BUDDENBROOKS
by yourself, without your husband, so that we could be en famille together once more. But to come now, like this—my dear child, I beg your pardon, but it was—foolish. Yes—let me finish! Permaneder has certainly behaved very badly, as I will give him to understand pretty clearly—don’t be afraid of that—”
“As to how he has behaved himself, Thomas,” she interrupted him, raising herself up to lay a hand upon her breast, “as far as that goes, I have already given him to understand that—and not only ‘given him to understand,’ I can tell you! I am convinced that further discussion with that man is entirely out of place.” And she let herself fall back again and looked sternly and fixedly at the ceiling.
He bowed, as if under the weight of her words, and kept on looking down at his knee and smiling.
“Well, then, I won’t send him a stiff letter. It is just as you say. In the end it is after all your affair, and it is quite enough if you put him in his place—it is your duty as his wife. After all, there are some extenuating circumstances. There was a birthday celebration, and he came home a little bit exalted, so to speak, and was guilty of a false step, an unseemly blunder—”
“Thomas,” said she, “I do not understand you. I do not understand your tone. You—a man with your principles! But you did not see him. You did not see how drink he looked—”
“He looked ridiculous enough, I’m sure. But that is it, Tony. You will not see how comic it was—but probably that is the fault of your bad digestion. You caught your husband in a moment of weakness, and you have seen him make himself look ridiculous, But that ought not to outrage you to such an extent. It ought to amuse you a little, perhaps, but bring you closer together as human beings. I will say that I don’t mean you could have just let it pass with a laugh and said nothing about it—not at all. You left home; that was a demonstration of a rather extreme kind, perhaps—a bit too
