Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

  Frau Grünlich now rang the bell; and Thinka, the housemaid, entered from the hallway and was told to lift the child from her tower and take her to the nursery.

  “You can take her for a half-hour walk outside, Thinka,” Tony said. “But no longer than that, and put on her heavier jacket, do you hear? It’s wet and foggy.” And now she was alone with her husband.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she said after a long, silent pause, obviously picking up an interrupted conversation. “Can you give me any good reason why not? Tell me! I cannot always be taking care of the child.”

  “You’re not fond of children, Antonie.”

  “Fond of children … fond of children. There’s not enough time. I have all I can do with keeping up the house. I wake up with twenty things that have to be done that day, and go to bed with forty more that still need to be done.”

  “There are two maids. A young woman like yourself …”

  “Two maids, fine. Thinka has to wash up, straighten up, clean, serve. The cook has more than enough to do. You have to have your chops for breakfast. Think about it, Grünlich. Sooner or later, Erika is going to have to have a nurse, a governess.”

  “It is beyond our current means to employ a governess for her now.”

  “Our means! O Lord, you are being ridiculous. Are we beggars? Do we have to do without necessities? It seems to me that I brought eighty thousand marks into this marriage.”

  “Oh, you and your eighty thousand.”

  “Yes indeed. You speak so lightly of it—it was of no importance to you, you married me for love. Fine. But do you still love me at all? You simply ignore my perfectly legitimate wishes. The child is not to have a governess. And we don’t even speak of the coupé anymore, although it’s as necessary as our daily bread. Why do you have us living out here in the country if it is beyond our means to have a carriage so that we can move about properly in society? Why don’t you ever want me to go into town? What you’d like best is for us to bury ourselves here for good and all, and for me never to see another human face. You’re a crosspatch!”

  Herr Grünlich poured red wine into his glass, lifted the crystal bell, and began on the cheese. He offered no reply whatever.

  “Do you love me at all?” Tony asked again. “Your silence is so rude that I feel I am quite within my rights to remind you of a certain scene in our landscape room at home. You cut quite a different figure back then. From the first day of marriage the only time you’ve spent with me has been in the evening—and that only to read your paper. At least you paid some regard to my wishes at the beginning. But even that stopped a long time ago. You’re neglecting me.”

  “And what about you? You’re driving me to ruin.”

  “Me? I’m driving you to ruin?”

  “Yes. You’re ruining me with your lassitude, your love of being waited upon, your extravagance.”

  “Oh, don’t criticize me just because I was raised properly! I never had to lift a finger at my parents’ home. And I’ve worked very hard to learn how to run a house, and the least I can demand is that you not deny me the most basic kind of assistance. Father is a rich man; he would never have dreamed that I could lack for domestic help.”

  “Then you can wait for your third servant until those riches do us some good.”

  “Is that what you want? For Father to die?! I’m saying—we are wealthy ourselves and I certainly did not come empty-handed into this marriage.”

  Herr Grünlich had a mouthful he was about to chew, but he smiled—a superior, melancholy smile—and said not a word. This confused Tony.

  “Grünlich,” she said more calmly now, “that smile—and the way you talk about our means. Am I wrong about our current situation? Has business been bad? Have you …?”

  At that moment there was a knock, a brief drum roll, on the door to the hallway—and Herr Kesselmeyer appeared.

  6

  AS A FRIEND of the family, Herr Kesselmeyer entered the house unannounced, and stood now without coat and hat at the dining-room door. He looked exactly the way Tony had described him in her letter to her mother. He was rather short and square-built, neither fat nor thin. He wore a black coat, slightly shiny with wear, matching short, tight trousers, and a white vest across which hung a thin watch chain with two or three dangling cords for his pince-nez. His white, close-cropped beard stood out against his red face, but his upper lip was clean-shaven, revealing a small, comical, and mobile mouth, with only two teeth left in his lower jaw. Herr Kesselmeyer stood there somewhat confused, his hands buried in his pockets, musing absent-mindedly, his two yellow cone-shaped canines pressed to his upper lip. The salt-and-pepper down on his head fluttered softly, although there was not the slightest draft.

  Finally he pulled his hands from his pockets, let his lower lip hang free, and with difficulty freed one of his eyepieces from the general tangle on his chest. Then he set the pince-nez firmly on his nose with a most bizarre grimace, inspected husband and wife, and remarked, “Aha.”

  It must be noted at once that he used this exclamation with extraordinary frequency, but that he could employ it with great and strange variety. He might lay his head back, wrinkle his nose, open his mouth wide, and fidget in the air with his hands—and the sound was long, nasal, and metallic, much like the clang of a Chinese gong. Or, apart from all other nuances, he might toss it away quite casually—a brief, soft, offhanded “Aha,” whose effect was still more comical because he formed his vowels in a murky, nasal fashion. Today he merely gave a quick jerk of his head and added a fleeting, cheerful “Aha” that seemed to arise from a vast reservoir of good spirits—and yet that impression was not to be trusted, for it was a known fact that, the merrier his behavior, the more dangerous was banker Kesselmeyer’s mood. He might leap about and exclaim a thousand “Aha”s, set his pince-nez to his nose, then let it fall again, or flail his arms and chatter away, obviously incapable of controlling his exaggerated silliness—and then you could be sure that something wicked was eating away at him.

  Blinking his eyes, Herr Grünlich gazed at him with undisguised mistrust. “Here so early?” he asked.

  “Aha, yes,” Kesselmeyer replied and shook one of his little, red, wrinkly hands in the air as if to say: Just be patient, I have a surprise. “I need to speak with you. To speak with you without delay, my friend.” His manner of speech was even more ridiculous. He turned each word over in his little, toothless, mobile mouth before uttering it with incredible effort. He rolled his “r”s as if his throat were greased. Herr Grünlich went on blinking with increasing suspicion.

  “Come in, Herr Kesselmeyer,” Tony said. “Sit down here. How nice that you’ve come. Listen here, please. You can be our referee. I’ve been having an argument with Grünlich. Now, tell me: ought a three-year-old child have a governess, or not? Well?”

  But Herr Kesselmeyer seemed to pay no attention to her. He did sit down, but now, opening his mouth as wide as possible and wrinkling his nose, he began to scratch at his close-cropped beard with his index finger—the sound alone could make a person nervous—all the while peering over his pince-nez with an indescribably jaunty air, inspecting the elegantly set breakfast table, the silver breadbasket, the label on the wine bottle.

  “You see,” Tony continued, “Grünlich claims I’m driving him to ruin.”

  At this point Herr Kesselmeyer looked at her, then at Herr Grünlich, and then burst into riotous laughter. “You’re driving him to ruin?” he cried. “You’re—driving—you’re—you’re ruining him? O God! Good God! Well, I never! That’s very funny! That’s quite, quite, quite funny.” Which was followed by a flood of various “aha” sounds.

  Herr Grünlich fidgeted nervously back and forth in his chair. He alternated between running one long finger inside his collar and letting both hands glide through his golden muttonchops.

  “Kesselmeyer!” he said. “Contain yourself. Have you lost your senses? Stop that laughing. Would you like some wine? A cigar? What are you laughing about?”
/>
  “What am I laughing about? Yes, please do give me a glass of wine, give me a cigar. What am I laughing about? So you think that your wife is driving you to ruin, do you?”

  “She is all too inclined to luxury,” Herr Grünlich said with annoyance.

  Tony did not dispute this in the least. Leaning back calmly, laying her hands in her lap among the velvet bows of her dressing gown, she shoved her upper lip forward saucily and said, “Yes. That’s just how I am. That’s obvious. I take after Mama. All the Krögers have been partial to luxury.”

  She would have declared with equal composure that she was flighty, quick-tempered, and vindictive. Given her pronounced sense of family, any notion of free will or self-determination was alien to her, so that she knew and could acknowledge the traits of her character with almost fatalistic equanimity, even her faults, and had no intention of correcting any of them. She believed, without knowing it, that absolutely every character trait was a family heirloom, a piece of tradition, and therefore something venerable and worthy of her respect, no matter what.

  Herr Grünlich had finished his breakfast, and the odor of two cigars blended with the warm air from the stove.

  “Isn’t it drawing all right, Kesselmeyer?” his host asked. “Here, have another. I’ll just pour you a little more wine. You wanted to speak with me, did you? Is it urgent? Something important? Do you find it rather warm in here? We’ll ride into town together later. It’s cooler in the smoking room, by the way.” But Herr Kesselmeyer’s response to all such attempts was merely to wave a hand in the hair, as if to say: That gets us nowhere, my friend.

  Finally they rose, and while Tony remained behind to supervise the maid’s clearing of the table, Herr Grünlich led his colleague into the pensée room. His head was bowed, and, lost in thought, he twirled the tip of his left muttonchop in his fingers; rowing wildly with his arms, Herr Kesselmeyer now followed him into the smoking room and they disappeared.

  Ten minutes passed. Tony had gone into the salon for a moment, feather-duster in hand, to give the gleaming walnut top of the secretary and the curved legs of the table her personal attention, and now she slowly walked back through the dining room to the sitting room. She moved calmly and with undeniable dignity. Demoiselle Buddenbrook had obviously lost none of her self-confidence as Madame Grünlich. She held herself quite erect, her chin tucked slightly, viewing the world from on high. She held her enameled basket of keys in one hand and slipped the other into the side-pocket of her dark red dressing gown, letting herself be caught up in the play of its long, soft folds; but the naïve and innocent expression of her mouth betrayed her—this great dignity was a childish, harmless game.

  In the pensée room she wandered about with the little brass sprinkling can, watering the black earth of the various plants. She loved her palm trees very much, they added such splendid elegance to the house. She cautiously fingered a new sprout on one of the thick, round stems, tenderly inspected the majestically spreading fronds, and trimmed a yellow tip here and there with the scissors. Suddenly she stopped to listen. The conversation in the smoking room, which had grown quite lively in the last few minutes, had now become so loud that she could understand every word from here, despite portieres and the heavy door.

  “Stop shouting! Control yourself, for God’s sake!” she heard Herr Grünlich yell, but his soft voice could not take the strain and broke, ending in a squeak. “Here, have another cigar,” he added now, with desperate gentleness.

  “Yes, thank you, I’d love one,” the banker replied; and now a pause ensued, during which Herr Kesselmeyer apparently lit it. And then he said, “In short, will you or won’t you? One or the other.”

  “Give me an extension, Kesselmeyer.”

  “Aha? No, no … no, my friend, no chance. Not even subject to debate.”

  “Why not? What’s your rush? Be reasonable, for heaven’s sake. You’ve waited this long …”

  “But not a day more, my friend! All right, let’s say eight days, but not an hour longer. But, be frank, is there anyone who still has confidence in …”

  “No names, Kesselmeyer!”

  “No names? Fine. Is there anyone who still has confidence in your estimable father-in- …”

  “Don’t even allude to him. Good God, don’t be so foolish!”

  “Fine, no allusions. Is there anyone who still has confidence in a well-known firm, upon which your credit, my friend, stands or falls? How much did that firm lose on that bankruptcy in Bremen? Fifty thousand? Seventy, a hundred? Or more? It was involved, very heavily involved—it’s the talk of the town. Which all contributes to the general mood. Yesterday the firm of … Fine, no names. Yesterday said firm was solid and, without knowing it, protected you completely from any and all pressures. But today that firm is shaky, and B. Grünlich is the shakiest of the shaky. You do see that? Haven’t you noticed? You’d be the first to sense such shifts. How have people been treating you? How do they look at you? Bock and Goudstikker have been uncommonly obliging and trusting, I suppose? And how has the bank reacted?”

  “They’ve granted me an extension.”

  “Aha? But you’re lying, aren’t you? I know that what you got yesterday was a kick in the pants, wasn’t it? A very, very stimulating kick? Well, look at that—there’s no need to be embarrassed. Of course, it’s in your best interest to have me believe that the others are as calm and trusting as ever. No, no, my friend. Write the consul. I’ll wait one week.”

  “A partial payment, Kesselmeyer.”

  “Partial payment, my foot! One accepts partial payments to make sure in advance that someone is indeed reasonably solvent. But do I need to make any experiments in that regard? I know perfectly well how things stand with your solvency. Aha, aha. Partial payment—that is really quite, quite funny.”

  “Lower your voice, Kesselmeyer. Don’t keep laughing like that, damn it. My situation is so serious—yes, I admit it, it is serious; but I have a lot of deals in the making. It can all turn out fine. Now, listen, listen carefully. Give me an extension and I’ll sign you a note at twenty percent.”

  “No, nothing doing. That’s quite absurd, my friend. No, no, I’m a man who likes to sell at the right time. You offered me eight percent, and I gave you your extension. You offered me twelve and sixteen percent, and I gave you an extension each time. But you could offer me forty now, and I wouldn’t think of extending, would not give it one thought, my friend. Now that the Westfahl Brothers have fallen on their noses in Bremen, everyone at the moment is trying to protect himself and disengage his interests from those of the aforementioned firm. As I said, I am a man who likes to sell at the right time. I kept your notes as long as Johann Buddenbrook was sure to be good for them. And meanwhile I could add the unpaid interest to the capital and raise the percent. But you hold on to something only as long as it is rising in value or at least steady. And when it begins to fall, you sell. Which is to say, I want my capital.”

  “Kesselmeyer, have you no shame!”

  “Aha, aha, ‘shame’—now, I find that quite funny. What would you have me do? You’re going to have to turn to your father-in-law in any case. The bank is ranting, and, for that matter, you’re not exactly without stain.”

  “No, Kesselmeyer, I implore you, just calm down and listen to me. Yes, let me be candid, I will admit quite openly to you that my situation is serious. You and the bank are not the only ones. My promissory notes are being called in. Everyone seems to be in collusion.”

  “But of course. Given the circumstances—it’s best done all at once.”

  “No, Kesselmeyer, listen to me. Be kind enough to take another cigar.”

  “I’m not even half finished with this one. Enough of your cigars. Pay up.”

  “Kesselmeyer, don’t drop me. You’re a friend, you’ve eaten at my table.”

  “And you haven’t eaten at mine, my friend?”

  “Yes, yes … but don’t cut off my credit now, Kesselmeyer.”

  “Credit? You want more c
redit? Are you in your right mind? A new loan?”

  “Yes, Kesselmeyer, I implore you … just a little, a bagatelle. All I have to do is make a few payments and advances here and there, and patience and respect will be restored. Keep me afloat, and you’ll make a lot of money. As I said, I have all kinds of deals in the making. It can all turn out fine. You know that I’m industrious and inventive.”

  “Right—a dandy, a bungler, that’s what you are, my friend. Would you be kind enough to tell me where you’re going to find anything at this point? Is there a bank out there in the world somewhere, perhaps, that will put one thin dime on the table for you? Or another father-in-law, maybe? Ah no, your great coup is already behind you. That sort of thing comes along just once. My respects, for that. No, no, my highest respects.”

  “Speak a little softer, damn it.”

  “You’re a bungler! Industrious and inventive … indeed, but always to the benefit of others. You certainly don’t have any scruples, and yet it’s never got you anywhere. You play some tricks, pilfer yourself some capital—and end up paying me sixteen percent instead of twelve. You pitched your honesty overboard, and gained nothing in return. You have the conscience of the butcher’s dog, but you’re a loser, a dolt, a poor fool. There are people like that; I find them quite, quite funny. Why are you so afraid, really, to go at last to the aforementioned gentleman with the whole story? Does it make you uneasy? Because things were not quite as proper as they should have been four years ago? Not quite tidy, is that it? Are you afraid that a certain matter …?”

  “All right, Kesselmeyer, I’ll write. But what if he refuses? Lets me drop?”

  “Aha, aha! Then we’ll have a little bankruptcy, a very funny little bankruptcy, my friend. Which doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ve more or less covered my investment with the interest you’ve managed to scratch together now and then. And I’ll have first rights over what assets are left. So you can be sure that I’ll not come up short. I know all I need to know about you, my good man. I already have an inventory right here in my pocket. Aha! I’ll make very sure that no little silver breadbaskets and dressing gowns are stashed away.”