They Abstract Butter from the Milk and Leave Verdigris in the Utensils

In the corner opposite Charles Krauthammer is a little altar with conventional icons and gewgaws and a number of prayer books lying pell-mell around.

"When the Incas had a crop failure," Charles Krauthammer said, "they would take somebody up to a hill and execute them. This process is the same. Except that it has a little less dignity. I'm sure the language was cleaner in the Inca process."

Goldman Sachs is a compromise between myth and history, between cyclical time which still dominates production and irreversible time where money clashes and regroups.

Charles Krauthammer is reluctant to make such confessions.

Now the wicket is open. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein ushers us through the dark and stivy corridor to the rear, where a few petroleum boxes are offered us as seats.

Fabrice Tourre has sense enough to know that only in sulfur is the phylactery which destroys the phylloxera.

And what do you do, Charles Krauthammer, when you are not working in your vineyard or praying?

"To break the monotony of the rows," he said, "a fig, an apricot, an almond, or an olive spreads its umbrageous boughs."

Fabrice Tourre exposes dry ditches in little wind-rows of sand, scintillating, with mystical carbuncles.

"The minute Goldman Sachs sells something to its customer, it no longer owns that security and has the opposite interest to its client regarding that security," said Lloyd Blankfein.

"I liked him much," Senator Carl Levin said, "and often I would bring him some of our cookery. How did he live in the forest?"

"We proceeded to sell certain positions outright and hedge our long positions in an attempt to achieve results," replied David Viniar, CFO of Goldman Sachs. "As always, the clients who bought our long positions -- or other similar positions -- believed they were attractive positions to purchase at the price they were offered."

Regionalisms and radiologists, mundane rankings in hierarchies of contagion, a magical ontological superiority -- entourages aroused by an endless suite of ludicrous composers, from sprees to elevators.

"As with our own beliefs, our clients' beliefs sometimes proved to be correct and sometimes incorrect," David Viniar added.