BUDDENBROOKS
quite still, quite peaceful, more peaceful than ever before; her breath came very softly and at long intervals, and she was visibly declining from weakness to weakness. Frau Permaneder murmured a strong word in the wake of the Gerhardt ladies, and sent at once for the physicians. The two gentlemen had barely entered the sick-chamber when a surprising alteration took place in the patient. She stirred, she moved, she almost sat up. The sight of her trusted and faithful professional advisers brought her back to earth at a bound. She put out her hands to them and began: “Welcome, gentlemen. To-day, in the course of the day—”
The illness had attacked both lungs—of that there was no more room for doubt.
“Yes, my dear Senator,” Dr. Grabow said, and took Thomas Buddenbrook by the hand, “it is now both lungs—we have not been able to prevent it. That is always serious, you know as well as I do. I should not attempt to deceive you. No matter what the age of the patient, the condition is serious; and if you ask me again to-day whether in my opinion your brother should be written to—or perhaps a telegram would be better—I should hesitate to deter you from it. How is he, by the way? A good fellow, Christian; I’ve always liked him immensely.—But for Heaven’s sake, my dear Senator, don’t draw any exaggerated conclusions from what I say. There is no immediate danger—I am foolish to take the word in my mouth! But still—under the circumstances, you know, one must reckon with the unexpected. We are very well satisfied with your mother as a patient. She helps all she can, she doesn’t leave us in the lurch; no, on my word, she is an incomparable patient! So there is still great hope, my dear sir. And we must hope for the best.”
But there is a moment when hope becomes something artificial and insincere. There is a change in the patient. He alters—there is something strange about him—he is not as he was in life. He speaks, but we do not know how to reply: what he says is strange, it seems to cut off his retreat back to
