emerald bracelet at Bulgari, and she bought him a Fabergé box at a famous antique store. They explored all the shops and small churches, and left Rome reluctantly after a week. It was the twenty-second of October, and they went from Rome to Florence, for four days, and admired the wonders of the Uffizi, and more churches.
Two days after they got to Florence, Alex received a flood of telegrams from his bank, that the stock market bubble had begun to burst. Investors had dumped shares en masse. Twelve million nine hundred thousand shares were traded that day, and they were calling it Black Thursday. Alex was concerned by the reports.
They went to Venice two days later, which Eleanor fell in love with the moment she saw it. They stayed at the Danieli and walked everywhere, got lost, and found their way again. They took a gondola beneath the Bridge of Sighs, while the gondolier sang to them. It was the most romantic place she had ever been. Alex was enchanted being there with her. They had had the most perfect honeymoon he could have imagined, and Italy had been the right place for it.
They were planning to spend a week in Venice, and several days at Lake Como, before returning to Cherbourg to sail back to New York. They had been in Venice for three days, it was October 29, 1929. They had just returned to their suite at the hotel after a day of shopping and exploring. It was six o’clock and they were going to rest for an hour or two, before going to dinner at the best restaurant in Venice.
They had just walked into the room, when there was a knock at the door and Alex opened it, and one of the hotel’s young runners handed him a telegram. He took it and tipped the boy, lay down next to his wife on the bed. He assumed it was from his office at the bank, which would have just opened at that hour. He was right, it was from the assistant manager, in charge in Alex’s absence, and Alex frowned at what he read. “Disastrous situation. General economic crisis is coming to a head. Mass panic. Shares being dumped on the stock exchange in New York. Millions being lost. The economy is falling into the abyss.” Alex couldn’t believe it was as bad as he said. He wrote two quick telegrams, one to his manager and told him to sit tight, the other to a friend of his in New York, a stock market analyst, to ask him what he thought. He told Eleanor he’d be back in a minute, went to the front desk, and sent the telegrams. He got their responses before they left for dinner.
His friend in New York confirmed that disaster had struck. Panic had hit Wall Street. Stocks were being dumped by the million. Billions of dollars were being lost. Sixteen million shares were traded that day in the second wave of panic in five days. Millions of shares had become worthless. It was becoming a crisis from which the country could not recover. It was the biggest stock market crash in the history of the stock exchange. Investors who had bought on margin were instantly wiped out. Black Tuesday was even more deadly than Black Thursday had been five days before.
It didn’t make sense to Alex. How was that possible? Surely they were exaggerating. He sent a telegram to Charles Deveraux then, and they left for dinner. He didn’t say anything to Eleanor. He didn’t want to worry her, and he still didn’t believe that what had happened was as bad as they were saying. It just wasn’t possible.
Eleanor thought he seemed distracted at dinner. He was unusually quiet, but she also thought maybe he was just tired. They had made love into the morning hours the night before, had gotten very little sleep, and had run around all day. She didn’t make the connection between the telegrams he had received and his silence. She just assumed they were messages from his office about ordinary things. And he said nothing to her of the panic on Wall Street.
When they got back from dinner, he had a telegram from Charles, and several others. He read the one from Charles first.
“It’s worse than you’ve been told. I am ruined. Many are. Banks are failing. Entire fortunes have been lost. The country is on its ear. We won’t recover from this in