Nietzsche on his Balcony by Carlos Fuentes

They gravitated toward him for different reasons. His mother was a French aristocrat, descended from Colbert, with a castle in Dordogne. That alone was enough for Otto Krebs and Jean-Baptiste Malines and Walter Gebhart. The pedigree of Leonardo Loredano's mother gave them instant cachet, and even though Krebs had started out with a garage and Malines with a grocery store and Gebhart with an auto-parts shop, being in an aristocrat's house confirmed they had escaped their origins. Harold Burgdorf and Julian Dahl didn't think of things quite that way because they had, after all, been friends with the elder Loredano, Zacarías, who even though he had forfeited the class attributes of his wife, still maintained his association with the economic virtues of Burgdorf, building contractor, and Dahl, bank president. Even though Zacarías Loredano had succumbed to illness and was no longer presentable, there was still their host, his son Leonardo Loredano whom the young men, Charles Serra and Vilfredo Grandi-charged with managing relations between executives, contractors, investors, clergy, journalists, and judges-took as a role model because of his ability to relate to all sorts of people, to get past their differences, and to broker agreements.

Only two participants in Leonardo's meetings deviated from, although they complemented, the norm. Rudolf Saur was president of the federation of unions, which scuttled workers' demands in obedience to alliances with companies designed to guarantee unhindered production for which workers were paid 1 or 2 percent as much as the compensation of top executives.