Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

by Thomas Mann

  As might have been expected, Frau Permaneder also had her objections to the sale of the house her brother had built. She complained loudly of the awful impression such a sale would leave and that it would lead to yet another loss of family prestige. But she did have to admit that it would be impractical to continue to keep up the spacious and noble house, which had proved to be Thomas Buddenbrook’s most expensive hobby, and that there was some justification in Gerda’s desire to have a comfortable little villa with a pleasant yard somewhere beyond the town gates.

  A grand day dawned for Herr Siegismund Gosch the broker. His old age was illumined by an event that even brought the trembling in his limbs to a halt for a few hours. For he was accorded entry to Gerda Buddenbrook’s salon, was allowed to sit in an easy chair directly across from her and to negotiate with her, eye to eye, about the price of the house. With his snow-white hair brushed forward from all directions into his face, and his chin thrust forward in a ghastly pose, he stared up into her face and managed to look the perfect hunchback. His voice hissed, but his words were cool and businesslike, and nothing betrayed the agitation in his soul. Stretching out one hand and smiling slyly, he offered to buy the house and proposed 85,000 marks. It was a reasonable offer—the sale of the house would inevitably entail some loss. But Herr Kistenmaker’s opinion would first have to be heard. Gerda Buddenbrook had to show Herr Gosch out without concluding the sale; but it turned out that Herr Kistenmaker was not of a mind to permit any interference in how he carried out his duties. He scorned Herr Gosch’s offer, laughed at it, and swore that they could get much more. And he kept on swearing for so long that eventually he was forced to sell the house for 75,000 marks, to an aging bachelor, who after long travels had decided to settle down here in town.

  Herr Kistenmaker took care of the purchase of the new house as well, a pleasant little villa on a chestnut-lined street just beyond the Burg Gate; he paid somewhat too much for it perhaps, but it was set among lovely orchards and flower gardens and was exactly what the widow Buddenbrook wanted. And so, in the autumn of 1876, Gerda Buddenbrook and her son moved to their new home, taking with them the servants and some of the old furnishings, although many things had to be left behind and became the property of the aging bachelor—much to Frau Permaneder’s distress.

  And as if these changes were not enough, Mamselle Jungmann, Ida Jungmann, who had served the Buddenbrook family for forty years, left now to return to her West Prussian homeland and spend the evening of her life with her relatives there. The truth was that she had been let go. She had raised one generation, and when they had outgrown her care, she had nursed and tended little Johann, read him Grimm’s fairy tales, and told him the story of her uncle who had died of the hiccups. But little Johann was no longer little, he was fifteen years old now, and, despite his delicate health, she could no longer be of much help to him. And for years now, her relationship with his mother had been rather strained. She had never regarded this woman, who had entered the Buddenbrook household much later than she, as a full-fledged member of the family; indeed, in her later years, she had begun to assume the airs of an old family retainer with exaggerated ideas of authority. She took herself all too seriously, which frequently led to trouble whenever she encroached on areas outside her proper role in the household. The situation was untenable, there were ugly scenes, and although Frau Permaneder interceded for her with the same eloquence with which she had pled for two family homes and their furnishings, old Ida was dismissed.

  She wept bitterly when the time came to say farewell to her little Johann. He embraced her: then, putting his hands behind his back and shifting his weight to one leg while balancing his other foot on the toe, he watched her depart; and his golden-brown eyes rimmed with bluish shadows had the same brooding, introspective look that they had taken on when he stood beside his grandmother’s corpse, when his father died, when their grand old home was broken up—or on so many other occasions, which had less to do with life’s external events. As he saw it, old Ida’s departure was consistent with the other instances of decline, dissolution, and termination that he had witnessed. That sort of thing no longer astounded him—had never astounded him, strangely enough. Sometimes, when he would raise his head with its curly brown hair and flair his nostrils fastidiously, his lips slightly twisted as always, it looked as if he were cautiously sniffing the air and the atmosphere of life around him, expecting to catch a whiff of that odor, that strangely familiar odor, which the fragrance of all those flowers beside his grandmother’s casket had not been able to overpower.

  Whenever Frau Permaneder came to visit her sister-in-law, she would draw her nephew close to her and tell him about the Buddenbrooks’ past and about their future, a future for which they would have only him, little Johann, to thank—and, of course, God in His mercy. The more disagreeable the present appeared, the more she felt the need to provide lengthy descriptions of what life had been like in her parents’ and grandparents’ home and of how Hanno’s great-grandfather had driven all over the country in a coach-and-four. One day she had a very nasty attack of stomach cramps—right after Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi Buddenbrook had proclaimed in unison that the Hagenströms were the cream of society.

  There was bad news about Christian. His marriage, it seemed, had not improved his health. His morbid fantasies and fixations had grown worse, and more frequent, and at the urging of his wife and a physician he had entered a sanatorium. He did not like it there and wrote plaintive letters to his family expressing a strong desire to leave the institution, where they apparently were very strict with him, and to live as a free man again. But they kept him there—and that really was the best thing for him. At any rate, it allowed his wife, quite apart from the material and social advantages that she derived from her marriage, to continue her former independent life without embarrassment or regard to others.

  2

  SOMETHING IN the alarm clock’s innards clicked, and it began its gruesomely dutiful rattle. It was a hoarse, jittery sound, more a clatter than a ring, for it was old and battered from years of service. And it went on and on for a desperately long time—it had been wound up very tight.

  Hanno Buddenbrook panicked. It was the same every morning—this ugly and yet familiar sound would erupt on the nightstand, right beside his ear, and his insides would cramp in rage, protest, and despair. To look at him, he appeared quite calm; without changing his position in bed, he merely opened his eyes suddenly, rousing himself from some shadowy morning dream.

  The room, chilled by winter, lay in total darkness. He could not see anything, not even the hands on the clock. But he knew that it was six o’clock, because he had set his alarm for six the evening before. Yesterday—yesterday. He lay on his back, tense and nervous, trying to bring himself to strike a light and get out of bed, and gradually all of yesterday came back to him.

  It had been a Sunday, and after several days of abuse at the hands of Herr Brecht he had been allowed to accompany his mother to the municipal theater for a performance of Lohengrin. For over a week his life had been filled with joyful anticipation of the event. The sad part was that, as always just before a festive occasion, so many disagreeable things stood in the way and spoiled the simple enjoyment of anticipation until the very last moment. But at last Saturday had come, another week of school was behind him, and the treadle machine had hummed its painful hum and drilled in his mouth for the last time. He had survived, and everything else could be shoved aside, including his homework, which he had quickly decided to put off until after Sunday evening. What had Monday meant then? Was it even probable that it would ever come? You can’t believe in Monday when you’re going to hear Lohengrin on Sunday evening. His plan was to get up early Monday morning and do his stupid homework then—and that was that. And he had walked about a free man, cherishing the joy in his heart, dreaming at his piano, forgetting all disagreeable things.

  And then the joy had become reality. It had swept over him with ineffable enchantments,
secret thrills and shudders, sudden fervent sobs, and a rapture of insatiable ecstasy. True, the orchestra’s second-rate violins had faltered a little during the overture, and the boat, carrying a fat, conceited man with a reddish-blond beard, had entered by fits and starts. And his guardian, Herr Stephan Kistenmaker, who was sitting in the next box, had muttered something about how this sort of thing distracted boys from their duties. But the sweet, exalted splendor of what he had heard lifted him up and away from all that.

  It had come to an end all the same. The lilting, shimmering delight had faded and died, and he had found himself back home, in his room, with a feverish head and the awareness that only a few hours of sleep here in his bed separated him from the dreary everyday world. And he had been overwhelmed by one of those fits of total despondency that he knew so well. He had once again felt how painful beauty truly is, how it plunged you into shame and yearning despair and at the same time gnawed away at your courage and fitness for daily life. He had felt it as a dreadful, gloomy mountain pressing down on him so heavily that once again he was forced to admit that something more than private grief must be weighing him down, that some burden must have oppressed his soul from the very beginning and would suffocate him one day.

  Then he had set his alarm and fallen asleep—the deep, dead sleep of someone who never wants to wake up again. And now Monday was here, and it was six o’clock, and he had not done an hour’s worth of homework.

  He sat up and lit the candle on his nightstand. But his arms and shoulders were so terribly chilled by the icy cold that he quickly sank back down and pulled his blanket up over him.

  The hands pointed to ten after six. Oh, it was pointless to get up now and work—there was too much to do, there was something to learn for almost every class, it wasn’t worth trying to start now, and the time he had set for getting up had passed anyway. He had been sure yesterday that it would be his turn to be called on today in Latin and chemistry, but was that really so certain? Yes, it was likely, in fact quite probable. As far as Ovid went, the names that had been called on recently had begun with the last letters of the alphabet, and so presumably it would start all over again today with “A” and “B.” But it was not absolutely certain, not beyond all doubt whatever. There were exceptions to every rule. Good God, chance could work wonders. And as he toyed with these deceptive and farfetched possibilities, his thoughts grew muddled and he fell asleep again.

  His little room lay cold, bare, and silent in the flickering candlelight: an etching of the Sistine Madonna above the bed, an extension table set in the middle, one shelf crammed untidily with books, a sturdy-legged mahogany writing desk, his harmonium, and a small washstand. Jack Frost had painted the window with flowers—the blind had been left rolled up to let the first daylight in. And Hanno Buddenbrook slept, his cheek nestled in his pillow. He slept with parted lips and long eyelashes pressed tight, lending him the expression of someone fervently, achingly devoted to sleep. His curly, soft, light-brown hair fell down over his temples. And slowly the little flame on the nightstand lost its orange glow as the dim light of morning fell hard and dull on the frosted windowpane.

  It was seven o’clock when he awoke with a start. The hour of grace was past. There was nothing for it now—he had to get up and accept what the day might bring. One brief hour until the start of school. Not much time at all—let alone to deal with homework. Nevertheless, he lay there—saddened, exasperated, and incensed at the brutal necessity of having to leave his warm bed in the raw half-light and venture out into a miserable, dangerous world filled with stern and spiteful people. “Oh, can’t I have just two more little minutes?” he asked his pillow with lavish tenderness. And then, in a fit of defiance, he gave himself another five—he just wanted to close his eyes a little. But from time to time he opened them and gazed in despair at the minute hand inching forward in its stupid, ignorant, precise way.

  At ten after seven, he tore himself from his bed and began to move about the room in great haste. He let the candle burn, because there was still not enough daylight. He breathed on the frosted window, and saw that the world lay under a thick blanket of fog.

  He was freezing terribly. Now and then his whole body would shudder from the painful chill. The tips of his fingers stung and were so swollen that there was no point in trying to use his nail brush. When he washed his neck and arms, his numbed hand simply let the sponge drop to the floor. He stood there, helpless and stiff with cold, steaming like a sweating horse.

  Panting and bleary-eyed, he was ready at last and grabbed his leather satchel from the table; gathering together what desperate wits he still had left, he packed the books he would need for the day’s classes. He stood there, staring nervously at nothing and muttering anxiously, “Religion … Latin … chemistry …,” then stuffed the battered, ink-stained paperbound books in his satchel.

  Yes, little Johann was actually quite tall now. He was well past his fifteenth birthday and no longer wore Danish sailor outfits, but a tan suit and a blue tie with white polka dots. The long, thin watch chain he had inherited from his grandfather dangled across his vest, and on the fourth finger of his somewhat broad but delicately formed right hand was the old family signet ring with the green gemstone, which likewise belonged to him now. He pulled on his thick wool winter coat, donned his hat, grabbed his satchel, blew out the candle, stormed downstairs to the ground floor, and, passing the stuffed bear, turned right to enter the dining room.

  Fräulein Clementine, his mother’s new lady’s maid, a skinny girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead, a pointed nose, and nearsighted eyes, was already up and setting out breakfast.

  “How late is it now?” he asked between his teeth, although he knew precisely what time it was.

  “A quarter till eight,” she answered, her thin, red hand—it looked gouty—pointing at the wall clock. “You’d better be getting on your way, Hanno.” And at the same time she set a steaming cup in front of him and shoved the breadbasket, butter, salt, and eggcup his way.

  He said nothing more, just grabbed a roll and, without sitting down, his hat still on his head and his satchel under one arm, began to drink his cocoa. The hot liquid made one molar hurt terribly, the one that Herr Brecht had been working on. He left half his cocoa and refused the egg; his mouth still wrenched with pain, he made some sort of sound that might have been a goodbye and ran out of the house.

  It was ten minutes before eight as he crossed the front yard, left the little red-brick villa behind, and began to hurry down the wintry street. Ten, nine, eight minutes left. And it was a long way. And in this fog you could hardly tell where you were. With all the strength in his narrow chest, he drew the icy fog in and pushed it back out again, held his tongue against the tooth that still ached from the cocoa, and forced his legs to go at a mad pace. He was bathed in sweat and yet frozen to the bone. He felt a stitch in his side from this morning constitutional. What little breakfast he had eaten rebelled in his stomach, he felt nauseated, and his heart was just a quivering, wildly fluttering mass that took his breath away.

  The Burg Gate, only the Burg Gate—and just four minutes left. As he panted along the street—drenched in cold sweat, sick at his stomach, his tooth hurting—he looked all around him to see if there might be any other students still under way. No, no, no one else was on the street. They were all in their proper places by now, and the bells began to strike the hour. They rang through the fog from all the steeples, and to celebrate the occasion, those of St. Mary’s were even playing “Now thank we all our God.” And playing it off key, Hanno noticed in his mad despair, without any sense of rhythm, and very badly out of tune. But that was the least of his problems, the least! Yes, he would be late, there was no question of that now. The school clock was a little slow, but he would be late all the same, that was certain. He stared people in the eye as they passed. They were on their way to their offices and shops, not in all that much of a hurry, nothing was threatening them. Some of them returned his envious, plaintiv
e gaze, studied his disheveled appearance—and smiled. Those smiles drove him to distraction. What were they thinking? How could people with no worries possibly judge his situation? “Pure callousness,” he wanted to shout at them. “I mean your smiles, gentlemen. Perhaps you would enjoy collapsing dead in front of the closed school gates.”

  He was still twenty paces from the long, red wall with its two wrought-iron gates that separated the front schoolyard from the street, when he heard the steady, shrill bell, the signal for the beginning of Monday-morning prayers. There was no energy left to run or even increase his stride, and so he simply let his body fall forward in the hope that his legs would manage somehow not to trip him up, but would keep going on their own, stumbling and wobbling as best they could—and he arrived at the outer gate just as the bell stopped ringing.

  Herr Schlemiel, the janitor, a squat fellow with a workingman’s scruffy beard and face, was just about to lock the gates. “Well—” he said, and let young Buddenbrook slip through. Maybe, maybe all was not lost. The idea now was to duck into the classroom, wait there quietly for the end of morning prayers, which were held in the gym, and then act as if everything were perfectly normal. And, gasping for air, exhausted, stiff, and sweaty, he dragged himself across the red-brick schoolyard and pushed his way inside through one of the swinging doors with its pretty panel of stained glass.