Buddenbrooks (12 page)

CHAPTER VIII

AND now began for Tony Buddenbrook a stretch of beautiful summer weeks, briefer, lovelier, than any she had ever spent in Travemiinde. She bloomed as she felt her burden no longer upon her; her gay, pert, careless manner had come back. The Consul looked at her with satisfaction when he came on Sundays with Tom and Christian. On those days they ate at the table-d'hote, sat under the awnings at the pastry-cook's, drinking coffee and listening to the band, and peeped into the roulette-room at the gay folk there, like Justus Kr� and Peter D�ann. The Consul himself never played. Tony sunned herself, took baths, ate sausages with ginger-nut sauce, and took long walks with Morten. They went out on the high-road to the next village, or along the beach to the "ocean temple" on its height, whence a wide view was to be had over land and sea; or to the woods be-hind the Kurhouse, where was a great bell used to call the guests to the table-d'hote. Sometimes they rowed across the Trave to the Prival, to look for amber. Morten made an entertaining companion, though his opinions were often dogmatic, not to say heated. He had a severe and righteous judgment for everything, and he ex-pressed it with finality, blushing all the time. It saddened Tony to hear him call the nobility idiots and wretches and to see the contemptuous if awkward gesture that accompanied the words. She scolded him, but she was proud to have him express so freely in her presence the views and opinions which she knew he concealed from his parents. Once he confided in her: "I'll tell you something: I've a skeleton in my room at G�ngen--a whole set of bones, you know, 135 "How lovely!" "When did you come?" "What a sweet frock!" "Where are you stopping?" "At the Schwarzkopf a'?" "With the pilot-captain? How original!" "How frightfully original." "You are stopping in the town?" asked Consul Fritsche, the owner of the baths. He did not betray that he felt the blow. "Will you come to our next assembly?" his wife asked. "Oh, you are only here for a short time?"--this from another lady. "Don't you think, darling, the Buddenbrooks rather give themselves airs?" Frau Hagenstrbm whispered to Frau Sena-tor Mbllendorpf. "Have you been in yet?" somebody asked. "Which of the rest of you hasn't bathed yet, young ladies? Marie? Julie, Louise? Your friends will go bathing with you, of course, Fraulein Antonie." Some of the young girls rose, and Peter D�ann insisted on accompanying them up the beach. "Do you remember how we used to go back and forth to school together?" Tony asked Julie Hagenstr� "Yes, and you were always the one that got into mischief," Julie said, joining in her laugh. They went across the beach on a foot-bridge made of a few boards, and reached the bath-house. As they passed the boulders where Morten Schwarz-kopf sat, Tony nodded to him from a distance, and somebody asked, "who is that you are bowing to, Tony?" "That was young Schwarzkopf," Tony answered. "He walked down here with me." "The son of the pilot-captain?" Julchen asked, and peered across at Morten with her staring black eyes. He on his side watched the gay troop with rather a melancholy air. Tony said in a loud voice: "What a pity August is not here. It must be stupid on the beach."

CHAPTER VIII

AND now began for Tony Buddenbrook a stretch of beautiful summer weeks, briefer, lovelier, than any she had ever spent in Travemunde. She bloomed as she felt her burden no longer upon her; her gay, pert, careless manner had come back. The Consul looked at her with satisfaction when he came on Sundays with Tom and Christian. On those days they ate at the table-d'hote, sat under the awnings at the pastry-cook's, drinking coffee and listening to the band, and peeped into the roulette-room at the gay folk there, like Justus Kr� and Peter D�ann. The Consul himself never played. Tony sunned herself, took baths, ate sausages with ginger-nut sauce, and took long walks with Morten. They went out on the high-road to the next village, or along the beach to the "ocean temple" on its height, whence a wide view was to be had over land and sea; or to the woods be-hind the Kurhouse, where was a great bell used to call the guests to the table-d'hote. Sometimes they rowed across the Trave to the Prival, to look for amber. Morten made an entertaining companion, though his opinions were often dogmatic, not to say heated. He had a severe and righteous judgment for everything, and he ex-pressed it with finality, blushing all the time. It saddened Tony to hear him call the nobility idiots and wretches and to see the contemptuous if awkward gesture that accompanied the words. She scolded him, but she was proud to have him express so freely in her presence the views and opinions which she knew he concealed from his parents. Once he confided in her: "I'll tell you something: I've a skeleton in my room at Gottingen--a whole set of bones, you know, 135 held together by wire. I've put an old policeman's uniform on it. Ha, ha! Isn't that great? But don't say anything to my Father about it." Tony was naturally often in the society of her town friends, or drawn into some assembly or boating party. Then Morten "sat on the rocks." And after their first day this phrase became a convenient one. To "sit on the rocks" meant to feel bored and lonely. When a rainy day came and a grey mist covered the sea far and wide till it was one with the deep sky; when the beach was drenched and the roads streaming with wet, Tony would say: "To-day we shall both have to sit on the rocks--that is, in the verandah or sitting-room. There is nothing left to do but for you to play me some of your student songs, Morten--even if they do bore me horribly." "Yes," Morten said, "come and sit down. But you know that when you are here, there are no rocks!" He never said such things when his father was present. His mother he did not mind. "Well, what now?" asked the pilot-captain, as Tony and Morten both rose from table and were about to take their leave. "Where are the young folk off to?" "I was going to take a little walk with Fraulein Antonie, as far as the temple." "Oh, is that it? Well, my son Filius, what do you say to going up to your room and conning over your nerves? You'll lose everything out of your head before you get back to G�ingen." But Frau Schwarzkopf would intervene: "Now, Diederich, aren't these his holidays? Why shouldn't he take a walk? Is he to have nothing of our visitor?" So Morten went. They paced along the beach close to the water, on the smooth, hard sand that made walking easy. It was strewn with common tiny white mussel-shells, and others too, pale opalescent and longish in shape; yellow-green wet seaweed with hollow round fruit that snapped when you squeezed it; and pale, translucent, reddish-yellow jelly-fish, which were poisonous and burned your leg when you touched one bathing. "I used to be frightfully stupid, you know," Tony said. "I wanted the bright star out of the jelly-fish, so I brought a lot home in my pocket-handkerchief and put them on the balcony, to dry in the sunshine. When I looked at them again, of course there was just a big wet spot that am el led of sea-weed." The waves whispered rhythmically beside them as they walked, and the salt wind blew full in their faces, streaming over and about them, closing their ears to other sounds and causing a pleasant slight giddiness. They walked in this hushed, whispering peacefulness by the sea, whose every faint murmur, near or far, seemed to have a deep significance. To their left was a precipitous cliff of lime and boulders, with jutting corners that came into view as they rounded the bay. When the beach was too stony to go on, they began to climb, and continued upward through the wood until they reached the temple. It was a round pavilion, built of rough timbers and boards, the inside of which was covered with scribbled inscriptions and poetry, carved hearts and initials. Tony and Morten seated themselves in one of the little rooms facing the sea; it smelled of wood, like the cabins at the bathhouse. It was very quiet, even solemn, up here at this hour of the afternoon. A pair of birds chattered, and the faint rustling of the leaves mingled with the sound of the sea spread out below them. In the distance they could see the rigging of a ship. Sheltered now from the wind that had been thrumming at their ears, they suddenly experienced a quiet, almost pensive mood. Tony said, "Is it coming or going?" "What?' ' asked Morten, his subdued voice sounding as if he were coming back from a far distance. "Oh--going--137 That is the Bur germeister Steenbock, for Russia." He added after a pause: "I shouldn't like to be going with it. It must be worse there than here." "Now," Tony said, "you are going to begin again on the nobility. I see it in your face. And it's not at all nice of you. Tell me, did you ever know a single one of them?" "No!" Morten shouted, quite insulted. "Thank God, no." "Well, there, then, I have--Armgard von Schilling over there, that I told you about. She was much better-natured than either of us; she hardly knew she was a vun--she ate sausage-meat and talked about her cows." "Oh, of course. There are naturally exceptions. Listen, Fraulein Tony. You are a woman, you see, so you take everything personally. You happen to know a single mem-ber of the nobility, and you say she is a good creature--cer-tainly! But one does not need to know any of them to be able to judge them all. It is a question of the principle, you understand--of--the organization of the state. You can't answer that, can you? They need only to be born to be the pick of everything, and look down on all the rest of us. While we, however hard we strive, cannot climb to their level." Morten spoke with a naive, honest irritation. He tried to fit his speech with gestures, then perceived that they were awkward, and gave it up. But he was in the vein to talk, and he went on, sitting bent forward, with his thumb between the buttons of his jacket, a defiant expression in his usually good-natured eyes. "We, the bourgeoisie--the Third Estate, as we have been called--we recognize only that nobility which con-sists of merit; we refuse to admit any longer the rights of the indolent aristocracy, we repudiate the class distinctions of the present day, we desire that all men should be free and equal, that no person shall be subject to another, but all subject to the law. There shall be no more privilege and arbitrary rule. All shall be sovereign children of the state; and as no middlemen exist any longer between the people and almighty God, so shall the citizen stand in direct relation to the State. We will have freedom of the press, of trade and industry, so that all men, without distinction, shall be able to strive together and receive their reward according to their merit. We are enslaved, muzzled!--What was it I wanted to say? Oh, yes! Four years ago they renewed the laws of the Confederation touching the universities and the press. Fine laws they are! No truth may be written or taught which might not agree with the established order of things. Do you understand? The truth is suppressed--forbidden to be spoken. Why? For the sake of an obsolete, idiotic, decadent class which everybody knows will be destroyed some day, any-how. I do not think you can comprehend such meanness. It is the stupid, brutal application of force, the immediate physical strength of the police, without the slightest under-standing of new, spiritual forces. And apart from all that, there is the final fact of the great wrong the King of Prus-sia has done us. In 1813, when the French were in the country, he called us together and promised us a Constitution. We came to the rescue, we freed Germany from the invader--" Tony, chin in hand, stole a look at him and wondered for a moment if he could have actually helped to drive out Napoleon. "--but do you think he kept his promise? Oh, no! The present king is a fine orator, a dreamer; a romantic, like you, Fraulein Tony. But I'll tell you something: take any general principle or conception of life. It always happens that, directly it has been found wanting and discarded by the poets and philosophers, there comes along a King to whom it is a perfectly new idea, and who makes it a guiding principle. That is what kings are like. It is not only that kings are men--they are even very distinctly average men; they are always a good way in the rear. Oh, yes, Germany is just like a students' society; it, had its brave and spirited youth at the time of the great revolution, but now it is just a lot of fretful Philistines." "Ye-es," Tony said. "But let me ask you this: Why 139 are you so interested in Prussia? You aren't a Prussian." "Oh, it is all the same thing,. Fraulein Buddenbrook. Yes, I said Fraulein Buddenbrook on purpose, I ought even to have said Demoiselle Buddenbrook, and given you your en-tire title. Are the men here freer, more brotherly, more equal than in Prussia? Conventions, classes, aristocracy, here as there. You have sympathy for the nobility. Shall I tell you why? Because you belong to it yourself. Yes, yes, didn't you know it? Your father is a great gentleman, and you are a princess. There is a gulf between you and us, because we do not belong to your circle of ruling families. You can walk on the beach with one of us for the sake of your health, but when you get back into your own class, then the rest of us can go and sit on the rocks." His voice had grown quite strangely excited. "Morten," said Tony, sadly. "You have been angry all the time, then, when you were sitting on the rocks! And I always begged you to come and be introduced." "Now you are taking the affair personally again, like a young lady, Fraulein Tony, I'm only speaking of the prin-ciple. I say that there is no more fellowship of humanity with us than in Prussia.--And even if I were speaking per-sonally," he went on, after a little pause, with a softer tone, out of which, however, the strange excitement had not dis-appeared, "I shouldn't be speaking of the present, but rather, peihaps, of the future. When you as Madame So-and-So finally vanish into your proper sphere, one is left to sit on the rocks all the rest of one's life." He was silent, and Tony too. She did not look at him, but in the other direction, at the wooden partition. There was an uneasy stillness for some time. "Do you remember," Morten began again, "I once said to you that there was a question I wanted to ask you? Yes, I have wanted to know, since the first afternoon you came. Don't guess. You couldn't guess what I mean. I am going to ask you another time; there is no hurry; it has really nothing to do with me; it is only curiosity. No, to-day I will only show you one thing. Look." He drew out of the pocket of his jacket the end of a narrow gaily-striped rib-bun, and looked with a mixture of expectation and triumph into Tony's eyes. "How pretty," she said uncomprehendingly. "What is it?" Morten spoke solemnly: "That means that I belong to a students' fraternity in G�ngen.--Now you know. I have a cap in the same colours, but my skeleton in the policeman's uniform is wearing it for the holidays. I couldn't be seen with it here, you understand. I can count on your saying nothing, can't I? Because it would be very unfortunate if my father were to hear of it." "Not a word, Morten. You can rely on me. But I don't understand--have you all taken a vow against the nobility? What is it you want?" "We want freedom," Morten said. "Freedom?" she asked. "Yes, freedom, you know--Freedom!" he repeated; and he made a vague, awkward, fervent gesture outward and down-ward, not toward the side where the coast of Mecklenburg narrowed the bay, but in the direction of the open sea, whose rippling blue, green, yellow, and grey stripes rolled as far as eye could see out to the misty horizon. Tony followed his gesture with her eye; they sat, their hands lying close together on the bench, and looked into the distance. Thus they remained in silence a long time, while the sea sent up to them its soft enchanting whis-pers.... Tony suddenly felt herself one with Morten in a great, vague yearning comprehension of this portentous some-thing which he called "Freedom."