Frau Permaneder coloured when she heard this once well-known sound. A vision of lemon-buns with truffled sausage on top, almost threatened, for a moment, the stony dignity of her bearing. She sat on the sofa, her arms crossed and her shoulders lifted, in an exquisitely fitting black gown with flounces up to the waist, and a dainty mourning cap on her smooth hair. As the two gentlemen entered, she made a remark to her brother the Senator, in a calm, indifferent tone. He had not had the heart to leave her in the lurch at this hour; and he now walked to the middle of the room to meet their guests, while Tony remained on the sofa. He exchanged a hearty greeting with Herr Gosch and a correct and courteous one with the Consul; then Tony rose of her own accord, performed a measured bow to both of them at once, and, without any excess of zeal, associated herself with her brother’s invitation to the two gentlemen to be seated.
They all sat down, and the Consul and the broker talked by turns for the next few minutes. Herr Gosch’s voice was offensively obsequious as he begged them to pardon the intrusion on their privacy—you could hear a malign undercurrent in it none the less—but Herr Consul Hagenström was anxious to go through the house with a view to possible purchase. And the Consul, in a voice that again called up visions of lemon-bun and goose-liver, said the same thing in different words. Yes, in fact, this was the idea he had in mind and hoped to be able to carry out—provided the broker did not try to drive too hard a bargain with him, ha, ha! He did not doubt but the matter could be settled to the satisfaction of everybody concerned.
His manner was free and easy and like a man of the world’s, which did not fail to make a certain impression on Madame Permaneder; the more so that he nearly always turned to her as he spoke. His tone was almost apologetic when he went into detail upon the grounds for his desire to purchase. “Room!” he said. “We need more room. My house in Sand Street—you wouldn’t believe it, my dear madam, nor you, Herr Senator, but in fact, it is getting so small we can’t turn round in it. I’m not speaking of company. It only takes the family, and the Huneus, and the Möllendorpfs and my brother Moritz’s family, and there we are—in fact, packed in like sardines. So, then—well, why should we, you know!”
He spoke in an almost fretful tone, while manner and gestures expressed: “You see for yourselves, there’s no reason why I should put up with that sort of thing, when there is plenty of money to do what we like!”
“I thought of waiting,” he went on, “till Zerline and Bob should want a house. Then they could take mine, and I could find something larger for myself. But in fact—you know,” he interrupted himself, “my daughter Zerline has been engaged to Bob, my brother the attorney’s eldest, for years. The wedding won’t be put off much longer—two years at most. They are young—so much the better. Well—in fact—why should I wait for them and let slip a good chance when it offers? There would be no sense in that.”
Everybody agreed. The conversation paused for a while on the subject of the approaching wedding. Marriages—advantageous marriages—between first cousins were not uncommon in the town, and this one excited no disapproval. The plans of the young pair were inquired into—with reference to the wedding journey. They thought of going to the Riviera, to Nice and so on. That was what they seemed to want to do—and why shouldn’t they, you know? The younger children were mentioned, and the Consul spoke of them with easy satisfaction, shrugging his shoulders. He himself had five children, and his brother Moritz had four sons and daughters. Yes, they were all flourishing, thanks. Why shouldn’t they be—you know? In fact, they were all very well. And he came back to the growing up of the family, and to their narrow quarters. “Yes, this is something else entirely,” he said. “I’ve seen that already, on the way upstairs. This house is a pearl, certainly a pearl—if you can compare anything so large with anything so small, ha, ha! Why, even the hangings here—I own up to having had my eye on the hangings all the time I’ve been talking. A most charming room—in fact. When I think that you have passed all your life in these surroundings—in fact—”
“With some interruptions,” said Frau Permaneder, in that extraordinarily throaty voice of which she sometimes availed herself.
“Oh, yes, interruptions,” repeated the Consul, with a civil smile. Then he glanced at Senator Buddenbrook and the broker; and, as those gentlemen were in conversation together, he drew up his chair to Frau Permaneder’s sofa and leaned toward her, so that she felt his heavy breathing close under her nose. Being too polite to turn away, she sat as stiff and erect as possible and looked down at him under her drooping lids. But he was quite unconscious of her discomfort.
“Let me see, my dear Madame Permaneder,” he said. “Seems to me we’ve done business together before now. In fact—what was it we were dickering over then? Sweetmeats, wasn’t it, or titbits of some sort—and now a whole house!”
“I don’t remember,” said Frau Permaneder. She held her neck as stiff as she could, for his face was really disgustingly, indecently near.
“You don’t remember?”
“No, really, I don’t remember anything at all about sweetmeats. I have a sort of hazy recollection of lemon-buns, with sausage on top—some
