BUDDENBROOKS
“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
