Finally he drew his hands out of his pockets, bowed, released his lip, and with difficulty freed one of the eyeglass cords from the confusion on his waistcoat. He lifted his pince-nez and put it with a single gesture astride his nose. Then he made the most astonishing grimaces, looked at the husband and wife, and remarked: “Ah, ha!”
He used this expression with extraordinary frequency and a surprising variety of inflections. He might say it with his head thrown back, his nose wrinkled up, mouth wide open, hands swishing about in the air, with a long-drawn-out, nasal, metallic sound, like a Chinese gong; or he might, with still funnier effect, toss it out, gently, en passant; or with any one of a thousand different shades of tone and meaning. His a was very clouded and nasal. Today it was a hurried, lively “Ah ha!” accompanied with a jerk of the head, that seemed to arise from an unusually pleasant mood, and yet might not be trusted to be so; for the fact was, Banker Kesselmeyer never behaved more gaily than when he was dangerous. When he jumped about emitting a thousand “Ah ha’s,” lifting his glasses to his nose and letting them fall again, waving his arms, chattering, plainly quite beside himself with lightheadedness, then you might be sure that evil was gnawing at his inwards. Herr Grünlich looked at him blinking, with unconcealed mistrust.
“Already—so early?” he asked.
“Ah, ha!” answered Herr Kesselmeyer, and waved one of his small, red, wrinkled hands in the air, as if to say: “Patience, there is a surprise coming.” “I must speak with you, without any delay; I must speak with you.”
The words sounded irresistibly comic as he rolled each one about before giving it out, with exaggerated movements of his little toothless, mobile mouth. He rolled his r’s as if his palate were greased. Herr Grünlich blinked more and more suspiciously.
“Come and sit down, Herr Kesselmeyer,” said Tony. “I’m glad you’ve come. Listen. You can decide between us. Grünlich and I have been disagreeing. Now tell me: ought a three-year-old child to have a governess or not?”
But Herr Kesselmeyer seemed not to be attending. He had seated himself and was rubbing his stubbly beard with his forefinger, making a rasping sound, his mouth as wide open as possible, nose as wrinkled, while he stared over his glasses with an indescribably sprightly air at the elegantly appointed breakfast-table, the silver breadbasket, the label on the wine-bottle.
“Grünlich says I am ruining him,” Tony continued.
Herr Kesselmeyer looked at her; then he looked at Herr Grünlich; then he burst out into an astonishing fit of laughter. “You are ruining him?—you? You are ruining him—that’s it, is it? Oh good gracious, heavens and earth, you don’t say! That is a joke. That is a tre‑men‑dous, tre‑men‑dous joke.” He let out a stream of ha ha’s all run in together.
Herr Grünlich was plainly nervous. He squirmed on his seat. He ran his long finger down between his collar and his neck and let his golden whiskers glide through his hand.
“Kesselmeyer,” he said. “Control yourself, man. Are you out of your head? Stop laughing! Will you have some wine? Or a cigar? What are you laughing at?”
“What am I laughing at? Yes, yes, give me a glass of wine, give me a cigar. Why am I laughing? So you think your wife is ruining you?”
“She is very luxuriously inclined,” Herr Grünlich said irritably.
Tony did not contradict him. She leaned calmly back, her hands in her lap on the velvet ribbons of her frock and her pert upper lip in evidence: “Yes, I am, I know. I have it from Mamma. All the Krögers are fond of luxury.”
She would have admitted in the same calm way that she was frivolous, revengeful, or quick-tempered. Her strongly developed family sense was instinctively hostile to conceptions of free will and self-development; it inclined her rather to recognize and accept her own characteristics wholesale, with fatalistic indifference and toleration. She had, unconsciously, the feeling that any trait of hers, no matter of what kind, was a family tradition and therefore worthy of respect.
Herr Grünlich had finished breakfast, and the fragrance of the two cigars mingled with the warm air from the stove. “Will you take another, Kesselmeyer?” said the host. “I’ll pour you out another glass of wine.—You want to see me? Anything pressing? Is it important?—Too warm here, is it? We’ll drive into town together afterward. It is cooler in the smoking-room.” To all this Herr Kesselmeyer simply shook his hand in the air, as if to say: “This won’t get us anywhere, my dear friend.”
At length they got up; and, while Tony remained in the dining-room to see that the servant-maid cleared away, Herr Grünlich led his colleague through the “pensée-room,” with his head bent, drawing his long beard reflectively through his fingers. Herr Kesselmeyer rowed into the room with his arms and disappeared behind him.
Ten minutes passed. Tony had gone into the salon to give the polished nut-wood secretary and the curved table-legs her personal attention with the aid of a gay little feather duster. Then she moved slowly through the dining-room into the living-room with dignity and marked self-respect. The Demoiselle Buddenbrook had plainly not grown less important
