I walk forward into the great golden chamber where the smelters roar and the gilden torrents run fresh and endless from their spigots … More smoke, the smoke of the smelters mingling with that in my mouth, my throat, my blood, my brain. And out of that smoke He will speak to me as ever …
He will listen to me, advise and counsel me and as always He will be right … He is here now, I can feel His presence … ‘Master, great God Mammon, I am on my knees before you. I have served you as best I have been able these many years and have brought to your throne my earthly employer and all his stupendous wealth. I beg you to hear me, for I need your advice and help.’
‘I hear you, Servant. What is your trouble?’
‘That man whom I serve here below … something seems to have entered him that I cannot comprehend.’
‘Explain.’
‘Ever since I have known him, ever since I first cast my eyes on that hideous face, he has had but one obsession. Which I have encouraged and fostered at every stage. In a world that he perceives as being uniformly hostile to him, he has only ever wanted to succeed. It was I who channelled that obsession into the making of money and ever more money and thus brought him to your service. Is it not so?’
‘You have done brilliantly, Servant. Every day his wealth increases and you ensure that it is dedicated to my service.’
‘But recently, Master, he has increasingly become obsessed with another concern. Time-wasting but worse, much worse, a waste of money. He thinks only of opera. There is no profit in opera.’
‘This I know. A fruitless irrelevance. How much of his fortune does he devote to this fetish?’
‘So far, but a tiny fraction. My fear is that it distracts him from dedication to the increase of your empire of gold.’
‘Does he cease to make money?’
‘On the contrary. In that area things are as they have always been. The original ideas, the great strategies, the extraordinary ingenuity which sometimes seems to me like a second sight, these he still has. I still preside over the meetings in the boardroom. It is I who, for the world, conduct the great takeovers, construct an ever bigger empire of mergers and investments. It is I who destroy the weak and the helpless, rejoicing in their pleas. It is I who raise the rents in the slum tenements, order the clearances of the homes and schools for factories and marshalling yards. It is I who suborn and bribe the city officials to ensure their complaisance. It is I who sign the purchase orders for great stakes of shares and blocks of stock in the rising industries across the country. But always the instructions are his, the campaign planned by him, the things I must do and say devised by him.’
‘And is his judgement starting to fail him?’
‘No, Master. It is as faultless as ever. The Stock Exchange is agape at his audacity and foresight, even though they think it is mine.’
‘Then what is the problem, Servant?’
‘I am wondering, Master, if the moment has come for him to depart and for me to inherit.’
‘Servant, you have done brilliantly, but because you have also followed my orders. You are talented, it is true, and you have always known this, and loyal only to me. But Erik Muhlheim is more. Rarely does one come across a true genius in the matter of gold. He is such a one, and more besides. Inspired only by hatred of Man, guided by you in my service, he is not simply a wealth-creating genius but immune to scruple, principle, mercy, pity, compassion and most important of all, like you, immune to love. A human tool to dream of. One day his moment will indeed come and I may order you to end his life. So that you may inherit, of course. All the kingdoms of the world was the phrase I used once, to another. To you, all the financial empire of America. Have I deceived you so far?’
‘Never, Master.’
‘And have you betrayed me?’
‘Never, Master.’
‘Then so be it. Let it continue a while. Tell me more of this new obsession, and the why of it.’
‘His library shelves have always been loaded with the works of opera and books concerning it. But when I arranged that he could never have a private box, screened by curtains to hide his face, at the Metropolitan he seemed to lose interest. Now he has invested millions in a rival opera house.’
‘So far he has always recouped his investments and more.’
‘True, but this venture is a certain loss-maker, even though such losses must be under one per cent of his total wealth. And there is more. His mood has changed.’
‘Why?’
‘I do not know, Master. Save that it began after the arrival of a mysterious letter from Paris where he once lived.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Two men came. One a shoddy little reporter from a New York newspaper, but he was only the guide. The other was a lawyer from France. He had a letter. I would have opened it but he was watching me. When they had gone he came down and took the letter. He sat and read it at the boardroom table. I pretended to leave but watched through a chink in the door. When he rose he seemed changed.’
‘And since then?’
‘Before that he was simply the sleeping partner behind a man called Hammerstein, builder and moving spirit behind the new opera house. Hammerstein is wealthy but not to compare. It was Muhlheim who pledged enough to bring the opera house to completion.