BUDDENBROOKS
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
350
