“Oh, please,” said Gerda, with a laugh, showing her beautiful large white teeth.
Later they all ate wine jelly and discussed their plans for the near future. At the end of or the beginning of , it was decided, Sievert Tiburtius and the Arnoldsens would go home. Then, directly after Christmas, Clara’s wedding would be celebrated with due solemnity in the great hall. The Frau Consul, health permitting, would attend Tom’s wedding in Amsterdam. But it must be put off until the beginning of the next year, that there might be a little pause for rest between. It was no use for Thomas to protest. “Please,” said the Frau Consul, and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Sievert should have the precedence, I think.”
The Pastor and his bride had decided against a wedding journey. Gerda and Thomas, however, were to take a trip to northern Italy, as far as Florence, and be gone about two months. In the meantime Tony, with the help of the upholsterer Jacobs in Fish Street, was to make ready the charming little house in Broad Street, the property of a bachelor who had moved to Hamburg. The Consul was already arranging for its purchase. Oh, Tony would furnish it to the Queen’s taste. “It will be perfect,” she said. They were all sure it would.
Christian looked on while the two bridal pairs held hands, and listened to the talk about weddings and trousseaux and bridal journeys. His nose looked bigger and his legs more crooked than ever. He felt an indefinite sort of pain in the left one, and stared solemnly at them all out of his little round deep-set eyes. Finally, in the accents of Marcellus Stengel, he said to his cousin Clothilde, who sat elderly, dried-up, silent, and hungry, at table among the happy throng: “Well, Tilda, let’s us get married too—I mean, of course each one for himself.”
IX
Some six months later Consul Buddenbrook returned with his bride from Italy. The snows lay in Broad Street as the carriage drove up at before the front door of their simple painted façade. A few children and grown folk had stopped to watch the homecoming pair descend. Frau Antonie Grünlich stood proudly in the doorway, behind her the two servant-maids, with white caps, bare arms, and thick striped skirts—she had engaged them beforehand for her sister-in-law. Flushed with pleasure and industry, she ran impetuously down the steps; Gerda and Thomas climbed out of the trunk-laden carriage wrapped in their furs; and she drew them into the house in her embrace.
“Here you are! You lucky people, to have travelled so far in the world. ‘Knowest thou the house? High-pillared are its walls!’ Gerda, you are more beautiful than ever; here, I must kiss you—no, so, on the mouth. How are you, Tom, old fellow?—yes, I must kiss you too. Marcus says everything has gone well here. Mother is waiting for you at home, but you can first just make yourselves comfortable. Will you have some tea? Or a bath? Everything is ready—you won’t complain. Jacobs did his best—and I have done all I could, too.”
They went together into the vestibule, and the servants brought in the luggage with the help of the coachman. Tony said: “The rooms here in the parterre you will probably not need for the present. For the present,” she repeated, running her tongue over her upper lip. “Look, this is pretty,” and she opened a door directly next the vestibule. “Simple oak furniture, ivy at the windows. Over there, the other side of the corridor, is another room, a larger one. Here on the right are the kitchen and larder. But let’s go up. I will show you everything.” They went up the stairs, which were covered with a dark-red runner. Above, behind a glass partition, was a narrow corridor which led to the dining-room. This had dark-red damask wallpaper, a heavy round table upon which the samovar was steaming, a massive sideboard, and chairs of carved nut-wood, with rush seats. Then there was a comfortable sitting-room upholstered in grey, separated by portières from a small salon with a bay-window and furniture in green striped rep. A fourth of this whole storey was occupied by a large hall with three windows.
Then they went into the sleeping-room, on the right of the corridor. It had flowered hangings and solid mahogany beds. Tony passed on to a small door with openwork carving in the opposite wall, and displayed a winding stair leading from the bedroom to the lower floors, the bathroom, and the servants’ quarters.
“It is pretty here. I shall stop here,” said Gerda, and sank with a deep breath into the reclining-chair beside one of the beds.
The Consul bent over and kissed her forehead. “Tired? I feel like that too. I should like to tidy up a bit.”
“I’ll look after the tea,” said Tony Grünlich, “and wait for you in the dining-room.”
The tea stood steaming in the Meissenware cups when Thomas entered. “Here I am,” he said. “Gerda would like to rest a little. She has a headache. Afterward we will go to Meng Street. Well, how is everything, my dear Tony—all right? Mother, Erica, Christian? But now,” he went on with his most charming manner, “our warmest thanks—Gerda’s too—for all your trouble, you good soul. How pretty you have made everything! Nothing is missing.—I only need a few palms for my wife’s bay-window; and I must look about for some suitable oil paintings. But tell me, now, how are you? What have you been doing all this time?”
He had drawn up a chair for his sister beside himself, and slowly drank his tea and ate a biscuit as they talked.
“Oh, Tom,” she answered. “What should I be doing? My life is over.”
“Nonsense, Tony—you and your life! But it is pretty tiresome,
