Page:Buddenbrooks vol 1 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0001mann).pdf/325

RV 313 (BUDDENBROOKS) political and professional matters, he had a reputation of irreproachable respectability. His betrothal to Fräulein Huneus had just been announced; whereby he married a considerable dowry and a place in the best society. He was active in civic affairs, and he had his eye on a seat in the Council&mdash;even, ultimately, on the seat of old Burgomaster Överdieck.

But his friend Christian Buddenbrook&mdash;the same who could go calmly up to Mlle. Meyer-de-la-Grange, present her his bouquet, and say, “Oh, Fräulein, how beautifully you act!”&mdash;Christian had been developed by character and circumstances into a free-liver of the naïve and untrammeled type. In affairs of the heart, as in all others, he was disinclined to govern his feelings or to practise discretion for the sake of preserving his dignity. The whole town had laughed over his affair with an obscure actress at the summer theatre. Frau Stuht in Bell Founders’ Street&mdash;the same who moved in the best society&mdash;told everybody who would listen how Chris had been seen again walking by daylight in the open street with the person from the Tivoli.

Even that did not actually offend people. There was too much candied cynicism in the community to permit a display of serious moral disapproval. Christian Buddenbrook, like Consul Peter Döhlmann&mdash;whose declining business put him into somewhat the same artless class&mdash;was a popular entertainer and indispensable to gentlemen’s companions. But neither was taken seriously. In important matters they simply did not count. It was a significant fact that the whole town, the Bourse, the docks, the club, and the street called them by their first names&mdash;Peter and Chris. And enemies, like the Hagenströms, laughed not only at Chris’s stories and jokes, but at Chris himself, too.

He thought little or nothing of this. If he noticed it, it passed out of his mind again after a momentary disquiet. But his brother the Consul knew it. Thomas knew that Christian afforded a point of attack to the enemies of the family&mdash;and there were already too many such points. The connection

RV 313 (313)