“Yes, indeed. At least, it’s prettier than to be called something like Hinz, or Kunz. It is unusual; it sounds foreign.”
“You are romantic, Fräulein Buddenbrook. You have read too much Hoffmann. My grandfather was half Norwegian, and I was named after him. That is all there is to it.”
Tony picked her way through the rushes on the edge of the beach. In front of them was a row of round-topped wooden pavilions, and beyond they could see the basket-chairs at the water’s edge and people camped by families on the warm sand—ladies with blue sun-spectacles and books out of the loan-library; gentlemen in light suits idly drawing pictures in the sand with their walking-sticks; sun-burnt children in enormous straw hats, tumbling about, shovelling sand, digging for water, baking with wooden moulds, paddling bare-legged in the shallow pools, floating little ships. To the right, the wooden bathing-pavilion ran out into the water.
“We are going straight across to Möllendorpf’s pier,” said Tony. “Let’s turn off.”
“Certainly; but don’t you want to meet your friends? I can sit down yonder on those boulders.”
“Well, I suppose I ought to just greet them. But I don’t want to, you know. I came here to be in peace and quiet.”
“Peace? From what?”
“Why—from—from—”
“Listen, Fräulein Buddenbrook. I must ask you something. No, I’ll wait till another day—till we have more time. Now I will say au revoir and go and sit down there on the rocks.”
“Don’t you want me to introduce you, then?” Tony asked, importantly.