MORITZ WELT (velt), Charles's second partner, once his fellow student, now running an agency in Lodz; clever, but crafty and self-seeking.

LUCY ZUCKER (tsooker), the most beautiful Jewess in all Lodz, who secretly adores Charles Boroviecki; wife of a big factory-owner, who has got a fortune by making cheap shoddy goods.

SHAYA MENDELSOHN, a very big Orthodox Jewish manufacturer, wants to be the foremost man in Lodz.

ROSE MENDELSOHN, the youngest daughter of Shaya, a girl of strong passions, who wants to be loved for herself, not for her money; a plain young woman with a slight limp, bitter against everybody but a couple of girl friends, and bored to death with everything.

GRÜN SPAN, senior, owner of a large factory. Moritz Welt's maternal uncle; rich, but with a bad reputation for dishonest practices.

SIGISMUND GRÜNSPAN, his son, a student in Warsaw University, pedantic and conceited.

MELA (Melania) GRÜNSPAN, Grünspan senior's youngest daughter. Brought up in Warsaw amongst Poles, she is in great sympathy with them and their ideals of life, and is quite out of touch with her own family when she returns to Lodz, though they are proud of her. She is beautiful, graceful, and enjoys an excellent reputation for intelligence and morality.

DAVID HALPERN, a man who loves Lodz because of its greatness; always singing its praises and rejoicing in its growth, though he is himself very poor, and has failed in business several times; a profound believer in the goodness of Jehovah.

STANISLAS MENDELSOHN (Jewish name, SZMUL or SAMUEL, which he objects to), the eldest son of Shaya, and manager of his father's firm.

MR. AND MME ENDELMAN, millionaires with esthetic tastes, which they combine with a shrewd business instinct.

GROSGLÖCK the principal banker in Lodz; a first-class extortioner, who makes money by all sorts of disreputable means, also an enemy of Boroviecki.

MARY GROSGLÖCK his only daughter, an ugly, sickly girl, for whom even her father's money cannot easily find a husband.