Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

by Thomas Mann

  It was not out of arrogance, then, that Senator Buddenbrook spent this summer of ’63 walking about with his mind full of plans to build a grand new house. A happy man stays where he is. But he was so restless that he felt driven to it, and his fellow citizens would also have been right to attribute the project to his “vanity,” because that played a role as well. A new house, a radical change in his outward life—that would mean packing, moving, refitting his life, casting aside everything old and superfluous, the detritus of years past. The idea made him feel clean, new, refreshed, inviolable, strong—and he must have needed such feelings, because he reached out eagerly to grab his idea, fixing his eye on one particular spot.

  It was a rather large lot at the lower end of Fischer Grube. The house, gray with age and in disrepair, had recently been put up for sale after the death of its owner, an ancient spinster, who had lived alone, a remnant of some forgotten family. The senator wanted to build his house on that lot, and when he walked down to the docks he would often make a point of passing that way to examine it with a careful eye. The neighborhood spoke in its favor: all solid middle-class houses with gables, the most modest of which was directly across the street, a little place with a flower shop on the ground floor.

  He put great energy into the project. He made a rough calculation of the costs, and although he came up with a provisional sum that was by no means small, he decided he could manage it without straining his resources. All the same, he would pale at the thought that the whole thing might turn out to be a pointless folly, and even admitted to himself that his present home was more than large enough for himself, his wife, his child, and the servants. But his half-conscious needs were stronger, and, in the hope of finding further justification for his plan in an outside endorsement, he first revealed it to his sister.

  “Well, Tony, what do you think? The spiral staircase down to the bathroom is amusing, I grant. But when you come down to it, the house is just a box. Not much to make one’s mark with, is it? And now that you’ve managed to make a senator of me—in other words, do I owe it to myself?”

  Oh, good God, what didn’t he owe to himself in Madame Permaneder’s eyes. She was all earnest enthusiasm. She crossed her arms and paced the room with her shoulders raised slightly and her head laid back. “You’re right, Tom. Heavens, how right you are. There’s no possible objection, not when a man has an Arnoldsen for a wife, with an extra hundred thousand thalers. And I am proud, you know, that you’ve taken me into your confidence first. That’s very sweet of you. But if you’re going to do it, Tom, then it has to be elegant, I insist!”

  “Well, yes, I share your view. I’m willing to spend some money on it. Voigt will design it, and I can’t wait to have you look at the plans with me. Voigt has very good taste.”

  The second person whose consent Thomas needed was Gerda. She was full of praise for the idea. The confusion of the move would not be pleasant, but she was enthralled with the prospect of a large music room with good acoustics. And as for old Madame Buddenbrook, she was quite ready to view the new house as the logical consequence of all the other things that had brought such happiness and contentment to her life, and for which she thanked her God. Since the birth of an heir and the consul’s election to senator, she was more open than ever about expressing her maternal pride; she had a way of saying “my son the senator” that the Ladies Buddenbrook from Breite Strasse found most annoying.

  These aging spinsters found all too few distractions to help them over the sensational upswing that Thomas’s life had taken. There was little satisfaction in mocking poor Klothilde on Thursdays, and as for Christian, he was simply another Jakob Kröger in their eyes. They knew that he had found a job in London with his former boss, Mr. Richardson, and that recently he had sent a telegram containing the absurd wish to make Fräulein Aline Puvogel his wife, which had met with the sternest rebuff from Madame Buddenbrook. His case, then, was closed. And so they found what compensation they could in the foibles of old Madame Buddenbrook and Frau Permaneder—by turning the conversation to hairdos, for instance; because Elisabeth was perfectly capable of saying, with the most gentle look on her face, that she wore “her” hair quite simply—when any person whom God had endowed with intelligence, and above all the Ladies Buddenbrook, would have to admit that for many years now it had been impossible to call that unchanging reddish blond swatch under the old woman’s bonnet “her” hair. But it was even more rewarding to induce Cousin Tony to say something about those persons who had had such an odious influence on her life thus far. Teary Trieschke! Grünlich! Permaneder! The Hagenströms! When provoked, Tony would raise her shoulder slightly and release those names into the air like so many little trumpet blasts, much to the delight of Uncle Gotthold’s daughters.

  And of course they could not conceal—indeed, found it irresponsible to be silent about—the fact that little Johann was horribly slow learning to walk and talk. They were right about that, and it must be admitted that Hanno—this was Gerda Buddenbrook’s nickname for him, which they all used—found it impossible to make intelligible words of the names Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi, even though he was able to pronounce the names of all the other members of the family with passable accuracy. And in terms of walking, at fifteen months he had not yet managed a single independent step. It was at about this time that the Ladies Buddenbrook declared, shaking their heads hopelessly, that the child would be mute and lame for the rest of his life.

  They were later permitted to admit their error in making this gloomy prophecy; but no one could deny that Hanno was somewhat backward in his development. At a very early age he had had to weather several crises that kept those around him in constant fear. He had come into the world as a silent and less than robust baby, and soon after his christening a three-day attack of cramps and diarrhea had come close to stopping his little heart, which Dr. Grabow had worked so hard to start. But he lived, and the good doctor now minutely regimented his care and diet as a preventative measure against the discomforts of teething, which was about to begin. But no sooner had the first white tip broken through the gum than the seizures began, which kept on recurring and growing worse, terrifyingly worse. And once again the old doctor could only silently press the child’s parents’ hands in his own. Hanno lay there in complete exhaustion, and the deep circles of shadow around the eyes and the oblique stare indicated inflammation of the brain. They almost hoped this might be the end.

  But Hanno regained some strength after all, and his eyes began to fasten on objects. Although he made slow progress in learning to walk and talk, there no longer seemed to be any immediate danger.

  Hanno had slender limbs and was rather tall for his age. His light brown hair was very soft and began to grow uncommonly fast at about this same time; very soon it fell in gentle waves down onto the shoulders of his pleated, pinaforelike dress. Facial traits began to take definitive shape, and the family resemblances grew noticeable. From the very beginning, his hands had definitely been Buddenbrook hands: broad, a little short, but with delicate fingers; and his nose was definitely that of his father and great-grandfather, though it appeared the nostrils would flair somewhat more softly. The lower part of the face, however, was long and narrow and was neither Buddenbrook nor Kröger, but most decidedly belonged to his mother’s side of the family. As did the mouth, which even now, at this early stage, he tended to hold closed, so that the expression was somehow both melancholy and apprehensive, and gradually this came to be matched by the look in his peculiar golden-brown eyes with their bluish shadows.

  He began to live—watched over by the reserved but affectionate eyes of his father, tended by his mother, who gave particular care to his clothing and surroundings, worshipped by his Aunt Antonie, showered with toy soldiers and tops by his grandmother and Uncle Justus. And when his pretty little buggy was brought out on the street, people watched him with interest and expectation. But as for his dignified nurse, Madame Decho, who had cared for him until now, the decision had been m
ade that it would not be she who would move into the new house, but that Ida Jungmann would replace her and that Elisabeth would have to look for other help.

  Senator Buddenbrook put his idea into action. He had no difficulty purchasing the lot on Fischer Grube, and Gosch the broker was fierce in his determination to take on the task of selling the old house on Breite Strasse at once. Herr Stephan Kistenmaker, whose own family was growing and who, along with his brother, had been doing very well in the claret business, immediately offered to buy it. Herr Voigt took charge of building the new house, and soon the whole family could gather each Thursday to unroll his neat plans and gaze upon the façade before it was ever built: a splendid brickwork front with limestone caryatides supporting a great bay window and a flat roof, which prompted Klothilde to remark in her amiable drawl that they could have their afternoon coffee and cake up there. Then there was the problem of the ground-floor rooms on Meng Strasse, which would soon stand empty, because the senator planned to move his offices to Fischer Grube as well; but that issue was soon solved nicely, for it turned out that the Municipal Fire Insurance Company was prepared to rent the space for their offices.

  Autumn came, and the old gray walls collapsed into heaps of rubbish. And as winter set in and then lost its fury again, Thomas Buddenbrook’s new house rose above the roomy cellars. There was no more exciting topic of conversation for the town. It would be tip-top, the handsomest residence far and wide. Was there any finer in Hamburg, maybe? But it must be damn expensive, too, and the old consul would definitely never have allowed himself such extravagances. The neighbors who lived in the solid, gabled houses propped themselves in their windows and watched the men at work on the scaffolds, took great delight in seeing the walls rise, and tried to guess the date for the roof-raising.

  The day came and was celebrated with all due ceremony. An old master mason gave a speech up on the flat roof, and when he finished he flung a bottle of champagne over his shoulder, while above him flags fluttered and the mighty wreath of roses, evergreen branches, and bright ribbons swayed on its pole in the wind. They then moved on to a nearby inn, where all the workers were treated to beer, sandwiches, and cigars; and Senator Buddenbrook, his wife, and his little son—borne on Madame Decho’s arm—moved among the rows of diners and gratefully acknowledged the cheers raised in his honor.

  Once they were outside, Hanno was placed in his buggy and Thomas and Gerda walked across the street to let their eyes glide along the red façade with its white caryatides. Directly across from them was the little flower shop with a narrow door and a window decorated with a few meager pots of lilies arranged in a row on a display shelf of green glass; and there stood Iwersen, the owner, a blond giant of a man in a woolen jacket, and beside him his wife, a woman of much slighter build, with a dark, Mediterranean-looking face. She was holding a four- or five-year-old boy by one hand and with the other she slowly rocked back and forth a little buggy in which a still younger child lay sleeping—and she was obviously expecting again.

  Iwersen made a deep and awkward bow, while his wife, who went on shoving the buggy back and forth, watched with black, long, narrow eyes, calmly and carefully observing the senator’s wife as she approached on her husband’s arm.

  Thomas stopped to point up at the pole and wreath with his walking stick.

  “You did a nice job with that, Iwersen.”

  “ ’tain’t me you should thank, Senator. That’s my wife’s handiwork.”

  “Oh,” the senator said, raising his head with a little jerk, and with clear, friendly eyes gazed straight into Frau Iwersen’s face for a second. And then, without saying another word, he took his leave with a polite wave of his hand.

  6

  ONE SUNDAY EVENING in early July—Senator Buddenbrook had moved into his new home about four weeks before—Frau Permaneder paid her brother a call. She crossed the cool, flagstone-paved hallway, which was decorated with reliefs in the style of Thorvaldsen and from which a door led to offices on the right; she rang the vestibule door, which could be opened from the kitchen simply by pressing a little rubber ball, and as she stood admiring the roomy entrance hall, where the Tiburtiuses’ bear now stood at the foot of the main staircase, she was informed by Anton the butler that the senator was still at work.

  “Fine,” she said, “thank you, Anton. I’ll just slip in to see him.”

  But she first moved to her right, on past the office door, to stand in the vast open stairwell, which on the second floor was framed by a continuation of the wrought-iron railing and on the third by a gallery of white-and-gold columns; it ended in a massive burnished chandelier suspended from the dizzying heights of the “skylight.” “How elegant,” Frau Permaneder said in a low, satisfied voice as she gazed up into the bright, spacious splendor, which for her signified the prominence and triumph of the Buddenbrooks. But then it occurred to her that her mission was a sad one, and she slowly turned to the office door.

  Thomas was sitting all alone, writing a letter at his desk beside the window. He looked up, raising one pale eyebrow, and reached a hand out to his sister. “Evening, Tony. What’s the good word?”

  “Oh, nothing all that good, Tom. The stairwell is just too magnificent, you know. And here you are sitting in the dark, or close to it, writing a letter.”

  “Yes, an urgent letter. So nothing all that good? In that case, let’s take a little stroll in the garden; it’ll be more pleasant out there. Come on.”

  As they crossed the entrance hall, the vibrato of a violin adagio drifted down from the second floor.

  “Listen,” Frau Permaneder said, stopping for a moment. “Gerda’s playing. How divine! Oh, heavens, that woman—she’s like a fairy. And how is Hanno doing, Tom?”

  “He’ll be having his supper with our good Jungmann at the moment. It’s too bad he’s not making much progress at walking.”

  “That will come, Tom, that will come. And are you satisfied with Ida?”

  “Oh, how could we not be satisfied?”

  They moved along the flagstone-paved hallway toward the rear, passing the kitchen on their right, went through a glass door, and stepped down two steps into the pretty and fragrant flower garden.

  “Well?” the senator asked.

  It was warm and quiet. The air was heavy with sweet odors from the tidy, neatly outlined beds, and from the middle of tall purple irises the fountain sent a softly splashing jet into the darkening sky, where the first stars had begun to flicker. At the rear a flight of stairs flanked by two low obelisks led up to a raised gravel terrace with an open wooden pavilion, its awnings lowered to shade a few garden chairs. On the left the lot was separated from the neighbor’s garden by a wall, but on the right it was bounded by the house next door, covered to the roofline with a wooden lattice, which in time would be home to climbing vines. There were a few currant and gooseberry bushes at one side of the stairs and along the pavilion terrace; but the only large tree was a gnarled walnut near the wall on the left.

  “Well, the thing is,” Frau Permaneder began hesitantly as brother and sister set out on their stroll along the gravel path around the first part of the garden, “Tiburtius has written and—”

  “Clara?” Thomas asked. “Please, tell me straight out. Don’t beat around the bush.”

  “Yes, Tom, she’s bedridden, and it looks bad. Her doctor is afraid that it’s tuberculosis—of the brain—it’s hard for me even to say the words. Here, this is her husband’s letter. There’s another letter enclosed, addressed to Mother, which says the same thing. We’re to give it to her after we’ve prepared her a little for the news. And then there’s a second enclosure—it’s for Mother, too, from Clara herself, written in pencil in a very shaky hand. And Tiburtius says that she told him that these would be the last lines she would ever write. Because the truly sad part is that she’s not really trying to live at all. She’s always longed to go to heaven,” Frau Permaneder concluded, drying her eyes.

  The senator walked beside her, saying nothing,
his head lowered, his hands at his back.

  “You’re so silent, Tom. But you’re right—what can one say? And at the same time that Christian is lying ill in Hamburg.”

  This was indeed the case. Christian’s “ache” in his left side had recently grown so intense that it had turned into real pain, causing him to forget all his minor complaints. He had not known what else to do and had written his mother that he felt he must leave London and come home for her to nurse him; then he had simply quit his job and started on his way. But he had made it no farther than Hamburg and had taken to his bed; the doctor had diagnosed rheumatic fever and ordered Christian transferred from his hotel to a hospital, any further travel being impossible at present. And there he lay now, dictating very mournful letters to the nurse tending him.

  “Yes,” the senator replied softly, “it looks like one thing after another.”

  She put her arm around his shoulder for a moment. “But you mustn’t let it get you down, Tom. You’ve no right to let that happen. You need all your courage—”

  “Yes, by God, I certainly do need that.”

  “What is it, Tom? Tell me. You were so quiet all afternoon at our gathering last Thursday. Why, if I may ask?”

  “Oh—business, my girl. There was a good-sized shipment of rye that I wasn’t able to sell at much of a profit. Well, to be honest, a very large shipment that I had to sell at a loss.”

  “Oh, those things happen, Tom. That’s today, and tomorrow you’ll make a profit again. To let yourself get discouraged over something like that—”

  “Wrong, Tony,” he said, shaking his head. “My mood has not sunk to below zero because of a business loss. It’s just the other way around. I truly believe that, and that’s why things are as they are.”