Buddenbrooks. Thomas Mann
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come to her defence.
“You are too strict, Papa. Why shouldn’t the child have her own little ideas about such things, at her age?”
“Excusez, mon cher! … Mais c’est une folie! You know I don’t like the children’s heads muddled with such things. ‘The thunder strikes,’ does it? Oh, very well, let it strike, and get along with your Prussian woman!”
The truth was, the old gentleman hadn’t a good word to say for Ida Jungmann. Not that he was narrow-minded. He had seen something of the world, having travelled by coach to Southern Germany in 1813 to buy up wheat for the Prussian army; he had been to Amsterdam and Paris, and was too enlightened to condemn everything that lay beyond the gabled roofs of his native town. But in social intercourse he was more apt than his son to draw the line rigidly and give the cold shoulder to strangers. So when this young girl—she was then only twenty—had come back with his children from a visit to Western Prussia, as a sort of charity-child, the old man had made his son a scene for the act of piety, in which he spoke hardly anything but French and low German. Ida was the daughter of an inn-keeper who had died just before the Buddenbrooks’ arrival in Marienwerder. She had proved to be capable in the household and with the children, and her rigid honesty and Prussian notions of caste made her perfectly suited to her position in the family. She was a person of aristocratic principles, drawing hair-line distinctions between class and class, and very proud of her position as servant of the higher orders. She objected to Tony’s making friends with any schoolmate whom she reckoned as belonging only to the respectable middle class.
And now the Prussian woman herself came from the pillared hall through the glass door—a fairly tall, big-boned girl in a black frock, with smooth hair and an honest face. She held by the hand an extraordinarily thin small child, dressed in a flowered print frock, with lustreless ash-coloured hair and the manner of a little old maid. This was Clothilde, the daughter of a nephew of old Buddenbrook who belonged to a penniless branch of the family and was in business at Rostock as an estates agent. Clothilde was being brought up with Antonie, being about the same age and a docile little creature.
“Everything is ready,” Mamsell Jungmann said. She had had a hard time learning to pronounce her r’s, so now she rolled them tremendously in her throat. “Clothilde helped very well in the kitchen, so there was not much for cook to do.”
Monsieur Buddenbrook sneered behind his lace frill at Ida’s accent. The Consul patted his little niece’s cheek and said: “That’s right, Tilda. Work and pray. Tony ought to take a pattern from you; she’s far too likely to be saucy and idle.”
Tony dropped her head and looked at her grandfather from under her eyebrows. She knew he would defend her—he always did.
“No, no,” he said, “hold your head up, Tony. Don’t let them frighten you. We can’t all be alike. Each according to his lights. Tilda is a good girl—but we’re not so bad, either. Hey, Betsy?”
He turned to his daughter-in-law, who generally deferred to his views. Madame Antoinette, probably more from shrewdness than conviction, sided with the Consul; and thus the older and the younger generation crossed hands in the dance of life.
“You are very kind, Papa,” the Consul’s wife said. “Tony will try her best to grow up a clever and industrious woman.… Have the boys come home from school?” she asked Ida.
Tony, who from her perch on her grandfather’s knee was looking out the window, called out in the same breath: “Tom and Christian are coming up Johannes Street … and Herr Hoffstede … and Uncle Doctor.…”
The bells of St. Mary’s began to chime, ding-dong, ding-dong—rather out of time, so that one could hardly tell what they were playing; still, it was very impressive. The big and the little bell announced, the one in lively, the other in dignified tones, that it was four o’clock; and at the same time a shrill peal from the bell over the vestibule door went ringing through the entry, and Tom and Christian entered, together with the first guests, Jean Jacques Hoffstede, the poet, and Doctor Grabow, the family physician.
Chapter Two
Herr Jean Jacques Hoffstede was the town poet. He undoubtedly had a few verses in his pocket for the present occasion. He was nearly as old as Johann Buddenbrook, and dressed in much the same style except that his coat was green instead of mouse-coloured. But he was thinner and more active than his old friend, with bright little greenish eyes and a long pointed nose.
“Many thanks,” he said, shaking hands with the gentlemen and bowing before the ladies—especially the Frau Consul, for whom he entertained a deep regard. Such bows as his it was not given to the younger generation to perform; and he accompanied them with his pleasant quiet smile. “Many thanks for your kind invitation, my dear good people. We met these two young ones, the Doctor and I”—he pointed to Tom and Christian, in their blue tunics and leather belts—“in King Street, coming home from school. Fine lads, eh, Frau Consul? Tom is a very solid chap. He’ll have to go into the business, no doubt of that. But Christian is a devil of a fellow—a young incroyable, hey? I will not conceal my engouement. He must study, I think—he is witty and brilliant.”
Old Buddenbrook used his gold snuff-box. “He’s a young monkey, that’s what he is. Why not say at once that he is to be a poet, Hoffstede?”
Mamsell Jungmann drew the curtains, and soon the room was bathed in mellow flickering light from the candles in the crystal chandelier and the sconces on the writing-desk. It lighted up golden gleams in the Frau Consul’s hair.
“Well, Christian,” she said, “what did you learn to-day?” It appeared that Christian had had writing, arithmetic, and singing lessons. He was a boy of seven, who already resembled his father to an almost comic extent. He had the same rather small round deep-set eyes and the same prominent aquiline nose; the lines of his face below the cheek-bones showed that it would not always retain its present child-like fulness.
“We’ve been laughing dreadfully,” he began to prattle, his eyes darting from one to another of the circle. “What do you think Herr Stengel said to Siegmund Kostermann?” He bent his back, shook his head, and declaimed impressively: “‘Outwardly, outwardly, my dear child, you are sleek and smooth; but inwardly, my dear child, you are black and foul.’ …” He mimicked with indescribably funny effect not only the master’s odd pronunciation but the look of disgust on his face at the “outward sleekness” he described. The whole company burst out laughing.
“Young monkey!” repeated old Buddenbrook. But Herr Hoffstede was in ecstasies. “Charmant!” he cried. “If you know Marcellus Stengel—that’s he, to the life. Oh, that’s too good!”
Thomas, to whom the gift of mimicry had been denied, stood near his younger brother and laughed heartily, without a trace of envy. His teeth were not very good, being small and yellowish. His nose was finely chiselled, and he strikingly resembled his grandfather in the eyes and the shape of the face.
The company had for the most part seated themselves on the chairs and the sofa. They talked with the children or discussed the unseasonable cold and the new house. Herr Hoffstede admired a beautiful Sèvres inkstand, in the shape of a black and white hunting dog, that stood on the escritoire. Doctor Grabow, a man of about the Consul’s age, with a long mild face between thin whiskers, was looking at the table, set out with cakes and currant bread and salt-cellars in different shapes. This was the “bread and salt” that had been sent by friends for the house warming; but the “bread” consisted of rich, heavy pastries, and the salt came in dishes of massive gold, that the senders might not seem to be mean in their gifts.
“There will be work for me here,” said the Doctor, pointing to the sweetmeats and threatening the children with his glance. Shaking his head, he picked up a heavy salt and pepper stand from the table.
“From Lebrecht Kröger,” said old Buddenbrook, with a grimace. “Our dear kinsman is always open-handed. I did not spend as much on him when he built his summer house outside the Castle Gate. But he has always been like that—very lordly, very free with his money, a