The Market-Place | Page 3

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The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Market-Place, by Harold Frederic

THE MARKET-PLACE by Harold Frederic

CHAPTER I
THE battle was over, and the victor remained on the field--sitting alone
with the hurly-burly of his thoughts.
His triumph was so sweeping and comprehensive as to be somewhat
shapeless to the view. He had a sense of fascinated pain when he tried
to define to himself what its limits would probably be. Vistas of
unchecked, expanding conquest stretched away in every direction. He
held at his mercy everything within sight. Indeed, it rested entirely with
him to say whether there should be any such thing as mercy at all--and
until he chose to utter the restraining word the rout of the vanquished
would go on with multiplying terrors and ruin. He could crush and
torture and despoil his enemies until he was tired. The responsibility of
having to decide when he would stop grinding their faces might come
to weigh upon him later on, but he would not give it room in his mind
to-night.
A picture of these faces of his victims shaped itself out of the flames in
the grate. They were moulded in a family likeness, these phantom
visages: they were all Jewish, all malignant, all distorted with fright.
They implored him with eyes in which panic asserted itself above rage
and cunning. Only here and there did he recall a name with which to
label one of these countenances; very few of them raised a memory of
individual rancour. The faces were those of men he had seen, no doubt,
but their persecution of him had been impersonal; his great revenge was
equally so. As he looked, in truth, there was only one face--a composite
mask of what he had done battle with, and overthrown, and would
trample implacably under foot. He stared with a conqueror's cold frown
at it, and gave an abrupt laugh which started harsh echoes in the
stillness of the Board Room. Then he shook off the reverie, and got to
his feet. He shivered a little at the sudden touch of a chill.
A bottle of brandy, surrounded by glasses, stood on the table where the
two least-considered of his lieutenants, the dummy Directors, had left it.
He poured a small quantity and sipped it. During the whole eventful
day it had not occurred to him before to drink; the taste of the neat

liquor seemed on the instant to calm and refresh his brain. With more
deliberation, he took a cigar from the broad, floridly-decorated open
box beside the bottle, lit it, and blew a long draught of smoke
thoughtfully through his nostrils. Then he put his hands in his pockets,
looked again into the fire, and sighed a wondering smile. God in
heaven! it was actually true!
This man of forty found himself fluttering with a novel exhilaration,
which yet was not novel. Upon reflection, he perceived that he felt as if
he were a boy again--a boy excited by pleasure. It surprised as much as
it delighted him to experience this frank and direct joy of a child. He
caught the inkling of an idea that perhaps his years were an illusion. He
had latterly been thinking of himself as middle-aged; the grey hairs
thickening at his temples had vaguely depressed him. Now all at once
he saw that he was not old at all. The buoyancy of veritable youth
bubbled in his veins. He began walking up and down the room,
regarding new halcyon visions with a sparkling eye. He was no longer
conscious of the hated foe beneath his feet; they trod instead elastic
upon the clouds.
The sound of someone moving about in the hallway outside, and of
trying a door near by, suddenly caught his attention. He stood still and
listened with alertness for a surprised instant, then shrugged his
shoulders and began moving again. It must be nearly seven o'clock;
although the allotment work had kept the clerks later than usual that
day, everybody connected with the offices had certainly gone home. He
realized that his nerves had played him a trick in giving that alarmed
momentary start--and smiled almost tenderly as he remembered how
notable and even