Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/28

RV 18 (BUDDENBROOKS) witty, art-loving brother—and had paid her an enormous fee for her services. Hermann Hagenström was not the man to vote in the Assembly for the application of large sums of money to preserve and restore the town’s mediaeval monuments. But it was a fact that he was the first, absolutely the first man in town to light his house and his offices with gas. Yes, if Consul Hagenström could be said to represent any tradition whatever, it was the free, progressive, tolerant, unprejudiced habit of thought which he had inherited from his father, old Hinrich—and on this was based all the admiration people undoubtedly felt for him.

Thomas Buddenbrook’s prestige was of a different kind. People honoured in him not only his own personality, but the personalities of his father, grandfather, and great-grand-father as well: quite apart from his own business and public achievement, he was the representative of a hundred years of honourable tradition. And the easy, charming way, indeed, with which he carried the family standard made no small part of his success. What distinguished him, even among his professional fellow citizens, was an unusual degree of formal culture, which, wherever he went, aroused both wonder and respect in about equal degrees.

On Thursdays at the Buddenbrooks’, the coming election received only brief and passing comment in the presence of the Consul. Whenever it was mentioned, the old Frau Consul discreetly averted her light eyes. But Frau Permaneder, now and then, could not refrain from displaying her astonishing knowledge of the Constitution. She had gone very thoroughly into the decrees touching the election of a member of the Senate, precisely as once she thoroughly informed herself on the laws governing divorce. She talked about voting chambers, ballots, and electors, she weighed all the possible eventualities, she could recite verbatim and glibly the oath taken by the voters. She spoke of the “free and frank discussion” which the Constitution ordains must be held over each name upon the list of candidates, and vivaciously wished

RV 18 (18)