Buddenbrooks. Thomas Mann

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t understand,” Tony sobbed helplessly, and put down her head as a kitten does beneath the hand that strokes it. “He comes here and says something pleasant to everybody, and then goes away again; and then he writes to you that he—that I—I don’t understand. What made him? What have I done to him?”

      The Consul smiled again. “You said that once before, Tony; and it illustrates so well your childish way of reasoning. My little daughter must not feel that people mean to urge or torment her. We can consider it all very quietly; in fact, we must consider it all very quietly and calmly, for it is a very serious matter. Meanwhile I will write an answer to Herr Grünlich’s letter, without either consenting or refusing. There is much to be thought of.—Well, is that agreed? What do you say?—And now Papa can go back to his work, can’t he?—Adieu, Betsy.”

      “Au revoir, dear Jean.”

      “Do take a little more honey, Tony,” said the Frau Consul to her daughter, who sat in her place motionless, with her head bent. “One must eat.”

      Tony’s tears gradually dried. Her head felt hot and heavy with her thoughts. Good gracious, what a business! She had always known, of course, that she should one day marry, and be the wife of a business man, and embark upon a solid and advantageous married life, commensurate with the position of the family and the firm. But suddenly, for the first time in her life, somebody, some actual person, in serious earnest, wanted to marry her. How did people act? To her, her, Tony Buddenbrook, were now applicable all those tremendous words and phrases which she had hitherto met with only in books: her “hand,” her “consent,” “as long as life shall last!” Goodness gracious, what a step to take, all at once!

      “And you, Mamma? Do you too advise me to—to—to yield my consent?” She hesitated a little before the “yield my consent.” It sounded high-flown and awkward. But then, this was the first occasion in her life that was worthy of fine language. She began to blush for her earlier lack of self-control. It seemed to her now not less unreasonable than it had ten minutes ago that she should marry Herr Grünlich; but the dignity of her situation began to fill her with a sense of importance which was satisfying indeed.

      “I advise you to accept, my child? Has Papa advised you to do so? He has only not advised you not to, that is all. It would be very irresponsible of either of us to do that. The connection offered you is a very good one, my dear Tony. You would go to Hamburg on an excellent footing and live there in great style.”

      Tony sat motionless. She was having a sort of vision of silk portières, like those in grandfather’s salon. And, as Madame Grünlich, should she drink morning chocolate? She thought it would not be seemly to ask.

      “As your Father says, you have time to consider,” the Frau Consul continued. “But we are obliged to tell you that such an offer does not come every day, that it would make your fortune, and that it is exactly the marriage which duty and vocation prescribe. This, my child, it is my business to tell you. You know yourself that the path which opens before you to-day is the prescribed one which your life ought to follow.”

      “Yes,” Tony said thoughtfully. She was well aware of her responsibilities toward the family and the firm, and she was proud of them. She was saturated with her family history—she, Tony Buddenbrook, who, as the daughter of Consul. Buddenbrook, went about the town like a little queen, before whom Matthiesen the porter took off his hat and made a low bow! The Rostock tailor had been very well off, to begin with; but since his time, the family fortunes had advanced by leaps and bounds. It was her vocation to enhance the brilliance of family and firm in her allotted way, by making a rich and aristocratic marriage. To the same end, Tom worked in the office. Yes, the marriage was undoubtedly precisely the right one. But—but—She saw him before her, saw his gold-yellow whiskers, his rosy, smiling face, the wart on his nose, his mincing walk. She could feel his woolly suit, hear his soft voice. …

      “I felt sure,” the Consul’s wife said, “that we were accessible to quiet reason. Have we perhaps already made up our mind?”

      “Oh, goodness, no!” cried Tony, suddenly. She uttered the “Oh” with an outburst of irritation. “What nonsense! Why should I marry him? I have always made fun of him. I never did anything else. I can’t understand how he can possibly endure me The man must have some sort of pride in his bones!” She began to drip honey upon a slice of bread.

      Chapter Three

      This year the Buddenbrooks took no holiday during Christian’s and Clara’s vacation. The Consul said he was too busy; but it was Tony’s unsettled affair as well, that kept them lingering in Mengstrasse. A very diplomatic letter, written by the Consul himself, had been dispatched to Herr Grünlich; but the progress of the wooing was hindered by Tony’s obstinacy. She expressed herself in the most childish way. “Heaven forbid, Mamma,” she would say. “I simply can’t endure him!” with tremendous emphasis on the second syllable. Or she would explain solemnly, “Father” (Tony never otherwise said anything but “Papa”), “I can never yield him my consent.”

      And at this point the matter would assuredly have stuck, had it not been for events that occurred some ten days after the talk in the breakfast-room—in other words, about the middle of July.

      It was afternoon—a hot blue afternoon. The Frau Consul was out, and Tony sat with a book alone at the window of the landscape room, when Anton brought her a card. Before she had time to read the name, a young man in a bell-skirted coat and pea-green pantaloons entered the room. It was, of course, Herr Grünlich, with an expression of imploring tenderness upon his face.

      Tony started up indignantly and made a movement to flee into the next room. How could one possibly talk to a man who had proposed for one’s hand? Her heart was in her throat and she had gone very pale. While he had been at a safe distance she had hugely enjoyed the solemn conferences with her Father and Mother and the suddenly enhanced importance of her own person and destiny. But now, here he was—he stood before her. What was going to happen? And again she felt that she was going to weep.

      At a rapid stride, his head tipped on one side, his arms outstretched, with the air of a man who says: “Here I am, kill me if you will!” he approached. “What a providence!” he cried. “I find you here, Antonie—” (He said “Antonie”!)

      Tony stood erect, her novel in her right hand. She stuck out her lips and gave her head a series of little jerks upward, relieving her irritation by stressing, in that manner, each word as she spoke it. She got out: “What is the matter with you?”—But the tears were already rising. And Herr Grünlich’s own excitement was too great for him to realize the check.

      “How could I wait longer? Was I not driven to return?” he said in impassioned tones. “A week ago I had your Father’s letter, which filled me with hope. I could bear it no longer. Could I thus linger on in half-certainty? I threw myself into a carriage, I hastened hither, I have taken a couple of rooms at the City of Hamburg—and here I am, Antonie, to hear from your lips the final word which will make me happier than I can express.”

      Tony was stunned. Her tears retreated abashed. This, then, was the effect of her Father’s careful letter, which had indefinitely postponed the decision. Two or three times she stammered: “You are mistaken—you are mistaken.”

      Herr Grünlich had drawn an arm-chair close to her seat in the window. He sat down, he obliged her to sit as well, and, bowing over her hand, which, limp with indecision, she resigned to him, he went on in a trembling voice: “Fräulein Antonie, since first I saw you, that afternoon,—do you remember that afternoon, when I saw you, a vision of loveliness, in your own family circle?—Since then, your name has been indelibly written on my heart.” СКАЧАТЬ