Part + 

IX + 

I + 

Senator Buddenbrook followed the two gentlemen, old Dr. Grabow and young Dr. Langhals, out of the Frau Consul’s bedchamber into the breakfast-room and closed the door. + 

“May I ask you to give me a moment, gentlemen?” he said, and led them up the steps, through the corridor, and into the landscape-room, where, on account of the raw, damp weather, the stove was already burning. “You will understand my anxiety,” he said. “Sit down and tell me something reassuring, if possible.” + 

“Zounds, my dear Senator,” answered Dr. Grabow, leaning back comfortably, his chin in his neckcloth, his hat-brim propped in both hands against his stomach. Dr. Langhals put his top-hat down on the carpet beside him and regarded his hands, which were exceptionally small and covered with hair. He was a heavy dark man with a pointed beard, a pompadour haircut, beautiful eyes, and a vain expression. + 

“There is positively no reason for serious disquiet at present,” Dr. Grabow went on. “When we take into consideration our honoured patient’s powers of resistance⁠—my word, I think, as an old and tried councillor, I ought to know what that resistance is⁠—it is simply astonishing, for her years, I must say.” + 

“Yes, precisely: for her years,” said the Senator, uneasily, twisting his moustaches. + 

“I don’t say,” went on Dr. Grabow, in his gentle voice, “that your dear Mother will be walking out tomorrow. You can tell that by looking at her, of course. There is no denying that the inflammation has taken a disappointing turn in the last twenty-four hours. The chill yesterday afternoon did not please me at all, and today there is actually pain in the side. And some fever⁠—oh, nothing to speak of, but still⁠—In short, my dear Senator, we shall probably have to reckon with the troublesome fact that the lung is slightly affected.” + 

“Inflammation of the lungs then?” asked the Senator, and looked from one physician to the other. + 

“Yes⁠—pneumonia,” said Dr. Langhals, with a solemn and correct bow. + 

“A slight inflammation, however, and confined to the right side,” answered the family physician. “We will do our best to localize it.” + 

“Then there is ground for serious concern, after all?” The Senator sat quite still and looked the speaker full in the face. + 

“Concern⁠—oh, we must be concerned to limit the affection. We must ease the cough, and go at the fever energetically. The quinine will see to that. And by the by, my dear Senator, let me warn you against feeling alarm over single symptoms, you know. If the difficulty in breathing increases, or there should be a little delirium in the night, or a good deal of discharge tomorrow⁠—a sort of rusty-looking mucous, with a little blood in it⁠—well, all that is to be expected, entirely regular and normal. Do reassure dear Madame Permaneder on this point too⁠—she is nursing the patient with such devotion.⁠—How is she feeling? I quite forgot to ask how she has been, in the last few days.” + 

“She is about as usual,” the Senator said. “I have not heard of anything new. She is not taking much thought for her own condition, these days⁠—” + 

“Of course, of course. And, apropos: your sister needs rest, especially at night, and Mamsell Severin has not time to give her all the rest she needs. What about a nurse, my dear Senator? Why not have one of our good Grey Sisters, in whom you feel such an interest? The Mother Superior would be glad to send you one.” + 

“You consider it necessary?” + 

“I am only suggesting it. The sisters are invaluable⁠—their experience and calmness are always so soothing to the patient, especially in an illness like this, where there is a succession of disquieting symptoms. Well⁠—let me repeat, no anxiety, my dear Senator. And we shall see, we shall see. We will have another talk this evening.” + 

“Positively,” said Dr. Langhals, took his hat and got up, with his colleague. But the Senator had not finished: he had another question, another test to make. + 

“Gentlemen,” he said, “one word more. My brother Christian is a nervous man. He cannot stand much. Do you advise me to send him word? Should I suggest to him to come home?” + 

“Your brother Christian is not in town?” + 

“No, he is in Hamburg⁠—for a short time, on business, I understand.” + 

Dr. Grabow gave his colleague a glance. Then he laughingly shook the Senator’s hand and said, “Well, we’ll let him attend to his business in peace. No use upsetting him unnecessarily. If any change comes which seems to make it advisable, to quiet the patient, or to raise her spirits⁠—well, there is plenty of time still, plenty of time.” + 

The gentlemen traversed the pillared hall and stood on the steps awhile, talking about other matters: politics, and the agitations and changes due to the war just then ended. + 

“Well, good times will be coming now, eh, Herr Senator? Money in the country, and fresh confidence everywhere.” + 

And the Senator partially agreed with him. He said that the grain trade with Russia had been greatly stimulated since the outbreak of war, and mentioned the dimensions to which the import trade in oats had attained⁠—though the profit, it was true, had been very unevenly divided. + 

The physicians took their leave, and Senator Buddenbrook turned to go back to the sickroom. He revolved what Dr. Grabow had said. He had spoken with reserve⁠—he gave the impression of avoiding anything definite. The single plain word was “inflammation of the lungs”; which became no more reassuring after Dr. Langhals added the scientific terminology. Pneumonia⁠—at the Frau Consul’s age. The fact that there were two physicians coming and going was in itself disquieting. Grabow had arranged that very unobtrusively. He intended to retire before long, and as young Dr. Langhals would then be taking over the practice, he, Dr. Grabow, would be pleased if he might bring him in now and again. + 

When the Senator entered the darkened room, his mien appeared alert and his bearing energetic. He was used to hiding his cares and weariness under an air of calmness and poise; and the mask glided over his features as he opened the door, almost as though by a single act of will. + 

Frau Permaneder sat by the high bed, the hangings of which were thrust back, and held her mother’s hand. The old lady was propped up on pillows. She turned her head as her son came in, and looked searchingly with her pale blue eyes into his face⁠—a look of calm self-control, yet of deliberate insistence. Coming as it did, slightly sidewise, there was almost something sinister about it, too. Two red spots stood out upon the pallor of her cheeks, but there were no signs of weakness or exhaustion. The old lady was very wide awake, more so in fact than those around her⁠—for, after all, she was the person most concerned. And she mistrusted this illness; she was not at all disposed to lie down and let it have its own way. + 

“What did they say, Thomas?” she asked in a brisk, decided voice which made her cough directly. She tried to keep the cough behind her closed lips, but it burst out and made her put her hand to her side. + 

“They said,” answered the Senator, when the spasm was over, stroking her hand, “they said that our dear, good mother will be up again in a few days. The wretched cough is responsible for your lying here. The lung is of course slightly affected⁠—it is not exactly inflammation,” he hastened to say, as he saw her narrowing gaze, “but even if it were, that needn’t necessarily be so bad. It might be much worse,” he finished. “In short, the lung is somewhat irritated, and they may be right⁠—where is Mamsell Severin?” + 

“Gone to the chemist’s,” said Frau Permaneder. + 

“Yes, you see. She has gone to the chemist’s again, and you look as though you might go to sleep any minute, Tony. No, it isn’t good enough. If only for a day or so, we should have a nurse in, don’t you think so? I will find out if my Mother Superior up at the Grey Sisters has anyone free.” + 

“Thomas,” said the Frau Consul, this time in a more cautious voice, so as not to let loose another cough, “believe me, you cause a good deal of feeling by your protection of the Catholic order against the black Protestant Sisters. You have shown the Catholics a distinct preference. Pastor Pringsheim complained to me about it very strenuously a little time ago.” + 

“Well, he needn’t. I am convinced that the Grey Sisters are more faithful, devoted, and self-sacrificing than the Black ones are. The Protestants aren’t the real thing. They all marry the first chance they get. They are worldly, egotistical, and ordinary, while the Grey Sisters are perfectly disinterested. I am sure they are much nearer Heaven. And they are better for us for the very reason that they owe me some gratitude. What should we have done without Sister Leandra when Hanno had convulsions? I only hope she is free!” + 

And Sister Leandra came. She put down her cloak and little handbag, took off the grey veil which she wore on the street over her white one, and went softly about her work, in her gentle, friendly way, the rosary at her waist clicking as she moved. She remained a day and a night with the querulous, not always patient sufferer, and then withdrew, almost apologetic over the human weakness that enforced a little repose. She was replaced by another sister, but came back again after she had slept. + 

The Frau Consul required constant attendance at her bedside. The worse her condition grew, the more she bent all her thoughts and all her energies upon her illness, for which she felt a naive hatred. Nearly all her life she had been a woman of the world, with a quiet, native, and permanent love of life and good living. Yet she had filled her latter years with piety and charitable deeds: largely out of loyalty toward her dead husband, but also, perhaps, by reason of an unconscious impulse which bade her make her peace with Heaven for her own strong vitality, and induce it to grant her a gentle death despite the tenacious clutch she had always had on life. But the gentle death was not to be hers. Despite many a sore trial, her form was quite unbowed, her eyes still clear. She still loved to set a good table, to dress well and richly, to ignore events that were unpleasant, and to share with complacency in the high regard that was everywhere felt for her son. And now this illness, this inflammation of the lungs, had attacked her erect form without any previous warning, without any preparation to soften the blow. There had been no spiritual anticipation, none of that mining and sapping of the forces which slowly, painfully estranges us from life and rouses in us the sweet longing for a better world, for the end, for peace. No, the old Frau Consul, despite the spiritual courses of her latter years, felt scarce prepared to die; and she was filled with agony of spirit at the thought that if this were indeed the end, then this illness, of itself, in awful haste, in the last hour, must, with bodily torments, break down her spirit and bring her to surrender. + 

She prayed much; but almost more she watched, as often as she was conscious, over her own condition: felt her pulse, took her temperature, and fought her cough. But the pulse was poor, the temperature mounted after falling a little, and she passed from chills to fever and delirium; her cough increased, bringing up a blood-impregnated mucous, and she was alarmed by the difficulty she had in breathing. It was accounted for by the fact that now not only a lobe of the right lung, but the whole right lung, was affected, with even distinct traces of a process in the left, which Dr. Langhals, looking at his nails, called hepatization, and about which Dr. Grabow said nothing at all. The fever wasted the patient relentlessly. The digestion failed. Slowly, inexorably, the decline of strength went on. + 

She followed it. She took eagerly, whenever she could, the concentrated nourishment which they gave her. She knew the hours for her medicines better than the nurse; and she was so absorbed in watching the progress of her case that she hardly spoke to anyone but the physicians, and displayed actual interest only when talking with them. Callers had been admitted in the beginning, and the old ladies of her social circle, pastors’ wives and members of the Jerusalem evenings, came to see her; but she received them with apathy and soon dismissed them. Her relatives felt the difference in the old lady’s greeting: it was almost disdainful, as though she were saying to them: “You can’t do anything for me.” Even when little Hanno came, in a good hour, she only stroked his cheek and turned away. Her manner said more plainly than words: “Children, you are all very good⁠—but⁠—perhaps⁠—I may be dying!” She received the two physicians, on the other hand, with very lively interest, and went into the details of her condition. + 

One day the Gerhardt ladies appeared, the descendants of Paul Gerhardt. They came in their mantles, with their flat shepherdess hats and their provision-baskets, from visiting the poor, and could not be prevented from seeing their sick friend. They were left alone with her, and God only knows what they said as they sat at her bedside. But when they departed, their eyes and their faces were more gentle, more radiant, more blissfully remote than ever; while the Frau Consul lay within, with just such eyes and just such an expression, quite still, quite peaceful, more peaceful than ever before; her breath came very softly and at long intervals, and she was visibly declining from weakness to weakness. Frau Permaneder murmured a strong word in the wake of the Gerhardt ladies, and sent at once for the physicians. The two gentlemen had barely entered the sick-chamber when a surprising alteration took place in the patient. She stirred, she moved, she almost sat up. The sight of her trusted and faithful professional advisers brought her back to earth at a bound. She put out her hands to them and began: “Welcome, gentlemen. Today, in the course of the day⁠—” + 

The illness had attacked both lungs⁠—of that there was no more room for doubt. + 

“Yes, my dear Senator,” Dr. Grabow said, and took Thomas Buddenbrook by the hand, “it is now both lungs⁠—we have not been able to prevent it. That is always serious, you know as well as I do. I should not attempt to deceive you. No matter what the age of the patient, the condition is serious; and if you ask me again today whether in my opinion your brother should be written to⁠—or perhaps a telegram would be better⁠—I should hesitate to deter you from it. How is he, by the way? A good fellow, Christian; I’ve always liked him immensely.⁠—But for Heaven’s sake, my dear Senator, don’t draw any exaggerated conclusions from what I say. There is no immediate danger⁠—I am foolish to take the word in my mouth! But still⁠—under the circumstances, you know, one must reckon with the unexpected. We are very well satisfied with your mother as a patient. She helps all she can, she doesn’t leave us in the lurch; no, on my word, she is an incomparable patient! So there is still great hope, my dear sir. And we must hope for the best.” + 

But there is a moment when hope becomes something artificial and insincere. There is a change in the patient. He alters⁠—there is something strange about him⁠—he is not as he was in life. He speaks, but we do not know how to reply: what he says is strange, it seems to cut off his retreat back to life, it condemns him to death. And when that moment comes, even if he is our dearest upon this earth, we do not know how to wish him back. If we could bid him arise and walk, he would be as frightful as one risen from his coffin. + 

Dreadful symptoms of the coming dissolution showed themselves, even though the organs, still in command of a tenacious will, continued to function. It had now been weeks since Frau Consul first took to her bed with a cold; and she began to have bed sores. They would not heal, and grew worse and worse. She could not sleep, because of pain, coughing and shortness of breath, and also because she herself clung to consciousness with all her might. Only for minutes at a time did she lose herself in fever; but now she began, even when she was conscious, to talk to people who had long been dead. One afternoon, in the twilight, she said suddenly, in a loud, fervent, anxious voice, “Yes, my dear Jean, I am coming!” And the immediacy of the reply was such that one almost thought to hear the voice of the deceased Consul calling her. + 

Christian arrived. He came from Hamburg, where he had been, he said, on business. He only stopped a short time in the sickroom, and left it, his eyes roving wildly, rubbing his forehead, and saying “It’s frightful⁠—it’s frightful⁠—I can’t stand it any longer.” + 

Pastor Pringsheim came, measured Sister Leandra with a chilling glance, and prayed with a beautifully modulated voice at the bedside. + 

Then came the brief “lightening”: the flickering up of the dying flame. The fever slackened; there was a deceptive return of strength, and a few plain, hopeful words, that brought tears of joy to the eyes of the watchers at the bedside. + 

“Children, we shall keep her; you’ll see, we shall keep her after all!” cried Thomas Buddenbrook. “She will be with us next Christmas!” + 

But even in the next night, shortly after Gerda and her husband had gone to bed, they were summoned back to Meng Street by Frau Permaneder, for the mother was struggling with death. A cold rain was falling, and a high wind drove it against the windowpanes. + 

The bedchamber, as the Senator and his wife entered it, was lighted by two sconces burning on the table; and both physicians were present. Christian too had been summoned from his room, and sat with his back to the bed and his forehead bowed in his hands. They had sent for the dying woman’s brother, Justus Kröger, and he would shortly be here. Frau Permaneder and Erica were sobbing softly at the foot of the bed. Sister Leandra and Mamsell Severin had nothing more to do, and stood gazing in sadness on the face of the dying. + 

The Frau Consul lay on her back, supported by a quantity of pillows. With both her blue-veined hands, once so beautiful, now so emaciated, she ceaselessly stroked the coverlet in trembling haste. Her head in the white nightcap moved from side to side with dreadful regularity. Her lips were drawn inward, and opened and closed with a snap at every tortured effort to breathe, while the sunken eyes roved back and forth or rested with an envious look on those who stood about her bed, up and dressed and able to breathe. They were alive, they belonged to life; but they could help her no more than this, to make the sacrifice that consisted in watching her die.⁠ ⁠… And the night wore on, without any change. + 

“How long can it go on, like this?” asked Thomas Buddenbrook, in a low tone, drawing Dr. Grabow away to the bottom of the room, while Dr. Langhals was undertaking some sort of injection to give relief to the patient. Frau Permaneder, her handkerchief in her hand, followed her brother. + 

“I can’t tell, my dear Senator,” answered Dr. Grabow. “Your dear mother may be released in the next few minutes, or she may live for hours. It is a process of strangulation: an oedema⁠—” + 

“I know,” said Frau Permaneder, and nodded while the tears ran down her cheeks. “It often happens in cases of inflammation of the lungs⁠—a sort of watery fluid forms, and when it gets very bad the patient cannot breathe any more. Yes, I know.” + 

The Senator, his hands folded, looked over at the bed. + 

“How frightfully she must suffer,” he whispered. + 

“No,” Dr. Grabow said, just as softly, but in a tone of authority, while his long, mild countenance wrinkled more than ever. “That is a mistake, my dear friend, believe me. The consciousness is very clouded. These are largely reflex motions which you see; depend upon it.” And Thomas answered: “God grant it”⁠—but a child could have seen from the Frau Consul’s eyes that she was entirely conscious and realized everything. + 

They took their places again. Consul Kröger came and sat bowed over his cane at the bedside, with reddened eyelids. + 

The movements of the patient increased. This body, delivered over to death, was possessed by a terrible unrest, an unspeakable craving, an abandonment of helplessness, from head to foot. The pathetic, imploring eyes now closed with the rustling movement of the head from side to side, now opened with a heartbreaking expression, so wide that the little veins of the eyeballs stood out bloodred. And she was still conscious! + 

A little after three, Christian got up. “I can’t stand it any more,” he said, and went out, limping, and supporting himself on the furniture on his way to the door. Erica Weinschenk and Mamsell Severin had fallen asleep to the monotonous sound of the raucous breathing, and sat rosy with slumber on their chairs. + 

About four it grew much worse. They lifted the patient and wiped the perspiration from her brow. Her breathing threatened to stop altogether. “Let me sleep,” she managed to say. “Give me a sleeping-draught.” Alas, they could give her nothing to make her sleep. + 

Suddenly she began again to reply to voices which the others could not hear. “Yes, Jean, not much longer now.” And then, “Yes, dear Clara, I am coming.” + 

The struggle began afresh. Was this a wrestling with death? Ah, no, for it had become a wrestling with life for death, on the part of the dying woman. “I want⁠—,” she panted, “I want⁠—I cannot⁠—let me sleep! Have mercy, gentlemen⁠—let me sleep!” + 

Frau Permaneder sobbed aloud as she listened, and Thomas groaned softly, clutching his head a moment with both hands. But the physicians knew their duty: they were obliged, under all circumstances, to preserve life just as long as possible; and a narcotic would have effected an unresisting and immediate giving-up of the ghost. Doctors were not made to bring death into the world, but to preserve life at any cost. There was a religious and moral basis for this law, which they had known, once, though they did not have it in mind at the moment. So they strengthened the heart action by various devices, and even improved the breathing by causing the patient to retch. + 

By five the struggle was at its height. The Frau Consul, erect in convulsions, with staring eyes, thrust wildly about her with her arms as though trying to clutch after some support or to reach the hands which she felt stretching toward her. She was answering constantly in every direction to voices which she alone heard, and which evidently became more numerous and urgent. Not only her dead husband and daughter, but her parents, parents-in-law, and other relatives who had passed before her into death, seemed to summon her; and she called them all by name⁠—though the names were some of them not familiar to her children. “Yes,” she cried, “yes, I am coming now⁠—at once⁠—a moment⁠—I cannot⁠—oh, let me sleep!” + 

At half-past five there was a moment of quiet. And then over her aged and distorted features there passed a look of ineffable joy, a profound and quivering tenderness; like lightning she stretched up her arms and cried out, with an immediate suddenness swift as a blow, so that one felt there was not a second’s space between what she heard and what she answered, with an expression of absolute submission and a boundless and fervid devotion: “Here I am!” and parted. + 

They were all amazed. What was it? Who had called her? To whose summons had she responded thus instantly? + 

Someone drew back the curtains and put out the candles, and Dr. Grabow gently closed the eyes of the dead. + 

They all shivered in the autumn dawn that filled the room with its sallow light. Sister Leandra covered the mirror of the toilet table with a cloth. + 

II + 

Through the open door Frau Permaneder could be seen praying in the chamber of death. She knelt there alone, at a chair near the bed, with her mourning garments flowing about her on the floor. While she prayed, her hands folded before her on the seat of the chair, she could hear her brother and sister-in-law in the breakfast-room, where they stood and waited for the prayer to come to an end. But she did not hurry on that account. She finished, coughed her usual little dry cough, gathered her gown about her, and rose from the chair, then moved toward her relatives with a perfectly dignified bearing in which there was no trace of confusion. + 

“Thomas,” she said, with a note of asperity in her voice, “it strikes me, that as far as Severin is concerned, our blessed mother was cherishing a viper in her bosom.” + 

“What makes you think that?” + 

“I am perfectly furious with her. I shall try to behave with dignity, but⁠—has the woman any right to disturb us at this solemn moment by her common ways?” + 

“What has she been doing?” + 

“Well in the first place, she is outrageously greedy. She goes to the wardrobe and takes out Mother’s silk gowns, folds them over her arm, and starts to retire. ‘Why, Riekchen,’ I say, ‘what are you doing with those?’ ‘Frau Consul promised me.’ ‘My dear Severin!’ I say, and show her, in a perfectly ladylike way, what I think of her unseemly haste. Do you think it did any good? She took not only the silk gowns, but a bundle of underwear as well, and went out. I can’t come to blows with her, can I? And it isn’t Severin alone. There are wash-baskets full of stuff going out of the house. The servants divide up things before my face⁠—Severin has the keys to the cupboards. I said to her: ‘Fräulein Severin, I shall be much obliged for the keys.’ And she told me, in good set terms, that I’ve nothing to say to her, she’s not in my service, I didn’t engage her, and she will keep the keys until she leaves!” + 

“Have you the keys to the silver-chest? Good. Let the rest go. That sort of thing is inevitable when a household breaks up, especially when the rule has been rather lax already. I don’t want to make any scenes. The linen is old and worn. We can see what there is there. Have you the lists? Good. We’ll have a look at them.” + 

They went into the bedchamber and stood a while in silence by the bed; Frau Antonie removed the white cloth from the face of the dead. The Frau Consul was arrayed in the silk garment in which she would that afternoon lie upon her bier in the hall. Twenty-eight hours had passed since she drew her last breath. The mouth and chin, without the false teeth, looked sunken and senile, and the pointed chin projected sharply. All three tried their best to recognize their mother’s face in this sunken countenance before them, with its eyelids inexorably closed. But under the old lady’s Sunday cap there showed, as in life, the smooth, reddish-brown wig over which the Misses Buddenbrook had so often made merry. Flowers were strewn on the coverlet. + 

“The most beautiful wreaths have come,” said Frau Permaneder. “From all the families in town, simply from everybody. I had everything carried up to the corridor. You must look at them afterwards, Gerda and Tom. They are heart-breakingly lovely.” + 

“How are they progressing down in the hall?” asked the Senator. + 

“They will soon be done, Tom. Jacobs has taken the greatest pains. And the⁠—” she choked down a sob⁠—“the coffin has come. But you must take off your things, my dears,” she went on, carefully replacing the white cloth over the face of the dead. “It is cold in here, but there is a little fire in the breakfast-room. Let me help you, Gerda. Such an elegant mantle, one must be careful with it. Let me give you a kiss⁠—you know I love you, even if you have always despised me. No, I won’t make your hair untidy when I take off your hat⁠—Your lovely hair! Such hair Mother had too, when she was young. She was never so splendid as you are, but there was a time, and since I was born, too, when she was really beautiful. How true it is, isn’t it, what your old Grobleben always says: we must all return to earth at last: such a simple man, too. Here, Tom. These are the most important lists.” + 

They returned to the next room and sat down at the round table, while the Senator took up the paper, on which was a list of the objects to be divided among the nearest heirs. Frau Permaneder’s eyes never left her brother’s face, and her own wore a strained, excited look. There was something in her mind, a question hard to put, upon which, nevertheless, all her thoughts were bent, and which must, in the next few hours, come up for discussion. + 

“I think,” said the Senator, “we may as well keep to the usual rule, that presents go back; so⁠—” + 

His wife interrupted him. + 

“Pardon me, Thomas. It seems to me⁠—where is Christian?” + 

“Oh, goodness, yes, Christian!” cried Frau Permaneder. “We’ve forgotten him!” + 

She went to ring the bell. But at the same moment Christian opened the door. He entered rather quickly, closed it behind him with a slight bang, and stood there frowning, his little deep round eyes not resting on anybody, but rolling from side to side. His mouth opened and shut under the bushy red moustaches. His mood seemed irritated and defiant. + 

“I heard you were here,” he said. “If the things are to be talked about, it is proper that I should be told.” + 

“We were just about to call you,” the Senator said indifferently. “Sit down.” + 

His eyes rested, as he spoke, on the white studs in Christian’s shirt. He himself was in irreproachable mourning: a black cloth coat, blinding white shirt set off at the collar with a black tie, and black studs instead of the gold ones he usually wore. Christian saw his glance. He drew up a chair to the table and sat down, saying as he did so, with a gesture toward his shirt, “I know I have on white studs. I haven’t got round to buying black⁠—or rather, I haven’t bothered. In the last few years I’ve seen times when I had to borrow money for tooth-powder, and go to bed by the light of a match. I don’t know that I am altogether and entirely to blame. Anyhow, there are other things in the world more important than black studs. I don’t set much store by appearances⁠—I never have.” + 

Gerda looked at him as he spoke, and now she gave a little laugh. The Senator remarked: “I doubt if you could bear out the truth of that last statement.” + 

“No? Perhaps you know better than I do, Thomas. I say I don’t set much store by them. I’ve seen too much of the world, and lived with too many different sorts of men, with too many different ways, to care what⁠—and anyhow, I am a grown man”⁠—his voice grew suddenly loud⁠—“I am forty-three years old, and my own master and in a position to warn everybody not to mix in my affairs.” + 

The Senator was quite astonished. “It seems to me you have something on your mind, my friend,” he said. “As far as the studs go, I haven’t so much as mentioned them, if my memory serves me. Wear whatever mourning you choose, or none at all if that pleases you; but don’t imagine you make any impression on me with your cheap broad-mindedness⁠—” + 

“I am not trying to make an impression on you.” + 

“Tom⁠—Christian!” said Frau Permaneder. “Don’t let us have any hard words⁠—not today⁠—when in the next room⁠—Just go on, Thomas. Presents are to be returned? That is only right.” + 

And Thomas went on. He began with the large things, and wrote down for himself the articles he could use in his own house: the candelabra in the dining-room, the great carved chest that stood in the downstairs entry. Frau Permaneder paid extraordinarily close attention. No matter what the article was, the future possession of which was at the moment in question, she would say with an incomparable air, “Oh, well, I’m willing to take it”⁠—as if the whole world owed her thanks for her act of self-sacrifice. She accepted for herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter far and away the largest share of the furnishings. + 

Christian had some pieces of furniture, an Empire table-clock and the harmonium. He seemed satisfied enough. But when they came to dividing the table-linen and silver and the sets of dishes, he displayed, to the great astonishment of the others, an eagerness that was almost avidity. + 

“What about me?” he would say. “I must ask you not to forget me, please.” + 

“Who is forgetting you? Look: I’ve put a whole tea-service and a silver tray down to you. I’ve taken the gilt Sunday service, as we are probably the only ones who would have a use for it.” + 

“I’m willing to take the everyday onion pattern,” said Frau Permaneder. + 

“And what about me?” cried Christian. He was possessed now by that excitement which sometimes seized him and sat so extraordinarily on his haggard cheek. “I certainly want a share in the dishes. And how many forks and spoons do I get? Almost none at all, it seems to me.” + 

“But, my dear man, what do you want of them? You have no use for them at all. I don’t understand. It is better the things should continue in the family⁠—” + 

“But suppose I say I want them⁠—if only in remembrance of Mother,” Christian cried defiantly. + 

To which the Senator impatiently replied, “I don’t feel much like making jokes; but am I to judge from your words that you would like to put a soup-tureen on your chest of drawers and keep it there in memory of Mother? Please don’t get the idea that we want to cheat you out of your share. If you get less of the effects, you will get more elsewhere. The same is true of the linen.” + 

“I don’t want the money. I want the linen and dishes.” + 

“Whatever for?” + 

Christian’s reply to this was one that made Gerda Buddenbrook turn and gaze at him with an enigmatic expression in her eyes. The Senator hastily donned his pince-nez to look the better, and Frau Permaneder simply folded her hands. He said: “Well, I am thinking of getting married, sooner or later.” + 

He said this rather low and quickly, with a short gesture, as though he were tossing something to his brother across the table. Then he leaned back, avoiding their eyes, looking surly, defiant, and yet extremely embarrassed. There was a long pause. At last the Senator broke it by saying: + 

“I must say, Christian, your ideas come rather late. That is, of course, if this really is anything serious, and not the same kind of thing you proposed to Mother a while ago.” + 

“My intentions have remained what they were,” Christian said. He did not look at anybody or change his expression. + 

“That is impossible, I should think. Were you waiting for Mother’s death⁠—?” + 

“I had that amount of consideration, yes. You seem to think, Thomas, that you have a monopoly of all the tact and feeling in the world⁠—” + 

“I don’t know what justifies you in making remarks like that. And, moreover, I must admire the extent of your consideration. On the day after Mother’s death, you propose to display your lack of filial feeling by⁠—” + 

“Only because the subject came up. But the point is that now Mother cannot be affected by any step I may take⁠—no more today than she would be a year from now. Good Lord, Thomas, Mother couldn’t have any actual right⁠—but I saw it from her point of view, and had consideration for that, as long as she lived. She was an old woman, a woman of a past generation, with different views about life⁠—” + 

“I can only say that I concur with her absolutely in this particular view.” + 

“I cannot be bothered about that.” + 

“But you will be bothered about it, my dear sir.” + 

Christian looked at him. + 

“No,” he shouted. “I won’t! I can’t do it. Suppose I tell you I can’t? I must know what I have to do, mustn’t I? I am a grown man⁠—” + 

“You don’t in the least know what you have to do. Your being what you call a grown man is only very external.” + 

“I know very well what I have to do. In the first place, I have to act like a man of honour! You don’t know how the thing stands. With Tony and Gerda here we can’t really talk⁠—but I have already told you I have responsibilities⁠—The last child, little Gisela⁠—” + 

“I know nothing about any little Gisela⁠—and I don’t care to. I am perfectly convinced they are making a fool of you. In any case, what sort of responsibility can you have toward a person like the one you have in mind⁠—other than the legal one, which you can perform as before⁠—?” + 

“Person, Thomas, person? You are making a mistake about her. Aline⁠—” + 

“Silence!” roared Senator Buddenbrook in a voice like thunder. The two brothers glared across the table into each other’s faces. Thomas was pale and trembling with scorn; the rims of Christian’s deep little eyes had got suddenly red, his mouth and eyes spread wide open, his lean cheeks seemed nothing but hollows, and a pair of red patches showed just under the cheekbones. Gerda looked rather disdainfully from one to the other, and Tony wrung her hands, imploring⁠—“Tom, Christian! And Mother lying there in the next room!” + 

“You have no sense of shame,” went on the Senator. “How can you bring yourself⁠—what must it cost you⁠—to mention that name, on this spot, under these circumstances? You have a lack of feeling that amounts to a disease!” + 

“Will you tell me why I should not mention Aline’s name?” Christian was so beside himself that Gerda looked at him with increasing intentness. “I do mention it, as you hear, Thomas; I intend to marry her⁠—for I have a longing for a home, and for peace and quiet⁠—and I insist⁠—you hear the word I use⁠—I insist that you keep out of my affairs. I am free. I am my own master!” + 

“Oh, you fool, you! When you hear the will read, you will see just how much you are your own master! You won’t get the chance to squander Mother’s inheritance as you have run through with the thirty thousand marks already! I have been made the guardian of your affairs, and I will see to it that you never get your hands on more than a monthly sum at a time⁠—that I swear!” + 

“Well, you know better than I who it was that instigated Mother to make such a will! But I am surprised, very much so, that Mother did not give the office to somebody that had a little more brotherly feeling for me than you have.” Christian no longer knew what he was saying; he leaned over the table, knocking on it all the while with his knuckle, glaring up, red-eyed, his moustaches bristling, at his brother, who, on his side, stood looking down at him, pale, and with half-closed lids. + 

Christian went on, and his voice was hollow and rasping. “Your heart is full of coldness and ill-will toward me, all the while. As far back as I can remember I have felt cold in your presence⁠—you freeze me with a perfect stream of icy contempt. You may think that is a strange expression, but what I feel is just like that. You repulse me, just by looking at me⁠—and you hardly ever even so much as look at me. How have you got a right to treat me like that? You are a man too, you have your own weaknesses. You have always been a better son to our parents; but if you really stood so much closer to them than I do, you might have absorbed a little of their Christian charity. If you have no brotherly love to spare for me, you might have had some Christlike love. But you are entirely without affection. You never came near me in the hospital, when I lay there and suffered with rheumatism⁠—” + 

“I have more serious things to think about than your illnesses. And my own health⁠—” + 

“Oh, come, Thomas, your health is magnificent. You wouldn’t be sitting here for what you are, if your health weren’t far and away better than mine.” + 

“I may be perhaps worse off than you are!” + 

“Worse than I am⁠—come, that’s too much! Gerda, Tony! He says he is worse off than I am. Perhaps it was you that came near dying, in Hamburg, of rheumatism. Perhaps you have had to endure torments in your left side, perfectly indescribable torments, for every little trifling irregularity! Perhaps all your nerves are short on the left side! All the authorities say that is what is the matter with me. Perhaps it happens to you that you come into your room when it is getting dark and see a man sitting on the sofa, nodding at you, when there is no man there?” + 

“Christian!” Frau Permaneder burst out in horror. “What are you saying? And, my God! what are you quarrelling about? Is it an honour for one to be worse off than the other? If it were, Gerda and I might have something to say, too.⁠—And with Mother lying in there! How can you?” + 

“Don’t you realize, you fool,” cried Thomas Buddenbrook, in a passion, “that all these horrors are the consequence and effect of your vices, your idleness, and your self-tormenting? Go to work! Stop petting your condition and talking about it! If you do go crazy⁠—and I tell you plainly I don’t think it at all unlikely⁠—I shan’t be able to shed a tear; for it will be entirely your own fault.” + 

“No, and when I die you won’t shed any tears either.” + 

“You won’t die,” said the Senator bitingly. + 

“I shan’t die? Very good, I shan’t die, then. We’ll see who dies first. Work! Suppose I can’t work? My God! I can’t do the same thing long at a time! It kills me. If you have been able to, and are able to, thank God for it, but don’t sit in judgment on others, for it isn’t a virtue. God gives strength to one, and not to another. But that is the way you are made, Thomas. You are self-righteous. Oh, wait, that is not what I am going to say, nor what I accuse you of. I don’t know where to begin, and however much I can say is only a millionth part of the feeling I have in my heart against you. You have made a position for yourself in life; and there you stand, and push everything away which might possibly disturb your equilibrium for a moment⁠—for your equilibrium is the most precious thing in the world to you. But it isn’t the most precious thing in life, Thomas⁠—no, before God, it is not. You are an egotist, that is what you are. I am still fond of you, even when you are angry, and tread on me, and thunder me down. But when you get silent: when somebody says something and you are suddenly dumb, and withdraw yourself, quite elegant and remote, and repulse people like a wall and leave the other fellow to his shame, without any chance of justifying himself⁠—! Yes, you are without pity, without love, without humility.⁠—Oh,” he cried, and stretched both arms in front of him, palms outward, as though pushing everything away from him, “Oh, how sick I am of all this tact and propriety, this poise and refinement⁠—sick to death of it!” + 

The outburst was so genuine, so heartfelt, it sounded so full of loathing and satiety, that it was actually crushing. Thomas shrank a little and looked down in front of him, weary and without a word. + 

At last he said, and his voice had a ring of feeling, “I have become what I am because I did not want to become what you are. If I have inwardly shrunk from you, it has been because I needed to guard myself⁠—your being, and your existence, are a danger to me⁠—that is the truth.” + 

There was another pause, and then he went on, in a crisper tone: “Well, we have wandered far away from the subject. You have read me a lecture on my character⁠—a somewhat muddled lecture, with a grain of truth in it. But we are not talking about me, but about you. You are thinking of marrying; and I should like to convince you that it is impossible for you to carry out your plan. In the first place, the interest I shall be able to pay you on your capital will not be a very encouraging sum⁠—” + 

“Aline has put some away.” + 

The Senator swallowed, and controlled himself. “You mean you would mingle your mother’s inheritance with the⁠—savings of this lady?” + 

“Yes. I want a home, and somebody who will be sympathetic when I am ill. And we suit each other very well. We are both rather damaged goods, so to speak⁠—” + 

“And you intend, further, to adopt the existing children and legitimize them?” + 

“Yes.” + 

“So that after your death your inheritance would pass to them?” As the Senator said this, Frau Permaneder laid her hand on his arm and murmured adjuringly, “Thomas! Mother is lying in the next room!” + 

“Yes,” answered Christian. “That would be the way it would be.” + 

“Well, you shan’t do it, then,” shouted the Senator, and sprang up. Christian got behind his chair, which he clutched with one hand. His chin went down on his breast; he looked apprehensive as well as angry. + 

“You shan’t do it,” repeated Thomas, almost senseless with anger; pale, trembling, jerking convulsively. “As long as I am alive it won’t happen. I swear it⁠—so take care! There’s enough money gone already, what with bad luck and foolishness and rascality, without your throwing a quarter of Mother’s inheritance into this creature’s lap⁠—and her bastards’⁠—and that after another quarter has been snapped up by Tiburtius! You’ve brought enough disgrace on the family already, without bringing us home a courtesan for a sister-in-law, and giving our name to her children. I forbid it, do you hear? I forbid it!” he shouted, in a voice that made the room ring, and Frau Permaneder squeeze herself weeping into the corner of the sofa. “And I advise you not to attempt to defy me! Up to now I have only despised you and ignored you: but if you try any tricks, if you bring the worse to the worst, we’ll see who will come out ahead! You can look out for yourself! I shan’t have any mercy! I’ll have you declared incompetent, I’ll get you shut up, I’ll ruin you⁠—I’ll ruin you, you understand?” + 

“And I tell you⁠—” Thus it all began over again, and went on and on: a battle of words, destructive, futile, lamentable, without any purpose other than to insult, to wound, to cut one another to the quick. Christian came back to his brother’s character and cited examples of Thomas’s egotism⁠—painful anecdotes out of the distant past, which he, Christian, had never forgotten, but carried about with him to feed his bitterness. And the Senator retorted with scorn, and with threats which he regretted a moment later. Gerda leaned her head on her hand and watched them, with an expression in her eyes impossible to read. Frau Permaneder repeated over and over again, in her despair: “And Mother lying there in the next room!” + 

Christian, who at the end had been walking up and down in the room, at last forsook the field. + 

“Very good, we shall see!” he shouted. With his eyes red, his moustaches ruffled, his handkerchief in his hand, his coat wide open, hot and beside himself, he went out of the door and slammed it behind him. + 

In the sudden stillness the Senator stood for a moment upright and gazed after his brother. Then he sat down without a word and took up the papers jerkily. He went curtly through the remaining business, then leaned back and twisted his moustaches through his fingers, lost in thought. + 

Frau Permaneder’s anxiety made her heart beat loudly. The question, the great question, could now not be put off any longer. It must come up, and he must answer; but was her brother now in a mood to be governed by gentleness and filial piety? Alas, she feared not. + 

“And⁠—Tom⁠—,” she began, looking down into her lap, and then up, as she made a timid effort to read his thoughts. “The furniture⁠—you have taken everything into consideration of course⁠—the things that belong to us, I mean to Erica and me and the little one, they remain here with us? In short, the house⁠—what about it?” she finished, and furtively wrung her hands. + 

The Senator did not answer at once. He went on for a while twisting his moustaches and drearily meditating. Then he drew a deep breath and sat up. + 

“The house?” he said. “Of course it belongs to all of us, to you and me, and Christian⁠—and, queerly enough, to Pastor Tiburtius too. I can’t decide anything about it by myself. I have to get your consent. But obviously the thing to do is to sell as soon as possible,” he concluded, shrugging his shoulders. Yet something crossed his face, after all, as though he were startled by his own words. + 

Frau Permaneder’s head sank deep on her breast; her hands stopped pressing themselves together; she relaxed all over. + 

“Our consent,” she repeated after a pause, sadly, and rather bitterly as well. “Dear me, Tom, you know you will do whatever you think best⁠—the rest of us are not likely to withhold our consent for long. But if we might put in a word⁠—to beg you,” she, went on, almost dully, but her lip was trembling too⁠—“the house⁠—Mother’s house⁠—the family home, in which we have all been so happy! We must sell it⁠—?” + 

The Senator shrugged his shoulders again. “Child, you will believe me when I tell you that I feel everything you can say, as much as you do yourself. But those are only our feelings; they aren’t actual objections. What has to be done, remains the problem. Here we have this great piece of property⁠—what shall we do with it? For years back, ever since Father’s death, the whole back part has been going to pieces. A family of cats is living rent-free in the billiard-room, and you can’t walk there for fear of going through the floor. Of course, if I did not have my house in Fishers’ Lane⁠—But I have, and what should I do with it? Do you think I might sell that instead? Tell me yourself, to whom? I should lose half the money I put into it. We have property enough, Tony; we have far too much, in fact. The granary buildings, and two great houses. The invested capital is out of all proportion to the value of the property. No, no, we must sell.” + 

But Frau Permaneder was not listening. She was sitting bent over on the sofa, withdrawn into herself with her own thoughts. + 

“Our house,” she murmured. “I remember the housewarming. We were no bigger than that. The whole family was there. And Uncle Hoffstede read a poem. It is in the family papers. I know it by heart. Venus Anadyomene. The landscape-room. The dining-hall! And strange people⁠—!” + 

“Yes, Tony. They must have felt the same⁠—the family of whom Grandfather bought the house. They had lost their money and had to give up their home, and they are all dead and gone now. Everything has its time. We ought to be grateful to God that we are better off than the Ratenkamps, and are not saying goodbye to the house under such sorry circumstances as theirs.” + 

Sobs, long, painful sobs, interrupted him. Frau Permaneder so abandoned herself to her grief that she did not even dry the tears that ran down her cheeks. She sat bent over, and the warm drops fell unheeded upon the hands lying limp in her lap. + 

“Tom,” said she, and there was a gentle, touching decision in her voice, which, a moment before her sobs had threatened to choke, “you can’t understand how I feel at this hour⁠—you cannot understand your sister’s feelings! Things have not gone well with her in this life.⁠—I have had everything to bear that fate could think of to inflict upon me. But I have borne it all without flinching, Tom: all my troubles with Grünlich and Permaneder and Weinschenk. For, however my life seemed to go awry, I was never quite lost. I had always a safe haven to fly to. Even this last time, when everything came to an end, when they took away Weinschenk to prison, ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘may we come to you?’ And she said, ‘Yes, my children, come!’ Do you remember, Tom, when we were little, and played war, there was always a little spot marked off for us to run to, where we could be safe and not be touched until we were rested again? Mother’s house, this house, was my little spot, my refuge in life, Tom. And now⁠—it must be sold⁠—” + 

She leaned back, buried her face in her handkerchief, and wept unrestrainedly. + 

He drew down one of her hands and held it in his own. + 

“I know, dear Tony, I know it all. But we must be sensible. Our dear good Mother is gone. We cannot bring her back. And so⁠—It is madness to keep the house as dead capital. Shall we turn it into a tenement-house? I know it is painful to think of strangers living here; but after all it is better you should not see it. You must take a nice, pretty little house or flat somewhere for yourself and your family⁠—outside the Castle Gate, for example. Or would you rather stop on here and let out floors to different families? And you still have the family: Gerda and me, and the Buddenbrooks in Broad Street, and the Krögers, and Therese Weichbrodt, and Clothilde⁠—that is, if Clothilde will condescend to associate with us, now that she’s become a lady of the Order of St. John⁠—it’s so very exclusive, you know!” + 

She gave a sigh that was already partly a laugh, and mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, looking like a hurt child whom somebody is helping, with a jest, to forget its pain. Then she resolutely cleared her face and put herself to rights, tossing her head with the characteristic gesture and bringing her chin down on her breast. + 

“Yes, Tom,” she said, and blinked with her tear-reddened eyes, “I’ll be good now; I am already. You must forgive me⁠—and you too, Gerda⁠—for breaking down like that. But it may happen to anyone, you know. It is a weakness. But, believe me, it is only outward. I am a woman steeled by misfortunes. And that about the dead capital is very convincing to me, Tom⁠—I’ve enough intelligence to understand that much, anyhow. I can only repeat that you must do what you think best. You must think and act for us all; for Gerda and I are only women, and Christian⁠—well, God help him, poor soul! We cannot oppose you, for whatever we could say would be only sentiment, not real objections, it is very plain. To whom will you sell it, Tom? Do you think it will go off right away?” + 

“Ah, child⁠—how do I know? But I talked a little this morning with old Gosch the broker; he did not seem disinclined to undertake the business.” + 

“That is a good idea, Tom. Siegismund Gosch has his weaknesses, of course. That thing about his translation from the Spanish⁠—I can’t remember the man’s name, but it is very odd, one must admit. However, he was Father’s friend, and he is an honest man through and through.⁠—What shall you ask? A hundred thousand marks would be the least, I should think.” + 

And “A hundred thousand marks would be the least, wouldn’t it, Tom?” she was still asking, the doorknob in her hand, as the Senator and his wife went down the steps. Then she was alone, and stood there in the middle of the room with her hands clasped palms down in front of her, looking all around with large, helpless eyes. Her head, heavy with the weight of her thoughts, adorned with the little black lace cap, sank slowly, shaking all the while, deeper and deeper on one shoulder. + 

III + 

Little Johann was to go to take his farewell of his grandmother’s mortal remains. His father so arranged it, and, though Hanno was afraid, he made not a syllable of objection. At table, the day after the Frau Consul’s dying struggle, the Senator, in his son’s presence and apparently with design, had commented harshly upon the conduct of Uncle Christian, who had slipped away and gone to bed when the patient’s suffering was at its height. “That was his nerves, Thomas,” Gerda had answered. But with a glance at Hanno, which had not escaped the child, the Senator had severely retorted that an excuse was not in place. The agony of their departed mother had been so sore that one had felt ashamed even to be sitting there free from pain⁠—not to mention entertaining the cowardly thought of trying to escape any suffering of mind called up by the sight. From which, Hanno had gathered that it would not be safe to object to the visit to the open coffin. + 

The room looked as strange to him as it had at Christmas, when, on the day before the funeral, between his father and his mother, he entered it from the hall. There was a half-circle of potted plants, arranged alternately with high silver candelabra; and against the dark green leaves gleamed from a black pedestal the marble copy of Thorwaldsen’s Christ, which belonged in the corridor outside. Black crape hangings fluttered everywhere in the draught, hiding the sky-blue tapestries and the smiling immortals who had looked down from these walls upon so many festive dinner-tables. Little Johann stood beside the bier among his black-clad relatives. He had a broad mourning band on his own sailor suit, and his senses felt misty with the scent from countless bouquets and wreaths⁠—and with another odour that came wafted now and then on a current of air, and smelled strange, yet somehow familiar. + 

He stood beside the bier and looked at the motionless white figure stretched out there severe and solemn, amid white satin. This was not Grandmamma. There was her Sunday cap with the white silk ribbons, and her red-brown hair beneath it. But the pinched nose was not hers, nor the drawn lips, nor the sharp chin, nor the yellow, translucent hands, whose coldness and stiffness one could see. This was a wax-doll⁠—to dress it up and lay it out like that seemed rather horrible. He looked across to the landscape-room, as though the real Grandmamma might appear there the next minute. But she did not come: she was dead. Death had turned her forever into this wax figure that kept its lids and lips so forbiddingly closed. + 

He stood resting on his left leg, the right knee bent, balancing lightly on the toe, and clutched his sailor knot with one hand, the other hanging down. He held his head on one side, the curly light-brown locks swaying over the temples, and looked with his gold-brown, blue-encircled eyes in brooding repugnance upon the face of the dead. His breath came long and shuddering, for he kept expecting that strange, puzzling odour which all the scent of the flowers sometimes failed to disguise. When the odour came, and he perceived it, he drew his brows still more together, his lip trembled, and the long sigh which he gave was so like a tearless sob that Frau Permaneder bent over and kissed him and took him away. + 

And after the Senator and his wife, and Frau Permaneder and Erica, had received for long hours the condolences of the entire town, Elisabeth Buddenbrook, born Kröger, was consigned to earth. The out-of-town families, from Hamburg and Frankfort, came to the funeral and, for the last time, received hospitality in Meng Street. And the hosts of the sympathizers filled the hall and the landscape-room, the corridor and the pillared hall; and Pastor Pringsheim of St. Mary’s, erect among burning tapers at the head of the coffin, turning his face up to heaven, his hands folded beneath his chin, preached the funeral sermon. + 

He praised in resounding tones the qualities of the departed: he praised her refinement and humility, her piety and cheer, her mildness and her charity. He spoke of the Jerusalem evenings and the Sunday-school; he gilded with matchless oratory the whole long rich and happy earthly course of her who had left them; and when he came to the end, since the word “end” needed some sort of qualifying adjective, he spoke of her “peaceful end.” + 

Frau Permaneder was quite aware of the dignity, the representative bearing, which she owed to herself and the community in this hour. She, her daughter Erica, and her granddaughter Elisabeth occupied the most conspicuous places of honour, close to the pastor at the head of the coffin; while Thomas, Gerda, Clothilde, and little Johann, as likewise old Consul Kröger, who had a chair to sit in, were content, as were the relatives of the second class, to occupy less prominent places. Frau Permaneder stood there, very erect, her shoulders elevated, her black-bordered handkerchief between her folded hands; and her pride in the chief role which it fell to her lot to perform was so great as sometimes entirely to obscure her grief. Conscious of being the focus of all eyes, she kept her own discreetly cast down; yet now and again she could not resist letting them stray over the assembly, in which she noted the presence of Julchen Möllendorpf, born Hagenström, and her husband. Yes, they had all had to come: Möllendorpfs, Kistenmakers, Langhals, Överdiecks⁠—before Tony Buddenbrook left her parental roof forever, they had all gathered here, to offer her, despite Grünlich, despite Permaneder, despite Hugo Weinschenk, their sympathy and condolences. + 

Pastor Pringsheim’s sermon went on, turning the knife in the wound that death had made: he caused each person present to remember his own dead, he knew how to make tears flow where none would have flowed of themselves⁠—and for this the weeping ones were grateful to him. When he mentioned the Jerusalem evenings, all the old friends of the dead began to sob⁠—excepting Madame Kethelsen, who did not hear a word he said, but stared straight before her with the remote air of the deaf, and the Gerhardt sisters, the descendants of Paul, who stood hand in hand in a corner, their eyes glowing. They were glad for the death of their friend, and could have envied her but that envy and unkindness were foreign to their natures. + 

Poor Mademoiselle Weichbrodt blew her nose all the time, with a short, emphatic sound. The Misses Buddenbrook did not weep. It was not their habit. Their bearing, less angular than usual, expressed a mild satisfaction with the impartial justice of death. + 

Pastor Pringsheim’s last “amen” resounded, and the four bearers, in their black three-cornered hats, their black cloaks billowing out behind them with the swiftness of their advance, came softly in and put their hands upon the coffin. They were four lackeys, known to everybody, who were engaged to hand the heavy dishes at every large dinner in the best circles, and who drank Möllendorpf’s claret out of the carafes, between the courses. But, also, they were indispensable at every funeral of the first or second class, being of large experience in this kind of work. They knew that the harshness of this moment, when the coffin was laid hold upon by strange hands and borne away from the survivors, must be ameliorated by tact and swiftness. Their movements were quick, agile, and noiseless; hardly had anyone time to be sensible of the pain of the situation, before they had lifted the burden from the bier to their shoulders, and the flower-covered casket swayed away smoothly and with decorum through the pillared hall. + 

The ladies pressed tenderly about Frau Permaneder and her daughter to offer their sympathy. They took her hand and murmured, with drooping eyes, precisely no more and no less than what on such occasions must be murmured; while the gentlemen made ready to go down to the carriages. + 

Then came, in a long, black procession, the slow drive through the grey, misty streets out through the Burg Thor, along the leafless avenue in a cold driving rain, to the cemetery, where the funeral march sounded behind half-bare shrubbery on the edge of the little grove, and the great sandstone cross marked the Buddenbrook family lot. The stone lid of the grave, carven with the family arms, lay close to the black hole framed in dripping greens. + 

A place had been prepared down below for the newcomer. In the last few days, the Senator had supervised the work of pushing aside the remains of a few early Buddenbrooks. The music sounded, the coffin swayed on the ropes above the open depth of masonry; with a gentle commotion it glided down. Pastor Pringsheim, who had put on pulse-warmers, began to speak afresh, his voice ringing fervid and emotional above the open grave. He bent over the grave and spoke to the dead, calling her by her full name, and blessed her with the sign of the cross. His voice ceased; all the gentlemen held their top-hats in front of their faces with their black-gloved hands; and the sun came out a little. It had stopped raining, and into the sound of the single drops that fell from the trees and bushes there broke now and then the short, fine, questioning twitter of a bird. + 

All the gentlemen turned a moment to press the hands of the sons and brother of the dead once more. + 

Thomas Buddenbrook, as the others filed by, stood between his brother Christian and his uncle Justus. His thick dark woollen overcoat was dewed with fine silver drops. He had begun of late to grow a little stout, the single sign of age in his carefully preserved exterior, and his cheeks, behind the pointed protruding ends of his moustaches, looked rounder than they used; but it was a pale and sallow roundness, without blood or life. He held each man’s hand a moment in his own, and his slightly reddened eyes looked them all, with weary politeness, in the face. + 

IV + 

A week later there sat in Senator Buddenbrook’s private office, in the leather chair beside the writing-desk, a little smooth-shaven old man with snow-white hair falling over his brow and temples. He sat in a crouching position, supporting both hands on the white top of his crutch-cane, and his pointed chin on his hands; while he directed at the Senator a look of such malevolence, such a crafty, penetrating glance, that one wondered why the latter did not avoid contact with such a man as this. But the Senator sat apparently at ease, leaning back in his chair, talking to this baleful apparition as to a harmless ordinary citizen. Broker Siegismund Gosch and the head of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook were discussing the price of the Meng Street house. + 

It took a long time. The offer of twenty-eight thousand thaler made by Herr Gosch seemed too low to the Senator, and the broker called heaven to witness that it would be an act of madness to add a single groschen to the sum. Thomas Buddenbrook spoke of the central position and unusual extent of the property; but Herr Gosch, with picturesque gestures, in low and sibilant tones, expatiated upon the criminal risk he would be running. He waxed almost poetic. Ha! Could his honoured friend tell him when, to whom, for how much, he would be able to get rid of the house again? How often, in the course of the century, would there be a demand for such a house? Perhaps his friend and patron could assure him that tomorrow, on the train from Buchen, there was arriving an Indian nabob who wished to establish himself in the Buddenbrook mansion? He, Siegismund Gosch, would have it on his hands, simply on his hands, and it would be the ruin of him. He would be a beaten man, his race would be run, his grave dug⁠—yes, it would be dug⁠—and, as the phrase enchanted him, he repeated it, and added something more about chattering apes and clods of earth falling upon the lid of his coffin. + 

But the Senator was not satisfied. He spoke of the ease with which the property could be divided, emphasized his responsibility toward his sister, and remained by the sum of thirty thousand thaler. After which he had to listen, with a mixture of enjoyment and impatience, to a rejoinder from Herr Gosch, which lasted some two hours, during which the broker sounded, as it were, all the registers of his character. He played two roles at once: first, the hypocritical villain, with a sweet voice, his head on one side, and a smile of openhearted simplicity. Stretching out his large, white hand, with the long, trembling fingers, he said “Agree, my dear young patron: eighty-four thousand marks⁠—it is the offer of an honest old man.” But a child could have seen that this was all lies and treachery⁠—a deceiving mask, behind which the man’s deep villainy peeped forth. + 

Thomas Buddenbrook finally declared that he must take time to think, and that in any case he must consult his sister, before he accepted the twenty-eight thousand thaler⁠—which was unlikely. Then he turned the conversation to indifferent topics and asked Herr Gosch about business and his health. + 

Things were going badly with Herr Gosch. He made a fine, sweeping gesture to wave away the imputation that he was a prosperous man. The burdens of old age approached, they were at hand even now; as aforesaid, his grave was dug. He could not even carry his glass of grog to his lips without spilling half of it, his arm trembled so like the devil. It did no good to curse. The will no longer availed. And yet⁠—! He had his life behind him⁠—not such a poor life, after all. He had looked at the world with his eyes open. Revolutions had thundered by, their waves had beat upon his heart⁠—so to speak. Ha! Those were other times, when he had stood at the side of Consul Johann Buddenbrook, the Senator’s father, at that historic sitting, and defied the fury of the raging mob. A frightful experience! No, his life had not been poor, either outwardly or inwardly. Hang it⁠—he had been conscious of powers⁠—and as the power is, so is the ideal⁠—as Feuerbach says. And even now⁠—even now, his soul was not impoverished, his heart was still young: it had never ceased, and would never cease, to be capable of great emotions, to live fervently in and for his ideals. They would go with him to his grave.⁠—But were ideals, after all, meant to be realized? No, a thousand times no! We might long for the stars, but should we ever reach them? No, hope, not realization, was the most beautiful thing in life: “L’espérance, tout trompeuse qu’elle est, sert au moins à nous mener à la fin de la vie par un chemin agréable.” La Rochefoucauld said that, and it was fine, wasn’t it? Oh, yes, his honoured friend and patron, of course, did not need to console himself with that sort of thing. The waves of life had lifted him high on their shoulders, and fortune played about his brow. But for the lonely and submerged, who dreamed alone in the darkness⁠— + 

Suddenly⁠—“You are happy,” he said, laying his hand on the Senator’s knee, and looking up at him with swimming eyes. “Don’t deny it⁠—it would be sacrilege. You are happy. You hold fortune in your arms. You have reached out your strong arms and conquered her⁠—your strong hands,” he corrected himself, not liking the sound of “arms” twice so close together. He was silent, and the Senator’s deprecating, patient reply went unheard. He seemed to be darkly dreaming for a moment; then he got up. + 

“We have been chatting,” he said, “but we came together on business. Time is money. Let us not waste it in hesitation. Listen to me. Since it is you: since it is you, you understand⁠—” here it almost looked as though Herr Gosch was about to give way again to another rhapsody; but he restrained himself. He made a wide, sweeping gesture, and cried: “Twenty-nine thousand thaler, eighty-seven thousand marks current, for your mother’s house! Is it a bargain?” And Senator Buddenbrook agreed. + 

Frau Permaneder, of course, found the sum ridiculously small. Considering the memories that clung about it, she would have thought a million down no more than an honest price for their old home. But she rapidly adjusted herself⁠—the more readily that her thoughts and efforts were soon taken up by plans for the future. + 

She rejoiced from the bottom of her heart over all the good furniture that had fallen to her share. And though there was no idea of bustling her away from under the parental roof, she plunged at once, with the greatest zest, into the business of finding and renting a new home. The leave-taking would be hard⁠—the very thought of it brought tears to her eyes. But the prospect of a change was not without its own charm too. It was almost like another setting-out⁠—the fourth one! And so again she looked at houses and visited Jacob’s; again she bargained for portières and stair-carpets. And while she did all that, her heart beat faster⁠—yes, even the heart of this old woman who was steeled by the misfortunes of life! + 

Weeks passed like this: four, five, six weeks. The first snow fell, the stoves crackled. Winter was here again; and the Buddenbrooks began to consider sadly what sort of Christmas feast they should have this year. But now something happened: something surprising and dramatic beyond all words, something that simply knocked you off your feet. Frau Permaneder paused in the midst of her business, like one paralyzed. + 

“Thomas,” she said, “am I crazy? Is Gosch dreaming? It is too absurd, too outlandish⁠—” She held her temples with both her hands. The Senator shrugged his shoulders. + 

“My dear child, nothing at all is decided yet. But there is the possibility⁠—and if you think it over quietly, you will see that there is nothing so extraordinary about it, after all. It is a little startling, I admit. It gave me a start when Gosch first told me. But absurd? What makes it absurd?” + 

“I should die,” said she. She sat down in a chair and stopped there without moving. + 

What was going on? Simply that a buyer had appeared for the house; or, rather, a possible purchaser showed a desire to go over it, with a view to negotiations. And this possible purchaser was⁠—Hermann Hagenström, wholesale dealer and Consul for the Kingdom of Portugal. + 

When the first rumour reached Frau Permaneder, she was stunned, incredulous, incapable of grasping the idea. But when the rumour became concrete, when it actually took shape in the person of Consul Hermann Hagenström, standing, as it were, before the door, then she pulled herself together, and animation came back to her. + 

“This must not happen, Thomas. As long as I live, it must not happen. When one sells one’s house, one is bound to look out for the sort of master it gets. Our Mother’s house! Our house! The landscape-room!” + 

“But what stands in the way?” + 

“What stands in the way? Heavens, Thomas! Mountains stand in the way⁠—or they ought to! But he doesn’t see them, this fat man with the snub nose! He doesn’t care about them. He has no delicacy and no feeling⁠—he is like the beasts that perish. From time immemorial the Hagenströms and we have been rivals. Old Heinrich played Father and Grandfather some dirty tricks; and if Hermann hasn’t tripped you up yet, it is only because he hasn’t had a chance. When we were children, I boxed his ears in the open street, for very good reasons; and his precious little sister Julchen nearly scratched me to pieces for it. That was all childishness, then. But they have always looked on and enjoyed it whenever we had a piece of bad luck⁠—and it was mostly I myself who gave them the pleasure. God willed it so. Whatever the Consul did to injure you or overreach you in a business way, that I can’t speak of, Tom. You must know better than I. But the last straw was when Erica made a good marriage and he wormed around and wormed around until he managed to spoil it and get her husband shut up, through his brother, who is a cat! And now they have the nerve⁠—” + 

“Listen, Tony. In the first place, we have nothing more to say in the matter. We made our bargain with Gosch, and he has the right to deal with whomever he likes. But there is a sort of irony about it, after all⁠—” + 

“Irony? Well, if you like to call it that⁠—but what I call it is a disgrace, a slap in the face; because that is just what it would be. You don’t realize what it would be like, in the least. But it would mean to everybody that the Buddenbrook family are finished and done for: they clear out, and the Hagenströms squeeze into their place, rattlety-bang! No, Thomas, never will I consent to sit by while this goes on. I will never stir a finger in such baseness. Let him come here if he dares. I won’t receive him, you may be sure of that. I will sit in my room with my daughter and my granddaughter, and turn the key in the door, and forbid him to enter.⁠—That is just what I will do.” + 

“I know, Tony, you will do what you think best; and you will probably consider well beforehand if it will be wise not to preserve the ordinary social forms. For of course you don’t imagine that Consul Hagenström would feel wounded by your conduct? Not in the least, my child. It would neither please nor displease him⁠—he would simply be mildly surprised, that is all. The trouble is, you imagine he has the same feelings toward you that you have toward him. That is a mistake, Tony. He does not hate us in the least. He doesn’t hate anybody. He is highly successful and extremely good-natured. As I’ve told you more than ten times already, he would speak to you on the street with the utmost cordiality if you didn’t put on such a belligerent air. I’m sure he is surprised at it⁠—for two minutes; of course not enough to upset the equilibrium of a man to whom nobody can do any harm. What is it you reproach him with? Suppose he has outstripped me in business, and even now and then got ahead of me in some public affair? That only means he is a better business man and a cleverer politician than I am.⁠—There’s no reason at all for you to laugh in that scornful way.⁠—But to come back to the house. The truth is, it has lost most of its old significance for us⁠—that has gradually passed over to mine. I say this to console you in advance; on the other hand, it is plain why Consul Hagenström is thinking of buying. These people have come up in the world, their family is growing, they have married into the Möllendorpf family, and become equal to the best in money and position. But so far, there has been something lacking, the outward sign of their position, which they were evidently willing to do without: the historic consecration⁠—the legitimization, so to speak. But now they seem to have made up their minds to have that too; and some of it they will get by moving into a house like this one. You wait and see: mark my words, the Consul will preserve everything as much as possible as it is, he will even keep the ‘Dominus providebit’ over the door⁠—though, to do him justice, it hasn’t been the Lord at all, but Hermann Hagenström himself, single-handed, that has put the family and the firm where they are!” + 

“Bravo, Tom! Oh, it does do me good to hear you say something spiteful about them once in a while! That’s really all I want! Oh, if I only had your head! Wouldn’t I just give it to him! But there you stand⁠—” + 

“You see, my head doesn’t really do me much good.” + 

“There you stand, I say, with that awful calmness, which I simply don’t understand at all, and tell me how Hermann Hagenström does things. Ah, you may talk as you like, but you have a heart in your body, the same as I have myself, and I simply don’t believe you feel as calm inside as you make out. All the things you say are nothing but your own efforts to console yourself.” + 

“Now, Tony, you are getting pert. What I do is all you have anything to do with⁠—what I think is my own affair.” + 

“Tell me one thing, Tom: wouldn’t it be like a nightmare to you?” + 

“Exactly.” + 

“Like something you dreamed in a fever?” + 

“Why not?” + 

“Like the most ridiculous kind of farce?” + 

“There, there, now, that’s enough!” + 

And Consul Hagenström appeared in Meng Street, accompanied by Herr Gosch, who held his Jesuit hat in his hand, crouched over like a conspirator, and peered past the maid into the landscape-room even while he handed her his card. + 

Hermann Hagenström looked the City man to the life: an imposing Stock Exchange figure, in a coat the fur of which seemed a foot long, standing open over an English winter suit of good fuzzy yellow-green tweed. He was so uncommonly fat that not only his chin, but the whole lower part of his face, was double⁠—a fact which his full short-trimmed blond beard could not disguise. When he moved his forehead or eyebrows, deep folds came even in the smoothly shorn skin of his skull. His nose lay flatter upon his upper lip than ever, and breathed down into his moustaches. Now and then his mouth had to come to the rescue and fly open for a deep breath. When it did this it always made a little smacking noise, as the tongue came away from the roof of his mouth. + 

Frau Permaneder coloured when she heard this once well-known sound. A vision of lemon-buns with truffled sausage on top, almost threatened, for a moment, the stony dignity of her bearing. She sat on the sofa, her arms crossed and her shoulders lifted, in an exquisitely fitting black gown with flounces up to the waist, and a dainty mourning cap on her smooth hair. As the two gentlemen entered, she made a remark to her brother the Senator, in a calm, indifferent tone. He had not had the heart to leave her in the lurch at this hour; and he now walked to the middle of the room to meet their guests, while Tony remained on the sofa. He exchanged a hearty greeting with Herr Gosch and a correct and courteous one with the Consul; then Tony rose of her own accord, performed a measured bow to both of them at once, and, without any excess of zeal, associated herself with her brother’s invitation to the two gentlemen to be seated. + 

They all sat down, and the Consul and the broker talked by turns for the next few minutes. Herr Gosch’s voice was offensively obsequious as he begged them to pardon the intrusion on their privacy⁠—you could hear a malign undercurrent in it none the less⁠—but Herr Consul Hagenström was anxious to go through the house with a view to possible purchase. And the Consul, in a voice that again called up visions of lemon-bun and goose-liver, said the same thing in different words. Yes, in fact, this was the idea he had in mind and hoped to be able to carry out⁠—provided the broker did not try to drive too hard a bargain with him, ha, ha! He did not doubt but the matter could be settled to the satisfaction of everybody concerned. + 

His manner was free and easy and like a man of the world’s, which did not fail to make a certain impression on Madame Permaneder; the more so that he nearly always turned to her as he spoke. His tone was almost apologetic when he went into detail upon the grounds for his desire to purchase. “Room!” he said. “We need more room. My house in Sand Street⁠—you wouldn’t believe it, my dear madam, nor you, Herr Senator, but in fact, it is getting so small we can’t turn round in it. I’m not speaking of company. It only takes the family, and the Huneus, and the Möllendorpfs and my brother Moritz’s family, and there we are⁠—in fact, packed in like sardines. So, then⁠—well, why should we, you know!” + 

He spoke in an almost fretful tone, while manner and gestures expressed: “You see for yourselves, there’s no reason why I should put up with that sort of thing, when there is plenty of money to do what we like!” + 

“I thought of waiting,” he went on, “till Zerline and Bob should want a house. Then they could take mine, and I could find something larger for myself. But in fact⁠—you know,” he interrupted himself, “my daughter Zerline has been engaged to Bob, my brother the attorney’s eldest, for years. The wedding won’t be put off much longer⁠—two years at most. They are young⁠—so much the better. Well⁠—in fact⁠—why should I wait for them and let slip a good chance when it offers? There would be no sense in that.” + 

Everybody agreed. The conversation paused for a while on the subject of the approaching wedding. Marriages⁠—advantageous marriages⁠—between first cousins were not uncommon in the town, and this one excited no disapproval. The plans of the young pair were inquired into⁠—with reference to the wedding journey. They thought of going to the Riviera, to Nice and so on. That was what they seemed to want to do⁠—and why shouldn’t they, you know? The younger children were mentioned, and the Consul spoke of them with easy satisfaction, shrugging his shoulders. He himself had five children, and his brother Moritz had four sons and daughters. Yes, they were all flourishing, thanks. Why shouldn’t they be⁠—you know? In fact, they were all very well. And he came back to the growing up of the family, and to their narrow quarters. “Yes, this is something else entirely,” he said. “I’ve seen that already, on the way upstairs. This house is a pearl, certainly a pearl⁠—if you can compare anything so large with anything so small, ha, ha! Why, even the hangings here⁠—I own up to having had my eye on the hangings all the time I’ve been talking. A most charming room⁠—in fact. When I think that you have passed all your life in these surroundings⁠—in fact⁠—” + 

“With some interruptions,” said Frau Permaneder, in that extraordinarily throaty voice of which she sometimes availed herself. + 

“Oh, yes, interruptions,” repeated the Consul, with a civil smile. Then he glanced at Senator Buddenbrook and the broker; and, as those gentlemen were in conversation together, he drew up his chair to Frau Permaneder’s sofa and leaned toward her, so that she felt his heavy breathing close under her nose. Being too polite to turn away, she sat as stiff and erect as possible and looked down at him under her drooping lids. But he was quite unconscious of her discomfort. + 

“Let me see, my dear Madame Permaneder,” he said. “Seems to me we’ve done business together before now. In fact⁠—what was it we were dickering over then? Sweetmeats, wasn’t it, or titbits of some sort⁠—and now a whole house!” + 

“I don’t remember,” said Frau Permaneder. She held her neck as stiff as she could, for his face was really disgustingly, indecently near. + 

“You don’t remember?” + 

“No, really, I don’t remember anything at all about sweetmeats. I have a sort of hazy recollection of lemon-buns, with sausage on top⁠—some disgusting sort of school luncheon⁠—I don’t know whether it was yours or mine. We were all children then.⁠—But this matter of the house is entirely Herr Gosch’s affair. I have nothing to do with it.” + 

She gave her brother a quick, grateful look, for he had seen her need and come to her rescue by asking if the gentlemen were ready to make the round of the house. They were quite ready, and took temporary leave of Frau Permaneder, expressing the hope of seeing her again when they had finished. The Senator led the two gentlemen out through the dining-room. + 

He took them upstairs and down, and showed them the rooms in the second storey as well as those on the corridor of the first, and the ground floor, including the kitchen and cellars. As the visit fell in business hours, they refrained from visiting the offices of the Insurance Company. But the new Director was mentioned, and Consul Hagenström declared him to be a very honest chap⁠—a remark which was received by the Senator in silence. + 

They went through the garden, lying bare and wretched under half-melting snow, looked at the Portal, and returned to the laundry, in the front courtyard; and thence by the narrow paved walk that led between walls to the back courtyard with the oak-tree, and the “back-building.” Here there was nothing but old age, neglect, and dilapidation. Grass and moss grew between the paving-stones, the steps were in a state of advanced decay, and they could only look into the billiard-room without entering⁠—the floor was so bad⁠—so the family of cats that lived there rent-free was not disturbed. + 

Consul Hagenström said very little⁠—he was obviously planning. “Well, yes,” he kept saying, as he looked and turned away, suggesting by his manner that in case he bought the house all this would of course be different. He stood, with the same air, on the ground floor of the back building and looked up at the empty attic. “Yes, well,” he repeated, and set in motion the thick, rotting cable with a rusty iron hook on the end that had been hanging there for years. Then he turned on his heel. + 

“Best thanks for your trouble, Herr Senator,” he said. “We’re at the end, I suppose.” He scarcely uttered a word on the rapid return to the front building, or later when the two gentlemen paid their respects to Frau Permaneder in the landscape-room and the Senator accompanied them down the steps and across the entry. But hardly had they said goodbye and Consul Hagenström turned with his companion to walk down the street, when it was seen that a very lively conversation began at once between the two. + 

The Senator returned to the room where Frau Permaneder, with her severest manner, sat bolt upright in the window, knitting with two huge wooden needles a black worsted frock for her granddaughter Elisabeth, and now and then casting a glance into the gossip’s glass. Thomas walked up and down a while in silence, with his hands in his trousers pockets. + 

“Yes, we have put it in the broker’s hands,” he said at length. “We must wait and see what comes of it. My opinion is that he will buy the whole property, live here in the front, and utilize the back part in some other way.” + 

She did not look at him, or change her position, or cease to knit. On the contrary, the needles flew back and forth faster than ever. + 

“Oh, certainly⁠—of course he’ll buy it. He’ll buy the whole thing,” she said, and it was her throaty voice she used. “Why shouldn’t he buy it⁠—you know? In fact, there would be no sense in that at all!” + 

She raised her eyebrows and looked severely through her pince-nez⁠—which she now used for sewing, but never managed to put on straight⁠—at her knitting-needles. They flew like lightning round and round each other, clacking all the while. + 

Christmas came: the first Christmas without the Frau Consul. They spent the evening of the twenty-fourth at the Senator’s house, without the old Krögers and without the Misses Buddenbrook; for the old children’s day had now ceased to exist, and Thomas Buddenbrook did not feel like making presents to everybody who used to attend the Frau Consul’s celebration. Only Frau Permaneder and Erica, with little Elisabeth, Christian, Clothilde, and Mademoiselle Weichbrodt, were invited. The latter insisted on holding the customary present-giving on the twenty-fifth, in her own stuffy little rooms, where it was attended with the usual mishap. + 

There was no troop of poor retainers to receive shoes and woollen underwear, and there were no choirboys, when they assembled in Fishers’ Lane on the twenty-fourth. They joined quite simply together in “Holy Night,” and Therese Weichbrodt read the Christmas chapter instead of the Frau Senator, who did not particularly care for such things. Then they went through the suite of rooms into the hall, singing in a subdued way the first stanza of “O Evergreen.” + 

There was no special ground for rejoicing. Nobody’s face was beaming with joy, there was no lively conversation. What was there to talk about? They thought of the departed mother, discussed the sale of the house and the well-lighted apartment which Frau Permaneder had rented in a pleasant house outside Holsten Gate, with a view on the green square of Linden Place, and what would happen when Hugo Weinschenk came out of prison. At intervals little Johann played on the piano something which he had been learning with Herr Pfühl, or accompanied his mother, not faultlessly, but with a lovely singing tone, in a Mozart sonata. He was praised and kissed, but had to be taken off to bed by Ida Jungmann, for he was pale and tired on account of a recent stomach upset. + 

Even Christian was disinclined to talk or joke. After the violent altercation in the breakfast-room he had not let fall another syllable about getting married. He lived on in the old way, on terms with his brother which were not very honourable to himself. He made a brief effort, rolling his eyes about, to awaken sympathy in the company for the misery in his side; went early to the club; and came back to supper, which was held after the prescribed traditions. And then the Buddenbrooks had this Christmas too behind them, and were glad of it. + 

In the beginning of the year 1872, the household of the deceased Frau Consul was broken up. The servants went, and Frau Permaneder thanked God to see the last of Mamsell Severin, who had continued to question her authority in the most unpleasant manner, and now departed with the silk gowns and linen which she had accumulated. Furniture wagons stood before the door, and the old house was emptied of its contents. The great carved chest, the gilt candelabra, and the other things that had fallen to his share, the Senator took to his house in Fishers’ Lane; Christian moved with his into a three-room bachelor apartment near the club; and the little Permaneder-Weinschenk family took possession with theirs of the well-lighted flat in Linden Place, which was after all not without some claims to elegance. It was a pretty little apartment, and the front door of it had a bright copper plate with the name A. Permaneder-Buddenbrook, Widow, in ornamental lettering. + 

The house in Meng Street was hardly emptied when a host of workmen appeared and began to tear down the back-building; the dust from the old mortar darkened the air. The property had passed into the hands of Consul Hermann Hagenström. He had set his heart upon it, and had outbid an offer which Sigmund Gosch received for it from Bremen. He immediately began to turn it to the best advantage, in the ingenious way for which he had been so long admired. In the spring he moved with his family into the front house, where he left everything almost untouched, save for the necessary renovations and certain very modern improvements. For instance, he had the old bellpulls taken out and the house fitted throughout with electric bells. And hardly had the back-building been demolished when a new, neat, and airy structure rose in its place, which fronted on Bakers’ Alley and was intended for shops and warehouses. + 

Frau Permaneder had frequently sworn to her brother that no power on earth could bring her ever to look at the parental home again. But it was hardly possible to carry out this threat. Her way sometimes led her of necessity past the shops which had been quickly and advantageously rented, and past the show-windows of the back-building, or the dignified gable front on the other side, where now, beneath the “Dominus Providebit,” was to be read the name of Consul Hermann Hagenström. When she saw that, Frau Permaneder, on the open street, before ever so many people, simply began to weep aloud. She put back her head like a bird beginning to sing, pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, uttered a wail of mingled protest and lament, and, giving no heed to the passersby or to the remonstrances of her daughter, gave her tears free vent. + 

They were the unashamed, refreshing tears of her childhood, which she still retained despite all the storms and shipwrecks of her life. + 