BUDDENBROOKS
business. He held a number of unimportant offices, the latest one being Director of the city bathing establishments; but he also functioned as juror, broker, and executor, and laboured with such zeal that the perspiration dripped from his brow. “There’s a session, isn’t there, Buddenbrook—and you are taking a walk?”
“Oh, it’s you,” said the Senator in a low voice, moving his lips cautiously. “I’m suffering frightfully—I’m nearly blind with pain.”
“Pain? Where?”
“Toothache. Since yesterday. I did not close my eyes last night. I have not been to the dentist yet, because I had business in the office this morning, and then I did not like to miss the sitting. But I couldn’t stand it any longer. I’m on my way to Brecht.”
“Where is it?”
“Here on the left side, the lower jaw. A back tooth. It is decayed, of course. The pain is simply unbearable. Good-bye, Kistenmaker. You can understand that I am in a good deal of a hurry.”
“Yes, of course—don’t you think I am, too? Awful lot to do. Good-bye. Good luck! Have it out—get it over with at once—always the best way.”
Thomas Buddenbrook went on, biting his jaws together, though it made the pain worse to do so. It was a furious burning, boring pain, starting from the infected back tooth and affecting the whole side of the jaw. The inflammation throbbed like red-hot hammers; it made his face burn and his eyes water. His nerves were terribly affected by the sleepless night he had spent. He had had to control himself just now, lest his voice break as he spoke.
He entered a yellow-brown house in Mill Street and went up to the first storey, where a brass plate on the door said, “Brecht, Dentist.” He did not see the servant who opened the door. The corridor was warm and smelled of beefsteak and cauliflower. Then he suddenly inhaled the sharp odour
277
