Buddenbrooks. Thomas Mann
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a real Stradivarius. Tony was not musical—hardly any of the Buddenbrooks and none of the Krögers were. She could not even recognize the chorals they played at St. Mary’s.—Oh, the organ in the new Church at Amsterdam had a vox humana—a human voice—that was just wonderful. Armgard von Schilling talked about the cows at home.
It was Armgard who from the earliest moment had made a great impression on Tony. She was the first person from a noble family whom Tony had ever known. What luck, to be called von Schilling! Her own parents had the most beautiful old house in the town, and her grandparents belonged to the best families; still, they were called plain Buddenbrook and Kröger—which was a pity, to be sure. The granddaughter of the proud Lebrecht Kröger glowed with reverence for Armgard’s noble birth. Privately, she sometimes thought that the splendid “von” went with her better than it did with Armgard; for Armgard did not appreciate her good luck, dear, no! She had a thick pigtail, good-natured blue eyes, and a broad Mecklenburg accent, and went about thinking just nothing at all on the subject. She made absolutely no pretensions to being aristocratic; in fact, she did not know what it was. But the word “aristocratic” stuck in Tony’s small head; and she emphatically applied it to Gerda Arnoldsen.
Gerda was rather exclusive, and had something foreign and queer about her. She liked to do up her splendid red hair in striking ways, despite Sesemi’s protests. Some of the girls thought it was “silly” of her to play the violin instead of the piano—and, be it known, “silly” was a term of very severe condemnation. Still, the girls mostly agreed with Tony that Gerda was aristocratic—in her figure, well-developed for her years; in her ways, her small possessions, everything. There was the ivory toilet set from Paris, for instance; that Tony could appreciate, for her own parents and grandparents also had treasures which had been brought from Paris.
The three girls soon made friends. They were in the same class and slept together in the same large room at the top of the house. What delightful, cosy times they had going to bed! They gossiped while they undressed—in undertones, however, for it was ten o’clock and next door Mlle. Popinet had gone to bed to dream of burglars. Eva Ewers slept with her. Eva was a little Hamburger, whose father, an amateur painter and collector, had settled in Munich.
The striped brown blinds were down, the low, red-shaded lamp burned on the table, there was a faint smell of violets and fresh wash, and a delicious atmosphere of laziness and dreams.
“Heavens,” said Armgard, half undressed, sitting on her bed, “how Dr. Newmann can talk! He comes into the class and stands by the table and tells about Racine—”
“He has a lovely high forehead,” remarked Gerda, standing before the mirror between the windows and combing her hair by the light of two candles.
“Oh, yes, hasn’t he?” Armgard said eagerly.
“And you are taking the course just on his account, Armgard; you gaze at him all the time with your blue eyes, as if—”
“Are you in love with him?” asked Tony. “I can’t undo my shoe-lace; please, Gerda. Thanks. Why don’t you marry him? He is a good match—he will get to be a High School Professor.”
“I think you are both horrid. I’m not in love with him, and I would not marry a teacher, anyhow. I shall marry a country gentleman.”
“A nobleman?” Tony dropped her stocking and looked thoughtfully into Armgard’s face.
“I don’t know, yet. But he must have a large estate. Oh, girls, I just love that sort of thing! I shall get up at five o’clock every morning, and attend to everything. …” She pulled up the bedcovers and stared dreamily at the ceiling.
“Five hundred cows are before your mind’s eye,” said Gerda, looking at her in the mirror.
Tony was not ready yet; but she let her head fall on the pillow, tucked her hands behind her neck, and gazed dreamily at the ceiling in her turn.
“Of course,” she said, “I shall marry a business man. He must have a lot of money, so we can furnish elegantly. I owe that to my family and the firm,” she added earnestly. “Yes, you’ll see, that’s what I shall do.”
Gerda had finished her hair for the night and was brushing her big white teeth, using the ivory-backed hand-mirror to see them better.
“I shall probably not marry at all,” she said, speaking with some difficulty on account of the tooth-powder. “I don’t see why I should. I am not anxious. I’ll go back to Amsterdam and play duets with Daddy and afterwards live with my married sister.”
“What a pity,” Tony said briskly. “What a pity! You ought to marry here and stay here for always. Listen: you could marry one of my brothers—”
“The one with the big nose?” asked Gerda, and gave a dainty little yawn, holding the hand-mirror before her face.
“Or the other; it doesn’t matter. You could furnish beautifully. Jacobs could do it—the upholsterer in Fish Street. He has lovely taste. I’d come to see you every day—”
But then there came the voice of Mlle. Popinet. It said: “Oh, mademoiselles! Please go to bed. It is too late to get married any more this evening!”
Sundays and holidays Tony spent in Meng Street or outside the town with her grandparents. How lovely, when it was fine on Easter Sunday, hunting for eggs and marzipan hares in the enormous Kröger garden! Then there were the summer holidays at the seashore; they lived in the Kurhaus, ate at the table-d’hôte, bathed, and went donkey-riding. Some seasons when the Consul had business, there were long journeys. But Christmases were best of all. There were three present-givings: at home, at the grandparents’, and at Sesemi’s, where bishop flowed in streams. The one at home was the grandest, for the Consul believed in keeping the holy feast with pomp and ceremony. They gathered in the landscape-room with due solemnity. The servants and the crowd of poor people thronged into the pillared hall, where the Consul went about shaking their purple hands. Then outside rose the voices of the choir-boys from St. Mary’s in a quartette, and one’s heart beat loudly with awe and expectation. The smell of the Christmas tree was already coming through the crack in the great white folding doors; and the Frau Consul took the old family Bible with the funny big letters, and slowly read aloud the Christmas chapter; and after the choir-boys had sung another carol, everybody joined in “O Tannenbaum” and went in solemn procession through the hall into the great salon, hung with tapestries that had statuary woven into them. There the tree rose to the ceiling, decorated with white lilies, twinkling and sparkling and pouring out light and fragrance; and the table with the presents on it stretched from the windows to the door. Outside, the Italians with the barrel-organ were making music in the frozen, snowy streets, and a great hubbub came over from the Christmas market in Market Square. All the children except little Clara stopped up to late supper in the salon, and there were mountains of carp and stuffed turkey.
In these years Tony Buddenbrook visited two Mecklenburg estates. She stopped for two weeks one summer with her friend Armgard, on Herr von Schilling’s property, which lay on the coast across the bay from Travemünde. And another time she went with Cousin Tilda to a place where Bernard Buddenbrook was inspector. This estate was called “Thankless,” because it did not bring in a penny’s income; but for a summer holiday it was not to be despised.
Thus the years went on. It was, take it all in all, a happy youth for Tony.
Part Three
Chapter One
On a June afternoon, not long after five o’clock, the family were sitting before the “portal” in the garden, where they had drunk coffee. They had pulled the rustic furniture outside, for it was too close in the white-washed garden house, with its tall mirror decorated with painted birds and its varnished folding doors, which were really not folding doors at all and had only painted latches.
The Consul, his wife, Tony, Tom, and Clothilde sat in a half-circle around the table, which was laid with its usual shining service. Christian, sitting a little to one side, conned the second oration of