Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/250

RV 240 (BUDDENBROOKS) make him shudder; he knew the feeling too well, and how he would fling them away in desperation and go to bed, and suffer next day the torments of the unprepared. And he would be exactly as much afraid of catastrophes at the recitation hour, of his enemies the Hagenströms, and of his father’s injunctions not to be faint-hearted whatever else he was.

But he felt cheered a little by the fresh morning drive through flooded country roads, amid the twitterings of birds. He thought of seeing Kai again, and Herr Pfühl; of his music lessons, the piano and his harmonium. And as the morrow was Sunday, a whole day still intervened between him and the first lesson-hour. He could feel a few grains of sand from the beach, still inside his buttoned boot—how lovely! He would ask old Grobleben to leave them there. Let it all begin again—the worsted-coats, the Hagenströms, and the rest. He had what he had. When the waves of tribulation went over him once more he would think of the sea and of the Kurgarden, and of the sound made by the little waves, coming hither out of the mysterious slumbering distance. One single memory of the sound they made as they plashed against the breakwater could make him oppose an invincible front to all the pains and penalties of his life.

Then came the ferry, and Israelsdorfer Avenue, Jerusalem Hill, and the Castle Field, on the right side of which rose the walls of the prison where Uncle Weinschenk was. Then the carriage rolled along Castle Street and over the Koberg, crossed Broad Street, and braked down the steep decline of Fishers’ Lane. There was the red house-front with the bow-window and the white caryatides; and as they went from the midday warmth of the street into the coolness of the stone-flagged entry the Senator, with his pen in his hand, came out of the office to greet them.

Slowly, slowly, with secret tears, little Johann learned to live without the sea; to lead an existence that was frightened and bored by turns; to keep out of the way of the

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