Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

  She did not understand what she had done to deserve her suffering; for, although she sneered at her mother’s great piety, she shared in it, believing that justice is rewarded on this earth. Poor Tony! The death of her second child was neither the last nor the hardest blow that she would have to bear.

  As 1859 drew to a close, something dreadful happened.

  9

  IT WAS A LATE November day, a cold autumn day with a hazy sky that seemed to threaten snow, and with rolling swatches of fog that were pierced now and then by the sun, the kind of day when the northeast wind whistled spitefully as it swooped around the massive corners of the churches and offered pneumonia at bargain rates to the seaport’s inhabitants.

  It was close to noon when Consul Thomas Buddenbrook entered the breakfast room and found his mother bent over a piece of paper, her spectacles set firmly on her nose.

  “Tom,” she said, looking up at him and holding the paper to one side in both hands as if afraid to show it to him, “don’t be alarmed. It’s rather unpleasant news—I don’t quite understand. It’s from Berlin. Something must have happened.”

  “Let me see, please,” he said curtly. His face turned pale, and for a moment the muscles at his temples stood out as he clenched his teeth. He stuck out his hand decisively, as if to say, “Be quick about it, please. Just the bad news, no long introductions.”

  Lifting one eyebrow and slowly twirling one long tip of his mustache in his fingers, he read what was written on the paper. It was a telegram. It said: “Don’t be alarmed. Arriving in short order with Erika. All is over. Your unhappy Antonie.”

  “Short order … short order,” he said crossly and shook his head as he glanced at his mother. “What does she mean by short order?”

  “It’s just her way of putting it, Tom. She doesn’t mean anything in particular. She means ‘at once’ or something like that.”

  “And from Berlin? What is she doing in Berlin? How did she get to Berlin?”

  “I don’t know, Tom. I still don’t understand it—the telegram arrived about ten minutes ago. But something must have happened, and we shall have to wait to find out what it is. God has a way of turning all things to good. Now sit down, my son, and eat.”

  He took his seat and mechanically poured some porter in the tall, heavy glass. “All is over,” he repeated. “And signed ‘Antonie’—what childishness.”

  Then he ate and drank in silence.

  After a while his mother risked a remark—“Do you suppose it’s about Permaneder, Tom?”

  He shrugged, but didn’t look up.

  As he was leaving, his hand already on the doorknob, he said, “Yes, Mother, we’ll just have to wait for her. Assuming she won’t burst into the house in the middle of the night, it will probably be sometime tomorrow. Let me know, please.”

  MADAME BUDDENBROOK waited, hour after hour. She slept very poorly that night, even rang for Ida Jungmann, who now slept in the back room adjoining her own on the mezzanine, had her bring some sugar-water, and then sat up in bed doing needlework for quite a long time. Her nervous suspense continued as the morning slipped by. At late breakfast the consul explained that if Tony was coming she would have to arrive in Büchen on the three-thirty-three. As the afternoon wore on, Madame Buddenbrook sat at the window of the landscape room and tried to read—a book bound in black leather with a palm frond embossed in gold on the cover.

  The day was much like the one before—cold, hazy, windy. The fire crackled behind the shiny wrought-iron grate. At every sound of wagon wheels, she would give a little jerk and peer out. And then, around four o’clock, when she was no longer paying any real attention and had almost forgotten her daughter, something stirred below in the house. She turned around to the window and wiped the moisture from the pane with her lace handkerchief—and, indeed, a carriage had stopped out front and someone was coming up the stairs.

  She grasped both arms of her chair and stood up; but then she thought better of it and sank down again and, with an expression that almost seemed to fend her daughter off, she merely turned her head toward Tony, who was hurrying, almost flinging herself across the room—Erika had been left standing at the glass door, her hand in Ida Jungmann’s.

  Frau Permaneder was wearing a fur-trimmed shawl and a long, narrow felt hat with a veil. She looked very pale and shaken; her eyes were red, and her upper lip quivered just as it had when she had cried as a little girl. She raised her arms, let them fall again, and then slid to her knees beside her mother, hiding her head in the folds of the old woman’s skirt and sobbing bitterly. This left the impression that she had rushed here straight from Munich, all in one breath—and now here she lay, exhausted but safe, her flight over.

  Madame Buddenbrook was silent for a moment. “Tony,” she then said in gentle reproach, and after carefully extracting the large pin that held Tony’s hat in place and laying the hat on the window seat, she lovingly stroked her daughter’s ash-blond hair with both hands, calming her. “What is wrong, child? What has happened?”

  But she would have to be the soul of patience—it was some time before she was given an answer. “Mother,” Frau Permaneder managed to say at last, “Mama.” And that was all.

  With her arm still around her daughter, Elisabeth lifted her head and saw her granddaughter standing at the glass door, one finger pressed to her lips in bewilderment. She reached out to her with her free hand and said, “Come, child. Come here and say hello to me. You’ve grown so big and you look so strong and healthy, and we should thank God for that. How old are you now, Erika?”

  “Thirteen, Grandmama.”

  “My word! A young lady.” She first bent forward over Tony’s head to kiss the little girl and then continued, “Now, go on upstairs with Ida, my child, we’ll be eating soon. Your mama and I want to talk, you see.”

  They were left alone.

  “Now, my dear Tony, won’t you stop crying? When God visits us with affliction, we must bear it with composure. Take up thy cross and bear it, the Bible says. But would you also like to go upstairs first, perhaps, and rest and refresh yourself a bit, and then come back down here to me? Our good Jungmann has readied your room for you. Thank you for the telegram. It really did alarm us, you know.” She stopped, because tremulous, stifled sounds were coming from the folds of her skirt.

  “He’s a depraved man, a depraved man, depraved.”

  Frau Permaneder could not get beyond that drastic word—it was as if it possessed her completely. And all the while she pressed her face deeper into her mother’s lap, even clenched her fist against the chair.

  “Do you mean your husband, perhaps, my child?” the old woman asked after a pause. “Such an idea ought never to enter my head, I know, but you’ve left me no choice but to think that is whom you mean, Tony. Has Permaneder done something to hurt you? Have you reason to complain of his behavior?”

  “Babbit!” Frau Permaneder blurted the word out. “Babbit!”

  “Babbit?” Elisabeth repeated perplexed. Then she leaned back and let her pale eyes drift off to the world beyond the window. She now knew what the problem was. There was a long pause, interrupted now and then by Tony’s gradually ebbing sobs.

  “Tony,” Elisabeth said after a while, “it’s clear that he has indeed caused you great grief, that you have good reason to complain. But did you have to be so impetuous about it? Was it necessary to make a trip all the way from Munich, with little Erika—which to people less sensible than we might almost appear to mean that you never intend to return to your husband again?”

  “But I don’t intend to—never!” Frau Permaneder cried and, jerking her head back, she stared fiercely into her mother’s face with tear-stained eyes, before suddenly dropping her head back into the folds of Elisabeth’s skirt.

  Madame Buddenbrook ignored this outburst. “All the same,” she began again, raising her voice and slowly shaking her head from side to side, “all the same, now that you’re here, that’s fine, too. You’ll be able to unburden your
heart and tell me everything, and then we shall see how, with love and forbearance and prudence, the wrong can be set right again.”

  “Never!” Tony repeated. “Never!” But then she told her story, and although not every word was intelligible, because she spoke into the soft folds of her mother’s skirt and would erupt now and then in furious cries of pure outrage, it was clear nevertheless that the facts in the case were as follows:

  Around midnight between the 24th and 25th of the current month, Madame Permaneder, who had gone to bed rather late after having suffered all day from a nervous stomach, was awakened from a light sleep. The reason for this was a persistent noise on the staircase up front, a mysterious noise, as if there were a halfhearted attempt to stifle it—but one could clearly make out creaking stairs, a kind of cough or giggle, smothered words of protest, and very strange growls and moans. There could not be a moment’s doubt as to the nature of this noise. In her drowsy state, Frau Permaneder had no sooner discerned this noise than she immediately understood what it was; and she felt the blood leave her cheeks and rush to her heart—which contracted, but continued to pump in anxious, heavy throbs. As if stunned or paralyzed, she lay there on her pillows for one long, ghastly minute; but then, when the scandalous noise did not stop, she picked up her lamp in her trembling hands, left her bed in horrified, grim desperation, put on her slippers, flung open the door, and, still carrying her lamp, hurried to the top of the stairs—the familiar Jacob’s ladder that led straight up from the front door to the second floor. And there, on the upper steps of Jacob’s ladder, she saw before her in the flesh the same scene that, to her increasing horror, her mind’s eye had been forced to imagine as she lay in her bedroom listening to those unambiguous sounds. It was a brawl, an unseemly and indecent wrestling match, between Babette the cook and Herr Permaneder. The girl still had her key ring and candle in hand—she must have been taking care of some late chore in the house—and she twisted and turned to defend herself against the master of the house, who was holding her in a tight embrace and kept trying to press his walrus face to hers, occasionally succeeding in the attempt, with the result that his hat kept slipping farther down the back of his head. At the sight of Antonie, Babette blurted out, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” and Herr Permaneder echoed, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” and let her go. And, cleverly taking advantage of the moment, the girl vanished without a trace, while Herr Permaneder stood there with drooping arms, drooping head, and drooping mustache, facing his wife and stuttering something absolutely idiotic, like “Ain’t that a hoot, what a pain in th’ ol’!” But when he raised his eyes again, she was no longer there. He found her in the bedroom, half sitting, half lying on her bed, sobbing in despair, and repeating just two words over and over—“The shame!” He stood there leaning limply against the door frame; then he nudged one shoulder forward as if he were trying to give her a little cheerful poke in the ribs, and he said, “Now, cut that out. Hush, hush up, now, Tony gal. It’s just that it was Franzl Ramsauer’s name day, see, and we all got a little soused.” But the strong odor of alcohol pervading the room now only whipped her frenzy to a peak. She had stopped sobbing, was no longer frail and weak, and, in a fit of exploding temper and wild despair, she poured out all her disgust, all her loathing, flung the contempt she felt for him in his face. Herr Permaneder did not just stand there. He felt his head grow hot—he had drunk not just a mug or two too many in honor of his friend Franz Ramsauer, but “bubbly” as well—and he answered her, answered in savage words. The quarrel that ensured was far more dreadful than the one marking Herr Permaneder’s retirement. Frau Antonie gathered up some clothes with the intention of spending the night in the sitting room. But then, just as she was leaving, he called her a name, a name that she would never repeat, that would never pass her lips, a name … a name …

  These were the main facts of the tale that Madame Permaneder divulged to the folds of her mother’s skirt. But as to that “name,” the “name” that had frozen within her very core since that awful night—no, she could not get over that, no, by God, she swore she would not repeat it, although her mother certainly did not press her to do so, but merely moved her head in slow, barely noticeable, thoughtful nods as she gazed down on Tony’s beautiful ash-blond hair.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, “these are sad things you’ve told me, Tony. And I understand only too well, my poor little girl—for, after all, I’m not just your mother, but, like you, a grown woman. I can see now that your pain is quite justified and how completely, in the weakness of the moment, your husband forgot the respect he owes you.”

  “In the weakness of the moment!” Tony cried. She jumped up, took two steps back, and feverishly dried her eyes. “In the weakness of the moment, Mama? What he forgot was the respect he owes me and our family name—he never understood that from the very beginning. A man who takes his wife’s dowry and simply retires. A man without any ambition, any drive, any goal in life. A man who has a gooey mixture of malt and hops in his veins instead of blood—yes, I truly believe he does. And then to sink to such a vulgarity as this with Babbit, and, when confronted with his own depravity, he replies by calling me a name … a name …”

  She had found her way back to the name again, the name she would not repeat. Suddenly, however, she took a step forward and, in a much calmer, gentler tone of voice, she asked with interest, “How sweet—where did you get that, Mama?” She was pointing with her chin at a little basket of woven reeds, set in a small stand and trimmed with velvet bows. Madame Buddenbrook had been using it to hold her needlework for some time now.

  “I bought it,” the old woman answered. “I needed one.”

  “How elegant,” Tony said, tilting her head to inspect it. Madame Buddenbrook’s eyes rested on it now, too, but without seeing it—she was lost in thought.

  “But now, my dear Tony,” she said at last, once again extending both hands to her daughter, “however things may stand, here you are, and you know that you are welcome, so very welcome. We can talk all this over when you have calmed down. Go take off your things, make yourself at home in your room. Ida, my dear?” she called into the dining room, raising her voice. “Please set places for Madame Permaneder and Erika.”

  10

  TONY HAD RETIRED to her room immediately after dinner, because at some point in the meal her mother had confirmed the fact that Thomas knew she had arrived—and she did not seem especially eager to meet with him.

  It was six o’clock when the consul came upstairs. He went first to the landscape room, where he had a long talk with his mother.

  “And how is she?” he asked. “How did she act?”

  “Oh, Tom, I’m afraid she’s adamant. Good heavens, she’s so upset. And there was that name—if only I knew what the name was that he called her.”

  “I’ll go up to her.”

  “Do that, Tom. But knock softly, don’t startle her. And keep calm, do you hear me? Her nerves are quite jangled. She hardly ate a thing. It’s her stomach, you know. Speak calmly to her.”

  As was his habit, he climbed the stairs to the third floor quickly, taking two steps at a time, and he twirled his mustache thoughtfully as he walked down the hall. But even as he knocked, his face cleared, because he had decided to handle the situation with humor as long as possible.

  He opened the door when he heard a soft, anguished “Come in,” and found Frau Permaneder, still completely dressed, lying atop the down quilt that covered her bed; the bed-curtains had been pulled back, and there was a bottle of digestive tonic on the nightstand beside her. She turned slightly toward him, propping her head in her hand, and gazed at him with a pouting little smile. He bowed very low, extending both hands in a slow, solemn gesture.

  “Gracious lady, to what do we owe the honor of a visit from the capital of Bavaria?”

  “Give me a kiss, Tom,” she said, sitting up to offer him her cheek and then sinking down again. “Hello, my boy. You’ve not changed a bit, I see, since we were last together in Muni
ch.”

  “Well, you can hardly judge that with the blinds down, my dear. And besides, I’m not about to let you steal the march on me when it comes to compliments, because it is only proper that I first remark”—and, still holding her hand in his, he pulled a chair over and sat down next to her—“as I have so often, that, except for Klothilde, you are …”

  “Shame on you, Tom. How is Thilda doing?”

  “Fine, of course. Madame Krauseminz takes good care of her and sees that she doesn’t starve. Which of course does not prevent Thilda from doing an excellent job of gobbling down everything here on Thursdays as if she were eating for the week ahead.”

  She laughed harder than she had for a long time, but suddenly broke off with a sigh and asked, “And how is business going?”

  “Yes, well, we manage. We have reason to be satisfied.”

  “Oh, thank God that at least everything here is as it should be. Oh, I’m not at all in the mood for amusing chitchat.”

  “What a shame. Because one should keep one’s sense of humor, quand même.”

  “No, there’s none left, Tom. You know all?”

  “ ‘You know all,’ ” he repeated, letting go of her hand and pushing his chair back a little. “Good God in heaven, do you know how that sounds? ‘All’! What all lies hidden in that ‘all’? ‘My pain, my love, I did inter them in that all’—right? No, now listen to me.…”

  She said nothing, but merely let her eyes sweep over him in a profoundly amazed and profoundly offended glance.

  “Yes, I expected to see that face,” he said. “You would not be here if it were not for that face. But permit me, my dear Tony, to take this matter all too lightly, just as you are taking it all too seriously. That way we shall complement one another perfectly.”