Buddenbrooks (46 page)

noise, as the tongue came away frpm the roof of his mouth. Frau Permaneder coloured when she heard this once well-known sound. A vision of lemon buns with truffled sausage on top, almost threatened, for a moment, the stony dignity of her bearing. She sat on the sofa, her arms crossed and her shoulders lifted, in an exquisitely fitting black gown with flounces up to the waist, and a dainty mourning cap on her smooth hair. As the two gentlemen entered, she made a re-mark to her brother the Senator, in a calm, indifferent tone. He had not had the heart to leave her in the lurch at this hour; and he now walked to the middle of thii room to meet their 2D4 guests, while Tony remained on the sofa. He exchanged a hearty greeting with Herr Gosch and a correct and courteous one with the Consul; then Tony rose of her own accord, per-formed a measured how to both of them at once, and, without any excess of zeal, associated herself with her brother's in-vitation to the two gentlemen to be seated. They all sat down, and the Consul and the broker talked by turns for the next few minutes. Herr Gosch's voice was offensively obsequious as he begged them to pardon the in-trusion on their privacy--you could hear a malign under-current in it none the less--but Herr Consul Hagenstrbm was anxious to go through the house with a view to possible pur-chase. And the Consul, in a voice that again called up visions of lemon-bun and goose-liver, said the same thing in different words. Yes, in fact, this was the idea he had in mind and hoped to be able to carry out--provided the broker did not try to drive too hard a bargain with him, ha, ha! He did not doubt but the matter could be settled to the satisfaction of everybody concerned. His manner was free and easy and like a man of the world's, which did not fail to make a certain impression on Madame Permaneder; the more so that he nearly always turned to her as he spoke. His tone was almost apologetic when he went into detail upon the grounds for his desire to purchase. "Room!" he said. "We need more room. My house in Sand Street--you wouldn't believe it, my dear madam, nor you, Herr Senator, but in fact, it is getting so small we can't turn round in it. I'm not speaking of company. It only takes the family, and the Hun BUS, and the Mb'llendorpfs and my brolhrr Mnritz's family, and there we are--in fact, packed in like sardines. So, then--well, why should we, you know!" He spoke in an almost fretful tone, while manner and gestures expressed: "You see for yourselves, there's no reason why I should put up with that sort of thing, when there is plenty of money to do what we like!"

2t)5

"I thought of waiting," he went on, "till Zerline and Bob should want a house. Then they could take mine, and I could find something larger for myself. But in fact--you know," he interrupted himself, "my daughter Zerline has been engaged to Bob, my brother the attorney's eldest, for years. The wedding won't be put off much longer--two years at most. They are young--so much the better. Well--in fact--why should I wait for them and let slip a good chance when it offers? There would be no sense in that." Everybody agreed. The conversation paused for a while on the subject of the approaching wedding. Marriages--advantageous marriages--between first cousins were not uncommon in the town, and this one excited no disapproval. The plans of the young pair were inquired into--with reference to the wedding journey. They thought of going to the Riviera, to Nice and so on. That was what they seemed to want to do--and why shouldn't they, you know? The younger children were mentioned, and the Consul spoke of them with easy satisfaction, shrugging his shoulders. He himself had five children, and his brother Moritz had four sons and daughters. Yes, they were all flourishing, thanks. Why shouldn't they be,--you know? In fact, they were all very well. And he came back to the growing up of the family, and to their narrow quarters. "Yes, this is something else entirely," he said. "I've seen that already, on the way upstairs. This house is a pearl, certainly a pearl--' if you can compare anything so large wilh anything so small, ha, ha! Why, even the hangings here--I own up to having had my eye on the hangings all the time I've been talking. A most charming room--in fact. When I think that you have passed all your life in these surroundings--in fact--" "With some interruptions," said Frau Permaneder, in that extraordinarily throaty voice of which she sometimes availed herself.

BUDDENBR DDKS

"Dh, yes, interruptions," repeated the Consul, with a civil smile. Then he glanced at Senator Buddenbrook and the broker; and, as those gentlemen were in conversation to-gether, he drew up his chair to Frau Permaneder's sofa and leaned toward her, so that she felt his heavy breathing close under her nose. Being too polite to turn away, she sat as stiff and erect as possible and looked down at him under her drooping lids. But he was quite unconscious of her dis-comfort. "Let me see, my dear Madame Permaneder," he said. "Seems to me we've done business together before now. In fact--what was it we were dickering over then? Sweetmeats, wasn't it, or tit-bits of some sort--and now a whole house!' "I don't remember," said Frau Permaneder. She held her neck as stiff as she could, for hid face was really disgustingly, indecently near. "You don't remember?" "No, really, I don't remember anything at all about sweetmeats. I have a sort of hazy recollection of lemon-buns, with sausage on top--some disgusting sort of school luncheon--I don't know whether it was yours or mine. We were all children then.--But this matter of the house is entirely Herr Gosch's affair. I have nothing to do with it." She gave her brother a quick, grateful look, for he had seen her need and come to her rescue by asking if the gentle-men were ready to make the round of the house. They were quite ready, and took temporary leave of Frau Permaneder, expressing the hope of seeing her again when they had finished. The Senator led the two gentlemen out through the dining-room. He took them upstairs and down, and showed them the rooms in the second storey as well as those on the corridor of the first, and the ground floor, including the kitchen and cellars. As the visit fell in business hours, they refrained from visiting the offices of the Insurance Company. But the new Director was mentioned, and Consul Hagenstrb'ni 207 BUDDENBRDDKS declared him to be a very honest chap--a remark which was received by the Senator in silence. They went through the garden, lying bare and wretched under half-melting snow, looked at the Portal, and returned to the laundry, in the front courtyard; and thence by the narrow paved walk that led between walls to the back court-yard with the oak-tree, and the "back building." Here there was nothing but old age, neglect, and dilapidation. Grass and moss grew between the paving-stones, the steps were in a state of advanced decay, and they could only look into the billiard-room without entering,--the floor was so bad--so the family of cats that lived there rent-free was not disturbed. Consul Hagenstrom said very little--he was obviously planning. "Well, yes," he kept saying, as he looked and turned away, suggesting by his manner that in case he bought the house all this would of course be different. He stood, with the same air, on the ground-floor of the back building and looked up at the empty attic. "Yes, well," he repeated, and set in motion the thick, rotting cable with a rusty iron hook on the end that had been hanging there for years. Then he turned on his heel. "Best thanks for your trouble, Herr Senator," he said. "We're at the end, I suppose." He scarcely uttered a word on the rapid return to the front building, or later when the two gentlemen paid their respects to Frau Permanpder in the landscape-room and the Senator accompanied them down the steps and across the entry. But hardly had they said good-bye and Consul Hagenstrom turned with his companion to walk down the street, when it was seen that a very lively con-versation began at once between the two. The Senator returned to the room where Frau Permaneder, with her severest manner, sat bolt upright in the window, knitting with two huge wooden needles a black worsted frock for her granddaughter Elisabeth, and now and then casting a glance into the gossip's glass. Thomas walked up and down a while in silence, with his hands in his trousers pockets. "Yes, we have put it in the broker's hands," he said at length. "We must wait and see what comes of it. My opinion is that he will buy the whole property, live here in the front, and utilize the back part in some other way." She did not look at him, or change her position, or cease to knit. On the contrary, the needles flew back and forth faster than ever. "Oh, certainly--of course he'll buy it. He'll buy the whole thing," she said, and it was her throaty voice she used. "Why shouldn't he buy it--you know? In fact, there would be no sense in that at all!" She raised her eyebrows and looked severely through her pince-nez--which she nnw used for sewing, but never managed to put on straight--at her knitting-needles. They flew like lightning round and round each other, clacking all the while. Christmas came: the first Christmas without the Frau Consul. They spent the evening of the twenty-fourth at the Senator's house, without the old Krb'gers and without the Misses Buddenbrook; for the old children's day had now ceased to exist, and Thomas Buddenbrook did not feel like making presents to everybody who used to attend the Frau Consul's celrbration. Only Frau Permaneder and Erica, with little Elisabeth, Christian, Clothilde, and Mademoiselle Weichbrodt, were invited. The latter insisted on holding the customary present-giving on the twenty-fifth, in her own stuffy little rooms, where it was attended with the usual mishap. There was no troop of poor retainers to receive shoes and woollen underwear, and there were no choir-boys, when they assembled in Fishers' Lane on the twenty-fourth. They joined quite simply together in "Holy Night," and Therese Weichbrodt read the Christmas chapter instead of the Frau 2D9 Senator, who did not particularly care for such things. Then they went through the suite of rooms into the hall, singing in a subdued way the first stanza of "O Evergreen." There was no special ground for rejoicing. Nobody's face was beaming with joy, there was no lively conversation. What was there to talk about? They thought of the departed mother, discussed the sale of the house and the well-lighted apartment which Frau Permaneder had rented in a pleasant house outside Hoist en Gate, with a view on the green square of Linden Place, and what would happen when Hugo Weinschenk came out of prison. At intervals little Johann played on the piano something which he had been learning with Herr Pfiihl, or accompanied his mother, not faultlessly, but with a lovely singing tone, in a Mozart sonata. He was praised and kissed, but had to be taken off to bed by Ida Jungmann, for he was pale and tired on account of a recent stomach upset. Even Christian was disinclined to talk or joke. After the violent altercation in the breakfast-room he had not let fall another syllable about getting married. He lived on in the old way, on terms with his brother which were not very honourable to himself. He made a brief effort, rolling his eyes about, to awaken sympathy in the company for the misery in his side; went early to the club; and came back to supper, which was held after the prescribed traditions. And then the Buddenbrooks had this Christmas too behind them, and were glad of it. In the beginning of the year 1872, the household of the deceased Frau Consul was broken up. The servants went, and Frau Permaneder thanked God to see the last of Mamsell Severin, who had continued to question her authority in the most unpleasant manner, and now departed with the silk gowns and linen which she had accumulated. Furniture wagons stood before the door, and the old house was emptieJ of its contents. The great carved chest, the gilt candelabra, and the other things that had fallen to his share, the Senator took to his house in Fishers' Lane; Christian moved with his into a three-room bachelor apartment near the club; and the little Permaneder-Weinschenk family took possession with theirs of the well-lighted flat in Linden Place, which was after all not without some claims to elegance. It was a pretty little apartment, and the front door of it had a bright copper plate with rhe name A. Permaneder-Buddenbrook, Widow, in ornamental lettering. The house in Meng Street was hardly emptied when a host of workmen appeared and began to tear down the back-building; the dust from the old mortar darkened the air. The property had passed into the hands of Consul Hermann Hagenstrom. He had set his heart upon it, and had outbid an offer which Sigmund Gosch received for it from Bremen. He immediately began to turn it to the best advantage, in the ingenious way for which he had been so long admired. In the spring he moved with his family into the frnnt house, where he left everything almost untouched, save for the necessary renovations and certain very modern improvements. For instance, he had the old bell-pulls taken out and the house fitted throughout with electric bells. And hardly had the back-building been demolished when a new, neat, and airy structure rose in its place, which fronted on Bakers' Alley and was intended for shops and warehouses. Frau Permanrder had frequently sworn to her brother that no power on earth coulrl bring her ever to look at the parental home ugain. But it was hardly possible to carry out this threat. Her way sometimes led her of necessity past the shops which had been quickly and advantageously rented, and past the show-windows of the back-building, or the dignified gable front on the other side, where now, beneath the "Dominus Providebit," was to be read the name of Consul Hermann Hagenstrom. When she saw that, Frau Permaneder, on the open street, before ever so manv people, simply began to weep aloud. She put back her head like a bird beginning to sing, pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, uttered a wail of mingled protest and lament, and, giving no heed to the passers-by or to the remonstrances of her daughter, gave her tears free vent. They were the unashamed, refreshing tears of her child-hood, -which she still retained despite all the storms and shipwrecks of her life.

PART TEN

CHAPTER I

OFTEN, in an hour of depression, Thomas Buddenbrouk asked himself what he was, or what there was about him to make him think even a little better of himself than he did of his honest, limited, provincial fellow-burghers. The imaginative grasp, the brave idealism of his youth was gone. To work at his play, to play at his work, to bend an ambition that was half-earnest, half-whimsical, toward the accomplishment of aims that even to himself possessed but a symbolic value--for such blithe scepticism and such an enlightened spirit of compromise, a great deal of vitality is necessary, as well as a sense of humour. And Thomas Buddenbrook felt inexpressibly weary and disgusted. What there was in life for him to reach, he had reached. He was well aware that the high-water mark of his life--if that were a possible way to speak of such a commonplace, humdrum sort of existence--had long since passed. As for money matters, his estate was much reduced and the business, in general, on the decline. Counting his mother's inheritance and his share of the Meng Street property, he was still worth more than six hundred thousand marks. But the working capital of the firm had lain fallow for years, under the penny wise policies of which the Senator had complained at the time of the affair of the Piippenrade harvest. Since the blow he had then received, they had grown worse instead of better; until now, at a time when prospects were brighter than ever--when everybody was flushed with victory, the city had at last joined the Customs Union, and small retail firms all over the country were growing within a few years into large wholesale ones--the firm of Johann Buddenbrook rested on its oars and reaped no ad-215 vantage from the favourable time. If the head of the firm were asked after his business, he would answer, with a deprecating wave of the hand, "Oh, it's not much good, these days." As a lively rival, a close friend of the Hagenstro'ms, once put it, Thomas Buddenbrook's function on 'Change was now largely decorative! The jest had for its point a jeer at the Senator's carefully preserved and faultless exterior--and it was received as a masterpiece of wit by his fellow-citizens. Thus the Senator's services to the old firm were no longer what theyhad been in the time of his strength and enthusiasm^ while his labours for the good of the community had at the same time reached a point where they were circumscribed by limitations from without. When he was elected to the Senate, in fact, he had reached those limitations. There were thereafter only places to keep, offices to hold, but nothing further that he could achieve: nothing; but the present, the! narrow reality; never any grandiose plans to be carried out] in thefuture. He had, indeed, known how to make his position and his power mean more than others had made them mean in his place: even his enemies did not deny that he was "the Burgomaster's right hand." But Burgomaster himself Thomas Buddenbrook could never become. He war a merchant, not a professional man; he had not taken the classical course at the gymnasium, he was -not a lawyer. He had always done a great deal of historical and literary reading in his spare time, and he was conscious of being superior to his circle in mind and understanding, in inward as well as outward culture; so he did not waste much time in lamenting the lack of external qualifications which made it impossible for him to succeed to the first place in his little community. "How foolish we were," he said to Stephan Kistenmaker--but he really only meant himself by "we"--"that we went into the office so young, and did not finish our schooling instead." And Stephan Kistenmaker answered: "You're right there. But how do you mean?" The Senator now chiefly worked alone at the great mahogany writing-desk in his private office. No one could see him there when he leaned his head on his hand and brooded, with his eyes closed. But he preferred it, also, because the hair-splitting pedantries of Herr Marcus had become unendurable to him. The way the man for ever straightened his writing-materials and stroked his beard would in itself have driven Thomas Buddenbrook from his seat in the counting-room. The fussiness of the old man had increased with the years to a positive mania; but what made it intolerable to the Senator was the fact that of late he had begun to notice something of the same sort in himself. He, who had once so hated all smallness and pettiness, was developing a pedantry which seemed to him the outgrowth of anybody else's character rather than his own. He was empty within. There was no stimulus, no absorbing task into which he could throw himself. But his nervous activity, his inability to be quiet, which was something entirely different from his father's natural arid permanent fondness for work, had not lessened, but increased--it had indeed taken the upper hand and become his master. It was something artificial, a pressure on the nerves, a depressant, in fact, like the pungent little Russian cigarettes which he was perpetually smoking. This craving for activity had become a martyrdom; but it was dissipated in a host of trivialities. He was harassed by a thousand trifles, most of which had actually to do with the upkeep of his house and his wardrobe; small matters which he could not keep in his head, over which he procrastinated out of disgust, and upon which he spent an utterly disproportionate amount of time and thought. What outsiders called his vanity had lately increased in a way of which he was himself ashamed, though he was with-out the power to shake off the habits he had formed. Nowa-days it was nine o'clock before he appeared to Herr Wenzel., in his nightshirt, after hours of heavy, unrefreshing sleep; 217 and quite an hour and a half later before he felt himself ready and panoplied to begin the day, and could descend to drink his tea in the first storey. His toilette was a ritual consisting of a succession of countless details which drove him half mad: from the cold douche in the bathroom to the last brushing of the last sperk of dust of! his coat, and the last pressure of the tongs on his moustache. But it would have been impossible for him to leave his dressing-room with the consciousness of having neglected a single one of these details, for fear he might lose thereby his sens of immaci late integrity--which, however, would be dissipated in the course of the next hour and have to be renewed again. He saved in everything, so far as he could--without subjecting himself to gossip. But he did not save where his clothes were concerned--he slill had them made by the best Hamburg tailor, and spared no expense in the care and re-plenishing of his wardrobe. A spacious cabinet, like another room, was built into the wall of his dressing-room; and here, on long rows of hooks, on wooden hangers, were coats, smoking jackets, frock-coals, evening clothes, clothes for all occasions, all seasons, and all grades of formality; the care-fully creased trousers were arranged on chairs beneath. The top of his chest of drawers was covered with combs, brushes, and toilet preparations for hair and beard; while within it was the supply of body linen of all possible kinds, which was constantly changed, washed, worn out, and renewed. He spent in this dressing-room not only the early hours of each morning, but also a long time brfurp every dinner, every sitting of the Senate, every public appearance--in short, before every occasion on which he had to show him-self among his fellow men--even before the daily dinner with his wife, little Johann, and Ida Jungmann. And when he left it, the fresh underwear on his body, the faultless ele-gance of hib clothing, the smell of the brilliantine on his moustache, and the cool, astringent taste of the mouth-wash he used--all this gave him a feeling of satisfaction and BUDDENBRDDK5 adequacy, like that of an actor who has adjusted every detail of his costume and make-up and now steps out upon the stage. And, in truth, Thomas Buddenbrook's existence wa? no different from that of an actor--an actor whose whole life has become one long production, which, but for a few brief hours for relaxation, consumes him unceasingly. In the absence of any ardent objective interest, his inward im-poverishment oppressed him almost without any relief, with a constant, dull chagrin; while he stubbornly clung to the de-termination to be worthily representative, to conceal his in-' ward deelinr, and to preserve "the dehors" whatever it cost, him. All this made of his life, his every word, his every motion, a constant irritating pretence. And this state of things showed itself by peculiar symptoms and strange whims, which he observed with surprise and dis-gust. People who have no role to perform before the public, who do not conceive themselves as acting a part, but as standing unobserved to watch the performance of others, like to stand with the light at their barks. But Thomas Buddenbrook rould not endure the feeling of standing in the shadow while tin1 light streamed full upon the faces of those whom he wished to impress. He wanted his audience, before whom he was to act the role of a social light, a public orator, or a representative business man, to stand before him in a con-fused and shadowy mass while a blinding light played upon his own face. Dhly this gave him a feeling of separation and safety, an intoxicating sense, of self-production, which was the atmosphere in which he achieved success. It had come to be the case that precisely this intoxication was the most bearable condition he knew. When he stood up at table, wine-glass in hand, to reply to a toast, with his charming manner, easy gestures, and witty turns of phrase, which struck unerringly home and released waves of merriment down the length of the table, then he might feel, as well as seem, the Thomas Buddenbrook of former days. It was much harder to keep the mastery over himself when he was sitting idle. For then his weariness and disgust rose up within him, clouded his eyes, relaxed his bearing and his facial muscles. At such times, he was possessed by one desire: to steal away, to be alone, to lie in silence, with his head resting on a cool pillow. Frau Permaneder had dined that evening in Fishers' Lane. She was the only guest, for her daughter, who was to have gone, had visited her husband that afternoon in the prison, and felt, as she usually did, exhausted and incapable of further effort. So she had stayed at home. Frau Antonie had spoken at table of the mental condition of her son-in-law, which, it appeared, was very bad; and the question arose whether one might not, with some hope of success, petition the Senate for a pardon. After dinner the three relatives sat in the living-room, at the round table beneath the great gas-lamp. The Frau Senator bent her lovely face over some embroidery, and the gas-light lit up gleams in her dark hair; Frau Permaneder, with careful fingers, fastened an enormous red satin bow on to a tiny yellow basket, intended as a birthday present for a friend. Her glasses were stuck absolutely awry and useless on her nose. The Senator sat with his legs crossed, partly turned away from the table, in a large upholstered easy-chair, reading the paper; he drew in the smoke of his Russian cigarette and let it out again in a light grey stream between his moustaches. It was a warm summer Sunday evening. The lofty window was open, and the lifeless, rather damp air flowed into the room. From where they sat at the table they could look between the grey gables of intervening houses at the stars and the slowly moving clouds. There was still light in Iwer-sen's little flower-shop across the way. Further on in the quiet street a concertina was being played with a good many false notes, probably by the son of Dankwart the driver. But sometimes the street was noisy with a troop of sailors, BUDDENBRO DK5 singing, smoking, arm in arm, going, no doubt, from one doubtful waterside public-house to another still more doubt-ful one, and obviously in a jovial mood. Their rough voices and swinging tread would die off down a cross-street. The Senator laid down his newspaper, put his glasses in his waistcoat pocket, and rubbed his hand over his eyes and forehead. "Feeble--very feeble indeed, this paper," he said. "I always think when I read it of what Grandfather used to say about a dish that had no particular taste or consistency: it tastes as if you were hanging your tongue out of the window. One, two, three, and you've finished with the whole stupid thing." "You are certainly right about that, Tom," said Frau Permaneder, letting fall her work and looking at her brother sidewise, past her glasses but not through them. "What is there in it? I've always said, ever since I was a mere slip of a girl, that this town paper is a wretched sheet! I read it too, of course, for want of a better one; but it isn't so very thrilling to hear that wholesale dealer Consul So-and-so is going to celebrate his silver wedding! We ought to read other papers: the Konigsberg Gazette, or the Rhenish Gazette; then we'd--" She interrupted herself. She had taken up the paper as she spoke, and. let her eye run contemptuously down the columns. But her glance was arrested by a short notice of four or five lines, which she read through, clutching her eye-glasses, her mouth slowly opening. Then she uttered two shrieks, with the palms of her hands pressed against her cheeks, and her elbows held out straight. "Dh, impossible--impossible! Imagine your not seeing that at all. It is frightful! Oh, poor Armgard! It had to come to her like that!" Gerda had lifted her head from her work, and Thomas, startled, looked at his sister. Much upset, Fran Permaneder read the notice aloud, in a guttural, portentous tone. It 221 came from Rostock, and it said that, the night before, Herr Ralf von Maiboom, owner of the Pbppenrade estate, had committed suicide by shooting himself with a revolver, in the study of the manor-house. "Pecuniary difficulties seem to have been the cause of the act. Herr von Maiboom leaves a wife and three children.'" She finished and let the paper fall in her lap, then leaned back and looked at her brother and sister with wide, piteous eyes. Thomas Buddenbrook had turned away while he listened, and looked past his sister between the portieres, into the dark salon. "With a revolver?" he asked, after silence had reigned some two minutes. And then, after another pause, he said in a low voice, slowly and mockingly: "That is the nobility for you!" Then he fell again to musing, and the rapidity with which he drew the ends of his moustaches through his fingers was in remarkable contrast to the vacant fixity of his gaze. He did not listen to the lamentations of his sister, or to her speculations on what poor Armgard would do nnw. Nor did he notice that Gerda, without turning her head in his direction, was fixing him