by Thomas Mann
That was not Grandmama. That was her Sunday bonnet with the white silk ribbons, and the reddish-brown hair beneath it was hers, too. But that pointed nose, those lips that had collapsed inward, that protruding chin, those yellow, transparent hands, folded in prayer and yet looking so cold and stiff—those were not hers. This was a strange wax doll, and there was something gruesome about the way they had dressed it up for this ceremonial occasion. And he looked across to the landscape room, as if he expected his real grandmama to appear at any moment. But she didn’t—she was dead. Death had come and exchanged her forever for this wax doll, with its tightly closed, forbidding, unapproachable lips and eyelids.
He stood there, his weight on his left leg, his right knee bent slightly with the foot balanced on the toe; one hand was holding the knot of his nautical tie against his chest, the other hung down limply. He tilted his head to one side, his light-brown hair falling in soft curls down over his temples; and his golden-brown eyes ringed with bluish shadows blinked as he gazed with brooding disgust at the face of the corpse. He breathed slowly, hesitantly, because with each breath he expected to smell that odor, that strange and yet so familiar odor, which the billowing fragrance of the flowers could not always disguise. And each time the odor surfaced and he smelled it, he scowled a little more and his lips trembled for just a second. Finally he sighed; but it sounded so much like a sob—though there were no tears—that Frau Permaneder bent down to him, kissed him, and led him away.
And after the senator and his wife, along with Frau Permaneder and Erika Weinschenk, had stood in the landscape room for several hours, to receive the town’s condolences, Elisabeth Buddenbrook, née Kröger, was consigned to the earth. Relatives had come for the funeral from Frankfurt and Hamburg, and for the last time they partook of the hospitality of the house on Meng Strasse. The salon, the columned hall, the landscape room, and the corridor were crowded with mourners as Pastor Pringsheim from St. Mary’s delivered the eulogy by the light of flickering candles; he stood erect and majestic at the head of the casket, and his clean-shaven face, its expression ranging from solemn fanaticism to mild transfiguration, was turned toward heaven—floating above his wide, pleated ruff and a pair of hands folded just under his chin.
In tones now swelling, now fading away, he praised the qualities of the dear departed—her elegance and humility, her cheerfulness and piety, her charity and gentleness. He mentioned the Jerusalem Evenings and her Sunday school; employing all his rhetorical brilliance, he reviewed the long, rich, and happy life upon earth of her who had now gone to her heavenly reward—even the word “end” had to have its adjective, and he concluded by speaking of her “peaceful end.”
Frau Permaneder was well aware of what she owed herself and those assembled—that in this hour she carry herself with impressive dignity. Together with her daughter, Erika, and her granddaughter, Elisabeth, she had claimed the most conspicuous position, close to the pastor, right next to the wreaths at the head of the casket; Thomas, Gerda, Christian, Klothilde, and little Johann, as well as old Consul Kröger, who sat on a chair, had to content themselves with less prominent places, as if they were more distant relatives. She stood very erect, her shoulders raised slightly, her black-bordered batiste handkerchief between her folded hands; and so great was her pride in assuming the principal role assigned to her for these ceremonies that it sometimes pushed her grief aside until she forgot it completely. In the realization that the whole town would be observing her, she kept her own eyes lowered for the most part, but now and then she could not refrain from letting her gaze sweep across the crowd, where she also spotted Julie Möllendorpf, née Hagenström, and her husband. Yes, they all had been duty-bound to come: the Möllendorpfs, Kistenmakers, Langhalses, and Oeverdiecks. Before Tony Buddenbrook left her parents’ house for good, they had no choice but to gather here, one and all, to extend their sympathetic respects—despite Grünlich, despite Permaneder, despite Hugo Weinschenk.
Pastor Pringsheim’s eulogy probed the gaping wound that death had left; he quite intentionally evoked vivid memories of what each of them had lost; he knew how to squeeze tears from those who would never have shed them on their own and were all the more grateful for having been so moved. When he came to speak of the Jerusalem Evenings, the old women who had been friends of the deceased began to sob—except for Madame Kethelsen, who could hear nothing and stared straight ahead with the secretive look of the deaf, and the Gerhardt twins, the descendants of Paul Gerhardt, who stood holding hands in one corner; their eyes were clear and dry, for they were happy for their dead friend and would have envied her, if envy and jealousy had not been totally foreign to their nature.
As for Mademoiselle Weichbrodt, she kept blowing her nose in short, energetic bursts. The Ladies Buddenbrook from Breite Strasse did not weep, however—it was not their custom. Their faces, a little less caustic than usual at least, expressed a gentle satisfaction at death’s impartiality.
Then, when Pastor Pringsheim’s last amen had died away, the four pallbearers in black three-cornered hats came forward softly, but so rapidly that their black cloaks billowed behind them, and they took hold of the casket. They were four footmen—and everyone recognized their faces—who hired themselves out for every dinner in the best social circles, passing heavy platters and sneaking some of the Möllendorpfs’ claret from the decanters out in the hallway. But they were also indispensable at every first- or second-class funeral and were very adept at their work. They knew that both tact and agility were necessary to help people over this moment, when the coffin was snatched up by strangers from the midst of the deceased’s family, to be borne away for all eternity. In two or three hasty, soundless, powerful moves, the bier was on their shoulders, and before anyone had time to realize the shock of the moment, the flower-covered casket swayed through the room at a steady, deliberate pace and vanished into the columned hall.
The women circumspectly crowded forward to shake the hands of Frau Permaneder and her daughter, and with downcast eyes they mumbled what must be mumbled on such occasions; meanwhile the gentlemen moved toward the stairs and their waiting carriages.
And now came the long, slow drive in a long, black procession through the gray, damp streets—out through the Burg Gate, down the avenue lined with leafless trees quivering in the cold drizzle, and into the cemetery, where, to the sounds of a dirge coming from behind some half-bare shrubbery, they got out and walked down soggy paths, following the casket to the edge of the little woods. There stood the Buddenbrook family vault, with its towering marker, the names in Gothic script, a sandstone cross at the top. The vault’s stone cover, ornamented with the chiseled family crest, lay next to the black grave, which was outlined by wet green.
A place had been prepared down below for the new arrival. Under the senator’s supervision, the vault had been tidied up a bit and the remains of older Buddenbrooks pushed aside. The music died away, and, suspended on the ropes of the bearers, the coffin hovered above the brickwork depths. It slid down now with a low rumble. Pastor Pringsheim, who had pulled on his wrist-warmers, began to speak again. His trained voice rang out clear, supple, and pious in the cool, hushed autumn air and drifted across the open grave and the mourners’ heads, some bowed, some tilted wistfully to one side. Finally he bent down over the vault, addressing the dead woman by her full name and blessing her with the sign of the cross. When he had fallen silent and all the gentlemen stood praying mutely, their black-gloved hands holding their top hats in front of their faces, the sun broke through a little. The rain had stopped, and now and then a bird released a delicate, questioning twitter that blended with the sporadic sound of dripping trees and shrubs.
And then everyone moved forward to shake hands once again with the dead woman’s sons and brother.
His heavy, dark overcoat sprinkled with fine, silvery raindrops, Thomas Buddenbrook stood in the receiving line between his brother, Christian, and his Uncle Justus. Of late, he had begun to get a little stout—the only part of
his carefully groomed exterior that betrayed the advance of years. The long, pointed tips of his mustache still extended beyond his cheeks, and they were fuller now—but pale and sallow, without blood or life. His slightly reddened eyes gazed with dull politeness into the face of each gentleman whose hand he held in his own for a brief moment.
4
EIGHT DAYS LATER, a small, smooth-shaven old man with snow-white hair combed forward at his brow and temples visited Senator Buddenbrook in his private office. The old man was sitting crouched in the leather armchair at one side of the desk, bent over the white handle of his cane, his jutting chin resting on his hands. His lips were pressed tight and turned down maliciously at the corners, and the gaze he directed at the senator was so nasty, piercing, and treacherous that it seemed incomprehensible why the latter would not prefer to avoid the company of such a man. But Thomas Buddenbrook was leaning back in his chair without any sign of uneasiness, and he spoke to this sneering, demonic apparition as if he were just an ordinary harmless citizen. The owner of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook and Siegismund Gosch the broker were discussing the asking price of the old house on Meng Strasse.
This took quite a long time, because Herr Gosch’s offer of twenty-eight thousand thalers courant seemed too low to the senator, whereas the broker said that to ask even one silver penny more would be an act of pure madness—damned if it wouldn’t. Thomas Buddenbrook spoke of the central location and the unusually large lot; but, contorting his lips and hissing in a savage, choked voice, Herr Gosch now gave him a little lecture, punctuated by horrible gesticulations, about the crushing risk he would be taking—an explanation so trenchant and vivid that it was almost a poem. Aha!—When, to whom, and for how much would he ever be able to resell the house? How often over the course of centuries did a cry go up for such a lot? Could his honored friend and patron promise him, perhaps, that the next morning a nabob would arrive on the train from Büchen whose express wish was to set up house in the Buddenbrook family home? He—Siegismund Gosch—would be stuck with it—would be stuck with it, leaving him a beaten man, a man ruined for life, never to rise again, his clock run out, his grave dug—dug deep. And this phrase so captured him that he added something about shuffling wraiths and clods of earth falling with a dull thud upon his coffin.
This did not satisfy the senator, however. He spoke of how easy it would be to divide the lot, emphasized the responsibility he had to his brother and sister, and insisted on a price of thirty thousand thalers courant, whereupon he was forced to listen—with some nervousness, but also with relish—to yet another well-turned rebuttal by Herr Gosch. The discussion lasted for about two hours, during which Herr Gosch had the opportunity to pull all the stops on the organ of his personality. He played the double role, as it were, of the hypocritical villain: “Herr Buddenbrook, my youthful patron, let us agree, then—eighty-four thousand marks courant. It is the offer of an old but honest man.” He said this with a sweet voice, his head tilted to one side, a smile of devoted innocence replacing the grimace that had ravaged his face till now—and he reached out a hand to the senator, one large white hand with long, trembling fingers. But it was mere lies and treachery. A child could have seen through the dissembling mask and recognized the horrible grin of deepest villainy behind it.
At last Thomas Buddenbrook declared that he needed time to think and that he would have to consult with his brother and sister before accepting twenty-eight thousand thalers—which probably would not happen in any case. And for now he shifted the conversation to a neutral topic, inquiring about Herr Gosch’s business and personal health.
Herr Gosch was not doing well; with a lovely, sweeping gesture he rebuffed any assumption that he should be counted among life’s fortunate. Old age, with its infirmities, was drawing near, and, as noted, his grave had already been dug. He could hardly put a glass of grog to his lips of an evening without spilling half of it, his arm trembled so damnably. Curses were to no avail. The will no longer triumphed. But all the same—he had a full life behind him, and no poor life, either. He had observed the world with eyes wide open. Revolutions and wars had raged, their waves pounding his heart as well—so to speak. Aha! Damned if that was not a different epoch, when he had stood beside the senator’s father, beside Consul Johann Buddenbrook, during that historic meeting of the town council, and defied the onslaught of the raging rabble. What a horror of horrors it had been. No, his life had not been poor, not even his interior life. Damn, but he had felt the surge of his own energy, and “as the energy, so the ideal,” to quote Feuerbach. Even now, even now—his soul was not impoverished, his heart was still young, it had never ceased, would never cease to encompass great experiences, to hold its ideals fast in a warm and faithful embrace. And he would carry those ideals with him to the grave, indeed he would. But did ideals exist only to be reached and realized? Certainly not! Behold the stars—we aspired not for them, but for hope. For hope—not for its realization. The best of life was hope. L’espérance toute trompeuse que’elle est, sert au moin à nous mener à fin de la vie par un chemin agréable. Those were the words of La Rouchefoucauld—beautiful words, were they not? Yes, but his honored friend and patron had no need of such knowledge. Whom the waves of active life have borne upon their shoulders, good fortune playing round his brow, that man had no need of such thoughts. But he who dreamed in the dark deeps had great need of them.
“What a fortunate man you are,” he suddenly said, laying his hand on the senator’s knee and looking up at him with moist eyes. “Oh, but you are. To deny it would be a sin. You are fortunate. You hold fortune in your arms. You ventured forth and your strong arm was victorious—your strong hand,” he corrected himself, because he could not bear the repetition of the word “arm.” Then he fell silent and, without listening to a word of the senator’s reply of resigned demurral, he went on gazing into his face in a kind of dark reverie. Suddenly he sat up straight.
“But enough chitchat,” he said. “After all, we are here to talk business. Time is money—let us not waste it by hesitating. So hear me out—because it is you, do you understand? Because …” And it looked as if Herr Gosch were about to plunge anew into beautiful thoughts, but then he pulled himself together and, with one of his broad, sweeping, and enthusiastic gestures, he said, “Twenty-nine thousand thalers. Eighty-seven thousand marks courant, for your mother’s house. Agreed?”
And Senator Buddenbrook accepted.
As WAS TO BE EXPECTED, Frau Permaneder found the offer ridiculously low. Had someone—out of regard for the memories that were bound up in the house for her—laid a million thalers on the table for it, she would have considered it a respectable basis for bargaining, nothing more. But before long she became used to the sum her brother had named—because all her thoughts and plans were occupied with her future.
Her heart was filled with joy at all the fine new pieces of furniture that had come her way, and although no one even gave a thought to chasing her out of her parents’ home so soon, she eagerly went about finding and renting a new apartment for herself and her family. True, it would be hard to say goodbye—and the thought could bring tears to her eyes. But, on the other hand, the prospect of change and renewal had its charms. Would it not be almost like starting over again, for the fourth time? And so she inspected apartments, consulted with Jakobs the upholsterer, negotiated with shopkeepers about portieres and carpet runners. Her heart pounded faster—no doubt of it, the heart of this old woman steeled by life beat higher.
Weeks passed—four, five, six weeks. The first snow fell, winter had arrived, the stoves crackled—and the Buddenbrooks’ thoughts turned to the sad topic of how they should celebrate Christmas. Then, suddenly, something happened, something quite dramatic, something so surprising there were no words for it. Events took a turn that would soon engage the interest of the whole town. Something happened—it burst upon them. And Frau Permaneder stopped in the middle of what she was doing—she froze.
“Thomas,” she said, “have I
gone crazy? Is Gosch stark raving mad? Can it be possible? It’s simply too absurd, too unthinkable, too—” She could say no more and held both hands to her temples. But the senator simply shrugged.
“My dear child, nothing has been decided yet. But the idea, the possibility, has come up. And after thinking it over calmly, you’ll find that there’s nothing unthinkable about it. It’s a bit startling, I grant. I took a step back myself when Gosch told me. But unthinkable? What’s to prevent it?”
“I won’t survive it,” she said, sinking down on a chair, and sat there perfectly still.
And what was going on? A buyer had been found for the house, or at least someone had shown an interest and even expressed a desire to take a thorough look at the property up for sale, with a view to further negotiation as to price. And that person was Herr Hermann Hagenström, wholesale merchant and consul for the Kingdom of Portugal.
When the rumor first reached Frau Permaneder’s ears, she was paralyzed, flabbergasted, incredulous, incapable of conceiving the notion in all its ramifications. But now, as the matter took on form and substance and a visit to Meng Strasse by Consul Hagenström had been arranged, with the consul standing, so to speak, just outside her door, she pulled herself together and went into action. She did not revolt, she did not rise up in mutiny. But she found words—hot, cutting words—and she swung them like flaming torches and battle-axes.
“It will not happen, Thomas! As long as I breathe, it will not happen. When you sell a dog, you make sure what sort of master it will be getting. But Mother’s house—our house—the landscape room!”