Buddenbrooks. Thomas Mann

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СКАЧАТЬ Diederich Schwarzkopf—he’s not such a bad old chap. Doesn’t speak such atrocious dialect, unless he’s had more than five glasses of grog. Once he was at the office, and we went together to the Ships’ Company. He drank like a tank. His father was born on a Norwegian freighter and grew up to be captain on the very same line. Diederich has had a good education; the pilot command is a responsible office, and pretty well paid. Diederich is an old bear—but very gallant with the ladies. Look out: he’ll flirt with you.”

      “Ah—well, and his wife?”

      “I don’t know her, myself. She must be nice, I should think. There is a son, too. He was in first or second, in my time at school, and is a student now, I expect. Look, there’s the sea. We shall be there inside a quarter of an hour.”

      They drove for a while along the shore on an avenue bordered with young beech-trees. There was the water, blue and peaceful in the sunshine; the round yellow light-house tower came into view, then the bay and the breakwater, the red roofs of the little town, the harbour with its sails, tackle, and shipping. They drove between the first houses, passed the church, and rolled along the front close to the water and up to a pretty little house, the verandah of which was overhung with vines.

      Pilot-Captain Schwarzkopf stood before his door and took off his seaman’s cap as the calèche drove up. He was a broad, stocky man with a red face, sea-blue eyes, and a bristling grizzled beard that ran fan-shaped from one ear to the other. His mouth turned down at the corners, in one of which he held a wooden pipe. His smooth-shaven, red upper lip was hard and prominent; he looked thoroughly solid and respectable, with big bones and well-rounded paunch; and he wore a coat decorated with gold braid, underneath which a white piqué waistcoat was visible.

      “Servant, Mademoiselle,” he said, as he carefully lifted Tony from the calèche. “We know it’s an honour you do us, coming to stop with us like this. Servant, Herr Buddenbrook. Papa well? And the honoured Frau Consul? Come in, come in! My wife has some sort of a bite ready, I suppose. Drive over to Peddersen’s Inn,” he said in his broadest dialect to the coachman, who was carrying in the trunk. “You’ll find they take good care of the horses there.” Then, turning to Thomas, “you’ll stop the night with us, Herr Buddenbrook? Oh, yes, you must. The horses want a bait and a rest, and you wouldn’t get home until after dark.”

      “Upon my word, one lives at least as well here as at the Kurhouse,” Tony said a quarter of an hour later, as they sat around the coffee-table in the verandah. “What wonderful air! You can smell the sea-weed from here. How frightfully glad I am to be in Travemünde again!”

      Between the vine-clad columns of the verandah one could look out on the broad river-mouths, glittering in the sun; there were the piers and the boats, and the ferry-house on the “Prival” opposite, the projecting peninsula of Mecklenburg.—The clumsy, blue-bordered cups on the table were almost like basins. How different from the delicate old porcelain at home! But there was a bunch of flowers at Tony’s place, the food looked inviting, and the drive had whetted her appetite.

      “Yes, Mademoiselle will see, she will pick up here fast enough,” the housewife said. “She looks a little poorly, if I might say so. That is the town air, and the parties.”

      Frau Schwarzkopf was the daughter of a Schlutup pastor. She was a head shorter than Tony, rather thin, and looked to be about fifty. Her hair was still black, and neatly dressed in a large-meshed net. She wore a dark brown dress with white crocheted collar and cuffs. She was spotless, gentle, and hospitable, urging upon her guests the currant bread that lay in a boat-shaped basket surrounded by cream, butter, sugar, and honeycomb. This basket had a border of bead-work embroidery, done by little Meta, the eight-year-old daughter, who now sat next her mother, dressed in a plaid frock, her flaxen hair in a thick pigtail.

      Frau Schwarzkopf made excuses for Tony’s room, whither she had already been to make herself tidy after the journey. It was so very simple—

      “Oh, all the better,” Tony said. It had a view of the ocean, which was the main thing. And she dipped her fourth piece of currant bread into her coffee. Tom walked with the pilot-captain about the Wullenwewer, now undergoing repairs in the town.

      There came suddenly into the verandah a young man of some twenty years. He took off his grey felt hat, blushed, and bowed rather awkwardly.

      “Well, my son,” said Herr Schwarzkopf, “you are late.” He presented him to the guests: “This is my son, studying to be a doctor. He is spending his vacation with us.” He had mentioned the young man’s name, but Tony failed to understand it.

      “Pleased to meet you,” said Tony, primly. Tom rose and and shook hands. Young Schwarzkopf bowed again, put down his book, and took his place at the table, blushing afresh. He was of medium height, very slender, and as fair as he could-possibly be. His youthful moustaches, colourless as the hair which covered his long head, were scarcely visible; and he had a complexion to match, a tint like translucent porcelain, which grew pink on the slightest provocation. His eyes, slightly darker than his father’s, had the same not very animated but good-natured quizzical expression; and his features were regular and rather pleasing. When he began to eat he displayed unusually regular teeth, glistening in close ranks of polished ivory. For the rest, he wore a grey jacket buttoned up, with flaps on the pockets, and an elastic belt at the back.

      “Yes, I am sorry I am late,” he said. His speech was somewhat slow and grating. “I was reading on the beach, and did not look soon enough at my watch.” Then he ate silently, looking up now and then to glance at Tom and Tony.

      Later on, Tony being again urged by the housewife to take something, he said, “You can rely on the honey, Fräulein Buddenbrook; it is a pure nature product—one knows what one is eating. You must eat, you know. The air here consumes one—it accelerates the process of metabolism. If you do not eat well, you will get thin.” He had a pleasant, naïve, way of now and then bending forward as he spoke and looking at some other person than the one whom he addressed.

      His mother listened to him tenderly and watched Tony’s face to see the impression he made. But old Schwarzkopf said, “Now, now, Herr Doctor. Don’t be blowing off about your metabolism—we don’t know anything about that sort of talk.” Whereupon the young man laughed, blushed again, and looked at Tony’s plate.

      The pilot-captain mentioned more than once his son’s Christian name, but Tony could never quite catch what it was. It sounded like Moor—or Mort; but the Father’s broad, fiat pronunciation was impossible to understand.

      They finished their meal. Herr Diederich sat blinking in the sun, his coat flung wide open over his white waistcoat, and he and his son took out their short pipes. Tom smoked his cigarettes, and the young people began a lively conversation, the subject of which was their old school and all the old school recollections. Tony took part gaily. They quoted Herr Stengel: “What! You were to make a line, and what are you making? A dash!” What a pity Christian was not here! he could imitate him so much better.

      Once Tom pointed to the flowers at Tony’s place and said to his sister: “That trims things up uncommonly well, as Herr Grünlich would say!” Whereat Tony, red with anger, gave him a push and darted an embarrassed glance at young Schwarzkopf.

      The coffee-hour had been unusually late, and they had prolonged it. It was already half-past six, and twilight was beginning to descend over the Prival, when the captain got up.

      “The company will excuse me,” he said; “I’ve some work down at the pilot-house. We’ll have supper at eight o’clock, if that suits the young folk. Or even a little later to-night, eh, Meta? And you” (here he used his son’s name again), “don’t be lolling about here. Just go and dig up your bones again. Fräulein Buddenbrook СКАЧАТЬ