But the reply did not come at once. She only felt how Gerda’s whole form was shaken. Then she heard a whisper at her shoulder.
“How he looked,” she heard, “when they brought him! His whole life long, he never let any one see even a speck of dust on him.—Oh, it is insulting, it is vile, for the end to have come like that!”
Subdued voices came out to them. The dressing-room door opened, and Ida Jungmann stood in the doorway in a white apron, a basin in her hands. Her eyes were red. She looked at Frau Permaneder and made way, her head bent. Her chin was trembling.
The high flowered curtains stirred in the draught as Tony, followed by her sister-in-law, entered the chamber. The smell of carbolic, ether, and other drugs met them. In the wide mahogany bed, under the red down coverlet, lay Thomas Buddenbrook, on his back, undressed and clad in an embroidered nightshirt. His half-open eyes were rolled up; his lips were moving under the disordered moustaches, and babbling, gurgling sounds came out. Young Dr. Langhals was bending over him, changing a bloody bandage for a fresh one, which he dipped into a basin at the bedside. Then he listened at the patient’s chest and felt his pulse.
On the bed-clothes at the foot of the bed sat little Johann, clutching his sailor’s knot and listening broodingly to the sounds behind him, which his father was making. The Senator’s bemired clothing hung over a chair.
Frau Permaneder cowered down at the bedside, seized one of her brother’s hands—it was cold and heavy—and stared wildly into his face. She began to understand that, whether God knew what he was doing or not, he was at all events bent on “the worst”!
“Tom!” she clamoured, “do you know me? How are you? You aren’t going to leave us? You won’t go away from us? Oh, it can’t be!”
Nothing answered her, that could be called an answer. She looked imploringly up at Dr. Langhals. He stood there with his beautiful eyes cast down; and his manner, not without a certain self-satisfaction, expressed the will of God.
Ida Jungmann came back into the room, to make herself useful if she could. Old Dr. Grabow appeared in person, looked at the patient with his long, mild face, shook his head, pressed all their hands, and then stood as Dr. Langhals stood. The news had gone like the wind through the whole town. The vestibule door rang constantly, and inquiries after the Senator’s condition came up into the sick-chamber. It was unchanged—unchanged. Every one received the same answer.
The two physicians were in favour of sending for a sister of charity—at least for the night. They sent for Sister Leandra, and she came. There was no trace of surprise or alarm in her face as she entered. Again she laid aside her leather bag, her outer hood and cloak, and again she set to work in her gentle way.