flickering, and timorous than my own? Blind, childish folly! What
can my son do for me--what need have I of a son? Where shall I be
when I am dead? Ah, it is so brilliantly clear, so overwhelmingly
simple! I shall be in all those who have ever, do ever, or ever shall
say “I”--_especially, however, in all those who say it most fully,
potently, and gladly_!
Somewhere in the world a child is growing up, strong, well-grown,
adequate, able to develop its powers, gifted, untroubled, pure, joyous,
relentless, one of those beings whose glance heightens the joy of
the joyous and drives the unhappy to despair. _He_ is my son. He is
I, myself, soon, soon; as soon as Death frees me from the wretched
delusion that I am not he as well as myself.
Have I ever hated life--pure, strong, relentless life? Folly and
misconception! I have but hated myself, because I could not bear it. I
love you, I love you all, you blessed, and soon, soon, I shall cease to
be cut off from you all by the narrow bonds of myself; soon will that
in me which loves you be free and be in and with you--in and with you
all.
He wept, he pressed his face into the pillows and wept, shaken through
and through, lifted up in transports by a joy without compare for its
exquisite sweetness. This it was which since yesterday had filled him
as if with a heady, intoxicating draught, had worked in his heart in
the darkness of the night and roused him like a budding love! And in
so far as he could now understand and recognize--not in words and
consecutive thoughts, but in sudden rapturous illuminations of his
inmost being--he was already free, already actually released and free
of all natural as well as artificial limitations. The walls of his
native town, in which he had wilfully and consciously shut himself up,
opened out; they opened and disclosed to his view the entire world,
of which he had in his youth seen this or that small portion, and of
which Death now promised him the whole. The deceptive perceptions of
space, time and history, the preoccupation with a glorious historical
continuity of life in the person of his own descendants, the dread of
some future final dissolution and decomposition--all this his spirit
now put aside. He was no longer prevented from grasping eternity.
Nothing began, nothing left off. There was only an endless present; and
that power in him which loved life with a love so exquisitely sweet
and yearning--the power of which his person was only the unsuccessful
expression--that power would always know how to find access to this
present.
“I shall live,” he whispered into his pillow. He wept, and in the next
moment knew not why. His brain stood still, the vision was quenched.
Suddenly there was nothing more--he lay in dumb darkness. “It will come
back,” he assured himself. And before sleep inexorably wrapped him
round, he swore to himself never to let go this precious treasure, but
to read and study, to learn its powers, and to make inalienably his own
the whole conception of the universe out of which his vision sprang.
But that could not be. Even the next day, as he woke with a faint
feeling of shame at the emotional extravagances of the night, he
suspected that it would be hard to put these beautiful designs into
practice.
He rose late and had to go at once to take part in the debate at an
assembly of burgesses. Public business, the civic life that went on in
the gabled narrow streets of this middle-sized trading city, consumed
his energies once more. He still planned to take up the wonderful
reading again where he had left it off. But he questioned of himself
whether the events of that night had been anything firm and permanent;
whether, when Death approached, they would be found to hold their
ground.
His middle-class instincts rose against them--and his vanity, too:
the fear of being eccentric, of playing a laughable rôle. Had he
really seen these things? And did they really become him--him, Thomas
Buddenbrook, head of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook?
He never succeeded in looking again into the precious volume--to say
nothing of buying its other parts. His days were consumed by nervous
pedantry: harassed by a thousand details, all of them unimportant, he
was too weak-willed to arrive at a reasonable and fruitful arrangement
of his time. Nearly two weeks after that memorable afternoon he gave it
up--and ordered the maid-servant to fetch the book from the drawer in
the garden table and replace it in the bookcase.
And thus Thomas Buddenbrook, who had held his hands stretched
imploringly upward toward the high ultimate truth, sank now weakly back
to the images and conceptions of his childhood. He strove to call back
that personal God, the Father of all human beings, who had sent a part
of Himself upon earth to suffer and bleed for our sins, and who, on the
final day, would come to judge the quick and the dead; at whose feet
the justified, in the course of the eternity then beginning, would be
recompensed for the sorrows they had borne in this vale of tears. Yes,
he strove to subscribe to the whole confused unconvincing story, which
required no intelligence, only obedient credulity; and which, when the
last anguish came, would sustain one in a firm and childlike faith.--
But would it, really?
Ah, even here there was no peace. This poor, well-nigh exhausted man,
consumed with gnawing fears for the honour of his house, his wife, his
child, his name, his family, this man who spent painful effort even
to keep his body artificially erect and well-preserved--this poor man
tortured himself for days with thoughts upon the moment and manner of
death. How would it really be? Did the soul go to Heaven immediately
after death, or did bliss first begin with the resurrection of the
flesh? And, if so, where did the soul stay until that time? He did not
remember ever having been taught this. Why had he not been told this
important fact in school or in church? How was it justifiable for them
to leave people in such uncertainty? He considered visiting Pastor
Pringsheim and seeking advice and counsel; but he gave it up in the end
for fear of being ridiculous.
And finally he gave it all up--he left it all to God. But having come
to such an unsatisfactory ending of his attempts to set his spiritual
affairs in order, he determined at least to spare no pains over his
earthly ones, and to carry out a plan which he had long entertained.
One day little Johann heard his father tell his mother, as they drank
their coffee in the living-room after the midday meal, that he expected
Lawyer So-and-So to make his will. He really ought not to keep on
putting it off. Later, in the afternoon, Hanno practised his music for
an hour. When he went down the corridor after that, he met, coming up
the stairs, his father and a gentleman in a long black overcoat.
“Hanno,” said the Senator, curtly. And little Johann stopped,
swallowed, and said quickly and softly: “Yes, Papa.”
“I have some important business with this gentleman,” his father went
on. “Will you stand before the door into the smoking-room and take care
that nobody--absolutely nobody, you understand--disturbs us?”
“Yes, Papa,” said little Johann, and took up his post before the door,
which closed after the two gentlemen.
He stood there, clutching his sailor’s knot with one hand, felt with
his tongue for a doubtful tooth, and listened to the earnest subdued
voices which could be heard from inside. His head, with the curling
light-brown hair, he held on one side, and his face with the frowning
brows and blue-shadowed, gold-brown eyes, wore that same displeased
and brooding look with which he had inhaled the odour of the flowers,
and that other strange, yet half-familiar odour, by his grandmother’s
bier.
Ida Jungmann passed and said, “Well, little Hanno, why are you hanging
about here?”
And the hump-backed apprentice came out of the office with a telegram,
and asked for the Senator.
But, both times, little Johann put his arm in its blue sailor sleeve
with the anchor on it horizontally across the door; both times he shook
his head and said softly, after a pause, “No one may go in. Papa is
making his will.”
CHAPTER VI
In the autumn Dr. Langhals said, making play like a woman with his
beautiful eyes: “It is the nerves, Senator; the nerves are to blame for
everything. And once in a while the circulation is not what it should
be. May I venture to make a suggestion? You need another little rest.
These few Sundays by the sea, during the summer, haven’t amounted to
much, of course. It’s the end of September, Travemünde is still open,
there are still a few people there. Drive over, Senator, and sit on the
beach a little. Two or three weeks will do you a great deal of good.”
And Thomas Buddenbrook said “yes” and “amen.” But when he told his
family of the arrangement, Christian suggested going with him.
“I’ll go with you, Thomas,” he said, quite simply. “You don’t mind, I
suppose.” And the Senator, though he did mind very much, said “yes” and
“amen” to this arrangement as well.
Christian was now more than ever master of his own time. His
fluctuating health had constrained him to give up his last undertaking,
the champagne and spirit agency. The man who used to come and sit on
his sofa and nod at him in the twilight had happily not recurred of
late. But the misery in the side had, if anything, grown worse, and
added to this was a whole list of other infirmities of which Christian
kept the closest watch, and which he described in all companies,
with his nose wrinkled up. He often suffered from that long-standing
dread of paralysis of the tongue, throat, and œsophagus, even of the
extremities and of the brain--of which there were no actual symptoms,
but the fear in itself was almost worse. He told in detail how, one
day when he was making tea, he had held the lighted match not over the
spirit-lamp, but over the open bottle of methylated spirit instead;
so that not only himself, but the people in his own and the adjacent
buildings, nearly went up in flames. And he dwelt in particular
detail, straining every resource he had at his command to make himself
perfectly clear, upon a certain ghastly anomaly which he had of late
observed in himself. It was this: that on certain days, i.e., under
certain weather conditions, and in certain states of mind, he could not
see an open window without having a horrible and inexplicable impulse
to jump out. It was a mad and almost uncontrollable desire, a sort of
desperate foolhardiness. The family were dining on Sunday in Fishers’
Lane, and he described how he had to summon all his powers, and crawl
on hands and knees to the window to shut it. At this point everybody
shrieked; his audience rebelled, and would listen no more.
He told these and similar things with a certain horrible satisfaction.
But the thing about himself which he did not know, which he never
studied and described, but which none the less grew worse and worse,
was his singular lack of tact. He told in the family circle anecdotes
of such a nature that the club was the only possible place for them.
And even his sense of personal modesty seemed to be breaking down.
He was on friendly terms with his sister-in-law, Gerda. But when he
displayed to her the beautiful weave and texture of his English socks,
he did not stop at that, but rolled up his wide, checkered trouser-leg
to far above the knee: “Look,” he said, wrinkling his nose in distress:
“Look how thin I’m getting. Isn’t it striking and unusual?” And there
he sat, sadly gazing at his crooked, bony leg and the gaunt knee
visible through his white woollen drawers.
His mercantile activity then, was a thing of the past. But such hours
as he did not spend at the club he liked to fill in with one sort of
occupation or another; and he would proudly point out that he had
never actually ceased to work. He extended his knowledge of languages
and embarked upon a study of Chinese--though this was for the sake of
acquiring knowledge, simply, with no practical purpose in view. He
worked at it industriously for two weeks. He was also, just at this
time, occupied with a project of enlarging an English-German dictionary
which he had found inadequate. But he really needed a little change,
and it would be better too for the Senator to have somebody with him;
so he did not allow his business to keep him in town.
The two brothers drove out together to the sea along the turnpike,
which was nothing but a puddle. The rain drummed on the carriage-top,
and they hardly spoke. Christian’s eyes roved hither and yon; he was
as if listening to uncanny noises. Thomas sat muffled in his cloak,
shivering, gazing with bloodshot eyes, his moustaches stiffly sticking
out beyond his white cheeks. They drove up to the Kurhouse in the
afternoon, their wheels grating in the wet gravel. Old Broker Gosch
sat in the glass verandah, drinking rum punch. He stood up, whistling
through his teeth, and they all sat down together to have a little
something warm while the trunks were being carried up.
Herr Gosch was a late guest at the cure, and there were a few other
people as well: an English family, a Dutch maiden lady, and a Hamburg
bachelor, all of them presumably taking their rest before table-d’hôte,
for it was like the grave everywhere but for the sound of the rain.
Let them sleep! As for Herr Gosch, he was not in the habit of sleeping
in the daytime. He was glad enough to get a few hours’ sleep at night.
He was far from well; he was taking a late cure for the benefit of
this trembling which he suffered from in all his limbs. Hang it, he
could hardly hold his glass of grog; and more often than not he could
not write at all--so that the translation of Lope da Vega got on but
slowly. He was in a very low mood indeed, and even his curses lacked
relish. “Let it go hang!” was his constant phrase, which he repeated
on every occasion and often on none at all.
And the Senator? How was he feeling? How long were the gentlemen
thinking of stopping?
Oh, Dr. Langhals had sent him out on account of his nerves. He had
obeyed orders, of course, despite the frightful weather--what doesn’t
one do out of fear of one’s physician? He was really feeling more or
less miserable, and they would probably remain till there was a little
improvement.
“Yes, I’m pretty wretched too,” said Christian, irritated at Thomas’s
speaking only of himself. He was about to fetch out his repertoire--the
nodding man, the spirit-bottle, the open window--when the Senator
interrupted him by going to engage the rooms.
The rain did not stop. It washed away the earth, it danced upon the
sea, which was driven back by the south-west wind and left the beaches
bare. Everything was shrouded in grey. The steamers went by like
wraiths and vanished on the dim horizon.
They met the strange guests only at table. The Senator, in mackintosh
and goloshes, went walking with Gosch; Christian drank Swedish punch
with the barmaid in the pastry-shop.
Two or three times in the afternoon it looked as though the sun were
coming out; and a few acquaintances from town appeared--people who
enjoyed a holiday away from their families: Senator Dr. Gieseke,
Christian’s friend, and Consul Peter Döhlmann, who looked very ill
indeed, and was killing himself with Hunyadi-Janos water. The gentlemen
sat together in their overcoats, under the awnings of the pastry-shop,
opposite the empty bandstand, drinking their coffee, digesting their
five courses, and talking desultorily as they gazed over the empty
garden.
The news of the town--the last high water, which had gone into the
cellars and been so deep that in the lower part of the town people
had to go about in boats; a fire in the dockyard sheds; a senatorial
election--these were the topics of conversation. Alfred Lauritzen, of
the firm of Stürmann & Lauritzen, tea, coffee, and spice merchants, had
been elected, and Senator Buddenbrook had not approved of the choice.
He sat smoking cigarettes, wrapped in his cloak, almost silent except
for a few remarks on this particular subject. One thing was certain,
he said, and that was that _he_ had not voted for Herr Lauritzen.
Lauritzen was an honest fellow and a good man of business. There was
no doubt of that; but he was middle-class, respectable middle-class.
His father had fished herrings out of the barrel and handed them
across the counter to servant-maids with his own hands--and now they
had in the Senate the proprietor of a retail business. His, Thomas
Buddenbrook’s father had disowned his eldest son for “marrying a shop”;
but that was in the good old days. “The standard is being lowered,” he
said. “The social level is not so high as it was; the Senate is being
democratized, my dear Gieseke, and that is no good. Business ability
is one thing--but it is not everything. In my view we should demand
something more. Alfred Lauritzen, with his big feet and his boatswain’s
face--it is offensive to me to think of him in the Senate-house. It
offends something in me, I don’t know what. It goes against my sense of
form--it is a piece of bad taste, in short.”
Senator Gieseke demurred. He was rather piqued by this expression of
opinion. After all, he himself was only the son of a Fire Commissioner.
No, the labourer was worthy of his hire. That was what being a
republican meant. “You ought not to smoke so much, Buddenbrook,” he
ended. “You won’t get any sea air.”
“I’ll stop now,” said Thomas Buddenbrook, flung away the end of his
cigarette, and closed his eyes.
The conversation dragged on; the rain set in again and veiled the
prospect. They began to talk about the latest town scandal--about P.
Philipp Kassbaum, who had been falsifying bills of exchange and now
sat behind locks and bars. No one felt outraged over the dishonesty:
they spoke of it as an act of folly, laughed a bit, and shrugged their
shoulders. Senator Dr. Gieseke said that the convicted man had not lost
his spirits. He had asked for a mirror, it seemed, there being none in
his cell. “I’ll need a looking-glass,” he was reported to have said:
“I shall be here for some time.” He had been, like Christian and Dr.
Gieseke, a pupil of the lamented Marcellus Stengel.
They all laughed again at this, through their noses, without a sign
of feeling. Siegismund Gosch ordered another grog in a tone of voice
that was as good as saying, “What’s the use of living?” Consul Döhlmann
sent for a bottle of brandy. Christian felt inclined to more Swedish
punch, so Dr. Gieseke ordered some for both of them. Before long Thomas
Buddenbrook began to smoke again.
And the idle, cynical, indifferent talk went on, heavy with the food
they had eaten, the wine they drank, and the damp that depressed their
spirits. They talked about business, the business of each one of those
present; but even this subject roused no great enthusiasm.
“Oh, there’s nothing very good about mine,” said Thomas Buddenbrook
heavily, and leaned his head against the back of his chair with an air
of disgust.
“Well, and you, Döhlmann,” asked Senator Gieseke, and yawned. “You’ve
been devoting yourself entirely to brandy, eh?”
“The chimney can’t smoke, unless there’s a fire,” the Consul retorted.
“I look into the office every few days. Short hairs are soon combed.”
“And Strunck and Hagenström have all the business in their hands
anyhow,” the broker said morosely, with his elbows sprawled out on the
table and his wicked old grey head in his hands.
“Oh, nothing can compete with a dung-heap, for smell,” Döhlmann said,
with a deliberately coarse pronunciation, which must have depressed
everybody’s spirits the more by its hopeless cynicism. “Well, and you,
Buddenbrook--what are you doing now? Nothing, eh?”
“No,” answered Christian, “I can’t, any more.” And without more ado,
having perceived the mood of the hour, he proceeded to accentuate it.
He began, his hat on one side, to talk about his Valparaiso office and
Johnny Thunderstorm. “Well, in that heat--‘Good God! Work, Sir? No,
Sir. As you see, Sir.’ And they puffed their cigarette-smoke right in
his face. Good God!” It was, as always, an incomparable expression of
dissolute, impudent, lazy good-nature. His brother sat motionless.
Herr Gosch tried to lift his glass to his thin lips, put it back on the
table again, cursing through his shut teeth, and struck the offending
arm with his fist. Then he lifted the glass once more, and spilled half
its contents, draining the remainder furiously at a gulp.
“Oh, you and your shaking, Gosch!” Peter Döhlmann exclaimed. “Why
don’t you just let yourself go, like me? I’ll croak if I don’t drink
my bottle every day--I’ve got as far as that; and I’ll croak if I do.
How would you feel if you couldn’t get rid of your dinner, not a single
day--I mean, after you’ve got it in your stomach?” And he favoured
them with some repulsive details of his condition, to which Christian
listened with dreadful interest, wrinkling his nose as far as it could
go and countering with a brief and forcible account of his “misery.”
It rained harder than ever. It came straight down in sheets and filled
the silence of the Kurgarden with its ceaseless, forlorn, and desolate
murmur.
“Yes, life’s pretty rotten,” said Senator Gieseke. He had been drinking
heavily.
“I’d just as lief quit,” said Christian.
“Let it go hang,” said Herr Gosch.
“There comes Fike Dahlbeck,” said Senator Gieseke. The proprietress of
the cow-stalls, a heavy, bold-faced woman in the forties, came by with
a pail of milk and smiled at the gentlemen.
Senator Gieseke let his eyes rove after her.
“What a bosom,” he said. Consul Döhlmann added a lewd witticism, with
the result that all the gentlemen laughed once more, through their
noses.
The waiter was summoned.
“I’ve finished the bottle, Schröder,” said Consul Döhlmann. “May as
well pay--we have to some time or other. You, Christian? Gieseke pays
for you, eh?”
Senator Buddenbrook roused himself at this. He had been sitting there,
hardly speaking, wrapped in his cloak, his hands in his lap and his
cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Now he suddenly started up and
said sharply, “Have you no money with you, Christian? Then I’ll lend it
to you.”
They put up their umbrellas and emerged from their shelter to take a
little stroll.
Frau Permaneder came out once in a while to see her brother. They
would walk as far as Sea-Gull Rock or the little Ocean Temple; and
here Tony Buddenbrook, for some reason or other, was always seized
by a mood of vague excitement and rebellion. She would repeatedly
emphasize the independence and equality of all human beings, summarily
repudiate all distinctions of rank or class, use some very strong
language on the subject of privilege and arbitrary power, and demand
in set terms that merit should receive its just reward. And then she
talked about her own life. She talked well, she entertained her brother
capitally. This child of fortune, so long as she walked upon this
earth, had never once needed to suppress an emotion, to choke down or
swallow anything she felt. She had never received in silence either
the blows or the caresses of fate. And whatever she had received, of
joy or sorrow, she had straightway given forth again, in a flow of
childish, self-important trivialities. Her digestion was not perfect,
it is true. But her heart--ah, her heart was light, her spirit was
free; freer than she herself comprehended. She was not consumed by
the inexpressible. No sorrow weighed her down, or strove to speak
but could not. And thus it was that her past left no mark upon her.
She knew that she had led a troubled life--she knew it, that is, but
at bottom she never believed in it herself. She recognized it as a
fact, since everybody else believed it--and she utilized it to her
own advantage, talking of it and making herself great with it in
her own eyes and those of others. With outraged virtue and dignity
she would call by name all those persons who had played havoc with
her life and, in consequence, with the prestige of the Buddenbrook
family; the list had grown long with time: Teary Trietschke! Grünlich!
Permaneder! Tiburtius! Weinschenk! the Hagenströms! the State Attorney!
Severin!--“What _filoux_, all of them, Thomas! God will punish
them--that is my firm belief.”
Twilight was falling as they came up to the Ocean Temple, for the
autumn was far advanced. They stood in one of the little chambers
facing the bay--it smelled of wood, like the bathing cabins at the Kur,
and its walls were scribbled over with mottoes, initials, hearts and
rhymes. They stood and looked out over the dripping slope across the
narrow, stony strip of beach, out to the turbid, restless sea.
“Great waves,” said Thomas Buddenbrook. “How they come on and break,
come on and break, one after another, endlessly, idly, empty and vast!
And yet, like all the simple, inevitable things, they soothe, they
console, after all. I have learned to love the sea more and more. Once,
I think, I cared more for the mountains--because they lay farther off.
Now I do not long for them. They would only frighten and abash me.
They are too capricious, too manifold, too anomalous--I know I should
feel myself vanquished in their presence. What sort of men prefer the
monotony of the sea? Those, I think, who have looked so long and deeply
into the complexities of the spirit, that they ask of outward things
merely that they should possess one quality above all: simplicity.
It is true that in the mountains one clambers briskly about, while
beside the sea one sits quietly on the shore. This is a difference, but
a superficial one. The real difference is in the look with which one
pays homage to the one and to the other. It is a strong, challenging
gaze, full of enterprise, that can soar from peak to peak; but the
eyes that rest on the wide ocean and are soothed by the sight of its
waves rolling on forever, mystically, relentlessly, are those that
are already wearied by looking too deep into the solemn perplexities
of life.--Health and illness, that is the difference. The man whose
strength is unexhausted climbs boldly up into the lofty multiplicity of
the mountain heights. But it is when one is worn out with turning one’s
eyes inward upon the bewildering complexity of the human heart, that
one finds peace in resting them on the wideness of the sea.”
Frau Permaneder was silent and uncomfortable,--as simple people
are when a profound truth is suddenly expressed in the middle of a
conventional conversation. People don’t say such things, she thought to
herself; and looked out to sea so as not to show her feeling by meeting
his eyes. Then, in the silence, to make amends for an embarrassment
which she could not help, she drew his arm through hers.
CHAPTER VII
Winter had come, Christmas had passed. It was January, 1875. The snow,
which covered the foot-walks in a firm-trodden mass, mingled with sand
and ashes, was piled on either side of the road in high mounds that
were growing greyer and more porous all the time, for the temperature
was rising. The pavements were wet and dirty, the grey gables dripped.
But above all stretched the heavens, a cloudless tender blue, while
millions of light atoms seemed to dance like crystal motes in the air.
It was a lively sight in the centre of the town, for this was Saturday,
and market-day as well. Under the pointed arches of the Town Hall
arcades the butchers had their stalls and weighed out their wares
red-handed. The fish-market, however, was held around the fountain in
the market-square itself. Here fat old women, with their hands in muffs
from which most of the fur was worn off, warming their feet at little
coal-braziers, guarded their slippery wares and tried to cajole the
servants and housewives into making purchases. There was no fear of
being cheated. The fish would certainly be fresh, for the most of them
were still alive. The luckiest ones were even swimming about in pails
of water, rather cramped for space, but perfectly lively. Others lay
with dreadfully goggling eyes and labouring gills, clinging to life and
slapping the marble slab desperately with their tails--until such time
as their fate was at hand, when somebody would seize them and cut their
throats with a crunching sound. Great fat eels writhed and wreathed
about in extraordinary shapes. There were deep vats full of black
masses of crabs from the Baltic. Once in a while a big flounder gave
such a desperate leap that he sprang right off his slab and fell down
upon the slippery pavement, among all the refuse, and had to be picked
up and severely admonished by his possessor.
Broad Street, at midday, was full of life. Schoolchildren with
knapsacks on their backs came along the street, filling it with
laughter and chatter, snowballing each other with the half-melting
snow. Smart young apprentices passed, with Danish sailor caps or suits
cut after the English model, carrying their portfolios and obviously
pleased with themselves for having escaped from school. Among the
crowd were settled, grey-bearded, highly respectable citizens, wearing
the most irreproachable national-liberal expression on their faces,
and tapping their sticks along the pavement. These looked across with
interest to the glazed-brick front of the Town Hall, where the double
guard was stationed; for the Senate was in session. The sentries trod
their beat, wearing their cloaks, their guns on their shoulders,
phlegmatically stamping their feet in the dirty half-melted snow.
They met in the centre of their beat, looked at each other, exchanged
a word, turned, and moved away each to his own side. Sometimes a
lieutenant would pass, his coat-collar turned up, his hands in his
pockets, on the track of some grisette, yet at the same time permitting
himself to be admired by young ladies of good family; and then each
sentry would stand at attention in front of his box, look at himself
from head to foot, and present arms. It would be a little time yet
before they would perform the same salute before the members of the
Senate, the sitting lasted some three quarters of an hour, it would
probably adjourn before that.
But one of the sentries suddenly heard a short, discreet whistle from
within the building. At the same moment the entrance was illumined
by the red uniform of Uhlefeldt the beadle, with his dress sword
and cocked hat. His air of preoccupation was simply enormous as he
uttered a stealthy “Look out” and hastily withdrew. At the same moment
approaching steps were heard on the echoing flags within.
The sentries front-faced, inflated their chests, stiffened their
necks, grounded their arms, and then, with a couple of rapid motions,
presented arms. Between them there had appeared, lifting his top-hat,
a gentleman of scarcely medium height, with one light eyebrow higher
than the other and the pointed ends of his moustaches extending beyond
his pallid cheeks. Senator Thomas Buddenbrook was leaving the Town Hall
to-day long before the end of the sitting. He did not take the street
to his own house, but turned to the right instead. He looked correct,
spotless, and elegant as, with the rather hopping step peculiar to him,
he walked along Broad Street, constantly saluting people whom he met.
He wore white kid gloves, and he had his stick with the silver handle
under his left arm. A white dress tie peeped forth from between the
lapels of his fur coat. But his head and face, despite their careful
grooming, looked rather seedy. People who passed him noticed that
his eyes were watering and that he held his mouth shut in a peculiar
cautious way; it was twisted a little to one side, and one could see by
the muscles of his cheeks and temples that he was clenching his jaw.
Sometimes he swallowed, as if a liquid kept rising in his mouth.
“Well, Buddenbrook, so you are cutting the session? That is something
new,” somebody said unexpectedly to him at the beginning of Mill
Street. It was his friend and admirer Stephan Kistenmaker, whose
opinion on all subjects was the echo of his own. Stephan Kistenmaker
had a full greying beard, bushy eyebrows, and a long nose full of large
pores. He had retired from the wine business a few years back with a
comfortable sum, and his brother Eduard carried it on by himself. He
lived now the life of a private gentleman; but, being rather ashamed of
the fact, he always pretended to be overwhelmed with work. “I’m wearing
myself out,” he would say, stroking his grey hair, which he curled with
the tongs. “But what’s a man good for, but to wear himself out?” He
stood hours on ’Change, gesturing imposingly, but doing no business.
He held a number of unimportant offices, the latest one being Director
of the city bathing establishments; but he also functioned as juror,
broker, and executor, and laboured with such zeal that the perspiration
dripped from his brow.
“There’s a session, isn’t there, Buddenbrook--and you are taking a
walk?”
“Oh, it’s you,” said the Senator in a low voice, moving his lips
cautiously. “I’m suffering frightfully--I’m nearly blind with pain.”
“Pain? Where?”
“Toothache. Since yesterday. I did not close my eyes last night. I have
not been to the dentist yet, because I had business in the office this
morning, and then I did not like to miss the sitting. But I couldn’t
stand it any longer. I’m on my way to Brecht.”
“Where is it?”
“Here on the left side, the lower jaw. A back tooth. It is decayed, of
course. The pain is simply unbearable. Good-bye, Kistenmaker. You can
understand that I am in a good deal of a hurry.”
“Yes, of course--don’t you think I am, too? Awful lot to do. Good-bye.
Good luck! Have it out--get it over with at once--always the best way.”
Thomas Buddenbrook went on, biting his jaws together, though it made
the pain worse to do so. It was a furious burning, boring pain,
starting from the infected back tooth and affecting the whole side of
the jaw. The inflammation throbbed like red-hot hammers; it made his
face burn and his eyes water. His nerves were terribly affected by the
sleepless night he had spent. He had had to control himself just now,
lest his voice break as he spoke.
He entered a yellow-brown house in Mill Street and went up to the first
storey, where a brass plate on the door said, “Brecht, Dentist.” He
did not see the servant who opened the door. The corridor was warm
and smelled of beefsteak and cauliflower. Then he suddenly inhaled
the sharp odour of the waiting-room into which he was ushered. “Sit
down! One moment!” shrieked the voice of an old woman. It was Josephus,
who sat in his shining cage at the end of the room and regarded him
sidewise out of his venomous little eyes.
The Senator sat down at the round table and tried to read the jokes in
a volume of _Fliegende Blätter_, flung down the book, and pressed the
cool silver handle of his walking-stick against his cheek. He closed
his burning eyes and groaned. There was not a sound, except for the
noise made by Josephus as he bit and clawed at the bars of his cage.
Herr Brecht might not be busy; but he owed it to himself to make his
patient wait a little.
Thomas Buddenbrook stood up precipitately and drank a glass of water
from the bottle on the table. It tasted and smelled of chloroform. Then
he opened the door into the corridor and called out in an irritated
voice: if there were nothing very important to prevent it, would Herr
Brecht kindly make haste--he was suffering.
And immediately the bald forehead, hooked nose, and grizzled moustaches
of the dentist appeared in the door of the operating-room. “If you
please,” he said. “If you please,” shrieked Josephus. The Senator
followed on the invitation. He was not smiling. “A bad case,” thought
Herr Brecht, and turned pale.
They passed through the large light room to the operating-chair in
front of one of the two largest windows. It was an adjustable chair
with an upholstered head-rest and green plush arms. As he sat down,
Thomas Buddenbrook briefly explained what the trouble was. Then he
leaned back his head and closed his eyes.
Herr Brecht screwed up the chair a bit and got to work on the tooth
with a tiny mirror and a pointed steel instrument. His hands smelled of
almond soap, his breath of cauliflower and beefsteak.
“We must proceed to extraction,” he said, after a while, and turned
still paler.
“Very well, proceed, then,” said the Senator, and shut his eyes more
tightly.
There was a pause. Herr Brecht prepared something at his chest of
drawers and got out his instruments. Then he approached the chair again.
“I’ll paint it a little,” he said; and began at once to apply a
strong-smelling liquid in generous quantities. Then he gently implored
the patient to sit very still and open his mouth very wide--and then he
began.
Thomas Buddenbrook clutched the plush arm-rests with both his hands. He
scarcely felt the forceps close around his tooth; but from the grinding
sensation in his mouth, and the increasingly painful, really agonizing
pressure on his whole head, he was made amply aware that the thing was
under way. Thank God, he thought, now it can’t last long. The pain
grew and grew, to limitless, incredible heights; it grew to an insane,
shrieking, inhuman torture, tearing his entire brain. It approached the
catastrophe. ‘Here we are, he thought. Now I must just bear it.’
It lasted three or four seconds. Herr Brecht’s nervous exertions
communicated themselves to Thomas Buddenbrook’s whole body, he was even
lifted up a little on his chair, and he heard a soft, squeaking noise
coming from the dentist’s throat. Suddenly there was a fearful blow,
a violent shaking as if his neck were broken, accompanied by a quick
cracking, crackling noise. The pressure was gone, but his head buzzed,
the pain throbbed madly in the inflamed and ill-used jaw; and he had
the clearest impression that the thing had not been successful: that
the extraction of the tooth was not the solution of the difficulty, but
merely a premature catastrophe which only made matters worse.
Herr Brecht had retreated. He was leaning against his
instrument-cupboard, and he looked like death. He said: “The crown--I
thought so.”
Thomas Buddenbrook spat a little blood into the blue basin at his side,
for the gum was lacerated. He asked, half-dazed: “What did you think?
What about the crown?”
“The crown broke off, Herr Senator. I was afraid of it.--The tooth was
in very bad condition. But it was my duty to make the experiment.”
“What next?”
“Leave it to me, Herr Senator.”
“What will you have to do now?”
“Take out the roots. With a lever. There are four of them.”
“Four. Then you must take hold and lift four times.”
“Yes--unfortunately.”
“Well, this is enough for to-day,” said the Senator. He started to
rise, but remained seated and put his head back instead.
“My dear Sir, you mustn’t demand the impossible of me,” he said. “I’m
not very strong on my legs, just now. I have had enough for to-day.
Will you be so kind as to open the window a little?”
Herr Brecht did so. “It will be perfectly agreeable to me, Herr
Senator, if you come in to-morrow or next day, at whatever hour you
like, and we can go on with the operation. If you will permit me, I
will just do a little more rinsing and pencilling, to reduce the pain
somewhat.”
He did the rinsing and pencilling, and then the Senator went. Herr
Brecht accompanied him to the door, pale as death, expending his last
remnant of strength in sympathetic shoulder-shruggings.
“One moment, please!” shrieked Josephus as they passed through the
waiting-room. He still shrieked as Thomas Buddenbrook went down the
steps.
With a lever--yes, yes, that was to-morrow. What should he do now? Go
home and rest, sleep, if he could. The actual pain in the nerve seemed
deadened; in his mouth was only a dull, heavy burning sensation. Home,
then. He went slowly through the streets, mechanically exchanging
greetings with those whom he met; his look was absent and wandering,
as though he were absorbed in thinking how he felt.
He got as far as Fishers’ Lane and began to descend the left-hand
sidewalk. After twenty paces he felt nauseated. “I’ll go over to the
public-house and take a drink of brandy,” he thought, and began to
cross the road. But just as he reached the middle, something happened
to him. It was precisely as if his brain was seized and swung around,
faster and faster, in circles that grew smaller and smaller, until it
crashed with enormous, brutal, pitiless force against a stony centre.
He performed a half-turn, fell, and struck the wet pavement, his arms
outstretched.
As the street ran steeply downhill, his body lay much lower than his
feet. He fell upon his face, beneath which, presently, a little pool
of blood began to form. His hat rolled a little way off down the road;
his fur coat was wet with mud and slush; his hands, in their white kid
gloves, lay outstretched in a puddle.
Thus he lay, and thus he remained, until some people came down the
street and turned him over.
CHAPTER VIII
Frau Permaneder mounted the main staircase, holding up her gown in
front of her with one hand and with the other pressing her muff to her
cheek. She tripped and stumbled more than she walked; her cheeks were
flushed, her capote sat crooked on her head, and little beads stood on
her upper lip.... Though she met no one, she talked continually as she
hurried up, in whispers out of which now and then a word rose clear and
audible and emphasized her fear. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It doesn’t
mean anything. God wouldn’t let anything happen. He knows what he’s
doing, I’m very sure of that.... Oh, my God, I’ll pray every day--” She
prattled senselessly in her fear, as she rushed up to the second storey
and down the corridor.
The door of the ante-chamber opened, and her sister-in-law came toward
her. Gerda Buddenbrook’s lovely white face was quite distorted with
horror and disgust; and her close-set, blue-shadowed brown eyes opened
and shut with a look of anger, distraction, and shrinking. As she
recognized Frau Permaneder, she beckoned quickly with outstretched arms
and embraced her, putting her head on her sister-in-law’s shoulder.
“Gerda! Gerda! What is it?” Frau Permaneder cried. “What has happened?
What does it mean? They said he fell--unconscious? How is he?--God
won’t let the worst happen, I know. Tell me, for pity’s sake!”
But the reply did not come at once. She only felt how Gerda’s whole
form was shaken. Then she heard a whisper at her shoulder.
“How he looked,” she heard, “when they brought him! His whole life
long, he never let any one see even a speck of dust on him.--Oh, it is
insulting, it is vile, for the end to have come like that!”
Subdued voices came out to them. The dressing-room door opened, and Ida
Jungmann stood in the doorway in a white apron, a basin in her hands.
Her eyes were red. She looked at Frau Permaneder and made way, her head
bent. Her chin was trembling.
The high flowered curtains stirred in the draught as Tony, followed by
her sister-in-law, entered the chamber. The smell of carbolic, ether,
and other drugs met them. In the wide mahogany bed, under the red down
coverlet, lay Thomas Buddenbrook, on his back, undressed and clad in
an embroidered nightshirt. His half-open eyes were rolled up; his lips
were moving under the disordered moustaches, and babbling, gurgling
sounds came out. Young Dr. Langhals was bending over him, changing a
bloody bandage for a fresh one, which he dipped into a basin at the
bedside. Then he listened at the patient’s chest and felt his pulse.
On the bed-clothes at the foot of the bed sat little Johann, clutching
his sailor’s knot and listening broodingly to the sounds behind him,
which his father was making. The Senator’s bemired clothing hung over a
chair.
Frau Permaneder cowered down at the bedside, seized one of her
brother’s hands--it was cold and heavy--and stared wildly into his
face. She began to understand that, whether God knew what he was doing
or not, he was at all events bent on “the worst”!
“Tom!” she clamoured, “do you know me? How are you? You aren’t going to
leave us? You won’t go away from us? Oh, it _can’t_ be!”
Nothing answered her, that could be called an answer. She looked
imploringly up at Dr. Langhals. He stood there with his beautiful eyes
cast down; and his manner, not without a certain self-satisfaction,
expressed the will of God.
Ida Jungmann came back into the room, to make herself useful if she
could. Old Dr. Grabow appeared in person, looked at the patient with
his long, mild face, shook his head, pressed all their hands, and then
stood as Dr. Langhals stood. The news had gone like the wind through
the whole town. The vestibule door rang constantly, and inquiries
after the Senator’s condition came up into the sick-chamber. It was
unchanged--unchanged. Every one received the same answer.
The two physicians were in favour of sending for a sister of
charity--at least for the night. They sent for Sister Leandra, and
she came. There was no trace of surprise or alarm in her face as she
entered. Again she laid aside her leather bag, her outer hood and
cloak, and again she set to work in her gentle way.
Little Johann sat hour after hour on the bed-clothes, watching
everything and listening to the gurgling noises. He was to have gone
to an arithmetic lesson; but he understood perfectly that what was
happening here was something over which the worsted-coats had no
jurisdiction. He thought of his lessons only for a moment, and with
scorn. He wept, sometimes, when Frau Permaneder came up and pressed him
to her; but mostly he sat dry-eyed, with a shrinking, brooding gaze,
and his breath came irregularly and cautiously, as if he expected any
moment to smell that strange and yet familiar smell.
Toward four o’clock Frau Permaneder took a sudden resolve. She asked
Dr. Langhals to come with her into the next room; and there she folded
her arms and laid back her head, with the chin dropped.
“Herr Doctor,” she said, “there is one thing you can do, and I beg
you to do it. Tell me the truth. I am a woman steeled by adversity; I
have learned to bear the truth. You may depend upon me. Please tell me
plainly: Will my brother be alive to-morrow?”
Dr. Langhals turned his beautiful eyes aside, looked at his
fingernails, and spoke of our human powerlessness, and the
impossibility of knowing whether Frau Permaneder’s brother would
outlive the night, or whether he would be called away the next minute.
“Then I know what I have to do,” said she; went out of the room; and
sent for Pastor Pringsheim.
Pastor Pringsheim appeared, without his vestments or neck-ruff, in
a long black gown. He swept Sister Leandra with an icy stare, and
seated himself in the chair which they placed for him by the bedside.
He asked the patient to recognize and hear him. Then, as this appeal
was unsuccessful, he addressed himself at once to God and prayed in
carefully modulated tones, with his Frankish pronunciation, with
emphasis now solemn and now abrupt, while waves of fanaticism and
sanctimony followed each other across his face. He pronounced his _r_
in a sleek and oily way peculiar to himself alone, and little Johann
received an irresistible impression that he had just been eating rolls
and coffee.
He said that he and the family there present no longer importuned God
for the life of this dear and beloved sufferer, for they saw plainly
that it was God’s will to take him to Himself. They only begged Him
for the mercy of a gentle death. And then he recited, appropriately
and with effect, two of the prayers customary on such occasions. Then
he got up. He pressed Gerda Buddenbrook’s hand, and Frau Permaneder’s,
and held little Johann’s head for a moment between both his hands,
regarding the drooping eyelashes with an expression of the most fervent
pity. He saluted Ida Jungmann, stared again at Sister Leandra, and took
his leave.
Dr. Langhals had gone home for a little. When he came back there
had been no change. He spoke with the nurse, and went again. Dr.
Grabow came once more, to see that everything was being done. Thomas
Buddenbrook went on babbling and gurgling, with his eyes rolled up.
Twilight was falling. There was a pale winter glow at sunset, and it
shone through the window upon the soiled clothing lying across the
chair.
At five o’clock Frau Permaneder let herself be carried away by her
feelings, and committed an indiscretion. She suddenly began to sing, in
her throaty voice, her hands folded before her.
“Come, Lord,”
she sang, quite loud, and they all listened without stirring.
“Come, Lord, receive his failing breath;
Strengthen his hands and feet, and lead him unto death.”
But in the devoutness of her prayer, she thought only of the words as
they welled up from her heart, and forgot that she did not know the
whole stanza; after the third line she was left hanging in the air,
and had to make up for her abrupt end by the increased dignity of her
manner. Everybody shivered with embarrassment. Little Johann coughed so
hard that the coughs sounded like sobs. And then, in the sudden pause,
there was no sound but the agonizing gurgles of Thomas Buddenbrook.
It was a relief when the servant announced that there was something
to eat in the next room. But they had only begun, sitting in Gerda’s
bedroom, to take a little soup, when Sister Leandra appeared in the
doorway and quietly beckoned.
The Senator was dying. He hiccoughed gently two or three times, was
silent, and ceased to move his lips. That was the only change. His eyes
had been quite dead before.
Dr. Langhals, who was on the spot a few minutes later, put the black
stethoscope to the heart, listened, and, after this scientific test,
said “Yes, it is over.”
And Sister Leandra, with the forefinger of her gentle white hand,
softly closed the eyes of the dead.
Then Frau Permaneder flung herself down on her knees by the bed,
pressed her face into the coverlet, and wept aloud, surrendering
herself utterly and without restraint to one of those refreshing
bursts of feeling which her happy nature had always at its command.
Her face still streamed with tears, but she was soothed and comforted
and entirely herself as she rose to her feet and began straightway to
occupy her mind with the announcements of the death--an enormous number
of elegant cards, which must be ordered at once.
Christian appeared. He had heard the news of the Senator’s stroke in
the club, which he had left at once. But he was so afraid of seeing
some awful sight that he went instead for a long walk outside the
walls, and was not to be found. Now, however, he came in, and on the
threshold heard of his brother’s death.
“It isn’t possible,” he said, and limped up the stairs, his eyes
rolling wildly.
He stood at the bedside between his sister and his sister-in-law; with
his bald head, his sunken cheeks, his drooping moustaches, and his
huge beaked nose, he stood there on his bent legs, looking a little
like an interrogation-point, and gazed with his little round deep eyes
into his brother’s face, as it lay so silent, so cold, so detached
and inaccessible. The corners of Thomas’s mouth were drawn down in an
expression almost scornful. Here he lay, at whom once Christian had
flung the reproach that he was too heartless to weep at a brother’s
death. He was dead now himself: he had simply withdrawn, silent,
elegant, and irreproachable, into the hereafter. He had, as so often
in his life, left it to others to feel put in the wrong. No matter
now, whether he had been right or wrong in his cold and scornful
indifference toward his brother’s afflictions, the “misery,” the
nodding man, the spirit-bottle, the open window. None of that mattered
now; for death, with arbitrary and incomprehensible partiality, had
singled him out, and taken him up, and given him an awesome dignity and
importance. And yet Death had rejected Christian, had held him off,
and would not have him at any price--would only keep on making game of
him and mocking him with all these tricks and antics which nobody took
seriously. Never in his life had Thomas Buddenbrook so impressed his
brother as at this hour. Success is so definite, so conclusive! Death
alone can make others respect our sufferings; and through death the
most pitiable sufferings acquire dignity. “You have won--I give in,”
Christian thought. He knelt on one knee, with a sudden awkward gesture,
and kissed the cold hand on the coverlet. Then he stepped back and
moved about the room, his eyes darting back and forth.
Other visitors came--the old Krögers, the Misses Buddenbrook, old Herr
Marcus. Poor Clothilde, lean and ashen, stood by the bed; her face was
apathetic, and she folded her hands in their worsted gloves. “You must
not think, Tony and Gerda,” said she, and her voice dragged very much,
“that I’ve no feeling because I don’t weep. The truth is, I have no
more tears.” And as she stood there, incredibly dry and withered, it
was evident that she spoke the truth.
Then they all left the room to make way for an elderly female, an
unpleasant old creature with a toothless, mumbling jaw, who had come to
help Sister Leandra wash and dress the corpse.
Gerda Buddenbrook, Frau Permaneder, Christian, and little Johann sat
under the big gas-lamp around the centre-table in the living-room,
and worked industriously until far on into the evening. They were
addressing envelopes and making a list of people who ought to receive
announcements. Now and then somebody thought of another name. Hanno had
to help, too; his handwriting was plain, and there was need of haste.
It was still in the house and in the street. The gas-lamp made a soft
hissing noise; somebody murmured a name; the papers rustled. Sometimes
they looked at each other and remembered what had happened.
Frau Permaneder scratched busily. But regularly once every five minutes
she would put down her pen, lift her clasped hands up to her mouth, and
break out in lamentations. “I can’t realize it!” she would cry--meaning
that she was gradually beginning to realize. “It is the end of
everything,” she burst out another time, in sheer despair, and flung
her arms around her sister-in-law’s neck with loud weeping. After each
outburst she was strengthened, and took up her work again.
With Christian it was as with poor Clothilde. He had not shed a
tear--which fact rather mortified him. It was true, too, that his
constant preoccupation with his own condition had used him up
emotionally and made him insensitive. Now and then he would start up,
rub his hand over his bald brow, and murmur, “Yes, it’s frightfully
sad.” He said it to himself, with strong self-reproach, and did his
best to make his eyes water.
Suddenly something happened to startle them all: little Johann began to
laugh. He was copying a list of names, and had found one with such a
funny sound that he could not resist it. He said it aloud and snorted
through his nose, bent over, sobbed, and could not control himself. The
grown people looked at him in bewildered incredulity; and his mother
sent him up to bed.
CHAPTER IX
Senator Buddenbrook had died of a bad tooth. So it was said in the
town. But goodness, people don’t die of a bad tooth! He had had a
toothache; Herr Brecht had broken off the crown; and thereupon the
Senator had simply fallen in the street. Was ever the like heard?
But however it had happened, that was no longer the point. What had
next to be done was to send wreaths--large, expensive wreaths which
would do the givers credit and be mentioned in the paper: wreaths
which showed that they came from people with sympathetic hearts and
long purses. They were sent. They poured in from all sides, from
organizations, from families and individuals: laurel wreaths, wreaths
of heavily-scented flowers, silver wreaths, wreaths with black bows or
bows with the colours of the City on them, or dedications printed in
heavy black type or gilt lettering. And palms--simply quantities of
palms.
The flower-shops did an enormous business, not least among them being
Iwersen’s, opposite the Buddenbrook mansion. Frau Iwersen rang many
times in the day at the vestibule door, and handed in arrangements in
all shapes and styles, from Senator This or That, or Consul So-and-So,
from office staffs and civil servants. On one of these visits she
asked if she might go up and see the Senator a minute. Yes, of course,
she was told; and she followed Frau Permaneder up the main staircase,
gazing silently at its magnificence.
She went up heavily, for she was, as usual, expecting. Her looks had
grown a little common with the years; but the narrow black eyes and the
Malay cheek-bones had not lost their charm. One could still see that
she must once have been exceedingly pretty. She was admitted into the
salon, where Thomas Buddenbrook lay upon his bier.
He lay in the centre of the large, light room, the furniture of which
had been removed, amid the white silk linings of his coffin, dressed in
white silk, shrouded in white silk, in a thick and stupefying mingling
of odours from the tube-roses, violets, roses, and other flowers with
which he was surrounded. At his head, in a half-circle of silver
candelabra, stood the pedestal draped in mourning, supporting the
marble copy of Thorwaldsen’s Christ. The wreaths, garlands, baskets,
and bunches stood or lay along the walls, on the floor, and on the
coverlet. Palms stood around the bier and drooped over the feet of
the dead. The skin of his face was abraded in spots, and the nose was
bruised. But his hair was dressed with the tongs, as in life, and his
moustache, too, had been drawn through the tongs for the last time by
old Herr Wenzel, and stuck out stiff and straight beyond his white
cheeks. His head was turned a little to one side, and an ivory cross
was stuck between the folded hands.
Frau Iwersen remained near the door, and looked thence, blinking, over
to the bier. Only when Frau Permaneder, in deep black, with a cold
in her head from much weeping, came from the living-room through the
portières and invited Frau Iwersen to come nearer, did she dare to
venture a little farther forward on the parquetry floor. She stood with
her hands folded across her prominent abdomen, and looked about her
with her narrow black eyes: at the plants, the candelabra, the bows and
the wreaths, the white silk, and Thomas Buddenbrook’s face. It would
be hard to describe the expression on the pale, blurred features of
the pregnant woman. Finally she said “Yes--” sobbed just once, a brief
confused sound, and turned away.
Frau Permaneder loved these visits. She never stirred from the house,
but superintended with tireless zeal the homage that pressed about the
earthly husk of her departed brother. She read the newspaper articles
aloud many times in her throaty voice: those same newspapers which at
the time of the jubilee had paid tribute to her brother’s merits, now
mourned the irreparable loss of his personality. She stood at Gerda’s
side to receive the visits of condolence in the living-room and there
was no end of these; their name was legion. She held conferences with
various people about the funeral, which must of course be conducted in
the most refined manner. She arranged farewells: she had the office
staff come in a body to bid their chief good-bye. The workmen from the
granaries came too. They shuffled their huge feet along the parquetry
floor, drew down the corners of their mouths to show their respect, and
emanated an odour of chewing tobacco, spirits, and physical exertion.
They looked at the dead lying in his splendid state, twirled their
caps, first admired and then grew restive, until at length one of them
found courage to go, and the whole troop followed shuffling on his
heels. Frau Permaneder was enchanted. She asserted that some of them
had tears running down into their beards. This simply was not the fact;
but she saw it, and it made her happy.
The day of the funeral dawned. The metal casket was hermetically sealed
and covered with flowers, the candles burned in their silver holders,
the house filled with people, and, surrounded by mourners from near
and far, Pastor Pringsheim stood at the head of the coffin in upright
majesty, his impressive head resting upon his ruff as on a dish.
A high-shouldered functionary, a brisk intermediate something between
a waiter and a major-domo, had in charge the outward ordering of
the solemnity. He ran with the softest speed down the staircase and
called in a penetrating whisper across the entry, which was filled to
overflowing with tax-commissioners in uniform and grain-porters in
blouses, knee-breeches, and tall hats: “The rooms are full, but there
is a little room left in the corridor.”
Then everything was hushed. Pastor Pringsheim began to speak. He filled
the whole house with the rolling periods of his exquisitely modulated,
sonorous voice. He stood there near the figure of Thorwaldsen’s Christ
and wrung his hands before his face or spread them out in blessing;
while below in the street, before the house door, beneath a white
wintry sky, stood the hearse drawn by four black horses, with the other
carriages in a long row behind it. A company of soldiers with grounded
arms stood in two rows opposite the house door, with Lieutenant von
Throta at their head. He held his drawn sword on his arm and looked up
at the bow-window with his brilliant eyes. Many people were craning
their necks from windows nearby or standing on the pavements to look.
At length there was a stir in the vestibule, the lieutenant’s muffled
word of command sounded, the soldiers presented arms with a rattle of
weapons, Herr von Throta let his sword sink, and the coffin appeared.
It swayed cautiously forth of the house door, borne by the four men
in black cloaks and cocked hats, and a gust of perfume came with it,
wafted over the heads of bystanders. The breeze ruffled the black
plumes on top of the hearse, tossed the manes of the horses standing in
line down to the river, and dishevelled the mourning hat-scarves of the
coachmen and grooms. Enormous single flakes of snow drifted down from
the sky in long slanting curves.
The horses attached to the hearse, all in black trappings so that
only their restless rolling eyeballs could be seen, now slowly got
in motion. The hearse moved off, led by the four black servants. The
company of soldiers fell in behind, and one after another the coaches
followed on. Christian Buddenbrook and the pastor got into the first;
little Johann sat in the second, with a well-fed Hamburg relative. And
slowly, slowly, with mournful long-drawn pomp, Thomas Buddenbrook’s
funeral train wound away, while the flags at half-mast on all the
houses flapped before the wind. The office staff and the grain-porters
followed on foot.
The casket, with the mourners behind, followed the well-known cemetery
paths, past crosses and statues and chapels and bare weeping-willows,
to the Buddenbrook family lot, where the military guard of honour
already stood, and presented arms again. A funeral march sounded in
subdued and solemn strains from behind the shrubbery.
Once more the heavy gravestone, with the family arms in relief, had
been moved to one side; and once more the gentlemen of the town stood
there, on the edge of the little grove, beside the abyss walled in
with masonry into which Thomas Buddenbrook was now lowered to join
his fathers. They stood there with bent heads, these worthy and
well-to-do citizens: prominent among them were the Senators, in white
gloves and cravats. Beyond them was the throng of officials, clerks,
grain-porters, and warehouse labourers.
The music stopped. Pastor Pringsheim spoke. While his voice, raised in
blessing, still lingered on the air, everybody pressed round to shake
hands with the brother and son of the deceased.
The ceremony was long and tedious. Christian Buddenbrook received all
the condolences with his usual absent, embarrassed air. Little Johann
stood by his side, in his heavy reefer jacket with the gilt buttons,
and looked at the ground with his blue-shadowed eyes. He never looked
up, but bent his head against the wind with a sensitive twist of all
his features.
PART ELEVEN
CHAPTER I
It sometimes happens that we may recall this or that person whom we
have not lately seen and wonder how he is. And then, with a start, we
remember that he has disappeared from the stage, that his voice no
longer swells the general concert--that he is, in short, departed from
among us, and lies somewhere outside the walls, beneath the sod.
Frau Consul Buddenbrook, she that was a Stüwing, Uncle Gotthold’s
widow, passed away. Death set his reconciling and atoning seal upon the
brow of her who in her life had been the cause of such violent discord;
and her three daughters, Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi, received
the condolences of their relatives with an affronted air which seemed
to say: “You see, your persecutions have at last brought her down to
her grave!” As if the Frau Consul were not as old as the hills already!
And Madame Kethelsen had gone to her long rest. In her later years she
had suffered much from gout; but she died gently and simply, resting
upon a childlike faith which was much envied by her educated sister,
who had always had her periodic attacks of rationalistic doubt, and
who, though she grew constantly smaller and more bent, was relentlessly
bound by an iron constitution to this sinful earth.
Consul Peter Döhlmann was called away. He had eaten up all his money,
and finally fell a prey to Hunyadi-Janos, leaving his daughter an
income of two hundred marks a year. He depended upon the respect felt
in the community for the name of Döhlmann to insure her being admitted
into the Order of St. John.
Justus Kröger also departed this life, which was a loss, for now
nobody was left to prevent his wife selling everything she owned to
send money to the wretched Jacob, who was still leading a dissolute
existence somewhere in the world.
Christian Buddenbrook had likewise disappeared from the streets of
his native city. He would have been sought in vain within her walls.
He had moved to Hamburg, less than a year after his brother’s death,
and there he united himself, before God and men, with Fräulein Aline
Puvogel, a lady with whom he had long stood in a close relationship. No
one could now stop him. His inheritance from his mother, indeed, half
the interest of which had always found its way to Hamburg, was managed
by Herr Stephan Kistenmaker--in so far as it was not already spent in
advance. Herr Kistenmaker, in fact, had been appointed administrator
by the terms of his deceased friend’s will. But in all other respects
Christian was his own master. Directly the marriage became known,
Frau Permaneder addressed to Frau Aline Buddenbrook in Hamburg a long
and extraordinarily violent letter, beginning “Madame!” and declaring
in carefully poisoned words that she had absolutely no intention of
recognizing as a relative either the person addressed or any of her
children.
Herr Kistenmaker was executor and administrator of the Buddenbrook
estate and guardian of little Johann. He held these offices in high
regard. They were an important activity which justified him in rubbing
his head on the Bourse with every indication of overwork and telling
everybody that he was simply wearing himself out. Besides, he received
two per cent. of the revenues, very punctually. But he was not too
successful in the performance of his duties, and Gerda Buddenbrook soon
had reason to feel dissatisfied.
The business was to close, the firm to go into liquidation, and the
estate to be settled within a year. This was Thomas Buddenbrook’s wish,
as expressed in his will. Frau Permaneder felt much upset. “And Hanno?
And little Johann--what about Hanno?” She was disappointed and grieved
that her brother had passed over his son and heir and had not wished to
keep the firm alive for him to step into. She wept for hours to think
that one should dispose thus summarily of that honourable shield, that
jewel cherished by four generations of Buddenbrooks: that the history
of the firm was now to close, while yet there existed a direct heir to
carry it on. But she finally consoled herself by thinking that the end
of the firm was not, after all, the end of the family, and that her
nephew might as easily, in a new and different career, perform the high
task allotted to him--that task being to carry on the family name and
add fresh lustre to the family reputation. It could not be in vain that
he possessed so much likeness to his great-grandfather.
The liquidation of the business began, under the auspices of Herr
Kistenmaker and old Herr Marcus; and it took a most deplorable course.
The time was short, and it must be punctiliously kept to. The pending
business was disposed of on hurried and unfavourable terms. One
precipitate and disadvantageous sale followed another. The granaries
and warehouses were turned into money at a great loss; and what was
not lost by Herr Kistenmaker’s over-zealousness was wasted by the
procrastination of old Herr Marcus. In town they said that the old man,
before he left his house in winter warmed not only his coat and hat,
but his walking-stick as well. If ever a favourable opportunity arose,
he invariably let it slip through his fingers. And so the losses piled
up. Thomas Buddenbrook had left, on paper, an estate of six hundred and
fifty thousand marks. A year after the will was opened it had become
abundantly clear that there was no question of such a sum.
Indefinite, exaggerated rumours of the unfavourable liquidation got
about, and were fed by the news that Gerda Buddenbrook meant to sell
the great house. Wonderful stories flew about, of the reasons which
obliged her to take such a step; of the collapse of the Buddenbrook
fortune. Things were thought to look very badly: and a feeling began
to grow up in the town, of which the widowed Frau Senator became aware,
at first with surprise and astonishment, and then with growing anger.
When she told her sister-in-law, one day, that she had been pressed
in an unpleasant way for the payment of some considerable accounts,
Frau Permaneder had at first been speechless, and then had burst out
into frightful laughter. Gerda Buddenbrook was so outraged that she
expressed a half-determination to leave the city for ever with little
Johann and go back to Amsterdam to play duets with her old father. But
this called forth such a storm of protest from Frau Permaneder that she
was obliged to give up the plan for the time being.
As was to be expected, Frau Permaneder protested against the sale of
the house which her brother had built. She bewailed the bad impression
it would make and complained of the blow it would deal the family
prestige. But she had to grant that it would be folly to continue
to keep up the spacious and splendid dwelling that had been Thomas
Buddenbrook’s costly hobby, and that Gerda’s idea of a comfortable
little villa outside the wall, in the country, had, after all, much to
commend it.
A great day dawned for Siegismund Gosch the broker. His old age was
illumined by an event so stupendous that for many hours it held his
knees from trembling. It came about that he sat in Gerda Buddenbrook’s
salon, in an easy-chair, opposite her and discussed tête-à-tête the
price of her house. His snow-white locks streamed over his face, his
chin protruded grimly, he succeeded for once in looking thoroughly
hump-backed. He hissed when he talked, but his manners were cold
and businesslike, and nothing betrayed the emotions of his soul. He
bound himself to take over the house, stretched out his hand, smiled
cunningly, and bid eighty-five thousand marks--which was a possible
offer, for some loss would certainly have to be taken in this sale.
But Herr Kistenmaker’s opinion must be heard; and Gerda Buddenbrook
had to let Herr Gosch go without making the bargain. Then it appeared
that Herr Kistenmaker was not minded to allow any interference in
what he considered his prerogative. He mistrusted Herr Gosch’s offer;
he laughed at it, and swore that he could easily get much more. He
continued to swear this, until at length he was forced to dispose of
the property for seventy-five thousand marks to an elderly spinster who
had returned from extended travel and decided to settle in the town.
Herr Kistenmaker also arranged for the purchase of the new house, a
pleasant little villa for which he paid rather too high a price, but
which was about what Gerda Buddenbrook wanted. It lay outside the
Castle Gate, on a chestnut-bordered avenue; and thither, in the autumn
of the year 1876, the Frau Senator moved with her son, her servants,
and a part of her household goods--the remainder, to Frau Permaneder’s
great distress, being left behind to pass into the possession of the
elderly gentlewoman.
As if these were not changes enough, Mamsell Jungmann, after forty
years in the service of the Buddenbrook family, left it to return to
her native West Prussia to live out the evening of her life. To tell
the truth, she was dismissed by the Frau Senator. This good soul had
taken up with little Johann when the previous generation had outgrown
her. She had cherished him fondly, read him fairy stories, and told
him about the uncle who died of hiccoughs. But now little Johann was
no longer small. He was a lad of fifteen years, to whom, despite
his lack of strength, she could no longer be of much service; and
with his mother her relations had not for a long time been on a very
comfortable footing. She had never been able to think of this lady,
who had entered the family so much later than herself, as a proper
Buddenbrook; and of late she had begun, with the freedom of an old
servant, to arrogate to herself exaggerated authority. She stirred up
dissension in the household by this or that encroachment; the position
became untenable; there were disagreements--and though Frau Permaneder
made an impassioned plea in her behalf, as for the old house and the
furniture, old Ida had to go.
She wept bitterly when the hour came to bid little Johann farewell. He
put his arms about her and embraced her. Then, with his hands behind
his back, resting his weight on one leg while the other poised on the
tips of the toes, he watched her out of sight; his face wore the same
brooding, introspective look with which he had stood at his father’s
death-bed, and his grandmother’s bier, witnessed the breaking-up of the
great household, and shared in so many events of the same kind, though
of lesser outward significance. The departure of old Ida belonged to
the same category as other events with which he was already familiar:
breakings-up, closings, endings, disintegrations--he had seen them all.
Such events did not disturb him--they had never disturbed him. But he
would lift his head, with the curling light-brown hair, inflate one
delicate nostril, and it was as if he cautiously sniffed the air about
him, expecting to perceive that odour, that strange and yet familiar
odour which, at his grandmother’s bier, not all the scent of the
flowers had been able to disguise.
When Frau Permaneder visited her sister-in-law, she would draw her
nephew to her and tell him of the Buddenbrook family past, and of that
future for which, next to the mercy of God, they would have to thank
little Johann. The more depressing the present appeared, the more she
strove to depict the elegance of the life that went on in the houses
of her parents and grandparents; and she would tell Hanno how his
great-grandfather had driven all over the country with his carriage
and four horses. One day she had a severe attack of cramps in the
stomach because Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi had asserted that the
Hagenströms were the crême de la crême of town society.
Bad news came of Christian. His marriage seemed not to have improved
his health. He had become more and more subject to uncanny delusions
and morbid hallucinations, until finally his wife had acted upon the
advice of a physician and had him put into an institution. He was
unhappy there, and wrote pathetic letters to his relatives, expressive
of a fervent desire to leave the establishment, where, it seemed,
he was none too well treated. But they kept him shut up, and it was
probably the best thing for him. It also put his wife in a position
to continue her former independent existence without prejudice to her
status as a married woman or to the practical advantages accruing from
her marriage.
CHAPTER II
The alarm-clock went off with cruel alacrity. It was a hoarse rattling
and clattering that it made, rather than a ringing, for it was old and
worn out; but it kept on for a painfully long time, for it had been
thoroughly wound up.
Hanno Buddenbrook was startled to his inmost depths. It was like this
every morning. His very entrails rebelled, in rage, protest, and
despair, at the onslaught of this at once cruel and faithful monitor
standing on the bedside table close to his ear. However, he did not get
up, or even change his position in the bed; he only wrenched himself
away from some blurred dream of the early morning and opened his eyes.
It was perfectly dark in the wintry room. He could distinguish nothing,
not even the hands on the clock. But he knew it was six o’clock,
because last night he had set his alarm for six. Last night-- And as
he lay on his back, with his nerves rasped by the shock of waking,
struggling for sufficient resolution to make a light and jump out of
bed, everything that had filled his mind yesterday came gradually back
into his consciousness.
It was Sunday evening; and after having been maltreated by Herr Brecht
for several days on end, he had been taken as a reward to a performance
of _Lohengrin_. He had looked forward for a whole week to this evening
with a joy which absorbed his entire existence. Only, it was a pity
that on such occasions the full pleasure of the anticipation had to be
marred by disagreeable commonplaces that went on up to the very last
minute. But at length Saturday came, school was over for the week, and
Herr Brecht’s little drill had bored and buzzed away in the mouth for
the last time. Now everything was out of the way and done with--for
he had obstinately put off his preparation for Monday until after the
opera. What was Monday to him? Was it likely it would ever dawn? Who
believes in Monday, when he is to hear _Lohengrin_ on Sunday evening?
He would get up early on Monday and get the wretched stuff done--and
that was all there was to it. Thus he went about free from care,
fondled the coming joy in his heart, dreamed at his piano, and forgot
all unpleasantness to come.
And then the dream became reality. It came over him with all its
enchantment and consecration, all its secret revelations and tremors,
its sudden inner emotion, its extravagant, unquenchable intoxication.
It was true that the music of the overture was rather too much for the
cheap violins in the orchestra; and the fat conceited-looking Lohengrin
with straw-coloured hair came in rather hind side foremost in his
little boat. And his guardian, Herr Stephan Kistenmaker, had sat in the
next box and grumbled about the boy’s being taken away from his lessons
and having his mind distracted like that. But the sweet, exalted
splendour of the music had borne him away upon its wings.
The end had come at length. The singing, shimmering joy was quenched
and silent. He had found himself back home in his room, with a burning
head and the consciousness that only a few hours of sleep, there in
his bed, separated him from dull everyday existence. And he had been
overpowered by an attack of the complete despondency which was all too
familiar an experience. Again he had learned that beauty can pierce one
like a pain, and that it can sink profoundly into shame and a longing
despair that utterly consume the courage and energy necessary to the
life of every day. His despondency weighed him down like mountains, and
once more he told himself, as he had done before, that this was more
than his own individual burden of weaknesses that rested upon him: that
his burden was one which he had borne upon his soul from the beginning
of time, and must one day sink under at last.
He had wound the alarm-clock and gone to sleep--and slept that dead and
heavy sleep that comes when one wishes never to awake again. And now
Monday was here, and he had not prepared a single lesson.
He sat up and lighted the bedside candle. But his arms and shoulders
felt so cold that he lay down again and pulled up the covers.
The hand pointed to ten minutes after six. Oh, it was absurd to get
up now! He should hardly have time to make a beginning, for there
was preparation in nearly every lesson. And the time he had fixed
was already past. Was it as certain, then, as it had seemed to him
yesterday that he would be called up in Latin and Chemistry? It
was certainly to be expected--in all human probability it would
happen. The names at the end of the alphabet had lately been called
in the Ovid class, and presumably they would begin again at the
beginning. But, after all, it wasn’t so absolutely certain, beyond a
peradventure--there were exceptions to every rule. Chance sometimes
worked wonders, he knew. He sank deeper and deeper into these false and
plausible speculations; his thoughts began to run in together--he was
asleep.
The little schoolboy bed-chamber, cold and bare, with the copper-plate
of the Sistine Madonna over the bed, the extension-table in the middle,
the untidy book-shelf, a stiff-legged mahogany desk, the harmonium, and
the small wash-hand stand, lay silent in the flickering light of the
candle. The window was covered with ice-crystals, and the blind was
up in order that the light might come earlier. And Hanno slept, his
cheek pressed into the pillow, his lips closed, the eyelashes lying
close upon his cheek; he slept with an expression of the most utter
abandonment to slumber, the soft, light-brown hair clustering about
his temples. And slowly the candle-flame lost its reddish-yellow glow,
as the pale, dun-coloured dawn stole into the room through the icy
coating on the window-pane.
At seven he woke once more, with a start of fear. He must get up and
take upon himself the burden of the day. There was no way out of it.
Only a short hour now remained before school would begin. Time pressed;
there was no thought of preparation now. And yet he continued to lie,
full of exasperation and rebellion against this brutal compulsion
that was upon him to forsake his warm bed in the frosty dawning and
go out into the world, into contact with harsh and unfriendly people.
“Oh, only two little tiny minutes more,” he begged of his pillow, in
overwhelming tenderness. And then he gave himself a full five minutes
more, out of sheer bravado, and closed his eyes, opening one from time
to time to stare despairingly at the clock, which went stupidly on in
its insensate, accurate way.
Ten minutes after seven o’clock, he tore himself out of bed and began
to move about the room with frantic haste. He let the candle burn, for
the daylight was not enough by itself. He breathed upon a crystal and,
looking out, saw a thick mist abroad.
He was unutterably cold, and a shiver sometimes shook his entire body.
The ends of his fingers burned; they were so swollen that he could do
nothing with the nail-brush. As he washed the upper parts of his body,
his almost lifeless hand let fall the sponge, and he stood a moment
stiff and helpless, steaming like a sweating horse.
At last he was dressed. Dull-eyed and breathless, he stood at the
table, collected his despairing senses with a jerk, and began to put
together the books he was likely to need to-day, murmuring in an
anguished voice: “Religion, Latin, chemistry,” and shuffling together
the wretched ink-spotted paper volumes.
Yes, he was already quite tall, was little Johann. He was more
than fifteen years old, and no longer wore a sailor costume, but a
light-brown jacket suit with a blue-and-white spotted cravat. Over
his waistcoat he wore a long, thin gold chain that had belonged to
his grandfather, and on the fourth finger of his broad but delicately
articulated right hand was the old seal ring with the green stone. It
was his now. He pulled on his heavy winter jacket, put on his hat,
snatched his school-bag, extinguished the candle, and dashed down
the stair to the ground floor, past the stuffed bear, and into the
dining-room on the right.
Fräulein Clementine, his mother’s new factotum, a thin girl with curls
on her forehead, a pointed nose, and short-sighted eyes, already sat at
the breakfast-table.
“How late is it, really?” he asked between his teeth, though he already
knew with great precision.
“A quarter before eight,” she answered, pointing with a thin, red,
rheumatic-looking hand at the clock on the wall. “You must get along,
Hanno.” She set a steaming cup of cocoa before him, and pushed the
bread and butter, salt, and an egg-cup toward his place.
He said no more, clutched a roll, and began, standing, with his hat on
and his bag under his arm, to swallow his cocoa. The hot drink hurt the
back tooth which Herr Brecht had just been working at. He let half of
it stand, pushed away the egg, and with a sound intended for an adieu
ran out of the house.
It was ten minutes to eight when he left the garden and the little
brick villa behind him and dashed along the wintry avenue. Ten, nine,
eight minutes more. And it was a long way. He could scarcely see for
the fog. He drew it in with his breath and breathed it out again, this
thick, icy cold fog, with all the power of his narrow chest; he stopped
his still throbbing tooth with his tongue, and did fearful violence
to his leg muscles. He was bathed in perspiration; yet he felt frozen
in every limb. He began to have a stitch in his side. The morsel of
breakfast revolted in his stomach against this morning jaunt which it
was taking; he felt nauseated, and his heart fluttered and trembled so
that it took away his breath.
The Castle Gate--only the Castle Gate--and it was four minutes to
eight! As he panted on through the streets, in an extremity of
mingled pain, perspiration, and nausea, he looked on all sides for
his fellow-pupils. No, there was no one else; they were all on the
spot--and now it was beginning to strike eight. Bells were ringing
all over the town, and the chimes of St. Mary’s were playing, in
celebration of this moment, “now let us all thank God.” They played
half the notes falsely; they had no idea of rhythm, and they were badly
in want of tuning. Thus Hanno, in the madness of despair. But what was
that to him? He was late; there was no longer any room for doubt. The
school clock was usually a little behind, but not enough to help him
this time. He stared hopelessly into people’s faces as they passed him.
They were going to their offices or about their business; they were in
no particular hurry; nothing was threatening them. Some of them looked
at him and smiled at his distracted appearance and sulky looks. He
was beside himself at these smiles. What were they smiling at, these
comfortable, unhurried people? He wanted to shout after them and tell
them their smiling was very uncivil. Perhaps _they_ would just enjoy
falling down dead in front of the closed entrance gate of the school!
The prolonged shrill ringing which was the signal for morning prayers
struck on his ear while he was still twenty paces from the long red
wall with the two cast-iron gates, which separated the court of the
school-building from the street. He felt that his legs had no more
power to advance: he simply let his body fall forward, the legs moved
willy-nilly to prevent his stumbling, and thus he staggered on and
arrived at the gate just as the bell had ceased ringing.
Herr Schlemiel, the porter, a heavy man with the face and rough beard
of a labourer, was just about to close the gate. “Well!” he said,
and let Buddenbrook slip through. Perhaps, perhaps, he might still
be saved! What he had to do now was to slip unobserved into his
classroom and wait there until the end of prayers, which were held in
the drill-hall, and to act as if everything were in order. Panting,
exhausted, in a cold perspiration, he slunk across the courtyard and
through the folding doors with glass panes that divided it from the
interior.
Everything in the establishment was now new, clean, and adequate.
The time had been ripe; and the grey, crumbling walls of the ancient
monastic school had been levelled to the ground to make room for the
spacious, airy, and imposing new building. The style of the whole had
been preserved, and corridors and cloisters were still spanned by the
fine old Gothic vaulting. But the lighting and heating arrangements,
the ventilation of the classrooms, the comfort of the masters’ rooms,
the equipment of the halls for the teaching of chemistry, physics and
design, all this had been carried out on the most modern lines with
respect to comfort and sanitation.
The exhausted Hanno stuck close to the wall and kept his eyes open as
he stole along. Heaven be praised, the corridors were empty. He heard
distantly the hubbub made by the hosts of masters and pupils going into
the drill-hall, to receive there a little spiritual strengthening for
the labours of the week. But here everything was empty and still, and
his road up the broad linoleum-covered stairs lay free. He stole up
cautiously on his tip-toes, holding his breath, straining his ears for
sounds from above. His classroom, the lower second of the _Realschule_,
was in the first storey, opposite the stairs, and the door was open.
Crouched on the top step, he peered down the long corridor, on both
sides of which were the entrances to the various classrooms, with
porcelain signs above them. Three rapid, noiseless steps forward--and
he was in his own room.
It was empty. The curtains of the three large windows were still drawn,
and the gas was burning in the chandelier with a soft hissing noise.
Green shades diffused the light over the three rows of desks. These
desks each had room for two pupils; they were made of light-coloured
wood, and opposite them, in remote and edifying austerity, stood the
master’s platform with a blackboard behind it. A yellow wainscoting ran
round the lower part of the wall, and above it the bare white-washed
surface was decorated with a few maps. A second blackboard stood on an
easel by the master’s chair.
Hanno went to his place, which was nearly in the centre of the room.
He stuffed his bag into the desk, sank upon the hard seat, laid his
arms on the sloping lid, and rested his head upon them. He had a
sensation of unspeakable relief. The room was bare, hard, hateful,
and ugly; and the burden of the whole threatening forenoon, with its
numerous perils, lay before him. But for the moment he was safe; he had
saved his skin, and could take things as they came. The first lesson,
Herr Ballerstedt’s class in religious instruction, was comparatively
harmless. He could see, by the vibration of the little strips of paper
over the ventilator next the ceiling, that warm air was streaming in,
and the gas, too, did its share to heat the room. He could actually
stretch out here and feel his stiffened limbs slowly thawing. The heat
mounted to his head: it was very pleasant, but not quite healthful; it
made his ears buzz and his eyes heavy.
A sudden noise behind him made him start and turn around. And behold,
from behind the last bench rose the head and shoulders of Kai, Count
Mölln. He crawled out, did this young man, got up, shook himself,
slapped his hands together to get the dust off, and came up to Hanno
with a beaming face.
“Oh, it’s you, Hanno,” he said. “And I crawled back there because I
took you for a piece of the faculty when you came in.”