“Yes, Ida. It would not be the truth if I should say no. He is not

handsome--but that isn’t the important thing in this life; and he is

as good as gold, and couldn’t do anything mean--at least, he seems so

to me. When I think about Grünlich--oh, goodness! He was all the time

saying how clever and resourceful he was, and all the time hiding his

villainy. Permaneder is not in the least like that. You might say he

is too easy-going and takes life too comfortably--and that is a fault

too; because he will never be a millionaire that way, and he really is

too much inclined to let things go and muddle along--as they say down

there. They are all like that down there, Ida--that is what I mean. In

Munich, where he was among his own kind and everybody spoke and looked

as he does, I fairly loved him, he seemed so nice and faithful and

comfy. And I noticed it was mutual--but part of that, I dare say, was

that he takes me for a rich woman, richer probably than I am; because

Mother cannot do much more for me, as you know. But I hardly think that

will make much difference to him--a great lot of money would not be to

his taste.--But--what was I saying, Ida?”

“That is in Munich, Tony. But here--”

“Oh, here, Ida! You know how it was already: up here he was torn right

out of his own element and set against everybody here, and they are all

ever so much stiffer, and--more dignified and serious. Here I really

often blush for him, though it may be unworthy of me. You know--it

even happened several times that he said ‘me’ instead of ‘I.’ But they

say that down there; even the most cultured people do, and it doesn’t

hurt anything--it slips out once in a while and nobody minds. But up

here--here sits Mother on one side and Tom on the other, looking at him

and lifting their eyebrows, and Uncle Justus gives a start and fairly

snorts, the way the Krögers do, and Pfiffi Buddenbrook gives her Mother

a look, or Friederike or Henriette, and I feel so mortified I want to

run out of the room, and it doesn’t seem as if I _could_ marry him--”

“Oh, childie--it would be Munich that you would live in with him.”

“You are right, Ida. But the engagement!--and if I have to feel the

whole time mortified to death before the family and the Kistenmakers

and the Möllendorpfs, because they think he is common-- Oh, Grünlich

was much more refined, though he was certainly black within, as Herr

Stengel would have said.--Oh, Ida, my head! do wet the compress again.”

“But it must be so, in the end,” she went on again, drawing a long

breath as the compress went on; “for the main point is and remains

that I must get married again, and not stick about here any longer as

a divorced woman. Ah, Ida, I think so much about the past these days:

about the time when Grünlich first appeared, and the scenes he made

me--scandalous, Ida!--and then about Travemünde and the Schwarzkopfs--”

She spoke slowly, and her eyes rested for a while dreamily on a darn

in Erica’s stocking. “And then the betrothal, and Eimsbüttel, and our

house. It was quite elegant, Ida. When I think of my morning-gowns-- It

would not be like that with Permaneder; one gets more modest as life

goes on-- And Dr. Klaasen and the baby, and Banker Kesselmeyer--and

then the end. It was frightful; you can’t imagine how frightful it

was. And when you have had such dreadful experiences in life-- But

Permaneder would never go in for anything filthy like that. That is the

last thing in the world I should expect of him, and we can rely on him

too in a business way, for I really think he makes a good deal with

Noppe at the Niederpaur brewery. And when I am his wife, you’ll see,

Ida, I will take care that he has ambition and gets ahead and makes an

effort and is a credit to me and all of us. _That_, at least, he takes

upon himself when he marries a Buddenbrook!”

She folded her hands under her head and looked at the ceiling. “Yes,

ten years ago and more, I married Grünlich. Ten years! And here I am at

the same place again, saying yes to somebody else. You know, Ida, life

is very, very serious. Only the difference is that then it was a great

affair, and they all pressed me and tormented me, whereas now they are

all perfectly quiet and take it for granted that I am going to say

yes. Of course you know, Ida, that this engagement to Alois--I say

Alois, because of course it is to be--has nothing very gay or festive

about it, and it isn’t really a question of my happiness at all. I am

making this second marriage with my eyes open, to make good the mistake

of my first one, as a duty which I owe our name. Mother thinks so, and

so does Tom.”

“But oh, dear, Tony--if you don’t like him, and if he won’t make you

happy--”

“Ida, I know life, and I am not a little goose any more. I have the

use of my senses. I don’t say that Mother would actually insist on

it--when there is a dispute over anything she usually avoids it and

says ‘_Assez!_’ But Tom wants it. I know Tom. He thinks: ‘Anybody!

Anybody who isn’t absolutely impossible.’ For this time it is not a

question of a brilliant match, but just one that will make good the

other one. That is what he thinks. As soon as Permaneder appeared, you

may be sure that Tom made all the proper inquiries about his business,

and found it was all right--and then, as far as he was concerned, the

matter was settled. Tom is a politician--he knows what he wants. Who

was it threw Christian out? That is strong language, Ida, but that was

really the truth of it. And why? Because he was compromising the firm

and the family. And in his eyes I do the same thing--not with words or

acts, but by my very existence as a divorced woman. He wants that put

an end to, and he is right. I love him none the less for that--nor, I

hope, does he me. In all these years, I have always longed to be out

in the world again; it is so dull here in this house. God punish me if

that is a sin: but I am not much more than thirty, and I still feel

young. People differ about that. You had grey hair at thirty, like all

your family and that uncle that died at Marienwerder.”

More and more observations of the same kind followed as the night wore

on; and every now and again she would say: “It is to be, after all.”

But at length she went to sleep, and slept for five hours on end,

deeply and peacefully.

CHAPTER VI

A mist lay over the town. But--or so said Herr Longuet, the livery man

in John Street, as he himself drove the covered char-à-banc up to the

door of the house in Meng Street: “The sun will be out before an hour

is over”--which was most encouraging.

The Frau Consul, Antonie, Herr Permaneder, Erica, and Ida had breakfast

together and gathered one after another, ready for the expedition,

in the great entry, to wait for Gerda and Tom. Frau Grünlich, in a

cream-coloured frock with a satin tie, looked her best, despite the

loss of sleep the night before. Her doubts and fears seemed to be

laid to rest, and her manner was assured, calm, and almost formal

as she talked with their guest and fastened her glove-button. She

had regained the tone of the old days. The well-known conviction of

her own importance, of the weightiness of her own decisions, the

consciousness that once more a day had come when she was to inscribe

herself decisively in the family history--all this filled her heart and

made it beat higher. She had dreamed of seeing that page in the family

papers on which she would write down the fact of her betrothal--the

fact that should obliterate and make void the black spot which the page

contained. She looked forward to the moment when Tom would appear and

she would greet him with a meaning nod.

He came with his wife, somewhat tardily, for the young Frau Consul

was not used to make such an early toilette. He looked well and happy

in his light-brown checked suit, the broad revers of which showed

the white waistcoat beneath; and his eyes had a smile in them as he

noted Tony’s incomparably dignified mien. Gerda, with her slightly

exotic, even morbid beauty, which was always in great contrast to her

sister-in-law’s healthy prettiness, was not in a holiday mood. Probably

she had risen too early. The deep lilac background of her frock suited

oddly with her dark-red hair and made her skin look whiter and more

even-toned than ever, and the bluish shadows deeper and darker in

the corners of her close-set brown eyes. She rather coldly offered

her mother-in-law her brow to kiss, gave her hand to Herr Permaneder

with an almost ironical expression on her face, and answered only by

a deprecating smile when Tony clapped her hands and cried out in her

hearty way: “Oh, Gerda, how _lovely_ you always look!”

She had a real distaste for expeditions like to-day’s, especially

in summer and most especially on Sunday. She lived in the twilight

of her curtained living-rooms, and dreaded the sun, the dust, the

crowds of townsfolk in their holiday clothes, the smell of coffee,

beer, and tobacco; and above everything else in the world she hated

getting hot and upset. When the expedition to Swartau and the “Giant

Bush” was arranged, in order to give the Munich guest a glimpse of

the surroundings of the old town, Gerda said lightly to her husband

“Dearest, you know how I am made: I only like peace and quiet. I was

not meant for change and excitement. You’ll let me off, won’t you?”

She would not have married him if she had not felt sure of his

essential agreement with her in these matters.

“Oh, heavens, yes; you are right, of course, Gerda. It is mostly

imagination that one enjoys oneself on such parties. Still, one goes,

because one does not like to seem odd, either to oneself or to the

others. Everybody has that kind of vanity; don’t you think so? People

get the idea that you are solitary or else unhappy, and they have less

respect for you. And then, there is something else, Gerda dear. We all

want to pay a little court to Herr Permaneder. Of course you see what

the situation is. Something is going on; it would be a real pity if it

came to nothing.”

“I do not see, my dear friend, why my presence--but no matter. Let it

be as you wish. Let us indulge.”

They went into the street. And the sun actually began at that moment

to pierce the morning mist. The bells of St. Mary’s were ringing for

Sunday, and the twittering of birds filled the air. The coachman took

off his hat, and the Frau Consul greeted him with the patriarchal

kindness which sometimes put Thomas a little on edge: “Good morning,

my friend!--Well, get in now, my dears. It is just time for early

service, but to-day we will praise God with full hearts in his own free

out-of-doors; shall we not, Herr Permaneder?”

“That’s right, Frau Consul.”

They climbed one after another up the steps through the narrow back

door of the wagon and made themselves comfortable on the cushioned

seats, which--doubtless in honour of Herr Permaneder--were striped blue

and white, the Bavarian colours. The door slammed, Herr Longuet clucked

to the horses and shouted “Gee” and “Haw,” the strong brown beasts

tugged at the harness, and the wagon rolled down Meng Street along the

Trave and out the Holsten gate and then to the right along the Swartau

Road.

Fields, meadows, tree-clumps, farmyards. They stared up into the high,

thin blue mist above them for the larks they heard singing there.

Thomas, smoking his cigarette, looked about keenly, and when they came

to the grain he called Herr Permaneder’s attention to its condition.

The hop dealer was in a mood of childlike anticipation. He had perched

his green hat with the goat’s beard on the side of his head, and was

balancing his big stick with the horn handle on the palm of his broad

white hand and even on his underlip--a feat which, though he never

quite succeeded in accomplishing it, was always greeted with applause

from little Erica. He repeated over and over remarks like: “’Twon’t be

the Zugspitz, but we’ll climb a bit and have a little lark--kind of a

little old spree, hey, Frau Grünli’?”

Then he began to relate with much liveliness stories of

mountain-climbing with knapsack and alpenstock, the Frau Consul

rewarding him with many an admiring “You don’t say!” He came by some

train of thought or other to Christian, and expressed the most lively

regret for his absence--he had heard what a jolly chap he was.

“He varies,” the Consul said drily. “On a party like this he is

inimitable, it is true.--We shall have crabs to eat, Herr Permaneder,”

he said in a livelier tone; “crabs and Baltic shrimps! You have

had them a few times already at my Mother’s, but friend Dieckmann,

the owner of the ‘Giant Bush,’ serves especially fine ones. And

ginger-nuts, the famous ginger-nuts of these parts. Has their fame

reached even as far as the Isar? Well, you shall try them.”

Two or three times Frau Grünlich stopped the wagon to pick poppies and

corn-flowers by the roadside, and each time Herr Permaneder testified

to his desire to get out and help her, if it were not for his slight

nervousness at climbing in and out of the wagon.

Erica rejoiced at every crow she saw; and Ida Jungmann, wearing her

mackintosh and carrying her umbrella, as she always did even in the

most settled weather, rejoiced with her like a good governess who

shares not only outwardly but inwardly in the childish emotions of her

charge. She entered heartily into Erica’s pleasure, with her rather

loud laugh that sounded like a horse neighing. Gerda, who had not seen

her growing grey in the family service, looked at her repeatedly with

cold surprise.

They were in Oldenberg. The beech groves came in sight. They drove

through the village, across the market square with its well, and

out again into the country, over the bridge that spanned the little

river Au, and finally drew up in front of the one-storey inn, “The

Giant Bush.” It stood at the side of a flat open space laid out with

lawns and sandy paths and country flower-beds; beyond it, the forest

rose gradually like an amphitheatre. Each stage was reached by rude

steps formed from the natural rocks and tree roots; and on each one

white-painted tables, benches, and chairs stood placed among the trees.

The Buddenbrooks were by no means the first guests. A couple of plump

maids and a waiter in a greasy dress-coat were hurrying about the

square carrying cold meat, lemonades, milk, and beer up to the tables,

even the more remote ones, which were already occupied by several

families with children.

Herr Dieckmann, the landlord, appeared personally, in shirt-sleeves

and a little yellow-embroidered cap, to help the guests dismount, and

Longuet drove off to unhitch. The Frau Consul said: “My good man,

we will take our walk first, and after an hour or so we should like

luncheon served up above--but not too high up; say perhaps at the

second landing.”

“You must show what you are made of, Herr Dieckmann,” added the Consul.

“We have a guest who is used to good living.”

“Oh, no such thing,” Herr Permaneder protested. “A beer and cheese--”

But Herr Dieckmann could not understand him, and began with great

fluency: “Everything we have, Herr Consul: crabs, shrimps, all sorts

of sausages, all sorts of cheese, smoked eel, smoked salmon, smoked

sturgeon--”

“Fine, Dieckmann; give us what you have. And then--six glasses of milk

and a glass of beer--if I am not mistaken, Herr Permaneder?”

“One beer, six milks--sweet milk, buttermilk, sour milk, clotted milk,

Herr Consul?”

“Half and half, Herr Dieckmann: sweet milk and buttermilk. In an hour,

then.” They went across the square.

“First, Herr Permaneder, it is our duty to visit the spring,” said

Thomas. “The spring, that is to say, is the source of the Au; and the

Au is the tiny little river on which Swartau lies, and on which, in

the grey Middle Ages, our own town was situated--until it burned down.

There was probably nothing very permanent about it at that time, and

it was rebuilt again, on the Trave. But there are painful recollections

connected with the Au. When we were schoolboys we used to pinch each

other’s arms and say: ‘What is the name of the river at Swartau?’ Of

course, it hurt, and the involuntary answer was the right one.--Look!”

he interrupted himself suddenly, ten steps from the ascent, “they’ve

got ahead of us.” It was the Möllendorpfs and the Hagenströms.

There, on the third landing of the wooded terrace, sat the principal

members of those affiliated families, at two tables shoved close

together, eating and talking with the greatest gusto. Old Senator

Möllendorpf presided, a pallid gentleman with thin, pointed white

mutton-chops; he suffered from diabetes. His wife, born Langhals,

wielded her lorgnon; and, as usual, her hair stood up untidily all over

her head. Her son Augustus was a blond young man with a prosperous

exterior, and there was Julie his wife, born Hagenström, little and

lively, with great blank black eyes and diamond earrings that were

nearly as large. She sat between her brothers, Hermann and Moritz.

Consul Hermann Hagenström had begun to get very stout with good living:

people said he began the day with _paté de foie gras_. He wore a

full, short reddish-blond beard, and he had his mother’s nose, which

came down quite flat on the upper lip. Dr. Morris was narrow-chested

and yellow-skinned, and he talked very gaily, showing pointed teeth

with gaps between them. Both brothers had their ladies with them--for

the lawyer had married, some years since, a Fräulein Puttfarken from

Hamburg, a lady with butter-coloured hair and wonderful cold, regular,

English features of more than common beauty; Dr. Hagenström had not

been able to reconcile with his reputation as connoisseur the idea

of taking a plain wife. And, finally, there were the little daughter

of Hermann and the little son of Moritz, two white-frocked children,

already as good as betrothed to each other, for the Huneus-Hagenström

money must be kept together, of course. They all sat there eating ham

and scrambled eggs.

Greetings were exchanged when the Buddenbrook party passed at a little

distance the company seated at the table. The Frau Consul bowed

confusedly; Thomas lifted his hat, his lips moving in a courteous

and conventional greeting, and Gerda inclined her head with formal

politeness. But Herr Permaneder, stimulated by the climb, swung his

green hat unaffectedly and shouted in a loud, hearty voice: “Hearty

good morning to all of you!” whereat Frau Senator Möllendorpf made

use of her lorgnon. Tony, for her part, flung back her head and

tucked in her chin as much as possible, while her shoulders went up

ever so slightly, and she greeted the party as if from some remote

height--which meant that she stared straight ahead directly over the

broad brim of Julie Möllendorpf’s elegant hat. Precisely at this

moment, her decision of the night before became fixed, unalterable

resolve.

“Thanks be to goodness, Tom, we are not going to eat for another

hour. I’d hate to have that Julie watching us. Did you see how she

spoke? Hardly at all. I only had a glimpse of her hat, but it looked

frightfully bad taste.”

“Well, as far as that goes, I don’t know about the hat--but you were

certainly not much more cordial than she was, my love. And don’t get

irritated--it makes for wrinkles.”

“Irritated, Tom? Not at all. If these people think they are the first

and foremost, why, one can only laugh at them, that’s all. What

difference is there between this Julie and me, if it comes to that? She

only drew a fool, instead of a knave, for a husband; and if she were in

my position now, we should see if she would find another one.”

“How can you tell that you will find another one?”

“A fool, Thomas?”

“Very much better than a knave.”

“It doesn’t have to be either. But it is not a fit subject for

discussion.”

“Quite right. The others are ahead of us--Herr Permaneder is climbing

lustily.”

The shady forest road grew level, and it was not long before they

reached the “spring,” a pretty, romantic spot with a wooden bridge over

a little ravine, steep cliffs, and overhanging trees with their roots

in the air. The Frau Consul had brought a silver collapsible cup, and

they scooped up the water from the little stone basin directly under

the source and refreshed themselves with the iron-impregnated spring.

And here Herr Permaneder had a slight attack of gallantry, and insisted

on Frau Grünlich tasting his cup before presenting it to him. He ran

over with friendliness and displayed great tact in chatting with the

Frau Consul and Thomas, as well as with Gerda and Tony, and even with

little Erica. Gerda, who had up to now been suffering from the heat

and a kind of silent and rigid nervousness, began to feel like herself

again. They came back to the inn by a shorter way, and sat down at a

groaning table on the second of the wooded terraces; and it was Gerda

who gave expression in friendly terms to the general regret over Herr

Permaneder’s early departure, now that they were just becoming a little

acquainted and finding less and less difficulty with the language. She

was ready to swear that she had heard her friend and sister-in-law,

Tony, use several times the most unadulterated Munich dialect!

Herr Permaneder forebore to commit himself on the subject of his

departure. Instead, he devoted himself for the time to the dainties

that weighted down the table--dainties such as he seldom saw the other

side of the Danube.

They sat and consumed the good things at their leisure--what little

Erica liked far better than anything else were the serviettes made of

tissue paper, much nicer than the big linen ones at home. With the

waiter’s permission she put a few in her pocket as a souvenir. When

they had finished, they still sat; Herr Permaneder smoked several

very black cigars with his beer, Thomas smoked cigarettes, and the

whole family chatted a long time with their guest. It was noticeable

that Herr Permaneder’s leaving was not mentioned again; in fact, the

future was left shrouded in darkness. Rather, they turned to memories

of the past or talked of the political events of recent years. Herr

Permaneder shook with laughter over some dozens of stories of the late

Herr Consul, which his widow related, and then in his turn told about

the Munich Revolution, and about Lola Montez, in whom Frau Grünlich

displayed an unbounded interest. The hour after luncheon slowly wore

on, and little Erica came back laden with daisies, grasses, and ladies’

smocks from an expedition with Ida Jungmann, and recalled the fact that

the ginger-nuts were still to be bought. They started on their walk

down to the village, not before the Frau Consul, who was the hostess of

the occasion, had paid the bill with a good-sized gold-piece.

They gave orders at the inn that the wagon should be ready in half an

hour, so that there would be time for a rest in town before dinner, and

then they rambled slowly down, in the dusty sunshine, to the handful of

cottages that formed the village.

After they crossed the bridge they fell naturally into little groups,

in which they continued after that to walk: Mamsell Jungmann with

her long stride in the van, with little Erica jumping tirelessly

alongside, hunting for butterflies; then the Frau Consul, Thomas, and

Gerda together; and lastly, at some distance, Frau Grünlich and Herr

Permaneder. The first pair made considerable noise, for the child

shouted for joy, and Ida joined in with her neighing, good-natured

laugh. In the middle, all three were silent; for the dust had driven

Gerda into another fit of depression, and the old Frau Consul, and her

son as well, were plunged in thought. The couple behind were quiet too,

but their quietness was only apparent, for in reality Tony and her

Bavarian guest were conversing in subdued and intimate tones. And what

was the subject of their discourse? It was Herr Grünlich....

Herr Permaneder had made the pointed remark that little Erica was a

dear and pretty child, but that she had not the slightest resemblance

to her mother. To which Tony had answered: “She is altogether like

her father in looks, and one may say that it is not at all to her

disadvantage, for as far as looks go, Grünlich was a gentleman. He had

golden-yellow whiskers--very uncommon; I never saw anything like them.”

When Tony visited the Niederpaurs in Munich, she had already told Herr

Permaneder in considerable detail the story of her first marriage; but

now he asked again all the particulars of it, listening with anxiously

sympathetic blinks to the details of the bankruptcy.

“He was a bad man, Herr Permaneder, or Father would never have taken

me away from him--of that you may be sure. Life has taught me that not

everybody in the world has a good heart. I have learned that, young

as I am for a person who, as you might say, has been a widow for ten

years. He was a bad man, and his banker, Kesselmeyer, was a worse

one--and a silly puppy into the bargain. I won’t say that I consider

myself an angel and perfectly free from all blame--don’t misunderstand

me. Grünlich neglected me, and even when he was with me he just sat

and read the paper; and he deceived me, and kept me in Eimsbüttel,

because he was afraid if I went to town I would find out the mess he

was in. But I am a weak woman, and I have my faults too, and I’ve no

doubt I did not always go the right way to work. I know I gave him

cause to worry and complain over my extravagance and silliness and my

new dressing-gowns. But it is only fair to say one thing: I was just a

child when I was married, a perfect goose, a silly little thing. Just

imagine: only a short time before I was engaged, I didn’t even so much

as know that the Confederation decrees concerning the universities and

the press had been renewed four years before! And fine decrees they

were, too! Ah, me, Herr Permaneder! The sad thing is that one lives

but once--one can’t begin life over again. And one would know so much

better the second time!”

She was silent; she looked down at the road--but she was very intent

on the reply Herr Permaneder would make, for she had not unskilfully

left him an opening, it being only a step to the idea that, even though

it was impossible to begin life anew, yet a new and better married

life was not out of the question. Herr Permaneder let the chance slip

and confined himself to laying the blame on Herr Grünlich, with such

violence that his very chin-whiskers bristled.

“Silly ass! If I had the fool here I’d give it to him! What a swine!”

“Fie, Herr Permaneder! No, you really mustn’t. We must forgive and

forget--‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ Ask Mother. Heaven

forbid--I don’t know where Grünlich is, nor what state his affairs are

in, but I wish him the best of fortune, even though he doesn’t deserve

it.”

They had reached the village and stood before the little house which

was at the same time the bakery. They had stopped walking, almost

without knowing it, and were hardly aware that Ida, Erica, the Frau

Consul, Thomas, and Gerda had disappeared through the funny, tiny

little door, so low that they had to stoop to enter. They were absorbed

in their conversation, though it had not got beyond these trifling

preliminaries.

They stood by a hedge with a long narrow flower-bed beneath it, in

which some mignonette was growing. Frau Grünlich, rather hot, bent her

head and poked industriously with her parasol in the black loam. Herr

Permaneder stood close to her, now and then assisting her excavations

with his walking-stick. His little green hat with the tuft of goat’s

beard had slid back on his forehead. He was stooping over the bed too,

but his small, bulging pale-blue eyes, quite blank and even a little

reddish, gazed up at her with a mixture of devotion, distress, and

expectancy. It was odd to see how his very moustache, drooping down

over his mouth, took the same expression.

“Likely, now,” he ventured, “likely, now, ye’ve taken a silly fright,

and are too damned scared of marriage ever to try it again--hey, Frau

Grünlich?”

“How clumsy!” thought she. “Must I say yes to that?” Aloud she

answered: “Well, dear Herr Permaneder, I must confess that it would be

hard for me to yield anybody my consent for life; for life has taught

me, you see, what a serious step that is. One needs to be sure that the

man in question is a thoroughly noble, good, kind soul--”

And now he actually ventured the question whether she could consider

him such a man--to which she answered: “Yes, Herr Permaneder, I do.”

Upon which there followed the few short murmured words which clinched

the betrothal and gave Herr Permaneder the assurance that he might

speak to Thomas and the Frau Consul when they reached home.

When the other members of the party came forth, laden with bags of

ginger-nuts, Thomas let his eye rove discreetly over the heads of the

two standing outside, for they were embarrassed to the last degree.

Herr Permaneder simply made no effort to conceal the fact, but Tony was

hiding her embarrassment under a well-nigh majestic dignity.

They hurried back to the wagon, for the sky had clouded over and some

drops began to fall.

* * * * *

Tony was right: her brother had, soon after Herr Permaneder appeared,

made proper inquiries as to his situation in life. He learned that

X. Noppe and Company did a thoroughly sound if somewhat restricted

business, operating with the joint-stock brewery managed by Herr

Niederpaur as director. It showed a nice little income, Herr

Permaneder’s share of which, with the help of Tony’s seventeen

thousand, would suffice for a comfortable if modest life. The Frau

Consul heard the news, and there was a long and particular conversation

among her, Herr Permaneder, Antonie, and Thomas, in the landscape-room

that very evening, and everything was arranged. It was decided that

little Erica should go to Munich too, this being her Mother’s wish, to

which her betrothed warmly agreed.

Two days later the hop dealer left for home--“Noppe will be raising

the deuce if I don’t,” he said. But in July Frau Grünlich was again in

his native town, accompanied by Tom and Gerda. They were to spend four

or five weeks at Bad Kreuth, while the Frau Consul with Erica and Ida

were on the Baltic coast. While in Munich, the four had time to see the

house in Kaufinger Street which Herr Permaneder was about to buy. It

was in the neighbourhood of the Niederpaurs’--a perfectly remarkable

old house, a large part of which Herr Permaneder thought to let. It had

a steep, ladderlike pair of stairs which ran without a turning from the

front door straight up to the first floor, where a corridor led on each

side back to the front rooms.

Tony went home the middle of August to devote herself to her trousseau.

She had considerable left from her earlier equipment, but new purchases

were necessary to complete it. One day several things arrived from

Hamburg, among them a morning-gown--this time not trimmed with velvet

but with bands of cloth instead.

Herr Permaneder returned to Meng Street well on in the autumn. They

thought best to delay no longer. As for the wedding festivities, they

went off just as Tony expected and desired, no great fuss being made

over them. “Let us leave out the formalities,” said the Consul. “You

are married again, and it is simply as if you always had been.” Only

a few announcements were sent--Madame Grünlich saw to it that Julie

Möllendorpf, born Hagenström, received one--and there was no wedding

journey. Herr Permaneder objected to making “such a fuss,” and Tony,

just back from the summer trip, found even the journey to Munich too

long. The wedding took place, not in the hall this time, but in the

church of St. Mary’s, in the presence of the family only. Tony wore the

orange-blossom, which replaced the myrtle, with great dignity, and

Doctor Kölling preached on moderation, with as strong language as ever,

but in a weaker voice.

Christian came from Hamburg, very elegantly dressed, looking a little

ailing but very lively. He said his business with Burmeester was

“top-top”; thought that he and Tilda would probably get married “up

there”--that is to say, “each one for himself, of course”; and came

very late to the wedding from the visit he paid at the club. Uncle

Justus was much moved by the occasion, and with his usual lavishness

presented the newly-wedded pair with a beautiful heavy silver epergne.

He and his wife practically starved themselves at home, for the weak

woman was still paying the disinherited and outcast Jacob’s debts with

the housekeeping money. Jacob was rumoured to be in Paris at present.

The Buddenbrook ladies from Broad Street made the remark: “Well, let’s

hope it will last, this time.” The unpleasant part of this lay in the

doubt whether they really hoped it. Sesemi Weichbrodt stood on her

tip-toes, kissed her pupil, now Frau Permaneder, explosively on the

forehead, and said with her most pronounced vowels: “Be happy, you

go-od che-ild!”

CHAPTER VII

In the morning at eight o’clock Consul Buddenbrook, so soon as he had

left his bed, stolen through the little door and down the winding

stair into the bathroom, taken a bath, and put on his night-shirt

again--Consul Buddenbrook, we say, began to busy himself with public

affairs. For then Herr Wenzel, barber and member of the Assembly,

appeared, with his intelligent face and his red hands, his razors and

other tools, and the basin of warm water which he had fetched from the

kitchen; and the Consul sat in a reclining-chair and leaned his head

back, and Herr Wenzel began to make a lather; and there ensued almost

always a conversation that began with the weather and how you had slept

the night before, went on to politics and the great world, thence to

domestic affairs in the city itself, and closed in an intimate and

familiar key on business and family matters. All this prolonged very

much the process in hand, for every time the Consul said anything Herr

Wenzel had to stop shaving.

“Hope you slept well, Herr Consul?”

“Yes, thanks, Wenzel. Is it fine to-day?”

“Frost and a bit of snow, Herr Consul. In front of St. James’s the boys

have made another slide, more than ten yards long--I nearly sat down,

when I came from the Burgomaster’s. The young wretches!”

“Seen the papers?”

“The _Advertiser_ and the _Hamburg News_--yes. Nothing in them but the

Orsini bombs. Horrible. It happened on the way to the opera. Oh, they

must be a fine lot over there.”

“Oh, it doesn’t signify much, I should think. It has nothing to do with

the people, and the only effect will be that the police will be doubled

and there will be twice as much interference with the press. He is on

his guard. Yes, it must be a perpetual strain, for he has to introduce

new projects all the time, to keep himself in power. But I respect him,

all the same. At all events, he can’t be a fool, with his traditions,

and I was very much impressed with the cheap bread affair. There is no

doubt he does a great deal for the people.”

“Yes, Herr Kistenmaker says so too.”

“Stephan? We were talking about it yesterday.”

“It looks bad for Frederick William of Prussia. Things won’t last much

longer as they are. They say already that the prince will be made

Regent in time.”

“It will be interesting to see what happens then. He has already shown

that he has liberal ideas and does not feel his brother’s secret

disgust for the Constitution. It is just the chagrin that upsets him,

poor man. What is the news from Copenhagen?”

“Nothing new, Herr Consul. They simply won’t. The Confederation has

declared that a united government for Holstein and Lauenburg is

illegal--they won’t have it at any price.”

“Yes, it is unheard-of, Wenzel. They dare the Bundestag to put it

into operation--and if it were a little more lively--oh, these

Danes!--Careful with that chapped place, Wenzel.--There’s our

direct-line Hamburg railway, too. That has cost some diplomatic

battles, and will cost more before they get the concession from

Copenhagen.”

“Yes, Herr Consul. The stupid thing is that the Altona-Kiel Railway

Company is against it--and, in fact, all Holstein is. Dr. Överdieck,

the Burgomaster, was saying so just now. They are dreadfully afraid of

Kiel prospering much.”

“Of course, Wenzel. A new connection between the North Sea and the

Baltic.--You’ll see, the Kiel-Altona line will keep on intriguing. They

are in a position to build a rival railway: East Holstein, Neuminster,

Neustadt--yes, that is quite on the cards. But we must not let

ourselves be bullied, and we must have a direct route to Hamburg.”

“Herr Consul must take the matter up himself.”

“Certainly, so far as my powers go, and wherever I have any influence.

I am interested in the development of our railways--it is a tradition

with us from 1851 on. My Father was a director of the Buchen line,

which is probably the reason why I was elected so young. I am only

thirty-three years old, and my services so far have been very

inconsiderable.”

“Oh, Herr Consul! How can the Herr Consul say that after his speech in

the Assembly--?”

“Yes, that made an impression, and I’ve certainly shown my good will,

at least. I can only be grateful that my Father, Grandfather, and

great-Grandfather prepared the way for me, and that I inherited so

much of the respect and confidence they received from the town; for

without it I could not move as I am now able to. For instance, after

’48 and the beginning of this decade, what did my Father not do towards

the reform of our postal service? Think how he urged in the Assembly

the union of the Hamburg diligences with the postal service; and

how in 1850 he forced the Senate by continuous pressure to join the

German-Austrian Postal Union! If we have cheap letter postage now, and

stamps and book post, and letter-boxes, and telegraphic connection with

Hamburg and Travemünde, he is not the last one to be grateful to. Why,

if he and a few other people had not kept at the Senate continually, we

should most likely still be behind the Danish and the Thurn-and-Taxis

postal service! So when I have an opinion nowadays on these subjects,

people listen to me.”

“The Herr Consul is speaking God’s truth. About the Hamburg line,

Doctor Överdieck was saying to me only three days ago: ‘When we get

where we can buy a suitable site for the station in Hamburg, we will

send Consul Buddenbrook to help transact the business, for in such

dealings he is better than most lawyers.’ Those were his very words.”

“Well, that is very flattering to me, Wenzel.--Just put a little more

lather on my chin, will you? It wants a bit more cleaning up.--Yes,

the truth is, we mustn’t let the grass grow under our feet. I am

saying nothing against Överdieck, but he is getting on. If I were

Burgomaster I’d make things move a little faster. I can’t tell you how

pleased I am that they are installing gas for the street-lighting, and

the miserable old oil lamps are disappearing--I admit I had a little

something to do with that change. Oh, how much there is to do! Times

are changing, Wenzel, and we have many responsibilities toward the

new age. When I think back to my boyhood--you know better than I do

what the town looked like then: the streets without sidewalks, grass

growing a foot high between the paving-stones, and the houses with

porticos and benches sticking out into the streets--and our buildings

from the time of the Middle Ages spoilt with clumsy additions, and

all tumbling down because, while individuals had money and nobody

went hungry, the town had none at all and just muddled along, as my

brother-in-law calls it, without ever thinking of repairs. That was a

happy and comfortable generation, when my grandfather’s crony, the good

Jean Jacques Hofstede, strolled about the town and translated improper

little French poems. They had to end, those good old times; they have

changed, and they will have to change still more. Then the population

was thirty-seven thousand: now it is fifty, you know, and the whole

character of the place is altering. There is so much building, and the

suburbs are spreading out, and we are able to have good streets and

restore the old monuments out of our great period. Yet even all that is

merely superficial. The most important matter is still outstanding, my

dear Wenzel. I mean, of course, the _ceterum censeo_ of my dear Father:

the customs union. We must join, Wenzel; there should be no longer any

question about it, and you must all help me fight for it. As a business

man, believe me, I am better informed than the diplomats, and the

fear that we should lose independence and freedom of action is simply

laughable in this case. The Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein Inland

would take us in, which is the more desirable for the reason that we

do not control the northern trade quite to the extent that we once

did.--That’s enough. Please give me the towel, Wenzel,” concluded the

Consul.

Then the market price of rye, which stood at fifty-five thaler and

showed disquieting signs of falling still further, was talked about,

and perhaps there was a mention of some event or other in the town; and

then Herr Wenzel vanished by the basement route and emptied the lather

out of his shiny basin on to the pavement in the street. And the Consul

mounted the winding stair into the bedroom, and found Gerda awake, and

kissed her on the forehead. Then he dressed.

These little morning sessions with the lively barber formed the

introduction to busy days, full to running over with thinking, talking,

writing, reckoning, doing business, going about in the town. Thanks

to his travel, his interests, and his knowledge of affairs, Thomas

Buddenbrook’s mind was the least provincial in the district; and he

was certainly the first to realize the limitations of his lot. The

lively interest in public affairs which the years of the Revolution had

brought in, was suffering throughout the whole country from a period

of prostration and arrest, and that field was too sterile to occupy a

vigorous talent; but Thomas Buddenbrook possessed the spirit to take

to himself that wise old saying that all human achievement is of a

merely symbolic value, and thus to devote all that he had of capacity,

enthusiasm, energy, and strength of will to the service of the

community as well as to the service of his own name and firm. He stood

in the front rank of his small society and was seriously ambitious to

give his city greatness and power within her sphere--though he had

the intellect too, to smile at himself for the ambition even while he

cherished it.

He ate his breakfast, served by Anton, and went to the office in Meng

Street, where he remained about an hour, writing two or three pressing

letters and telegrams, giving this or that instruction, imparting to

the wheels of industry a small push, and then leaving them to revolve

under the cautious eye of Herr Marcus.

He went to assemblies and committee meetings, visited the Bourse, which

was held under the Gothic arcades in the Market square, inspected

dockyards and warehouses, talked with the captains of the ships he

owned, and transacted much and various business all day long until

evening, interrupted only by the hasty luncheon with his Mother and

dinner with Gerda; after which he took a half-hour’s rest on the sofa

with his cigarette and the newspaper. Customs, rates, construction,

railways, posts, almonry--all this as well as his own business occupied

him; and even in matters commonly left to professionals he acquired

insight and judgment, especially in finance, where he early showed

himself extremely gifted.

He was careful not to neglect the social side. True, he was not always

punctual, and usually appeared at the very last minute, when the

carriage waited below and his wife sat in full toilette. “I’m sorry,

Gerda,” he would say; “I was detained”; and he would dash upstairs to

don his evening clothes. But when he arrived at a dinner, a ball, or

an evening company, he showed lively interest and ranked as a charming

_causeur_. And in entertaining he and his wife were not behind the

other rich houses. In kitchen and cellar everything was “tip-top,” and

he himself was considered a most courteous and tactful host, whose

toasts were wittier than the common run. His quiet evenings he spent at

home with Gerda alone, smoking, listening to her music, or reading with

her some book of her selection.

Thus his labours enforced success, his consequence grew in the town,

and the firm had excellent years, despite the sums drawn out to settle

Christian and to pay Tony’s second dowry. And yet there were troubles

which had, at times, the power to lame his courage for hours, weaken

his elasticity, and depress his mood.

There was Christian in Hamburg. His partner, Herr Burmeester, had died

quite suddenly of an apoplectic stroke, in the spring of the year

1858. His heirs drew their money out of the business, and the Consul

strongly advised Christian against trying to continue it with his own

means, for he knew how difficult it is to carry on a business already

established on definite lines if the working capital be suddenly

diminished. But Christian insisted upon the continuation of his

independence. He took over the assets and the liabilities of H. C. F.

Burmeester and Company, and trouble was to be looked for.

Then there was the Consul’s sister Clara in Riga. Her marriage with

Pastor Tiburtius had remained unblest with children--but then, as Clara

Buddenbrook she had never wanted children, and probably had very little

talent for motherhood. Now her husband wrote that her health left much

to be desired. The severe headaches from which she had suffered even as

a girl were now recurring periodically, to an almost unbearable extent.

That was disquieting. And even here at home there was another source

of worry--for, as yet, there was no certainty whatever that the family

name would live. Gerda treated the subject with sovereign indifference

which came very near to being repugnance. Thomas concealed his anxiety.

But the old Frau Consul took the matter in hand and consulted Grabow.

“Doctor--just between ourselves--something is bound to happen

_sometime_, isn’t it? A little mountain air at Kreuth, a little

seashore at Glucksberg or Travemünde--but they don’t seem to work. What

do you advise?” Dr. Grabow’s pleasant old prescription: “a nourishing

diet, a little pigeon, a slice of French bread,” didn’t seem strong

enough, either, to fit the case. He ordered Pyrmont and Schlangenbad.

Those were three worries. And Tony? Poor Tony!

CHAPTER VIII

She wrote: “... And when I say ‘croquettes,’ she doesn’t understand me,

because here they are called ‘meaties’; and when she says ‘broccoli,’

how could any Christian know she means cauliflower? When I say ‘baked

potatoes,’ she screams ‘How?’ at me, until I remember to say ‘roast

potatoes,’ which is what they call them here. ‘How’ means ‘What did

you say?’ And she is the second one I’ve had--I sent away the first

one, named Katy, because she was so impertinent--or at least, I thought

she was. I’m getting to see now that I may have been mistaken, for I’m

never quite sure whether people here mean to be rude or friendly. This

one’s name is Babette. She has a very pleasing exterior, with something

southern, the way of some of them have here; black hair and eyes, and

teeth that any one might envy. She is willing, too, and I am teaching

her how to make some of our home dishes. Yesterday we had sorrel and

currants, but I wish I hadn’t, for Permaneder objected so much to the

sorrel--he picked the currants out with a fork--that he would not

speak to me the whole afternoon, but just growled; and I can tell you,

Mother, that life is not so easy.”

Alas, it was not only the sorrel and the “meaties” that were

embittering Tony’s life. Before the honeymoon was over she had had a

blow so unforeseen, so unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it took

away all her joy in life. She could not get over it. And here it was.

Not until after the Permaneder couple had been some weeks in Munich had

Consul Buddenbrook liquidated the sum fixed by his Father’s will as his

sister’s second marriage portion. That sum, translated into gulden, had

at last safely reached Herr Permaneder’s hands, and Herr Permaneder

had invested it securely and not unprofitably. But then, what he had

said, quite unblushingly and without embarrassment, to his wife, was

this: “Tonerl”--he called her “Tonerl”--“Tonerl, that’s good enough for

me. What do we want of more? I been working my hide off all my days;

now I’d like to sit down and have a little peace and quiet, damned if

I wouldn’t. Let’s rent the parterre and the second floor, and still

we’ll have a good house, where we can sit and eat our bit of pig’s meat

without screwing ourselves up and putting on so much lug. And in the

evening I can go to the Hofbräu house. I’m no swell--I don’t care about

scraping money together. I want my comfort. I quit to-morrow and go

into private life.”

“Permaneder!” she had cried; and for the first time she had spoken his

name with that peculiar throaty sound which her voice always had when

she uttered the name of Grünlich.

“Oh, shut up! Don’t take on!” was all he answered. There had

followed, thus early in their life together, a quarrel, serious and

violent enough to endanger the happiness of any marriage. He came

off victorious. Her passionate resistance was shattered upon his

urgent longing for “peace and quiet.” It ended in Herr Permaneder’s

withdrawing the capital he had in the hop business, so that now Herr

Noppe, in his turn, could strike the “and Company” off his card. After

which Tony’s husband, like most of the friends whom he met around the

table in the Hofbräu House, to play cards and drink his regular three

litres of beer, limited his activities to the raising of rents in his

capacity of landlord, and to an undisturbed cutting of coupons.

The Frau Consul was notified quite simply of this fact. But Frau

Permaneder’s distress was evident in the letters which she wrote to

her brother. Poor Tony! Her worst fears were more than realized.

She had always known that Herr Permaneder possessed none of that

“resourcefulness” of which her first husband had had so much; but

that he would so entirely confound the expectations she had expressed

to Mamsell Jungmann on the eve of her betrothal--that he would so

completely fail to recognize the duties he had taken upon himself when

he married a Buddenbrook--that she had never dreamed.

But these feelings must be overcome; and her family at home saw from

her letters how she resigned herself. She lived on rather monotonously

with her husband and Erica, who went to school; she attended to her

housekeeping, kept up friendly relations with the people who rented

the parterre and the first storey and with the Niederpaur family in

Marienplatz; and she wrote now and then of going to the theatre with

her friend Eva. Herr Permaneder did not care for the theatre. And it

came out that he had grown to more than forty years of age in his

beloved Munich without ever having seen the inside of the Pinakothek.

Time passed. But Tony could feel no longer any true happiness in her

new life, since the day when Herr Permaneder received her dowry and

settled himself down to enjoy his ease. Hope was no more. She would

never be able to write home to announce new ventures and new successes.

Just as life was now--free from cares, it was true, but so limited,

so lamentably “unrefined,”--just so it would remain until the end.

It weighed upon her. It was plain from her letters that this very

lowness of tone was making it harder for her to adapt herself to the

south-German surroundings. In small matters, of course, things grew

easier. She learned to make herself understood by the servants and

errand-boys, to say “meaties” instead of “croquettes,” and to set

no more fruit soup before her husband after the one he had called a

“sickening mess.” But, in general, she remained a stranger in her new

home; and she never ceased to taste the bitterness of the knowledge

that to be a born Buddenbrook was not to enjoy any particular prestige

in her adopted home. She once related in a letter the story of how

she met in the street a mason’s apprentice, carrying a mug of beer in

one hand and holding a large white radish by its tail in the other;

who, waving his beer, said jovially: “Neighbour, can ye tell us the

time?” She made a joke of it, in the telling; yet even so, a strong

undercurrent of irritation betrayed itself. You might be quite certain

that she threw back her head and vouchsafed to the poor man neither

answer nor glance in his direction. But it was not alone this lack of

formality and absence of distinctions that made her feel strange and

unsympathetic. She did not live deeply, it is true, into the life or

affairs of her new home; but she breathed the Munich air, the air of a

great city, full of artists and citizens who habitually did nothing: an

air with something about it a little demoralizing, which she sometimes

found it hard to take good-humouredly.

The days passed. And then it seemed that there was after all a joy in

store--in fact, the very one which was longed for in vain in Broad

Street and Meng Street. For not long after the New Year of 1859 Tony

felt certain that she was again to become a mother.

The joy of it trembled in her letters, which were full of the old

childish gaiety and sense of importance. The Frau Consul, who, with the

exception of the summer holiday, confined her journeyings more and more

to the Baltic coast, lamented that she could not be with her daughter

at this time. Tom and Gerda made plans to go to the christening,

and Tony’s head was full of giving them an elegant reception. Alas,

poor Tony! The visit which took place was sad indeed, and the

christening--Tony had cherished visions of a ravishing little feast,

with flowers, sweetmeats, and chocolate--never took place at all. The

child, a little girl, only entered into life for a tiny quarter of an

hour; then, though the doctor did his best to set the pathetic little

mechanism going, it faded out of being.

Consul Buddenbrook and his wife arrived in Munich to find Tony herself

not out of danger. She was far more ill than before, and a nervous

weakness from which she had already suffered prevented her from taking

any nourishment at all for several days. Then she began to eat, and on

their departure, the Buddenbrooks felt reassured as far as her health

was concerned. But in other ways there was much reason for anxiety; for

it had been all too plain, especially to the Consul’s observant eye,

that not even their common loss would suffice to bring husband and wife

together again.

There was nothing against Herr Permaneder’s good heart. He was truly

shaken by the death of the child; big tears rolled down out of his

bulging eyes upon his puffy cheeks and on into his frizzled beard. Many

times he sighed deeply and gave vent to his favourite expression. But,

after all, Tony felt that his “peace and quiet” had not suffered any

long interruption. After a few evenings, he sought the Hofbräu House

for consolation, and was soon, as he always said, “muddling along”

again in his old, good-natured, comfortable, grumbling way, with the

easy fatalism natural to him.

But from now on Tony’s letters never lost their hopeless, even

complaining tone. “Oh, Mother,” she wrote, “why do I have to bear

everything like this? First Grünlich and the bankruptcy, and then

Permaneder going out of business--and then the baby! How have I

deserved all these misfortunes?”

When the Consul read these outpourings, he could never quite forego

a little smile: for, nothwithstanding all the real pain they showed,

he heard an undertone of almost comic pride, and he knew that Tony

Buddenbrook, as Madame Grünlich or as Madame Permaneder, was and would

remain a child. She bore all her mature experiences almost with a

child’s unbelief in their reality, yet with a child’s seriousness, a

child’s self-importance, and, above all, with a child’s power to throw

them off at will.

She could not understand how she had deserved her misfortunes; for even

while she mocked at her mother’s piety, she herself was so full of it

that she fervently believed in justice and righteousness on this earth.

Poor Tony! The death of her second child was neither the last nor the

hardest blow that fell upon her. As the year 1859 drew to a close,

something frightful indeed happened.

CHAPTER IX

It was a day toward the end of November--a cold autumn day with a hazy

sky. It looked almost as if there would be snow, and a mist was rising,

pierced through every now and then by the sun. It was one of those

days, common in a seaport town, when a sharp north-east wind whistled

round the massive church corners and influenzas were to be had cheap.

Consul Thomas Buddenbrook entered the breakfast-room toward midday, to

find his Mother, with her spectacles on her nose, bent over a paper on

the table.

“Tom,” she said; and she looked at him, holding the paper with both

hands, as if she hesitated to show it to him. “Don’t be startled. But

it is not very good news. I don’t understand-- It is from Berlin.

Something must have happened.”

“Give it to me, please,” he said shortly. He lost colour, and the

muscles stood out on his temples as he clenched his teeth. His gesture

as he stretched out his hand was so full of decision that it was as if

he said aloud: “Just tell me quickly. Don’t prepare me for it!”

He read the lines still standing; one of his light eyebrows went up,

and he drew the long ends of his moustache through his fingers. It was

a telegram, and it said: “Don’t be frightened. Am coming at once with

Erica. All is over. Your unhappy Antonie.”

“‘At once ... at once,’” he said, with irritation, looking at the Frau

Consul and giving his head a quick shake. “What does she mean by ‘at

once’?”

“That is just a way of putting it, Tom; it doesn’t mean anything

particular. She means by the next train, or something like that.”

“And from Berlin! What is she doing in Berlin? How did she get to

Berlin?”

“I don’t know, Tom; I don’t understand it. The dispatch only came ten

minutes ago. But something must have happened, and we must just wait to

see what it is. God in his mercy will turn it all to good. Sit down, my

son, and eat your luncheon.”

He took his chair, and mechanically he poured out a glass of porter.

“‘All is over,’” he repeated. And then “‘Antonie.’ How childish!”

He ate and drank in silence.

After a while the Frau Consul ventured to say: “It must be something

about Permaneder, don’t you think, Tom?”

He shrugged his shoulders without looking up.

As he went away he said, with his hand on the doorknob, “Well, we must

wait and see. As she is not likely to burst into the house in the

middle of the night, she will probably reach here sometime to-morrow.

You will let me know, won’t you?”

* * * * *

The Frau Consul waited from hour to hour. She had slept very badly,

and in the night she rang for Ida Jungmann, who now slept in the back

room of the entresol. She had Ida make her some _eau sucrée_; and she

sat up in bed for a long time and embroidered. And now the forenoon

passed in nervous expectancy. When the Consul came to second breakfast,

he said that Tony could not arrive before the three-thirty-three

train from Buchen. At that hour the Frau Consul seated herself in the

landscape-room and tried to read, out of a book with a black leather

cover decorated with a gold palm-leaf.

It was a day like its predecessor: cold, mist, wind. The stove crackled

away behind its wrought-iron screen. The old lady trembled and looked

out of the window whenever she heard a wagon. At four o’clock, when she

had stopped watching and almost stopped thinking about her daughter,

there was a stir below in the house. She hastily turned toward the

window and wiped away the damp with her handkerchief. Yes, a carriage

had stopped below, and some one was coming up the steps.

She grasped the arms of her chair with both hands to rise. But then she

thought better of it and sank back. She only turned her head as her

daughter entered, and her face wore an almost defensive expression.

Tony burst impetuously into the room: Erica remained outside at the

glass door, with her hand in Ida Jungmann’s.

Frau Permaneder wore a fur wrap and a large felt hat with a veil. She

looked very pale and ailing, and her upper lip trembled as it used to

when the little Tony was about to weep. Her eyes were red. She raised

her arms and let them drop, and then she fell on her knees at her

Mother’s side, burying her face in the folds of her gown and sobbing

bitterly. It was as though she had rushed straight hither from Munich

all in one breath, and now lay there, having gained the goal of her

headlong flight, exhausted but safe. The Frau Consul sat a moment quite

still.

“Tony!” she said then, with gentle remonstrance. She drew the long

hatpins out of Frau Permaneder’s hat and laid it on the window-seat;

then she stroked gently and soothingly her daughter’s thick ash-blonde

hair.

“What is it, my child? What has happened?”

But she saw that patience was her only weapon; for it was long before

her question drew out any reply.

“Mother!” uttered Frau Permaneder. “Mamma!” But that was all.

The Frau Consul looked toward the glass door and, still embracing her

daughter, stretched out her hand to her grandchild, who stood there

shyly with her finger to her mouth.

“Come, child; come here and say how do you do. You have grown so big,

and you look so strong and well, for which God be thanked. How old are

you now, Erica?”

“Thirteen, Grandmama.”

“Good gracious! A young lady!” She kissed the little maiden over Tony’s

head and told her: “Go up with Ida now--we shall soon have dinner. Just

now Mamma and I want to talk.”

They were alone.

“Now, my dear Tony? Can you not stop crying? When God sends us a heavy

trial, we must bear it with composure. ‘Take your cross upon you,’ we

are told. Would you like to go up first and rest a little and refresh

yourself, and then come down to me again? Our good Jungmann has your

room ready. Thanks for your telegram--of course, it shocked us a good

deal--”

She stopped. For Tony’s voice came, all trembling and smothered, out of

the folds of her gown: “He is a wicked man--a wicked man! Oh, he is--”

Frau Permaneder seemed not able to get away from this dreadful phrase.

It possessed her altogether. She buried her face deeper and deeper in

the Frau Consul’s lap and clenched her fist beside the Frau Consul’s

chair.

“Do you mean your husband, my child?” asked the old lady, after a

pause. “It ought not to be possible for me to have such a thought in my

mind, I know; but you leave me nothing else to think, Tony. Has Herr

Permaneder done you an injury? Are you making a complaint of him?”

“Babette” Frau Permaneder brought out. “Babette--”

“Babette?” repeated the Frau Consul, inquiringly. Then she leaned

back in her chair, and her pale eyes wandered toward the window.

She understood now. There was a pause, broken by Tony’s gradually

decreasing sobs.

“Tony,” said the Frau Consul after a little space, “I see now that

there has been an injury done you--that you have cause to complain. But

was it necessary to give the sense of injury such violent expression?

Was it necessary to travel here from Munich, with Erica, and to make it

appear--for other people will not be so sensible as we are--that you

have left him permanently; that you will not go back to him?”

“But I won’t go back to him--never!” cried Frau Permaneder, and she

lifted up her head with a jerk and looked at her Mother wildly with

tear-stained eyes, and then buried her face again. The Frau Consul

affected not to have heard.

“But now,” she went on, in a louder key, slowly nodding her head from

one side to the other, “now that you are here, I am glad you are. For

you can unburden your heart, and tell me everything, and then we shall

see how we can put things right, by taking thought, and by mutual

forbearance and affection.”

“Never,” Tony said again. “Never!” And then she told her story. It was

not all intelligible, for she spoke into the folds of her Mother’s

stuff gown, and broke into her own narrative with explosions of

passionate anger. But what had happened was somewhat as follows:

On the night of the twenty-fourth of the month, Madame Permaneder

had gone to sleep very late, having been disturbed during the day by

the nervous digestive trouble to which she was subject. She had been

awakened about midnight, out of a light slumber, by a confused and

continuous noise outside on the landing--a half-suppressed, mysterious

noise, in which one distinguished the creaking of the stairs, a sort

of giggling cough, smothered, protesting words, and, mixed with these,

the most singular snarling sounds. But there was no doubt whence they

proceeded. Frau Permaneder had hardly, with her sleepy senses, taken

them in before she interpreted them as well, in such a way that she

felt the blood leave her cheeks and rush to her heart, which contracted

and then went on beating with heavy, oppressed pulsations. For a

long, dreadful minute she lay among the pillows as if stunned, as if

paralysed. Then, as the shameless disturbance did not stop, she had

with trembling hands kindled a light, had left her bed, thrilling with

horror, repulsion, and despair, had opened the door and hurried out on

to the landing in her slippers, the light in her hand--to the top of

the “ladder” that went straight up from the house door to the first

storey. And there, on the upper steps, in all its actuality, was indeed

the very scene she had pictured in her mind’s eye as she listened to

the compromising noises. It was an unseemly and indecent scuffle, a

sort of wrestling match between Babette the cook and Herr Permaneder.

The girl must have been busied late about the house, for she had her

bunch of keys and her candle in her hand as she swayed back and forth

in the effort to fend her master off. He, with his hat on the back

of his head, held her round the body and kept making essays, now and

then successfully, to press his face, with its great walrus moustache,

against hers. As Antonie appeared, Babette exclaimed something that

sounded like “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”--and “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

echoed Herr Permaneder likewise, as he let go. Almost in the same

second the girl vanished, and there was Herr Permaneder left standing

before his wife, with drooping head, drooping arms, drooping moustaches

too; and all he could get out was some idiotic remark like “Holy Cross,

what a mess!” When he ventured to lift his eyes, she was no longer

there. She was in the bed-chamber, half-sitting, half-lying on the bed,

repeating over and over again with frantic sobbing, “Shame, shame!” He

leaned rather flabbily in the doorway and jerked his shoulder in her

direction--had he been closer, the gesture would have been a nudge in

the ribs. “Hey, Tonerl--don’t be a fool, you know. Say--you know Franz,

the Ramsau Franz, he had his name-day to-day, and we’re all half-seas

over.” Strong alcoholic fumes pervaded the room as he spoke; and they

brought Frau Permaneder’s excitement to a climax. She sobbed no more,

she was no longer weak and faint. Carried away by frenzy, incapable

of measuring her words, she poured out her disgust, her abhorrence,

her complete and utter contempt and loathing of him and all his ways.

Herr Permaneder did not take it meekly. His head was hot; for he had

treated his friend Franz not only to many beers, but to “champagne

wine” as well. He answered and answered wildly--the quarrel reached a

height far greater than the one that had signalized Herr Permaneder’s

retirement into private life, and it ended in Frau Antonie gathering

her clothes together and withdrawing into the living-room for the

night. And at the end he had flung at her a word--a word which she

would not repeat--a word that should never pass her lips--a word....

This was the major content of the confession which Frau Permaneder

had sobbed into the folds of her mother’s gown. But the “word,” the

word that in that fearful night had sunk into her very depths--no, she

would not repeat it; no, she would not, she asseverated,--although her

mother had not in the least pressed her to do so, but only nodded her

head, slowly, almost imperceptibly, as she looked down on Tony’s lovely

ash-blond hair.

“Yes, yes,” she said; “this is very sad, Tony. And I understand it all,

my dear little one, because I am not only your Mamma, but I am a woman

like you as well. I see now how fully your grief is justified, and how

completely your husband, in a moment of weakness, forgot what he owed

to you and--”

“In a moment--?” cried Tony. She sprang up. She made two steps backward

and feverishly dried her eyes. “A moment, Mamma! He _forgot_ what

he owed to me and to our name? He never _knew_ it, from the very

beginning! A man that quietly sits down with his wife’s dowry--a man

without ambition or energy or will-power! A man that has some kind of

thick soup made out of hops in his veins instead of blood--and I verily

believe he has! And to let himself down to such common doings as this

with Babette--and when I reproached him with his good-for-nothingness,

to answer with a word that--a word--”

And, arrived once more at the word, the word she would not repeat,

quite suddenly she took a step forward and said, in a completely

altered, a quieter, milder, interested tone: “How perfectly sweet!

Where did you get that, Mamma?” She motioned with her chin toward a

little receptacle, a charming basket-work stand woven out of reeds

and decorated with ribbon bows, in which the Frau Consul kept her

fancy-work.

“I bought it, some time ago,” answered the old lady. “I needed it.”

“Very smart,” Tony said, looking at it with her head on one side. The

Frau Consul looked at it too, but without seeing it, for she was in

deep thought.

“Now, my dear daughter,” she said at last, putting out her hand again,

“however things are, you are here, and welcome a hundred times to

your old home. We can talk everything over when we are calmer. Take

your things off in your room and make yourself comfortable. Ida!” she

called into the dining-room, lifting her voice, “lay a place for Madame

Permaneder, and one for Erica, my dear.”

CHAPTER X

Tony returned to her bed-chamber after dinner. During the meal her

Mother had told her that Thomas was aware of her expected arrival; and

she did not seem particularly anxious to meet him.

The Consul came at six o’clock. He went into the landscape-room and had

a long talk with his Mother.

“How is she?” he asked. “How does she seem?”

“Oh, Tom, I am afraid she is very determined. She is terribly wrought

up. And this word--if I only knew what it was he said--”

“I will go up and see her.”

“Yes, do, Tom. But knock softly, so as not to startle her, and be very

calm, will you? Her nerves are upset. That is the trouble she has with

her digestion--she has eaten nothing. Do talk quietly with her.”

He went up quickly, skipping a step in his usual way. He was thinking,

and twisting the ends of his moustache, but as he knocked his face

cleared--he was resolved to handle the situation as long as possible

with humour.

A suffering voice said “Come in,” and he opened the door, to find Frau

Permaneder lying on the bed fully dressed. The bed curtains were flung

back, the down quilt was underneath her back, and a medicine bottle

stood on the night-table. She turned round a little and propped her

head on her hand, looking at him with her pouting smile. He made a deep

bow and spread out his hands in a solemn gesture.

“Well, dear lady! To what are we indebted for the honour of a visit

from this personage from the royal city of--?”

“Oh, give me a kiss, Tom,” she said, sat up to offer him her cheek,

and then sank back again. “Well, how are you, my dear boy? Quite

unchanged, I see, since I saw you in Munich.”

“You can’t tell much about it with the blinds down, my dear. And you

ought not to steal my thunder like that, either. It is more suitable

for me to say--” he held her hand in his, and at the same time drew up

a chair beside the bed--“as I so often have, that you and Tilda--”

“Oh, for shame, Tom!--How is Tilda?”

“Well, of course. Madame Krauseminz sees she doesn’t starve. Which

doesn’t prevent her eating for the week ahead when she comes here on

Thursday.”

She laughed very heartily--as she had not for a long time back, in

fact. Then she broke off with a sigh, and asked “And how is business?”

“Oh, we get on. Mustn’t complain.”

“Thank goodness, here everything is as it should be. Oh, Tom, I don’t

feel much like chatting pleasantly about trifles!”

“Pity. One should preserve one’s sense of humour, _quand même_.”

“All that is at an end, Tom.--You know all?”

“‘You know all’!” he repeated. He dropped her hand and pushed back his

chair. “Goodness gracious, how that sounds! ‘All’! What-all lies in

that ‘all’? ‘My love and grief I gave thee,’ eh? No, listen!”

She was silent. She swept him with an astonished and deeply offended

glance.

“Yes, I expected that look,” he said, “for without that look you would

not be here. But, dear Tony, let me take the thing as much too lightly

as you take it too seriously. You will see we shall complement each

other very nicely--”

“Too seriously, Thomas? _I_ take it too seriously?”

“Yes.--For heaven’s sake, don’t let’s make a tragedy of it! Let us

take it in a lower key, not with ‘all is at an end’ and ‘your unhappy

Antonie.’ Don’t misunderstand me, Tony. You well know that no one can

be gladder than I that you have come. I have long wished you would come

to us on a visit by yourself, without your husband, so that we could

be _en famille_ together once more. But to come now, like this--my dear

child, I beg your pardon, but it was--foolish. Yes--let me finish!

Permaneder has certainly behaved very badly, as I will give him to

understand pretty clearly--don’t be afraid of that--”

“As to how he has behaved himself, Thomas,” she interrupted him,

raising herself up to lay a hand upon her breast, “as far as that goes,

I have already given him to understand that--and not only ‘given him

to understand,’ I can tell you! I am convinced that further discussion

with that man is entirely out of place.” And she let herself fall back

again and looked sternly and fixedly at the ceiling.

He bowed, as if under the weight of her words, and kept on looking down

at his knee and smiling.

“Well, then, I won’t send him a stiff letter. It is just as you say.

In the end it is after all your affair, and it is quite enough if you

put him in his place--it is your duty as his wife. After all, there are

some extenuating circumstances. There was a birthday celebration, and

he came home a little bit exalted, so to speak, and was guilty of a

false step, an unseemly blunder--”

“Thomas,” said she, “I do not understand you. I do not understand your

tone. You--a man with your principles! But you did not see him. You did

not see how drunk he looked--”

“He looked ridiculous enough, I’m sure. But that is it, Tony. You

will not see how comic it was--but probably that is the fault of your

bad digestion. You caught your husband in a moment of weakness, and

you have seen him make himself look ridiculous. But that ought not

to outrage you to such an extent. It ought to amuse you a little,

perhaps, but bring you closer together as human beings. I will say that

I don’t mean you could have just let it pass with a laugh and said

nothing about it--not at all. You left home; that was a demonstration

of a rather extreme kind, perhaps--a bit too severe--but, after all,

he deserved it. I imagine he is feeling pretty down in the mouth.

I only mean that you must get to take the thing differently--not

so insulted--a little more politic point of view. We are just

between ourselves. Let me tell you something, Tony. In any marriage,

the important thing is, on which side the moral ascendency lies.

Understand? Your husband has laid himself open, there is no doubt of

that. He compromised himself and made a laughable spectacle--laughable,

precisely because what he did was actually so harmless, so impossible

to take seriously. But, after all, his dignity is impaired--and the

moral advantage has passed over to you. If you know how to use it

wisely, your happiness is assured. If you go back, say in a couple of

weeks--certainly I must insist on keeping you for ourselves as long as

that--if you go back to Munich in a couple of weeks, you will see--”

“I will not go back to Munich, Thomas.”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, putting his hand to his ear and screwing

up his face as he bent forward.

She was lying on her back with her head sunk in the pillow, so that

her chin stood out with an effect of severity. “Never,” she said. And

she gave a long, audible outward breath and cleared her throat, also

at length and deliberately. It was like a dry cough, which had of

late become almost a habit with her, and had probably to do with her

digestive trouble. There followed a pause.

“Tony,” he said suddenly, getting up and slapping his hand on the arm

of his chair, “you aren’t going to make a scandal!”

She gave a side-glance and saw him all pale, with the muscles standing

out on his temples. Her position was no longer tenable. She bestirred

herself and, to hide the fear she really felt of him, grew angry in her

turn. She sat up quickly and put her feet to the floor. With glowing

cheeks and a frowning brow, making hasty motions of the head and

hands, she began: “Scandal, Thomas! You want to tell me not to make

a scandal, when I have been insulted, and people spit in my face? Is

that worthy of a brother, you will permit me to ask? Circumspection,

tact--they are very well in their place. But there are limits, Tom--I

know just as much of life as you do, and I tell you there is a point

where the care for appearances leaves off, and cowardice begins! I am

astonished that such a stupid goose as I am have to tell you this--yes,

I am a stupid goose, and I should not be surprised if Permaneder never

loved me at all, for I am an ugly old woman, very likely, and Babette

is certainly prettier than I am! But did that give him a right to

forget the respect he owed to my family, and my upbringing, and all my

feelings? You did not see the way he forgot himself, Tom; and since

you did not see it, you cannot understand, for I can never tell you

how disgusting he was. You did not hear the word that he called after

me, your sister, when I took my things and went out of the room, to

sleep on the sofa in the living-room. But _I_ heard it, and it was a

word that--a word-- Oh, it was that word, let me tell you, Thomas, that

caused me, to spend the whole night packing my trunk, to wake Erica

early in the morning, and to leave the place, rather than to remain

in the neighbourhood of a man who could utter such words. And to such

a man, as I said before, I will never, never return, not so long as I

have any self-respect, or care in the least what becomes of me in my

life on this earth.”

“And will you now have the goodness, to tell me what this cursed word

was? Yes or no?”

“Never, Thomas! Never would I permit that word to cross my lips. I know

too well what I owe to you and to myself within these walls.”

“Then it’s no use talking with you!”

“That may easily be. I am sure I do not want to discuss it any further.”

“What do you expect to do? Get a divorce?”

“Yes, Tom; such is my firm determination. I feel that I owe it to

myself, my child, and my family.”

“That is all nonsense, of course,” he said in a dispassionate tone.

He turned on his heel and moved away, as if his words had settled

the matter. “It takes two to make a divorce, my child. Do you think

Permaneder will just say yes and thank you kindly? The idea is absurd.”

“Oh, you can leave that to me,” she said, quite undismayed. “You mean

he will refuse on account of the seventeen thousand marks current. But

Grünlich wasn’t willing, either, and they made him. There are ways and

means, I’m sure. I’ll go to Dr. Gieseke. He is Christian’s friend, and

he will help me. Oh, yes, of course, I know it was not the same thing

then. It was ‘incapacity of the husband to provide for his family.’

You see, I know my way about in these affairs. Dear me, you act as if

this were the first time in my life that I got a divorce! But even so,

Tom. Perhaps there is nothing that applies to this case. Perhaps it is

impossible--you may be right. But it is all the same; my resolve is

fixed. Let him keep the money. There are higher things in life. He will

never see me again, either way.”

She coughed again. She had left the bed and seated herself in an

easy-chair, resting one elbow on its arm. Her chin was so deeply buried

in her hand that her four bent fingers clutched her under lip. She sat

with her body turned to the right, staring with red, excited eyes out

of the window.

The Consul walked up and down, sighed, shook his head, shrugged his

shoulders. He paused in front of her, fairly wringing his hands.

“You are a child, Tony, a child,” said he in a discouraged, almost

pleading tone. “Every word you have spoken is the most utter childish

nonsense. Will you make an effort, now, if I beg you, to think about

the thing for just one minute like a grown woman? Don’t you see that

you are acting as if something very serious and dreadful had happened

to you--as if your husband had cruelly betrayed you and heaped insults

on you before all the world? Do try to realize that nothing of the sort

has happened! Not a single soul in the world knows anything about that

silly affair that happened at the top of your staircase in Kaufinger

Street. Your dignity, and ours, will suffer no slightest diminution if

you go calmly and composedly back to Permaneder--of course, with your

nose in the air! But, on the other hand, if you don’t go back, if you

give this nonsense so much importance as to make a scandal out of it,

then you will be wounding our dignity indeed.”

She jerked her chin out of her hand and stared him in the face.

“That’s enough, Thomas Buddenbrook. Be quiet now; it’s my turn. Listen.

So you think there is no shame and no scandal so long as people don’t

get to hear it? Ah, no! The shame that gnaws at us secretly and eats

away our self-respect--that is far, far worse. Are we Buddenbrooks

the sort of people to be satisfied if everything looks ‘tip-top,’

as you say here, on the outside, no matter how much mortification

we have to choke down, inside our four walls? I cannot help feeling

astonished at you, Tom. Think of our Father and how he would act

to-day--and then judge as he would! No, no! Clean and open dealings

must be the rule. Why, you can open your books any day, for all the

world to see, and say, ‘Here they are, look at them.’ We should all

of us be just the same. I know how God has made me. I am not afraid.

Let Julchen Möllendorpf pass me in the street and not speak, if she

wants to. Let Pfiffi Buddenbrook sit here on Thursday afternoons and

shake all over with spite, and say, ‘Well, that is the second time!

But, _of course_, both times the men were to blame!’ I feel so far

above all that now, Thomas--farther than I can tell you! I know I have

done what I thought was right. But if I am to be so afraid of Julchen

Möllendorpf and Pfiffi Buddenbrook as to swallow down all sorts of

insults and let myself be cursed out in a drunken dialect that isn’t

even grammar--to stop with a man in a town where I have to get used to

that kind of language and the kind of scenes I saw that night at the

top of the stairs--where I have to forget my origin and my upbringing

and everything that I am, and learn to disown it altogether in order

to act as if I were satisfied and happy--_that_ is what _I_ call

undignified--_that_ is what _I_ call scandalous, I tell you!”

She broke off, buried her chin once more in her hand, and stared out of

the window. He stood before her, his weight on one leg, his hands in

his trousers pockets. His eyes rested on her unseeing, for he was in

deep thought, and slowly moving his head from side to side.

“Tony,” he said. “You’re telling the truth. I knew it all along; but

you betrayed yourself just now. It is not the man at all. It is the

place. It isn’t this other idiotic business--it is the whole thing all

together. You couldn’t get used to it. Tell the truth.”

“Thomas,” she cried, “it is the truth!” She sprang up as she spoke,

and pointed straight into his face with her outstretched hand. Her own

face was red. She stood there in a warlike pose, one hand grasping

the chair, gesticulating with the other, and made a long, agitated,

passionate speech that welled up in a resistless tide. The Consul

stared at her amazed. Scarcely would she pause to draw breath, when new

words would come gushing and bubbling forth. Yes, she found words for

everything; she gave full expression to all the accumulated disgust

of her Munich years. Unassorted, confused, she poured it all out, one

thing after another; she kept nothing back. It was like the bursting

of a dam--an assertion of desperate integrity; something elemental, a

force of nature, that brooked no restraint.

“It is the truth!” she cried. “Say it again, Thomas! Oh, I can tell

you plainly, I am no stupid goose any longer; I know what I have to

expect. I don’t faint away at my time of life, to hear that dirty work

goes on now and then. I’ve known people like Teary Trieschke, and I

was married to Bendix Grünlich, and I know the dissipated creatures

there are here in this town. I am no country innocent, I tell you; and

the affair with Babette wouldn’t have made me go off the handle like

that, just by itself. No, Thomas, the thing was that it filled the cup

to overflowing--and that didn’t take much, for it was full already,

and had been for a long time--a long time. It would have taken very

little to make it run over. And then this happened! The knowledge that

I could not depend on Permaneder even in that way--that put the top

on everything. It knocked the bottom out of the cask. It brought to a

head all at once my intention to get away from Munich, that had been

slowly growing in my mind a long time before that, Tom; for I cannot

live down there--I swear it before God and all His heavenly hosts! How

wretched I have been, Thomas, you can never know. When you were there

on a visit, I concealed everything, for I am a tactful woman and do not

burden others with my complainings, nor wear my heart on my sleeve on

a week-day. I have always been rather reserved. But I have suffered,

Tom, suffered with my entire being--with my whole personality, so to

speak. Like a plant, a flower that has been transplanted into a foreign

soil--if I may make such a comparison. You will probably find it a most

unsuitable one, for I am really an ugly old woman--but I could not be

planted in a more foreign soil than that, and I would just as lief go

and live in Turkey! Oh, we should never be transplanted, we northern

folk! We should stick to the shore of our own bay; we can only really

thrive upon our native soil! You all used to laugh at my taste for the

nobility. Yes, in these years I have often thought of what somebody

said to me once, in times gone by. A very clever man. ‘Your sympathies

are with the nobility,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you why? Because you

yourself belong to the nobility. Your father is a great gentleman, and

you are a princess. A gulf lies between you and the rest of us who

do not belong to the governing classes.’ Yes, Tom. We feel like the

nobility, and we realize the difference; we should never try to live

where we are not known, where no one understands our worth, for we

shall have nothing but chagrin, and be laughed at for our arrogance.

Yes, they all found me ridiculously arrogant. They did not say so,

but I felt it every minute, and that made me suffer, too. Do you think

I feel arrogant, Tom--in a place where they eat cake with a knife,

and the very princes speak bad grammar, and if a gentleman picks up

a lady’s fan it is supposed to be a love-affair. Get used to it? To

people without dignity, morals, energy, ambition, self-respect, or good

manners, lazy and frivolous, stupid and shallow at the same time?--no,

never, never, as long as I am a Buddenbrook and your sister! Eva Ewers

managed it--but Eva is not a Buddenbrook, and she has a husband that

amounts to something. It was different with me. You think back, Tom,

from the very beginning: I come from a home where people work and get

things accomplished and have a purpose in life, and I go down there

to Permaneder--and he sits himself down with my dowry-- Oh, that was

genuine enough, that was characteristic--but it was the only good thing

there was about it! And then? I was going to have a baby; that would

have made everything up to me. And what happens? It dies. I don’t blame

Permaneder for that, of course; I don’t mean that. God forbid. He did

everything he could--and he didn’t go to the café for several days.

But, after all, it belonged to the same thing. It made me no happier,

as you can well believe. But I didn’t give in, and I didn’t grumble. I

was alone, and misunderstood, and pointed at for being arrogant; but

I said to myself: ‘You yielded him your consent for life. He is lumpy

and lazy, and he caused you a cruel disappointment. But his heart is

pure, and he means well.’ And then I had to bear the sight of him in

that last unspeakable minute. And I said to myself: ‘He understands you

no better and respects you no more and no less than the others do, and

he calls you names that one of our workmen up here wouldn’t throw at a

dog!’ I knew then that nothing bound me to him any more, and that it

was an indignity for me to stay. When I was driving from the station

this afternoon, I passed Nielsen the porter, and he took off his hat

and made me a deep bow, and I bowed back to him--not arrogantly, not a

bit--I waved my hand, just the way Father used to. And here I am. You

can do what you like: you can harness up all your work-horses--but you

can never drag me back to Munich again. And to-morrow I go to Gieseke!”

Thus she spoke; and, finishing, sank back exhausted in her chair and

stared again out of the window.

Tom was alarmed, shaken, stupefied. He stood before her and found no

words. He raised his arms up shoulder-high, drawing a long breath. Then

he let them fall against his thighs.

“Well, that’s an end of it,” he said. His voice was calm, and he turned

and went toward the door.

Her face wore now the same expression, the same half-pouting,

half-injured smile, as when he entered.

“Tom?” she said, with a rising inflection. “Are you vexed with me?”

He held the oval doorknob in one hand and made a gesture of weary

protest with the other. “Oh, no. Not at all.”

She put out her hand and tipped her head on one side. “Come here, Tom.

Your poor sister has had a hard time. Life is hard on her. She has much

to bear. And at this minute she has nobody, in all the world--”

He came back; he took her hand; but wearily, indifferently, not looking

at her face. Suddenly her lip began to quiver.

“You must go on alone now,” she said. “There’s nothing good to be

looked for from Christian, and I am finished. Failed. Gone to pieces.

I can do no more. I am a poor, useless woman, dependent on you all for

my living. I could never have dreamed, Tom, that I should be no help to

you at all. Now you stand quite alone, and upon you it depends to keep

up the honour and dignity of the family. May God help you in the task.”

Two large, clear, childish tears rolled down over her cheeks, which

were beginning to show, very faintly, the first signs of age.

CHAPTER XI

Tony lost no time. She went resolutely about her affair. In the hope

of quieting her, of bringing her slowly to a different frame of mind,

the Consul said but little. He asked only one thing: that she should be

very quiet and stop entirely in the house--and Erica as well. Perhaps

it would blow over. The town did not need to know. The family Thursday

afternoon was put off on some pretext.

But on the very next day she wrote to Dr. Gieseke and summoned him to

Meng Street. She received him alone, in the middle corridor room on the

first floor, where a fire was laid, and she had arranged a heavy table

with ink and writing materials and a quantity of foolscap paper from

the office. They sat down in two easy-chairs.

“Doctor Gieseke,” said Tony. She folded her arms, flung back her

head, and looked at the ceiling while she spoke. “You are a man of

experience, both professionally and personally. I can speak openly with

you.” And thereupon she revealed to him the whole story about Babette

and what had happened in her sleeping-chamber. Dr. Gieseke regretted

being obliged to explain to her that neither the affair on the stairs

nor the insult she had undoubtedly received, the precise nature of

which she hesitated to divulge, was sufficient ground for a divorce.

“Very good,” she said. “Thank you.”

And then, at her request, he gave an exposition of the existing legal

grounds for divorce, and an even longer discourse after it, which had

for its subject-matter the law touching dowry rights. She listened

with open mind and strained attention; and then, with cordial thanks,

dismissed Dr. Gieseke for the time being.

She went downstairs and demanded audience of her brother in his private

office.

“Thomas,” she said, “please write to the man at once--I do not

like to mention his name. As far as the money goes, I am perfectly

informed on that subject. Let him speak. Me he shall never see again,

whatever he decides. If he agrees to a divorce, we will ask him to

give an accounting and restore my _dos_. If he refuses, we need not be

discouraged. For, as you probably know, Permaneder’s right to my _dos_,

is, legally speaking a property right. We grant that. But on the other

hand, thank goodness, I have certain material rights on my side--”

The Consul walked up and down with his hands behind his back, his

shoulders twitching nervously. Tony’s face, as she uttered the word

_dos_ was too unutterably self-satisfied!

He had no time. Heaven knew he had no time. Let her have patience,

and wait, and bethink herself a hundred times. His nearest duty was

a journey to Hamburg--indeed, he must go the very next day, for the

purpose of a personal interview with Christian. Christian had written

for help, for money which would have to come out of the Frau Consul’s

inheritance. His business was in frightful condition; he was in

constant difficulties. Yet he seemed to amuse himself royally and went

everywhere, to theatres, restaurants, and concert halls. To judge from

the debts now coming to light, which he had been able to pile up on

the credit of his family name, he had been living far, far beyond his

means. And they knew in Meng Street, and at the club--yes, the whole

town knew--who was responsible. It was a certain female, a certain

Aline Puvogel, who lived alone with her two pretty children. Christian

was not the only Hamburg business man who possessed her favours and

spent money on her.

In short, Tony’s intentions in the matter of her divorce were not the

only dark spot in the Consul’s sky; and the journey to Hamburg was

pressing. Besides, it was altogether likely that they would hear from

Herr Permaneder.

The Consul went to Hamburg, and came back angry and depressed. No word

had come from Munich, and he felt obliged to take the first step. He

wrote; wrote rather coldly, with curt condescension, to this effect:

Antonie, during her life with Permaneder, had been subjected to great

disappointments--that would not be denied. Without going into detail,

it was evident that she could never find happiness in this marriage.

Her wish that it should be dissolved must be justified, to the mind of

any reasonable person; and her determination not to return to Munich

was entirely unshakable. And he put the question as to what were Herr

Permaneder’s feelings in view of the facts which he had just stated.

There were more days of suspense. And then came Herr Permaneder’s reply.

He answered as no one had expected him to answer--not Dr. Gieseke, nor

the Frau Consul, not Thomas, nor Antonie herself. He agreed, quite

simply, to a divorce.

He wrote that he deeply regretted what had happened, but that he

respected Antonie’s wishes, as he saw that he and she had “never hit it

off.” If it were true that she had suffered during those years through

him, he begged her to forget and forgive. As he would probably never

see her and Erica again, he sent them both his hearty good-wishes for

all happiness on this earth. And he signed himself, Alois Permaneder.

In a postscript he offered to make immediate restitution of the dowry.

He had enough without it to lead a life free from care. He did not

require to have notice given, for business there was none to wind up,

the house belonged to him, and the money was ready any time.

Tony felt a slight twinge of shame, and was almost inclined, for the

first time, to admit that Herr Permaneder’s indifference to money

matters might have something good about it.

Now it was Dr. Gieseke’s turn again. He communicated with the husband,

and a plea of “mutual incompatibility” was set up as ground for the

divorce. The hearing began--Tony’s second divorce case. She talked

about it night and day, and the Consul lost his temper several times.

Tony was in no state to share his feelings. She was entirely taken

up with words like “tangibilities,” “improvabilities,” “accessions,”

“productivity,” “dowry rights,” and the like, which she used in season

and out of season, with marvellous fluency, her shoulders slightly

raised. One point in Dr. Gieseke’s long disquisitions had made a great

impression on her: it had to do with “treasure” found in any piece

of property that has constituted part of a dowry, which was to be

regarded as a component part of the dowry, to be liquidated if the

marriage came to an end. About this “treasure”--which was, of course,

non-existent--she talked to every soul she knew: Ida Jungmann, Uncle

Justus, poor Clothilde, the Broad Street Buddenbrooks--and they, when

they heard how matters stood, just folded their hands in their laps and

looked at each other in speechless joy that this satisfaction, too, had

been vouchsafed them. Therese Weichbrodt was told of it--Erica had gone

to stay at the pension again--and Madame Kethelsen too, though this

last, for more than one reason, understood not a single word.

Then came the day when the divorce was pronounced; when the last

formalities were gone through, and Tony asked Thomas for the family

papers and set down this last event with her own hand. Yes, it was

done. All that remained was to get used to it.

She did it gallantly. She bore, with unscathed dignity, the tiny

dagger-thrusts of the ladies from Broad Street; she met the Hagenströms

and Möllendorpfs on the street and looked with chilling indifference

straight over their heads; and she quite gave up going into

society--the more easily that it had for some years past forsaken her

Mother’s house for her brother’s. She had her own immediate family,

the Frau Consul, Tom, and Gerda; she had Ida Jungmann and her motherly

friend Sesemi Weichbrodt; and she had Erica, upon whose future she

probably built her own last secret hopes, and upon whose aristocratic

upbringing she expended much care and thought.

Thus she lived, and thus time went on.

Later, in some way that was never quite clear, there came to certain

members of the family knowledge of that “word,” the desperate word

which had escaped from Herr Permaneder on that never-to-be-forgotten

night.

What was it, then, that he had said?

“Go to the devil, you filthy sprat-eating slut!”

And thus Tony Buddenbrook’s second marriage came to an end.

END OF VOLUME I

A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET

_This book is composed on the Linotype in Bodoni, so-called after its

designer, Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) a celebrated Italian scholar

and printer. Bodoni planned his type especially for use on the more

smoothly finished papers that came into vogue late in the eighteenth

century and drew his letters with a mechanical regularity that is

readily apparent on comparison with the less formal old style. Other

characteristics that will be noted are the square serifs without fillet

and the marked contrast between the light and heavy strokes._

[Illustration]

SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED

BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.,

BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · PAPER MANUFACTURED

BY W. C. HAMILTON

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the

public domain.

Part 3, chapter 1, in the line:

“Never mind,” Tony said. “She can sit how she likes, she will

always be Tony Buddenbrook.

"Tony" has been changed to "Tom", it doesn't make sense that Tony is

talking about herself in 3rd person. Verified in the original German.