Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

by Thomas Mann

  Thomas Buddenbrook’s prestige was of a different sort. He was not just one man—people honored in him the unique and unforgettable contributions of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; quite apart from his own success in commercial and public affairs, he was the representative of a century of civic excellence. The most important factor, to be sure, was the easy, refined, and irresistibly charming way he had of embodying that history and turning it to his own account. What distinguished him, even among more learned fellow citizens, was that he was a man of exceptional refinement and culture, which both disconcerted people and inspired their respect.

  That Thursday at the Buddenbrooks, with the consul present, there was only brief, almost indifferent mention made of the forthcoming election, and even at those remarks old Madame Buddenbrook would discreetly avert her pale eyes. Now and then, however, Frau Permaneder was unable to refrain from displaying a little of her amazing knowledge of the constitution, whose articles about the election of senators she had studied as exhaustively as she had the laws of divorce on past occasions. She spoke about electoral chambers, electors, and ballots, weighing all conceivable eventualities and reciting verbatim and without a hitch the solemn oath the electors had to take; she pointed out that the constitution demanded “free and frank discussion,” in each of the electoral chambers, of every man whose name was on the list of candidates, and expressed her keen desire to be allowed to participate in the “free and frank discussion” of Hermann Hagenström’s qualifications. And in the next moment she bent forward and began to count the prune pits on her brother’s dessert plate. “Tinker—tailor—soldier—sailor–senator!” she said, using the tip of her knife to flip the missing pit from her own little plate. After dinner, however, she could contain herself no longer, and tugged the consul by the sleeve over to the window seat.

  “O Lord, Tom! Suppose you do get elected, and our coat-of-arms is hung up in the town hall’s Chamber of War—I think I’d expire for joy, just keel over dead, you wait and see.”

  “All right, Tony—and now a little more self-control and dignity are in order, please. You usually aren’t at a loss for those, are you? Do you see me carrying on like Henning Kurz? Our name means something even without the ‘Senator.’ And I hope you’ll remain among the living either way.”

  And the furor, the debate, the clash of opinions continued. Consul Peter Döhlmann, the suitier, whose business was now in total ruin and existed in name only, and who every morning at breakfast devoured a little more of his twenty-seven-year-old daughter’s inheritance, did his part by attending two dinners, one given by Thomas Buddenbrook, the other by Hermann Hagenström, and each time he addressed his host in a loud, resounding voice as “Senator.” Siegismund Gosch, however, old Gosch the broker, walked about as a roaring lion, offering to throttle forthwith anyone who was not of a mind to vote for Consul Buddenbrook.

  “Consul Buddenbrook, gentlemen—ah, what a man! I stood at his father’s side back in ’48, as with a single word he tamed the rage of the unchained rabble. Were there justice upon this earth, it would have been his father—indeed, his father’s father—who was elevated to the senate.”

  Ultimately, however, it was not so much Consul Buddenbrook himself and his personality that set Herr Gosch’s passions afire, as it was the young Madame Buddenbrook, née Arnoldsen. Not that the broker had ever exchanged so much as one word with her. He did not belong to the circle of rich merchants, did not dine at their tables or visit back and forth with them. But, as was noted earlier, Gerda Buddenbrook had no sooner appeared in town than she was spotted by the gloomy broker, whose roving eye was ever on the lookout for something extraordinary. With unerring instinct, he realized at once that this was a presence, a vision, aptly suited to give some meaning to his unfulfilled life, and although she barely knew him by name, he made himself her slave, body and soul. And from that moment on, like a tiger circling its tamer, his thoughts had circled around this high-strung and highly reserved lady, to whom he had never been introduced; if he chanced to meet her on the street he would, to her great surprise, doff his Jesuit hat and strike the cunning, fawning pose of a tiger, while bestial savagery played across his face. This world of mediocre men offered him no hope of committing some gruesome, ruthless deed in honor of his lady—but had he been called to account for it, he would have wrapped his hunchbacked body in his cape and stared them all down with gloomy cold indifference. But their boring conventions would never allow him to raise her to an imperial throne by committing murder and other foul, bloody crimes. All he could do was cast his vote in the town hall for her husband in token of his fierce respect, and perhaps, one day, to dedicate to her his translation of Lope de Vega’s complete works.

  4

  THE CONSTITUTION DEMANDS that any vacant seat in the senate must be filled within four weeks. Three weeks have passed since James Möllendorpf’s demise, and now election day is here. It is late February and a thaw has set in.

  It is one o’clock in the afternoon and people are thronged along Breite Strasse in front of the town hall—the town hall, with its tracework of glazed tiles, its tapering towers and turrets silhouetted against the whitish gray sky, its covered staircase supported by projecting columns, its arcades whose pointed arches reveal a view of the market square and its fountain. People stand there, never flagging, while the dirty slush melts away under their feet; they look at one another, they crane their necks to see what is happening up front. Because there, just behind those doors, is the council hall, where the electors, chosen from the senate and the town council, are now seated in a semicircle of fourteen armchairs, awaiting the nominations from the electoral chambers.

  It has proved to be a protracted affair. It appears that debate in the three electoral chambers simply will not die down, that the battle is hard, and that the three chambers have still not nominated the same name to submit to the electors in the council hall—otherwise the mayor would have immediately declared him elected. How strange! No one understands where all these rumors are coming from, how they get started; but somehow they find their way from behind the doors and spread out into the street. Can it be that Herr Kaspersen, the elder of the two bailiffs, who has always called himself a “servant of the state,” is signaling what he knows to someone outside, by clenching his teeth or turning his eyes away or screwing up one corner of his mouth? The latest rumor is that the nominations have been submitted to the electors in the council hall, and that each of the three electoral chambers has nominated someone else: Hagenström, Buddenbrook, Kistenmaker. They can only hope to God now that there will be an absolute majority when the electors cast their first secret ballot. The people who aren’t wearing warm boots begin to shift and stomp their legs to warm their aching cold feet.

  There are all kinds of people standing and waiting here. There are sailors with bare tattooed necks, their hands stuck in their wide, low trouser pockets; grain haulers with blouses and knee breeches of black glazed linen and faces expressing vast integrity; wagon drivers, who with whip in hand have climbed up on piles of grain sacks to wait out the election results; servant girls wearing scarves, aprons, heavy striped skirts, and little white caps perched at the backs of their heads and carrying large market baskets over their bare forearms; the women who sell fresh fish and vegetables, wearing their straw scoop-bonnets; even a few pretty farm girls with Dutch caps, short skirts, and long, pleated white sleeves puffing out from their brightly embroidered blouses. And mingling among them, the middle-class folk: shopkeepers from nearby, who have stepped out without a hat to exchange views; young, well-dressed merchants; sons, who are serving three- or four-year apprenticeships in offices run by their fathers or their fathers’ friends; schoolboys with bookbags and backpacks.

  A woman is standing behind two tobacco-chewing workers with stiff sailor’s beards; she eagerly weaves her head from side to side, trying to get a view of the town hall between the shoulders of these two strapping lads. She is wearing a kind of long evening cloak t
rimmed in brown fur and holds it together from the inside with both hands; her face is completely hidden behind a heavy brown veil. She shuffles her galoshes restlessly in the slush.

  “By God, looks like your Kurz ain’t gonna make it again this time,” one of the workers remarks to the other.

  “Nope, ’nd it didn’t take you to tell me that, you nitwit. The votin’ now is between Hagenström, Kistenmaker, ’nd Buddenbrook.”

  “So it’s jist a matter of which of them three’s gonna git the most votes, that it?”

  “Yup, ’t’s what they say.”

  “Y’ know what? I ’spect it’ll be Hagenström.”

  “Y’ think so, do you, smarty-pants. What the hell d’you know?” Then he spits tobacco juice at his feet, because in this crowd there is no way he can shoot in a wide arc, hitches up his trousers by the belt with both hands, and goes on: “Hagenström, he’s such a tub o’lard he can’t even breathe through his nose right, that’s how fat he is. Nope, if my Kurz can’t git it this time, neither, then I’m for Buddenbrook. He’s smart as a fox.”

  “Well, say what y’want, Hagenström’s a lot richer.”

  “It don’t depend on that. That don’t make no never mind.”

  “And then your Buddenbrook’s alliz so damn swank in his silk neckties and starch cuffs ’nd that snazzy little mustache. Y’ever see him walk? Hops along like a little dickeybird.”

  “But that don’t make no nevermind, you blockhead.”

  “ ’nd what about that sister of his, what’s used up two husband a’reddy?”

  The woman in the evening cloak shudders.

  “Yup, that’s a problem. But whadda we know about that sorta thing? ’nd that ain’t no fault of the consul.”

  “No, it isn’t, is it?” the veiled lady thinks to herself, clasping her hands together under her cloak. “Most certainly not, thank God.”

  “ ’nd then,” the man who’s supporting Buddenbrook adds, “what with Mayor Oeverdieck bein’ his son’s godfather—now, that counts for sumpin’, let me tell y’.”

  “It certainly does,” the lady thinks. “Yes, thank God, that did us some good.” She flinches. A new rumor emerging from somewhere has run in a zigzag all the way to her. The first secret vote has been inconclusive. Eduard Kistenmaker, who received the least number of votes, has been dropped from the next ballot. The battle between Hagenström and Buddenbrook goes on. One self-important citizen remarks that, if there is a tie, it will be necessary to choose five arbitrators, who will then decide by simple majority.

  Suddenly a voice up near the door cries out, “They’ve elected Heine Seehas.”

  Heine Seehas is a well-known drunk who pushes a little wagon and sells steamed dumplings. Everyone laughs and stands on tiptoe to see who the wag is. Even the veiled lady breaks into a nervous laugh that causes her shoulders to jiggle. But at once she straightens up impatiently, pulling herself together as if to say, “Is this a time for making jokes?” And now she peers anxiously between the shoulders of the two workers to catch a glimpse of the town hall. But at the same moment her hands drop to her sides and her cloak falls opens, and she stands there now with drooping shoulders—crushed, devastated.

  Hagenström! The news has come—no one knows from where; it is as if it has sprouted from the earth or fallen from heaven, and suddenly it is everywhere at once. There’s no denying it. The decision has been made. Hagenström! Yes, yes, so he’s the new senator. Well, there is no point in waiting around here any longer. The veiled lady should have known all along. Because life is like that. So she can just go on home now. She feels the tears welling up inside her.

  This state of affairs lasts for a mere second—then the whole crowd lurches backward in a wave of shoving that moves from the front to the rear, so that everyone is leaning back against the person behind; and at the same time something bright red flashes just behind the door—the red coats of the two bailiffs, Kaspersen and Uhlefeldt, in full regalia: three-cornered hats, white riding breeches, wide yellow cuffs, and ceremonial swords. They walk side by side, making their way through the crowd, which pulls back as they pass.

  They move like fate itself: earnest, silent, secretive, looking neither to the right nor to the left, their eyes lowered, and with inexorable resolve they set out in the direction they have been told to take as a result of the vote. And it is not toward Sand Strasse—instead they turn to the right down Breite Strasse.

  The veiled lady cannot believe her eyes. But everyone around her sees it, too, and as people jostle to follow the bailiffs in the same direction, they say, “No, no, it’s Buddenbrook, not Hagenström.” And all sorts of gentlemen are pouring out the doors now, talking excitedly, and they turn to stride rapidly down Breite Strasse, each hoping to be the first to congratulate the new senator.

  The lady pulls her evening cloak around her and runs off. She runs—as a lady is not supposed to run. Her veil blows back and her flushed face is visible; but that is unimportant now. And although one of her fur-lined galoshes keeps flapping open in this slush and slows her down dreadfully, she outruns them all. She is the first to reach the house on the corner of Becker Grube, and she rings the bell in the vestibule as if to raise a hue and cry, and shouts to the maid who opens the door, “They’re coming, Kathrin, they’re coming!” She takes the stairs and bursts into the living room, where her brother lays aside his newspaper—he is actually a little pale—and gestures almost as if to ward her off. She hugs him and repeats the news: “They’re coming, Tom. They’re coming! It’s you, and Hermann Hagenström has lost.”

  THAT WAS ON a Friday. And the very next day Senator Buddenbrook stood in the council chamber, right in front of the chair formerly occupied by James Möllendorpf, and, in the presence of the assembled city fathers and a committee from the town council, he swore the following oath:

  “I will conscientiously discharge the duties of my office, strive with all my power for the good of the state, faithfully obey the constitution of the same, honestly administer all public moneys, and in the performance of my office, including my obligations as an elector, will regard neither my own advantage nor that of relatives or friends. I will execute the laws of the state and do justice to all alike, be they rich or poor. I will also be discreet about any matter that demands my discretion, and especially keep secret all things that must be kept secret. So help me God.”

  5

  OUR WISHES and our endeavors arise from certain needs of our nervous system that we find difficult to put into words. What people called Thomas Buddenbrook’s “vanity”—the attention he devoted to how he looked, the luxurious fastidiousness with which he dressed—was in reality something fundamentally different. It was originally nothing more than the attempt by a man of action to be certain that from head to toe he displayed the impeccable correctness that sustains self-confidence. But the demands that he made of himself and that others made of his talents and energies kept growing. He was swamped with private and public duties. When the senate met to divide committee assignments among its members, taxation was designated as his primary responsibility. But his time was also taken up by railroads, customs, and other governmental affairs; and in a thousand meetings of administrative and supervisory commissions over which he now presided as a result of his election, it took all his tact, charm, and flexibility constantly to make allowances for the sensitivities of men much older than he, to appear to defer to their long years of experience, while in fact retaining power in his own hands. If the most remarkable visible change in the man was an increase of “vanity”—that is, the need to refresh and renew himself, to restore the vigor of morning by changing clothes several times a day—the underlying reality was that at age thirty-seven Thomas Buddenbrook was losing his edge, was wearing out much too quickly.

  Whenever Dr. Grabow begged him to relax a little, he would answer, “Oh, my dear doctor, I haven’t reached that point yet,” by which he meant that he still had an untold amount of work to accomplish before—someday far in the
future, perhaps—he would achieve a state that he could then lean back and enjoy as a whole man who has attained his goal. The truth was that he hardly believed in such a state himself—but it drove him on and would not leave him in peace. Even when he appeared to be relaxing—reading his newspapers after dinner, for instance—a thousand plans were simultaneously at work in his brain, while he slowly, even passionately twirled one long tip of his mustache and the veins on his pallid temples swelled and stood out. And he devoted the same deadly earnest to planning a business maneuver or outlining a speech as he did to contemplating a complete refurbishing of his supply of underwear—to do it at last in one fell swoop, so that at least in that regard everything would be in perfect order for a while.

  And if such purchases and refurbishments gave him some temporary satisfaction and reassurance, he certainly could allow himself to spend the money in good conscience, because business was now flourishing as well as it had only in his grandfather’s day. The firm grew in stature not only in the town but also beyond it, and within the community his own reputation grew as well. Everyone acknowledged, whether out of envy or admiration, his cleverness and his hard work—and all the while he was wrestling in vain to find comfort in order and routine, because, to his despair, he found himself forever falling behind his own active imagination.