Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, Page 3

  “And at that very same moment whom do I see coming toward me? Our revered Madame Buddenbrook. But in what a state? She is hurrying through the rain without a hat, has barely managed to toss a shawl over her shoulders, stumbling more than walking, her coiffure in total dishevelment. No, it’s true, madame. One could hardly even call it a coiffure.

  “ ‘What a pleasant surprise,’ I say and make bold to catch hold of her sleeve; she has not noticed me at all, and I have my forebodings. ‘Where are you off to in such haste, my dear?’ She notices me, she looks at me, she exclaims, ‘Oh, it’s you! Farewell! It’s all over! I’m on my way to drown myself in the Trave.’

  “ ‘Heaven forbid!’ I say and feel myself turning white. ‘That’s not the place for you, my dear woman! But what has happened?’ And I hold on to her as tightly as good manners permit. ‘What has happened?’ she cries and begins to quiver. ‘They’re into my silver, Wunderlich! That is what has happened. And Jean is down with erysipelas and cannot help me. And he couldn’t help if he were on his feet. They’re stealing my spoons, my silver spoons, that is what has happened, Wunderlich, and I am on my way to the Trave!’

  “Well, now, I hold our good friend back, I say what one says in such cases: ‘Courage, dearest lady,’ I say, and ‘All will be well,’ and ‘We shall speak with these people, control yourself, I beg of you, and now let’s go!’ And I lead her back down the street to her house. We find the militia upstairs in the dining room, just as Madame left them, upwards of twenty men, all occupied with the large chest where the silver is kept.

  “ ‘Gentlemen, with which of you might I discuss this matter?’ I ask politely. Well, they begin to laugh and shout, ‘With all of us, Papa!’ But then one of them steps forward and introduces himself, a man tall as a tree, with a black waxed mustache and large red hands sticking out from his braided cuffs. ‘Lenoir,’ he says, saluting with his left hand, for he is holding a bundle of five or six silver spoons in his right. ‘Sergeant Lenoir. What can I do for the gentleman?’

  “ ‘Sir!’ I say, appealing to his point d’honneur. ‘How do you reconcile your high rank with your preoccupation with such items? The city did not bar its gates to the emperor.’—‘What do you want?’ he answered. ‘War is war. My men need tableware and such.’

  “ ‘They should take into consideration,’ I interrupted him, struck by an idea, ‘that this lady, the mistress of this house,’ I say, for what doesn’t one say in such situations, ‘is not really a German, but almost a countrywoman of yours, she is French.’—‘What, she’s French?’ he repeats. And what do you suppose this tall dragoon says next?—‘An émigrée, you mean?’ he says. ‘But then she must be an enemy of philosophy!’

  “I am dumbfounded, but I managed to choke back my laughter. ‘You are,’ I say, ‘a man of intellect, I see. I repeat that it is unworthy of you to concern yourself with such items.’—He is silent for a moment; but then, suddenly, he turns red, throws his six spoons back in the chest, and shouts, ‘But who has told you that I have any other intention than to have a little look at these things? And pretty things they are! And if some one or another of my men should happen to take one along as a souvenir …’

  “Well, they ended up taking quite enough souvenirs—all appeals to human or divine justice were of no help. They apparently knew no other god than that dreadful little man.”

  5

  DID YOU EVER see him, pastor?”

  The plates were changed once more. A colossal smoked ham, brick-red and strewn with bread crumbs, appeared, along with a brown, tart shallot sauce and mounds of vegetables so large that they all could have filled themselves from just one bowl. Lebrecht Kröger took charge of the carving. Casually lifting his elbows, his long index fingers pointed down the backs of knife and fork, he circumspectly cut away one juicy slice after another. Elisabeth Buddenbrook’s masterpiece, “Russian preserves,” a spicy mixture of fruits conserved in spirits, was passed around.

  No, Pastor Wunderlich regretted that he had never met Bonaparte in the flesh. But both the elder Buddenbrook and Jean Jacques Hoffstede had seen him face to face: the former in Paris, right before the Russian campaign, at a reviewing of the troops in the Tuileries gardens, the latter in Danzig.

  “No, good Lord, he was not a nice-looking customer,” the poet said, lifting his brows and shoving a nicely arranged forkful of ham, brussels sprouts, and potatoes into his mouth. “They say, by the by, that he was quite a merry fellow in Danzig. There was a joke making the rounds at the time. They said he would spend the whole day with Germans at the gaming table, and for no modest stakes, but of an evening he would play with his own generals. ‘N’est-ce pas, Rapp,’ he said and grabbed a handful of gold from the table, ‘les Allemands aiment beaucoup ces petits Napoléons?’—And Rapp replied, ‘Oui, Sire, plus que le Grand!’ ”

  Amid the loud general amusement that followed—for Hoffstede had told his anecdote very prettily, even mimicking the emperor’s expression a little—Buddenbrook senior said, “Well, all joking aside, I have great respect for his personal greatness. What a personality!”

  The consul gravely shook his head. “No, no, we younger people no longer understand why we should admire the man who murdered the Duke of Enghien, who slaughtered eight hundred prisoners in Egypt.”

  “That is all quite possibly an exaggeration or a fabrication,” Pastor Wunderlich said. “The duke may very well have been a licentious and seditious man, and as far as those prisoners go, their execution was surely a duly deliberated and necessary decision made by an official council of war.” And he told them about a book that had been published several years before, a book he had read, written by a secretary of the emperor—a work that was well worth the reading.

  “All the same,” the consul persisted, and trimmed a candle flickering in the branched candlestick before him, “I cannot comprehend it, I cannot comprehend this admiration for the monster! As a Christian, as a man of religious feelings, I cannot find room in my heart for such a sentiment.”

  His face had taken on a quiet, zealous expression—indeed, he had laid his head a little to one side—and it certainly did look as if his father and Pastor Wunderlich were exchanging very discreet smiles.

  “Yes, yes,” Johann Buddenbrook chuckled, “but the little napoléons weren’t so bad, were they? My son is more inclined to go into raptures for Louis Philipp,” he added.

  “Raptures?” Jean Jacques Hoffstede repeated somewhat sarcastically. “A curious combination! Philipp Egalité and raptures.”

  “Well, it seems to me that we have a lot to learn from the July Monarchy, by God it does.” The consul spoke earnestly and eagerly. “The relationship between French constitutionalism and the new practical ideals and interests of our age is quite congenial and useful—something for which we should be most grateful.”

  “Practical ideals—well, yes …” Buddenbrook senior played with his gold snuffbox and rewarded his jaws with a little rest. “Practical ideals. Nope, set no store by ’em at all!” In his annoyance he had fallen back into Plattdeutsch. “Trade schools and technical schools and commercial schools are popping up like mushrooms, and grammar schools and classical education are suddenly all foolishness, and the whole world has nothing in its head but coal mines and factories and making money. Fine, fine, it’s all very fine. But on the other hand a bit stupide, over the long term—is it not? I don’t know why it offends me so much—though I’m not saying, Jean, that the July Monarchy isn’t a fine thing.…”

  Senator Langhals, as well as Grätjens and Köppen, were on the consul’s side. Yes, most definitely, the people of Germany could only respond with its compliments to the French government and similar endeavors. Herr Köppen said “commliments” again. His face had turned quite red in the course of dinner and he was huffing and puffing audibly. Pastor Wunderlich’s face, however, remained white as ever, delicate and alert, although he was quite at his ease downing one glass of wine after another.

  The candles were burning slowl
y, slowly lower, and now and then, when their flames flickered to one side, the faint odor of wax drifted over the table.

  They sat in high-backed, heavy chairs, dined with heavy silverware on heavy, rich foods, drank heavy, good wine, and said what they thought. The conversation soon turned to business, and as it did they automatically spoke more and more in its jargon—a comfortable, clumsy mode of speech that seemed to embrace both commercial brevity and prosperous indolence, embellished here and there with a touch of sociable self-irony. They did not say “on the exchange,” they simply said “on the ’change,” with most of the vowels elided and a self-satisfied expression on their faces.

  The ladies had not been following the discussion for some time. Madame Kröger was monopolizing things by describing most appetizingly the best method for poaching carp in red wine. “But they must be cut into proper portions, my dears, and laid in the casserole with onions and cloves and zwieback, then placed over the fire with a pinch of sugar and a tablespoon of butter. But never wash them first, dear—the blood has to go in, too, mercy sake.”

  The senior Herr Kröger kept up a steady stream of the most amiable jokes. Consul Justus, his son, who was sitting beside Dr. Grabow at the far end of the table with the children, had begun a teasing exchange with Mamselle Jungmann; she squinted her brown eyes and held her knife and fork very erect, while waving them ever so slightly back and forth. Even the Oeverdiecks had become quite loud and lively. The old woman had found a new pet name for her husband: “My sweet honey-ram!” she cried, and her bonnet shook with delight.

  The conversation coalesced again when Jean Jacques Hoffstede began to speak on a favorite topic, the trip to Italy he had taken with a rich Hamburg relative some fifteen years before. He talked about Venice, Rome, and Vesuvius; he talked about the Villa Borghese, where the recently deceased Goethe had written part of his Faust; he waxed enthusiastic about Renaissance fountains lavishing cool refreshment, about pleasant strolls down tree-lined avenues; and then someone mentioned the large overgrown garden that the Buddenbrooks owned just outside the Burg Gate.

  “Yes, egad!” the old man cried. “I am still annoyed that at the time I wasn’t able to bring myself to tidy it up a little for more human use. I walked through it the other day—it’s a disgrace, what a jungle! What a nice little piece of property it would be if the grass were mown, the trees nicely trimmed in little spheres and cubes.”

  The consul protested vigorously. “For God’s sake, Papa—! I love to roam about there in the shrubbery during summer; but it would all be spoiled if a piece of free and beautiful nature were to be piteously snipped and shorn.”

  “But if that piece of free nature belongs to me, I’ll be hanged if I don’t have the right to tidy it up just as I please.”

  “Oh, Father, when I am lying there in the tall grass under some luxuriant bush, it’s more as if I belonged to nature and hadn’t any rights at all over it.”

  “Krischan, don’t stuff y’self so much,” the older Buddenbrook suddenly shouted. “But as for Thilda—doesn’t hurt her none—eats like a thresher, the lass does.”

  And, indeed, it was amazing what talents this quiet, skinny child with her long, old-woman’s face had developed when it came to eating. When asked whether she wanted a second bowl of soup, she had answered humbly, dragging out the words: “Y-e-s, p-l-e-a-s-e!” She had chosen two of the largest servings of both the fish and the ham, along with ample portions of vegetables, had bent carefully and nearsightedly over her plate, and consumed it all, without any hurry, but in silent and large bites. And her reply to the old man’s words came out drawled, amiable, amazed, and simple: “O L-o-r-d, U-n-c-l-e.” She was not to be intimidated; she ate—though it might not be quite proper and they might mock her—with the instinctual appetite of a poor relative making the most of a well-laden table; she smiled indifferently and heaped her plate with good things—patient, tough, hungry, and skinny.

  6

  AND NOW CAME two large crystal bowls of “flat-iron pudding,” a layered mixture of macaroons, raspberries, ladyfingers, and custard; meanwhile, at the other end of the table, there was a burst of flame—the children were being served plum pudding, their favorite dessert.

  “Thomas, my boy, would you be so good,” Johann Buddenbrook said and pulled a large ring of keys from his trouser pocket. “In the second cellar, on the right, the second bin, behind the red Bordeaux, two bottles, you hear?” And Thomas, who was well versed in such tasks, ran off and returned with two very dusty and cobwebbed bottles. And no sooner had the yellow-gold, fruity-sweet vintage Madeira been poured from its humble container into little dessert-wine glasses, than conversation fell away and Pastor Wunderlich stood up, glass in hand, to begin his gracefully phrased toast. His head a little to one side, a subtle and waggish smile playing over his white face, his free hand tracing little delicate gestures, he spoke in the same genial and easy conversational tone he loved to employ in the pulpit. “And now, stalwart friends, be so kind as to join me in emptying a glass of this pleasant nectar with good wishes for the prosperity of our most honored hosts in their new and splendid home—to the Buddenbrook family, both present and absent. Long may they prosper!”

  Absent? the consul thought, while returning a bow to the glasses lifted in his honor. Does he just mean those in Frankfurt and perhaps the Duchamps in Hamburg, or does old Wunderlich have something else in mind? He stood up to chink glasses with his father, and their eyes met in a cordial exchange.

  Now it was broker Grätjen’s turn to rise from his chair, and his speech took some time. He finally came round to a conclusion, and his somewhat shrill voice dedicated a glass to the firm of Johann Buddenbrook, that it might grow, blossom, and flourish to the greater honor of the town.

  And Johann Buddenbrook thanked them all for their gracious words, first as the head of the family and second as the senior partner of the commercial enterprise—and sent Thomas back for a third bottle of Madeira, because it had turned out his son had been wrong in assuming that two would suffice.

  Lebrecht Kröger spoke as well. He took the liberty of remaining seated, because that created a handsomer effect, and, with the addition of just a few chivalrous gestures of hands and head, he toasted the two ladies of the house, Madame Antoinette and the consul’s wife.

  He finished his toast, the flat-iron pudding was as good as polished off, and the Madeira was running low—and now, after first clearing his throat, Herr Jean Jacques Hoffstede slowly rose to his feet amid a universal “Ah!” and the joyous applause of the children at the far end of the table.

  “Yes, excusez! I really could not help but …” he said, tapping his long nose with one finger and pulling a paper from his jacket pocket. Profound silence fell over the room.

  The page he held in both hands was a thing of pied beauty, in its center an oval framed in red flowers and a mass of gold curlicues, containing the following words:

  “On the Occasion of a Joyous Housewarming, Celebrated among Friends Gathered at the Home Newly Acquired by the Buddenbrook Family. October, 1835.”

  And, turning the page over, he recited in a voice quivering slightly with age:

  Honored friends!—this humble rhyming

  I’ve prepared must needs be sung

  ’Mid these halls with laughter chiming,

  Blessed by heav’n, with garlands hung.

  ’Tis to you it’s dedicated,

  Worthy friend with silver hair,

  And your wife so celebrated,

  To you both, a noble pair!

  Simplest beauty, ablest talent,

  Grace your children, and we view

  Foam-born Venus and her gallant

  Vulcan wed in love anew.

  May your future be untarnished,

  Nothing mar the joys ahead,

  Rather let each day be garnished

  By an endless bliss instead.

  Ever will I find elation

  In your future happiness;

  In my smile see co
nfirmation

  Of the wishes I profess.

  In your splendid home residing,

  Always keep that man most dear,

  Who in humbler quarters ’biding

  Penned these stanzas offered here.

  He bowed, and they burst into unanimous, enthusiastic applause.

  “Charmant, Hoffstede!” Buddenbrook senior cried. “To your health! No, it was very sweet of you.”

  But when the consul’s wife touched glasses with the poet, a very delicate blush came to her fair face, for she had noticed the polite little nod he had directed her way at the words “foam-born Venus.”

  7

  THE GENERAL GOOD CHEER had reached its height, and Herr Köppen clearly felt the need to undo a few vest buttons; but unfortunately that was out of the question, since not even the older gentlemen permitted themselves such license. Lebrecht Kröger was sitting in his chair just as erect as at the beginning of the meal; Pastor Wunderlich was just as white and well mannered as before; the senior Buddenbrook had indeed leaned back a little, but was maintaining the finest decorum; only Justus Kröger was noticeably tipsy.

  Where was Dr. Grabow? Elisabeth Buddenbrook unobtrusively got up and withdrew, for she had noticed that at the far end of the table the chairs of Mamselle Jungmann, Dr. Grabow, and Christian were vacant and that from the columned hallway there came the sound of something like suppressed wails. She quickly followed the kitchen maid—who had just served butter, cheese, and fruit—out of the dining room. And, indeed, there in the shadows little Christian lay huddled on the padded bench that encircled the middle column. His soft groans were enough to break her heart.

  “O Lord, madame,” said Ida, who was standing beside him with the doctor, “Christian, the poor boy, is feeling very ill.”