But far more remarkable were two other extraordinary old creatures,

twins, who went about hand in hand through the town doing good deeds,

in shepherdess hats out of the eighteenth century and faded clothes

out of the long, long ago. They were named Gerhardt, and asserted

that they descended in a direct line from Paul Gerhardt. People said

they were by no means poor; but they lived wretchedly and gave away

all they had. “My dears,” remarked the Frau Consul, who was sometimes

rather ashamed of them, “God sees the heart, I know; but your clothes

are really a little--one must take some thought for oneself.” But she

could not prevent them kissing their elegant friend on the brow with

the forebearing, yearning, pitying superiority of the poor in heart

over the worldly great who seek salvation. They were not at all stupid.

In their homely shrivelled heads--for all the world like ancient

parrots--; they had bright soft brown eyes and they looked out at the

world with a wonderful expression of gentleness and understanding.

Their hearts were full of amazing wisdom. They knew that in the last

day all our beloved gone before us to God will come with song and

salvation to fetch us home. They spoke the words “the Lord” with the

fluent authority of early Christians, as if they had heard out of the

Master’s own mouth the words, “Yet a little while and ye shall see me.”

They possessed the most remarkable theories concerning inner light and

intuition and the transmission of thought. One of them, named Lea, was

deaf, and yet she nearly always knew what was being talked about!

It was usually the deaf Gerhardt who read aloud at the Jerusalem

evenings, and the ladies found that she read beautifully and

very affectingly. She took out of her bag an old book of a very

disproportionate shape, much taller than it was broad, with an

inhumanly chubby presentment of her ancestor in the front. She held

it in both hands and read in a tremendous voice, in order to catch

a little herself of what she read. It sounded as if the wind were

imprisoned in the chimney:

“If Satan me would swallow.”

“Goodness!” thought Tony Grünlich, “how could Satan want to swallow

her?” But she said nothing and devoted herself to the pudding,

wondering if she herself would ever become as ugly as the two Miss

Gerhardts.

She was not happy. She felt bored and out of patience with all the

pastors and missionaries, whose visits had increased ever since the

death of the Consul. According to Tony they had too much to say in the

house and received entirely too much money. But this last was Tom’s

affair, and he said nothing, while his sister now and then murmured

something about people who consumed widows’ homes and made long prayers.

She hated these black gentlemen bitterly. As a mature woman who knew

life and was no longer a silly innocent, she found herself unable to

believe in their irreproachable sanctity. “Mother,” she said, “oh dear,

I know I must not speak evil of my neighbours. But one thing I must

say, and I should be surprised if life had not taught you that too, and

that is that not all those who wear a long coat and say ‘Lord, Lord’

are always entirely without blemish.”

History does not say what Tom thought of his sister’s opinion on this

point. Christian had no opinion at all. He confined himself to watching

the gentlemen with his nose wrinkled up, in order to imitate them

afterward at the club or in the family circle.

But it is true that Tony was the chief sufferer from the pious

visitants. One day it actually happened that a missionary named

Jonathan, who had been in Arabia and Syria--a man with great,

reproachful eyes and baggy cheeks was stopping in the house, and

challenged her to assert that the curls she wore on her forehead were

consistent with true Christian humility. He had not reckoned with Tony

Grünlich’s skill at repartee. She was silent a moment, while her mind

worked rapidly; and then out it came. “May I ask you, Herr Pastor,

to concern yourself with your own curls?” With that she rustled out,

shoulders up, head back, and chin well tucked in. Pastor Jonathan had

very few curls on his head--it would be nearer truth to say that he was

quite bald.

And once she had an even greater triumph. There was a certain Pastor

Trieschke from Berlin. His nickname was Teary Trieschke, because every

Sunday he began to weep at an appropriate place in his sermon. Teary

Trieschke had a pale face, red eyes, and cheek-bones like a horse’s.

He had been stopping for eight or ten days with the Buddenbrooks,

conducting devotions and holding eating contests with poor Clothilde,

turn about. He happened to fall in love with Tony--not with her

immortal soul, oh no, but with her upper lip, her thick hair, her

pretty eyes and charming figure. And the man of God, who had a wife

and numerous children in Berlin, was not ashamed to have Anton leave

a letter in Madame Grünlich’s bedroom in the upper storey, wherein

Bible texts and a kind of fawning sentimentality were surpassingly

mingled. She found it when she went to bed, read it, and went with

a firm step downstairs into the Frau Consul’s bedroom, where by the

candle-light she read aloud the words of the soul-saver to her Mother,

quite unembarrassed and in a loud voice; so that Teary Trieschke became

impossible in Meng Street.

“They are all alike,” said Madame Grünlich; “ah, they are all alike.

Oh, heavens, what a goose I was once! But life has destroyed my faith

in men. Most of them are scoundrels--alas, it is the truth. Grünlich--”

The name was, as always, like a summons to battle. She uttered it with

her shoulders lifted and her eyes rolled up.

CHAPTER VI

Sievert Tiburtius was a small, narrow man with a large head and a thin,

long, blond beard parted in the middle, so that he sometimes put the

ends back over his shoulders. A quantity of little woolly ringlets

covered his round head. His ears were large and outstanding, very much

curled up at the edges and pointed at the tips like the ears of a fox.

His nose sat like a tiny flat button in his face, his cheek-bones stood

out, and his grey eyes, usually drawn close together and blinking about

rather stupidly, could at certain moments widen quite extraordinarily,

and get larger and larger, protruding more and more until they almost

sprang out of their sockets.

This Pastor Tiburtius, who came from Riga, had preached for some years

in central Germany, and now touched at the town on his way back home,

where a living had been offered to him. Armed with the recommendation

of a brother of the cloth who had eaten at least once in Meng Street

of mock-turtle soup and ham with onion sauce, he waited upon the Frau

Consul and was invited to be her guest for a few days. He occupied the

spacious guest-chamber off the corridor in the first storey. But he

stopped longer than he had expected. Eight days passed, and still there

was this or that to be seen: the dance of death and the apostle-clock

in St. Mary’s, the Town Hall, the ancient Ships’ Company, the Cathedral

clock with the movable eyes. Ten days passed, and he spoke repeatedly

of his departure, but at the first word of demur from anybody would

postpone anew.

He was a better man than Herr Jonathan or Teary Trieschke. He thought

not at all about Frau Antonie’s curls and wrote her no letters.

Strange to say, he paid his attentions to Clara, her younger and more

serious sister. In her presence, when she spoke, entered or left the

room, his eyes would grow surprisingly larger and larger and open out

until they nearly jumped out of his head. He would spend almost the

entire day in her company, in spiritual or worldly converse or reading

aloud to her in his high voice and with the droll, jerky pronunciation

of his Baltic home.

Even on the first day he said: “Permit me to say, Frau Consul, what a

treasure and blessing from God you have in your daughter Clara. She is

certainly a wonderful child.”

“You are right,” replied the Frau Consul. But he repeated his opinion

so often that she began looking him over with her pale-blue eyes, and

led him on to speak of his home, his connections, and his prospects.

She learned that he came of a mercantile family, that his mother was

with God, that he had no brothers and sisters, and that his old father

had retired and lived on his income in Riga--an income which would

sometime fall to him, Pastor Tiburtius. He also had a sufficient living

from his calling.

Clara Buddenbrook was now in her nineteenth year. She had grown to be

a young lady of an austere and peculiar beauty, with a tall, slender

figure, dark, smooth hair, and stern yet dreamy eyes. Her nose was

slightly hooked, her mouth a little too firmly closed. In the household

she was most intimate with her poor and pious cousin Clothilde, whose

father had lately died, and whose idea it was to “establish herself”

soon--which meant to go into a pension somewhere with the money and

furniture which she had inherited. Clara had nothing of Clothilde’s

meek and hungry submissiveness. On the contrary, with the servants and

even with her brothers and sister and mother, a commanding tone was

usual with her. Her low voice, which seemed only to drop with decision

and never to rise with a question, had an imperious sound and could

often take on a short, hard, impatient, haughty quality--on days, for

example, when Clara had a headache.

Before the father’s death had shrouded the family in mourning, she had

taken part with irreproachable dignity in the society of her parents’

house and other houses of like rank. But when the Frau Consul looked

at her, she could not deny that, despite the stately dowry and Clara’s

domestic prowess, it would not be easy to marry her off. None of the

godless, jovial, claret-drinking merchants of their circle would answer

in the least; a clergyman would be the only suitable partner for this

earnest and God-fearing maiden. After the Frau Consul had conceived

this joyful idea, she responded with friendliness to the delicate

advances of Pastor Tiburtius.

And truly the affair developed with precision. On a warm, cloudless

July afternoon the family took a walk: the Frau Consul, Antonie,

Christian, Clara, Clothilde, Erica Grünlich, and Mamsell Jungmann, with

Pastor Tiburtius in their midst, went out far beyond the Castle Gate to

eat strawberries and clotted milk or porridge at a wooden table laid

out-of-doors, going after the meal into the large nut-garden which ran

down to the river, in the shade of all sorts of fruit-trees, between

currant and gooseberry bushes, asparagus and potato patches.

Sievert Tiburtius and Clara Buddenbrook stopped a little behind the

others. He, much the smaller of the two, with his beard parted back

over his shoulders, had taken off his broad-brimmed black hat from his

big head; and he wiped his brow now and then with his handkerchief.

His eyes were larger than usual and he carried on with her a long and

gentle conversation, in the course of which they both stood still, and

Clara, with a serious, calm voice said her “Yes.”

After they returned, the Frau Consul, a little tired and overheated,

was sitting alone in the landscape-room, when Pastor Tiburtius came

and sat beside her. Outside there reigned the pensive calm of the

Sabbath afternoon; and they sat inside and held, in the brightness of

the summer evening, a long, low conversation, at the end of which the

Frau Consul said: “Enough, my dear Herr Pastor. Your offer coincides

with my motherly plans for my daughter; and you on your side have not

chosen badly--that I can assure you. Who would have thought that your

coming and your stay here in our house would be so wonderfully blest!

I will not speak my final word to-day, for I must write first to my

son, the Consul, who is at present, as you know, away. You will travel

to-morrow, if you live and have your health, to Riga, to take up your

work; and we expect to go for some weeks to the seashore. You will

receive word from me soon, and God grant that we shall have a happy

meeting.”

CHAPTER VII

AMSTERDAM, July 30th, 1856

HOTEL HET HASSJE

MY DEAR MOTHER,

I have just received your important letter, and hasten to thank you

for the consideration you show me in asking for my consent in the

affair under discussion. I send you, of course, not only my hearty

agreement, but add my warmest good-wishes, being thoroughly convinced

that you and Clara have made a good choice. The fine name Tiburtius

is known to me, and I feel sure that Papa had business relations with

the father. Clara comes into pleasant connections, in any case, and

the position as pastor’s wife will be very suited to her temperament.

And Tiburtius has gone back to Riga, and will visit his bride

again in August? Well, it will be a gay time then with us in Meng

Street--gayer than you realize, for you do not know the reason why I

was so joyfully surprised by Mademoiselle Clara’s betrothal, nor what

a charming company it is likely to be. Yes, my dear good Mother: I

am complying with the request to send my solemn consent to Clara’s

betrothal from the Amstel to the Baltic. But I do so on condition

that you send me a similar consent by return of post! I would give

three solid gulden to see your face, and even more that of our honest

Tony, when you read these lines. But I will come to the point.

My clean little hotel is in the centre of the town with a pretty view

of the canal. It is not far from the Bourse; and the business on

which I came here--a question of a new and valuable connection, which

you know I prefer to look after in person--has gone successfully

from the first day. I have still considerable acquaintance here

from the days of my apprenticeship; so, although many families are

at the shore now, I have been invited out a good deal. I have been

at small evening companies at the Van Henkdoms and the Moelens, and

on the third day after my arrival I had to put on my dress clothes

to go to a dinner at the house of my former chief, van der Kellen,

which he had arranged out of season in my honour. Whom did I take

in to dinner? Should you like to guess? Fräulein Arnoldsen, Tony’s

old school-fellow. Her father, the great merchant and almost greater

violin artist, and his married daughter and her husband were also of

the party.

I well remember that Gerda--if I may call her so--from the beginning,

even when she was a young girl at school at Fräulein Weichbrodt’s

on the Millbrink, made a strong impression on me, never quite

obliterated. But now I saw her again, taller, more developed,

lovelier, more animated. Please spare me a description, which might

so easily sound overdrawn--and you will soon see each other face to

face.

You can imagine we had much to talk about at the table, but we had

left the old memories behind by the end of the soup, and went on

to more serious and fascinating matters. In music I could not hold

my own with her, for we poor Buddenbrooks know all too little of

that, but in the art of the Netherlands I was more at home, and in

literature we were fully agreed.

Truly the time flew. After dinner I had myself presented to old Herr

Arnoldsen, who received me with especial cordiality. Later, in the

salon, he played several concert pieces, and Gerda also performed.

She looked wonderful as she played, and although I have no notion of

violin playing, I know that she knew how to sing upon her instrument

(a real Stradivarius) so that the tears nearly came into my eyes.

Next day I went to call on the Arnoldsens. I was received at first

by an elderly companion, with whom I spoke French, but then Gerda

came, and we talked as on the day before for perhaps an hour, only

that this time we drew nearer together and made still more effort to

understand and know each other. The talk was of you, Mamma, of Tony,

of our good old town, and of my work.

And on that day I had already taken the firm resolve: this one or

no one, now or never! I met her again by chance at a garden party at

my friend van Svindren’s, and I was invited to a musical evening at

the Arnoldsens’, in the course of which I sounded the young lady by

a half-declaration, which was received encouragingly. Five days ago

I went to Herr Arnoldsen to ask for permission to win his daughter’s

hand. He received me in his private office. “My dear Consul,” he

said, “you are very welcome, hard as it will be for an old widower

to part from his daughter. But what does she say? She has already

held firmly to her resolve never to marry. Have you a chance?” He was

extremely surprised when I told him that Fräulein Gerda had actually

given me ground for hope.

He left her some time for reflection, and I imagine that out of pure

selfishness he dissuaded her. But it was useless. She had chosen

me--since yesterday evening the betrothal is an accomplished fact.

No, my dear Mother, I am not asking a written answer to this letter,

for I am leaving to-morrow. But I am bringing with me the Arnoldsens’

promise that father, daughter, and married sister will visit us in

August, and then you will be obliged to confess that she is the very

wife for me. I hope you see no objection in the fact that Gerda is

only three years younger than I? I am sure you never thought I would

marry a chit out of the Möllendorpf-Langhals, Kistenmaker-Hagenström

circle.

And now for the dowry. I am almost frightened to think how Stephan

Kistenmaker and Hermann Hagenström and Peter Döhlmann and Uncle

Justus and the whole town will blink at me when they hear of the

dowry. For my future father-in-law is a millionaire. Heavens, what is

there to say? We are such complex, contradictory creatures! I deeply

love and respect Gerda Arnoldsen; and I simply will not delve deep

down enough in myself to find out how much the thought of the dowry,

which was whispered into my ear that first evening, contributed to my

feeling. I love her: but it crowns my happiness and pride to think

that when she becomes mine, our firm will at the same time gain a

very considerable increase of capital.

I must close this letter, dear Mother; considering that in a few

days, we shall be talking over my good fortune together, it is

already too long. I wish you a pleasant and beneficial stay at the

baths, and beg you to greet all the family most heartily for me. Your

loving and obedient son,

T.

CHAPTER VIII

That year there was indeed a merry midsummer holiday in the Buddenbrook

home. At the end of July Thomas returned to Meng Street and visited

his family at the shore several times, like the other business men in

the town. Christian had allotted full holidays unto himself, as he

complained of an indefinite ache in his left leg. Dr. Grabow did not

seem to treat it successfully, and Christian thought of it so much the

more.

“It is not a pain--one can’t call it a pain,” he expatiated, rubbing

his hand up and down his leg, wrinkling his big nose, and letting his

eyes roam about. “It is a sort of ache, a continuous, slight, uneasy

ache in the whole leg and on the left side, the side where the heart

is. Strange. I find it strange--what do you think about it, Tom?”

“Well, well,” said Tom, “you can have a rest and the sea-baths.”

So Christian went down to the shore to tell stories to his

fellow-guests, and the beach resounded with their laughter. Or he

played roulette with Peter Döhlmann, Uncle Justus, Dr. Gieseke, and

other Hamburg high-fliers.

Consul Buddenbrook went with Tony, as always when they were in

Travemünde, to see the old Schwarzkopfs on the front. “Good day, Ma’am

Grünlich,” said the pilot-captain, and spoke low German out of pure

good feeling.

“Well, well, what a long time ago that was! And Morten, he’s a doctor

in Breslau and has all the practice in the town, the rascal.” Frau

Schwarzkopf ran off and made coffee, and they supped in the green

verandah as they used to--only all of them were a good ten years

older, and Morten and little Meta were not there, she having married

the magistrate of Haffkrug. And the captain, already white-haired and

rather deaf, had retired from his office--and Madame Grünlich was not

a goose any more! Which did not prevent her from eating a great many

slices of bread and honey, for, as she said: “Honey is a pure nature

product--one knows what one is getting.”

At the beginning of August the Buddenbrooks, like most of the other

families, returned to town; and then came the great moment when, almost

at the same time, Pastor Tiburtius from Prussia and the Arnoldsens from

Holland arrived for a long visit in Meng Street.

It was a very pretty scene when the Consul led his bride for the first

time into the landscape-room and took her to his mother, who received

her with outstretched arms. Gerda had grown tall and splendid. She

walked with a free and gracious bearing; with her heavy dark-red hair,

her close-set brown eyes with the blue shadows round them, her large,

gleaming teeth which showed when she smiled, her straight strong nose

and nobly formed mouth, this maiden of seven-and-twenty years had a

strange, aristocratic, haunting beauty. Her face was white and a little

haughty, but she bowed her head as the Frau Consul with gentle feeling

took it between her hands and kissed the pure, snowy forehead. “Yes,

you are welcome to our house and to our family, you dear, beautiful,

blessed creature,” she said. “You will make him happy. Do I not see

already how happy you make him?” And she drew Thomas forward with her

other arm, to kiss him also.

Never, except perhaps in Grandfather’s time, was there more gay society

in the great house, which accommodated its guests with ease. Pastor

Tiburtius had modestly chosen a bed-chamber in the back building

next the billiard-room. But the rest divided the unoccupied space

on the ground floor next the hall and in the first storey: Gerda;

Herr Arnoldsen, a quick, clever man at the end of the fifties, with

a pointed grey beard and a pleasant impetuosity in every motion;

his oldest daughter, an ailing-looking woman; and his son-in-law,

an elegant man of the world, who was turned over to Christian for

entertainment in the town and at the club.

Antonie was overjoyed that Sievert Tiburtius was the only parson in

the house. The betrothal of her adored brother rejoiced her heart.

Aside from Gerda’s being her friend, the parti was a brilliant one,

gilding the family name and the firm with such new glory! And the

three-hundred-thousand mark dowry and the thought of what the town and

particularly the Hagenströms would say to it, put her in a state of

prolonged and delightful enchantment. Three times daily, at least, she

passionately embraced her future sister-in-law.

“Oh, Gerda,” she cried, “I love you--you know I always did love you. I

know you can’t stand me--you used to hate me; but--”

“Why, Tony!” said Fräulein Arnoldsen. “How could I have hated you? Did

you ever do anything to me?” For some reason, however--probably out of

mere wantonness and love of talking--Tony asserted stoutly that Gerda

had always hated her, while she on her side had always returned the

hate with love. She took Thomas aside and told him: “You have done very

well, Tom. Oh, heavens, how well you have done! If Father could only

see this--it is just dreadful that he cannot! Yes, this wipes out a lot

of things--not least the affair with that person whose name I do not

even like to speak.”

Which put it into her head to take Gerda into an empty room and tell

her with awful detail the story of her married life with Bendix

Grünlich. Then they talked for hours about boarding-school days and the

bed-time gossip; of Armgard von Schilling in Mecklenburg and Eva Ewers

in Munich. Tony paid little or no attention to Sievert Tiburtius and

his betrothed--which troubled them not at all. The lovers sat quietly

together hand in hand, and spoke gently and earnestly of the beautiful

future before them.

As the year of mourning was not quite over, the two betrothals were

celebrated only in the family. But Gerda quickly became a celebrity

in the town. Her person formed the chief subject of conversation on

the Bourse, at the club, at the theatre, and in society. “Tip-top,”

said the gallants, and clucked their tongues, for that was the latest

Hamburg slang for a superior article, whether a brand of claret, a

cigar, or a “deal.” But among the solid, respectable citizens there

was much head-shaking. “Something queer about her,” they said. “Her

hair, her face, the way she dresses--a little too unusual.” Sorenson

expressed it: “She has a certain something about her!” He made a face

as if he were on the Bourse and somebody had made him a doubtful

proposition. But it was all just like Consul Buddenbrook: a little

pretentious, not like his forebears. Everybody knew--not least Benthien

the draper--that he ordered his clothes from Hamburg: not only the

fine new-fashioned materials for his suits--and he had a great many

of them, cloaks, coats, waistcoats, and trousers--but his hats and

cravats and linen as well. He changed his shirt every day, sometimes

twice a day, and perfumed his handkerchief and his moustache, which he

wore cut like Napoleon III. All this was not for the sake of the firm,

of course--the house of Johann Buddenbrook did not need that sort of

thing--but to gratify his own personal taste for the superfine and

aristocratic--or whatever you might call it. And then the quotations

from Heine and other poets which he dropped sometimes in the most

practical connections, in business or civic matters! And now, his

bride--well, Consul Buddenbrook himself had “a certain something” about

him! All this, of course, with the greatest respect; for the family was

highly esteemed, the firm very, very “good,” and the head of it an able

and charming man who loved his city and would still serve her well. It

was really a devilishly fine match for him; there was talk of a hundred

thousand thaler down; but of course.... Among the ladies there were

some who found Gerda “silly”; which, it will be recalled, was a very

severe judgment.

But the man who gazed with furious ardour at Thomas Buddenbrook’s

bride, the first time he saw her on the street, was Gosch the broker.

“Ah!” he said in the club or the Ships’ Company, lifting his glass

and screwing up his face absurdly, “what a woman! Hera and Aphrodite,

Brunhilda and Melusine all in one! Oh, how wonderful life is!” he would

add. And not one of the citizens who sat about with their beer on the

hard wooden benches of the old guild-house, under the models of sailing

vessels and big stuffed fish hanging down from the ceiling, had the

least idea what the advent of Gerda Arnoldsen meant in the yearning

life of Gosch the broker.

The little company in Meng Street, not committed, as we have seen,

to large entertainments, had the more leisure for intimacy with each

other. Sievert Tiburtius, with Clara’s hand in his, talked about his

parents, his childhood, and his future plans. The Arnoldsens told of

their people, who came from Dresden, only one branch of them having

been transplanted to Holland.

Madame Grünlich asked her brother for the key of the secretary in the

landscape-room, and brought out the portfolio with the family papers,

in which Thomas had already entered the new events. She proudly related

the Buddenbrook history, from the Rostock tailor on; and when she read

out the old festival verses:

Industry and beauty chaste

See we linked in marriage band:

Venus Anadyomene,

And cunning Vulcan’s busy hand

she looked at Tom and Gerda and let her tongue play over her lips.

Regard for historical veracity also caused her to narrate events

connected with a certain person whose name she did not like to mention!

On Thursday at four o’clock the usual guests came. Uncle Justus brought

his feeble wife, with whom he lived an unhappy existence. The wretched

mother continued to scrape together money out of the housekeeping to

send to the degenerate and disinherited Jacob in America, while she and

her husband subsisted on almost nothing but porridge. The Buddenbrook

ladies from Broad Street also came; and their love of truth compelled

them to say, as usual, that Erica Grünlich was not growing well and

that she looked more than ever like her wretched father. Also that

the Consul’s bride wore a rather conspicuous coiffure. And Sesemi

Weichbrodt came too, and standing on her tip-toes, kissed Gerda with

her little explosive kiss on the forehead and said with emotion: “Be

happy, my dear child.”

At table Herr Arnoldsen gave one of his witty and fanciful toasts in

honour of the two bridal pairs. While the rest drank their coffee he

played the violin, like a gipsy, passionately, with abandonment--and

with what dexterity!... Gerda fetched her Stradivarius and accompanied

him in his passages with her sweet cantilena. They performed

magnificent duets at the little organ in the landscape-room, where once

the Consul’s grandfather had played his simple melodies on the flute.

“Sublime!” said Tony, lolling back in her easy-chair. “Oh, heavens, how

sublime that is!” And she rolled up her eyes to the ceiling to express

her emotions. “You know how it is in life,” she went on, weightily.

“Not everybody is given such a gift. Heaven has unfortunately denied

it to me, though I used to pray for it at night. I am a goose, a silly

creature. You know, Gerda--I am the elder and have learned to know

life--let me tell you, you ought to thank your Creator every day on

your knees, for being such a gifted creature!”

“Oh, please,” said Gerda, with a laugh, showing her beautiful large

white teeth.

Later they all ate wine jelly and discussed their plans for the near

future. At the end of that month or the beginning of September, it was

decided, Sievert Tiburtius and the Arnoldsens would go home. Then,

directly after Christmas, Clara’s wedding would be celebrated with

due solemnity in the great hall. The Frau Consul, health permitting,

would attend Tom’s wedding in Amsterdam. But it must be put off until

the beginning of the next year, that there might be a little pause for

rest between. It was no use for Thomas to protest. “Please,” said the

Frau Consul, and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Sievert should have the

precedence, I think.”

The Pastor and his bride had decided against a wedding journey. Gerda

and Thomas, however, were to take a trip to northern Italy, as far as

Florence, and be gone about two months. In the meantime Tony, with

the help of the upholsterer Jacobs in Fish Street, was to make ready

the charming little house in Broad Street, the property of a bachelor

who had moved to Hamburg. The Consul was already arranging for its

purchase. Oh, Tony would furnish it to the Queen’s taste. “It will be

perfect,” she said. They were all sure it would.

Christian looked on while the two bridal pairs held hands, and listened

to the talk about weddings and trousseaux and bridal journeys. His

nose looked bigger and his legs more crooked than ever. He felt an

indefinite sort of pain in the left one, and stared solemnly at them

all out of his little round deep-set eyes. Finally, in the accents of

Marcellus Stengel, he said to his cousin Clothilde, who sat elderly,

dried-up, silent, and hungry, at table among the happy throng: “Well,

Tilda, let’s _us_ get married too--I mean, of course each one for

himself.”

CHAPTER IX

Some six months later Consul Buddenbrook returned with his bride from

Italy. The March snows lay in Broad Street as the carriage drove up at

five o’clock before the front door of their simple painted façade. A

few children and grown folk had stopped to watch the home-coming pair

descend. Frau Antonie Grünlich stood proudly in the doorway, behind her

the two servant-maids, with white caps, bare arms, and thick striped

skirts--she had engaged them beforehand for her sister-in-law. Flushed

with pleasure and industry, she ran impetuously down the steps; Gerda

and Thomas climbed out of the trunk-laden carriage wrapped in their

furs; and she drew them into the house in her embrace.

“Here you are! You lucky people, to have travelled so far in the world.

‘Knowest thou the house? High-pillared are its walls!’ Gerda, you are

more beautiful than ever; here, I must kiss you--no, so, on the mouth.

How are you, Tom, old fellow?--yes, I must kiss you too. Marcus says

everything has gone well here. Mother is waiting for you at home, but

you can first just make yourselves comfortable. Will you have some tea?

Or a bath? Everything is ready--you won’t complain. Jacobs did his

best--and I have done all I could, too.”

They went together into the vestibule, and the servants brought in

the luggage with the help of the coachman. Tony said: “The rooms here

in the parterre you will probably not need for the present. _For the

present_,” she repeated, running her tongue over her upper lip. “Look,

this is pretty,” and she opened a door directly next the vestibule.

“Simple oak furniture, ivy at the windows. Over there, the other side

of the corridor, is another room, a larger one. Here on the right are

the kitchen and larder. But let’s go up. I will show you everything.”

They went up the stairs, which were covered with a dark-red runner.

Above, behind a glass partition, was a narrow corridor which led to the

dining-room. This had dark-red damask wall-paper, a heavy round table

upon which the samovar was steaming, a massive sideboard, and chairs

of carved nut-wood, with rush seats. Then there was a comfortable

sitting-room upholstered in grey, separated by portières from a small

salon with a bay-window and furniture in green striped rep. A fourth of

this whole storey was occupied by a large hall with three windows.

Then they went into the sleeping-room, on the right of the corridor.

It had flowered hangings and solid mahogany beds. Tony passed on to a

small door with open-work carving in the opposite wall, and displayed

a winding stair leading from the bedroom to the lower floors, the

bathroom, and the servants’ quarters.

“It is pretty here. I shall stop here,” said Gerda, and sank with a

deep breath into the reclining-chair beside one of the beds.

The Consul bent over and kissed her forehead. “Tired? I feel like that

too. I should like to tidy up a bit.”

“I’ll look after the tea,” said Tony Grünlich, “and wait for you in the

dining-room.”

The tea stood steaming in the Meissenware cups when Thomas entered.

“Here I am,” he said. “Gerda would like to rest a little. She has a

headache. Afterward we will go to Meng Street. Well, how is everything,

my dear Tony--all right? Mother, Erica, Christian? But now,” he went on

with his most charming manner, “our warmest thanks--Gerda’s too--for

all your trouble, you good soul. How pretty you have made everything!

Nothing is missing.--I only need a few palms for my wife’s bay-window;

and I must look about for some suitable oil paintings. But tell me,

now, how are you? What have you been doing all this time?”

He had drawn up a chair for his sister beside himself, and slowly drank

his tea and ate a biscuit as they talked.

“Oh, Tom,” she answered. “What should I be doing? My life is over.”

“Nonsense, Tony--you and your life! But it _is_ pretty tiresome, is it?”

“Yes, Tom, it is very tiresome. Sometimes I just have to shriek, out

of sheer boredom. It has been nice to be busy with this house, and you

don’t know how happy I am at your return. But I am not happy here--God

forgive me, if that is a sin. I am in the thirties now, but I’m still

not quite old enough to make intimate friends with the last of the

Himmelsburgers, or the Miss Gerhardts, or any of mother’s black friends

that come and consume widows’ homes. I don’t believe in them, Tom; they

are wolves in sheep’s clothing--a generation of vipers. We are all weak

creatures with sinful hearts, and when they begin to look down on me

for a poor worldling I laugh in their faces. I’ve always thought that

all men are the same, and that we don’t need any intercessors between

us and God. You know my political beliefs. I think the citizens--”

“Then you feel lonely?” Tom asked, to bring her back to her

starting-point. “But you have Erica.”

“Yes, Tom, and I love the child with my whole heart--although a certain

person did use to declare that I am not fond of children. But you

see--I am perfectly frank; I am an honest woman and speak as I think,

without making words--”

“Which is splendid of you, Tony.”

“Well, in short--it is sad, but the child reminds me too much of

Grünlich. The Buddenbrooks in Broad Street think she is very like him

too. And then, when I see her before me I always think: ‘You are an old

woman with a big daughter, and your life is over. Once for a few years

you were alive; but now you can grow to be seventy or eighty years

old, sitting here and listening to Lea Gerhardt read aloud.’ That is

such an awful thought, Tom, that a lump comes in my throat. Because I

still feel so young, and still long to see life again. And besides, I

don’t feel comfortable--not only in the house; but in the town. You

know I haven’t been struck blind. I have my eyes in my head and see

how things are; I am not a stupid goose any more, I am a divorced

woman--and I am made to feel it, that’s certain. Believe me, Tom, it

lies like a weight on my heart, to know that I have besmirched our

name, even if it was not any fault of mine. You can do whatever you

will, you can earn money and be the first man in the town--but people

will still say: ‘Yes, but his sister is a divorced woman.’ Julchen

Möllendorpf, the Hagenström girl--she doesn’t speak to me! Oh, well,

she is a goose. It is the same with all families. And yet I can’t

get rid of the hope that I could make it all good again. I am still

young--don’t you think I am still rather pretty? Mamma cannot give me

very much again, but even what she can give is an acceptable sum of

money. Suppose I were to marry again? To confess the truth, Tom, it is

my most fervent wish. Then everything would be put right and the stain

wiped out. Oh, if I could only make a match worthy of our name, and set

myself up again--do you think it is entirely out of the question?”

“Not in the least, Tony. Heaven forbid! I have always thought of it.

But it seems to me that in the first place you must get out a little,

have a little change, and brighten up a bit.”

“Yes, that’s it,” she cried eagerly. “Now I must tell you a little

story.”

Thomas was well pleased. He leaned back in his chair and smoked his

second cigarette. The twilight was coming on.

“Well, then, while you were away, I almost took a situation--a position

as companion in Liverpool! Would you have thought it was shocking? Oh,

I know it would have been undignified! But I was so wildly anxious to

get away. The plan came to nothing. I sent my photograph to the lady,

and she wrote that she must decline my services, because I was too

pretty--there was a grown son in the house. ‘You are too pretty,’ she

wrote! I don’t know when I have been so pleased.”

They both laughed heartily.

“But now I have something else in mind,” went on Tony. “I have had an

invitation, from Eva Ewers, to go to Munich. Her name is Eva Niederpaur

now; her husband is superintendent of a brewery. Well, she has asked

me to visit her, and I think I will take advantage of the invitation.

Of course, Erica could not go with me. I would put her in Sesemi

Weichbrodt’s pension. She would be well taken care of. Have you any

objection?”

“Not at all. It is necessary, in any case, that you should make some

new connections.”

“Yes, that’s it,” she said gratefully. “But now, Tom. I have been

talking the whole time about myself; I am a selfish thing. Now, tell me

your affairs. Oh, Heavens, how happy you must be.”

“Yes, Tony,” he said with emphasis. There was a pause. He blew out the

smoke across the table and continued: “In the first place, I am very

glad to be married and set up an establishment. You know I should not

make a good bachelor. It has a side to it that suggests loneliness and

also laziness--and I am ambitious, as you know. I don’t feel that my

career is finished, either in business or--to speak half-jestingly--in

politics. And a man gains the confidence of the world better if he is

a family man and a father. Though I came within an ace of not doing

it, after all! I am a bit fastidious. For a long time I thought it

would not be possible to find the right person. But the sight of Gerda

decided me. I felt at once that she was the only one for me: though I

know there are people in town who don’t care for my taste. She is a

wonderful creature; there are few like her in the world. She is nothing

like you, Tony, to be sure. You are simpler, and more natural too.

My lady sister is simply more temperamental,” he continued, suddenly

taking a lighter tone. “Oh, Gerda has temperament too--her playing

shows that; but she can sometimes be a little cold. In short, she is

not to be measured by the ordinary standards. She is an artist, an

individual, a puzzling, fascinating creature.”

“Yes, yes,” Tony said. She had given her brother the closest attention.

It was nearly dark, and she had not thought of lighting the lamps.

The corridor door opened, and there stood before them in the twilight,

in a pleated piqué house-frock, white as snow, a slender figure. The

heavy dark-red hair framed her white face, and blue shadows lay about

her close-set brown eyes. It was Gerda, mother of future Buddenbrooks.

PART SIX

CHAPTER I

Thomas Buddenbrook took a solitary early breakfast in his pretty

dining-room. His wife usually left her room late, as she was subject to

headaches and vapours in the morning. The Consul went at once to Meng

Street, where the offices still were, took his second breakfast with

his mother, Christian and Ida Jungmann in the entresol, and met Gerda

only at dinner, at four in the afternoon.

The ground floor of the old house still preserved the life and movement

of a great business; but the upper storeys were empty and lonely.

Little Erica had been received as a boarder by Mademoiselle Weichbrodt,

and poor Clothilde had moved with her few sticks of furniture into

a cheap pension with the widow of a high-school teacher, a Frau Dr.

Krauseminz. Even Anton had left the house, and gone over to the young

pair, where he was more needed. When Christian was at the club, the

Frau Consul and Ida Jungmann sat at four o’clock dinner alone at the

round table, in which there was now not a single extra leaf. It looked

quite lost in the great spaces of the dining-temple with its images of

the gods.

The social life of Meng Street had been extinguished with the death of

Consul Johann Buddenbrook. Except for the visits of this or that man

of God, the Frau Consul saw no guests but the members of her family,

who still came on Thursday afternoons. But the first great dinner had

already been given by the young pair in Broad Street. Tables were

laid in both dining- and living-room, and there were a hired cook

and waiters and Kistenmaker wines. It began at five o’clock, and its

sounds and smells were still in the air at eleven. All the business

and professional men were present, married pairs and bachelors as

well: all the tribe of Langhals, Hagenströms, Huneus’, Kistenmakers,

Överdiecks, and Möllendorpfs. It finished off with whist and music.

They talked about it in glowing terms on the Bourse for a whole week.

The young Frau Consul certainly knew how to entertain! When she and the

Consul were alone, in the room lighted by burned-down candles, with

the furniture disarranged and the air thick with heavy odours of rich

food, wine, cigars, coffee, perfume, and the scent of the flowers from

the ladies’ toilettes and the table decorations, he pressed her hand

and said: “Very good, Gerda. We do not need to be ashamed. This sort of

thing is necessary. I have no great fondness for balls, and having the

young people jumping about here; and, besides, there is not room. But

we must entertain the settled people. A dinner like that costs a bit

more--but it is well spent.”

“You are right,” she had answered, and arranged the laces through

which her bosom shimmered like marble. “I much prefer the dinners to

the balls myself. A dinner is so soothing. I had been playing this

afternoon, and felt a little queer. My brain feels quite dead now. If I

were to be struck by lightning I should not change colour.”

Next morning at half-past eleven the Consul sat down beside his Mother

at the breakfast-table, and she read a letter aloud to him:

MUNICH, April 2, 1857

MARIENPLATZ 5

MY DEAR MOTHER,

I must beg your pardon--it is a shame that I have not written before

in the eight days I have been here. My time has been so taken up with

all the things there are to see--I’ll tell you about them afterwards.

Now I must ask if all the dear ones, you and Tom and Gerda and Erica

and Christian and Tilda and Ida, are well--that is the most important

thing.

Ah, what all I have seen in these days!--the Pinakothek and the

Glyptothek and the Hofbräuhaus and the Court Theatre and the

churches, and quantities of other things! I must tell you of them

when I see you; otherwise I should kill myself writing. We have also

had a drive in the Isar valley, and for to-morrow an excursion to the

Wurmsee is arranged. So it goes on. Eva is very sweet to me, and her

husband, Herr Niederpaur, the brewery superintendent, is an agreeable

man. We live in a very pretty square in the town, with a fountain

in the middle, like ours at home in the market place, and the house

is quite near the Town Hall. I have never seen such a house. It is

painted from top to bottom, in all colours--St. Georges killing

dragons, and old Bavarian princes in full robes and arms. Imagine!

Yes, I like Munich extremely. The air is very strengthening to the

nerves, and for the moment I am quite in order with my stomach

trouble. I enjoy drinking the beer--I drink a good deal, the more so

as the water is not very good. But I cannot quite get used to the

food. There are too few vegetables and too much flour, for instance

in the sauces, which are pathetic. They have no idea of a proper

joint of veal, for the butchers cut everything very badly. And I miss

the fish. It is quite mad to be eating so much cucumber and potato

salad with the beer--my tummy rebels audibly.

Yes, one has to get used to a great deal. It is a real foreign

country. The strange currency, the difficulty of understanding

the common people--I speak too fast to them and they seem to talk

gibberish to me--and then the Catholicism. I hate it, as you know; I

have no respect for it--

Here the Consul began to laugh, leaning back in the sofa with a piece

of bread and herb cheese in his hand.

“Yes, Tom, you are laughing,” said his Mother, and tapped with her

middle finger on the table. “But it pleases me very much that she

holds fast to the faith of her fathers and shuns the unevangelical

gim-crackery. I know that you felt a certain sympathy for the papal

church, while you were in France and Italy: but that is not religion

in you, Tom--it is something else, and I understand what. We must be

forbearing; yet in these things a frivolous feeling of fascination is

very much to be regretted. I pray God that you and your Gerda,--for I

well know that she does not belong to those firm in the faith--will in

the course of time feel the necessary seriousness. You will forgive

your mother her words, I know.”

On top of the fountain (she continued reading) there is a Madonna,

and sometimes she is crowned with a wreath, and the common people

come with rose garlands and kneel down and pray--which looks very

pretty, but it is written: “Go into your chamber.” You often see

monks here in the street; they look very respectable. But--imagine,

Mamma!--yesterday in Theatiner Street some high dignitary of

the church was driving past me in his coach; perhaps it was an

archbishop; anyhow, an elderly man--well, this gentleman throws me an

ogling look out of the window, like a lieutenant of the Guard! You

know, Mother, I’ve no great opinion of your friends the ministers and

missionaries, but Teary Trieschke was certainly nothing compared to

this rakish old prince of the Church.

“Horrors!” interjected the Frau Consul, shocked.

“That’s Tony, to the life,” said the Consul.

“How is that, Tom?”

“Well, perhaps she just invited him a trifle--to try him, you know. I

know Tony. And I am sure the ‘ogling look’ delighted her hugely, which

was probably what the old gentleman wanted.”

The Frau Consul did not take this up, but continued to read:

Day before yesterday the Niederpaurs entertained in the evening. It

was lovely, though I could not always follow the conversation, and

I found the tone sometimes rather questionable. There was a singer

there from the Court opera, who sang songs, and a young artist,

who asked me to sit for him, which I refused, as I thought it not

suitable. I enjoyed myself most with a Herr Permaneder. Would you

ever think there could be such a name? He is a hop dealer, a nice,

jolly man, in middle life and a bachelor. I had him at table, and

stuck to him, for he was the only Protestant in the party. He is a

citizen of Munich, but his family comes from Nuremberg. He assured me

that he knew our firm very well by name, and you can imagine how it

pleased me, Tom, to hear the respectful tone in which he said that.

He asked how many there are of us, and things like that. He asked

about Erica and Grünlich too. He comes sometimes to the Niederpaurs’,

and is probably going to-morrow to Wurmsee with us.

Well, adieu, dear Mamma; I can write no more. If I live and prosper,

as you always say, I shall stop here three or four weeks more, and

when I come back I will tell you more of Munich, for in a letter it

is hard to know where to begin. I like it very much; that I must

say--though one would have to train a cook to make decent sauces.

You see, I am an old woman, with my life behind me, and I have

nothing more to look forward to on earth. But if, for example, Erica

should--if she lives and prospers--marry here, I should have nothing

against it; that I must say.

Again the Consul was obliged to stop eating and lean back in his chair

to laugh.

“She is simply priceless, Mother. And when she tries to dissimulate,

she is incomparable. She is a thousand miles away from being able to

carry it off.”

“Yes, Tom,” said the Frau Consul, “she is a good child, and deserves

good fortune.” And she finished the letter.

CHAPTER II

At the end of April Frau Grünlich returned home. Another epoch was

behind her, and the old existence began again--attending the daily

devotions and the Jerusalem evenings and hearing Lea Gerhardt read

aloud. Yet she was obviously in a gay and hopeful mood.

Her brother, the Consul, fetched her from the station--she had come

from Buchen--and drove her through the Holsten Gate into the town. He

could not resist paying her the old compliment--how, next to Clothilde,

she was the prettiest one in the family; and she answered: “Oh, Tom, I

hate you! To make fun of an old lady like that--”

But he was right, nevertheless: Madame Grünlich kept her good looks

remarkably. You looked at the thick ash-blonde hair, rolled at the

sides, drawn back above the little ears, and fastened on the top of the

head with a broad tortoise-shell comb; at the soft expression of her

grey-blue eyes, her pretty upper lip, the fine oval and delicate colour

of her face--and you thought of three-and-twenty, perhaps; never of

thirty. She wore elegant hanging gold earrings, which, in a somewhat

different form, her grandmother had worn before her. A loose bodice of

soft dark silk, with satin revers and flat lace epaulettes, gave her

pretty bosom an enchanting look of softness and fulness.

She was in the best of tempers. On Thursday, when Consul Buddenbrook

and the ladies from Broad Street, Consul Kröger, Clothilde, Sesemi

Wiechbrodt and Erica came to tea, she talked vividly about Munich.

The beer, the noodles, the artist who wanted to paint her, and the

court coaches had made the greatest impressions. She mentioned Herr

Permaneder in passing; and Pfiffi Buddenbrook let fall a word or two

to the effect that such a journey might be very agreeable, but did not

seem to have any practical results. Frau Grünlich passed this by with

dignity, though she put back her head and tucked in her chin. She fell

into the habit now, whenever the vestibule bell rang through the entry,

of hurrying to the landing to see who had come. What might that mean?

Probably only Ida Jungmann, Tony’s governess and year-long confidante,

knew that. Ida would say, “Tony, my child, you will see: he’ll come.”

The family was grateful to the returned traveller for her cheering

presence; for the atmosphere of the house sadly needed brightening. The

relations between the head of the firm and his younger brother had not

improved. Indeed, they had grown sadly worse. Their Mother, the Frau

Consul, followed with anxious misgivings the course of events and had

enough to do to mediate between the two. Her hints to visit the office

more regularly were received in absent silence by Christian. He met

his brother’s remonstrances with a mortified air, making no defence,

and for a few days would apply himself with somewhat more zeal to the

English correspondence. But there developed more and more in the elder

an irritated contempt for the younger brother, not decreased by the

fact that Christian received his occasional rebukes without seeming

offence, only looking at him with the usual absent disquiet in his eyes.

Tom’s irritable activity and the condition of his nerves would not let

him listen sympathetically or even patiently to Christian’s detailed

accounts of his increasing symptoms. To his mother or sister, he

referred to them with disgust as “the silly phenomena of an obstinate

introspection.”

The ache, the indefinite ache in Christian’s left leg, had yielded by

now to treatment; but the trouble in swallowing came on often at table,

and there was lately a difficulty in breathing, an asthmatic trouble,

which Christian thought for several weeks was consumption. He explained

its nature and activity at length to his family, his nose wrinkled

up the while. Dr. Grabow was called in. He said the heart and lungs

were operating soundly, but the occasional difficulty in breathing was

due to muscular sluggishness, and ordered first the use of a fan and

secondly that of a green powder which one burned, inhaling the smoke.

Christian used the fan in the office, and to a remonstrance on the part

of the chief answered that in Valparaiso every man in the office was

provided with a fan on account of the heat: “Johnny Thunderstorm--good

God!” But one day, after he had been wriggling about on his chair for

some time, nervous and restless, he took his powder out of his pocket

and made such a strong and violent-smelling reek in the room that some

of the men began to cough violently, and Herr Marcus grew quite pale.

There was an open explosion, a scandal, a dreadful talking-to which

would have led to a break at once, but that the Frau Consul once more

covered everything all up, reasoned them out of it, and set things

going again.

But this was not all. The life Christian led outside the house, mainly

with his old schoolmate Lawyer Gieseke, was observed by the Consul

with disgust. He was no prig, no spoil-sport. He knew very well that

his native town, this port and trading city, where men walked the

streets proud of their irreproachable reputation as business men, was

by no means of spotless morality. They made up to themselves for the

tedious hours spent in their offices, by dinners with heavy wines

and heavy dishes--and by other things. But the broad mantle of civic

respectability concealed this side of their life. Thomas Buddenbrook’s

first law was to preserve “the _dehors_”; wherein he showed himself

not so different from his fellow burghers. Lawyer Gieseke was a

member of the professional class, whose habits of life were much

like those of the merchants. That he was also a “good fellow,”

anybody could see who looked at him. But, like the other easy men of

pleasure in the community, he knew how to avoid trouble by wearing

the proper expression and saying the proper thing. And in political

and professional matters, he had a reputation of irreproachable

respectability. His betrothal to Fräulein Huneus had just been

announced; whereby he married a considerable dowry and a place in the

best society. He was active in civic affairs, and he had his eye on a

seat in the Council--even, ultimately, on the seat of old Burgomaster

Överdieck.

But his friend Christian Buddenbrook--the same who could go calmly up

to Mlle. Meyer-de-la-Grange, present her his bouquet, and say, “Oh,

Fräulein, how beautifully you act!”--Christian had been developed

by character and circumstances into a free-liver of the naïve and

untrammeled type. In affairs of the heart, as in all others, he was

disinclined to govern his feelings or to practise discretion for the

sake of preserving his dignity. The whole town had laughed over his

affair with an obscure actress at the summer theatre. Frau Stuht in

Bell Founders’ Street--the same who moved in the best society--told

everybody who would listen how Chris had been seen again walking by

daylight in the open street with the person from the Tivoli.

Even that did not actually offend people. There was too much candid

cynicism in the community to permit a display of serious moral

disapproval. Christian Buddenbrook, like Consul Peter Döhlmann--whose

declining business put him into somewhat the same artless class--was a

popular entertainer and indispensable to gentlemen’s companions. But

neither was taken seriously. In important matters they simply did not

count. It was a significant fact that the whole town, the Bourse, the

docks, the club, and the street called them by their first names--Peter

and Chris. And enemies, like the Hagenströms, laughed not only at

Chris’s stories and jokes; but at Chris himself, too.

He thought little or nothing of this. If he noticed it, it passed out

of his mind again after a momentary disquiet. But his brother the

Consul knew it. Thomas knew that Christian afforded a point of attack

to the enemies of the family--and there were already too many such

points. The connection with the Överdiecks was distant and would be

quite worthless after the Burgomaster’s death. The Krögers played no

rôle now; they lived retired, after the misfortunes with their son.

The marriage of the deceased uncle Gotthold was always unpleasant.

The Consul’s sister was a divorced wife, even if one did not quite

give up hope of her re-marrying. And his brother was a laughing-stock

in the town, a man with whose clownishness industrious men amused

their leisure and then laughed good-naturedly or maliciously. He

contracted debts, too, and at the end of the quarter, when he had no

more money, would quite openly let Dr. Gieseke pay for him--which was

a direct reflection on the firm. Thomas’s contemptuous ill will, which

Christian bore with quiet indifference, expressed itself in all the

trifling situations that come up between members of a family. If the

conversation turned upon the Buddenbrook family history, Christian

might be in the mood to speak with serious love and admiration of

his native town and of his ancestors. It sat rather oddly on him, to

be sure, and the Consul could not stand it: he would cut short the

conversation with some cold remark. He despised his brother so much

that he could not even permit him to love where he did. If Christian

had uttered the same sentiments in the dialect of Marcellus Stengel,

Tom could have borne it better. He had read a book, a historical work,

which had made such a strong impression on him that he spoke about

it and praised it in the family. Christian would by himself never

have found out the book; but he was impressionable and accessible to

every influence; so he also read it, found it wonderful, and described

his reactions with all possible detail. That book was spoiled for

Thomas for ever. He spoke of it with cold and critical detachment. He

pretended hardly to have read it. He completely gave it over to his

brother, to admire all by himself.

CHAPTER III

Consul Buddenbrook came from the “Harmony”--a reading-club for men,

where he had spent the hour after second breakfast--back into Meng

Street. He crossed the yard from behind, entered the side of the garden

by the passage which ran between vine-covered walls and connected the

back and front courtyards, and called into the kitchen to ask if his

brother were at home. They should let him know when he came in. Then

he passed through the office (where the men at the desks bent more

closely over their work) into the private room; he laid aside his hat

and stick, put on his working coat, and sat down in his place by the

window, opposite Herr Marcus. Between his pale eyebrows were two deep

wrinkles. The yellow end of a Russian cigarette roamed from one corner

of his mouth to the other. The movements with which he took up paper

and writing materials were so short and jerky that Herr Marcus ran

his two fingers up and down his beard and gave his colleague a long,

scrutinizing look. The younger men glanced at him with raised eyebrows.

The Head was angry.

After half an hour, during which nothing was heard but the scratching

of pens and the sound of Herr Marcus discreetly clearing his throat,

the Consul looked over the green half-blind and saw Christian coming

down the street. He was smoking. He came from the club, where he had

eaten and also played a bit. He wore his hat a little awry on his head,

and swung his yellow stick, which had come from “over there” and had

the bust of a nun for a handle. He was obviously in good health and the

best of tempers. He came humming into the office, said “Good morning,

gentlemen,” although it was a bright spring afternoon, and took his

place to “do a bit of work.” But the Consul got up and, passing him,

said without looking at him, “Oh, may I have a few words with you?”

Christian followed him. They walked rather rapidly through the entry.

Thomas held his hands behind his back, and Christian involuntarily did

the same, turning his big bony hooked nose toward his brother. The

red-blond moustache drooped, English fashion, over his mouth. While

they went across the court, Thomas said: “We will walk a few steps up

and down the garden, my friend.”

“Good,” answered Christian. Then there was a long silence again, while

they turned to the left and walked, by the outside way, past the rococo

“portal” right round the garden, where the buds were beginning to

swell. Finally the Consul said in a loud voice, with a long breath, “I

have just been very angry, on account of your behaviour.”

“My--?”

“Yes. I heard in the ‘Harmony’ about a remark of yours that you dropped

in the club last evening. It was so obnoxious, so incredibly tactless,

that I can find no words--the stupidity called down a sharp snub on you

at once. Do you care to recall what it was?”

“I know now what you mean. Who told you that?”

“What has that to do with it? Döhlmann.--In a voice loud enough so that

all the people who did not already know the story could laugh at the

joke.”

“Well, Tom, I must say I was ashamed of Hagenström.”

“You were ashamed--_you_ were--! Listen to me,” shouted the

Consul, stretching out both hands in front of him and shaking them

in excitement. “In a company consisting of business as well as

professional men, you make the remark, for everybody to hear, that,

when one really considers it, every business man is a swindler--you, a

business man yourself, belonging to a firm that strains every nerve and

muscle to preserve its perfect integrity and spotless reputation!”

“Good heavens, Thomas, it was a joke!--although, really--” Christian

hesitated, wrinkling his nose and stooping a little. In this position

he took a few steps.

“A joke!” shouted the Consul. “I think I can understand a joke, but you

see how your joke was understood. ‘For my part, I have the greatest

respect for my calling.’ That was what Hermann Hagenström answered you.

And there you sat, a good-for-nothing, with no respect for yours--”

“Tom, you don’t know what you are talking about. I assure you he

spoiled the whole joke. After everybody laughed, as if they agreed

with me, there sat this Hagenström and brought out with ridiculous

solemnity, ‘For my part--’ Stupid fool! I was really ashamed for him.

I thought about it a long time in bed last night, and I had a quite

remarkable feeling--you know how it feels--”

“Stop chattering, stop chattering, I beg you,” interrupted the Consul.

He trembled with disgust in his whole body. “I agree--I agree with you

that his answer was not in the right key, and that it was tasteless.

But that is just the kind of people you pick out to say such things

to!--if it is necessary to say them at all--and so you lay yourself

open to an insolent snub like that. Hagenström took the opening

to--give not only you but us a slap. Do you understand what ‘for my

part’ meant? It meant: ‘You may have such ideas going about in your

brother’s office, Herr Buddenbrook.’ That’s what it meant, you idiot.”

“Idiot--?” said Christian. He looked disturbed and embarrassed.

“And finally, you belong not to yourself alone; I’m supposed to be

indifferent when you make yourself personally ridiculous--and when

don’t you make yourself personally ridiculous?” Thomas cried. He was

pale, and the blue veins stood out on his narrow temples, from which

the hair went back in two bays. One of his light eyebrows was raised;

even the long, stiff pointed ends of his moustache looked angry as

he threw his words down at Christian’s feet on the gravel with quick

sidewise gestures. “You make yourself a laughing-stock with your love

affairs, your harlequinades, your diseases and your remedies.”

Christian shook his head vehemently and put up a warning finger. “As

far as that goes, Tom, you don’t understand very well, you know. The

thing is--every one must attend to his own conscience, so to speak. I

don’t know if you understand that.--Grabow has ordered me a salve for

the throat muscles. Well--if I don’t use it, if I neglect it, I am

quite lost and helpless, I am restless and uncertain and worried and

upset, and I can’t swallow. But if I have been using it, I feel that I

have done my duty, I have a good conscience, I am quiet and calm and

can swallow famously. The salve does not do it, you know, but the thing

is that an idea like that, you understand, can only be destroyed by

another idea, an opposite one. I don’t know whether you understand me--”

“Oh, yes--oh, yes!” cried the Consul, holding his head for a moment

with both hands. “Do it, do it, but don’t talk about it--don’t gabble

about it. Leave other people alone with your horrible nuances. You make

yourself ridiculous with your absurd chatter from morning to night. I

must tell you, and I repeat it, I am not interested in how much you

make a fool of yourself personally. But I forbid your compromising the

firm in the way you did yesterday evening.”

Christian did not answer, except to run his hand slowly over his sparse

red-brown locks, while his eyes roamed unsteadily and absently, and

unrest sat upon his face. Undoubtedly he was still busy with the idea

which he had just been expressing.

There was a pause. Thomas stalked along with the calmness of despair.

“All business men are swindlers, you say,” he began afresh. “Good. Are

you tired of it? Are you sorry you are a business man? You once got

permission from Father--”

“Why, Tom,” said Christian reflectively, “I would really rather study.

It must be nice to be in the university. One attends when one likes,

at one’s own free will, sits down and listens, as in the theatre--”

“As in the theatre! Yes, I think your right place is that of a comedian

in a café chantant. I am not joking. I am perfectly convinced that

is your secret ideal.” Christian did not deny it; he merely gazed

aimlessly about. “And you have the cheek to make such a remark--when

you haven’t the slightest notion of work, and spend your days storing

up a lot of feelings and sensations and episodes you hear in the

theatre and when you are loafing about, God knows where; you take these

and pet them and study them and chatter about them shamelessly!”

“Yes, Tom,” said Christian. He was a little depressed, and rubbed his

hand again over his head. “That is true: you have expressed it quite

correctly. That is the difference between us. You enjoy the theatre

yourself; and you had your little affairs too, once on a time, between

ourselves! And there was a time when you preferred novels and poetry

and all that. But you have always known how to reconcile it with

regular work and a serious life. I haven’t that. I am quite used up

with the other; I have nothing left over for the regular life-- I don’t

know whether you understand--”

“Oh, so you see that?” cried Thomas, standing still and folding his

arms on his breast. “You humbly admit that, and still you go on the

same old way? Are you a dog, Christian? A man has some pride, by God!

One doesn’t live a life that one may not know how to defend oneself.

But so you are. That is your character. If you can only see a thing and

understand and describe it--. No, my patience is at an end, Christian.”

And the Consul took a quick backward step and made a gesture with his

arms straight out. “It is at an end, I tell you.--You draw your pay,

and stay away from the office. That isn’t what irritates me. Go and

trifle your life away, as you have been doing, if you choose. But you

compromise us, all of us, wherever you are. You are a growth, a fester,

on the body of our family. You are a disgrace to us here in this town,

and if this house were mine, I’d show you the door!” he screamed,

making a wild sweeping gesture over the garden, the court, and the

whole property. He had no more control of himself. A long-stored-up

well of hatred poured itself out.

“What is the matter with you, Thomas?” said Christian. He was seized

with unaccustomed anger, standing there in a position common to

bow-legged people, like a questionmark, with head, stomach, and knees

all prominent. His little deep eyes were wide open and surrounded by

red rims down to the cheek-bones, as his Father’s used to be in anger.

“How are you speaking to me? What have I done to you? I’ll go, without

being thrown out. Shame on you!” he added with downright reproach,

accompanying the word with a short, snapping motion in front of him, as

if he were catching a fly.

Strange to say, Thomas did not meet this outburst by more anger. He

bent his head and slowly took his way around the garden. It seemed to

quiet him, actually to do him good to have made his brother angry at

last--to have pushed him finally to the energy of a protest.

“Believe me,” he said quietly, putting his hands behind his back again,

“this conversation is truly painful to me. But it had to take place.

Such scenes in the family are frightful, but we must speak out once for

all. Let us talk the thing over quietly, young one. You do not like

your present position, it seems?”

“No, Tom; you are right about that. You see, at first I was very well

satisfied. I know I’m better off here than in a stranger’s business.

But what I want is the independence, I think. I have always envied you

when I saw you sit there and work, for it is really no work at all for

you. You work not because you must, but as master and head, and let

others work for you, and you have the control, make your calculations,

and are free. It is quite different.”

“Good, Christian. Why couldn’t you have said that before? You can make

yourself free, or freer, if you like. You know Father left you as well

as me an immediate inheritance of fifty thousand marks current; and I

am ready at any moment to pay out this sum for a reasonable and sound

purpose. In Hamburg, or anywhere else you like, there are plenty of

safe but limited firms where they could use an increase of capital,

and where you could enter as a partner. Let us think the matter

over quietly, each by himself, and also speak to Mother at a good

opportunity. I must get to work, and you could for the present go on

with the English correspondence.” As they crossed the entry, he added,

“What do you say, for instance, to H. C. F. Burmeester and Company in

Hamburg? Import and export. I know the man. I am certain he would snap

at it.”

That was in the end of May of the year 1857. At the beginning of June

Christian travelled via Buchen to Hamburg--a heavy loss to the club,

the theatre, the Tivoli, and the liberal livers of the town. All the

“good fellows,” among them Dr. Gieseke and Peter Döhlmann, took leave

of him at the station, and brought him flowers and cigars, and laughed

to split their sides--recalling, no doubt, all the stories Christian

had told them. And Lawyer Gieseke, amidst general applause, fastened

to Christian’s overcoat a great favour made out of gold paper. This

favour came from a sort of inn in the neighbourhood of the port, a

place of free and easy resort where a red lantern burned above the door

at night, and it was always very lively. The favour was awarded to the

departing Chris Buddenbrook for his distinguished services.

CHAPTER IV

The outer bell rang, and Frau Grünlich appeared on the landing to look

down into the court--a habit she had lately formed. The door was hardly

opened below when she started, leaned over still more, and then sprang

back with one hand pressing her handkerchief to her mouth and the other

holding up her gown. She hurried upstairs.

On the steps to the second storey she met Ida Jungmann, to whom she

whispered in a suffocated voice. Ida gave a joyous shriek and answered

with some Polish gibberish.

The Frau Consul was sitting in the landscape-room, crocheting a shawl

or some such article with two large wooden needles. It was eleven

o’clock in the morning.

The servant came through the hall, knocked on the glass door, and

waddled in to bring the Frau Consul a visiting-card. She took the card,

got out her sewing-glasses, and read it. Then she looked again at the

girl’s red face; then read again; then looked up again at the girl.

Finally she said calmly but firmly:

“What _is_ this, my dear? What does it mean?”

On the card was printed: “X. Noppe and Company.” The “X. Noppe” and the

“and” were crossed out with a lead-pencil, so that only the “Company”

was left. “Oh, Frau Consul,” said the maid, “there’s a gentleman, but

he doesn’t speak German, and he do go on so--”

“Ask the gentleman in,” said the Frau Consul; for she understood now

that it was the “Company” who desired admittance. The maid went. Then

the glass door was opened again to let in a stocky figure, who remained

in the shadowy background of the room for a moment and said with a

drawling pronunciation something that seemed as if it might have been:

“I have the honour--”

“Good morning,” said the Frau Consul. “Will you not come in?” And she

supported herself on the sofa-cushion and rose a little; for she did

not know yet whether she ought to rise all the way or not.

“I take the liberty,” replied the gentleman in a pleasant sing-song;

while he bowed in the politest manner, and took two steps forward.

Then he stood still again and looked around as if searching for

something--perhaps for a place to put his hat and stick, for he had

brought both--the stick being a horn crutch with the top shaped like a

claw and a good foot and a half long--into the room with him.

He was a man of forty years. Short-legged and chubby, he wore a

wide-open coat of brown frieze and a light flowered waistcoat which

covered the gentle protuberant curve of his stomach and supported a

gold watch-chain with a whole bouquet of charms made of horn, bone,

silver, and coral. His trousers were of an indefinite grey-green colour

and too short. The material must have been extraordinarily stiff, for

the edges stood out in a circle around the legs of his short, broad

boots. He had a bullet head, untidy hair, and a stubby nose, and the

light-blond curly moustache drooping over his mouth made him look

like a walrus. By way of contrast, the imperial between his chin and

his underlip stood out rather bristly. His cheeks were extremely fat

and puffy, crowding his eyes into two narrow light-blue cracks with

wrinkles at the corners. The whole face looked swollen and had a

funny expression of fierceness, mingled with an almost touching good

nature. Directly below his tiny chin a steep line ran into the white

neck-cloth: his goiterous neck could not have endured a choker. In

fact, the whole lower part of his face and his neck, the back of his

head, his cheeks and nose, all ran rather formlessly in together. The

whole skin of the face was stretched to an immoderate tightness and

showed a roughness at the ear-joinings and the sides of the nose. In

one of his short fat white hands the visitor held his stick; in the

other his green Tyrolese hat, decorated with a chamois beard.

The Frau Consul had taken off her glasses and was still rising from her

sofa-pillow.

“What can I do for you?” she asked politely but pointedly.

The gentleman, with a movement of decision, laid his hat and stick on

the lid of the harmonium. He rubbed his free hands with satisfaction

and looked at the Frau Consul out of his kindly, light-blue eyes. “I

beg the gracious lady’s pardon for the card,” he said. “I had no other

by me. My name is Permaneder--Alois Permaneder, from Munich. Perhaps

you might have heard my name from your daughter.” He said all this in

a puzzling dialect with a rather loud, coarse voice; but there was a

confidential gleam from the cracks of his eyes, which seemed to say:

“I’m sure we understand each other already.”

The Frau Consul had now risen entirely and went forward with her hand

outstretched and her head inclined in greeting.

“Herr Permaneder! Is it you? Certainly my daughter has spoken of you. I

know how much you contributed to make her visit in Munich pleasant and

entertaining. And so some wind has blown you all the way up here?”

“That’s it; you’re just right there,” said Herr Permaneder. He sat down

by the Frau Consul in the arm-chair which she gracefully indicated to

him, and began to rub his short round thighs comfortably with both

hands.

“I beg your pardon?” asked the Frau Consul. She had not understood a

single word of his remark.

“You’ve guessed it, that’s the point,” answered Herr Permaneder, as he

stopped rubbing his knees.

“How nice!” said the Frau Consul blankly. She leaned back in her

chair with feigned satisfaction and folded her hands. Actually, she

was quite as much at sea as before, and inly wondering if Antonie

were really able to follow the windings of the Bavarian tongue. But

Herr Permaneder--though his appearance hardly led one to expect that

he possessed acute sensibilities--saw through her at once. He bent

forward, making--God knows why--circles in the air with his hand, and,

struggling after clarity, enunciated the words: “The gracious lady is

surprised?”

“Yes, Herr Permaneder, yes!” she cried, with disproportionate joy, for

she had really understood him. Perhaps they could manage after all! But

now there came a pause. To fill it out, Herr Permaneder gave a sort of

groan, and followed it up by an exclamation in the broadest of dialect:

something that shocked the Frau Consul because it sounded so like

swearing, though it probably wasn’t--at least, she hoped not! Should

she ask him to repeat it?

“Ah--what did you say?” she ventured, turning her light eyes a little

away, that he might not see the bewilderment they expressed.

Herr Permaneder obliged by repeating, with extraordinary loudness and

coarseness. Surely it was something about a crucifix! Horrors!

“How nice!” she stammered again, with desperate finality; and thus

this subject also was disposed of. It might be better to talk a little

oneself. “May one ask,” she went on, “what brings you so far, Herr

Permaneder? It is a good long journey from Munich!”

“A little business,” said Herr Permaneder, as before, and waved his

broad hand in the air. It was really touching, the efforts he made. “A

little business, my dear lady, with the brewery at Walkmill.”

“Oh, yes--you are hop merchants, of course, my dear Herr Permaneder:

Noppe and Company, isn’t it? I am sure I have heard good things of your

firm from my son,” said the Frau Consul cordially. Again she felt as

if she were almost upon firm ground. Herr Permaneder waved away the

compliment. That was nothing to mention. No, the main thing was, he

wanted to pay his respects to the Frau Consul and--see Frau Grünlich

again. That was enough to make the journey repay the trouble it cost.

The Frau Consul did not understand it all, but she got the general

drift, and was glad. “Oh, thank you,” she said, with the utmost

heartiness, and again offered him her hand, with the palm outstretched.

“But we must call my daughter,” she added, and stood up and went toward

the embroidered bell-pull near the glass door.

“Oh, Lord, yes, I’ll be glad to see her!” cried the hop merchant, and

turned his chair and himself toward the door at one and the same time.

The Frau Consul said to the servant: “Ask Madame Grünlich to come down,

my dear.”

Then she went back to her sofa, and Herr Permaneder turned himself and

his chair around again.

“Lord, yes, I’ll be glad!” he repeated, while he stared at the hangings

and the furniture and the great Sèvres inkstand on the secretary. But

then he sighed heavily, several times over, rubbed his knees, and

gave vent to his favourite outlandish phrase. The Frau Consul thought

it more discreet not to inquire again into his meaning; besides, he

muttered it under his breath, with a sort of groan, though his mood,

otherwise, appeared to be anything but despondent.

And now Frau Grünlich appeared. She had made a little toilette, put

on a light blouse, and dressed her hair. Her face looked fresher and

prettier than ever, and the tip of her tongue played in the corner of

her mouth.

Scarcely had she entered when Herr Permaneder sprang up and went to

meet her with tremendous enthusiasm. He vibrated all over. He seized

both her hands, shook them and cried: “Well, Frau Grünlich! Well, well,

_grüss Gott!_ Well, and how’s it been going with you? What you been

doing up here? Yes, yes! Grüss Gott! Lord, I’m just silly glad to see

you. Do you think sometimes of little old Munich and what a gay time

we had? Oh, my, oh my! And here we are again. Who would ’a’ thought it?”

Tony, on her side, greeted him with great vivacity, drew up a chair,

and began to chat with him about her weeks in Munich. Now the

conversation went on without hitches, and the Frau Consul followed

it, smiling and nodding encouragingly at Herr Permaneder. She would

translate this or that expression into her own tongue, and then lean

back into the sofa again, well pleased with her own intelligence.

Herr Permaneder had to explain to Frau Antonie in her turn the reason

of his appearance. But he laid small stress on the “little business”

with the brewery, and it was obviously not the occasion of his visit

at all. He asked with interest after the second daughter and the sons

of the Frau Consul, and regretted loudly the absence of Clara and

Christian, as he had always wanted to get acquainted with the whole

family.

He said his stay in the town was of indefinite length, but when the

Frau Consul said: “I am expecting my son for second breakfast at

any moment, Herr Permaneder. Will you give us the pleasure of your

company?” he accepted the invitation almost before she gave it, with

such alacrity that it was plain he had expected it.

The Consul came. He had found the breakfast-room empty, and appeared

in his office coat, tired and preoccupied, to take a hasty bite. But

when he saw the strange guest with the frieze jacket and the fantastic

watch-chain, he became all charm. He had heard his name often enough

from Frau Antonie, and he threw a quick glance at his sister as he

greeted Herr Permaneder in his most fascinating manner. He did not sit

down. They went directly down to the entresol, where Mamsell Jungmann

had laid the table and set the samovar--a real samovar, a present from

Pastor Tiburtius and Clara.

“You’ve got it good here,” said Herr Permaneder, as he let himself

down in his chair and looked at the variety of cold meats on the table.

His grammar, now and then, was of the most artless and disarming

quality.

“It isn’t Munich beer, of course, Herr Permaneder, but still it is

better than our domestic brew.” And the Consul poured him a glass of

the brown foaming porter, which he was accustomed to drink himself at

midday.

“Thank you kindly, neighbour,” said Herr Permaneder, quite unaware

of the outraged look Mamsell Jungmann cast at him. But he drank so

moderately of the porter that the Frau Consul had a bottle of red wine

brought up; whereat he grew visibly gayer and began to talk with Frau

Grünlich again. He sat, on account of his prominent stomach, well away

from the table, with his legs far apart, and one of his arms, with

the plump white hand, hanging down over the chair-back. He put his

round head with its walrus moustache on one side and blinked out of

the cracks of his eyes naïvely as he listened to Tony’s conversation.

He looked offensively comfortable. As he had had no experience with

sprats, she daintily dismembered them for him, commenting the while on

life in general.

“Oh Heavens, how sad it is, Herr Permaneder, that everything good and

lovely in this world is so fleeting,” she said, referring to her Munich

visit. She laid down her knife and fork a moment and looked earnestly

up at the ceiling. She made charming if unsuccessful efforts to speak

Bavarian.

During the meal there was a knock at the door, and the office boy

brought in a telegram. The Consul read it, letting the long ends of

his moustache run through his fingers. He was plainly preoccupied with

the contents of the message; but, even as he read it, he asked in the

easiest tone: “Well, how is business, Herr Permaneder?--That will do,”

he said immediately to the apprentice, who disappeared.

“Oh, well, neighbour,” answered Herr Permaneder, turning himself about

toward the Consul’s side with the awkwardness of a man who has a thick,

stiff neck, and letting his other arm hang over the chair-back.

“There’s naught to speak of--it’s a fair plague. You see, Munich”--he

pronounced the name of his native city in such a way that one could

only guess what he meant--“Munich is no commercial town. Everybody

wants his peace and quiet and his beer--nobody gets despatches while

he’s eating; not there. You’re a different cut up here--Holy Sacrament!

Yes, thank you kindly, I’ll take another glass. Tough luck, that’s

what it is; tough luck. My partner, Noppe, wanted to go to Nuremberg,

because they have a Bourse there and are keen on business, but I won’t

forsake my Munich. Not me! That would be a fine thing to do! You see,

there’s no competition, and the export trade is just silly. Even in

Russia they’ll be beginning soon to plant and build for themselves.”

Then he suddenly threw the Consul a quick, shrewd look and said: “Oh,

well, neighbour, ’tain’t so bad as it sounds. Yon’s a fair little

business. We make money with the joint-stock brewery, that Niederpaur

is director of. That was just a small affair, but we’ve put it on its

legs and lent it credit--cash too, four per cent on security--and now

we can do business at a profit, and we’ve collared a blame good trade

already.” Herr Permaneder declined cigars and cigarettes and asked

leave to smoke his pipe. He drew the long horn bowl out of his pocket,

enveloped himself in a reek of smoke, and entered upon a business

conversation with the Consul, which glided into politics, and Bavaria’s

relations with Prussia, and King Max, and the Emperor Napoleon.

He garnished his views with disjointed sighs and some perfectly

unintelligible Munich phrases.

Mamsell Jungmann, out of sheer astonishment, continually forgot to

chew, even when she had food in her mouth. She blinked speechlessly at

the guest out of her bright brown eyes, standing her knife and fork

perpendicularly on the table and swaying them back and forth. This

room had never before beheld Herr Permaneder’s like. Never had it been

filled by such reeking pipe-smoke; such unpleasantly easy manners were

foreign to it. The Frau Consul abode in cordial miscomprehension, after

she had made inquiries and received information as to the sufferings

of the little protestant oasis among the Munich papists. Tony seemed

to grow somewhat absent and restive in the course of the meal. But the

Consul was highly entertained, asked his mother to order up another

bottle of wine, and cordially invited Herr Permaneder to a visit in

Broad Street--his wife would be charmed. A good three hours after his

arrival the hop dealer began to show signs of leaving--emptied his

glass, knocked out his pipe, called something or other “bad luck,” and

got up.

“I have the honour, madame. Good day, Frau Grünli’ and Herr

Consul--servant, servant.” At this Ida Jungmann actually shivered and

changed colour. “Good day, Freilein,” he said to her, and he repeated

“Good day” at the door.

The Frau Consul and her son exchanged a glance. Herr Permaneder had

announced his intention of stopping at the modest inn on the Trave

whither he had gone on arrival. The Frau Consul went toward him again.

“My daughter’s Munich friend,” she began, “lives so far away that we

shall have no opportunity to repay her hospitality. But if you, my

dear sir, would give us the pleasure of your company while you are in

town--you would be very welcome.” She held her hand out to him; and lo!

Herr Permaneder accepted this invitation as blithely as he had the one

to dinner. He kissed the hands of both ladies--and a funny sight he

was as he did so--fetched his hat and stick from the landscape-room,

and promised to have his trunk brought at once and to be on the spot

at four o’clock, after transacting his business. Then he allowed the

Consul to convoy him down the stairs. But even at the vestibule door

he turned again and shook hands violently. “No offence, neighbour,” he

said--“your sister is certainly a great girl--no doubt about it. Good

day,” and he disappeared, still wagging his head.

The Consul felt an irresistible drawing to go up again and see the

ladies. Ida Jungmann had gone to look after the linen for the

guest-room. The Frau Consul still sat at the breakfast-table, her light

eyes fixed on a spot on the ceiling. She was lightly drumming with her

white fingers on the cloth. Tony sat at the window, her arms folded,

gazing straight ahead of her with a severe air. Silence reigned.

“Well?” said Thomas, standing in the door and taking a cigarette out of

the box ornamented with the troika. His shoulders shook with laughter.

“A pleasant man,” commented the Frau Consul innocently.

“Quite my opinion.” The Consul made a quick, humorous turn toward Tony,

as if he were asking her in the most respectful manner for her opinion

as well. She was silent, and looked neither to the right nor to the

left.

“But I think, Tom, he ought to stop swearing,” went on the Frau Consul

with mild disapproval. “If I understood him correctly, he kept using

the words Sacrament and Cross.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, Mother--he doesn’t mean anything by that.”

“And perhaps a little too easy-mannered, Tom?”

“Oh, yes; that is south-German,” said the Consul, breathing the smoke

slowly out into the room. He smiled at his mother and stole glances at

Tony. His mother saw the glances not at all.

“You will come to dinner to-day with Gerda. Please do me the favour,

Tom.”

“Certainly, Mother, with the greatest of pleasure. To tell the truth,

I promise myself much pleasure from this guest, don’t you? He is

something different from your ministers, in any case.”

“Everybody to his taste, Tom.”

“Of course. I must go now.--Oh, Tony,” he said, the door-handle in his

hand, “you have made a great impression on him. No, no joke. Do you

know what he called you down there just now? A great girl! Those were

his very words.”

But here Frau Grünlich turned around and said clearly: “Very good, Tom.

You are repeating his words--and I don’t know that he would mind; but

even so I am not sure it was just the nicest thing to do. But this much

I do know: and this much I am going to say: that in this life it does

not depend on how things are said and expressed, but on how they are

felt and meant in the heart; and if you make fun of Herr Permaneder’s

language and find him ridiculous--”

“Who? Why? Tony, what an idea! Why are you getting excited--?”

“_Assez_,” said the Frau Consul, casting an imploring glance at her

son. It meant “Spare her!”

“Please don’t be angry, Tony,” he said. “I didn’t mean to provoke you.

And now I will go and see that somebody from the warehouse brings Herr

Permaneder’s trunk. Au revoir.”

CHAPTER V

Herr Permaneder moved into Meng Street; he ate dinner with Thomas

Buddenbrook and his wife the following day; and on the third, a

Thursday, he made the acquaintance of Justus Kröger and his wife, the

three ladies from Broad Street, who found him “frightfully funny” (they

said fr-_right_-fully), Sesemi Weichbrodt, who was rather stern with

him, and poor Clothilde and little Erica, to whom he gave a bag of

bonbons.

The man was invincibly good-humoured. His sighs, in fact, meant

nothing, and seemed to arise out of an excess of comfort. He smoked his

pipe, talked in his curious dialect, and displayed an inexhaustible

power of sitting still. He kept his place long after the meal was

finished, in the most easy attitude possible, and smoked, drank, and

chatted. His presence gave to the life in the old home a new and

strange tone; his very being brought something unharmonious into the

room. But he disturbed none of the traditional customs of the house. He

was faithful to morning and evening prayers, asked permission to attend

one of the Frau Consul’s Sunday School classes, and even appeared on a

Jerusalem evening in the drawing-room and was presented to the guests,

but withdrew affrighted when Lea Gerhardt began to read aloud.

He was soon known in the town. They spoke in the great houses about

the Buddenbrooks’ guest from Bavaria; but neither in the family nor

on the Bourse did he make connections, and as it was already the

time when people were making ready to go to the shore, the Consul

refrained from introducing Herr Permaneder into society. But he

devoted himself with zeal to the guest, taking time from his business

and civic engagements to show him about the town and point out the

mediæval monuments--churches, gates, fountains, market, Town Hall, and

Ship Company. He made him acquainted with his own nearest friends on

Exchange and entertained him in every way. His mother took occasion one

day to thank him for his self-sacrifice; but he only remarked drily:

“Why, ye-es, Mother--what wouldn’t one do?”

The Frau Consul left this unanswered. She did not even smile or move

her eyelids, but shifted the gaze of her light eyes and changed the

subject.

She preserved an even, hearty friendliness toward Herr

Permaneder--which could hardly be said of her daughter. On the third

or fourth day after his arrival the hop dealer let it be known that he

had concluded his business with the local brewery. But a week and a

half had passed since then, and he had been present for two children’s

afternoons. On these occasions, Frau Grünlich had sat blushing and

watching his every motion, casting quick embarrassed glances at Thomas

and the three Buddenbrook cousins. She talked hardly at all, sat for

long minutes stiff and speechless, or even got up and left the room.

* * * * *

The green blinds in Frau Grünlich’s sleeping-room were gently stirred

by the mild air of a June night, for the windows were open. It was

a large room, with simple furniture covered in grey linen. On the

night-table at the side of the high bed several little wicks burned in

a glass with oil and water in it, filling the room with faint, even

light. Frau Grünlich was in bed. Her pretty head was sunk softly in the

lace-edged pillow, and her hands lay folded on the quilted coverlet.

But her eyes, too thoughtful to close themselves, slowly followed

the movements of a large insect with a long body, which perpetually

besieged the glass with a million soundless motions of his wings. Near

the bed there was a framed text hanging on the wall, between two old

copper-plate views of the town in the Middle Ages. It said: “Commit

your ways unto the Lord.” But what good is a text like that when you

are lying awake at midnight, and you have to decide for your whole

life, and other people’s too, whether it shall be yes or no?

It was very still. The clock ticked away on the wall, and the only

other sound was Mamsell Jungmann’s occasional cough. Her room was next

to Tony’s, divided only by curtains from it. She still had a light.

The born-and-bred Prussian was sitting under the hanging lamp at her

extension-table, darning stockings for little Erica. The child’s deep,

peaceful breathing could be heard in the room, for Sesemi’s pupils were

having summer holidays and Erica was at home again.

Frau Grünlich sighed and sat up a little, propping her head on her

hand. “Ida,” she called softly, “are you still sitting there mending?”

“Yes, yes, Tony, my child,” Ida answered. “Sleep now; you will be

getting up early in the morning, and you won’t get enough rest.”

“All right, Ida. You will wake me at six o’clock?”

“Half-past is early enough, child. The carriage is ordered for eight.

Go on sleeping, so you will look fresh and pretty.”

“Oh, I haven’t slept at all yet.”

“Now, Tony, that is a bad child. Do you want to look all knocked up for

the picnic? Drink seven swallows of water, and then lie down and count

a thousand.”

“Oh, Ida, do come here a minute. I can’t sleep, I tell you, and my

head aches for thinking. Feel--I think I have some fever, and there is

something the matter with my tummy again. Or is it because I am anæmic?

The veins in my temples are all swollen and they beat so that it hurts;

but still, there may be too little blood in my head.”

A chair was pushed back, and Ida Jungmann’s lean, vigorous figure, in

her unfashionable brown gown, appeared between the portières.

“Now, now, Tony--fever? Let me feel, my child--I’ll make you a

compress.”

She went with her long firm masculine tread to the chest for a

handkerchief, dipped it into the water-basin, and, going back to the

bed, laid it on Tony’s forehead, stroking her brow a few times with

both hands.

“Thank you, Ida; that feels good.--Oh, please sit down a few minutes,

good old Ida. Sit down on the edge of the bed. You see, I keep thinking

the whole time about to-morrow. What shall I do? My head is going round

and round.”

Ida sat down beside her, with her needle and the stocking drawn over

the darner again in her hand, and bent over them the smooth grey head

and the indefatigable bright brown eyes. “Do you think he is going to

propose to-morrow?” she asked.

“No doubt of it at all. He won’t lose this opportunity. It happened

with Clara on just such an expedition. I could avoid it, of course, I

could keep with the others all the time and not let him get near me.

But then, that would settle it! He is leaving day after to-morrow, he

said, and he cannot stay any longer if nothing comes of it to-day. It

_must_ be decided to-day.--But what shall I say, Ida, when he asks me?

You’ve never been married, so of course you know nothing about life,

_really_; but you are a truthful woman, and you have some sense--and

you are forty-two years old! Do tell me what you think.--I do so need

advice!”

Ida Jungmann let the stocking fall into her lap.

“Yes, yes, Tony child, I have thought a great deal about it. But what

I think is, there is nothing to advise about. He can’t go away without

speaking to you and your Mamma, and if you didn’t want him, you should

have sent him away before now.”

“You are right there, Ida; but I could not do it--I suppose because

it _is to be_! But now I keep thinking: ‘It isn’t too late yet; I can

still draw back!’ So I am living here tormenting myself--”

“Do you like him, Tony? Tell me straight out.”