Buddenbrooks (6 page)

Then off they went with their father, who had put on his fur coat and taken the hymn book. They were folio-wed by the piercing cry of the new member of the family, who had just waked up.

CHAPTER II

EARLY in the summer, sometimes as early as May or June, Tony Buddenbrook always went on a visit to her grandpar-ents, who lived outside the Castle Gate. This was a great pleasure. For life was delightful out there in the country, in the luxurious villa with its many outbuildings, servants' quarters and stables, and its great parterres, orchards, and kitchen-gardens, which ran steeply down to the river Trave. The Kr�s lived in the grand style; there was a difference be-tween their brilliant establishment and the solid, somewhat heavy comfort of the paternal home, which was obvious at a glance, and which impressed very much the young Dem-oiselle Buddenbrook. Here there was no thought of duties in house or kitchen. In the Mengstrasse, though her Mother and Grandfather did not seem to think it important, her Father and her Grand-mother were always telling her to remember her dusting, and holding up Clothilde as an example. The old feudal feeling of her Mother's side of the family came out strongly in the little maid: one could see how she issued her orders to the footman or the abigail--and to her Grandmother's servants ana her Grandfather's coachman as well. Say what you will, it is pleasant to awake every morning in a large, gaily tapestried bed-chamber, and with one's first movements to feel the soft satin of the coverlet under one's hand; to take early breakfast in the balcony room, with the sweet fresh air coming up from the garden through the open glass door; to drink, instead of coffee, a cup of chocolate handed one on a tray--yes, proper birthday chocolate, with 57 a thick slice of fresh cup-cake! True, she had to eat her breakfast alone, except on Sundays, for her grandparents never came down until long after she had gone to school. When she had munched her cake and drunk her chocolate, she would snatch up her satchel and trip down the terrace and through the well-kept front garden. She was very dainty, this little Tony Buddenbrook. Un-der her straw hat curled a wealth of blonde hair, slowly dark-ening with the years. Lively grey-blue eyes and a pouting upper lip gave her fresh face a roguish look, borne out by the poise of her graceful little figure; even the slender legs, in their immaculate white stockings, trotted along over the ground with an unmistakable air of ease and assurance. People knew and greeted the young daughter of Consul Buddenbrook as she came out of the garden gate and up the chestnut-bordered avenue. Perhaps an old market-woman, driving her little cart in from the village, would nod her head in its big flat straw hat with its light green ribbons, and call out "Mornin', little missy!" Or Matthiesen the porter, in his wide knee-breeches, white hose, and buckled shoes, would respect-fully take off his hat as she passed. Tony always waited for her neighbour, little Julie Hagen-strum; the two children went to school together. Julie was a high-shouldered child, with large, staring black eyes, who lived close by in a vine-covered house. Her people had not been long in the neighbourhood. The father, Herr Hagen-str�had married a wife from Hamburg, with thick, heavy black hair and larger diamonds in her ears than any one had ever seen before. Her name was Semlinger. Hagenstr�as partner in the export firm of Strunck and Hagenstr�He showed great zeal and ambition in municipal affairs, and was always acting on boards and committees and administra-tive bodies. But he was not very popular. His marriage had rather affronted the rigid traditions of the older families, like the M�ndorpfs, Langhals, and Buddenbrooks; and, for another thing, he seemed to enjoy thwarting their ideas at every turn--he would go to work in an underhand way to oppose their interests, in order to show his own superior fore-sight and energy. "Heinrich Hagenstrbm makes trouble the whole time," the Consul would say. "He seems to take a per-sonal pleasure in thwarting me. To-day he made a scene at the sitting of the Central Paupers' Deputation; and a few days ago in the Finance Department...." "The old skunk!" Johann Buddenbrook interjected. Another time, father and son sat down to table angry and depressed. What was the matter? Oh, nothing. They had lost a big consignment of rye for Holland: Strunck and Hagenstrom had snapped it up under their noses. He was a fox, Heinrich Hagenstrom. Tony had often heard such remarks, and she was not too well disposed toward Julie Hagenstrom; the two children walked together because they were neighbours, but usually they quarrelled. "My Father owns a thousand thalers, " said Julchen. She thought she was uttering the most terrible falsehood. "How much doe, s yours?" Tony was speechless with envy and humiliation. Then she said, with a quiet, oil-hand manner: "My chocolate tasted delicious this morning. What do you have for breakfast, Julie?" "Before I forget it," Julie would rejoin, "would you like one of my apples? Well, I won't give you any!" She pursed up her lips, and her black eyes watered with satis-faction. Sometimes Julie's brother Hermann went to school at the same time with the two girls. There was another brother too, named Moritz, but he was sickly and did his lessons at home. Hermann was fair-haired and snub-nosed. He breathed through his mouth and was always smacking his lips. "Stuff and nonsense!" he would say. "Papa has a lot more than a thousand thaler." He interested Tony because of the luncheon he took to school: not bread, but a soft sort of 59 lemon bun with currants in it, and sausage or smoked goose between. It seemed to be his favourite luncheon. Tony had never seen anything like it before. Lemon bun, with smoked goose--it must be wonderful! He let her look into his box, and she asked if she might have some. Hermann said: "Not to-day, Tony, because I can't spare any. But to-morrow I'll bring another piece for you, if you'll give me something." Next morning, Tony came out into the avenue, but there was no Julie. She waited five minutes, but there was no sign. Another minute--there came Hermann alone, swinging his lunch-box by the strap and smacking his lips. "Now," he said, "here's a bun, with some goose between--all lean; there's not a bit of fat to it. What will you give me for it?" "A shilling?" suggested Tony. They were standing in the middle of the avenue. "A shilling?" repeated Hermann. Then he gave a gulp and said, "No, I want something else." "What?" demanded Tony; for she was prepared to pay a good price for the dainty. "A kiss!" shouted Hermann Hagenstrbm. He flung his arms around Tony, and began kissing at random, never once touching her face, for she flung her head back with surprising agility, pushed him back with her left hand--it was holding her satchel--against his breast, while with her right hand she dealt him three or four blows in the face with all her strength. He stumbled backward; but at that moment sister Julie appeared from behind a tree, like a little black demon, and, falling upon Tony, tore off her hat and scratched her cheeks unmercifully. After this affair, naturally, the friend-ship was about at an end. It was hardly out of shyness that Tony had refused the kiss. She was on the whole a forward damsel, and had given the Consul no little disquiet with her tomboy ways. She had a good little head, and did as well in the school as one could desire; but her conduct in other ways was far from satisfactory. . Things even went So far that one day the school-mistress, a certain Fr�ein Agathe Vermehren, felt obliged to call upon the Frau Consul, and, flushed with embarrassment, to suggest with all due politeness that the child should receive a paternal admonition. It seemed that Tony, despite frequent correction, had been guilty, not for the first time, of creating a disturbance in the street! There was, of course, no harm in the fact that the child knew everybody in town. The Consul quite approved of this, and argued that it displayed love of one's neighbour, a sense of human fellowship, and a lack of snobbishness. So Tony, on her way through the streets, chattered with all and sundry. She and Tom would clamber about in the granaries un the water-side, among the piles of oats and wheat, prat-tling to the labourers and the clerks in the dark little ground-floor offices; they would even help haul up the sacks of grain. She knew the butchers with their trays and aprons, when she met them in Broad Street; she accosted the dairy women when they came in from the country, and made them take her a little way in their carts. She knew the grey-bearded crafts-men who sat in the narrow goldsmiths' shops built into the arcades in the market square; and she knew the fish-wives, the fruit- and vegetable-women, and the porters that stood on the street corners chewing their tobacco. So far, this was very well. But it was not all. There was a pale, beardless man, of no particular age, who was often seen wandering up and down Broad Street with a wistful smile on his face. This man was so nervous that he jumped every time he heard a sudden noise behind him; and Tony delighted in making him jump every time she set eyes on him. Then there was an odd, tiny little woman with a large head, who put up a huge tattered umbrella at every sign of a storm. Tony would harass this poor soul with cries of "Mushroom!" whenever she had the chance. Moreover, she and two or three more of her ilk would go to the door of a tiny house in an alley off John Street, where there lived an 61 old woman who did a tiny trade in worsted dolls; they would ring the bell and, when the old dame appeared, inquire with deceptive courtesy, if Herr and Frau Spittoon were at home--and then run away screaming with laughter. All these raga-muffinly tricks Tony Buddenbrook was guilty of--indeed, she seemed to perform them with the best conscience in the world. If one of her victims threatened her, she would step back a pace or two, toss her pretty head, pout with her pretty lip, and say "Pooh!" in a half mocking, half angry tone which meant: "Try it if you like. I am Consul Buddenbrook's daughter, if you don't know!" Thus she went about in the town like a little queen; and like a queen, she was kind or cruel to her subjects, as the whim seized her.

CHAPTER III

JEAN JACQUES HDFFSTEDE'S verdict on the two sons of Consul Buddenbrook undoubtedly hit the mark. Thomas had been marked from the cradle as a merchant and future member of the firm. He was on the modern side of the old school which the boys attended; an able, quick-witted, intelligent lad, always ready to laugh when his brother Christian mimicked the masters, which he did with uncanny facility. Christian, on the classical side, was not less gifted than Tom, but he was less serious. His special and particular joy in life was the imitation, in speech and manner, of a cer-tain worthy Marcellus Stengel, who taught drawing, singing, and some other of the lighter branches. This Herr Marcellus Stengel always had a round half-dozen beautifully sharpened pencils sticking out of his pocket. He wore a red wig and a. light brown coat that reached nearly down to his ankles; also a choker collar that came up almost to his temples. HE was quite a wit, and loved to play with verbal distinctions, as: "You were to make a line, my child, and what have you made? You have made a dash!" In singing-class, his favourite lesson was "The Forest Green." When they sang this, some of the pupils would go outside in the corridor; and then, when the chorus rose inside: "We ramble so gaily through field and wood," those outside would repeat the last word very softly, as an echo. Once Christian Buddenbrook, his cousin J�Kr�, and his chum "An-dreas Giesake, the son of the Fire Commissioner, were de-puted as echo; but when the moment came, they threw the coal-scuttle downstairs instead, and were kept in after school by Herr Stengel in consequence. But alas, by that time Herr 63 Stengel had forgotten their crime. He bade his housekeeper give them each a cup of coffee, and then dismissed them. In truth, they were all admirable scholars, the masters who taught in the cloisters of the old school--once a monastic foundation--under the guidance of a kindly, snuff-taking old head. They were, to a man, well-meaning and sweet-humoured; and they were one in the belief that knowledge and good cheer are not mutually exclusive. The Latin classes in the middle forms were heard by a former preacher, one Pastor Shepherd, a tall man with brown whiskers and a twinkling eye, who joyed extremely in the happy coincidence of his name and calling, and missed no chance of having the boys translate the word pastor. His favourite expression was "boundlessly limited"; but it was never quite clear whether this was actually meant for a joke or not! When he wanted to dumbfound his pupils altogether, he would draw in his lips and blow them quickly out again, with a noise like the popping of a champagne cork. He would go up and down with long strides in his class-room, prophesying to one boy or another, with great vividness, the course which his life would take. He did this avowedly with the purpose of stimulating their imaginations; and then he would set to work seriously on the business in hand, which was to repeat certain verses on the rules of gender and difficult constructions. He had composed these verses himself, with no little skill, and took much pride in declaiming them, with great attention to rhyme and rhythm. Thus passed Tom's and Christian's boyhood, with no great events to mark its course. There was sunshine in the Budden-brook family, and in the office everything went famously. Only now and again there would be a sudden storm, a trifling mishap, like the following: Herr Stuht the tailor had made a new suit for each of the Buddenbrook lads. Herr Stuht lived in Bell-Founders' Street. He was a master tailor, and his wife bought and sold old clothes, and thus moved in the best circles of society. Herr Stuht himself had an enormous belly, which hung down over his legs, wrapped in a flannel shirt. The suits he made for the young Masters Buddenbrook were at the combined cost of seventy marks; but at the boys' request he had consented to put them down in the bill at eighty marks and to hand them the difference. It was just a little arrangement among them-selves--not very honourable, indeed, but then, not very un-common either. However, fate was unkind, and the bargain came to light. Herr Stuht was sent for to the Consul's office, whither he came, with a black coat over his woollen shirt, and stood there while the Consul subjected Tom and Christian to a severe cross-examination. His head was bowed and his legs far apart, his manner vastly respectful. He tried to smooth things over as much as he could for the young gentle-men, and said that what was done; was done, and he would be satisfied with the seventy marks. But the Consul was greatly incensed by the trick. He gave it long and serious consideration; yet finally ended by increasing the lads' pocket-money--for was it not written: "Lead us not into temptation?" It seemed probable that more might be expected from Thomas Buddenbrook than from his brother Christian. He was even-tempered, and his high spirits never crossed the bounds of discretion. Christian, on the other hand, was in-clined to be moody: guilty at times of the most extravagant silliness, at others he would be seized by a whim which could terrify the rest of them in the most astonishing way. The family are at table eating dessert and conversing pleas-antly the while. Suddenly Christian turns pale and puts back on his plate the peach into which he has just bitten. His round, deep-set eyes, above the too-large nose, have opened wider. "I will never eat another peach," he says. "Why not, Christian? What nonsense! What's the mat-ter?" "Suppose I accidentally--suppose I swallowed the stone, and it stuck in my throat, so I couldn't breathe, and I jumped 65 up, strangling horribly--and all of you jump up--Ugh...!" and he suddenly gives a short groan, full of horror and affright, starts up in his chair, and acts as if he were trying to escape. The Frau Consul and Ida Jungmann actually do jump up. "Heavens, Christian!--you haven't swallowed it, have you?" For his whole appearance suggests that he has. "No," says Christian slowly. "No"--he is gradually quieting down--"I only mean, suppose I actually had swallowed it!" The Consul has been pale with fright, but he recovers and begins to scold. Old Johann bangs his fist on the table and forbids any more of these idiotic practical jokes. But Chris-tian, for a long, long time, eats no more peaches.