Buddenbrooks, volume 2 of 2

by Thomas Mann

Sitting at the be-garlanded table, he drank his hot tea out of a saucer, hurriedly ate an egg, and on the steps took two or three puffs of a cigarette. Grobleben, wearing his woollen scarf in defiance of the July heat, with a boot over his left forearm and the polish-brush in his right, a long drop pendent from his nose, came from the garden into the front entry and accosted his master at the foot of the stairs, where the brown bear stood with his tray.

“Many happy returns, Herr Sen’ter, many happy—’n’ one is rich ’n’ great, ’n’ t’other’s pore—”

“Yes, yes, Grobleben, you’re right, that’s just how it is!” And the Senator slipped a piece of money into the hand with the brush, and crossed the entry into the anteroom of the office. In the office the cashier came up to him, a tall man with honest, faithful eyes, to convey, in carefully selected phrases, the good wishes of the staff. The Senator thanked him in a few words, and went on to his place by the window. He had hardly opened his letters and glanced into the morning paper lying there ready for him, when a knock came on the door leading into the front entry, and the first visitors appeared with their congratulations.

It was a delegation of granary labourers, who came straddling in like bears, the corners of their mouths drawn down with befitting solemnity and their caps in their hands. Their spokesman spat tobacco-juice on the floor, pulled up his trousers, and talked in great excitement about “a hun’erd year” and “many more hun’erd year.” The Senator proposed to them a considerable increase in their pay for the week, and dismissed them. The office staff of the revenue department came in a body to congratulate their chief. As they left, they met in the doorway a number of sailors, with two pilots at the head, from the “Wullenwewer” and the “Friederike Överdieck,” the two ships belonging to the firm which happened at the time to be in port. Then there was a deputation of grain-porters, in black blouses, knee-breeches, and top-hats. And single citizens, too, were announced from time to time: Herr Stuht from Bell-Founders’ Street came, with a black coat over his flannel shirt, and Iwersen the florist, and sundry other neighbours. There was an old postman, with watery eyes, earrings, and a white beard—an ancient oddity whom the Senator used to salute on the street and call him Herr Postmaster: he came, stood in the doorway, and cried out “Ah bain’t come fer that, Herr Sen’ter! Ah knows as iverybody gits summat as comes here to-day, but ah bain’t come fer that, an’ so ah tells ye!” He received his piece of money with gratitude, none the less. There was simply no end to it. At half-past ten the servant came from the house to announce that the Frau Senator was receiving guests in the salon.

Thomas Buddenbrook left his office and hurried upstairs. At the door of the salon he paused a moment for a glance into the mirror to order his cravat, and to refresh himself with a whiff of the eau-de-cologne on his handkerchief. His body was wet with perspiration, but his face was pale, his hands and feet cold. The reception in the office had nearly used him up already. He drew a long breath and entered the sunlit room, to be greeted at once by Consul Huneus, the lumber dealer and multi-millionaire, his wife, their daughter, and the latter’s husband, Senator Dr. Gieseke. These had all driven in from Travemünde, like many others of the first families of the town, who were spending July in a cure which they interrupted only for the Buddenbrook jubilee.

They had not been sitting for three minutes in the elegant arm-chairs of the salon when Consul Överdieck, son of the deceased Burgomaster, and his wife, who was a Kistenmaker, were announced. When Consul Huneus made his adieux, his place was taken by his brother, who had a million less money than he, but made up for it by being a senator.

Now the ball was open. The tall white door, with the relief of the singing cupids above it, was scarcely closed for a moment; there was a constant view from within of the great staircase, upon which the light streamed down from the skylight far above, and of the stairs themselves, full of guests either entering or taking their leave. But the salon was spacious, the guests lingered in groups to talk, and the number of those who came was for some time far greater than the number of those who went away. Soon the maid-servant gave up opening and shutting the door that led into the salon and left it wide open, so that the guests stood in the corridor as well. There was the drone and buzz of conversation in masculine and feminine voices, there were handshakings, bows, jests, and loud, jolly laughter, which reverberated among the columns of the staircase and echoed from the great glass panes of the skylight. Senator Buddenbrook stood by turns at the top of the stairs and in the bow-window, receiving the congratulations, which were sometimes mere formal murmurs and sometimes loud and hearty expressions of good will. Burgomaster Dr. Langhals, a heavily built man of elegant appearance, with a shaven chin nestling in a white neck-cloth, short grey mutton-chops, and a languid diplomatic air, was received with general marks of respect. Consul Eduard Kistenmaker, the wine-merchant, his wife, who was a Möllendorpf, and his brother and partner Stephan, Senator Buddenbrook’s loyal friend and supporter, with his wife, the rudely healthy daughter of a landed proprietor, arrive and pay their respects. The widowed Frau Senator Möllendorpf sits throned in the centre of the sofa in the salon, while her children, Consul August Möllendorpf and his wife Julchen, born Hagenström, mingle with the crowd. Consul Hermann Hagenström supports his considerable weight on the balustrade, breathes heavily into his red beard, and talks with Senator Dr. Cremer, the Chief of Police, whose brown beard, mixed with grey, frames a smiling face expressive of a sort of gentle slyness. State Attorney Moritz Hagenström, smiling and showing his defective teeth, is there with his beautiful wife, the former Fräulein Puttfarken of Hamburg. Good old Dr. Grabow may be seen pressing Senator Buddenbrook’s hand for a moment in both of his, to be displaced next moment by Contractor Voigt. Pastor Pringsheim, in secular garb, only betraying his dignity by the length of his frock-coat, comes up the steps with outstretched arms and a beaming face. And Herr Friedrich Wilhelm Marcus is present, of course. Those gentlemen who come as delegates from any body such as the Senate, the Board of Trade, or the Assembly of Burgesses, appear in frock-coats. It is half-past eleven. The heat is intense. The lady of the house withdrew a quarter of an hour ago.

Suddenly there is a hubbub below the vestibule door, a stamping and shuffling of feet, as of many people entering together; and a ringing, noisy voice echoes through the whole house. Everybody rushes to the landing, blocks up the doors to the salon, the dining-room, and the smoking-room, and peers down. Below is a group of fifteen or twenty men with musical instruments, headed by a gentleman in a brown wig, with a grey nautical beard and yellow artificial teeth, which he shows when he talks. What is happening? It is Consul Peter Döhlmann, of course: he is bringing the band from the theatre, and mounts the stairs in triumph, swinging a packet of programmes in his hand!

The serenade in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook begins: in these impossible conditions, with the notes all running together, the chords drowning each other, the loud grunting and snarling of the big bass trumpet heard above everything else. It begins with “Now let us all thank God,” goes over into the adaptation of Offenbach’s “La Belle Hélène,” and winds up with a pot-pourri of folk-songs—quite an extensive programme! And a pretty idea of Döhlmann’s! They congratulate him on it; and nobody feels inclined to break up until the concert is finished. They stand or sit in the salon and the corridor; they listen and talk.

Thomas Buddenbrook stood with Stephan Kistenmaker, Senator Dr. Gieseke, and Contractor Voigt, beyond the staircase, near the open door of the smoking-room and the flight of stairs up to the second storey. He leaned against the wall, now and then contributing a word to the conversation, and for the rest looking out into space across the balustrade. It was hotter than ever, and more oppressive; but it would probably rain. To judge from the shadows that drove across the skylight there must be clouds in the sky. They were so many and moved so rapidly that the changeful, flickering light on the staircase came in time to hurt the eyes. Every other minute the brilliance of the gilt chandelier and the brass instruments below was quenched, to blaze out the next minute as before. Once the shadows lasted a little longer, and six or seven times something fell with a slight crackling sound upon the panes of the skylight—hail-stones, no doubt. Then the sunlight streamed down again.