Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

by Thomas Mann

  She kissed him, and she looked up at him, and in her eyes, still red from weeping, was something close to shame. But he was not cross, said nothing whatever about it. He only remarked, “It’s late, but we’ve kept second breakfast waiting for you.”

  Elisabeth, Christian, Klothilde, Clara, and Ida Jungmann were standing together on the landing to greet her.

  TONY SLEPT long and hard that first night on Meng Strasse, and the next morning, September 22, she came down to the breakfast room refreshed and relaxed—it had just struck seven. Only Mamselle Jungmann was already up, making coffee for breakfast.

  “My, my, Tony dear,” she said, turning around, her small brown eyes still puffy with sleep. “Up so early?”

  Tony sat down at the secretary—its top was rolled back; she clasped her hands behind her head and stared for a while out into the courtyard, its black cobblestones glistening with rain, and at the damp garden, its green turned to yellow now. Then she began to rummage through the visiting cards and correspondence on the secretary.

  Right next to the inkwell lay the familiar large gilt-edged notebook with its embossed cover and pages of various kinds of paper. There must have been some need for it yesterday evening, but the strange thing was that Papa had not slipped it into its leather case as usual and locked it in its special drawer.

  She picked it up, started paging through, and soon found herself absorbed in reading. The entries she read were mostly simple matters that she knew well; yet each writer had picked up where his predecessor had left off, instinctively adopting the same stately, unexaggerated chronicle style, which in its very discretion spoke all the more nobly of a family’s respect for itself, its traditions and history. This was nothing new to Tony; she had been allowed to study these pages several times before. But the contents had never made an impression on her the way they did this morning. The reverent importance given to even the most modest events pertaining to the family’s history was inspiring. Propping her elbows on the secretary, she read with growing enthusiasm, with pride and high seriousness.

  No event had been omitted from even her own brief past: her birth, her childhood illnesses, her first day of school, her enrollment in Mademoiselle Weichbrodt’s boarding school, her confirmation. All of it had been entered in the consul’s small, hurried commercial hand, with an almost religious respect for facts—for was not even the most insignificant event the will and work of God, who wonderfully guided the destinies of this family? And what else might be recorded here after her own name, given to her in honor of her grandmother Antoinette? Future members of the family would bring to the task the same piety with which she now followed past events.

  She leaned back with a sigh, her heart pounding solemnly. She felt in awe of herself; the old, familiar feeling of her personal importance coursed through her, but heightened now by the spirit of what she had just read—she almost shuddered at the thrill. “Links in a chain,” Papa had written. Yes, yes! And as a link in that chain, she had a higher, more responsible importance—she was called to help shape, by deeds and personal resolve, the history of her family.

  She paged back to the end of the large notebook, where on a coarse folio page the whole genealogy of the Buddenbrooks was recapitulated in the consul’s hand—with parentheses, rubrics, and clearly recorded dates: from the marriage of their earliest ancestor to Brigitta Schuren, a pastor’s daughter, to the wedding of Consul Johann Buddenbrook and Elisabeth Kröger in 1825. From this marriage, it noted, had sprung four children, each listed, one below the other, by his or her baptismal name, with year and day of birth. There was already an entry after the name of the elder of the sons, stating that he had become an apprentice in the family business at Easter, 1842.

  Tony gazed for a long time at her own name and the open space after it. And then, suddenly, she flinched and swallowed hard, her whole face a play of nervous, eager movement, her lips quickly touching for just a moment—and now she grabbed the pen, plunged rather than dipped it into the inkwell, and, crooking her index finger and laying her flushed head on her shoulder, wrote in her own clumsy hand, slanting upward from left to right: “Engaged on 22 September 1845 to Herr Bendix Grünlich, merchant from Hamburg.”

  14

  I SHARE YOUR OPINION completely, my good friend. It is an important question and one that must be resolved. To be brief: the traditional cash dowry for a young woman from our family is seventy thousand marks.”

  Herr Grünlich cast his future father-in-law the brief, sidelong glance of a shrewd businessman. “Indeed,” he said—and that “indeed” lasted as long as it took for his fingers to glide thoughtfully down his left golden muttonchop. He let go of its tip at the exact moment the “indeed” came to an end. “Dear Father,” he continued, “you know, I’m sure, the deep respect in which I hold time-honored traditions and principles. But in the present case, is not this fine regard for tradition somewhat exaggerated? A firm grows, a family prospers; in short, conditions change and improve.”

  “My good friend,” the consul said, “you see in me a fair-dealing man of business. Good heavens, you didn’t even allow me to finish what I was about to say, otherwise you would have known that I am quite ready and willing to oblige you as present circumstances allow and will add another ten thousand to the seventy without further ado.”

  “Eighty thousand, then,” Herr Grünlich said; and his mouth moved as if to say, “Not all that much, but it will do.”

  They came to a most amiable agreement, and as he stood up the consul contentedly jiggled the heavy bundle of keys in his trouser pocket. Only after raising the sum to eighty thousand had he in fact matched the “traditional cash dowry.”

  And now Herr Grünlich took his leave and departed for Hamburg. Tony was aware of little change in her daily life. No one objected to her dancing at the Möllendorpfs’, Langhalses’, or Kistenmakers’, or in her own home; no one prevented her from ice-skating on Castle yard or in the bottoms down by the Trave, or from receiving the compliments of young men. In the middle of October she was invited to attend the party given by the Möllendorpfs in honor of the engagement of their eldest son to Julie Hagenström. “Tom,” she said, “I’m not going. It’s so disgusting.” But she went anyway and had a wonderful time.

  And besides, the stroke of her pen that added to the family’s history had brought with it permission to go with her mother, or alone, to all the shops in town and place orders in grand style for her trousseau—an elegant trousseau. For days on end, two seamstresses sat beside the breakfast-room window, hemming, embroidering monograms, and eating lots of country bread and green cheese.

  “Has the linen come from Lentföhr, Mama?”

  “No, my child, but here are two dozen tea napkins.”

  “That’s nice. But he did promise to send it by this afternoon. Good heavens, the sheets have to be hemmed.”

  “Mamselle Bitterlich was asking about the lace for trimming the pillowcases, Ida.”

  “In the linen cupboard in the entrance hall, dearest Tony.”

  “Lina!”

  “You could jump up and fetch them yourself, sweetheart.”

  “O Lord, if I’m getting married just so I can run up and down stairs …”

  “Have you thought yet about the fabric for your wedding dress, Tony?”

  “Moiré antique, Mama! I’ll not get married unless it’s moiré antique.”

  And so October passed, and November, too. Herr Grünlich appeared at holiday time to spend Christmas Eve with the Buddenbrook family, and he didn’t turn down the invitation to join the celebration at the old Krögers’, either. His behavior toward his bride was characterized by all the delicacy they had correctly expected of him. No overblown courtliness, no social embarrassment, no tactless displays of affection. Their engagement had been sealed in the presence of Tony’s parents by the discreet kiss he had dabbed against her brow. At times Tony found it astonishing how little his present happiness seemed to correspond to the despair he had exhibited as long as she
had refused him. He regarded her with little more than the air of a satisfied owner. Now and then, to be sure, if he happened to be alone with her, his mood could change and he would tease and joke with her, might even try to pull her onto his knee and brush his whiskers against her face, asking in a quivering, jolly voice, “Have I really nabbed you? Have I really managed to catch you?” And then Tony would reply, “Good Lord, you’re forgetting yourself, sir!” and cleverly extricate herself.

  Herr Grünlich returned to Hamburg shortly after Christmas, because his flourishing business was unrelenting in its demands on his personal attention; and the Buddenbrooks silently agreed with him that Tony had had sufficient time to make his acquaintance before their engagement.

  The question of where they would live was settled in an exchange of letters. Tony was so looking forward to life in a big city and had expressed her desire to live in the heart of Hamburg—where Herr Grünlich’s office also happened to be located, on Spitaler Strasse. By sheer manly persistence, however, the bridegroom managed to obtain permission to purchase a villa on the outskirts of town, in Eimsbüttel—a romantic and secluded spot, an idyllic little nest so perfect for newlyweds, procul negotiis, far from business. No, he really had not entirely forgotten his Latin.

  December passed, and then, early in January of ’46, the wedding took place. There was a splendid party on the eve of the wedding, to which half the town was invited. Tony’s friends—including Armgard von Schilling, who had arrived in town in a towering carriage—joined Tom’s and Christian’s friends—including Andreas Gieseke, the son of the fire chief, now studiosus iuris, as well as Stephan and Eduard Kistenmaker of Kistenmaker & Sons—and they all danced together in the dining room and out in the corridor, both of which had been strewn with talcum for the occasion. Peter Döhlmann was the life of the party when it came to breaking crockery for good luck, and he smashed every piece of pottery he could get his hands on against the flagstones in the passageway.

  Frau Stuht from Glockengiesser Strasse had yet another opportunity to move in the best social circles when she joined Mamselle Jungmann and the seamstress in helping Tony dress for her wedding. She had, God strike her, never seen a more beautiful bride, and, fat as she was, she got down on her knees to tack the little sprays of myrtle to the moiré antique, all the while gazing up at Tony with admiring eyes. This was done in the breakfast room. Herr Grünlich waited in his long-tailed coat and silk vest outside the door. His pink face displayed a serious and correct expression; a little powder was visible on the wart at the left side of his nose, and his tawny, golden whiskers had been painstakingly curled.

  The family had gathered upstairs in the columned hall, where the ceremony was to take place—and a handsome group they were. There sat the old Krögers, getting a little frail now, but distinguished personages as always. There was Consul Kröger and his sons, Jürgen and Jakob, who had come from Hamburg, as had the Duchamps relatives. There was Gotthold Buddenbrook and his wife, née Stüwing, with Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi, all three of whom were unlikely to marry now, sad to say. The Mecklenburg branch of the family was represented by Klothilde’s father, Herr Bernhardt Buddenbrook, who had come all the way from Grudging and stared wide-eyed at the unbelievably splendid home of his rich relatives. The Frankfurt side of the family had merely sent gifts—the trip really was too long and difficult. But in their place were two other guests, the only ones who were not members of the family: Dr. Grabow, their physician, and Mamselle Weichbrodt, who was like a mother to Tony. Sesame Weichbrodt appeared in her black dress, but on her bonnet were brand-new green ribbons draping the curls at her ears. When Tony appeared in the columned hall at Herr Grünlich’s side, Sesame stretched herself as tall as she could and kissed the bride’s brow with a little popping sound, exclaiming, “Be heppy, you good chawld!” The family was proud of the bride; Tony looked pretty, cheerful, and quite at ease, though a little pale with curiosity and the excitement of the journey ahead.

  The hall was decorated with flowers, and an altar had been set up on the right side. Pastor Kölling from St. Mary’s performed the ceremony and sternly and specifically admonished temperance in all things. Everything went as custom demanded. Tony managed a naïve and goodhearted “I do,” whereas Herr Grünlich first said “huh-uh-hmm” to clear his throat. Then followed an extraordinarily good and hearty meal.

  While the guests, with the pastor as the focal point, were still eating upstairs, the consul and his wife accompanied the young couple, who had dressed now for their journey, out into the cold air, misty with snow. The great coach, packed full with trunks and bags, pulled up to the door.

  After Tony had repeated several times her conviction that she would return home for a visit very soon and that her parents would not be long in making a trip to Hamburg, either, she climbed blithely into the coach and let her mother carefully tuck the warm fur blanket around her. Her husband took his seat as well.

  “And, Grünlich,” the consul said, “those new laces are in the little handbag on top? You’ll slip them under your overcoat just before Hamburg, won’t you? These customs taxes—one must try to avoid them whenever one can. Farewell. Farewell, my dear Tony. God be with you.”

  “You will find rooms in a good inn in Ahrensburg, won’t you?” Elisabeth asked.

  “Already reserved, dear Mama, already reserved,” Herr Grünlich replied.

  Anton, Lina, Trina, and Sophie said their goodbyes to “Madam Grünlich.”

  They were just about to slam the coach door shut when Tony suddenly decided to make an unexpected move. Despite all the trouble it caused, she unwound herself out of the fur blanket again, scrambled ruthlessly over Herr Grünlich’s knees, amid his mumbled protests, and gave her father an impassioned hug.

  “Adieu, Papa. My good Papa.” And she whispered very softly, “Are you proud of me?”

  The consul pressed her tight against him for a moment, not saying a word, then pushed her back just a little and shook both her hands, giving them an affectionate squeeze.

  And now everything was ready. The door slammed shut, the driver cracked his whip, and the horses pulled so hard at their reins that the windowpanes rattled. Elisabeth let her little batiste handkerchief flutter in the wind until the coach began to disappear into the snowy mist as it rumbled off down the street.

  The consul stood lost in thought beside his wife, who gave her fur cape a graceful tug, pulling it more tightly around her shoulders.

  “There she goes, Bethsy.”

  “Yes, Jean, the first to leave us. Do you think she’ll be happy with him?”

  “Ah, Bethsy, she is at peace with herself, and that is the most solid kind of happiness we can ever achieve on earth.”

  They returned to their guests.

  15

  THOMAS BUDDENBROOK walked down Meng Strasse as far as “Five Houses.” He avoided going around by way of Breite Strasse, because he didn’t want to be constantly tipping his hat to all the acquaintances he would have to greet. With both hands in the wide pockets of his warm, dark gray overcoat, he walked along, deep in thought, and the hard crystalline crust of the snow sparkled and crunched under his boots. Where he was going and why, was something no one else knew anything about. The sky was a cold, bright blue, and the air had a sharp, crisp bite to it, twenty degrees—still, clear, wintry weather, a perfect February day.

  Thomas walked past Five Houses, crossed Becker Grube, and entered a narrow alley that came out onto Fischer Grube, which ran steeply downhill to the Trave, parallel to Meng Strasse. He followed it a short distance before stopping at a small house—a flower shop with a narrow door and a window decorated with a few meager pots of lilies arranged in a row on a shelf of green glass.

  He entered, and the brass bell above the door yelped like a vigilant puppy. Inside, the young salesgirl was standing at the counter talking to a small, fat elderly woman in a Turkish shawl, who was trying to make a selection from among some pots of flowers—examining each closely, smelling it, f
inding something wrong, chattering away, and all the while constantly wiping her mouth with her handkerchief. Thomas Buddenbrook greeted her politely and stepped aside. She was a poor relation of the Langhalses, a kindly, talkative old maid who, although she bore the name of one of the finer families, did not belong to their social circle, who was invited for coffee but never to the great banquets and balls, and who was known to all the world, with few exceptions, as “Aunt Lottie.” As she turned toward the door with her flowerpot now wrapped in tissue paper under her arm, Thomas greeted her a second time and said to the salesgirl in a loud voice, “Give me a few roses, please. No, it doesn’t matter what kind, La France is fine.”

  Then, when Aunt Lottie had closed the door behind her and vanished, he said more softly, “You can put those away now, Anna. Hello, my little Anna. Yes, here I am, but I’ve come with a heavy heart today.”

  Anna was wearing a white apron over her simple black dress. She was extraordinarily pretty and as delicate as a gazelle. Her face had something almost Malaysian about it: slightly prominent cheekbones, narrow black eyes that shimmered gently, and a smooth lemony complexion that one would look far and wide to find anywhere. Her small hands were that same lemony color—remarkably beautiful hands for a salesgirl.

  She walked around the right end of the counter, back to the part of the shop that couldn’t be seen from the window. Thomas followed her behind the counter, bent down, and kissed her lips and eyes.

  “You’re frozen through, poor thing,” she said.

  “Twenty degrees,” Tom said. “I didn’t even notice—it was a rather sad walk here today.”

  He sat down on the counter, holding her hand in his, and went on: “Now, listen to me, Anna. We’re going to be sensible, aren’t we? The day is here.”

  “O Lord,” she said miserably, so forlorn and fearful that she lifted her apron to her eyes.