BUDDENBROOKS
in the virgin forest. There was no doubt that Christian’s weakness was for women. He narrated with a fluency and power that entranced his listeners, in an exhaustless stream, with his somewhat plaintive, drawling voice, burlesque and innocent, like an English humourist. He told a story about a dog that had been sent in a satchel from Valparaiso to San Francisco and was mangy to boot. Goodness knew what was the point of the anecdote—in his mouth it was indescribably comic. And while everybody about him writhed with laughter, unable to leave off, he himself sat there cross-legged, a strange, uneasy seriousness in his face with its great hooked nose, his thin, long neck, his sparse light-red hair and little round deep-set eyes. It almost seemed as if the laugh were at his expense, as if they were laughing at him. But that never occurred to him.
At home his favourite tales were about his office in Valparaiso. He told of the extreme heat there, and about a young Londoner, named Johnny Thunderstorm, a ne’er-dowell, an extraordinary chap, whom he had “never seen do a stroke of work, God damn me,” and who yet was a remarkable business man.
“Good God, the heat!” he said. “Well, the chief came into the office—there we all lay, eight of us, like flies, and smoked cigarettes to keep the mosquitoes away. Good God! Well, the chief said: ‘You are not working, gentlemen?’ ‘No, sir,’ says Johnny Thunderstorm, ‘as you see, sir!’ And we all blew our cigarette-smoke in his face. Good God!”
“Why do you keep saying ‘good God’?” asked Thomas irritably. But his irritation was at bottom because he felt that Christian told this story with particular relish just because it gave him a chance to sneer at honest work.
The Mother would discreetly change the subject. There were many hateful things in the world, thought the Frau Consul, born Kröger. Brothers could despise and dislike each other, dreadful as it sounded; but one didn’t mention such things. They had to be covered up and ignored.
