Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann

Author:Thomas Mann
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Classics, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307780959
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1901-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

11

TONY LOST NO TIME—she took matters in hand. In hopes that she would calm down, cool off, and rethink all this, the consul demanded only one thing of her for now: that she lie low and that neither she nor Erika leave the house. Everything might still turn out for the best. The town did not need to know anything as yet. The Thursday “family day” was canceled.

But the day after Frau Permaneder’s homecoming, a letter arrived for attorney-at-law Andreas Gieseke, summoning him to Meng Strasse. She received him alone, in the middle room along the corridor on the second floor, where a fire had been lit and where there was a massive table on which she had arranged, for some reason or other, an inkwell, pens, and a stack of white foolscap taken from the office downstairs. They sat down in two armchairs.

“Dr. Gieseke,” she said, crossing her arms, laying her head back, and staring at the ceiling, “you are a man who knows life well, both in a personal and a professional sense. I feel I can speak openly to you.” And then she revealed to him the whole story of Babbit and what had occurred in the bedroom. Dr. Gieseke regretted to say that neither the distressing incident on the stairs, nor the insult to which she had undoubtedly been subjected—but about which she refused to go into greater detail—offered sufficient grounds for divorce.

“Fine,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

Then she had him review for her the current legal grounds for divorce and followed with an open mind and definite interest a lengthy supplemental exposition on the law concerning dowries, after which she cordially but sedately dismissed Dr. Gieseke for now.

She went down to the ground floor and demanded to see Thomas in his private office.

“Thomas,” she said, “please write that man at once—I do not gladly speak his name. As to the status of my money, I have been informed in detail about that. He should state his position, one way or the other. But he shall not see me again. If he agrees to a legal divorce, fine—we shall demand a rendering of accounts and the restoration of my dot. Even if he refuses, we need not be dismayed, because you should know, Tom, that although Permaneder’s claim to my dot makes it his property in the eyes of the law—that much I will grant you—I nevertheless have certain substantive rights as well, thank God.”

The consul paced back and forth, his hands behind his back, his shoulders jerking nervously—the face she had made as she uttered the word dot had been so unutterably smug. He did not have time for this. He was buried under work. She should show a little patience, and think this over—another fifty times, if you please. His most immediate task was a trip to Hamburg—he would be leaving tomorrow, in fact, for a conference, for a disagreeable discussion with Christian, who had written that he needed financial help, a temporary loan, which Elisabeth would have to subtract from money set aside for his inheritance.

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