Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/113

RV 103 (BUDDENBROOKS) master, and when he had discovered him he passed with blushes and murmured excuses through the crowds that blocked his way.

His blushes were superfluous—nobody saw him. Without looking at him or breaking off their talk, they slightly made way, and they hardly noticed when he gave his telegram to the Senator, with a scrape, and the latter turned a little away from Kistenmaker, Voigt, and Gieseke to read it. Nearly all the telegrams that came to-day were messages of congratulation; still, during business hours, they had to he delivered at once.

The corridor made a bend at the point where the stairs mounted to the second storey, and then went on to the back stairs, where there was another, a side entrance into the dining-room. Opposite the stairs was the shaft of the dumbwaiter, and at this point there was a sizable table, where the maids usually polished the silver. The Senator paused here, turned his back to the apprentice, and opened the dispatch.

Suddenly his eyes opened so wide that any one seeing him would have started in astonishment, and he gave a deep, gasping intake of breath which dried his throat and made him cough.

He tried to say “Very well,” but his voice was inaudible in the clamour behind him. “Very well,” he repeated; but the second word was only a whisper.

As his master did not move or turn round or make any sign, the hump-backed apprentice shifted from one foot to the other, then made his outlandish scrape again and went down the back stairs.

Senator Buddenbrook still stood at the table. His hands, holding the dispatch, hung weakly down in front of him; he breathed in difficult, short breaths through his mouth; his body swayed back and forth, and he shook his head meaninglessly, as if stunned. “That little bit of hail,” he said, “that little bit of hail.” He repeated it stupidly. But gradually his breathing grew longer and quieter, the move-

RV 103 (103)