Buddenbrooks (2 page)

CHAPTER II

HERR JEAN JACQUES HOFFSTEDE was the town poet. He un-doubtedly had a few verses in his pocket for the present oc-casion. He was nearly as old as Johann Buddenbrook, and dressed in much the same style except that his coat was green instead of mouse-coloured. But he was thinner and more active than his old friend, with bright little greenish eyes arid a long pointed nose. "Many thanks," he said, shaking hands with the gentlemen and bowing before the ladies-especially the Frau Consul, for whom he entertained a deep regard. Such bows as his it was not given to the younger generation to perform; and he accompanied them with his pleasant quiet smile.."Many thanks for your kind invitation, my dear good people. We met these two young ones, the Doctor and I"--he pointed to Tom and Christian, in their blue tunics and leather belts--"in King Street, coming home from school. Fine lads, eh, Frau Consul? Tom is a very solid chap. He'll have to go into the business, no doubt of that. But Christian is a devil of a fel-low--a young incroyable, hey? I will not conceal my engouement. He must study, I think--he is witty and brilliant." Old Buddenbrook used his gold snuff-box. "He's a young monkey, that's what he is. Why not say at once that he is to be a poet, Hoffstede?" Mamsell Jungmann drew the curtains, and soon the room was bathed in mellow flickering light from the candles in the crystal chandelier and the sconces on the writing-desk. It lighted up golden gleams in the Frau Consul's hair. "Well, Christian," she said, "what did you learn to-day?" It appeared that Christian had had writing, arithmetic, and singing lessons. He was a boy of seven, who already resem-bled his father to an almost comic extent. He had the same rather small round deep-set eyes and the same prominent aquiline nose; the lines of his face below the cheek-bones showed that it would not always retain its present child-like fulness. "We've been laughing dreadfully," he began to prattle, his eyes darting from one to another of the circle. "What do you think Herr Stengel said to Siegmund Kostermann?" He bent his bark, shook his head, and declaimed impressively: " 'Out-wardly, outwardly, my dear child, you are sleek and smooth; but inwardly, my dear child, you are black and foul.'..." He mimicked with indescribably funny effect not only the master's odd pronunciation but the look of disgust on his face at the "outward sleekness" he described. The whole company burst out laughing. "Young monkey!" repeated old Buddenbrook. But Herr Hoffstede was in ecstasies. "Charmant!" he cried. "If you know Marrellus Stengel--that's he, to the life. Dh, that's ton good!" Thomas, to whom the gift of mimicry had been denied, stood near his younger brother and laughed heartily, without a trace of envy. His teeth were not very good, being small and yellowish. His nose was finely chiselled, and he strikingly resembled his grandfather in the eyes and the shape of the face. The company had for the most part seated themselves on the chairs and the sofa. They talked with the children or discussed the unseasonable cold and the new house. Herr Hoffstede admired a beautiful Sevres inkstand, in the shape of a black and white hunting dog, that stood on the secretary. Doctor Grabow, a man of about the Consul's age, with a long mild face between thin whiskers, was looking at the table, set out with cakes and currant bread and salt-cellars in different shapes. This was the "bread and salt" that had been sent by friends for the house warming; but the 11 "bread" consisted of rich, heavy pastries, and the salt came in dishes of massive gold, that the senders might not seem to be mean in their gifts. "There will be work for me here," said the Doctor, pointing to the sweetmeats and threatening the childien with his glance. Shaking his head, he picked up a heavy salt and pepper stand from the table. "From Lebrecht Kr�," said old Buddenbrook, with a grimace. "Our dear kinsman is always open-handed. I did not spend as much on him when he built his summer house outside the Castle Gate. But he has always been like that--very lordly, very free with his money, a real cavalier �a-mode...." The bell had rung several times. Pastor Wunderlich was announced; a stout old gentleman in a long black coat and powdered hair. He had twinkling grey eyes set in a face that was jovial if rather pale. He had been a widower for many years, and considered himself a bachelor of the old school, like Herr Gratjens, the broker, who entered with him. Herr Gratjens was a tall man who went around with one of his thin hands up to his eye like a telescope, as if he were examining a painting. He was a well-known art connoisseur. Among the other guests were Senator Doctor Langhals and his wife, both friends of many years' standing; and Koppen the wine-merchant, with his great crimson face be-tween enormous padded sleeves. His wife, who came with him, was nearly as stout as he. It was after half past four when the Kr�s put in an appearance--the elders together with their children; the Consul Kr�s with their sons Jacob and J� who were about the age of Tom and Christian. On their heels came the parents of Frau Consul Kr�, the lumber-dealer Overdieck and his wife, a fond old pair who still addressed each other in public with nicknames from the days of their early love. "Fine people come late," said Consul Buddenbrook, and kissed his mother-in-law's hand. "But look at them when they do come!" and Johann Budden-brook included the whole Kr� connection with a sweeping gesture, and shook the elder Kr� by the hand. Lebrecht Kr�, the cavalier a-la-mode, was a tall, distinguished figure. He wore his hair slightly powdered, but dressed in the height of fashion, with a double row of jewelled buttons on his velvet waistcoat. His son Justus, with his turned-up mustache and small beard, was very like the father in figure and manner, even to the graceful easy motions of the hands. The guests did not sit down, but stood about awaiting the principal event of the evening and passing the time in casual talk. At length, Johann Buddenbrook the older offered his arm to Madame K�n and said in an elevated voice, "Well, mesdames et messieurs, if you are hungry..." Mamsell Jungmann and the servant had opened the folding-doors into the dining-room; and the company made its way with studied ease to table. One could be sure of a good square meal at the Buddenbrooks'.

CHAPTER III

As the party began to move toward the dining-room, Consul Buddenbrook's hand went to his left breast-pocket and fingered a paper that was inside. The polite smile had left his face, giving place to a strained and care-worn look, and the muscles stood out on his temples as he clenched his teeth. For appear-ance's sake he made a few steps toward the dining-room, but stopped and sought his mother's eye as she was leaving the room on Pastor Wunderlich's arm, among the last of her guests. "Pardon me, dear Herr Pastor... just a word with you, Mamma." The Pastor nodded gaily, and the Consul drew his Mother over to the window of the landscape-room. "Here is a letter from Gotthold," he said in low, rapid tones. He took out the sealed and folded paper and looked into her dark eyes. "That is his writing. It is the third one, and Papa answered only the first. What shall I do? It came at two o'clock, and I ought to have given it to him already, but I do not like to upset him to-day. What do you think? I could call him out here...." "No, you are right, Jean; it is better to wait," said Madame Buddenbrook. She grasped her son's arm with a quick, habitual movement. "What do you suppose is in it?" she added uneasily. "The boy won't give in. He's taken it into his head he must be compensated for his share in the house.... No, no, Jean. Not now. To-night, perhaps, before we go to bed." "What am I to do?" repeated the Consul, shaking his bent head. "I have often wanted to ask Papa to give in. I don't like it to look as if I had schemed against Gotthold and worked myself into a snug place. I don't want Father to look at it like that, either. But, to be honest... I am a partner, after all. And Betsy and I pay a fair rent for the second storey. It is all arranged with my sister in Frankfort: her husband gets compensation already, in Papa's life-time--a quarter of the purchase price of the house. That is good business: Papa arranged it very cleverly, and it is very satisfactory from the point of view of the firm. And if Papa acts so unfriendly to Gotthold--" "Nonsense, Jean. Your position in the matter is quite clear. But it is painful for me to have Gotthold think that his step-mother looks out after her own children and delib-erately makes bad blood between him and his father!" "But it is his own fault," the Consul almost shouted, and then, with a glance at the dining-room door, lowered his voice. "It is his fault, the whole wretched thing. You can judge for yourself. Why couldn't he be reasonable? Why did he have to go and marry that St�girl and... the shop...." The Consul gave an angry, embarrassed laugh at the last' word. "It's a weakness of Father's, that prejudice against the shop; but Gotthold ought to have respected it...." "Oh, Jean, it would be best if Papa would give in." "But ought I to advise him to?" whispered the Consul excitedly, clapping his hand to his forehead. "I am an interested party, sol ought to say, Pay it. But I am also a partner. And if Papa thinks he is under no obligation to a disobedient and rebellious son to draw the money out of the working capital of the firm... It is a matter of eleven thousand thaler, a good bit of money. No, no, I cannot advise him either for or against. I'd rather wash my hands of tKe whole affair. But the scene with Papa is so desagreable--" "Late this evening, Jean. Come now; they are waiting." The Consul put the paper back into his breast-pocket, offered his arm to his mother, and led her over the threshold into the brightly lighted dining-room, where the company had already taken their places at the long table .15 The tapestries in this room had a sky-blue background, against which, between slender columns, white figures of gods and goddesses stood out with plastic effect. The heavy red damask window-curtains were drawn; stiff, massive sofas in red damask stood ranged against the walls; and in each corner stood a tall gilt candelabrum with eight flaming candles, besides those in silver sconces on the table. Above the heavy sideboard, on the wall opposite the landscape room, hung a large painting of an Italian bay, the misty blue atmosphere of which was most effective in the candle-light. I Every trace of care or disquiet had vanished'from Madame Buddenbrook's face. She sat down between Pastor Wunder-lich and the elder Kr�, who presided on the window side. "Bon appetit!" she said, with her short, quick, hearty nod, flashing a glani-e down the whole length of the table till it reached the children at the bottom.

CHAPTER IV

"OUR best respects to you, Buddenbrook--I repeat, our best respects!" Herr K�n's powerful voice drowned the general conversation as the maid-servant, in her heavy striped petticoat, her fat arms bare and a little white cap on the back of her head, passed the cabbage soup and toast, assisted by Mamsell Jungmann and the Frau Consul's maid from upstairs. The guests began to use their soup-spoons. "Such plenty, such elegance! I must say, you know how to do things!--I must say--" Herr K�n had never visited the house in its former owner's time. He did not come of a patrician family, and had only lately become a man of means. He could never quite get rid of certain vulgar tricks of speech--like the repetition of "I must say"; and he said "respecks" for "respects." "It didn't cost anything, either," remarked Herr Gratjens drily--he certainly ought to have known--and studied the wall-painting through the hollow of his hand. As far as possible, ladies and gentlemen had been paired off, and members of the family placed between friends of the house. But the arrangement could not be carried out in every case; the two Overdiecks were sitting, as usual, nearly on each other's laps, nodding affectionately at one another. The elder Kr� was bolt upright, enthroned between Madame Antoinette and Frau Senator Langhals, dividing his pet jokes and his flourishes between the two ladies. "When was the house built?" asked Herr Hoffstede diagonally across the table of old Buddenbrook, who was talking in a gay chaffing tone with Madame K�n. "Anno... let me see... about 1680, if I am not mis- taken. My son is better at dates than I am." "Eighty-two," said the Consul, leaning forward. He was sitting at the foot of the table, without a partner, next to Senator Langhals. "It was finished in the winter of 1682. Ratenkamp and Company were just getting to the top of their form.... Sad, how the firm broke down in the last twenty years!" A general pause in the conversation ensued, lasting for half a minute, while the company looked down at their plates and pondered on the fortunes of the brilliant family who had built and lived in the house and then, broken and im-poverished, had left it. "Yes," said Broker Gratjens, "it's sad, when you think of the madness that led to their ruin. If Dietrich Ratenkamp had not taken that fellow Geelmaack for a partner! I flung up my hands, I know, when he came into the management. I have it on the best authority, gentlemen, that he speculated disgracefully behind Ratenkamp's back, and gave notes and acceptances right and left in the firm's name.... Finally the game was up. The banks got suspicious, the firm couldn't give security.... You haven't the least idea... who looked after the warehouse, even? Geelmaack, perhaps? It was a perfect rats' nest there, year in, year out. But Raten-kamp never troubled himself about it." "He was like a man paralysed," the Consul said. A gloomy, taciturn look came on his face. He leaned over and stirred his soup, now and then giving a quick glance, with his little round deep-set eyes, at the upper end of the table. "He went about like a man with a load on his mind; I think one can understand his burden. What made him take Geel-maack into the business--a man who brought painfully little capital, and had not the best of reputations? He must have felt the need of sharing his heavy responsibility with some one, not much matter who, because he realized that the end was inevitable. The firm was ruined, the old family passee. Geelmaack only gave it the last push over the edge." Pastor Wunderlich filled his own and his neighbour's wine-glass. "So you think my dear Consul," he said with a dis-creet smile, "that even without Geelmaack, things would have turned out just as they did?" "Dh, probably not," the Consul said thoughtfully, not ad-dressing anybody in particular. "But I do think that Die-trich Ratenkamp was driven by fate when he took Geelmaack into partnership. That was the way his destiny was to be ful-filled.... He acted under the pressure of inexorable ne-cessity. I think he knew more or less what his partner was doing, and what the slate of affairs was at the warehouse. But he was paralyzed." "Assez, Jean," interposed old Buddenbrook, laying down his spoon. "That's one of your id�...." The Consul rather absently lifted his glass to his father. Lebrecht Kr� broke in: "Let's stick by the jolly present!" He took up a bottle of white wine that had a little silver stag on the stopper; and with one of his fastidious, elegant motions, he held it on its side and examined the label. "C. F. K�n," he read, and nodded to the wine-merchant. "Ah, yes, where should we be without you?" Madame Antoinette kept a sharp eye on the servants while they changed the giltedged Meissen plates; Mamsell Jung-mann called orders through the speaking-tube into the kitchen, and the fish was brought in. Pastor Wunderlich remarked, as he helped himself: "This 'jolly present' isn't such a matter of course as it seems, either. The young folk here can hardly realize, I suppose, that things could ever have been different from what they are now. But I think I may fairly claim to have had a personal share, more than once, in the fortunes of the Bud-denbrnok family. Whenever I see one of these, for in-stance--" he picked up one of the heavy silver spoons and turned to Madame Antoinette--"I can't help wandering whether they belong to the set that our friend the philosopher Lenoir, Sergeant under his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, 19 had in his hands in the year 1805--and I think of our meeting in Alf Street, Madame." Madame Buddenbrook looked down at her plate with a smile half of memory, half of embarrassment. Tom and Tony, at the bottom of the table, cried out almost with one voice, "Oh, yes, tell about it, CranJmama!" They did not want the fish, and they had been listening attentively to the conversation of their ciders. But the Pastor knew that she would not care to speak herself of an incident that had been rather painful to her. He came to her rescue and launched out once more upon the old story. It was new, perhaps, to one or two of the present company. As for the children, they could have listened to it a hundred times. 'Well, imagine a November afternoon, rnld and rainy, a wretched day; and me corning back down Alf Street from some parochial duty. I was thinking of the hard times we were having. Prince Bl�had gone, and the French were in the town. There was little outward sign of the excitement that reigned everywhere: the streets were quiet, and people. stopped close in their houses. Prahl the master-butcher had been shot through the head, just for standing at the door of his shop with his hands in his pockets and making a menacing re-mark about its being hard to stand. Well, thought I to my-self, I'll just have a look in at the Buddenbrooks'. Herr Buddenbrook is down with erysipelas, and Madame has a great deal to do, on account of the billeting. "At that very moment, whom should I see coming towards me but our honored Madame Buddenbrook herself? What a state she was in! hurrying through the rain halless, stum-bling rather than walking, with a shawl flung over her shoul-ders, and her hair falling down--yes, Madame, it is quite true, it was falling down! " 'This is a pleasant surprise,' I said. She never saw me, and I made bold to lay my hand on her sleeve, for my mind misgave me about the state of things. 'Where are you off to in such a hurry, my dear?' She realized who I was, looked at me, and burst out: 'Farewell, farewell! All is over--I'm going into the river!' " 'God forbid,' cried I--I could feel that I went white. 'That is no place for you, my dear.' And I held her as tightly as decorum permitted. 'What has happened?' 'What has happened!' she cried, all trembling. 'They've got at the silver, Wunderlich! That's what has happened! And Jean lies there with erysipelas and can't do anything--he couldn't even if he were up. They are stealing my spoons, Wunder-lich, and I am going into the river!' "Well, I kept holding her, and I said what one would in such cases: 'Courage, dear lady. It will be all right. Con-trol yourself, I beg of you. We will go and speak with them. Let us go.' And I got her to go back up the street to her house. The soldiery were up in the dining-room, where Madame had left them, some twenty of them, at the great silver-chest. " 'Gentlemen,' I say politely, 'with which one of you may I have the pleasure of a little conversation?' They begin to laugh, and they say: 'With all of us, Papa.' But one of them steps out and presents himself, a fellow as tall as a tree, with a black waxed moustache and big red hands sticking out of his braided cuffs. 'Lenoir,' he said, and saluted with his left hand, for he had five or six spoons in his right. 'Ser-geant Lenoir. What can I do for you?' " 'Herr Officer,' I say, appealing to his sense of honour, 'after your magnificent charge, how can you stoop to this sort of thing? The town has not closed its gates to the Emperor.' " 'What do you expect?' he answered. 'War is war. The people need these things....' " 'But you ought to be careful,' I interrupted him, for an idea had come into my head. 'This lady,' I said--one will say anything at a time like that--'the lady of the house, she isn't a German. She is almost a compatriot of yours--she is a Frenchwoman....' ' Oh, a Frenchwoman,' he repeated. And then what do you suppose he said, this big swashbuckler? 21 Oh, an emigres? Then she is an enemy of philosophy!' "I was quite taken aback, but I managed not to laugh. 'You are a man of intellect, I see,' said I. 'I repeat that I consider your conduct unworthy.' He was silent for a moment. Then he got red, tossed his half-dozen spoons back into the chest, and exclaimed, 'Who told you I was going to do any-thing with these things but look at them? It's fine silver. If one or two of my men take a piece as a souvenir...' "Well, in the end, they took plenty of souvenirs, of course. No use appealing to justice, either human or divine. I sup-pose they knew no other god than that terrible little Corsi-can...."