This was a summer out of some fairy-tale. The population of the
city increased well-nigh fourfold through every sort of newly-come
people. Stone-masons, carpenters, painters, engineers,
technicians, foreigners, agriculturists, brokers, shady business
men, river navigators, unoccupied knaves, tourists, thieves, card
sharpers--they all overflowed the city, and not in a single hotel,
the most dirty and dubious one, was there a vacant room. Insane
prices were paid for quarters. The stock exchange gambled on a
grand scale, as never before or since that summer. Money in
millions simply flowed from hands to hands, and thence to a third
pair. In one hour colossal riches were created, but then many
former firms burst, and yesterday's men of wealth turned into
beggars. The commonest of labourers bathed and warmed themselves
in this golden flood. Stevedores, draymen, street porters,
roustabouts, hod carriers and ditch diggers still remember to this
day what money they earned by the day during this mad summer. Any
tramp received no less than four of five roubles a day at the
unloading of barges laden with watermelons.
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