The bed-chamber, as the Senator and his wife entered it, was lighted by two sconces burning on the table; and both physicians were present. Christian too had been summoned from his room, and sat with his back to the bed and his forehead bowed in his hands. They had sent for the dying woman’s brother, Justus Kröger, and he would shortly be here. Frau Permaneder and Erica were sobbing softly at the foot of the bed. Sister Leandra and Mamsell Severin had nothing more to do, and stood gazing in sadness on the face of the dying.
The Frau Consul lay on her back, supported by a quantity of pillows. With both her blue-veined hands, once so beautiful, now so emaciated, she ceaselessly stroked the coverlet in trembling haste. Her head in the white nightcap moved from side to side with dreadful regularity. Her lips were drawn inward, and opened and closed with a snap at every tortured effort to breathe, while the sunken eyes roved back and forth or rested with an envious look on those who stood about her bed, up and dressed and able to breathe. They were alive, they belonged to life; but they could help her no more than this, to make the sacrifice that consisted in watching her die.... And the night wore on, without any change.
“How long can it go on, like this?” asked Thomas Buddenbrook, in a low tone, drawing Dr. Grabow away to the bottom of the room, while Dr. Langhals was undertaking some sort of injection to give relief to the patient. Frau Permaneder, her handkerchief in her hand, followed her brother.
“I can’t tell, my dear Senator,” answered Dr. Grabow. “Your dear mother may be released in the next few minutes, or she may live for hours. It is a process of strangulation: an oedema—”
“I know,” said Frau Permaneder, and nodded while the tears ran down her cheeks. “It often happens in cases of inflammation of the lungs—a sort of watery fluid forms, and when it gets very bad the patient cannot breathe any more. Yes, I know.”
The Senator, his hands folded, looked over at the bed.
“How frightfully she must suffer,” he whispered.
“No,” Dr. Grabow said, just as softly, but in a tone of authority, while his long, mild countenance wrinkled more than ever. “That is a mistake, my dear friend, believe me. The consciousness is very clouded. These are largely reflex motions which you see; depend upon it.” And Thomas answered: “God grant it”—but a child could have seen from the Frau Consul’s eyes that she was entirely conscious and realized everything.
They took their places again. Consul Kröger came and sat bowed over his cane at the bedside, with reddened eyelids.
The movements of the patient increased. This body, delivered over to death, was possessed by a terrible unrest, an unspeakable craving, an abandonment of helplessness, from head to foot. The pathetic, imploring eyes now closed with the rustling movement of the head from side to side, now opened with a heart-breaking expression, so wide that the little veins of the eyeballs stood out blood-red. And she was still conscious!