Courts and courtiers -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English; Germany -- Fiction
Samuel, his only son, the offspring of that early marriage, contracted
in defiance of public opinion, had been his sole heir--and the
_Courier_, with its usual delicacy, interpolated a remark to the effect
that there was something almost sad in the idea of any one, without
himself contributing, and through no fault of his own, being born to
such a situation. Samuel had inherited the palace on Fifth Avenue at New
York, the country mansions, and all the shares, Trust bonds, and profits
of his father; he inherited also the strange position to which his
father had risen, his world-fame and the hatred directed by his
out-distanced competitors against the power of his gold--all the hatred
to allay which he yearly distributed his huge donations to colleges,
conservatories, libraries, benevolent institutions, and that University
which his father had founded and which bore his name.
Samuel Spoelmann did not deserve the hatred of the out-distanced
competitors; that the _Courier_ was sure of. He had gone early into the
business, and had controlled the bewildering possessions of his house
all by himself during his father's last years. But everybody knew that
his heart had never been really in the business. His real inclinations
had been, strange to say, all along much more towards music and
especially organ music--and the truth of this information on the part of
the _Courier_ was certain, for Mr. Spoelmann actually kept a small organ
in the "Spa Court," whose bellows he got a hotel servant to blow, and he
could be heard from the Spa-Garden playing it for an hour every day.
He had married for love and not at all from social considerations,
according to the _Courier_--a poor and pretty girl, half German, half
Anglo-Saxon by descent. She had died, but she had left him a daughter,
that wonderful blood-mixture of a girl, whom we now had as guest within
our walls and who was at the time nineteen years old. Her name was
Imma--a real German name, as the _Courier_ added, nothing more than an
old form of "Emma," and it might be remarked that the daily conversation
in the Spoelmann household, though interlarded with scraps of English,
had remained German. And how devoted father and daughter seemed to be to
each other! Every morning, by going to the Spa-Garden at the right time,
one could watch Fräulein Spoelmann, who usually entered the Füllhause a
little later than her father, take his head between her hands and give
him his morning kiss on mouth and cheeks, while he patted her tenderly
on the back. Then they went arm-in-arm through the Wandelhalle and
sucked their glass tubes as they went....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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