Buddenbrooks/Volume 1/Part 4/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
“What is the matter, Betsy?” said the Consul, as he came to the table and lifted up the plate with which his soup was covered. “Aren’t you well? You don’t look just right to me.”
The round table in the great dining-room was grown very small. Around it there gathered in these days, besides the parents, only little Clara, now ten years old, Mamsell Jungmann, and Clothilde, as humble, lean, and hungry as ever. The Consul looked about him: every face was long and gloomy. What had happened? He himself was troubled and anxious; for the Bourse was unsteady, owing to this complicated Schleswig-Holstein affair. And still another source of disquiet was in the air; when Anton had gone to fetch in the meat course, the Consul heard what had happened. Trina, the cook, who had never before been anything but loyal and dutiful to her mistress, had suddenly shown clear signs of revolt. To the Frau Consul’s great vexation, she had been maintaining relations—a sort of spiritual affinity, it seemed—with the butcher’s apprentice; and that man of blood must have influenced her political views in a most regrettable way. The Consul’s wife had addressed some reproach to her in the matter of an unsuccessful sauce, and she had put her naked arms akimbo and delivered herself as follows: “You jus’ wait, Frau Consul; ’tain’ goin’ t’ be much longer—there’ll come another order inter the world. ’N’ then I’ll be sittin’ on the sofa in a silk gownd, an’ you’ll be servin’ me.” Naturally, she received summary notice.
The Consul shook his head. He himself had had similar troubles. The old porters and labourers were of course respectful enough, and had no notions in their heads; but several here and there among the young ones had shown by their bearing that the new spirit of revolt had entered into them. In the spring there had been a street riot, although a constitution corresponding to the demands of the new time had already been drafted; which, a little later, despite the opposition of Lebrecht Kröger and other stubborn old gentlemen, became law by a decree of the Senate. The citizens met together and representatives of the people were elected. But there was no rest. The world was upside down. Every one wanted to revise the constitution and the franchise, and the citizens grumbled. “Voting by estates,” said some—Consul Johann Buddenbrook among them. “Universal franchise,” said the others; Heinrich Hagenström was one of these. Still others cried “Universal voting by estates”—and dear knew what they meant by that! All sorts of ideas were in the air; for instance, the abolition of disabilities and the general extension of the rights of citizenship—even to non-Christians! No wonder Buddenbrook’s Trina had imbibed such ideas about sofas and silk gowns! Oh, there was worse to come! Things threatened to take a fearful turn.
It was an early October day of the year 1848. The sky was blue, with a few light floating clouds in it, silvered by the rays of the sun, the strength of which was indeed not so great but that the stove was already going, behind the polished screen in the landscape-room. Little Clara, whose hair had grown darker and whose eyes had a rather severe expression, sat with some embroidery before the sewing-table, while Clothilde, busy likewise with her needlework, had the sofa-place near the Frau Consul. Although Clothilde Buddenbrook was not much older than her married cousin—that is to say, only twenty-one years—her long face already showed pronounced lines; and with her smooth hair, which had never been blond, but always a dull greyish colour, she presented an ideal portrait of a typical old maid. But she was content; she did nothing to alter her condition. Perhaps she thought it best to grow old early and thus to make a quick end of all doubts and hopes. As she did not own a single sou, she knew that she would find nobody in all the wide world to marry her, and she looked with humility into her future, which would surely consist of consuming a tiny income in some tiny room which her influential uncle would procure for her out of the funds of some charitable establishment for maidens of good family.
The Consul’s wife was busy reading two letters. Tony related the good progress of the little Erica, and Christian wrote eagerly of his life and doings in London. He did not give any details of his industry with Mr. Richardson of Threadneedle Street. The Frau Consul, who was approaching the middle forties, complained bitterly of the tendency of blond women to grow old too soon. The delicate tint which corresponded to her reddish hair had grown dulled despite all cosmetics; and the hair itself began relentlessly to grey, or would have done so but for a Parisian tincture of which the Frau Consul had the receipt. She was determined never to grow white. When the dye would no longer perform its office, she would wear a blond wig. On top of her still artistic coiffure was a silk scarf bordered with white lace, the beginning, the first adumbration of a cap. Her silk frock was wide and flowing, its bell-shaped sleeves lined with the softest mull. A pair of gold circlets tinkled as usual on her wrist.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly there was a noise of running and shouting: a sort of insolent hooting and cat-calling, the stamping of feet on the pavement, a hubbub that grew louder and came nearer.
“What is that noise, Mamma?” said Clara, looking out of the window and into the gossip’s glass. “Look at the people! What is the matter with them? What are they so pleased about?”
“My God!” shouted the Frau Consul, throwing down her letters and springing to the window. “Is it—? My God, it is the Revolution! It is the people!”
The truth was that the town had been the whole day in a state of unrest. In the morning the windows of Benthien the draper’s shop in Broad Street had been broken by stones—although God knew what the owner had to do with politics!
“Anton,” the Consul’s wife called with a trembling voice into the dining-room, where the servants were bustling about with the silver. “Anton! Go below! Shut the outside doors. Make everything fast. It is a mob.”
“Oh, Frau Consul,” said Anton. “Is it safe for me to do that? I am a servant. If they see my livery—”
“What wicked people,” Clothilde drawled without putting down her work. Just then the Consul crossed the entrance hall and came in through the glass door. He carried his coat over his arm and his hat in his hand.
“You are going out, Jean?” asked the Frau Consul in great excitement and trepidation.
“Yes, my dear, I must go to the meeting.”
“But the mob, Jean, the Revolution—”
“Oh, dear me, Betsy, it isn’t so serious as that! We are in God’s hand. They have gone past the house already. I’ll go down the back way.”
“Jean, if you love me—do you want to expose yourself to this danger? Will you leave us here unprotected? I am afraid, I tell you—I am afraid.”
“My dear, I beg of you, don’t work yourself up like this. They will only make a bit of a row in front of the Town Hall or in the market. It may cost the government a few windowpanes—but that’s all.”
“Where are you going, Jean?”
“To the Assembly. I am late already. I was detained by business. It would be a shame not to be there to-day. Do you think your Father is stopping away, old as he is?”
“Then go, in God’s name, Jean. But he careful, I beg of you. And keep an eye on my Father. If anything hit him—”
“Certainly, my dear.”
“When will you be back?” the Frau Consul called after him.
“Well, about half past four or five o’clock. Depends. There is a good deal of importance on the agenda, so I can’t exactly tell.”
“Oh, I’m frightened, I’m frightened,” repeated the Frau Consul, walking up and down restlessly.