Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/239

RV 229 (BUDDENBROOKS) one of them suddenly gave a shriek of pain and fury and lifted his plump leg, from which drops of hlood were oozing. Beside him rose the head of Kai, Count Mölln, who had somehow got hold of the price of admission, swum up invisible in the water, and bitten young Hagenström—bitten with all his teeth into his leg, like a furious little dog. His blue eyes flashed through the red-blond hair that hung down wet all over his face. He paid richly for the deed, did the little Count, and left the swimming-pool much the worse for the encounter. But Consul Hagenström’s son limped perceptibly when he went home.

Nourishing remedies and physical exercise were the basis of the treatment calculated to turn Senator Buddenbrook’s son into a strong and healthy lad. But no less painstakingly did the Senator strive to influence his mind and give him lively impressions of the practical world in which he was to live.

He began gradually to introduce him into the sphere of his future activities. He took him on business expeditions down to the harbour and let ihim stand by on the quay while he spoke to the dockers in a mixture of Danish and dialect or gave orders to the men who with hollow, long-drawn cries were hauling up the sacks to the granary floor. He took him into dark little warehouse offices to confer with superintendents. All this life of the harbours, ships, sheds, and granaries, where it smelled of butter, fish, sea-water, tar, and greasy iron, had been to Thomas Buddenbrook from childhood up the most fascinating thing on earth. But his son gave no spontaneous expression of his own enchantment with the sight; and so the father was fain to arouse it in him. “What are the names of the boats that ply to Copenhagen? The Naiad, the Halmstadt, the Friederike Överdieck—why, if you know those, my son, at least that’s something! You’ll soon learn the others. Some of those people over there hauling up the grain have the same name as you—they were named after your grandfather, as you were. And their

RV 229 (229)