Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/14

RV 4 (BUDDENBROOKS) reciting the service; and there is a great, strapping, particularly well-nourished person, richly arrayed in red and gold, bearing upon her billowing arms a small something, half smothered in laces and satin bows: an heir—a first-born son! A Buddenbrook! Do we really grasp the meaning of the fact?

Can we realize the thrill of that first whisper, that first little hint that travelled from Broad Street to Mengstrasse? Or Frau Permaneder’s speechless ecstasy, as she embraced her mother, her brother, and—very gently—her sister-in-law? And now, with the spring—the spring of the year 1861—he has come: he, the heir of so many hopes, whom they have expected for so many years, talked of him, longed for him, prayed to God and tormented Dr. Grabow for him; at length he has come—and looks most unimposing.

His tiny hands play among the gilt trimmings of his nurse’s waist; his head, in a lace cap trimmed with pale blue ribbons, lies sidewise on the pillow, turned heedlessly away from the preacher; he stares out into the room, at all his relatives, with an old, knowing look. Those eyes, under their long-lashed lids, blend the light blue of the Father’s and the brown of the Mother’s iris into a pale, indefinite, changeful golden-brown; but bluish shadows lie in the deep corners on both sides of the nose, and these give the litlle face, which is hardly yet a face at all, an aged look not suited to its four weeks of existence. But, please God, they mean nothing—for has not his Mother the same? And she is in perfectly good health. And anyhow, he lives—he lives, and is a son; which was the cause, four weeks ago, for great rejoicing.

He lives—and it might have been otherwise. The Consul will never forget the grip of good Dr. Grabow’s hand, as he said to him, four weeks ago, when he could leave the mother and child: “Give thanks to God, my dear friend—there wasn't much to spare.” The Consul has not dared to ask his meaning. He put from him in horror the thought that his

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