Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

by Thomas Mann

  Dear Mother, I shall now conclude this letter, which has grown much too long, given the fact that we shall be able to speak of my good fortune within a few days. I wish you a pleasant and refreshing stay at the shore and beg you to extend my warmest greetings to our entire family.

  Your loving and obedient son,

  T.

  8

  AND, INDEED, it was a busy, festive summer for the Buddenbrook household that year.

  Thomas was back on Meng Strasse by the end of July, but, like other gentlemen whose business kept them in town, he visited his family at the shore several times. Christian, however, had decided he needed a full vacation and complained of a vague pain in his left leg, which Dr. Grabow had no idea how to treat, giving Christian cause to describe his symptoms in that much greater detail.

  “It isn’t a pain, you can’t really call it that,” he struggled to explain, rubbing his hand up and down his leg, wrinkling his nose, and letting his eyes roam about. “It’s an ache, a constant, faint, unsettling ache along the whole leg, and up my left side, the side where the heart is. Strange, I do find it strange. What’s your opinion, Tom?”

  “Yes, yes,” Tom said, “but you can relax here and swim in the sea.”

  And then Christian would walk down to join the others gathered on the shore and tell stories until the whole beach echoed with laughter, or he would go play roulette in the grand salon with Peter Döhlmann, Uncle Justus, Dr. Gieseke, and several suitiers from Hamburg.

  And, as always when they were in Travemünde, Consul Buddenbrook joined Tony for a visit with the old Schwarzkopfs on Front Row. “ ’nd a good day to you, Madame Grünlich,” the harbor pilot said, so delighted he went right on speaking Plattdeutsch. “So you’re still acomin’ to the shore? Been a dreadful long time now, but those were damn nice days back then. And our Morten’s a doctor in Breslau now, too, and has built hisself a fine practice, the scamp has.” Then Frau Schwarzkopf bustled about and made coffee, and they had an evening snack on the porch just as in the old days—except that they were all a good ten years older now and that Morten was not there, nor little Meta, who had married the chief magistrate of the town of Haffkrug; except that the pilot, rather deaf and very white-haired now, had retired; except that the hair in his wife’s hairnet was all gray, too; except that Madame Grünlich was no longer a silly goose, but had learned something about life—which did not prevent her from helping herself to the honeycomb and remarking, “That’s a pure product of nature. You know what you’re eating there.”

  In early August, however, the Buddenbrooks returned to town, as did most of the other families; and then came the great moment when, almost simultaneously, Pastor Tiburtius arrived from Russia and the Arnoldsens from Holland to begin their extended visits on Meng Strasse.

  It was a very beautiful scene when for the first time the consul led his fiancée into the landscape room to meet his mother, who rose and greeted her with outstretched arms, her head laid to one side. Gerda, who strode across the pastel carpet with an easy, proud charm, was tall and full-figured. With her heavy chestnut hair, close-set brown eyes amid delicate bluish shadows, and broad shiny teeth that dazzled when she smiled, with her strong, straight nose and a mouth of truly noble shape, she was, at age twenty-seven, a woman of elegant, exotic, enthralling, and enigmatic beauty. Her face was soft and white, its expression a little arrogant; but she bent her head down nevertheless when Madame Buddenbrook took it between both hands with gentle affection and kissed her unblemished, snow-white brow. “Yes, welcome to our house and to our family, as our dear, beautiful, blessed daughter,” she said. “You will make him very happy. I can see already that you have made him happy, can I not?” And with her right hand she pulled Tom to her to give him a kiss as well.

  Never, or at best perhaps in their grandfather’s day, had such a gathering of good cheer filled the large house, which had more than enough room for them all. Only Pastor Tiburtius had, in his modesty, chosen a room off the billiard room in the back building; the others distributed themselves among unoccupied rooms on the ground floor, or off the columned hall, or upstairs on the second floor: lovely Gerda; Herr Arnoldsen, an agile, witty man in his late fifties, with a gray goatee and genial vigor in every movement; his elder daughter, a lady who did not look to be in the best of health; his son-in-law, an elegant man of the world who had Christian introduce him to the town and the Club.

  Antonie Grünlich was happy—more than happy—that at present Sievert Tiburtius was the only clergyman in her parental home. Her beloved brother’s engagement, the fact that of all people it was her friend Gerda who had been chosen, the brilliant match itself, which would bring new radiance to the family name and the firm, the three hundred thousand marks courant she had heard rumored as the dowry, the notion of what the town and other families, in particular the Hagenströms, would say—it all contributed to keep her in a state of constant delight. At least three times an hour she would give her future sister-in-law an enthusiastic hug.

  “Oh, Gerda,” she cried, “I love you, you know. I’ve always loved you. I know, of course, that you can’t stand me. You’ve always hated me, but …”

  “Oh, please, Tony,” Fräulein Arnoldsen said, “what would ever have caused me to hate you, might I ask? What awful thing did you ever do to me?”

  But for some reason, whether it was from an excess of delight or the pure love of hearing herself talk, Tony stubbornly insisted that Gerda had always hated her, whereas she, for her part—and her eyes would fill with tears—had always repaid that hate with love.

  She also took Thomas aside and said to him, “You’ve done well, Tom—good Lord, how well you’ve done. To think that Father never lived to see it—it simply makes me want to weep, you know. Yes, this truly makes up for a great many things. And not least for our trouble with that person whose name I do not gladly let pass these lips.” And then it occurred to her to pull Gerda into an empty room and tell her everything, down to the most dreadful detail, about her marriage to Bendix Grünlich. She also chatted long hours away recalling their days together at boarding school, their bedtime conversations, Armgard von Schilling in Mecklenburg, and Eva Ewers in Munich. She showed almost no interest at all in Sievert Tiburtius and his engagement to Clara; but that was not something to which the two of them aspired. Most of the time they sat quietly holding hands and speaking softly and earnestly about the beautiful future before them.

  Since the Buddenbrooks’ year of mourning was not yet over, the two engagements were celebrated only within the family. Gerda Arnoldsen’s fame spread quickly through the town nonetheless—indeed, she was the main topic of conversation on the exchange, at the Club, in the theater, in society in general. “Tip-top,” the suitiers remarked, clicking their tongues—this was the latest term from Hamburg for something exquisite, be it a red wine, a cigar, a dinner, or a business coup. But among the solid, honest, and respectable citizens were many who shook their heads and said, “Peculiar, the way she dresses, and her hair, her posture, that face. Really a bit too peculiar.” Sörenson the merchant put it this way: “There’s a certain something about her …” and he turned his head to one side and made a face, as if someone were proposing a shady deal on the exchange. But it was just like Consul Buddenbrook—he was a little pretentious, Thomas Buddenbrook was, a little … different. Different from his forebears. Everyone knew, and Benthien the clothier in particular knew, that not only his fine and fashionable clothes—and he had an extraordinary wardrobe: overcoats, jackets, hats, vests, trousers, and cravats—came from Hamburg, but his underwear as well. It was said that he changed his shirt every day, sometimes twice a day, and that he perfumed his handkerchief and even his mustache, trimmed à la Napoleon III. And it was all done, not for the sake of the greater renown of the firm—the house of Johann Buddenbrook had no need of that—but out of a personal propensity for things refined and aristocratic, or whatever the devil you called all that. And then the way he would slip in those quotes from Heine an
d other poets, even when talking about the most practical matters, about business or civic issues. And now this woman for a wife. No, there was even “a certain something about him,” about Consul Buddenbrook. Of course, this was said with all due respect, because the family enjoyed the best of reputations, and the firm the finest credit; and the head of the firm was an able and charming man, who loved his town and would serve it most admirably as time went on. Certainly, it was a damn fine match; word had it that it came to one hundred thousand thalers courant … but all the same. And among the ladies were several who found Gerda Arnoldsen simply “silly”—a word, it will be recalled, that implied very severe condemnation.

  The one person, however, who worshipped Thomas Buddenbrook’s fiancée with a fierce passion from the first moment he saw her on the street was Gosch the broker. “Ah!” he would exclaim at the Club or at the Seaman’s Guild, lifting his glass of punch and screwing his crafty, villainous face into a horrible grimace. “What a woman, gentlemen. Hera and Aphrodite, Brunhilda and Melusina all wrapped up in one.” And then he would abruptly add, “Ah, life is truly beautiful!” and stare up at the model sailboats and huge fish hanging from the ceiling of the old guild hall. And none of the good citizens sitting near him on the heavy, carved wooden benches, drinking their pints, understood what the advent of a Gerda Arnoldsen meant in the modest life of Gosch the broker, who longed for extraordinary events.

  Since, as noted, they were under no obligation to celebrate in any grand style, the little group gathered on Meng Strasse had that much more time to become better acquainted. With Clara’s hand in his, Sievert Tiburtius talked about his parents, his youth, and his plans for the future; the Arnoldsens told about the history of their family, which had originated in Dresden and only one branch of which had been transplanted to Holland. And then Madame Grünlich demanded the key to the secretary in the landscape room, and with a very serious face she returned bearing the writing case with the family papers, in which Thomas had already entered the most recent events. With great dignity she told the history of the Buddenbrooks, beginning with the merchant tailor from Rostock who had done very well. She read old festive poems:

  Simplest beauty, ablest talent,

  Grace your children, and we view

  Foam-born Venus and her gallant

  Vulcan wed in love anew.

  And she winked at Tom and Gerda and let her tongue play along her upper lip. Nor, out of respect for history, did she omit the incursion made on the family by a personage whose name she did not gladly let pass her lips.

  The usual guests, however, appeared on Thursday at four o’clock. Justus Kröger and his weak-willed wife came. They continued to live very much at odds, because she was still supporting her spoiled and disinherited son, Jakob, in America with money she saved from her household allowance—and served her husband almost nothing but buckwheat porridge. There was nothing anyone could do. The Ladies Buddenbrook from Breite Strasse arrived, and their love of truth demanded that they point out that Erika Grünlich had still not grown, that she looked more and more like her swindler father, and that there was something rather showy about the way the consul’s future bride did her hair. And even Sesame Weichbrodt came—who stood on her tiptoes, kissed Gerda’s brow with a soft popping sound, and said with deep emotion, “Be heppy, you good chawld!”

  At dinner Herr Arnoldsen gave one of his very witty toasts in honor of the two engaged couples, and later, as they drank coffee, he played the violin like a gypsy, with savage passion and dexterity. Even Gerda got out her Stradivarius—she never traveled without it—and added her own sweet cantilena above his solo; they played flamboyant duets, standing together beside the harmonium in the landscape room, where once the consul’s grandfather had piped little graceful melodies on his flute.

  “How sublime,” Tony said, leaning far back in her easy chair. “O Lord, I find it simply sublime.” And with her eyes gazing heavenward, she gave fervent expression to her honest emotions, and earnestly, slowly, weightily, she said, “No, no, you all know how it is in life. Not everyone is granted such a talent. Heaven denied me such a gift, you see, although many a night I pled for it. I’m a goose, a silly goose. Yes, Gerda, let me tell you—I’m older than you and have learned something of life. You should fall to your knees daily and thank your Creator that in His grace He has imbrued you with such gifts.”

  “Imbued,” Gerda said with a smile, displaying her lovely, white, broad teeth.

  Later, they gathered together to eat sabayon and deliberate what all had to be done in the near future. It was decided that, at the end of the month or in early September, both Sievert Tiburtius and the Arnoldsens would return home. Clara’s wedding would be a grand affair celebrated in the columned hall shortly after Christmas, whereas the nuptials in Amsterdam, which Madame Buddenbrook planned to attend—“if God granted her life and health”—would be delayed until early in the new year, giving them all a little breather. Tom opposed this arrangement, but to no avail. “Please,” Elisabeth said, laying a hand on his arm, “Sievert should have precedence.”

  The pastor and his bride decided against a honeymoon. But Gerda and Thomas had already agreed on a trip across northern Italy to Florence. They would be gone about two months; meanwhile Antonie would work with Jakobs the upholsterer on Fisch Strasse to redecorate a charming little house on Breite Strasse, which had belonged to a bachelor who had recently moved to Hamburg, and which the consul was already arranging to buy. Oh, Tony would handle that very much to their satisfaction. “It will be so elegant—you’ll see,” she said. And they were all quite sure of that.

  Christian paced about the room on his thin, bowed legs, wrinkling his large nose and listening to this discussion of weddings, trousseaus, and honeymoons. He could feel that ache, that vague ache in his left leg, and his little, round, deep set eyes were serious, restless, and pensive as he studied the two couples holding hands. Finally he turned to his poor cousin, sitting there amid all these happy people—a silent, skinny old maid, still hungry despite dinner and dessert—and in the voice of Marcellus Stengel he said, “Well, Thilda. Let’s get married right away, too; separately, I mean.”

  9

  SOME SEVEN MONTHS later, Consul Buddenbrook returned with his wife from Italy. It was five in the evening, and Breite Strasse lay under March snow as their carriage pulled up in front of the simple, painted façade of their house. A few children and adults stopped to watch the new arrivals climb out. Frau Antonie Grünlich stood at the front door—proud of the arrangements she had made. Behind her were the two maids she had expertly chosen for her sister-in-law; they stood in their white caps and heavy, striped skirts, at the ready, their forearms bare.

  Flushed with joy and hard work, Tony ran down the low steps and, smothering Gerda and Thomas with hugs as they emerged wrapped in furs from their baggage-laden carriage, she pulled them into the entryway.

  “Here you are. Here you are, you lucky people, you world travelers, you. Hast thou seen the house, its roof, its pillars high? Gerda, you’re more beautiful than ever; here, let me give you a kiss. No, on the mouth. Right! Hello, dear old Tom, you get a kiss, too. Marcus told me that everything has gone quite well in your absence. Mother is waiting for you on Meng Strasse. But first make yourselves comfortable. Would you like tea? Or a bath? It’s all ready for you. You’ll have no complaints. Jakobs spared no effort, and I’ve done what I could, too.”

  They walked together into the entrance hall, while the maids helped the coachman drag their trunks in. Tony said, “For the time being you’ll not have much need for these rooms here on the ground floor. For the time being,” she repeated, letting the tip of her tongue play along her upper lip. “This is a pretty one here, though,” and she opened a door directly on the right of the vestibule. “That’s ivy at the windows, simple wooden furniture, oak. And back there, on the other side of the hall, is another, larger room. Here on the right are the kitchen and the pantry. But let’s go upstairs. Oh, I want to show it al
l to you.”

  They climbed the gentle flight of stairs covered with a broad, dark-red runner. Behind the glass door that opened onto the second floor was a small hallway. Off it lay the dining room, where a samovar stood simmering on the heavy round table, and carved walnut chairs with cane seats and a massive buffet had been set along the walls, covered in a dark-red damasklike fabric. A comfortable sitting room done in gray fabric was separated by portieres from a small salon with a bay window and easy chairs upholstered in green-striped rep. An entire quarter of the floor was taken up by a salon with three windows.

  They now crossed the hallway to the bedroom, which lay on their right and had flowered curtains and two huge mahogany beds. Tony moved to a small, openwork door at the back of the room and pushed on its latch—revealing a spiral staircase that led down to the ground floor, to the bath and the maids’ rooms.

  “It’s very pretty. I think I shall stay,” Gerda said and sank with a sigh of relief into an easy chair beside one of the beds.

  The consul bent down to her and kissed her brow. “Tired? But it’s true, I wouldn’t mind a chance to freshen up a bit myself.”

  “And I’ll see about the tea,” Frau Grünlich said. “I’ll wait for you in the dining room.” And she left.

  When Thomas came across the hall, tea was steaming in Dresden-china cups. “Here I am,” he said. “Gerda would like to rest for half an hour. She has a headache. We’ll go to Meng Strasse later. Is everyone well, my dear Tony? Mother, Erika, Christian? Well, then,” he continued, turning on his finest charm, “our warmest thanks—Gerda’s, too—for all your efforts, my dear. You’ve made it all so pretty! All we lack are a couple of palm trees to put at my wife’s bay window, and a few suitable oil paintings, which I’ll look around for. But now tell me, how are you? And what have you been doing all this time?” He had pulled a chair over for his sister and now slowly drank his tea and ate a cookie while she spoke.