Buddenbrooks (24 page)

CHAPTER VI

SlEVERT TIBURTIUS was a small, narrow man with a large head and a thin, long, blond beard parted in the middle, so that he sometimes put the ends back over his shoulders. A quantity of little woolly ringlets covered his round head. His ears were large and outstanding, very much curled up at the edges and pointed at the tips like the ears of a fox. His nose sat like a tiny flat button in his face, his rheek-bones stood out, and his grey eyes, usually drawn close together and blinking about rather stupidly, could at certain moments widen quite extraordinarily, and get larger and larger, pro-truding more and more until they almost sprang out of their sockets. This Pastor Tiburtius, who came from Riga, had preached for some years in central Germany, and now touched at the town on his way back home, where a living had been offered to him. Armed with the recommendation of a brother of the cloth who had eaten at least once in Meng Street of mock-turtle soup and ham with onion sauce, he waited upon the Frau Consul and was invited to be her guest for a few days. He occupied the spacious guest-chamber off the corridor in the first storey. But he stopped longer than he had expected. Eight days passed, and still there was this or that to be seen: the dance of death and the apostle-clock in St. Mary's, the Town Hall, the ancient Ships' Company, the Cathedral clock with the movable eyes. Ten days passed, and he spoke repeatedly of his departure, but at the first word of demur from anybody would postpone anew. He was a better man than Herr Jonathan or Teary Trieschke. He thought not at all about Frau Antonie's curls and wrote BUDDENBROOK5 her no letters. Strange to say, he paid his attentions to Clara, her younger and more serious sister. In her presence, when she spoke, entered or left the room, his eyes would grow surprisingly larger and larger and open out until they nearly jumped out of his head. He would spend almost the entire day in her company, in spiritual or worldly converse or reading aloud to her in his high voice and with the droll, jerky pronunciation of his Baltic home. Even on the first day he said: "Permit me to say, Frau Consul, what a treasure and blessing from Cod you have in ynur daughter Clara. She is certainly a wonderful child." "You are right," replied the Frau Consul. But he re-peated his opinion so often that she began looking him over with her pale blue eyes, and led him on to speak of his home, his connections, and his prospects. She learned that he came of a mercantile family, that his mother was with Cod, that he had no brothers and sisters, and that his old father had retired and lived on his income in Riga--an income which would some time fall to him, Pastor Tiburtius. He also had a sufficient living from his calling. Clara Buddenbrook was now in her nineteenth year. She had grown to be a young lady of an austere and peculiar beauty, with a tall, slender figure, dark, smooth hair, and stern yet dreamy eyes. Her nose was slightly hooked, her mouth a little too firmly closed. In the household she was most intimate with her poor and pious cousin Clothilde, whose father had lately died, and whose idea it was to "es-tablish herself" soon--which meant to go into a pension some-where with the money and furniture which she had inherited. Clara had nothing of Clothilde's meek and hungry submis-siveness. On the contrary, with the servants and even with her brotheis and sister and mother, a commanding tone was usual with her. Her low voice, which seemed only to drop with decision and never to rise with a question, had an im-perious sound and could often take on a short, hard, impatient, 283 haughty quality--on days, for example, when Clara had a headache. Before the father's death had shrouded the family in mourning, she had taken part with irreproachable dignity in the society of her parents' house and other houses of like rank. But when the Frau Consul looked at her, she could not deny that, despite the stately dowry and Clara's domestic prowess, it would not be easy to marry her off. None of the godless, jovial, claret-drinking merchants of their circle would answer in the least; a clergyman would be the only suitable partner for this earnest and God-fearing maiden. After the Frau Consul had conceived this joyful idea, she responded with friendliness to the delicate advances of Pastor Tiburtius. And truly the affair developed with precision. On a warm, cloudless July afternoon the family took a walk: the Frau Consul, Antonie, Christian, Clara, Clothilde, Erica Gr�, and Mamsell Jungmann, with Pastor Tiburtius in their midst, went out far beyond the Castle Gate to eat strawberries and clotted milk or porridge at a wooden table laid out-of-doors, going after the meal into the large nut-garden which ran down to the river, in the shade of all sorts of fruit-trees, between currant and gooseberry bushes, asparagus and potato patches. Sievert Tiburtius and Clara Buddenbrook stopped a little behind the others. He, much the smaller of the two, with his beard parted back over his shoulders, had taken off hi? broad-brimmed black hat from his big head; and he wiped his brow now and then with his handkerchief. His eyes were larger than usual and he carried on with her a long and gentle conversation, in the course of which they both stood still, and Clara, with a serious, calm voice said her "Yes." After they returned, the Frau Consul, a little tired and overheated, was sitting alone in the landscape-room, when Pastor Tiburtius came and sat beside her. Outside there reigned the pensive calm of the Sabbath afternoon; and they sat inside and held, in the brightness of the summer evening, a long, low conversation, at the end Df which the Frau Con-sul said: "Enough, my dear Herr Pastor. Your offer coin-cides with my motherly plans for my daughter; and you on your side have not chosen badly--that I can assure you. Who would have thought that your coming and your stay here in our house would be so wonderfully blest! I will not speak my final word to-day, for I must write first to my son, the Consul, who is at present, as you know, away. You will travel to-morrow, if you live and have your health, to Riga, to take up your work; and we expect to go for some weeks to the seashore. You will receive word from me soon, and God grant that we shall have a happy meeting."

CHAPTER VII

AMSTERDAM, July 30th, 1856

HOTEL HET HA5SJE

MY DEAR MOTHER,

I have just received your important letter, and hasten to thank you for the consideration you show me in asking for my consent in the affair under discussion. I send you, of course, not only my hearty agreement, hut add my warmest good-wishes, being thoroughly convinced that you and Clara have made a good choice. The fine name Tiburtius is known to me, and I feel sure that Papa had business relations with the father. Clara comes into pleasant connections, in any case, and the position as pastor's wife will be very suited to her temperament. And Tiburtius has gone back to Riga, and will visit his bride again in August? Well, it will be a gay time then with us in Meng Street--gayer than you realize, for you do not know the reason why I was so joyfully surprised by Made-moiselle Clara's betrothal, nor what a charming company it is likely to be. Yes, my dear good Mother: I am complying with the request to send my solemn consent to Clara's be-trothal from the Amstel to the Baltic. But I do so on condition that you send me a similar consent by return of post! I would give three solid gulden to see your face, and even more that of our honest Tony, when you read these lines-But I will come to the point. My clean little hotel is in the centre of the town with a pretty, view of the canal. It is not far from the Bourse; and the business on which I came here--a question of a new and valuable connection, which you know I prefer to look after in person--has gone successfully from the first day. I have still considerable acquaintance here from the days of my ap-prenticeship; so, although many families are at the? hore now, I have been invited out a good deal. I have been at small evening companies at the Van Henkdoms and the Mo el ens, and on the third day after my arrival I had to put on my dress clothes to go to a dinner at the house of my former chief, van der Kellen, which he had arranged out of season in my honour. Whom did I take in to dinner? Should you like to guess? Fraulein Arnoldsen, Tony's old school-fellow. Her father, the great merchant and almost greater violin artist, and his married daughter and her husband were also of the party. I well remember that Gerda--if I may call her so--from the beginning, even when she was a young girl at school at Fraulein Weichbrodfs on the Millbrink, made a strong im-pression on me, never quite obliterated. But now I saw her again, taller, more developed, lovelier, more animated. Please spare me a description, which might so easily sound overdrawn--and you will soon see each other face to face. You can imagine we had much to talk about at the table, but we had left the old memories behind by the end of the soup, and went on to more serious and fascinating matters. In music I could not hold my own with her, for we poor Buddenbrooks know all too little of that, but in the art of the Netherlands I was more at home, and in literature we were fully agreed. Truly the time flew. After dinner I had myself presented to old Herr Arnoldsen, who received me with especial cordi-ality. Later, in the salon, he played several concert pieces, and �erda also performed. She looked wonderful as she played, and although I have no notion of violin playing, I know that she knew how to sing upon her instrument (a real Stradivarius) so that the tears nearly came into my eyes. Next day I went to call on the Arnoldsens. I was received at first by an elderly companion, with whom I spoke French, but then Gerda came, and we talked as on the day before for perhaps an hour, only that this time we drew nearer together and made still more effort to understand and know each other. The talk was of you, Mamma, of Tony, of our good old town, and of my work. And on that day I had already taken the firm resolve: this 287 BUDDENBRO DKS one or no one, now or never! I met her again by chance at a garden party at rny friend van Svindren's, and I was in-vited to a musical evening at the Arnoldsens', in the course of which I sounded the young lady by a half-declaration, which was received encouragingly. Five days ago I went to Herr A molds en to ask for permission to win his daughter's hand. He received me in his private office. "My dear Consul," he said, "you are very welcome, hard as it will be for an old widower to part from his daughter. But what does she say? She has already held firmly to her resolve never to marry. Have you a chance?" He was extremely surprised when I told him that Fraulein Gerda had actually given me ground for hope. He left her some time for reflection, and I imagine that out of pure selfishness he dissuaded her. But it was useless. She had chosen me--since yesterday evening the betrothal is an accomplished fact. No, my dear Mother, I am not asking a written answer to this letter, for I am leaving to-morrow. But I am bringing with me the Arnoldsens' promise that father, daughter, and married sister will visit us in August, and then you will be obliged to confess that she is the very wife for me. I hope you see no objection in the fact that Cerda is only three years younger than I? I am sure you never thought I would marry a chit out of the Mbllendorpf-Langhals, Kislenmaker-Hagen--slrb'm circle. And now for the dowry. I am almost frightened to think how Stephan Kistenmaker and Hermann Hagenstrbm and Peter Dohlmann and Uncle Justus and the whole town will blink at me when they hear of the dowry. For my future father-in-law is a millionaire. Heavens, what is there to say? We are such complex, contradictory creatures! I deeply love and respect Cerda Arnoldsen; and I simply will not delve deep down enough in myself to find out how much the thought of the dowry, which was whispered into my ear that first eve-ning, contributed to my feeling. I love her: but it crowns my happiness and pride to think that when she becomes mine, our firm will at the same time gain a very considerable in-crease of capital. I must close this letter, dear Mother; considering that in a few days, we shall be talking over my good fortune together, it is already too long. I wish you a pleasant and beneficial stay at the baths, and beg you to greet all the family most heartily for me. Your loving and obedient son, T.

CHAPTER VIII

THAT year there was indeed a merry midsummer holiday in the Buddenbrook home. At the end of July Thomas re-turned to Meng Street and visited his family at the shore several times, like the other business men in the town. Chris-tian had allotted full holidays unto himself, as he complained of an indefinite ache in his left leg. Dr. Grabow did not seem to treat it successfully, and Christian thought of it so much the more. "It is not a pain--one can't call it a pain," he expatiated, rubbing his hand up and down his leg, wrinkling his big nose, and letting his eyes roani about. "It is a sort of ache, a continuous, slight, uneasy ache in the whole leg and on the left side, the side where the heart is. Strange. I find it strange--what do you think about it, Tom?" "Well, well," said Tom, "you can have a rest and the sea-baths." So Christian went down to the shore to tell stories to his fellow-guests, and the beach resounded with their laugh-ter. Or he played roulette with Peter Dohlmann, Uncle Jus-tus, Dr. Gieseke, and other Hamburg high-fliers. Consul Buddenbrook went with Tony, as always when they were in Travemiinde, to see the old Schwarzkopfs on the front. "Good-day, Ma'am Gr�," said the pilot-captain, and spoke low German out of pure good feeling. "Well, well, what a long time ago that was! And Morten, he's a doctor in Breslau and has all the practice in the town, the rascal." Frau Schwarzkopf ran off and made coffee, and they supped in the green verandah as they used to--only all of them were a good ten years older, and Morten arid little Meta were not there, she having married the magis-trate of Haffkrug. And the captain, already white-haired and rather deaf, had retired from his office--and Madame Griin-lirh was not a goose any more! Which did not prevent her from eating a great many slices of bread and honey, for, as she said: "Honey is a pure nature product--one knows what one is getting." At the beginning of August the Buddenbrooks, like most of the other families, returned to town; and then came the great moment when, almost at the same lime, Pastor Tiburtius from Prussia and the Arnoldsens from Holland arrived for a long visit in Meng Street. It was a very pretty scene when the Consul led hi? bride for the first time into the landscape-room and took her to his mother, who received her with outstretched arms. Gerda had grown tall and splendid. She walked with a free and gracious bearing; with her heavy dark-red hair, her close-set brown eyes with the blue shadows round them, her large, gleaming teeth which showed when she smiled, her straight slroiig nose and nobly formed mouth, this maiden of seven-and-twenty years had a strange, aristocratic, haunting beauty. Her face was white and a little haughty, but she bowed her head as the Frau Consul with gentle feeling took it between hrr hands and kissed the pure, snowy forehead. "Yes, you are welcome to our house and to our family, you dear, beautiful, blessed creature," she said. "You will make him happy. Do I not see already how happy you make him?" And she drew Thomas forward with her other arm, to kiss him also. Never, except perhaps in Grandfather's time, was there more gay society in the great house, which accommodated its guests with ease. Pastor Tiburtius had modestly chosen a bed-chamber in the back building next the billiard-room. But the rest divided the unoccupied space on the ground floor next the hall and in the first storey: Gerda; Herr Arnold-sen, a quick, clever man at the end of the fifties, with a pointed grey beard and a pleasant impetuosity in every mo* 291 tion; his oldest daughter, an ailing-looking woman; and his son-in-law, an elegant man of the world, who was turned over to Christian for entertainment in the town and at the club. Antonie was overjoyed that Sievert Tiburtius was the only parson in the house. The betrothal of her adored brother rejoiced her heart. Aside from Gerda's being her friend, the parti was a brilliant one, gilding the family name and the firm with such new glory! And the three-hundred-thousand mark dowry and the thought of what the town and particularly the Hagenstrbms would say to it, put her in a state of pro-longed and delightful enchantment. Three times daily, at least, she passionately embraced her future sister-in-law. "Dh, Gerda," she cried, "I love you--you know I always did love you. I know you can't stand me--you used to hate me; but--" "Why, Tony!" said Fraulein Arnoldsen. "How could I have hated you? Did you ever do anything to me?" For some reason, however--probably out of mere wantonness and love of talking--Tony asserted stoutly that Gerda had always hated her, while she on her side had always returned the hate with love. She took Thomas aside and told him: "You have done very well, Tom. Oh, heavens, how well you have done! If Father could only see this--it is just dreadful that he cannot! Yes, this wipes out a lot of things--not least the affair with that person whose name I do not even like to speak." Which put it into her head to take Gerda into an empty room and tell her with awful detail the story of her mar-ried life with Bendix Gr�. Then they talked for hours about boarding-school days and the bed-time gossip; nf Arm-gard von Schilling in Mecklenburg and Eva Ewers in Munich. Tony paid little or no attention to Sievert Tiburtius and his betrothed--which troubled them not at all. The lovers sat quietly together hand in hand, and spoke gently and earnestly of the beautiful future before them. As the year of mourning was not quite over, the two be- trothals were celebrated only in the family. But Gerda quickly became a celebrity in the town. Her person formed the chief subject of conversation on the Bourse, at the club, at the theatre, and in society. "Tip-top," said the gallants, and clucked their tongues, for that was the latest Hamburg slang for a superior article, whether a brand of claret, a cigar, or a "deal." But among the solid, respectable citizens there was much head-shaking. "Something queer about her," they said. "Her hair, her face, the way she dresses--a little too unusual." Sorenson expressed it: "She has a certain something about her!" He made a face as if he were on the Bourse and somebody had made him a doubtful proposition. But it was all just like Consul Buddenbrook: a little pretentious, not like his forebears. Everybody knew--not least Benthien the draper--that he ordered his clothes from Hamburg: not only the fine new-fashioned materials for his suits--and he had a great many of them, cloaks, coats, waist-coats, and trousers--but his hats and cravats and linen as well. He changed his shirt every day, sometimes twice a day, and perfumed his handkerchief and his moustache, which he wori! cut like Napoleon III. All this was not for the sake of the firm, of course--the house of Johann Buddenbrook did not need that sort of thing--but to gratify his own personal taste for the superfine and aristocratic--or whatever you might call it. And then the quotations from Heine and other poets' which he dropped sometimes in the most practical connections, in business or civic matters! And now, his bride--well, Consul Buddenbrook himself had "a certain something" about him! All this, of course, with the greatest respect; for the family was highly esteemed, the firm very, very "good," and the head of it an able and charming man who loved his city and would still serve her well. It was really a devilishly fine match for him; there was talk of a hundred thousand thaler down; but of course... Among the ladies there were some who found Gerda "silly"; which, it will be recalled, was a very severe judgment .293 BUDDENBR DDKS But the man who gazed with furious ardour at Thomas Buddenbrook's bride, the first time he saw her on the street, was Cosch the broker. "Ah!" he said in the club or the Ships' Company, lifting his glass and screwing up his face absurdly, "what a woman! Hera and Aphrodite, Brunhilda and Melusine all in one! Oh, how wonderful life is!" he would add. And not one of the citizens who sat about with their beer on the hard wooden benches of the old guild-house, under the models of sailing vessels and big stuffed fish hanging down from the ceiling, had the least idea what the advent of Gerda Arnoldsen meant in the yearning life of Gosch the broker. The little company in Meng Street, not committed, as we have seen, to large entertainments, had the more leisure for intimacy with each other. Sievert Tiburtius, with Clara's hand in his, talked about his parents, his childhood, and his future plans. The Arnoldsens told of their people, who came from Dresden, only one branch of them having been trans-planted to Holland. Madame Gr� asked her brother for the key of the secretary in the landscape-room, and brought out the portfolio with the family papers, in which Thomas had already en-tered the new events. She proudly related the Buddenbrook history, from the Rostock tailor on; and when she read out the old festival verses: Industry and beauty chaste See we linked in marriage band: Venus Anadyomene, And cunning Vulcan's busy hand she looked at Tom and [}erda and let her tongue play over her lips. Regard for historical veracity also caused her to narrate events connected with a certain person whose name she did not like to mention! On Thursday at four o'clock the usual guests came. Uncle Justus brought his feeble wife, with whom he lived an un- happy existence. The wretched mother continued to scrape together money out of the housekeeping to send to the de-generate and disinherited Jacob in America, while she and her husband subsisted on almost nothing but porridge. The Bud-denbrook ladies from Broad Street also came; and their love of truth compelled them to say, as usual, that Erica Grim Huh was not growing well and that she looked more than ever like her wretched father. Also that the Consul's bride wore a rather conspicuous coiffure. And Sesemi Weichbrodt came too, and standing on her tip-toes, kissed Gerda with her little explosive kiss on the forehead and said with emotion: "Be happy, my dear child." At table Herr Arnoldsen gave one of his witty and fanciful toasts in honour of the two bridal pairs. While the rest drank their coifee he played the voilin, like a gipsy, passionately, with abandonment--and with what dexterity!... Gerda fetrhed her Stradivarius and accompanied him in his passages with her sweet cantilena. They performed magnificent duets at the little organ in the landscape-room, where once the Consul's grandfather had played his simple melodies on the flute. "Sublime!" said Tony, lolling back in her easy chair. "Dh, heavens, how sublime that is!" And she rolled up her eyes to the ceiling to express her emotions. "You know how it is in life," she went on, weightily. "Not everybody is given Burh a gift. Heaven has unfortunately denied it to me, though I used to pray for it at night. I am a goose, a silly creature. You know, Cerda--I am the elder and have learned to know life--let me tell you, you ought to thank your Creator every day on your kners, for being such a gifted creature!" "Oh, please," said Gerda, with a laugh, showing her beauti-ful large white teeth. Later they all ate wine jelly and discussed their plans for the near future. At the end of that month or the beginning of September, it was decided, Sievert Tiburtius and the Ar-noldsens would go home. Then, directly after Christmas, 295 Clara's wedding would be celebrated with due solemnity in the great hall. The Frau Consul, health permitting, would attend Tom's wedding in Amsterdam. But it must be put off until the beginning of the next year, that there might be a little pause for rest between. It was no use for Thomas to protest. "Please," said the Frau Consul, and laid her hand on his sleeve. "Sievert should have the precedence, I think." The Pastor and his bride had decided against a wedding journey. Cerda and Thomas, however, were to take a trip to northern Italy, as far as Florence, and be gone about two months. In the meantime Tony, with the help of the up-holsterer Jacobs in Fish Street, was to make ready the charming little house in Broad Street, the property of a bachelor whD had moved to Hamburg. The Consul was already ar-ranging for its purchase. Dh, Tony would furnish it to the Queen's taste. "It will be perfect," she said. They were all sure it would. Christian looked on while the two bridal pairs held hands. and listened to the talk about weddings and trousseaux and bridal journeys. His nose looked bigger and his legs more crooked than ever. He felt an indefinite sort of pain in the left one, and stared solemnly at them all out of his little round deep-set eyes. Finally, in the accents of Marcellus Stengel, he said to his cousin Clothilde, who sat elderly, dried-up, silent, and hungry, at table among the happy throng: "Well, Tilda, let's us get married too--I mean, Df course each one for himself."