New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [299]
The Masters were only modestly rich, but their money was old. As long as a family could afford to stay in society, that counted for something.
So this was the delicate balance she needed to think about this afternoon. How close could she—should she—live to those ostentatious palaces which, secretly, her heart desired? Or how far should she maintain a staid and distant attitude? If she could play her cards right, she would achieve the perfect result: the new princes would invite her to their palaces, and wonder if she’d come.
William had given her the pearl choker for their third wedding anniversary. It was just like the one that Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, always wore in the society photographs from London, and it meant more to Rose than any other piece of jewelry she possessed. She let her fingers play over it now, as in her mind she went up and down Fifth and Madison, street by street, thinking about who lived on each block and whether, should she find the perfect social territory, there might be a house, or a building lot for sale there.
“There it is, Toto.” Anna was pointing. The bridge of the ship had obscured the great monument from view, but now the passengers were all pressing toward the port side to get a better look as it approached. “The Statue of Liberty.”
There was hardly any need to move to the rail. The mighty statue towered over them. Its upraised arm, torch in hand, seemed to scrape the sky. Salvatore gazed up in silence. So this was America.
Salvatore didn’t know much about America. He knew it was big, and that the people there spoke English, of which Uncle Luigi spoke a few words, and that when you worked, they gave you dollars to send home. He had never heard of the Anglo-Saxon Puritans or the Dutch settlers, or the God-fearing farmers of New England. His family had never spoken of the Boston Tea Party, or Ben Franklin, or even George Washington. Nor, gazing at the Statue of Liberty, could he have derived any clue as to the existence of such a Christian or democratic tradition.
Yet instinctively, as the Mediterranean boy looked up, he understood what he saw.
Power. The colossal, pale green, pagan god rose alone on its huge pedestal above the waters. Hundreds of feet up, under its mighty diadem, the blank, heroic face stared with Olympian indifference across the clear blue sky, while its upraised arm signaled: Victory. If the statue bade him any welcome at all, the little boy sensed, it was to an empire like that of his ancestors. Only one thing puzzled him.
“Is it a man,” he whispered to Anna, “or a woman?”
She also gazed, uncertain. The huge face seemed to belong to a male god, yet the massive drapery that fell over the statue’s body might have suggested a stately Roman matron. Anna tugged at Uncle Luigi’s arm, to ask him.
“She is a woman,” said Uncle Luigi. “The French gave her to the Americans.”
Had Uncle Luigi known it, he could have added that the sculptor came from Alsace, on the Franco-German border, had studied in Egypt as well, and that therefore it was not so surprising if this monument to Liberty, timeless as the pyramids, should also echo that modern version of the classical spirit, the French Second Empire—with a hint, perhaps, of German power as well.
They sailed straight past Ellis Island. The first- and second-class passengers, the people with cabins, did not have to pass though that ordeal. They had already been given a brief and courteous inspection on board before the ship entered the harbor, and were free to disembark at their leisure.
On the starboard side, the ship passed Governor’s Island, then the tip of Manhattan with its little fort and park. Beyond, in the East River, both the funnels