BUDDENBROOKS
more to-day than she would be a year from now. Good Lord, Thomas, Mother couldn’t have any actual right—but I saw it from her point of view, and had consideration for that, as long as she lived. She was an old woman, a woman of a past generation, with different views about life—”
“I can only say that I concur with her absolutely in this particular view.”
“I cannot be bothered about that.”
“But you will be bothered about it, my dear sir.”
Christian looked at him.
“No,” he shouted. “I won’t! I can’t do it. Suppose I tell you I can’t? I must know what I have to do, mustn’t I? I am a grown man—”
“You don’t in the least know what you have to do. Your being what you call a grown man is only very external.”
“I know very well what I have to do. In the first place, I have to act like a man of honour! You don’t know how the thing stands. With Tony and Gerda here we can’t really talk—but I have already told you I have responsibilities—The last child, little Gisela—”
“I know nothing about any little Gisela—and I don’t care to. I am perfectly convinced they are making a fool of you. In any case, what sort of responsibility can you have toward a person like the one you have in mind—other than the legal one, which you can perform as before—?”
“Person, Thomas, person? You are making a mistake about her. Aline—”
“Silence!” roared Senator Buddenbrook in a voice like thunder. The two brothers glared across the table into each other’s faces. Thomas was pale and trembling with scorn; the rims of Christian’s deep little eyes had got suddenly red, his mouth and eyes spread wide open, his lean cheeks seemed nothing but hollows, and a pair of red patches showed just under the cheek-bones. Gerda looked rather disdainfully from one to the other, and Tony wrung her hands,
