Buddenbrooks (45 page)

CHAPTER III

LITTLE Johann was to go to take his farewell of his grand-mother'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 Harmi), 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. Theie 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 191 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 nut there severe and solemn, amid white satin. This was not Grandmamma. There was her Sunday cap with fhe 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 for ever 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 Iong sigh which he gave was so like a tearless sob that Fiau perma neder 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 Kroger, was con-signed to earth. The out-of-town families, from Hamburg and Frankfort, came to the funeral and, for the last time, re-ceived hospitality in Meng Street. And the hosts of the sym-pathizers filled the hall and the landscape-room, the rorriilnr 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 de-parted: he praised her refinement and humility, her piety and cheer, her mildness and her charity. He spoke of the Jeru-salem evenings and the Sunday-school; he gilded wiili 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 ad-jective, he spoke of her "peaceful end." Frau Permaneder was quite aware of the dignity, the repre-sentative bearing, which she owed ID herself and the cnmmu-nity in this hour. She, her daughter Erica, and her grand-daughter 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 Kroger, who had a chair to sit in, were content, as were the relatives of thi? second class, to occupy less prominent places. Frau Permaneder stood there, very erect, her shoul-ders rlevated, her black-bordered handkerchief between her folded hands; and her pride in the chief role which it fell lo her lot to perform was so great as sometimes entirely to ob-scure 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 Mbllendorpf, born Hagen-strb'm, and her husband. Yes, they had all had to come: Mbllendorpfs, Kistcnmakcrs, Langhals, Dverdiecks--before Tony Buddenbrook left her parental roof for ever, they had all gathered here, to offer her, despite Driinlich, despite Per-maneder, 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 pres-193 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 nut there severe and solemn, amid white satin. This was not Grandmamma. There was her Sunday rap with.'he 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 for ever 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-bro\vn 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 Bowers 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 Fiau Perma-neder 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 Kroger, was con-signed to earth. The out-of-town families, from Hamburg and Frankfort, came to the funeral and, for the last time, re-ceived hospitality in Meng Street. And the hosts of the sym-pathizers filled the hall and the landsrape-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 de-parted: he praised her refinement and humility, her piety and cheer, her mildness and her charity. He spoke of the Jeru-salem evenings and the Sunday-school; he gilded with matchless oratory the whole long rinh 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 ad-jective, he spoke of her "peaceful end." Frau Permaneder was quite aware of the dignity, the repre-sentative bearing, which she owed to herself and the commu-nity in this hour. She, her daughter Erica, and her grand-daughter 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 Kroger, 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 shoul-ders 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 ob-scure 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 Mollendorpf, born Hagen-strom, and her husband. Yes, they had all had to come: Mbllendorpfs, Kistenmakcrs, Langhals, Overdiecks--before Tony Buddenbrook left her parental roof for ever, they had all gathered here, to offer her, despite "Jriinliuh, despite Per-maneder, 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 pres-193 ent 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 cir-cles, and who drank Mb'llendorpfs 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 ex-perience 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 any one 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 BUDDENBROOK5 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 ceme-tery, where the funeral march sounded behind half-bare shrubbery on the edge of the little grove, and the great sand-stone 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 new-comer. 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 195 than they used; but it was a pale and sallow roundness, with-out 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.

CHAPTER 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 dis-cussing the price of the Meng Street house. It took a long time. The offer of twenty-eight thousand thaler made by Herr G-osch 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 to-morrow, 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 197 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 Coach, 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 open-hearted 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 Cosch 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 BUDDENBR DDKS 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 con-scious 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'es-perance, tout trompeuse qu'elle est, sert au mains a nous mener a la fin de la vie par un chemin agreable." La Roche-foucauld said that, and it was fine, wasn't it? Oh, yes, hia 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 depre-cating, patient reply went unheard. He seemed to be darkly dreaming for a moment; then he got up. ^lWe 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 199 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 portieres and stair-carpets. And while she did all that, her heart beat faster--yes, even the hrart 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 some-thing happened: something surprising and dramatic beyond all wordb, 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 purrhaser was--Hermann Hagenstrbm, 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 Hagenstr'om, 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 Hagenstroms and we have hren rivals. Did Heinrich played Father and Grand-father 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 when-ever 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 201 BUDDENBRO DKS way, that I can't speak of, Torn. 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 Cosch, 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 Hagenstrbms squeeze into their place, rattlely-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 Hagenstrbm 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 2D2 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 Hagenstrbm is thinking of buying. These people have come up in the world, their family is growing, they have married into the Mollendorpf 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 every-thing as much as possible as it is, he will even keep the 'Donii-nus providebit' over the door--though, to do him justice, it hasn't been the Lord at all, but Hermann Hagenstrom him-self, 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! Dh, 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 Hagenstrom 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 203 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 Hagenstrbm appeared in Meng Street, accom parried 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 Hagenstrom looked the City man to the life: an imposing Slock Exchange figure, in a coat the fur of which seemed a foot long, standing open over an English winter suit of good fuzzy yellow-grepn tweed, He was so uiicom-monly 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 fore-head 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 smarking