Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/103

RV 93 (BUDDENBROOKS) “Come here, Tom,” said Frau Permaneder uncertainly. “We can’t hold it any longer, can we, Hanno?” She was holding it almost alone, for Hanno’s little arms were not much help; and she looked, what with her enthusiasm and her effort, like an enraptured martyr. Her eyes were moist, her cheeks burned, and her tongue played, with a mixture of mischief and nervousness, on her upper lip.

“Here I am,” said the Senator. “What in the world is this? Come, let me have it; we’ll lean it against the wall.” He propped it up next to the piano and stood looking at it, surrounded by the family.

In a large, heavy frame of carved nut-wood were the portraits of the four owners of the firm, under glass. There was the founder, Johann Buddenbrook, taken from an old oil painting—a tall, grave old gentleman, with his lips firmly closed, looking severe and determined above his lace jabot. There was the broad and jovial countenance of Johann Buddenbrook, the friend of Jean Jacques Hoffstede. There was Consul Johann Buddenbrook, in a stiff choker collar, with his wide, wrinkled mouth and large aquiline nose, his eyes full of religious fervour. And finally there was Thomas Buddenbrook himself, as a somewhat younger man. The four portraits were divided by conventionalized blades of wheat, heavily gilded, and beneath, likewise in figures of brilliant gilt, the dates 1768-1868. Above the whole, in the tall, Gothic hand of him who had left it to his descendants, was the quotation: “My son, attend with zeal, to thy business by day; but do none that hinders thee from thy sleep at night.”

The Senator, his hands behind his back gazed for a long time at the tablet.

“Yes, yes,” he said abruptly, and his tone was rather mocking, “an undisturbed night’s rest is a very good thing.” Then, seriously, if perhaps a little perfunctorily, “Thank you very much, my dear family. It is indeed a most thought-

RV 93 (93)