Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

  “What does ‘deciderant, patula Jovis arbore, glandes’ mean?” he asked in a forlorn voice, turning to Adolf Todtenhaupt, who was busy beside him with the attendance book. “It’s all gibberish! They just want to trick us.”

  “What?” Todtenhaupt asked and went on writing. “The acorns of Jupiter’s tree—that’s the oak, yes. But I don’t really know myself.”

  “Just prompt me a little, Todtenhaupt, if I get called on,” Hanno begged, shoving the book away. He scowled at the star pupil’s response, an inattentive, noncommittal nod, pushed himself along the bench, and stood up.

  The situation had changed now. Herr Ballerstedt had left the room, and someone else was standing in his place on the platform—a frail, little, emaciated man with a scraggly, white beard and a scrawny, red neck sticking up out of a tight turndown collar. He was holding his top hat upside down in front of him, clutching it in one hand, which was covered with thick, white hair. His students called him “the spider,” but his real name was Professor Hückopp. During the break between classes, he monitored the corridor and was also responsible for order in the classrooms. “Turn the gas lamps off! Open the curtains! Open the windows,” he said, lending his little voice as much military authority as possible and gesturing energetically in the air with one arm, as if he were turning a crank. “Everyone downstairs, outside for some fresh air, ye gods and little fishes!”

  The lamps were extinguished, the curtains flew apart, anemic daylight filled the room, and cold foggy air poured in through the wide windows. The sophomores shoved their way past Professor Hückopp toward the exit; only the top student was allowed to stay upstairs in the room.

  Hanno and Kai met at the door, descended the gentle flight of stairs side by side, and moved across the tastefully designed vestibule. Neither spoke. Hanno looked absolutely miserable, and Kai was lost in thought. Once outside, they walked back and forth across the wet red bricks of the courtyard, which was crowded with boys of various ages milling noisily about.

  A young gentleman with a blond goatee was in charge down here. He was the smart dresser of the faculty. His name was Dr. Goldener; he also ran a boarding house for boys from Holstein and Mecklenburg, the sons of rich landed gentry. Under the influence of the aristocratic young men placed under his care, he dressed in a manner quite unlike that of his colleagues. He sported colorful silk neckties, a dandified coat, pastel trousers with straps that fitted under the soles of his boots, and perfumed handkerchiefs with bright borders. As the son of a humble family, he seemed out of place in this sartorial splendor; his huge feet, for example, looked ridiculous in his buttoned boots with pointed toes. For some mysterious reason, he was vain about his pudgy, red hands, which he constantly rubbed together or held clasped in front of him so that he could admire them. He liked to carry his head tilted back to one side, and he was forever making a face—blinking his eyes, wrinkling up his nose, and letting his mouth hang half open, as if he were about to say, “And what, pray tell, is going on here now?” But he was far too elegant and distinguished not to ignore all the little trespasses that occurred out in the courtyard. He ignored it if a student or two happened to bring a book along to do some last-minute cramming; ignored it when the boys who boarded with him would slip the janitor, Herr Schlemiel, some money for him to fetch them pastries; ignored the little showdowns between two freshmen that often ended in a fight with a circle of boxing experts gathered around; and he ignored it if behind his back someone was led off to the pump by his classmates, to be doused as a punishment for expressing an opinion that was considered cowardly, dishonorable, or lacking in the appropriate esprit de corps.

  The noisy crowd surrounding Kai and Hanno was a doughty but somewhat uncouth crew. Having grown up in the atmosphere of a bellicose, triumphant, and rejuvenated Fatherland, they had embraced the habits of crude virility. They spoke in a jargon that was both slipshod and dashing and was replete with terms from technology. High on their list of virtues were physical strength, gymnastic skill, and prowess at drinking and smoking; the most despicable vices were effeminacy and dandyism. Anyone who buttoned his top collar button could expect a visit to the pump. And anyone who dared be seen on the street with a walking stick could likewise expect painful indignities to be visited publicly upon him during the next gym class.

  The things that Hanno and Kai talked about were strangely out of place here, but were drowned out in the babble of voices that filled the cold, damp air. The whole school had known about their friendship for years. The teachers tolerated it, but only grudgingly, because they suspected something foul and hostile behind it; and their classmates, unable to figure them out, had simply grown used to it and permitted it with a certain reluctant contempt, regarding the two of them as outlaws and eccentrics who were best left to themselves. Besides which, Kai, Count Mölln, enjoyed a certain respect, since they recognized a wildness and relentless insubordination about him. And as far as Hanno Buddenbrook was concerned, even burly Heinricy, who thrashed anyone and everyone, could not bring himself to lay a hand on him for dandyism or cowardice—out of a vague fear of his soft hair, his frail limbs, his shy, gloomy, cold eyes.

  “I’m scared,” Hanno told Kai, stopping beside one of the courtyard walls. Leaning back against it, he pulled his jacket tighter, shivered, and yawned. “It’s driving me crazy, Kai, it makes my whole body hurt. And is Herr Mantelsack the man to inspire fear like that? You tell me! If only this wretched Ovid class were over and done with. If only my grade was already in his book, and I’d failed the class, and it would all be behind me. I’m not afraid of failing, I’m afraid of the whole brouhaha that goes with it.”

  Kai was lost in his own thoughts. “Roderick Usher is the most marvelous character ever invented,” he said suddenly out of nowhere. “I was reading it all during class. If only I could write a story as good as that someday.”

  The fact was that Kai was trying his hand at writing. That was what he had meant earlier that morning when he said that he had better things than homework to do, and Hanno had understood him well enough. His love of telling stories, so evident when he was a small boy, had continued to grow, and he was trying to become a writer. He had recently finished a piece, a fairy tale, a mad, fantastic tale of adventure, in which everything was bathed in an eerie light; it was set deep within the earth’s most sacred workshops, where ores and mysterious embers glowed, but at the same time within the human soul, so that in some strange way the primal forces of nature and of man’s soul were blended, altered, transformed, and refined—and all of it in a fervent, suggestive, and slightly extravagant language filled with delicate, passionate yearning.

  Hanno knew the story well and loved it very much; but he was not in the mood to talk about Kai’s or Edgar Poe’s stories. He yawned again and then sighed, and simultaneously hummed a theme that he had composed recently at the piano. It was a habit with him. He would often sigh like that, releasing a long, deep breath that he had instinctively drawn to restore a more vigorous beat to his faltering heart, and he had got into the habit of turning the exhaled air into a musical theme, some little melody of his own or someone else’s invention.

  “Behold, the Lord God cometh,” Kai said. “He is walking in his garden.”

  “Some garden,” Hanno said and began to laugh. It was a nervous laugh, and he could not stop; he put his handkerchief to his mouth and peered across to the man whom Kai had called the “Lord God.”

  It was Director Wulicke, the principal, who now appeared in the courtyard—an extraordinarily tall man with a black slouch hat, a short, full beard, a potbelly, trousers that were much too short, and sleeves with funnel-shaped cuffs that were always very dirty. He strode rapidly across the red bricks of the courtyard—with such anger written on his face that it looked as if he were in pain—and pointed with an outstretched arm to the pump. Water was running! A group of students ran ahead of him, falling over each other in their haste to remedy the situation and turn off the tap. But then they, too, just stood there
for a while, looking distraught and staring first at the pump and then the director, who had turned now to speak in a deep, hollow, excited voice to a red-faced Dr. Goldener, who had rushed over to him. What he had to say was shot through with unarticulated mumblings and snarls.

  Director Wulicke was a terrible man. He was the successor of the jovial and warmhearted old gentleman who had been in charge when Hanno’s father and uncle had been students here, and who had died early in 1871. At the time Dr. Wulicke was called to the position, he had been a professor at a Prussian secondary school. And with his advent a new spirit entered the Old School. Where previously classical learning had been considered a joyful end in itself and was pursued with a calm, leisurely, cheerful idealism, now the concepts of authority, duty, power, service, and career were held in highest honor; and in every official speech he delivered, Director Wulicke would unfurl the ominous banner of “the categorical imperative of our philosopher Kant.” The school had become a state within the state, where the Prussian notion of rigorous service held such sway that not only the teachers but also the students thought of themselves as civil servants, interested only in advancing their careers and therefore always concerned to be well regarded by those in power. Soon after the new director’s arrival, renovation and modernization of the old institution had begun—according to the very latest hygienic and aesthetic criteria—and been very successfully completed. It remained an open question, however, whether the school had not been a more sympathetic and generous institution in the old days—when a little less modern comfort and a little more kindness, sentiment, serenity, benevolence, and good cheer had held sway in its rooms.

  As to Director Wulicke’s personality, he was dreadful—as enigmatic, duplicitous, willful, and jealous as the God of the Old Testament. His smile was as terrible as his anger. The vast authority he held in his hands made him appallingly moody and unpredictable. He was perfectly capable of telling a joke and then turning in horrible anger on anyone who laughed. None of his trembling underlings knew how to behave in his presence. They had no choice but to lie in the dust and adore him—and hope that their almost frantic abasement might prevent his snatching them up in his wrath and crushing them in the mills of his great justice.

  Kai Mölln and Hanno Buddenbrook used Kai’s nickname for him only between themselves and were careful never to let their schoolmates overhear it—out of an aversion to that fixed, cold look of incomprehension that they knew so well. No, these two boys had nothing whatever in common with their fellow students, who were content with simple revenge or obstinacy. That was not their way. They despised the usual nicknames given the teachers, because these were based on a humor that left them cold, didn’t even make them smile. It was so cheap, so prosaic, so unfunny to call skinny Professor Hückopp “the spider,” or Ballerstedt “the cockatoo”—poor compensation for their own compulsory service to the state. No, Kai Mölln could be a little more cutting than that! He had introduced the practice, just for himself and Hanno, of calling teachers by their proper last names, but with the addition of the word “Herr”: “Herr Ballerstedt,” “Herr Mantelsack,” “Herr Hückopp”—and it added, as it were, the right ironic, dismissive coolness of tone, a mocking, quirky condescension. They spoke of the “pedagogic body” and could amuse themselves during an entire break between classes by picturing a kind of huge, fantastic, repulsive monster. And they usually spoke of “the institution,” in a tone that implied it was much like the one in which Hanno’s Uncle Christian resided.

  Kai’s mood was vastly improved by the sight of the Lord God, who continued to terrorize everyone for a while, turning faces ashen as he snarled horribly and pointed in various directions at the litter of sandwich papers tossed aside here and there around the brick courtyard. Kai pulled Hanno with him to the gate, through which teachers for the second period were now passing; and he began to make low bows before these pale, red-eyed, shabby teachers-in-training as they made their way to the back courtyard and their classes of fifth and sixth-grade boys. His bows were exaggerated, and he let his arms hang down as he looked up at these poor fellows with adoring eyes. Herr Tietge, the ancient mathematics teacher, appeared—a jaundiced, crookbacked old man, who held a few books in trembling hands at his back, spitting and squinting absentmindedly in his absurd way; and Kai called out in an orotund voice, “Good morning, you old corpse.” And his own clear, keen eyes gazed off in the air.

  The bell rang out shrilly at the same moment, and at once the students began to stream toward the doors from all sides. But Hanno had not stopped laughing; he was still laughing so hard on the stairs that classmates in his and Kai’s vicinity stared at him in cool amazement, were even a little repulsed by such foolishness.

  A sudden hush came over the classroom, and everyone stood up in unison as Dr. Mantelsack entered. He was a full professor, and it was customary to show respect for a professor. He pulled the door to behind him and bent forward, craning his neck to see if everyone was standing; he hung his hat on its nail and stepped quickly toward the platform, making his head bob rapidly up and down. He now took up his position and glanced at the window while he stuck a forefinger, the one with a large signet ring, down inside his collar and rubbed. He was of average height, had thin, graying hair, a curly, Olympian beard, and myopic, bulging, sapphire-blue eyes that glistened behind his thick spectacles. He wore an open frock-coat of a soft, gray material, which he loved to smooth down around his waist with one short-fingered, wrinkled hand. Like all the teachers, except for the dapper Dr. Goldener, he wore trousers that were too short and revealed the shafts of a pair of uncommonly wide boots, polished shiny as marble.

  Suddenly he turned his head away from the window, heaved a little friendly sigh, said, “Yes, yes,” stared at his hushed pupils, and smiled affably at several of them. He was in a good mood, that was obvious. A tremor of relief passed through the room. So much depended—indeed, everything depended—on whether Dr. Mantelsack was in a good mood or not, for they all knew that he spontaneously succumbed to every mood without a trace of self-control. He was a man capable of the most imposing, boundless, and naive injustice, and his favor was as precious and fickle as fortune itself. He always had a few favorites, two or three, whom he called by their first names—and they lived in paradise. They could say almost anything they liked, and it was always the right answer. When class was over, Dr. Mantelsack would chat quite genially with them. But then came a day, after vacation perhaps, and one found oneself thrown down, dispatched, dismissed—God only knew why—and another boy would be addressed by his first name. When correcting the tests of these happy souls, he made light and dainty checkmarks next to the mistakes, so that their work still had a very tidy look even when it was filled with errors. But all the other papers were treated to angry, broad strokes of his pen, until they were swimming in red and looked shockingly sloppy. And since he did not count mistakes, but awarded censure and praise according to the quantity of red ink he had expended on any given test, his favorites always had a great advantage. He did not have the least compunction about using this method—he found it perfectly in order, never even suspected he was playing favorites. Anyone who might have had the unfortunate courage to protest would have forfeited all hope of ever being called by his first name. And no one was about to abandon that hope.

  Still standing, Dr. Mantelsack now crossed his ankles and paged through his notebook. Hanno Buddenbrook sat bent forward, wringing his hands under his desk. The letter “B”—it was the “B”s’ turn. His name would be called out and he would stand up and not know a single line—and there would be a scene, a loud and terrible catastrophe, no matter how good a mood the professor was in. The agonizing seconds dragged on. “Buddenbrook,” he would say, “Buddenbrook.”

  “Edgar,” Dr. Mantelsack said, closing his notebook but leaving his forefinger at the page; he sat down on his professional chair, as if everything were just as it should be.

  What? What was this? Edgar—that was Lüders, fat Lüder
s, there, by the window, the letter “L”, and it wasn’t even close to being his turn. No—could it really be? Dr. Mantelsack was in such a good mood that he had simply singled out one of his favorites and paid no attention whatever to whose turn it actually was today.

  Fat Lüders stood up. He had a bulldog face and brown, apathetic eyes. Although he had one of the best seats and could easily have read the passage from his book, he was too lazy even for that today. He felt secure in paradise and simply replied, “I had a headache yesterday and couldn’t memorize.”

  “Oh, so you’re leaving us in the lurch, are you, Edgar?” Dr. Mantelsack said sorrowfully. “You don’t want to recite the verses about the Golden Age for me? What a frightful shame, my friend. You had a headache, did you? It seems to me, however, that you should have told me about that before class, instead of waiting until I called on you. You had a headache not long ago, too, didn’t you? You should do something about that, Edgar; otherwise there’s always the danger that you’ll find yourself falling behind. Timm, would you stand in for him, please.”

  Lüders sat back down. At that moment he was universally despised. It was quite obvious that the professor’s mood had worsened considerably and that Lüders might very well be called by his last name tomorrow. Timm, who sat in one of the back rows, stood up. He was a blond lad with a rustic look about him, who wore a tan jacket and had short, fat fingers. He held his mouth open in an eager, silly way, so that it formed a kind of funnel, and he quickly shifted his open book into position while staring straight ahead. Then he lowered his eyes and began to read from it—but in a drawling, halting, monotone voice, like a child reciting its primer: “Aurea prima sata est aetas …”