Buddenbrooks (51 page)

who had sent a part of Himsplf npnn earlh to suffer and bleed for our sins, and who, on ihe final day, would come to judge the quick and the dead; at whose feet the justified, in the course of the eternity then beginning, would br recompensed for the sorrows they had borne in mis vale of tears, Yes, he strove'to subscribe to the whole confused unconvincing story, which required no intelligence, only obedient credulity; and which, when the last anguish came, would sustain one in a firm and child-like faith.--� But would it, really? Ah, even here there was no peace. This poor, well-nigh exhausted man, consumed with gnawing fears for the honour of his house, his wife, his child, his name, his family, this man who spent painful effort even to keep his body artificially erect and well-preserved--this poor man tortured himself for days with thoughts upon the moment and manner of death .261 BUDDENBRO DKS How would it really be? Did the soul go to Heaven im-mediately after death, or did bliss first begin with the resur-rection of the flesh? And, if so, where did the soul stay until that time? He did not remember ever having been taught this. Why had he not been told this important fact in srhool or in church? How was it justifiable for them to leave people in such uncertainty? He considered visiting Pastor Pringsheim and seeking advire and counsel; but he gave it up in the end for fear of being ridiculous. And finally he gave it all up--he left it all to God. But having come to such an unsatisfactory ending of his at-tempts to set his spiritual affairs in order, he determined at least to spare no pains over his earthly ones, and to carry out a plan which he had long entertained. One day little Johann heard his father tell his mother, as they drank their coffee in the living-room after the mid-day meal, that he expected Lawyer So-and-So to make his will. He really ought not to keep on putting it off. Later, in the afternoon, Hannu practised his music for an hour. When he went down the corridor after that, he met, coming up the stairs, his father and a gentleman in a long black overcoat. "Hanno," said the Senator, curtly. And little Johnann stopped, swallowed, and said quickly and softly: "Yes, Papa." "I have some important business with this gentleman," his father went on. "Will you stand before the door into the smoking-room and take care that nobody--absolutely nobody, you understand--disturbs us?" "Yes, Papa," said little Johann, and took up his post before the door, which closed after the two gentlemen. He stood there, clutching his sailor's knot with one hand, felt with his tongue for a doubtful tooth, and listened to the earnest subdued voices which could be heard from inside. His head, with the curling light-brown hair, he held on one side, and his face with the frowning brows and blue-shadowed, gold-brown eyes, wore that same displeased and brooding look with which he had inhaled the odour of the flowers, and that other strange, yet half-familiar odour, by his grand-mother's bier. Ida Jungmann passed and said, "Well, little Hanno, why are you hanging about here?" And the hump-backed apprentice oame out of the office with a telegram, and asked for the Senator. But, both times, little Johann put his arm in its blue sailor sleeve with the anchor on it horizontally across the door; both limes he shook his head and said softly, after a pause, "No one may go in. Papa is making his will."

CHAPTER VI

IN the autumn Dr. Langhals said, making- play like a woman with his beautiful eyes: "It is the nerves, Senator; the nerves are to blame for everything. And once in a while the rircu-lation is not what it should be. May I venture In make a suggestion? You need another little rest. These few Sun-days by the sea, during the summer, haven't amounted to much, of course. It's the end of September, Travemiinde is still open, there are still a few people there. Drive over, Senator, and sit on the bearh a little. Two or three weeks will do you a great deal of good." And Thomas Buddenbrook said "yes" and "amen." But when he told his family of the arrangement, Christian sug-gested going with him. "I'll go with you, Thomas," he said, quite simply. "You don't mind, I suppose." And the Senator, though he did mind \ery much, said "yes" and "amen" to this arrangement as well. Christian was now more than ever master of his own Lime. His fluctuating health had constrained him to give up his last undertaking, the champagne and spirit agency. The man who used to come and sit on his sofa and nod at him in the twilight had happily not recurred of late. But the misery in the side had, if anything, grown worse, and added to tlms was a whole list of other infirmities of which Christian kept the closest watch, and which he described in all com-panies, with his nose wrinkled up. He often suffered from that long-standing dread of paralysis of the tongue, throat, and oesophagus, even of the extremities and of the brain--of which there were no actual symptoms, but the fear in 261- itself was almost worse. He told in detail how, one day when he was making tea, he had held the lighted match not over the spirit-lamp, but over the open bottle of methylated spirit instead; so that not only himself, but the people in his own and the adjacent buildings, nearly went up in flames. And he dwelt in particular detail, straining every resource he had at his command to make himself perfectly clear, upon a certain ghastly anomaly which he had of late observed in him-self. It was this: that on certain days, i. e., under certain weather conditions, and in certain states of mind, he could not see an open window without having a horrible and in-explicable impulse to jump out. It was a mad and almost uncontrollable desire, a sort of desperate foolhardiness. The family were dining on Sunday in Fishers' Lane, and he de-scribed how he had to summon all his powers, and crawl on hands and knees to the window to shut it. At this point everybody shrieked; his audience rebelled, and would listen no more. He told these and similar things with a certain horrible satisfaction. But the thing about himself which he did not know, which he never studied and described, but which none the less grew worse and worse, was his singular lack of tact. He told in the family circle anecdotes of such a nature that the club was the only possible place for them. And even 'his sense of personal modesty seemed to be breaking down. He was on friendly terms with his sister-in-law, Cerda. But when he displayed to 4ier the beautiful weave and texture of his English socks, he did not stop at that, but rolled up his wide, checkered trouser-leg to far above the knee: "Look," he said, wrinkling his nose in distress: "Look how thin I'm getting. Isn't it striking and unusual?" And there he sat, sadly gazing at his crooked, bony leg and the gauht knee visible through his white woollen drawers. His mercantile activity then, was a thing of the past. But such hours as he did not spend at the club he liked to fill in with one sort of occupation or another; and he would 255 BUDDENBRODK5 proudly point out that he had never actually ceased to work. He extended his knowledge of languages and embarked upon a study of Chinese--though this was for the sake of acquiring knowledge, simply, with no practical purpose in view. He worked at it industriously for two weeks. He was also, just at this time, occupied with a project of enlarging an English-German dictionary which he had found inadequate. But he really needed a little change, and it would be better too for the Senator to have somebody with him; so he did not allow his business to keep him in town. The two brothers drove out together to the sea along the turnpike, which was nothing but a puddle. The rain drummed on the carriage-top, and they hardly spoke. Christian's eyes roved hither and yon; he was as if listening to uncanny noises. Thomas sat muffled in his cloak, shivering, gazing witli bloodshot eyes, his moustaches stiffly sticking out beyond his white cheeks. They drove up to the Kurhousc in the afternoon, their wheels grating in the wet gravel. Did Broker Gosch sat in the glass verandah, drinking rum punch. Hi-stood up, whistling through his teeth, and they all sat down together to have a little something warm while the trunks were being carried up. Herr Gosch was a late guest at the cure, and there were a few other people as well: an English family, a Dutch maiden lady, and a Hamburg bachelor, all of them pre-sumably taking their rest before table-d'hole, for it was like the grave everywhere but for the sound of the rain. Let them sleep! As for Herr Gosch, he was not in the habit of sleeping in the daytime, He was glad enough to get a few hours' sleep at night. He was far from well; he was taking a late cure for the benefit of this trembling which he suffered from in all his limbs. Hang it. he could hardly hold his glass of grog; and more often than not he could not write at all--so that the translation of Lope da Vega got on but slowly. He was in a very low mood indeed, and even his curses lacked relish. "Let it go hang!" was his constant phrase, which he rep Bated on every occasion and often on none at all. And the Senator? How was he feeling? How long were the gentlemen thinking of stopping? Dh, Dr. Langhals had sent him out on account of his nerves. He had obeyed orders, of course, despite the frightful weather--what doesn't one do out of fear of one's physician? HP was re-ally feeling more or less miserable, and they would probably remain till there was a little improvement. "Yes, I'm pretty wretched too," said Christian, irritated at Thomas's speaking only of himself. He was about to fetch out his repertoire--the nodding; man, the spirit-bottle, the open window--when the Senator interrupted him by going to engage the rooms. The rain did not stop. It washed away the earth, it danced upon the sea, which was driven back by the south-west wind and left 'the beaches bare. Everything was shrouded in grey. The steamers went by like wraiths and vanished on the dim horizon. They met the strange guests only at table. The Senator, in markintosh and goloshes, went walking with Gosch; Chris-tian drank Swedish punch with the barmaid in the pastry-shop. Two or three times in the afternoon it looked as though the sun were coming out; and a few acquaintances from town appeared--people who enjoyed a holiday away from their families: Senator Dr. Gieseke, Christian's friend, and Consul Peter Dohlmann, who looked very ill indeed, and was killing himself with Hunyadi-Janos water. The gentlemen sat tog'ether in their overcoats, under the awnings of the pastry-shop, opposite the empty bandstand, drinking their coffee, digesting their five courses, and talking desultorily as they gazed over the empty garden. The news of the town--the last high water, which had gone into the cellars and been so deep that in the lower part of the town people had to go about in boats; a fire in the dockyard 267 sheds; a senatorial election--these were the topics of con- versation. Alfred Lauritzen, of the firm of Sturmann & Lauritzen, tea, coffee, and spice merchants, had been elected, and Senator Buddenbrook had not approved of the choice. He sat smoking cigarettes, wrapped in -his cloak, almost silent except for a few remarks on this particular subject. One thing was certain, he said, and that was that he had not voted for Herr Lauritzen. Lauritzen was an honest fellow and a good man of business. There was no doubt of that; but he was middle-class, respectable middle-class. His father had fished herrings out of the barrel and handed them across the counter to servant-maids with his own hands--and now they had in the Senate the proprietor of a retail business. His, Thomas Buddenbrook's father had disowned his eldest son for "marrying a shop"; but that was in the good old days. "The standard is being lowered," he said. "The social level is nol so high as it was; the Senate is being democratized, my dear Gieseke, and that is no good. Business ability is one thing--but it is not everything. In my view we should de- mand something more. Alfred Lauritzen, with his big feet and his boatswain's face--it is offensive to me to think of him in the Senate-house. It offends something in me, I don't know what. It goes against my sense of form--it is a piece of bad taste, in short.'7 Senator Gieseke demurred. He was rather piqued by this expression of opinion. After all, he himself was only the son of a Fire Commissioner. No, the labourer was worthy of his hire. That was what being a republican meant. "You ought not to smoke So much, Buddenbrook," he ended. "You won't get any sea air." "I'll stop now," said Thomas Buddenbrook, flung away the end of his cigarette, and closed his eyes. The conversation dragged on; the rain set in again and veiled the prospect. They began to talk about the latest town scandal--about P. Philipp Kassbaum, who had been falsifying bills of exchange and now sat behind locks and bars. N one felt outraged over the dishonesty: they spoke of it as an act of folly, laughed a bit, and shrugged their shoulders. Srnator Dr. Gieseke said that the convicted man had not lost his spirits. He had asked for a mirror, it seemed, there being none in hig cell. "I'll need a looking-glass," he was re-ported to have said: "I shall be here for some time." He had been, like Christian and Dr. Gieseke, a pupil of the lamented Marcellus Stengel. They all laughed again at this, through their noses, without a sign of feeling. Siegismund Gosch ordered another grog in a tone of voice that was as good as saying, "What's the use of living?" Consul Do'hlmann sent for a bottle of brandy. Christian felt inclined to more Swedish punch, so Dr. Gieseke ordered some for both of them. Before long Thomas Bud-denbrook began to smoke again. And the idle, cynical, indifferent talk went on, heavy with the food they had eaten, the wine they drank, and the damp that depressed their spirits. They talked about business, the business of each one of those present; but even this subject roused no great enthusiasm. "Oh, there's nothing very good about mine," said Thomas Buddenbrook heavily, and leaned his head against the back of his chair with an air of disgust. "Well, and you, Dohlmann," asked Senator Gieseke, and yawned. "You've been devoting yourself entirely to brandy, eh?" "The chimney can't smoke, unless there's a fire," the Con-sul retorted. "I look into the office every few days. Short hairs are soon combed." "And Slrunrk and Hagenstrom have all the business in their hands anyhow," the broker said morosely, with his elbows sprawled out on the table and his wicked old grey head in his hands. "Dh, nothing can compete with a dung-heap, for smell," Dohlmann said, with a deliberately coarse pronunciation, which must have depressed everybody's spirits the more by 269 its hopeless cynicism. "Well, and you, Buddenbrook--what are you doing now? Nothing, eh?" "No," answered Christian, "I can't, any more." And wilh-oul more ado, having perceived the mood of the hour, he proceeded to accentuate it. He began, his hat on one side, to talk about his Valparaiso office and Johnny Thunderstorm. "Well, in that heat--'Good God! Work, Sir? No, Sir. As you see, Sir.' And they puffed their cigarette-smoke right in his face. Good God!" It was, as always, an imrompar-able expression of dissolute, impudent, lazy good-nature. His brother sat motionless. Herr Gosch tried to lift his glass to his thin lips, put it back on the table again, cursing through his shut teeth, and struck the offending arm with his fist. Then he lifted the glass once more, and spilled half its contents, draining the remainder furiously at a gulp. "Oh, you and your shaking, Gosch!" Peter Dohlmann ex-claimed. "Why don't you just let yourself go, like me? I'll croak if I don't drink my bottle every day--I've got as far as that; and I'll croak if I do. How would you feel if you couldn't get rid of your dinner, not a single day--I mean, after you've got it in your stomach?" And he favoured them with some repulsive details of his condition, to which Christian listened with dreadful interest, wrinkling his nose as far as it could go and countering with a brief and forcible-account of his "misery." It rained harder than ever. It came straight down in sheets and filled the silence of the Kurgarden with its ceaseless, forlorn, and desolate murmur. "Yes, life's pretty rotten," said Senator Gieseke. He had been drinking heavily. "I'd just as lief quit," said Christian. "Let it go hang," said Herr Gosch. 'There comes Fike Dahlbeck," said Senator Gieseke. The proprietress of the cow-stalls, a heavy, bold-faced woman BUDDENBRODK5 in the forties, came by with a pail of milk and smiled at the gentlemen. Senator Cieseke let his eyes rove after her. "What a bosom," he said. Consul Dbhlmann added a lewd witticism, with the result that all the gentlemen laughed once more, through their noses. The waiter was summoned. "I've finished the bottle, Schroder," said Consul Dbhlmann. "May as well pay--we have to some time or other. You, Christian? Gieseke pays for you, eh?" Senator Buddenbrook roused himself at this. He had been sitting there, hardly speaking, wrapped in his cloak, his hands in his lap and his cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Now he suddenly started up and said sharply, "Have you no money with you, Christian? Then I'll lend it to you." They put up their umbrellas and emerged from their shelter to takn a little stroll. Frau Prrmanedrr came out once in a while to see her brother. They would walk as far as Sea-Gull Rock or the little Oi'ean Temple; and here Tony Buddenbrook, for some reason or other, was always seized by a mood of vague ex-citement and rebellion. She would repeatedly emphasize the independence and equality of all human beings, summarily repudiate all distinctions of rank or class, use some very strong language, on the subject of privilege and arbitrary power, and demand in set terms that merit should receive its just reward. And then she talked about her own life. She talked well, she entertained her brother capitally. This child of fortune, so long as she walked upon this earth, had never once needed to suppress an emotion, to choke down or swallow anything she felt. She had never received in silence either the blows or the caresses of fate. And whatever she had