Buddenbrooks/Volume 1/Part 6/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
A mist lay over the town. But—or so said Herr Longuet, the livery man in John Street, as he himself drove the covered char-a-banc up to the door of the house in Meng Street: “The sun will be out before an hour is over”—which was most encouraging.
The Frau Consul, Antonie, Herr Permaneder, Erica, and Ida had breakfast together and gathered one after another, ready for the expedition, in the great entry, to wait for Gerda and Tom. Frau Grünlich, in a cream-coloured frock with a satin tie, looked her best, despite the loss of sleep the night before. Her doubts and fears seemed to be laid to rest, and her manner was assured, calm, and almost formal as she talked with their guest and fastened her glove-button. She had regained the tone of the old days. The well-known conviction of her own importance, of the weightiness of her own decisions, the consciousness that once more a day had come when she was to inscribe herself decisively in the family history—all this filled her heart and made it beat higher. She had dreamed of seeing that page in the family papers on which she would write down the fact of her bethrothal—the fact that should obliterate and make void the black spot which the page contained. She looked forward to the moment when Tom would appear and she would greet him with a meaning nod.
He came with his wife, somewhat tardily, for the young Frau Consul was not used to make such an early toilette. He looked well and happy in his light-brown checked suit, the broad revers of which showed the white waistcoat beneath; and his eyes had a smile in them as he noted Tony’s incomparably dignified mien. Gerda, with her slightly exotic, even morbid beauty, which was always in great contrast to her sister-in-law’s healthy prettiness, was not in a holiday mood. Probably she had risen too early. The deep lilac background of her frock suited oddly with her dark-red hair and made her skin look whiter and more even-toned than ever, and the bluish shadows deeper and darker in the corners of her close-set brown eyes. She rather coldly offered her mother-in-law her brow to kiss, gave her hand to Herr Permaneder with an almost ironical expression on her face, and answered only by a deprecating smile when Tony clapped her hands and cried out in her hearty way: “Oh, Gerda, how lovely you always look!”
She had a real distaste for expeditions like to-day’s, especially in summer and most especially on Sunday. She lived in the twilight of her curtained living-rooms, and dreaded the sun, the dust, the crowds of townsfolk in their holiday clothes, the smell of coffee, beer, and tobacco; and above everything else in the world she hated getting hot and upset. When the expedition to Swartau and the “Giant Bush” was arranged, in order to give the Munich guest a glimpse of the surroundings of the old town, Gerda said lightly to her husband “Dearest, you know how I am made: I only like peace and quiet. I was not meant for change and excitement. You’ll let me off, won’t you?”
She would not have married him if she had not felt sure of his essential agreement with her in these matters.
“Oh, heavens, yes; you are right, of course, Gerda. It is mostly imagination that one enjoys oneself on such parties. Still, one goes, because one does not like to seem odd, either to oneself or to the others. Everybody has that kind of vanity; don’t you think so? People get the idea that you are solitary or else unhappy, and they have less respect for you. And then, there is something else, Gerda dear. We all want to pay a little court to Herr Pemaneder. Of course you see what the situation is. Something is going on; it would be a real pity if it came to nothing.”
“I do not see, my dear friend, why my presence—but no matter. Let it be as you wish. Let us indulge.”
They went into the street. And the sun actually began at that moment to pierce the morning mist. The bells of St. Mary’s were ringing for Sunday, and the twittering of birds filled the air. The coachman took off his hat, and the Frau Consul greeted him with the patriarchal kindness which sometimes put Thomas a little on edge: “Good morning, my friend!—Well, get in now, my dears. It is just time for early service, but to-day we will praise God with full hearts in his own free out-of-doors; shall we not, Herr Permaneder?”
“That’s right, Frau Consul.”
They climbed one after another up the steps through the narrow back door of the wagon and made themselves comfortable on the cushioned seats, which—doubtless in honour of Herr Permaneder—were striped blue and white, the Bavarian colours. The door slammed, Herr Longuet clucked to the horses and shouted “Gee” and “Haw,” the strong brown beasts tugged at the harness, and the wagon rolled down Meng Street along the Trave and out the Holsten gate and then to the right along the Swartau Road.
Fields, meadows, tree-clumps, farmyards. They stared up into the high, thin blue mist above them for the larks they heard singing there. Thomas, smoking his cigarette, looked about keenly, and when they came to the grain he called Herr Permaneder’s attention to its condition. The hop dealer was in a mood of childlike anticipation. He had perched his green hat with the goat’s beard on the side of his head, and was balancing his big stick with the horn handle on the palm of his broad white hand and even on his underlip—a feat which, though he never quite succeeded in accomplishing it, was always greeted with applause from little Erica. He repeated over and over remarks like: “ ’Twon’t be the Zugspitz, but we’ll climb a bit and have a little lark—kind of a little old spree, hey, Frau Grünli’?”
Then he began to relate with much liveliness stories of mountain-climbing with knapsack and alpenstock, the Frau Consul rewarding him with many an admiring “You don’t say!” He came by some train of thought or other to Christian, and expressed the most lively regret for his absence—he had heard what a jolly chap he was.
“He varies,” the Consul said drily. “On a party like this he is inimitable, it is true.—We shall have crabs to eat, Herr Permaneder,” he said in a livelier tone; “crabs and Baltic shrimps! You have had them a few times already at my Mother’s, but friend Dieckmann, the owner of the ‘Giant Bush,’ serves especially fine ones. And ginger nuts, the famous ginger-nuts of these parts. Has their fame reached even as far as the Isar? Well, you shall try them.”
Two or three times Frau Grünlich stopped the wagon to pick poppies and corn-flowers by the roadside, and each time Herr Permaneder testified to his desire to get out and help her, if it were not for his slight nervousness at climbing in and out of the wagon.
Erica rejoiced at every crow she saw; and Ida Jungmann, wearing her mackintosh and carrying her umbrella, as she always did even in the most settled weather, rejoiced with her like a good governess who shares not only outwardly but inwardly in the childish emotions of her charge. She entered heartily into Erica’s pleasure, with her rather loud laugh that sounded like a horse neighing. Gerda, who had not seen her growing grey in the family service, looked at her repeatedly with cold surprise.
They were in Oldenberg. The beech groves came in sight. They drove through the village, across the market square with its well, and out again into the country, over the bridge that spanned the little river Au, and finally drew up in front of the one-story inn, “The Giant Bush.” It stood at the side of a flat open space laid out with lawns and sandy paths and country flower-beds; beyond it, the forest rose gradually like an amphitheatre. Each stage was reached by rude steps formed from the natural rocks and tree roots; and on each one white-painted tables, benches, and chairs stood placed among the trees.
The Buddenbrooks were by no means the first guests. A couple of plump maids and a waiter in a greasy dress-coat were hurrying about the square carrying cold meat, lemonades, milk, and beer up to the tables, even the more remote ones, which were already occupied by several families with children.
Herr Dieckmann, the landlord, appeared personally, in shirt-sleeves and a little yellow-embroidered cap, to help the guests dismount, and Longuet drove off to unhitch. The Frau Consul said: “My good man, we will take our walk first, and after an hour or so we should like luncheon served up above—but not too high up; say perhaps at the second landing.”
“You must show what you are made of, Herr Dieckmann,” added the Consul. “We have a guest who is used to good living.”
“Oh, no such thing,” Herr Permaneder protested. “A beer and cheese—”
But Herr Dieckmann could not understand him, and began with great fluency: “Everything we have, Herr Consul: crabs, shrimps, all sorts of sausages, all sorts of cheese, smoked eel, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon—”
“Fine, Dieckmann; give us what you have. And then—six glasses of milk and a glass of beer—if I am not mistaken, Herr Permaneder?”
“One beer, six milks—sweet milk, buttermilk, sour milk, clotted milk, Herr Consul?”
“Half and half, Herr Dieckmann: sweet milk and buttermilk. In an hour, then.” They went across the square.
“First, Herr Permaneder, it is our duty to visit the spring,” said Thomas. “The spring, that is to say, is the source of the Au; and the Au is the tiny little river on which Swartau lies, and on which, in the grey Middle Ages, our own town was situated—until it burned down. There was probably nothing very permanent about it at that time, and it was rebuilt again, on the Trave. But there are painful recollections connected with the Au. When we were schoolboys we used to pinch each other’s arms and say: ‘What is the name of the river at Swartau?’ Of course, it hurt, and the involuntary answer was the right one.—Look!” he interrupted himself suddenly, ten steps from the ascent, “they’ve got ahead of us.” It was the Möllendorpfs and the Hagenströms.
There, on the third landing of the wooded terrace, sat the principal members of those affiliated families, at two tables shoved close together, eating and talking with the greatest gusto. Old Senator Möllendorpf presided, a pallid gentleman with thin, pointed white mutton-chops; he suffered from diabetes. His wife, born Langhals, wielded her lorgnon; and, as usual, her hair stood up untidily all over her head. Her son Augustus was a blond young man with a prosperous exterior, and there was Julie his wife, born Hagenström, little and lively, with great blank black eyes and diamond earrings that were nearly as large. She sat between her brothers, Hermann and Moritz. Consul Hermann Hagenstrom had begun to get very stout with good living: people said he began the day with paté de foie gras. He wore a full, short reddish-blond beard, and he had his mother’s nose, which came down quite flat on the upper lip. Dr. Morris was narrow-chested and yellow-skinned, and he talked very gaily, showing pointed teeth with gaps between them. Both brothers had their ladies with them—for the lawyer had married, some years since, a Fräulein Puttfarken from Hamburg, a lady with butter-coloured hair and wonderful cold, regular, English features of more than common beauty; Dr. Hagenström had not been able to reconcile with his reputation as connoisseur the idea of taking a plain wife. And, finally, there were the little daughter of Hermann and the little son of Moritz, two white-frocked children, already as good as betrothed to each other, for the Huneus-Hagenström money must be kept together, of course. They all sat there eating ham and scrambled eggs.
Greetings were exchanged when the Buddenbrook party passed at a little distance the company seated at the table. The Frau Consul bowed confusedly; Thomas lifted his hat, his lips moving in a courteous and conventional greeting, and Gerda inclined her head with formal politeness. But Herr Permaneder, stimulated by the climb, swung his green hat unaffectedly and shouted in a loud, hearty voice: “Hearty good morning to all of you!” whereat Frau Senator Möllendorpf made use of her lorgnon. Tony, for her part, flung back her head and tucked in her chin as much as possible, while her shoulders went up ever so slightly, and she greeted the party as if from some remote height—which meant that she stared straight ahead directly over the broad brim of Julie Möllendorpf’s elegant hat. Precisely at this moment, her decision of the night before became fixed, unalterable resolve.
“Thanks be to goodness, Tom, we are not going to eat for another hour. I’d hate to have that Julie watching us. Did you see how she spoke? Hardly at all. I only had a glimpse of her hat, but it looked frightfully bad taste.”
“Well, as far as that goes, I don’t know about the hat—but you were certainly not much more cordial than she was, my love. And don’t get irritated—it makes for wrinkles.”
“Irritated, Tom? Not at all. If these people think they are the first and foremost, why, one can only laugh at them, that’s all. What difference is there between this Julie and me, if it comes to that? She only drew a fool, instead of a knave, for a husband; and if she were in my position now, we should see if she would find another one.”
“How can you tell that you will find another one?”
“A fool, Thomas?”
“Very much better than a knave.”
“It doesn’t have to be either. But it is not a fit subject for discussion.”
“Quite right. The others are ahead of us—Herr Permaneder is climbing lustily.”
The shady forest road grew level, and it was not long before they reached the “spring,” a pretty, romantic spot with a wooden bridge over a little ravine, steep cliffs, and overhanging trees with their roots in the air. The Frau Consul had brought a silver collapsible cup, and they scooped up the water from the little stone basin directly under the source and refreshed themselves with the iron-impregnated spring. And here Herr Permaneder had a slight attack of gallantry, and insisted on Frau Grünlich tasting his cup before presenting it to him. He ran over with friendliness and displayed great tact in chatting with the Frau Consul and Thomas, as well as with Gerda and Tony, and even with little Erica. Gerda, who had up to now been suffering from the heat and a kind of silent and rigid nervousness, began to feel like herself again. They came back to the inn by a shorter way, and sat down at a groaning table on the second of the wooded terraces; and it was Gerda who gave expression in friendly terms to the general regret over Herr Permaneder’s early departure, now that they were just becoming a little acquainted and finding less and less difficulty with the language. She was ready to swear that she had heard her friend and siste-rin-law, Tony, use several times the most unadulterated Munich dialect!
Herr Permaneder forebore to commit himself on the subject of his departure. Instead, he devoted himself for the time to the dainties that weighted down the table—dainties such as he seldom saw the other side of the Danube.
They sat and consumed the good things at their leisure—what little Erica liked far better than anything else were the serviettes made of tissue paper, much nicer than the big linen ones at home. With the waiter’s permission she put a few in her pocket as a souvenir. When they had finished, they still sat; Herr Permaneder smoked several very black cigars with his beer, Thomas smoked cigarettes, and the whole family chatted a long time with their guest. It was noticeable that Herr Permaneder’s leaving was not mentioned again; in fact, the future was left shrouded in darkness. Rather, they turned to memories of the past or talked of the political events of recent years. Herr Permaneder shook with laughter over some dozens of stories of the late Herr Consul, which his widow related, and then in his turn told about the Munich Revolution, and about Lola Montez, in whom Frau Grünlich displayed an unbounded interest. The hour after luncheon slowly wore on, and little Erica came back laden with daisies, grasses, and ladies’ smocks from an expedition with Ida Jungmann, and recalled the fact that the ginger-nuts were still to be bought. They started on their walk down to the village, not before the Frau Consul, who was the hostess of the occasion, had paid the bill with a good-sized gold-piece.
They gave orders at the inn that the wagon should be ready in half an hour, so that there would be time for a rest in town before dinner, and then they rambled slowly down, in the dusty sunshine, to the handful of cottages that formed the village.
After they crossed the bridge they fell naturally into little groups, in which they continued after that to walk: Mamsell Jungmann with her long stride in the van, with little Erica jumping tirelessly alongside, hunting for butterflies; then the Frau Consul, Thomas, and Gerda together; and lastly, at some distance, Frau Grünlich and Herr Permaneder. The first pair made considerable noise, for the child shouted for joy, and Ida joined in with her neighing, good-natured laugh. In the middle, all three were silent; for the dust had driven Gerda into another fit of depression, and the old Frau Consul, and her son as well, were plunged in thought. The couple behind were quiet too, but their quietness was only apparent, for in reality Tony and her Bavarian guest were conversing in subdued and intimate tones. And what was the subject of their discourse? It was Herr Grünlich. . . .
Herr Permaneder had made the pointed remark that little Erica was a dear and pretty child, but that she had not the slightest resemblance to her mother. To which Tony had answered: “She is altogether like her father in looks, and one may say that it is not at all to her disadvantage, for as far as looks go, Grünlich was a gentleman. He had golden-yellow whiskers—very uncommon; I never saw anything like them.” When Tony visited the Niederpaurs in Munich, she had already told Herr Permaneder in considerable detail the story of her first marriage; but now he asked again all the particulars of it, listening with anxiously sympathetic blinks to the details of the bankruptcy.
“He was a bad man, Herr Permaneder, or Father would never have taken me away from him—of that you may be sure. Life has taught me that not everybody in the world has a good heart. I have learned that, young as I am for a person who, as you might say, has been a widow for ten years. He was a bad man, and his banker, Kesselmeyer, was a worse one—and a silly puppy into the bargain. I won’t say that I consider myself an angel and perfectly free from all blame—don’t misunderstand me. Grünlich neglected me, and even when he was with me he just sat and read the paper; and he deceived me, and kept me in Eimsbüttel, because he was afraid if I went to town I would find out the mess he was in. But I am a weak woman, and I have my faults too, and I’ve no doubt I did not always go the right way to work. I know I gave him cause to worry and complain over my extravagance and silliness and my new dressing-gowns. But it is only fair to say one thing: I was just a child when I was married, a perfect goose, a silly little thing. Just imagine: only a short time before I was engaged, I didn’t even so much as know that the Confederation decrees concerning the universities and the press had been renewed four years before! And fine decrees they were, too! Ah, me, Herr Permaneder! The sad thing is that one lives but once—one can’t begin life over again. And one would know so much better the second time!”
She was silent; she looked down at the road—but she was very intent on the reply Herr Permaneder would make, for she had not unskilfully left him an opening, it being only a step to the idea that, even though it was impossible to begin life anew, yet a new and better married life was not out of the question. Herr Permaneder let the chance slip and confined himself to laying the blame on Herr Grünlich, with such violence that his very chin-whiskers bristled.
“Silly ass! If I had the fool here I’d give it to him! What a swine!”
“Fie, Herr Permaneder! No, you really mustn’t. We must forgive and forget—‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ Ask Mother. Heaven forbid—I don’t know where Grünlich is, nor what state his affairs are in, but I wish him the best of fortune, even though he doesn’t deserve it.”
They had reached the village and stood before the little house which was at the same time the bakery. They had stopped walking, almost without knowing it, and were hardly aware that Ida, Erica, the Frau Consul, Thomas, and Gerda had disappeared through the funny, tiny little door, so low that they had to stoop to enter. They were absorbed in their conversation, though it had not got beyond these trifling preliminaries.
They stood by a hedge with a long narrow flower-bed beneath it, in which some mignonette was growing. Frau Grünlich, rather hot, bent her head and poked industriously with her parasol in the black loam. Herr Permaneder stood close to her, now and then assisting her excavations with his walking-stick. His little green hat with the tuft of goat’s beard had slid back on his forehead. He was stooping over the bed too, but his small, bulging pale-blue eyes, quite blank and even a little reddish, gazed up at her with a mixture of devotion, distress, and expectancy. It was odd to see how his very moustache, drooping down over his mouth, took the same expression.
“Likely, now,” he ventured, “likely, now, ye’ve taken a silly fright, and are too damned scared of marriage ever to try it again—hey, Frau Grünlich?”
“How clumsy!” thought she. “Must I say yes to that?” Aloud she answered: “Well, dear Herr Permaneder, I must confess that it would be hard for me to yield anybody my consent for life; for life has taught me, you see, what a serious step that is. One needs to be sure that the man in question is a thoroughly noble, good, kind soul—”
And now he actually ventured the question whether she could consider him such a man—to which she answered: “Yes, Herr Permaneder, I do.” Upon which there followed the few short murmured words which clinched the betrothal and gave Herr Permaneder the assurance that he might speak to Thomas and the Frau Consul when they reached home.
When the other members of the party came forth, laden with bags of ginger-nuts, Thomas let his eye rove discreetly over the heads of the two standing outside, for they were embarrassed to the last degree. Herr Permaneder simply made no effort to conceal the fact, but Tony was hiding her embarrassment under a well-nigh majestic dignity.
They hurried back to the wagon, for the sky had clouded over and some drops began to fall.
Tony was right: her brother had, soon after Herr Permaneder appeared, made proper inquiries as to his situation in life. He learned that X. Noppe and Company did a thoroughly sound if somewhat restricted business, operating with the joint-stock brewery managed by Herr Niederpaur as director. It showed a nice little income, Herr Permaneder’s share of which, with the help of Tony’s seventeen thousand, would suffice for a comfortable if modest life. The Frau Consul heard the news, and there was a long and particular conversation among her, Herr Permaneder, Antonie, and Thomas, in the landscape-room that very evening, and everything was arranged. It was decided that little Erica should go to Munich too, this being her Mother’s wish, to which her betrothed warmly agreed.
Two days later the hop-dealer left for home—“Noppe will be raising the deuce if I don’t,” he said. But in July Frau Grünlich was again in his native town, accompanied by Tom and Gerda. They were to spend four or five weeks at Bad Kreuth, while the Frau Consul with Erica and Ida were on the Baltic coast. While in Munich, the four had time to see the house in Kaufinger Street which Herr Permaneder was about to buy. It was in the neighbourhood of the Niederpaurs’—a perfectly remarkable old house, a large part of which Herr Permaneder thought to let. It had a steep, ladderlike pair of stairs which ran without a turning from the front door straight up to the first floor, where a corridor led on each side back to the front rooms.
Tony went home the middle of August to devote herself to her trousseau. She had considerable left from her earlier equipment, but new purchases were necessary to complete it. One day several things arrived from Hamburg, among them a morning-gown—this time not trimmed with velvet but with bands of cloth instead.
Herr Permaneder returned to Meng Street well on in the autumn. They thought best to delay no longer. As for the wedding festivities, they went off just as Tony expected and desired, no great fuss being made over them. “Let us leave out the formalities,” said the Consul. “You are married again, and it is simply as if you always had been.” Only a few announcements were sent—Madame Grünlich saw to it that Julie Möllendorpf, born Hagenström, received one—and there was no wedding journey. Herr Permaneder objected to making “such a fuss,” and Tony, just back from the summer trip, found even the journey to Munich too long. The wedding took place, not in the hall this time, but in the church of St. Mary’s, in the presence of the family only. Tony wore the orange-blossom, which replaced the myrtle, with great dignity, and Doctor Kölling preached on moderation, with as strong language as ever, but in a weaker voice.
Christian came from Hamburg, very elegantly dressed, looking a little ailing but very lively. He said his business with Burmeister was “top-top”; thought that he and Tilda would probably get married “up there”—that is to say, “each one for himself, of course”; and came very late to the wedding from the visit he paid at the club. Uncle Justus was much moved by the occasion, and with his usual lavishness presented the newly wedded pair with a beautiful heavy silver epergne. He and his wife practically starved themselves at home, for the weak woman was still paying the disinherited and outcast Jacob’s debts with the house-keeping money. Jacob was rumoured to be in Paris at present. The Buddenbrook ladies from Broad Street made the remark: “Well, let’s hope it will last, this time.” The unpleasant part of this lay in the doubt whether they really hoped it. Sesemi Weichbrodt stood on her tip-toes, kissed her pupil, now Frau Permaneder, explosively on the forehead, and said with her most pronounced vowels: “Be happy, you go-od che-ild!”