“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.