Buddenbrooks (47 page)

with a searching and steady gaze from her close-set, blue-shadowed eyes.

CHAPTER II

THOMAS BUDDENBRDOK did not contemplate the future of Jiltle Johann with the weary dejection which was now his settled mood when he thought about his own life and his own end. The family feeling which led him to cherish the past history of his house extended itself even more strongly into its future; and he was influenced, too, by the loving and expectant curiosity concentrated upon his son by his family am] his friends and acquaintances, even by the Buddenbrook ladies in Broad Street. He said to himself that, however hopeless and thwarted he himself felt, he Avas still, wherever his son was concerned, capable of inexhaustible streams of energy, endurance, achievement, success--yes, that at this one spot his chilled and artificial life could still be warmed into a genuine and glowing warmth of hopes and fears and affections. Perhaps, some day, it would be granted to him to look back upon his past from a quiet corner and wutch the renascence nf the old time, the time of Hanno's great-grandfather! Was such a hope, after all, entirely vain? He had felt that the music was his enemy; but it had almost begun to look as if it had no such important bearing upon the situation. Granted that the child's fondness for improvising, without notes, was evidence of a not quite common gift; in the systematic lessons with Herr Pfiihl he had not showed by any means extraordinary progress. The preoccupation with music was no doubt due to his mother's influence; and it was not surprising that during his early years this influence had been preponderant. But the time was close at hand when it would be the father's turn to influence his son, to draw him over 223 to his side, to neutralize the feminine influence by introducing a masculine one in its place. And the Senator determined not to let any such opportunities pass without improving them. Hanno was now eleven years old. The preceding Easter, he had, by the skin of his teeth and by dint of two extra exam-inations in mathematics and geography, been passed into the fnurth form--as had likewise his young friend Count Molln. Il had been settled that he should attend the mercantile side of the school--for it went without saying that he would be a merchant and take over the family business. When his fa-ther asked him if he felt any inclination toward his future career, he answered yes--a simple, unadnrned, embarrassed "yes," which the Senator tried to make a little more convincing by asking leading questions, but mostly without success. If the Senator had had two sons, he would assuredly have allowed the second to go through the gymnasium and study. But the firm demanded a successor. And, besides, he was convinced he was doing the boy a kindness in relieving him of the unnecessary Greek. He was of opinion that the mer-cantile course was the easier to master, and that Hanno would therefore come through with greater credit and less strain if he took it, considering his defects--his slowness of compre-hension, his absent, dreaming ways, and his physical delicacy, which often obliged him to be absent from. school. If little Johann Buddenbrook were to achieve the position in life to which he was called, they must be mindful before everything else, by care and cherishing on the one hand, by sensible toughening on the other, to strengthen his far from robust constitution. Hanno had grown sturdier in the past year; but, despite his blue sailor suit, he still looked a little strange in the play-ground of the school, by contrast with the blond Scandina-vian type that predominated there. He now wore his brnwn hair parted on the side and brushed away from his white forehead. But it still inclined to fall in soft ringlets over the temples; and his eyes were as golden-brown as ever, and as veiled with their brown lashes. His legs, in long black stockings, and his arms, in the loose quilted blue sleeves of his suit, were small and soft like a girl's, and he had, like his mother, the blue shadows under his eyes. And still, in those eyes, especially when they gave a side glance, as they often did, there was that timid and defensive look; while the mouth closed with the old, woebegone expression which he had had even as a baby, or went slightly crooked when he explored the recesses of his mouth for a defective tooth. And there would come upon his face when he did this a look as if he were cold. Dr. Langhals had now entirely taken over Dr. Grabow's practice and had become the Buddenbrook family physician. From him they learned the reason why the child's skin was so pale and his strength so inadequate. It seemed that Hanno's organism did not produce red corpuscles in sufficient number. But there was a remedy for this defect: cod-liver oil, which, accordingly, Dr. Langhals prescribed in great quantities: good, thick, greasy, yellow cod-liver oil, to be taken from a porcelain spoon twice a day. The Senator gave the order, and Ida Jungmann, with stern affection, saw it carried out. In the beginning, to be sure, Hanno threw up after each spoonful. His stomach seemed to have a prejudice1 against the good cod-liver oil. But he got used to it in the end--and if you held your breath and chewed a pipee of rye bread immediately after, the nausea was not so severe. His otiler troubles were all consequent upon this lack of red corpuscles, it appeared: secondary phenomena, Dr. Langhals called them, looking at his fingernails. But it was necessary to attack these other enemies ruthlessly. As for the teeth, for these Herr Brecht and his Josephus lived in Mill Street: to take care of them, to fill them; when necessary, to extract them. And for the digestion there was castor-oil, thick, clear cast or-oil that slipped down your throat like a lizard, after which you smelled and tasted it for three days, sleeping 225 and waking. Oh, why were all these remedies of such surpassing nastiness? One single time--Hanno had been rather ill, and his heart action had shown unusual irregularity--Dr. Langhals had with some misgiving prescribed a remedy which little Hanno had actually enjoyed, and whirh had done him a world of good. These were arsenic pills. But however much he asked to have the dose repeated--for he felt almost a yearning for these sweet, snothing little pills--Dr. Langhals never prescribed them again. Cast or-oil and cod-liver oil were excellent things. But Dr. Langhals was quite at one with the Senator in the virw that they could not of themselves make a sound and sturdy citizen of little J oh aim if he did not do his part. There was gymnasium drill once a week in the summer, out on the Castle Field, where the youth of the city were given the op-portunity to develop their strength and courage, their skill and presence of mind, under the guidance of Herr Fritsche, the drill-master. But to his father's annoyance, Hanno shelved a distinct distaste for the manly sports--a silent, pronounced, almost haughty opposition. Why was it that he cared so little for playmates of his own class and age, with whom he would have to live, and was for ever sticking about with this little unwashed Kai, who was a good child, of course, but not precisely a proper friend for the future? Somehow or other a boy must know from the beginning how to gain the confidence and respect of his comrades, upon whose good opinion of him he will be dependent for the rest of his life! There were, on the other hand, the two sons of Consul Hagenstrbm, two fine strapping boys, twelve and four-teen years old, strong and full of spirits, who instituted prize-fights in the neighbouring woods, were the best gymnasts in the school, swam like otters, smoked cigars, and were ready for any deviltry. They were popular, feared, and respected. Their cousins, the two sons of Dr. Moritz Hagenstrbm, the State Attorney, were of a more delicate build, and gentler ways. They distinguished themselves in scholarship, and were BUDDENBRO DKS model pupils: zealous, industrious, quiet, attentive, devoured by the ambition to bring home a report card marked "Number 1." They achieved their ambition, and were re-spected by their stupider and lazier colleagues. But--not to speak of his masters--what must his fellow-pupils think of Hanno, who was not only a very mediocre scholar, but a weakling into the bargain; who tried to get out of everything for which a scrap of courage, strength, skill, and energy were needed? When Senator Buddenbrook passed the little balcony on his way to his dressing-room, he would hear from Hanno's room, which was the middle one of the three on that floor since he had grown too large to sleep with Ida Jungmann, the notes of the harmonium, or the hushed and mysterious voice of Kai, Count Molln telling a story. Kai avoided the drill classes, because he detested the discipline whirh had to be observed there. "No, Hanno," he said, "I'm not going. Are you? Deure take it! Any-thing that would be any fun is forbidden." Expressions like "deuce take it" he got from his father. Hanno answered: "If Herr Fritsche ever one single day smelled of anything but beer and sweat, I might consider it. Don't talk about it, Kai. Co on. Tell that one about the ring you got out of the bog--you didn't finish it." "Very good," said Kai. "But when I nod, then you must play." And he went on with his story. If he was to be believed, he had once, on a warm evening, in a strange, unrecognizable region, slid down a slippery, immeasurable cliff, at the foot of which, by the flickering, livid light from will-o'-the-wisps, he saw a black marsh, from which silvery bubbles mounted with a hollow gurgling sound. One of these bubbles, which kept coming up near the bank, took the form of a ring when it burst; and he had succeeded in seizing it, after long and dangerous efforts--after which it burst no more, but remained in his grasp, a firm and solid ring, which he put on his finger. He rightly ascribed unusual powers to this ring; for by its 227 help he climbed up the slippery cliff and saw, a little way off in the rosy mist, a black castle. It was guarded to the teeth, but he had forced an entrance, always by the help of the ring, and performed miracles of rescue and deliverance. All this Hanno accompanied with sweet chords on his har-monium. Sometimes, if the difficulties were not too great, these stories were acted in the marionette theatre, to musical accompaniment. But Hanno attended the drill class only on his father's express command--and then Kai went too. It was the same with the skating in the wintertime, and with the bathing in summer at the wooden bathing establishment of Hcrr Asmussen, down on the river. "Bathing and swimming--let the boy have bathing and swimming--he must bathe and swim," Dr. Langhals had said. And the Senator was entirely of the Same opinion. But Hanno had a reason for absenting himself from the bathing, as well as from the skating and the drill class. The two sons of Consul Hagen-striim, who took part in all such exercises with preat skill and credit, singled Hanno out at once. And though they lived in his own grandmother's house, that fact did not pre-vent them from making his life miserable. They lost no opportunity of tormenting him. At drill they pinched him and derided him. They rolled him in the dirty snow at the ice-rink; and in the water they came up to him with horrid noises. Hanno did not try to escape. It would have been useless anyhow. He stood, with his girlish arms, up to his miJdle in the turbid water of the pool, which had large1 patches of duck-weed growing on it, and awaited his tormentors with a scowl--a dark look and twisted lips. They, sure of their prey, came on with long splashing strides. They had muscular arms, these two young Hagenstrbms, and they clutched him round his body and ducked him--ducked him a good long time, so that he swallowed rather a lot of the dirty water and gasped for breath a long time after. One single time he was a little avenged. One afternoon the two Hagenstrbms were holding him down under the water, when one of them suddenly gave a shriek of pain and fury and lifted his plump leg, from which drops of blood were oozing. Beside him rose the head of Kai, Count Mblln, who had somehow got hold of the price of admission, swum up in-visible in the water, and bitten young Hagenstrb'm--bitten with all his teeth into 'his leg, like a furious little dog. His blue eyes flashed through the red-blond hair that hung down wet all over his face. Ho paid richly for the deed, did the little Count, and left the swimming-pool much the worse for the encounter. But Consul Hagenstrbm's son limped perceptibly when he went home. Nourishing remedies and physical exercise were the basis of the treatment calculated to turn Senator Buddenbrook's son into a strong and healthy lad. But no less painstakingly did the Senator strive to influence his mind and give him lively impressions of the practical world in which he was to live. He began gradually to introduce him into the sphere of his future activities. He took him on business expeditions down to the harbour and let him stand by on the quay while he spoke to the dockers in a mixture of Danish and dialect or gave orders to the men who with hollow, long-drawn cries were hauling up the sacks to the granary floor. He took him into dark little warehouse offices to confer with super-intendents. All this life of the harbours, ships, sheds, and granaries, where it smelled of butter, fish, sea-water, tar, and greasy iron, had been to Thomas Buddenbrook from child-hood up the most fascinating thing on earth. But his son gave no spontaneous expression of his own enchantment with the sight; and so the father was fain to arouse it in him. "What are the names of the boats that ply to Copenhagen? The Naiad, the Halmstadt, the Friederike (Jverdieck--why, if you know those, my son, at least that's soiiething! You'll soon learn the others. Some of those people over there hauling up the grain have the same name as you--they were named after your grandfather, as you were. And their 229 children are often named after me--or Mamma. We give them little presents every year.--Now this next granary--we don't stop at it; we go past and don't talk to the men; it is a rival business." "Should you like to come, Hanno?" he said annthrr time "There is a ship of our line being launched to-day, and I shall christen it. Do you want to go?" And Hanno signi-fied that he wanted to go. He went with his father, listened to his speech, and saw him break a bottle of champagne nn the prow of the ship; saw how she glided down the ways, which had been smeared with green soap, and into the water. On certain days of the year, as New Year's and Palm Sunday, when there were confirmations, Senator Budden-brook drove out on a round of visits to particular houses in which he had social relations. His wife did not like these visits, and excused herself on the ground of headache and nervousness, so Hanno would be asked to go along in her place; and here,