Thomas Buddenbrook, as the others filed by, stood between his brother Christian and his uncle Justus. His thick dark woollen overcoat was dewed with fine silver drops. He had begun of late to grow a little stout, the single sign of age in his carefully preserved exterior, and his cheeks, behind the pointed protruding ends of his moustaches, looked rounder than they used; but it was a pale and sallow roundness, without blood or life. He held each man’s hand a moment in his own, and his slightly reddened eyes looked them all, with weary politeness, in the face.
CHAPTER IV
A week later there sat in Senator Buddenbrook’s private office, in the leather chair beside the writing-desk, a little smooth-shaven old man with snow-white hair falling over his brow and temples. He sat in a crouching position, supporting both hands on the white top of his crutch-cane, and his pointed chin on his hands; while he directed at the Senator a look of such malevolence, such a crafty, penetrating glance, that one wondered why the latter did not avoid contact with such a man as this. But the Senator sat apparently at ease, leaning back in his chair, talking to this baleful apparition as to a harmless ordinary citizen. Broker Siegismund Gosch and the head of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook were discussing the price of the Meng Street house.
It took a long time. The offer of twenty-eight thousand thaler made by Herr Gosch seemed too low to the Senator, and the broker called heaven to witness that it would be an act of madness to add a single groschen to the sum. Thomas Buddenbrook spoke of the central position and unusual extent of the property; but Herr Gosch, with picturesque gestures, in low and sibilant tones, expatiated upon the criminal risk he would be running. He waxed almost poetic. Ha! Could his honoured friend tell him when, to whom, for how much, he would be able to get rid of the house again? How often, in the course of the century, would there be a demand for such a house? Perhaps his friend and patron could assure him that to-morrow, on the train from Buchen, there was arriving an Indian nabob who wished to establish himself in the Buddenbrook mansion? He, Siegismund Gosch, would have it on his hands, simply on his hands, and it would be the ruin of him. He would be a beaten man, his race would be run, his grave dug—yes, it would be dug—and, as the phrase enchanted him, he repeated it, and added something more about chattering apes and clods of earth falling upon the lid of his coffin.
But the Senator was not satisfied. He spoke of the ease with which the property could be divided, emphasized his responsibility toward his sister, and remained by the sum of thirty thousand thaler. After which he had to listen, with a mixture of enjoyment and impatience, to a rejoinder from Herr Gosch, which lasted some two hours, during which the broker sounded, as it were, all the registers of his character. He played two rôles at once: first, the hypocritical villain, with a sweet voice, his head on one side, and a smile of open-hearted simplicity. Stretching out his large, white hand, with the long, trembling fingers, he said “Agree, my dear young patron: eighty-four thousand marks—it is the offer of an honest old man.” But a child could have seen that this was all lies and treachery—a deceiving mask, behind which the man’s deep villainy peeped forth.
Thomas Buddenbrook finally declared that he must take time to think, and that in any case he must consult his sister, before he accepted the twenty-eight thousand thaler—which was unlikely. Then he turned the conversation to indifferent topics and asked Herr Gosch about business and his health.
Things were going badly with Herr Gosch. He made a fine, sweeping gesture to wave away the imputation that he was a prosperous man. The burdens of old age approached, they were at hand even now; as aforesaid, his grave was dug. He could not even carry his glass of grog to his lips without spilling half of it, his arm trembled so like the devil. It did no good to curse. The will no longer availed. And yet—! He had his life behind him—not such a poor life, after all. He had looked at the world with his eyes open. Revolutions had thundered by, their waves had beat upon his heart—so to speak. Ha! Those were other times, when he had stood at the side of Consul Johann Buddenbrook, the Senator’s father, at that historic sitting, and defied the fury of the raging mob. A frightful experience! No, his life had not been poor, either outwardly or inwardly. Hang it—he had been conscious of powers—and as the power is, so is the ideal—as Feuerbach says. And even now—even now, his soul was not impoverished, his heart was still young: it had never ceased, and would never cease, to be capable of great emotions, to live fervently in and for his ideals. They would go with him to his grave.—But were ideals, after all, meant to be realized? No, a thousand times no! We might long for the stars, but should we ever reach them? No, hope, not realization, was the most beautiful thing in life: “L’espérance, tout trompeuse qu’elle est, sert au moins à nous mener à la fin de la vie par un chemin agréable.” La Rochefoucauld said that, and it was fine, wasn’t it? Oh, yes, his honoured friend and patron, of course, did not need to console himself with that sort of thing. The waves of life had lifted him high on their shoulders, and fortune played about his brow. But for the lonely and submerged, who dreamed alone in the darkness—
Suddenly—“You are happy,” he said, laying his hand on the Senator’s knee, and looking up at him with swimming eyes. “Don’t deny it—it would be sacrilege. You are happy. You hold fortune in your arms. You have reached out your strong arms and conquered her—your strong hands,” he corrected himself, not liking the sound of “arms” twice so close together. He was silent, and the Senator’s deprecating, patient reply went unheard. He seemed to be darkly dreaming for a moment; then he got up.
“We have been chatting,” he said, “but we came together on business. Time is money. Let us not waste it in hesitation. Listen to me. Since it is you: since it is you, you understand—” here it almost looked as though Herr Gosch was about to give way again to another rhapsody; but he restrained himself. He made a wide, sweeping gesture, and cried: “Twenty-nine thousand thaler, eighty-seven thousand marks current, for your mother’s house! Is it a bargain?” And Senator Buddenbrook agreed.
Frau Permaneder, of course, found the sum ridiculously small. Considering the memories that clung about it, she would have thought a million down no more than an honest price for their old home. But she rapidly adjusted herself—the more readily that her thoughts and efforts were soon taken up by plans for the future.