Page:Buddenbrooks vol 1 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0001mann).pdf/140

RV 128 (BUDDENBROOKS) He grew red all over. “Are you making fun of me?” he asked, partly laughing but partly vexed. “I got another wigging from my Father last night for what he calls my silly professional airs.”

“No, really, I was asking because I wanted to know.” Tony stopped eating in consternation. “How could anybody call them airs? I should be so glad to learn something. I’m such a goose, you see. At Sesemi Weichbrodt’s I was always one of the very laziest. I’m sure you know a great deal.” Inwardly her thoughts ran: “Everybody puts his best foot foremost, before strangers. We all take care to say what will be pleasant to hear&mdash;that is a commonplace. . . .”

“Well, you see they are the same thing, in a way. The chemical constituents of food-stuffs&mdash;” And so on, while Tony breakfasted. Next they talked about Tony’s boarding-school days, and Sesemi Weichbrodt, and Gerda Arnoldsen, who had gone back to Amsterdam, and Armgard von Schelling, whose home, a large white house, could be seen from the beach here, at least in clear weather. Tony finished eating, wiped her mouth, and asked, pointing to the paper, “Is there any news?” Young Schwarzkopf shook his head and laughed cynically.

“Oh, no. What would there be? You know these little provincial news-sheets are wretched affairs.”

“Oh, are they? Papa and Mamma always take it in.”

He reddened again. “Oh, well, you see I always read it, too. Because I can’t get anything else. But it is not very thrilling to hear that So-and-So, the merchant prince, is about to celebrate his silver wedding. Yes, you laugh. But you ought to read other papers&mdash;the Königsberg Gazette, for instance, or the Rhenish Gazette. You’d find a different story there, entirely. There it’s what the King of Prussia says.”

“What does he say?”

“Well—er—I really couldn’t repeat it to a lady.” He got red again. “He expressed himself rather strongly on the subject of this same press,” he went on with another cynical

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