Courts and courtiers -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English; Germany -- Fiction
They took special delight in one kind of game--guessing existences,
making estimates to the best of their knowledge of the people they
happened to see in the citizen world--a strange and curious study of the
passers-by from a distant standpoint, from the terrace or from
horseback. What kind of young people might these be? What did they do?
Where did they come from? They were certainly not apprentices, perhaps
technical students or budding foresters, to judge by certain signs;
maybe they belonged to the agricultural college; at any rate stout
fellows enough, though rather rough, with sound careers before them. But
that little untidy thing who strolled past looked like a factory hand or
dressmaker's assistant. Girls like her always had a young man in their
own class, who took them out to tea in the parks on Sundays. And they
exchanged what they knew about people in general, discussed them like
connoisseurs, and felt that this pastime brought them closer together
than any amount of riding or lawn tennis.
As for the motor drive, Imma Spoelmann in the course of it explained
that she had only invited Klaus Heinrich to it so as to let him see the
chauffeur, a young American in brown leather, who, she declared,
resembled the Prince. Klaus Heinrich objected with a smile that the back
of the driver's neck did not enable him to express an opinion on the
matter, and asked the Countess to say what she thought. She, after long
denying the likeness in polite embarrassment, at last, on Imma's
insistence, with a side glance at Klaus Heinrich, agreed to it.
Then Miss Spoelmann said that the grave, sober, and skilful youth had
originally been in her father's personal service, driving him daily from
Fifth Avenue to Broadway and back. Mr. Spoelmann, however, had insisted
on extraordinary speed, like that of an express train, and the intense
strain put upon a driver by such speed in the crowded streets of New
York had proved at last too much for the youth. As a matter of fact no
accident had happened; the young man had stuck to it and done his deadly
duty with amazing care. But in the end it had often happened that he had
to be lifted down in a faint from his seat at the end of a run--a proof
of the inordinate strain to which he had been daily subjected. To avoid
having to dismiss him, Mr. Spoelmann had made him his daughter's special
chauffeur, and he had continued to act in that capacity in their new
abode.
Imma had noticed the likeness between Klaus Heinrich and him the first
time she saw the Prince. It was of course a similarity not of features,
but of expression. The Countess had agreed with her. Klaus Heinrich said
that he did not in the least object to the likeness, as the heroic young
man had all his sympathy. They then discussed further the difficult and
anxious life of a chauffeur, without Countess Löwenjoul taking any
further part in the conversation. She did not prattle during this drive,
though later she made a few sensible and pointed remarks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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