Character guide

G. H. Bondy

major

Also known as Bondy, Mr. Bondy, Mr. G. H. Bondy

Bondy is the Chairman of the M.E.C. and the money behind the atomic motor, a man who trusts organization, profit, and common sense. When the Absolute begins manufacturing goods for free and inspiring mystical Communism in his workers, his worldly confidence curdles into a desperate, clear-eyed struggle to understand an adversary he cannot buy or outmaneuver. His running debate with Marek over whether the Absolute follows a plan or merely improvises gives the novel its central argument about power, industry, and faith.

Rudy Marek

major

Also known as Rudy, Marek, Rudolf Marek

Marek built the atomic motor and unwittingly unleashed the Absolute, and now he watches its career with the cool, obsessive eye of a scientist compiling evidence. Where Bondy fears the Absolute, Marek studies it, convinced its miracles are unsystematic improvisations rather than divine strategy. His running analysis of its economic and political blunders makes him the novel's sharpest, most skeptical counterweight to the spreading faith.

Jan Binder

supporting

Also known as Binder, Mr. Binder

Binder is a small-time showman whose Karburator-powered merry-go-round becomes one of the many humble vessels through which the Absolute reaches ordinary people. The narrator lingers on him with obvious affection, refusing to reduce him to a footnote in a historical synthesis. His wandering, striped-jersey existence embodies the novel's insistence that the great cosmic upheaval is lived out in the small, particular lives of unremarkable men.

Cyril Keval

supporting

Also known as Mr. Cyril Keval, Mr. Keval, Keval

Keval is a working journalist, polite enough to give up his place to a lady and lose his spot at the ceremony, resourceful enough to scale a wall and peer through a grating at the dignitaries inside. His eye for the pompous details of the Central Power Station's unveiling, and his veteran colleague Cvancara's suspicion that something will go wrong, frame the reader's first look at the Karburator's public debut. He matters as the novel's roving witness, the man who notices what the official speeches leave out.

Father Jost

supporting

Also known as Jost

Father Jost stands at the point where the Absolute's religious manifestations collide with established faith, facing conversions, levitations, and ecstasies that arrive through paths the Church never sanctioned. The novel's chronicler describes the Absolute bursting into personal and social life along well-trodden religious routes, but to an extent hitherto unheard of, and Jost is the figure who must reckon with what that means for doctrine. His struggle gives the early spread of the Absolute its theological weight and its sense of genuine spiritual crisis.

Kuzenda

supporting

Also known as Mr. Kuzenda, Brother Kuzenda

Kuzenda, with his companion Brych, presides over a small riverside community where coffee multiplies for hundreds of guests and the Absolute's presence is felt as an overwhelming, wordless love. He insists the God within cannot bear politics, money, intellect, or pride, and that His greatest miracle is the transformation of feeling. His earnest, democratic faith offers the novel one of its warmest and most human portraits of what the Absolute actually does to ordinary believers.

Toni Bobinet

supporting

Also known as Lieutenant Toni Bobinet, Lieutenant Bobinet, Bobinet

Bobinet rises from a mere lieutenant to First Consul and Emperor by purging France of the Absolute with military precision, executing 'les Bobinets' and imposing state atheism. His sentimental streak—weeping over his mother in a park, pardoning a mud-splattered battery commander—sits oddly beside his bloody St. Bartholomew's Eves. He matters because his triumphant march shows how the Absolute's chaos breeds not just saints but iron-fisted strongmen, reshaping Europe's map.

Brych

minor

Also known as Mr. Brych, Brych the stoker

Stoker who encounters the Absolute in the ship's engine room.

Ellen

supporting

Also known as Saint Ellen

Ellen speaks of a God who bids us live and be fruitful, not mortify ourselves, and her convictions unsettle the pragmatic Mr. Bondy, who dismisses her as 'Saint Ellen' and banishes her to the wilderness. Her tension lies between her uncompromising spiritual vision and the world's demand for a reasonable, manageable deity. She matters because she embodies the Absolute's earliest human face—devotion that cannot be bargained with—foreshadowing the religious upheaval to come.

Machat

minor

Also known as Mr. Machat

Businessman involved in the Karburator's commercial exploitation.

Prince Trivelino

supporting

Trivelino moves among the world's diplomats as they debate whether to recognize or deny the mysterious 'He' who adapts to every country—nationalist in Italy, demagogue in France, sportsman in America. His dry observation that the Absolute is 'showing himself such an anti-militarist in your country' reveals his cynical amusement at the divine's political elasticity. He matters because his voice crystallizes the global panic: every nation sees its own reflection in the Absolute, and none can agree on what it is.

Old Rejzek

minor

Also known as Rejzek, Mr. Rejzek

Elderly patriot who appears during the war chapters.

Hampl

minor

Also known as General Hampl

General involved in the military conflicts fueled by the Absolute.

Dr. Blahous

supporting

Also known as Blahous

Dr. Blahous is the Professor whose scientific work on the Absolute is mentioned only in passing, while his elderly parents in Seven Cottages peel potatoes and marvel at candles costing fifteen hundred crowns. The gap between his learned investigations and their bewildered endurance of hyperinflation and endless war is the story's quiet tragedy. He matters because his family's mundane suffering grounds the novel's fantastical premise in the real cost of ideological chaos.

Hudec

minor

Also known as Mr. Hudec

Minor character involved in the Karburator's factory operations.

Dr. Hubka

minor

Also known as Hubka

Doctor who treats patients affected by the Absolute.

Old Mrs. Blahous

minor

Also known as Mrs. Blahous

Mother of Dr. Blahous, a traditional woman skeptical of the Absolute.

Bishop Linda

supporting

Also known as Suffragan Bishop Linda, Bishop Linda

Bishop Linda descends into the cellar, undergoes illumination and ecstasy, and still emerges to tell Mr. Bondy that from the Catholic standpoint the pantheistic hypothesis is forbidden and the Absolute is not a legally recognized God. His refusal to bless the new miracle—even as he doesn't deny it happens—exposes the Church's instinct for institutional survival over spiritual adventure. He matters because his verdict forces the characters, and readers, to ask whether the Absolute is divine, demonic, or simply beyond any authority's jurisdiction.

Judex Formidabilis

minor

Also known as Brother Judex Formidabilis

Masonic official who presides over ceremonies involving the Absolute.

Old Rosenthal

minor

Also known as Mr. Rosenthal, Rosenthal

Jewish businessman affected by the Absolute's social upheaval.

Grandfather Blahous

minor

Also known as Blahous, Old Blahous

Elderly relative of Dr. Blahous who appears in family scenes.

Dr. Wurm

minor

Doctor who treats patients in the Absolute-affected world.

Krolmus

minor

Minor character mentioned in passing.

Dash

minor

A dog who becomes a minor character in the story.

Baron Yanato

minor

Also known as Baron

Japanese diplomat involved in international reactions to the Absolute.

Mr. Kei

minor

Japanese character involved in the international spread of the Absolute.

Buchtin

minor

Also known as General Buchtin

General in the wars that break out due to the Absolute.

Horatio Bumm

minor

Also known as Mr. Horatio Bumm

American journalist covering the Absolute phenomenon.

Mr. Cvancara

minor

Also known as Cvancara

Minor character in the Karburator factory scenes.

Mrs. Bondy

minor

Also known as Bondy

Wife of G. H. Bondy, appears in domestic settings.

Mr. Skocdopole

minor

Also known as Skocdopole

Minor character in the factory or business scenes.

Canon Jost

minor

Also known as Canon

Church official who debates the Absolute's theology.

Novotny

minor

Minor character in the factory or military scenes.

Dudieu

minor

Also known as M. Dudieu

French character involved in international reactions.

Mr. I. Sawitt

minor

Also known as I. Sawitt

American businessman dealing with the Absolute.

Martin

minor

Also known as the Antipope Martin

Antipope who emerges during the Absolute's religious chaos.

Sergei Nikolayevich Zlocin

minor

Russian character involved in the war chapters.

Joe Hashek

minor

Also known as Mr. Joe Hashek

Minor character in the factory or military scenes.

Father Novacek

minor

Also known as Novacek

Priest who appears in the religious turmoil.

MacDeon

minor

Also known as that fat MacDeon

Minor character mentioned in the war chapters.

Mrs. Prouzova

minor

Also known as Prouzova, Aunt Prouzova

Relative of the Bondy family who appears in domestic scenes.

Sir W. O'Patterney

minor

Also known as the all-powerful Sir W. O'Patterney

Powerful figure who becomes involved in the Absolute's global impact.