Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/285

RV 275 (BUDDENBROOKS) gave such a desperate leap that he sprang right off his slab and fell down upon the slippery pavement, among all the refuse, and had to he picked up and severely admonished by his possessor.

Broad Street, at midday, was full of life. Schoolchildren with knapsacks on their backs came along the street, filling it with laughter and chatter, snowballing each other with the half-melting snow. Smart young apprentices passed, with Danish sailor caps or suits cut after the English model, carrying their portfolios and obviously pleased with themselves for having escaped from school. Among the crowd were settled, grey-bearded, highly respectable citizens, wearing the most irreproachable national-liberal expression on their faces, and tapping their sticks along the pavement. These looked across with interest to the glazed-brick front of the Town Hall, where the double guard was stationed; for the Senate was in session. The sentries trod their beat, wearing their cloaks, their guns on their shoulders, phlegmatically stamping their feet in the dirty half-melted snow. They met in the centre of their beat, looked at each other, exchanged a word, turned, and moved away each to his own side. Sometimes a lieutenant would pass, his coat-collar turned up, his hands in his pockets, on the track of some grisette, yet at the same time permitting himself to be admired by young ladies of good family; and then each sentry would stand at attention in front of his box, look at himself from head to foot, and present arms. It would be a little time yet before they would perform the same salute before the members of the Senate, the sitting lasted some three quarters of an hour; it would probably adjourn before that.

But one of the sentries suddenly heard a short, discreet whistle from within the building. At the same moment the entrance was illumined by the red uniform of Uhlefeld the beadle, with his dress sword and cocked hat. His air of preoccupation was simply enormous as he uttered a stealthy “Look out” and hastily withdrew. At the same moment ap-

RV 275 (275)