Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

  Herr Grünlich praised the house’s elegant grounds, praised the town in general, praised the consul’s cigar as well, had a kind word for everyone.

  “Might I be so bold as to inquire what you are reading, Mademoiselle Antonie?” he asked with a smile.

  For some reason Tony suddenly scowled and replied, without looking at Herr Grünlich, “Hoffmann’s Serapion Brethren.”

  “You don’t say! An author who achieved the most extraordinary things,” he remarked. “But I beg your pardon—I’ve forgotten the name of your second son, Madame Buddenbrook.”

  “Christian.”

  “A beautiful name. I do love, if I may say so”—and Herr Grünlich turned again now to the head of the household—“those names that betray in and of themselves the faith of those who bear them. The name Johann is, I am aware, handed down in your family from generation to generation … and who would not be immediately reminded of our Lord’s beloved disciple. If I may be permitted to mention it,” he continued eloquently, “like most of my forebears, I am named Bendix—which may be regarded as a colloquial abbreviation of ‘Benedict.’ And what are you reading, Master Buddenbrook? Ah, Cicero! A difficult text, the work of a great Roman orator. Quousque tandem, Catilina. Huh-uh-hmm, yes, I’ve not entirely forgotten my Latin, either.”

  The consul said, “Unlike my dear departed father, I have always had some reservations about this everlasting preoccupation of young minds with Greek and Latin. So many serious and important matters are necessary to prepare a man for the practical side of life.”

  “My opinion entirely, Herr Buddenbrook,” Herr Grünlich hastened to reply. “You took the words out of my mouth. A difficult text, and as I failed to add, a not unexceptionable one. Quite apart from everything else, I can recall several passages in those speeches that are blatantly offensive.”

  There was a pause. Tony thought, “Now it’s my turn.” Because Herr Grünlich’s gaze was resting on her again. And how right she was—it was her turn. Herr Grünlich suddenly bounced up off his chair a little, his hand formed in a brief, cramped, and yet elegant gesture toward the consul’s wife, and whispered vehemently, “Please, just look at that, Madame Buddenbrook!” Then, interrupting himself loudly, as if Tony should hear only this part, he added, “I beg you, hold that position!” And now he went on again in a whisper, “Do you not see it? How the sun plays in your daughter’s hair? I have never seen more beautiful hair!” He blurted this out in solemn rapture to no one in particular, as if speaking to God or his own heart.

  Elisabeth smiled agreeably, and the consul said, “Don’t put notions in the girl’s head.” Tony scowled again.

  A few minutes later, Herr Grünlich stood up. “I shall not cause you any further inconvenience, no, by heaven, no further inconvenience, Madame Buddenbrook. I came on business … but who could resist. Yet, duty calls now. Might I request of you, Consul Buddenbrook …”

  “I need not tell you,” Elisabeth said, “how very happy it would make us if you could stay in our home during your visit in town.”

  Herr Grünlich stood there for a moment, struck dumb with gratitude. “I am deeply obliged to you, Madame Buddenbrook,” he said, his expression underscoring how touched he was. “But I dare not further abuse your kindness. I have taken a couple of rooms at the City of Hamburg Inn.…”

  A couple of rooms, Elisabeth thought to herself—which was precisely what Herr Grünlich had intended for her to think.

  “In any case,” she said in conclusion, offering her hand again with her customary heartfelt motion, “I hope that we have not seen you for the last time.”

  Herr Grünlich kissed Madame Buddenbrook’s hand, waited a moment for Antonie to offer hers, which did not happen, described a semicircle with his upper body, took one large step backward, bowed yet again, and then, tossing his head back, donned his hat with a flourish and strode off with the consul.

  “A pleasant gentleman,” the latter repeated when he had rejoined his family and taken his seat again.

  “I think he’s silly,” Antonie dared to say, stressing the last word.

  “Tony! Good heavens, what a thing to say!” Elisabeth cried, somewhat shocked. “Such a Christian young man.”

  “And so well bred and urbane,” the consul added. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was not unusual for her parents to change roles like this out of courtesy—it only reinforced the unanimity of their opinions.

  Christian wrinkled his nose and said, “He certainly talks big! One converses away! We weren’t conversing at all. And poppies add a rare, ornamental touch. Sometimes he acts as if he’s only speaking aloud to himself. I am disturbing you, I really must beg your pardon. I have never seen more beautiful hair.” And Christian’s imitation of Herr Grünlich was so perfect that even the consul had to laugh.

  “Yes, and puts on big airs!” Tony started up again. “He talked about nothing but himself. His business is doing extremely well, he loves nature, he prefers this name or that, his name is Bendix. What do we care, I’d like to know. He was just tooting his own horn,” she suddenly shouted angrily. “He’s only telling you, Mama, and you, Papa, what you want to hear, just to ingratiate himself.”

  “That’s no reproach, Tony,” the consul said sternly. “One finds oneself among strangers, shows oneself from one’s best side, chooses one’s words, and tries to please—that’s quite normal.”

  “I think he is a good man,” Klothilde said softly, drawing out the words, although she was the only person in whom Herr Grünlich had shown not the least interest. Thomas withheld his judgment.

  “Enough,” the consul concluded. “He is a hardworking Christian and a well-educated man. And you, Tony, are a grown young lady of eighteen, soon to be nineteen, whom he treated very politely and gallantly—you should curb your fault-finding. We all have our weaknesses, and you are, beg your pardon, the last person to cast stones. Tom, let’s get back to work.”

  Tony muttered “Gold whiskers!” and scowled, as she had done several times already.

  2

  A FEW DAYS LATER, at the corner of Breite and Meng Strasse, as she was returning from a walk, Tony ran into Herr Grünlich. “How genuinely distressed I was, Fräulein, to discover I had missed you,” he said. “I took the liberty of paying my respects to your good mother and was grieved to find you weren’t at home. But how delighted I am now to meet you after all.”

  Fräulein Buddenbrook came to a halt—Herr Grünlich was speaking to her. But she kept her eyes lowered, directing them no higher than his chest; and playing at the corners of her mouth was the mocking and totally merciless smile with which a young lady measures a man and finds him wanting. Her lips moved—how should she reply? Ah, it had to be something that would cast this Bendix Grünlich off for good and all, annihilate him—but it also had to be a deft, witty phrase that would both impress him and cut like a knife.

  “The feeling is not mutual,” she said, her eyes still fixed on Herr Grünlich’s chest; and, having shot her poisoned dart, she left him standing there, simply walked on, her head set back and flushed with pride at her sarcastic rhetorical powers; but upon returning home, she learned that Herr Grünlich had been invited to share a veal roast the next Sunday.

  And he came. He came in a bell-shaped pleated coat, not in the latest fashion but of the best quality, lending him an air of solidity and dignity—and smiling and pink-faced as always, his thinning hair carefully combed, his whiskers curled and scented. He ate mussel ragout, julienne soup, baked sole, roast veal with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts, maraschino pudding, and pumpernickel with Roquefort cheese—and at each course he offered a new tribute appropriate to the delicacy. For example, raising his dessert spoon, he gazed at a statue woven into the wallpaper and said aloud to himself, “God forgive me, I can do no other; I’ve eaten a large serving, but this pudding is just too splendid. I simply must implore my hostess for a second helping.” And then he flashed Madame Buddenbrook a roguish look. He spoke with the
consul about business and politics, propounding some very serious and germane principles; he chatted with the consul’s wife about fashions, balls, and the theater; he had kind words for Tom, Christian, and poor Klothilde, even for little Clara and Mamselle Jungmann. Tony kept her silence. He made no attempt to engage her attention, either, except that now and then he tilted his head to gaze at her with a look filled with both distress and encouragement.

  When Herr Grünlich departed that evening, he had only strengthened the impression left behind on his first visit. “A man of perfect manners,” Elisabeth Buddenbrook said. “A respectable, Christian gentleman,” her husband said. Christian was even better at imitating his gestures and speech. And Tony scowled as she said good night; she was filled with a vague foreboding that she had not seen the last of this gentleman, who had conquered her parents’ hearts with such unusual dispatch.

  And, indeed, returning home one afternoon from a visit with other young ladies, she found Herr Grünlich ensconced in the landscape room, reading Walter Scott’s Waverley aloud to her mother—in impeccable English, because, as he explained, his flourishing business had meant many trips to England. Tony picked up a book and took a seat at the far end of the room.

  Herr Grünlich asked in a gentle voice, “Apparently what I am reading is not to your taste, Fräulein?”

  She tossed her head back and, in a pointed, sarcastic tone, replied something like, “Not in the least.”

  But he was not to be thrown off. He began to speak of his parents, who had died much too soon, and talked about his father, who was a preacher, a pastor, a man whose Christian principles and urbanity were on the same high plane.

  But then, although Tony was not present at his farewell visit, Herr Grünlich left for Hamburg. “Ida,” she said to her trusted friend Mamselle Jungmann, “that man is gone!” But Ida Jungmann replied, “Wait and see, child.…”

  Eight days later, there was a scene in the breakfast room. Tony came down at nine and was amazed to find both her father and mother at the table. With eyes red from sleep, but hungry and ready for the day, she took her seat, after first offering her forehead to be kissed; she helped herself to sugar, butter, and some of the green herb cheese.

  “It’s so nice to find you still here for once, Papa,” she said, wrapping her hot egg in a napkin and cracking it open with her teaspoon.

  “I’ve been waiting for our sleepyhead to appear,” said the consul, who was smoking a cigarette and drumming softly on the table with his folded newspaper. With her usual slow and graceful gestures, his wife finished her breakfast and leaned back in the sofa.

  “Thilda is already busy in the kitchen,” the consul continued, giving weight to each word, “and I would be at work myself if it weren’t for an important matter that your mother and I would like to discuss with our daughter.”

  Tony, her mouth full of bread and butter, looked at her father, then at her mother, with a mixture of curiosity and alarm.

  “Go ahead and finish your breakfast, my child,” Elisabeth said. But Tony laid her knife down and cried, “Just tell me straight out, Papa, please!” To which the consul, still drumming with this newspaper, replied, “Just eat.”

  Without any real hunger now, Tony silently drank her coffee and ate her egg and the bread she had smeared with green cheese, and as she did she began to suspect what this was all about. Her face turned a little pale and lost its morning glow; she said “No thanks,” when offered honey and soon afterward declared in a subdued voice that she was finished.

  “My dear child,” the consul said after a moment of silence, “the matter about which we want to speak with you is contained in this letter.” And now he tapped the table with a large, bluish envelope instead of with his paper. “To be brief: Herr Bendix Grünlich, whom we have all come to know as an honest and warmhearted man, has written me that during his recent stay he conceived a deep affection for our daughter and now asks formally for her hand. What does our good child think of that?”

  Tony was sitting back in her chair, her head lowered, her right hand slowly twirling her napkin ring. Suddenly her eyes opened wide—dark with sadness and filled with tears. And in a beleaguered voice she blurted, “What does that man want from me! What have I ever done to him?” And then broke into tears.

  The consul glanced at his wife and gazed with some embarrassment into his empty cup.

  “Dear Tony,” her mother said gently, “there’s no need for such vehemence. Surely you know that your parents want only the best for you, and they cannot advise you to refuse to take this path in life. You see, I am assuming that you have no special feelings for Herr Grünlich, but I assure you that will come in time. A young girl like you never knows what she really wants. Your head and your heart are both all in a muddle. One must give the heart time and keep one’s mind open for the good advice of more experienced people, who care and plan for your happiness.”

  “I don’t know anything about him,” Tony managed to say plaintively, pressing her little white, egg-stained batiste napkin to her eyes. “I only know that his whiskers are a funny gold color and his business is flourishing.” Her upper lip always quivered when she cried, and the effect was unutterably touching.

  In a sudden display of gentleness, the consul pulled his chair nearer to her and smiled as he stroked her hair. “My little Tony,” he said, “what could you possibly know about him? You’re a child, don’t you see, and you wouldn’t have known any more about him if he had been here for fifty-two weeks rather than four. You’re a little girl who’s seen nothing of the world and has to depend on the eyes of other people, who only want the best for you.”

  “I don’t understand.… I don’t understand.…” Tony sobbed in bewilderment, rubbing her head like a kitten against his caressing hand. “He comes in here … says nice things to everyone … goes away … and writes that he wants to … I don’t understand.… What gave him the idea … What have I ever done to him?”

  The consul smiled again. “You’ve said that once already, Tony, and it only shows just what a helpless child you are. Surely my daughter doesn’t believe I would want to push her into anything, to torment her. All this can be weighed quite calmly—indeed, must be weighed calmly, because it is a serious matter. And that is how I will respond to Herr Grünlich for now, neither rejecting nor accepting his proposal. There are so many things to consider. So, then … we shall see—agreed? Now your papa has to go to work. Adieu, Bethsy.”

  “Au revoir, my dear Jean.”

  “You really should eat just a little honey, Tony,” Elisabeth said, now that she was alone with her daughter, who sat motionless in her chair, head hung low. “One must eat properly.”

  Tony’s tears gradually dried. Her head was hot and crowded with thoughts. Lord, what a predicament! She had always known, of course, that someday she would be the wife of a businessman, would make a good, advantageous match worthy of her family and the firm. But now suddenly, for the first time, someone was serious about actually wanting to marry her. How was she supposed to act? Suddenly she, Tony Buddenbrook, was dealing with all those terribly momentous phrases that she had only read about: “consent to a proposal,” “hand in marriage,” “for as long as ye both shall live.” … Lord! All at once it was a totally new situation.

  “And you, Mama?” she asked. “Your advice, then, is that I … consent to his proposal?” She hesitated for a moment at the words “consent to his proposal”—it all sounded so stilted and forced; but she managed to speak them with dignity for the first time in her life. She began to be just a little ashamed of her initial bewilderment. It seemed no less absurd that she should marry Herr Grünlich than it had ten minutes before, but she was beginning to find considerable satisfaction in the importance of her position.

  Her mother said, “Advise you to consent, my child? Did Papa advise that? No, he told you not to reject it, that’s all. Because it would be irresponsible of either of us to do that. The alliance that has been proposed is most definitely what i
s called a good match, my dear Tony. You would be introduced to the finest circles in Hamburg and would live in grand style.”

  Tony sat there, frozen in place. Suddenly she saw what looked like silk curtains parting, like the ones in her grandparents’ salon. Would she, as Madame Grünlich, drink chocolate every morning? It probably wasn’t appropriate to ask.

  “As your father said—you have time to consider it,” her mother continued. “But we want you to bear in mind that such an opportunity for future happiness does not present itself every day, and that this marriage is precisely the sort to which duty and destiny call you. Yes, my child, you must keep that in mind as well. The path opening before you today is the one to which destiny has called you, as you well know.”

  “Yes,” Tony said, thinking all this over. “Certainly.” She was quite aware of her obligations to her family and the firm, was proud of those obligations. She was Antonie Buddenbrook—Consul Buddenbrook’s daughter, who walked about town like a young princess, to whom Matthiesen the grain hauler doffed his homely top hat. Her family’s history was in her bones. Even the merchant tailor in Rostock had done very well, and the family had continued to prosper spectacularly ever since. Just as it was Tom’s job to work in the office, her calling in life was to add to the luster of her family and the firm of Johann Buddenbrook by marrying a wealthy and prominent man.… Yes, this was certainly the right kind of match; but Herr Grünlich, of all people. She pictured him and his tawny whiskers, his pink, smiling face, that wart beside his nose, his mincing steps; she thought she could feel his wool suit, hear his bland voice.

  “I was quite sure,” her mother said, “that we would be open to quiet words of reason. Have we perhaps reached a decision?”