Tony was right: her brother had, soon after Herr Permaneder appeared, made proper inquiries as to his situation in life. He learned that X. Noppe and Company did a thoroughly sound if somewhat restricted business, operating with the joint-stock brewery managed by Herr Niederpaur as director. It showed a nice little income, Herr Permaneder’s share of which, with the help of Tony’s seventeen thousand, would suffice for a comfortable if modest life. The Frau Consul heard the news, and there was a long and particular conversation among her, Herr Permaneder, Antonie, and Thomas, in the landscape-room that very evening, and everything was arranged. It was decided that little Erica should go to Munich too, this being her Mother’s wish, to which her betrothed warmly agreed.
Two days later the hop dealer left for home—“Noppe will be raising the deuce if I don’t,” he said. But in July Frau Grünlich was again in his native town, accompanied by Tom and Gerda. They were to spend four or five weeks at Bad Kreuth, while the Frau Consul with Erica and Ida were on the Baltic coast. While in Munich, the four had time to see the house in Kaufinger Street which Herr Permaneder was about to buy. It was in the neighbourhood of the Niederpaurs’—a perfectly remarkable old house, a large part of which Herr Permaneder thought to let. It had a steep, ladderlike pair of stairs which ran without a turning from the front door straight up to the first floor, where a corridor led on each side back to the front rooms.
Tony went home the middle of August to devote herself to her trousseau. She had considerable left from her earlier equipment, but new purchases were necessary to complete it. One day several things arrived from Hamburg, among them a morning-gown—this time not trimmed with velvet but with bands of cloth instead.
Herr Permaneder returned to Meng Street well on in the autumn. They thought best to delay no longer. As for the wedding festivities, they went off just as Tony expected and desired, no great fuss being made over them. “Let us leave out the formalities,” said the Consul. “You are married again, and it is simply as if you always had been.” Only a few announcements were sent—Madame Grünlich saw to it that Julie Möllendorpf, born Hagenström, received one—and there was no wedding journey. Herr Permaneder objected to making “such a fuss,” and Tony, just back from the summer trip, found even the journey to Munich too long. The wedding took place, not in the hall this time, but in the church of St. Mary’s, in the presence of the family only. Tony wore the orange-blossom, which replaced the myrtle, with great dignity, and Doctor Kölling preached on moderation, with as strong language as ever, but in a weaker voice.
Christian came from Hamburg, very elegantly dressed, looking a little ailing but very lively. He said his business with Burmeester was “top-top”; thought that he and Tilda would probably get married “up there”—that is to say, “each one for himself, of course”; and came very late to the wedding from the visit he paid at the club. Uncle Justus was much moved by the occasion, and with his usual lavishness presented the newly-wedded pair with a beautiful heavy silver epergne. He and his wife practically starved themselves at home, for the weak woman was still paying the disinherited and outcast Jacob’s debts with the housekeeping money. Jacob was rumoured to be in Paris at present. The Buddenbrook ladies from Broad Street made the remark: “Well, let’s hope it will last, this time.” The unpleasant part of this lay in the doubt whether they really hoped it. Sesemi Weichbrodt stood on her tip-toes, kissed her pupil, now Frau Permaneder, explosively on the forehead, and said with her most pronounced vowels: “Be happy, you go-od che-ild!”
CHAPTER VII
In the morning at eight o’clock Consul Buddenbrook, so soon as he had left his bed, stolen through the little door and down the winding stair into the bathroom, taken a bath, and put on his night-shirt again—Consul Buddenbrook, we say, began to busy himself with public affairs. For then Herr Wenzel, barber and member of the Assembly, appeared, with his intelligent face and his red hands, his razors and other tools, and the basin of warm water which he had fetched from the kitchen; and the Consul sat in a reclining-chair and leaned his head back, and Herr Wenzel began to make a lather; and there ensued almost always a conversation that began with the weather and how you had slept the night before, went on to politics and the great world, thence to domestic affairs in the city itself, and closed in an intimate and familiar key on business and family matters. All this prolonged very much the process in hand, for every time the Consul said anything Herr Wenzel had to stop shaving.
“Hope you slept well, Herr Consul?”
“Yes, thanks, Wenzel. Is it fine to-day?”
“Frost and a bit of snow, Herr Consul. In front of St. James’s the boys have made another slide, more than ten yards long—I nearly sat down, when I came from the Burgomaster’s. The young wretches!”