The Köppens went in the same direction as the Krögers, down toward the river; Senator Langhals, Doctor Grabow, and Jean Jacques Hoffstede turned the other way. Consul Buddenbrook stood with his hands in his trousers pockets and listened to their footsteps as they died away down the empty, damp, dimly-lighted street. He shivered a little in his light clothes as he stood there a few paces from his own house, and turned to look up at its grey gabled façade. His eyes lingered upon the motto carved in the stone over the entrance, in antique lettering: Dominus providebit—“The Lord will provide.” He bowed his head a little and went in, bolting the door carefully behind him. Then he locked the vestibule door and walked slowly across the echoing floor of the great entry. The cook was coming down the stairs with a tray of glasses in her hands, and he asked her, “Where’s the master, Trina?”
“In the dining-room, Herr Consul,” said she, and her face went as red as her arms, for she came from the country and was very bashful.
As he passed through the dark hall, he felt in his pocket for the letter. Then he went quickly into the dining-room, where a few small candle-ends in one of the candelabra cast a dim light over the empty table. The sour smell of the onion sauce still hung on the air.
Over by the windows Johann Buddenbrook was pacing comfortably up and down, with his hands behind his back.
X
“Well, Johann, my son, where are you going?” He stood still and put his hand out to his son—his white Buddenbrook hand, a little too short, though finely modelled. His active figure showed indistinctly against the dark-red curtains, the only gleams of white being from his powdered hair and the lace frill at his throat.
“Aren’t you sleepy? I’ve been here listening to the wind; the weather is something fearful. Captain Kloot is on his way from Riga. …”
“Oh, Father, with God’s help all will be well.”
“Well, do you think I can depend on that? I know you are on intimate terms with the Almighty—”
The Consul felt his courage rise at this display of good humour.
“Well, to get to the point,” he began, “I came in here not to bid you good night, but to—you won’t be angry, will you, Papa? … I didn’t want to disturb you with this letter on such a festive occasion … it came this afternoon. …”
“Monsieur Gotthold, voilà!” The old man affected to be quite unmoved as he took the sealed blue paper. “Herr Johann Buddenbrook, Senior. Personal. A careful man, your stepbrother, Jean! Have I answered his second letter, that came the other day? And so now he writes me a third.” The old man’s rosy face grew sterner as he opened the seal with one finger, unfolded the thin paper, and gave it a smart rap with the back of his hand as he turned about to catch the light from the candles. The very handwriting of this letter seemed to express revolt and disloyalty. All the Buddenbrooks wrote a fine, flowing hand; but these tall straight letters were full of heavy strokes, and many of the words were hastily underlined.
The Consul had drawn back a little to where the row of chairs stood against the wall; he did not sit down, as his father did not; but he grasped one of the high chair-backs nervously and watched the old man while he read, his lips moving rapidly, his brows drawn together, and his head on one side.
Father,
I am probably mistaken in entertaining any further hope of your sense of justice or any appreciation of my feelings at receiving no reply from my second pressing letter concerning the matter in question. I do not comment again on the character of the reply I received to my first one. I feel compelled to say, however, that the way in which you, by your lamentable obstinacy, are widening the rift between us, is a sin for which you will one day have to answer grievously before the judgment seat of God. It is sad enough that when I followed the dictates of my heart and married against your wishes, and further wounded your insensate pride by taking over a shop, you should have repulsed me so cruelly and remorselessly; but the way in which you now treat me cries out to Heaven, and you are utterly mistaken if you imagine that I intend to accept your silence without a struggle. The purchase price of your newly acquired house in the Mengstrasse was a hundred thousand marks; and I am aware that Johann, your business partner and your son by your second marriage, is living with you as your tenant, and after your death will become the sole proprietor of both house and business. With my stepsister in Frankfort, you have entered into agreements which are no concern of mine. But what does concern me, your eldest son, is that you carry your unchristian spirit so far as to refuse me a penny of compensation for my share in the house. When you gave me a hundred thousand marks on my marriage and to set me up in business, and told me that a similar sum and no more should be bequeathed me by will, I said nothing, for I was not at the time sufficiently informed as to the amount of your fortune. Now I know more: and not regarding myself as disinherited in principle, I claim as my right the sum of thirty-three thousand and three hundred and thirty-three marks current, or a third of the purchase price. I make no comment on the damnable influences which are responsible for the treatment
