Page:Buddenbrooks vol 1 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0001mann).pdf/267

RV 255 (BUDDENBROOKS) oval bluish fingernails. Sometimes, in a difficult situation, they would take positions or make little nervous movements that were indescribably expressive of shrinking sensibility and painful reserve. This was an individual trait strange heretofore to the rather broad, though finely articulated Buddenbrook hand.

Tom’s first care was to open the folding doors into the landscape-room in order to get the benefit of the warmth from the stove burning there behind the wrought-iron lattice. Then he shook hands with Consul Kröger and sat down at the table with Herr Marcus opposite him. He looked at his sister Tony, and his eyebrow went up in surprise. But she flung her head back and tucked in her chin in a way that warned him to suppress any comment on her presence.

“Well, and one may not say Herr Consul?” asked Justus Kröger. “The Netherlands hope in vain that you should represent them, Tom, my dear chap?”

“Yes, Uncle Justus, I thought it was better. You see, I could have taken over the Consulate along with so many other responsibilities, but in the first place I am a little too young&mdash;and then I spoke to Uncle Gotthold, and he was very pleased to accept it.”

“Very sensible, my lad; very politic. And very gentlemanly.”

“Herr Marcus,” said the Frau Consul, “my dear Herr Marcus!” And with her usual sweeping gesture she reached out her hand, which he took slowly, with a respectful side-glance: “I have asked you to come up&mdash;you know what the affair is; and I know that you are agreed with us. My beloved husband expressed in his final arrangements the wish that after his death you would put your loyal and well-tried powers at the service of the firm, not as an outsider but as partner.”

“Certainly, Frau Consul,” said Herr Marcus, “I must protest that I know how to value the honour your offer does me, being aware, as I am, that the resources I can bring to the firm are but small. In God’s name, I know nothing better to

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