The Attempt Read Online Free PDF

owners and employees. It took the unions a long time to bounce back from that.”
    â€œThere are letters from Carnegie telling him to put down the strike by any means necessary.”
    â€œYes, I know. And when it was all over, Carnegie quietly got rid of your great-grandfather.”
    â€œKolman detested him for that. He refused to reconcile with him, even on his deathbed.”
    â€œOne thing I never could find, though, which I was hoping might be in the letters I don’t have access to anymore, is how your great-grandmother saw the whole disaster. And the rest of your family.”
    â€œAnd besides that?”
    â€œThe assassination attempt.”
    She waves her hand.
    â€œAre there any rumors in your family about the assassination attempt? Or the years afterward?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t think so. It wasn’t something we talked about.”
    â€œBut you all talk about your great-grandfather.”
    â€œSure, constantly. It’s like he still controls everyone. It’s awful! Especially Aunt Eleanor!”
    â€œWhat about Alice?”
    â€œSupposedly, she went insane,” says Michaela. “My greataunt always said her mother went insane. That was it.”
    â€œHer last letters don’t sound like they were written by a madwoman.”
    â€œShe suffered a shock,” says Michaela, bending and twisting a straw in her hands. “In the space of one year, she had two children die and her husband get shot, and on top of that, it was all over the papers that he was a murderer. Even back then, newspapers printed whatever they thought would sell, as opposed to following any particular political line. One week they’d back the unions, the next Carnegie. My great-grandfather was a windfall for them. He didn’t have enough money yet that anyone had to fear him. Even later on, when he was more powerful, he always preferred to stay in the background. The only way he wanted to be seen was as an art collector. Have you seen his collection?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDo you like it?”
    â€œThere are some beautiful works in it.”
    â€œI hate it.”
    â€œDo you mind if I ask about the past?”
    â€œWhy not? Everyone’s got a right to ask. Especially when it comes to people like us. Explain and defend, that’s all we do, our whole lives. Or deny, like Aunt Ellie. Why do you think Iran away and left it all behind? I don’t want to have anything to do with it, understand?”
    The expression of an excited child is gone, and sitting across from me is a troubled woman clearly pushing fifty. She stares into her cup.
    â€œFirst, little Martha died. That was in 1891, after the Johnstown flood. I assume you already know about that. Another interesting chapter. Martha accidentally swallowed a needle, got gangrene, and basically rotted alive. An ordinary X-ray would have saved her life. In the spring of 1892, when the strike broke out in Homestead, Alice was pregnant again. In the summer, she gave birth prematurely to a boy, who lived less than a month. My great-grandfather mourned the loss of Martha his whole life. He never even had a chance to notice his namesake, John C. Kolman. But it must have been a huge blow to Alice. It was a few more years before Aunt Eleanor was born.”
    â€œDo you know your great-aunt well?”
    â€œOf course. I grew up with her. She took me to Europe as a child. She was already very old, but she still had a head on her shoulders. She was the one who got me interested in art. She even wanted to—oh, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want anything to do with them. This is the last time I’m asking my brother for anything. After this, I just don’t care anymore. Old wounds. What do you care about all this, anyway?”
    â€œI’m a historian.”
    â€œI don’t think I can tell you anything else today. Nothing you can’t find on your own.”
    Sister Michaela