Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/93

 But the looms go running on by themselves. They go on running all night and all day, for three whole weeks, weaving, weaving, weaving without a pause. The firm wires us: 'In the devil's name, take the finished goods off us, send us raw material, stop the machines!' And now it has got hold of the factory of Buxbaum Brothers, Morawetz and Co., by sheer long-range infection. There are no raw materials in the place. They lose their heads and fling rags, straw, earth, whatever comes handy, into the machines; well, even that stuff, if you please, gets woven into kilometres of towels, calico, cretonne, and everything imaginable. There's a terrific upheaval; the prices of textiles are coming down with a crash; England is raising her protective tariff; and our neighbouring states are threatening us with a boycott. And the factories are wailing, 'For the love of Heaven, take the finished goods away at least. Cart them away; send us men, lorries, motor trains; stop the machines!' In the meantime, they're suing us for damages. A damnable life! And we hear the same thing from all sides, from everywhere where a Karburator has been installed.

"The Absolute wants work. It clings furiously to life. Once it created the earth! now it has flung itself into manufacture. It has captured Liberec and the Brno cotton works, Trutnov, twenty sugar factories, sawmills, the City Brewery in Pilsen; it