There was a very large crowd at the final session. Lawyer Breslauer of Berlin made a speech for the defence the like of which had never been heard before. Gosch the broker went about for weeks afterward bursting with enthusiasm for the masterly pathos and irony it displayed. Christian Buddenbrook heard it too, and afterward got behind a table at the club, with a pile of newspapers in front of him, and reproduced the whole speech. At home he declared that jurisprudence was the finest profession there was, and he thought it would just have suited him. The Public Prosecutor himself, Dr. Moritz Hagenström, who was a great connoisseur, said in private that the speech had been a genuine treat to him. But the famous advocate’s talents did not prevent his colleagues from thumping him on the back and telling him he had not pulled the wool over their eyes.
The necessary sale followed upon the disappearance of the Director; and when it was over, people in town began gradually to forget about Hugo Weinschenk. But the Misses Buddenbrook, sitting on Thursday at the family table, declared that they had known the first moment, from the man’s eyes, that he was not straight, that his conscience was bad, and that there would be trouble in the end. Certain considerations, which they wished now they had not regarded, had led them to suppress these painful observations.
PART NINE
CHAPTER I
Senator Buddenbrook followed the two gentlemen, old Dr. Grabow and young Dr. Langhals, out of the Frau Consul’s bed-chamber into the breakfast-room and closed the door.
“May I ask you to give me a moment, gentlemen?” he said, and led them up the steps, through the corridor, and into the landscape-room, where, on account of the raw, damp weather, the stove was already burning. “You will understand my anxiety,” he said. “Sit down and tell me something reassuring, if possible.”
“Zounds, my dear Senator,” answered Dr. Grabow, leaning back comfortably, his chin in his neck-cloth, his hat-brim propped in both hands against his stomach. Dr. Langhals put his top-hat down on the carpet beside him and regarded his hands, which were exceptionally small and covered with hair. He was a heavy dark man with a pointed beard, a pompadour hair-cut, beautiful eyes, and a vain expression.
“There is positively no reason for serious disquiet at present,” Dr. Grabow went on. “When we take into consideration our honoured patient’s powers of resistance—my word, I think, as an old and tried councillor, I ought to know what that resistance is—it is simply astonishing, for her years, I must say.”
“Yes, precisely: for her years,” said the Senator, uneasily, twisting his moustaches.
“I don’t say,” went on Dr. Grabow, in his gentle voice, “that your dear Mother will be walking out to-morrow. You can tell that by looking at her, of course. There is no denying that the inflammation has taken a disappointing turn in the last twenty-four hours. The chill yesterday afternoon did not please me at all, and to-day there is actually pain in the side. And some fever—oh, nothing to speak of, but still— In short, my dear Senator, we shall probably have to reckon with the troublesome fact that the lung is slightly affected.”