Chapter Three

      This year the Buddenbrooks took no holiday during Christian’s and Clara’s vacation. The Consul said he was too busy; but it was Tony’s unsettled affair as well, that kept them lingering in Mengstrasse. A very diplomatic letter, written by the Consul himself, had been dispatched to Herr Grünlich; but the progress of the wooing was hindered by Tony’s obstinacy. She expressed herself in the most childish way. “Heaven forbid, Mamma,” she would say. “I simply can’t endure him!” with tremendous emphasis on the second syllable. Or she would explain solemnly, “Father” (Tony never otherwise said anything but “Papa”), “I can never yield him my consent.”

      And at this point the matter would assuredly have stuck, had it not been for events that occurred some ten days after the talk in the breakfast-room—in other words, about the middle of July.

      It was afternoon—a hot blue afternoon. The Frau Consul was out, and Tony sat with a book alone at the window of the landscape room, when Anton brought her a card. Before she had time to read the name, a young man in a bell-skirted coat and pea-green pantaloons entered the room. It was, of course, Herr Grünlich, with an expression of imploring tenderness upon his face.

      Tony started up indignantly and made a movement to flee into the next room. How could one possibly talk to a man who had proposed for one’s hand? Her heart was in her throat and she had gone very pale. While he had been at a safe distance she had hugely enjoyed the solemn conferences with her Father and Mother and the suddenly enhanced importance of her own person and destiny. But now, here he was—he stood before her. What was going to happen? And again she felt that she was going to weep.

      At a rapid stride, his head tipped on one side, his arms outstretched, with the air of a man who says: “Here I am, kill me if you will!” he approached. “What a providence!” he cried. “I find you here, Antonie—” (He said “Antonie”!)

      Tony stood erect, her novel in her right hand. She stuck out her lips and gave her head a series of little jerks upward, relieving her irritation by stressing, in that manner, each word as she spoke it. She got out: “What is the matter with you?”—But the tears were already rising. And Herr Grünlich’s own excitement was too great for him to realize the check.

      “How could I wait longer? Was I not driven to return?” he said in impassioned tones. “A week ago I had your Father’s letter, which filled me with hope. I could bear it no longer. Could I thus linger on in half-certainty? I threw myself into a carriage, I hastened hither, I have taken a couple of rooms at the City of Hamburg—and here I am, Antonie, to hear from your lips the final word which will make me happier than I can express.”

      Tony was stunned. Her tears retreated abashed. This, then, was the effect of her Father’s careful letter, which had indefinitely postponed the decision. Two or three times she stammered: “You are mistaken—you are mistaken.”

      Herr Grünlich had drawn an arm-chair close to her seat in the window. He sat down, he obliged her to sit as well, and, bowing over her hand, which, limp with indecision, she resigned to him, he went on in a trembling voice: “Fräulein Antonie, since first I saw you, that afternoon,—do you remember that afternoon, when I saw you, a vision of loveliness, in your own family circle?—Since then, your name has been indelibly written on my heart.” He went back, corrected himself, and said “graven”: “Since that day, Fräulein Antonie, it has been my only, my most ardent wish, to win your beautiful hand. What your Father’s letter permitted me only to hope, that I implore you to confirm to me now in all certainty. I may feel sure of your consent—I may be assured of it?” He took her other hand in his and looked deep into her wide-open, frightened eyes. He had left off his worsted gloves to-day, and his hands were long and white, marked with blue veins. Tony stared at his pink face, at his wart, at his eyes, which were as blue as a goose’s.

      “Oh, no, no,” she broke out, rapidly, in terror. And then she added, “No, I will never yield my consent.” She took great pains to speak firmly, but she was already in tears.

      “How have I deserved this doubt and hesitation?” he asked in a lower, well-nigh reproachful tone. “I know you are a maiden cherished and sheltered by the most loving care. But I swear to you, I pledge you my word of honour as a man, that I would carry you in my arms, that as my wife you would lack nothing, that you would live in Hamburg a life altogether worthy of you—”

      Tony sprang up. She freed her hand and, with the tears rolling down her cheeks, cried out in desperation, “No, no! I said no! I am refusing you—for heaven’s sake, can’t you understand?” Then Herr Grünlich rose up too. He took one backward step and stretched out his arms toward her, palms up. Seriously, like a man of honour and resolution, he spoke.

      “Mademoiselle Buddenbrook, you understand that I cannot permit myself to be insulted?”

      “But I am not insulting you, Herr Grünlich,” said Tony, repenting her brusqueness. Oh, dear, oh dear, why did all this have to happen to her? Such a wooing as this she had never imagined. She had supposed that one only had to say: “Your offer does me great honour, but I cannot accept it,” and that would be an end of the matter. “Your offer does me great honour,” she said, as calmly as she could, “but I cannot accept it. And now I must go; please excuse me—I am busy—” But Herr Grünlich stood in front of her.

      “You reject me?” he said gloomily.

      “Yes,” Tony said; adding with tact, “unfortunately.”

      Herr Grünlich gave a gusty sigh. He took two big steps backward, bent his torso to one side, pointed with his forefinger to the carpet and said in an awful voice: “Antonie!” Thus for the space of a moment they stood, he in a posture of commanding rage, Tony pale, weepy, and trembling, her damp handkerchief to her mouth. Then he turned from her and, with his hands on his back, measured the room twice through, as if he were at home. He paused at the window and looked out into the early dusk. Tony moved cautiously toward the glass doors, but she got only as far as the middle of the room when he stood beside her again.

      “Tony!” he murmured, and gently took her hand. Then he sank, yes, he sank slowly upon his knees beside her! His two gold whiskers lay across her hand!

      “Tony!” he repeated. “You behold me here—you see to what you have brought me. Have you a heart to feel what I endure? Listen. You behold a man condemned to death, devoted to destruction, a man who—who will certainly die of grief,” he interrupted himself, “if you scorn his love. Here I lie. Can you find it in your heart to say: ‘I despise you’?”

      “No, no,” Tony said quickly in a consoling tone. Her tears were conquered, pity stirred. Heavens, how he must adore her, to go on like that, while she herself felt completely indifferent! Was it to her, Tony Buddenbrook, that all this was happening? One read of it in the novels. But here in real life was a man in a frock-coat, on his knees in front of her, weeping, imploring. The idea of marrying him was simply idiotic, because she had found him silly; but just at this moment he did not seem silly; heavens, no! Honourable, upright, desperate entreaty were in his voice and face.

      “No, no,” she repeated, bending over him quite touched. “I don’t despise you, Herr Grünlich. How can you say such a thing? Do get up—please do!”

      “Then you will not kill me?” he asked again; and she answered, in a consoling, almost motherly tone, “No, no.”

      “That is a promise!” he cried, springing to his feet. But when he saw Tony’s frightened face he got down again and went on in a wheedling tone: “Good, good, say no more, Antonie. Enough, for this time. We shall speak of this again. No more now—farewell. I will return—farewell!” He had got quickly to his feet. He took his broad grey hat from the table, kissed her hand, and was out through the glass doors in a twinkling.

      Tony saw him take his stick from the hall and disappear down the corridor. She stood, bewildered and worn out, in the middle of the room, with the damp handkerchief in one of her limp hands.