by Thomas Mann
“Impossible! It’s not possible! No, Gerda—Tom! How could you miss it? How dreadful! Poor Armgard—so that’s how it all had to end.”
Gerda had raised her eyes from her work and Thomas turned in alarm to his sister. And now, with violent emotion, her throaty voice quavering and stressing every word as if it portended doom, Frau Permaneder read the news item, which came from Rostock and reported that during the previous night Ralf von Maiboom, owner of the estate of Pöppenrade, had committed suicide by shooting himself with a revolver in the den of the manor house. “Pecuniary difficulties appear to have been the motive for the deed. Herr von Maiboom is survived by a wife and three children.” When she finished, she let the newspaper sink to her lap and leaned back to gaze at her brother and sister-in-law with uncomprehending, mournful eyes.
Even while she was still reading, Thomas Buddenbrook had turned away, looking past her through the portieres into the darkened salon beyond. “With a revolver?” he asked, after they had sat in silence for a good two minutes. And then, after another pause, he slowly said in a mocking voice, “Yes, yes, there’s a country squire for you.”
Then he once again sank back into a brown study. The rapidity with which he twirled the tip of his mustache in his fingers stood in marked contrast to the vague, glassy, aimless look in his eyes.
He paid no attention to his sister’s plaintive words or her conjectures as to what her friend Armgard would now do with her life, nor did he notice that, without actually turning her head his way, Gerda had fixed her eyes—those close-set brown eyes with bluish shadows at the corners—firmly on him, searching his face.
2
THOMAS BUDDENBROOK was incapable of gazing into little Johann’s future with the same weary dejection that colored his expectations of the rest of his own life. What hindered him from doing so was an inherited and ingrained sense of family, which meant that he looked not only to the past with a reverent interest in its intimate history, but also to the future; his thoughts were influenced as well by the loving, expectant curiosity with which his friends and acquaintances in town, his sister, and even the Ladies Buddenbrook from Breite Strasse regarded his son. He found satisfaction in telling himself that, no matter how hopeless and thwarted he felt his own life to be, when it came to his son, he was capable of exhilarating dreams of a future full of competence and a natural love of hard, practical work—full of success, achievement, power, wealth, honor. Yes, by caring, fearing, and hoping, he could find genuine warmth in his otherwise chilled and artificial life.
And what if one day, as an old man in quiet retirement, he might be able to gaze out on a rebirth of the old days, when Hanno’s grandfather was alive? Was that such an impossible hope? He had thought of music as his foe—but was music really such a serious problem? Granted, the boy’s love of improvisation at the piano, with no notes in front of him, revealed a rather remarkable talent—but he had not made extraordinary progress in his normal piano lessons with Herr Pfühl. No doubt of it, the music was due to his mother’s influence, and it was no wonder that her influence had predominated during Hanno’s early childhood. But the time had now come for a father to exert his own influence on his son, to draw him more to his side and offer manly impressions to neutralize previous feminine influences. And the senator was determined not to let any such opportunity go unused.
Hanno was eleven now, and along with his little friend Count Mölln he had been promoted to the fourth grade, but by the skin of his teeth—it had taken two extra exams in arithmetic and geography. It was decided that he would now take modern, scientific classes, because, of course, he was to be a merchant and would take over the firm someday. In reply to his father’s questions about whether he was excited about the idea of such a future profession, he always answered yes—a simple, somewhat shy yes, nothing more. The senator would always try to elicit a little livelier, fuller answer—but usually to no avail.
If Senator Buddenbrook had had two sons, he doubtless would have let the younger graduate in the classics and go on to university. But the firm needed an heir; and besides, he believed he was doing the lad a favor by sparing him the unnecessary agony of Greek. He was of the opinion that the modern curriculum was easier to master and that, given Hanno’s difficulties in concentrating, his dreamy inattention, and his delicate health, which all too often meant that he had to miss school, the boy would be able to make faster and more creditable progress there. And if little Johann Buddenbrook was ever to accomplish what life had called him to do and the senator expected of him, they must above all give attention to strengthening and enhancing his less-than-robust constitution, first by taking necessary precautions, and second by a program for systematically toughening his mettle.
Out on the playground or even just on the street, Johann Buddenbrook always stuck out among his towheaded, steely-blue-eyed, Scandinavian-looking classmates—despite his Danish sailor outfit. He had brown hair, which was parted to the side now and brushed back from his pale forehead, although it was constantly falling back in soft curls down over his temples; his eyelashes were long and dark, and his eyes were still a strange golden brown. He had grown quite a bit of late, but his black-stockinged legs and his arms—hidden under his dark-blue, full, quilted sleeves—were as small and weak as a girl’s. And like his mother, he still had those bluish shadows in the corners of his eyes—eyes that looked out on the world hesitantly and defensively, especially when he glanced off to one side. He held his mouth shut tight in that melancholy way of his, slightly distorting his lips while he pensively rubbed the tip of his tongue against a tooth—he still didn’t trust those teeth—and from the expression on his face it looked as if he felt chilled.
According to Dr. Langhals, who had completely taken over Dr. Grabow’s practice and was now the Buddenbrooks’ family physician, there was a definite reason for Hanno’s unsatisfactory health and pallor: the boy’s body unfortunately did not produce a sufficient quantity of red corpuscles, so essential for good health. But there was a medication for remedying this defect, a quite marvelous medication, which Dr. Langhals prescribed in large doses: cod-liver oil—good yellow, oily, viscous cod-liver oil, which he was to take twice daily from a porcelain spoon. And under the senator’s explicit instructions, Ida Jungmann, loving but strict as always, saw to it that the medication was dispensed punctually. At first Hanno would throw up after every spoonful—his stomach did not appear very adept at accommodating cod-liver oil—but he got used to it, and if right afterward you chewed a piece of rye bread while holding your breath, it helped ease the nausea a bit.
All his other illnesses were simply a consequence of his lack of red corpuscles—“secondary phenomena,” Dr. Langhals called them, while inspecting his fingernails. It was necessary, however, ruthlessly to attack such secondary phenomena. The care of his teeth—the fillings and extractions, if those were needed—was in the hands of Herr Brecht on Mühlen Strasse, the owner of Josephus; but for the care and regulation of his digestion, there was castor oil—good thick, silvery, shiny castor oil, which was administered with a teaspoon and slid down your throat like a slimy newt. And wherever you went and whatever you did for the next three days, you could still smell, taste, and feel it in your throat. Oh, why were all these things so incredibly repulsive? Only once—Hanno had been so ill that as he lay in bed he could feel his heart pump with unusual irregularity—had Dr. Langhals ever prescribed anything different, and that with some misgiving—a medicine that little Johann had liked and that had done him a world of good: arsenic pills. Hanno often asked for them later, too; he felt something like a tender yearning for the sweet solace of those little pills. But he was not given any more of them.
Cod-liver oil and castor oil were fine things, but Dr. Langhals was in total agreement with the senator that they were not sufficient in themselves to make a sturdy, rugged young man of little Johann—he had to do his part as well. For example, there were the gymnastic games that were supervised by Herr Fritsche, the physical-education teacher, and held out
on Castle Yard once a week all through the summer—and there the town’s young males were given a chance to show and develop their courage, strength, agility, and reflexes. But, to his father’s annoyance, Hanno reacted to these healthy exercises with aversion—silent, aloof, almost arrogant aversion. Why did he have so little contact with boys his own age, his classmates, with whom he would later have to live and work? Why was he forever huddled with that little unwashed Kai, who was a good lad but a somewhat dubious fellow nevertheless, and hardly a proper friend for the future? In one way or another, from the very beginning, a boy has to earn the trust and respect of those around him, of the other boys he grows up with, whose good opinion will prove important to him for the rest of his life. There were Consul Hagenström’s two sons, ages fourteen and twelve, two fine stout lads, strong and high-spirited, who organized real boxing matches in the woods outside of town, who were the best gymnasts in school, swam like seals, smoked cigarettes, and were ready for any kind of mischief. They were feared, loved, and respected. Their cousins, on the other hand, the two sons of Dr. Moritz Hagenström the lawyer, were more delicate and gentle by nature, but they excelled in their studies and were model students—ambitious, respectful, quiet, and busy as bees, they almost quivered with alertness and were consumed with the idea of being the best in the class and bringing home a report card marked “Number One.” And they did just that, which won them the respect of their dumber, lazier classmates. But what did those same boys—quite apart from the teachers—think of Hanno, who was a very average student and a weakling to boot, who timidly tried to avoid anything that demanded a little courage, strength, agility, or enthusiasm? And if Senator Buddenbrook would happen to pass the third-floor “balcony” on his way to his dressing room, he often heard sounds coming from the middle room of the three—Hanno’s room, now that he was too old to sleep with Ida Jungmann—either the tones of the harmonium or Kai’s hushed, mysterious voice telling a story.
Kai, too, avoided gymnastics, because he despised the discipline and rules that they demanded he observe. “No, Hanno,” he said, “I’m not going out there. Are you? To hell with it. Anything that’s really fun doesn’t count for them.” He had learned phrases like “to hell with it” from his father. But Hanno answered, “If there were just one day when Herr Fritsche didn’t smell like sweat and beer, I might let someone talk me into it. So, let’s forget it, Kai, and now you can tell a story. You aren’t anywhere near the end of the one about the ring that you found in the swamp.” “All right,” Kai said, “but when I give you a nod, you have to play.” And Kai went on with his story.
If he was to be believed, not long ago, on a hot humid night, he had been wandering in a strange, murky region and had slid to the bottom of a slippery and unbelievably deep ravine, where, by the pale flickering light of will-o’-the-wisps, he had discovered a black swampy pond with shiny silver bubbles that kept rising to the surface, making soft gurgling sounds. One bubble close to the bank, however, was ring-shaped and kept reappearing the moment it burst, and after many long and dangerous attempts he managed to catch it in his hand, and when it didn’t burst, he found he could slip it on his finger as a smooth, solid ring. And, wisely placing his trust in the unusual powers of the ring to help him, he was able to climb back up the steep, slippery slope, and once he was at the top he discovered a black castle, wrapped in reddish fog and silent as death. It was guarded by fierce defenses, but he forced his way in and, with the help of the ring, was able to perform the most astounding feats and release the castle from its spell. Hanno would play a series of ravishing chords to accompany special moments in the story. And if the staging did not pose insuperable difficulties, the stories would be acted out in the puppet theater, with musical accompaniment. But Hanno went to the gymnastic games only if his father expressly, and sternly, demanded it, and then little Kai would go along.
It was no different when it came to ice-skating in winter or to swimming in summer down by the river, in the fenced-in area run by Herr Asmussen. “Bathing and swimming,” Dr. Langhals had said. “The boy must go swimming.” And the senator was in complete agreement. But the main reason that Hanno avoided, if at all possible, going swimming, or ice-skating, or joining in gymnastics, was the fact that Consul Hagenström’s two sons, who participated in all such activities to great acclaim, had it in for him; and although they lived in his grandmother’s house, they never missed a chance to humiliate and bully him with their greater strength. They pinched him and mocked him during gymnastics; they pushed him into piles of shoveled snow when he tried to skate; they came storming across the swimming pool toward him, making menacing noises. Hanno did not try to escape—that would have been pointless in any case. He stood there up to his waist in the rather muddy water, his skinny girl’s arms at his sides, his mouth slightly askew, and while green clumps of so-called goose grass drifted past him, he scowled and watched grimly from one corner of his eye as they approached in long, foaming leaps, sure of their prey. Both the Hagenström boys had muscular arms, and they would clamp them around him and duck him, duck him so long that he swallowed a great deal of dirty water, and even after he came up, twisting and turning, he had to fight for his breath for quite a while. But once he did get a little revenge. One afternoon, just as the two Hagenströms were holding him under the water, one of them suddenly started screaming with rage and pain and lifted up his stout leg—large drops of blood were running down it. And suddenly Count Kai Mölln appeared at his side; somehow he had managed to find money to pay his way in, and quite unexpectedly he had come swimming by and bitten the Hagenström boy—a big bite, using all his teeth, right in the leg, like a mean little dog. His blue eyes flashed from under the wet, reddish blond hair that hung down in his face. But the little count paid for his deed, did he ever, and he climbed up out of the pool badly battered. All the same, Consul Hagenström’s rugged son limped noticeably as he walked home.
Nourishing food and physical exercise of all kinds—those were the basis of Senator Buddenbrook’s efforts at watching over his son. But he was no less attentive in trying to influence the boy’s mind and provide him with vivid experiences in the practical world for which he was destined.
He began gradually to introduce Hanno to this sphere of future activities. He took him along when he had business to attend to down by the harbor, had Hanno stand at his side when he talked with the dockworkers in a patois of Danish and Plattdeutsch or conferred with the warehouse managers in their little, dark office or gave an order to the men hoisting sacks of grain to the upper stories, all the while shouting to one another in a hollow singsong. For Thomas Buddenbrook himself, this piece of the world here on the harbor—among the ships, sheds, and warehouses, where things smelled of butter, fish, water, tar, and well-oiled iron—had been a favorite spot since he was a boy, the most interesting place he knew; and since Hanno did not express joy and approval on his own, the senator felt compelled to awaken those feelings in his son. What were the names of the steamers that sailed the route to Copenhagen? “The Naiad … the Halmstadt … the Friederike Oeverdieck.” “Well, you know those—and that’s something at least. You’ll learn the others soon enough. Yes, many of those fellows hoisting sacks there have the same name as you do, my boy, because they were christened after your grandfather. And my name is fairly frequent among their children, and your mama’s name, too. And so we give them a little gift every year. But now we’ll walk on past this warehouse and we won’t speak to the men, either; we have nothing to say to them—they work for one of our competitors.”
“Do you want to come along, Hanno?” he said one day. “A new ship that belongs to our fleet is going to be launched this afternoon. I’ll be christening it. Would you like to come?”
And Hanno pretended that he did. He went with his father and listened to his speech, watched him break a bottle of champagne against the bow; but there was a strange look in Hanno’s eyes as he watched the ship glide down the incline—the whole length of it smeared with gr
een soap—hit the water with a burst of spray, and then steam off, puffing smoke, for its first trial run.
On certain days of the year—on Palm Sunday, when there were confirmations, or on New Year’s Day—Senator Buddenbrook would take the carriage for a round of obligatory social calls; and since his wife preferred to excuse herself on such occasions with a migraine or a simple case of nerves, he would invite Hanno to join him. And Hanno would say he wanted to go along. He climbed into the fly beside his father and then sat mutely at his side in various parlors, watching with quiet eyes the easy, tactful, and yet so varied and carefully measured way his father dealt with these people. He watched closely as they took their leave of Colonel Herr von Rinnlingen, the local commander, who assured the senator that he was very honored by such a visit and that it was much appreciated, and took note of the way his father amiably but somewhat apprehensively laid an arm around the colonel’s shoulder for a moment; at another home a similar remark was received with a calm, serious look, and at a third with an ironically exaggerated returned compliment. All of this was done with a formal refinement of both word and gesture, which the senator obviously wanted his son to admire and hoped would have an educational effect as well.
But little Johann saw more than he was meant to see, and his eyes, those shy, golden brown eyes ringed with bluish shadows, observed things only too well. Not only did he see his father’s poise and charm and their effect on everyone, but his strange, stinging, perceptive glance also saw how terribly difficult it was for his father to bring it off, how after each visit he grew more silent and pale, leaning back in one corner of the carriage, closing his eyes, now rimmed with red; as they crossed the threshold of the next house, Hanno watched in horror as a mask slipped down over that same face and a spring suddenly returned to the stride of that same weary body. First the entrance, then small-talk, fine manners, and persuasive charm—but what little Johann saw was not a naïve, natural, almost unconscious expression of shared practical concerns that could be used to one’s advantage; instead of being an honest and simple interest in the affairs of others, all this appeared to be an end in itself—a self-conscious, artificial effort that substituted a dreadfully difficult and grueling virtuosity for poise and character. Hanno knew that they all expected him to appear in public someday, too, and to perform, to prepare each word and gesture, with everyone staring at him—and at the thought, he closed his eyes with a shudder of fear and aversion.