He said now, slowly and fretfully: “Oh, my dear child, I wish we might ignore the whole affair!”
“Ignore it, Tom? Impossible! Unthinkable! Do you think you could suppress the fact? Do you imagine the whole town would forget the meaning of the day?”
“I don’t say it is possible—I only say I wish it were. It is pleasant to celebrate the past, when one is gratified with the present and the future. It is agreeable to think of one’s forefathers when one feels at one with them and conscious of having acted as they would have done. If the jubilee came at a better time—but just now, I feel small inclination to celebrate it.”
“You must not talk like that, Tom. You don’t mean it; you know perfectly that it would be a shame to let the hundredth anniversary of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook go by without a sign or a sound of rejoicing. You are a little nervous now, and I know why, though there is really no reason for it. But when the day comes, you will be as moved as all the rest of us.”
She was right; the day could not be passed over in silence. It was not long before a notice appeared in the papers, calling attention to the coming anniversary and giving a detailed history of the old and estimable firm—but it was really hardly necessary. In the family, Justus Kröger was the first to mention the approaching event, on the Thursday afternoon; and Frau Permaneder saw to it that the venerable leather portfolio was solemnly brought out after dessert was cleared away, and the whole family, by way of foretaste, perused the dates and events in the life of the first Johann Buddenbrook, Hanno’s great-great-grandfather: when he had varioloid and when genuine smallpox, when he fell out of the third-storey window on to the floor of the drying-house, and when he had fever and delirium—she read all that aloud with pious fervour. Not content with that, she must go back into the 16th century, to the oldest Buddenbrook of whom there was knowledge, to the one who was Councillor in Grabau, and the Rostock tailor who had been “very well off” and had so many children, living and dead. “What a splendid man!” she cried; and began to rummage through yellow papers and read letters and poems aloud.
On the morning of the seventh of July, Herr Wenzel was naturally the first with his congratulations.
“Well, Herr Sen’ter, many happy returns!” he said, gesturing freely with razor and strop in his red hands. “A hundred years! And nearly half of it, I may say, I have been shaving in the respected family—oh, yes, one goes through a deal with the family, when one sees the head of it the first thing in the morning! The deceased Herr Consul was always the most talkative in the morning, too: ‘Wenzel,’ he would ask me, ‘Wenzel, what do you think about the rye? Should I sell or do you think it will go up again?’”
“Yes, Wenzel, and I cannot think of these years without you, either. Your calling, as I’ve often said to you, has a certain charm about it. When you have made your rounds, you are wiser than anybody: you have had the heads of nearly all the great houses under your hand, and know the mood of each one. All the others can envy you that, for it is really valuable information.”
“’s a good bit of truth in that, Herr Sen’ter. But what about the Herr Sen’ter’s own mood, if I may be so bold to ask? Herr Sen’ter’s looking a trifle pale again this morning.”
“Am I? Well, I have a headache—and so far as I can see, it will get worse before it gets better, for I suspect they’ll put a good deal of strain on it to-day.”