Buddenbrooks

by Thomas Mann

  “So?” her cousins said in unison. They hissed their “so” with a great deal of “s” to make it all the more biting and skeptical.

  Sesame Weichbrodt, however, was much too kind and tactful ever to mention the matter. Tony would visit her former guardian in her little red house, Mühlenbrink 7, still a lively place occupied by a number of young ladies, although the boarding school itself was slowly beginning to go out of fashion; and the energetic old maid was occasionally invited to Meng Strasse for roast venison or stuffed goose. Then, deeply moved, she would stand on her tiptoes and place an expressive kiss on Tony’s brow, making a soft popping sound. Her untutored sister, Madame Kethelsen, however, had recently begun to go rapidly deaf and so had understood almost nothing at all of Tony’s misfortune. At increasingly inopportune moments, she would, out of pure ignorance, wail her loud, hearty laugh, which meant that Sesame was constantly required to rap on the table and cry, “Nally!”

  The years slipped by. The traces of what had befallen Consul Buddenbrook’s daughter grew more and more blurred, both in town and in the family. Tony herself was reminded of her marriage only if now and then some trait in sturdy little Erika’s healthy face would remind her of Bendix Grünlich. But her wardrobe was all bright colors again, she let her hair fall in little curls over her forehead, and she was once again busy with her round of social visits.

  She was quite glad, nonetheless, to seize the opportunity of getting away from town every summer for a while—unfortunately the consul’s health now demanded he take such therapeutic trips.

  “You can’t imagine what it means to grow old,” he said. “I get a coffee stain on my trousers and can’t brush it out with cold water without immediately having a violent attack of rheumatism. And to think of the things I could do when I was young.” He also had occasional dizzy spells.

  They went to Obersalzbrunn, to Ems and Baden-Baden, to Kissingen, and from there they even made a delightful educational trip to Munich by way of Nuremberg, and from there to Ischl and the Salzburg area, then on to Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and finally home. And although Madame Grünlich had recently begun to suffer from a nervous stomach condition that required she take the waters and subject herself to rigorous courses of treatment, she found these trips a very welcome change, because she could not hide the fact that she was a little bored at home.

  “But, good heavens, life is like that after all, Father,” she said, thoughtfully studying the ceiling. “True, I have learned something about life, but that just makes the prospect of sitting around here at home like a silly goose all the more depressing. Although I certainly hope you don’t think I’m not glad to spend time with all of you, Papa—that would be the worst ingratitude, I’d deserve to be horsewhipped. But, after all, life is like that, you know.”

  Her chief and most constant annoyance, however, was the religiosity that pervaded her parents’ spacious house—because with each added year and each new ailment the consul’s pious leanings grew increasingly more fervent, and his wife, too, was developing a taste for such things as she grew older. Grace before meals had always been the custom at the Buddenbrook table; but for some time now the family and servants had been required to assemble in the breakfast room each morning and evening to hear a passage of scripture read by the master of the house. In addition to which, the visits of pastors and missionaries were growing more frequent from year to year. Throughout the universe of Lutheran and Reformed clergy committed to both foreign and home missions, the stately patrician house on Meng Strasse had, for some time now, become known as a safe spiritual harbor—and one where, by the way, the food was excellent. From all quarters of the Fatherland, long-haired gentlemen dressed in black would occasionally drop by for a few days, certain that there would be godly conversation, nourishing meals, and contributions in hard cash to be applied to holy purposes. The preachers in town likewise came and went as friends of the house.

  Tom was much too discreet and prudent to let anyone ever notice his smirks, but Tony was quite open in her mockery, making a point, sad to say, of casting these gentlemen in a ridiculous light whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  On those occasions when Elisabeth was suffering from a migraine, it was Madame Grünlich’s task to look after the household and make up the menu. One day, one of these visiting preachers, whose appetite was a source of general mirth, happened to be a guest in their home, and she maliciously ordered “bacon soup,” a local specialty consisting of broth and sour herbs into which an entire dinner was then dumped: ham, potatoes, prunes, pears, cauliflower, peas, beans, beets, plus a kind of fruit sauce and other ingredients—a dish that no one in the world could enjoy unless he had grown up with it.

  “Do you like it? Do you like it, pastor?” Tony kept asking. “No? Oh, heavens, who would have thought you wouldn’t.” And then she made a downright roguish face, letting the tip of her tongue play along her upper lip the way she always did when she had thought of some clever prank—or carried it out.

  The fat gentleman laid his spoon down in resignation and said, all unsuspecting, “I shall wait for the next course.”

  “Yes, there will be a little dessert,” Elisabeth quickly said, because “a next course” was unthinkable after bacon soup; and, despite a few fritters with apple jelly, the cheated parson had to leave the table still hungry—while Tony sat there giggling to herself and, with amazing self-control, Tom lifted one eyebrow.

  Another time, Tony happened to be standing in the entrance hall speaking with the cook about household matters when the bell rang in the vestibule—Pastor Mathias from Cannstatt, who once again was spending a few days with them, had just returned from his walk. Waddling to the door in her rustic way, Stina let him in, and the pastor asked her affably and condescendingly, “Doest thou love the Master?” Perhaps it was his way of testing her piety, or perhaps he intended to give her a little something for faithfully professing her Saviour.

  “Well, now, Rev’rund,” Stina said hesitantly, blushing and wide-eyed, “which one y’ mean? The old ’un or the young ’un?”

  Madame Grünlich did not miss the chance of telling this story at the dinner table that evening for all to hear, so that even Elisabeth broke into her spluttering Kröger laugh.

  The consul, to be sure, gazed sternly and indignantly at his plate.

  “A slight misunderstanding,” Pastor Mathias said in confusion.

  11

  WHAT NOW FOLLOWS occurred on a Sunday afternoon late in the summer of 1855. The Buddenbrooks were sitting in the landscape room, waiting for the consul, who was still dressing downstairs. They had invited the Kistenmaker family to join them for a leisurely stroll to the public gardens outside the city gates—everyone was going, except Clara and Klothilde, who went to a friend’s house each Sunday afternoon to knit stockings for little black children. They planned to have coffee and perhaps, if weather permitted, to go for a row on the river.

  “Papa can drive a person to tears,” Tony said, choosing strong words as was her habit. “Why can’t he ever be ready on time for things? He sits there at his desk, and sits, and sits, he simply must finish this or that. Good Lord, perhaps it really is necessary, I’m not saying it isn’t—although I doubt we would have to declare bankruptcy if he would lay down his pen fifteen minutes sooner. Fine, and then, when he’s already ten minutes late, he remembers what he’s promised and comes bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time, although he knows that it causes him heart congestion and palpitations. It’s the same for every party, every time we go out. Can’t he remember to leave himself some time? Can’t he break off work when he’s supposed to and then walk slowly up the stairs? It’s quite irresponsible of him. I would give my husband a serious talking-to, Mama.”

  Dressed in shimmering silk, which was all the rage, Tony was sitting on the sofa beside her mother, who was wearing a gown of heavy gray ribbed silk, trimmed with black lace. She was also wearing a bonnet of lace and starched tulle, with lappets that fell down o
ver her chest and a satin bow that tied under her chin. Her hair was parted and pulled back smooth—and it was the same reddish blonde as always. She was holding a reticule in her white hands lined with delicate blue veins. Next to her, Tom was leaning back in his easy chair, smoking a cigarette; Clara and Thilda sat facing one another on the window seat. It was incredible that, although poor Klothilde partook daily of large quantities of strong nourishment, it was all to no avail. She was growing skinnier and skinnier, and even her totally shapeless black dress could not hide that fact. In the center of her silent, gray face, right below the line of the part in her smoothed-back, ashen hair, sat a straight nose, which had large pores and ended in a little bulb.

  “It’s surely going to rain, don’t you think,” Clara asked. The young lady had the habit of never lifting her voice at the end of a question, and now she gazed directly at each of them with a determined and rather stern look. A little white starched turndown collar and cuffs were the only trim on her brown dress. She sat very erect, her hands folded in her lap. She was the person the servants feared the most, and of late she had been leading morning and evening services, because the consul could no longer read aloud without getting a headache.

  “Are you taking your new bashlyk along for this evening, Tony!” she asked as her second question. “It’s going to rain. What a shame—it will be ruined. I think it would be better if you put off your walk.”

  “No,” Tom replied. “The Kistenmakers are coming. It doesn’t matter. The barometer fell much too quickly—there’ll be a sudden shower, a little downpour, it won’t last long. Papa isn’t ready yet. Which is fine—we can wait until it passes.”

  His mother raised her hand in protest. “You don’t think we’ll have a thunderstorm, do you, Tom? Oh, you know how they frighten me.”

  “No,” Tom said. “I was speaking with Captain Kloot down at the docks this morning. He’s never wrong. There’ll just be a quick downpour—not even a strong wind.”

  The dog days had come late—it was already the second week in September—and summer lay over the city more oppressively than in July. The wind came from the south-southwest, and a strange, deep blue sky shimmered above the gables, but faded toward the horizon, as if this were the desert. After sundown the houses and sidewalks were like ovens, radiating heat in the narrow, stuffy streets. But today the wind had shifted around to the west, and simultaneously the barometer had plummeted. Much of the sky was still blue, but a bank of leaden clouds, thick and soft as pillows, was slowly approaching.

  Tom added, “It would certainly be a good thing if it did rain. We’ll swelter if we have to march off in this heat—it’s quite unnatural. I never saw anything like it in Pau.”

  At that moment Ida Jungmann entered the room, holding little Erika by the hand. The child looked very droll somehow in her freshly starched cotton frock, and she gave off an odor of starch and soap. She had Herr Grünlich’s rosy face and eyes; but her upper lip was all Tony’s.

  Kindly Ida’s hair was quite gray now, almost white, although she was barely over forty. But it was in the family—even the uncle who had died of hiccups had had white hair at thirty. But her little brown eyes were as loyal, bright, and alert as ever. She had been with the Buddenbrooks for twenty years now and was proud of how indispensable she was. She supervised the kitchen, the pantry, the china and linen cupboards, she did the important shopping, she read aloud to little Erika, made clothes for her dolls, helped her with her homework, and every noon, armed with a sandwich made with French bread, she met her at school so that they could walk along the Mühlenwall. Every lady in town said, either to Elisabeth Buddenbrook or to her daughter: “What a treasure your Mamselle Jungmann is, my dear. Heavens, she’s worth her weight in gold, let me tell you. Twenty years—and she’ll be hale and hearty at sixty or more, these raw-boned types always are. And then those loyal eyes. I envy you, my dear.” And Ida Jungmann had her self-respect, too. She knew who she was, and if some ordinary servant girl sat down with her ward on the same bench with her along the Mühlenwall and started a conversation as if they were equals, Mamselle Jungmann would say, “Erika dear, I feel a draft,” and depart.

  Tony pulled her little daughter to her and kissed her on one of her rosy cheeks, and Elisabeth reached out to her with an upturned palm and a preoccupied smile—she was watching the sky, as it turned darker and darker. Her left hand played nervously with the sofa pillows, and her pale eyes drifted uneasily to the window.

  Erika was permitted to sit next to her grandmother, and Ida took a seat on an armchair, without touching her back to it, and began to crochet. They sat a while in silence and waited for the consul. The air was stuffy. The last swatch of blue had vanished, and the dark-gray sky dipped low, swollen and heavy. The colors in the room, the hues in the landscapes of the wall coverings, the yellow of the furniture and curtains, were dulled now; the subtle shades in Tony’s dress no longer shimmered—even eyes had lost their brightness. And the wind, the west wind, which had been playing in the trees in St. Mary’s Cemetery and driving the dust in little whirlwinds along the dark streets, no longer stirred. For one brief moment everything was completely still.

  Then suddenly something happened—a soundless, terrifying something. It felt as if the humidity had doubled; in less than a second the atmospheric pressure rose rapidly, alarmingly, oppressing heart and brain and making breathing difficult. A swallow fluttered so low over the street that its wings seemed to brush the cobblestones. And this knot of pressure, this tension, this growing constriction of the body would have been unbearable if it had lasted a split second longer, if the shift, the release had not followed, a break that liberated them, an inaudible crack somewhere—though they all thought they had heard it. And at that same moment, the rain was falling in sheets, almost as if not a single drop had preceded it, and water gushed and foamed in the gutters, lapping up over the sidewalks.

  Thomas’s illness had made him accustomed to watching closely the signals of his nerves, and during that strange moment he bent over, tossed his cigarette away, and brushed his head with his hand. He looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed or felt what he had. He thought perhaps his mother had sensed something, but the others seemed not to have been aware of anything.

  Elisabeth looked out into the veil of rain that completely hid St. Mary’s now and sighed, “Thank God.”

  “Well, now,” Tom said, “things will cool down in two minutes. But the trees will still be dripping wet—we can drink coffee on the veranda. Open the window, Thilda.”

  The sound of rain thrust its way into the room. It was a downright racket—it dashed, splashed, babbled, and foamed. The wind had picked up again and played merrily among the heavy curtains of water, ripped them open, and shoved them about. It grew cooler by the minute.

  Then Lina, their maid Lina, came running down along the columned hall and burst into the room so violently that Ida Jungmann tried to calm her down by crying reproachfully, “Good heavens, I must say!”

  Lina’s expressionless blue eyes stared wide and her jaws worked a while without making a sound. “Oh, Madame Buddenbrook, oh no. You gotta come quick. Oh, good God, no, I’ve taken such a fright!”

  “Oh, fine,” Tony said, “now what has she smashed to smithereens? It’s probably some of the good china. I mean, Mama, your household help …”

  But, frightened as she was, the girl blurted it out, “Oh no, Madame Grünlich, ma’am. If only it was that. But it’s the master. I was bringin’ him his boots, and there sits Herr Buddenbrook, sittin’ up in his chair, and he can’t talk but jist keeps gulpin’ away, and I don’t think Herr Buddenbrook’s doin’ so good, ’cause he’s jist too yella in the face.”

  “Get Grabow!” Thomas shouted and pushed his way out the door.

  “My God! Oh my God!” Elisabeth cried, pressing her hands to her face and dashing out.

  “Get Grabow, send a carriage, at once!” Thomas repeated breathlessly.

  They all flew down the
stairs, through the breakfast room, into the bedroom.

  But Johann Buddenbrook was already dead.

  PART FIVE

  1

  GOOD EVENING, Justus,” Elisabeth Buddenbrook said. “How are you? Please, have a seat.”

  Consul Kröger gave her a hasty, tender embrace and shook the hand of his oldest niece, who also happened to be in the dining room. He was about fifty-five years old and now sported, in addition to his little mustache, a set of heavy, bushy whiskers that left his chin bare. Sparse strands of hair had been carefully combed across his broad, pink bald head. The sleeve of his elegant frock coat was trimmed with a wide band of mourning crape.

  “Have you heard the latest, Bethsy?” he asked. “Yes, Tony, this would interest you especially. To put it briefly, the property outside the Burg Gate has been sold. To whom? Well, not to just one person, but to two. It will be divided, the house torn down, then the lot split by a fence, and Benthien the clothier will build his doghouse on the right and Sörenson his on the left. Well, it’s in God’s hands.”

  “How outrageous,” Frau Grünlich said, folding her hands in her lap and gazing at the ceiling. “Grandfather’s lot. Well, that certainly makes a botch of the property. The charm was in the extensive grounds—far too extensive, of course, but that was what made it so elegant. The large gardens stretching down to the Trave, and the house set back from the road, and the driveway bordered with chestnuts. So it’s to be divided. Fine. Benthien will stand at his front door, smoking his pipe, and Sörenson at his. Yes, I agree with you, Uncle Justus, it’s in God’s hands. There’s probably no one elegant enough to occupy the whole property. It’s a good thing that Grandpapa never lived to see it.”