Thomas paused and pointed with his walking-stick at the great garland far above them.
“You did a good job, Iwersen,” said he.
“No, Herr Sen’tor. That’s the wife’s work. She’s the one fer these affairs.”
“Oh,” said the Senator, raised his head with a little jerk, and gave, for a second, a clear friendly look straight into Frau Iwersen’s face. Then, without adding a word, he courteously waved his hand, and they moved on their way.
VI
One Sunday at the beginning of —Senator Buddenbrook had moved some four weeks before—Frau Permaneder appeared at her brother’s house toward evening. She crossed the cool ground floor, paved with flags and decorated with reliefs by Thorwaldsen, whence there was a door leading into the bureau; she rang at the vestibule door—it could be opened from the kitchen by pressing on a rubber bulb—and entered the spacious lobby, where, at the foot of the steps, stood the bear presented by Tiburtius and Clara. Here she learned from Anton that the Senator was still at work.
“Very good, Anton,” she said. “I will go to him.”
Yet she did not go at once into the office, but passed the door that led into it and stood at the bottom of the splendid staircase, which as far as the first storey had a cast-iron balustrade, but at the distance of the second storey became a wide pillared balcony in white and gold, with a great gilt chandelier hanging down from the skylight’s dizzy height.
“Very elegant,” said Frau Permaneder, softly, in a tone of great satisfaction, gazing up into this spacious magnificence. To her it meant, quite simply, the power, the brilliance, and the triumph of the Buddenbrook family. But now it occurred to her that she was not, in fact, come upon a very cheerful errand, and she slowly turned away and passed through the door into the office.
Thomas sat there quite alone, in his place by the window, writing a letter. He glanced up, raised an eyebrow, and put out his hand to his sister.
“ ’Evening, Tony. What’s the good word?”
“Oh, nothing very good, Tom. Oh, your staircase—it’s just too splendid! Why are you sitting here writing in the dark?”
“It was a pressing letter. Well—nothing very good, eh? Come into the garden, a little. It is pleasanter out there.”
As they crossed the entry, a violin adagio came trillingly down from the storey above.
“Listen,” said Tony, and paused a moment. “Gerda is playing. How heavenly! What a woman! She isn’t a woman, she’s a fairy. How is Hanno, Tom?”
“Just having his supper, with Jungmann. Too bad he is so slow about walking—”
“Oh, that will come, Tom, that will come. Are you pleased with Ida?”
“Why not?”
They crossed the flags at the back, leaving the kitchen on the right, went through a glass door and up two steps into the lovely, scented flower-garden.
“Well?” the Senator asked.
It was warm and still. The fragrance from the neat beds and borders hung in the evening air, and the fountain, surrounded by tall pale purple iris, sent its stream gently plashing heavenward, where the first stars began to gleam. In the background, an open flight of steps flanked by low obelisks, led up to a gravelled terrace, with an open wooden pavilion, a closed marquee, and some garden chairs. On the left hand was the property wall between them and the next garden; on the right the sidewall of the next house was covered with a wooden trellis intended for climbing plants. There were a few currant and gooseberry bushes at the sides of the terrace steps, but there was only one tree, a large, gnarled walnut by the left-hand wall.
“The thing is this,” answered Frau Permaneder, with some hesitation, as the brother and sister began to pace the gravel path of the fore part of the garden. “Tiburtius has written—”
“Clara?” questioned Thomas. “Please don’t make a long story of it.”
“Yes, Tom. She is in bed; she is very bad—the doctor is afraid of tuberculosis—of the brain.—I can hardly speak the words. Here is the letter Tiburtius wrote me, and enclosed another for Mother, which we are to give her when we have prepared her a little. It tells the same story. And there is this second enclosure, to Mother, from Clara herself—written in pencil, in a shaky hand. And Tiburtius wrote that she herself said they were the last she should write, for it seems the sad thing is she makes no effort to live. She was always longing for Heaven—” finished Frau Permaneder, and wiped her eyes.
The Senator walked at her side, his hands behind his back, his head bowed.
“You are so quiet, Tom. But you are right—what is there to say? Just now, too, when Christian lies ill in Hamburg—”
For this was, in fact, the state of things. Christian’s “misery” in the left side had increased so much of late that it had become actual pain, severe enough to make him forget all smaller woes. He was quite helpless, and had written to his mother from London that he was coming home, for her to take care of him. He quit his situation in London and started off; but at Hamburg had been obliged to take to his bed; the doctor diagnosed his ailment as rheumatism of the joints, and he had been removed from his hotel to a hospital. Any further journey was for the time impossible. There he lay, and dictated to his attendant letters that betrayed extreme depression.
“Yes,” said the Senator, quietly. “It seems as if one thing just followed on another.”
She put her arm for an instant across his shoulders.
“But you musn’t give way, Tom. This is no time for you to be downhearted. You need all your courage—”
“Yes, God knows I need it.”
“What do you mean, Tom? Tell me, why were you so quiet Thursday
