high-priests of finance, assert their sovereignty. Themselves are pillars of commerce, as solid as the columns of their temples. Philistine columns, alas, over which even Samson could never prevail. Employes, proprietors, ship-owners, ship-brokers, bankers, strut pompously, their hands in their pockets or clasped behind their backs, talking little, talking of gold,—actually and figuratively. Corpulent plutocrats, formidable augurs, their sibylline predictions depress or extend the credit of subordinate promoters. One word from their lips enriches or ruins. The weather-vane of chance is turned by their breath. Upon their caprices depends the fluctuations of an universal market. Their moons regulate these tides. With their allies of other great cities, they possess the power to deliver over the poor world to famine and war.