Friederich Wilhelm Marcus rubbed his hands circumspectly, and Justus Kröger said: “Quietly, quietly, my dear chap. Times aren’t what they were when your grandfather was a Prussian army contractor.”
There began now a detailed conversation upon the provisions of the will, in which they all joined, and Consul Kröger took a lighter tone, referring to Thomas as “his Highness the reigning Prince” and saying, “The warehouses will go with the crown, according to tradition.” In general, of course, it was decided that as far as possible everything should be left together, that Frau Elizabeth Buddenbrook should be considered the sole heir, and that the entire property should remain in the business. Herr Marcus announced that as partner he should be able to strengthen the working capital by a hundred and twenty thousand marks current. A sum of fifty thousand marks was set aside as a private fortune for Thomas, and the same for Christian, in case he wished to establish himself separately. Justus Kröger paid close attention to the passage that ran: “The fixing of the dowry of my beloved daughter Clara I leave to the discretion of my dear wife.” “Shall we say a hundred thousand?” he suggested, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other, and turning up his short grey moustache with both hands. He was affability itself. But the sum was fixed at eighty thousand. “In case of a second marriage of my dearly loved older daughter Antonie, in view of the fact that eighty thousand marks have already been applied to her first marriage, the sum of seventeen thousand thaler current must not be exceeded.” Frau Antonie waved her arm with a graceful but excited gesture which tossed back her flowing sleeve; she looked at the ceiling and said loudly: “Grünlich, indeed!” It sounded like a challenge, like a little trumpet-call. “You know, Herr Marcus,” she said, “about that man. We are sitting, one fine afternoon, perfectly innocent, in the garden, in front of the door—you know the portal, Herr Marcus. Well! Who appears? a person with gold-coloured whiskers—the scoundrel!”
“Yes,” Thomas said. “We will talk about Herr Grünlich afterward.”
“Very well; but you are a clever creature, and you will admit, Tom, that in this life things don’t always happen fairly and squarely. That’s been my experience, though a short time ago I was too simple to realize it.”
“Yes,” Tom said. They went into detail, noting the Consul’s instructions about the great family Bible, about his diamond buttons, and many, many other matters.
Justus Kröger and Herr Marcus stopped for supper.
II
In the beginning of , after eight years’ absence, Christian Buddenbrook returned to the home of his fathers. He arrived in the post-coach from Hamburg, wearing a yellow suit with a pattern of large checks, that had a distinctly exotic look. He brought the bill of a swordfish and a great sugarcane, and received the embraces of his mother with a half-embarrassed, half absent air.
He wore the same air when, on the next afternoon after his arrival, the family went to the cemetery outside the Castle Gate to lay a wreath on the grave. They stood together on the snowy path in front of the large tablet on which were the names of those resting there, surrounding the family arms cut in the stone. Before them was the upright marble cross that stood at the edge of the bare little churchyard grove. They were all there except Clothilde, who was at Thankless, nursing her ailing father.
Tony laid the wreath on the tablet, where her father’s name stood on the stone in fresh gold letters: then, despite the snow, she knelt down by the grave to pray. Her black veil played about her, and her full skirt lay spread out in picturesque folds. God alone knew how much grief and religious emotion—and, on the other hand, how much of a pretty woman’s self-conscious pleasure—there was in the bowed attitude. Thomas was not in the mood to think about it. But Christian looked sidewise at his sister with a mixture of mockery and misgiving, as if to say: “Can you really carry that off? Shan’t you feel silly when you get up? How uncomfortable!” Tony caught this look as she rose, but she was not in the least put out. She tossed her head back, arranged her veil and skirt, and turned with dignified assurance to go; whereupon Christian was obviously relieved.
The deceased Consul’s fanatical love of God and of the Saviour had been an emotion foreign to his forebears, who never cherished other than the normal, everyday sentiments proper to good citizens. The two living Buddenbrooks had in their turn their own idiosyncrasies. One of these appeared to be a nervous distaste for the expression of feeling. Thomas had certainly felt the death of his father with painful acuteness, much as his grandfather had felt the loss of his. But he could not sink on his knees by his grave. He had never, like his sister Tony, flung himself across the table sobbing like a child; and he shrank from hearing the heartbroken words in which Madame Grünlich, from roast to dessert, loved to celebrate the character and person of her dead father. Such outbursts he met with composed silence or a reserved nod. And yet, when nobody had mentioned or was thinking of the dead, it would be just then that his eyes would fill with slow tears, although his facial expression remained unchanged.
It was different with Christian. He unfortunately did not succeed in preserving his composure at the naive and childish outpourings of his sister. He bent over his plate, turned his head away, and looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor; and several times he interrupted her with a low, tormented “Good God, Tony!” his large nose screwed into countless tiny wrinkles.
In fact, he
