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The Absolute at LargeKAREL CAPEKKAREL CAPEKFirst published in 1927CONTENTSCHAPTER PAOBI The Advertisement 7 The Karbitrator n Pantheism 17IV. God in the Cellar, 23V Bishop Linda 29VI The BoardMeeting 36VII Developments 41VIII The Dredge 46IX The Ceremony 53X Saint Ellen 59XI. The First Blow Struck 64XII Doctor Blahous 70XIII The Chroniclers Apology 75XIV The Land of Plenty 80XV Disaster 86XVI In the Mountains 92XVII The Hammer and Star 98XVIII, In the Night Editors Room 102XIX. The Process of Canonization 108XX St Kilda 113XXI The Telegram 119XXII The Old Patriot 124XXIII. The Augsburg Imbroglio 130CONTENTSCHAPTER PAGEXXIV. The Napoleon of the MountainBrigade 136XXV. The socalled Greatest War 141XXVI. The Battle of Hradec Kralove 145XXVII. A Coral Island in the Pacific 150XXVIII. At Seven Cottages 155XXIX. The Last Battle 159XXX. The End of Everything 163CHAPTER ITHE ADVERTISEMENTONE New Years Day, 1943, G H Bondy, head of the greatMetalloElectncal Company, was sitting as usual reading hispaper He skipped the news from the theatre of war ratherdisrespectfully, avoided the Cabinet crisis, then crowded onsail for the Peoples Journal, which had grown long ago tofive times its ancient size, now afforded enough canvas for anocean voyage for the Finance and Commerce section Herehe cruised about for quite a while, then furled his sails, andabandoned himself to his thoughtsThe Coal Crisis he said to himself Mines gettingworked out the Ostrava basin suspending work for years.Heavens above, its a sheer disaster Well have to importUpper Silesian coal. Just work out what that will add to thecost of our manufactures, and then talk about competition.Were in a pretty fix And if Germany raises her tariff, wemay as well shut up shop And the Industrial Banks goingdown, too What a wretched state of affairs What a hopeless, stupid, stifling state of affairs Oh, damn the crisisHere G H Bondy, Chairman of the Board of Directors,came to a pause Something was fidgeting him and would nollet him rest He traced it back to the last page of his discardednewspaper It was the syllable TioNj only part of a word, fothe fold of the paper came just in front of the T. It was thivery incompleteness which had so curiously impressed itselupon him. Well, hang it, its probably IRON PRODUCTION Bondpondered vaguely, or PREVENTION,, or, maybe, RESTITUTION. . . And the Azote shares have gone down, too. The stagnations simply shocking. The positions so bad that it8 THE ABSOLUTE AT LARGEridiculous . But thats nonsense who would advertisethe RESTITUTION of anything? More likely RESIGNATION Itssure to be RESIGNATION.With a touch of annoyance, G H Bondy spread out thenewspaper to dispose of this irritating word It had nowvanished amid the chequering of the small advertisements Hehunted for it from one column to another, but it had concealeditself with provoking ingenuity. Mr. Bondy then worked fromthe bottom up, and finally started again from, the righthandside of the page.
