“If you will be so good as to follow me,” Herr Grünlich murmured. Consul Buddenbrook kissed his daughter on the forehead and said, “Go up to your child, Antonie.”
Then he went, with Herr Grünlich fluttering in front of and behind him to open the portières, through the dining-room into the living-room.
Herr Kesselmeyer stood at the window, the black and white down softly rising and falling upon his cranium.
“Herr Kesselmeyer, Herr Consul Buddenbrook, my father-in-law,” said Herr Grünlich, meekly. The Consul’s face was impassive. Herr Kesselmeyer bowed with his arms hanging down, both yellow teeth against his upper lip, and said “Pleasure to meet you, Herr Consul.”
“Please excuse us for keeping you waiting, Kesselmeyer,” said Herr Grünlich. He was not more polite to one than to the other. “Pray sit down.”
As they went into the smoking-room, Herr Kesselmeyer said vivaciously: “Have you had a pleasant journey? Ah, rain? Yes, it is a bad time of year, a dirty time. If we had a little frost, or snow, now—but rain, filth—very, very unpleasant.”
“What a queer creature!” thought the Consul.
In the centre of the little room with its dark-flowered wall-paper stood a sizable square table covered with green baize. It rained harder and harder; it was so dark that the first thing Herr Grünlich did was to light the three candles on the table. Business letters on blue paper, stamped with the names of various firms, torn and soiled papers with dates and signatures, lay on the green cloth. There were a thick ledger and a metal inkstand and sand-holder, full of well-sharpened pencils and goose-quills.
Herr Grünlich did the honours with the subdued and tactful mien of a man greeting guests at a funeral. “Dear Father, do take the easy-chair,” he said. “Herr Kesselmeyer, will you be so kind as to sit here?”
At last they were settled. The banker sat opposite the host, the Consul presided on the long side of the table. The back of his chair was against the hall door.