Royal Higness by Thomas Mann

Author:Thomas Mann [Mann, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics
ISBN: 9780307828958
Google: nU_1AAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 18525898
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1909-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

VII

IMMA

FRÄULEIN VON ISENSCHNIBBE had been well informed. On the very evening of the day on which she had brought the Princess zu Reid the great news, the Courier published the announcement of Samuel Spoelmann’s, the world-renowned Spoelmann’s, impending arrival, and ten days later, at the beginning of October (it was the October of the year in which Grand Duke Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich his twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public curiosity to reach a really high point, his arrival became a fact, a plain actuality on an autumn-tinged, entirely ordinary week-day, which was destined to impress itself on the future as a date to be remembered for ever.

The Spoelmanns arrived by special train—that was the only distinction about their debut to start with, for everybody knew that the “Prince’s suite” in the “Spa Court” Hotel was by no means dazzingly magnificent. A few idlers, guarded by a small detachment of policemen, had gathered behind the platform barriers; some representatives of the press were present. But whoever expected anything out of the ordinary was disappointed. Spoelmann would almost have passed unrecognized, he was so unimposing. For a long time people took his family physician for him (Doctor Watercloose, people said he was called), a tall American, who wore his hat on the back of his head and kept his mouth distended in a perpetual smile between his close-trimmed white whiskers, the while he half-closed his eyes. It was not till the last moment that people learned that it was the little clean-shaven man in the faded overcoat, he who wore his hat pulled down over his eyes, who was the actual Spoelmann, and the spectators were agreed that there was nothing striking about him. All sorts of stories had been in circulation about him; some witty fellow had spread the report that Spoelmann had front teeth of solid gold and a diamond set in the middle of each. But although the truth or untruth of this report could not be tested at once—for Spoelmann did not show his teeth, he did not laugh, but rather seemed angry and irritated by his infirmity—yet when they saw him nobody was any longer inclined to believe it.

As for Miss Spoelmann, his daughter, she had turned up the collar of her fur coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets, so that there was hardly anything to be seen of her except a pair of disproportionately big brown-black eyes, which swept the crowd with a serious look whose meaning it was hard to interpret. By her side stood the person whom the onlookers identified as her companion, the Countess Löwenjoul, a woman of thirty-five, plainly dressed and taller than either of the Spoelmanns, who carried her little head with its thin smooth hair pensively on one side, and kept her eyes fixed in front of her with a kind of rigid meekness. What without question attracted most attention was a Scottish sheep-dog which was led on a cord

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.