*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 72961 ***




BUDDENBROOKS

·I·




  Other Books by
  THOMAS MANN

  DEATH IN VENICE
  ROYAL HIGHNESS
  MAGIC MOUNTAIN




  THOMAS MANN

  BUDDENBROOKS

  VOLUME ONE

  [Illustration]

  Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter

  ALFRED·A·KNOPF·NEW YORK
  1927




  COPYRIGHT 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

  _Published, February, 1924_
  _Second Printing, July, 1924_
  _Third Printing, March, 1927_

  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




TRANSLATOR’S NOTE


_Buddenbrooks_ was written before the turn of the century; it was first
published in 1902, and became a German classic. It is one of those
novels--we possess many of them in English--which are at once a work of
art and a unique record of a period and a district. _Buddenbrooks_ is
great in its psychology, great as the monument of a vanished cultural
tradition, and ultimately great by the perfection of its art: the
classic purity and beautiful austerity of its style.

The translation of a book which is a triumph of style in its own
language, is always a piece of effrontery. _Buddenbrooks_ is so
leisurely, so chiselled: the great gulf of the war divided its literary
method from that of our time. Besides, the author has recorded much
dialect. This difficulty is insuperable. Dialect cannot be transferred.

So the present translation is offered with humility. It was necessary
to recognize that the difficulties were great. Yet it was necessary
to set oneself the bold task of transferring the spirit first and the
letter so far as might be; and above all, to make certain that the work
of art, coming as it does to the ear, in German, like music out of the
past, should, in English, at least _not_ come like a translation--which
is, “God bless us, a thing of naught.”

                                                       H. T. Lowe-Porter




PART ONE




CHAPTER I


“And--and--what comes next?”

“Oh, yes, yes, what the dickens does come next? _C’est la question, ma
très chère demoiselle!_”

Frau Consul Buddenbrook shot a glance at her husband and came to the
rescue of her little daughter. She sat with her mother-in-law on a
straight white-enamelled sofa with yellow cushions and a gilded lion’s
head at the top. The Consul was in his easy-chair beside her, and the
child perched on her grandfather’s knee in the window.

“Tony,” prompted the Frau Consul, “‘I believe that God’--”

Dainty little eight-year-old Antonie, in her light shot-silk frock,
turned her head away from her grandfather and stared aimlessly about
the room with her blue-grey eyes, trying hard to remember. Once more
she repeated “What comes next?” and went on slowly: “‘I believe
that God’--” and then, her face brightening, briskly finished the
sentence: “‘created me, together with all living creatures.’” She was
in smooth waters now, and rattled away, beaming with joy, through the
whole Article, reproducing it word for word from the Catechism just
promulgated, with the approval of an omniscient Senate, in that very
year of grace 1835. When you were once fairly started, she thought, it
was very like going down “Mount Jerusalem” with your brothers on the
little sled: you had no time to think, and you couldn’t stop even if
you wanted to.

“‘And clothes and shoes,’” she said, “‘meat and drink, hearth and home,
wife and child, acre and cow....’” But old Johann Buddenbrook could
hold in no longer. He burst out laughing, in a high, half-smothered
titter, in his glee at being able to make fun of the Catechism. He had
probably put the child through this little examination with no other
end in view. He inquired after Tony’s acre and cow, asked how much she
wanted for a sack of wheat, and tried to drive a bargain with her.

His round, rosy, benevolent face, which never would look cross no
matter how hard he tried, was set in a frame of snow-white powdered
hair, and the suggestion of a pigtail fell over the broad collar of
his mouse-coloured coat. His double chin rested comfortably on a white
lace frill. He still, in his seventies, adhered to the fashions of his
youth: only the lace frogs and the big pockets were missing. And never
in all his life had he worn a pair of trousers.

They had all joined in his laughter, but largely as a mark of respect
for the head of the family. Madame Antoinette Buddenbrook, born
Duchamps, tittered in precisely the same way as her husband. She was a
stout lady, with thick white curls over her ears, dressed in a plain
gown of striped black and grey stuff which betrayed the native quiet
simplicity of her character. Her hands were still white and lovely, and
she held a little velvet work-bag on her lap. It was strange to see how
she had grown, in time, to look like her husband. Only her dark eyes,
by their shape and their liveliness, suggested her half-Latin origin.
On her grandfather’s side Madame Buddenbrook was of French-Swiss stock,
though born in Hamburg.

Her daughter-in-law, Frau Consul Elizabeth Buddenbrook, born Kröger,
laughed the sputtering Kröger laugh and tucked in her chin as the
Krögers did. She could not be called a beauty, but, like all the
Krögers, she looked distinguished; she moved with graceful deliberation
and had a clear, well-modulated voice. People liked her and felt
confidence in her. Her reddish hair curled over her ears and was
piled in a crown on top of her head; and she had the brilliant white
complexion that goes with such hair, set off with a tiny freckle here
and there. Her nose was rather too long, her mouth somewhat small; her
most striking facial peculiarity was the shape of her lower lip, which
ran straight into the chin without a curve. She had on a short bodice
with high puffed sleeves, that left exposed a flawlessly modelled neck
adorned with a spray of diamonds on a satin ribbon.

The Consul was leaning forward in his easy-chair, rather fidgety.
He wore a cinnamon-coloured coat with wide lapels and leg-of-mutton
sleeves close-fitting at the wrists, and white linen trousers with
black stripes up the outside seams. His chin nestled in a stiff choker
collar, around which was folded a silk cravat that flowed down amply
over his flowered waistcoat.

He had his father’s deep-set blue observant eyes, though their
expression was perhaps more dreamy; but his features were clearer-cut
and more serious, his nose was prominent and aquiline, and his cheeks,
half-covered with a fair curling beard, were not so plump as the old
man’s.

Madame Buddenbrook put her hand on her daughter-in-law’s arm and looked
down at her lap with a giggle. “Oh, _mon vieux_--he’s always the same,
isn’t he, Betsy?”

The Consul’s wife only made a motion with her delicate hand, so that
her gold bangles tinkled slightly. Then, with a gesture habitual to
her, she drew her finger across her face from the corner of her mouth
to her forehead, as if she were smoothing back a stray hair.

But the Consul said, half-smiling, yet with mild reproach: “There you
go again, Father, making fun of sacred things.”

They were sitting in the “landscape-room” on the first floor of the
rambling old house in Meng Street, which the firm of Johann Buddenbrook
had acquired some time since, though the family had not lived in
it long. The room was hung with heavy resilient tapestries put up
in such a way that they stood well out from the walls. They were
woven in soft tones to harmonize with the carpet, and they depicted
idyllic landscapes in the style of the eighteenth century, with merry
vine-dressers, busy husbandmen, and gaily beribboned shepherdesses
who sat beside crystal streams with spotless lambs in their laps or
exchanged kisses with amorous shepherds. These scenes were usually
lighted by a pale yellow sunset to match the yellow coverings on the
white-enamelled furniture and the yellow silk curtains at the two
windows.

For the size of the room, the furniture was rather scant. A round
table, its slender legs decorated with fine lines of gilding, stood,
not in front of the sofa, but by the wall opposite the little
harmonium, on which lay a flute-case; some stiff arm-chairs were ranged
in a row round the walls; there was a sewing-table by the window, and a
flimsy ornamental writing-desk laden with knick-knacks.

On the other side of the room from the windows was a glass door,
through which one looked into the semi-darkness of a pillared hall;
and on the left were the lofty white folding doors that led to the
dining-room. A semi-circular niche in the remaining wall was occupied
by the stove, which crackled away behind a polished wrought-iron screen.

For cold weather had set in early. The leaves of the little lime-trees
around the churchyard of St. Mary’s, across the way, had turned yellow,
though it was but mid-October. The wind whistled around the corners of
the massive Gothic pile, and a cold, thin rain was falling. On Madame
Buddenbrook’s account, the double windows had already been put in.

It was Thursday, the day on which all the members of the family
living in town assembled every second week, by established custom.
To-day, however, a few intimate friends as well had been bidden to a
family dinner; and now, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, the
Buddenbrooks sat in the gathering twilight and awaited their guests.

Little Antonie had not let her grandfather interfere with her
toboggan-ride. She merely pouted, sticking out her already prominent
upper lip still further over the lower one. She was at the bottom of
her Mount Jerusalem, but not knowing how to stop herself, she shot
over the mark. “Amen,” she said. “I know something, Grandfather.”

“_Tiens!_” cried the old gentleman. “She knows something!” He made as
if he were itching all over with curiosity. “Did you hear, Mamma? She
knows something. Can any one tell me--?”

“If the lightning,” uttered Tony, nodding her head with every word,
“sets something on fire, then it’s the lightning that strikes. If it
doesn’t, why, then it’s the thunder!” She folded her arms and looked
around her like one sure of applause. But old Buddenbrook was annoyed
by this display of wisdom. He demanded to know who had taught her such
nonsense. It turned out that the culprit was the nursery governess, Ida
Jungmann, who had lately been engaged from Marienwerder. The Consul had
to come to her defence.

“You are too strict, Papa. Why shouldn’t the child have her own little
ideas about such things, at her age?”

“_Excusez, mon cher!... Mais c’est une folie!_ You know I don’t like
the children’s heads muddled with such things. ‘The thunder strikes,’
does it? Oh, very well, let it strike, and get along with your Prussian
woman!”

The truth was, the old gentleman hadn’t a good word to say for Ida
Jungmann. Not that he was narrow-minded. He had seen something of the
world, having travelled by coach to Southern Germany in 1813 to buy up
wheat for the Prussian army; he had been to Amsterdam and Paris, and
was too enlightened to condemn everything that lay beyond the gabled
roofs of his native town. But in social intercourse he was more apt
than his son to draw the line rigidly and give the cold shoulder to
strangers. So when this young girl--she was then only twenty--had come
back with his children from a visit to Western Prussia, as a sort of
charity-child, the old man had made his son a scene for the act of
piety, in which he spoke hardly anything but French and low German.
Ida was the daughter of an inn-keeper who had died just before the
Buddenbrooks’ arrival in Marienwerder. She had proved to be capable
in the household and with the children, and her rigid honesty and
Prussian notions of caste made her perfectly suited to her position
in the family. She was a person of aristocratic principles, drawing
hair-line distinctions between class and class, and very proud of her
position as servant of the higher orders. She objected to Tony’s making
friends with any schoolmate whom she reckoned as belonging only to the
respectable middle class.

And now the Prussian woman herself came from the pillared hall through
the glass door--a fairly tall, big-boned girl in a black frock, with
smooth hair and an honest face. She held by the hand an extraordinarily
thin small child, dressed in a flowered print frock, with lustreless
ash-coloured hair and the manner of a little old maid. This was
Clothilde, the daughter of a nephew of old Buddenbrook who belonged to
a penniless branch of the family and was in business at Rostock as an
estates agent. Clothilde was being brought up with Antonie, being about
the same age and a docile little creature.

“Everything is ready,” Mamsell Jungmann said. She had had a hard time
learning to pronounce her _r_’s, so now she rolled them tremendously in
her throat. “Clothilde helped very well in the kitchen, so there was
not much for cook to do.”

Monsieur Buddenbrook sneered behind his lace frill at Ida’s accent. The
Consul patted his little niece’s cheek and said: “That’s right, Tilda.
Work and pray. Tony ought to take a pattern from you; she’s far too
likely to be saucy and idle.”

Tony dropped her head and looked at her grandfather from under her
eyebrows. She knew he would defend her--he always did.

“No, no,” he said, “hold your head up, Tony. Don’t let them frighten
you. We can’t all be alike. Each according to his lights. Tilda is a
good girl--but we’re not so bad, either. Hey, Betsy?”

He turned to his daughter-in-law, who generally deferred to his views.
Madame Antoinette, probably more from shrewdness than conviction, sided
with the Consul; and thus the older and the younger generation crossed
hands in the dance of life.

“You are very kind, Papa,” the Consul’s wife said. “Tony will try her
best to grow up a clever and industrious woman.... Have the boys come
home from school?” she asked Ida.

Tony, who from her perch on her grandfather’s knee was looking out the
window, called out in the same breath: “Tom and Christian are coming up
Johannes Street ... and Herr Hoffstede ... and Uncle Doctor....”

The bells of St. Mary’s began to chime, ding-dong, ding-dong--rather
out of time, so that one could hardly tell what they were playing;
still, it was very impressive. The big and the little bell announced,
the one in lively, the other in dignified tones, that it was four
o’clock; and at the same time a shrill peal from the bell over the
vestibule door went ringing through the entry, and Tom and Christian
entered, together with the first guests, Jean Jacques Hoffstede, the
poet, and Doctor Grabow, the family physician.




CHAPTER II


Herr Jean Jacques Hoffstede was the town poet. He undoubtedly had a few
verses in his pocket for the present occasion. He was nearly as old as
Johann Buddenbrook, and dressed in much the same style except that his
coat was green instead of mouse-coloured. But he was thinner and more
active than his old friend, with bright little greenish eyes and a long
pointed nose.

“Many thanks,” he said, shaking hands with the gentlemen and bowing
before the ladies--especially the Frau Consul, for whom he entertained
a deep regard. Such bows as his it was not given to the younger
generation to perform; and he accompanied them with his pleasant quiet
smile. “Many thanks for your kind invitation, my dear good people. We
met these two young ones, the Doctor and I”--he pointed to Tom and
Christian, in their blue tunics and leather belts--“in King Street,
coming home from school. Fine lads, eh, Frau Consul? Tom is a very
solid chap. He’ll have to go into the business, no doubt of that. But
Christian is a devil of a fellow--a young _incroyable_, hey? I will
not conceal my _engouement_. He must study, I think--he is witty and
brilliant.”

Old Buddenbrook used his gold snuff-box. “He’s a young monkey, that’s
what he is. Why not say at once that he is to be a poet, Hoffstede?”

Mamsell Jungmann drew the curtains, and soon the room was bathed in
mellow flickering light from the candles in the crystal chandelier and
the sconces on the writing-desk. It lighted up golden gleams in the
Frau Consul’s hair.

“Well, Christian,” she said, “what did you learn to-day?” It appeared
that Christian had had writing, arithmetic, and singing lessons. He
was a boy of seven, who already resembled his father to an almost comic
extent. He had the same rather small round deep-set eyes and the same
prominent aquiline nose; the lines of his face below the cheek-bones
showed that it would not always retain its present childlike fulness.

“We’ve been laughing dreadfully,” he began to prattle, his eyes darting
from one to another of the circle. “What do you think Herr Stengel
said to Siegmund Kostermann?” He bent his back, shook his head, and
declaimed impressively: “‘Outwardly, outwardly, my dear child, you
are sleek and smooth; but inwardly, my dear child, you are black and
foul.’...” He mimicked with indescribably funny effect not only the
master’s odd pronunciation but the look of disgust on his face at the
“outward sleekness” he described. The whole company burst out laughing.

“Young monkey!” repeated old Buddenbrook. But Herr Hoffstede was
in ecstasies. “_Charmant!_” he cried. “If you know Marcellus
Stengel--that’s he, to the life. Oh, that’s too good!”

Thomas, to whom the gift of mimicry had been denied, stood near his
younger brother and laughed heartily, without a trace of envy. His
teeth were not very good, being small and yellowish. His nose was
finely chiselled, and he strikingly resembled his grandfather in the
eyes and the shape of the face.

The company had for the most part seated themselves on the chairs and
the sofa. They talked with the children or discussed the unseasonable
cold and the new house. Herr Hoffstede admired a beautiful Sèvres
inkstand, in the shape of a black and white hunting dog, that stood on
the secretary. Doctor Grabow, a man of about the Consul’s age, with a
long mild face between thin whiskers, was looking at the table, set
out with cakes and currant bread and saltcellars in different shapes.
This was the “bread and salt” that had been sent by friends for the
house-warming; but the “bread” consisted of rich, heavy pastries, and
the salt came in dishes of massive gold, that the senders might not
seem to be mean in their gifts.

“There will be work for me here,” said the Doctor, pointing to the
sweetmeats and threatening the children with his glance. Shaking his
head, he picked up a heavy salt and pepper stand from the table.

“From Lebrecht Kröger,” said old Buddenbrook, with a grimace. “Our dear
kinsman is always open-handed. I did not spend as much on him when
he built his summer house outside the Castle Gate. But he has always
been like that--very lordly, very free with his money, a real cavalier
à-la-mode....”

The bell had rung several times. Pastor Wunderlich was announced; a
stout old gentleman in a long black coat and powdered hair. He had
twinkling grey eyes set in a face that was jovial if rather pale. He
had been a widower for many years, and considered himself a bachelor of
the old school, like Herr Gratjens, the broker, who entered with him.
Herr Gratjens was a tall man who went around with one of his thin hands
up to his eye like a telescope, as if he were examining a painting. He
was a well-known art connoisseur.

Among the other guests were Senator Doctor Langhals and his wife, both
friends of many years’ standing; and Köppen the wine-merchant, with his
great crimson face between enormous padded sleeves. His wife, who came
with him, was nearly as stout as he.

It was after half-past four when the Krögers put in an appearance--the
elders together with their children; the Consul Krögers with their
sons Jacob and Jürgen, who were about the age of Tom and Christian. On
their heels came the parents of Frau Consul Kröger, the lumber-dealer
Överdieck and his wife, a fond old pair who still addressed each other
in public with nicknames from the days of their early love.

“Fine people come late,” said Consul Buddenbrook, and kissed his
mother-in-law’s hand.

“But look at them when they do come!” and Johann Buddenbrook included
the whole Kröger connection with a sweeping gesture, and shook the
elder Kröger by the hand. Lebrecht Kröger, the cavalier à-la-mode, was
a tall, distinguished figure. He wore his hair slightly powdered, but
dressed in the height of fashion, with a double row of jewelled buttons
on his velvet waistcoat. His son Justus, with his turned-up mustache
and small beard, was very like the father in figure and manner, even to
the graceful easy motions of the hands.

The guests did not sit down, but stood about awaiting the principal
event of the evening and passing the time in casual talk. At length,
Johann Buddenbrook the older offered his arm to Madame Köppen and
said in an elevated voice, “Well, _mesdames et messieurs_, if you are
hungry....”

Mamsell Jungmann and the servant had opened the folding doors into the
dining-room; and the company made its way with studied ease to table.
One could be sure of a good square meal at the Buddenbrooks’.




CHAPTER III


As the party began to move toward the dining-room, Consul Buddenbrook’s
hand went to his left breast-pocket and fingered a paper that was
inside. The polite smile had left his face, giving place to a strained
and care-worn look, and the muscles stood out on his temples as he
clenched his teeth. For appearance’s sake he made a few steps toward
the dining-room, but stopped and sought his mother’s eye as she was
leaving the room on Pastor Wunderlich’s arm, among the last of her
guests.

“Pardon me, dear Herr Pastor ... just a word with you, Mamma.” The
Pastor nodded gaily, and the Consul drew his Mother over to the window
of the landscape-room.

“Here is a letter from Gotthold,” he said in low, rapid tones. He took
out the sealed and folded paper and looked into her dark eyes. “That
is his writing. It is the third one, and Papa answered only the first.
What shall I do? It came at two o’clock, and I ought to have given it
to him already, but I do not like to upset him to-day. What do you
think? I could call him out here....”

“No, you are right, Jean; it is better to wait,” said Madame
Buddenbrook. She grasped her son’s arm with a quick, habitual movement.
“What do you suppose is in it?” she added uneasily. “The boy won’t give
in. He’s taken it into his head he must be compensated for his share in
the house.... No, no, Jean. Not now. To-night, perhaps, before we go to
bed.”

“What am I to do?” repeated the Consul, shaking his bent head. “I have
often wanted to ask Papa to give in. I don’t like it to look as if I
had schemed against Gotthold and worked myself into a snug place. I
don’t want Father to look at it like that, either. But, to be honest
... I am a partner, after all. And Betsy and I pay a fair rent for the
second storey. It is all arranged with my sister in Frankfort: her
husband gets compensation already, in Papa’s life-time--a quarter of
the purchase price of the house. That is good business: Papa arranged
it very cleverly, and it is very satisfactory from the point of view of
the firm. And if Papa acts so unfriendly to Gotthold--”

“Nonsense, Jean. Your position in the matter is quite clear. But it is
painful for me to have Gotthold think that his step-mother looks out
after her own children and deliberately makes bad blood between him and
his father!”

“But it is his own fault,” the Consul almost shouted, and then, with a
glance at the dining-room door, lowered his voice. “It is his fault,
the whole wretched thing. You can judge for yourself. Why couldn’t he
be reasonable? Why did he have to go and marry that Stüwing girl and
... the shop....” The Consul gave an angry, embarrassed laugh at the
last word. “It’s a weakness of Father’s, that prejudice against the
shop; but Gotthold ought to have respected it....”

“Oh, Jean, it would be best if Papa would give in.”

“But ought I to advise him to?” whispered the Consul excitedly,
clapping his hand to his forehead. “I am an interested party, so I
ought to say, Pay it. But I am also a partner. And if Papa thinks he
is under no obligation to a disobedient and rebellious son to draw the
money out of the working capital of the firm.... It is a matter of
eleven thousand thaler, a good bit of money. No, no, I cannot advise
him either for or against. I’d rather wash my hands of the whole
affair. But the scene with Papa is so _désagréable_--”

“Late this evening, Jean. Come now; they are waiting.”

The Consul put the paper back into his breast-pocket, offered his arm
to his mother, and led her over the threshold into the brightly lighted
dining-room, where the company had already taken their places at the
long table.

The tapestries in this room had a sky-blue background, against which,
between slender columns, white figures of gods and goddesses stood out
with plastic effect. The heavy red damask window-curtains were drawn;
stiff, massive sofas in red damask stood ranged against the walls;
and in each corner stood a tall gilt candelabrum with eight flaming
candles, besides those in silver sconces on the table. Above the heavy
sideboard, on the wall opposite the landscape-room, hung a large
painting of an Italian bay, the misty blue atmosphere of which was most
effective in the candle-light.

Every trace of care or disquiet had vanished from Madame Buddenbrook’s
face. She sat down between Pastor Wunderlich and the elder Kröger, who
presided on the window side.

“Bon appétit!” she said, with her short, quick, hearty nod, flashing a
glance down the whole length of the table till it reached the children
at the bottom.




CHAPTER IV


“Our best respects to you, Buddenbrook--I repeat, our best respects!”
Herr Köppen’s powerful voice drowned the general conversation as the
maid-servant, in her heavy striped petticoat, her fat arms bare and a
little white cap on the back of her head, passed the cabbage soup and
toast, assisted by Mamsell Jungmann and the Frau Consul’s maid from
upstairs. The guests began to use their soup-spoons.

“Such plenty, such elegance! I must say, you know how to do things!--I
must say--” Herr Köppen had never visited the house in its former
owner’s time. He did not come of a patrician family, and had only
lately become a man of means. He could never quite get rid of certain
vulgar tricks of speech--like the repetition of “I must say”; and he
said “respecks” for “respects.”

“It didn’t cost anything, either,” remarked Herr Gratjens drily--he
certainly ought to have known--and studied the wall-painting through
the hollow of his hand.

As far as possible, ladies and gentlemen had been paired off, and
members of the family placed between friends of the house. But
the arrangement could not be carried out in every case; the two
Överdiecks were sitting, as usual, nearly on each other’s laps, nodding
affectionately at one another. The elder Kröger was bolt upright,
enthroned between Madame Antoinette and Frau Senator Langhals, dividing
his pet jokes and his flourishes between the two ladies.

“When was the house built?” asked Herr Hoffstede diagonally across the
table of old Buddenbrook, who was talking in a gay chaffing tone with
Madame Köppen.

“Anno ... let me see ... about 1680, if I am not mistaken. My son is
better at dates than I am.”

“Eighty-two,” said the Consul, leaning forward. He was sitting at the
foot of the table, without a partner, next to Senator Langhals. “It was
finished in the winter of 1682. Ratenkamp and Company were just getting
to the top of their form.... Sad, how the firm broke down in the last
twenty years!”

A general pause in the conversation ensued, lasting for half a minute,
while the company looked down at their plates and pondered on the
fortunes of the brilliant family who had built and lived in the house
and then, broken and impoverished, had left it.

“Yes,” said Broker Gratjens, “it’s sad, when you think of the madness
that led to their ruin. If Dietrich Ratenkamp had not taken that fellow
Geelmaack for a partner! I flung up my hands, I know, when he came
into the management. I have it on the best authority, gentlemen, that
he speculated disgracefully behind Ratenkamp’s back, and gave notes
and acceptances right and left in the firm’s name.... Finally the game
was up. The banks got suspicious, the firm couldn’t give security....
You haven’t the least idea ... who looked after the warehouse, even?
Geelmaack, perhaps? It was a perfect rats’ nest there, year in, year
out. But Ratenkamp never troubled himself about it.”

“He was like a man paralysed,” the Consul said. A gloomy, taciturn look
came on his face. He leaned over and stirred his soup, now and then
giving a quick glance, with his little round deep-set eyes, at the
upper end of the table.

“He went about like a man with a load on his mind; I think one
can understand his burden. What made him take Geelmaack into the
business--a man who brought painfully little capital, and had not the
best of reputations? He must have felt the need of sharing his heavy
responsibility with some one, not much matter who, because he realized
that the end was inevitable. The firm was ruined, the old family
_passée_. Geelmaack only gave it the last push over the edge.”

Pastor Wunderlich filled his own and his neighbour’s wineglass. “So
you think my dear Consul,” he said with a discreet smile, “that even
without Geelmaack, things would have turned out just as they did?”

“Oh, probably not,” the Consul said thoughtfully, not addressing
anybody in particular. “But I do think that Dietrich Ratenkamp was
driven by fate when he took Geelmaack into partnership. That was the
way his destiny was to be fulfilled.... He acted under the pressure of
inexorable necessity. I think he knew more or less what his partner was
doing, and what the state of affairs was at the warehouse. But he was
paralyzed.”

“_Assez_, Jean,” interposed old Buddenbrook, laying down his spoon.
“That’s one of your _idées_....”

The Consul rather absently lifted his glass to his father. Lebrecht
Kröger broke in: “Let’s stick by the jolly present!” He took up a
bottle of white wine that had a little silver stag on the stopper; and
with one of his fastidious, elegant motions he held it on its side
and examined the label. “C. F. Köppen,” he read, and nodded to the
wine-merchant. “Ah, yes, where should we be without you?”

Madame Antoinette kept a sharp eye on the servants while they changed
the gilt-edged Meissen plates; Mamsell Jungmann called orders through
the speaking-tube into the kitchen, and the fish was brought in. Pastor
Wunderlich remarked, as he helped himself:

“This ‘jolly present’ isn’t such a matter of course as it seems,
either. The young folk here can hardly realize, I suppose, that things
could ever have been different from what they are now. But I think I
may fairly claim to have had a personal share, more than once, in the
fortunes of the Buddenbrook family. Whenever I see one of these, for
instance--” he picked up one of the heavy silver spoons and turned to
Madame Antoinette--“I can’t help wondering whether they belong to the
set that our friend the philosopher Lenoir, Sergeant under his Majesty
the Emperor Napoleon, had in his hands in the year 1806--and I think
of our meeting in Alf Street, Madame.”

Madame Buddenbrook looked down at her plate with a smile half of
memory, half of embarrassment. Tom and Tony, at the bottom of the
table, cried out almost with one voice, “Oh, yes, tell about it,
Grandmama!” They did not want the fish, and they had been listening
attentively to the conversation of their elders. But the Pastor knew
that she would not care to speak herself of an incident that had been
rather painful to her. He came to her rescue and launched out once more
upon the old story. It was new, perhaps, to one or two of the present
company. As for the children, they could have listened to it a hundred
times.

“Well, imagine a November afternoon, cold and rainy, a wretched day;
and me coming back down Alf Street from some parochial duty. I was
thinking of the hard times we were having. Prince Blücher had gone,
and the French were in the town. There was little outward sign of the
excitement that reigned everywhere: the streets were quiet, and people
stopped close in their houses. Prahl the master-butcher had been shot
through the head, just for standing at the door of his shop with his
hands in his pockets and making a menacing remark about its being hard
to stand. Well, thought I to myself, I’ll just have a look in at the
Buddenbrooks’. Herr Buddenbrook is down with erysipelas, and Madame has
a great deal to do, on account of the billeting.

“At that very moment, whom should I see coming towards me but our
honored Madame Buddenbrook herself? What a state she was in! hurrying
through the rain hatless, stumbling rather than walking, with a shawl
flung over her shoulders, and her hair falling down--yes, Madame, it is
quite true, it _was_ falling down!

“‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ I said. She never saw me, and I made
bold to lay my hand on her sleeve, for my mind misgave me about the
state of things. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, my dear?’ She
realized who I was, looked at me, and burst out: ‘Farewell, farewell!
All is over--I’m going into the river!’

“‘God forbid,’ cried I--I could feel that I went white. ‘That is
no place for you, my dear.’ And I held her as tightly as decorum
permitted. ‘What has happened?’ ‘What has happened!’ she cried, all
trembling. ‘They’ve got at the silver, Wunderlich! That’s what has
happened! And Jean lies there with erysipelas and can’t do anything--he
couldn’t even if he were up. They are stealing my spoons, Wunderlich,
and I am going into the river!’

“Well, I kept holding her, and I said what one would in such cases:
‘Courage, dear lady. It will be all right. Control yourself, I beg
of you. We will go and speak with them. Let us go.’ And I got her
to go back up the street to her house. The soldiery were up in the
dining-room, where Madame had left them, some twenty of them, at the
great silver-chest.

“‘Gentlemen,’ I say politely, ‘with which one of you may I have the
pleasure of a little conversation?’ ‘They begin to laugh, and they
say: ‘With all of us, Papa.’ But one of them steps out and presents
himself, a fellow as tall as a tree, with a black waxed moustache and
big red hands sticking out of his braided cuffs. ‘Lenoir,’ he said, and
saluted with his left hand, for he had five or six spoons in his right.
‘Sergeant Lenoir. What can I do for you?’

“‘Herr Officer,’ I say, appealing to his sense of honour, ‘after your
magnificent charge, how can you stoop to this sort of thing? The town
has not closed its gates to the Emperor.’

“‘What do you expect?’ he answered. ‘War is war. The people need these
things....’

“‘But you ought to be careful,’ I interrupted him, for an idea had come
into my head. ‘This lady,’ I said--one will say anything at a time
like that--‘the lady of the house, she isn’t a German. She is almost a
compatriot of yours--she is a Frenchwoman....’ ‘Oh, a Frenchwoman,’ he
repeated. And then what do you suppose he said, this big swashbuckler?
‘Oh, an _emigrée_? Then she is an enemy of philosophy!’

“I was quite taken aback, but I managed not to laugh. ‘You are a man
of intellect, I see,’ said I. ‘I repeat that I consider your conduct
unworthy.’ He was silent for a moment. Then he got red, tossed his
half-dozen spoons back into the chest, and exclaimed, ‘Who told you I
was going to do anything with these things but look at them? It’s fine
silver. If one or two of my men take a piece as a souvenir....’

“Well, in the end, they took plenty of souvenirs, of course. No use
appealing to justice, either human or divine. I suppose they knew no
other god than that terrible little Corsican....”




CHAPTER V


“Did you ever see him, Herr Pastor?”

The plates were being changed again. An enormous brick-red boiled ham
appeared, strewn with crumbs and served with a sour brown onion sauce,
and so many vegetables that the company could have satisfied their
appetites from that one vegetable-dish. Lebrecht Kröger undertook
the carving, and skilfully cut the succulent slices, with his elbows
slightly elevated and his two long forefingers laid out along the back
of the knife and fork. With the ham went the Frau Consul’s celebrated
“Russian jam,” a pungent fruit conserve flavoured with spirits.

No, Pastor Wunderlich regretted to say that he had never set eyes on
Bonaparte. Old Buddenbrook and Jean Jacques Hoffstede had both seen him
face to face, one in Paris just before the Russian campaign, reviewing
the troops at the Tuileries; the other in Dantzig.

“I must say, he wasn’t a very cheerful person to look at,” said the
poet, raising his brows, as he disposed of a forkful of ham, potato,
and sprouts. “But they say he was in a lively mood, at Dantzig. There
was a story they used to tell, about how he would gamble all day with
the Germans, and make them pay up too, and then spend the evening
playing with his generals. Once he swept a handful of gold off the
table, and said: ‘_Les Allemands aiment beaucoup ces petits Napoléons,
n’est-ce pas_, Rapp?’ ‘_Oui, Sire, plus que le Grand!_’ Rapp answered.”

There was general laughter--Hoffstede had told the story very
prettily, even mimicking the Emperor’s manner. Old Buddenbrook said:
“Well, joking aside, one can’t help having respect for his personal
greatness.... What a nature!”

The Consul shook his head gravely.

“No, no--we of the younger generation do not see why we should revere
the man who murdered the Duc d’Engien, and butchered eight hundred
prisoners in Egypt....”

“All that is probably exaggerated and overdrawn,” said Pastor
Wunderlich. “The Duke was very likely a feather-brained and seditious
person, and as for the prisoners, their execution was probably the
deliberate and necessary policy of a council of war.” And he went on to
speak of a book at which he had been looking, by one of the Emperor’s
secretaries, which had appeared some years before and was well worth
reading.

“All the same,” persisted the Consul, snuffing a flickering candle
in the sconce in front of him, “I cannot understand it--I cannot
understand the admiration people have for this monster. As a Christian,
as a religious man, I can find no room in my heart for such a feeling.”

He had, as he spoke, the slightly inclined head and the rapt look of
a man in a vision. His father and Pastor Wunderlich could be seen to
exchange the smallest of smiles.

“Well, anyhow,” grinned the old man, “the little napoleons aren’t so
bad, eh? My son has more enthusiasm for Louis Philippe,” he said to the
company in general.

“Enthusiasm?” repeated Jean Jacques Hoffstede, rather sarcastically....
“That is a curious juxtaposition, Philippe Égalité and enthusiasm....”

“God knows, I feel we have much to learn from the July Monarchy,” the
Consul said, with serious zeal. “The friendly and helpful attitude of
French constitutionalism toward the new, practical ideals and interests
of our time ... is something we should be deeply thankful for....”

“Practical ideals--well, ye-es--” The elder Buddenbrook gave his
jaws a moment’s rest and played with his gold snuff-box. “Practical
ideals--well--h’m--they don’t appeal to me in the least.” He dropped
into dialect, out of sheer vexation. “We have trade schools and
technical schools and commercial schools springing up on every corner;
the high schools and the classical education suddenly turn out to be
all foolishness, and the whole world thinks of nothing but mines and
factories and making money.... That’s all very fine, of course. But
in the long run, pretty stupid, isn’t it?... I don’t know why, but
it irritates me like the deuce.... I don’t mean, Jean, that the July
Monarchy is not an admirable régime....”

Senator Langhals, as well as Gratjens and Köppen, stood by the
Consul.... They felt that high praise was due to the French government,
and to similar efforts that were being made in Germany. It was worthy
of all respect--Herr Köppen called it “respeck.” He had grown more
and more crimson from eating, and puffed audibly as he spoke. Pastor
Wunderlich had not changed colour; he looked as pale, refined, and
alert as ever, while drinking down glass after glass of wine.

The candles burned down slowly in their sockets. Now and then they
flickered in a draught and dispersed a faint smell of wax over the
table.

There they all sat, on heavy, high-backed chairs, consuming good
heavy food from good heavy silver plate, drinking full-bodied wines
and expressing their views freely on all subjects. When they began to
talk shop, they slipped unconsciously more and more into dialect, and
used the clumsy but comfortable idioms that seemed to embody to them
the business efficiency and the easy well-being of their community.
Sometimes they even used an overdrawn pronunciation by way of making
fun of themselves and each other, and relished their clipped phrases
and exaggerated vowels with the same heartiness as they did their food.

The ladies had not long followed the discussion. Madame Kröger gave
them the cue by setting forth a tempting method of boiling carp in
red wine. “You cut it into nice pieces, my dear, and put it in the
saucepan, add some cloves, and onions, and a few rusks, a little
sugar, and a spoonful of butter, and set it on the fire.... But don’t
wash it, on any account. All the blood must remain in it.”

The elder Kröger was telling the most delightful stories; and his
son Justus, who sat with Dr. Grabow down at the bottom of the table,
near the children, was chaffing Mamsell Jungmann. She screwed up her
brown eyes and stood her knife and fork upright on the table and
moved them back and forth. Even the Överdiecks were very lively. Old
Frau Överdieck had a new pet name for her husband: “You good old
bell-wether,” she said, and laughed so hard that her cap bobbed up and
down.

But all the various conversations around the table flowed together in
one stream when Jean Jacques Hoffstede embarked upon his favourite
theme, and began to describe the Italian journey which he had taken
fifteen years before with a rich Hamburg relative. He told of Venice,
Rome, and Vesuvius, of the Villa Borghese, where Goethe had written
part of his Faust; he waxed enthusiastic over the beautiful Renaissance
fountains that wafted coolness upon the warm Italian air, and the
formal gardens through the avenues of which it was so enchanting to
stroll. Some one mentioned the big wilderness of a garden outside the
Castle Gate, that belonged to the Buddenbrooks.

“Upon my word,” the old man said, “I still feel angry with myself
that I have never put it into some kind of order. I was out there the
other day--and it is really a disgrace, a perfect primeval forest. It
would be a pretty bit of property, if the grass were cut and the trees
trimmed into formal shapes.”

The Consul protested strenuously. “Oh, no, Papa! I love to go out there
in the summer and walk in the undergrowth; it would quite spoil the
place to trim and prune its free natural beauty.”

“But, deuce take it, the free natural beauty belongs to me--haven’t I
the right to put it in order if I like?”

“Ah, Father, when I go out there and lie in the long grass among the
undergrowth, I have a feeling that I belong to nature and not she to
me....”

“Krishan, don’t eat too much,” the old man suddenly called out, in
dialect. “Never mind about Tilda--it doesn’t hurt her. She can put it
away like a dozen harvest hands, that child!”

And truly it was amazing, the prowess of this scraggy child with the
long, old-maidish face. Asked if she wanted more soup, she answered
in a meek drawling voice: “Ye-es, ple-ase.” She had two large
helpings both of fish and ham, with piles of vegetables; and she bent
short-sightedly over her plate, completely absorbed in the food, which
she chewed ruminantly, in large mouthfuls. “Oh, Un-cle,” she replied,
with amiable simplicity, to the old man’s gibe, which did not in the
least disconcert her. She ate: whether it tasted good or not, whether
they teased her or not, she smiled and kept on, heaping her plate with
good things, with the instinctive, insensitive voracity of a poor
relation--patient, persevering, hungry, and lean.




CHAPTER VI


And now came, in two great cut-glass dishes, the “Plettenpudding.”
It was made of layers of macaroons, raspberries, lady-fingers, and
custard. At the same time, at the other end of the table, appeared the
blazing plum-pudding which was the children’s favourite sweet.

“Thomas, my son, come here a minute,” said Johann Buddenbrook, taking
his great bunch of keys from his trousers pocket. “In the second cellar
to the right, the second bin, behind the red Bordeaux, two bottles--you
understand?” Thomas, to whom such orders were familiar, ran off and
soon came back with the two bottles, covered with dust and cobwebs;
and the little dessert-glasses were filled with sweet, golden-yellow
malmsey from these unsightly receptacles. Now the moment came when
Pastor Wunderlich rose, glass in hand, to propose a toast; and the
company fell silent to listen. He spoke in the pleasant, conversational
tone which he liked to use in the pulpit; his head a little on one
side, a subtle, humorous smile on his pale face, gesturing easily with
his free hand. “Come, my honest friends, let us honour ourselves by
drinking a glass of this excellent liquor to the health of our host and
hostess in their beautiful new home. Come, then--to the health of the
Buddenbrook family, present and absent! May they live long and prosper!”

“Absent?” thought the Consul to himself, bowing as the company lifted
their glasses. “Is he referring to the Frankfort Buddenbrooks, or
perhaps the Duchamps in Hamburg--or did old Wunderlich really mean
something by that?” He stood up and clinked glasses with his father,
looking him affectionately in the eye.

Broker Gratjens got up next, and his speech was rather long-winded; he
ended by proposing in his high-pitched voice a health to the firm of
Johann Buddenbrook, that it might continue to grow and prosper and do
honour to the town.

Johann Buddenbrook thanked them all for their kindness, first as head
of the family and then as senior partner of the firm--and sent Thomas
for another bottle of Malmsey. It had been a mistake to suppose that
two would be enough.

Lebrecht Kröger spoke too. He took the liberty of remaining seated,
because it looked less formal, and gestured with his head and hands
most charmingly as he proposed a toast to the two ladies of the
family, Madame Antoinette and the Frau Consul. As he finished, the
Plettenpudding was nearly consumed, and the Malmsey nearing its end;
and then, to a universal, long-drawn “Ah-h!” Jean Jacques Hoffstede
rose up slowly, clearing his throat. The children clapped their hands
with delight.

“_Excusez!_ I really couldn’t help it,” he began. He put his finger
to his long sharp nose and drew a paper from his coat pocket.... A
profound silence reigned throughout the room.

His paper was gaily parti-coloured. On the outside of it was written,
in an oval border surrounded by red flowers and a profusion of gilt
flourishes:

  “_On the occasion of my friendly participation in a delightful
  house-warming party given by the Buddenbrook family. October 1835._”

He read this aloud first; then turning the paper over, he began, in a
voice that was already somewhat tremulous:

  Honoured friends, my modest lay
  Hastes to greet you in these walls:
  May kind Heaven grant to-day
  Blessing on their spacious halls.

  Thee, my friend with silver hair,
  And thy faithful, loving spouse,
  And your children young and fair--
  I salute you, and your house.

  Industry and beauty chaste
  See we linked in marriage band:
  Venus Anadyomene
  And cunning Vulcan’s busy hand.

  May no future storms dismay
  With unkind blast the joyful hour;
  May each new returning day
  Blessings on your pathway shower.

  Ceaselessly shall I rejoice
  O’er the fortune that is yours:
  As to-day I lift my voice,
  May I still, while life endures.

  In your splendid walls live well,
  And cherish with affection true
  Him who in his humble cell
  Penned to-day these lines for you

He bowed to a unanimous outburst of applause.

“Charming, Hoffstede,” cried old Buddenbrook. “It was too charming for
words. I drink your health.”

But when the Frau Consul touched glasses with the poet, a delicate
blush mantled her cheek; for she had seen the courtly bow he made in
her direction when he came to the part about the Venus Anadyomene.




CHAPTER VII


The general merriment had now reached its height. Herr Köppen felt a
great need to unfasten a few buttons of his waistcoat; but it obviously
wouldn’t do, for not even the elderly gentlemen were permitting
themselves the liberty. Lebrecht Kröger sat up as straight as he did
at the beginning; Pastor Wunderlich’s face was as pale as ever, his
manner as correct. The elder Buddenbrook had indeed sat back a little
in his chair, but he maintained perfect decorum. There was only Justus
Kröger--he was plainly a little overtaken.

But where was Dr. Grabow? The butter, cheese and fruit had just been
handed round; and the Frau Consul rose from her chair and unobtrusively
followed the waitress from the room; for the Doctor, Mamsell Jungmann,
and Christian were no longer in their places, and a smothered wail was
proceeding from the hall. There in the dim light, little Christian
was half-lying, half-crouching on the round settee that encircled the
central pillar. He was uttering heart-breaking groans. Ida and the
Doctor stood beside him.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said she, “the poor child is very bad!”

“I’m ill, Mamma, damned ill,” whimpered Christian, his little deep-set
eyes darting back and forth, and his big nose looking bigger than ever.
The “damned” came out in a tone of utter despair; but the Frau Consul
said: “If we use such words, God will punish us by making us suffer
still more!”

Doctor Grabow felt the lad’s pulse. His kindly face grew longer and
gentler.

“It’s nothing much, Frau Consul,” he reassured her. “A touch of
indigestion.” He prescribed in his best bed-side manner: “Better put
him to bed and give him a Dover powder--perhaps a cup of camomile tea,
to bring out the perspiration.... And a rigorous diet, you know, Frau
Consul. A little pigeon, a little French bread....”

“I don’t want any pigeon,” bellowed Christian angrily. “I don’t want
to eat anything, ever any more. I’m ill, I tell you, damned ill!” The
fervour with which he uttered the bad word seemed to bring him relief.

Doctor Grabow smiled to himself--a thoughtful, almost a melancholy
smile. He would soon eat again, this young man. He would do as the rest
of the world did--his father, and all their relatives and friends: he
would lead a sedentary life and eat four good, rich, satisfying meals
a day. Well, God bless us all! He, Friedrich Grabow, was not the man
to upset the habits of these prosperous, comfortable tradesmen and
their families. He would come when he was sent for, prescribe a few
days’ diet--a little pigeon, a slice of French bread--yes, yes, and
assure the family that it was nothing serious this time. Young as he
was, he had held the head of many an honest burgher who had eaten
his last joint of smoked meat, his last stuffed turkey, and, whether
overtaken unaware in his counting-house or after a brief illness in
his solid old four-poster, had commended his soul to God. Then it
was called paralysis, a “stroke,” a sudden death. And he, Friedrich
Grabow, could have predicted it, on all of these occasions when it was
“nothing serious this time”--or perhaps at the times when he had not
even been summoned, when there had only been a slight giddiness after
luncheon. Well, God bless us all! He, Friedrich Grabow, was not the
man to despise a roast turkey himself. That ham with onion sauce had
been delicious, hang it! And the Plettenpudding, when they were already
stuffed full--macaroons, raspberries, custard.... “A rigorous diet,
Frau Consul, as I say. A little pigeon, a little French bread....”




CHAPTER VIII


They were rising from table.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, _gesegnete Mahlzeit!_ Cigars and coffee
in the next room, and a liqueur if Madame feels generous.... Billiards
for whoever chooses. Jean, you will show them the way back to the
billiard-room? Madame Köppen, may I have the honour?”

Full of well-being, laughing and chattering, the company trooped back
through the folding doors into the landscape-room. The Consul remained
behind, and collected about him the gentlemen who wanted to play
billiards.

“You won’t try a game, Father?”

No, Lebrecht Kröger would stop with the ladies, but Justus might go if
he liked.... Senator Langhals, Köppen, Gratjens, and Doctor Grabow went
with the Consul, and Jean Jacques Hoffstede said he would join them
later. “Johann Buddenbrook is going to play the flute,” he said. “I
must stop for that. _Au revoir, messieurs._”

As the gentlemen passed through the hall, they could hear from the
landscape-room the first notes of the flute, accompanied by the Frau
Consul on the harmonium: an airy, charming little melody that floated
sweetly through the lofty rooms. The Consul listened as long as he
could. He would have liked to stop behind in an easy-chair in the
landscape-room and indulge the reveries that the music conjured up; but
his duties as host....

“Bring some coffee and cigars into the billiard-room,” he said to the
maid whom he met in the entry.

“Yes, Line, coffee!” Herr Köppen echoed, in a rich, well-fed voice,
trying to pinch the girl’s red arm. The _c_ came from far back in his
throat, as if he were already swallowing the coffee.

“I’m sure Madame Köppen saw you through the glass,” Consul Kröger
remarked.

“So you live up there, Buddenbrook?” asked Senator Langhals. To the
right a broad white staircase with a carved baluster led up to the
sleeping-chambers of the Consul’s family in the second storey; to
the left came another row of rooms. The party descended the stairs,
smoking, and the Consul halted at the landing.

“The entresol has three rooms,” he explained--“the breakfast-room, my
parents’ sleeping-chamber, and a third room which is seldom used. A
corridor runs along all three.... This way, please. The wagons drive
through the entry; they can go all the way out to Bakers’ Alley at the
back.”

The broad echoing passageway below was paved with great square
flagstones. At either end of it were several offices. The odour of
the onion sauce still floated out from the kitchen, which, with the
entrance to the cellars, lay on the left of the steps. On the right, at
the height of a storey above the passageway, a scaffolding of ungainly
but neatly varnished rafters thrust out from the wall, supporting
the servants’ quarters above. A sort of ladder which led up to them
from the passage was their only means of ingress or egress. Below the
scaffolding were some enormous old cupboards and a carved chest.

Two low, worn steps led through a glass door out to the courtyard and
the small wash-house. From here you could look into the pretty little
garden, which was well laid out, though just now brown and sodden with
the autumn rains, its beds protected with straw mats against the cold.
At the other end of the garden rose the “portal,” the rococo façade of
the summer house. From the courtyard, however, the party took the path
to the left, leading between two walls through another courtyard to the
annexe.

They entered by slippery steps into a cellar-like vault with an
earthen floor, which was used as a granary and provided with a rope
for hauling up the sacks. A pair of stairs led up to the first storey,
where the Consul opened a white door and admitted his guests to the
billiard-room.

It was a bare, severe-looking room, with stiff chairs ranged round the
sides. Herr Köppen flung himself exhausted into one of them. “I’ll look
on for a while,” said he, brushing the wet from his coat. “It’s the
devil of a Sabbath day’s journey through your house, Buddenbrook!”

Here too the stove was burning merrily, behind a brass lattice. Through
the three high, narrow windows one looked out over red roofs gleaming
with the wet, grey gables and courtyards.

The Consul took the cues out of the rack. “Shall we play a
_carambolage_, Senator?” he asked. He went around and closed the
pockets on both tables. “Who is playing with us? Gratjens? The Doctor?
All right. Then will you take the other table, Gratjens and Justus?
Köppen, you’ll have to play.”

The wine-merchant stood up and listened, with his mouth full of
smoke. A violent gust of wind whistled between the houses, lashed the
window-panes with rain, and howled down the chimney.

“Good Lord!” he said, blowing out the smoke. “Do you think the
_Wullenwewer_ will get into port, Buddenbrook? What abominable weather!”

Yes, and the news from Travemünde was not of the best, Consul Kröger
agreed, chalking his cue. Storms everywhere on the coast. Nearly as bad
as in 1824, the year of the great flood in St. Petersburg. Well, here
was the coffee.

They poured it out and drank a little and began their game. The
talk turned upon the Customs Union, and Consul Buddenbrook waxed
enthusiastic.

“An inspiration, gentlemen,” he said. He finished a shot and turned to
the other table, where the topic had begun. “We ought to join at the
earliest opportunity.”

Herr Köppen disagreed. He fairly snorted in opposition. “How about our
independence?” he asked incensed, supporting himself belligerently on
his cue. “How about our self-determination? Would Hamburg consent to be
a party to this Prussian scheme? We might as well be annexed at once!
Heaven save us, what do we want of a customs union? Aren’t we well
enough as we are?”

“Yes, you and your red wine, Köppen. And the Russian products are all
right. But there is little or nothing else imported. As for exports,
well, we send a little corn to Holland and England, it is true. But
I think we are far from being well enough as we are. In days gone by
a very different business went on. Now, with the Customs Union, the
Mecklenburgs and Schleswig-Holstein would be opened up--and private
business would increase beyond all reckoning....”

“But look here, Buddenbrook,” Gratjens broke in, leaning far over the
table and shifting his cue in his bony hand as he took careful aim, “I
don’t get the idea. Certainly our own system is perfectly simple and
practical. Clearing on the security of a civic oath--”

“A fine old institution,” the Consul admitted.

“Do you call it fine, Herr Consul?” Senator Langhals spoke with some
heat. “I am not a merchant; but to speak frankly--well, I think this
civic oath business has become little short of a farce: everybody makes
light of it, and the State pockets the loss. One hears things that
are simply scandalous. I am convinced that our entry into the Customs
Union, so far as the Senate is concerned--”

Herr Köppen flung down his cue. “Then there will be a conflick,” he
said heatedly, forgetting to be careful with his pronunciation. “I know
what I’m sayin’--God help you, but you don’t know what you’re talkin’
about, beggin’ your pardon.”

Well, thank goodness! thought the rest of the company, as Jean Jacques
entered at this point. He and Pastor Wunderlich came together, arm in
arm, two cheerful, unaffected old men from another and less troubled
age.

“Here, my friends,” he began. “I have something for you: a little
rhymed epigram from the French.”

He sat down comfortably opposite the billiard-players, who leaned upon
their cues across the tables. Drawing a paper from his pocket and
laying his long finger with the signet ring to the side of his pointed
nose, he read aloud, with a mock-heroic intonation:

  “When the Maréchal Saxe and the proud Pompadour
  Were driving out gaily in gilt coach and four,
  Frelon spied the pair: ‘Oh, see them,’ he cried:
  ‘The sword of our king--and his sheath, side by side.’”

Herr Köppen looked disconcerted for a minute. Then he dropped the
“conflick” where it was and joined in the hearty laughter that echoed
to the ceiling of the billiard-room. Pastor Wunderlich withdrew to
the window, but the movement of his shoulders betrayed that he was
chuckling to himself.

Herr Hoffstede had more ammunition of the same sort in his pocket,
and the gentlemen remained for some time in the billiard-room. Herr
Köppen unbuttoned his waistcoat all the way down, and felt much more
at ease here than in the dining-room. He gave vent to droll low-German
expressions at every turn, and at frequent intervals began reciting to
himself with enormous relish:

  “When the Maréchal Saxe....”

It sounded quite different in his harsh bass.




CHAPTER IX


It was rather late, nearly eleven, when the party began to break up.
They had reassembled in the landscape-room, and they all made their
adieux at the same time. The Frau Consul, as soon as her hand had been
kissed in farewell, went upstairs to see how Christian was doing. To
Mamsell Jungmann was left the supervision of the maids as they set
things to rights and put away the silver. Madame Antoinette retired to
the entresol. But the Consul accompanied his guests downstairs, across
the entry, and outside the house.

A high wind was driving the rain slantwise through the streets as the
old Krögers, wrapped in heavy fur mantles, slipped as fast as they
could into their carriage. It had been waiting for hours before the
door. The street was lighted by the flickering yellow rays from oil
lamps hanging on posts before the houses or suspended on heavy chains
across the streets. The projecting fronts of some of the houses jutted
out into the roadway; others had porticos or raised benches added on.
The street ran steeply down to the River Trave; it was badly paved, and
sodden grass sprang up between the cracks. The church of St. Mary’s was
entirely shrouded in rain and darkness.

“_Merci_,” said Lebrecht Kröger, shaking the Consul’s hand as he stood
by the carriage door. “_Merci_, Jean; it was too charming!” The door
slammed, and the carriage drove off. Pastor Wunderlich and Broker
Gratjens expressed their thanks and went their way. Herr Köppen, in a
mantle with a five-fold cape and a broad grey hat, took his plump wife
on his arm and said in his gruff bass: “G’night, Buddenbrook. Go in,
go in; don’t catch cold. Best thanks for everything--don’t know when
I’ve fed so well! So you like my red wine at four marks? Well, g’night,
again.”

The Köppens went in the same direction as the Krögers, down toward the
river; Senator Langhals, Doctor Grabow, and Jean Jacques Hoffstede
turned the other way. Consul Buddenbrook stood with his hands in his
trousers pockets and listened to their footsteps as they died away down
the empty, damp, dimly-lighted street. He shivered a little in his
light clothes as he stood there a few paces from his own house, and
turned to look up at its grey gabled façade. His eyes lingered upon
the motto carved in the stone over the entrance, in antique lettering:
_Dominus providebit_--“The Lord will provide.” He bowed his head a
little and went in, bolting the door carefully behind him. Then he
locked the vestibule door and walked slowly across the echoing floor
of the great entry. The cook was coming down the stairs with a tray of
glasses in her hands, and he asked her, “Where’s the master, Trina?”

“In the dining-room, Herr Consul,” said she, and her face went as red
as her arms, for she came from the country and was very bashful.

As he passed through the dark hall, he felt in his pocket for the
letter. Then he went quickly into the dining-room, where a few small
candle-ends in one of the candelabra cast a dim light over the empty
table. The sour smell of the onion sauce still hung on the air.

Over by the windows Johann Buddenbrook was pacing comfortably up and
down, with his hands behind his back.




CHAPTER X


“Well, Johann, my son, where are you going?” He stood still and put his
hand out to his son--his white Buddenbrook hand, a little too short,
though finely modelled. His active figure showed indistinctly against
the dark-red curtains, the only gleams of white being from his powdered
hair and the lace frill at his throat.

“Aren’t you sleepy? I’ve been here listening to the wind; the weather
is something fearful. Captain Kloot is on his way from Riga....”

“Oh, Father, with God’s help all will be well.”

“Well, do you think I can depend on that? I know you are on intimate
terms with the Almighty--”

The Consul felt his courage rise at this display of good humour.

“Well, to get to the point,” he began, “I came in here not to bid you
good night, but to--you won’t be angry, will you, Papa?... I didn’t
want to disturb you with this letter on such a festive occasion ... it
came this afternoon....”

“_Monsieur Gotthold, voilà!_” The old man affected to be quite unmoved
as he took the sealed blue paper. “Herr Johann Buddenbrook, Senior.
Personal. A careful man, your step-brother, Jean! Have I answered
his second letter, that came the other day? And so now he writes me
a third.” The old man’s rosy face grew sterner as he opened the seal
with one finger, unfolded the thin paper, and gave it a smart rap with
the back of his hand as he turned about to catch the light from the
candles. The very handwriting of this letter seemed to express revolt
and disloyalty. All the Buddenbrooks wrote a fine, flowing hand; but
these tall straight letters were full of heavy strokes, and many of
the words were hastily underlined.

The Consul had drawn back a little to where the row of chairs stood
against the wall; he did not sit down, as his father did not; but he
grasped one of the high chair-backs nervously and watched the old man
while he read, his lips moving rapidly, his brows drawn together, and
his head on one side.

  FATHER,

  I am probably mistaken in entertaining any further hope of your sense
  of justice or any appreciation of my feelings at receiving no reply
  from my second pressing letter concerning the matter in question. I
  do not comment again on the character of the reply I received to my
  first one. I feel compelled to say, however, that the way in which
  you, by your lamentable obstinacy, are widening the rift between us,
  is a sin for which you will one day have to answer grievously before
  the judgment seat of God. It is sad enough that when I followed the
  dictates of my heart and married against your wishes, and further
  wounded your insensate pride by taking over a shop, you should have
  repulsed me so cruelly and remorselessly; but the way in which you
  now treat me cries out to Heaven, and you are utterly mistaken if you
  imagine that I intend to accept your silence without a struggle. The
  purchase price of your newly acquired house in the Mengstrasse was
  a hundred thousand marks; and I am aware that Johann, your business
  partner and your son by your second marriage, is living with you as
  your tenant, and after your death will become the sole proprietor of
  both house and business. With my step-sister in Frankfort, you have
  entered into agreements which are no concern of mine. But what does
  concern me, your eldest son, is that you carry your un-Christian
  spirit so far as to refuse me a penny of compensation for my share in
  the house. When you gave me a hundred thousand marks on my marriage
  and to set me up in business, and told me that a similar sum and
  no more should be bequeathed me by will, I said nothing, for I was
  not at the time sufficiently informed as to the amount of your
  fortune. Now I know more: and not regarding myself as disinherited
  in principle, I claim as my right the sum of thirty-three thousand
  and three hundred and thirty-three marks current, or a third of the
  purchase price. I make no comment on the damnable influences which
  are responsible for the treatment I have received. But I protest
  against them with my whole sense of justice as a Christian and a
  business man. Let me tell you for the last time that, if you cannot
  bring yourself to recognize the justice of my claims, I shall no
  longer be able to respect you as a Christian, a parent, or a man of
  business.

                                                   GOTTHOLD BUDDENBROOK.

“You will excuse me for saying that I don’t get much pleasure out
of reading that rigmarole all over again.--_Voilà!_” And Johann
Buddenbrook tossed the letter to his son, with a contemptuous gesture.
The Consul picked it up as it fluttered to his feet, and looked
at his father with troubled eyes, while the old man took the long
candle-snuffers from their place by the window and with angry strides
crossed the room to the candelabrum in the corner.

“_Assez_, I say. _N’en parlons plus!_ To bed with you--_en avant!_” He
quenched one flame after another under the little metal cap. There were
only two candles left when the elder turned again to his son, whom he
could hardly see at the far end of the room.

“_Eh bien_--what are you standing there for? Why don’t you say
something?”

“What shall I say, Father? I am thoroughly taken aback.”

“You are pretty easily taken aback, then,” Johann Buddenbrook rapped
out irritably, though he knew that the reproach was far from being a
just one. His son was in fact often his superior when it came to a
quick decision upon the advantageous course.

“‘Damnable influences,’” the Consul quoted. “That is the first line
I can make out. Do you know how it makes me feel, Father? And he
reproaches us with ‘unchristian behaviour!’”

“You’ll let yourself be bluffed by this miserable scribble, will you?”
Johann Buddenbrook strode across to his son, dragging the extinguisher
on its long stick behind him. “‘Unchristian behaviour!’ Ha! He shows
good taste, doesn’t he, this canting money-grabber? I don’t know
what to make of you young people! Your heads are full of fantastic
religious humbug--practical idealism, the July Monarchy, and what not:
and we old folk are supposed to be wretched cynics. And then you abuse
your poor old Father in the coarsest way rather than give up a few
thousand thaler.... So he deigns to look down upon me as a business
man, does he? Well, as a business man, I know what _faux-frais_
are!--_Faux-frais_,” he repeated, rolling the _r_ in his throat. “I
sha’n’t make this high-falutin scamp of a son any fonder of me by
giving him what he asks for, it seems to me.”

“What can I say, Father? I don’t care to feel that he has any
justification when he talks of ‘influences.’ As an interested party I
don’t like to tell you to stick out, but-- It seems to me I’m as good a
Christian as Gotthold ... but still....”

“‘Still’--that is exactly it, Jean, you are right to say ‘still.’ What
is the real state of the case? He got infatuated with his Mademoiselle
Stüwing and wouldn’t listen to reason; he made scene after scene, and
finally he married her, after I had absolutely refused to give my
consent. Then I wrote to him: ‘_Mon très cher fils_: you are marrying
our shop--very well, that’s an end of it. We cease to be on friendly
terms from now on. I won’t cut you off, or do anything melodramatic. I
am sending you a hundred thousand marks as a wedding present, and I’ll
leave you another hundred thousand in my will. But that is absolutely
all you’ll get, not another shilling!’ That shut his mouth.--What have
our arrangements got to do with him? Suppose you and your sister do
get a bit more, and the house has been bought out of your share?”

“Father, surely you can understand how painful my position is! I ought
to advise you in the interest of family harmony--but....” The Consul
sighed. Johann Buddenbrook peered at him, in the dim light, to see what
his expression was. One of the two candles had gone out of itself; the
other was flickering. Every now and then a tall, smiling white figure
seemed to step momentarily out of the tapestry and then back again.

“Father,” said the Consul softly. “This affair with Gotthold depresses
me.”

“What’s all this sentimentality, Jean? How does it depress you?”

“We were all so happy here to-day, Father; we had a glorious
celebration, and we felt proud and glad of what we have accomplished,
and of having raised the family and firm to a position of honour and
respect.... But this bitter feud with my own brother, with your eldest
son, is like a hidden crack in the building we have erected. A family
should be united, Father. It must keep together. ‘A house divided
against itself will fall.’”

“There you are with your milk-and-water stuff, Jean! All I say is, he’s
an insolent young puppy.”

A pause ensued. The last candle burned lower and lower.

“What are you doing, Jean?” asked Johann Buddenbrook. “I can’t see you.”

The Consul said shortly, “I’m calculating.” He was standing erect, and
the expression in his eyes had changed. They had looked dreamy all
the evening; but now they stared into the candle-flame with a cold
sharp gaze. “Either you give thirty-three thousand, three hundred and
thirty-three marks to Gotthold, and fifteen thousand to the family
in Frankfort--that makes forty-eight thousand, three hundred and
thirty-five in all--or, you give nothing to Gotthold, and twenty-five
thousand to the family in Frankfort. That means a gain of twenty-three
thousand, three hundred and thirty-five for the firm. But there is more
to it than that. If you give Gotthold a compensation for the house,
you’ve started the ball rolling. He is likely to demand equal shares
with my sister and me after your death, which would mean a loss of
hundreds of thousands to the firm. The firm could not face it, and I,
as sole head, could not face it either.” He made a vigorous gesture and
drew himself more erect than before. “No, Papa,” he said, and his tone
bespoke finality, “I must advise you not to give in.”

“Bravo!” cried the old man. “There’s an end of it! _N’en parlons plus!
En avant!_ Let’s get to bed.”

And he extinguished the last candle. They groped through the pitch-dark
hall, and at the foot of the stairs they stopped and shook hands.

“Good night, Jean. And cheer up. These little worries aren’t anything.
See you at breakfast!”

The Consul went up to his rooms, and the old man felt his way along
the baluster and down to the entresol. Soon the rambling old house
lay wrapped in darkness and silence. Hopes, fears, and ambitions all
slumbered, while the rain fell and the autumn wind whistled around
gables and street corners.




PART TWO




CHAPTER I


It was mid-April, two and a half years later. The spring was more
advanced than usual, and with the spring had come to the Buddenbrook
family a joy that made old Johann sing about the house and moved his
son to the depths of his heart.

The Consul sat at the big roll-top writing-desk in the window of the
breakfast-room, at nine o’clock one Sunday morning. He had before him
a stout leather portfolio stuffed with papers, from among which he had
drawn a gilt-edged notebook with an embossed cover, and was busily
writing in it in his small, thin, flowing script. His hand hurried over
the paper, never pausing except to dip his quill in the ink.

Both the windows were open, and the spring breeze wafted delicate
odours into the room, lifting the curtains gently. The garden was full
of young buds and bathed in tender sunshine; a pair of birds called and
answered each other pertly. The sunshine was strong, too, on the white
linen of the breakfast-table and the gilt-borders of the old china.

The folding doors into the bedroom were open, and the voice of old
Johann could be heard inside, singing softly to a quaint and ancient
tune:

  A kind papa, a worthy man,
  He rocks the baby in the cradle,
  He feeds the children sugar-plums
  And stirs the porridge with a ladle.

He sat beside the little green-curtained cradle, close to the Frau
Consul’s lofty bed, and rocked it softly with one hand. Madame
Antoinette, in a white lace cap and an apron over her striped frock,
was busy with flannel and linen at the table. The old couple had given
up their bedroom to the Frau Consul for the time being, to make things
easier for the servants, and were sleeping in the unused room in the
entresol.

Consul Buddenbrook gave scarcely a glance at the adjoining room, so
absorbed was he in his work. His face wore an expression of earnest,
almost suffering piety, his mouth slightly open, the chin a little
dropped; his eyes filled from time to time. He wrote:

“To-day, April 14, 1838, at six o’clock in the morning, my dear wife,
Elizabeth Buddenbrook, born Kröger, was, by God’s gracious help,
happily delivered of a daughter, who will receive the name of Clara
in Holy Baptism. Yea, the Lord hath holpen mightily; for according to
Doctor Grabow, the birth was somewhat premature, and her condition not
of the best. She suffered great pain. Oh, Lord God of Sabaoth, where
is there any other God save Thee? who helpest us in all our times of
need and danger, and teachest us to know Thy will aright, that we may
fear Thee and obey Thy commandments! O Lord, lead us and guide us all,
so long as we live upon this earth....” The pen hurried glibly over
the paper, with here and there a commercial flourish, talking with
God in every line. Two pages further on: “I have taken out,” it said,
“an insurance policy for my youngest daughter, of one hundred and
fifty thaler current. Lead her, O Lord, in Thy ways, give her a pure
heart, O God, that she may one day enter into the mansions of eternal
peace. For inasmuch as our weak human hearts are prone to forget Thy
priceless gift of the sweet, blessed Jesus....” And so on for three
pages. Then he wrote “Amen.” But still the faint scratching sound of
the pen went on, over several more pages. It wrote of the precious
spring that refreshes the tired wanderer, of the Saviour’s holy wounds
gushing blood, of the broad way and the narrow way, and the glory of
the Eternal God. It is true that after a while the Consul began to
feel that he had written enough; that he might let well enough alone,
and go in to see his wife, or out to the counting-house. Oh, fie, fie!
Did one so soon weary of communion with his Lord and Saviour? Was it
not robbing his God to scant Him of this service? No, he would go on,
as a chastisement for these unholy impulses. He cited whole pages of
Scripture, he prayed for his parents, his wife, his children, and
himself, he prayed even for his brother Gotthold. And then, with a last
quotation and three final “Amens,” he strewed sand on the paper and
leaned back with a sigh of relief.

He crossed one leg over the other and slowly turned the pages of the
notebook, reading dates and entries here and there, written in his own
hand, and thanking the Lord afresh as he saw how in every time of need
and danger He had stretched out His hand to aid. Once he had lain so
ill of small-pox that his life had been despaired of--yet it had been
saved. And once, when he was a boy, a beer-vat had fallen on him. A
large quantity of beer was being brewed for a wedding, in the old days
when the brewing was done at home; and a vat had fallen over, pinning
the boy beneath it. It had taken six people to lift it up again, and
his head had been crushed so that the blood ran down in streams. He
was carried into a shop, and, as he still breathed, the doctor and the
surgeon were sent for. They told the father to prepare for the worst
and to bow to the will of God. But the Almighty had blessed the work of
healing, and the boy was saved and restored to health. The Consul dwelt
a while upon this account, re-living the accident in his mind. Then he
took his pen again and wrote after his last “Amen”: “Yea, O God, I will
eternally praise Thee!”

Another time, his life had been saved from danger by water, when he had
gone to Bergen, as a young man. The account read:

“At high water, when the freight boats of the Northern Line are in,
we have great difficulty getting through the press to our landing. I
was standing on the edge of the scow, with my feet on the thole-pins,
leaning my back against the sailboat, trying to get the scow nearer in,
when, as luck would have it, the oak thole-pins broke, and I went head
over heels into the water. The first time I came up, nobody was near
enough to get hold of me; the second time, the scow went over my head.
There were plenty of people there anxious to save me, but they had to
keep the sailboat and the scow off, so that I should not come up under
them; and all their shoving would probably have been in vain if a rope
had not suddenly broken on one of the sailboats belonging to the Line,
so that she swung further out; and this, by the grace of God, gave me
room enough to come up in free water. It was only the top of my head,
with the hair, that they saw; but it was enough, for they were all
lying on their stomachs with their heads sticking out over the scow,
and the man at the bow grabbed me by the hair, and I got hold of his
arm. He was in an unsafe position himself and could not hold me, but he
gave a yell, and they all took hold of him around the waist and pulled.
I hung on, though he bit me to make me let go. So they got me in at
last.” There followed a long prayer of thanksgiving, which the Consul
re-read with tear-wet eyes.

On another page he had said: “I could write much more, were I minded
to reveal the passions of my youth....” The Consul passed over this,
and began to read here and there from the period of his marriage and
the birth of his first child. The union, to be frank, could hardly be
called a love-match. His father had tapped him on the shoulder and
pointed out to him the daughter of the wealthy Kröger, who could bring
the firm a splendid marriage portion. He had accepted the situation
with alacrity; and from the first moment had honoured his wife as the
mate entrusted to him by God.

After all, his father’s second marriage had been of much the same kind.

  “‘A kind Papa, a worthy man.’”

He could still hear old Johann softly humming in the bedroom. What
a pity he had so little taste for those old records! He stood with
both feet firmly planted in the present, and concerned himself seldom
with the past of his family. Yet in times gone by he too had made a
few entries in the gilt-edged book. The Consul turned to those pages,
written in a florid hand on rather coarse paper that was already
yellowing with age. They were chiefly about his first marriage. Ah,
Johann Buddenbrook must have adored his first wife, the daughter of a
Bremen merchant! The one brief year it had been granted him to live
with her was the happiest of his life--“_l’année la plus heureuse de
ma vie_,” he had written there. The words were underlined with a wavy
line, for all the world, even Madame Antoinette, to see.

Then Gotthold had come, and Josephine had died. And here some strange
things had been written on the rough paper. Johann Buddenbrook must
have openly and bitterly hated his child, even when, while still in
the womb, it had caused its mother to faint and agonize under the
lusty burden. It was born strong and active, while Josephine buried
her bloodless face deeper in the pillows and passed away. Johann
never forgave the ruthless intruder. He grew up vigorous and pushing,
and Johann thought of him as his mother’s murderer. This was, to the
Consul’s mind, incomprehensible. She had died, he thought, fulfilling
the holy duty of a woman: “the love I bore to her would have passed
over in all its tenderness to her child,” he said to himself. It had
not been so. Later the father married again, his bride being Antoinette
Duchamps, the daughter of a rich and much-esteemed Hamburg family, and
the two had dwelt together with mutual respect and deference.

The Consul went on turning over the pages. There at the end were
written the small histories of his own children: how Tom had had the
measles, and Antonie jaundice, and Christian chicken-pox. There were
accounts of various journeys he had taken with his wife, to Paris,
Switzerland, Marienbad. Then the Consul turned back to the front
of the book, to some pages written in bluish ink, in a hand full of
flourishes, on paper that was like parchment, but tattered and spotted
with age. Here his grandfather Johann had set down the genealogy of the
main branch of the Buddenbrooks. At the end of the sixteenth century,
the first Buddenbrook of whom they had knowledge lived in Parchim, and
his son had been a Senator of Grabau. Another Buddenbrook, a tailor
by trade, and “very well-to-do” (this was underlined) had married in
Rostock and begotten an extraordinary number of children, who lived or
died, as the case might be. And again, another, this time a Johann,
had lived in Rostock as a merchant, from whom the Consul’s grandfather
had descended, who had left Rostock to settle himself in this very
town, and was the founder of the present grain business. There was much
about him set down in detail: when he had had the purples, and when
genuine small-pox; when he had fallen out of the malt-kiln and been
miraculously saved, when he might have fallen against the beams and
been crushed; how he had had fever and been delirious--all these events
were meticulously described. He had also written down wise admonitions
for the benefit of his descendants, like the following, which was
carefully painted and framed, in a tall Gothic script set off with a
border: “My son, attend with zeal to thy business by day; but do none
that hinders thee from thy sleep by night.” He had also stated that his
old Wittenberg Bible was to descend to his eldest son, and thence from
first-born to first-born in each generation.

Consul Buddenbrook reached for the old leather portfolio and took
out the remaining documents. There were letters, on torn and yellow
paper, written by anxious mothers to their sons abroad--which the
sons had docketed: “Received and contents duly noted.” There were
citizens’ papers, with the seal and crest of the free Hansa town;
insurance policies; letters inviting this or that Buddenbrook to
become god-father for a colleague’s child; congratulatory epistles
and occasional poems. Sons travelling for the firm to Stockholm or
Amsterdam had written back, to the parent or partner at home, letters
in which business was touchingly mingled with inquiries after wife
and child. There was a separate diary of the Consul’s journey through
England and Brabant; the cover had an engraving of Edinburgh Castle and
the Grass-market. Lastly, there were Gotthold’s late angry letters to
his father--painful documents, to offset which was the poem written by
Jean Jacques Hoffstede to celebrate the house-warming.

A faint, rapid chime came from above the secretary, where there hung a
dull-looking painting of an old market square, with a church-tower that
possessed a real clock of its own. It was now striking the hour, in
authentic if tiny tones. The Consul closed the portfolio and stowed it
away carefully in a drawer at the back of the desk. Then he went into
the bed-chamber.

Here the walls and the high old bed were hung with dark-flowered
chintz, and there was in the air a feeling of repose, of
convalescence--of calm after an anxious and painful ordeal. A mingled
odour of cologne and drugs hung in the mild, dim-lighted atmosphere.
The old pair bent over the cradle side by side and watched the
slumbering child; and the Consul’s wife lay pale and happy, in an
exquisite lace jacket, her hair carefully dressed. As she put out her
hand to her husband, her gold bracelets tinkled slightly. She had a
characteristic way of stretching out her hand with the palm upward, in
a sweeping gesture that gave it added graciousness.

“Well, Betsy, how are you?”

“Splendid, splendid, my dear Jean.”

He still held her hand as he bent over and looked at the child, whose
rapid little breaths were distinctly audible. For a moment he inhaled
the tender warmth and the indescribable odour of well-being and
cherishing care that came up from the cradle. Then he kissed the little
creature on the brow and said softly: “God bless you!” He noticed how
like to a bird’s claws were the tiny yellow, crumpled fingers.

“She eats splendidly,” Madame Antoinette said. “See how she has gained.”

“I believe, on my soul, she looks like Netta,” old Johann said, beaming
with pride and pleasure. “See what coal-black eyes she has!”

The old lady waved him away. “How can anybody tell who she looks like
yet?” she said. “Are you going to church, Jean?”

“Yes, it is ten o’clock now, and high time. I am only waiting for the
children.”

The children were already making an unseemly noise on the stairs, and
Clothilde could be heard telling them to hush. They came in in their
fur tippets--for it would still be wintry in St. Mary’s--trying to be
soft and gentle in the sick-room. They wanted to see the little sister,
and then go to church. Their faces were rosy with excitement. This was
a wonderful red-letter day, for the stork had brought not only the baby
sister, but all sorts of presents as well. How tremendously strong the
stork must be, to carry all that! There was a new seal-skin school-bag
for Tom, a big doll for Antonie, that had real hair--imagine that!--for
Christian a complete toy theatre, with the Sultan, Death, and the
Devil; and a book with pictures for demure Clothilde, who accepted it
with thanks, but was more interested in the bag of sweeties that fell
to her lot as well.

They kissed their mother, and were allowed a peep under the green
curtains of the baby’s bed. Then off they went with their father, who
had put on his fur coat and taken the hymn book. They were followed by
the piercing cry of the new member of the family, who had just waked
up.




CHAPTER II


Early in the summer, sometimes as early as May or June, Tony
Buddenbrook always went on a visit to her grandparents, who lived
outside the Castle Gate. This was a great pleasure.

For life was delightful out there in the country, in the luxurious
villa with its many outbuildings, servants’ quarters and stables, and
its great parterres, orchards, and kitchen-gardens, which ran steeply
down to the river Trave. The Krögers lived in the grand style; there
was a difference between their brilliant establishment and the solid,
somewhat heavy comfort of the paternal home, which was obvious at a
glance, and which impressed very much the young Demoiselle Buddenbrook.

Here there was no thought of duties in house or kitchen. In the
Mengstrasse, though her Mother and Grandfather did not seem to think it
important, her Father and her Grandmother were always telling her to
remember her dusting, and holding up Clothilde as an example. The old
feudal feeling of her Mother’s side of the family came out strongly in
the little maid: one could see how she issued her orders to the footman
or the abigail--and to her Grandmother’s servants and her Grandfather’s
coachman as well.

Say what you will, it is pleasant to awake every morning in a large,
gaily tapestried bed-chamber, and with one’s first movements to
feel the soft satin of the coverlet under one’s hand; to take early
breakfast in the balcony room, with the sweet fresh air coming up
from the garden through the open glass door; to drink, instead of
coffee, a cup of chocolate handed one on a tray--yes, proper birthday
chocolate, with a thick slice of fresh cup-cake! True, she had to eat
her breakfast alone, except on Sundays, for her grandparents never came
down until long after she had gone to school. When she had munched her
cake and drunk her chocolate, she would snatch up her satchel and trip
down the terrace and through the well-kept front garden.

She was very dainty, this little Tony Buddenbrook. Under her straw hat
curled a wealth of blonde hair, slowly darkening with the years. Lively
grey-blue eyes and a pouting upper lip gave her fresh face a roguish
look, borne out by the poise of her graceful little figure; even the
slender legs, in their immaculate white stockings, trotted along over
the ground with an unmistakable air of ease and assurance. People knew
and greeted the young daughter of Consul Buddenbrook as she came out
of the garden gate and up the chestnut-bordered avenue. Perhaps an old
market-woman, driving her little cart in from the village, would nod
her head in its big flat straw hat with its light-green ribbons, and
call out “Mornin’, little missy!” Or Matthiesen the porter, in his wide
knee-breeches, white hose, and buckled shoes, would respectfully take
off his hat as she passed.

Tony always waited for her neighbour, little Julie Hagenström; the two
children went to school together. Julie was a high-shouldered child,
with large, staring black eyes, who lived close by in a vine-covered
house. Her people had not been long in the neighbourhood. The father,
Herr Hagenström, had married a wife from Hamburg, with thick, heavy
black hair and larger diamonds in her ears than any one had ever seen
before. Her name was Semlinger. Hagenström was partner in the export
firm of Strunck and Hagenström. He showed great zeal and ambition in
municipal affairs, and was always acting on boards and committees and
administrative bodies. But he was not very popular. His marriage had
rather affronted the rigid traditions of the older families, like the
Möllendorpfs, Langhals, and Buddenbrooks; and, for another thing,
he seemed to enjoy thwarting their ideas at every turn--he would
go to work in an underhand way to oppose their interests, in order
to show his own superior foresight and energy. “Heinrich Hagenström
makes trouble the whole time,” the Consul would say. “He seems to
take a personal pleasure in thwarting me. To-day he made a scene at
the sitting of the Central Paupers’ Deputation; and a few days ago
in the Finance Department....” “The old skunk!” Johann Buddenbrook
interjected. Another time, father and son sat down to table angry
and depressed. What was the matter? Oh, nothing. They had lost a big
consignment of rye for Holland: Strunck and Hagenström had snapped it
up under their noses. He was a fox, Heinrich Hagenström.

Tony had often heard such remarks, and she was not too well disposed
toward Julie Hagenström; the two children walked together because they
were neighbours, but usually they quarrelled.

“My Father owns a thousand thalers,” said Julchen. She thought she was
uttering the most terrible falsehood. “How much does yours?”

Tony was speechless with envy and humiliation. Then she said, with a
quiet, off-hand manner: “My chocolate tasted delicious this morning.
What do you have for breakfast, Julie?”

“Before I forget it,” Julie would rejoin, “would you like one of my
apples? Well, I won’t give you any!” She pursed up her lips, and her
black eyes watered with satisfaction.

Sometimes Julie’s brother Hermann went to school at the same time with
the two girls. There was another brother too, named Moritz, but he
was sickly and did his lessons at home. Hermann was fair-haired and
snub-nosed. He breathed through his mouth and was always smacking his
lips.

“Stuff and nonsense!” he would say. “Papa has a lot more than a
thousand thaler.” He interested Tony because of the luncheon he took
to school: not bread, but a soft sort of lemon bun with currants in
it, and sausage or smoked goose between. It seemed to be his favourite
luncheon. Tony had never seen anything like it before. Lemon bun, with
smoked goose--it must be wonderful! He let her look into his box, and
she asked if she might have some. Hermann said: “Not to-day, Tony,
because I can’t spare any. But to-morrow I’ll bring another piece for
you, if you’ll give me something.”

Next morning, Tony came out into the avenue, but there was no Julie.
She waited five minutes, but there was no sign. Another minute--there
came Hermann alone, swinging his lunch-box by the strap and smacking
his lips.

“Now,” he said, “here’s a bun, with some goose between--all lean;
there’s not a bit of fat to it. What will you give me for it?”

“A shilling?” suggested Tony. They were standing in the middle of the
avenue.

“A shilling?” repeated Hermann. Then he gave a gulp and said, “No, I
want something else.”

“What?” demanded Tony; for she was prepared to pay a good price for the
dainty.

“A kiss!” shouted Hermann Hagenström. He flung his arms around Tony,
and began kissing at random, never once touching her face, for she
flung her head back with surprising agility, pushed him back with her
left hand--it was holding her satchel--against his breast, while with
her right hand she dealt him three or four blows in the face with all
her strength. He stumbled backward; but at that moment sister Julie
appeared from behind a tree, like a little black demon, and, falling
upon Tony, tore off her hat and scratched her cheeks unmercifully.
After this affair, naturally, the friendship was about at an end.

It was hardly out of shyness that Tony had refused the kiss. She was
on the whole a forward damsel, and had given the Consul no little
disquiet with her tomboy ways. She had a good little head, and did as
well in the school as one could desire; but her conduct in other ways
was far from satisfactory. Things even went so far that one day the
school-mistress, a certain Fräulein Agathe Vermehren, felt obliged to
call upon the Frau Consul, and, flushed with embarrassment, to suggest
with all due politeness that the child should receive a paternal
admonition. It seemed that Tony, despite frequent correction, had been
guilty, not for the first time, of creating a disturbance in the street!

There was, of course, no harm in the fact that the child knew
everybody in town. The Consul quite approved of this, and argued that
it displayed love of one’s neighbour, a sense of human fellowship,
and a lack of snobbishness. So Tony, on her way through the streets,
chattered with all and sundry. She and Tom would clamber about
in the granaries on the water-side, among the piles of oats and
wheat, prattling to the labourers and the clerks in the dark little
ground-floor offices; they would even help haul up the sacks of grain.
She knew the butchers with their trays and aprons, when she met them
in Broad Street; she accosted the dairy women when they came in from
the country, and made them take her a little way in their carts. She
knew the grey-bearded craftsmen who sat in the narrow goldsmiths’
shops built into the arcades in the market square; and she knew the
fish-wives, the fruit- and vegetable-women, and the porters that stood
on the street corners chewing their tobacco.

So far, this was very well. But it was not all.

There was a pale, beardless man, of no particular age, who was often
seen wandering up and down Broad Street with a wistful smile on his
face. This man was so nervous that he jumped every time he heard a
sudden noise behind him; and Tony delighted in making him jump every
time she set eyes on him. Then there was an odd, tiny little woman
with a large head, who put up a huge tattered umbrella at every sign
of a storm. Tony would harass this poor soul with cries of “Mushroom!”
whenever she had the chance. Moreover, she and two or three more of her
ilk would go to the door of a tiny house in an alley off John Street,
where there lived an old woman who did a tiny trade in worsted dolls;
they would ring the bell and, when the old dame appeared, inquire with
deceptive courtesy, if Herr and Frau Spittoon were at home--and then
run away screaming with laughter. All these ragamuffinly tricks Tony
Buddenbrook was guilty of--indeed, she seemed to perform them with the
best conscience in the world. If one of her victims threatened her,
she would step back a pace or two, toss her pretty head, pout with her
pretty lip, and say “Pooh!” in a half mocking, half angry tone which
meant: “Try it if you like. I am Consul Buddenbrook’s daughter, if you
don’t know!”

Thus she went about in the town like a little queen; and like a queen,
she was kind or cruel to her subjects, as the whim seized her.




CHAPTER III


Jean Jacques Hoffstede’s verdict on the two sons of Consul Buddenbrook
undoubtedly hit the mark.

Thomas had been marked from the cradle as a merchant and future member
of the firm. He was on the modern side of the old school which the boys
attended; an able, quick-witted, intelligent lad, always ready to laugh
when his brother Christian mimicked the masters, which he did with
uncanny facility. Christian, on the classical side, was not less gifted
than Tom, but he was less serious. His special and particular joy in
life was the imitation, in speech and manner, of a certain worthy
Marcellus Stengel, who taught drawing, singing, and some other of the
lighter branches.

This Herr Marcellus Stengel always had a round half-dozen beautifully
sharpened pencils sticking out of his pocket. He wore a red wig and
a light-brown coat that reached nearly down to his ankles; also a
choker collar that came up almost to his temples. He was quite a wit,
and loved to play with verbal distinctions, as: “You were to make a
line, my child, and what have you made? You have made a dash!” In
singing-class, his favourite lesson was “The Forest Green.” When they
sang this, some of the pupils would go outside in the corridor; and
then, when the chorus rose inside: “We ramble so gaily through field
and wood,” those outside would repeat the last word very softly, as an
echo. Once Christian Buddenbrook, his cousin Jürgen Kröger, and his
chum Andreas Gieseke, the son of the Fire Commissioner, were deputed as
echo; but when the moment came, they threw the coal-scuttle downstairs
instead, and were kept in after school by Herr Stengel in consequence.
But alas, by that time Herr Stengel had forgotten their crime. He bade
his housekeeper give them each a cup of coffee, and then dismissed them.

In truth, they were all admirable scholars, the masters who taught in
the cloisters of the old school--once a monastic foundation--under
the guidance of a kindly, snuff-taking old head. They were, to a man,
well-meaning and sweet-humoured; and they were one in the belief
that knowledge and good cheer are not mutually exclusive. The Latin
classes in the middle forms were heard by a former preacher, one Pastor
Shepherd, a tall man with brown whiskers and a twinkling eye, who joyed
extremely in the happy coincidence of his name and calling, and missed
no chance of having the boys translate the word _pastor_. His favourite
expression was “boundlessly limited”; but it was never quite clear
whether this was actually meant for a joke or not! When he wanted to
dumbfound his pupils altogether, he would draw in his lips and blow
them quickly out again, with a noise like the popping of a champagne
cork. He would go up and down with long strides in his class-room,
prophesying to one boy or another, with great vividness, the course
which his life would take. He did this avowedly with the purpose of
stimulating their imaginations; and then he would set to work seriously
on the business in hand, which was to repeat certain verses on the
rules of gender and difficult constructions. He had composed these
verses himself, with no little skill, and took much pride in declaiming
them, with great attention to rhyme and rhythm.

Thus passed Tom’s and Christian’s boyhood, with no great events to mark
its course. There was sunshine in the Buddenbrook family, and in the
office everything went famously. Only now and again there would be a
sudden storm, a trifling mishap, like the following:

Herr Stuht the tailor had made a new suit for each of the Buddenbrook
lads. Herr Stuht lived in Bell-Founders’ Street. He was a master
tailor, and his wife bought and sold old clothes, and thus moved in
the best circles of society. Herr Stuht himself had an enormous
belly, which hung down over his legs, wrapped in a flannel shirt. The
suits he made for the young Masters Buddenbrook were at the combined
cost of seventy marks; but at the boys’ request he had consented
to put them down in the bill at eighty marks and to hand them the
difference. It was just a little arrangement among themselves--not
very honourable, indeed, but then, not very uncommon either. However,
fate was unkind, and the bargain came to light. Herr Stuht was sent
for to the Consul’s office, whither he came, with a black coat over
his woollen shirt, and stood there while the Consul subjected Tom and
Christian to a severe cross-examination. His head was bowed and his
legs far apart, his manner vastly respectful. He tried to smooth things
over as much as he could for the young gentlemen, and said that what
was done was done, and he would be satisfied with the seventy marks.
But the Consul was greatly incensed by the trick. He gave it long
and serious consideration; yet finally ended by increasing the lads’
pocket-money--for was it not written: “Lead us not into temptation?”

It seemed probable that more might be expected from Thomas Buddenbrook
than from his brother Christian. He was even-tempered, and his high
spirits never crossed the bounds of discretion. Christian, on the other
hand, was inclined to be moody: guilty at times of the most extravagant
silliness, at others he would be seized by a whim which could terrify
the rest of them in the most astonishing way.

The family are at table eating dessert and conversing pleasantly the
while. Suddenly Christian turns pale and puts back on his plate the
peach into which he has just bitten. His round, deep-set eyes, above
the too-large nose, have opened wider.

“I will never eat another peach,” he says.

“Why not, Christian? What nonsense! What’s the matter?”

“Suppose I accidentally--suppose I swallowed the stone, and it stuck
in my throat, so I couldn’t breathe, and I jumped up, strangling
horribly--and all of you jump up-- Ugh...!” and he suddenly gives a
short groan, full of horror and affright, starts up in his chair, and
acts as if he were trying to escape.

The Frau Consul and Ida Jungmann actually do jump up.

“Heavens, Christian!--you haven’t swallowed it, have you?” For his
whole appearance suggests that he has.

“No,” says Christian slowly. “No”--he is gradually quieting down--“I
only mean, suppose I actually _had_ swallowed it!”

The Consul has been pale with fright, but he recovers and begins to
scold. Old Johann bangs his fist on the table and forbids any more of
these idiotic practical jokes. But Christian, for a long, long time,
eats no more peaches.




CHAPTER IV


It was not simply the weakness of age that made Madame Antoinette
Buddenbrook take to her lofty bed in the bed-chamber of the entresol,
one cold January day after they had dwelt some six years in Meng
Street. The old lady had remained hale and active, and carried her
head, with its clustering white side-curls, proudly erect to the very
last. She had gone with her husband and children to most of the large
dinners given in the town, and presided no whit less elegantly than
her daughter-in-law when the Buddenbrooks themselves entertained.
But one day an indefinable malady had suddenly made itself felt--at
first in the form of a slight intestinal catarrh, for which Dr. Grabow
prescribed a mild diet of pigeon and French bread. This had been
followed by colic and vomiting, which reduced her strength so rapidly
as to bring about an alarming decline.

Dr. Grabow held hurried speech with the Consul, outside on the landing,
and another doctor was called in consultation--a stout, black-bearded,
gloomy-looking man who began going in and out with Dr. Grabow. And now
the whole atmosphere of the house changed. They went about on their
tip-toes and spoke in whispers. The wagons were no longer allowed to
roll through the great entry-way below. They looked in each others’
eyes and saw there something strange. It was the idea of death that had
entered, and was holding silent sway in the spacious rooms.

But there was no idle watching, for visitors came: old Senator
Duchamps, the dying woman’s brother, from Hamburg, with his daughter;
and a few days later, the Consul’s sister from Frankfort and her
husband, who was a banker. The illness lasted fourteen or fifteen
days, during which the guests lived in the house, and Ida Jungmann
had her hands full attending to the bedrooms and providing heavy
breakfasts, with shrimps and port wine. Much roasting and baking went
on in the kitchen.

Upstairs, Johann Buddenbrook sat by the sick-bed, his old Netta’s limp
hand in his, and stared into space with his brows knitted and his
lower lip hanging. A clock hung on the wall and ticked dully, with
long pauses between; not so long, however, as the pauses between the
dying woman’s fluttering breaths. A black-robed sister of mercy busied
herself about the beef-tea which they still sought to make the patient
take. Now and then some member of the family would appear at the door
and disappear again.

Perhaps the old man was thinking how he had sat at the death-bed of his
first wife, forty-six years before. Perhaps he recalled his frenzy of
despair and contrasted it with the gentle melancholy which he felt now,
as an old man, gazing into the face of his old wife--a face so changed,
so listless, so void of expression. She had never given him either a
great joy or a great sorrow; but she had decorously played her part
beside him for many a long year--and now her life was ebbing away.

He was not thinking a great deal. He was only looking with fixed gaze
back into his own past life and at life in general. It all seemed to
him now quite strange and far away, and he shook his head a little.
That empty noise and bustle, in the midst of which he had once stood,
had flowed away imperceptibly and left him standing there, listening
in wonder to sounds that died upon his ear. “Strange, strange,” he
murmured.

Madame Buddenbrook breathed her last brief, effortless sigh; and they
prayed by her side in the dining-room, where the service was held;
and the bearers lifted the flower-covered coffin to carry it away.
But old Johann did not weep. He only gave the same gentle, bewildered
head-shake, and said, with the same half-smiling look: “Strange,
strange!” It became his most frequent expression. Plainly, the time for
old Johann too was near at hand.

He would sit silent and absent in the family circle; sometimes with
little Clara on his knee, to whom he would sing one of his droll
catches, like

  “The omnibus drives through the town”

or perhaps

  “Look at the blue-fly a-buzzin’ on the wall.”

But he might suddenly stop in the middle, like one aroused out of a
train of thought, put the child down on the floor, and move away, with
his little head-shake and murmur “Strange, strange!” One day he said:
“Jean--it’s about time, eh?”

It was soon afterward that neatly printed notices signed by father
and son were sent about through the town, in which Johann Buddenbrook
senior respectfully begged leave to announce that his increasing years
obliged him to give up his former business activities, and that in
consequence the firm of Johann Buddenbrook, founded by his late father
anno 1768, would as from that day be transferred, with its assets and
liabilities, to his son and former partner Johann Buddenbrook as sole
proprietor; for whom he solicited a continuance of the confidence
so widely bestowed upon him. Signed, with deep respect, Johann
Buddenbrook--who would from now on cease to append his signature to
business papers.

These announcements were no sooner sent out than the old man refused
to set foot in the office; and his apathy so increased that it took
only the most trifling cold to send him to bed, one March day two
months after the death of his wife. One night more--then came the hour
when the family gathered round his bed and he spoke to them: first
to the Consul: “Good luck, Jean, and keep your courage up!” And then
to Thomas: “Be a help to your Father, Tom!” And to Christian: “Be
something worth while!” Then he was silent, gazing at them all; and
finally, with a last murmured “Strange!” he turned his face to the
wall....

To the very end, he did not speak of Gotthold, and the latter
encountered with silence the Consul’s written summons to his father’s
death-bed. But early the next morning, before the announcements were
sent out, as the Consul was about to go into the office to attend to
some necessary business, Gotthold Buddenbrook, proprietor of the linen
firm of Siegmund Stüwing and Company, came with rapid steps through
the entry. He was forty-six years old, broad and stocky, and had thick
ash-blond whiskers streaked with grey. His short legs were cased in
baggy trousers of rough checked material. On the steps he met the
Consul, and his eyebrows went up under the brim of his grey hat.

He did not put out his hand. “Johann,” he said, in a high-pitched,
rather agreeable voice, “how is he?”

“He passed away last night,” the Consul said, with deep emotion,
grasping his brother’s hand, which held an umbrella. “The best of
fathers!”

Gotthold drew down his brows now, so low that the lids nearly closed.
After a silence, he said pointedly: “Nothing was changed up to the end?”

The Consul let his hand drop and stepped back. His round, deep-set blue
eyes flashed as he answered, “Nothing.”

Gotthold’s eyebrows went up again under his hat, and his eyes fixed
themselves on his brother with an expression of suspense.

“And what have I to expect from your sense of justice?” he asked in a
lower voice.

It was the Consul’s turn to look away. Then, without lifting his eyes,
he made that downward gesture with his hand that always betokened
decision; and in a quiet voice, but firmly, he answered:

“In this sad and solemn moment I have offered you my brotherly hand.
But if it is your intention to speak of business matters, then I can
only reply in my capacity as head of the honourable firm whose sole
proprietor I have to-day become. You can expect from me nothing that
runs counter to the duties I have to-day assumed; all other feelings
must be silent.”

Gotthold went away. But he came to the funeral, among the host of
relatives, friends, business associates, deputies, clerks, porters,
and labourers that filled the house, the stairs, and the corridors to
overflowing and assembled all the hired coaches in town in a long row
all the way down the Mengstrasse. Gotthold came, to the sincere joy of
the Consul. He even brought his wife, born Stüwing, and his three grown
daughters: Friederike and Henriette, who were too tall and thin, and
Pfiffi, who was eighteen, and too short and fat.

Pastor Kölling of St. Mary’s, a heavy man with a bullet head and
a rough manner of speaking, held the service at the grave, in the
Buddenbrook family burying-ground, outside the Castle Gate, at the
edge of the cemetery grove. He extolled the godly, temperate life of
the deceased and compared it with that of “gluttons, drunkards, and
profligates”--over which strong language some of the congregation
shook their heads, thinking of the tact and moderation of their old
Pastor Wunderlich, who had lately died. When the service and the burial
were over, and the seventy or eighty hired coaches began to roll back
to town, Gotthold Buddenbrook asked the Consul’s permission to go
with him, that they might speak together in private. He sat with his
brother on the back seat of the high, ungainly old coach, one short
leg crossed over the other--and, wonderful to relate, he was gentle
and conciliatory. He realized more and more, he said, that the Consul
was bound to act as he was doing; and he was determined to cherish
no bitter memories of his father. He renounced the claims he had put
forward, the more readily that he had decided to retire from business
and live upon his inheritance and what capital he had left; for he
had no joy of the linen business, and it was going so indifferently
that he could not bring himself to put any more money into it.... “His
spite against our Father brought him no blessing,” the Consul thought
piously. Probably Gotthold thought so too.

When they got back, he went with his brother up to the breakfast-room;
and as both gentlemen felt rather chilly, after standing so long in
their dress-coats in the early spring air, they drank a glass of old
cognac together. Then Gotthold exchanged a few courteous words with
his sister-in-law, stroked the children’s heads, and went away. But
he appeared at the next “children’s day,” which took place at the
Krögers’, outside the Castle Gate. And he began to wind up his business
at once.




CHAPTER V


It grieved the Consul sorely that the grandfather had not lived to see
the entry of his grandson into the business--an event which took place
at Easter-time of the same year.

Thomas had left school at sixteen. He was grown strong and sturdy, and
his manly clothes made him look still older. He had been confirmed,
and Pastor Kölling, in stentorian tones, had enjoined upon him to
practice the virtues of moderation. A gold chain, bequeathed him by
his grandfather, now hung about his neck, with the family arms on a
medallion at the end--a rather dismal design, showing on an irregularly
hatched surface a flat stretch of marshy country with one solitary,
leafless willow tree. The old seal ring with the green stone, once
worn, in all probability, by the well-to-do tailor in Rostock, had
descended to the Consul, together with the great Bible.

Thomas’s likeness to his grandfather was as strong as Christian’s to
his father. The firm round chin was the old man’s, and the straight,
well-chiselled nose. Thomas wore his hair parted on one side, and it
receded in two bays from his narrow veined temples. His eyelashes were
colourless by contrast, and so were the eyebrows, one of which he had
a habit of lifting expressively. His speech, his movements, even his
laugh, which showed his rather defective teeth, were all quiet and
adequate. He already looked forward seriously and eagerly to his career.

It was indeed a solemn moment when, after early breakfast, the Consul
led him down into the office and introduced him to Herr Marcus the
confidential clerk, Herr Havermann the cashier, and the rest of the
staff, with all of whom, naturally, he had long been on the best of
terms. For the first time he sat at his desk, in his own revolving
chair, absorbed in copying, stamping, and arranging papers. In the
afternoon his father took him through the magazines on the Trave, each
one of which had a special name, like the “Linden,” the “Oak,” the
“Lion,” the “Whale.” Tom was thoroughly at home in every one of them,
of course, but now for the first time he entered them to be formally
introduced as a fellow worker.

He entered upon his tasks with devotion, imitating the quiet, tenacious
industry of his father, who was working with his jaws set, and writing
down many a prayer for help in his private diary. For the Consul had
set himself the task of making good the sums paid out by the firm
on the occasion of his father’s death. It was a conception ... an
ideal.... He explained the position quite fully to his wife late one
evening in the landscape-room.

It was half-past eleven, and Mamsell Jungmann and the children were
already asleep in the corridor rooms. No one slept in the second storey
now--it was empty save for an occasional guest. The Frau Consul sat on
the yellow sofa beside her husband, and he, cigar in mouth, was reading
the financial columns of the local paper. She bent over her embroidery,
moving her lips as she counted a row of stitches with her needle. Six
candles burned in a candelabrum on the slender sewing-table beside her,
and the chandelier was unlighted.

Johann Buddenbrook was nearing the middle forties, and had visibly
altered in the last years. His little round eyes seemed to have sunk
deeper in his head, his cheek-bones and his large aquiline nose
stood out more prominently than ever, and the ash-blond hair seemed
to have been just touched with a powder-puff where it parted on the
temples. The Frau Consul was at the end of her thirties, but, while
never beautiful, was as brilliant as ever; her dead-white skin, with a
single freckle here and there, had lost none of its splendour, and the
candle-light shone on the rich red-blond hair that was as wonderfully
dressed as ever. Giving her husband a sidelong glance with her clear
blue eyes, she said:

“Jean, I wanted to ask you to consider something: if it would not
perhaps be advisable to engage a man-servant. I have just been coming
to that conclusion. When I think of my parents--”

The Consul let his paper drop on his knee and took his cigar out of his
mouth. A shrewd look came into his eyes: here was a question of money
to be paid out.

“My dear Betsy,” he said--and he spoke as deliberately as possible, to
gain time to muster his excuses--“do you think we need a man-servant?
Since my parents’ death we have kept on all three maids, not counting
Mamsell Jungmann. It seems to me--”

“Oh, but the house is so big, Jean. We can hardly get along as it is.
I say to Line, ‘Line, it’s a fearfully long time since the rooms in
the annexe were dusted’; but I don’t like to drive the girls too hard;
they have their work cut out to keep everything clean and tidy here in
the front. And a man-servant would be so useful for errands and so on.
We could find some honest man from the country, who wouldn’t expect
much.... Oh, before I forget it--Louise Möllendorpf is letting her
Anton go. I’ve seen him serve nicely at table.”

“To tell you the truth,” said the Consul, and shuffled about a little
uneasily, “it is a new idea to me. We aren’t either entertaining or
going out just now--”

“No, but we have visitors very often--for which I am not responsible,
Jean, as you know, though of course I am always glad to see them. You
have a business friend from somewhere, and you invite him to dinner.
Then he has not taken a room at a hotel, so we ask him to stop the
night. A missionary comes, and stops the week with us. Week after next,
Pastor Mathias is coming from Kannstadt. And the wages amount to so
little--”

“But they mount up, Betsy! We have four people here in the house--and
think of the pay-roll the firm has!”

“So we really can’t afford a man-servant?” the Frau Consul asked. She
smiled as she spoke, and looked at her husband with her head on one
side. “When I think of all the servants my Father and Mother had--”

“My dear Betsy! Your parents-- I really must ask you if you understand
our financial position?”

“No, Jean, I must admit I do not. I’m afraid I have only a vague idea--”

“Well, I can tell you in a few words,” the Consul said. He sat up
straight on the sofa, with one knee crossed over the other, puffed at
his cigar, knit his brows a little, and marshalled his figures with
wonderful fluency.

“To put it briefly, my Father had, before my sister’s marriage, a round
sum of nine hundred thousand marks net, not counting, of course, real
estate, and the stock and good will of the firm. Eighty thousand went
to Frankfort as dowry, and a hundred thousand to set Gotthold up in
business. That leaves seven hundred and twenty thousand. The price
of this house, reckoning off what we got for the little one in Alf
Street, and counting all the improvements and new furnishings, came to
a good hundred thousand. That brings it down to six hundred and twenty
thousand. Twenty-five thousand to Frankfort, as compensation on the
house, leaves five hundred and ninety-five thousand--which is what we
should have had at Father’s death if we hadn’t partly made up for all
these expenses through years, by a profit of some two hundred thousand
marks current. The entire capital amounted to seven hundred and
ninety-five thousand marks, of which another hundred thousand went to
Gotthold, and a few thousand marks for the minor legacies that Father
left to the Holy Ghost Hospital, the Fund for Tradesmen’s Widows, and
so on. That brings us down to around four hundred and twenty thousand,
or another hundred thousand with your own dowry. There is the position,
in round figures, aside from small fluctuations in the capital. You
see, my dear Betsy, we are not rich. And while the capital has grown
smaller, the running expenses have not; for the whole business is
established on a certain scale, which it costs about so much to
maintain. Have you followed me?”

The Consul’s wife, her needlework in her lap, nodded with some
hesitation. “Quite so, my dear Jean,” she said, though she was far from
having understood everything, least of all what these big figures had
to do with her engaging a man-servant.

The Consul puffed at his cigar till it glowed, threw back his head and
blew out the smoke, and then went on:

“You are thinking, of course, that when God calls your dear parents
unto Himself, we shall have a considerable sum to look forward to--and
so we shall. But we must not reckon too blindly on it. Your Father has
had some heavy losses, due, we all know, to your brother Justus. Justus
is certainly a charming personality, but business is not his strong
point, and he has had bad luck too. According to all accounts he has
had to pay up pretty heavily, and transactions with bankers make dear
money. Your Father has come to the rescue several times, to prevent
a smash. That sort of thing may happen again--to speak frankly, I am
afraid it will. You will forgive me, Betsy, for my plain speaking,
but you know that the style of living which is so proper and pleasing
in your Father is not at all suitable for a business man. Your Father
has nothing to do with business any more; but Justus--you know what I
mean--he isn’t very careful, is he? His ideas are too large, he is too
impulsive. And your parents aren’t saving anything. They live a lordly
life--as their circumstances permit them to.”

The Frau Consul smiled forbearingly. She well knew her husband’s
opinion of the luxurious Kröger tastes.

“That’s all,” he said, and put his cigar into the ash-receiver. “As
far as I’m concerned, I live in the hope that God will preserve my
powers unimpaired, and that by His gracious help I may succeed in
reëstablishing the firm on its old basis.... I hope you see the thing
more clearly now, Betsy?”

“Quite, quite, my dear Jean,” the Frau Consul hastened to reply; for
she had given up the man-servant, for the evening. “Shall we go to bed?
It is very late--”

A few days later, when the Consul came in to dinner in an unusually
good mood, they decided at the table to engage the Möllendorpfs’ Anton.




CHAPTER VI


“We shall put Tony into Fräulein Weichbrodt’s boarding-school,” said
the Consul. He said it with such decision that so it was.

Thomas was applying himself with talent to the business; Clara was a
thriving, lively child; and the appetite of the good Clothilde must
have pleased any heart alive. But Tony and Christian were hardly so
satisfactory. It was not only that Christian had to stop nearly every
afternoon for coffee with Herr Stengel--though even this became at
length too much for the Frau Consul, and she sent a dainty missive
to the master, summoning him to conference in Meng Street. Herr
Stengel appeared in his Sunday wig and his tallest choker, bristling
with lead-pencils like lance-heads, and they sat on the sofa in
the landscape-room, while Christian hid in the dining-room and
listened. The excellent man set out his views, with eloquence if some
embarrassment: spoke of the difference between “line” and “dash,” told
the tale of “The Forest Green” and the scuttle of coals, and made use
in every other sentence of the phrase “in consequence.” It probably
seemed to him a circumlocution suitable to the elegant surroundings
in which he found himself. After a while the Consul came and drove
Christian away. He expressed to Herr Stengel his lively regret that a
son of his should give cause for dissatisfaction. “Oh, Herr Consul, God
forbid! Buddenbrook minor has a wide-awake mind, he is a lively chap,
and in consequence-- Just a little _too_ lively, if I might say so; and
in consequence--” The Consul politely went with him through the hall
to the entry, and Herr Stengel took his leave.... Ah, no, this was far
from being the worst!

The worst, when it became known, was as follows: Young Christian
Buddenbrook had leave one evening to go to the theatre in company with
a friend. The performance was Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell; and the rôle of
Tell’s son Walter was played by a young lady, a certain Mademoiselle
Meyer-de-la-Grange. Christian’s worst, then, had to do with this young
person. She wore when on the stage, whether it suited her part or not,
a diamond brooch, which was notoriously genuine; for, as everybody
knew, it was the gift of young Consul Döhlmann--Peter Döhlmann, son
of the deceased wholesale dealer in Wall Street outside Holsten Gate.
Consul Peter, like Justus Kröger, belonged to the group of young men
whom the town called “fast.” His way of life, that is to say, was
rather loose! He had married, and had one child, a little daughter;
but he had long ago quarrelled with his wife, and he led the life
of a bachelor. His father had left him a considerable inheritance,
and he carried on the business, after a fashion; but people said
he was already living on his capital. He lived mostly at the Club
or the Rathskeller, was often to be met somewhere in the street at
four o’clock in the morning; and made frequent business trips to
Hamburg. Above all, he was a zealous patron of the drama, and took a
strong personal interest in the cast. Mademoiselle Meyer-de-la-Grange
was the latest of a line of young ladies whom he had, in the past,
distinguished by a gift of diamonds.

Well, to arrive at the point, this young lady looked so charming as
Walter Tell, wore her brooch and spoke her lines with such effect,
that Christian felt his heart swell with enthusiasm, and tears rose
to his eyes. He was moved by his transports to a course that only the
very violence of emotion could pursue. He ran during the entr’acte to
a flower-shop opposite, where, for the sum of one mark eight and a
half shillings, he got at a bargain a bunch of flowers; and then this
fourteen-year-old sprat, with his big nose and his deep-lying eyes,
took his way to the green-room, since nobody stopped him, and came upon
Fräulein Meyer-de-la-Grange, talking with Consul Peter Döhlmann at her
dressing-room door. Peter Döhlmann nearly fell over with laughing when
he saw Christian with the bouquet. But the new wooer, with a solemn
face, bowed in his best manner before Walter Tell, handed her the
bouquet, and, nodding his head, said in a voice of well-nigh tearful
conviction: “Ah, Fräulein, how _beautifully_ you act!”

“Well, hang me if it ain’t Krishan Buddenbrook!” Consul Döhlmann
cried out, in his broadest accent. Fräulein Meyer-de-la-Grange lifted
her pretty brows and asked: “The son of Consul Buddenbrook?” And she
stroked the cheek of her young admirer with all the favour in the world.

Such was the story that Consul Peter Döhlmann told at the Club that
night; it flew about the town like lightning, and reached the ears of
the head master, who asked for an audience with Consul Buddenbrook. And
how did the Father take this affair? He was, in truth, less angry than
overwhelmed. He sat almost like a broken man, after telling the Frau
Consul the story in the landscape-room.

“And this is our son,” he said. “So is he growing up--”

“But Jean! Good heavens, your Father would have laughed at it. Tell it
to my Father and Mother on Thursday--you will see how Papa will enjoy
it--”

But here the Consul rose up in anger. “Ah, yes, yes! I am sure he will
enjoy it, Betsy. He will be glad to know that his light blood and
impious desires live on, not only in a rake like Justus, his own son,
but also in a grandson of his as well! Good God, you drive me to say
these things!-- He goes to this--person; he spends his pocket-money
on flowers for this--_lorette_! I don’t say he knows what he is
doing--yet. But the inclination shows itself--it shows itself, Betsy!”

Ah, yes, this was all very painful indeed. The Consul was perhaps the
more beside himself for the added reason that Tony’s behaviour, too,
had not been of the best. She had given up, it is true, shouting at
the nervous stranger to make him dance; and she no longer rang the
doorbell of the tiny old woman who sold worsted dolls. But she threw
back her head more pertly than ever, and showed, especially after the
summer visits with her grandparents, a very strong tendency to vanity
and arrogance of spirit.

One day the Consul surprised her and Mamsell Jungmann reading together.
The book was Clauren’s “Mimili”; the Consul turned over some of the
leaves, and then silently closed it--and it was opened no more. Soon
afterward it came to light that Tony--Antonie Buddenbrook, no less
a person--had been seen walking outside the City wall with a young
student, a friend of her brother. Frau Stuht, she who moved in the best
circles, had seen the pair, and had remarked at the Möllendorpfs’,
whither she had gone to buy some cast-off clothing, that really
Mademoiselle Buddenbrook was getting to the age where-- And Frau
Senator Möllendorpf had lightly repeated the story to the Consul.
The pleasant strolls came to an end. Later it came out that Fräulein
Antonie had made a post-office of the old hollow tree that stood near
the Castle Gate, and not only posted therein letters addressed to the
same student, but received letters from him as well by that means. When
these facts came to light, they seemed to indicate the need of a more
watchful oversight over the young lady, now fifteen years old; and she
was accordingly, as we have already said, sent to boarding-school at
Fräulein Weichbrodt’s, Number seven, Millbank.




CHAPTER VII


Therese Weichbrodt was humpbacked. So humpbacked that she was not much
higher than a table. She was forty-one years old. But as she had never
put her faith in outward seeming, she dressed like an old lady of sixty
or seventy. Upon her padded grey locks rested a cap the green ribbons
of which fell down over shoulders narrow as a child’s. Nothing like an
ornament ever graced her shabby black frock--only the large oval brooch
with her mother’s miniature in it.

Little Miss Weichbrodt had shrewd, sharp brown eyes, a slightly hooked
nose, and thin lips which she could compress with extraordinary
firmness. In her whole insignificant figure, in her every movement,
there indwelt a force which was, to be sure, somewhat comic, yet
exacted respect. And her mode of speech helped to heighten the
effect. She spoke with brisk, jerky motions of the lower jaw and
quick, emphatic nods. She used no dialect, but enunciated clearly and
with precision, stressing the consonants. Vowel-sounds, however, she
exaggerated so much that she said, for instance, “botter” instead of
“butter”--or even “batter!” Her little dog that was forever yelping she
called Babby instead of Bobby. She would say to a pupil: “Don-n’t be
so stu-upid, child,” and give two quick knocks on the table with her
knuckle. It was very impressive--no doubt whatever about that! And when
Mlle. Popinet, the Frenchwoman, took too much sugar to her coffee, Miss
Weichbrodt had a way of gazing at the ceiling and drumming on the cloth
with one hand while she said: “Why not take the who-ole sugar-basin? I
would!” It always made Mlle. Popinet redden furiously.

As a child--heavens, what a tiny child she must have been!--Therese
Weichbrodt had given herself the nickname of Sesemi, and she still kept
it, even letting the best and most favoured of the day as well as of
the boarding-pupils use it. “Call me Sesemi, child,” she said on the
first day to Tony Buddenbrook, kissing her briefly, with a sound as
of a small explosion, on the forehead. “I like it.” Her elder sister,
however, Madame Kethelsen, was called Nelly.

Madame Kethelsen was about forty-eight years old. She had been left
penniless when her husband died, and now lived in a little upstairs
bedroom in her sister’s house. She dressed like Sesemi, but by contrast
was very tall. She wore woollen wristlets on her thin wrists. She was
not a mistress, and knew nothing of discipline. A sort of inoffensive
and placid cheerfulness was all her being. When one of the pupils
played a prank, she would laugh so heartily that she nearly cried,
and then Sesemi would rap on the table and call out “Nelly!” very
sharply--it sounded like “Nally”--and Madame Kethelsen would shrink
into herself and be mute.

Madame Kethelsen obeyed her younger sister, who scolded her as if she
were a child. Sesemi, in fact, despised her warmly. Therese Weichbrodt
was a well-read, almost a literary woman. She struggled endlessly to
keep her childhood faith, her religious assurance that somewhere in the
beyond she was to be recompensed for the hard, dull present. But Madame
Kethelsen, innocent, uninstructed, was all simplicity of nature. “Dear,
good Nelly, what a child she is! She never doubts or struggles, she is
always happy.” In such remarks there was always as much contempt as
envy. Contempt was a weakness of Sesemi’s--perhaps a pardonable one.

The small red-brick suburban house was surrounded by a neatly kept
garden. Its lofty ground floor was entirely taken up by schoolrooms
and dining-room; the bedrooms were in the upper storey and the attic.
Miss Weichbrodt did not have a large number of pupils. As boarders she
received only older girls, while the day-school consisted of but three
classes, the lowest ones. Sesemi took care to have only the daughters
of irreproachably refined families in her house. Tony Buddenbrook, as
we have seen, she welcomed most tenderly. She even made “bishop” for
supper--a sort of sweet red punch to be taken cold, in the making of
which she was a past mistress. “A little more beeshop,” she urged with
a hearty nod. It sounded so tempting; nobody could resist!

Fräulein Weichbrodt sat on two sofa-cushions at the top of the table
and presided over the meal with tact and discretion. She held her
stunted figure stiffly erect, tapped vigilantly on the table, cried
“Nally” or “Babby,” and subdued Mlle. Popinet with a glance whenever
the latter seemed about to take unto herself all the cold veal jelly.
Tony had been allotted a place between two other boarders, Armgard von
Schilling, the strapping blond daughter of a Mecklenburg landowner,
and Gerda Arnoldsen, whose home was in Amsterdam--an unusual, elegant
figure, with dark-red hair, brown eyes close together, and a lovely,
pale, haughty face. Opposite her sat a chattering French girl who
looked like a negress, with huge gold earrings. The lean English Miss
Brown, with her sourish smile, sat at the bottom of the table. She was
a boarder too.

It was not hard, with the help of Sesemi’s bishop, to get acquainted.
Mlle. Popinet had had nightmares again last night--_ah, quel horreur!_
She usually screamed “Help, thieves; help, thieves!” until everybody
jumped out of bed. Next, it appeared that Gerda Arnoldsen did not
take piano like the rest of them, but the violin, and that Papa--her
Mother was dead--had promised her a real Stradivarius. Tony was not
musical--hardly any of the Buddenbrooks and none of the Krögers
were. She could not even recognize the chorals they played at St.
Mary’s.--Oh, the organ in the new Church at Amsterdam had a _vox
humana_--a human voice--that was just wonderful. Armgard von Schilling
talked about the cows at home.

It was Armgard who from the earliest moment had made a great impression
on Tony. She was the first person from a noble family whom Tony had
ever known. What luck, to be called _von_ Schilling! Her own parents
had the most beautiful old house in the town, and her grandparents
belonged to the best families; still, they were called plain
Buddenbrook and Kröger--which was a pity, to be sure. The granddaughter
of the proud Lebrecht Kröger glowed with reverence for Armgard’s
noble birth. Privately, she sometimes thought that the splendid
“von” went with her better than it did with Armgard; for Armgard did
not appreciate her good luck, dear, no! She had a thick pigtail,
good-natured blue eyes, and a broad Mecklenburg accent, and went about
thinking just nothing at all on the subject. She made absolutely no
pretentions to being aristocratic; in fact, she did not know what it
was. But the word “aristocratic” stuck in Tony’s small head; and she
emphatically applied it to Gerda Arnoldsen.

Gerda was rather exclusive, and had something foreign and queer about
her. She liked to do up her splendid red hair in striking ways, despite
Sesemi’s protests. Some of the girls thought it was “silly” of her to
play the violin instead of the piano--and, be it known, “silly” was a
term of very severe condemnation. Still, the girls mostly agreed with
Tony that Gerda was aristocratic--in her figure, well-developed for her
years; in her ways, her small possessions, everything. There was the
ivory toilet set from Paris, for instance; that Tony could appreciate,
for her own parents and grandparents also had treasures which had been
brought from Paris.

The three girls soon made friends. They were in the same class and
slept together in the same large room at the top of the house. What
delightful, cosy times they had going to bed! They gossiped while they
undressed--in undertones, however, for it was ten o’clock and next door
Mlle. Popinet had gone to bed to dream of burglars. Eva Ewers slept
with her. Eva was a little Hamburger, whose father, an amateur painter
and collector, had settled in Munich.

The striped brown blinds were down, the low, red-shaded lamp burned
on the table, there was a faint smell of violets and fresh wash, and a
delicious atmosphere of laziness and dreams.

“Heavens,” said Armgard, half undressed, sitting on her bed, “how Dr.
Newmann can talk! He comes into the class and stands by the table and
tells about Racine--”

“He has a lovely high forehead,” remarked Gerda, standing before the
mirror between the windows and combing her hair by the light of two
candles.

“Oh, yes, hasn’t he?” Armgard said eagerly.

“And you are taking the course just on his account, Armgard; you gaze
at him all the time with your blue eyes, as if--”

“Are you in love with him?” asked Tony. “I can’t undo my shoe-lace;
please, Gerda. Thanks. Why don’t you marry him? He is a good match--he
will get to be a High School Professor.”

“I think you are both horrid. I’m not in love with him, and I would not
marry a teacher, anyhow. I shall marry a country gentleman.”

“A nobleman?” Tony dropped her stocking and looked thoughtfully into
Armgard’s face.

“I don’t know, yet. But he must have a large estate. Oh, girls, I just
love that sort of thing! I shall get up at five o’clock every morning,
and attend to everything....” She pulled up the bed-covers and stared
dreamily at the ceiling.

“Five hundred cows are before your mind’s eye,” said Gerda, looking at
her in the mirror.

Tony was not ready yet; but she let her head fall on the pillow, tucked
her hands behind her neck, and gazed dreamily at the ceiling in her
turn.

“Of course,” she said, “I shall marry a business man. He must have a
lot of money, so we can furnish elegantly. I owe that to my family and
the firm,” she added earnestly. “Yes, you’ll see, that’s what I shall
do.”

Gerda had finished her hair for the night and was brushing her big
white teeth, using the ivory-backed hand-mirror to see them better.

“I shall _probably_ not marry at all,” she said, speaking with some
difficulty on account of the tooth-powder. “I don’t see why I should. I
am not anxious. I’ll go back to Amsterdam and play duets with Daddy and
afterwards live with my married sister.”

“What a pity,” Tony said briskly. “What a pity! You ought to marry here
and stay here for always. Listen: you could marry one of my brothers--”

“The one with the big nose?” asked Gerda, and gave a dainty little
yawn, holding the hand-mirror before her face.

“Or the other; it doesn’t matter. You could furnish beautifully. Jacobs
could do it--the upholsterer in Fish Street. He has lovely taste. I’d
come to see you every day--”

But then there came the voice of Mlle. Popinet. It said: “Oh,
mademoiselles! Please go to bed. It is too late to get married any more
this evening!”

Sundays and holidays Tony spent in Meng Street or outside the town
with her grandparents. How lovely, when it was fine on Easter Sunday,
hunting for eggs and marzipan hares in the enormous Kröger garden!
Then there were the summer holidays at the seashore; they lived in the
Kurhouse, ate at the table-d’hôte, bathed, and went donkey-riding.
Some seasons when the Consul had business, there were long journeys.
But Christmases were best of all. There were three present-givings:
at home, at the grandparents’, and at Sesemi’s, where bishop flowed
in streams. The one at home was the grandest, for the Consul believed
in keeping the holy feast with pomp and ceremony. They gathered in
the landscape-room with due solemnity. The servants and the crowd of
poor people thronged into the pillared hall, where the Consul went
about shaking their purple hands. Then outside rose the voices of the
choir-boys from St. Mary’s in a quartette, and one’s heart beat loudly
with awe and expectation. The smell of the Christmas tree was already
coming through the crack in the great white folding doors; and the
Frau Consul took the old family Bible with the funny big letters, and
slowly read aloud the Christmas chapter; and after the choir-boys had
sung another carol, everybody joined in “O Tannenbaum” and went in
solemn procession through the hall into the great salon, hung with
tapestries that had statuary woven into them. There the tree rose to
the ceiling, decorated with white lilies, twinkling and sparkling and
pouring out light and fragrance; and the table with the presents on
it stretched from the windows to the door. Outside, the Italians with
the barrel-organ were making music in the frozen, snowy streets, and
a great hubbub came over from the Christmas market in Market Square.
All the children except little Clara stopped up to late supper in the
salon, and there were mountains of carp and stuffed turkey.

In these years Tony Buddenbrook visited two Mecklenburg estates. She
stopped for two weeks one summer with her friend Armgard, on Herr
von Schilling’s property, which lay on the coast across the bay from
Travemünde. And another time she went with Cousin Tilda to a place
where Bernard Buddenbrook was inspector. This estate was called
“Thankless,” because it did not bring in a penny’s income; but for a
summer holiday it was not to be despised.

Thus the years went on. It was, take it all in all, a happy youth for
Tony.




PART THREE




CHAPTER I


On a June afternoon, not long after five o’clock, the family were
sitting before the “portal” in the garden, where they had drunk coffee.
They had pulled the rustic furniture outside, for it was too close
in the whitewashed garden house, with its tall mirror decorated with
painted birds and its varnished folding doors, which were really not
folding doors at all and had only painted latches.

The Consul, his wife, Tony, Tom, and Clothilde sat in a half-circle
around the table, which was laid with its usual shining service.
Christian, sitting a little to one side, conned the second oration of
Cicero against Catiline. He looked unhappy. The Consul smoked his cigar
and read the _Advertiser_. His wife had let her embroidery fall into
her lap and sat smiling at little Clara; the child, with Ida Jungmann,
was looking for violets in the grass-plot. Tony, her head propped
on both hands, was deep in Hoffman’s “Serapion Brethren,” while Tom
tickled her in the back of the neck with a grass-blade, an attention
which she very wisely ignored. And Clothilde, looking thin and
old-maidish in her flowered cotton frock, was reading a story called
“Blind, Deaf, Dumb, and Still Happy.” As she read, she scraped up the
biscuit-crumbs carefully with all five fingers from the cloth and ate
them.

A few white clouds stood motionless in the slowly paling sky. The small
town garden, with its carefully laid-out paths and beds, looked gay and
tidy in the afternoon sun. The scent of the mignonette borders floated
up now and then.

“Well, Tom,” said the Consul expansively, and took the cigar out of
his mouth, “we are arranging that rye sale I told you about, with van
Henkdom and Company.”

“What is he giving?” Tom asked with interest, ceasing to tickle Tony.

“Sixty thaler for a thousand kilo--not bad, eh?”

“That’s very good.” Tom knew this was excellent business.

“Tony, your position is not _comme il faut_,” remarked the Frau Consul.
Whereat Tony, without raising her eyes from her book, took one elbow
off the table.

“Never mind,” Tony said. “She can sit how she likes, she will always
be Tony Buddenbrook. Tilda and she are certainly the beauties of the
family.”

Clothilde was astonished almost to death. “Good gracious, Tom,” she
said. It was inconceivable how she could drawl out the syllables. Tony
bore the jeer in silence. It was never any use, Tom was more than a
match for her. He could always get the last word and have the laugh
on his side. Her nostrils dilated a little, and she shrugged her
shoulders. But when the Consul’s wife began to talk of the coming dance
at the house of Consul Huneus, and let fall something about new patent
leather shoes, Tony took the other elbow off the table and displayed a
lively interest.

“You keep talking and talking,” complained Christian fretfully, “and
I’m having such a hard time. I wish I were a business man.”

“Yes, you’re always wanting something different,” said Tom. Anton came
across the garden with a card on his tray. They all looked at him
expectantly.

“Grünlich, Agent,” read the Consul. “He is from Hamburg--an agreeable
man, and well recommended, the son of a clergyman. I have business
dealings with him. There is a piece of business now.--Is it all right,
Betsy, if I ask him to come out here?”

A middle-sized man, his head thrust a little forward of his body,
carrying his hat and stick in one hand, came across the garden. He
was some two-and-thirty years old; he wore a fuzzy greenish-yellow
suit with a long-skirted coat, and grey worsted gloves. His face,
beneath the sparse light hair, was rosy and smiling; but there was an
undeniable wart on one side of his nose. His chin and upper lip were
smooth-shaven; he wore long, drooping side-whiskers, in the English
fashion, and these adornments were conspicuously golden-yellow in
colour. Even at a distance, he began making obsequious gestures with
his broad-brimmed grey hat, and as he drew near he took one last very
long step, and arrived describing a half-circle with the upper part of
his body, by this means bowing to them all at once.

“I am afraid I am disturbing the family circle,” he said in a soft
voice, with the utmost delicacy of manner. “You are conversing, you are
indulging in literary pursuits--I must really beg your pardon for my
intrusion.”

“By no means, my dear Herr Grünlich,” said the Consul. He and his sons
got up and shook hands with the stranger. “You are very welcome. I am
delighted to see you outside the office and in my family circle. Herr
Grünlich, Betsy--a friend of mine and a keen man of business. This is
my daughter Antonie, and my niece Clothilde. Thomas you know already,
and this is my second son, Christian, in High School.” Herr Grünlich
responded to each name with an inclination of the body.

“I must repeat,” he said, “that I have no desire to intrude. I came on
business. If the Herr Consul would be so good as to take a walk with
me round the gardens--” The Consul’s wife answered: “It will give us
pleasure to have you sit down with us for a little before you begin to
talk business with my husband. Do sit down.”

“A thousand thanks,” said Herr Grünlich, apparently quite flattered. He
sat down on the edge of the chair which Tom brought, laid his hat and
stick on his knees, and settled himself, running his hand over his long
beard with a little hemming and hawing, as if to say, “Well, now we’ve
got past the introduction--what next?”

The Frau Consul began the conversation. “You live in Hamburg?” she
asked, inclining her head and letting her work fall into her lap.

“Yes, Frau Consul,” responded Herr Grünlich with a fresh bow. “At
least, my house is in Hamburg, but I am on the road a good deal. My
business is very flourishing--ahem--if I may be permitted to say so.”

The Frau Consul lifted her eyebrows and made respectful motions with
her mouth, as if she were saying “Ah--indeed?”

“Ceaseless activity is a condition of my being,” added he, half turning
to the Consul. He coughed again as he noticed that Fräulein Antonie’s
glance rested upon him. She gave him, in fact, the cold, calculating
stare with which a maiden measures a strange young man--a stare which
seems always on the point of passing over into actual contempt.

“We have relatives in Hamburg,” said she, in order to be saying
something.

“The Duchamps,” explained the Consul. “The family of my late Mother.”

“Oh, yes,” Herr Grünlich hastened to say. “I have the honour of a
slight acquaintance with the family. They are very fine people, in
mind and heart. Ahem! This would be a better world if there were more
families like them in it. They have religion, benevolence, and genuine
piety; in short, they are my ideal of the true Christlike spirit. And
in them it is united to a rare degree with a brilliant cosmopolitanism,
an elegance, an aristocratic bearing, which I find most attractive,
Frau Consul.”

Tony thought: “How can he know my Father and Mother so well? He is
saying exactly what they like best to hear.” The Consul responded
approvingly, “The combination is one that is becoming in everybody.”
And the Frau Consul could not resist stretching out her hand to their
guest with her sweeping gesture, palm upward, while the bracelets gave
a little jingle. “You speak as though you read my inmost thoughts, dear
Herr Grünlich,” she said.

Upon which, Herr Grünlich made another deep bow, settled himself
again, stroked his beard, and coughed as if to say: “Well, let us get
on.”

The Frau Consul mentioned the disastrous fire which had swept Hamburg
in May of the year 1842. “Yes, indeed,” said Herr Grünlich, “truly a
fearful misfortune. A distressing visitation. The loss amounted to one
hundred and thirty-five millions, at a rough estimate. I am grateful to
Providence that I came off without any loss whatever. The fire raged
chiefly in the parishes of St. Peter and St. Nicholas.--What a charming
garden!” he interrupted himself, taking the cigar which the Consul
offered. “It is so large for a town garden, and the beds of colour
are magnificent. I confess my weakness for flowers, and for nature in
general. Those climbing roses over there trim up the garden uncommonly
well.” He went on, praising the refinement of the location, praising
the town itself, praising the Consul’s cigar. He had a pleasant word
for each member of the circle.

“May I venture to inquire what you are reading, Fräulein Antonie?” he
said smiling.

Tony drew her brows together sharply at this, for some reason, and
answered without looking at him, “Hoffmann’s ‘Serapion Brethren.’”

“Really! He is a wonderful writer, is he not? Ah, pardon me--I forget
the name of your younger son, Frau Consul?”

“Christian.”

“A beautiful name. If I may so express myself”--here he turned again
to the Consul--“I like best the names which show that the bearer is a
Christian. The name of Johann, I know, is hereditary in your family--a
name which always recalls the beloved disciple. My own name--if I may
be permitted to mention it,” he continued, waxing eloquent, “is that of
most of my forefathers--Bendix. It can only be regarded as a shortened
form of Benedict. And you, Herr Buddenbrook, are reading--? ah, Cicero.
The works of this great Roman orator make pretty difficult reading, eh?
‘Quousque tandem--Catalina’ ... ahem. Oh, I have not forgotten quite
all my Latin.”

“I disagree with my late Father on this point,” the Consul said. “I
have always objected to the perpetual occupation of young heads with
Greek and Latin. When there are so many other important subjects,
necessary as a preparation for the practical affairs of life--”

“You take the words out of my mouth,” Herr Grünlich hastened to say.
“It is hard reading, and not by any means always unexceptionable--I
forgot to mention that point. Everything else aside, I can recall
passages that were positively offensive--”

There came a pause, and Tony thought “Now it’s my turn.” Herr Grünlich
had turned his gaze upon her. And, sure enough: he suddenly started in
his chair, made a spasmodic but always highly elegant gesture toward
the Frau Consul, and whispered ardently, “Pray look, Frau Consul, I
beg of you.--Fräulein, I implore you,” he interrupted himself aloud,
just as if Tony could not hear the rest of what he said, “to keep in
that same position for just a moment. Do you see,” he began whispering
again, “how the sunshine is playing in your daughter’s hair? Never,”
he said solemnly, as if transported, speaking to nobody in particular,
“have I seen more beautiful hair.” It was as if he were addressing his
remarks to God or to his own soul.

The Consul’s wife smiled, well pleased. The Consul said, “Don’t be
putting notions into the girl’s head.” And again Tony drew her brows
together without speaking. After a short pause, Herr Grünlich got up.

“But I won’t disturb you any longer now--no, Frau Consul, I refuse to
disturb you any longer,” he repeated. “I only came on business, but I
could not resist--indeed, who could resist you? Now duty calls. May I
ask the Consul--”

“I hope I do not need to assure you that it would give us pleasure if
you would let us put you up while you are here,” said the Frau Consul.
Herr Grünlich appeared for the moment struck dumb with gratitude.
“From my soul I am grateful, Frau Consul,” he said, and his look was
indeed eloquent with emotion. “But I must not abuse your kindness. I
have a couple of rooms at the City of Hamburg--”

“A _couple_ of rooms,” thought the Frau Consul--which was just what
Herr Grünlich meant her to think.

“And, in any case,” he said, as she offered her hand cordially, “I
hope we have not seen each other for the last time.” He kissed her
hand, waited a moment for Antonie to extend hers--which she did not
do--described another half-circle with his upper torso, made a long
step backward and another bow, threw back his head and put his hat on
with a flourish, then walked away in company with the Consul.

“A pleasant man,” the Father said later, when he came back and took his
place again.

“I think he’s silly,” Tony permitted herself to remark with some
emphasis.

“Tony! Heavens and earth, what an idea!” said the Consul’s wife,
displeased. “Such a Christian young man!”

“So well brought up, and so cosmopolitan,” went on the Consul. “You
don’t know what you are talking about.” He and his wife had a way of
taking each other’s side like this, out of sheer politeness. It made
them the more likely to agree.

Christian wrinkled up his long nose and said, “He was so important.
‘You are conversing’--when we weren’t at all. And the roses over there
‘trim things up uncommonly.’ He acted some of the time as if he were
talking to himself. ‘I am disturbing you’--‘I beg pardon’--‘I have
never seen more beautiful hair.’” Christian mocked Herr Grünlich so
cleverly that they all had to laugh, even the Consul.

“Yes, he gave himself too many airs,” Tony went on. “He talked the
whole time about himself--_his_ business is good, and _he_ is fond
of nature, and _he_ likes such-and-such names, and _his_ name is
Bendix--what is all that to us, I’d like to know? Everything he said
was just to spread himself.” Her voice was growing louder all the time
with vexation. “He said all the very things you like to hear, Mamma and
Papa, and he said them just to make a fine impression on you both.”

“That is no reproach, Tony,” the Consul said sternly. “Everybody puts
his best foot foremost before strangers. We all take care to say what
will be pleasant to hear. That is a commonplace.”

“I think he is a good man,” Clothilde pronounced with drawling
serenity--she was the only person in the circle about whom Herr
Grünlich had not troubled himself at all. Thomas refrained from giving
an opinion.

“Enough,” concluded the Consul. “He is a capable, cultured, and
energetic Christian man, and you, Tony, should try to bridle your
tongue--a great girl of eighteen or nineteen years old, like you!
And after he was so polite and gallant to you, too. We are all weak
creatures; and you, let me say, are one of the last to have a right to
throw stones. Tom, we’ll get to work.”

Pert little Tony muttered to herself “A golden goat’s beard!” and
scowled as before.




CHAPTER II


Tony, coming back from a walk some days later, met Herr Grünlich at
the corner of Meng Street. “I was most grieved to have missed you,
Fräulein,” he said. “I took the liberty of paying my respects to your
Mother the other day, and I regretted your absence more than I can say.
How delightful that I should meet you like this!”

Fräulein Buddenbrook had paused as he began to speak; but her half-shut
eyes looked no further up than the height of Herr Grünlich’s chest. On
her lips rested the mocking, merciless smile with which a young girl
measures and rejects a man. Her lips moved--what should she say? It
must be something that would demolish this Herr Bendix Grünlich once
and for all--simply annihilate him. It must be clever, witty, and
effective, must at one and the same time wound him to the quick and
impress him tremendously.

“The pleasure is not mutual, Herr Grünlich,” said she, keeping her gaze
meanwhile levelled at his chest. And after she had shot this poisoned
arrow, she left him standing there and went home, her head in the air,
her face red with pride in her own powers of repartee--to learn that
Herr Grünlich had been invited to dinner next Sunday.

And he came. He came in a not quite new-fashioned, rather wrinkled,
but still handsome bell-shaped frock-coat which gave him a solid,
respectable look. He was rosy and smiling, his scant hair carefully
parted, his whiskers curled and scented. He ate a ragout of shell-fish,
julienne soup, fried soles, roast veal with creamed potatoes and
cauliflower, maraschino pudding, and pumpernickel with roquefort; and
he found a fresh and delicate compliment for each fresh course. Over
the sweet he lifted his dessert-spoon, gazed at one of the tapestry
statues, and spoke aloud to himself, thus: “God forgive me, I have
eaten far too well already. But this pudding--! It is _too_ wonderful!
I must beg my good hostess for another slice.” And he looked roguishly
at the Consul’s wife. With the Consul he talked business and politics,
and spoke soundly and weightily. He discussed the theatre and the
fashions with the Frau Consul, and he had a good word for Tom and
Christian and Clothilde, and even for little Clara and Ida Jungmann.
Tony sat in silence, and he did not undertake to engage her; only
gazing at her now and then, with his head a little tilted, his face
looking dejected and encouraged by turns.

When Herr Grünlich took his leave that evening, he had only
strengthened the impressions left by his first visit. “A thoroughly
well-bred man,” said the Frau Consul. “An estimable Christian
gentleman” was the Consul’s opinion. Christian imitated his speech and
actions even better than before; and Tony said her good nights to them
all with a frowning brow, for something told her that she had not yet
seen the last of this gentleman who had won the hearts of her parents
with such astonishing ease and rapidity.

And, sure enough, coming back one afternoon from a visit with some
girl friends, she found Herr Grünlich cosily established in the
landscape-room, reading aloud to the Frau Consul out of Sir Walter
Scott’s “Waverly.” His pronunciation was perfect, for, as he explained,
his business trips had taken him to England. Tony sat down apart with
another book, and Herr Grünlich softly questioned: “Our book is not to
your taste, Fräulein?” To which she replied, with her head in the air,
something in a sarcastic vein, like “Not in the very least.”

But he was not taken aback. He began to talk about his long-dead
parents and communicated the fact that his father had been a
clergyman, a Christian, and at the same time a highly cosmopolitan
gentleman.--After this visit, he departed for Hamburg. Tony was
not there when he called to take leave. “Ida,” she said to Mamsell
Jungmann, “Ida, the man has gone.” But Mamsell Jungmann only replied,
“You’ll see, child.”

And eight days later, in fact, came that scene in the breakfast room.
Tony came down at nine o’clock and found her father and mother still at
table. She let her forehead be kissed and sat down, fresh and hungry,
her eyes still red with sleep, and helped herself to sugar, butter, and
herb cheese.

“How nice to find you still here, for once, Papa,” she said as she held
her egg in her napkin and opened it with her spoon.

“But to-day I have been waiting for our slug-a-bed,” said the Consul.
He was smoking and tapping on the table with his folded newspaper. His
wife finished her breakfast with her slow, graceful motions, and leaned
back in the sofa.

“Tilda is already busy in the kitchen,” went on the Consul, “and I
should have been long since at work myself, if your Mother and I had
not been speaking seriously about a matter that concerns our little
daughter.”

Tony, her mouth full of bread and butter, looked first at her father
and then her mother, with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

“Eat your breakfast, my child,” said the Frau Consul. But Tony laid
down her knife and cried, “Out with it quickly, Papa--please.” Her
father only answered: “Eat your breakfast first.”

So Tony drank her coffee and ate her egg and bread and cheese silently,
her appetite quite gone. She began to guess. The fresh morning bloom
disappeared from her cheek, and she even grew a little pale. She said
“Thank you” for the honey, and soon after announced in a subdued voice
that she had finished.

“My dear child,” said the Consul, “the matter we desire to talk over
with you is contained in this letter.” He was tapping the table now
with a big blue envelope instead of the newspaper. “To be brief:
Bendix Grünlich, whom we have learned, during his short stay here, to
regard as a good and a charming man, writes to me that he has conceived
a strong inclination for our daughter, and he here makes a request in
form for her hand. What does my child say?”

Tony was leaning back in her seat, her head bent, her right hand slowly
twirling the silver napkin-ring round and round. But suddenly she
looked up, and her eyes had grown quite dark with tears. She said, her
voice full of distress: “What does this man want of me? What have I
done to him?” And she burst into weeping.

The Consul shot a glance at his wife and then regarded his empty cup,
embarrassed.

“Tony dear,” said the Frau Consul gently, “why this--_échauffement_?
You know quite well your parents can only desire your good. And they
cannot counsel you to reject forthwith the position offered you. I know
you feel so far no particular inclination for Herr Grünlich, but that
will come; I assure you it comes, with time. Such a young thing as you
is never sure what she wants. The mind is as confused as the heart. One
must just give the heart time--and keep the mind open to the advice of
experienced people who think and plan only for our good.”

“I don’t know him the least little bit,” Tony said in a dejected
tone, wiping her eyes on the little white batiste serviette, stained
with egg. “All I know is, he has a yellow beard, like a goat’s, and a
flourishing business--” Her upper lip, trembling on the verge of tears,
had an expression that was indescribably touching.

With a movement of sudden tenderness the Consul jerked his chair nearer
hers and stroked her hair, smiling.

“My little Tony, what should you like to know of him? You are still a
very young girl, you know. You would know him no better if he had been
here for fifty-two weeks instead of four. You are a child, with no eyes
yet for the world, and you must trust other people who mean well by
you.”

“I don’t understand--I don’t understand,” Tony sobbed helplessly, and
put down her head as a kitten does beneath the hand that strokes it.
“He comes here and says something pleasant to everybody, and then
goes away again; and then he writes to you that he--that I--I don’t
understand. What made him? What have I done to him?”

The Consul smiled again. “You said that once before, Tony; and it
illustrates so well your childish way of reasoning. My little daughter
must not feel that people mean to urge or torment her. We can consider
it all very quietly; in fact, we must consider it all very quietly
and calmly, for it is a very serious matter. Meanwhile I will write
an answer to Herr Grünlich’s letter, without either consenting or
refusing. There is much to be thought of.--Well, is that agreed? What
do you say?--And now Papa can go back to his work, can’t he?--Adieu,
Betsy.”

“Au revoir, dear Jean.”

“Do take a little more honey, Tony,” said the Frau Consul to her
daughter, who sat in her place motionless, with her head bent. “One
must eat.”

Tony’s tears gradually dried. Her head felt hot and heavy with her
thoughts. Good gracious, what a business! She had always known,
of course, that she should one day marry, and be the wife of a
business man, and embark upon a solid and advantageous married life,
commensurate with the position of the family and the firm. But
suddenly, for the first time in her life, somebody, some actual person,
in serious earnest, wanted to marry her. How did people act? To her,
her, Tony Buddenbrook, were now applicable all those tremendous words
and phrases which she had hitherto met with only in books: her “hand,”
her “consent,” “as long as life shall last!” Goodness gracious, what a
step to take, all at once!

“And you, Mamma? Do you too advise me to--to--to yield my consent?”
She hesitated a little before the “yield my consent.” It sounded
high-flown and awkward. But then, this was the first occasion in
her life that was worthy of fine language. She began to blush for
her earlier lack of self-control. It seemed to her now not less
unreasonable than it had ten minutes ago that she should marry Herr
Grünlich; but the dignity of her situation began to fill her with a
sense of importance which was satisfying indeed.

“_I_ advise you to accept, my child? Has Papa advised you to do so?
He has only not advised you not to, that is all. It would be very
irresponsible of either of us to do that. The connection offered you is
a very good one, my dear Tony. You would go to Hamburg on an excellent
footing and live there in great style.”

Tony sat motionless. She was having a sort of vision of silk portières,
like those in grandfather’s salon. And, as Madame Grünlich, should she
drink morning chocolate? She thought it would not be seemly to ask.

“As your Father says, you have time to consider,” the Frau Consul
continued. “But we are obliged to tell you that such an offer does
not come every day, that it would make your fortune, and that it is
exactly the marriage which duty and vocation prescribe. This, my child,
it is my business to tell you. You know yourself that the path which
opens before you to-day is the prescribed one which your life ought to
follow.”

“Yes,” Tony said thoughtfully. She was well aware of her
responsibilities toward the family and the firm, and she was proud of
them. She was saturated with her family history--she, Tony Buddenbrook,
who, as the daughter of Consul Buddenbrook, went about the town like a
little queen, before whom Matthiesen the porter took off his hat and
made a low bow! The Rostock tailor had been very well off, to begin
with; but since his time, the family fortunes had advanced by leaps and
bounds. It was her vocation to enhance the brilliance of family and
firm in her allotted way, by making a rich and aristocratic marriage.
To the same end, Tom worked in the office. Yes, the marriage was
undoubtedly precisely the right one. But--but-- She saw him before her,
saw his gold-yellow whiskers, his rosy, smiling face, the wart on his
nose, his mincing walk. She could feel his woolly suit, hear his soft
voice....

“I felt sure,” the Consul’s wife said, “that we were accessible to
quiet reason. Have we perhaps already made up our mind?”

“Oh, goodness, _no_!” cried Tony, suddenly. She uttered the “Oh” with
an outburst of irritation. “What nonsense! Why should I marry him?
I have always made fun of him. I never did anything else. I can’t
understand how he can possibly endure me. The man must have some sort
of pride in his bones!” She began to drip honey upon a slice of bread.




CHAPTER III


This year the Buddenbrooks took no holiday during Christian’s and
Clara’s vacation. The Consul said he was too busy; but it was Tony’s
unsettled affair as well, that kept them lingering in Mengstrasse.
A very diplomatic letter, written by the Consul himself, had been
dispatched to Herr Grünlich; but the progress of the wooing was
hindered by Tony’s obstinacy. She expressed herself in the most
childish way. “Heaven forbid, Mamma,” she would say. “I simply can’t
en_dure_ him!” with tremendous emphasis on the second syllable. Or she
would explain solemnly, “Father” (Tony never otherwise said anything
but “Papa”), “I can never yield him my consent.”

And at this point the matter would assuredly have stuck, had it not
been for events that occurred some ten days after the talk in the
breakfast-room--in other words, about the middle of July.

It was afternoon--a hot blue afternoon. The Frau Consul was out, and
Tony sat with a book alone at the window of the landscape-room, when
Anton brought her a card. Before she had time to read the name, a young
man in a bell-skirted coat and pea-green pantaloons entered the room.
It was, of course, Herr Grünlich, with an expression of imploring
tenderness upon his face.

Tony started up indignantly and made a movement to flee into the next
room. How could one possibly talk to a man who had proposed for one’s
hand? Her heart was in her throat and she had gone very pale. While
he had been at a safe distance she had hugely enjoyed the solemn
conferences with her Father and Mother and the suddenly enhanced
importance of her own person and destiny. But now, here he was--he
stood before her. What was going to happen? And again she felt that she
was going to weep.

At a rapid stride, his head tipped on one side, his arms outstretched,
with the air of a man who says: “Here I am, kill me if you will!” he
approached. “What a providence!” he cried. “I find you here, Antonie--”
(He said “Antonie”!)

Tony stood erect, her novel in her right hand. She stuck out her lips
and gave her head a series of little jerks upward, relieving her
irritation by stressing, in that manner, each word as she spoke it.
She got out “What is the matter with you?”--But the tears were already
rising. And Herr Grünlich’s own excitement was too great for him to
realize the check.

“How could I wait longer? Was I not driven to return?” he said in
impassioned tones. “A week ago I had your Father’s letter, which filled
me with hope. I could bear it no longer. Could I thus linger on in
half-certainty? I threw myself into a carriage, I hastened hither, I
have taken a couple of rooms at the City of Hamburg--and here I am,
Antonie, to hear from your lips the final word which will make me
happier than I can express.”

Tony was stunned. Her tears retreated abashed. This, then, was the
effect of her Father’s careful letter, which had indefinitely postponed
the decision. Two or three times she stammered: “You are mistaken--you
are mistaken.”

Herr Grünlich had drawn an arm-chair close to her seat in the window.
He sat down, he obliged her to sit as well, and, bowing over her
hand, which, limp with indecision, she resigned to him, he went on
in a trembling voice: “Fräulein Antonie, since first I saw you, that
afternoon,--do you remember that afternoon, when I saw you, a vision of
loveliness, in your own family circle?--Since then, your name has been
indelibly written on my heart.” He went back, corrected himself, and
said “graven”: “Since that day, Fräulein Antonie, it has been my only,
my most ardent wish, to win your beautiful hand. What your Father’s
letter permitted me only to hope, that I implore you to confirm to
me now in all certainty. I may feel sure of your consent--I may be
assured of it?” He took her other hand in his and looked deep into her
wide-open, frightened eyes. He had left off his worsted gloves to-day,
and his hands were long and white, marked with blue veins. Tony stared
at his pink face, at his wart, at his eyes, which were as blue as a
goose’s.

“Oh, no, no,” she broke out, rapidly, in terror. And then she added,
“No, I will never yield my consent.” She took great pains to speak
firmly, but she was already in tears.

“How have I deserved this doubt and hesitation?” he asked in a lower,
well-nigh reproachful tone. “I know you are a maiden cherished and
sheltered by the most loving care. But I swear to you, I pledge you my
word of honour as a man, that I would carry you in my arms, that as
my wife you would lack nothing, that you would live in Hamburg a life
altogether worthy of you--”

Tony sprang up. She freed her hand and, with the tears rolling down her
cheeks, cried out in desperation, “No, no! I said _no_! I am refusing
you--for heaven’s sake, can’t you understand?” Then Herr Grünlich rose
up too. He took one backward step and stretched out his arms toward
her, palms up. Seriously, like a man of honour and resolution, he spoke.

“Mademoiselle Buddenbrook, you understand that I cannot permit myself
to be insulted?”

“But I am not insulting you, Herr Grünlich,” said Tony, repenting her
brusqueness. Oh, dear, oh dear, _why_ did all this have to happen to
her? Such a wooing as this she had never imagined. She had supposed
that one only had to say: “Your offer does me great honour, but I
cannot accept it,” and that would be an end of the matter. “Your offer
does me great honour,” she said, as calmly as she could, “but I cannot
accept it. And now I must go; please excuse me--I am busy--” But Herr
Grünlich stood in front of her.

“You reject me?” he said gloomily.

“Yes,” Tony said; adding with tact, “unfortunately.”

Herr Grünlich gave a gusty sigh. He took two big steps backward, bent
his torso to one side, pointed with his forefinger to the carpet and
said in an awful voice: “Antonie!” Thus for the space of a moment
they stood, he in a posture of commanding rage, Tony pale, weepy, and
trembling, her damp handkerchief to her mouth. Then he turned from her
and, with his hands on his back, measured the room twice through, as if
he were at home. He paused at the window and looked out into the early
dusk. Tony moved cautiously toward the glass doors, but she got only as
far as the middle of the room when he stood beside her again.

“Tony!” he murmured, and gently took her hand. Then he sank, yes, he
sank slowly upon his knees beside her! His two gold whiskers lay across
her hand!

“Tony!” he repeated. “You behold me here--you see to what you have
brought me. Have you a heart to feel what I endure? Listen. You behold
a man condemned to death, devoted to destruction, a man who--who will
certainly die of grief,” he interrupted himself, “if you scorn his
love. Here I lie. Can you find it in your heart to say: ‘I despise
you’?”

“No, no,” Tony said quickly in a consoling tone. Her tears were
conquered, pity stirred. Heavens, how he must adore her, to go on
like that, while she herself felt completely indifferent! Was it to
her, Tony Buddenbrook, that all this was happening? One read of it
in the novels. But here in real life was a man in a frock-coat, on
his knees in front of her, weeping, imploring. The idea of marrying
him was simply idiotic, because she had found him silly; but just at
this moment he did not seem silly; heavens, no! Honourable, upright,
desperate entreaty were in his voice and face.

“No, no,” she repeated, bending over him quite touched. “I don’t
despise you, Herr Grünlich. How can you say such a thing? Do get
up--please do!”

“Then you will not kill me?” he asked again; and she answered, in a
consoling, almost motherly tone, “No, no.”

“That is a promise!” he cried, springing to his feet. But when
he saw Tony’s frightened face he got down again and went on in a
wheedling tone: “Good, good, say no more, Antonie. Enough, for this
time. We shall speak of this again. No more now--farewell. I will
return--farewell!” He had got quickly to his feet. He took his broad
grey hat from the table, kissed her hand, and was out through the glass
doors in a twinkling.

Tony saw him take his stick from the hall and disappear down the
corridor. She stood, bewildered and worn out, in the middle of the
room, with the damp handkerchief in one of her limp hands.




CHAPTER IV


Consul Buddenbrook said to his wife: “If I thought Tony had a motive in
refusing this match-- But she is a child, Betsy. She enjoys going to
balls and being courted by the young fellows; she is quite aware that
she is pretty and from a good family. Of course, it is possible that
she is consciously or unconsciously seeking a mate herself--but I know
the child, and I feel sure she has never yet found her heart, as the
saying goes. If you asked her, she would turn this way and that way,
and consider--but she would find nobody. She is a child, a little bird,
a hoyden. Directly she once says yes, she will find her place. She will
have _carte blanche_ to set herself up, and she will love her husband,
after a few days. He is no beau, God knows. But he is perfectly
presentable. One mustn’t ask for five legs on a sheep, as we say in
business. If she waits for somebody to come along who is an Adonis and
a good match to boot--well, God bless us, Tony Buddenbrook could always
find a husband, but it’s a risk, after all. Every day is fishing-day,
but not every day catching-day, to use another homely phrase--.
Yesterday I had a long talk with Grünlich. He is a most constant wooer.
He showed me all his books. They are good enough to frame. I told
him I was completely satisfied. The business is young, but in fine
condition--assets must be somewhere about a hundred and twenty thousand
thaler, and that is obviously only the situation at the moment, for he
makes a good slice every year. I asked the Duchamps. What they said
doesn’t sound at all bad. They don’t know his connections, but he lives
like a gentleman, mingles in society, and his business is known to be
expanding. And some other people in Hamburg have told me things--a
banker named Kesselmeyer, for instance--that I feel pleased with. In
short, as you know, Betsy, I can only wish for the consummation of
this match, which would be highly advantageous for the family and
the firm. I am heartily sorry the child feels so pressed. She hardly
speaks at all, and acts as if she were in a state of siege. But I can’t
bring myself to refuse him out and out. You know, Betsy, there is
another thing I can’t emphasize often enough: in these last years we
haven’t been doing any too brilliantly. Not that there’s anything to
complain of. Oh, no. Faithful work always finds its reward. Business
goes quietly on--but a bit too quietly for me. And it only does that
because I am eternally vigilant. We haven’t perceptibly advanced since
Father was taken away. The times aren’t good for merchants. No, our
prospects are not too bright. Our daughter is in a position to make a
marriage that would undoubtedly be honourable and advantageous; she is
of an age to marry, and she ought to do it. Delay isn’t advisable--it
isn’t advisable, Betsy. Speak to her again. I said all I could, this
afternoon.”

Tony was besieged, as the Consul said. She no longer said no--but she
could not bring herself to say yes. She could not wring a “yes” out of
herself--God knew why; she did not.

Meanwhile, first her Father would draw her aside and speak seriously,
and then her Mother would take up the tale, both pressing for a
decision. Uncle Gotthold and family were not brought into the affair;
their attitude toward the Mengstrasse was not exactly sympathetic. But
Sesemi Weichbrodt got wind of it and came to give good advice, with
correct enunciation. Even Mademoiselle Jungmann said, “Tony, my little
one, why should you worry? You will always be in the best society.”
And Tony could not pay a visit to the admired silken salon outside the
Castle Gate without getting a dose from old Madame Kröger: “À propos,
little one, I hear there is an affair! I hope you are going to listen
to reason, child.”

One Sunday, as she sat in St. Mary’s with her parents and brothers,
Pastor Kölling began preaching from the text about the wife leaving
father and mother and cleaving only to her husband. His language was
so violent that she began listening with a jump, staring up to see
if he were looking at her. No, thank goodness, his head was turned
in the other direction, and he seemed to be preaching in general to
all the faithful. Still, it was plain that this was a new attack upon
her,--every word struck home. A young, a still childish girl, he
said, could have as yet no will and no wisdom; and if she set herself
up against the loving advice of her parents she was as deserving of
punishment as the guilty are; she was one of those whom the Lord spews
out of his mouth. With this phrase, which the kind Pastor Kölling
adored, she encountered a piercing glance from his eyes, as he made
a threatening gesture with his right arm. Tony saw how her Father,
sitting next to her, raised his hand, as though he would say, “Not so
hard.” But it was perfectly plain that either he or her Mother had let
the Pastor into the secret. Tony crouched in her place with her face
like fire, and felt the eyes of all the world upon her. Next Sunday she
flatly refused to go to church.

She moved dumbly about the house, she laughed no more, she lost her
appetite. Sometimes she gave such heart-breaking sighs as would move
a stone to pity. She was growing thinner too, and would soon lose her
freshness. It would not do. At length the Consul said:

“This cannot go on, Betsy. We must not ill-use the child. She must
get away a bit, to rest and be able to think quietly. You’ll see she
will listen to reason then. I can’t leave, and the holidays are almost
over. But there is no need for us to go. Yesterday old Schwarzkopf from
Travemünde was here, and I spoke to him. He said he would be glad to
take the child for a while. I’d give them something for it. She would
have a good home, where she could bathe and be in the fresh air and
get clear in her mind. Tom can take her--so it’s all arranged. Better
to-morrow than day after.”

Tony was much pleased with this idea. True, she hardly ever saw Herr
Grünlich, but she knew he was in town, in touch with her parents. Any
day he might appear before her and begin shrieking and importuning. She
would feel safer at Travemünde, in a strange house. So she packed her
trunk with alacrity, and on one of the last days in July she mounted
with Tom into the majestic Kröger equipage. She said good-bye in the
best of spirits; and breathed more freely as they drove out of the
Castle Gate.




CHAPTER V


The road to Travemünde first crosses the ferry and then goes straight
ahead. The grey high-road glided away under the hoofs of Lebrecht
Kröger’s fat brown Mecklenburgs. The sound of their trotting was hollow
and rhythmical, the sun burned hot, and dust concealed the meagre view.
The family had eaten at one o’clock, an hour earlier than usual, and
the brother and sister set out punctually at two. They would arrive
shortly after four; for what a hired carriage could do in three hours,
the Kröger pair were mettlesome enough to make in two.

Tony sat half asleep, nodding under her broad straw hat and her
lace-trimmed parasol, which she held tipped back against the hood of
the chaise. The parasol was twine-grey, with cream-coloured lace, and
matched her neat, simply cut frock. She reclined in the luxurious ease
proper to the equipage, with her feet, in their white stockings and
strap shoes, daintily crossed before her.

Tom was already twenty years old. He wore an extremely well-cut blue
suit, and sat smoking Russian cigarettes, with his hat on the back of
his head. He was not very tall; but already he boasted a considerable
moustache, darker in tone than his brows and eyelashes. He had one
eyebrow lifted a trifle--a habit with him--and sat looking at the dust
and the trees that fled away behind them as the carriage rolled on.

Tony said: “I was never so glad to come to Travemünde before--for
various reasons. You needn’t laugh, Tom. I wish I could leave a certain
pair of yellow mutton-chops even further behind! And then, it will
be an entirely different Travemünde at the Schwarzkopfs’, on the sea
front. I shan’t be bothered with the Kurhouse society, I can tell you
that much. I am not in the mood for it. Besides, that--that man could
come there too as well as not. He has nerve enough--it wouldn’t trouble
him at all. Some day he’d be bobbing up in front of me and putting on
all his airs and graces.”

Tom threw away the stub of his cigarette and took a fresh one out of
the box, a pretty little affair with an inlaid picture inside the lid,
of an overturned troika being set upon by wolves. It was a present
from a Russian customer of the Consul. The cigarettes, those biting
little trifles with the yellow mouthpiece, were Tom’s passion. He
smoked quantities of them, and had the bad habit of inhaling the smoke,
breathing it slowly out again as he talked.

“Yes,” he said. “As far as that goes, the garden of the Kurhouse
is alive with Hamburgers. Consul Fritsche, who has bought it, is a
Hamburger himself. He must be doing a wonderful business now, Papa
says. But you’ll miss something if you don’t take part in it a bit.
Peter Döhlmann is there--he never stops in town this time of year.
His business goes on at a jog-trot, all by itself, I suppose. Funny!
Well--and Uncle Justus comes out for a little on a Sunday, of course,
to visit the roulette table. Then there are the Möllendorpfs and the
Kistenmakers, I suppose, in full strength, and the Hagenströms--”

“H’m. Yes, of course. They couldn’t get on without Sarah Semlinger!”

“Her name is Laura, my child. Let us be accurate.”

“And Julchen with her, of course. Julchen ought to get engaged to
August Möllendorpf this summer--and she will do it, too. After all,
they belong together. Disgusting, isn’t it, Tom? This adventurer’s
family--”

“Yes, but good heavens, they are the firm of Strunck and Hagenström.
That is the point.”

“Naturally, they make the firm. Of course. And everybody knows _how_
they do it. With their _elbows_. Pushing and shoving--entirely without
courtesy or elegance. Grandfather said that Heinrich Hagenström could
coin money out of paving-stones. Those were his very words.”

“Yes, yes, that is exactly it. It is money talks. And this match is
perfectly good business. Julchen will be a Möllendorpf, and August will
get a snug position--”

“Oh, you just want to make me angry, Tom, that’s all. You know how I
despise that lot.”

Tom began to laugh. “Goodness, one has to get along with them,” he
replied. “As Papa said the other day, they are the coming people; while
the Möllendorpfs, for example-- And one can’t deny that the Hagenströms
are clever. Hermann is already useful in the business, and Moritz is
very able. He finished school brilliantly, in spite of his weak chest;
and he is going to study law.”

“That’s all very well, Tom, but all the same I am glad there are
families that don’t have to knuckle down to them. For instance, we
Buddenbrooks--”

“Oh,” Tom said, “don’t let’s begin to boast. Every family has its own
skeleton,” he went on in a lower voice, with a glance at Jock’s broad
back. “For instance, God knows what state Uncle Julius’ affairs are in.
Papa shakes his head when he speaks of him, and Grandfather Kröger has
had to come forward once or twice with large sums, I hear. The cousins
aren’t just the thing, either. Jürgen wants to study, but he still
hasn’t come up for his finals; and they are not very well satisfied
with Jacob, at Dalbeck and Company. He is always in debt, even with a
good allowance, and when Uncle Justus refuses to send any more, Aunt
Rosalie does-- No, I find it doesn’t do to throw stones. If you want to
balance the scale with the Hagenströms, you’d better marry Grünlich.”

“Did we get into this wagon to discuss that subject?--Oh, yes, I
suppose you’re right. I ought to marry him--but I won’t think about it
now! I want to forget it. We are going to the Schwarzkopfs’. I’ve never
seen them to know them: are they nice people?”

“Oh, old Diederich Schwarzkopf--he’s not such a bad old chap. Doesn’t
speak such atrocious dialect, unless he’s had more than five glasses
of grog. Once he was at the office, and we went together to the Ships’
Company. He drank like a tank. His father was born on a Norwegian
freighter and grew up to be captain on the very same line. Diederich
has had a good education; the pilot command is a responsible office,
and pretty well paid. Diederich is an old bear--but very gallant with
the ladies. Look out: he’ll flirt with you.”

“Ah--well, and his wife?”

“I don’t know her, myself. She must be nice, I should think. There is
a son, too. He was in first or second, in my time at school, and is a
student now, I expect. Look, there’s the sea. We shall be there inside
a quarter of an hour.”

They drove for a while along the shore on an avenue bordered with young
beech-trees. There was the water, blue and peaceful in the sunshine;
the round yellow light-house tower came into view, then the bay and
the breakwater, the red roofs of the little town, the harbour with
its sails, tackle, and shipping. They drove between the first houses,
passed the church, and rolled along the front close to the water and up
to a pretty little house, the verandah of which was overhung with vines.

Pilot-Captain Schwarzkopf stood before his door and took off his
seaman’s cap as the calèche drove up. He was a broad, stocky man with
a red face, sea-blue eyes, and a bristling grizzled beard that ran
fan-shaped from one ear to the other. His mouth turned down at the
corners, in one of which he held a wooden pipe. His smooth-shaven,
red upper lip was hard and prominent; he looked thoroughly solid and
respectable, with big bones and well-rounded paunch; and he wore a coat
decorated with gold braid, underneath which a white piqué waistcoat was
visible.

“Servant, Mademoiselle,” he said, as he carefully lifted Tony from
the calèche. “We know it’s an honour you do us, coming to stop with
us like this. Servant, Herr Buddenbrook. Papa well? And the honoured
Frau Consul? Come in, come in! My wife has some sort of a bite ready,
I suppose. Drive over to Peddersen’s Inn,” he said in his broadest
dialect to the coachman, who was carrying in the trunk. “You’ll find
they take good care of the horses there.” Then, turning to Thomas,
“you’ll stop the night with us, Herr Buddenbrook? Oh, yes, you must.
The horses want a bait and a rest, and you wouldn’t get home until
after dark.”

“Upon my word, one lives at least as well here as at the Kurhouse,”
Tony said a quarter of an hour later, as they sat around the
coffee-table in the verandah. “What wonderful air! You can smell the
sea-weed from here. How frightfully glad I am to be in Travemünde
again!”

Between the vine-clad columns of the verandah one could look out on the
broad river-mouths, glittering in the sun; there were the piers and the
boats, and the ferry-house on the “Prival” opposite, the projecting
peninsula of Mecklenburg.-- The clumsy, blue-bordered cups on the table
were almost like basins. How different from the delicate old porcelain
at home! But there was a bunch of flowers at Tony’s place, the food
looked inviting, and the drive had whetted her appetite.

“Yes, Mademoiselle will see, she will pick up here fast enough,” the
housewife said. “She looks a little poorly, if I might say so. That is
the town air, and the parties.”

Frau Schwarzkopf was the daughter of a Schlutup pastor. She was a head
shorter than Tony, rather thin, and looked to be about fifty. Her hair
was still black, and neatly dressed in a large-meshed net. She wore
a dark brown dress with white crocheted collar and cuffs. She was
spotless, gentle, and hospitable, urging upon her guests the currant
bread that lay in a boat-shaped basket surrounded by cream, butter,
sugar, and honeycomb. This basket had a border of bead-work embroidery,
done by little Meta, the eight-year-old daughter, who now sat next her
mother, dressed in a plaid frock, her flaxen hair in a thick pigtail.

Frau Schwarzkopf made excuses for Tony’s room, whither she had already
been to make herself tidy after the journey. It was so very simple--

“Oh, all the better,” Tony said. It had a view of the ocean, which was
the main thing. And she dipped her fourth piece of currant bread into
her coffee. Tom talked with the pilot-captain about the _Wullenwewer_,
now undergoing repairs in the town.

There came suddenly into the verandah a young man of some twenty years.
He took off his grey felt hat, blushed, and bowed rather awkwardly.

“Well, my son,” said Herr Schwarzkopf, “you are late.” He presented him
to the guests: “This is my son, studying to be a doctor. He is spending
his vacation with us.” He had mentioned the young man’s name, but Tony
failed to understand it.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Tony, primly. Tom rose and shook hands.
Young Schwarzkopf bowed again, put down his book, and took his place at
the table, blushing afresh. He was of medium height, very slender, and
as fair as he could possibly be. His youthful moustaches, colourless
as the hair which covered his long head, were scarcely visible; and he
had a complexion to match, a tint like translucent porcelain, which
grew pink on the slightest provocation. His eyes, slightly darker than
his father’s, had the same not very animated but good-natured quizzical
expression; and his features were regular and rather pleasing. When he
began to eat he displayed unusually regular teeth, glistening in close
ranks of polished ivory. For the rest, he wore a grey jacket buttoned
up, with flaps on the pockets, and an elastic belt at the back.

“Yes, I am sorry I am late,” he said. His speech was somewhat slow and
grating. “I was reading on the beach, and did not look soon enough at
my watch.” Then he ate silently, looking up now and then to glance at
Tom and Tony.

Later on, Tony being again urged by the housewife to take something,
he said, “You can rely on the honey, Fräulein Buddenbrook; it is a pure
nature product--one knows what one is eating. You must eat, you know.
The air here consumes one--it accelerates the process of metabolism. If
you do not eat well, you will get thin.” He had a pleasant, naïve, way
of now and then bending forward as he spoke and looking at some other
person than the one whom he addressed.

His mother listened to him tenderly and watched Tony’s face to see the
impression he made. But old Schwarzkopf said, “Now, now, Herr Doctor.
Don’t be blowing off about your metabolism--_we_ don’t know anything
about that sort of talk.” Whereupon the young man laughed, blushed
again, and looked at Tony’s plate.

The pilot-captain mentioned more than once his son’s Christian name,
but Tony could never quite catch what it was. It sounded like Moor--or
Mort; but the Father’s broad, flat pronunciation was impossible to
understand.

They finished their meal. Herr Diederich sat blinking in the sun, his
coat flung wide open over his white waistcoat, and he and his son took
out their short pipes. Tom smoked his cigarettes, and the young people
began a lively conversation, the subject of which was their old school
and all the old school recollections. Tony took part gaily. They quoted
Herr Stengel: “What! You were to make a line, and what are you making?
A dash!” What a pity Christian was not here! he could imitate him so
much better.

Once Tom pointed to the flowers at Tony’s place and said to his sister:
“That trims things up uncommonly well, as Herr Grünlich would say!”
Whereat Tony, red with anger, gave him a push and darted an embarrassed
glance at young Schwarzkopf.

The coffee-hour had been unusually late, and they had prolonged it. It
was already half-past six, and twilight was beginning to descend over
the Prival, when the captain got up.

“The company will excuse me,” he said; “I’ve some work down at the
pilot-house. We’ll have supper at eight o’clock, if that suits the
young folk. Or even a little later to-night, eh, Meta? And you” (here
he used his son’s name again), “don’t be lolling about here. Just go
and dig up your bones again. Fräulein Buddenbrook will want to unpack.
Or perhaps the guests would like to go down on the beach. Only don’t
get in the way.”

“Diederich, for pity’s sake, why shouldn’t he sit still a bit?” Frau
Schwarzkopf said, with mild reproach. “And if our guests like to go
down on the beach, why shouldn’t he go along? Is he to see nothing at
all of our visitors?”




CHAPTER VI


In her neat little room with the flower-covered furniture, Tony woke
next morning with the fresh, happy feeling which one has at the
beginning of a new chapter. She sat up in bed and, with her hands
clasped round her knees and her tousled head flung back, blinked at the
stream of light that poured through the closed shutters into the room.
She began to sort out the experiences of the previous day.

Her thoughts scarcely touched upon the Grünlich affair. The town, his
hateful apparition in the landscape-room, the exhortations of her
family and Pastor Kölling--all that lay far behind her. Here, every
morning, there would be a care-free waking. These Schwarzkopfs were
splendid people. Last night there had been pineapple punch, and they
had made part of a happy family circle. It had been very jolly. Herr
Schwarzkopf had told his best sea tales, and young Schwarzkopf stories
about student life at Göttingen. How odd it was, that she still did not
know his first name! And she had strained her ear to hear too, but even
at dinner she did not succeed, and somehow it did not seem proper to
ask. She tried feverishly to think how it sounded--was it Moor--Mord--?
Anyhow, she had liked him pretty well, this young Moor or Mord. He had
such a sly, good-natured laugh when he asked for the water and called
it by letters and numbers, so that his father got quite furious. But
it was only the scientific formula for water--that is, for ordinary
water, for the Travemünde product was a much more complicated affair,
of course. Why, one could find a jelly-fish in it, any time! The
authorities, of course, might have what notions they chose about fresh
water. For this he only got another scolding from his father, for
speaking slightingly of the authorities. But Frau Schwarzkopf watched
Tony all the time, to see how much she admired the young man--and
really, it was most interesting, he was so learned and so jolly, all
at the same time. He had given her considerable attention. She had
complained that her head felt hot, while eating, and that she must
have too much blood. What had he replied? He had given her a careful
scrutiny, and then said, Yes, the arteries in the temples might be
full; but that did not prove that she had too much blood. Perhaps,
instead, it meant she had too little--or rather, that there were too
few red corpuscles in it. In fact, she was perhaps a little anæmic.

The cuckoo sprang out of his carven house on the wall and cuckooed
several times, clear and loud. “Seven, eight, nine,” counted Tony.
“Up with you!” She jumped out of bed and opened the blinds. The sky
was partly overcast, but the sun was visible. She looked out over the
Leuchtenfeld with its tower, to the ruffled sea beyond. On the right it
was bounded by the curve of the Mecklenburg coast; but before her it
stretched on and on till its blue and green streaks mingled with the
misty horizon. “I’ll bathe afterwards,” she thought, “but first I’ll
eat a big breakfast, so as not to be consumed by my metabolism.” She
washed and dressed with quick, eager movements.

It was shortly after half-past nine when she left her room. The door
of the chamber in which Tom had slept stood open; he had risen early
and driven back to town. Even up here in the upper storey, it smelled
of coffee--that seemed to be the characteristic odour of the little
house, for it grew stronger as she descended the simple staircase
with its plain board baluster and went down the corridor, where lay
the living-room, which was also the dining-room and the office of
the pilot-captain. She went out into the verandah, looking, in her
white piqué frock, perfectly fresh, and in the gayest of tempers.
Frau Schwarzkopf sat with her son at the table. It was already partly
cleared away, and the housewife wore a blue-checked kitchen apron over
her brown frock. A key-basket stood beside her.

“A thousand pardons for not waiting,” she said, as she stood up. “We
simple folk rise early. There is so much to be done! Schwarzkopf is in
his office. I hope you don’t take it ill?”

Tony excused herself in her turn. “You must not think I always sleep
so late as this,” she said. “I feel very guilty. But the punch last
night--”

The young man began to laugh. He stood behind the table with his short
pipe in his hand and a newspaper before him.

“Good morning,” Tony said. “Yes, it is your fault. You kept urging me.
Now I deserve only cold coffee. I ought to have had breakfast and a
bathe as well, by this time.”

“Oh, no, that would be rather too early, for a young lady. At seven
o’clock the water was rather cold--eleven degrees. That’s pretty sharp,
after a warm bed.”

“How do you know I wanted a warm bath, monsieur?” and Tony sat down
beside Frau Schwarzkopf. “Oh, you have kept the coffee hot for me, Frau
Schwarzkopf! But I will pour it out myself, thank you so much.”

The housewife looked on as her guest began to eat. “Fräulein slept
well, the first night? The mattress, dear knows, is only stuffed with
sea-weed--we are simple folk! And now, good appetite, and a good
morning. You will surely find many friends on the beach. If you like,
my son shall bear you company. Pardon me for not sitting longer, but I
must look after the dinner. The joint is in the oven. We will feed you
as well as we can.”

“I shall stick to the honeycomb,” Tony said when the two were alone.
“You know what you are getting.”

Young Schwarzkopf laid his pipe on the verandah rail.

“But please smoke. I don’t mind it at all. At home, when I come down
to breakfast, Papa’s cigar-smoke is already in the room. Tell me,” she
said suddenly. “Is it true that an egg is as good as a quarter of a
pound of meat?”

He grew red all over. “Are you making fun of me?” he asked, partly
laughing but partly vexed. “I got another wigging from my Father last
night for what he calls my silly professional airs.”

“No, really, I was asking because I wanted to know.” Tony stopped
eating in consternation. “How could anybody call them airs? I should
be so glad to learn something. I’m such a goose, you see. At Sesemi
Weichbrodt’s I was always one of the very laziest. I’m sure you know
a great deal.” Inwardly her thoughts ran: “Everybody puts his best
foot foremost, before strangers. We all take care to say what will be
pleasant to hear--that is a commonplace....”

“Well, you see they are the same thing, in a way. The chemical
constituents of food-stuffs--” And so on, while Tony breakfasted. Next
they talked about Tony’s boarding-school days, and Sesemi Weichbrodt,
and Gerda Arnoldsen, who had gone back to Amsterdam, and Armgard von
Schelling, whose home, a large white house, could be seen from the
beach here, at least in clear weather. Tony finished eating, wiped her
mouth, and asked, pointing to the paper, “Is there any news?” Young
Schwarzkopf shook his head and laughed cynically.

“Oh, no. What would there be? You know these little provincial
news-sheets are wretched affairs.”

“Oh, are they? Papa and Mamma always take it in.”

He reddened again. “Oh, well, you see I always read it, too. Because
I can’t get anything else. But it is not very thrilling to hear that
So-and-So, the merchant prince, is about to celebrate his silver
wedding. Yes, you laugh. But you ought to read other papers--the
_Königsberg Gazette_, for instance, or the _Rhenish Gazette_. You’d
find a different story there, entirely. There it’s what the King of
Prussia says.”

“What does he say?”

“Well--er--I really couldn’t repeat it to a lady.” He got red again.
“He expressed himself rather strongly on the subject of this same
press,” he went on with another cynical laugh, which, for a moment,
made a painful impression on Tony. “The press, you know, doesn’t feel
any too friendly toward the government or the nobility or the parsons
and junkers. It knows pretty well how to lead the censor by the nose.”

“Well, and you? Aren’t you any too friendly with the nobility, either?”

“I?” he asked, and looked very embarrassed. Tony rose.

“Shall we talk about this again another time?” she suggested. “Suppose
I go down to the beach now. Look, the sky is blue nearly all over. It
won’t rain any more. I am simply longing to jump into the water. Will
you go down with me?”




CHAPTER VII


She had put on her big straw hat, and she raised her sunshade; for it
was very hot, though there was a little seabreeze. Young Schwarzkopf,
in his grey felt, book in hand, walked beside her and sometimes gave
her a shy side-glance. They went along the front and walked through the
garden of the Kurhouse, which lay there in the sun shadeless and still,
with its rose-bushes and pebbly paths. The music pavilion, hidden among
pine trees, stood opposite the Kurhouse, the pastry-cook’s, and the two
Swiss cottages, which were connected by a long gallery. It was about
half-past eleven, and the hotel guests were probably down on the beach.

They crossed the playground, where there were many benches and a large
swing, passed close to the building where one took the hot baths, and
strolled slowly across the Leuchtenfeld. The sun brooded over the
grass, and there rose up a spicy smell from the warm weeds and clover;
blue-bottle flies buzzed and droned about. A dull, booming roar came
up from the ocean, whose waters now and then lifted a crested head of
spray in the distance.

“What is that you are reading?” Tony asked. The young man took the book
in both hands and ran it quickly through, from cover to cover.

“Oh, that is nothing for you, Fräulein Buddenbrook. Nothing but blood
and entrails and such awful things. This part treats of nodes in
the lungs. What we call pulmonary catarrh. The lungs get filled up
with a watery fluid. It is a very dangerous condition, and occurs in
inflammation of the lungs. In bad cases, the patient simply chokes
to death. And that is all described with perfect coolness, from a
scientific point of view.”

“Oh, horrors! But if one wants to be a doctor--I will see that you
become our family physician, when old Grabow retires. You’ll see!”

“Ha, ha! And what are you reading, if I may ask, Fräulein Buddenbrook?”

“Do you know Hoffmann?” Tony asked.

“About the choir-master, and the gold pot? Yes, that’s very pretty. But
it is more for ladies. Men want something different, you know.”

“I must ask you one thing,” Tony said, taking a sudden resolution,
after they had gone a few steps. “And that is, do, I beg of you, tell
me your first name. I haven’t been able to understand it a single time
I’ve heard it, and it is making me dreadfully nervous. I’ve simply been
racking my brains--I have, quite.”

“You have been racking your brains?”

“Now don’t make it worse--I’m sure it couldn’t have been proper for me
to ask, only I’m naturally curious. There’s really no reason whatever
why I should know.”

“Why, my name is Morten,” said he, and became redder than ever.

“Morten? That is a nice name.”

“Oh--_nice_!”

“Yes, indeed. At least, it’s prettier than to be called something like
Hinz, or Kunz. It is unusual; it sounds foreign.”

“You are romantic, Fräulein Buddenbrook. You have read too much
Hoffmann. My grandfather was half Norwegian, and I was named after him.
That is all there is to it.”

Tony picked her way through the rushes on the edge of the beach. In
front of them was a row of round-topped wooden pavilions, and beyond
they could see the basket-chairs at the water’s edge and people camped
by families on the warm sand--ladies with blue sun-spectacles and books
out of the loan-library; gentlemen in light suits idly drawing pictures
in the sand with their walking-sticks; sun-burnt children in enormous
straw hats, tumbling about, shovelling sand, digging for water, baking
with wooden moulds, paddling bare-legged in the shallow pools,
floating little ships. To the right, the wooden bathing-pavilion ran
out into the water.

“We are going straight across to Möllendorpf’s pier,” said Tony. “Let’s
turn off.”

“Certainly; but don’t you want to meet your friends? I can sit down
yonder on those boulders.”

“Well, I suppose I ought to just greet them. But I don’t want to, you
know. I came here to be in peace and quiet.”

“Peace? From what?”

“Why--from--from--”

“Listen, Fräulein Buddenbrook. I must ask you something. No, I’ll wait
till another day--till we have more time. Now I will say au revoir and
go and sit down there on the rocks.”

“Don’t you want me to introduce you, then?” Tony asked, importantly.

“Oh, no,” Morten said, hastily. “Thanks, but I don’t fit very well with
those people, you see. I’ll just sit down over there on the rocks.”

It was a rather large company which Tony was approaching while Morten
Schwarzkopf betook himself to the great heap of boulders on the
right, near to the bathing-house and washed by the waves. The party
was encamped before the Möllendorpfs’ pier, and was composed of the
Möllendorpf, Hagenström, Kistenmaker, and Fritsche families. Except for
Herr Fritsche, the owner, from Hamburg, and Peter Döhlmann, the idler,
the group consisted of women, for it was a week-day, and most of the
men were in their offices. Consul Fritsche, an elderly, smooth-shaven
gentleman with a distinguished face, was up on the open pier, busy with
a telescope, which he trained upon a sailboat visible in the distance.
Peter Döhlmann, with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a beard with a
nautical cut, stood chatting with the ladies perched on camp-stools or
stretched out on rugs on the sand. There were Frau Senator Möllendorpf,
born Langhals, with her long-handled lorgnon and untidy grey hair;
Frau Hagenström, with Julchen, who had not grown much, but already
wore diamonds in her ears, like her mother; Frau Consul Kistenmaker
and her daughters; and Frau Consul Fritsche, a wrinkled little lady in
a cap, who performed the duties of hospitality at the bath and went
about perpetually hot and tired, thinking only about balls and routs
and raffles, children’s parties and sailboat excursions. At a little
distance sat her paid companion.

Kistenmaker and Son was the new firm of wine-merchants which had, in
the last few years, managed to put C. F. Köppen rather in the shade.
The two sons, Edouard and Stephan, worked in their father’s office.
Consul Döhlmann possessed none of those graces of manner upon which
Justus Kröger laid such stress. He was an idler pure and simple, whose
special characteristic was a sort of rough good humour. He could and
did take a good many liberties in society, being quite aware that his
loud, brusque voice and bluff ways caused the ladies to set him down as
an original. Once at a dinner at the Buddenbrooks, when a course failed
to come in promptly and the guests grew dull and the hostess flustered,
he came to the rescue and put them into a good humour by bellowing in
his big voice the whole length of the table: “Please don’t wait for
me, Frau Consul!” Just now, in this same reverberating voice, he was
relating questionable anecdotes seasoned with low-German idioms. Frau
Senator Möllendorpf, in paroxysms of laughter, was crying out over and
over again: “Stop, Herr Döhlmann, stop! for heaven’s sake, don’t tell
any more.”

They greeted Tony--the Hagenströms coldly, the others with great
cordiality. Consul Fritsche even came down the steps of the pier, for
he hoped that the Buddenbrooks would return next year to swell the
population of the baths.

“Yours to command, Fräulein Buddenbrook,” said Consul Döhlmann, with
his very best pronunciation; for he was aware that Mademoiselle did not
especially care for his manners.

“Mademoiselle Buddenbrook!”

“You here?”

“How lovely!”

“When did you come?”

“What a sweet frock!”

“Where are you stopping?”

“At the Schwarzkopfs’?”

“With the pilot-captain? How original!”

“How _frightfully_ original.”

“You are stopping in the town?” asked Consul Fritsche, the owner of the
baths. He did not betray that he felt the blow.

“Will you come to our next assembly?” his wife asked.

“Oh, you are only here for a short time?”--this from another lady.

“Don’t you think, darling, the Buddenbrooks rather give themselves
airs?” Frau Hagenström whispered to Frau Senator Möllendorpf.

“Have you been in yet?” somebody asked. “Which of the rest of you
hasn’t bathed yet, young ladies? Marie? Julie, Louise? Your friends
will go bathing with you, of course, Fräulein Antonie.” Some of the
young girls rose, and Peter Döhlmann insisted on accompanying them up
the beach.

“Do you remember how we used to go back and forth to school together?”
Tony asked Julie Hagenström.

“Yes, and you were always the one that got into mischief,” Julie said,
joining in her laugh. They went across the beach on a foot-bridge made
of a few boards, and reached the bathhouse. As they passed the boulders
where Morten Schwarzkopf sat, Tony nodded to him from a distance, and
somebody asked, “who is that you are bowing to, Tony?”

“That was young Schwarzkopf,” Tony answered. “He walked down here with
me.”

“The son of the pilot-captain?” Julchen asked, and peered across at
Morten with her staring black eyes. He on his side watched the gay
troop with rather a melancholy air. Tony said in a loud voice: “What a
pity August is not here. It must be stupid on the beach.”




CHAPTER VIII


And now began for Tony Buddenbrook a stretch of beautiful summer
weeks, briefer, lovelier, than any she had ever spent in Travemünde.
She bloomed as she felt her burden no longer upon her; her gay,
pert, careless manner had come back. The Consul looked at her with
satisfaction when he came on Sundays with Tom and Christian. On those
days they ate at the table-d’hôte, sat under the awnings at the
pastry-cook’s, drinking coffee and listening to the band, and peeped
into the roulette-room at the gay folk there, like Justus Kröger and
Peter Döhlmann. The Consul himself never played. Tony sunned herself,
took baths, ate sausages with ginger-nut sauce, and took long walks
with Morten. They went out on the high-road to the next village, or
along the beach to the “ocean temple” on its height, whence a wide view
was to be had over land and sea; or to the woods behind the Kurhouse,
where was a great bell used to call the guests to the table-d’hôte.
Sometimes they rowed across the Trave to the Prival, to look for amber.

Morten made an entertaining companion, though his opinions were often
dogmatic, not to say heated. He had a severe and righteous judgment for
everything, and he expressed it with finality, blushing all the time.
It saddened Tony to hear him call the nobility idiots and wretches and
to see the contemptuous if awkward gesture that accompanied the words.
She scolded him, but she was proud to have him express so freely in
her presence the views and opinions which she knew he concealed from
his parents. Once he confided in her: “I’ll tell you something: I’ve a
skeleton in my room at Göttingen--a whole set of bones, you know, held
together by wire. I’ve put an old policeman’s uniform on it. Ha, ha!
Isn’t that great? But don’t say anything to my Father about it.”

Tony was naturally often in the society of her town friends, or drawn
into some assembly or boating party. Then Morten “sat on the rocks.”
And after their first day this phrase became a convenient one. To “sit
on the rocks” meant to feel bored and lonely. When a rainy day came and
a grey mist covered the sea far and wide till it was one with the deep
sky; when the beach was drenched and the roads streaming with wet, Tony
would say: “To-day we shall both have to sit on the rocks--that is, in
the verandah or sitting-room. There is nothing left to do but for you
to play me some of your student songs, Morten--even if they do bore me
horribly.”

“Yes,” Morten said, “come and sit down. But you know that when you are
here, there are no rocks!” He never said such things when his father
was present. His mother he did not mind.

“Well, what now?” asked the pilot-captain, as Tony and Morten both rose
from table and were about to take their leave. “Where are the young
folk off to?”

“I was going to take a little walk with Fräulein Antonie, as far as the
temple.”

“Oh, is that it? Well, my son Filius, what do you say to going up to
your room and conning over your nerves? You’ll lose everything out of
your head before you get back to Göttingen.”

But Frau Schwarzkopf would intervene: “Now, Diederich, aren’t these his
holidays? Why shouldn’t he take a walk? Is he to have nothing of our
visitor?” So Morten went.

They paced along the beach close to the water, on the smooth, hard
sand that made walking easy. It was strewn with common tiny white
mussel-shells, and others too, pale opalescent and longish in shape;
yellow-green wet sea-weed with hollow round fruit that snapped when
you squeezed it; and pale, translucent, reddish-yellow jelly-fish,
which were poisonous and burned your leg when you touched one bathing.

“I used to be frightfully stupid, you know,” Tony said. “I wanted
the bright star out of the jelly-fish, so I brought a lot home in
my pocket-handkerchief and put them on the balcony, to dry in the
sunshine. When I looked at them again, of course there was just a big
wet spot that smelled of sea-weed.”

The waves whispered rhythmically beside them as they walked, and the
salt wind blew full in their faces, streaming over and about them,
closing their ears to other sounds and causing a pleasant slight
giddiness. They walked in this hushed, whispering peacefulness by the
sea, whose every faint murmur, near or far, seemed to have a deep
significance.

To their left was a precipitous cliff of lime and boulders, with
jutting corners that came into view as they rounded the bay. When
the beach was too stony to go on, they began to climb, and continued
upward through the wood until they reached the temple. It was a round
pavilion, built of rough timbers and boards, the inside of which was
covered with scribbled inscriptions and poetry, carved hearts and
initials. Tony and Morten seated themselves in one of the little rooms
facing the sea; it smelled of wood, like the cabins at the bathhouse.
It was very quiet, even solemn, up here at this hour of the afternoon.
A pair of birds chattered, and the faint rustling of the leaves mingled
with the sound of the sea spread out below them. In the distance they
could see the rigging of a ship. Sheltered now from the wind that had
been thrumming at their ears, they suddenly experienced a quiet, almost
pensive mood.

Tony said, “Is it coming or going?”

“What?” asked Morten, his subdued voice sounding as if he were coming
back from a far distance. “Oh--going-- That is the _Burgermeister
Steenbock_, for Russia.” He added after a pause: “I shouldn’t like to
be going with it. It must be worse there than here.”

“Now,” Tony said, “you are going to begin again on the nobility. I see
it in your face. And it’s not at all nice of you. Tell me, did you ever
know a single one of them?”

“No!” Morten shouted, quite insulted. “Thank God, no.”

“Well, there, then, I have--Armgard von Schilling over there, that I
told you about. She was much better-natured than either of us; she
hardly knew she was a _von_--she ate sausage-meat and talked about her
cows.”

“Oh, of course. There are naturally exceptions. Listen, Fräulein
Tony. You are a woman, you see, so you take everything personally.
You happen to know a single member of the nobility, and you say she
is a good creature--certainly! But one does not need to know any of
them to be able to judge them all. It is a question of the principle,
you understand--of--the organization of the state. You can’t answer
that, can you? They need only to be born to be the pick of everything,
and look down on all the rest of us. While we, however hard we
strive, cannot climb to their level.” Morten spoke with a naïve,
honest irritation. He tried to fit his speech with gestures, then
perceived that they were awkward, and gave it up. But he was in the
vein to talk, and he went on, sitting bent forward, with his thumb
between the buttons of his jacket, a defiant expression in his usually
good-natured eyes. “We, the bourgeoisie--the Third Estate, as we have
been called--we recognize only that nobility which consists of merit;
we refuse to admit any longer the rights of the indolent aristocracy,
we repudiate the class distinctions of the present day, we desire that
all men should be free and equal, that no person shall be subject to
another, but all subject to the law. There shall be no more privilege
and arbitrary rule. All shall be sovereign children of the state; and
as no middlemen exist any longer between the people and almighty God,
so shall the citizen stand in direct relation to the State. We will
have freedom of the press, of trade and industry, so that all men,
without distinction, shall be able to strive together and receive their
reward according to their merit. We are enslaved, muzzled!--What was
it I wanted to say? Oh, yes! Four years ago they renewed the laws of
the Confederation touching the universities and the press. Fine laws
they are! No truth may be written or taught which might not agree
with the established order of things. Do you understand? The truth is
suppressed--forbidden to be spoken. Why? For the sake of an obsolete,
idiotic, decadent class which everybody knows will be destroyed some
day, anyhow. I do not think you can comprehend such meanness. It is the
stupid, brutal application of force, the immediate physical strength
of the police, without the slightest understanding of new, spiritual
forces. And apart from all that, there is the final fact of the great
wrong the King of Prussia has done us. In 1813, when the French were in
the country, he called us together and promised us a Constitution. We
came to the rescue, we freed Germany from the invader--”

Tony, chin in hand, stole a look at him and wondered for a moment if he
could have actually helped to drive out Napoleon.

“--but do you think he kept his promise? Oh, no! The present king is
a fine orator, a dreamer; a romantic, like you, Fräulein Tony. But
I’ll tell you something: take any general principle or conception of
life. It always happens that, directly it has been found wanting and
discarded by the poets and philosophers, there comes along a King to
whom it is a perfectly new idea, and who makes it a guiding principle.
That is what kings are like. It is not only that kings are men--they
are even very distinctly average men; they are always a good way in the
rear. Oh, yes, Germany is just like a students’ society; it had its
brave and spirited youth at the time of the great revolution, but now
it is just a lot of fretful Philistines.”

“Ye--es,” Tony said. “But let me ask you this: Why are you so
interested in Prussia? You aren’t a Prussian.”

“Oh, it is all the same thing, Fräulein Buddenbrook. Yes, I said
Fräulein Buddenbrook on purpose, I ought even to have said Demoiselle
Buddenbrook, and given you your entire title. Are the men here freer,
more brotherly, more equal than in Prussia? Conventions, classes,
aristocracy, here as there. You have sympathy for the nobility. Shall
I tell you why? Because you belong to it yourself. Yes, yes, didn’t
you know it? Your father is a great gentleman, and you are a princess.
There is a gulf between you and us, because we do not belong to your
circle of ruling families. You can walk on the beach with one of us for
the sake of your health, but when you get back into your own class,
then the rest of us can go and sit on the rocks.” His voice had grown
quite strangely excited.

“Morten,” said Tony, sadly. “You have been angry all the time, then,
when you were sitting on the rocks! And I always begged you to come and
be introduced.”

“Now you are taking the affair personally again, like a young lady,
Fräulein Tony, I’m only speaking of the principle. I say that there
is no more fellowship of humanity with us than in Prussia.--And even
if I were speaking personally,” he went on, after a little pause,
with a softer tone, out of which, however, the strange excitement had
not disappeared, “I shouldn’t be speaking of the present, but rather,
perhaps, of the future. When you as Madame So-and-So finally vanish
into your proper sphere, one is left to sit on the rocks all the rest
of one’s life.”

He was silent, and Tony too. She did not look at him, but in the other
direction, at the wooden partition. There was an uneasy stillness for
some time.

“Do you remember,” Morten began again, “I once said to you that there
was a question I wanted to ask you? Yes, I have wanted to know, since
the first afternoon you came. Don’t guess. You couldn’t guess what I
mean. I am going to ask you another time; there is no hurry; it has
really nothing to do with me; it is only curiosity. No, to-day I will
only show you one thing. Look.” He drew out of the pocket of his jacket
the end of a narrow gaily-striped ribbon, and looked with a mixture of
expectation and triumph into Tony’s eyes.

“How pretty,” she said uncomprehendingly. “What is it?”

Morten spoke solemnly: “That means that I belong to a students’
fraternity in Göttingen.--Now you know. I have a cap in the same
colours, but my skeleton in the policeman’s uniform is wearing it
for the holidays. I couldn’t be seen with it here, you understand. I
can count on your saying nothing, can’t I? Because it would be very
unfortunate if my father were to hear of it.”

“Not a word, Morten. You can rely on me. But I don’t understand--have
you all taken a vow against the nobility? What is it you want?”

“We want freedom,” Morten said.

“Freedom?” she asked.

“Yes, freedom, you know--_Freedom!_” he repeated; and he made a vague,
awkward, fervent gesture outward and downward, not toward the side
where the coast of Mecklenburg narrowed the bay, but in the direction
of the open sea, whose rippling blue, green, yellow, and grey stripes
rolled as far as eye could see out to the misty horizon.

Tony followed his gesture with her eye; they sat, their hands lying
close together on the bench, and looked into the distance. Thus they
remained in silence a long time, while the sea sent up to them its soft
enchanting whispers.... Tony suddenly felt herself one with Morten in a
great, vague yearning comprehension of this portentous something which
he called “Freedom.”




CHAPTER IX


“It is wonderful how one doesn’t get bored, here at the seashore,
Morten. Imagine lying anywhere else for hours at a time, flat on your
back, doing nothing, not even thinking--”

“Yes. But I must confess that I used to be bored sometimes--only not in
the last few weeks.”

Autumn was at hand. The first strong wind had risen. Thin, tattered
grey clouds raced across the sky. The dreary, tossing sea was covered
far and wide with foam. Great, powerful waves rolled silently in,
relentless, awesome; towered majestically, in a metallic dark-green
curve, then crashed thundering on the sand.

The season was quite at an end. On that part of the beach usually
occupied by the throng of bathers, the pavilions were already partly
dismantled, and it lay as quiet as the grave, with only a very few
basket-chairs. But Tony and Morten spent the afternoon in a distant
spot, at the edge of the yellow loam, where the waves hurled their
spray as far up as Sea-gull Rock. Morten had made her a solid sand
fortress, and she leaned against it with her back, her feet in their
strap shoes and white stockings crossed in front of her. Morten lay
turned toward her, his chin in his hands. Now and then a sea-gull flew
past them, shrieking. They looked at the green wall of wave, streaked
with sea-weed, that came threateningly on and on and then broke against
the opposing boulders, with the eternal, confused tumult that deafens
and silences and destroys all sense of time.

Finally Morten made a movement as though rousing himself from deep
thought, and said, “Well, you will soon be leaving us, Fräulein Tony.”

“No; why?” Tony said absently.

“Well, it is the tenth of September. My holidays are nearly at an end,
anyhow. How much longer can it last? Shall you be glad to get back to
the society of your own kind? Tell me--I suppose the gentlemen you
dance with are very agreeable?--No, no, that was not what I wanted
to say. Now you must answer me,” he said, with a sudden resolution,
shifting his chin in his hands and looking at her. “Here is the
question I have been waiting so long to ask. Now: who is Herr Grünlich?”

Tony sat up, looking at him quickly, her eyes shifting back and forth
like those of a person recollecting himself on coming out of a dream.
She was feeling again the sense of increased personal importance first
experienced when Herr Grünlich proposed for her hand.

“Oh, is that what you want to know, Morten?” she said weightily.
“Well, I will tell you. It was really very painful for me to have
Thomas mention his name like that, the first afternoon; but since you
have already heard of him--well, Herr Grünlich, Bendix Grünlich, is
a business friend of my father, a well-to-do Hamburg merchant, who
has asked for my hand. No, no,” she replied quickly to a movement of
Morten’s, “I have refused him; I have never been able to make up my
mind to yield him my consent for life.”

“And why not?--if I may ask,” said Morten awkwardly.

“Why? Oh, good heavens, because I couldn’t endure him,” she cried
out in a passion. “You ought to have seen him, how he looked and how
he acted. Among other things, he had yellow whiskers--dreadfully
unnatural. I’m sure he curled them and put on gold powder, like the
stuff we use for the Christmas nuts. And he was underhanded. He fawned
on my Father and Mother and chimed in with them in the most shameful
way--”

Morten interrupted her. “But what does this mean: ‘That trims it up
uncommonly.’”

Tony broke into a nervous giggle.

“Well, he talked like that, Morten. He wouldn’t say ‘That looks very
well’ or ‘It goes very well with the room.’ He was frightfully silly, I
tell you. And very persistent; he simply wouldn’t be put off, although
I never gave him anything but sarcasm. Once he made such a scene--he
nearly wept--imagine a man weeping!”

“He must have worshipped you,” Morten said softly.

“Well, what affair was that of mine?” she cried out, astonished,
turning around on her sand-heap.

“You are cruel, Fräulein Tony. Are you always cruel? Tell me: You
didn’t like this Herr Grünlich. But is there any one to whom you have
been more gracious? Sometimes I think: Has she a cold heart? Let me
tell you something: a man is not idiotic simply because he weeps when
you won’t look at him. I swear it. I am not sure, not at all, that I
wouldn’t do the same thing. You see, you are such a dainty, spoilt
thing. Do you always make fun of people that lie at your feet? Have you
really a cold heart?”

After the first giggle, Tony’s lip began to quiver. She turned on him
a pair of great distressed eyes, which slowly filled with tears as she
said softly: “No, Morten, you should not think that of me--you must not
think that of me.”

“I don’t; indeed I don’t,” he cried, with a laugh of mingled emotion
and hardly suppressed exultation. He turned fully about, so that he
lay supporting himself on his elbows, took her hands in both his, and
looked straight into hers with his kind steel-blue eyes, which were
excited and dreamy and exalted all at once.

“Then you--you won’t mock at me if I tell you--?”

“I know, Morten,” she answered gently, looking away from him at the
fine white sand sifting through the fingers of her free hand.

“You know--and you--oh, Fräulein Tony!”

“Yes, Morten. I care a great deal for you. More than for any one else I
know.”

He started up, making awkward gestures with his arms, like a man
bewildered. Then he got to his feet, only to throw himself down again
by her side and cry in a voice that stammered, wavered, died away
and rose again, out of sheer joy: “Oh, thank you, thank you! I am so
happy! more than I ever was in all my life!” And he fell to kissing her
hands. After a moment he said more quietly; “You will be going back
to town soon, Tony, and my holidays will be over in two weeks; then I
must return to Göttingen. But will you promise me that you will never
forget this afternoon here on the beach--till I come back again with
my degree, and can ask your Father--however hard that’s going to be?
And you won’t listen to any Herr Grünlich meantime? Oh, it won’t be so
long--I will work like a--like anything! it will be so easy!”

“Yes, Morten,” she said dreamily, looking at his eyes, his mouth, his
hands holding hers.

He drew her hand close to his breast and asked very softly and
imploringly: “And won’t you--may I--seal the promise?”

She did not answer, she did not look at him, but moved nearer to him on
the sand-heap, and Morten kissed her slowly and solemnly on the mouth.
Then they stared in different directions across the sand, and both felt
furiously embarrassed.




CHAPTER X


  DEAREST MADEMOISELLE BUDDENBROOK,

  For how long must the undersigned exist without a glimpse of his
  enchantress? These few lines will tell you that the vision has never
  ceased to hover before his spiritual eye; that never has he during
  these interminably anxious months ceased to think of the precious
  afternoon in your parental salon, when you let fall a blushing
  promise which filled me with bliss unspeakable! Since then long weeks
  have flown, during which you have retired from the world for the
  sake of calm and self-examination. May I now hope that the period
  of probation is past? The undersigned permits himself, dearest
  Mademoiselle, to send the enclosed ring as an earnest of his undying
  tenderness. With the most tender compliments, and devotedly kissing
  your hand, I remain,

                                               Your obedient servant,
                                                               GRÜNLICH.


  DEAR PAPA,

  How angry I’ve been! I had the enclosed letter and ring just now
  from Grünlich, and my head aches fearfully from excitement. I don’t
  know what else to do but send them both to you. He simply will not
  understand me, and what he so poetically writes about the promise
  isn’t in the least true, and I beg you emphatically to make it
  immediately perfectly clear to him that I am a thousand times less
  able to say yes to him than I was before, and that he must leave me
  in peace. He makes himself ridiculous. To you, my dearest Father,
  I can say that I have bound myself elsewhere, to one who adores me
  and whom I love more than I can say. Oh, Papa! I could write pages
  to you! I mean Herr Morten Schwarzkopf, who is studying to be a
  physician, and who as soon as that happens will ask for my hand. I
  know that it is the rule of the family to marry a business man, but
  Morten belongs to the other section of respectable men, the scholars.
  He is not rich, which I know is important to you and Mamma: but I
  must tell you that, young as I am, I have learned that riches do not
  make every one happy. With a thousand kisses,

                                             Your obedient daughter,
                                                                ANTONIE.

  P.S. I find the ring very poor gold, and too narrow.


  MY DEAR TONY,

  Your letter duly received. As regards its contents, I must tell you
  that I did not fail to communicate them to Herr Grünlich: the result
  was of such a nature as to shock me very much. You are a grown girl,
  and at a serious time of life, so I need not scruple to tell you the
  consequences that a frivolous step of yours may draw after it. Herr
  Grünlich, then, burst into despair at my announcement, declaring that
  he loved you so dearly, and could so little console himself for your
  loss, that he would be in a state to take his own life if you remain
  firm in your resolve. As I cannot take seriously what you write me
  of another attachment, I must beg you to master your excitement
  over the ring, and consider everything again very carefully. It
  is my Christian conviction, my dear daughter, that one must have
  regard for the feelings of others. We do not know that you may not
  be made responsible by the most high Judge if a man whose feelings
  you have coldly and obstinately scorned should trespass against his
  own life. But the thing I have so often told you by word of mouth,
  I must recall again to your remembrance, and I am glad to have the
  occasion to repeat it in writing; for though speech is more vivid and
  has the more immediate effect, the written word has the advantage
  that it can be chosen with pains and fixed in a form well-weighed
  and calculated by the writer, to be read over and over again, with
  proportionate effect.--My child, we are not born for that which, with
  our short-sighted vision, we reckon to be our own small personal
  happiness. We are not free, separate, and independent entities, but
  like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are
  without those who went before us and showed us the way, by following
  the straight and narrow path, not looking to right or left. Your
  path, it seems to me, has lain all these weeks sharply marked out
  for you, and you would not be my daughter, nor the granddaughter of
  your Grandfather who rests in God, nor a worthy member of our own
  family, if you really have it in your heart, alone, wilfully, and
  light-headedly to choose your own unregulated path. Your Mother,
  Thomas, Christian, and I beg you, my dear Antonie, to weigh all this
  in your heart. Mlle. Jungmann and Clara greet you affectionately,
  likewise Clothilde, who has been the last several weeks with her
  father at Thankless. We all rejoice at the thought of embracing you
  once more.

                                        With unfailing affection,
                                                     YOUR LOVING FATHER.




CHAPTER XI


It rained in streams. Heaven, earth, and sea were in flood, while the
driving wind took the rain and flung it against the panes as though not
drops but brooks were flowing down and making them impossible to see
through. Complaining and despairing voices sounded in the chimney.

When Morten Schwarzkopf went out into the verandah with his pipe
shortly after dinner to look at the sky, he found there a gentleman
with a long, narrow yellow-checked ulster and a grey hat. A closed
carriage, its top glistening with wet, its wheels clogged with mud, was
before the door. Morten stared irresolutely into the rosy face of the
gentleman. He had mutton-chop whiskers that looked as though they had
been dressed with gold paint.

The gentleman in the ulster looked at Morten as one looks at a servant,
blinking gently without seeing him, and said in a soft voice: “Is Herr
Pilot-Captain Schwarzkopf at home?”

“Yes,” stammered Morten, “I think my Father--”

Hereupon the gentleman fixed his eyes upon him; they were as blue as a
goose’s.

“Are you Herr Morten Schwarzkopf?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” answered Morten, trying to keep his face straight.

“Ah--indeed!” remarked the gentleman in the ulster, and went on, “Have
the goodness to announce me to your Father, young man. My name is
Grünlich.”

Morten led the gentleman through the verandah, opened for him the
right-hand door that led into the office, and went back into the
sitting-room to tell his Father. Then the youth sat down at the round
table, resting his elbow on it, and seemed, without noticing his
Mother, who was sitting at the dark window mending stockings, to busy
himself with the “wretched news-sheet” which had nothing in it except
the announcements of the silver wedding of Consul So-and-So. Tony was
resting in her room.

The pilot-captain entered his office with the air of a man satisfied
with his meal. His uniform-coat stood open over the usual white
waistcoat. His face was red, and his ice-grey beard coldly set off
against it; his tongue travelled about agreeably among his teeth,
making his good mouth take the most extraordinary shapes. He bowed
shortly, jerkily, with the air of one conforming to the conventions as
he understood them.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “At your service.”

Herr Grünlich, on his side, bowed with deliberation, although one
corner of his mouth seemed to go down. He said softly: “Ahem!”

The office was rather a small room, the walls of which had wainscoting
for a few feet and then simple plaster. Curtains, yellow with smoke,
hung before the window, on whose panes the rain beat unceasingly. On
the right of the door was a rough table covered with papers, above it
a large map of Europe, and a smaller one of the Baltic Sea fastened to
the wall. From the middle of the ceiling hung the well-cut model of a
ship under full sail.

The Captain made his guest take the sloping sofa, covered with cracked
oil-cloth, that stood opposite the door, and made himself comfortable
in a wooden arm-chair, folding his hands across his stomach; while Herr
Grünlich, his ulster tightly buttoned up, his hat on his knees, sat
bolt upright on the edge of the sofa.

“My name is, I repeat, Grünlich,” he said; “from Hamburg. I may say
by way of introduction that I am a close business friend of Herr
Buddenbrook.”

“Servant, Herr Grünlich; pleased to make your acquaintance. Won’t you
make yourself comfortable? Have a glass of grog after your journey?
I’ll send right into the kitchen.”

“I must permit myself to remark that my time is limited, my carriage is
waiting, and I am really obliged to ask for the favour of a few words
with you.”

“At your service,” repeated Herr Schwarzkopf, taken aback. There was a
pause.

“Herr Captain,” began Herr Grünlich, wagging his head with
determination and throwing himself back on his seat. After this he was
silent again; and by way of enhancing the effect of his address he shut
his mouth tight, like a purse drawn together with strings.

“Herr Captain,” he repeated, and went on without further pause, “The
matter about which I have come to you directly concerns the young lady
who has been for some weeks stopping in your house.”

“Mademoiselle Buddenbrook?” asked the Consul.

“Precisely,” assented Herr Grünlich. He looked down at the floor, and
spoke in a voice devoid of expression. Hard lines came out at the
corners of his mouth.

“I am obliged to inform you,” he went on in a sing-song tone, his sharp
eyes jumping from one point in the room to another and then to the
window, “that some time ago I proposed for the hand of Mademoiselle
Buddenbrook. I am in possession of the fullest confidence of both
parents, and the young lady herself has unmistakably given me a claim
to her hand, though no betrothal has taken place in form.”

“You don’t say--God keep us!” said Herr Schwarzkopf, in a sprightly
tone. “I never heard that before! Congratulations, Herr--er--Grünlich.
She’s a good girl--genuine good stuff.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” said Herr Grünlich, coldly. He went
on in his high sing-song: “What brings me to you on this occasion, my
good Herr Captain, is the circumstance that certain difficulties have
just arisen--and these difficulties--appear to have their source in
your house--?” He spoke the last words in a questioning tone, as if to
say, “Can this disgraceful state of things be true, or have my ears
deceived me?”

Herr Schwarzkopf answered only by lifting his eyebrows as high as
they would go, and clutching the arms of his chair with his brown,
blond-felled fisherman’s hands.

“Yes. This is the fact. So I am informed,” Herr Grünlich said, with
dreary certitude. “I hear that your son--_studiosus medicinae_, I am
led to understand--has allowed himself--of course unconsciously--to
encroach upon my rights. I hear that he has taken advantage of the
present visit of the young lady to extract certain promises from her.”

“What?” shouted the pilot-captain, gripping the arms of his chair and
springing up. “That we shall soon--we can soon see--!” With two steps
he was at the door, tore it open, and shouted down the corridor in a
voice that would have out-roared the wildest seas: “Meta, Morten! Come
in here, both of you.”

“I shall regret it exceedingly if the assertion of my prior rights runs
counter to your fatherly hopes, Herr Captain.”

Diederich Schwarzkopf turned and stared, with his sharp blue eyes in
their wrinkled setting, straight into the stranger’s face, as though he
strove in vain to comprehend his words.

“Sir!” he said. Then, with a voice that sounded as though he had just
burnt his throat with hot grog, “I’m a simple sort of a man, and don’t
know much about landlubber’s tricks and skin games; but if you mean,
maybe, that--well, sir, you can just set it down right away that you’ve
got on the wrong tack, and are making a pretty bad miscalculation about
my fatherly hopes. I know who my son is, and I know who Mademoiselle
Buddenbrook is, and there’s too much respect and too much pride in my
carcase to be making any plans of the sort you’ve mentioned.--And now,”
he roared, jerking his head toward the door, “it’s your turn to talk,
boy. You tell me what this affair is; what is this I hear--hey?”

Frau Schwarzkopf and her son stood in the doorway, she innocently
arranging her apron, he with the air of a hardened sinner. Herr
Grünlich did not rise at their entrance. He waited, erect and composed,
on the edge of the sofa, buttoned up tight in his ulster.

“So you’ve been behaving like a silly fool?” bellowed the captain to
Morten.

The young man had his thumb stuck between the buttons of his jacket. He
scowled and puffed out his cheeks defiantly.

“Yes, Father,” he said, “Fräulein Buddenbrook and I--”

“Well, then, I’ll just tell you you’re a perfect Tom-fool, a young
ninny, and you’ll be packed off to-morrow for Göttingen--to-morrow,
understand? It’s all damned childish nonsense, and rascality into the
bargain.”

“Good heavens, Diederich,” said Frau Schwarzkopf, folding her hands,
“you can’t just say that, you know. Who knows--?” She stopped, she said
no more; but it was plain from her face that a mother’s beautiful dream
had been shattered in that moment.

“Would the gentleman like to see the young lady?” Schwarzkopf turned to
Herr Grünlich and spoke in a harsh voice.

“She is upstairs in her room asleep,” Frau Schwarzkopf said with
feeling.

“I regret,” said Herr Grünlich, and he got up, obviously relieved. “But
I repeat that my time is limited, and the carriage waits. I permit
myself,” he went on, describing with his hat a motion in the direction
of Herr Schwarzkopf, “to acknowledge to you, Herr Captain, my entire
recognition of your manly and high-principled bearing. I salute you.
Good-bye.”

Diederich Schwarzkopf did not offer to shake hands with him. He merely
gave a jerky bow with the upper part of his heavy figure, that had an
air of saying: “This is the proper thing, I suppose.”

Herr Grünlich, with measured tread, passed between Morten and his
mother and went out the door.




CHAPTER XII


Thomas appeared with the Kröger calèche. The day was at hand.

The young man arrived at ten o’clock in the forenoon and took a bite
with the family in the living-room. They sat together as on the first
day, except that now summer was over; it was too cold and windy to sit
in the verandah; and--Morten was not there. He was in Göttingen. Tony
and he had not even been able to say good-bye. The Captain had stood
there and said, “Well, so that’s the end of that, eh!”

At eleven the brother and sister mounted into the wagon, where Tony’s
trunk was already fastened at the back. She was pale and shivered in
her soft autumn coat--from cold, weariness, excitement, and a grief
that now and then rose up suddenly and filled her breast with a painful
oppression. She kissed little Meta, pressed the house-wife’s hand, and
nodded to Herr Schwarzkopf when he said, “Well, you won’t forget us,
little Miss, will you? And no bad feeling, eh? And a safe journey and
best greetings to your honoured Father and the Frau Consul.” Then the
coach door slammed, the fat brown horses pulled at their traces, and
the three Schwarzkopfs waved their handkerchiefs.

Tony crooked her neck in the corner of the coach, in order to peer
out of the window. The sky was covered with white cloud-flakes; the
Trave broke into little waves that hurried before the wind. Now and
then drops of rain pattered against the glass. At the end of the front
people sat in the doors of their cottages and mended nets; barefoot
children came running to look curiously at the carriage. _They_ did not
have to go away!

As they left the last houses behind, Tony bent forward to look at the
light-house; then she leaned back and closed her tired and burning
eyes. She had hardly slept for excitement. She had risen early to
finish her packing, and discovered no desire for breakfast. There was a
dull taste in her mouth, and she felt so weak that she made no effort
to dry the slow, hot tears that kept rising every minute.

But directly her eyes were shut, she found herself again in Travemünde,
on the verandah. She saw Morten in the flesh before her; he seemed
to speak and to lean toward her as he always did, and then look
good-naturedly and searchingly at the next person, unconsciously
showing his beautiful teeth as he smiled. Slowly her mind grew calm
and peaceful again. She recalled everything that she had heard and
learned from him in many a talk, and it solaced her to promise herself
that she would preserve all this as a secret holy and inviolate and
cherish it in her heart. That the King of Prussia had committed a great
wrong against his people; that the local newspaper was a lamentable
sheet; yes, that the laws of the League concerning universities had
been renewed four years ago--all these were from now on consoling and
edifying truths, a hidden treasure which she might store up within
herself and contemplate whenever she chose. On the street, in the
family circle, at the table she would think of them. Who knew? Perhaps
she might even go on in the path prescribed for her and marry Herr
Grünlich--that was a detail, after all--but when he spoke to her she
could always say to herself, “I know something you don’t: the nobility
is in principle despicable.”

She smiled to herself and was assuaged. But suddenly, in the noise of
the wheels, she heard Morten’s voice with miraculous clearness. She
distinguished every nuance of his kindly, dragging speech as he said:
“To-day we must both ‘sit on the rocks,’ Fräulein Tony,” and this
little memory overpowered her. Her breast contracted with her grief,
and she let the tears flow down unopposed. Bowed in her corner, she
held her handkerchief before her face and wept bitterly.

Thomas, his cigarette in his mouth, looked somewhat blankly at the
high-road. “Poor Tony,” he said at last, stroking her jacket. “I feel
so sorry--I understand so well, you know. But what can you do? One has
to bear these things. Believe me, I do understand what you feel.”

“Oh, you don’t understand at all, Tom,” sobbed Tony.

“Don’t say that. Did you know it is decided that I am to go to
Amsterdam at the beginning of next year? Papa has obtained a place for
me with van der Kellen and Company. That means I must say good-bye for
a long, long time.”

“Oh, Tom! Saying good-bye to your father and mother and sisters and
brothers--that isn’t anything.”

“Ye-es,” he said, slowly. He sighed, as if he did not wish to say more,
and was silent. He let the cigarette rove from one corner of his mouth
to the other, lifted one eyebrow, and turned his head away.

“Well, it doesn’t last for ever,” he began again after a while.
“Naturally one forgets.”

“But I don’t want to forget,” Tony cried out in desperation.
“Forgetting--is that any consolation?”




CHAPTER XIII


Then came the ferry, and Israelsdorf Avenue, Jerusalem Hill, the Castle
Field. The wagon passed the Castle Gate, with the walls of the prison
rising on the right, and rolled along Castle Street and over the
Koberg. Tony looked at the grey gables, the oil lamps hung across the
streets, Holy Ghost Hospital with the already almost bare lindens in
front of it. Oh, how everything was exactly as it had been! It had been
standing here, in immovable dignity, while she had thought of it as a
dream worthy only to be forgotten. These grey gables were the old, the
accustomed, the traditional, to which she was returning, in the midst
of which she must live. She wept no more. She looked about curiously.
The pain of parting was almost dulled at the sight of these well-known
streets and faces. At that moment--the wagon was rolling through Broad
Street--the porter Matthiesen passed and took off his stove-pipe hat
so obsequiously that it seemed he must be thinking, “Bow, you dog of a
porter--you can’t bow low enough.”

The equipage turned into the Mengstrasse, and the fat brown horses
stood snorting and stamping before the Buddenbrook door. Tom was very
attentive in helping his sister out, while Anton and Line hastened up
to unfasten the trunk. But they had to wait before they could enter the
house. Three great lorries were being driven through, one close behind
another, piled high with full corn sacks, with the firm name written on
them in big black letters. They jolted along over the great boards and
down the shallow steps to the cart-yard with a heavy rumbling noise.
Part of the corn was evidently to be unloaded at the back of the house
and the rest taken to the “Walrus,” the “Lion,” or the “Oak.”

The Consul came out of the office with his pen behind his ear as the
brother and sister reached the entry, and stretched out his arms to his
daughter.

“Welcome home, my dear Tony!”

She kissed him, looking a little shame-faced, her eyes still red with
weeping. But he was very tactful; he made no allusions; he only said:
“It is late, but we waited with the second breakfast.”

The Frau Consul, Christian, Clothilde, Clara, and Ida Jungmann stood
above on the landing to greet her.

Tony slept soundly and well the first night in Mengstrasse. She rose
the next morning, the twenty-second of September, refreshed and calmed,
and went down into the breakfast-room. It was still quite early, hardly
seven o’clock. Only Mamsell Jungmann was there, making the morning
coffee.

“Well, well, Tony, my little child,” she said, looking round with her
small, blinking brown eyes. “Up so early?”

Tony sat down at the open desk, clasped her hands behind her head,
and looked for a while at the pavement of the court, gleaming black
with wet, and at the damp, yellow garden. Then she began to rummage
curiously among the visiting-cards and letters on the desk. Close by
the inkstand lay the well-known large copy-book with the stamped cover,
gilt edges, and leaves of various qualities and colours. It must have
been used the evening before, and it was strange that Papa had not put
it back in its leather portfolio and laid it in its special drawer.

She took it and turned over the pages, began to read, and became
absorbed. What she read were mostly simple facts well-known to her; but
each successive writer had followed his predecessor in a stately but
simple chronicle style which was no bad mirror of the family attitude,
its modest but honourable self-respect, and its reverence for tradition
and history. The book was not new to Tony; she had sometimes been
allowed to read in it. But its contents had never made the impression
upon her that they did this morning. She was thrilled by the reverent
particularity with which the simplest facts pertinent to the family
were here treated. She propped herself on her elbows and read with
growing absorption, seriousness and pride.

No point in her own tiny past was lacking. Her birth, her childish
illnesses, her first school, her boarding-school days at Mademoiselle
Weichbrodt’s, her confirmation--everything was carefully entered, with
an almost reverent observation of facts, in the Consul’s small, flowing
business hand; for was not the least of them the will and work of God,
who wonderfully guided the destinies of the family? What, she mused,
would there be entered here in the future after her name, which she
had received from her grandmother Antoinette? All that was yet to be
written there would be conned by later members of the family with a
piety equal to her own.

She leaned back sighing; her heart beat solemnly. She was filled with
reverence for herself: the familiar feeling of personal importance
possessed her, heightened by all she had been reading. She felt
thrilled and shuddery. “Like a link in a chain,” Papa had written. Yes,
yes. She was important precisely as a link in this chain. Such was her
significance and her responsibility, such her task: to share by deed
and word in the history of her family.

She turned back to the end of the great volume, where on a rough folio
page was entered the genealogy of the whole Buddenbrook family, with
parentheses and rubrics, indicated in the Consul’s hand, and all the
dates set down: from the marriage of the earliest scion of the family
with Brigitta Schuren, the pastor’s daughter, down to the wedding of
Consul Johann Buddenbrook with Elizabeth Kröger in 1825. From this
marriage, it said, four children had resulted: whereupon these were all
entered, with the days and years of their birth, and their baptismal
names, one after another. Under that of the eldest son it was recorded
that he had entered as apprentice in his father’s business in the
Easter of 1842.

Tony looked a long time at her name and at the blank space next it.
Then, suddenly, with a jerk, with a nervous, feverish accompaniment of
sobbing breaths and quick-moving lips--she clutched the pen, plunged
it rather than dipped it into the ink, and wrote, with her forefinger
crooked, her hot head bent far over on her shoulder, in her awkward
handwriting that climbed up the page from left to right: “Betrothed, on
Sept. 22, 1845, to Herr Bendix Grünlich, Merchant, of Hamburg.”




CHAPTER XIV


“I entirely agree with you, my good friend. This important matter must
be settled. In short, then: the usual dowry of a young girl of our
family is seventy thousand marks.”

Herr Grünlich cast at his future father-in-law a shrewd, calculating
glance--the glance of the genuine man of business.

“As a matter of fact,” he said--and this “matter of fact” was of
precisely the same length as his left-hand whisker, which he was
drawing reflectively through his fingers; he let go of the end just as
“of fact” was finished.

“You know, my honoured father,” he began again, “the deep respect I
have for traditions and principles. Only--in the present case is not
this consideration for the tradition a little exaggerated? A business
increases--a family prospers--in short, conditions change and improve.”

“My good friend,” said the Consul, “you see in me a fair-dealing
merchant. You have not let me finish, or you would have heard that I
am ready and willing to meet you in the circumstances, and add ten
thousand marks to the seventy thousand without more ado.”

“Eighty thousand, then,” said Herr Grünlich, making motions with his
mouth, as though to say: “Not _too_ much; but it will do.”

Thus they came to an affectionate settlement; the Consul jingled his
keys like a man satisfied as he got up. And, in fact, his satisfaction
was justified; for it was only with the eighty thousand marks that they
had arrived at the dowry traditional in the family.

Herr Grünlich now said good-bye and departed for Hamburg. Tony as yet
realized but little of her new estate. She still went to dances at the
Möllendorpfs’, Kistenmakers’, and Langhals’, and in her own home; she
skated on the Burgfield and the meadows of the Trave, and permitted the
attentions of the young gentlemen of the town. In the middle of October
she went to the betrothal feast at the Möllendorpfs’ for the oldest son
of the house and Juliet Hagenström. “Tom,” she said, “I won’t go. It
is disgusting.” But she went, and enjoyed herself hugely. And, as for
the rest, by the entry with the pen in the family history-book, she had
won the privilege of going, with the Frau Consul or alone, into all the
shops in town and making purchases in a grand style for her trousseau.
It was to be a brilliant trousseau. Two seamstresses sat all day in
the breakfast-room window, sewing, embroidering monograms, and eating
quantities of house-bread and green cheese.

“Is the linen come from Lentföhr, Mamma?”

“No, but here are two dozen tea-serviettes.”

“That is nice. But he promised it by this afternoon. My goodness, the
sheets still have to be hemmed.”

“Mamsell Bitterlich wants to know about the lace for the pillow-cases,
Ida.”

“It is in the right-hand cupboard in the entry, Tony, my child.”

“Line--!”

“You could go yourself, my dear.”

“Oh, if I’m marrying for the privilege of running up and down stairs--!”

“Have you made up your mind yet about the material for the
wedding-dress, Tony?”

“Moiré antique, Mamma--I won’t marry without moiré antique!”

So passed October and November. At Christmas time Herr Grünlich
appeared, to spend Christmas in the Buddenbrook family circle and also
to take part in the celebration at the Krögers’. His conduct toward
his bride showed all the delicacy one would have expected from him.
No unnecessary formality, no importunity, no tactless tenderness. A
light, discreet kiss upon the forehead, in the presence of the parents,
sealed the betrothal. Tony sometimes puzzled over this, the least
in the world. Why, she wondered, did his present happiness seem not
quite commensurate with the despair into which her refusal had thrown
him? He regarded her with the air of a satisfied possessor. Now and
then, indeed, if they happened to be alone, a jesting and teasing mood
seemed to overcome him; once he attempted to fall on his knees and
approach his whiskers to her face, while he asked in a voice apparently
trembling with joy, “Have I indeed captured you? Have I won you for my
own?” To which Tony answered, “You are forgetting yourself,” and got
away with all possible speed.

Soon after the holidays Herr Grünlich went back to Hamburg, for
his flourishing business demanded his personal attention; and the
Buddenbrooks agreed with him that Tony had had time enough before the
betrothal to make his acquaintance.

The question of a house was quickly arranged. Tony, who looked forward
extravagantly to life in a large city, had expressed the wish to
settle in Hamburg itself, and indeed in the Spitalstrasse, where Herr
Grünlich’s office was. But the bridegroom, by manly persistence, won
her over to the purchase of a villa outside the city, near Eimsbüttel,
a romantic and retired spot, an ideal nest for a newly-wedded
pair--“_procul negotiis_.”--Ah, he had not yet forgotten quite all his
Latin!

Thus December passed, and at the beginning of the year ’46 the wedding
was celebrated. There was a splendid wedding feast, to which half the
town was bidden. Tony’s friends--among them Armgard von Schilling,
who arrived in a towering coach--danced with Tom’s and Christian’s
friends, among them Andreas Gieseke, son of the Fire Commissioner
and now _studiosus juris_; also Stephan and Edward Kistenmacher, of
Kistenmacher and Son. They danced in the dining-room and the hall,
which had been strewn with talc for the occasion. Among the liveliest
of the lively was Consul Peter Döhlmann; he got hold of all the
earthenware crocks he could find and broke them on the flags of the big
passage.

Frau Stuht from Bell-Founders’ Street had another opportunity to mingle
in the society of the great; for it was she who helped Mamsell Jungmann
and the two seamstresses to adjust Tony’s toilette on the great day.
She had, as God was her judge, never seen a more beautiful bride.
Fat as she was, she went on her knees; and, with her eyes rolled up
in admiration, fastened the myrtle twigs on the white moiré antique.
This was in the breakfast-room. Herr Grünlich, in his long-skirted
frock-coat and silk waistcoat, waited at the door. His rosy face had
a correct and serious expression, his wart was powdered, and his
gold-yellow whiskers carefully curled.

Above in the hall, where the marriage was to take place, the family
gathered--a stately assemblage. There sat the old Krögers, a little
ailing both of them, but distinguished figures always. There was
Consul Kröger with his sons Jürgen and Jacob, the latter having come
from Hamburg, like the Duchamps. There were Gottfried Buddenbrook
and his wife, born Stüwing, with their three offspring, Friederike,
Henriette, and Pfiffi, none of whom was, unfortunately, likely to
marry. There was the Mecklenburg branch, represented by Clothilde’s
father, Herr Bernhard Buddenbrook, who had come in from Thankless and
looked with large eyes at the seignorial house of his rich relations.
The relatives from Frankfort had contented themselves with sending
presents; the journey was too arduous. In their place were the only
guests not members of the family. Dr. Grabow, the family physician,
and Mlle. Weichbrodt, Tony’s motherly friend--Sesemi Weichbrodt, with
fresh ribbons on her cap over the side-curls, and a little black
dress. “Be happy, you good child,” she said, when Tony appeared at
Herr Grünlich’s side in the hall. She reached up and kissed her with
a little explosion on the forehead. The family was satisfied with the
bride: Tony looked pretty, gay, and at her ease, if a little pale from
excitement and tension.

The hall had been decorated with flowers and an altar arranged on
the right side. Pastor Kölling of St. Mary’s performed the service,
and laid special stress upon moderation. Everything went according
to custom and arrangement, Tony brought out a hearty yes, and Herr
Grünlich gave his little ahem, beforehand, to clear his throat.
Afterward, everybody ate long and well.

While the guests continued to eat in the salon, with the pastor in
their midst, the Consul and his wife accompanied the young pair, who
had dressed for their journey, out into the snowy, misty air, where the
great travelling coach stood before the door, packed with boxes and
bags.

After Tony had expressed many times her conviction that she should soon
be back again on a visit, and that they too would not delay long to
come to Hamburg to see her, she climbed in good spirits into the coach
and let herself be carefully wrapped up by the Consul in the warm fur
rug. Her husband took his place by her side.

“And, Grünlich,” said the Consul, “the new laces are in the small
satchel, on top. You take a little in under your overcoat, don’t you?
This excise--one has to get around it the best one can. Farewell,
farewell! Farewell, dear Tony. God bless you.”

“You will find good accommodation in Arensburg, won’t you?” asked the
Frau Consul. “Already reserved, my dear Mamma,” answered Herr Grünlich.

Anton, Line, Trine, and Sophie took leave of Ma’am Grünlich. The coach
door was about to be slammed, when Tony was overtaken by a sudden
impulse. Despite all the trouble it took, she unwound herself again
from her wrappings, climbed ruthlessly over Herr Grünlich, who began to
grumble, and embraced her Father with passion. “Adieu, Papa, adieu, my
good Papa.” And then she whispered softly: “Are you satisfied with me?”

The Consul pressed her without words to his heart, then put her from
him and shook her hands with deep feeling.

Now everything was ready. The coach door slammed, the coachman cracked
his whip, the horses dashed away so that the coach windows rattled; the
Frau Consul let fly her little white handkerchief; and the carriage,
rolling down the street, disappeared in the mist.

The Consul stood thoughtfully next to his wife, who drew her cloak
about her shoulders with a graceful movement.

“There she goes, Betsy.”

“Yes, Jean, the first to leave us. Do you think she is happy with him?”

“Oh, Betsy, she is satisfied with herself, which is better; it is the
most solid happiness we can have on this earth.”

They went back to their guests.




CHAPTER XV


Thomas Buddenbrook went down Meng Street as far as the “Five Houses.”
He avoided Broad Street so as not to be accosted by acquaintances and
obliged to greet them. With his hands deep in the big pockets of his
warm dark grey overcoat, he walked, sunk in thought, over the hard,
sparkling snow, which crunched under his boots. He went his own way,
and whither it led no one knew but himself. The sky was pale blue and
clear, the air biting and crisp--a still, severe, clear weather, with
five degrees of frost; in short, a matchless February day.

Thomas walked down the “Five Houses,” crossed Bakers’ Alley, and went
along a narrow cross-street into Fishers’ Lane. He followed this
street, which led down to the Trave parallel to Meng Street, for a few
steps, and paused before a small house, a modest flower-shop, with a
narrow door and dingy show-window, where a few pots of onions stood on
a pane of green glass.

He went in, whereupon the bell above the door began to give tongue,
like a little watch-dog. Within, before the counter, talking to the
young saleswoman, was a little fat elderly lady in a Turkey shawl.
She was choosing a pot of flowers, examining, smelling, criticizing,
chattering, and constantly obliged to wipe her mouth with her
handkerchief. Thomas Buddenbrook greeted her politely and stepped to
one side. She was a poor relation of the Langhals’, a good-natured
garrulous old maid who bore the name of one of the best families
without herself belonging to their set: that is, she was not asked to
the large dinners, but to the small coffee circles. She was known to
almost all the world as Aunt Lottchen. She turned toward the door,
with her pot of flowers, wrapped up in tissue paper, under her arm; and
Thomas, after greeting her again, said in an elevated voice to the shop
girl, “Give me a couple of roses, please. Never mind the kind--well, La
France.”

Then, after Aunt Lottchen had shut the door behind her and gone away,
he said in a lower voice, “Put them away again, Anna. How are you,
little Anna? Here I am--and I’ve come with a heavy heart.”

Anna wore a white apron over her simple black frock. She was
wonderfully pretty. Delicately built as a fawn, she had an almost
mongol type of face, somewhat prominent cheek-bones, narrow black eyes
full of a soft gleam, and a pale yellow skin the like of which is rare
anywhere. Her hands, of the same tint, were narrow, and more beautiful
than a shop girl’s are wont to be.

She went behind the counter at the right end, so that she could not be
seen through the shop-window. Thomas followed on the outside of the
counter and, bending over, kissed her on the lips and the eyes.

“You are quite frozen, poor boy,” she said.

“Five degrees,” said Tom. “I didn’t notice it, I’ve felt so sad coming
over.”

He sat down on the table, keeping her hand in his, and went on:
“Listen, Anna; we’ll be sensible to-day, won’t we? The time has come.”

“Oh, dear,” she said miserably, and lifted her apron to her eyes.

“It had to happen sometime, Anna. No, don’t weep. We were going to be
reasonable, weren’t we? What else is there to do? One has to bear such
things.”

“When?” asked Anna, sobbing.

“Day after to-morrow.”

“Oh, God, no! Why to-morrow? A week longer--five days! Please, oh,
please!”

“Impossible, dear Anna. Everything is arranged and in order. They are
expecting me in Amsterdam. I couldn’t make it a day longer, no matter
how much I wanted.”

“And that is so far away--so far away!”

“Amsterdam? Nonsense, that isn’t far. We can always think of each
other, can’t we? And I’ll write to you. You’ll see, I’ll write directly
I’ve got there.”

“Do you remember,” she said, “a year and a half ago, at the Rifle-club
fair?”

He interrupted her ardently. “Do I remember? Yes, a year and a
half ago! I took you for an Italian. I bought a pink and put it
in my button-hole.--I still have it--I am taking it with me to
Amsterdam.--What a heat: how hot and dusty it was on the meadow!”

“Yes, you bought me a glass of lemonade from the next booth. I remember
it like yesterday. Everything smelled of fatty-cakes and people.”

“But it was fine! We knew right away how we felt--about each other!”

“You wanted to take me on the carroussel, but I couldn’t go; I had to
be in the shop. The old woman would have scolded.”

“No, I know it wouldn’t have done, Anna.”

She said softly and clearly, “But that is the only thing I’ve refused
you.”

He kissed her again, on the lips and the eyes. “Adieu, darling little
Anna. We must begin to say good-bye.”

“Oh, you will come back to-morrow?”

“Yes, of course, and day after to-morrow early, if I can get away.--But
there is one thing I want to say to you, Anna. I am going, after all,
rather far away. Amsterdam _is_ a long way off--and you are staying
here. But--don’t throw yourself away, I tell you.”

She wept into her apron, holding it up with her free hand to her face.
“And you--and you?”

“God knows, Anna, what will happen. One isn’t young for ever--you are
a sensible girl, you have never said anything about marriage and that
sort of thing--”

“God forbid--that I should ask such a thing of you!”

“One is carried along--you see. If I live, I shall take over the
business, and make a good match--you see, I am open with you at
parting, Anna. I wish you every happiness, darling, darling little
Anna. But don’t throw yourself away, do you hear? For you haven’t done
that--with me--I swear it.”

It was warm in the shop. A moist scent of earth and flowers was in the
air. Outside, the winter sun was hurrying to its repose, and a pure
delicate sunset, like one painted on porcelain, beautified the sky
across the river. People hurried past the window, their chins tucked
into their turned-up collars; no one gave a glance into the corner of
the little flower-shop, at the two who stood there saying their last
farewells.




PART FOUR




CHAPTER I


                                                          April 30, 1846

  MY DEAR MAMMA,

  A thousand thanks for your letter, in which you tell me of Armgard
  von Schilling’s betrothal to Herr von Maiboom of Pöppenrade. Armgard
  herself sent me an invitation (very fine, with a gilt edge), and
  also a letter in which she expresses herself as enchanted with her
  bridegroom. He sounds like a very handsome and refined man. How happy
  she must be! Everybody is getting married. I have had a card from
  Munich too, from Eva Ewers. I hear she’s getting a director of a
  brewery.

  Now I must ask you something, dearest Mamma: Why do I hear nothing
  of a visit from the Buddenbrooks? Are you waiting for an official
  invitation from Grünlich? If so, it isn’t necessary; and besides,
  when I remind him to ask you, he says, “Yes, yes, child, your Father
  has something else to do.” Or do you think you would be disturbing
  me? Oh, dear me, no; quite the contrary! Perhaps you think you would
  make me homesick again? But don’t you know I am a reasonable woman,
  already middle-aged and experienced?

  I’ve just been to coffee at Madame Käselau’s, a neighbour of mine.
  They are pleasant people, and our left-hand neighbours, the Gussmanns
  (but there is a good deal of space between the houses) are sociable
  people too. We have two friends who are at the house a good deal,
  both of whom live out here: Doctor Klaasen, of whom I must tell you
  more later, and Kesselmeyer, the banker, Grünlich’s intimate friend.
  You don’t know what a funny old man he is. He has a stubbly white
  beard and thin black and white hair on his head, that looks like
  down and waves in the breeze. He makes funny motions with his head,
  like a bird, and talks all the time, so I call him the magpie, but
  Grünlich has forbidden me to say that, because magpies steal, and
  Herr Kesselmeyer is an honourable man. He stoops when he walks, and
  rows along with his arms. His fuzz only reaches half-way down his
  head in the back, and from there on his neck is all red and seamy.
  There is something so awfully sprightly about him! Sometimes he pats
  me on the cheek and says, “You good little wifey! what a blessing for
  Grünlich that he has got you.” Then he takes out his eye-glasses (he
  always wears three of them, on long cords, that are forever getting
  tangled up in his white waistcoat) and sticks them on his nose, which
  he wrinkles up to make them stop on, and looks at me with his mouth
  open, until I have to laugh, right in his face. But he takes no
  offence at that.

  Grünlich is very busy; he drives into town in the morning in our
  little yellow wagon and often does not come back till late. Sometimes
  he sits down with me and reads the paper.

  When we go into society--for example, to Kesselmeyer’s, or to
  Consul Goudstikker on the Alster Dam, or Senator Bock in City Hall
  Street--we have to take a hired coach. I have begged Grünlich again
  and again to get a coupé, for it is really a necessity out here. He
  has half promised, but, strange to say, he does not like to go into
  society with me and is evidently displeased when I visit people in
  the town. Do you suppose he is jealous?

  Our villa, which I’ve already described to you in detail, dear
  Mamma, is really very pretty, and is much prettier by reason of
  the new furnishings. You could not find a flaw in the upstairs
  sitting-room--all in brown silk. The dining-room next is prettily
  wainscoted. The chairs cost twenty-five marks apiece. I sit in the
  “pensée-room,” which we use as a sitting-room. There is also a little
  room for smoking and playing cards. The salon, which takes up the
  whole other half of the parterre, has new yellow blinds now and
  looks very well. Above are the bed, bath, and dressing-rooms and the
  servants’ quarters. We have a little groom for the yellow wagon. I
  am fairly well satisfied with the two maidservants. I am not sure
  they are quite honest, but thank God I don’t have to look after every
  kreuzer. In short, everything is really worthy of the family and the
  firm.

  And now, dear Mamma, comes the most important part of my letter,
  which I have kept till the last. A while ago I was feeling rather
  queer--not exactly ill and yet not quite well. I told Dr. Klaasen
  about it when I had the chance. He is a little bit of a man with a
  big head and a still bigger hat. He carries a cane with a flat round
  handle made of a piece of bone, and walks with it pressed against his
  whiskers, which are almost light-green from being dyed so many years.
  Well, you should have seen him! he did not answer my questions at
  all, but jerked his eye-glasses, twinkled his little eyes, wrinkled
  his nose at me--it looks like a potato--snickered, giggled, and
  stared so impertinently that I did not know what to do. Then he
  examined me, and said everything was going on well, only I must drink
  mineral water, because I am perhaps a little anæmic. Oh, Mamma, do
  tell Papa about it, so he can put it in the family book. I will write
  you again as soon as possible, you may be sure.

  Give my love to Papa, Christian, Clara, Clothilde and Ida Jungmann. I
  wrote to Thomas just lately.

                                               Your dutiful daughter,

                                                                ANTONIE.


                                                          August 2, 1846

  MY DEAR THOMAS,

  I have read with pleasure the news of your meeting with Christian
  in Amsterdam. It must have been a happy few days for both of you.
  I have no word as yet of your brother’s further journey to England
  via Ostende, but I hope that with God’s mercy it has been safely
  accomplished. It may not be too late, since Christian has decided to
  give up a professional career, for him to learn much that is valuable
  from his chief, Mr. Richardson; may he prosper and find blessing in
  the mercantile line! Mr. Richardson, Threadneedle Street, is, as you
  know, a close business friend of our house; I consider myself lucky
  to have placed both my sons with such friendly-disposed firms. You
  are now experiencing the good result of such a policy; and I feel
  profound satisfaction that Herr van der Kellen has already raised
  your salary in the quarter of a year you have been with him, and
  that he will continue to give you advancement. I am convinced that
  you have shown and will continue to show yourself, by your industry
  and good behaviour, worthy of these favours.

  I regret to hear that your health is not so good as it should be.
  What you write me of nervousness reminds me of my own youth, when
  I was working in Antwerp and had to go to Ems to take a cure. If
  anything of the sort seems best for you, my son, I am ready to
  encourage you with advice and assistance, although I am avoiding such
  expense for the rest of us in these times of political unrest.

  However, your Mother and I took a trip to Hamburg in the middle of
  June to visit your sister Tony. Her husband had not invited us, but
  he received us with the greatest cordiality and devoted himself to us
  so entirely during the two days of our visit, that he neglected his
  business and hardly left me time for a visit to Duchamps in the town.
  Antonie is in her fifth month, and her physician assures her that
  everything is going on in a normal and satisfactory way.

  I have still to mention a letter from Herr van der Kellen, from which
  I was pleased to learn that you are a favoured guest in his family
  circle. You are now, my son, at an age to begin to harvest the fruits
  of the upbringing your parents gave you. It may be helpful to you if
  I tell you that at your age, both in Antwerp and Bergen, I formed a
  habit of making myself useful and agreeable to my principals; and
  this was of the greatest service to me. Aside from the honour of
  association with the family of the head of the firm, one acquires an
  advocate in the person of the principal’s wife; and she may prove
  invaluable in the undesirable contingency of an oversight at the
  office or the dissatisfaction of your chief for some slight cause or
  other.

  As regards your business plans for the future, my son, I rejoice in
  the lively interest they indicate, without being able entirely to
  agree with them. You start with the idea that the market for our
  native products--for instance, grain, rapeseed, hides and skins,
  wool, oil, oil-cake, bones, etc.--is our chief concern; and you think
  it would be of advantage for you to turn yourself to the commission
  branch of the business. I once occupied myself with these ideas,
  at a time when the competition was small (it has since distinctly
  increased), and I made some experiments in them. My journey to
  England had for its chief purpose to look out connections there for
  my undertakings. To this end I went as far as Scotland, and made
  many valuable acquaintances; but I soon recognized the precarious
  nature of an export trade hither, and decided to discourage further
  expansion in that direction. Thus I kept in mind the warning of our
  forefather, the founder of the firm, which he bequeathed to us, his
  descendants: “My son, attend with zeal to thy business by day, but do
  none that hinders thee from thy sleep at night.”

  This principle I intend to keep sacred, now as in the past, though
  one is sometimes forced to entertain a doubt, on contemplating
  the operations of people who seem to get on better without it. I
  am thinking of Strunk and Hagenström, who have made such notable
  progress while our own business seems almost at a stand-still. You
  know that the house has not enlarged its business since the set-back
  consequent upon the death of your grandfather; and I pray to God
  that I shall be able to turn over the business to you in its present
  state. I have an experienced and cautious adviser in our head clerk
  Marcus. If only your Mother’s family would hang on to their groschen
  a little better! The inheritance is a matter of real importance for
  us.

  I am unusually full of business and civic work. I have been made
  alderman of the Board of the Bergen Line; also city deputy for the
  Finance Department, the Chamber of Commerce, the Auditing Commission,
  and the Almshouse of St. Anne, one after the other.

  Your Mother, Clara and Clothilde send greetings. Also several
  gentlemen--Senator Möllendorpf, Doctor Överdieck, Consul Kistenmaker,
  Gosch the broker, C. F. Köppen, and Herr Marcus in the office, have
  asked to be remembered. God’s blessing on you, my dear son. Work,
  pray, and save.

                                         With affectionate regards,

                                                            YOUR FATHER.


                                                         October 8, 1846

  DEAR AND HONOURED PARENTS,

  The undersigned is overjoyed to be able to advise you of the happy
  _accouchement_, half an hour ago, of your daughter, my beloved wife
  Antonie. It is, by God’s will, a daughter; I can find no words to
  express my joyful emotion. The health of the dear patient, as well as
  of the infant, is unexceptionable. Dr. Klaasen is entirely satisfied
  with the way things have gone; and Frau Grossgeorgis, the midwife,
  says it was simply nothing at all. Excitement obliges me to lay
  down my pen. I commend myself to my worthy parents with the most
  respectful affection.

                                                            B. GRÜNLICH.

  If it had been a boy, I had a very pretty name. As it is, I wanted to
  name her Meta, but Grünlich is for Erica.




CHAPTER II


“What is the matter, Betsy?” said the Consul, as he came to the table
and lifted up the plate with which his soup was covered. “Aren’t you
well? You don’t look just right to me.”

The round table in the great dining-room was grown very small. Around
it there gathered in these days, besides the parents, only little
Clara, now ten years old, Mamsell Jungmann, and Clothilde, as humble,
lean, and hungry as ever. The Consul looked about him: every face
was long and gloomy. What had happened? He himself was troubled and
anxious; for the Bourse was unsteady, owing to this complicated
Schleswig-Holstein affair. And still another source of disquiet was
in the air; when Anton had gone to fetch in the meat course, the
Consul heard what had happened. Trina, the cook, who had never before
been anything but loyal and dutiful to her mistress, had suddenly
shown clear signs of revolt. To the Frau Consul’s great vexation,
she had been maintaining relations--a sort of spiritual affinity, it
seemed--with the butcher’s apprentice; and that man of blood must
have influenced her political views in a most regrettable way. The
Consul’s wife had addressed some reproach to her in the matter of an
unsuccessful sauce, and she had put her naked arms akimbo and delivered
herself as follows: “You jus’ wait, Frau Consul; ’tain’ goin’ t’ be
much longer--there’ll come another order inter the world. ’N’ then
_I’ll_ be sittin’ on the sofa in a silk gownd, an’ you’ll be servin’
me.” Naturally, she received summary notice.

The Consul shook his head. He himself had had similar troubles. The
old porters and labourers were of course respectful enough, and
had no notions in their heads; but several here and there among the
young ones had shown by their bearing that the new spirit of revolt
had entered into them. In the spring there had been a street riot,
although a constitution corresponding to the demands of the new time
had already been drafted; which, a little later, despite the opposition
of Lebrecht Kröger and other stubborn old gentlemen, became law by a
decree of the Senate. The citizens met together and representatives of
the people were elected. But there was no rest. The world was upside
down. Every one wanted to revise the constitution and the franchise,
and the citizens grumbled. “Voting by estates,” said some--Consul
Johann Buddenbrook among them. “Universal franchise,” said the others;
Heinrich Hagenström was one of these. Still others cried “Universal
voting by estates”--and dear knew what they meant by that! All sorts
of ideas were in the air; for instance, the abolition of disabilities
and the general extension of the rights of citizenship--even to
non-Christians! No wonder Buddenbrook’s Trina had imbibed such ideas
about sofas and silk gowns! Oh, there was worse to come! Things
threatened to take a fearful turn.

It was an early October day of the year 1848. The sky was blue, with
a few light floating clouds in it, silvered by the rays of the sun,
the strength of which was indeed not so great but that the stove was
already going, behind the polished screen in the landscape-room. Little
Clara, whose hair had grown darker and whose eyes had a rather severe
expression, sat with some embroidery before the sewing-table, while
Clothilde, busy likewise with her needlework, had the sofa-place near
the Frau Consul. Although Clothilde Buddenbrook was not much older than
her married cousin--that is to say, only twenty-one years--her long
face already showed pronounced lines; and with her smooth hair, which
had never been blond, but always a dull greyish colour, she presented
an ideal portrait of a typical old maid. But she was content; she did
nothing to alter her condition. Perhaps she thought it best to grow old
early and thus to make a quick end of all doubts and hopes. As she did
not own a single sou, she knew that she would find nobody in all the
wide world to marry her, and she looked with humility into her future,
which would surely consist of consuming a tiny income in some tiny room
which her influential uncle would procure for her out of the funds of
some charitable establishment for maidens of good family.

The Consul’s wife was busy reading two letters. Tony related the good
progress of the little Erica, and Christian wrote eagerly of his life
and doings in London. He did not give any details of his industry
with Mr. Richardson of Threadneedle Street. The Frau Consul, who was
approaching the middle forties, complained bitterly of the tendency of
blond women to grow old too soon. The delicate tint which corresponded
to her reddish hair had grown dulled despite all cosmetics; and the
hair itself began relentlessly to grey, or would have done so but for
a Parisian tincture of which the Frau Consul had the receipt. She was
determined never to grow white. When the dye would no longer perform
its office, she would wear a blond wig. On top of her still artistic
coiffure was a silk scarf bordered with white lace, the beginning,
the first adumbration of a cap. Her silk frock was wide and flowing,
its bell-shaped sleeves lined with the softest mull. A pair of gold
circlets tinkled as usual on her wrist.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly there was a noise of
running and shouting: a sort of insolent hooting and cat-calling, the
stamping of feet on the pavement, a hubbub that grew louder and came
nearer.

“What is that noise, Mamma?” said Clara, looking out of the window and
into the gossip’s glass. “Look at the people! What is the matter with
them? What are they so pleased about?”

“My God!” shouted the Frau Consul, throwing down her letters and
springing to the window. “Is it--? My God, it is the Revolution! It is
the people!”

The truth was that the town had been the whole day in a state of
unrest. In the morning the windows of Benthien the draper’s shop in
Broad Street had been broken by stones--although God knew what the
owner had to do with politics!

“Anton,” the Consul’s wife called with a trembling voice into the
dining-room, where the servants were bustling about with the silver.
“Anton! Go below! Shut the outside doors. Make everything fast. It is a
mob.”

“Oh, Frau Consul,” said Anton. “Is it safe for me to do that? I am a
servant. If they see my livery--”

“What wicked people,” Clothilde drawled without putting down her work.
Just then the Consul crossed the entrance hall and came in through the
glass door. He carried his coat over his arm and his hat in his hand.

“You are going out, Jean?” asked the Frau Consul in great excitement
and trepidation.

“Yes, my dear, I must go to the meeting.”

“But the mob, Jean, the Revolution--”

“Oh, dear me, Betsy, it isn’t so serious as that! We are in God’s hand.
They have gone past the house already. I’ll go down the back way.”

“Jean, if you love me--do you want to expose yourself to this danger?
Will you leave us here unprotected? I am afraid, I tell you--I am
afraid.”

“My dear, I beg of you, don’t work yourself up like this. They will
only make a bit of a row in front of the Town Hall or in the market. It
may cost the government a few window-panes--but that’s all.”

“Where are you going, Jean?”

“To the Assembly. I am late already. I was detained by business. It
would be a shame not to be there to-day. Do you think your Father is
stepping away, old as he is?”

“Then go, in God’s name, Jean. But be careful, I beg of you. And keep
an eye on my Father. If anything hit him--”

“Certainly, my dear.”

“When will you be back?” the Frau Consul called after him.

“Well, about half-past four or five o’clock. Depends. There is a good
deal of importance on the agenda, so I can’t exactly tell.”

“Oh, I’m frightened, I’m frightened,” repeated the Frau Consul, walking
up and down restlessly.




CHAPTER III


Consul Buddenbrook crossed his spacious ground floor in haste. Coming
out into Bakers’ Alley, he heard steps behind him and saw Gosch the
broker, a picturesque figure in his long cloak and Jesuit hat, also
climbing the narrow street to the meeting. He lifted his hat with one
thin long hand, and with the other made a deferential gesture, as he
said, “Well, Herr Consul--how are you?” His voice sounded sinister.

This broker, Siegismund Gosch, a bachelor of some forty years, was,
despite his demeanour, the best and most honest soul in the world; but
he was a wit and an oddity. His smooth-shaven face was distinguished
by a Roman nose, a protruding pointed chin, sharp features, and a wide
mouth drooping at the corners, whose narrow lips he was in the habit of
pressing together in the most taciturn and forbidding manner. His grey
hair fell thick and sombre over his brow, and he actually regretted
not being humpbacked. It was his whim to assume the rôle of a wild,
witty, and reckless intrigant--a cross between Mephistopheles and
Napoleon, something very malevolent and yet fascinating too; and he was
not entirely unsuccessful in his pose. He was a strange yet attractive
figure among the citizens of the old city; still, he belonged among
them, for he carried on a small brokerage business in the most modest,
respectable sort of way. In his narrow, dark little office, however,
he had a large book-case filled with poetry in every language, and
there was a story that he had been engaged since his twentieth year on
a translation of Lope de Vega’s collected dramas. Once he had played
the rôle of Domingo in an amateur performance of Schiller’s “Don
Carlos”--this was the culmination of his career. A common word never
crossed his lips; and the most ordinary business expressions he would
hiss between his clenched teeth, as if he were saying “Curses on you,
villain,” instead of some commonplace about stocks and commissions. He
was, in many ways, the heir and successor to Jean Jacques Hoffstede of
blessed memory, except that his character had certain elements of the
sombre and pathetic, with none of the playful liveliness of that old
18th century friend of Johann Buddenbrook. One day he lost at a single
blow, on the Bourse, six and a half thaler on two or three papers
which he had bought as a speculation. This was enough. He sank upon a
bench; he struck an attitude which looked as though he had lost the
Battle of Waterloo; he struck his clenched fist against his forehead
and repeated several times, with a blasphemous roll of the eyes: “Ha,
accursed, accursed!” He must have been, at bottom, cruelly bored by
the small, safe business he did and the petty transfer of this or that
bit of property; for this loss, this tragic blow with which Heaven had
stricken him down--him, the schemer Gosch--delighted his inmost soul.
He fed on it for weeks. Some one would say, “So you’ve had a loss,
Herr Gosch, I’m sorry to hear.” To which he would answer: “Oh, my good
friend, ‘_uomo non educato dal dolore riman sempre bambino_’!” Probably
nobody understood that. Was it, possibly, Lope da Vega? Anyhow, there
was no doubt that this Siegismund Gosch was a remarkable and learned
man.

“What times we live in,” he said, limping up the street with the
Consul, supported by his stick. “Times of storm and unrest.”

“You are right,” replied the Consul. “The times are unquiet. This
morning’s sitting will be exciting. The principle of the estates--”

“Well, now,” Herr Gosch went on, “I have been about all day in the
streets, and I have been looking at the mob. There are some fine
fellows in it, their eyes flaming with excitement and hatred--”

Johann Buddenbrook began to laugh. “You like that, don’t you? But
you have the right end of it after all, let me tell you. It is all
childishness! What do these men want? A lot of uneducated rowdies who
see a chance for a bit of a scrimmage.”

“Of course. Though I can’t deny--I was in the crowd when Berkemeyer,
the journeyman butcher, smashed Herr Benthien’s window. He was like a
panther.” Herr Gosch spoke the last word with his teeth particularly
close together, and went on: “Oh, the thing has its fine side, that’s
certain. It is a change, at least, you know; something that doesn’t
happen every day. Storm, stress, violence--the tempest! Oh, the people
are ignorant, I know--still, my heart, this heart of mine--it beats
with theirs!” They were already before the simple yellow-painted house
on the ground floor of which the sittings of the Assembly took place.

The room belonged to the beer-hall and dance-establishment of a widow
named Suerkringel; but on certain days it was at the service of the
gentlemen burgesses. The entrance was through a narrow whitewashed
corridor opening into the restaurant on the right side, where it
smelled of beer and cooking, and thence through a handleless, lockless
green door so small and narrow that no one could have supposed such a
large room lay behind it. The room was empty, cold, and barnlike, with
a whitewashed roof in which the beams showed, and whitewashed walls.
The three rather high windows had green-painted bars, but no curtains.
Opposite them were the benches, rising in rows like an amphitheatre,
with a table at the bottom for the chairman, the recording clerk, and
the Committee of the Senate. It was covered with a green cloth and had
a clock, documents, and writing materials on it. On the wall opposite
the door were several tall hat-racks with hats and coats.

The sound of voices met the Consul and his companion as they entered
through the narrow door. They were the last to come. The room was
filled with burgesses, hands in their trousers pockets, on their hips,
or in the air, as they stood together in groups and discussed. Of the
hundred and thirty members of the body at least a hundred were present.
A number of delegates from the country districts had been obliged by
circumstances to stop at home.

Near the entrance stood a group composed of two or three small
business men, a high-school teacher, the orphan asylum “father,”
Herr Mindermann, and Herr Wenzel, the popular barber. Herr Wenzel, a
powerful little man with a black moustache, an intelligent face, and
red hands, had shaved the Consul that very morning; here, however, he
stood on an equality with him. He shaved only in the best circles; he
shaved almost exclusively the Möllendorpfs, Langhals, Buddenbrooks, and
Överdiecks, and he owed his vote in the Assembly to his omniscience in
city affairs, his sociability and ease, and his remarkable power of
decision at a division.

“Have you heard the latest, Herr Consul?” he asked with round-eyed
eagerness as his patron came up.

“What is there to hear, my dear Wenzel?”

“Nobody knew it this morning. Well, permit me to tell you, Herr Consul,
the latest is that the crowd are not going to collect before the Town
Hall, or in the market--they are coming here to threaten the burgesses.
Editor Rübsam has stirred them up.”

“Is it possible?” said the Consul. He pressed through the various
groups to the middle of the room, where he saw his father-in-law with
Senators Dr. Langhals and James Möllendorpf. “Is it true, gentlemen?”
he asked, shaking hands with them.

But there was no need to answer. The whole assemblage was full of it:
the peace-breakers were coming; they could be heard already in the
distance.

“_Canaille!_” said Lebrecht Kröger with cold scorn. He had driven
hither in his carriage. On an ordinary day the tall, distinguished
figure of the once famous cavalier showed the burden of his eighty
years; but to-day he stood quite erect with his eyes half-closed, the
corners of his mouth contemptuously drawn down, and the points of his
white moustaches sticking straight up. Two rows of jewelled buttons
sparkled on his black velvet waistcoat.

Not far from this group was Heinrich Hagenström, a square-built, fleshy
man with a reddish beard sprinkled with grey, a heavy watch-chain
across his blue-checked waistcoat, and his coat open over it. He was
standing with his partner Herr Strunck, and did not greet the Consul.

Herr Benthien, the draper, a prosperous looking man, had a large group
of gentlemen around him, to whom he was circumstantially describing
what had happened to his show-window. “A brick, gentlemen, a brick, or
at least half a brick--_crack!_ through it went and landed on a roll of
green rep. The rascally mob! Oh, the Government will have to take it
up! It’s their affair!”

And in every corner of the room unceasingly resounded the voice of
Herr Stuht from Bell-Founders’ Street. He had on a black coat over his
woollen shirt; and he so deeply sympathized with the narrative of Herr
Benthien that he never stopped saying, in outraged accents, “Infamous,
un-heard-of!”

Johann Buddenbrook found and greeted his old friend G. F. Köppen, and
then Köppen’s rival, Consul Kistenmaker. He moved about in the crowd,
pressed Dr. Grabow’s hand, and exchanged a few words with Herr Gieseke
the Fire Commissioner, Contractor Voigt, Dr. Langhals, the Chairman,
brother of the Senator, and several merchants, lawyers, and teachers.

The sitting was not yet opened, but debate was already lively.
Everybody was cursing that pestilential scribbler, Editor Rübsam;
everybody knew he had stirred up the crowd--and what for? The business
in hand was to decide whether they were to go on with the method of
selecting representatives by estates, or whether there was to be
universal and equal franchise. The Senate had already proposed the
latter. But what did the people want? They wanted these gentlemen by
the throats--no more and no less. It was the worst hole they had
ever found themselves in, devil take it! The Senatorial Committee
was surrounded, its members’ opinion eagerly sought. They approached
Consul Buddenbrook, as one who should know the attitude of Burgomaster
Överdieck; for since Senator Doctor Överdieck, Consul Justus Kröger’s
brother-in-law, had been made President last year, the Buddenbrooks
were related to the Burgomaster; which had distinctly enhanced the
regard in which they were held.

All of a sudden the tumult began outside. Revolution had arrived under
the windows of the Sitting. The excited exchange of opinions inside
ceased simultaneously. Every man, dumb with the shock, folded his
hands upon his stomach and looked at his fellows or at the windows,
where fists were being shaken in the air and the crowd was giving vent
to deafening and frantic yelling. But then, most astonishingly, as
though the offenders themselves had suddenly grown aghast at their own
behaviour, it became just as still outside as in the hall; and in that
deep hush, one word from the neighbourhood of the lowest benches, where
Lebrecht Kröger was sitting, was distinctly audible. It rang through
the hall, cold, emphatic, and deliberate--the word “Canaille!” And,
like an echo, came the word “Infamous,” in a fat, outraged voice from
the other corner of the hall. Then the hurried, trembling, whispering
utterance of the draper Benthien: “Gentlemen, gentlemen! Listen! I know
the house. There is a trap-door on to the roof from the attic. I used
to shoot cats through it when I was a lad. We can climb on to the next
roof and get down safely.”

“Cowardice,” hissed Gosch the broker between his teeth. He leaned
against the table with his arms folded and head bent, directing a
blood-curdling glance through the window.

“Cowardice, do you say? How cowardice? In God’s name, sir, aren’t they
throwing bricks? I’ve had enough of that.”

The noise outside had begun again, but without reaching its former
stormy height. It sounded quieter and more continuous, a prolonged,
patient, almost comfortable hum, rising and falling; now and then one
heard whistles, and sometimes single words like “principle” and “rights
of citizens.” The assembly listened respectfully.

After a while the chairman, Herr Dr. Langhals, spoke in a subdued tone:
“Gentlemen, I think we could come to some agreement if we opened the
meeting.”

But this humble suggestion did not meet with the slightest support from
anybody.

“No good in that,” somebody said, with a simple decisiveness that
permitted no appeal. It was a peasant sort of man, named Pfahl, from
the Ritzerau district, deputy for the village of Little Schretstaken.
Nobody remembered ever to have heard his voice raised before in a
meeting, but its very simplicity made it weighty at the present crisis.
Unafraid and with sure political insight, Herr Pfahl had voiced the
feeling of the entire assemblage.

“God keep us,” Herr Benthien said despondently. “If we sit on the
benches we can be seen from outside. They’re throwing stones--I’ve had
enough of that.”

“And the cursed door is so narrow,” burst out Köppen the wine-merchant,
in despair. “If we start to go out, we’ll probably get crushed.”

“Infamous, un-heard-of,” Herr Stuht intoned.

“Gentlemen,” began the Chairman urgently once more. “I have to put
before the Burgomaster in the next three days a draft of to-day’s
protocol, and the town expects its publication through the press. I
should at least like to get a vote on that subject, if the sitting
would come to order--”

But with the exception of a few citizens who supported the chairman,
nobody seemed ready to come to the consideration of the agenda. A vote
would have been useless anyhow--they must not irritate the people.
Nobody knew what they wanted, so it was no good to offend them by a
vote, in whatever direction. They must wait and control themselves. The
clock of St. Mary’s struck half-past four.

They confirmed themselves and each other in this resolve of patient
waiting. They began to get used to the noise that rose and fell
outside, to feel quieter; to make themselves more comfortable, to sit
down on the lower benches and chairs. The natural instinct toward
industry, common to all these good burghers, began to assert itself:
they ventured to bargain a little, to pick up a little business here
and there. The brokers sat down by the wholesale dealers. These
beleaguered gentlemen talked together like people shut in by a sudden
storm, who speak of other things, and now and then pause to listen with
respectful faces to the thunder. It was five o’clock--half-past five.
It was getting dark. Now and then somebody sighed and said that the
wife would be waiting with the coffee--and then Herr Benthien would
venture to mention the trap-door. But most of them were like Herr
Stuht, who said fatalistically, shaking his head, “I’m too fat.”

Mindful of his wife’s request Johann Buddenbrook had kept an eye on his
father-in-law. He said to him: “This little adventure isn’t disturbing
you, is it, Father?”

Lebrecht Kröger’s forehead showed two swollen blue veins under his
white wig. He looked ill. One aristocratic old hand played with the
opalescent buttons on his waistcoat; the other, with its great diamond
ring, trembled on his knee.

“Fiddlesticks, Buddenbrook,” he said; but his voice showed extreme
fatigue. “I am sick of it, that’s all.” Then he betrayed himself by
suddenly hissing out: “Parbleu, Jean, this infamous rabble ought to be
taught some respect with a little powder and shot. _Canaille!_ Scum!”

The Consul hummed assent. “Yes, yes, you are right; it is a pretty
undignified affair. But what can we do? We must keep our tempers. It’s
getting late. They’ll go away after a bit.”

“Where is my carriage? I desire my carriage,” said the old man in a
tone of command, suddenly quite beside himself. His anger exploded; he
trembled all over. “I ordered it for five o’clock: where is it? This
sitting will never be held. Why should I stop any longer? I don’t care
about being made a fool of. My carriage! What are they doing to my
coachman? Go see after it, Buddenbrook.”

“My dear Father-in-Law, for heaven’s sake be calm. You are getting
excited. It will be bad for you. Of course I will go and see after the
carriage. I think myself we have had enough of this. I will speak to
the people and tell them to go home.”

Close by the little green door he was accosted by Siegismund Gosch,
who grasped his arm with a bony hand and asked in a gruesome whisper:
“Whither away, Herr Consul?”

The broker’s face was furrowed with a thousand lines. His pointed chin
rose almost up to his nose, his face expressed the most desperate
resolution; his grey hair streamed distractedly over brow and temples;
his head was so drawn in between his shoulders that he really almost
achieved his ambition of looking like a dwarf--and he rapped out: “You
behold me resolved to speak to the people.”

The Consul said: “No, let me do it, Gosch. I really know more of them
than you do.”

“Be it so,” answered the broker tonelessly. “You are a bigger man than
I.” And, lifting his voice, he went on: “But I will accompany you,
I will stand at your side, Consul Buddenbrook. Let the wrath of the
outraged people tear me in pieces--”

“What a day, what a night!” he said as they went out. There is no doubt
he had never felt so happy before in his life. “Ha, Herr Consul! Here
are the people.”

They had gone down the corridor and outside the outer door, where
they stood at the top of three little steps that went down to the
pavement. The street was indeed a strange sight. It was as still as the
grave. At the open and lighted windows of the houses round, stood the
curious, looking down upon the black mass of the insurgents before the
Burgesses’ House. The crowd was not much bigger than that inside the
hall. It consisted of young labourers from the harbour and granaries,
servants, school pupils, sailors from the merchant ships, and other
people from the little streets, alleys, courts, and rabbit-hutches
round about. There were even two or three women--who had probably
promised themselves the same millennium as the Buddenbrooks’ cook. A
few of the insurrectionists, weary of standing, had sat down with their
feet in the gutter and were eating sandwiches.

It was nearly six o’clock. Though twilight was well advanced, the
oil lamps hung unlighted above the street. This fact, this open and
unheard-of interruption of the regular order, was the first thing that
really made Consul Buddenbrook’s temper rise, and was responsible
for his beginning to speak in a rather short and angry tone and the
broadest of pronunciations:

“Now then, all of you, what is the meaning of this foolishness?”

The picnickers sprang up from the sidewalk. Those in the back ranks,
beyond the foot-pavement, stood on their tip-toes. Some navvies, in the
service of the Consul, took off their caps. They stood at attention,
nudged each other, and muttered in low tones, “’Tis Consul Buddenbrook.
He be goin’ to talk. Hold yer jaw, there, Chrishan; he can jaw like the
devil himself! Ther’s Broker Gosch--look! What a monkey he is! Isn’t he
gettin’ o’erwrought!”

“Carl Smolt!” began the Consul again, picking out and fastening
his small, deep-set eyes upon a bow-legged young labourer of about
two-and-twenty, with his cap in his hand and his mouth full of bread,
standing in front of the steps. “Here, speak up, Carl Smolt! Now’s the
time! I’ve been here the whole afternoon--”

“Yes, Herr Consul,” brought out Carl Smolt, chewing violently. “The
thing is--ower--it’s a soart o’--we’re makkin’ a rivolution.”

“What kind of nonsense is that, then?”

“Lord, Herr Consul, ye knaw what that is. We’re not satisfied wi’
things as they be. We demand another order o’ things; tain’t any more’n
that--that’s what it is.”

“Now, listen, Carl Smolt and the rest of you. Whoever’s got any sense
will go home and not bother himself over any revolutions, disturbing
the regular order of things--”

“The sacred order,” interrupted Herr Gosch dramatically.

“The regular order, I say,” finished the Consul. “Why, even the lamps
aren’t lighted. That’s going too far with the revolution.”

Carl Smolt had swallowed his mouthful by now, and, with the people at
his back, stood his ground and made some objections.

“Well, Herr Consul, ye may say that. But we’re only agin the principle
of the voate--”

“God in heaven, you ninny,” shouted the Consul, forgetting, in his
excitement, to speak dialect. “You’re talking the sheerest nonsense--”

“Lord, Herr Consul,” said Carl Smolt, somewhat abashed, “thet’s oall
as it is. Rivolution it has to be. Ther’s rivolution iverywheer, in
Berlin, in Paris--”

“But, Smolt, what do you want? Just tell me that, if you can.”

“Lord, Herr Consul, I say we wants a republic; that’s wat I be sayin’.”

“But, you fool, you’ve got one already.”

“Well, Herr Consul, then we wants another.”

Some of the bystanders, who understood the matter better, began to
laugh rudely and heartily; and although few even heard Carl’s answer,
the laughter spread until the whole crowd of republicans stood shaking
good-naturedly. Some of the gentlemen from inside the hall appeared at
the window with curious faces and beer-mugs in their hands. The only
person disappointed and pained by this turn of affairs was Siegismund
Gosch.

“Now, people,” shouted Consul Buddenbrook finally, “I think the best
thing for you all to do is to go home.”

Carl Smolt, quite crestfallen over the result he had brought about,
answered “That’s right, Herr Consul. Then things’ll be quieted down.
And Herr Consul doesn’t take it ill of me, do’e, now? Good-bye, Herr
Consul!”

The crowd began to disperse, in the best of humours.

“Wait a minute, Smolt,” shouted the Consul. “Have you seen the Kröger
carriage? the calèche from outside the Castle Gate?”

“Yes, sir, Herr Consul. He’s here; he be driven up in some court
somewhere.”

“Then run quick and say he’s to come at once; his master wants to go
home.”

“Servant, Herr Consul,” and, throwing his cap on his head and pulling
the leather visor well down over his brows, Carl Smolt ran with great
swinging strides down the street.




CHAPTER IV


When the Consul and Siegismund Gosch returned to the hall, the
scene was a more comfortable one than it had been a quarter of an
hour before. It was lighted by two large oil lamps standing on the
Committee table, in whose yellow light the gentlemen sat or stood
together, pouring out beer into shining tankards, touching glasses
and talking loudly, in the gayest of humours. Frau Suerkringel, the
widow, had consoled them. She had loyally taken on her enforced guests
and given them good advice, recommending that they fortify themselves
for the siege, which might endure some while yet. And thus she had
profitably employed the time by selling a considerable quantity of her
light yet exhilarating beer. As the others entered, the house-boy,
in shirt-sleeves and good-natured grin, was just bringing in a fresh
supply of bottles. While it was certainly late, too late to consider
further the revision of the Constitution, nobody seemed inclined to
interrupt the meeting and go home. It was too late for coffee, in any
case.

After the Consul had received congratulatory handshakes on his success,
he went up to his father-in-law. Lebrecht Kröger was the only man
in the room whose mood had not improved. He sat in his place, cold,
remote, and lofty, and answered the information that the carriage would
be around at once by saying scornfully, in a voice that trembled more
with bitterness than age: “Then the mob permits me to go home?”

With stiff movements that no longer had in them anything of the charm
that had been his, he had his fur mantle put about his shoulders, and
laid his arm, with a careless “_Merci_,” on that of the Consul, who
offered to accompany him home. The majestic coach, with two large
lanterns on the box, stood in the street, where, to the Consul’s great
satisfaction, the lamps were now being lighted. They both got in.
Silent and stiffly erect, with his eyes half-closed, Lebrecht Kröger
sat with the rug over his knees, the Consul at his right hand, while
the carriage rolled through the streets. Beneath the points of the
old man’s white moustaches two lines ran down perpendicularly from
the corners of his mouth to his chin. He was gnawed by chagrin at the
insult that had been offered him, and he stared, weary and chilled, at
the cushions opposite.

There was more gayety in the streets than on a Sunday evening.
Obviously a holiday temper reigned. The people, delighted at the
successful outcome of the revolution, were out in the gayest mood.
There was singing. Here and there youngsters shouted “Hurrah!” as the
carriage drove past, and threw their caps into the air.

“I really think, Father, you let the matter affect you too much,” the
Consul said. “When one thinks of it, what a tom-fool business the whole
thing was--simply a farce.” In order to get some reply from the old
man he went on to talk about the revolution in lively tones. “When the
propertyless class begin to realize how little they serve their own
ends--why, good heavens, it’s the same everywhere. I was talking this
afternoon with Gosch the broker, a wonderful man, looking at everything
with the eyes of a poet and writer. You see, Father, this revolution
was made at the æsthetic tea-tables of Berlin. Then the people take
their own skin to market--for, of course, they will be the ones to pay
for it!”

“It would be a good thing if you would open the window on your side,”
said Herr Kröger.

Johann Buddenbrook gave him a quick glance and let the glass down
hastily.

“Aren’t you feeling well, dear Father?” he asked anxiously.

“Not at all,” answered Lebrecht Kröger severely.

“You need food and rest,” the Consul said; and in order to be doing
something he drew up the fur rug closer about his father-in-law’s knees.

Suddenly--the carriage was rolling through Castle Street--a wretched
thing happened. Fifteen paces from the Castle Gate, in the half-dark,
they passed a group of noisy and happy street urchins, and a stone
flew through the open window. It was a harmless little stone, the size
of a hen’s egg, flung by the hand of some Chris Snut or Heine Voss
to celebrate the revolution; certainly not with any bad intent, and
probably not directed toward the carriage at all. It came noiselessly
through the window and struck Lebrecht Kröger in his chest, which was
covered with the thick fur rug. Then it rolled down over the cover and
fell upon the floor of the coach.

“Clumsy fools!” said the Consul angrily. “Is everybody out of their
senses this evening? It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

Old Kröger was silent--alarmingly silent. It was too dark in the
carriage to see his expression. He sat straighter, higher, stiffer
than ever, without touching the cushions. Then, from deep within him,
slowly, coldly, dully, came the single word: “Canaille.”

For fear of angering him further, the Consul made no answer. The
carriage clattered through the gate, and three minutes later was in the
broad avenue before the gilt-tipped railings that bounded the Kröger
domain. A drive bordered with chestnut trees went from the garden
gate up to the terrace; and on either side of the gate a gilt-topped
lantern was burning brightly. The Consul saw his father-in-law’s face
by this light--it was yellow and wrinkled; the firm, contemptuous set
of the mouth had given way: it had changed to the lax, silly, distorted
expression of a very old man. The carriage stopped before the terrace.

“Help me out,” said Lebrecht Kröger; but the Consul was already out,
had thrown back the rug, and offered his arm and shoulder as a support.
He led the old man slowly for a few paces across the gravel to the
white stone steps that went up to the dining-room. At the foot of
these, the old man bent at the knee-joints. His head fell so heavily
on his breast that the lower jaw clashed against the upper. His eyes
rolled--grew dim; Lebrecht Kröger, the gallant, the cavalier à-la-mode,
had joined his fathers.




CHAPTER V


A year and two months later, on a misty, snowy morning in January of
the year 1850, Herr and Madame Grünlich sat at breakfast with their
little three-year-old daughter, in the brown wainscoted dining-room, on
chairs that cost twenty-five marks apiece.

The panes of both windows were opaque with mist; behind them one
had vague glimpses of bare trees and bushes. A red glow and a
gentle, scented warmth came from the low, green-tiled stove standing
in a corner. Through the open door next to it one could see the
foliage-plants in the “pensée-room.” On the other wall, half-drawn
green stuff portières gave a view of the brown satin salon and of a
lofty glass door leading on to a little terrace beyond. The cracks
in this door were carefully stopped with cotton-wool, and there was
nothing to be seen through its panes but the whitish-grey mist beyond.

The snow-white cloth of woven damask on the round table had an
embroidered green runner across it, laid with gold-bordered porcelain
so translucent that it gleamed like mother-of-pearl. The tea-kettle was
humming. There was a finely worked silver bread-basket in the shape
of a curling leaf, with slices and rolls of fine bread; under one
crystal bell were little balls of butter, under another different sorts
of cheese, white, yellow, and green. There was even a bottle of wine
standing before the master of the house; for Herr Grünlich had a full
breakfast every morning.

His whiskers were freshly curled, and at this early hour his rosy
face was rosier than ever. He sat with his back to the salon, already
arrayed in a black coat and light trousers with a pattern of large
checks, eating a grilled chop, in the English manner. His wife thought
this very elegant, but also very disgusting--she had never brought
herself to take it instead of her usual breakfast of bread and butter
and an egg.

Tony was in her dressing-gown. She adored dressing-gowns. Nothing
seemed more elegant to her than a handsome negligée, and as she had
not been allowed to indulge this passion in the parental house she was
the more given to it as a wife. She had three of these dainty clinging
garments, to the fashioning of which can go so much more taste and
fantasy than to a ball-gown. To-day she wore her dark-red one. Its
colour toned beautifully with the paper above the wainscoting, and its
large-flowered stuff, of a beautiful soft texture, was embroidered all
over with sprays of tiny glass beads of the same colour, while row
after row of red velvet ribbons ran from neck to hem.

Her thick ash-blonde hair, with its dark-red velvet band, curled about
her brows. She had now, as she was herself well aware, reached the
highest point of her physical bloom; yet her pretty, pouting upper lip
retained just the naïve, provocative expression of her childhood. The
lids of her grey-blue eyes were reddened with cold water. Her hands,
the white Buddenbrook hands, finely shaped if a little stumpy, their
delicate wrists caressed by the velvet cuffs of her dressing-gown,
handled her knife and fork and tea-cup with motions that were to-day,
for some reason or other, rather jerky and abrupt. Her little daughter
Erica sat near her in a high chair. She was a plump child with short
blonde hair, in a funny, shapeless, knitted frock of pale-blue wool.
She held a large cup in both tiny hands, entirely concealing her face,
and drank her milk with little sighs of satisfaction.

Frau Grünlich rang, and Tinka, the housemaid, came from the entry to
take the child from her high chair and carry her upstairs into the
play-room. “You may take her walking outside for a half-hour, Tinka,”
said Tony. “But not longer; and put on her thick jacket. It is very
damp and foggy.” She remained alone with her husband.

“You only make yourself seem absurd,” she said then, after a silence,
obviously continuing an interrupted conversation. “What are your
objections? Give me some reason. I can’t be always attending to the
child.”

“You are not fond of children, Antonie.”

“Fond of children, indeed! I have no time. I am taken up with the
housekeeping. I wake up with twenty things that must be done, and I go
to bed with forty that have not been done.”

“There are two servants. A young woman like you--”

“Two servants. Good. Tinka has to wash up, to clean, to serve. The
cook is busy all the time. You have chops early in the morning. Think
it over, Grünlich. Sooner or later, Erica must have a _bonne_, a
governess.”

“But to get a governess for her so soon is not suited to our means.”

“Our means! Goodness, you _are_ absurd! Are we beggars? Are we forced
to live within the smallest limits we can? I think I brought you in
eighty thousand marks--”

“Oh, you and your eighty thousand marks--!”

“Yes, I know you like to make light of them. They were of no importance
to you because you married me for love! Good. But do you still love
me? You deliberately disregard my wishes. The child is not to have a
governess. And I don’t even speak any more of the coupé, which we need
quite as much as we need food and drink. And why do you insist on our
living out here in the country, if it isn’t in accordance with our
means to keep a carriage so that we can go into society respectably?
Why do you never like it when I go in to town? You would always rather
just have me bury myself out here, so I should never see a living soul.
I think you are very ill-tempered.”

Herr Grünlich poured some wine into his glass, lifted up one of the
crystal bells, and began on the cheese. He made no reply.

“Don’t you love me any more?” repeated Tony. “Your silence is so
insulting, it drives me to remind you of a certain day when you entered
our landscape-room. You made a fine figure of yourself! But from the
very first day after our marriage you have sat with me only in the
evening, and that only to read the paper. Just at first you showed some
little regard for my wishes. But that’s been over with for a long while
now. You neglect me.”

“And you? You are ruining me.”

“I? I am ruining you?”

“Yes, you are ruining me with your indolence, your extravagance, and
love of luxury.”

“Oh, pray don’t reproach me with my good upbringing! In my parents’
house I never had to lift a finger. Now I have hard work to get
accustomed to the housekeeping; but I have at least a right to demand
that you do not refuse me the ordinary assistance. Father is a rich
man; he would never dream that I could lack for service.”

“Then wait for this third servant until we get hold of some of those
riches.”

“Oh, you are wishing for my Father’s death. But I mean that we are
well-to-do people in our own right. I did not come to you with empty
hands.”

Herr Grünlich smiled an embarrassed and dejected smile, although he was
in the act of chewing his breakfast. He made no other reply, and his
silence bewildered Tony.

“Grünlich,” she said more quietly, “why do you smile and talk about our
‘means’? Am I mistaken? Has business been bad? Have you--?”

Just then somebody drummed on the corridor door, and Herr Kesselmeyer
walked in.




CHAPTER VI


Herr Kesselmeyer entered unannounced, as a friend of the house,
without hat or coat. He paused, however, near the door. His looks
corresponded exactly to the description Tony had given to her Mother.
He was slightly thick-set as to figure, but neither fat nor lean. He
wore a black, already somewhat shiny coat, short tight trousers of
the same material, and a white waistcoat, over which went a long thin
watch-chain and two or three eye-glass cords. His clipped white beard
was in sharp contrast with his red face. It covered his cheeks and
left his chin and lips free. His mouth was small and mobile, with two
yellowish pointed teeth in the otherwise vacant gum of his lower jaw,
and he was pressing these into his upper lip, as he stood absently by
the door with his hands in his trousers pockets and the black and white
down on his head waving slightly, although there was not the least
perceptible draught.

Finally he drew his hands out of his pockets, bowed, released his lip,
and with difficulty freed one of the eye-glass cords from the confusion
on his waistcoat. He lifted his pince-nez and put it with a single
gesture astride his nose. Then he made the most astonishing grimaces,
looked at the husband and wife, and remarked: “Ah, ha!”

He used this expression with extraordinary frequency and a surprising
variety of inflections. He might say it with his head thrown back, his
nose wrinkled up, mouth wide open, hands swishing about in the air,
with a long-drawn-out, nasal, metallic sound, like a Chinese gong; or
he might, with still funnier effect, toss it out, gently, _en passant_;
or with any one of a thousand different shades of tone and meaning. His
_a_ was very clouded and nasal. To-day it was a hurried, lively “Ah
ha!” accompanied with a jerk of the head, that seemed to arise from an
unusually pleasant mood, and yet might not be trusted to be so; for the
fact was, Banker Kesselmeyer never behaved more gaily than when he was
dangerous. When he jumped about emitting a thousand “Ah ha’s,” lifting
his glasses to his nose and letting them fall again, waving his arms,
chattering, plainly quite beside himself with light-headedness, then
you might be sure that evil was gnawing at his inwards. Herr Grünlich
looked at him blinking, with unconcealed mistrust.

“Already--so early?” he asked.

“Ah, ha!” answered Herr Kesselmeyer, and waved one of his small, red,
wrinkled hands in the air, as if to say: “Patience, there is a surprise
coming.” “I must speak with you, without any delay; I must speak with
you.”

The words sounded irresistibly comic as he rolled each one about before
giving it out, with exaggerated movements of his little toothless,
mobile mouth. He rolled his _r_’s as if his palate were greased. Herr
Grünlich blinked more and more suspiciously.

“Come and sit down, Herr Kesselmeyer,” said Tony. “I’m glad you’ve
come. Listen. You can decide between us. Grünlich and I have been
disagreeing. Now tell me: ought a three-year-old child to have a
governess or not?”

But Herr Kesselmeyer seemed not to be attending. He had seated himself
and was rubbing his stubbly beard with his forefinger, making a rasping
sound, his mouth as wide open as possible, nose as wrinkled, while he
stared over his glasses with an indescribably sprightly air at the
elegantly appointed breakfast-table, the silver bread-basket, the label
on the wine-bottle.

“Grünlich says I am ruining him,” Tony continued.

Herr Kesselmeyer looked at her; then he looked at Herr Grünlich;
then he burst out into an astonishing fit of laughter. “You are
ruining him?--you? _You_ are ruining him--that’s it, is it? Oh good
gracious, heavens and earth, you don’t say! That _is_ a joke. That is
a tre-men-dous, tre-men-dous joke.” He let out a stream of ha ha’s all
run in together.

Herr Grünlich was plainly nervous. He squirmed on his seat. He ran his
long finger down between his collar and his neck and let his golden
whiskers glide through his hand.

“Kesselmeyer,” he said. “Control yourself, man. Are you out of your
head? Stop laughing! Will you have some wine? Or a cigar? What are you
laughing at?”

“What am I laughing at? Yes, yes, give me a glass of wine, give me a
cigar. Why am I laughing? So you think your wife is ruining you?”

“She is very luxuriously inclined,” Herr Grünlich said irritably.

Tony did not contradict him. She leaned calmly back, her hands in
her lap on the velvet ribbons of her frock and her pert upper lip in
evidence: “Yes, I am, I know. I have it from Mamma. All the Krögers are
fond of luxury.”

She would have admitted in the same calm way that she was frivolous,
revengeful, or quick-tempered. Her strongly developed family sense was
instinctively hostile to conceptions of free will and self-development;
it inclined her rather to recognize and accept her own characteristics
wholesale, with fatalistic indifference and toleration. She had,
unconsciously, the feeling that any trait of hers, no matter of what
kind, was a family tradition and therefore worthy of respect.

Herr Grünlich had finished breakfast, and the fragrance of the two
cigars mingled with the warm air from the stove. “Will you take
another, Kesselmeyer?” said the host. “I’ll pour you out another glass
of wine.--You want to see me? Anything pressing? Is it important?--Too
warm here, is it? We’ll drive into town together afterward. It is
cooler in the smoking-room.” To all this Herr Kesselmeyer simply shook
his hand in the air, as if to say: “This won’t get us anywhere, my dear
friend.”

At length they got up; and, while Tony remained in the dining-room to
see that the servant-maid cleared away, Herr Grünlich led his colleague
through the “pensée-room,” with his head bent, drawing his long beard
reflectively through his fingers. Herr Kesselmeyer rowed into the room
with his arms and disappeared behind him.

Ten minutes passed. Tony had gone into the salon to give the polished
nut-wood secretary and the curved table-legs her personal attention
with the aid of a gay little feather duster. Then she moved slowly
through the dining-room into the living-room with dignity and marked
self-respect. The Demoiselle Buddenbrook had plainly not grown less
important in her own eyes since becoming Madame Grünlich. She held
herself very erect, chin in, and looked down at the world from above.
She carried in one hand her little lacquered key-basket; the other was
in the pocket of her gown, whose soft folds played about her. The naïve
expression of her mouth betrayed that the whole of her dignity and
importance were a part of a beautiful, childlike, innocent game which
she was constantly playing with herself.

In the “pensée-room” she busied herself with a little brass sprinkler,
watering the black earth around her plants. She loved her palms, they
gave so much elegance to the room. She touched carefully a young shoot
on one of the thick round stems, examined the majestically unfolded
fans, and cut away a yellow tip here and there with the scissors.
Suddenly she stopped. The conversation in the next room, which had for
several minutes been assuming a livelier tone, became so loud that she
could hear every word, though the door and the portières were both
heavy.

“Don’t shriek like that--control yourself, for God’s sake!” she heard
Herr Grünlich say. His weak voice could not stand the strain, and went
off in a squeak. “Take another cigar,” he went on, with desperate
mildness.

“Yes, thanks, with the greatest pleasure,” answered the banker, and
there was a pause while he presumably helped himself. Then he said: “In
short, will you or won’t you: one or the other?”

“Kesselmeyer, give me an extension.”

“Ah, ha! No, no, my friend. There is no question of an extension.
That’s not the point now.”

“Why not? What is stirring you up to this? Be reasonable, for heaven’s
sake. You’ve waited this long.”

“Not a day longer, my friend. Yes, we’ll say eight days, but not an
hour longer. But can’t we rely any longer on--?”

“No names, Kesselmeyer.”

“No names. Good. But doesn’t some one rely any longer on his estimable
Herr Pa--”

“No hints, either. My God, don’t be a fool.”

“Very good; no hints, either. But have we no claim any longer on the
well-known firm with whom our credit stands and falls, my friend?
How much did it lose by the Bremen failure? Fifty thousand? Seventy
thousand? A hundred thousand? More? The sparrows on the housetops know
that it was involved, heavily involved. Yesterday--well, no names.
Yesterday the well-known firm was good, and it was unconsciously
protecting you against pressure. To-day its stock is flat--and B.
Grünlich’s stock is the flattest of the flat. Is that clear? Do you
grasp it? You are the first man to notice a thing like that. How are
people treating you? How do they look at you? Beck and Goudstikker are
perfectly agreeable, give you the same terms as usual? And the bank?”

“They will extend.”

“You aren’t lying, are you? Oh, no! I know they gave you a jolt
yesterday--a very, very stimulating jolt eh? You see? Oh, don’t be
embarrassed. It is to your interest, of course, to pull the wool over
my eyes, so that the others will be quiet. Hey, my dear friend? Well,
you’d better write to the Consul. I’ll wait a week.”

“A part payment, Kesselmeyer!”

“Part payment, rubbish! One accepts part payment to convince oneself
for the time of a debtor’s ability to pay. Do I need to make
experiments of that kind on you? I am perfectly well-informed about
your ability to pay. Ah, ha, ah, ha! Part payment! That’s a very good
joke.”

“Moderate your voice, Kesselmeyer. Don’t laugh all the time in that
cursed way. My position is so serious--yes, I admit, it is serious. But
I have such-and-such business in hand--everything may still come out
all right. Listen, wait a minute: Give me an extension and I’ll sign it
for twenty per cent.”

“Nothing in it, nothing in it, my friend. Very funny, very amusing.
Oh, yes, I’m in favour of selling at the right time. You promised me
eight per cent, and I extended. You promised me twelve and sixteen per
cent, and I extended, every time. Now, you might offer me forty per
cent, and I shouldn’t consider it--not for a moment. Since Brother
Westfall in Bremen fell on his nose, everybody is for the moment
freeing himself from the well-known firm and getting on a sound basis.
As I say, I’m for selling at the right time. I’ve held your signatures
as long as Johann Buddenbrook was good--in the meantime I could write
up the interest on the capital and increase the per cent. But one only
keeps a thing so long as it is rising or at least keeping steady. When
it begins to fall, one sells--which is the same as saying I want my
capital.”

“Kesselmeyer, you are shameless.”

“Ah, ha, a-ha! Shameless, am I? That’s very charming, very funny. What
do you want? You must apply to your father-in-law. The Credit Bank is
raging--and you know you are not exactly spotless.”

“No, Kesselmeyer. I adjure you to hear me quietly. I’ll be perfectly
frank. I confess that my situation is serious. You and the Credit Bank
are not the only ones--there are notes of hand--everything seems to
have gone to pieces at once!”

“Of course--naturally. It is certainly a clean-up--a liquidation.”

“No, Kesselmeyer; hear me out. Do take another cigar.”

“This one is not half finished. Leave me alone with your cigars. Pay
up.”

“Kesselmeyer, don’t let me smash!--You are a friend of mine--you have
eaten at my table.”

“And maybe you haven’t eaten at mine?”

“Yes, yes--but don’t refuse me credit now, Kesselmeyer!”

“Credit? It’s credit, now, is it? Are you in your senses? A new loan?”

“Yes, Kesselmeyer, I swear to you-- A little--a trifle. I only need to
make a few payments and advances here and there to get on my feet again
and restore confidence. Help me and you will be doing a big business.
As I said, I have a number of affairs on hand. They may still all come
out right. You know how shrewd and resourceful I am.”

“I know what a numbskull you are! A dolt, a nincompoop, my dear friend!
Will you have the goodness to tell me what your resourcefulness can
accomplish at this stage? Perhaps there is a bank somewhere in the wide
world that will lend you a shilling? Or another father-in-law? Ah, no;
you have already played your best card. You can’t play it twice.--With
all due respect, my dear fellow, and my highest regards.”

“Speak lower, devil take you!”

“You are a fool. Shrewd and resourceful, are you? Yes, to the other
chap’s advantage. You’re not scrupulous, I’ll say that for you, but
much good it’s done you! You have played tricks, and wormed capital out
of people by hook or crook, just to pay me my twelve or sixteen per
cent. You threw your honour overboard without getting any return. You
have a conscience like a butcher’s dog, and yet you are nothing but a
ninny, a scapegoat. There are always such people--they are too funny
for words. Why is it you are so afraid to apply to the person we mean
with the whole story? Isn’t it because there was crooked work four
years ago? Perhaps it wasn’t all quite straight--what? Are you afraid
that certain things--?”

“Very well, Kesselmeyer; I will write. But suppose he refuses? Suppose
he lets me down?”

“Oh--ah, ha! Then we will just have a bankruptcy, a highly amusing
little bankruptcy. That doesn’t bother me at all. So far as I am
concerned, I have about covered my expenses with the interest you
have scratched together, and I have the priority with the assets. Oh,
you wait; I shan’t come short. I know everything pretty well, my good
friend; I have an inventory already in my pocket. Ah, ha! We shall see
that no dressing-gown and no silver bread-basket gets away.”

“Kesselmeyer, you have sat at my table--”

“Oh, be quiet with your table! In eight days I’ll be back for the
answer. I shall walk in to town--the fresh air will do me good. Good
morning, my friend, good morning!”

And Herr Kesselmeyer seemed to depart--yes, he went. She heard his odd,
shuffling walk in the corridor, and imagined him rowing along with his
arms....

Herr Grünlich entered the “pensée-room” and saw Tony standing there
with the little watering-can in her hand. She looked him in the face.

“What are you looking at? Why are you staring like that?” he said to
her. He showed his teeth, and made vague movements in the air with his
hands, and wiggled his body from side to side. His rosy face could
not become actually pale; but it was spotted red and white like a
scarlet-fever patient’s.




CHAPTER VII


Consul Johann Buddenbrook arrived at the villa at two o’clock in the
afternoon. He entered the Grünlich salon in a grey travelling-cloak and
embraced his daughter with painful intensity. He was pale and seemed
older. His small eyes were deep in their sockets, his large pointed
nose stuck out between the fallen cheeks, his lips seemed to have grown
thinner, and the beard under his chin and jaws half-covered by his
stiff choker and high neck-band,--he had lately ceased to wear the two
locks running from the temples half-way down the cheeks--was as grey as
the hair on his head.

The Consul had hard, nerve-racking days behind him. Thomas had had a
haemorrhage; the Father had learned of the misfortune in a letter from
Herr van der Kellen. He had left his business in the careful hands of
his clerk and hurried off to Amsterdam. He found nothing immediately
dangerous about his son’s illness, but an open-air cure was necessary,
in the South, in Southern France; and as it fortunately happened that a
journey of convalescence had been prescribed for the young son of the
head of the firm, the two young men had left for Pau as soon as Thomas
was able to travel.

The Consul had scarcely reached home again when he was attacked by
a fresh misfortune, which had for the moment shaken his firm to its
foundations and by which it had lost eighty thousand marks at one blow.
How? Discounted cheques drawn on Westfall Brothers had come back to
the firm, liquidation having begun. He had not failed to cover them.
The firm had at once showed what it could do, without hesitation or
embarrassment. But that could not prevent the Consul from experiencing
all the sudden coldness, the reserve, the mistrust at the banks,
with “friends,” and among firms abroad, which such an event, such a
weakening of working capital, was sure to bring in its train.

Well, he had pulled himself together, and had reviewed the whole
situation; had reassured, reinforced, made head. And then, in the midst
of the struggle, among telegrams, letters, and calculations, this last
blow broke upon him as well: B. Grünlich, his daughter’s husband, was
insolvent. In a long, whining, confused letter he had implored, begged,
and prayed for an assistance of a hundred to a hundred and twenty
thousand marks. The Consul replied curtly and non-committally that he
would come to Hamburg to meet Herr Grünlich and Kesselmeyer the banker,
made a brief, soothing explanation to his wife, and started off.

Tony received him in the salon. She was fond of receiving visits in
her brown silk salon, and she made no exception now; particularly as
she had a very profound impression of the importance of the present
occasion, without comprehending in the least what it was about. She
looked blooming and yet becomingly serious, in her pale grey frock with
its laces at breast and wrists, its bell-shaped sleeves and long train,
and little diamond clasp at the throat. “How are you, Papa? At last you
have come to see us again. How is Mamma? Is there good news from Tom?
Take off your things, Father dear. Will you dress? The guest-room is
ready for you. Grünlich is dressing.”

“Don’t call him, my child. I will wait for him here. You know I have
come for a talk with your husband--a very, very serious talk, my dear
Tony. Is Herr Kesselmeyer here?”

“Yes, he is in the pensée-room looking at the album.”

“Where is Erica?”

“Up in the nursery with Tinka. She is very well. She is bathing her
doll--of course, not in real water; I mean--she is a wax-doll, she
only--”

“Of course.” The Consul drew a deep breath and went on: “Evidently
you have not been informed as to--to the state of affairs with your
husband.”

He had sat down in an arm-chair near the large table, and Tony placed
herself at his feet on a little seat made of three cushions on top of
one another. The finger of her right hand toyed gently with the diamond
at her throat.

“No, Papa,” answered Tony. “I must confess I know nothing. Heavens,
I am a goose!--I have no understanding at all. I heard Kesselmeyer
talking lately to Grünlich--at the end it seemed to me he was just
joking again--he always talks so drolly. I heard your name once or
twice--”

“You heard my name? In what connection?”

“Oh, I know nothing of the connection, Papa. Grünlich has been
insufferably sulky ever since that day, I must say. Until
yesterday--yesterday he was in a good mood, and asked me a dozen times
if I loved him, and if I would put in a good word for him with you if
he had something to ask you.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, he told me he had written you and that you were coming here. It
is good you have. Everything is so queer. Grünlich had the card-table
put in here. There are a lot of paper and pencils on it--for you to sit
at, and hold a council together.”

“Listen, my dear child,” said the Consul, stroking her hair. “I want
to ask you something very serious. Tell me: you love your husband with
your whole heart, don’t you?”

“Of course, Papa,” said Tony with a face of childlike
hypocrisy--precisely the face of the child Tony when she was asked:
“You won’t tease the old doll-woman again, Tony?” The Consul was silent
a minute.

“You love him so much,” he asked again, “that you could not live
without him, under any circumstances, even if by God’s will your
situation should alter so that he could no longer surround you with
all these things?” And his hand described a quick movement over the
furniture and portières, over the gilt clock on the étagère, and
finally over her own frock.

“Certainly, Papa,” repeated Tony, in the soothing tone she nearly
always used when any one spoke seriously to her. She looked past her
father out of the window, where a heavy veil of rain was silently
descending. Her face had the expression children wear when some
one tells them a fairy story and then tactlessly introduces a
generalization about conduct and duty--a mixture of embarrassment and
impatience, piety and boredom.

The Consul looked at her without speaking for a minute. Was he
satisfied with her response? He had weighed everything thoroughly, at
home and during the journey.

It is comprehensible that Johann Buddenbrook’s first impulse was to
refuse his son-in-law any considerable payment. But when he remembered
how pressing--to use a mild word--he had been about this marriage;
when he looked back into the past, and recalled the words: “Are you
satisfied with me?” with which his child had taken leave of him after
the wedding, he gave way to a burdensome sense of guilt against her
and said to himself that the thing must be decided according to her
feelings. He knew perfectly that she had not made the marriage out of
love, but he was obliged to reckon with the possibility that these four
years of life together and the birth of the child had changed matters;
that Tony now felt bound body and soul to her husband and would be
driven by considerations both spiritual and worldly to shrink from a
separation. In such a case, the Consul argued, he must accommodate
himself to the surrender of whatever sum was necessary. Christian
duty and wifely feeling did indeed demand that Tony should follow her
husband into misfortune; and if she actually took this resolve, he
did not feel justified in letting her be deprived of all the ease and
comfort to which she had been accustomed since childhood. He would feel
himself obliged to avert the catastrophe, and to support B. Grünlich at
any price. Yet the final result of his considerations was the desire
to take his daughter and her child home with him and let Grünlich go
his own way. God forbid that the worst should happen!

In any case, the Consul invoked the pronouncement of the law that
a continued inability to provide for wife and children justified a
separation. But, before everything, he must find out his daughter’s
real feelings.

“I see,” he said, “my dear child, that you are actuated by good and
praiseworthy motives. But--I cannot believe that you are seeing the
thing as, unhappily, it really is--namely, as actual fact. I have not
asked what you would do in this or that case, but what you to-day, now,
will do. I do not know how much of the situation you know or suspect.
It is my painful duty to tell you that your husband is obliged to
call his creditors together; that he cannot carry on his business any
longer. I hope you understand me.”

“Grünlich is bankrupt?” Tony asked under her breath, half rising from
the cushions and seizing the Consul’s hand quickly.

“Yes, my child,” he said seriously. “You did not know it?”

“My suspicions were not definite,” she stammered. “Then Kesselmeyer was
not joking?” she went on, staring before her at the brown carpet. “Oh,
my God!” she suddenly uttered, and sank back on her seat.

In that minute all that was involved in the word “bankrupt” rose
clearly before her: all the vague and fearful hints which she had heard
as a child. “Bankrupt”--that was more dreadful than death, that was
catastrophe, ruin, shame, disgrace, misery, despair. “He is bankrupt,”
she repeated. She was so cast down and shaken by the fatal word that
the idea of escape, of assistance from her father, never occurred to
her. He looked at her with raised eyebrows, out of his small deep-set
eyes, which were tired and sad and full of an unusual suspense. “I am
asking you,” he said gently, “my dear Tony, if you are ready to follow
your husband into misery?” He realized at once that he had used the
hard word instinctively to frighten her, and he added: “He can work
himself up again, of course.”

“Certainly, Papa,” answered she. But it did not prevent her from
bursting into tears. She sobbed into her batiste handkerchief, trimmed
with lace and with the monogram A. G. She still wept just like a child;
quite unaffectedly and without embarrassment. Her upper lip had the
most touching expression.

Her father continued to probe her with his eyes. “That is your serious
feeling, my child?” he asked. He was as simple as she.

“I must, mustn’t I?” she sobbed. “Don’t I have to--?”

“Certainly not,” he said. But with a guilty feeling he added: “I would
not force you to it, my dear Tony. If it should be the case that your
feelings did not bind you indissolubly to your husband--”

She looked at him with uncomprehending, tear-streaming eyes. “How,
Papa?”

The Consul twisted and turned, and found a compromise. “My dear child,
you can understand how painful it would be for me to have to tell you
all the hardships and suffering that would come about through the
misfortune of your husband, the breaking-up of the business and of your
household. I desire to spare you these first unpleasantnesses by taking
you and little Erica home with me. You would be glad of that, I think?”

Tony was silent a moment, drying her tears. She carefully breathed
on her handkerchief and pressed it against her eyes to heal their
inflammation. Then she asked tn a firm tone, without lifting her voice:
“Papa, is Grünlich to blame? Is it his folly and lack of uprightness
that has brought him to this?”

“Very probably,” said the Consul. “That is--no, I don’t know, my child.
The explanation with him and the banker has not taken place yet.”

She seemed not to be listening. She sat crouched on her three silk
cushions, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand, and with her
head bowed looked dreamily into the room.

“Ah, Papa,” she said softly, almost without moving her lips, “wouldn’t
it have been better--?”

The Consul could not see her face--but it had the expression it often
wore those summer evenings at Travemünde, as she leaned at the window
of her little room. One arm rested on her Father’s knee, the hand
hanging down limply. This very hand was expressive of a sad and tender
abandonment, a sweet, pensive longing, travelling back into the past.

“Better?” asked Consul Buddenbrook. “If what, my child?”

He was thoroughly prepared for the confession that it would have been
better had this marriage not taken place; but Tony only answered with a
sigh: “Oh, nothing.”

She seemed rapt by her thoughts, which had borne her so far away that
she had almost forgotten the “bankrupt.” The Consul felt himself
obliged to utter what he would rather only have confirmed.

“I think I guess your thoughts, Tony,” he said, “and I don’t on my side
hesitate to confess that in this hour I regret the step that seemed
to me four years ago so wise and advisable. I believe, before God, I
am not responsible. I think I did my duty in trying to give you an
existence suitable to your station. Heaven has willed otherwise. You
will not believe that your Father played lightly and unreflectingly
with your happiness in those days! Grünlich came to us with the best
recommendations, a minister’s son, a Christian and a cosmopolitan man.
Later I made business inquiries, and it all sounded as favourable as
possible. I examined the connections. All that is still very dark; and
the explanation is yet to come. But you don’t blame me--?”

“No, Papa--how can you say such a thing? Come, don’t take it to heart,
poor Papa! You look pale. Shall I give you a little cordial?” She put
her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek.

“Thank you, no,” he said. “There, there! It is all right. Yes, I have
bad days behind me. I have had much to try me. These are all trials
sent from God. But that does not help my feeling a little guilty toward
you, my child. Everything depends on the question I have already asked
you. Speak openly, Tony. Have you learned to love your husband in these
years of marriage?”

Tony wept afresh; and covering her eyes with both hands, in which she
held the batiste handkerchief, she sobbed out: “Oh, what are you asking
me, Papa? I have never loved him--he has always been repulsive to me.
You know that.”

It would be hard to say what went on in Johann Buddenbrook. His eyes
looked shocked and sad; but he bit his lips hard together, and great
wrinkles came in his cheeks, as they did when he had brought a piece of
business to a successful conclusion. He said softly: “Four years--”

Tony’s tears ceased suddenly. With her damp handkerchief in her hand,
she sat up straight on her seat and said angrily: “Four years! Yes!
Sometimes, in those four years, he sat with me in the evening and read
the paper.”

“God gave you a child,” said the Father, moved.

“Yes, Papa. And I love Erica very much, although Grünlich says I am not
fond of children. I would not be parted from her, that is certain. But
Grünlich--no! Grünlich, no. And now he is bankrupt. Ah, Papa, if you
will take Erica and me home--oh, gladly.”

The Consul compressed his lips again. He was extremely well satisfied.
But the main point had yet to be touched upon; though, by the decision
Tony showed, he did not risk much by asking.

“You seem not to have thought it might be possible to do something,
to get help. I have already said to you that I do not feel myself
altogether innocent of the situation, and--in case you should
expect--hope--I might intervene, to prevent the failure and cover your
husband’s debts, the best I could, and float his business--”

He watched her keenly, and her bearing filled him with satisfaction. It
expressed disappointment.

“How much is it?” she asked.

“What is that to the point, my child? A very large sum.” And Consul
Buddenbrook nodded several times, as though the weight of the very
thought of such a sum swung his head back and forth. “I should not
conceal from you,” he went on, “that the firm has suffered losses
already quite apart from this affair, and that the surrender of a sum
like this would be a blow from which it would recover with difficulty.
I do not in any way say this to--”

He did not finish. Tony had sprung up, had even taken a few steps
backward, and with the wet handkerchief still in her hand she cried:
“Good! Enough! Never!” She looked almost heroic. The words “the firm”
had struck home. It is highly probable that they had more effect than
even her dislike of Herr Grünlich. “You shall not do that, Papa,” she
went on, quite beside herself. “Do you want to be bankrupt too? Never,
never!”

At this moment the hall door opened a little uncertainly and Herr
Grünlich entered.

Johann Buddenbrook rose, with a movement that meant: “That’s settled.”




CHAPTER VIII


Herr Grünlich’s face was all mottled with red; but he had dressed
carefully in a respectable-looking black coat and pea-green trousers
like those in which he had made his first visits in Meng Street. He
stood still, with his head down, looking very limp, and said in a weak
exhausted sort of voice: “Father?”

The Consul bowed, not too cordially, and straightened his neck-cloth
with an energetic movement.

“Thank you for coming,” said Herr Grünlich.

“It was my duty, my friend,” replied the Consul. “But I am afraid it
will be about all I can do for you.”

Herr Grünlich threw him a quick look and seemed to grow still more limp.

“I hear,” the Consul went on, “that your banker, Herr Kesselmeyer, is
awaiting us--where shall the conference be held? I am at your service.”

“If you will be so good as to follow me,” Herr Grünlich murmured.
Consul Buddenbrook kissed his daughter on the forehead and said, “Go up
to your child, Antonie.”

Then he went, with Herr Grünlich fluttering in front of and behind him
to open the portières, through the dining-room into the living-room.

Herr Kesselmeyer stood at the window, the black and white down softly
rising and falling upon his cranium.

“Herr Kesselmeyer, Herr Consul Buddenbrook, my father-in-law,”
said Herr Grünlich, meekly. The Consul’s face was impassive. Herr
Kesselmeyer bowed with his arms hanging down, both yellow teeth against
his upper lip, and said “Pleasure to meet you, Herr Consul.”

“Please excuse us for keeping you waiting, Kesselmeyer,” said Herr
Grünlich. He was not more polite to one than to the other. “Pray sit
down.”

As they went into the smoking-room, Herr Kesselmeyer said vivaciously:
“Have you had a pleasant journey? Ah, rain? Yes, it is a bad time of
year, a dirty time. If we had a little frost, or snow, now--but rain,
filth--very, very unpleasant.”

“What a queer creature!” thought the Consul.

In the centre of the little room with its dark-flowered wall-paper
stood a sizable square table covered with green baize. It rained harder
and harder; it was so dark that the first thing Herr Grünlich did was
to light the three candles on the table. Business letters on blue
paper, stamped with the names of various firms, torn and soiled papers
with dates and signatures, lay on the green cloth. There were a thick
ledger and a metal inkstand and sand-holder, full of well-sharpened
pencils and goose-quills.

Herr Grünlich did the honours with the subdued and tactful mien
of a man greeting guests at a funeral. “Dear Father, do take the
easy-chair,” he said. “Herr Kesselmeyer, will you be so kind as to sit
here?”

At last they were settled. The banker sat opposite the host, the Consul
presided on the long side of the table. The back of his chair was
against the hall door.

Herr Kesselmeyer bent over, released his upper lip, disentangled a
glass from his waistcoat and stuck it on his nose, which he wrinkled
for the purpose, and opened his mouth wide. Then he scratched his
stubbly beard with an ugly rasping noise, put his hands on his knees,
and remarked in a sprightly tone, jerking his head toward the piles of
papers: “Well, there we have the whole boiling.”

“May I look into matters a little more closely?” asked the Consul,
taking up the ledger. But Herr Grünlich suddenly stretched out his
hands over the table--long, trembling hands marked with high blue
veins--and cried out in a voice that trembled too: “A moment, Father.
Just a moment. Let me make just a few explanations. Yes, you will
get an insight into everything--nothing will escape your glance;
but, believe me, you will get an insight into the situation of an
unfortunate, not a guilty man. You see in me a man who fought unwearied
against fate, but was finally struck down. I am innocent of all--”

“We shall see, my friend, we shall see,” said the Consul, with obvious
impatience; and Herr Grünlich took his hands away and resigned himself
to his fate.

Then there were long dreadful minutes of silence. The three gentlemen
sat close together in the flickering candle-light, shut in by the four
dark walls. There was not a sound but the rustling of the Consul’s
papers and the falling rain outside.

Herr Kesselmeyer stuck his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat
and played piano on his shoulders with his fingers, looking with
indescribable jocosity from one to the other. Herr Grünlich sat upright
in his chair, hands on the table, staring gloomily before him, and now
and then stealing an anxious glance at his father-in-law out of the
tail of his eye. The Consul examined the ledger, followed columns of
figures with his finger, compared dates, and did indecipherable little
sums in lead-pencil on a scrap of paper. His worn features expressed
astonishment and dismay at the conditions into which he now “gained an
insight.” Finally he laid his left arm on Herr Grünlich’s and said with
evident emotion: “You poor man!”

“Father,” Herr Grünlich broke out. Two great tears rolled down his
cheeks and ran into the golden whiskers. Herr Kesselmeyer followed
their course with the greatest interest. He even raised himself a
little, bent over, and looked his vis-à-vis in the face, with his
mouth open. Consul Buddenbrook was moved. Softened by his own recent
misfortunes, he felt himself carried away by sympathy; but he
controlled his feelings.

“How is it possible?” he said, with a sad head-shake. “In so few
years--”

“Oh, that’s simple,” answered Herr Kesselmeyer, good-temperedly. “One
can easily ruin oneself in four years. When we remember that it took
an even shorter time for Westfall Brothers in Bremen to go smash--”
The Consul stared at him, but without either seeing or hearing him. He
himself had not expressed his own actual thoughts, his real misgivings.
Why, he asked himself with puzzled suspicion, why was this happening
now? It was as clear as daylight that, just where he stood to-day,
B. Grünlich had stood two years, three years before. But his credit
had been inexhaustible, he had had capital from the banks, and for
his undertakings continual endorsement from sound houses like Senator
Bock and Consul Goudstikker. His paper had passed as current as
banknotes. Why now, precisely now--and the head of the firm of Johann
Buddenbrook knew well what he meant by this “now”--had there come this
crash on all sides, this complete withdrawal of credit as if by common
consent, this unanimous descent upon B. Grünlich, this disregard of all
consideration, all ordinary business courtesy? The Consul would have
been naïve indeed had he not realized that the good standing of his own
firm was to the advantage of his son-in-law. But had the son-in-law’s
credit so entirely, so strikingly, so exclusively depended upon his
own? Had Grünlich himself been nothing at all? And the information the
Consul had had, the books he had examined--? Well, however the thing
stood, his resolution was firmer than ever not to lift a finger. They
had reckoned without their host.

Apparently B. Grünlich had known how to make it appear that he was
connected with the firm of Buddenbrook--well, this widely-circulated
error should be set right once for all. And this Kesselmeyer--he was
going to get a shock too. The clown! Had he no conscience whatever? It
was very plain how shamelessly he had speculated on the probability
that he, Johann Buddenbrook, would not let his daughter’s husband be
ruined; how he had continued to finance Grünlich long after he was
unsound, and exacted from him an ever crueller rate of interest.

“Now,” he said shortly, “let us get to the point. If I am asked as a
merchant to say frankly what I think, I am obliged to say that if the
situation is that of an unfortunate man, it is also in a great degree
that of a guilty one.”

“Father!” stammered Herr Grünlich.

“The name does not come well to my ears,” said the Consul, quickly and
harshly. “Your demands on Herr Grünlich amount, sir”--turning for a
moment to the banker--“to sixty thousand marks, I believe?”

“With the back interest they come to sixty-eight thousand seven hundred
and fifty-five marks and fifteen shillings,” answered Herr Kesselmeyer
pleasantly.

“Very good. And you would not be inclined under any circumstances to be
patient for a longer time?”

Herr Kesselmeyer simply began to laugh. He laughed with his mouth open,
in spasms, without a trace of scorn, even good-naturedly, looking at
the Consul as though he were inviting him to join in the fun.

Johann Buddenbrook’s little deep eyes clouded over and began to show
red rims around them that ran down to the cheek-bones. He had only
asked for form’s sake, being aware that a postponement on the part of
one creditor would not materially alter the situation. But the manner
of this man’s refusal was mortifying indeed. With a motion of the hand
he pushed away everything from in front of him, laid the pencil down
with a jerk on the table, and said, “Then I must express myself as
unwilling to concern myself any further with this affair.”

“Ah, ha!” cried Herr Kesselmeyer, shaking his hands in the air. “That’s
the way to talk. The Herr Consul will settle everything out of hand--we
shan’t have any long speeches. Without more ado.” Johann Buddenbrook
did not even look at him.

“I cannot help you, my friend.” He turned calmly to Herr Grünlich.
“Things must go on as they have begun. Pull yourself together, and God
will give you strength and consolation. I must consider our interview
at an end.”

Herr Kesselmeyer’s face took on a serious expression which was vastly
becoming to it. But then he nodded encouragingly to Herr Grünlich. The
latter sat motionless at the table, only wringing his hands so hard
that the fingers cracked.

“Father--Herr Consul,” he said, with a trembling voice. “You will
not--you cannot desire my ruin. Listen. It is a matter of a hundred
and twenty thousand marks in all--you can save me! You are a rich man.
Regard it as you like--as a final arrangement, as your daughter’s
inheritance, as a loan subject to interest. I will work--you know I am
keen and resourceful--”

“I have spoken my last word,” said the Consul.

“Permit me--may I ask whether you could if you would?” asked Herr
Kesselmeyer, looking at him through his glasses, with his nose wrinkled
up. “I suggest to the Consul that this would be a most advantageous
time to display the strength of the firm of Buddenbrook.”

“You would do well, sir, to leave the good name of my house to me. I do
not need to throw my money in the nearest ditch in order to show how
good my credit is.”

“Dear me, no, of course not--ditch, ah, ha!--Ditch is very funny. But
doesn’t the gentleman think the failure of his son-in-law places his
own credit in a bad light--er--ah--?”

“I can only recommend you again to remember that my credit in the
business world is entirely my own affair,” said the Consul.

Herr Grünlich looked at his banker helplessly and began afresh:
“Father! I implore you again: think what you are doing. Is it a
question of me alone? I--oh, I myself might be allowed to perish.
But your daughter, my wife, whom I love, whom I won after such a
struggle--and our child--both innocent children--are they to be brought
low as well? No, Father, I will not bear it; I will kill myself. Yes, I
would kill myself with this hand. Believe me--and may heaven pardon you
if it will.”

Johann Buddenbrook leaned back in his arm-chair quite white, with
a fast-beating heart. For the second time the emotions of this man
played upon him, and their expression had the stamp of truth; again he
heard, as when he told Herr Grünlich the contents of his daughter’s
letter from Travemünde, the same terrible threat, and again there
shuddered through him all the fanatical reverence of his generation
for human feelings, which yet had always been in conflict with his own
hard practical sense. But the attack lasted no longer than a moment.
“A hundred thousand marks,” he repeated to himself; and then he said
quietly and decisively: “Antonie is my daughter. I shall know how to
protect her from unmerited suffering.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Herr Grünlich, slowly stiffening.

“That you will see,” answered the Consul. “For the present I have
nothing to add.” And he got up, pushed back his chair, and turned
toward the door.

Herr Grünlich sat silent, stiff, irresolute; his mouth opened and
closed without a word coming out. But the sprightliness of Herr
Kesselmeyer returned at this conclusive action of the Consul. Yes, it
got the upper hand entirely, it passed all bounds, it became frightful.
The glasses fell from his nose, which went skyward, while his little
mouth, with the two triangular yellow teeth, looked as though it were
splitting. He rowed with his little red hands in the air, the fuzz on
his head waved up and down, his whole face, with its bristly white
beard distorted and grotesque with uncontrolled hilarity--had grown the
colour of cinnamon.

“Ah, ha, ha, ah, ha!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “I find that in
the last--degree--funny! You ought to consider, Consul Buddenbrook,
before you consign to the grave such a valuable--such a supreme
specimen of a son-in-law. Anything so shrewd, so resourceful as
he is, won’t be born upon God’s wide earth a second time. Aha!
Four years ago--when the knife was at our throat, the rope around
our neck--suddenly we made a match with Fräulein Buddenbrook, and
spread the news on ’Change, even before it had actually come off!
Congratulations, my dear friend; my best respects!”

“Kesselmeyer,” groaned Herr Grünlich, making spasmodic motions with his
hands, as though waving off an evil spirit. He rushed into one corner
of the room, where he sat down and buried his face in his hands. The
ends of his whiskers lay on his shanks, and he rocked his knees up and
down in his emotion.

“How did we do that?” went on Herr Kesselmeyer. “How did we actually
manage to catch the little daughter and the eighty thousand marks?
O-ho, ah, ha! That is easy. Even if one has no more shrewdness and
resourcefulness than a tallow candle, it is easy! You show the saviour
Papa nice, pretty, clean books, in which everything is put in the right
way--only that they don’t quite correspond with the plain fact--for the
plain fact is that three-quarters of the dowry is already debts.”

The Consul stood at the door deathly pale, the handle in his hand.
Shivers ran up and down his back. He seemed to be standing in this
little room lighted by the flickering candles, between a swindler and
an ape gone mad with spite.

“I despise your words, sir,” he brought out with uncertain emphasis. “I
despise your wild utterances the more that they concern me as well. I
did not hand my daughter over light-headedly to misfortune; I informed
myself as to my son-in-law’s prospects. The rest was God’s will.”

He turned--he would not hear any more--he opened the door. But Herr
Kesselmeyer shrieked after him: “Aha, inquiries? Where? Of Bock? Of
Goudstikker? Of Petersen? Of Massmann and Timm? They were all in it.
They were all in it up to their necks. They were all uncommonly pleased
to be secured by the wedding--” The Consul slammed the door behind him.




CHAPTER IX


Dora the cook, about whose honesty Tony had had her doubts, was busy in
the dining-room.

“Ask Madame Grünlich to come down,” ordered the Consul. “Get yourself
ready, my child,” he said as Tony appeared. He went with her into the
salon. “Get ready as soon as possible, and get Erica ready too. We are
going to the city. We shall sleep to-night in a hotel and travel home
to-morrow.”

“Yes, Papa,” Tony said. Her face was red; she was distracted and
bewildered. She made unnecessary and hurried motions about her waist,
as if not knowing where to begin and not grasping the actuality of the
occasion.

“What shall I take, Papa?” she asked distractedly. “Everything? All our
clothes? One trunk or two? Is Grünlich really bankrupt? Oh, my God! But
can I take my jewelry, then? Papa, the servants must leave--I cannot
pay them. Grünlich was to have given me housekeeping money to-day or
to-morrow.”

“Never mind, my child; things will all be arranged here. Just take what
is necessary in a small trunk. They can send your own things after you.
Hurry, do you hear?”

Just then the portières were parted and Herr Grünlich came into the
salon. With quick steps, his arms outstretched, his head on one side,
with the bearing of a man who says: “Here I am; kill me if you will,”
he hurried to his wife and sank down on his knees right in front of
her. His appearance was pitiable. His golden whiskers were dishevelled,
his coat crumpled, his neck-cloth askew, his collar open; little drops
stood upon his forehead.

“Antonie!” he said. “Have you a heart that can feel? Hear me. You see
before you a man who will be utterly ruined, if--yes, who will die of
grief, if you deny him your love. Here I lie; can you find it in your
heart to say to me: ‘I despise you--I am leaving you’?”

Tony wept. It was just the same as that time in the landscape-room.
Once more she saw his anguished face, his imploring eyes directed upon
her; again she saw, and was moved to see, that this pleading, this
anguish, were real and unfeigned.

“Get up, Grünlich,” she said, sobbing. “Please, please get up.” She
tried to raise his shoulders. “I do not despise you. How can you say
such a thing?” Without knowing what else she should say, she turned
helplessly to her father. The Consul took her hand, bowed to his
son-in-law, and moved with her toward the hall door.

“You are going?” cried Herr Grünlich, springing to his feet.

“I have told you already,” said the Consul, “that I cannot be
responsible for leaving my innocent child in misfortune--and I might
add that you cannot, either. No, sir, you have misprized the possession
of my daughter. You may thank your Creator that the child’s heart is
so pure and unsuspicious that she parts from you without repulsion.
Farewell.”

But here Herr Grünlich lost his head. He could have borne to hear of a
brief parting--of a return and a new life and perhaps the saving of the
inheritance. But this was too much for his powers of self-command, his
shrewdness and resource. He might have taken the large bronze plaque
that stood on the étagère, but he seized instead a thin painted vase
with flowers that stood next it, and threw it on the ground so that it
smashed into a thousand bits.

“Ha, good, good!” he screamed. “Get along with you! Did you think I’d
whine after you, you goose? You are very much mistaken, my darling. I
only married you for your money; and it was not nearly enough, so you
may as well go home. I’m through with you--through--through--through!”

Johann Buddenbrook ushered his daughter silently out. Then he turned,
went up to Herr Grünlich, who was standing in the window with his hands
behind his back staring out at the rain, touched him softly on the
shoulder, and spoke with soft admonishment. “Pull yourself together.
_Pray!_”




CHAPTER X


A chastened mood reigned for some time at the old house in Meng Street
after Madame Grünlich and her little daughter returned thither to take
up their abode. The family went about rather subdued and did not speak
much about “it,” with the exception of the chief actor in the affair,
who, on the contrary, talked about “it” inexhaustibly, and was entirely
in her element.

Tony had moved with Erica into the rooms in the second storey which
her parents had occupied in the time of the elder Buddenbrooks. She
was a little disappointed to find that it did not occur to her Papa
to engage a servant for her, and she had rather a pensive half-hour
when he gently explained that it would be fitting for her to live a
retired life and give up the society of the town: for though, he said,
according to human judgments she was an innocent victim of the fate
which God had sent to try her, still her position as a divorced wife
made a very quiet life advisable, particularly at first. But Tony
possessed the gift of adaptability. She could adjust herself with ease
and cheerfulness to any situation. She soon grew charmed with her
rôle of the injured wife returned to the house of her fathers; wore
dark frocks, dressed her ash-blonde hair primly like a young girl’s,
and felt richly repaid for her lack of society by the weight she had
acquired in the household, the seriousness and dignity of her new
position, and above all by the immense pleasure of being able to talk
about Herr Grünlich and her marriage and to make general observations
about life and destiny, which she did with the utmost gusto.

Not everybody gave her this opportunity, it is true. The Frau Consul
was convinced that her husband had acted correctly and out of a sense
of duty; but when Tony began to talk, she would put up her lovely white
hand and say: “_Assez_, my child; I do not like to hear about it.”

Clara, now twelve years old, understood nothing, and Cousin Clothilde
was just as stupid. “Oh, Tony!”--that was all she could say, with
drawling astonishment. But the young wife found an attentive listener
in Mamsell Jungmann, who was now thirty-five years old and could boast
of having grown grey in the service of the best society. “You don’t
need to worry, Tony, my child,” she would say. “You are young; you
will marry again.” And she devoted herself to the upbringing of little
Erica, telling her the same stories, the same memories of her youth,
to which the Consul’s children had listened fifteen years before; and,
in particular, of that uncle who died of hiccoughs at Marienwerder
“because his heart was broken.”

But it was with her father that Tony talked most and longest. She
liked to catch him after the noonday meal or in the morning at early
breakfast. Their relations had grown closer and warmer; for her feeling
had been heretofore one of awe and respect rather than affection, on
account of his high position in the town, his piety, his solid, stern
ability and industry. During that talk in her own salon he had come
humanly near to her, and it had filled her with pride and emotion to
be found worthy of that serious and confidential consultation. He,
the infallible parent, had put the decision into her hands: he had
confessed, almost humbly, to a sense of guilt. Such an idea would never
have entered Tony’s head of itself; but since he said it, she believed
it, and her feeling for him had thereby grown warmer and tenderer. As
for the Consul, he believed himself bound to make up to his daughter
for her misfortune by redoubled love and care.

Johann Buddenbrook had himself taken no steps against his untrustworthy
son-in-law. Tony and her Mother did hear from him, in the course of
conversation, what dishonourable means Grünlich had used to get hold
of the eighty thousand marks; but the Consul was careful to give the
matter no publicity. He did not even consider going to the courts
with it. He felt wounded in his pride as a merchant, and he wrestled
silently with the disgrace of having been so thoroughly taken in.

But he pressed the divorce suit energetically as soon as the failure of
Grünlich came out, which it soon did, thereby causing no inconsiderable
losses to certain Hamburg firms.

It was this suit, and the thought that she herself was a principal in
it, that gave Tony her most delicious and indescribable feelings of
importance.

“Father,” she said--for in these conversations she never called him
“Papa”--“Father, how is our affair going on? Do you think it will
be all right? The paragraph is perfectly clear; I have studied it.
‘Incapacity of the husband to provide for his family’: surely they will
say that is quite plain. If there were a son, Grünlich would keep him--”

Another time she said: “I have thought a great deal about the four
years of my marriage, Father. That was certainly the reason the man
never wanted us to live in the town, which I was so anxious to do. That
was the reason he never liked me even to be in the town or go into
society. The danger was much greater there than in Eimsbüttel, of my
hearing somehow or other how things stood. What a scoundrel!”

“We must not judge, my child,” answered the Consul.

Or, when the divorce was finally pronounced: “Have you entered it in
the family papers, Father? No? Then I’d better do it. Please give me
the key to the secretary.” With bustling pride she wrote, beneath the
lines she had set there four years ago under her name: “This marriage
was dissolved by law in February, 1850.” Then she put away the pen and
reflected a minute.

“Father,” she said, “I understand very well that this affair is a blot
on our family history. I have thought about it a great deal. It is
exactly as if there were a spot of ink in the book here. But never
mind. That is my affair. I will erase it. I am still young. Don’t you
think I am still quite pretty? Though Frau Stuht, when she saw me
again, said to me: ‘Oh, Heavens, Mme. Grünlich, how old you’ve grown!’
Well, I certainly couldn’t remain all my life the goose I was four
years ago! Life takes one along with it. Anyhow, I shall marry again.
You will see, everything can be put right by a good marriage.”

“That is in God’s hand, my child. It is most unfitting to speak of such
things.”

Tony began at this time to use very frequently the expression “Such
is life”; and with the word “life” she would open her eyes wide with
a charming serious look, indicating the deep insight she had acquired
into human affairs and human destinies.

Thomas returned from Pau in August of that year. The dining-table was
opened out again, and Tony had a fresh audience for her tale. She
loved and looked up to her brother, who had felt for her pain in that
departure from Travemünde, and she respected him as the future head of
the firm and the family.

“Yes, yes,” he said; “we’ve both of us gone through things, Tony.”

The corner of his eyebrow went up, and his cigarette moved from one
corner of his mouth to the other: his thoughts were probably with the
little flower-girl with the Malay face, who had lately married the son
of her employer and now herself carried on the shop in Fishers’ Lane.

Thomas Buddenbrook, though still a little pale, was strikingly elegant.
The last few years had entirely completed his education. His hair
was brushed so that it stood out in two clumps above his ears, and
his moustache was trimmed in the French mode, with sharp points that
were stiffened with the tongs and stuck straight out. His stocky
broad-shouldered figure had an almost military air.

His constitution was not of the best; the blue veins showed too plainly
at the narrow temples, and he had a slight tendency to chills, which
good Dr. Grabow struggled with in vain. In the details of his physical
appearance--the chin, the nose, and especially the hands, which
were wonderfully true to the Buddenbrook type--his likeness to his
grandfather was more pronounced than ever.

He spoke French with a distinctly Spanish accent, and astonished
everybody by his enthusiasm for certain modern writers of a satiric
and polemic character. Broker Gosch was the only person in town who
sympathized with his tastes. His father strongly reprehended them.

But the Father’s pride and joy in his eldest son were plain to be
seen; they shone in the Consul’s eyes. He welcomed him joyfully home
as his colleague in the firm, and himself began to work with increased
satisfaction in his office--especially after the death of old Madame
Kröger, which took place at the end of the year.

The old lady’s loss was one to be borne with resignation. She had grown
very old, and lived quite alone at the end. She went to God, and the
firm of Buddenbrooks received a large sum of money, a round hundred
thousand thaler, which strengthened the working capital of the business
in a highly desirable way.

The Consul’s brother-in-law Justus, weary of continual business
disappointments, as soon as he had his hands on his inheritance settled
his business and retired. The gay son of the cavalier à-la-mode was
not a happy man. He had been too careless, too generous to attain a
solid position in the mercantile world. But he had already spent a
considerable part of his inheritance; and now Jacob, his eldest son,
was the source of fresh cares to him.

The young man had become addicted to light, not to say disreputable,
society in the great city of Hamburg. He had cost his father a huge
sum in the course of years, and when Consul Kröger refused to give him
more, the mother, a weak, sickly woman, sent money secretly to the
son, and wretched clouds had sprung up between husband and wife.

The final blow came at the very time when B. Grünlich was making his
failure: something happened at Dalbeck and Company in Hamburg, where
Jacob Kröger worked. There had been some kind of dishonesty. It was
not talked about; no questions were asked of Justus Kröger; but it
got about that Jacob had a position as travelling man in New York and
was about to sail. He was seen once in the town before his boat left,
a foppishly dressed, unwholesome-looking youth. He had probably come
hither to get more money out of his mother, besides the passage money
his father sent him.

It finally came about that Justus spoke exclusively of “my son,” as
though he had none but the one heir, his second son, Jürgen, who would
certainly never be guilty of a false step, but who seemed on the other
hand to be mentally limited. He had had difficulty getting through
the High School; after which he spent some time in Jena, studying
law--evidently without either pleasure or profit.

Johann Buddenbrook felt keenly the cloud on his wife’s family and
looked with the more anxiety to the future of his own children. He
was justified in placing the utmost confidence in the ability and
earnestness of his older son. As for Christian, Mr. Richardson had
written that he showed an unusual gift for acquiring English, but no
genuine interest in the business. He had a great weakness for the
theatre and for other distractions of the great city. Christian himself
wrote that he had a longing to travel and see the world. He begged
eagerly to be allowed to take a position “over there”--which meant in
South America, perhaps in Chile. “That’s simply love of adventure,” the
Consul said, and told him to remain with Mr. Richardson for another
year and acquire mercantile experience. There followed an exchange of
letters on the subject, with the result that in the summer of 1851
Christian Buddenbrook sailed for Valparaiso, where he had hunted up a
position. He travelled direct from England, without coming home.

So much for his two sons. As for Tony, the Consul was gratified to see
with what self-possession she defended her position in the town as a
Buddenbrook born; for as a divorced wife she had naturally to overcome
all sorts of prejudice on the part of the other families.

“Oh!” she said, coming back with flushed cheeks from a walk and
throwing her hat on the sofa in the landscape-room. “This Juliet
Möllendorpf, or Hagenström--or Semmlinger--whatever she is, the
creature!--Imagine, Mamma! She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t say ‘How do
you do’: She waits for me to speak first. What do you say to that? I
passed her in Broad Street with my head up and looked straight at her.”

“You go too far, Tony. There is a limit to everything. Why shouldn’t
you speak first? You are the same age, and she is a married woman, just
as you were.”

“Never, Mamma! Never under the shining sun! Such rag-tag and bob-tail!”

“_Assez_, my love. Such vulgar expressions--”

“Oh, it makes me feel perfectly beside myself!”

Her hatred of the upstart family was fed by the mere thought that the
Hagenströms might now feel justified in looking down on her--especially
considering the present good fortune of the clan. Old Heinrich had
died at the beginning of 1851, and his son Hermann--he of the lemon
buns and the boxes on the ear--was doing a very brilliant business
with Herr Strunk as partner. He had married, less than a year later,
the daughter of Consul Huneus, the richest man in town, who had made
enough out of his business to leave each of his three children two
million marks. Hermann’s brother Moritz, despite his lung trouble, had
a brilliant career as student, and had now settled down in the town to
practise law. He had a reputation for being able, witty, and literary,
and soon acquired a considerable business. He did not look like the
Semmlingers, having a yellow face and pointed teeth with wide spaces
between.

Even in the family Tony had to take care to hold her head up. Uncle
Gotthold’s temper toward his fortunate step-brother had grown more
mild and resigned now that he had given up business and spent his
time care-free in his modest house, munching lozenges out of a
tin box--he loved sweets. Still, considering his three unmarried
daughters, he could not have failed to feel a quiet satisfaction over
Tony’s unfortunate venture; and his wife, born Stüwing, and his three
daughters, twenty-six, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight years old, showed
an exaggerated interest in their cousin’s misfortune and the divorce
proceedings; more, in fact, than they had in her betrothal and wedding.
When the “children’s Thursdays” began again in Meng Street after old
Madame Kröger’s death, Tony found it no easy work to defend herself.

“Oh, heavens, you poor thing!” said Pfiffi, the youngest, who was
little and plump, with a droll way of shaking herself at every word. A
drop of water always came in the corner of her mouth when she spoke.
“Has the decree been pronounced? Are you exactly as you were before?”

“Oh, on the contrary,” said Henriette, who like her elder sister, was
extraordinarily tall and withered-looking. “You are much worse off than
if you had never married at all.”

“Yes,” Friederike chimed in. “Then it is ever so much better never to
have married at all.”

“Oh, no, dear Friederike,” said Tony, erecting her head, while she
bethought herself of a telling and clever retort. “You make a mistake
there. Marriage teaches one to know life, you see. One is no longer a
silly goose. And then I have more prospect of marrying again than those
who have never married at all!”

“Oh!” cried the others with one voice. They said it with a long hissing
intake of breath which made it sound very sceptical indeed.

Sesemi Weichbrodt was too good and tactful even to mention the
subject. Tony sometimes visited her former teacher in the little red
house at Millbrink No. 7. It was still occupied by a troop of girls,
though the boarding-school was slowly falling out of fashion. The
lively old maid was also invited to Meng Street on occasion to partake
of a haunch of venison or a stuffed goose. She always raised herself on
tip-toe to kiss Tony on the forehead, with a little exploding noise.
Madame Kethelsen, her simple sister, had grown rapidly deaf and had
understood almost nothing of Tony’s affair. She still laughed her
painfully hearty laugh on the most unsuitable occasions, and Sesemi
still felt it necessary to rap on the table and cry “Nally!”

The years went on. Gradually people forgot their feelings over Tony’s
affair. She herself would only think now and then of her married life,
when she saw on Erica’s healthy, hearty little face some expression
that reminded her of Bendix Grünlich. She dressed again in colours,
wore her hair in the old way, and made the same old visits into society.

Still, she was always glad that she had the chance to be away from the
town for some time in the summer. The Consul’s health made it necessary
for him to visit various cures.

“Oh, what it is to grow old!” he said. “If I get a spot of coffee on my
trousers and put a drop of cold water on it, I have rheumatism. When
one is young, one can do anything.” He suffered at times also from
spells of dizziness.

They went to Obersalzbrunn, to Ems and Baden-Baden, to Kissingen,
whence they made a delightful and edifying journey to Nuremberg and
Munich and the Salzburg neighbourhood, to Ischl and Vienna, Prague,
Dresden, Berlin, and home again. Madame Grünlich had been suffering
from a nervous affection of the digestion, and was obliged to take a
strenuous cure at the baths; but nevertheless she found the journey a
highly desirable change, for she did not conceal her opinion that it
was a little slow at home.

“Heavens, yes--you know how it is, Father,” she would say, regarding
the ceiling with a thoughtful air. “Of course, I have learned what
life is like--but just for that reason it is rather a dull prospect for
me to be always sitting here at home like a stupid goose. I hope you
don’t think I mean I do not like to be with you, Papa. I ought to be
whipped if I did, it would be so ungrateful. But I only mean life is
like that, you know.”

The hardest thing she had to bear was the increasing piety of her
parents’ home. The Consul’s religious fervour grew upon him in
proportion as he himself felt the weight of years and infirmity; and
his wife too, as she got older, began to find the spiritual side to her
taste. Prayers had always been customary in the Buddenbrook house, but
now for some time the family and the servants had assembled mornings
and evenings in the breakfast-room to hear the Master read the Bible.
And the visits of ministers and missionaries increased more and more
from year to year. The godly patrician house in Meng Street, where, by
the way, such good dinners were to be had, had been known for years
as a spiritual haven to the Lutheran and reformed clergy and to both
foreign and home missions. From all quarters of the Fatherland came
long-haired, black-coated gentlemen, to enjoy the pious intercourse
and the nourishing meals, and to be furnished with the sinews of their
spiritual warfare. The ministers of the town went in and out as friends
of the house.

Tom was much too discreet and prudent even to let any one see him
smile; but Tony mocked quite openly. She even, sad to say, made fun of
these pious worthies whenever she had a chance.

Sometimes when the Frau Consul had a headache, it was Tony’s turn to
play the housekeeper and order the dinner. One day, when a strange
clergyman whose appetite was the subject of general hilarity, was a
guest, Tony mischievously ordered “bacon broth,” the famous local dish:
a bouillon made with sour cabbage, in which was served the entire
meal--ham, potatoes, beet-root, cauliflower, peas, beans, pears, sour
plums, and goodness knows what, juice and all--a dish which nobody
except those born to it could possibly eat.

“I do hope you are enjoying the soup, Herr Pastor,” she said several
times. “No? Oh, dear, who would have thought it?” And she made a very
roguish face, and ran her tongue over her lips, a trick she had when
she thought of some prank or other.

The fat man laid down his spoon resignedly and said mildly: “I will
wait till the next course.”

“Yes,” the Frau Consul said hastily, “there is a little something
afterwards.” But a “next course” was unthinkable, after this mighty
dish; and despite the French toast and apple jelly which finished the
meal, the reverend guest had to rise hungry from table, while Tony
tittered, and Tom, with fine self-control, lifted one eyebrow.

Another time Tony stood with Stina, the cook, in domestic discourse in
the entry, when Pastor Mathias from Kannstadt, who was stopping a few
days in the house, came back from a walk and rang at the outer door.
Stina ran to open, with her peasant waddle, and the Pastor, with the
view of saying an edifying word and testing her a little, asked in a
friendly tone: “Do you love the Master?”

Perhaps he had the idea of giving her a tip if she professed herself on
the side of the Saviour.

“Lord, Herr Pastor,” said Stina, trembling and blushing, with wide
eyes. “Which one do Herr Pastor mean? T’ old un or t’ young un?” Madame
Grünlich did not fail to tell the story at the table, so that even the
Frau Consul burst out into her sputtering Kröger laugh. The Consul,
however, looked down in displeasure at his plate.

“A misunderstanding,” said Herr Mathias, highly embarrassed.




CHAPTER XI


What follows happened in the late summer of 1855, on a Sunday
afternoon. The Buddenbrooks were sitting in the landscape-room waiting
for the Consul, who was below dressing himself. They had arranged to
take a holiday walk to a pleasure garden outside the City Gate, where,
all except Clara and Clothilde, they were to drink coffee and, if the
weather permitted, go for a row on the river. Clara and Clothilde went
always on Sunday evenings to the house of a friend, where they knitted
stockings for little negro children.

“Papa is ridiculous,” Tony said, using her habitual strong language.
“Can he never be ready on time? He sits and sits and sits at his desk:
something or other _must_ be finished--good heavens, perhaps it is
something really necessary, I don’t know. But I don’t believe we should
actually become bankrupt if he put down his pen a quarter of an hour
sooner. Well, when it is already ten minutes too late, he remembers his
appointment and comes upstairs, always two steps at a time, although
he knows he will get palpitation at the top. And it is like that at
every company, before every expedition. Isn’t it possible for him to
leave himself time enough? And stop soon enough? It’s so irresponsible
of him; you ought to talk to him about it, Mamma.” She sat on the sofa
beside her Mother, dressed in the changeable silk that was fashionable
that summer; while the Frau Consul wore a heavy grey ribbed silk
trimmed with black lace, and a cap of lace and stiffened tulle, tied
under her chin with a satin bow. The lappets of her cap fell down on
her breast. Her smooth hair was still inexorably reddish-blond in
colour, and she held a work-bag in both her white delicately veined
hands. Tom was lounging in an easy-chair beside her smoking his
cigarette, while Clara and Clothilde sat opposite each other at the
window. It was a mystery how much good and nourishing food that poor
Clothilde could absorb daily without any result whatever! She grew
thinner and thinner, and her shapeless black frock did not conceal the
fact. Her face was as long, straight, and expressionless as ever, her
hair as smooth and ash-coloured, her nose as straight, but full of
large pores and getting thick at the end.

“Don’t you think it will rain?” said Clara. The young girl had the
habit of not elevating her voice at the end of a question and of
looking everybody straight in the face with a pronounced and rather
forbidding look. Her brown frock was relieved only by a little stiff
turn-over collar and cuffs. She sat straight up, her hands in her lap.
The servants had more respect for her than for any one else in the
family; it was she who held the services morning and evening now, for
the Consul could not read aloud without getting a feeling of oppression
in the head.

“Shall you take your new Baschlik?” she asked again. “The rain will
spoil it. It would be a pity. I think it would be better to put off the
party.”

“No,” said Tom. “The Kistenmakers are coming. It doesn’t matter. The
barometer went down so suddenly--. There will be a storm--it will pour,
but not last long. Papa is not ready yet; so we can wait till it is
over.”

The Frau Consul raised a protesting hand. “You think there will be a
severe storm, Tom? You know I am afraid of them.”

“No,” Tom answered. “I was down at the harbour this morning talking to
Captain Kloot. He is infallible. There will be a heavy rain, but no
wind.”

The second week in September had brought belated hot weather with it.
There was a south-west wind, and the city suffered more than in July.
A strange-looking dark blue sky hung above the roof-tops, pale on the
skyline as it is in the desert. After sunset a sultry breath, like a
hot blast from an oven, streamed out of the small houses and up from
the pavement of the narrow streets. To-day the wind had gone round to
the west, and at the same time the barometer had fallen sharply. A
large part of the sky was still blue, but it was slowly being overcast
by heavy grey-blue clouds that looked like feather pillows.

Tom added: “It would be a good thing if it did rain, I think. We should
collapse if we had to walk in this atmosphere. It is an unnatural heat.
Hotter than it ever was in Pau.”

Ida Jungmann, with little Erica’s hand in hers, came into the room.
The child looked a droll little figure in her stiffly starched cotton
frock; she smelled of starch and soap. She had Herr Grünlich’s eyes and
his rosy skin, but the upper lip was Tony’s.

The good Ida was already quite grey, almost white, although not out
of the forties. It was a trait of her family: the uncle that died had
had white hair at thirty. But her little brown eyes looked as shrewd
and faithful as ever. She had been now for twenty years with the
Buddenbrooks, and she realized with pride that she was indispensable.
She oversaw kitchen, larders, linen and china cupboards, she made the
most important purchases, she read to little Erica, made clothes for
her dolls, and fetched her from school, with a slice of French bread,
to take her walking on the Mill-wall. Every lady said to Frau Consul
or her daughter: “What a treasure your Mamsell is, my dear! Goodness,
she is worth her weight in gold! Twenty years--and she will be useful
at sixty and more; these wiry people are. What faithful eyes she has!
I envy you, my love.” But Ida Jungmann was very reserved. She knew her
own position, and when some ordinary nurse-girl came and sat down with
her charge on the same bench and tried to enter into conversation, Ida
Jungmann would say: “There is a draught here, Erica,” and get up and
go.

Tony drew her little daughter to her and kissed the rosy cheeks, and
the Frau Consul stretched out her hand with rather an absent smile; for
she was looking anxiously at the sky, which grew darker and darker.
Her left hand fingered the sofa pillows nervously, and her light eyes
wandered restlessly to the window.

Erica was allowed to sit next her Grandmother, and Ida sat up straight
on a chair and began to knit. Thus all waited silently for the Consul.
The air was heavy. The last bit of blue had disappeared; the dark
grey sky lowered heavy and swollen over them. The colours in the room
changed, the yellow of furniture and hangings and the tones of the
landscapes on the walls were all quenched, like the gay shades in
Tony’s frock and the brightness of their eyes. Even the west wind,
which had been playing in the churchyard of St. Mary’s and whirling the
dust around in the darkening street, was suddenly quiet.

This breathless moment of absolute calm came without warning, like some
unexpected, soundless, awful event. The sultriness grew heavier, the
atmosphere seemed to increase its weight in a second; it oppressed the
brain, it rested on the heart, it prevented the breathing. A swallow
flew so low over the pavement that its wings touched. And this pressure
that one could not lift, this tension, this growing weight on the whole
organism, would have become unbearable had it lasted even the smallest
part of a second longer, if at its height there had not come a relief,
a release--a little break somewhere, soundless, yet perceptible; and at
the same moment, without any premonitory drops, the rain fell down in
sheets, filling the gutters and overflowing the pavements.

Thomas, whose illness had taught him to pay attention to his nerves,
bent over in this second, made a motion toward his head, and flung
away his cigarette. He looked around the circle to see if the others
had felt anything. He thought his Mother had, perhaps; the others did
not seem to be aware. The Frau Consul was looking out now into the
thick-streaming rain, which quite hid the church from view; she sighed
“Thank God.”

“There,” said Tony, “that will cool the air in two minutes. But the
drops will be hanging on the trees outside--we can drink coffee in the
verandah. Open the window, Tilda.”

The noise of the rain grew louder. It almost roared. Everything
pattered, streamed, rushed, foamed. The wind came up and blew the thick
veils of water, tore them apart, and flung them about. It grew cooler
every minute.

Lina, the maid-servant, came running through the hall and burst so
suddenly into the room that Ida Jungmann called out sharply: “I say,
what do you mean--?” Lina’s expressionless blue eyes were wide open,
her jaws worked without making a sound--

“Oh, Frau Consul,” she got out, at last. “Come, come quick! oh, what a
scare--”

“Yes,” Tony said, “she’s probably broken something again. Very likely
the good porcelain. Oh, these servants of yours, Mamma!”

But the girl burst out: “Oh, no, Ma’am Grünlich--if that’s all it
was!--It’s the Master--I were bringing him his boots, and there he sits
and can’t speak, on his chair, and I says to myself, there’s something
wrong there; the Herr Consul--”

“Get Grabow,” cried Thomas and ran out of the room.

“My God--oh, my God!” cried the Frau Consul, putting her hands to her
face and hurrying out.

“Quick, get a wagon and fetch Grabow,” Tony repeated breathlessly.

Everybody flew downstairs and through the breakfast-room into the
bedroom.

But Johann Buddenbrook was already dead.




PART FIVE




CHAPTER I


“Good evening, Justus,” said the Frau Consul. “How are you? Sit down.”

Consul Kröger embraced her tenderly and shook hands with his elder
niece, who was also present in the dining-room. He was now about
fifty-five years old, and wore a heavy round whisker as well as his
moustache, leaving his chin free. It was quite grey. His scanty hair
was carefully combed over the broad pink expanse of his skull. The
sleeve of his elegant frock-coat had a broad mourning band.

“Do you know the latest, Betsy?” he asked. “Yes, Tony, this will
particularly interest you. To put it briefly, our property outside the
Castle Gate is sold--guess to whom? Not to one man, but to two: for
the house is to be pulled down, and a hedge run through diagonally,
and Benthien will build himself a dog-kennel on the right side, and
Sorenson one on the left. God bless us!”

“Whoever heard the like?” said Frau Grünlich, folding her hands in her
lap and gazing up at the ceiling. “Grandfather’s property! Well, now
the estate is all haggled up. Its great charm was its extent: there was
really too much of it, but that was what made it elegant. The large
garden, all the way down to the Trave, the house set far back with the
drive, and the chestnut avenue. So it is to be divided. Benthien will
stand in front of one door and Sorenson in front of the other. I say,
‘God bless us,’ too, Uncle Justus! I suppose there is nobody grand
enough these days to occupy the whole thing. It is good that Grandpapa
is not here to see it.”

The sense of mourning still lay too heavily on the air for Tony to give
expression to her outraged feelings in livelier or stronger terms.
It was the day on which the will had been read, two weeks after the
death of the Consul, at half-past five in the afternoon. Frau Consul
Buddenbrook had invited her brother to Meng Street, in order that
he might talk over the provisions made by the deceased with Thomas
and with Herr Marcus the confidential clerk. Tony had announced her
intention to be present at the settlements. This attention, she said,
she owed to the firm as well as to the family, and she took pains to
give the meeting the character of a family council. She had closed
the curtains, and despite the two oil lamps on the green-covered
dining-table, drawn out to its full extent, she had lighted all the
candles in the great gilded candelabrum as well. And, though there was
no particular need of them, she had put on the table a quantity of
writing paper and sharpened pencils.

Tony’s black frock gave her figure a maidenly slimness. She, of them
all, was perhaps most deeply moved by the death of the Consul, to whom
she had drawn so close in the last months that even to-day the thought
of him made her burst out twice in bitter weeping; yet the prospect of
this family council, this solemn little conference in which she could
bear a worthy part, had power to flush her pretty cheek, brighten her
glance, and give her motions dignity and even joy. The Frau Consul,
on the other hand, worn with anxiety and grief and the thousand
formalities of the funeral and the mourning, looked ailing. Her face,
framed in the black lace of her cap-strings, seemed paler, and her
light-blue eyes were tired and dull. But there was not a single white
hair to be seen in her smooth red-blonde coiffure. Was this still the
Parisian tonic, or was it the wig? Mamsell Jungmann alone knew, and
she would not have betrayed the secret even to the other ladies of the
family.

They sat at the end of the table and waited for Herr Marcus and Thomas
to come out of the office. The painted statues seemed to stand out
white and proud on their pedestals against the sky-blue background.

The Frau Consul said: “The thing is--I bade you come, my dear
Justus--in short, it is about Clara, the child. My beloved husband left
to me the choice of a guardian for her--she will need one for three
years. I know you do not want to be overburdened with responsibilities.
You have duties to your wife and sons--”

“My son, Betsy.”

“Yes, yes, we must be Christlike and merciful, Justus. As we forgive
our debtors, it says. Think of our gracious Father in Heaven.”

Her brother looked at her, a little aggrieved. Such turns of phrase had
come in the past only from the mouth of the Consul.

“Enough,” she went on. “There are as good as no obligations connected
with this service of love. I should like to ask you to accept it.”

“Gladly, Betsy; of course, I’ll do it with pleasure. May I not see
my ward? A little too serious, isn’t she, the good child--?” Clara
was called. She slowly appeared, all black and pallid, her movements
melancholy and full of restraint. She had spent the time since her
father’s death in her room praying almost without ceasing. Her dark
eyes were immobile; she seemed frozen with grief and awe.

Uncle Justus the gallant stepped up to her, bowed as he pressed her
hand, and murmured something appropriate. She went out, after receiving
the Frau Consul’s kiss on her stiff lips.

“How is Jürgen?” began the Frau Consul again. “Does it agree with him
in Wismar?”

“Very well,” answered Justus Kröger, sitting down again with a shrug
of the shoulders. “I think he has found his place now. He is a good
lad, Betsy, a lad of principle, but--after he had failed twice in the
examination, it seemed best-- He did not like the law himself, and the
position in the post-office at Wismar is quite suitable. Tell me--I
hear Christian is coming?”

“Yes, Justus, he is coming. May God watch over him on the seas! I
wrote to him the next day after Jean’s death, but he hasn’t even
had the letter yet, and then he will take about two months with the
sailing-vessel after that. But he must come, Justus; I must see him.
Tom says Jean would never have been willing for Christian to give up
his position in Valparaiso; but I ask you--nearly eight years since I
have seen him! And then, under the circumstances! No, I must have them
all about me in this painful time--that is a natural feeling for a
mother.”

“Surely, surely,” said Consul Kröger; for she had begun to weep.

“Thomas agrees with me now, too,” she went on; “for where will
Christian be better off than in his own father’s business, in Tom’s
business? He can stay here, work here. I have been in constant fear
that the climate over there might be bad for him--”

Thomas Buddenbrook, accompanied by Herr Marcus, came into the room.
Friederich Wilhelm Marcus, for years the dead Consul’s confidential
clerk, was a tall man in a brown-skirted coat with a mourning band.
He spoke softly, hesitatingly, stammering a little and considering
each word before he uttered it. He had a habit of slowly and
cautiously stroking the red-brown moustache that grew over his mouth
with the extended middle and index fingers of his left hand; or he
would rub his hands together and let his round brown eyes wander so
aimlessly about that he gave the impression of complete confusion and
absent-mindedness, though he was always most watchfully bent on the
matter in hand.

Thomas Buddenbrook, now the youthful head of the great house, displayed
real dignity in manner and bearing. But he was pale. His hands in
particular, on one of which shone the Consul’s signet ring with the
green stone, were as white as the cuffs beneath his black sleeves--a
frozen whiteness which showed that they were quite dry and cold. He
had extraordinarily sensitive hands, with beautifully cared-for oval
bluish fingernails. Sometimes, in a difficult situation, they would
take positions or make little nervous movements that were indescribably
expressive of shrinking sensibility and painful reserve. This was an
individual trait strange heretofore to the rather broad, though finely
articulated Buddenbrook hand.

Tom’s first care was to open the folding doors into the landscape-room
in order to get the benefit of the warmth from the stove burning there
behind the wrought-iron lattice. Then he shook hands with Consul Kröger
and sat down at the table with Herr Marcus opposite him. He looked at
his sister Tony, and his eyebrow went up in surprise. But she flung her
head back and tucked in her chin in a way that warned him to suppress
any comment on her presence.

“Well, and one may not say Herr Consul?” asked Justus Kröger. “The
Netherlands hope in vain that you should represent them, Tom, my dear
chap?”

“Yes, Uncle Justus, I thought it was better. You see, I could have
taken over the Consulate along with so many other responsibilities, but
in the first place I am a little too young--and then I spoke to Uncle
Gotthold, and he was very pleased to accept it.”

“Very sensible, my lad; very politic. And very gentlemanly.”

“Herr Marcus,” said the Frau Consul, “my dear Herr Marcus!” And with
her usual sweeping gesture she reached out her hand, which he took
slowly, with a respectful side-glance: “I have asked you to come
up--you know what the affair is; and I know that you are agreed with
us. My beloved husband expressed in his final arrangements the wish
that after his death you would put your loyal and well-tried powers at
the service of the firm, not as an outsider but as partner.”

“Certainly, Frau Consul,” said Herr Marcus, “I must protest that I know
how to value the honour your offer does me, being aware, as I am, that
the resources I can bring to the firm are but small. In God’s name, I
know nothing better to do than thankfully to accept the offer you and
your son make me.”

“Yes, Marcus. And I thank you in my turn, most warmly, for your
willingness to share with me the great responsibilities which would
perhaps be too heavy for me alone.” Thomas Buddenbrook spoke quickly
and whole-heartedly, reaching his hand across the table to his partner;
for they were already long since agreed on the subject, and this was
only the formal expression.

“Company is trumpery--you will spoil our chat, between you,” said
Consul Kröger. “And now, shall we run through the provisions, my
children? All I have to look out for is the dowry of my ward. The rest
is not my affair. Have you a copy of the will here, Betsy? And have you
made a rough calculation, Tom?”

“I have it in my head,” said Thomas; and he began, leaning back,
looking into the landscape-room, and moving his gold pencil back and
forth on the table, to explain how matters stood. The truth was that
the Consul’s estate was more considerable than any one had supposed.
The dowry of his oldest daughter, indeed, was gone, and the losses
which the firm had suffered in the Bremen failure in 1851 had been
a heavy blow. And the year ’48, as well as the present year ’55,
with their unrest and interval of war, had brought losses. But the
Buddenbrook share of the Kröger estate of four hundred thousand current
marks had been full three hundred thousand, for Justus had already had
much of his beforehand. Johann Buddenbrook had continually complained,
as a merchant will; but the losses of the firm had been made good by
the accrued profits of some fifteen years, amounting to thirty thousand
thaler, and thus the property, aside from real estate, amounted in
round figures, to seven hundred thousand marks.

Thomas himself, with all his knowledge of the business, had been left
in ignorance by his father of this total. The Frau Consul took the
announcement with discreet calm; Tony put on an adorable expression
of pride and ignorance, and then could not repress an anxious mental
query: Is that a lot? Are we very rich now? Herr Marcus slowly rubbed
his hands, apparently in absence of mind, and Consul Kröger was
obviously bored. But the sum filled Tom himself, as he stated it, with
such a rush of excited pride that the effort at self-control made him
seem dejected. “We must have already passed the million,” he said.
He controlled his voice, but his hands trembled. “Grandfather could
command nine hundred thousand marks in his best time; and we’ve made
great efforts since then, and had successes, and made fine _coups_ here
and there. And Mamma’s dowry, and Mamma’s inheritance! There was the
constant breaking-up--well, good heavens, that lay in the nature of
things! Please forgive me if I speak just now in the sense of the firm
and not of the family. These dowries and payments to Uncle Gotthold
and to Frankfort, these hundreds of thousands which had to be drawn
out of the business--and then there were only two heirs beside the
head of the firm. Good; we have our work cut out for us, Marcus.” The
thirst for action, for power and success, the longing to force fortune
to her knees, sprang up quick and passionate in his eyes. He felt all
the world looking at him expectantly, questioning if he would know how
to command prestige for the firm and the family and protect its name.
On exchange he had been meeting measuring side-looks out of jovial,
mocking old eyes, that seemed to be saying “So you’re taking it on, my
son!” “I _am_!” he thought.

Friederich Wilhelm Marcus rubbed his hands circumspectly, and Justus
Kröger said: “Quietly, quietly, my dear chap. Times aren’t what they
were when your grandfather was a Prussian army contractor.”

There began now a detailed conversation upon the provisions of the
will, in which they all joined, and Consul Kröger took a lighter tone,
referring to Thomas as “his Highness the reigning Prince” and saying,
“The warehouses will go with the crown, according to tradition.” In
general, of course, it was decided that as far as possible everything
should be left together, that Frau Elizabeth Buddenbrook should be
considered the sole heir, and that the entire property should remain
in the business. Herr Marcus announced that as partner he should be
able to strengthen the working capital by a hundred and twenty thousand
marks current. A sum of fifty thousand marks was set aside as a private
fortune for Thomas, and the same for Christian, in case he wished to
establish himself separately. Justus Kröger paid close attention to
the passage that ran: “The fixing of the dowry of my beloved daughter
Clara I leave to the discretion of my dear wife.” “Shall we say a
hundred thousand?” he suggested, leaning back, one leg crossed over the
other, and turning up his short grey moustache with both hands. He was
affability itself. But the sum was fixed at eighty thousand. “In case
of a second marriage of my dearly loved older daughter Antonie, in view
of the fact that eighty thousand marks have already been applied to her
first marriage, the sum of seventeen thousand thaler current must not
be exceeded.” Frau Antonie waved her arm with a graceful but excited
gesture which tossed back her flowing sleeve; she looked at the ceiling
and said loudly: “Grünlich, indeed!” It sounded like a challenge, like
a little trumpet-call. “You know, Herr Marcus,” she said, “about that
man. We are sitting, one fine afternoon, perfectly innocent, in the
garden, in front of the door--you know the portal, Herr Marcus. Well!
Who appears? a person with gold-coloured whiskers--the scoundrel!”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “We will talk about Herr Grünlich afterward.”

“Very well; but you are a clever creature, and you will admit, Tom,
that in this life things don’t always happen fairly and squarely.
That’s been my experience, though a short time ago I was too simple to
realize it.”

“Yes,” Tom said. They went into detail, noting the Consul’s
instructions about the great family Bible, about his diamond buttons,
and many, many other matters.

Justus Kröger and Herr Marcus stopped for supper.




CHAPTER II


In the beginning of February, 1856, after eight years’ absence,
Christian Buddenbrook returned to the home of his fathers. He arrived
in the post-coach from Hamburg, wearing a yellow suit with a pattern of
large checks, that had a distinctly exotic look. He brought the bill of
a swordfish and a great sugar-cane, and received the embraces of his
mother with a half-embarrassed, half absent air.

He wore the same air when, on the next afternoon after his arrival, the
family went to the cemetery outside the Castle Gate to lay a wreath on
the grave. They stood together on the snowy path in front of the large
tablet on which were the names of those resting there, surrounding the
family arms cut in the stone. Before them was the upright marble cross
that stood at the edge of the bare little churchyard grove. They were
all there except Clothilde, who was at Thankless, nursing her ailing
father.

Tony laid the wreath on the tablet, where her father’s name stood on
the stone in fresh gold letters: then, despite the snow, she knelt
down by the grave to pray. Her black veil played about her, and her
full skirt lay spread out in picturesque folds. God alone knew how
much grief and religious emotion--and, on the other hand, how much
of a pretty woman’s self-conscious pleasure--there was in the bowed
attitude. Thomas was not in the mood to think about it. But Christian
looked sidewise at his sister with a mixture of mockery and misgiving,
as if to say: “Can you really carry that off? Shan’t you feel silly
when you get up? How uncomfortable!” Tony caught this look as she
rose, but she was not in the least put out. She tossed her head back,
arranged her veil and skirt, and turned with dignified assurance to
go; whereupon Christian was obviously relieved.

The deceased Consul’s fanatical love of God and of the Saviour had been
an emotion foreign to his forebears, who never cherished other than the
normal, every-day sentiments proper to good citizens. The two living
Buddenbrooks had in their turn their own idiosyncrasies. One of these
appeared to be a nervous distaste for the expression of feeling. Thomas
had certainly felt the death of his father with painful acuteness,
much as his grandfather had felt the loss of his. But he could not
sink on his knees by his grave. He had never, like his sister Tony,
flung himself across the table sobbing like a child; and he shrank from
hearing the heart-broken words in which Madame Grünlich, from roast
to dessert, loved to celebrate the character and person of her dead
father. Such outbursts he met with composed silence or a reserved nod.
And yet, when nobody had mentioned or was thinking of the dead, it
would be just then that his eyes would fill with slow tears, although
his facial expression remained unchanged.

It was different with Christian. He unfortunately did not succeed in
preserving his composure at the naïve and childish outpourings of
his sister. He bent over his plate, turned his head away, and looked
as though he wanted to sink through the floor; and several times he
interrupted her with a low, tormented “Good God, Tony!” his large nose
screwed into countless tiny wrinkles.

In fact, he showed disquiet and embarrassment whenever the conversation
turned to the dead. It seemed as though he feared and avoided not only
the indelicate expression of deep and solemn feeling, but even the
feeling itself.

No one had seen him shed a tear over the death of his father; and his
long absence alone hardly explained this fact. A more remarkable thing,
however, was that he took his sister Tony aside again and again to
hear in vivid detail the events of that fatal afternoon; for Madame
Grünlich had a gift of lively narration.

“He looked yellow?” he asked for the fifth time. “What was it the girl
shrieked when she came running in to you? He looked quite yellow,
and died without saying another word? What did the girl say? What
sort of sound was it he made?” Then he would be silent--silent a long
time--while his small deep-set eyes travelled round the room in thought.

“Horrible,” he said suddenly, and a visible shudder ran over him as he
got up. He would walk up and down with the same unquiet and brooding
eyes. Madame Grünlich felt astonished to see that her brother, who for
some unknown reason was so embarrassed when she bewailed her father
aloud, liked to reproduce with a sort of dreadful relish the dying
efforts to speak which he had inquired about in detail of Lina the
maid-servant.

Christian had certainly not grown better looking. He was lean and
pallid. The skin was stretched over his skull very tightly; his large
nose, with a distinct hump, stuck out fleshless and sharp between his
cheek-bones, and his hair was already noticeably scantier. His neck was
too thin and long and his lean legs decidedly bowed. His London period
seemed to have made a lasting impression upon him. In Valparaiso, too,
he had mostly associated with Englishmen; and his whole appearance had
something English about it which somehow seemed rather appropriate.
It was partly the comfortable cut and durable wool material of his
clothing, the broad, solid elegance of his boots, his crotchety
expression, and the way in which his red-blond moustache drooped over
his mouth. Even his hands had an English look: they were a dull porous
white from the hot climate, with round, clean, short-trimmed nails.

“Tell me,” he said, abruptly, “do you know that feeling--it is hard to
describe--when you swallow something hard, the wrong way, and it hurts
all the way down your spine?” His whole nose wrinkled as he spoke.

“Yes,” said Tony; “that is quite common. You take a drink of water--”

“Oh,” he said in a dissatisfied tone. “No, I don’t think we mean the
same thing.” And a restless look floated across his face.

He was the first one in the house to shake off his mourning and
re-assume a natural attitude. He had not lost the art of imitating the
deceased Marcellus Stengel, and he often spoke for hours in his voice.
At the table he asked about the theatre--if there were a good company
and what they were giving.

“I don’t know,” said Tom, with a tone that was exaggeratedly
indifferent, in order not to seem irritated. “I haven’t noticed lately.”

But Christian missed this altogether and went on to talk about the
theatre. “I am too happy for words in the theatre. Even the _word_
‘theatre’ makes me feel happy. I don’t know whether any of you have
that feeling. I could sit for hours and just look at the curtain. I
feel as I used to when I was a child and we went in to the Christmas
party here. Even the sound of the orchestra beforehand! I would go
if only to hear that and nothing more. I like the love scenes best.
Some of the heroines have such a fetching way of taking their lovers’
heads between their hands. But the actors--in London and Valparaiso I
have known a lot of actors. At first I was very proud to get to know
them in ordinary life. In the theatre I watched their every movement.
It is fascinating. One of them says his last speech and turns around
quietly and goes deliberately, without the least embarrassment, to the
door, although he knows that the eyes of the whole audience are on
his back. How can he do that? I used to be continually thinking about
going behind the scenes. But now I am pretty much at home there, I
must say. Imagine: once, in an operetta--it was in London--the curtain
went up one evening when I was on the stage! I was talking with Miss
Waterhouse, a very pretty girl. Well, suddenly there was the whole
audience! Good Lord, I don’t know how I got off the stage.”

Madame Grünlich was the only one who laughed, to speak of, in the
circle round the table. But Christian went on, his eyes wandering back
and forth. He talked about English _café-chantant_ singers; about an
actress who came on in powdered wig, and knocked with a long cane
on the ground and sang a song called: “That’s Maria.” “Maria, you
know--Maria is the most scandalous of the lot. When somebody does
something perfectly shocking, why--‘that’s Maria’--the bad lot, you
know--utterly depraved!” He said this last with a frightful expression
and raised his right hand with the fingers formed into a ring.

“_Assez_, Christian,” said the Frau Consul. “That does not interest us
in the least.”

But Christian’s gaze flickered absently over her head; he would
probably have stopped without her suggestion, for he seemed to be sunk
in a profound, disquieting dream of Maria and her depravity, while his
little round deep eyes wandered back and forth.

Suddenly he said: “Strange--sometimes I can’t swallow. Oh, it’s
no joke. I find it very serious. It enters my head that perhaps I
can’t swallow, and then all of a sudden I can’t. The food is already
swallowed, but the muscles--right here--they simply refuse. It isn’t a
question of will-power. Or rather, the thing is, I don’t dare really
will it.”

Tony cried out, quite beside herself: “Christian! Good Lord, what
nonsense! You don’t dare to make up your mind to swallow! What are you
talking about? You are absurd!”

Thomas was silent. But the Frau Consul said: “That is nerves, Christian.
Yes, it was high time you came home; the climate over there would have
killed you in the end.”

After the meal Christian sat down at the little harmonium that stood
in the dining-room and imitated a piano virtuoso. He pretended to
toss back his hair, rubbed his hands, and looked around the room;
then, without a sound, without touching the bellows--for he could
not play in the least, and was entirely unmusical, like all the
Buddenbrooks--he bent quite over and began to belabour the bass, played
unbelievable passages, threw himself back, looked in ecstasy at the
ceiling, and banged the key-board in a triumphant finale. Even Clara
burst out laughing. The illusion was convincing; full of assurance and
charlatanry and irresistible comicality of the burlesque, eccentric
English-American kind; so certain of its own effect that the result was
not in the least unpleasant.

“I have gone a great deal to concerts,” he said. “I like to watch how
the people behave with their instruments. It is really beautiful to be
an artist.”

Then he began to play again, but broke off suddenly and became serious,
as though a mask had fallen over his features. He got up, ran his hand
through his scanty hair, moved away, and stood silent, obviously fallen
into a bad mood, with unquiet eyes and an expression as though he were
listening to some kind of uncanny noise.

“Sometimes I find Christian a little strange,” said Madame Grünlich to
her brother Thomas, one evening, when they were alone. “He talks so,
somehow. He goes so unnaturally into detail, seems to me--or what shall
I say? He looks at things in such a strange way; don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” said Tom, “I understand what you mean very well, Tony. Christian
is very incautious--undignified--it is difficult to express what I
mean. Something is lacking in him--what people call equilibrium, mental
poise. On the one hand, he does not know how to keep his countenance
when other people make naïve or tactless remarks--he does not
understand how to cover it up, and he just loses his self-possession
altogether. But the same thing happens when he begins to be garrulous
himself, in the unpleasant way he has, and tells his most intimate
thoughts. It gives one such an uncanny feeling--it is just the way
people speak in a fever, isn’t it? Self-control and personal reserve
are both lacking in the same way. Oh, the thing is quite simple:
Christian busies himself too much with himself, with what goes on in
his own insides. Sometimes he has a regular mania for bringing out the
deepest and the pettiest of these experiences--things a reasonable man
does not trouble himself about or even want to know about, for the
simple reason that he would not like to tell them to any one else.
There is such a lack of modesty in so much communicativeness. You see,
Tony, anybody, except Christian, may say that he loves the theatre. But
he would say it in a different tone, more _en passant_, more modestly,
in short. Christian says it in a tone that says: ‘Is not my passion for
the stage something very marvellous and interesting?’ He struggles, he
behaves as if he were really wrestling to express something supremely
delicate and difficult.”

“I’ll tell you,” he went on after a pause, throwing his cigarette
through the wrought-iron lattice into the stove: “I have thought a
great deal about this curious and useless self-preoccupation, because
I had once an inclination to it myself. But I observed that it made me
unsteady, hare-brained, and incapable--and control, equilibrium, is,
at least for me, the important thing. There will always be men who are
justified in this interest in themselves, this detailed observation
of their own emotions; poets who can express with clarity and beauty
their privileged inner life, and thereby enrich the emotional world
of other people. But the likes of us are simple merchants, my child;
our self-observations are decidedly inconsiderable. We can sometimes
go so far as to say that the sound of orchestra instruments gives
us unspeakable pleasure, and that we sometimes do not dare try to
swallow--but it would be much better, deuce take it, if we sat down and
accomplished something, as our fathers did before us.”

“Yes, Tom, you express my views exactly. When I think of the airs those
Hagenströms put on--oh, Heavens, what truck! Mother doesn’t like the
words I use, but I find they are the only right ones. Do you suppose
they think they are the only good family in town? I have to laugh, you
know; I really do.”




CHAPTER III


The head of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook had measured his brother on
his arrival with a long, scrutinizing gaze. He had given him passing
and unobtrusive observation during several days; and then, though he
did not allow any sign of his opinion to appear upon his calm and
discreet face, his curiosity was satisfied, his mind made up. He talked
with him in the family circle in a casual tone on casual subjects and
enjoyed himself like the others when Christian gave a performance. A
week later he said to him: “Well, shall we work together, young man? So
far as I know, you consent to Mamma’s wish, do you not? As you know,
Marcus has become my partner, in proportion to the quota he has paid
in. I should think that, as my brother, you could ostensibly take the
place he had--that of confidential clerk. What your work would be--I do
not know how much mercantile experience you have really had. You have
been loafing a bit, so far--am I right? Well, in any case, the English
correspondence will suit you. But I must beg one thing of you, my dear
chap. In your position as brother of the head of the house, you will
actually have a superior position to the others; but I do not need to
tell you that you will impress them far more by behaving like their
equal and doing your duty, than you will by making use of privileges
and taking liberties. Are you willing to keep office hours and observe
appearances?”

And then he made a proposal in respect of salary, which Christian
accepted without consideration, with an embarrassed and inattentive
face that betrayed very little love of gain and a great zeal to settle
the matter quickly. Next day Thomas led him into the office; and
Christian’s labours for the old firm began.

The business had taken its uninterrupted and solid course after the
Consul’s death. But soon after Thomas Buddenbrook seized the reins,
a fresher and more enterprising spirit began to be noticeable in the
management. Risks were taken now and then. The credit of the house,
formerly a conception, a theory, a luxury, was consciously strained and
utilized. The gentlemen on ’Change nodded at each other. “Buddenbrook
wants to make money with both hands,” they said. They thought it was
a good thing that Thomas had to carry the upright Friederich Wilhelm
Marcus along with him, like a ball and chain on his foot. Herr Marcus’
influence was the conservative force in the business. He stroked his
moustache with his two fingers, punctiliously arranged his writing
materials and glass of water on his desk, looked at everything on both
sides and top and bottom; and, five or six times in the day, would go
out through the courtyard into the wash-kitchen and hold his head under
the tap to refresh himself.

“They complement each other,” said the heads of the great houses to
each other; Consul Huneus said it to Consul Kistenmaker. The small
families echoed them; and the dockyard and warehouse hands repeated
the same opinion. The whole town was interested in the way young
Buddenbrook would “take hold.” Herr Stuht in Bell-Founders’ Street
would say to his wife, who knew the best families: “They balance each
other, you see.”

But the personality of the business was plainly the younger partner.
He knew how to handle the personnel, the ship-captains, the heads in
the warehouse offices, the drivers and the yard hands. He could speak
their language with ease and yet keep a distance between himself and
them. But when Herr Marcus spoke in dialect to some faithful servant it
sounded so outlandish that his partner would simply begin to laugh, and
the whole office would dissolve in merriment.

Thomas Buddenbrook’s desire to protect and increase the prestige of
the old firm made him love to be present in the daily struggle for
success. He well knew that his assured and elegant bearing, his tact
and winning manners were responsible for a great deal of good trade.

“A business man cannot be a bureaucrat,” he said to Stephan
Kistenmaker, of Kistenmaker and Sons, his former school-fellow.
He had remained the oracle of this old playmate, who listened to
his every word in order to give it out later as his own. “It takes
personality--that is my view. I don’t think any great success is to be
had from the office alone--at least, I shouldn’t care for it. I always
want to direct the course of things on the spot, with a look, a word,
a gesture--to govern it with the immediate influence of my will and my
talent--my luck, as you call it. But, unfortunately, personal contact
is going out of fashion. The times move on, but it seems to me they
leave the best behind. Relations are easier and easier; the connections
better and better; the risk gets smaller--but the profits do too.
Yes, the old people were better off. My grandfather, for example--he
drove in a four-horse coach to Southern Germany, as commissary to the
Prussian army--an old man in pumps, with his head powdered. And there
he played his charms and his talents and made an astonishing amount of
money, Kistenmaker. Oh, I’m afraid the merchant’s life will get duller
and duller as time goes on.”

It was feelings like these that made him relish most the trade he came
by through his own personal efforts. Sometimes, entirely by accident,
perhaps on a walk with the family, he would go into a mill for a chat
with the miller, who would feel himself much honoured by the visit;
and quite _en passant_, in the best of moods, he would conclude a good
bargain. His partner was incapable of that sort of thing.

As for Christian, he seemed at first to devote himself to his task with
real zest and enjoyment, and to feel exceptionally well and contented.
For several days he ate with appetite, smoked his short pipe, and
squared his shoulders in the English jacket, giving expression to his
sense of ease and well-being. In the morning he went to the office at
about the same time as Thomas, and sat opposite his brother and Herr
Marcus in a revolving arm-chair like theirs. First he read the paper,
while he comfortably smoked his morning cigarette. Then he would fetch
out an old cognac from his bottom desk drawer, stretch out his arms
in order to feel himself free to move, say “Well!” and go to work
good-naturedly, his tongue roving about among his teeth. His English
letters were extraordinarily able and effective, for he wrote English
as he spoke it, simply and fluently, without effort.

He gave expression to his mood in his own way in the family circle.

“Business is really a fine, gratifying calling,” he said. “Respectable,
satisfying, industrious, comfortable. I was really born to it--fact!
And as a member of the house!--well, I’ve never felt so good before.
You come fresh into the office in the morning, and look through the
paper, smoke, think about this and that, take some cognac, and then
go to work. Comes midday; you eat with your family, take a rest, then
to work again. You write, on smooth, good business paper, with a good
pen, rule, paper-knife, stamp--everything first-class and all in
order. You keep at it, get things done one after the other, and finish
up. To-morrow is another day. When you go home to supper, you feel
thoroughly satisfied--satisfied in every limb. Even your hands--”

“Heavens, Christian,” cried Tony. “What rubbish! How can your hands
feel satisfied?”

“Why, yes, of course--can’t you understand that? I mean--” he made a
painstaking effort to express and explain. “You can shut your fist,
you see. You don’t make a violent effort, of course, because you are
tired from your work. But it isn’t flabby; it doesn’t make you feel
irritable. You have a sense of satisfaction in it; you feel easy and
comfortable--you can sit quite still without feeling bored.”

Every one was silent. Then Thomas said in a casual tone, so as not
to show that he disagreed: “It seems to me that one doesn’t work for
the sake of--” He broke off and did not continue. “At least, I have
different reasons,” he added after a minute. But Christian did not
hear. His eyes roamed about, sunk in thought; and he soon began to
tell a story of Valparaiso, a tale of assault and murder of which he
had personal knowledge. “Then the fellow ripped out his knife--” For
some reason Thomas never applauded these tales. Christian was full
of them, and Madame Grünlich found them vastly entertaining. The
Frau Consul, Clara, and Clothilde sat aghast, and Mamsell Jungmann
and Erica listened with their mouths open. Thomas used to make cool
sarcastic comments and act as if he thought Christian was exaggerating
or hoaxing--which was certainly not the case. He narrated with colour
and vividness. Perhaps Thomas found unpleasant the reflection that
his younger brother had been about and seen more of the world than
he! Or were his feelings of repulsion due to the glorification of
disorder, the exotic violence of these knife- and revolver-tales?
Christian certainly did not trouble himself over his brother’s failure
to appreciate his stories. He was always too much absorbed in his
narrative to notice its success or lack of success with his audience,
and when he had finished he would look pensively or absently about the
room.

But if in time the relations between the two brothers came to be not
of the best, Christian was not the one who thought of showing or
feeling any animosity against his brother. He silently took for granted
the pre-eminence of his elder, his superior capacity, earnestness,
and respectability. But precisely this casual, indiscriminate
acknowledgment irritated Thomas, for it had the appearance of setting
no value upon superior capacity, earnestness, or respectability.

Christian appeared not to notice the growing dislike of the head
of the firm. Thomas’s feelings were indeed quite justifiable; for
unfortunately Christian’s zeal for business visibly decreased, even
after the first week, though more after the second. His little
preparations for work, which, in the beginning, wore the air of a
prolonged and refined anticipation: the reading of the paper, the
after-breakfast cigarette, the cognac, began to take more and more
time, and finally used up the whole morning. It gradually came about
that Christian freed himself largely from the constraint of office
hours. He appeared later and later with his breakfast cigarette to
begin his preparations for work; he went at midday to eat at the Club,
and came back late or not at all.

This Club, to which mostly unmarried business men belonged, occupied
comfortable rooms in the first storey of a restaurant, where one
could eat and meet in unrestrained and sometimes not altogether
harmless conversation--for there was a roulette table. Even some of
the more light-minded fathers of families, like Justus Kröger and,
of course, Peter Döhlmann, were members, and police senator Crema
was here “the first man at the hose.” That was the expression of
Dr. Gieseke--Andreas Gieseke, the son of the Fire Commissioner and
Christian’s old schoolmate. He had settled as a lawyer in the town, and
Christian renewed the friendship with him, though he ranked as rather
a wild fellow. Christian--or, as he was called everywhere, Chris--had
known them all more or less in the old days, for nearly all of them
had been pupils of Marcellus Stengel. They received him into the Club
with open arms; for, while neither business men nor scholars found
him a genius, they recognized his amusing social gifts. It was here
that he gave his best performances and told his best stories. He did
the virtuoso at the club piano and imitated English and transatlantic
actors and opera singers. But the best things he did were stories of
his affairs with women, related in the most harmless and entertaining
way imaginable--adventures that had befallen him on shipboard, on
trains, in St. Paul’s, in Whitechapel, in the virgin forest. There
was no doubt that Christian’s weakness was for women. He narrated with
a fluency and power that entranced his listeners, in an exhaustless
stream, with his somewhat plaintive, drawling voice, burlesque and
innocent, like an English humourist. He told a story about a dog that
had been sent in a satchel from Valparaiso to San Francisco and was
mangy to boot. Goodness knew what was the point of the anecdote--in his
mouth it was indescribably comic. And while everybody about him writhed
with laughter, unable to leave off, he himself sat there cross-legged,
a strange, uneasy seriousness in his face with its great hooked nose,
his thin, long neck, his sparse light-red hair and little round
deep-set eyes. It almost seemed as if the laugh were at his expense, as
if they were laughing at him. But that never occurred to him.

At home his favourite tales were about his office in Valparaiso. He
told of the extreme heat there, and about a young Londoner, named
Johnny Thunderstorm, a ne’er-do-well, an extraordinary chap, whom he
had “never seen do a stroke of work, God damn me,” and who yet was a
remarkable business man.

“Good God, the heat!” he said. “Well, the chief came into the
office--there we all lay, eight of us, like flies, and smoked
cigarettes to keep the mosquitoes away. Good God! Well, the chief said:
‘You are not working, gentlemen?’ ‘No, sir,’ says Johnny Thunderstorm,
‘as you see, sir!’ And we all blew our cigarette-smoke in his face.
Good God!”

“Why do you keep saying ‘good God’?” asked Thomas irritably. But his
irritation was at bottom because he felt that Christian told this story
with particular relish just because it gave him a chance to sneer at
honest work.

The Mother would discreetly change the subject. There were many hateful
things in the world, thought the Frau Consul, born Kröger. Brothers
could despise and dislike each other, dreadful as it sounded; but one
didn’t mention such things. They had to be covered up and ignored.




CHAPTER IV


In May it happened that Uncle Gotthold--Consul Gotthold Buddenbrook,
now sixty years old--was seized with a heart attack one night and died
in the arms of his wife, born Stüwing.

The son of poor Madame Josephine had had the worst of it in life,
compared with the younger and stronger brother and sister born of
Madame Antoinette. But he had long since resigned himself to his
fortunes; and in his later years, especially after his nephew turned
over to him the Consulate of the Netherlands, he ate his lozenges out
of his tin box and harboured the friendliest feelings. It was his
ladies who kept up the feud now: not so much his good-natured wife
as the three elderly damsels, who could not look at Frau Consul, or
Antonie, or Thomas, without a spark in their eyes.

On the traditional “children’s day,” at four o’clock, they all gathered
in the big house in Meng Street, to eat dinner and spend the evening.
Sometimes Consul Kröger or Sesemi Weichbrodt came too, with her simple
sister. On these occasions the three Miss Buddenbrooks from Broad
Street loved to turn the conversation to Tony’s former marriage and
to dart sharp glances at each other while they egged Madame Grünlich
on to use strong language. Or they would make general remarks on the
subject of the undignified vanity of dyeing one’s hair. Or they would
enquire particularly after Jacob Kröger, the Frau Consul’s nephew. They
made jokes at the expense of poor, innocent, Clothilde--jokes not so
harmless as those which the charity girl received in good part every
day from Tom and Tony. They made fun of Clara’s austerity and bigotry.
They were quick to find out that Tom and Christian were not on the
best of terms; also, that they did not need to pay much attention to
Christian anyhow, for he was a sort of Tom-fool. As for Thomas himself,
who had no weak point for them to ferret out, and who always met them
with a good-humoured indulgence, that signified “I understand what you
mean, and I am very sorry”--him they treated with respect tinctured
with bitterness. Next came the turn of little Erica. Rosy and plump
as she was, they found her alarmingly backward in her growth. And
Pfiffi in a series of little shakes drew attention several times to the
child’s shocking resemblance to the deceiver Grünlich.

But now they stood with their mother about their Father’s death-bed,
weeping; and a message was sent to Meng Street, though the feeling was
not entirely wanting that their rich relations were somehow or other to
blame for this misfortune too.

In the middle of the night the great bell downstairs rang; and as
Christian had come home very late and was not feeling up to much, Tom
set out alone in the spring rain.

He came just in time to see the last convulsive motions of the old
gentleman. Then he stood a long time in the death-chamber and looked
at the short figure under the covers, at the dead face with the mild
features and white whiskers. “You haven’t had a very good time, Uncle
Gotthold,” he thought. “You learned too late to make concessions and
show consideration. But that is what one has to do. If I had been like
you, I should have married a shop girl years ago. But for the sake of
appearances--! I wonder if you really wanted anything different? You
were proud, and probably felt that your pride was something idealistic;
but your spirit had little power to rise. To cherish the vision of an
abstract good; to carry in your heart, like a hidden love, only far
sweeter, the dream of preserving an ancient name, an old family, an old
business, of carrying it on, and adding to it more and more honour and
lustre--ah, that takes imagination, Uncle Gotthold, and imagination you
didn’t have. The sense of poetry escaped you, though you were brave
enough to love and marry against the will of your father. And you had
no ambition, Uncle Gotthold. The old name is only a burgher name, it
is true, and one cherishes it by making the grain business flourish,
and oneself beloved and powerful in a little corner of the earth. Did
you think: ‘I will marry her whom I love, and pay no attention to
practical considerations, for they are petty and provincial?’ Oh, we
are travelled and educated enough to realize that the limits set to
our ambition are small and petty enough, looked at from outside and
above. But everything in this world is comparative, Uncle Gotthold. Did
you know one can be a great man, even in a small place; a Cæsar even
in a little commercial town on the Baltic? But that takes imagination
and idealism--and you didn’t have it, whatever you may have thought
yourself.”

Thomas Buddenbrook turned away. He went to the window and looked out at
the dim grey gothic façade of the Town Hall opposite, shrouded in rain.
He had his hands behind his back and a smile on his intelligent face.

The office and title of the Royal Consulate of the Netherlands, which
Thomas Buddenbrook might have taken after his father’s death, went back
to him now, to the boundless satisfaction of Tony Grünlich; and the
curving shield with the lions, the arms, and the crown was once more
to be seen on the gabled front of the house in Meng Street, under the
“Dominus providebit.”

Soon after this was accomplished, in June of the same year, the young
Consul set out to Amsterdam on a business journey the duration of which
he did not know.




CHAPTER V


Deaths in the family usually induce a religious mood. It was not
surprising, after the decease of the Consul, to hear from the mouth of
his widow expressions which she had not been accustomed to use.

But it was soon apparent that this was no passing phase. Even in the
last years of the Consul’s life, his wife had more and more sympathized
with his spiritual cravings; and it now became plain that she was
determined to honour the memory of her dead by adopting as her own all
his pious conceptions.

She strove to fill the great house with the spirit of the
deceased--that mild and Christlike spirit which yet had not excluded
a certain dignified and hearty good cheer. The morning and evening
prayers were continued and lengthened. The family gathered in the
dining-room, and the servants in the hall, to hear the Frau Consul
or Clara read a chapter out of the great family Bible with the big
letters. They also sang a few verses out of the hymn-book, accompanied
by the Frau Consul on the little organ. Or, often, in place of the
chapter from the Bible, they had a reading from one of those edifying
or devotional books with the black binding and gilt edges--those Little
Treasuries, Jewel-Caskets, Holy Hours, Morning Chimes, Pilgrims’
Staffs, and the like, whose common trait was a sickly and languishing
tenderness for the little Jesus, and of which there were all too many
in the house.

Christian did not often appear at these devotions. Thomas once chose a
favourable moment to disparage the practice, half-jestingly; but his
objection met with a gentle rebuff. As for Madame Grünlich, she did
not, unfortunately, always conduct herself correctly at the exercises.
One morning when there was a strange clergyman stopping with the
Buddenbrooks, they were invited to sing to a solemn and devout melody
the following words:--

  I am a reprobate,
  A warped and hardened sinner;
  I gobble evil down
  Just like the joint for dinner.
  Lord, fling thy cur a bone
  Of righteousness to chew
  And take my carcass home
  To Heaven and to you.

Whereat Frau Grünlich threw down her book and left the room, bursting
with suppressed giggles.

But the Frau Consul made more demands upon herself than upon her
children. She instituted a Sunday School, and on Sunday afternoon
only little board-school pupils rang at the door of the house in Meng
Street. Stine Voss, who lived by the city wall, and Mike Stuht from
Bell-Founders’ Street, and Fike Snut from the river-bank or Groping
Alley, their straw-coloured locks smoothed back with a wet comb,
crossed the entry into the garden-room, which for a long time now had
not been used as an office, and in which rows of benches had been
arranged and Frau Consul Buddenbrook, born Kröger, in a gown of heavy
black satin, with her white refined face and still whiter lace cap,
sat opposite to them at a little table with a glass of sugar-water and
catechized them for an hour.

Also, she founded the “Jerusalem evenings,” which not only Clara and
Clothilde but also Tony were obliged to attend, willy-nilly. Once a
week they sat at the extension-table in the dining-room by the light
of lamps and candles. Some twenty ladies, all of an age when it is
profitable to begin to look after a good place in heaven, drank tea or
bishop, ate delicate sandwiches and puddings, read hymns and sermons
aloud to each other, and did embroidery, which at the end of the year
was sold at a bazaar and the proceeds sent to the mission in Jerusalem.

This pious society was formed in the main from ladies of the Frau
Consul’s own social rank: Frau Senator Langhals, Frau Consul
Möllendorpf, and old Frau Consul Kistenmaker belonged; but other, more
worldly and profane old ladies, like Mme. Köppen, made fun of their
friend Betsy. The wives of the clergymen of the town were all members,
likewise the widowed Frau Consul Buddenbrook, born Stüwing, and Sesemi
Weichbrodt and her simple sister. There is, however, no rank and no
discrimination before Jesus; and so certain humble oddities were also
guests at the Jerusalem evenings--for example, a little wrinkled
creature, rich in the grace of God and knitting-patterns, who lived in
the Holy Ghost Hospital and was named Himmelsburger. She was the last
of her name--“the last Himmelsburger,” she called herself humbly, and
ran her knitting-needle under her cap to scratch her head.

But far more remarkable were two other extraordinary old creatures,
twins, who went about hand in hand through the town doing good deeds,
in shepherdess hats out of the eighteenth century and faded clothes
out of the long, long ago. They were named Gerhardt, and asserted
that they descended in a direct line from Paul Gerhardt. People said
they were by no means poor; but they lived wretchedly and gave away
all they had. “My dears,” remarked the Frau Consul, who was sometimes
rather ashamed of them, “God sees the heart, I know; but your clothes
are really a little--one must take some thought for oneself.” But she
could not prevent them kissing their elegant friend on the brow with
the forebearing, yearning, pitying superiority of the poor in heart
over the worldly great who seek salvation. They were not at all stupid.
In their homely shrivelled heads--for all the world like ancient
parrots--; they had bright soft brown eyes and they looked out at the
world with a wonderful expression of gentleness and understanding.
Their hearts were full of amazing wisdom. They knew that in the last
day all our beloved gone before us to God will come with song and
salvation to fetch us home. They spoke the words “the Lord” with the
fluent authority of early Christians, as if they had heard out of the
Master’s own mouth the words, “Yet a little while and ye shall see me.”
They possessed the most remarkable theories concerning inner light and
intuition and the transmission of thought. One of them, named Lea, was
deaf, and yet she nearly always knew what was being talked about!

It was usually the deaf Gerhardt who read aloud at the Jerusalem
evenings, and the ladies found that she read beautifully and
very affectingly. She took out of her bag an old book of a very
disproportionate shape, much taller than it was broad, with an
inhumanly chubby presentment of her ancestor in the front. She held
it in both hands and read in a tremendous voice, in order to catch
a little herself of what she read. It sounded as if the wind were
imprisoned in the chimney:

  “If Satan me would swallow.”

“Goodness!” thought Tony Grünlich, “how could Satan want to swallow
her?” But she said nothing and devoted herself to the pudding,
wondering if she herself would ever become as ugly as the two Miss
Gerhardts.

She was not happy. She felt bored and out of patience with all the
pastors and missionaries, whose visits had increased ever since the
death of the Consul. According to Tony they had too much to say in the
house and received entirely too much money. But this last was Tom’s
affair, and he said nothing, while his sister now and then murmured
something about people who consumed widows’ homes and made long prayers.

She hated these black gentlemen bitterly. As a mature woman who knew
life and was no longer a silly innocent, she found herself unable to
believe in their irreproachable sanctity. “Mother,” she said, “oh dear,
I know I must not speak evil of my neighbours. But one thing I must
say, and I should be surprised if life had not taught you that too, and
that is that not all those who wear a long coat and say ‘Lord, Lord’
are always entirely without blemish.”

History does not say what Tom thought of his sister’s opinion on this
point. Christian had no opinion at all. He confined himself to watching
the gentlemen with his nose wrinkled up, in order to imitate them
afterward at the club or in the family circle.

But it is true that Tony was the chief sufferer from the pious
visitants. One day it actually happened that a missionary named
Jonathan, who had been in Arabia and Syria--a man with great,
reproachful eyes and baggy cheeks was stopping in the house, and
challenged her to assert that the curls she wore on her forehead were
consistent with true Christian humility. He had not reckoned with Tony
Grünlich’s skill at repartee. She was silent a moment, while her mind
worked rapidly; and then out it came. “May I ask you, Herr Pastor,
to concern yourself with your own curls?” With that she rustled out,
shoulders up, head back, and chin well tucked in. Pastor Jonathan had
very few curls on his head--it would be nearer truth to say that he was
quite bald.

And once she had an even greater triumph. There was a certain Pastor
Trieschke from Berlin. His nickname was Teary Trieschke, because every
Sunday he began to weep at an appropriate place in his sermon. Teary
Trieschke had a pale face, red eyes, and cheek-bones like a horse’s.
He had been stopping for eight or ten days with the Buddenbrooks,
conducting devotions and holding eating contests with poor Clothilde,
turn about. He happened to fall in love with Tony--not with her
immortal soul, oh no, but with her upper lip, her thick hair, her
pretty eyes and charming figure. And the man of God, who had a wife
and numerous children in Berlin, was not ashamed to have Anton leave
a letter in Madame Grünlich’s bedroom in the upper storey, wherein
Bible texts and a kind of fawning sentimentality were surpassingly
mingled. She found it when she went to bed, read it, and went with
a firm step downstairs into the Frau Consul’s bedroom, where by the
candle-light she read aloud the words of the soul-saver to her Mother,
quite unembarrassed and in a loud voice; so that Teary Trieschke became
impossible in Meng Street.

“They are all alike,” said Madame Grünlich; “ah, they are all alike.
Oh, heavens, what a goose I was once! But life has destroyed my faith
in men. Most of them are scoundrels--alas, it is the truth. Grünlich--”
The name was, as always, like a summons to battle. She uttered it with
her shoulders lifted and her eyes rolled up.




CHAPTER VI


Sievert Tiburtius was a small, narrow man with a large head and a thin,
long, blond beard parted in the middle, so that he sometimes put the
ends back over his shoulders. A quantity of little woolly ringlets
covered his round head. His ears were large and outstanding, very much
curled up at the edges and pointed at the tips like the ears of a fox.
His nose sat like a tiny flat button in his face, his cheek-bones stood
out, and his grey eyes, usually drawn close together and blinking about
rather stupidly, could at certain moments widen quite extraordinarily,
and get larger and larger, protruding more and more until they almost
sprang out of their sockets.

This Pastor Tiburtius, who came from Riga, had preached for some years
in central Germany, and now touched at the town on his way back home,
where a living had been offered to him. Armed with the recommendation
of a brother of the cloth who had eaten at least once in Meng Street
of mock-turtle soup and ham with onion sauce, he waited upon the Frau
Consul and was invited to be her guest for a few days. He occupied the
spacious guest-chamber off the corridor in the first storey. But he
stopped longer than he had expected. Eight days passed, and still there
was this or that to be seen: the dance of death and the apostle-clock
in St. Mary’s, the Town Hall, the ancient Ships’ Company, the Cathedral
clock with the movable eyes. Ten days passed, and he spoke repeatedly
of his departure, but at the first word of demur from anybody would
postpone anew.

He was a better man than Herr Jonathan or Teary Trieschke. He thought
not at all about Frau Antonie’s curls and wrote her no letters.
Strange to say, he paid his attentions to Clara, her younger and more
serious sister. In her presence, when she spoke, entered or left the
room, his eyes would grow surprisingly larger and larger and open out
until they nearly jumped out of his head. He would spend almost the
entire day in her company, in spiritual or worldly converse or reading
aloud to her in his high voice and with the droll, jerky pronunciation
of his Baltic home.

Even on the first day he said: “Permit me to say, Frau Consul, what a
treasure and blessing from God you have in your daughter Clara. She is
certainly a wonderful child.”

“You are right,” replied the Frau Consul. But he repeated his opinion
so often that she began looking him over with her pale-blue eyes, and
led him on to speak of his home, his connections, and his prospects.
She learned that he came of a mercantile family, that his mother was
with God, that he had no brothers and sisters, and that his old father
had retired and lived on his income in Riga--an income which would
sometime fall to him, Pastor Tiburtius. He also had a sufficient living
from his calling.

Clara Buddenbrook was now in her nineteenth year. She had grown to be
a young lady of an austere and peculiar beauty, with a tall, slender
figure, dark, smooth hair, and stern yet dreamy eyes. Her nose was
slightly hooked, her mouth a little too firmly closed. In the household
she was most intimate with her poor and pious cousin Clothilde, whose
father had lately died, and whose idea it was to “establish herself”
soon--which meant to go into a pension somewhere with the money and
furniture which she had inherited. Clara had nothing of Clothilde’s
meek and hungry submissiveness. On the contrary, with the servants and
even with her brothers and sister and mother, a commanding tone was
usual with her. Her low voice, which seemed only to drop with decision
and never to rise with a question, had an imperious sound and could
often take on a short, hard, impatient, haughty quality--on days, for
example, when Clara had a headache.

Before the father’s death had shrouded the family in mourning, she had
taken part with irreproachable dignity in the society of her parents’
house and other houses of like rank. But when the Frau Consul looked
at her, she could not deny that, despite the stately dowry and Clara’s
domestic prowess, it would not be easy to marry her off. None of the
godless, jovial, claret-drinking merchants of their circle would answer
in the least; a clergyman would be the only suitable partner for this
earnest and God-fearing maiden. After the Frau Consul had conceived
this joyful idea, she responded with friendliness to the delicate
advances of Pastor Tiburtius.

And truly the affair developed with precision. On a warm, cloudless
July afternoon the family took a walk: the Frau Consul, Antonie,
Christian, Clara, Clothilde, Erica Grünlich, and Mamsell Jungmann, with
Pastor Tiburtius in their midst, went out far beyond the Castle Gate to
eat strawberries and clotted milk or porridge at a wooden table laid
out-of-doors, going after the meal into the large nut-garden which ran
down to the river, in the shade of all sorts of fruit-trees, between
currant and gooseberry bushes, asparagus and potato patches.

Sievert Tiburtius and Clara Buddenbrook stopped a little behind the
others. He, much the smaller of the two, with his beard parted back
over his shoulders, had taken off his broad-brimmed black hat from his
big head; and he wiped his brow now and then with his handkerchief.
His eyes were larger than usual and he carried on with her a long and
gentle conversation, in the course of which they both stood still, and
Clara, with a serious, calm voice said her “Yes.”

After they returned, the Frau Consul, a little tired and overheated,
was sitting alone in the landscape-room, when Pastor Tiburtius came
and sat beside her. Outside there reigned the pensive calm of the
Sabbath afternoon; and they sat inside and held, in the brightness of
the summer evening, a long, low conversation, at the end of which the
Frau Consul said: “Enough, my dear Herr Pastor. Your offer coincides
with my motherly plans for my daughter; and you on your side have not
chosen badly--that I can assure you. Who would have thought that your
coming and your stay here in our house would be so wonderfully blest!
I will not speak my final word to-day, for I must write first to my
son, the Consul, who is at present, as you know, away. You will travel
to-morrow, if you live and have your health, to Riga, to take up your
work; and we expect to go for some weeks to the seashore. You will
receive word from me soon, and God grant that we shall have a happy
meeting.”




CHAPTER VII


                                              AMSTERDAM, July 30th, 1856
                                                    HOTEL HET HASSJE

  MY DEAR MOTHER,

  I have just received your important letter, and hasten to thank you
  for the consideration you show me in asking for my consent in the
  affair under discussion. I send you, of course, not only my hearty
  agreement, but add my warmest good-wishes, being thoroughly convinced
  that you and Clara have made a good choice. The fine name Tiburtius
  is known to me, and I feel sure that Papa had business relations with
  the father. Clara comes into pleasant connections, in any case, and
  the position as pastor’s wife will be very suited to her temperament.

  And Tiburtius has gone back to Riga, and will visit his bride
  again in August? Well, it will be a gay time then with us in Meng
  Street--gayer than you realize, for you do not know the reason why I
  was so joyfully surprised by Mademoiselle Clara’s betrothal, nor what
  a charming company it is likely to be. Yes, my dear good Mother: I
  am complying with the request to send my solemn consent to Clara’s
  betrothal from the Amstel to the Baltic. But I do so on condition
  that you send me a similar consent by return of post! I would give
  three solid gulden to see your face, and even more that of our honest
  Tony, when you read these lines. But I will come to the point.

  My clean little hotel is in the centre of the town with a pretty view
  of the canal. It is not far from the Bourse; and the business on
  which I came here--a question of a new and valuable connection, which
  you know I prefer to look after in person--has gone successfully
  from the first day. I have still considerable acquaintance here
  from the days of my apprenticeship; so, although many families are
  at the shore now, I have been invited out a good deal. I have been
  at small evening companies at the Van Henkdoms and the Moelens, and
  on the third day after my arrival I had to put on my dress clothes
  to go to a dinner at the house of my former chief, van der Kellen,
  which he had arranged out of season in my honour. Whom did I take
  in to dinner? Should you like to guess? Fräulein Arnoldsen, Tony’s
  old school-fellow. Her father, the great merchant and almost greater
  violin artist, and his married daughter and her husband were also of
  the party.

  I well remember that Gerda--if I may call her so--from the beginning,
  even when she was a young girl at school at Fräulein Weichbrodt’s
  on the Millbrink, made a strong impression on me, never quite
  obliterated. But now I saw her again, taller, more developed,
  lovelier, more animated. Please spare me a description, which might
  so easily sound overdrawn--and you will soon see each other face to
  face.

  You can imagine we had much to talk about at the table, but we had
  left the old memories behind by the end of the soup, and went on
  to more serious and fascinating matters. In music I could not hold
  my own with her, for we poor Buddenbrooks know all too little of
  that, but in the art of the Netherlands I was more at home, and in
  literature we were fully agreed.

  Truly the time flew. After dinner I had myself presented to old Herr
  Arnoldsen, who received me with especial cordiality. Later, in the
  salon, he played several concert pieces, and Gerda also performed.
  She looked wonderful as she played, and although I have no notion of
  violin playing, I know that she knew how to sing upon her instrument
  (a real Stradivarius) so that the tears nearly came into my eyes.
  Next day I went to call on the Arnoldsens. I was received at first
  by an elderly companion, with whom I spoke French, but then Gerda
  came, and we talked as on the day before for perhaps an hour, only
  that this time we drew nearer together and made still more effort to
  understand and know each other. The talk was of you, Mamma, of Tony,
  of our good old town, and of my work.

  And on that day I had already taken the firm resolve: this one or
  no one, now or never! I met her again by chance at a garden party at
  my friend van Svindren’s, and I was invited to a musical evening at
  the Arnoldsens’, in the course of which I sounded the young lady by
  a half-declaration, which was received encouragingly. Five days ago
  I went to Herr Arnoldsen to ask for permission to win his daughter’s
  hand. He received me in his private office. “My dear Consul,” he
  said, “you are very welcome, hard as it will be for an old widower
  to part from his daughter. But what does she say? She has already
  held firmly to her resolve never to marry. Have you a chance?” He was
  extremely surprised when I told him that Fräulein Gerda had actually
  given me ground for hope.

  He left her some time for reflection, and I imagine that out of pure
  selfishness he dissuaded her. But it was useless. She had chosen
  me--since yesterday evening the betrothal is an accomplished fact.

  No, my dear Mother, I am not asking a written answer to this letter,
  for I am leaving to-morrow. But I am bringing with me the Arnoldsens’
  promise that father, daughter, and married sister will visit us in
  August, and then you will be obliged to confess that she is the very
  wife for me. I hope you see no objection in the fact that Gerda is
  only three years younger than I? I am sure you never thought I would
  marry a chit out of the Möllendorpf-Langhals, Kistenmaker-Hagenström
  circle.

  And now for the dowry. I am almost frightened to think how Stephan
  Kistenmaker and Hermann Hagenström and Peter Döhlmann and Uncle
  Justus and the whole town will blink at me when they hear of the
  dowry. For my future father-in-law is a millionaire. Heavens, what is
  there to say? We are such complex, contradictory creatures! I deeply
  love and respect Gerda Arnoldsen; and I simply will not delve deep
  down enough in myself to find out how much the thought of the dowry,
  which was whispered into my ear that first evening, contributed to my
  feeling. I love her: but it crowns my happiness and pride to think
  that when she becomes mine, our firm will at the same time gain a
  very considerable increase of capital.

  I must close this letter, dear Mother; considering that in a few
  days, we shall be talking over my good fortune together, it is
  already too long. I wish you a pleasant and beneficial stay at the
  baths, and beg you to greet all the family most heartily for me. Your
  loving and obedient son,

                                                                      T.




CHAPTER VIII


That year there was indeed a merry midsummer holiday in the Buddenbrook
home. At the end of July Thomas returned to Meng Street and visited
his family at the shore several times, like the other business men in
the town. Christian had allotted full holidays unto himself, as he
complained of an indefinite ache in his left leg. Dr. Grabow did not
seem to treat it successfully, and Christian thought of it so much the
more.

“It is not a pain--one can’t call it a pain,” he expatiated, rubbing
his hand up and down his leg, wrinkling his big nose, and letting his
eyes roam about. “It is a sort of ache, a continuous, slight, uneasy
ache in the whole leg and on the left side, the side where the heart
is. Strange. I find it strange--what do you think about it, Tom?”

“Well, well,” said Tom, “you can have a rest and the sea-baths.”

So Christian went down to the shore to tell stories to his
fellow-guests, and the beach resounded with their laughter. Or he
played roulette with Peter Döhlmann, Uncle Justus, Dr. Gieseke, and
other Hamburg high-fliers.

Consul Buddenbrook went with Tony, as always when they were in
Travemünde, to see the old Schwarzkopfs on the front. “Good day, Ma’am
Grünlich,” said the pilot-captain, and spoke low German out of pure
good feeling.

“Well, well, what a long time ago that was! And Morten, he’s a doctor
in Breslau and has all the practice in the town, the rascal.” Frau
Schwarzkopf ran off and made coffee, and they supped in the green
verandah as they used to--only all of them were a good ten years
older, and Morten and little Meta were not there, she having married
the magistrate of Haffkrug. And the captain, already white-haired and
rather deaf, had retired from his office--and Madame Grünlich was not
a goose any more! Which did not prevent her from eating a great many
slices of bread and honey, for, as she said: “Honey is a pure nature
product--one knows what one is getting.”

At the beginning of August the Buddenbrooks, like most of the other
families, returned to town; and then came the great moment when, almost
at the same time, Pastor Tiburtius from Prussia and the Arnoldsens from
Holland arrived for a long visit in Meng Street.

It was a very pretty scene when the Consul led his bride for the first
time into the landscape-room and took her to his mother, who received
her with outstretched arms. Gerda had grown tall and splendid. She
walked with a free and gracious bearing; with her heavy dark-red hair,
her close-set brown eyes with the blue shadows round them, her large,
gleaming teeth which showed when she smiled, her straight strong nose
and nobly formed mouth, this maiden of seven-and-twenty years had a
strange, aristocratic, haunting beauty. Her face was white and a little
haughty, but she bowed her head as the Frau Consul with gentle feeling
took it between her hands and kissed the pure, snowy forehead. “Yes,
you are welcome to our house and to our family, you dear, beautiful,
blessed creature,” she said. “You will make him happy. Do I not see
already how happy you make him?” And she drew Thomas forward with her
other arm, to kiss him also.

Never, except perhaps in Grandfather’s time, was there more gay society
in the great house, which accommodated its guests with ease. Pastor
Tiburtius had modestly chosen a bed-chamber in the back building
next the billiard-room. But the rest divided the unoccupied space
on the ground floor next the hall and in the first storey: Gerda;
Herr Arnoldsen, a quick, clever man at the end of the fifties, with
a pointed grey beard and a pleasant impetuosity in every motion;
his oldest daughter, an ailing-looking woman; and his son-in-law,
an elegant man of the world, who was turned over to Christian for
entertainment in the town and at the club.

Antonie was overjoyed that Sievert Tiburtius was the only parson in
the house. The betrothal of her adored brother rejoiced her heart.
Aside from Gerda’s being her friend, the parti was a brilliant one,
gilding the family name and the firm with such new glory! And the
three-hundred-thousand mark dowry and the thought of what the town and
particularly the Hagenströms would say to it, put her in a state of
prolonged and delightful enchantment. Three times daily, at least, she
passionately embraced her future sister-in-law.

“Oh, Gerda,” she cried, “I love you--you know I always did love you. I
know you can’t stand me--you used to hate me; but--”

“Why, Tony!” said Fräulein Arnoldsen. “How could I have hated you? Did
you ever do anything to me?” For some reason, however--probably out of
mere wantonness and love of talking--Tony asserted stoutly that Gerda
had always hated her, while she on her side had always returned the
hate with love. She took Thomas aside and told him: “You have done very
well, Tom. Oh, heavens, how well you have done! If Father could only
see this--it is just dreadful that he cannot! Yes, this wipes out a lot
of things--not least the affair with that person whose name I do not
even like to speak.”

Which put it into her head to take Gerda into an empty room and tell
her with awful detail the story of her married life with Bendix
Grünlich. Then they talked for hours about boarding-school days and the
bed-time gossip; of Armgard von Schilling in Mecklenburg and Eva Ewers
in Munich. Tony paid little or no attention to Sievert Tiburtius and
his betrothed--which troubled them not at all. The lovers sat quietly
together hand in hand, and spoke gently and earnestly of the beautiful
future before them.

As the year of mourning was not quite over, the two betrothals were
celebrated only in the family. But Gerda quickly became a celebrity
in the town. Her person formed the chief subject of conversation on
the Bourse, at the club, at the theatre, and in society. “Tip-top,”
said the gallants, and clucked their tongues, for that was the latest
Hamburg slang for a superior article, whether a brand of claret, a
cigar, or a “deal.” But among the solid, respectable citizens there
was much head-shaking. “Something queer about her,” they said. “Her
hair, her face, the way she dresses--a little too unusual.” Sorenson
expressed it: “She has a certain something about her!” He made a face
as if he were on the Bourse and somebody had made him a doubtful
proposition. But it was all just like Consul Buddenbrook: a little
pretentious, not like his forebears. Everybody knew--not least Benthien
the draper--that he ordered his clothes from Hamburg: not only the
fine new-fashioned materials for his suits--and he had a great many
of them, cloaks, coats, waistcoats, and trousers--but his hats and
cravats and linen as well. He changed his shirt every day, sometimes
twice a day, and perfumed his handkerchief and his moustache, which he
wore cut like Napoleon III. All this was not for the sake of the firm,
of course--the house of Johann Buddenbrook did not need that sort of
thing--but to gratify his own personal taste for the superfine and
aristocratic--or whatever you might call it. And then the quotations
from Heine and other poets which he dropped sometimes in the most
practical connections, in business or civic matters! And now, his
bride--well, Consul Buddenbrook himself had “a certain something” about
him! All this, of course, with the greatest respect; for the family was
highly esteemed, the firm very, very “good,” and the head of it an able
and charming man who loved his city and would still serve her well. It
was really a devilishly fine match for him; there was talk of a hundred
thousand thaler down; but of course.... Among the ladies there were
some who found Gerda “silly”; which, it will be recalled, was a very
severe judgment.

But the man who gazed with furious ardour at Thomas Buddenbrook’s
bride, the first time he saw her on the street, was Gosch the broker.
“Ah!” he said in the club or the Ships’ Company, lifting his glass
and screwing up his face absurdly, “what a woman! Hera and Aphrodite,
Brunhilda and Melusine all in one! Oh, how wonderful life is!” he would
add. And not one of the citizens who sat about with their beer on the
hard wooden benches of the old guild-house, under the models of sailing
vessels and big stuffed fish hanging down from the ceiling, had the
least idea what the advent of Gerda Arnoldsen meant in the yearning
life of Gosch the broker.

The little company in Meng Street, not committed, as we have seen,
to large entertainments, had the more leisure for intimacy with each
other. Sievert Tiburtius, with Clara’s hand in his, talked about his
parents, his childhood, and his future plans. The Arnoldsens told of
their people, who came from Dresden, only one branch of them having
been transplanted to Holland.

Madame Grünlich asked her brother for the key of the secretary in the
landscape-room, and brought out the portfolio with the family papers,
in which Thomas had already entered the new events. She proudly related
the Buddenbrook history, from the Rostock tailor on; and when she read
out the old festival verses:

  Industry and beauty chaste
  See we linked in marriage band:
  Venus Anadyomene,
  And cunning Vulcan’s busy hand

she looked at Tom and Gerda and let her tongue play over her lips.
Regard for historical veracity also caused her to narrate events
connected with a certain person whose name she did not like to mention!

On Thursday at four o’clock the usual guests came. Uncle Justus brought
his feeble wife, with whom he lived an unhappy existence. The wretched
mother continued to scrape together money out of the housekeeping to
send to the degenerate and disinherited Jacob in America, while she and
her husband subsisted on almost nothing but porridge. The Buddenbrook
ladies from Broad Street also came; and their love of truth compelled
them to say, as usual, that Erica Grünlich was not growing well and
that she looked more than ever like her wretched father. Also that
the Consul’s bride wore a rather conspicuous coiffure. And Sesemi
Weichbrodt came too, and standing on her tip-toes, kissed Gerda with
her little explosive kiss on the forehead and said with emotion: “Be
happy, my dear child.”

At table Herr Arnoldsen gave one of his witty and fanciful toasts in
honour of the two bridal pairs. While the rest drank their coffee he
played the violin, like a gipsy, passionately, with abandonment--and
with what dexterity!... Gerda fetched her Stradivarius and accompanied
him in his passages with her sweet cantilena. They performed
magnificent duets at the little organ in the landscape-room, where once
the Consul’s grandfather had played his simple melodies on the flute.

“Sublime!” said Tony, lolling back in her easy-chair. “Oh, heavens, how
sublime that is!” And she rolled up her eyes to the ceiling to express
her emotions. “You know how it is in life,” she went on, weightily.
“Not everybody is given such a gift. Heaven has unfortunately denied
it to me, though I used to pray for it at night. I am a goose, a silly
creature. You know, Gerda--I am the elder and have learned to know
life--let me tell you, you ought to thank your Creator every day on
your knees, for being such a gifted creature!”

“Oh, please,” said Gerda, with a laugh, showing her beautiful large
white teeth.

Later they all ate wine jelly and discussed their plans for the near
future. At the end of that month or the beginning of September, it was
decided, Sievert Tiburtius and the Arnoldsens would go home. Then,
directly after Christmas, Clara’s wedding would be celebrated with
due solemnity in the great hall. The Frau Consul, health permitting,
would attend Tom’s wedding in Amsterdam. But it must be put off until
the beginning of the next year, that there might be a little pause for
rest between. It was no use for Thomas to protest. “Please,” said the
Frau Consul, and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Sievert should have the
precedence, I think.”

The Pastor and his bride had decided against a wedding journey. Gerda
and Thomas, however, were to take a trip to northern Italy, as far as
Florence, and be gone about two months. In the meantime Tony, with
the help of the upholsterer Jacobs in Fish Street, was to make ready
the charming little house in Broad Street, the property of a bachelor
who had moved to Hamburg. The Consul was already arranging for its
purchase. Oh, Tony would furnish it to the Queen’s taste. “It will be
perfect,” she said. They were all sure it would.

Christian looked on while the two bridal pairs held hands, and listened
to the talk about weddings and trousseaux and bridal journeys. His
nose looked bigger and his legs more crooked than ever. He felt an
indefinite sort of pain in the left one, and stared solemnly at them
all out of his little round deep-set eyes. Finally, in the accents of
Marcellus Stengel, he said to his cousin Clothilde, who sat elderly,
dried-up, silent, and hungry, at table among the happy throng: “Well,
Tilda, let’s _us_ get married too--I mean, of course each one for
himself.”




CHAPTER IX


Some six months later Consul Buddenbrook returned with his bride from
Italy. The March snows lay in Broad Street as the carriage drove up at
five o’clock before the front door of their simple painted façade. A
few children and grown folk had stopped to watch the home-coming pair
descend. Frau Antonie Grünlich stood proudly in the doorway, behind her
the two servant-maids, with white caps, bare arms, and thick striped
skirts--she had engaged them beforehand for her sister-in-law. Flushed
with pleasure and industry, she ran impetuously down the steps; Gerda
and Thomas climbed out of the trunk-laden carriage wrapped in their
furs; and she drew them into the house in her embrace.

“Here you are! You lucky people, to have travelled so far in the world.
‘Knowest thou the house? High-pillared are its walls!’ Gerda, you are
more beautiful than ever; here, I must kiss you--no, so, on the mouth.
How are you, Tom, old fellow?--yes, I must kiss you too. Marcus says
everything has gone well here. Mother is waiting for you at home, but
you can first just make yourselves comfortable. Will you have some tea?
Or a bath? Everything is ready--you won’t complain. Jacobs did his
best--and I have done all I could, too.”

They went together into the vestibule, and the servants brought in
the luggage with the help of the coachman. Tony said: “The rooms here
in the parterre you will probably not need for the present. _For the
present_,” she repeated, running her tongue over her upper lip. “Look,
this is pretty,” and she opened a door directly next the vestibule.
“Simple oak furniture, ivy at the windows. Over there, the other side
of the corridor, is another room, a larger one. Here on the right are
the kitchen and larder. But let’s go up. I will show you everything.”
They went up the stairs, which were covered with a dark-red runner.
Above, behind a glass partition, was a narrow corridor which led to the
dining-room. This had dark-red damask wall-paper, a heavy round table
upon which the samovar was steaming, a massive sideboard, and chairs
of carved nut-wood, with rush seats. Then there was a comfortable
sitting-room upholstered in grey, separated by portières from a small
salon with a bay-window and furniture in green striped rep. A fourth of
this whole storey was occupied by a large hall with three windows.

Then they went into the sleeping-room, on the right of the corridor.
It had flowered hangings and solid mahogany beds. Tony passed on to a
small door with open-work carving in the opposite wall, and displayed
a winding stair leading from the bedroom to the lower floors, the
bathroom, and the servants’ quarters.

“It is pretty here. I shall stop here,” said Gerda, and sank with a
deep breath into the reclining-chair beside one of the beds.

The Consul bent over and kissed her forehead. “Tired? I feel like that
too. I should like to tidy up a bit.”

“I’ll look after the tea,” said Tony Grünlich, “and wait for you in the
dining-room.”

The tea stood steaming in the Meissenware cups when Thomas entered.
“Here I am,” he said. “Gerda would like to rest a little. She has a
headache. Afterward we will go to Meng Street. Well, how is everything,
my dear Tony--all right? Mother, Erica, Christian? But now,” he went on
with his most charming manner, “our warmest thanks--Gerda’s too--for
all your trouble, you good soul. How pretty you have made everything!
Nothing is missing.--I only need a few palms for my wife’s bay-window;
and I must look about for some suitable oil paintings. But tell me,
now, how are you? What have you been doing all this time?”

He had drawn up a chair for his sister beside himself, and slowly drank
his tea and ate a biscuit as they talked.

“Oh, Tom,” she answered. “What should I be doing? My life is over.”

“Nonsense, Tony--you and your life! But it _is_ pretty tiresome, is it?”

“Yes, Tom, it is very tiresome. Sometimes I just have to shriek, out
of sheer boredom. It has been nice to be busy with this house, and you
don’t know how happy I am at your return. But I am not happy here--God
forgive me, if that is a sin. I am in the thirties now, but I’m still
not quite old enough to make intimate friends with the last of the
Himmelsburgers, or the Miss Gerhardts, or any of mother’s black friends
that come and consume widows’ homes. I don’t believe in them, Tom; they
are wolves in sheep’s clothing--a generation of vipers. We are all weak
creatures with sinful hearts, and when they begin to look down on me
for a poor worldling I laugh in their faces. I’ve always thought that
all men are the same, and that we don’t need any intercessors between
us and God. You know my political beliefs. I think the citizens--”

“Then you feel lonely?” Tom asked, to bring her back to her
starting-point. “But you have Erica.”

“Yes, Tom, and I love the child with my whole heart--although a certain
person did use to declare that I am not fond of children. But you
see--I am perfectly frank; I am an honest woman and speak as I think,
without making words--”

“Which is splendid of you, Tony.”

“Well, in short--it is sad, but the child reminds me too much of
Grünlich. The Buddenbrooks in Broad Street think she is very like him
too. And then, when I see her before me I always think: ‘You are an old
woman with a big daughter, and your life is over. Once for a few years
you were alive; but now you can grow to be seventy or eighty years
old, sitting here and listening to Lea Gerhardt read aloud.’ That is
such an awful thought, Tom, that a lump comes in my throat. Because I
still feel so young, and still long to see life again. And besides, I
don’t feel comfortable--not only in the house; but in the town. You
know I haven’t been struck blind. I have my eyes in my head and see
how things are; I am not a stupid goose any more, I am a divorced
woman--and I am made to feel it, that’s certain. Believe me, Tom, it
lies like a weight on my heart, to know that I have besmirched our
name, even if it was not any fault of mine. You can do whatever you
will, you can earn money and be the first man in the town--but people
will still say: ‘Yes, but his sister is a divorced woman.’ Julchen
Möllendorpf, the Hagenström girl--she doesn’t speak to me! Oh, well,
she is a goose. It is the same with all families. And yet I can’t
get rid of the hope that I could make it all good again. I am still
young--don’t you think I am still rather pretty? Mamma cannot give me
very much again, but even what she can give is an acceptable sum of
money. Suppose I were to marry again? To confess the truth, Tom, it is
my most fervent wish. Then everything would be put right and the stain
wiped out. Oh, if I could only make a match worthy of our name, and set
myself up again--do you think it is entirely out of the question?”

“Not in the least, Tony. Heaven forbid! I have always thought of it.
But it seems to me that in the first place you must get out a little,
have a little change, and brighten up a bit.”

“Yes, that’s it,” she cried eagerly. “Now I must tell you a little
story.”

Thomas was well pleased. He leaned back in his chair and smoked his
second cigarette. The twilight was coming on.

“Well, then, while you were away, I almost took a situation--a position
as companion in Liverpool! Would you have thought it was shocking? Oh,
I know it would have been undignified! But I was so wildly anxious to
get away. The plan came to nothing. I sent my photograph to the lady,
and she wrote that she must decline my services, because I was too
pretty--there was a grown son in the house. ‘You are too pretty,’ she
wrote! I don’t know when I have been so pleased.”

They both laughed heartily.

“But now I have something else in mind,” went on Tony. “I have had an
invitation, from Eva Ewers, to go to Munich. Her name is Eva Niederpaur
now; her husband is superintendent of a brewery. Well, she has asked
me to visit her, and I think I will take advantage of the invitation.
Of course, Erica could not go with me. I would put her in Sesemi
Weichbrodt’s pension. She would be well taken care of. Have you any
objection?”

“Not at all. It is necessary, in any case, that you should make some
new connections.”

“Yes, that’s it,” she said gratefully. “But now, Tom. I have been
talking the whole time about myself; I am a selfish thing. Now, tell me
your affairs. Oh, Heavens, how happy you must be.”

“Yes, Tony,” he said with emphasis. There was a pause. He blew out the
smoke across the table and continued: “In the first place, I am very
glad to be married and set up an establishment. You know I should not
make a good bachelor. It has a side to it that suggests loneliness and
also laziness--and I am ambitious, as you know. I don’t feel that my
career is finished, either in business or--to speak half-jestingly--in
politics. And a man gains the confidence of the world better if he is
a family man and a father. Though I came within an ace of not doing
it, after all! I am a bit fastidious. For a long time I thought it
would not be possible to find the right person. But the sight of Gerda
decided me. I felt at once that she was the only one for me: though I
know there are people in town who don’t care for my taste. She is a
wonderful creature; there are few like her in the world. She is nothing
like you, Tony, to be sure. You are simpler, and more natural too.
My lady sister is simply more temperamental,” he continued, suddenly
taking a lighter tone. “Oh, Gerda has temperament too--her playing
shows that; but she can sometimes be a little cold. In short, she is
not to be measured by the ordinary standards. She is an artist, an
individual, a puzzling, fascinating creature.”

“Yes, yes,” Tony said. She had given her brother the closest attention.
It was nearly dark, and she had not thought of lighting the lamps.

The corridor door opened, and there stood before them in the twilight,
in a pleated piqué house-frock, white as snow, a slender figure. The
heavy dark-red hair framed her white face, and blue shadows lay about
her close-set brown eyes. It was Gerda, mother of future Buddenbrooks.




PART SIX




CHAPTER I


Thomas Buddenbrook took a solitary early breakfast in his pretty
dining-room. His wife usually left her room late, as she was subject to
headaches and vapours in the morning. The Consul went at once to Meng
Street, where the offices still were, took his second breakfast with
his mother, Christian and Ida Jungmann in the entresol, and met Gerda
only at dinner, at four in the afternoon.

The ground floor of the old house still preserved the life and movement
of a great business; but the upper storeys were empty and lonely.
Little Erica had been received as a boarder by Mademoiselle Weichbrodt,
and poor Clothilde had moved with her few sticks of furniture into
a cheap pension with the widow of a high-school teacher, a Frau Dr.
Krauseminz. Even Anton had left the house, and gone over to the young
pair, where he was more needed. When Christian was at the club, the
Frau Consul and Ida Jungmann sat at four o’clock dinner alone at the
round table, in which there was now not a single extra leaf. It looked
quite lost in the great spaces of the dining-temple with its images of
the gods.

The social life of Meng Street had been extinguished with the death of
Consul Johann Buddenbrook. Except for the visits of this or that man
of God, the Frau Consul saw no guests but the members of her family,
who still came on Thursday afternoons. But the first great dinner had
already been given by the young pair in Broad Street. Tables were
laid in both dining- and living-room, and there were a hired cook
and waiters and Kistenmaker wines. It began at five o’clock, and its
sounds and smells were still in the air at eleven. All the business
and professional men were present, married pairs and bachelors as
well: all the tribe of Langhals, Hagenströms, Huneus’, Kistenmakers,
Överdiecks, and Möllendorpfs. It finished off with whist and music.
They talked about it in glowing terms on the Bourse for a whole week.
The young Frau Consul certainly knew how to entertain! When she and the
Consul were alone, in the room lighted by burned-down candles, with
the furniture disarranged and the air thick with heavy odours of rich
food, wine, cigars, coffee, perfume, and the scent of the flowers from
the ladies’ toilettes and the table decorations, he pressed her hand
and said: “Very good, Gerda. We do not need to be ashamed. This sort of
thing is necessary. I have no great fondness for balls, and having the
young people jumping about here; and, besides, there is not room. But
we must entertain the settled people. A dinner like that costs a bit
more--but it is well spent.”

“You are right,” she had answered, and arranged the laces through
which her bosom shimmered like marble. “I much prefer the dinners to
the balls myself. A dinner is so soothing. I had been playing this
afternoon, and felt a little queer. My brain feels quite dead now. If I
were to be struck by lightning I should not change colour.”

Next morning at half-past eleven the Consul sat down beside his Mother
at the breakfast-table, and she read a letter aloud to him:

                                                   MUNICH, April 2, 1857
                                                        MARIENPLATZ 5

  MY DEAR MOTHER,

  I must beg your pardon--it is a shame that I have not written before
  in the eight days I have been here. My time has been so taken up with
  all the things there are to see--I’ll tell you about them afterwards.
  Now I must ask if all the dear ones, you and Tom and Gerda and Erica
  and Christian and Tilda and Ida, are well--that is the most important
  thing.

  Ah, what all I have seen in these days!--the Pinakothek and the
  Glyptothek and the Hofbräuhaus and the Court Theatre and the
  churches, and quantities of other things! I must tell you of them
  when I see you; otherwise I should kill myself writing. We have also
  had a drive in the Isar valley, and for to-morrow an excursion to the
  Wurmsee is arranged. So it goes on. Eva is very sweet to me, and her
  husband, Herr Niederpaur, the brewery superintendent, is an agreeable
  man. We live in a very pretty square in the town, with a fountain
  in the middle, like ours at home in the market place, and the house
  is quite near the Town Hall. I have never seen such a house. It is
  painted from top to bottom, in all colours--St. Georges killing
  dragons, and old Bavarian princes in full robes and arms. Imagine!

  Yes, I like Munich extremely. The air is very strengthening to the
  nerves, and for the moment I am quite in order with my stomach
  trouble. I enjoy drinking the beer--I drink a good deal, the more so
  as the water is not very good. But I cannot quite get used to the
  food. There are too few vegetables and too much flour, for instance
  in the sauces, which are pathetic. They have no idea of a proper
  joint of veal, for the butchers cut everything very badly. And I miss
  the fish. It is quite mad to be eating so much cucumber and potato
  salad with the beer--my tummy rebels audibly.

  Yes, one has to get used to a great deal. It is a real foreign
  country. The strange currency, the difficulty of understanding
  the common people--I speak too fast to them and they seem to talk
  gibberish to me--and then the Catholicism. I hate it, as you know; I
  have no respect for it--

Here the Consul began to laugh, leaning back in the sofa with a piece
of bread and herb cheese in his hand.

“Yes, Tom, you are laughing,” said his Mother, and tapped with her
middle finger on the table. “But it pleases me very much that she
holds fast to the faith of her fathers and shuns the unevangelical
gim-crackery. I know that you felt a certain sympathy for the papal
church, while you were in France and Italy: but that is not religion
in you, Tom--it is something else, and I understand what. We must be
forbearing; yet in these things a frivolous feeling of fascination is
very much to be regretted. I pray God that you and your Gerda,--for I
well know that she does not belong to those firm in the faith--will in
the course of time feel the necessary seriousness. You will forgive
your mother her words, I know.”

  On top of the fountain (she continued reading) there is a Madonna,
  and sometimes she is crowned with a wreath, and the common people
  come with rose garlands and kneel down and pray--which looks very
  pretty, but it is written: “Go into your chamber.” You often see
  monks here in the street; they look very respectable. But--imagine,
  Mamma!--yesterday in Theatiner Street some high dignitary of
  the church was driving past me in his coach; perhaps it was an
  archbishop; anyhow, an elderly man--well, this gentleman throws me an
  ogling look out of the window, like a lieutenant of the Guard! You
  know, Mother, I’ve no great opinion of your friends the ministers and
  missionaries, but Teary Trieschke was certainly nothing compared to
  this rakish old prince of the Church.

“Horrors!” interjected the Frau Consul, shocked.

“That’s Tony, to the life,” said the Consul.

“How is that, Tom?”

“Well, perhaps she just invited him a trifle--to try him, you know. I
know Tony. And I am sure the ‘ogling look’ delighted her hugely, which
was probably what the old gentleman wanted.”

The Frau Consul did not take this up, but continued to read:

  Day before yesterday the Niederpaurs entertained in the evening. It
  was lovely, though I could not always follow the conversation, and
  I found the tone sometimes rather questionable. There was a singer
  there from the Court opera, who sang songs, and a young artist,
  who asked me to sit for him, which I refused, as I thought it not
  suitable. I enjoyed myself most with a Herr Permaneder. Would you
  ever think there could be such a name? He is a hop dealer, a nice,
  jolly man, in middle life and a bachelor. I had him at table, and
  stuck to him, for he was the only Protestant in the party. He is a
  citizen of Munich, but his family comes from Nuremberg. He assured me
  that he knew our firm very well by name, and you can imagine how it
  pleased me, Tom, to hear the respectful tone in which he said that.
  He asked how many there are of us, and things like that. He asked
  about Erica and Grünlich too. He comes sometimes to the Niederpaurs’,
  and is probably going to-morrow to Wurmsee with us.

  Well, adieu, dear Mamma; I can write no more. If I live and prosper,
  as you always say, I shall stop here three or four weeks more, and
  when I come back I will tell you more of Munich, for in a letter it
  is hard to know where to begin. I like it very much; that I must
  say--though one would have to train a cook to make decent sauces.
  You see, I am an old woman, with my life behind me, and I have
  nothing more to look forward to on earth. But if, for example, Erica
  should--if she lives and prospers--marry here, I should have nothing
  against it; that I must say.

Again the Consul was obliged to stop eating and lean back in his chair
to laugh.

“She is simply priceless, Mother. And when she tries to dissimulate,
she is incomparable. She is a thousand miles away from being able to
carry it off.”

“Yes, Tom,” said the Frau Consul, “she is a good child, and deserves
good fortune.” And she finished the letter.




CHAPTER II


At the end of April Frau Grünlich returned home. Another epoch was
behind her, and the old existence began again--attending the daily
devotions and the Jerusalem evenings and hearing Lea Gerhardt read
aloud. Yet she was obviously in a gay and hopeful mood.

Her brother, the Consul, fetched her from the station--she had come
from Buchen--and drove her through the Holsten Gate into the town. He
could not resist paying her the old compliment--how, next to Clothilde,
she was the prettiest one in the family; and she answered: “Oh, Tom, I
hate you! To make fun of an old lady like that--”

But he was right, nevertheless: Madame Grünlich kept her good looks
remarkably. You looked at the thick ash-blonde hair, rolled at the
sides, drawn back above the little ears, and fastened on the top of the
head with a broad tortoise-shell comb; at the soft expression of her
grey-blue eyes, her pretty upper lip, the fine oval and delicate colour
of her face--and you thought of three-and-twenty, perhaps; never of
thirty. She wore elegant hanging gold earrings, which, in a somewhat
different form, her grandmother had worn before her. A loose bodice of
soft dark silk, with satin revers and flat lace epaulettes, gave her
pretty bosom an enchanting look of softness and fulness.

She was in the best of tempers. On Thursday, when Consul Buddenbrook
and the ladies from Broad Street, Consul Kröger, Clothilde, Sesemi
Wiechbrodt and Erica came to tea, she talked vividly about Munich.
The beer, the noodles, the artist who wanted to paint her, and the
court coaches had made the greatest impressions. She mentioned Herr
Permaneder in passing; and Pfiffi Buddenbrook let fall a word or two
to the effect that such a journey might be very agreeable, but did not
seem to have any practical results. Frau Grünlich passed this by with
dignity, though she put back her head and tucked in her chin. She fell
into the habit now, whenever the vestibule bell rang through the entry,
of hurrying to the landing to see who had come. What might that mean?
Probably only Ida Jungmann, Tony’s governess and year-long confidante,
knew that. Ida would say, “Tony, my child, you will see: he’ll come.”

The family was grateful to the returned traveller for her cheering
presence; for the atmosphere of the house sadly needed brightening. The
relations between the head of the firm and his younger brother had not
improved. Indeed, they had grown sadly worse. Their Mother, the Frau
Consul, followed with anxious misgivings the course of events and had
enough to do to mediate between the two. Her hints to visit the office
more regularly were received in absent silence by Christian. He met
his brother’s remonstrances with a mortified air, making no defence,
and for a few days would apply himself with somewhat more zeal to the
English correspondence. But there developed more and more in the elder
an irritated contempt for the younger brother, not decreased by the
fact that Christian received his occasional rebukes without seeming
offence, only looking at him with the usual absent disquiet in his eyes.

Tom’s irritable activity and the condition of his nerves would not let
him listen sympathetically or even patiently to Christian’s detailed
accounts of his increasing symptoms. To his mother or sister, he
referred to them with disgust as “the silly phenomena of an obstinate
introspection.”

The ache, the indefinite ache in Christian’s left leg, had yielded by
now to treatment; but the trouble in swallowing came on often at table,
and there was lately a difficulty in breathing, an asthmatic trouble,
which Christian thought for several weeks was consumption. He explained
its nature and activity at length to his family, his nose wrinkled
up the while. Dr. Grabow was called in. He said the heart and lungs
were operating soundly, but the occasional difficulty in breathing was
due to muscular sluggishness, and ordered first the use of a fan and
secondly that of a green powder which one burned, inhaling the smoke.
Christian used the fan in the office, and to a remonstrance on the part
of the chief answered that in Valparaiso every man in the office was
provided with a fan on account of the heat: “Johnny Thunderstorm--good
God!” But one day, after he had been wriggling about on his chair for
some time, nervous and restless, he took his powder out of his pocket
and made such a strong and violent-smelling reek in the room that some
of the men began to cough violently, and Herr Marcus grew quite pale.
There was an open explosion, a scandal, a dreadful talking-to which
would have led to a break at once, but that the Frau Consul once more
covered everything all up, reasoned them out of it, and set things
going again.

But this was not all. The life Christian led outside the house, mainly
with his old schoolmate Lawyer Gieseke, was observed by the Consul
with disgust. He was no prig, no spoil-sport. He knew very well that
his native town, this port and trading city, where men walked the
streets proud of their irreproachable reputation as business men, was
by no means of spotless morality. They made up to themselves for the
tedious hours spent in their offices, by dinners with heavy wines
and heavy dishes--and by other things. But the broad mantle of civic
respectability concealed this side of their life. Thomas Buddenbrook’s
first law was to preserve “the _dehors_”; wherein he showed himself
not so different from his fellow burghers. Lawyer Gieseke was a
member of the professional class, whose habits of life were much
like those of the merchants. That he was also a “good fellow,”
anybody could see who looked at him. But, like the other easy men of
pleasure in the community, he knew how to avoid trouble by wearing
the proper expression and saying the proper thing. And in political
and professional matters, he had a reputation of irreproachable
respectability. His betrothal to Fräulein Huneus had just been
announced; whereby he married a considerable dowry and a place in the
best society. He was active in civic affairs, and he had his eye on a
seat in the Council--even, ultimately, on the seat of old Burgomaster
Överdieck.

But his friend Christian Buddenbrook--the same who could go calmly up
to Mlle. Meyer-de-la-Grange, present her his bouquet, and say, “Oh,
Fräulein, how beautifully you act!”--Christian had been developed
by character and circumstances into a free-liver of the naïve and
untrammeled type. In affairs of the heart, as in all others, he was
disinclined to govern his feelings or to practise discretion for the
sake of preserving his dignity. The whole town had laughed over his
affair with an obscure actress at the summer theatre. Frau Stuht in
Bell Founders’ Street--the same who moved in the best society--told
everybody who would listen how Chris had been seen again walking by
daylight in the open street with the person from the Tivoli.

Even that did not actually offend people. There was too much candid
cynicism in the community to permit a display of serious moral
disapproval. Christian Buddenbrook, like Consul Peter Döhlmann--whose
declining business put him into somewhat the same artless class--was a
popular entertainer and indispensable to gentlemen’s companions. But
neither was taken seriously. In important matters they simply did not
count. It was a significant fact that the whole town, the Bourse, the
docks, the club, and the street called them by their first names--Peter
and Chris. And enemies, like the Hagenströms, laughed not only at
Chris’s stories and jokes; but at Chris himself, too.

He thought little or nothing of this. If he noticed it, it passed out
of his mind again after a momentary disquiet. But his brother the
Consul knew it. Thomas knew that Christian afforded a point of attack
to the enemies of the family--and there were already too many such
points. The connection with the Överdiecks was distant and would be
quite worthless after the Burgomaster’s death. The Krögers played no
rôle now; they lived retired, after the misfortunes with their son.
The marriage of the deceased uncle Gotthold was always unpleasant.
The Consul’s sister was a divorced wife, even if one did not quite
give up hope of her re-marrying. And his brother was a laughing-stock
in the town, a man with whose clownishness industrious men amused
their leisure and then laughed good-naturedly or maliciously. He
contracted debts, too, and at the end of the quarter, when he had no
more money, would quite openly let Dr. Gieseke pay for him--which was
a direct reflection on the firm. Thomas’s contemptuous ill will, which
Christian bore with quiet indifference, expressed itself in all the
trifling situations that come up between members of a family. If the
conversation turned upon the Buddenbrook family history, Christian
might be in the mood to speak with serious love and admiration of
his native town and of his ancestors. It sat rather oddly on him, to
be sure, and the Consul could not stand it: he would cut short the
conversation with some cold remark. He despised his brother so much
that he could not even permit him to love where he did. If Christian
had uttered the same sentiments in the dialect of Marcellus Stengel,
Tom could have borne it better. He had read a book, a historical work,
which had made such a strong impression on him that he spoke about
it and praised it in the family. Christian would by himself never
have found out the book; but he was impressionable and accessible to
every influence; so he also read it, found it wonderful, and described
his reactions with all possible detail. That book was spoiled for
Thomas for ever. He spoke of it with cold and critical detachment. He
pretended hardly to have read it. He completely gave it over to his
brother, to admire all by himself.




CHAPTER III


Consul Buddenbrook came from the “Harmony”--a reading-club for men,
where he had spent the hour after second breakfast--back into Meng
Street. He crossed the yard from behind, entered the side of the garden
by the passage which ran between vine-covered walls and connected the
back and front courtyards, and called into the kitchen to ask if his
brother were at home. They should let him know when he came in. Then
he passed through the office (where the men at the desks bent more
closely over their work) into the private room; he laid aside his hat
and stick, put on his working coat, and sat down in his place by the
window, opposite Herr Marcus. Between his pale eyebrows were two deep
wrinkles. The yellow end of a Russian cigarette roamed from one corner
of his mouth to the other. The movements with which he took up paper
and writing materials were so short and jerky that Herr Marcus ran
his two fingers up and down his beard and gave his colleague a long,
scrutinizing look. The younger men glanced at him with raised eyebrows.
The Head was angry.

After half an hour, during which nothing was heard but the scratching
of pens and the sound of Herr Marcus discreetly clearing his throat,
the Consul looked over the green half-blind and saw Christian coming
down the street. He was smoking. He came from the club, where he had
eaten and also played a bit. He wore his hat a little awry on his head,
and swung his yellow stick, which had come from “over there” and had
the bust of a nun for a handle. He was obviously in good health and the
best of tempers. He came humming into the office, said “Good morning,
gentlemen,” although it was a bright spring afternoon, and took his
place to “do a bit of work.” But the Consul got up and, passing him,
said without looking at him, “Oh, may I have a few words with you?”
Christian followed him. They walked rather rapidly through the entry.
Thomas held his hands behind his back, and Christian involuntarily did
the same, turning his big bony hooked nose toward his brother. The
red-blond moustache drooped, English fashion, over his mouth. While
they went across the court, Thomas said: “We will walk a few steps up
and down the garden, my friend.”

“Good,” answered Christian. Then there was a long silence again, while
they turned to the left and walked, by the outside way, past the rococo
“portal” right round the garden, where the buds were beginning to
swell. Finally the Consul said in a loud voice, with a long breath, “I
have just been very angry, on account of your behaviour.”

“My--?”

“Yes. I heard in the ‘Harmony’ about a remark of yours that you dropped
in the club last evening. It was so obnoxious, so incredibly tactless,
that I can find no words--the stupidity called down a sharp snub on you
at once. Do you care to recall what it was?”

“I know now what you mean. Who told you that?”

“What has that to do with it? Döhlmann.--In a voice loud enough so that
all the people who did not already know the story could laugh at the
joke.”

“Well, Tom, I must say I was ashamed of Hagenström.”

“You were ashamed--_you_ were--! Listen to me,” shouted the
Consul, stretching out both hands in front of him and shaking them
in excitement. “In a company consisting of business as well as
professional men, you make the remark, for everybody to hear, that,
when one really considers it, every business man is a swindler--you, a
business man yourself, belonging to a firm that strains every nerve and
muscle to preserve its perfect integrity and spotless reputation!”

“Good heavens, Thomas, it was a joke!--although, really--” Christian
hesitated, wrinkling his nose and stooping a little. In this position
he took a few steps.

“A joke!” shouted the Consul. “I think I can understand a joke, but you
see how your joke was understood. ‘For my part, I have the greatest
respect for my calling.’ That was what Hermann Hagenström answered you.
And there you sat, a good-for-nothing, with no respect for yours--”

“Tom, you don’t know what you are talking about. I assure you he
spoiled the whole joke. After everybody laughed, as if they agreed
with me, there sat this Hagenström and brought out with ridiculous
solemnity, ‘For my part--’ Stupid fool! I was really ashamed for him.
I thought about it a long time in bed last night, and I had a quite
remarkable feeling--you know how it feels--”

“Stop chattering, stop chattering, I beg you,” interrupted the Consul.
He trembled with disgust in his whole body. “I agree--I agree with you
that his answer was not in the right key, and that it was tasteless.
But that is just the kind of people you pick out to say such things
to!--if it is necessary to say them at all--and so you lay yourself
open to an insolent snub like that. Hagenström took the opening
to--give not only you but us a slap. Do you understand what ‘for my
part’ meant? It meant: ‘You may have such ideas going about in your
brother’s office, Herr Buddenbrook.’ That’s what it meant, you idiot.”

“Idiot--?” said Christian. He looked disturbed and embarrassed.

“And finally, you belong not to yourself alone; I’m supposed to be
indifferent when you make yourself personally ridiculous--and when
don’t you make yourself personally ridiculous?” Thomas cried. He was
pale, and the blue veins stood out on his narrow temples, from which
the hair went back in two bays. One of his light eyebrows was raised;
even the long, stiff pointed ends of his moustache looked angry as
he threw his words down at Christian’s feet on the gravel with quick
sidewise gestures. “You make yourself a laughing-stock with your love
affairs, your harlequinades, your diseases and your remedies.”

Christian shook his head vehemently and put up a warning finger. “As
far as that goes, Tom, you don’t understand very well, you know. The
thing is--every one must attend to his own conscience, so to speak. I
don’t know if you understand that.--Grabow has ordered me a salve for
the throat muscles. Well--if I don’t use it, if I neglect it, I am
quite lost and helpless, I am restless and uncertain and worried and
upset, and I can’t swallow. But if I have been using it, I feel that I
have done my duty, I have a good conscience, I am quiet and calm and
can swallow famously. The salve does not do it, you know, but the thing
is that an idea like that, you understand, can only be destroyed by
another idea, an opposite one. I don’t know whether you understand me--”

“Oh, yes--oh, yes!” cried the Consul, holding his head for a moment
with both hands. “Do it, do it, but don’t talk about it--don’t gabble
about it. Leave other people alone with your horrible nuances. You make
yourself ridiculous with your absurd chatter from morning to night. I
must tell you, and I repeat it, I am not interested in how much you
make a fool of yourself personally. But I forbid your compromising the
firm in the way you did yesterday evening.”

Christian did not answer, except to run his hand slowly over his sparse
red-brown locks, while his eyes roamed unsteadily and absently, and
unrest sat upon his face. Undoubtedly he was still busy with the idea
which he had just been expressing.

There was a pause. Thomas stalked along with the calmness of despair.
“All business men are swindlers, you say,” he began afresh. “Good. Are
you tired of it? Are you sorry you are a business man? You once got
permission from Father--”

“Why, Tom,” said Christian reflectively, “I would really rather study.
It must be nice to be in the university. One attends when one likes,
at one’s own free will, sits down and listens, as in the theatre--”

“As in the theatre! Yes, I think your right place is that of a comedian
in a café chantant. I am not joking. I am perfectly convinced that
is your secret ideal.” Christian did not deny it; he merely gazed
aimlessly about. “And you have the cheek to make such a remark--when
you haven’t the slightest notion of work, and spend your days storing
up a lot of feelings and sensations and episodes you hear in the
theatre and when you are loafing about, God knows where; you take these
and pet them and study them and chatter about them shamelessly!”

“Yes, Tom,” said Christian. He was a little depressed, and rubbed his
hand again over his head. “That is true: you have expressed it quite
correctly. That is the difference between us. You enjoy the theatre
yourself; and you had your little affairs too, once on a time, between
ourselves! And there was a time when you preferred novels and poetry
and all that. But you have always known how to reconcile it with
regular work and a serious life. I haven’t that. I am quite used up
with the other; I have nothing left over for the regular life-- I don’t
know whether you understand--”

“Oh, so you see that?” cried Thomas, standing still and folding his
arms on his breast. “You humbly admit that, and still you go on the
same old way? Are you a dog, Christian? A man has some pride, by God!
One doesn’t live a life that one may not know how to defend oneself.
But so you are. That is your character. If you can only see a thing and
understand and describe it--. No, my patience is at an end, Christian.”
And the Consul took a quick backward step and made a gesture with his
arms straight out. “It is at an end, I tell you.--You draw your pay,
and stay away from the office. That isn’t what irritates me. Go and
trifle your life away, as you have been doing, if you choose. But you
compromise us, all of us, wherever you are. You are a growth, a fester,
on the body of our family. You are a disgrace to us here in this town,
and if this house were mine, I’d show you the door!” he screamed,
making a wild sweeping gesture over the garden, the court, and the
whole property. He had no more control of himself. A long-stored-up
well of hatred poured itself out.

“What is the matter with you, Thomas?” said Christian. He was seized
with unaccustomed anger, standing there in a position common to
bow-legged people, like a questionmark, with head, stomach, and knees
all prominent. His little deep eyes were wide open and surrounded by
red rims down to the cheek-bones, as his Father’s used to be in anger.
“How are you speaking to me? What have I done to you? I’ll go, without
being thrown out. Shame on you!” he added with downright reproach,
accompanying the word with a short, snapping motion in front of him, as
if he were catching a fly.

Strange to say, Thomas did not meet this outburst by more anger. He
bent his head and slowly took his way around the garden. It seemed to
quiet him, actually to do him good to have made his brother angry at
last--to have pushed him finally to the energy of a protest.

“Believe me,” he said quietly, putting his hands behind his back again,
“this conversation is truly painful to me. But it had to take place.
Such scenes in the family are frightful, but we must speak out once for
all. Let us talk the thing over quietly, young one. You do not like
your present position, it seems?”

“No, Tom; you are right about that. You see, at first I was very well
satisfied. I know I’m better off here than in a stranger’s business.
But what I want is the independence, I think. I have always envied you
when I saw you sit there and work, for it is really no work at all for
you. You work not because you must, but as master and head, and let
others work for you, and you have the control, make your calculations,
and are free. It is quite different.”

“Good, Christian. Why couldn’t you have said that before? You can make
yourself free, or freer, if you like. You know Father left you as well
as me an immediate inheritance of fifty thousand marks current; and I
am ready at any moment to pay out this sum for a reasonable and sound
purpose. In Hamburg, or anywhere else you like, there are plenty of
safe but limited firms where they could use an increase of capital,
and where you could enter as a partner. Let us think the matter
over quietly, each by himself, and also speak to Mother at a good
opportunity. I must get to work, and you could for the present go on
with the English correspondence.” As they crossed the entry, he added,
“What do you say, for instance, to H. C. F. Burmeester and Company in
Hamburg? Import and export. I know the man. I am certain he would snap
at it.”

That was in the end of May of the year 1857. At the beginning of June
Christian travelled via Buchen to Hamburg--a heavy loss to the club,
the theatre, the Tivoli, and the liberal livers of the town. All the
“good fellows,” among them Dr. Gieseke and Peter Döhlmann, took leave
of him at the station, and brought him flowers and cigars, and laughed
to split their sides--recalling, no doubt, all the stories Christian
had told them. And Lawyer Gieseke, amidst general applause, fastened
to Christian’s overcoat a great favour made out of gold paper. This
favour came from a sort of inn in the neighbourhood of the port, a
place of free and easy resort where a red lantern burned above the door
at night, and it was always very lively. The favour was awarded to the
departing Chris Buddenbrook for his distinguished services.




CHAPTER IV


The outer bell rang, and Frau Grünlich appeared on the landing to look
down into the court--a habit she had lately formed. The door was hardly
opened below when she started, leaned over still more, and then sprang
back with one hand pressing her handkerchief to her mouth and the other
holding up her gown. She hurried upstairs.

On the steps to the second storey she met Ida Jungmann, to whom she
whispered in a suffocated voice. Ida gave a joyous shriek and answered
with some Polish gibberish.

The Frau Consul was sitting in the landscape-room, crocheting a shawl
or some such article with two large wooden needles. It was eleven
o’clock in the morning.

The servant came through the hall, knocked on the glass door, and
waddled in to bring the Frau Consul a visiting-card. She took the card,
got out her sewing-glasses, and read it. Then she looked again at the
girl’s red face; then read again; then looked up again at the girl.
Finally she said calmly but firmly:

“What _is_ this, my dear? What does it mean?”

On the card was printed: “X. Noppe and Company.” The “X. Noppe” and the
“and” were crossed out with a lead-pencil, so that only the “Company”
was left. “Oh, Frau Consul,” said the maid, “there’s a gentleman, but
he doesn’t speak German, and he do go on so--”

“Ask the gentleman in,” said the Frau Consul; for she understood now
that it was the “Company” who desired admittance. The maid went. Then
the glass door was opened again to let in a stocky figure, who remained
in the shadowy background of the room for a moment and said with a
drawling pronunciation something that seemed as if it might have been:
“I have the honour--”

“Good morning,” said the Frau Consul. “Will you not come in?” And she
supported herself on the sofa-cushion and rose a little; for she did
not know yet whether she ought to rise all the way or not.

“I take the liberty,” replied the gentleman in a pleasant sing-song;
while he bowed in the politest manner, and took two steps forward.
Then he stood still again and looked around as if searching for
something--perhaps for a place to put his hat and stick, for he had
brought both--the stick being a horn crutch with the top shaped like a
claw and a good foot and a half long--into the room with him.

He was a man of forty years. Short-legged and chubby, he wore a
wide-open coat of brown frieze and a light flowered waistcoat which
covered the gentle protuberant curve of his stomach and supported a
gold watch-chain with a whole bouquet of charms made of horn, bone,
silver, and coral. His trousers were of an indefinite grey-green colour
and too short. The material must have been extraordinarily stiff, for
the edges stood out in a circle around the legs of his short, broad
boots. He had a bullet head, untidy hair, and a stubby nose, and the
light-blond curly moustache drooping over his mouth made him look
like a walrus. By way of contrast, the imperial between his chin and
his underlip stood out rather bristly. His cheeks were extremely fat
and puffy, crowding his eyes into two narrow light-blue cracks with
wrinkles at the corners. The whole face looked swollen and had a
funny expression of fierceness, mingled with an almost touching good
nature. Directly below his tiny chin a steep line ran into the white
neck-cloth: his goiterous neck could not have endured a choker. In
fact, the whole lower part of his face and his neck, the back of his
head, his cheeks and nose, all ran rather formlessly in together. The
whole skin of the face was stretched to an immoderate tightness and
showed a roughness at the ear-joinings and the sides of the nose. In
one of his short fat white hands the visitor held his stick; in the
other his green Tyrolese hat, decorated with a chamois beard.

The Frau Consul had taken off her glasses and was still rising from her
sofa-pillow.

“What can I do for you?” she asked politely but pointedly.

The gentleman, with a movement of decision, laid his hat and stick on
the lid of the harmonium. He rubbed his free hands with satisfaction
and looked at the Frau Consul out of his kindly, light-blue eyes. “I
beg the gracious lady’s pardon for the card,” he said. “I had no other
by me. My name is Permaneder--Alois Permaneder, from Munich. Perhaps
you might have heard my name from your daughter.” He said all this in
a puzzling dialect with a rather loud, coarse voice; but there was a
confidential gleam from the cracks of his eyes, which seemed to say:
“I’m sure we understand each other already.”

The Frau Consul had now risen entirely and went forward with her hand
outstretched and her head inclined in greeting.

“Herr Permaneder! Is it you? Certainly my daughter has spoken of you. I
know how much you contributed to make her visit in Munich pleasant and
entertaining. And so some wind has blown you all the way up here?”

“That’s it; you’re just right there,” said Herr Permaneder. He sat down
by the Frau Consul in the arm-chair which she gracefully indicated to
him, and began to rub his short round thighs comfortably with both
hands.

“I beg your pardon?” asked the Frau Consul. She had not understood a
single word of his remark.

“You’ve guessed it, that’s the point,” answered Herr Permaneder, as he
stopped rubbing his knees.

“How nice!” said the Frau Consul blankly. She leaned back in her
chair with feigned satisfaction and folded her hands. Actually, she
was quite as much at sea as before, and inly wondering if Antonie
were really able to follow the windings of the Bavarian tongue. But
Herr Permaneder--though his appearance hardly led one to expect that
he possessed acute sensibilities--saw through her at once. He bent
forward, making--God knows why--circles in the air with his hand, and,
struggling after clarity, enunciated the words: “The gracious lady is
surprised?”

“Yes, Herr Permaneder, yes!” she cried, with disproportionate joy, for
she had really understood him. Perhaps they could manage after all! But
now there came a pause. To fill it out, Herr Permaneder gave a sort of
groan, and followed it up by an exclamation in the broadest of dialect:
something that shocked the Frau Consul because it sounded so like
swearing, though it probably wasn’t--at least, she hoped not! Should
she ask him to repeat it?

“Ah--what did you say?” she ventured, turning her light eyes a little
away, that he might not see the bewilderment they expressed.

Herr Permaneder obliged by repeating, with extraordinary loudness and
coarseness. Surely it was something about a crucifix! Horrors!

“How nice!” she stammered again, with desperate finality; and thus
this subject also was disposed of. It might be better to talk a little
oneself. “May one ask,” she went on, “what brings you so far, Herr
Permaneder? It is a good long journey from Munich!”

“A little business,” said Herr Permaneder, as before, and waved his
broad hand in the air. It was really touching, the efforts he made. “A
little business, my dear lady, with the brewery at Walkmill.”

“Oh, yes--you are hop merchants, of course, my dear Herr Permaneder:
Noppe and Company, isn’t it? I am sure I have heard good things of your
firm from my son,” said the Frau Consul cordially. Again she felt as
if she were almost upon firm ground. Herr Permaneder waved away the
compliment. That was nothing to mention. No, the main thing was, he
wanted to pay his respects to the Frau Consul and--see Frau Grünlich
again. That was enough to make the journey repay the trouble it cost.

The Frau Consul did not understand it all, but she got the general
drift, and was glad. “Oh, thank you,” she said, with the utmost
heartiness, and again offered him her hand, with the palm outstretched.

“But we must call my daughter,” she added, and stood up and went toward
the embroidered bell-pull near the glass door.

“Oh, Lord, yes, I’ll be glad to see her!” cried the hop merchant, and
turned his chair and himself toward the door at one and the same time.

The Frau Consul said to the servant: “Ask Madame Grünlich to come down,
my dear.”

Then she went back to her sofa, and Herr Permaneder turned himself and
his chair around again.

“Lord, yes, I’ll be glad!” he repeated, while he stared at the hangings
and the furniture and the great Sèvres inkstand on the secretary. But
then he sighed heavily, several times over, rubbed his knees, and
gave vent to his favourite outlandish phrase. The Frau Consul thought
it more discreet not to inquire again into his meaning; besides, he
muttered it under his breath, with a sort of groan, though his mood,
otherwise, appeared to be anything but despondent.

And now Frau Grünlich appeared. She had made a little toilette, put
on a light blouse, and dressed her hair. Her face looked fresher and
prettier than ever, and the tip of her tongue played in the corner of
her mouth.

Scarcely had she entered when Herr Permaneder sprang up and went to
meet her with tremendous enthusiasm. He vibrated all over. He seized
both her hands, shook them and cried: “Well, Frau Grünlich! Well, well,
_grüss Gott!_ Well, and how’s it been going with you? What you been
doing up here? Yes, yes! Grüss Gott! Lord, I’m just silly glad to see
you. Do you think sometimes of little old Munich and what a gay time
we had? Oh, my, oh my! And here we are again. Who would ’a’ thought it?”

Tony, on her side, greeted him with great vivacity, drew up a chair,
and began to chat with him about her weeks in Munich. Now the
conversation went on without hitches, and the Frau Consul followed
it, smiling and nodding encouragingly at Herr Permaneder. She would
translate this or that expression into her own tongue, and then lean
back into the sofa again, well pleased with her own intelligence.

Herr Permaneder had to explain to Frau Antonie in her turn the reason
of his appearance. But he laid small stress on the “little business”
with the brewery, and it was obviously not the occasion of his visit
at all. He asked with interest after the second daughter and the sons
of the Frau Consul, and regretted loudly the absence of Clara and
Christian, as he had always wanted to get acquainted with the whole
family.

He said his stay in the town was of indefinite length, but when the
Frau Consul said: “I am expecting my son for second breakfast at
any moment, Herr Permaneder. Will you give us the pleasure of your
company?” he accepted the invitation almost before she gave it, with
such alacrity that it was plain he had expected it.

The Consul came. He had found the breakfast-room empty, and appeared
in his office coat, tired and preoccupied, to take a hasty bite. But
when he saw the strange guest with the frieze jacket and the fantastic
watch-chain, he became all charm. He had heard his name often enough
from Frau Antonie, and he threw a quick glance at his sister as he
greeted Herr Permaneder in his most fascinating manner. He did not sit
down. They went directly down to the entresol, where Mamsell Jungmann
had laid the table and set the samovar--a real samovar, a present from
Pastor Tiburtius and Clara.

“You’ve got it good here,” said Herr Permaneder, as he let himself
down in his chair and looked at the variety of cold meats on the table.
His grammar, now and then, was of the most artless and disarming
quality.

“It isn’t Munich beer, of course, Herr Permaneder, but still it is
better than our domestic brew.” And the Consul poured him a glass of
the brown foaming porter, which he was accustomed to drink himself at
midday.

“Thank you kindly, neighbour,” said Herr Permaneder, quite unaware
of the outraged look Mamsell Jungmann cast at him. But he drank so
moderately of the porter that the Frau Consul had a bottle of red wine
brought up; whereat he grew visibly gayer and began to talk with Frau
Grünlich again. He sat, on account of his prominent stomach, well away
from the table, with his legs far apart, and one of his arms, with
the plump white hand, hanging down over the chair-back. He put his
round head with its walrus moustache on one side and blinked out of
the cracks of his eyes naïvely as he listened to Tony’s conversation.
He looked offensively comfortable. As he had had no experience with
sprats, she daintily dismembered them for him, commenting the while on
life in general.

“Oh Heavens, how sad it is, Herr Permaneder, that everything good and
lovely in this world is so fleeting,” she said, referring to her Munich
visit. She laid down her knife and fork a moment and looked earnestly
up at the ceiling. She made charming if unsuccessful efforts to speak
Bavarian.

During the meal there was a knock at the door, and the office boy
brought in a telegram. The Consul read it, letting the long ends of
his moustache run through his fingers. He was plainly preoccupied with
the contents of the message; but, even as he read it, he asked in the
easiest tone: “Well, how is business, Herr Permaneder?--That will do,”
he said immediately to the apprentice, who disappeared.

“Oh, well, neighbour,” answered Herr Permaneder, turning himself about
toward the Consul’s side with the awkwardness of a man who has a thick,
stiff neck, and letting his other arm hang over the chair-back.
“There’s naught to speak of--it’s a fair plague. You see, Munich”--he
pronounced the name of his native city in such a way that one could
only guess what he meant--“Munich is no commercial town. Everybody
wants his peace and quiet and his beer--nobody gets despatches while
he’s eating; not there. You’re a different cut up here--Holy Sacrament!
Yes, thank you kindly, I’ll take another glass. Tough luck, that’s
what it is; tough luck. My partner, Noppe, wanted to go to Nuremberg,
because they have a Bourse there and are keen on business, but I won’t
forsake my Munich. Not me! That would be a fine thing to do! You see,
there’s no competition, and the export trade is just silly. Even in
Russia they’ll be beginning soon to plant and build for themselves.”

Then he suddenly threw the Consul a quick, shrewd look and said: “Oh,
well, neighbour, ’tain’t so bad as it sounds. Yon’s a fair little
business. We make money with the joint-stock brewery, that Niederpaur
is director of. That was just a small affair, but we’ve put it on its
legs and lent it credit--cash too, four per cent on security--and now
we can do business at a profit, and we’ve collared a blame good trade
already.” Herr Permaneder declined cigars and cigarettes and asked
leave to smoke his pipe. He drew the long horn bowl out of his pocket,
enveloped himself in a reek of smoke, and entered upon a business
conversation with the Consul, which glided into politics, and Bavaria’s
relations with Prussia, and King Max, and the Emperor Napoleon.
He garnished his views with disjointed sighs and some perfectly
unintelligible Munich phrases.

Mamsell Jungmann, out of sheer astonishment, continually forgot to
chew, even when she had food in her mouth. She blinked speechlessly at
the guest out of her bright brown eyes, standing her knife and fork
perpendicularly on the table and swaying them back and forth. This
room had never before beheld Herr Permaneder’s like. Never had it been
filled by such reeking pipe-smoke; such unpleasantly easy manners were
foreign to it. The Frau Consul abode in cordial miscomprehension, after
she had made inquiries and received information as to the sufferings
of the little protestant oasis among the Munich papists. Tony seemed
to grow somewhat absent and restive in the course of the meal. But the
Consul was highly entertained, asked his mother to order up another
bottle of wine, and cordially invited Herr Permaneder to a visit in
Broad Street--his wife would be charmed. A good three hours after his
arrival the hop dealer began to show signs of leaving--emptied his
glass, knocked out his pipe, called something or other “bad luck,” and
got up.

“I have the honour, madame. Good day, Frau Grünli’ and Herr
Consul--servant, servant.” At this Ida Jungmann actually shivered and
changed colour. “Good day, Freilein,” he said to her, and he repeated
“Good day” at the door.

The Frau Consul and her son exchanged a glance. Herr Permaneder had
announced his intention of stopping at the modest inn on the Trave
whither he had gone on arrival. The Frau Consul went toward him again.
“My daughter’s Munich friend,” she began, “lives so far away that we
shall have no opportunity to repay her hospitality. But if you, my
dear sir, would give us the pleasure of your company while you are in
town--you would be very welcome.” She held her hand out to him; and lo!
Herr Permaneder accepted this invitation as blithely as he had the one
to dinner. He kissed the hands of both ladies--and a funny sight he
was as he did so--fetched his hat and stick from the landscape-room,
and promised to have his trunk brought at once and to be on the spot
at four o’clock, after transacting his business. Then he allowed the
Consul to convoy him down the stairs. But even at the vestibule door
he turned again and shook hands violently. “No offence, neighbour,” he
said--“your sister is certainly a great girl--no doubt about it. Good
day,” and he disappeared, still wagging his head.

The Consul felt an irresistible drawing to go up again and see the
ladies. Ida Jungmann had gone to look after the linen for the
guest-room. The Frau Consul still sat at the breakfast-table, her light
eyes fixed on a spot on the ceiling. She was lightly drumming with her
white fingers on the cloth. Tony sat at the window, her arms folded,
gazing straight ahead of her with a severe air. Silence reigned.

“Well?” said Thomas, standing in the door and taking a cigarette out of
the box ornamented with the troika. His shoulders shook with laughter.

“A pleasant man,” commented the Frau Consul innocently.

“Quite my opinion.” The Consul made a quick, humorous turn toward Tony,
as if he were asking her in the most respectful manner for her opinion
as well. She was silent, and looked neither to the right nor to the
left.

“But I think, Tom, he ought to stop swearing,” went on the Frau Consul
with mild disapproval. “If I understood him correctly, he kept using
the words Sacrament and Cross.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, Mother--he doesn’t mean anything by that.”

“And perhaps a little too easy-mannered, Tom?”

“Oh, yes; that is south-German,” said the Consul, breathing the smoke
slowly out into the room. He smiled at his mother and stole glances at
Tony. His mother saw the glances not at all.

“You will come to dinner to-day with Gerda. Please do me the favour,
Tom.”

“Certainly, Mother, with the greatest of pleasure. To tell the truth,
I promise myself much pleasure from this guest, don’t you? He is
something different from your ministers, in any case.”

“Everybody to his taste, Tom.”

“Of course. I must go now.--Oh, Tony,” he said, the door-handle in his
hand, “you have made a great impression on him. No, no joke. Do you
know what he called you down there just now? A great girl! Those were
his very words.”

But here Frau Grünlich turned around and said clearly: “Very good, Tom.
You are repeating his words--and I don’t know that he would mind; but
even so I am not sure it was just the nicest thing to do. But this much
I do know: and this much I am going to say: that in this life it does
not depend on how things are said and expressed, but on how they are
felt and meant in the heart; and if you make fun of Herr Permaneder’s
language and find him ridiculous--”

“Who? Why? Tony, what an idea! Why are you getting excited--?”

“_Assez_,” said the Frau Consul, casting an imploring glance at her
son. It meant “Spare her!”

“Please don’t be angry, Tony,” he said. “I didn’t mean to provoke you.
And now I will go and see that somebody from the warehouse brings Herr
Permaneder’s trunk. Au revoir.”




CHAPTER V


Herr Permaneder moved into Meng Street; he ate dinner with Thomas
Buddenbrook and his wife the following day; and on the third, a
Thursday, he made the acquaintance of Justus Kröger and his wife, the
three ladies from Broad Street, who found him “frightfully funny” (they
said fr-_right_-fully), Sesemi Weichbrodt, who was rather stern with
him, and poor Clothilde and little Erica, to whom he gave a bag of
bonbons.

The man was invincibly good-humoured. His sighs, in fact, meant
nothing, and seemed to arise out of an excess of comfort. He smoked his
pipe, talked in his curious dialect, and displayed an inexhaustible
power of sitting still. He kept his place long after the meal was
finished, in the most easy attitude possible, and smoked, drank, and
chatted. His presence gave to the life in the old home a new and
strange tone; his very being brought something unharmonious into the
room. But he disturbed none of the traditional customs of the house. He
was faithful to morning and evening prayers, asked permission to attend
one of the Frau Consul’s Sunday School classes, and even appeared on a
Jerusalem evening in the drawing-room and was presented to the guests,
but withdrew affrighted when Lea Gerhardt began to read aloud.

He was soon known in the town. They spoke in the great houses about
the Buddenbrooks’ guest from Bavaria; but neither in the family nor
on the Bourse did he make connections, and as it was already the
time when people were making ready to go to the shore, the Consul
refrained from introducing Herr Permaneder into society. But he
devoted himself with zeal to the guest, taking time from his business
and civic engagements to show him about the town and point out the
mediæval monuments--churches, gates, fountains, market, Town Hall, and
Ship Company. He made him acquainted with his own nearest friends on
Exchange and entertained him in every way. His mother took occasion one
day to thank him for his self-sacrifice; but he only remarked drily:
“Why, ye-es, Mother--what wouldn’t one do?”

The Frau Consul left this unanswered. She did not even smile or move
her eyelids, but shifted the gaze of her light eyes and changed the
subject.

She preserved an even, hearty friendliness toward Herr
Permaneder--which could hardly be said of her daughter. On the third
or fourth day after his arrival the hop dealer let it be known that he
had concluded his business with the local brewery. But a week and a
half had passed since then, and he had been present for two children’s
afternoons. On these occasions, Frau Grünlich had sat blushing and
watching his every motion, casting quick embarrassed glances at Thomas
and the three Buddenbrook cousins. She talked hardly at all, sat for
long minutes stiff and speechless, or even got up and left the room.

       *       *       *       *       *

The green blinds in Frau Grünlich’s sleeping-room were gently stirred
by the mild air of a June night, for the windows were open. It was
a large room, with simple furniture covered in grey linen. On the
night-table at the side of the high bed several little wicks burned in
a glass with oil and water in it, filling the room with faint, even
light. Frau Grünlich was in bed. Her pretty head was sunk softly in the
lace-edged pillow, and her hands lay folded on the quilted coverlet.
But her eyes, too thoughtful to close themselves, slowly followed
the movements of a large insect with a long body, which perpetually
besieged the glass with a million soundless motions of his wings. Near
the bed there was a framed text hanging on the wall, between two old
copper-plate views of the town in the Middle Ages. It said: “Commit
your ways unto the Lord.” But what good is a text like that when you
are lying awake at midnight, and you have to decide for your whole
life, and other people’s too, whether it shall be yes or no?

It was very still. The clock ticked away on the wall, and the only
other sound was Mamsell Jungmann’s occasional cough. Her room was next
to Tony’s, divided only by curtains from it. She still had a light.
The born-and-bred Prussian was sitting under the hanging lamp at her
extension-table, darning stockings for little Erica. The child’s deep,
peaceful breathing could be heard in the room, for Sesemi’s pupils were
having summer holidays and Erica was at home again.

Frau Grünlich sighed and sat up a little, propping her head on her
hand. “Ida,” she called softly, “are you still sitting there mending?”

“Yes, yes, Tony, my child,” Ida answered. “Sleep now; you will be
getting up early in the morning, and you won’t get enough rest.”

“All right, Ida. You will wake me at six o’clock?”

“Half-past is early enough, child. The carriage is ordered for eight.
Go on sleeping, so you will look fresh and pretty.”

“Oh, I haven’t slept at all yet.”

“Now, Tony, that is a bad child. Do you want to look all knocked up for
the picnic? Drink seven swallows of water, and then lie down and count
a thousand.”

“Oh, Ida, do come here a minute. I can’t sleep, I tell you, and my
head aches for thinking. Feel--I think I have some fever, and there is
something the matter with my tummy again. Or is it because I am anæmic?
The veins in my temples are all swollen and they beat so that it hurts;
but still, there may be too little blood in my head.”

A chair was pushed back, and Ida Jungmann’s lean, vigorous figure, in
her unfashionable brown gown, appeared between the portières.

“Now, now, Tony--fever? Let me feel, my child--I’ll make you a
compress.”

She went with her long firm masculine tread to the chest for a
handkerchief, dipped it into the water-basin, and, going back to the
bed, laid it on Tony’s forehead, stroking her brow a few times with
both hands.

“Thank you, Ida; that feels good.--Oh, please sit down a few minutes,
good old Ida. Sit down on the edge of the bed. You see, I keep thinking
the whole time about to-morrow. What shall I do? My head is going round
and round.”

Ida sat down beside her, with her needle and the stocking drawn over
the darner again in her hand, and bent over them the smooth grey head
and the indefatigable bright brown eyes. “Do you think he is going to
propose to-morrow?” she asked.

“No doubt of it at all. He won’t lose this opportunity. It happened
with Clara on just such an expedition. I could avoid it, of course, I
could keep with the others all the time and not let him get near me.
But then, that would settle it! He is leaving day after to-morrow, he
said, and he cannot stay any longer if nothing comes of it to-day. It
_must_ be decided to-day.--But what shall I say, Ida, when he asks me?
You’ve never been married, so of course you know nothing about life,
_really_; but you are a truthful woman, and you have some sense--and
you are forty-two years old! Do tell me what you think.--I do so need
advice!”

Ida Jungmann let the stocking fall into her lap.

“Yes, yes, Tony child, I have thought a great deal about it. But what
I think is, there is nothing to advise about. He can’t go away without
speaking to you and your Mamma, and if you didn’t want him, you should
have sent him away before now.”

“You are right there, Ida; but I could not do it--I suppose because
it _is to be_! But now I keep thinking: ‘It isn’t too late yet; I can
still draw back!’ So I am living here tormenting myself--”

“Do you like him, Tony? Tell me straight out.”

“Yes, Ida. It would not be the truth if I should say no. He is not
handsome--but that isn’t the important thing in this life; and he is
as good as gold, and couldn’t do anything mean--at least, he seems so
to me. When I think about Grünlich--oh, goodness! He was all the time
saying how clever and resourceful he was, and all the time hiding his
villainy. Permaneder is not in the least like that. You might say he
is too easy-going and takes life too comfortably--and that is a fault
too; because he will never be a millionaire that way, and he really is
too much inclined to let things go and muddle along--as they say down
there. They are all like that down there, Ida--that is what I mean. In
Munich, where he was among his own kind and everybody spoke and looked
as he does, I fairly loved him, he seemed so nice and faithful and
comfy. And I noticed it was mutual--but part of that, I dare say, was
that he takes me for a rich woman, richer probably than I am; because
Mother cannot do much more for me, as you know. But I hardly think that
will make much difference to him--a great lot of money would not be to
his taste.--But--what was I saying, Ida?”

“That is in Munich, Tony. But here--”

“Oh, here, Ida! You know how it was already: up here he was torn right
out of his own element and set against everybody here, and they are all
ever so much stiffer, and--more dignified and serious. Here I really
often blush for him, though it may be unworthy of me. You know--it
even happened several times that he said ‘me’ instead of ‘I.’ But they
say that down there; even the most cultured people do, and it doesn’t
hurt anything--it slips out once in a while and nobody minds. But up
here--here sits Mother on one side and Tom on the other, looking at him
and lifting their eyebrows, and Uncle Justus gives a start and fairly
snorts, the way the Krögers do, and Pfiffi Buddenbrook gives her Mother
a look, or Friederike or Henriette, and I feel so mortified I want to
run out of the room, and it doesn’t seem as if I _could_ marry him--”

“Oh, childie--it would be Munich that you would live in with him.”

“You are right, Ida. But the engagement!--and if I have to feel the
whole time mortified to death before the family and the Kistenmakers
and the Möllendorpfs, because they think he is common-- Oh, Grünlich
was much more refined, though he was certainly black within, as Herr
Stengel would have said.--Oh, Ida, my head! do wet the compress again.”

“But it must be so, in the end,” she went on again, drawing a long
breath as the compress went on; “for the main point is and remains
that I must get married again, and not stick about here any longer as
a divorced woman. Ah, Ida, I think so much about the past these days:
about the time when Grünlich first appeared, and the scenes he made
me--scandalous, Ida!--and then about Travemünde and the Schwarzkopfs--”
She spoke slowly, and her eyes rested for a while dreamily on a darn
in Erica’s stocking. “And then the betrothal, and Eimsbüttel, and our
house. It was quite elegant, Ida. When I think of my morning-gowns-- It
would not be like that with Permaneder; one gets more modest as life
goes on-- And Dr. Klaasen and the baby, and Banker Kesselmeyer--and
then the end. It was frightful; you can’t imagine how frightful it
was. And when you have had such dreadful experiences in life-- But
Permaneder would never go in for anything filthy like that. That is the
last thing in the world I should expect of him, and we can rely on him
too in a business way, for I really think he makes a good deal with
Noppe at the Niederpaur brewery. And when I am his wife, you’ll see,
Ida, I will take care that he has ambition and gets ahead and makes an
effort and is a credit to me and all of us. _That_, at least, he takes
upon himself when he marries a Buddenbrook!”

She folded her hands under her head and looked at the ceiling. “Yes,
ten years ago and more, I married Grünlich. Ten years! And here I am at
the same place again, saying yes to somebody else. You know, Ida, life
is very, very serious. Only the difference is that then it was a great
affair, and they all pressed me and tormented me, whereas now they are
all perfectly quiet and take it for granted that I am going to say
yes. Of course you know, Ida, that this engagement to Alois--I say
Alois, because of course it is to be--has nothing very gay or festive
about it, and it isn’t really a question of my happiness at all. I am
making this second marriage with my eyes open, to make good the mistake
of my first one, as a duty which I owe our name. Mother thinks so, and
so does Tom.”

“But oh, dear, Tony--if you don’t like him, and if he won’t make you
happy--”

“Ida, I know life, and I am not a little goose any more. I have the
use of my senses. I don’t say that Mother would actually insist on
it--when there is a dispute over anything she usually avoids it and
says ‘_Assez!_’ But Tom wants it. I know Tom. He thinks: ‘Anybody!
Anybody who isn’t absolutely impossible.’ For this time it is not a
question of a brilliant match, but just one that will make good the
other one. That is what he thinks. As soon as Permaneder appeared, you
may be sure that Tom made all the proper inquiries about his business,
and found it was all right--and then, as far as he was concerned, the
matter was settled. Tom is a politician--he knows what he wants. Who
was it threw Christian out? That is strong language, Ida, but that was
really the truth of it. And why? Because he was compromising the firm
and the family. And in his eyes I do the same thing--not with words or
acts, but by my very existence as a divorced woman. He wants that put
an end to, and he is right. I love him none the less for that--nor, I
hope, does he me. In all these years, I have always longed to be out
in the world again; it is so dull here in this house. God punish me if
that is a sin: but I am not much more than thirty, and I still feel
young. People differ about that. You had grey hair at thirty, like all
your family and that uncle that died at Marienwerder.”

More and more observations of the same kind followed as the night wore
on; and every now and again she would say: “It is to be, after all.”
But at length she went to sleep, and slept for five hours on end,
deeply and peacefully.




CHAPTER VI


A mist lay over the town. But--or so said Herr Longuet, the livery man
in John Street, as he himself drove the covered char-à-banc up to the
door of the house in Meng Street: “The sun will be out before an hour
is over”--which was most encouraging.

The Frau Consul, Antonie, Herr Permaneder, Erica, and Ida had breakfast
together and gathered one after another, ready for the expedition,
in the great entry, to wait for Gerda and Tom. Frau Grünlich, in a
cream-coloured frock with a satin tie, looked her best, despite the
loss of sleep the night before. Her doubts and fears seemed to be
laid to rest, and her manner was assured, calm, and almost formal
as she talked with their guest and fastened her glove-button. She
had regained the tone of the old days. The well-known conviction of
her own importance, of the weightiness of her own decisions, the
consciousness that once more a day had come when she was to inscribe
herself decisively in the family history--all this filled her heart and
made it beat higher. She had dreamed of seeing that page in the family
papers on which she would write down the fact of her betrothal--the
fact that should obliterate and make void the black spot which the page
contained. She looked forward to the moment when Tom would appear and
she would greet him with a meaning nod.

He came with his wife, somewhat tardily, for the young Frau Consul
was not used to make such an early toilette. He looked well and happy
in his light-brown checked suit, the broad revers of which showed
the white waistcoat beneath; and his eyes had a smile in them as he
noted Tony’s incomparably dignified mien. Gerda, with her slightly
exotic, even morbid beauty, which was always in great contrast to her
sister-in-law’s healthy prettiness, was not in a holiday mood. Probably
she had risen too early. The deep lilac background of her frock suited
oddly with her dark-red hair and made her skin look whiter and more
even-toned than ever, and the bluish shadows deeper and darker in
the corners of her close-set brown eyes. She rather coldly offered
her mother-in-law her brow to kiss, gave her hand to Herr Permaneder
with an almost ironical expression on her face, and answered only by
a deprecating smile when Tony clapped her hands and cried out in her
hearty way: “Oh, Gerda, how _lovely_ you always look!”

She had a real distaste for expeditions like to-day’s, especially
in summer and most especially on Sunday. She lived in the twilight
of her curtained living-rooms, and dreaded the sun, the dust, the
crowds of townsfolk in their holiday clothes, the smell of coffee,
beer, and tobacco; and above everything else in the world she hated
getting hot and upset. When the expedition to Swartau and the “Giant
Bush” was arranged, in order to give the Munich guest a glimpse of
the surroundings of the old town, Gerda said lightly to her husband
“Dearest, you know how I am made: I only like peace and quiet. I was
not meant for change and excitement. You’ll let me off, won’t you?”

She would not have married him if she had not felt sure of his
essential agreement with her in these matters.

“Oh, heavens, yes; you are right, of course, Gerda. It is mostly
imagination that one enjoys oneself on such parties. Still, one goes,
because one does not like to seem odd, either to oneself or to the
others. Everybody has that kind of vanity; don’t you think so? People
get the idea that you are solitary or else unhappy, and they have less
respect for you. And then, there is something else, Gerda dear. We all
want to pay a little court to Herr Permaneder. Of course you see what
the situation is. Something is going on; it would be a real pity if it
came to nothing.”

“I do not see, my dear friend, why my presence--but no matter. Let it
be as you wish. Let us indulge.”

They went into the street. And the sun actually began at that moment
to pierce the morning mist. The bells of St. Mary’s were ringing for
Sunday, and the twittering of birds filled the air. The coachman took
off his hat, and the Frau Consul greeted him with the patriarchal
kindness which sometimes put Thomas a little on edge: “Good morning,
my friend!--Well, get in now, my dears. It is just time for early
service, but to-day we will praise God with full hearts in his own free
out-of-doors; shall we not, Herr Permaneder?”

“That’s right, Frau Consul.”

They climbed one after another up the steps through the narrow back
door of the wagon and made themselves comfortable on the cushioned
seats, which--doubtless in honour of Herr Permaneder--were striped blue
and white, the Bavarian colours. The door slammed, Herr Longuet clucked
to the horses and shouted “Gee” and “Haw,” the strong brown beasts
tugged at the harness, and the wagon rolled down Meng Street along the
Trave and out the Holsten gate and then to the right along the Swartau
Road.

Fields, meadows, tree-clumps, farmyards. They stared up into the high,
thin blue mist above them for the larks they heard singing there.
Thomas, smoking his cigarette, looked about keenly, and when they came
to the grain he called Herr Permaneder’s attention to its condition.
The hop dealer was in a mood of childlike anticipation. He had perched
his green hat with the goat’s beard on the side of his head, and was
balancing his big stick with the horn handle on the palm of his broad
white hand and even on his underlip--a feat which, though he never
quite succeeded in accomplishing it, was always greeted with applause
from little Erica. He repeated over and over remarks like: “’Twon’t be
the Zugspitz, but we’ll climb a bit and have a little lark--kind of a
little old spree, hey, Frau Grünli’?”

Then he began to relate with much liveliness stories of
mountain-climbing with knapsack and alpenstock, the Frau Consul
rewarding him with many an admiring “You don’t say!” He came by some
train of thought or other to Christian, and expressed the most lively
regret for his absence--he had heard what a jolly chap he was.

“He varies,” the Consul said drily. “On a party like this he is
inimitable, it is true.--We shall have crabs to eat, Herr Permaneder,”
he said in a livelier tone; “crabs and Baltic shrimps! You have
had them a few times already at my Mother’s, but friend Dieckmann,
the owner of the ‘Giant Bush,’ serves especially fine ones. And
ginger-nuts, the famous ginger-nuts of these parts. Has their fame
reached even as far as the Isar? Well, you shall try them.”

Two or three times Frau Grünlich stopped the wagon to pick poppies and
corn-flowers by the roadside, and each time Herr Permaneder testified
to his desire to get out and help her, if it were not for his slight
nervousness at climbing in and out of the wagon.

Erica rejoiced at every crow she saw; and Ida Jungmann, wearing her
mackintosh and carrying her umbrella, as she always did even in the
most settled weather, rejoiced with her like a good governess who
shares not only outwardly but inwardly in the childish emotions of her
charge. She entered heartily into Erica’s pleasure, with her rather
loud laugh that sounded like a horse neighing. Gerda, who had not seen
her growing grey in the family service, looked at her repeatedly with
cold surprise.

They were in Oldenberg. The beech groves came in sight. They drove
through the village, across the market square with its well, and
out again into the country, over the bridge that spanned the little
river Au, and finally drew up in front of the one-storey inn, “The
Giant Bush.” It stood at the side of a flat open space laid out with
lawns and sandy paths and country flower-beds; beyond it, the forest
rose gradually like an amphitheatre. Each stage was reached by rude
steps formed from the natural rocks and tree roots; and on each one
white-painted tables, benches, and chairs stood placed among the trees.

The Buddenbrooks were by no means the first guests. A couple of plump
maids and a waiter in a greasy dress-coat were hurrying about the
square carrying cold meat, lemonades, milk, and beer up to the tables,
even the more remote ones, which were already occupied by several
families with children.

Herr Dieckmann, the landlord, appeared personally, in shirt-sleeves
and a little yellow-embroidered cap, to help the guests dismount, and
Longuet drove off to unhitch. The Frau Consul said: “My good man,
we will take our walk first, and after an hour or so we should like
luncheon served up above--but not too high up; say perhaps at the
second landing.”

“You must show what you are made of, Herr Dieckmann,” added the Consul.
“We have a guest who is used to good living.”

“Oh, no such thing,” Herr Permaneder protested. “A beer and cheese--”

But Herr Dieckmann could not understand him, and began with great
fluency: “Everything we have, Herr Consul: crabs, shrimps, all sorts
of sausages, all sorts of cheese, smoked eel, smoked salmon, smoked
sturgeon--”

“Fine, Dieckmann; give us what you have. And then--six glasses of milk
and a glass of beer--if I am not mistaken, Herr Permaneder?”

“One beer, six milks--sweet milk, buttermilk, sour milk, clotted milk,
Herr Consul?”

“Half and half, Herr Dieckmann: sweet milk and buttermilk. In an hour,
then.” They went across the square.

“First, Herr Permaneder, it is our duty to visit the spring,” said
Thomas. “The spring, that is to say, is the source of the Au; and the
Au is the tiny little river on which Swartau lies, and on which, in
the grey Middle Ages, our own town was situated--until it burned down.
There was probably nothing very permanent about it at that time, and
it was rebuilt again, on the Trave. But there are painful recollections
connected with the Au. When we were schoolboys we used to pinch each
other’s arms and say: ‘What is the name of the river at Swartau?’ Of
course, it hurt, and the involuntary answer was the right one.--Look!”
he interrupted himself suddenly, ten steps from the ascent, “they’ve
got ahead of us.” It was the Möllendorpfs and the Hagenströms.

There, on the third landing of the wooded terrace, sat the principal
members of those affiliated families, at two tables shoved close
together, eating and talking with the greatest gusto. Old Senator
Möllendorpf presided, a pallid gentleman with thin, pointed white
mutton-chops; he suffered from diabetes. His wife, born Langhals,
wielded her lorgnon; and, as usual, her hair stood up untidily all over
her head. Her son Augustus was a blond young man with a prosperous
exterior, and there was Julie his wife, born Hagenström, little and
lively, with great blank black eyes and diamond earrings that were
nearly as large. She sat between her brothers, Hermann and Moritz.
Consul Hermann Hagenström had begun to get very stout with good living:
people said he began the day with _paté de foie gras_. He wore a
full, short reddish-blond beard, and he had his mother’s nose, which
came down quite flat on the upper lip. Dr. Morris was narrow-chested
and yellow-skinned, and he talked very gaily, showing pointed teeth
with gaps between them. Both brothers had their ladies with them--for
the lawyer had married, some years since, a Fräulein Puttfarken from
Hamburg, a lady with butter-coloured hair and wonderful cold, regular,
English features of more than common beauty; Dr. Hagenström had not
been able to reconcile with his reputation as connoisseur the idea
of taking a plain wife. And, finally, there were the little daughter
of Hermann and the little son of Moritz, two white-frocked children,
already as good as betrothed to each other, for the Huneus-Hagenström
money must be kept together, of course. They all sat there eating ham
and scrambled eggs.

Greetings were exchanged when the Buddenbrook party passed at a little
distance the company seated at the table. The Frau Consul bowed
confusedly; Thomas lifted his hat, his lips moving in a courteous
and conventional greeting, and Gerda inclined her head with formal
politeness. But Herr Permaneder, stimulated by the climb, swung his
green hat unaffectedly and shouted in a loud, hearty voice: “Hearty
good morning to all of you!” whereat Frau Senator Möllendorpf made
use of her lorgnon. Tony, for her part, flung back her head and
tucked in her chin as much as possible, while her shoulders went up
ever so slightly, and she greeted the party as if from some remote
height--which meant that she stared straight ahead directly over the
broad brim of Julie Möllendorpf’s elegant hat. Precisely at this
moment, her decision of the night before became fixed, unalterable
resolve.

“Thanks be to goodness, Tom, we are not going to eat for another
hour. I’d hate to have that Julie watching us. Did you see how she
spoke? Hardly at all. I only had a glimpse of her hat, but it looked
frightfully bad taste.”

“Well, as far as that goes, I don’t know about the hat--but you were
certainly not much more cordial than she was, my love. And don’t get
irritated--it makes for wrinkles.”

“Irritated, Tom? Not at all. If these people think they are the first
and foremost, why, one can only laugh at them, that’s all. What
difference is there between this Julie and me, if it comes to that? She
only drew a fool, instead of a knave, for a husband; and if she were in
my position now, we should see if she would find another one.”

“How can you tell that you will find another one?”

“A fool, Thomas?”

“Very much better than a knave.”

“It doesn’t have to be either. But it is not a fit subject for
discussion.”

“Quite right. The others are ahead of us--Herr Permaneder is climbing
lustily.”

The shady forest road grew level, and it was not long before they
reached the “spring,” a pretty, romantic spot with a wooden bridge over
a little ravine, steep cliffs, and overhanging trees with their roots
in the air. The Frau Consul had brought a silver collapsible cup, and
they scooped up the water from the little stone basin directly under
the source and refreshed themselves with the iron-impregnated spring.
And here Herr Permaneder had a slight attack of gallantry, and insisted
on Frau Grünlich tasting his cup before presenting it to him. He ran
over with friendliness and displayed great tact in chatting with the
Frau Consul and Thomas, as well as with Gerda and Tony, and even with
little Erica. Gerda, who had up to now been suffering from the heat
and a kind of silent and rigid nervousness, began to feel like herself
again. They came back to the inn by a shorter way, and sat down at a
groaning table on the second of the wooded terraces; and it was Gerda
who gave expression in friendly terms to the general regret over Herr
Permaneder’s early departure, now that they were just becoming a little
acquainted and finding less and less difficulty with the language. She
was ready to swear that she had heard her friend and sister-in-law,
Tony, use several times the most unadulterated Munich dialect!

Herr Permaneder forebore to commit himself on the subject of his
departure. Instead, he devoted himself for the time to the dainties
that weighted down the table--dainties such as he seldom saw the other
side of the Danube.

They sat and consumed the good things at their leisure--what little
Erica liked far better than anything else were the serviettes made of
tissue paper, much nicer than the big linen ones at home. With the
waiter’s permission she put a few in her pocket as a souvenir. When
they had finished, they still sat; Herr Permaneder smoked several
very black cigars with his beer, Thomas smoked cigarettes, and the
whole family chatted a long time with their guest. It was noticeable
that Herr Permaneder’s leaving was not mentioned again; in fact, the
future was left shrouded in darkness. Rather, they turned to memories
of the past or talked of the political events of recent years. Herr
Permaneder shook with laughter over some dozens of stories of the late
Herr Consul, which his widow related, and then in his turn told about
the Munich Revolution, and about Lola Montez, in whom Frau Grünlich
displayed an unbounded interest. The hour after luncheon slowly wore
on, and little Erica came back laden with daisies, grasses, and ladies’
smocks from an expedition with Ida Jungmann, and recalled the fact that
the ginger-nuts were still to be bought. They started on their walk
down to the village, not before the Frau Consul, who was the hostess of
the occasion, had paid the bill with a good-sized gold-piece.

They gave orders at the inn that the wagon should be ready in half an
hour, so that there would be time for a rest in town before dinner, and
then they rambled slowly down, in the dusty sunshine, to the handful of
cottages that formed the village.

After they crossed the bridge they fell naturally into little groups,
in which they continued after that to walk: Mamsell Jungmann with
her long stride in the van, with little Erica jumping tirelessly
alongside, hunting for butterflies; then the Frau Consul, Thomas, and
Gerda together; and lastly, at some distance, Frau Grünlich and Herr
Permaneder. The first pair made considerable noise, for the child
shouted for joy, and Ida joined in with her neighing, good-natured
laugh. In the middle, all three were silent; for the dust had driven
Gerda into another fit of depression, and the old Frau Consul, and her
son as well, were plunged in thought. The couple behind were quiet too,
but their quietness was only apparent, for in reality Tony and her
Bavarian guest were conversing in subdued and intimate tones. And what
was the subject of their discourse? It was Herr Grünlich....

Herr Permaneder had made the pointed remark that little Erica was a
dear and pretty child, but that she had not the slightest resemblance
to her mother. To which Tony had answered: “She is altogether like
her father in looks, and one may say that it is not at all to her
disadvantage, for as far as looks go, Grünlich was a gentleman. He had
golden-yellow whiskers--very uncommon; I never saw anything like them.”
When Tony visited the Niederpaurs in Munich, she had already told Herr
Permaneder in considerable detail the story of her first marriage; but
now he asked again all the particulars of it, listening with anxiously
sympathetic blinks to the details of the bankruptcy.

“He was a bad man, Herr Permaneder, or Father would never have taken
me away from him--of that you may be sure. Life has taught me that not
everybody in the world has a good heart. I have learned that, young
as I am for a person who, as you might say, has been a widow for ten
years. He was a bad man, and his banker, Kesselmeyer, was a worse
one--and a silly puppy into the bargain. I won’t say that I consider
myself an angel and perfectly free from all blame--don’t misunderstand
me. Grünlich neglected me, and even when he was with me he just sat
and read the paper; and he deceived me, and kept me in Eimsbüttel,
because he was afraid if I went to town I would find out the mess he
was in. But I am a weak woman, and I have my faults too, and I’ve no
doubt I did not always go the right way to work. I know I gave him
cause to worry and complain over my extravagance and silliness and my
new dressing-gowns. But it is only fair to say one thing: I was just a
child when I was married, a perfect goose, a silly little thing. Just
imagine: only a short time before I was engaged, I didn’t even so much
as know that the Confederation decrees concerning the universities and
the press had been renewed four years before! And fine decrees they
were, too! Ah, me, Herr Permaneder! The sad thing is that one lives
but once--one can’t begin life over again. And one would know so much
better the second time!”

She was silent; she looked down at the road--but she was very intent
on the reply Herr Permaneder would make, for she had not unskilfully
left him an opening, it being only a step to the idea that, even though
it was impossible to begin life anew, yet a new and better married
life was not out of the question. Herr Permaneder let the chance slip
and confined himself to laying the blame on Herr Grünlich, with such
violence that his very chin-whiskers bristled.

“Silly ass! If I had the fool here I’d give it to him! What a swine!”

“Fie, Herr Permaneder! No, you really mustn’t. We must forgive and
forget--‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ Ask Mother. Heaven
forbid--I don’t know where Grünlich is, nor what state his affairs are
in, but I wish him the best of fortune, even though he doesn’t deserve
it.”

They had reached the village and stood before the little house which
was at the same time the bakery. They had stopped walking, almost
without knowing it, and were hardly aware that Ida, Erica, the Frau
Consul, Thomas, and Gerda had disappeared through the funny, tiny
little door, so low that they had to stoop to enter. They were absorbed
in their conversation, though it had not got beyond these trifling
preliminaries.

They stood by a hedge with a long narrow flower-bed beneath it, in
which some mignonette was growing. Frau Grünlich, rather hot, bent her
head and poked industriously with her parasol in the black loam. Herr
Permaneder stood close to her, now and then assisting her excavations
with his walking-stick. His little green hat with the tuft of goat’s
beard had slid back on his forehead. He was stooping over the bed too,
but his small, bulging pale-blue eyes, quite blank and even a little
reddish, gazed up at her with a mixture of devotion, distress, and
expectancy. It was odd to see how his very moustache, drooping down
over his mouth, took the same expression.

“Likely, now,” he ventured, “likely, now, ye’ve taken a silly fright,
and are too damned scared of marriage ever to try it again--hey, Frau
Grünlich?”

“How clumsy!” thought she. “Must I say yes to that?” Aloud she
answered: “Well, dear Herr Permaneder, I must confess that it would be
hard for me to yield anybody my consent for life; for life has taught
me, you see, what a serious step that is. One needs to be sure that the
man in question is a thoroughly noble, good, kind soul--”

And now he actually ventured the question whether she could consider
him such a man--to which she answered: “Yes, Herr Permaneder, I do.”
Upon which there followed the few short murmured words which clinched
the betrothal and gave Herr Permaneder the assurance that he might
speak to Thomas and the Frau Consul when they reached home.

When the other members of the party came forth, laden with bags of
ginger-nuts, Thomas let his eye rove discreetly over the heads of the
two standing outside, for they were embarrassed to the last degree.
Herr Permaneder simply made no effort to conceal the fact, but Tony was
hiding her embarrassment under a well-nigh majestic dignity.

They hurried back to the wagon, for the sky had clouded over and some
drops began to fall.

       *       *       *       *       *

Tony was right: her brother had, soon after Herr Permaneder appeared,
made proper inquiries as to his situation in life. He learned that
X. Noppe and Company did a thoroughly sound if somewhat restricted
business, operating with the joint-stock brewery managed by Herr
Niederpaur as director. It showed a nice little income, Herr
Permaneder’s share of which, with the help of Tony’s seventeen
thousand, would suffice for a comfortable if modest life. The Frau
Consul heard the news, and there was a long and particular conversation
among her, Herr Permaneder, Antonie, and Thomas, in the landscape-room
that very evening, and everything was arranged. It was decided that
little Erica should go to Munich too, this being her Mother’s wish, to
which her betrothed warmly agreed.

Two days later the hop dealer left for home--“Noppe will be raising
the deuce if I don’t,” he said. But in July Frau Grünlich was again in
his native town, accompanied by Tom and Gerda. They were to spend four
or five weeks at Bad Kreuth, while the Frau Consul with Erica and Ida
were on the Baltic coast. While in Munich, the four had time to see the
house in Kaufinger Street which Herr Permaneder was about to buy. It
was in the neighbourhood of the Niederpaurs’--a perfectly remarkable
old house, a large part of which Herr Permaneder thought to let. It had
a steep, ladderlike pair of stairs which ran without a turning from the
front door straight up to the first floor, where a corridor led on each
side back to the front rooms.

Tony went home the middle of August to devote herself to her trousseau.
She had considerable left from her earlier equipment, but new purchases
were necessary to complete it. One day several things arrived from
Hamburg, among them a morning-gown--this time not trimmed with velvet
but with bands of cloth instead.

Herr Permaneder returned to Meng Street well on in the autumn. They
thought best to delay no longer. As for the wedding festivities, they
went off just as Tony expected and desired, no great fuss being made
over them. “Let us leave out the formalities,” said the Consul. “You
are married again, and it is simply as if you always had been.” Only
a few announcements were sent--Madame Grünlich saw to it that Julie
Möllendorpf, born Hagenström, received one--and there was no wedding
journey. Herr Permaneder objected to making “such a fuss,” and Tony,
just back from the summer trip, found even the journey to Munich too
long. The wedding took place, not in the hall this time, but in the
church of St. Mary’s, in the presence of the family only. Tony wore the
orange-blossom, which replaced the myrtle, with great dignity, and
Doctor Kölling preached on moderation, with as strong language as ever,
but in a weaker voice.

Christian came from Hamburg, very elegantly dressed, looking a little
ailing but very lively. He said his business with Burmeester was
“top-top”; thought that he and Tilda would probably get married “up
there”--that is to say, “each one for himself, of course”; and came
very late to the wedding from the visit he paid at the club. Uncle
Justus was much moved by the occasion, and with his usual lavishness
presented the newly-wedded pair with a beautiful heavy silver epergne.
He and his wife practically starved themselves at home, for the weak
woman was still paying the disinherited and outcast Jacob’s debts with
the housekeeping money. Jacob was rumoured to be in Paris at present.
The Buddenbrook ladies from Broad Street made the remark: “Well, let’s
hope it will last, this time.” The unpleasant part of this lay in the
doubt whether they really hoped it. Sesemi Weichbrodt stood on her
tip-toes, kissed her pupil, now Frau Permaneder, explosively on the
forehead, and said with her most pronounced vowels: “Be happy, you
go-od che-ild!”




CHAPTER VII


In the morning at eight o’clock Consul Buddenbrook, so soon as he had
left his bed, stolen through the little door and down the winding
stair into the bathroom, taken a bath, and put on his night-shirt
again--Consul Buddenbrook, we say, began to busy himself with public
affairs. For then Herr Wenzel, barber and member of the Assembly,
appeared, with his intelligent face and his red hands, his razors and
other tools, and the basin of warm water which he had fetched from the
kitchen; and the Consul sat in a reclining-chair and leaned his head
back, and Herr Wenzel began to make a lather; and there ensued almost
always a conversation that began with the weather and how you had slept
the night before, went on to politics and the great world, thence to
domestic affairs in the city itself, and closed in an intimate and
familiar key on business and family matters. All this prolonged very
much the process in hand, for every time the Consul said anything Herr
Wenzel had to stop shaving.

“Hope you slept well, Herr Consul?”

“Yes, thanks, Wenzel. Is it fine to-day?”

“Frost and a bit of snow, Herr Consul. In front of St. James’s the boys
have made another slide, more than ten yards long--I nearly sat down,
when I came from the Burgomaster’s. The young wretches!”

“Seen the papers?”

“The _Advertiser_ and the _Hamburg News_--yes. Nothing in them but the
Orsini bombs. Horrible. It happened on the way to the opera. Oh, they
must be a fine lot over there.”

“Oh, it doesn’t signify much, I should think. It has nothing to do with
the people, and the only effect will be that the police will be doubled
and there will be twice as much interference with the press. He is on
his guard. Yes, it must be a perpetual strain, for he has to introduce
new projects all the time, to keep himself in power. But I respect him,
all the same. At all events, he can’t be a fool, with his traditions,
and I was very much impressed with the cheap bread affair. There is no
doubt he does a great deal for the people.”

“Yes, Herr Kistenmaker says so too.”

“Stephan? We were talking about it yesterday.”

“It looks bad for Frederick William of Prussia. Things won’t last much
longer as they are. They say already that the prince will be made
Regent in time.”

“It will be interesting to see what happens then. He has already shown
that he has liberal ideas and does not feel his brother’s secret
disgust for the Constitution. It is just the chagrin that upsets him,
poor man. What is the news from Copenhagen?”

“Nothing new, Herr Consul. They simply won’t. The Confederation has
declared that a united government for Holstein and Lauenburg is
illegal--they won’t have it at any price.”

“Yes, it is unheard-of, Wenzel. They dare the Bundestag to put it
into operation--and if it were a little more lively--oh, these
Danes!--Careful with that chapped place, Wenzel.--There’s our
direct-line Hamburg railway, too. That has cost some diplomatic
battles, and will cost more before they get the concession from
Copenhagen.”

“Yes, Herr Consul. The stupid thing is that the Altona-Kiel Railway
Company is against it--and, in fact, all Holstein is. Dr. Överdieck,
the Burgomaster, was saying so just now. They are dreadfully afraid of
Kiel prospering much.”

“Of course, Wenzel. A new connection between the North Sea and the
Baltic.--You’ll see, the Kiel-Altona line will keep on intriguing. They
are in a position to build a rival railway: East Holstein, Neuminster,
Neustadt--yes, that is quite on the cards. But we must not let
ourselves be bullied, and we must have a direct route to Hamburg.”

“Herr Consul must take the matter up himself.”

“Certainly, so far as my powers go, and wherever I have any influence.
I am interested in the development of our railways--it is a tradition
with us from 1851 on. My Father was a director of the Buchen line,
which is probably the reason why I was elected so young. I am only
thirty-three years old, and my services so far have been very
inconsiderable.”

“Oh, Herr Consul! How can the Herr Consul say that after his speech in
the Assembly--?”

“Yes, that made an impression, and I’ve certainly shown my good will,
at least. I can only be grateful that my Father, Grandfather, and
great-Grandfather prepared the way for me, and that I inherited so
much of the respect and confidence they received from the town; for
without it I could not move as I am now able to. For instance, after
’48 and the beginning of this decade, what did my Father not do towards
the reform of our postal service? Think how he urged in the Assembly
the union of the Hamburg diligences with the postal service; and
how in 1850 he forced the Senate by continuous pressure to join the
German-Austrian Postal Union! If we have cheap letter postage now, and
stamps and book post, and letter-boxes, and telegraphic connection with
Hamburg and Travemünde, he is not the last one to be grateful to. Why,
if he and a few other people had not kept at the Senate continually, we
should most likely still be behind the Danish and the Thurn-and-Taxis
postal service! So when I have an opinion nowadays on these subjects,
people listen to me.”

“The Herr Consul is speaking God’s truth. About the Hamburg line,
Doctor Överdieck was saying to me only three days ago: ‘When we get
where we can buy a suitable site for the station in Hamburg, we will
send Consul Buddenbrook to help transact the business, for in such
dealings he is better than most lawyers.’ Those were his very words.”

“Well, that is very flattering to me, Wenzel.--Just put a little more
lather on my chin, will you? It wants a bit more cleaning up.--Yes,
the truth is, we mustn’t let the grass grow under our feet. I am
saying nothing against Överdieck, but he is getting on. If I were
Burgomaster I’d make things move a little faster. I can’t tell you how
pleased I am that they are installing gas for the street-lighting, and
the miserable old oil lamps are disappearing--I admit I had a little
something to do with that change. Oh, how much there is to do! Times
are changing, Wenzel, and we have many responsibilities toward the
new age. When I think back to my boyhood--you know better than I do
what the town looked like then: the streets without sidewalks, grass
growing a foot high between the paving-stones, and the houses with
porticos and benches sticking out into the streets--and our buildings
from the time of the Middle Ages spoilt with clumsy additions, and
all tumbling down because, while individuals had money and nobody
went hungry, the town had none at all and just muddled along, as my
brother-in-law calls it, without ever thinking of repairs. That was a
happy and comfortable generation, when my grandfather’s crony, the good
Jean Jacques Hofstede, strolled about the town and translated improper
little French poems. They had to end, those good old times; they have
changed, and they will have to change still more. Then the population
was thirty-seven thousand: now it is fifty, you know, and the whole
character of the place is altering. There is so much building, and the
suburbs are spreading out, and we are able to have good streets and
restore the old monuments out of our great period. Yet even all that is
merely superficial. The most important matter is still outstanding, my
dear Wenzel. I mean, of course, the _ceterum censeo_ of my dear Father:
the customs union. We must join, Wenzel; there should be no longer any
question about it, and you must all help me fight for it. As a business
man, believe me, I am better informed than the diplomats, and the
fear that we should lose independence and freedom of action is simply
laughable in this case. The Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein Inland
would take us in, which is the more desirable for the reason that we
do not control the northern trade quite to the extent that we once
did.--That’s enough. Please give me the towel, Wenzel,” concluded the
Consul.

Then the market price of rye, which stood at fifty-five thaler and
showed disquieting signs of falling still further, was talked about,
and perhaps there was a mention of some event or other in the town; and
then Herr Wenzel vanished by the basement route and emptied the lather
out of his shiny basin on to the pavement in the street. And the Consul
mounted the winding stair into the bedroom, and found Gerda awake, and
kissed her on the forehead. Then he dressed.

These little morning sessions with the lively barber formed the
introduction to busy days, full to running over with thinking, talking,
writing, reckoning, doing business, going about in the town. Thanks
to his travel, his interests, and his knowledge of affairs, Thomas
Buddenbrook’s mind was the least provincial in the district; and he
was certainly the first to realize the limitations of his lot. The
lively interest in public affairs which the years of the Revolution had
brought in, was suffering throughout the whole country from a period
of prostration and arrest, and that field was too sterile to occupy a
vigorous talent; but Thomas Buddenbrook possessed the spirit to take
to himself that wise old saying that all human achievement is of a
merely symbolic value, and thus to devote all that he had of capacity,
enthusiasm, energy, and strength of will to the service of the
community as well as to the service of his own name and firm. He stood
in the front rank of his small society and was seriously ambitious to
give his city greatness and power within her sphere--though he had
the intellect too, to smile at himself for the ambition even while he
cherished it.

He ate his breakfast, served by Anton, and went to the office in Meng
Street, where he remained about an hour, writing two or three pressing
letters and telegrams, giving this or that instruction, imparting to
the wheels of industry a small push, and then leaving them to revolve
under the cautious eye of Herr Marcus.

He went to assemblies and committee meetings, visited the Bourse, which
was held under the Gothic arcades in the Market square, inspected
dockyards and warehouses, talked with the captains of the ships he
owned, and transacted much and various business all day long until
evening, interrupted only by the hasty luncheon with his Mother and
dinner with Gerda; after which he took a half-hour’s rest on the sofa
with his cigarette and the newspaper. Customs, rates, construction,
railways, posts, almonry--all this as well as his own business occupied
him; and even in matters commonly left to professionals he acquired
insight and judgment, especially in finance, where he early showed
himself extremely gifted.

He was careful not to neglect the social side. True, he was not always
punctual, and usually appeared at the very last minute, when the
carriage waited below and his wife sat in full toilette. “I’m sorry,
Gerda,” he would say; “I was detained”; and he would dash upstairs to
don his evening clothes. But when he arrived at a dinner, a ball, or
an evening company, he showed lively interest and ranked as a charming
_causeur_. And in entertaining he and his wife were not behind the
other rich houses. In kitchen and cellar everything was “tip-top,” and
he himself was considered a most courteous and tactful host, whose
toasts were wittier than the common run. His quiet evenings he spent at
home with Gerda alone, smoking, listening to her music, or reading with
her some book of her selection.

Thus his labours enforced success, his consequence grew in the town,
and the firm had excellent years, despite the sums drawn out to settle
Christian and to pay Tony’s second dowry. And yet there were troubles
which had, at times, the power to lame his courage for hours, weaken
his elasticity, and depress his mood.

There was Christian in Hamburg. His partner, Herr Burmeester, had died
quite suddenly of an apoplectic stroke, in the spring of the year
1858. His heirs drew their money out of the business, and the Consul
strongly advised Christian against trying to continue it with his own
means, for he knew how difficult it is to carry on a business already
established on definite lines if the working capital be suddenly
diminished. But Christian insisted upon the continuation of his
independence. He took over the assets and the liabilities of H. C. F.
Burmeester and Company, and trouble was to be looked for.

Then there was the Consul’s sister Clara in Riga. Her marriage with
Pastor Tiburtius had remained unblest with children--but then, as Clara
Buddenbrook she had never wanted children, and probably had very little
talent for motherhood. Now her husband wrote that her health left much
to be desired. The severe headaches from which she had suffered even as
a girl were now recurring periodically, to an almost unbearable extent.

That was disquieting. And even here at home there was another source
of worry--for, as yet, there was no certainty whatever that the family
name would live. Gerda treated the subject with sovereign indifference
which came very near to being repugnance. Thomas concealed his anxiety.
But the old Frau Consul took the matter in hand and consulted Grabow.

“Doctor--just between ourselves--something is bound to happen
_sometime_, isn’t it? A little mountain air at Kreuth, a little
seashore at Glucksberg or Travemünde--but they don’t seem to work. What
do you advise?” Dr. Grabow’s pleasant old prescription: “a nourishing
diet, a little pigeon, a slice of French bread,” didn’t seem strong
enough, either, to fit the case. He ordered Pyrmont and Schlangenbad.

Those were three worries. And Tony? Poor Tony!




CHAPTER VIII


She wrote: “... And when I say ‘croquettes,’ she doesn’t understand me,
because here they are called ‘meaties’; and when she says ‘broccoli,’
how could any Christian know she means cauliflower? When I say ‘baked
potatoes,’ she screams ‘How?’ at me, until I remember to say ‘roast
potatoes,’ which is what they call them here. ‘How’ means ‘What did
you say?’ And she is the second one I’ve had--I sent away the first
one, named Katy, because she was so impertinent--or at least, I thought
she was. I’m getting to see now that I may have been mistaken, for I’m
never quite sure whether people here mean to be rude or friendly. This
one’s name is Babette. She has a very pleasing exterior, with something
southern, the way of some of them have here; black hair and eyes, and
teeth that any one might envy. She is willing, too, and I am teaching
her how to make some of our home dishes. Yesterday we had sorrel and
currants, but I wish I hadn’t, for Permaneder objected so much to the
sorrel--he picked the currants out with a fork--that he would not
speak to me the whole afternoon, but just growled; and I can tell you,
Mother, that life is not so easy.”

Alas, it was not only the sorrel and the “meaties” that were
embittering Tony’s life. Before the honeymoon was over she had had a
blow so unforeseen, so unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it took
away all her joy in life. She could not get over it. And here it was.

Not until after the Permaneder couple had been some weeks in Munich had
Consul Buddenbrook liquidated the sum fixed by his Father’s will as his
sister’s second marriage portion. That sum, translated into gulden, had
at last safely reached Herr Permaneder’s hands, and Herr Permaneder
had invested it securely and not unprofitably. But then, what he had
said, quite unblushingly and without embarrassment, to his wife, was
this: “Tonerl”--he called her “Tonerl”--“Tonerl, that’s good enough for
me. What do we want of more? I been working my hide off all my days;
now I’d like to sit down and have a little peace and quiet, damned if
I wouldn’t. Let’s rent the parterre and the second floor, and still
we’ll have a good house, where we can sit and eat our bit of pig’s meat
without screwing ourselves up and putting on so much lug. And in the
evening I can go to the Hofbräu house. I’m no swell--I don’t care about
scraping money together. I want my comfort. I quit to-morrow and go
into private life.”

“Permaneder!” she had cried; and for the first time she had spoken his
name with that peculiar throaty sound which her voice always had when
she uttered the name of Grünlich.

“Oh, shut up! Don’t take on!” was all he answered. There had
followed, thus early in their life together, a quarrel, serious and
violent enough to endanger the happiness of any marriage. He came
off victorious. Her passionate resistance was shattered upon his
urgent longing for “peace and quiet.” It ended in Herr Permaneder’s
withdrawing the capital he had in the hop business, so that now Herr
Noppe, in his turn, could strike the “and Company” off his card. After
which Tony’s husband, like most of the friends whom he met around the
table in the Hofbräu House, to play cards and drink his regular three
litres of beer, limited his activities to the raising of rents in his
capacity of landlord, and to an undisturbed cutting of coupons.

The Frau Consul was notified quite simply of this fact. But Frau
Permaneder’s distress was evident in the letters which she wrote to
her brother. Poor Tony! Her worst fears were more than realized.
She had always known that Herr Permaneder possessed none of that
“resourcefulness” of which her first husband had had so much; but
that he would so entirely confound the expectations she had expressed
to Mamsell Jungmann on the eve of her betrothal--that he would so
completely fail to recognize the duties he had taken upon himself when
he married a Buddenbrook--that she had never dreamed.

But these feelings must be overcome; and her family at home saw from
her letters how she resigned herself. She lived on rather monotonously
with her husband and Erica, who went to school; she attended to her
housekeeping, kept up friendly relations with the people who rented
the parterre and the first storey and with the Niederpaur family in
Marienplatz; and she wrote now and then of going to the theatre with
her friend Eva. Herr Permaneder did not care for the theatre. And it
came out that he had grown to more than forty years of age in his
beloved Munich without ever having seen the inside of the Pinakothek.

Time passed. But Tony could feel no longer any true happiness in her
new life, since the day when Herr Permaneder received her dowry and
settled himself down to enjoy his ease. Hope was no more. She would
never be able to write home to announce new ventures and new successes.
Just as life was now--free from cares, it was true, but so limited,
so lamentably “unrefined,”--just so it would remain until the end.
It weighed upon her. It was plain from her letters that this very
lowness of tone was making it harder for her to adapt herself to the
south-German surroundings. In small matters, of course, things grew
easier. She learned to make herself understood by the servants and
errand-boys, to say “meaties” instead of “croquettes,” and to set
no more fruit soup before her husband after the one he had called a
“sickening mess.” But, in general, she remained a stranger in her new
home; and she never ceased to taste the bitterness of the knowledge
that to be a born Buddenbrook was not to enjoy any particular prestige
in her adopted home. She once related in a letter the story of how
she met in the street a mason’s apprentice, carrying a mug of beer in
one hand and holding a large white radish by its tail in the other;
who, waving his beer, said jovially: “Neighbour, can ye tell us the
time?” She made a joke of it, in the telling; yet even so, a strong
undercurrent of irritation betrayed itself. You might be quite certain
that she threw back her head and vouchsafed to the poor man neither
answer nor glance in his direction. But it was not alone this lack of
formality and absence of distinctions that made her feel strange and
unsympathetic. She did not live deeply, it is true, into the life or
affairs of her new home; but she breathed the Munich air, the air of a
great city, full of artists and citizens who habitually did nothing: an
air with something about it a little demoralizing, which she sometimes
found it hard to take good-humouredly.

The days passed. And then it seemed that there was after all a joy in
store--in fact, the very one which was longed for in vain in Broad
Street and Meng Street. For not long after the New Year of 1859 Tony
felt certain that she was again to become a mother.

The joy of it trembled in her letters, which were full of the old
childish gaiety and sense of importance. The Frau Consul, who, with the
exception of the summer holiday, confined her journeyings more and more
to the Baltic coast, lamented that she could not be with her daughter
at this time. Tom and Gerda made plans to go to the christening,
and Tony’s head was full of giving them an elegant reception. Alas,
poor Tony! The visit which took place was sad indeed, and the
christening--Tony had cherished visions of a ravishing little feast,
with flowers, sweetmeats, and chocolate--never took place at all. The
child, a little girl, only entered into life for a tiny quarter of an
hour; then, though the doctor did his best to set the pathetic little
mechanism going, it faded out of being.

Consul Buddenbrook and his wife arrived in Munich to find Tony herself
not out of danger. She was far more ill than before, and a nervous
weakness from which she had already suffered prevented her from taking
any nourishment at all for several days. Then she began to eat, and on
their departure, the Buddenbrooks felt reassured as far as her health
was concerned. But in other ways there was much reason for anxiety; for
it had been all too plain, especially to the Consul’s observant eye,
that not even their common loss would suffice to bring husband and wife
together again.

There was nothing against Herr Permaneder’s good heart. He was truly
shaken by the death of the child; big tears rolled down out of his
bulging eyes upon his puffy cheeks and on into his frizzled beard. Many
times he sighed deeply and gave vent to his favourite expression. But,
after all, Tony felt that his “peace and quiet” had not suffered any
long interruption. After a few evenings, he sought the Hofbräu House
for consolation, and was soon, as he always said, “muddling along”
again in his old, good-natured, comfortable, grumbling way, with the
easy fatalism natural to him.

But from now on Tony’s letters never lost their hopeless, even
complaining tone. “Oh, Mother,” she wrote, “why do I have to bear
everything like this? First Grünlich and the bankruptcy, and then
Permaneder going out of business--and then the baby! How have I
deserved all these misfortunes?”

When the Consul read these outpourings, he could never quite forego
a little smile: for, nothwithstanding all the real pain they showed,
he heard an undertone of almost comic pride, and he knew that Tony
Buddenbrook, as Madame Grünlich or as Madame Permaneder, was and would
remain a child. She bore all her mature experiences almost with a
child’s unbelief in their reality, yet with a child’s seriousness, a
child’s self-importance, and, above all, with a child’s power to throw
them off at will.

She could not understand how she had deserved her misfortunes; for even
while she mocked at her mother’s piety, she herself was so full of it
that she fervently believed in justice and righteousness on this earth.

Poor Tony! The death of her second child was neither the last nor the
hardest blow that fell upon her. As the year 1859 drew to a close,
something frightful indeed happened.




CHAPTER IX


It was a day toward the end of November--a cold autumn day with a hazy
sky. It looked almost as if there would be snow, and a mist was rising,
pierced through every now and then by the sun. It was one of those
days, common in a seaport town, when a sharp north-east wind whistled
round the massive church corners and influenzas were to be had cheap.

Consul Thomas Buddenbrook entered the breakfast-room toward midday, to
find his Mother, with her spectacles on her nose, bent over a paper on
the table.

“Tom,” she said; and she looked at him, holding the paper with both
hands, as if she hesitated to show it to him. “Don’t be startled. But
it is not very good news. I don’t understand-- It is from Berlin.
Something must have happened.”

“Give it to me, please,” he said shortly. He lost colour, and the
muscles stood out on his temples as he clenched his teeth. His gesture
as he stretched out his hand was so full of decision that it was as if
he said aloud: “Just tell me quickly. Don’t prepare me for it!”

He read the lines still standing; one of his light eyebrows went up,
and he drew the long ends of his moustache through his fingers. It was
a telegram, and it said: “Don’t be frightened. Am coming at once with
Erica. All is over. Your unhappy Antonie.”

“‘At once ... at once,’” he said, with irritation, looking at the Frau
Consul and giving his head a quick shake. “What does she mean by ‘at
once’?”

“That is just a way of putting it, Tom; it doesn’t mean anything
particular. She means by the next train, or something like that.”

“And from Berlin! What is she doing in Berlin? How did she get to
Berlin?”

“I don’t know, Tom; I don’t understand it. The dispatch only came ten
minutes ago. But something must have happened, and we must just wait to
see what it is. God in his mercy will turn it all to good. Sit down, my
son, and eat your luncheon.”

He took his chair, and mechanically he poured out a glass of porter.

“‘All is over,’” he repeated. And then “‘Antonie.’ How childish!”

He ate and drank in silence.

After a while the Frau Consul ventured to say: “It must be something
about Permaneder, don’t you think, Tom?”

He shrugged his shoulders without looking up.

As he went away he said, with his hand on the doorknob, “Well, we must
wait and see. As she is not likely to burst into the house in the
middle of the night, she will probably reach here sometime to-morrow.
You will let me know, won’t you?”

       *       *       *       *       *

The Frau Consul waited from hour to hour. She had slept very badly,
and in the night she rang for Ida Jungmann, who now slept in the back
room of the entresol. She had Ida make her some _eau sucrée_; and she
sat up in bed for a long time and embroidered. And now the forenoon
passed in nervous expectancy. When the Consul came to second breakfast,
he said that Tony could not arrive before the three-thirty-three
train from Buchen. At that hour the Frau Consul seated herself in the
landscape-room and tried to read, out of a book with a black leather
cover decorated with a gold palm-leaf.

It was a day like its predecessor: cold, mist, wind. The stove crackled
away behind its wrought-iron screen. The old lady trembled and looked
out of the window whenever she heard a wagon. At four o’clock, when she
had stopped watching and almost stopped thinking about her daughter,
there was a stir below in the house. She hastily turned toward the
window and wiped away the damp with her handkerchief. Yes, a carriage
had stopped below, and some one was coming up the steps.

She grasped the arms of her chair with both hands to rise. But then she
thought better of it and sank back. She only turned her head as her
daughter entered, and her face wore an almost defensive expression.
Tony burst impetuously into the room: Erica remained outside at the
glass door, with her hand in Ida Jungmann’s.

Frau Permaneder wore a fur wrap and a large felt hat with a veil. She
looked very pale and ailing, and her upper lip trembled as it used to
when the little Tony was about to weep. Her eyes were red. She raised
her arms and let them drop, and then she fell on her knees at her
Mother’s side, burying her face in the folds of her gown and sobbing
bitterly. It was as though she had rushed straight hither from Munich
all in one breath, and now lay there, having gained the goal of her
headlong flight, exhausted but safe. The Frau Consul sat a moment quite
still.

“Tony!” she said then, with gentle remonstrance. She drew the long
hatpins out of Frau Permaneder’s hat and laid it on the window-seat;
then she stroked gently and soothingly her daughter’s thick ash-blonde
hair.

“What is it, my child? What has happened?”

But she saw that patience was her only weapon; for it was long before
her question drew out any reply.

“Mother!” uttered Frau Permaneder. “Mamma!” But that was all.

The Frau Consul looked toward the glass door and, still embracing her
daughter, stretched out her hand to her grandchild, who stood there
shyly with her finger to her mouth.

“Come, child; come here and say how do you do. You have grown so big,
and you look so strong and well, for which God be thanked. How old are
you now, Erica?”

“Thirteen, Grandmama.”

“Good gracious! A young lady!” She kissed the little maiden over Tony’s
head and told her: “Go up with Ida now--we shall soon have dinner. Just
now Mamma and I want to talk.”

They were alone.

“Now, my dear Tony? Can you not stop crying? When God sends us a heavy
trial, we must bear it with composure. ‘Take your cross upon you,’ we
are told. Would you like to go up first and rest a little and refresh
yourself, and then come down to me again? Our good Jungmann has your
room ready. Thanks for your telegram--of course, it shocked us a good
deal--”

She stopped. For Tony’s voice came, all trembling and smothered, out of
the folds of her gown: “He is a wicked man--a wicked man! Oh, he is--”

Frau Permaneder seemed not able to get away from this dreadful phrase.
It possessed her altogether. She buried her face deeper and deeper in
the Frau Consul’s lap and clenched her fist beside the Frau Consul’s
chair.

“Do you mean your husband, my child?” asked the old lady, after a
pause. “It ought not to be possible for me to have such a thought in my
mind, I know; but you leave me nothing else to think, Tony. Has Herr
Permaneder done you an injury? Are you making a complaint of him?”

“Babette” Frau Permaneder brought out. “Babette--”

“Babette?” repeated the Frau Consul, inquiringly. Then she leaned
back in her chair, and her pale eyes wandered toward the window.
She understood now. There was a pause, broken by Tony’s gradually
decreasing sobs.

“Tony,” said the Frau Consul after a little space, “I see now that
there has been an injury done you--that you have cause to complain. But
was it necessary to give the sense of injury such violent expression?
Was it necessary to travel here from Munich, with Erica, and to make it
appear--for other people will not be so sensible as we are--that you
have left him permanently; that you will not go back to him?”

“But I won’t go back to him--never!” cried Frau Permaneder, and she
lifted up her head with a jerk and looked at her Mother wildly with
tear-stained eyes, and then buried her face again. The Frau Consul
affected not to have heard.

“But now,” she went on, in a louder key, slowly nodding her head from
one side to the other, “now that you are here, I am glad you are. For
you can unburden your heart, and tell me everything, and then we shall
see how we can put things right, by taking thought, and by mutual
forbearance and affection.”

“Never,” Tony said again. “Never!” And then she told her story. It was
not all intelligible, for she spoke into the folds of her Mother’s
stuff gown, and broke into her own narrative with explosions of
passionate anger. But what had happened was somewhat as follows:

On the night of the twenty-fourth of the month, Madame Permaneder
had gone to sleep very late, having been disturbed during the day by
the nervous digestive trouble to which she was subject. She had been
awakened about midnight, out of a light slumber, by a confused and
continuous noise outside on the landing--a half-suppressed, mysterious
noise, in which one distinguished the creaking of the stairs, a sort
of giggling cough, smothered, protesting words, and, mixed with these,
the most singular snarling sounds. But there was no doubt whence they
proceeded. Frau Permaneder had hardly, with her sleepy senses, taken
them in before she interpreted them as well, in such a way that she
felt the blood leave her cheeks and rush to her heart, which contracted
and then went on beating with heavy, oppressed pulsations. For a
long, dreadful minute she lay among the pillows as if stunned, as if
paralysed. Then, as the shameless disturbance did not stop, she had
with trembling hands kindled a light, had left her bed, thrilling with
horror, repulsion, and despair, had opened the door and hurried out on
to the landing in her slippers, the light in her hand--to the top of
the “ladder” that went straight up from the house door to the first
storey. And there, on the upper steps, in all its actuality, was indeed
the very scene she had pictured in her mind’s eye as she listened to
the compromising noises. It was an unseemly and indecent scuffle, a
sort of wrestling match between Babette the cook and Herr Permaneder.
The girl must have been busied late about the house, for she had her
bunch of keys and her candle in her hand as she swayed back and forth
in the effort to fend her master off. He, with his hat on the back
of his head, held her round the body and kept making essays, now and
then successfully, to press his face, with its great walrus moustache,
against hers. As Antonie appeared, Babette exclaimed something that
sounded like “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”--and “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
echoed Herr Permaneder likewise, as he let go. Almost in the same
second the girl vanished, and there was Herr Permaneder left standing
before his wife, with drooping head, drooping arms, drooping moustaches
too; and all he could get out was some idiotic remark like “Holy Cross,
what a mess!” When he ventured to lift his eyes, she was no longer
there. She was in the bed-chamber, half-sitting, half-lying on the bed,
repeating over and over again with frantic sobbing, “Shame, shame!” He
leaned rather flabbily in the doorway and jerked his shoulder in her
direction--had he been closer, the gesture would have been a nudge in
the ribs. “Hey, Tonerl--don’t be a fool, you know. Say--you know Franz,
the Ramsau Franz, he had his name-day to-day, and we’re all half-seas
over.” Strong alcoholic fumes pervaded the room as he spoke; and they
brought Frau Permaneder’s excitement to a climax. She sobbed no more,
she was no longer weak and faint. Carried away by frenzy, incapable
of measuring her words, she poured out her disgust, her abhorrence,
her complete and utter contempt and loathing of him and all his ways.
Herr Permaneder did not take it meekly. His head was hot; for he had
treated his friend Franz not only to many beers, but to “champagne
wine” as well. He answered and answered wildly--the quarrel reached a
height far greater than the one that had signalized Herr Permaneder’s
retirement into private life, and it ended in Frau Antonie gathering
her clothes together and withdrawing into the living-room for the
night. And at the end he had flung at her a word--a word which she
would not repeat--a word that should never pass her lips--a word....

This was the major content of the confession which Frau Permaneder
had sobbed into the folds of her mother’s gown. But the “word,” the
word that in that fearful night had sunk into her very depths--no, she
would not repeat it; no, she would not, she asseverated,--although her
mother had not in the least pressed her to do so, but only nodded her
head, slowly, almost imperceptibly, as she looked down on Tony’s lovely
ash-blond hair.

“Yes, yes,” she said; “this is very sad, Tony. And I understand it all,
my dear little one, because I am not only your Mamma, but I am a woman
like you as well. I see now how fully your grief is justified, and how
completely your husband, in a moment of weakness, forgot what he owed
to you and--”

“In a moment--?” cried Tony. She sprang up. She made two steps backward
and feverishly dried her eyes. “A moment, Mamma! He _forgot_ what
he owed to me and to our name? He never _knew_ it, from the very
beginning! A man that quietly sits down with his wife’s dowry--a man
without ambition or energy or will-power! A man that has some kind of
thick soup made out of hops in his veins instead of blood--and I verily
believe he has! And to let himself down to such common doings as this
with Babette--and when I reproached him with his good-for-nothingness,
to answer with a word that--a word--”

And, arrived once more at the word, the word she would not repeat,
quite suddenly she took a step forward and said, in a completely
altered, a quieter, milder, interested tone: “How perfectly sweet!
Where did you get that, Mamma?” She motioned with her chin toward a
little receptacle, a charming basket-work stand woven out of reeds
and decorated with ribbon bows, in which the Frau Consul kept her
fancy-work.

“I bought it, some time ago,” answered the old lady. “I needed it.”

“Very smart,” Tony said, looking at it with her head on one side. The
Frau Consul looked at it too, but without seeing it, for she was in
deep thought.

“Now, my dear daughter,” she said at last, putting out her hand again,
“however things are, you are here, and welcome a hundred times to
your old home. We can talk everything over when we are calmer. Take
your things off in your room and make yourself comfortable. Ida!” she
called into the dining-room, lifting her voice, “lay a place for Madame
Permaneder, and one for Erica, my dear.”




CHAPTER X


Tony returned to her bed-chamber after dinner. During the meal her
Mother had told her that Thomas was aware of her expected arrival; and
she did not seem particularly anxious to meet him.

The Consul came at six o’clock. He went into the landscape-room and had
a long talk with his Mother.

“How is she?” he asked. “How does she seem?”

“Oh, Tom, I am afraid she is very determined. She is terribly wrought
up. And this word--if I only knew what it was he said--”

“I will go up and see her.”

“Yes, do, Tom. But knock softly, so as not to startle her, and be very
calm, will you? Her nerves are upset. That is the trouble she has with
her digestion--she has eaten nothing. Do talk quietly with her.”

He went up quickly, skipping a step in his usual way. He was thinking,
and twisting the ends of his moustache, but as he knocked his face
cleared--he was resolved to handle the situation as long as possible
with humour.

A suffering voice said “Come in,” and he opened the door, to find Frau
Permaneder lying on the bed fully dressed. The bed curtains were flung
back, the down quilt was underneath her back, and a medicine bottle
stood on the night-table. She turned round a little and propped her
head on her hand, looking at him with her pouting smile. He made a deep
bow and spread out his hands in a solemn gesture.

“Well, dear lady! To what are we indebted for the honour of a visit
from this personage from the royal city of--?”

“Oh, give me a kiss, Tom,” she said, sat up to offer him her cheek,
and then sank back again. “Well, how are you, my dear boy? Quite
unchanged, I see, since I saw you in Munich.”

“You can’t tell much about it with the blinds down, my dear. And you
ought not to steal my thunder like that, either. It is more suitable
for me to say--” he held her hand in his, and at the same time drew up
a chair beside the bed--“as I so often have, that you and Tilda--”

“Oh, for shame, Tom!--How is Tilda?”

“Well, of course. Madame Krauseminz sees she doesn’t starve. Which
doesn’t prevent her eating for the week ahead when she comes here on
Thursday.”

She laughed very heartily--as she had not for a long time back, in
fact. Then she broke off with a sigh, and asked “And how is business?”

“Oh, we get on. Mustn’t complain.”

“Thank goodness, here everything is as it should be. Oh, Tom, I don’t
feel much like chatting pleasantly about trifles!”

“Pity. One should preserve one’s sense of humour, _quand même_.”

“All that is at an end, Tom.--You know all?”

“‘You know all’!” he repeated. He dropped her hand and pushed back his
chair. “Goodness gracious, how that sounds! ‘All’! What-all lies in
that ‘all’? ‘My love and grief I gave thee,’ eh? No, listen!”

She was silent. She swept him with an astonished and deeply offended
glance.

“Yes, I expected that look,” he said, “for without that look you would
not be here. But, dear Tony, let me take the thing as much too lightly
as you take it too seriously. You will see we shall complement each
other very nicely--”

“Too seriously, Thomas? _I_ take it too seriously?”

“Yes.--For heaven’s sake, don’t let’s make a tragedy of it! Let us
take it in a lower key, not with ‘all is at an end’ and ‘your unhappy
Antonie.’ Don’t misunderstand me, Tony. You well know that no one can
be gladder than I that you have come. I have long wished you would come
to us on a visit by yourself, without your husband, so that we could
be _en famille_ together once more. But to come now, like this--my dear
child, I beg your pardon, but it was--foolish. Yes--let me finish!
Permaneder has certainly behaved very badly, as I will give him to
understand pretty clearly--don’t be afraid of that--”

“As to how he has behaved himself, Thomas,” she interrupted him,
raising herself up to lay a hand upon her breast, “as far as that goes,
I have already given him to understand that--and not only ‘given him
to understand,’ I can tell you! I am convinced that further discussion
with that man is entirely out of place.” And she let herself fall back
again and looked sternly and fixedly at the ceiling.

He bowed, as if under the weight of her words, and kept on looking down
at his knee and smiling.

“Well, then, I won’t send him a stiff letter. It is just as you say.
In the end it is after all your affair, and it is quite enough if you
put him in his place--it is your duty as his wife. After all, there are
some extenuating circumstances. There was a birthday celebration, and
he came home a little bit exalted, so to speak, and was guilty of a
false step, an unseemly blunder--”

“Thomas,” said she, “I do not understand you. I do not understand your
tone. You--a man with your principles! But you did not see him. You did
not see how drunk he looked--”

“He looked ridiculous enough, I’m sure. But that is it, Tony. You
will not see how comic it was--but probably that is the fault of your
bad digestion. You caught your husband in a moment of weakness, and
you have seen him make himself look ridiculous. But that ought not
to outrage you to such an extent. It ought to amuse you a little,
perhaps, but bring you closer together as human beings. I will say that
I don’t mean you could have just let it pass with a laugh and said
nothing about it--not at all. You left home; that was a demonstration
of a rather extreme kind, perhaps--a bit too severe--but, after all,
he deserved it. I imagine he is feeling pretty down in the mouth.
I only mean that you must get to take the thing differently--not
so insulted--a little more politic point of view. We are just
between ourselves. Let me tell you something, Tony. In any marriage,
the important thing is, on which side the moral ascendency lies.
Understand? Your husband has laid himself open, there is no doubt of
that. He compromised himself and made a laughable spectacle--laughable,
precisely because what he did was actually so harmless, so impossible
to take seriously. But, after all, his dignity is impaired--and the
moral advantage has passed over to you. If you know how to use it
wisely, your happiness is assured. If you go back, say in a couple of
weeks--certainly I must insist on keeping you for ourselves as long as
that--if you go back to Munich in a couple of weeks, you will see--”

“I will not go back to Munich, Thomas.”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, putting his hand to his ear and screwing
up his face as he bent forward.

She was lying on her back with her head sunk in the pillow, so that
her chin stood out with an effect of severity. “Never,” she said. And
she gave a long, audible outward breath and cleared her throat, also
at length and deliberately. It was like a dry cough, which had of
late become almost a habit with her, and had probably to do with her
digestive trouble. There followed a pause.

“Tony,” he said suddenly, getting up and slapping his hand on the arm
of his chair, “you aren’t going to make a scandal!”

She gave a side-glance and saw him all pale, with the muscles standing
out on his temples. Her position was no longer tenable. She bestirred
herself and, to hide the fear she really felt of him, grew angry in her
turn. She sat up quickly and put her feet to the floor. With glowing
cheeks and a frowning brow, making hasty motions of the head and
hands, she began: “Scandal, Thomas! You want to tell me not to make
a scandal, when I have been insulted, and people spit in my face? Is
that worthy of a brother, you will permit me to ask? Circumspection,
tact--they are very well in their place. But there are limits, Tom--I
know just as much of life as you do, and I tell you there is a point
where the care for appearances leaves off, and cowardice begins! I am
astonished that such a stupid goose as I am have to tell you this--yes,
I am a stupid goose, and I should not be surprised if Permaneder never
loved me at all, for I am an ugly old woman, very likely, and Babette
is certainly prettier than I am! But did that give him a right to
forget the respect he owed to my family, and my upbringing, and all my
feelings? You did not see the way he forgot himself, Tom; and since
you did not see it, you cannot understand, for I can never tell you
how disgusting he was. You did not hear the word that he called after
me, your sister, when I took my things and went out of the room, to
sleep on the sofa in the living-room. But _I_ heard it, and it was a
word that--a word-- Oh, it was that word, let me tell you, Thomas, that
caused me, to spend the whole night packing my trunk, to wake Erica
early in the morning, and to leave the place, rather than to remain
in the neighbourhood of a man who could utter such words. And to such
a man, as I said before, I will never, never return, not so long as I
have any self-respect, or care in the least what becomes of me in my
life on this earth.”

“And will you now have the goodness, to tell me what this cursed word
was? Yes or no?”

“Never, Thomas! Never would I permit that word to cross my lips. I know
too well what I owe to you and to myself within these walls.”

“Then it’s no use talking with you!”

“That may easily be. I am sure I do not want to discuss it any further.”

“What do you expect to do? Get a divorce?”

“Yes, Tom; such is my firm determination. I feel that I owe it to
myself, my child, and my family.”

“That is all nonsense, of course,” he said in a dispassionate tone.
He turned on his heel and moved away, as if his words had settled
the matter. “It takes two to make a divorce, my child. Do you think
Permaneder will just say yes and thank you kindly? The idea is absurd.”

“Oh, you can leave that to me,” she said, quite undismayed. “You mean
he will refuse on account of the seventeen thousand marks current. But
Grünlich wasn’t willing, either, and they made him. There are ways and
means, I’m sure. I’ll go to Dr. Gieseke. He is Christian’s friend, and
he will help me. Oh, yes, of course, I know it was not the same thing
then. It was ‘incapacity of the husband to provide for his family.’
You see, I know my way about in these affairs. Dear me, you act as if
this were the first time in my life that I got a divorce! But even so,
Tom. Perhaps there is nothing that applies to this case. Perhaps it is
impossible--you may be right. But it is all the same; my resolve is
fixed. Let him keep the money. There are higher things in life. He will
never see me again, either way.”

She coughed again. She had left the bed and seated herself in an
easy-chair, resting one elbow on its arm. Her chin was so deeply buried
in her hand that her four bent fingers clutched her under lip. She sat
with her body turned to the right, staring with red, excited eyes out
of the window.

The Consul walked up and down, sighed, shook his head, shrugged his
shoulders. He paused in front of her, fairly wringing his hands.

“You are a child, Tony, a child,” said he in a discouraged, almost
pleading tone. “Every word you have spoken is the most utter childish
nonsense. Will you make an effort, now, if I beg you, to think about
the thing for just one minute like a grown woman? Don’t you see that
you are acting as if something very serious and dreadful had happened
to you--as if your husband had cruelly betrayed you and heaped insults
on you before all the world? Do try to realize that nothing of the sort
has happened! Not a single soul in the world knows anything about that
silly affair that happened at the top of your staircase in Kaufinger
Street. Your dignity, and ours, will suffer no slightest diminution if
you go calmly and composedly back to Permaneder--of course, with your
nose in the air! But, on the other hand, if you don’t go back, if you
give this nonsense so much importance as to make a scandal out of it,
then you will be wounding our dignity indeed.”

She jerked her chin out of her hand and stared him in the face.

“That’s enough, Thomas Buddenbrook. Be quiet now; it’s my turn. Listen.
So you think there is no shame and no scandal so long as people don’t
get to hear it? Ah, no! The shame that gnaws at us secretly and eats
away our self-respect--that is far, far worse. Are we Buddenbrooks
the sort of people to be satisfied if everything looks ‘tip-top,’
as you say here, on the outside, no matter how much mortification
we have to choke down, inside our four walls? I cannot help feeling
astonished at you, Tom. Think of our Father and how he would act
to-day--and then judge as he would! No, no! Clean and open dealings
must be the rule. Why, you can open your books any day, for all the
world to see, and say, ‘Here they are, look at them.’ We should all
of us be just the same. I know how God has made me. I am not afraid.
Let Julchen Möllendorpf pass me in the street and not speak, if she
wants to. Let Pfiffi Buddenbrook sit here on Thursday afternoons and
shake all over with spite, and say, ‘Well, that is the second time!
But, _of course_, both times the men were to blame!’ I feel so far
above all that now, Thomas--farther than I can tell you! I know I have
done what I thought was right. But if I am to be so afraid of Julchen
Möllendorpf and Pfiffi Buddenbrook as to swallow down all sorts of
insults and let myself be cursed out in a drunken dialect that isn’t
even grammar--to stop with a man in a town where I have to get used to
that kind of language and the kind of scenes I saw that night at the
top of the stairs--where I have to forget my origin and my upbringing
and everything that I am, and learn to disown it altogether in order
to act as if I were satisfied and happy--_that_ is what _I_ call
undignified--_that_ is what _I_ call scandalous, I tell you!”

She broke off, buried her chin once more in her hand, and stared out of
the window. He stood before her, his weight on one leg, his hands in
his trousers pockets. His eyes rested on her unseeing, for he was in
deep thought, and slowly moving his head from side to side.

“Tony,” he said. “You’re telling the truth. I knew it all along; but
you betrayed yourself just now. It is not the man at all. It is the
place. It isn’t this other idiotic business--it is the whole thing all
together. You couldn’t get used to it. Tell the truth.”

“Thomas,” she cried, “it is the truth!” She sprang up as she spoke,
and pointed straight into his face with her outstretched hand. Her own
face was red. She stood there in a warlike pose, one hand grasping
the chair, gesticulating with the other, and made a long, agitated,
passionate speech that welled up in a resistless tide. The Consul
stared at her amazed. Scarcely would she pause to draw breath, when new
words would come gushing and bubbling forth. Yes, she found words for
everything; she gave full expression to all the accumulated disgust
of her Munich years. Unassorted, confused, she poured it all out, one
thing after another; she kept nothing back. It was like the bursting
of a dam--an assertion of desperate integrity; something elemental, a
force of nature, that brooked no restraint.

“It is the truth!” she cried. “Say it again, Thomas! Oh, I can tell
you plainly, I am no stupid goose any longer; I know what I have to
expect. I don’t faint away at my time of life, to hear that dirty work
goes on now and then. I’ve known people like Teary Trieschke, and I
was married to Bendix Grünlich, and I know the dissipated creatures
there are here in this town. I am no country innocent, I tell you; and
the affair with Babette wouldn’t have made me go off the handle like
that, just by itself. No, Thomas, the thing was that it filled the cup
to overflowing--and that didn’t take much, for it was full already,
and had been for a long time--a long time. It would have taken very
little to make it run over. And then this happened! The knowledge that
I could not depend on Permaneder even in that way--that put the top
on everything. It knocked the bottom out of the cask. It brought to a
head all at once my intention to get away from Munich, that had been
slowly growing in my mind a long time before that, Tom; for I cannot
live down there--I swear it before God and all His heavenly hosts! How
wretched I have been, Thomas, you can never know. When you were there
on a visit, I concealed everything, for I am a tactful woman and do not
burden others with my complainings, nor wear my heart on my sleeve on
a week-day. I have always been rather reserved. But I have suffered,
Tom, suffered with my entire being--with my whole personality, so to
speak. Like a plant, a flower that has been transplanted into a foreign
soil--if I may make such a comparison. You will probably find it a most
unsuitable one, for I am really an ugly old woman--but I could not be
planted in a more foreign soil than that, and I would just as lief go
and live in Turkey! Oh, we should never be transplanted, we northern
folk! We should stick to the shore of our own bay; we can only really
thrive upon our native soil! You all used to laugh at my taste for the
nobility. Yes, in these years I have often thought of what somebody
said to me once, in times gone by. A very clever man. ‘Your sympathies
are with the nobility,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you why? Because you
yourself belong to the nobility. Your father is a great gentleman, and
you are a princess. A gulf lies between you and the rest of us who
do not belong to the governing classes.’ Yes, Tom. We feel like the
nobility, and we realize the difference; we should never try to live
where we are not known, where no one understands our worth, for we
shall have nothing but chagrin, and be laughed at for our arrogance.
Yes, they all found me ridiculously arrogant. They did not say so,
but I felt it every minute, and that made me suffer, too. Do you think
I feel arrogant, Tom--in a place where they eat cake with a knife,
and the very princes speak bad grammar, and if a gentleman picks up
a lady’s fan it is supposed to be a love-affair. Get used to it? To
people without dignity, morals, energy, ambition, self-respect, or good
manners, lazy and frivolous, stupid and shallow at the same time?--no,
never, never, as long as I am a Buddenbrook and your sister! Eva Ewers
managed it--but Eva is not a Buddenbrook, and she has a husband that
amounts to something. It was different with me. You think back, Tom,
from the very beginning: I come from a home where people work and get
things accomplished and have a purpose in life, and I go down there
to Permaneder--and he sits himself down with my dowry-- Oh, that was
genuine enough, that was characteristic--but it was the only good thing
there was about it! And then? I was going to have a baby; that would
have made everything up to me. And what happens? It dies. I don’t blame
Permaneder for that, of course; I don’t mean that. God forbid. He did
everything he could--and he didn’t go to the café for several days.
But, after all, it belonged to the same thing. It made me no happier,
as you can well believe. But I didn’t give in, and I didn’t grumble. I
was alone, and misunderstood, and pointed at for being arrogant; but
I said to myself: ‘You yielded him your consent for life. He is lumpy
and lazy, and he caused you a cruel disappointment. But his heart is
pure, and he means well.’ And then I had to bear the sight of him in
that last unspeakable minute. And I said to myself: ‘He understands you
no better and respects you no more and no less than the others do, and
he calls you names that one of our workmen up here wouldn’t throw at a
dog!’ I knew then that nothing bound me to him any more, and that it
was an indignity for me to stay. When I was driving from the station
this afternoon, I passed Nielsen the porter, and he took off his hat
and made me a deep bow, and I bowed back to him--not arrogantly, not a
bit--I waved my hand, just the way Father used to. And here I am. You
can do what you like: you can harness up all your work-horses--but you
can never drag me back to Munich again. And to-morrow I go to Gieseke!”

Thus she spoke; and, finishing, sank back exhausted in her chair and
stared again out of the window.

Tom was alarmed, shaken, stupefied. He stood before her and found no
words. He raised his arms up shoulder-high, drawing a long breath. Then
he let them fall against his thighs.

“Well, that’s an end of it,” he said. His voice was calm, and he turned
and went toward the door.

Her face wore now the same expression, the same half-pouting,
half-injured smile, as when he entered.

“Tom?” she said, with a rising inflection. “Are you vexed with me?”

He held the oval doorknob in one hand and made a gesture of weary
protest with the other. “Oh, no. Not at all.”

She put out her hand and tipped her head on one side. “Come here, Tom.
Your poor sister has had a hard time. Life is hard on her. She has much
to bear. And at this minute she has nobody, in all the world--”

He came back; he took her hand; but wearily, indifferently, not looking
at her face. Suddenly her lip began to quiver.

“You must go on alone now,” she said. “There’s nothing good to be
looked for from Christian, and I am finished. Failed. Gone to pieces.
I can do no more. I am a poor, useless woman, dependent on you all for
my living. I could never have dreamed, Tom, that I should be no help to
you at all. Now you stand quite alone, and upon you it depends to keep
up the honour and dignity of the family. May God help you in the task.”

Two large, clear, childish tears rolled down over her cheeks, which
were beginning to show, very faintly, the first signs of age.




CHAPTER XI


Tony lost no time. She went resolutely about her affair. In the hope
of quieting her, of bringing her slowly to a different frame of mind,
the Consul said but little. He asked only one thing: that she should be
very quiet and stop entirely in the house--and Erica as well. Perhaps
it would blow over. The town did not need to know. The family Thursday
afternoon was put off on some pretext.

But on the very next day she wrote to Dr. Gieseke and summoned him to
Meng Street. She received him alone, in the middle corridor room on the
first floor, where a fire was laid, and she had arranged a heavy table
with ink and writing materials and a quantity of foolscap paper from
the office. They sat down in two easy-chairs.

“Doctor Gieseke,” said Tony. She folded her arms, flung back her
head, and looked at the ceiling while she spoke. “You are a man of
experience, both professionally and personally. I can speak openly with
you.” And thereupon she revealed to him the whole story about Babette
and what had happened in her sleeping-chamber. Dr. Gieseke regretted
being obliged to explain to her that neither the affair on the stairs
nor the insult she had undoubtedly received, the precise nature of
which she hesitated to divulge, was sufficient ground for a divorce.

“Very good,” she said. “Thank you.”

And then, at her request, he gave an exposition of the existing legal
grounds for divorce, and an even longer discourse after it, which had
for its subject-matter the law touching dowry rights. She listened
with open mind and strained attention; and then, with cordial thanks,
dismissed Dr. Gieseke for the time being.

She went downstairs and demanded audience of her brother in his private
office.

“Thomas,” she said, “please write to the man at once--I do not
like to mention his name. As far as the money goes, I am perfectly
informed on that subject. Let him speak. Me he shall never see again,
whatever he decides. If he agrees to a divorce, we will ask him to
give an accounting and restore my _dos_. If he refuses, we need not be
discouraged. For, as you probably know, Permaneder’s right to my _dos_,
is, legally speaking a property right. We grant that. But on the other
hand, thank goodness, I have certain material rights on my side--”

The Consul walked up and down with his hands behind his back, his
shoulders twitching nervously. Tony’s face, as she uttered the word
_dos_ was too unutterably self-satisfied!

He had no time. Heaven knew he had no time. Let her have patience,
and wait, and bethink herself a hundred times. His nearest duty was
a journey to Hamburg--indeed, he must go the very next day, for the
purpose of a personal interview with Christian. Christian had written
for help, for money which would have to come out of the Frau Consul’s
inheritance. His business was in frightful condition; he was in
constant difficulties. Yet he seemed to amuse himself royally and went
everywhere, to theatres, restaurants, and concert halls. To judge from
the debts now coming to light, which he had been able to pile up on
the credit of his family name, he had been living far, far beyond his
means. And they knew in Meng Street, and at the club--yes, the whole
town knew--who was responsible. It was a certain female, a certain
Aline Puvogel, who lived alone with her two pretty children. Christian
was not the only Hamburg business man who possessed her favours and
spent money on her.

In short, Tony’s intentions in the matter of her divorce were not the
only dark spot in the Consul’s sky; and the journey to Hamburg was
pressing. Besides, it was altogether likely that they would hear from
Herr Permaneder.

The Consul went to Hamburg, and came back angry and depressed. No word
had come from Munich, and he felt obliged to take the first step. He
wrote; wrote rather coldly, with curt condescension, to this effect:
Antonie, during her life with Permaneder, had been subjected to great
disappointments--that would not be denied. Without going into detail,
it was evident that she could never find happiness in this marriage.
Her wish that it should be dissolved must be justified, to the mind of
any reasonable person; and her determination not to return to Munich
was entirely unshakable. And he put the question as to what were Herr
Permaneder’s feelings in view of the facts which he had just stated.

There were more days of suspense. And then came Herr Permaneder’s reply.

He answered as no one had expected him to answer--not Dr. Gieseke, nor
the Frau Consul, not Thomas, nor Antonie herself. He agreed, quite
simply, to a divorce.

He wrote that he deeply regretted what had happened, but that he
respected Antonie’s wishes, as he saw that he and she had “never hit it
off.” If it were true that she had suffered during those years through
him, he begged her to forget and forgive. As he would probably never
see her and Erica again, he sent them both his hearty good-wishes for
all happiness on this earth. And he signed himself, Alois Permaneder.
In a postscript he offered to make immediate restitution of the dowry.
He had enough without it to lead a life free from care. He did not
require to have notice given, for business there was none to wind up,
the house belonged to him, and the money was ready any time.

Tony felt a slight twinge of shame, and was almost inclined, for the
first time, to admit that Herr Permaneder’s indifference to money
matters might have something good about it.

Now it was Dr. Gieseke’s turn again. He communicated with the husband,
and a plea of “mutual incompatibility” was set up as ground for the
divorce. The hearing began--Tony’s second divorce case. She talked
about it night and day, and the Consul lost his temper several times.
Tony was in no state to share his feelings. She was entirely taken
up with words like “tangibilities,” “improvabilities,” “accessions,”
“productivity,” “dowry rights,” and the like, which she used in season
and out of season, with marvellous fluency, her shoulders slightly
raised. One point in Dr. Gieseke’s long disquisitions had made a great
impression on her: it had to do with “treasure” found in any piece
of property that has constituted part of a dowry, which was to be
regarded as a component part of the dowry, to be liquidated if the
marriage came to an end. About this “treasure”--which was, of course,
non-existent--she talked to every soul she knew: Ida Jungmann, Uncle
Justus, poor Clothilde, the Broad Street Buddenbrooks--and they, when
they heard how matters stood, just folded their hands in their laps and
looked at each other in speechless joy that this satisfaction, too, had
been vouchsafed them. Therese Weichbrodt was told of it--Erica had gone
to stay at the pension again--and Madame Kethelsen too, though this
last, for more than one reason, understood not a single word.

Then came the day when the divorce was pronounced; when the last
formalities were gone through, and Tony asked Thomas for the family
papers and set down this last event with her own hand. Yes, it was
done. All that remained was to get used to it.

She did it gallantly. She bore, with unscathed dignity, the tiny
dagger-thrusts of the ladies from Broad Street; she met the Hagenströms
and Möllendorpfs on the street and looked with chilling indifference
straight over their heads; and she quite gave up going into
society--the more easily that it had for some years past forsaken her
Mother’s house for her brother’s. She had her own immediate family,
the Frau Consul, Tom, and Gerda; she had Ida Jungmann and her motherly
friend Sesemi Weichbrodt; and she had Erica, upon whose future she
probably built her own last secret hopes, and upon whose aristocratic
upbringing she expended much care and thought.

Thus she lived, and thus time went on.

Later, in some way that was never quite clear, there came to certain
members of the family knowledge of that “word,” the desperate word
which had escaped from Herr Permaneder on that never-to-be-forgotten
night.

What was it, then, that he had said?

“Go to the devil, you filthy sprat-eating slut!”

And thus Tony Buddenbrook’s second marriage came to an end.


END OF VOLUME I




A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET


_This book is composed on the Linotype in Bodoni, so-called after its
designer, Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) a celebrated Italian scholar
and printer. Bodoni planned his type especially for use on the more
smoothly finished papers that came into vogue late in the eighteenth
century and drew his letters with a mechanical regularity that is
readily apparent on comparison with the less formal old style. Other
characteristics that will be noted are the square serifs without fillet
and the marked contrast between the light and heavy strokes._

[Illustration]

  SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
  BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.,
  BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · PAPER MANUFACTURED
  BY W. C. HAMILTON
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  FURNISHED BY W. F.
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  WOLFF ESTATE,
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
    public domain.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 72961 ***