The Emigrants

three sides. The Solomons — with the Seligmanns, the Loebs, the Kuhns, the Speyers and the Wormsers — were amongst the wealthiest of the Jewish banking families in New York. Before Ambros became the Solomons' butler he was valet and travelling companion to Cosmo, the Solomons' son, who was a few years younger than himself and was notorious in New York society for his extravagance and his eternal escapades. On one occasion, for instance, they said he had tried to ride a horse up the stairs in the lobby of The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. But I know stories like that only from hearsay. Fini, who became a sort of confidante for Ambros towards the end, sometimes hinted that there was something tragic about the relationship between Ambros and the Solomons' son. And, as far as I know, young Solomon really was destroyed by some mental illness in the mid Twenties. As for Uncle Adelwarth, all I can say is that I always felt sorry for him, because he could never, his whole life long, permit anything to ruffle his composure. Of course, said Uncle Kasimir, he was of the other persuasion, as anyone could see, even if the family always ignored or glossed over the fact. Perhaps some of them never realized. The older Uncle Adelwarth grew, the more hollowed-out he seemed to me, and the last time I saw him, in the house at Mamaroneck that the Solomons had left him, so finely furnished, it was as if his clothes were holding him together. As I said, Fini looked after him till the end. She'll be able to give you a better idea of what he was like. Uncle Kasimir stopped and stood gazing out at the ocean. This is the edge of the darkness, he said. And in truth it seemed as if the mainland were submerged behind us and as if there were nothing above the watery waste but this narrow strip of sand running up to the north and down towards the south. I often come out here, said Uncle Kasimir, it makes me feel that I am a long way away, though I never quite know from where. Then he took a camera out of his large-check jacket and took this picture, a print of which he sent me two years later, probably when he had finally shot the whole film, together with his gold pocket watch.

Aunt Fini was sitting in her armchair in the dark living room when I went in to her that evening. Only the glow of the street lights was on her face. The aches have eased off, she said, the pain is almost over. At first I thought I was only imagining that it was getting better, so slow was the improvement. And once I was almost without pain, I thought: if you move now, it'll start again. So I just stayed sitting here. I've been sitting here all afternoon. I couldn't say whether I mightn't have nodded off now and then. I think I was lost in my thoughts most of the time. My aunt switched on the little reading lamp but kept her eyes closed. I went out into the kitchen and made her two soft-boiled eggs, toast, and peppermint tea. When I took the tray in to her I turned the conversation back to Uncle Adelwarth. About two years after he arrived in America, said Aunt Fini, dunking a soldier into one of the eggs, Ambros took a position with the Solomons on Long Island. What happened to the counsellor at the Japanese legation, I can't remember now. At all events, Uncle quickly made his way at the Solomons'. Within an amazingly short time, old Samuel Solomon, who was very impressed by the unfailing sureness of Ambros in all things, offered him the position of personal attendant to his son, to watch over him, since he believed, not without reason, that great dangers lay in his path. There is no doubt that Cosmo Solomon, whom I never had the opportunity to meet, was inclined to eccentricity. He was extremely gifted, and a very promising student of engineering, but gave up his studies to build flying machines in an old factory in Hackensack. At the same time, mind you, he spent a lot of time at places like Saratoga Springs and Palm Beach, for one thing because he was an excellent polo player, for another because he could blow huge sums of money at luxury hotels like the Breakers, the Poinciana or the American Adelphi, which at that time, so Uncle Adelwarth once told me, was plainly the main thing as far as he was concerned. Old Solomon was worried by the dissipated life his son was leading, and felt it had no future. When he tried to cut back his allowance, which in point of fact had been unlimited, Cosmo hit upon the idea of opening up a source of income that would never dry up, by playing the casinos of Europe during the summer months. In June 1911, with Ambros as his friend and guide, he went to France for the first time, and promptly won considerable sums at Evian on Lake Geneva and then at Monte Carlo, in the Salle