Buddenbrooks (41 page)

13D

CHAPTER VIII

NOWADAYS, when the family gathered at table on Thursdays, under the ralmly smiling gaze of the immortals on the walls, they had a new and serious theme. It called out on the faces nf the frmalr Buddpnbrooks, at least the Broad Street ones, an expression of cold restraint. But it highly excited Frau Permanedcr, as her manner and gestures betrayed. She tossed bark her head, stretched out her arms before her, or flung them above her head as she talked; and her voice showed by turns anger and dismay, passionate opposition and deep feeling. She would pass over from the particular to the general, and talk in her throaty voice about wicked people, interrupting her-self with the little cough that was due to poor digestion. Or she would utter little trumpetings of disgust: Trary Trietschke, Griinlirh, Permaneder! A new name had now been added to these, and she pronounced it in a tone of indescribable scnrn and hatred: "The District Attorney!" But when Director Hugo Weinschenk entered--late, as usual, for he was overwhelmed with work; balancing his two fists and weaving about more than ever at the waist of his frock-coat--and sat down at table, his lower lip hanging down with its impudent expression under his moustaches, then the conver-sation would come to a full stop, and heavy silence would brood over the table until the Senator came to the rescue by asking the Director how his affair was going on--as if it were an ordinary business dealing. Hugo Weinschenk would answer that things were going very well, very well indeed, they could not go otherwise; and then he would blithely change the subject. He was much more sprightly than he used to be; there was a certain lack of re-131 straint in his roving eye, and he would ask ever so many times about Gerda Buddenbrook's fiddle without getting any reply. He talked freely and gaily--only it was a pity his flow of spirits prevented him from guarding his tongue; for he now and then told anecdotes which were not at all suited to the company. One, in particular, was about a wet-nurse who prejudiced the health of her charge by the fact that she suffered from flatulence. Too late, or not at all, he remarked that his wife was flushing rosy red, that Thomas, the Frau Consul and Gerda were sitting like statues, and the Misses Buddenbrook exchanging glances that were fairly boring holes in each other. Even Riekchen Severin was looking insulted at the bottom of the table, and old Consul Kroger ivas the single one of the company who gave even a subdued snort. What was the trouble with Director Weinschenk? This industrious, solid citizen with the rough exterior and no social graces, who devoted himself with an obstinate sense of duty to his work alone--this man was supposed to have been guilty, not once but repeatedly, of a serious fault: he was accused of, he had been indicted for, performing a business manoeuvre which was not only questionable, but directly dishonest and criminal. There would be a trial, the outcome of which was not easy to guess. What was he accused of? It was this: certain fires of considerable extent had taken place in different localities, which would have cost his company large sums of money. Director Weinschenk was accused of having received private information of such accidents through his agents, and then, in wrongful possession of this information, of having transferred the back insurance to another firm, thus saving his own the loss. The matter was now in the hands of the State Attorney, Dr. Moritz Hagenstrom. "Thomas," said the Frau Consul in private to her son, "please explain it to me. I do not understand. What do you make of the affair?" "Why, my dear Mother," he answered, "what is there to say? It does not look as though things were quite as they should be--unfortunately. It seems unlikely to me that Wein-schenk is as guilty as people think. In the modern style of doing business, there is a thing they call usance. And usance--well, imagine a sort of manccuvre, not exactly open and above-board, something that looks dishonest to the man in the street, yet perhaps quite customary and taken for granted in the business world: that is usance. The boundary line between usance and actual dishonesty is extremely hard to draw. Well--if Weinschenk has done anything he shouldn't, he has probably done no more than a good many of his col-leagues who will not get caught. But--I don't see much chance of his being cleared. Perhaps in a larger city he might be, but here everything depends on cliques and personal motives. He should have borne that in mind in selecting his lawyer. It is true that we have no really eminent lawyer in the whole town, nobody with superior oratorical talent, who knows all the ropes and is versed in dubious transactions. All our jurists hang together; they have family connections, in many cases; they eat together; they work together, and they are accustomed to considering each other. In my opinion, it would have been clever to take a town lawyer. But what did Weinschenk do? He thought it necessary--and this in itself makes his innocence look doubtful--to gel a lawyer from Berlin, a Dr. Breslauer, who is a regular rake, an accomplished orator and up to all the tricks of the trade. He has the reputation of having got so-and-so many dishonest bankrupts off scot-free. He will conduct this affair with the same cleverness--for a consideration. But will it do any good? I can see already that our town lawyers will band together to fight him tooth and nail, and that Dr. Hagenstrbm'a hearers will already be prepossessed in his favour. As for the witnesses: well, Weinschenk's own staff won't be any too friendly to him, I'm afraid. What we indulgently call his rough exterior--he would call it that, himself, too--has not made him many friends. In short. Mother, I am looking forward to trouble. It will be a pity for Erica, if it turns 133 out badly; but I feel most for Tony. You see, she is quite right in saying that Hagenstrbm is glad of the chance. The thing concerns all of us, and the disgrace will fall on us too; for Weinschenk belongs to the family and eats at our table. As far as I am concerned, I can manage. I know what I have to do: in public, I shall act as if I had nothing whatever to do with the affair. I will not go to the trial--although I am sorry not to, for Breslauer is sure to be interesting. And in general I must behave with complete indifference, to protect myself from the imputation of wanting to use my influence. But Tony? I don't like to think what a sad business a conviction will be for her. She protests vehemently against envious intrigues and calumni-ators and all that; but what really moves her is her anxiety lest, after all her other troubles, she may see her daughter's honourable position lost as well. It is the last blow. She will protest her belief in Weinschenk's innocence the more loudly the more she is forced to doubt it. Well, he may be innocent, after all. We can only wait and see, Mother, and be very tactful with him and Tony and Erica. But I'm afraid--" It was under these circumstances that the Christmas feast drew near, to which little Hanno was counting the days, with a beating heart and the help of a calendar manu-factured by Ida Jungmann, with a Christmas tree on the last leaf. The signs of festivity increased. Ever since the first Sunday in Advent a great gaily coloured picture of a certain Ruprecht had been hanging on the wall in grandmama's dining-room. And one morning Hanno found his covers and the rug beside his bed sprinkled with gold tinsel. A few days later, as Papa was lying with his newspaper on the living-room sofa, and Hanno was reading "The Witch of En dor" out of Gerock's "Palm Leaves," an "old man" was announced. This had happened every year since Hanno was a baby--and yet was always a surprise. They asked him in, this "old man," and he came shuffling along in a big coat with the fur side out, sprinkled with bits of cotlrm-wool and tinsel. He wore a fur cap, and his face had black smudges on it, and his beard was long and white. The beard and the big, bushy eyebrows were also sprinkled with tinsel. He explained--as he did every year--in a harsh voice, that this sack (on his left shoulder) was for good children, who said their prayers |it contained apples and gilded nuts); but that this sack [on his right shoulder) was for naughty children. The "old man" was, of course, Ruprecht; perhaps not actually the real Rupreeht--it might even be Wenzel the barber, dressed up in Papa's coat turned fur side out--but it was as much Ruprecht as possible. Hanno, greatly impressed, said Our Father for him, as he had last year--both times interrupting himself now and again with a little nervous sob--and was per-mitted to put his hand into the sack for good children, which the "old man" forgot to take away. The holidays came, and there was not much trouble over the report, whirh had to be presented for Papa to read, even at Christmas-lime. The great dining-room was closed and mysterious, and there were marzipan and ginger-bread to eat--and in ihe streets, Christmas had already come. Snow fell, the weather was frosty, and on the sharp clear air were borne the notes of the barrel-organ, for the Italians, with their velvet jackets and their black moustaches, had arrived for the Christmas feast. The shop-windows were gay with toys and goodies; the booths for the Christmas fair had been erected in the market-place; and wherever you went you breathed in the fresh, spicy odour of the Christmas trees set out for sale. The evening of the twenty-third came at last, and with it the present-giving in the house in Fishers' Lane. This was attended by the family only--it was a sort of dress rehearsal for the Christmas Eve parly given by the Frau Consul in Meng Street. She clung to the old customs, and reserved the twenty-fourth for a celebration to which the whole family 135 group was bidden; which, accordingly, in the late afternoon, assembled in the landscape-room. The Did lady, flushed of cheek, and with feverish eyes, arrayed in a heavy black-and-grey striped silk that gave out a faint scent of patchouli, received her guests as they entered, and embraced them silently, her gold bracelets tinkling. She was strangely excited this evening--"Why, Mother, you're fairly trembling," the Senator said when he came in with Gerda and Hanno. "Everything will go off very easily." But she only whispered, kissing all three of them, "For Jesus Christ's sake--and my blessed Jean's." Indeed, the whole consecrated programme instituted by the deceased Consul had to be carried out to the smallest detail; and the poor lady fluttered about, driven by her sense of responsibility for the fitting accomplishment of the evening's performance, which must be pervaded with a deep and fervent joy. She went restlessly back and forth, from the pillared hall where the choir-boys from St. Mary's were already assembled, to the dining-room, where Riekchen Severin was putting the finishing touches to the tree and the table-full of presents, to the corrodor full of shrinking old people--the "poor" who were to share in the presents--and back into the landscape-room, where she rebuked every un-necessary word or sound with one of her mild sidelong glances. It was so still that the sound of a distant hand-organ, faint and clear like a toy music-box, came across to them through the snowy streets. Some twenty persons or more were sitting or standing about in the room; yet it was stiller than a church--so still that, as the Senator cautiously \vhispered to Uncle Justus, it reminded one more of a funeral! There was really no danger that the solemnity of the feast would be rudely broken in upon by youthful high spirits. A glance showed that almost all the persons in the room were arrived at an age when the forms of expression are already long ago fixed. Senator Thomas Buddenbrook, whose pallor gave the lie to his alert, energetic, humorous expres-sion; Gerda, his wife, leaning back in her chair, the gleaming, blue-ringed eyes in her pale face gazing fixedly at the crystal prisms in the chandelier; his sister, Frau Permaneder; his cousin, Ju'rgen Kroger, a quiet, neatly-dressed official; Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi, the first two more long and lean, the third smaller and plumper than ever, but all three wearing their stereotyped expression, their sharp, spiteful smile at everything and everybody, as though they were per-petually saying "Really--it seems incredible!" Lastly, there was poor, ashen-grey Clothilde, whose thoughts were probably fixed upon the coming meal.--Every one of these persons was past forty. The hostess herself, her brother Justus and his wife, and little Therese Weichbrodt were all well past sixty; while old Frau Consul Buddenbrook, Uncle Gotthold's widow, born Sliiwing, as well aa Madame Kethelsen, now, alas almost entirely deaf, were already in the seventies. Erica Weinschenk was the only person present in the bloom of youth; she was much younger than her husband, whose cropped, greying head stood out against the idyllic landscape behind, hmi. When her eyes--the light blue eyes of Herr Griinlich--rested upon him, you could see how her full bosom rose and fell without a sound, and how she was beset with anxious, bewildered thoughts about usance and book-keeping, witnesses, prosecuting attorneys, defence, and judges. Thoughts like these, un-Christmaslike though they were, troubled everybody in the room. They all felt uncanny at the presence in their midst of a member of the family who was actually accused of an offence against the law, the civic weal, and business probity, and who would probably be visited by shame and imprisonment. Here was a Christmas family party at the Buddenbrooks'--with an accused man in the circle! Frau Permaneder's dignity became majestic, and the smile of the Misses Buddenbrook more and more pointed. And what of the children, the scant posterity upon whom 137 rested the family hopes? Were they conscious too of the slightly uncanny atmosphere? The state of mind of the liltle Elisabeth could not be fathomed. She sat on her bonne's lap in a frock trimmed by Frau Permaneder with satin bows, folded her small hands into fists, sucked her tongue, and stared straight ahead of her. Naw and then she would utter a brief sound, like a grunt, and the nurse would rock her a litlle on her arm. But Hanno sat still on his footstool at his mother's knee and stared up, like her, into the chandelier, Christian was missing--where was he? At the last minute they noticed his absence. The Frau Consul's characteristic gesture, from the corner of her mouth up to her temple, as though putting bark a refractory hair, became frpquent and feverish. She gave an order to Mamsell Severin, and the spinster went out through the hall, past thr rhoir-boys and the "poor" and down the corridor to Christian's room, where she knocked on the door. Christian appeared
straightway; he limped casually into the landscape-room, rubbing his bald brow. "Good gra-cious, children," he said, "I nrarly forgot the parly!" "You nearly forgot--" his mother repealed, and stiffened. "Yes, I really forgot it was Christmas. I was reading a book of travel, about South Amerira.--Dear me, I've srrn such a lot of Chrislmases!"he added, and was about to launch out upon a description of a Christmas in a fifth-rate variety theatre in London--when all at once the church-like hush of the room began to work upon him, and be moved on tip-toe to his place, wrinkling up his nose. "Rejoice, O Daughter of Zion!" sang the choir-boys. Thry had previously been indulging in such audible practical jokes that the Senator had to get up and stand in the door-way to inspire respect. But now they sang beautifully. The clear treble, sustained by the deeper \oices, soared up in pure, exultant, glorifying tones, bearing all hearts along wilh them: softening the smiles of the spinsters, making the old folk look in upon themselves and back upon the past; easing 13B the hearts of those still in the midst of life's tribulations, and helping them to forget for a little while. Hanno unclasped his hands from about his knees. HE looked very pale, and cold, played with the fringe of his stool, and twisted his tongue about among his teeth. He had to draw a deep breath every little while, for his heart con-tracted with a joy almost painful at the exquisite bell-like pu-rity of the chorale. The white folding doors were still tightly closed, but the spicy poignant odour drifted through the cracks and whetted one's appetite for the wonder within, Each year with throbbing pulses he awaited this vision nf in-effable, unearthly splendour. What would there be for him, in there? What he had wished for, of course; there was al ways that--unless he had been persuaded out of it beforehand. The theatre, then, the long-desired toy theatre, would spring at him as the door opened, and show him the way to his place. This was ihp suggestion which had stood heavily underlined at the top of his list, ever since he had seen Fidelia; indeed, since then, it had been almost his single thought. He had been taken to the opera as compensation lor a particularly painful visit to Herr Brncht; sitting beside his mother, in the dress circle, he had followed breathless a per-formance of Fidelia, and since that time he had heard nothing, seen nothing, thought of nothing but opera, and a passion for the theatre filled him and almost kept him sleep-less. He looked enviously at people like Uncle Christian, who was known as a regular frequenter and might go every night if he liked: Consul Dohlmann, Cosch the broker--how could they endure the joy of seeing it every night? He himself would ask no more than to look once a week into the hall, before the performance: hear the voices of the instruments being tuned, and gaze for a while at the curtain! For he loved it all, the seats, the musicians, the drop-curtain--even the smell of gas. Would his theatre be large? What sort of curtain would it have? A tiny hole must be cut in it at once--there was a 139 peep-hole in the curtain at the theatre. Had Grandmamma, or rather had Mams ell Severin--for Grandmamma could not see to everything herself--been able to find all the necessary scenery for Fidelio? He determined to shut himself up to-morrow and give a performance all by himself, and already in fancy he heard his little figures singing: for he was approaching the theatre by way of his music. "Exult, Jerusalem!" finished the choir; and their voices, following one another in fugue form, united joyously in the last syllable. The clear accord died away; deep silence reigned in the pillared hall and the landscape-room. The elders looked down, oppressed by the pause; only Director Weinschenk's eyes roved boldly about, and Frau Permaneder coughed her dry cough, which she could not suppress. Now the Frau Consul moved slowly to the table and sat among her family. She turned up the lamp and took in her hands the great Bible with its edges of faded gold-leaf. She stuck her glasses on her nose, unfastened the two great leather hasps of the book, opened it to the place where there was a book-mark, took a sip of eau, sucree, and began to read, from the yellowed page with the large print, the Christmas chapter. She read the old familiar words with a simple, heart-felt accent that sounded clear and moving in the pious hush. " 'And to men good-will,' " she finished, and from the pillared hall came a trio of voices: "Holy night, peaceful nipht!" The family in the landscape-room joined in. They did so cautiously, for most of them were unmusical, as a tone now and then betrayed. But that in no wise impaired the effect of the old hymn. Frau Permaneder sang with trembling lips; it sounded sweetest and most touching to the heart of her who had a troubled life behind her, and looked back upon it in the brief peace of this holy hour. Madame Kethelsen wept softly, but comprehended nothing. Now the Frau Consul rose. She grasped the hands of her grandson Johann and her granddaughter Elisabeth, and pro-ceeded through the room. The elders of the family fell in behind, and the younger brought up the rear; the servants and poor joined in from the hall; and so they marched, singing with one accord "Dh, Evergreen"--Uncle Christian sang "Oh, Everblue," and made the children laugh by lifting up his legs like a jumping-]ack--through the wide-open, lofty folding doors, and straight into Paradise. The whnle great room was filled with the fragrance of slightly singed evergreen twigs and glowing with light from countless tiny flames. The sky-blue hangings with the white figures on them added to the brilliance. There stood the mighty tree, between the dark red window-curtains, towering nearly to the ceiling, decorated with silver tinsel and large white lilies, with a shining angel at the top and the manger at the foot. Its candles twinkled in the general flood of light like far-off stars. And a row of tiny trees, also full of stars and hung with comfits, stood on the long white table, laden with presents, that stretched from the window to the door. All the gas-brackets on the wall were lighted too, and thick candles burned in all four of the gilded candelabra in the corners of the room. Large objects, too large to stand upon the table, were arranged upon the floor, and two smaller tables, likewise adorned with tiny trees and covered with gifts for the servants and the poor, stood on either side of the door. Dazzled by the light and the unfamiliar look of the room, they marched onre around it, singing, filed past the manger where lay the little wax figure of the Christ-child, and then moved to their places and stood silent. Hanno was quite dazed. His fevered glance had soon sought out the theatre, which, as it stood there upon the table, seemed larger and grander than anything he had dared to dream of. But his place had been changed--it was now opposite to where he had stood last year, and this made him doubtful whether the theatre was really his. And on the floor beneath it was something else, a large, mysterious some-thing, which had surely not been on his list; a piece of fur-141 BUDDENBRDOKS niture, that looked like a commode--could it be meant for him? "Come here, my dear child," said the Frau Consul, "and look at this." She lifted the lid. "I know you like to play chorals. Herr Pfiihl will show you how. You must tread all the time, sometimes more and sometimes less; ami then, not lift up the hands, but change the fingers so, peu a peu." It was a harmonium--a pretty little thing of polished brown wood, with metal handles at the sides, gay bellows worked with a treadle, and a neat revolving stool. Hanno struck a chord. A soft organ tone released itself and made the others look up from their presents. He hugged his grandmother, who pressed him tenderly to her, and then left him to receive the thanks of her other guests. He turned to his theatre. The harmonium was an over-powering dream--which just now he had no time to indulge. There was a superfluity of joy; and he lost sight of single gifts in trying to see and notice everything at once. Ah, here was the prompter's box, a shell-shaped one, and a beautiful red and gold curtain rolled up and down behind it. The stage was set for the last act of Fidclio. The poor prisoners stood with folded hands. Don Pizarro, in enormous puffed sleeves, was striking a permanent and awesome attitude, and the minister, in black velvet, approached from behind with hasty strides, to turn all to happiness. It was just as in the theatre, only almost more beautiful. The Jubilee chorus, the finale, echoed in Hanno's ears, and he sat down at the harmonium to play a fragment which stuck in his memory. But he got up again, almost at once, to take up the book he had wished for, a mythology, in a red binding with a gold Pallas Athene on the cover. He ate some of the sweetmeats from his plate full of marzipan, gingerbread, and other goodies, looked through various small articles like writing utensils and school-bag--and for the moment forgot everything else, to examine a penholder with a tiny glass bulb on it: when you held this up to your eye, you saw, like magic, a broad Swiss landscape. Mamsell Severin and the maid passed tea and biscuits; and while Hanno dipped and ate, he had time to look about. Every one stood talking and laughing; they all showed each other their presents and admired the presents of others. Objects of porcelain, silver, gold, nickel, wood, silk, cloth, and every other conceivable material lay on the table. Huge loaves of decorated gingerbread, alternating with loaves of marzipan, stood in long rows, still moist and fresh. All the presents made by Frau Permaneder were decorated with huge satin bows. Now and then some one came up to little Johann, put an arm across his shoulders, and looked at his presents with the overdone, cynical admiration which people manufacture for the treasures nf children. Uncle Christian was the only person who did not display this grown-up arrogance. He sauntered over to his nephew's place, with a diamond ring on his finger, a present from his mother; and his pleasure in the toy theatre was as unaffected as Hanno's own. "By George, that's fine," he said, letting the curtain up and down, and stepping back for a view of the scenery. "Did you ask for it? Oh, so you did ask for it!" he suddenly saitl after a pause, during which his eyes had roved about the room as though he were full of unquiet thoughts. "Why did you ask for it? What made you think of it? Have you been in the theatre? Fidelio, eh? Yes, they give that well. And you want to imitate it, do you? Do opera yourself, eh? Did it make such an impression on you? Listen, son--take my advice: don't think too much about such things--theatre, and that sort of thing. It's no good. Believe your old uncle. T've always spent too much time an them, and that is why I haven't come to much good. I've made great mistakes, you know." Thus he held forth to his nephew, while Hanno looked up 143 BUDDENBRODK5 at him curiously. He paused, and his bony, emaciated face cleared up as be regarded the little theatre. Then he suddenly moved forward one of the figures on the stage, and sang, in a cracked and hollow tremolo, "Ha, what terrible transgres-sion!7' He sat down on the piano-stool, which he shoved up in front of the theatre, and began ID give a performance, singing all the roles and the accompaniment as well, and gesticu-lating furiously. The family gathered at his back, laughed, nodded their heads, and enjoyed it immensely. As for Hanno, his pleasure was profound. Christian broke off, after a while, very abruptly. His face clouded, he rubbed his hand over his skull and down his left side, and turned to his audience with his nose wrinkled and his face quite drawn. 'There it is again," he said. "I never have a little fun with-out having to pay for it. It is not an ordinary pain, you know, it is a misery, down all this left side, because the nerves are too short." But his relatives took his complaints as little seriously as they had his entertainment. Thev hardly answered him, but indifferently dispersed, leaving Christian silting before the little theatre in silence. He blinked rapidly for a bit and then got up. "No, child," said he, stroking Hanno's head: "amuse yourself with it, but not too much, you know: don't neglect your work for it, do you hear? I have made a great many mistakes.--I think I'll go over to the club for a while," he said to the elders. "They are celebrating there to-day, too. Good-bye for the present." And he went off across the hall, on his stiff, crooked legs. They had all eaten the midday meal earlier than usual to-day, and been hungry for the tea and biscuits. But they had scarcely finished when great crystal bowls were handed round full of a yellow, grainy substance which turned out to be al-mond cream. It was a mixture of eggs, ground almonds, and rose-water, tasting perfectly delicious; but if you ate even a tiny spoonful too much, the result was an attack of indigestion. However, the company was not restrained hy fear of conse-quences--even though Frau Consul begged them to "leave a little corner for supper." Clothilde, in particular, performed miracles with the almond cream, and lapped it up like so much porridge, with heart-felt gratitude. There was also wine jelly in glasses, and English plum-cake. Gradually they all moved over to the landscape-room, where they sat with their plates round the table. Hanno remained alone in the dining-room. Little Elisa-beth Weinschenk had already been taken home; but he was to stop up for supper, for the first time in his life. The servants and the poor folk had had their presents and gone; Ida Jung-mann was chattering with Riekchen Severin in the hall--al-though generally, as a governess, she preserved a proper dis-tance between herself and the Frau Consul's maid.--The lights of the great tree were burnt down and extinguished, the mon-ger was in darkness. But a few candles still burned on the small trees, and now and then a twig came within reach of the flame and crackled up, increasing the pungent smell in the room. Every breath of air that stirred the trees stirred the pieces of tinsel too, and made them give out a delicate me-tallic whisper. It was still enough to hear the hand-organ again, sounding through the frosty air from a distant street. Hanno abandoned himself to the enjoyment of the Christ-mas sounds and smells. He propped his head on his hand and read in his mythology bonk, munching mechanically the while, because that was proper to the day: marzipan, sweet-meats, almond cream, and plum-cake; until the chest-oppression caused by an over-loaded stomach mingled with the sweet excitation of the evening and gave him a feeling of pensive fnlicity. He read about the struggles of ZEUS