Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

  Thomas Buddenbrook quickly stood up and poured a glass of water from a carafe set out on a side table—it tasted and smelled of chloroform. Then he opened the door to the hallway and called out in an exasperated voice: if Herr Brecht had nothing more urgent to do, would he please be kind enough to hurry—he was in pain.

  And, almost immediately, the dentist’s salt-and-pepper mustache hooked nosed, and high bald forehead appeared in the door to the consulting room. “Next, please,” he said. And Josephus screamed “Next, please.” The senator accepted their invitation without smiling. “A bad case,” Herr Brecht thought to himself and turned pale.

  They both walked quickly across the bright room to the large, adjustable chair with head cushion and green plush armrests. It was placed directly in front of one of the two windows. As he eased himself into it, Thomas Buddenbrook briefly explained his problem, laid his head back, and closed his eyes.

  Herr Brecht adjusted some screws on the chair and then set about examining the tooth with a little steel rod and a tiny mirror. His hand smelled of almond-scented soap, his breath smelled of steak and cauliflower.

  “We must proceed to an extraction,” he said after a bit, turning even paler.

  “Then let us proceed,” the senator said, closing his eyelids tighter still.

  A pause followed. Herr Brecht set out some things on a low cabinet and assembled his instruments. Then he approached his patient once again.

  “I’ll paint it a little,” he said. He began at once to put this decision into action, daubing the gum freely with a pungent liquid. And then, in a low voice, he implored Herr Buddenbrook to sit still and open his mouth wide—and went to work.

  Thomas Buddenbrook grasped the velvet armrests firmly with both hands. He barely felt the forceps take hold of the tooth, but then he heard a crunching sound in his mouth and felt a growing pressure inside his head, felt the maddening pain intensify—and he knew that everything was going as it should.

  “Thank God,” he thought, “it will all take its course now. This will get worse and worse and rage out of control until I can’t bear it anymore, and then comes the real catastrophe and an insane, screaming, inhuman pain will rip my entire brain to shreds. And then it will be over. I just have to hold on.”

  It took three or four seconds. Herr Brecht quivered with the exertion, and Thomas Buddenbrook could feel the tremor pass through his whole body; he was pulled up out of his chair a little and heard a soft squeak coming from somewhere deep in the dentist’s throat. Suddenly there was a violent jerk, a jolt—it felt as if his neck had been broken—and one short loud crack. He quickly opened his eyes. The pressure was gone, but his whole head throbbed, and hot pain raged in his inflamed and maltreated jaw; and he felt quite clearly that this had not been what was intended, that this was not the solution to his problem, but simply a premature catastrophe that had only made matters worse.

  Herr Brecht had stepped back. Looking like death itself, he leaned against his instrument cabinet and said, “The crown—I thought so.”

  Thomas Buddenbrook spat a little blood into the blue bowl beside him—his gum was gashed. Then he asked, half unconscious now, “What did you think? What about the crown?”

  “The crown has broken off, Senator Buddenbrook. I was afraid it would. The tooth is in extraordinarily bad condition. But it was my duty to risk the try.”

  “And now what?”

  “Leave it all to me, senator.”

  “What has to be done?”

  “We have to extract the roots. By prying them out with a lever. There are four of them.”

  “Four? Which means that you’ll have to pry and pull four times?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Well, I’ve had enough for today,” the senator said and thought about getting up, but then stayed seated all the same and laid his head back. “My dear sir, you mustn’t demand the impossible from me,” he continued. “I’m not all that steady on my feet as it is. I’ve had it for now, at any rate. Would you please be kind enough to open the window there for a moment?”

  Herr Brecht did as he was asked, and then responded, “It would be perfectly fine with me, Senator Buddenbrook, if you came by any time tomorrow or the day after. We can put off the operation until then. I must admit that I myself am … Well, if you’ll permit me, I’ll rinse it out and paint it a little with something to help ease the pain for now.”

  He performed his rinsing and painting, and the senator got up to leave. Pale as death, Herr Brecht accompanied him to the door and gave a little compassionate shrug that cost him the last bit of energy he still had.

  “One moment, please!” Josephus squawked as they crossed the waiting room, and he went on screeching the same words as Thomas Buddenbrook descended the stairs.

  Pry the roots out with a lever—yes, yes, well, that was tomorrow. And now? Just go home and rest, try to sleep a bit. The pain in the nerves themselves had been numbed for now; there was only a dark, heavy burning sensation in his mouth. So go on home.—And he walked slowly along the street, mechanically returning the greetings people extended to him, but with a vague, bemused look in his eyes, as if he were preoccupied with how wretched he actually felt.

  He reached Fischer Grube and started down the sidewalk on the left. He had gone about twenty steps when he suddenly felt nauseated. “I’d better stop in that tavern over there and have a brandy,” he thought and stepped out into the street. But when he was just about in the middle, something happened. It was exactly as if someone had taken hold of his brain and with incredible force started swinging it in wide concentric circles that grew smaller and smaller, so that it picked up speed, frightening speed, as it whirled around and around, until at last it crashed with tremendous, brutal, merciless force against the stone-hard center of the circle. He turned halfway around, and then, raising his arms, he fell forward onto the wet pavement.

  Since the street sloped steeply downhill, his head lay a good deal lower than his feet. He had fallen face-down, and a puddle of blood immediately began to form around his head. His hat rolled off down the street a little way. His fur coat was splattered with muck and slush. His outstretched hands in their white kid gloves had come to rest in a puddle.

  There he lay, and he went on lying there until some people happened by and turned him over on his back.

  8

  GATHERING THE FRONT of her skirt in one hand and pressing her large brown muff to her cheek with the other, Frau Permaneder climbed the main staircase. She lunged and stumbled up the stairs more than she climbed them—the hood of her cloak sat wildly askew, her cheeks were flushed, and little beads of sweat had formed on her slightly protruding upper lip. Although she met no one, she never stopped talking as she sped up the stairs, and now and then, as she suddenly lurched ahead, her whispers would erupt in audible words that betrayed her fears. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It doesn’t mean anything. The Lord can’t want this—He knows what He’s doing. I firmly believe that. It’s nothing serious. Oh, dear God, I’ll pray every day.” Fear had her babbling pure nonsense as she took the stairs to the third floor and rushed down the hall.

  The door to the antechamber was wide open and her sister-in-law came toward her. Gerda Buddenbrook’s beautiful white face was twisted with horror and revulsion, and her close-set brown eyes ringed with bluish shadows blinked back tears of anger, bewilderment, and disgust. When she saw Frau Permaneder, she beckoned to her with outstretched arms; they embraced and Gerda buried her head on Tony’s shoulder.

  “Gerda, Gerda, what is it?” Frau Permaneder cried. “What’s happened? What does it all mean? They told me he fell—and he’s unconscious? How is he? The Lord can’t want the worst to happen. Tell me, for pity’s sake, tell me.”

  She received no immediate reply, but she could feel Gerda’s whole body swell with a shudder. She managed to catch something of what the voice was whispering at her shoulder.

  “You can’t believe how he looked when they brought him in. No one h
as ever seen even a speck of dust on him, he never allowed that, his whole life long. What vile, insulting mockery for it to end like this.”

  They heard muffled sounds—the door to the dressing room was standing open now. In the doorway stood Ida Jungmann in a white apron, a basin in her hand. Her eyes were red. When she saw Frau Permaneder, she stepped back to make way for her and lowered her head. Her chin was pursed and trembling.

  The long flowered curtains stirred in the draft as Tony entered the bedroom, followed by her sister-in-law. The odors of carbolic acid, ether, and other medicines wafted toward them. Thomas Buddenbrook lay in the broad mahogany bed under a red quilt; his clothes had been removed and he was dressed in an embroidered nightshirt. His glazed, half-open eyes were rolled back, and his lips moved in a silent babble under his mustache. Now and then gurgling sounds came from his throat. Young Dr. Langhals bent down over him, removed a bloody bandage from his face, and dipped a fresh one in a basin sitting on the nightstand. Then he listened to his patient’s chest and felt his pulse. Little Johann was sitting on the laundry basket at the foot of the bed, playing with the knot of his sailor’s tie and listening with a bemused expression to the sounds his father made behind him. Thomas’s muddy clothes lay draped over a chair off to one side.

  Crouched beside the bed, Frau Permaneder stared at her brother’s face and took his hand—it was cold and heavy. She began to comprehend that, whether the Lord knew what He was doing or not, He evidently wanted “the worst.”

  “Tom!” she wailed. “Don’t you know me? How do you feel? Do you want to leave us? You won’t leave us, will you? Oh, it can’t be!”

  There was no response that could have been taken for an answer. She looked up imploringly at Dr. Langhals. He stood there with his beautiful eyes cast down, and his whole manner said, not without a certain smugness, that all this was God’s will.

  Ida Jungmann came back in to help in any way she could. Old Dr. Grabow appeared in person. He made a long, kind face, shook hands with everyone, regarded the patient, shook his head, and proceeded to do exactly what Dr. Langhals had done. The news had spread like wildfire through the whole town. The bell in the vestibule below kept ringing and ringing, and even from up here in the bedroom they could hear people asking how the senator was. His condition was unchanged, unchanged—they were all given the same answer.

  Both doctors were of the opinion that in any case a nurse should be brought in for the night. They sent for Sister Leandra, and she came. There was no trace of surprise or horror on her face as she entered the room. As always, she quietly put aside her leather handbag, cap, and cape and went to work in her gentle, friendly way.

  Little Johann sat on the laundry basket hour after hour, watching it all, listening to each gurgling sound. Actually, he should have left for his private mathematics lesson, but he realized that this was an event before which the men in worsted suits would have to fall silent. He thought briefly of his homework, too, and dismissed it with contempt. Whenever Frau Permaneder came over and pressed him to her, he would shed tears; most of the time, however, he simply sat there staring straight ahead, blinking now and then, but with dry eyes and a revolted, preoccupied look on his face. He was breathing cautiously, as if he expected to smell that odor, that strange and yet so oddly familiar odor.

  Around four o’clock, Frau Permaneder came to a decision. She led Dr. Langhals into the next room, crossed her arms, and laid her head back, trying at the same time to press her chin against her chest.

  “Doctor,” she said, “there is one thing in your power to do, and I beg you now to do it. Tell me the unvarnished truth. I am a woman who has been steeled by life. I have learned how to bear the truth, believe me. Will my brother live until tomorrow or not? You may speak frankly.”

  And Dr. Langhals turned his beautiful eyes away, inspected his fingernails, and remarked how impossible it was for a frail human to answer the question whether Frau Permaneder’s brother would survive the night or be called to his reward within the next few minutes.

  “Then I know what I must do,” she said. She left the room and sent for Pastor Pringsheim.

  And he appeared, in a long robe but without his clerical ruff, threw Sister Leandra a cold glance, and sat down in the chair that someone had pulled over to the bed. He asked the patient to recognize him and give ear to his words; but, seeing that this request had borne no fruit, he now turned directly to God, addressing Him in his stylized Franconian dialect and modulating his voice, now darkening the vowels, now accenting them abruptly, while fanatical solemnity and radiant transfiguration played across his face. And whenever he rolled his “r” in his peculiar oily, urbane fashion, Johann had the vivid impression that Pastor Pringsheim had just finished his coffee and buttered rolls.

  He said that neither he nor the others here assembled any longer importuned for this dear and precious life, for they saw that it was the Lord’s holy will to take it unto Him. They prayed only for the mercy of a gentle passing. And then, after reciting, with striking expressiveness, two prayers appropriate to the occasion, he stood up. He pressed Gerda Buddenbrook’s hand, then Frau Permaneder’s, held little Johann’s head between both hands, and, quivering with sorrow and sincerity, gazed at the boy’s lowered eyelashes for a good minute; he greeted Fräulein Jungmann, let his eyes pass coldly over Sister Leandra one last time, and departed.

  Dr. Langhals had gone home for a while, but when he returned he found everything as before. He held a brief discussion with the nurse and then took his leave. Dr. Grabow looked in again as well, attended to what could be attended to with a kindly face, and left. Thomas Buddenbrook’s eyes were still glazed, and he continued to move his lips and make gurgling sounds. Dusk fell. The soft red glow of winter twilight shone through the window and fell on the muddy clothes draped over a chair in one corner of the room.

  At five o’clock, Frau Permaneder impetuously let her feelings get the better of her. She was sitting on the bed opposite her sister-in-law, and suddenly, putting her throaty voice to use, she folded her hands and began to speak the words of a hymn—very loudly. “Bring now, O Lord,” she said—and they all sat there rigid, listening—“an ending, to all his pain and woe; Thy strength and mercy sending, the grace of death bestow.…” But she was praying with such heartfelt intensity and was so caught up in each word she spoke that she did not stop to think that she did not even know the whole verse—by the third line she was hopelessly stuck. She recited it, and then, with her voice still raised, she broke off and substituted a dignified pose for the final lines. Cringing with embarrassment, everyone in the room waited for her to finish. Johann cleared his throat so loudly that it sounded like a groan. And then the only sound to break the silence was Thomas Buddenbrook’s agonized gurgling.

  It came as a relief when the maid announced that she had brought up something to eat. But as they sat in Gerda’s bedroom and began to spoon their soup, Sister Leandra appeared at the door and beckoned them with a friendly gesture.

  The senator was dying. He sobbed softly two or three times, then fell silent, and his lips stopped moving. That was the only observable change—his eyes had been dead all along.

  Dr. Langhals arrived within a few minutes; he put his black stethoscope to the corpse’s chest, listened for a while, and, having completed his conscientious examination, said, “Yes, it’s over.”

  Sister Leandra carefully closed the dead man’s eyes with the forefinger of her pale, gentle hand.

  Then Frau Permaneder fell to her knees beside the bed, pressed her face into the quilt, and wept loudly; holding nothing back and surrendering herself completely to her emotions, she gave vent to one of those refreshing outbursts that she was fortunate enough always to have at the ready. When she stood up again, her face was wet with tears, but she was fortified, relieved, and at perfect peace with herself—and she immediately realized that death announcements would have to be prepared in great haste. An immense number of elegantly printed death announcements needed to b
e mailed right away.

  Christian now appeared on the scene. What had happened was this: He had been at the Club when he heard the news of the senator’s collapse, and he had left at once—but then, out of fear of the horrible sight that might await him, he had taken a long walk beyond the town gates, and no one had been able to find him. He had decided to come all the same, but as he stepped into the entrance hall, he learned that his brother had just died.

  “It’s not possible,” he said and limped up the stairs while his eyes wandered in all directions.

  There he stood beside the deathbed, between his sister and sister-in-law—stood there with his bald head, sunken cheeks, drooping mustache, and immense hooked nose. He stood there on bowed legs, bent in a kind of question mark, and his little, deep-set eyes gazed at his brother’s face—and it was so silent, cold, dismissive, and impeccable, so totally beyond all human reproach. The corners of Thomas’s mouth were drawn down, lending him an almost contemptuous look. The man who Christian had predicted would not weep for him when he died, now lay dead—had simply died without saying a word, had wrapped himself in elegant and unruffled silence, and, as so often before, with no sympathy for anyone else, had left them all helpless in their shame. He had always shown nothing but cold disdain for Christian’s sufferings—his “ache,” the nodding man, the methylated alcohol, the open window. Had that been fair of him, or contemptible? But the question melted away now, had become meaningless, because death, choosing sides as it always did in its willful and unpredictable fashion, had chosen and vindicated him, accepted him, taken him in, bestowed great dignity upon him, and imperiously made him the center of general if reticent interest. Whereas death had scorned Christian and would only continue to tease him with fifty little tricks and pranks that would command no one’s respect. Never had Thomas Buddenbrook so impressed his brother as at this moment. Success is everything. Only death dignifies our sufferings in the eyes of others; death exalts even the most trifling of sufferings. “You’ve won—I give up,” Christian thought, and with a quick, awkward motion he let himself down on one knee and kissed the cold hand lying on the quilt. Then he stepped back and began to pace the room, while his eyes wandered here and there.