Page:Buddenbrooks vol 1 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0001mann).pdf/396

RV 384 (BUDDENBROOKS) I bowed back to him&mdash;not arrogantly, not a bit&mdash;I waved my hand, just the way Father used to. And here I am. You can do what you like: you can harness up all your workhorses&mdash;but you can never drag me back to Munich again. And to-morrow I go to Gieseke!”

Thus she spoke; and, finishing, sank back exhausted in her chair and stared again out of the window.

Tom was alarmed, shaken, stupefied. He stood before her and found no words. He raised his arms up shoulder-high, drawing a long breath. Then he let them fall against his thighs.

“Well, that’s an end of it,” he said. His voice was calm, and he turned and went toward the door.

Her face wore now the same expression, the same half-pouting, half-injured smile, as when he entered.

“Tom?” she said, with a rising inflection. “Are you vexed with me?”

He held the oval doorknob in one hand and made a gesture of weary protest with the other. “Oh, no. Not at all.”

She put out her hand and tipped her head on one side. “Come here, Tom. Your poor sister has had a hard time. Life is hard on her. She has much to bear. And at this minute she has nobody, in all the world&mdash;”

He came back; he took her hand; but wearily, indifferently, not looking at her face. Suddenly her lip began to quiver.

“You must go on alone now,” she said. “There’s nothing good to be looked for from Christian, and I am finished. Failed. Gone to pieces. I can do no more. I am a poor, useless woman, dependent on you all for my living. I could never have dreamed, Tom, that I should be no help to you at all. Now you stand quite alone, and upon you it depends to keep up the honour and dignity of the family. May God help you in the task.”

Two large, clear, childish tears rolled down over her cheeks, which were beginning to show, very faintly, the first signs of age.

RV 384 (384)