Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/296

RV 286 (BUDDENBROOKS) At five o’clock Frau Permaneder let herself be carried away by her feelings, and committed an indiscretion. She suddenly began to sing, in her throaty voice, her hands folded before her.

“Come, Lord,”

she sang, quite loud, and they all listened without stirring.

“Come, Lord, receive his failing breath;

Strengthen his hands and feet, and lead him unto death.”

But in the devoutness of her prayer, she thought only of the words as they welled up from her heart, and forgot that she did not know the whole stanza; after the third line she was left hanging in the air, and had to make up for her abrupt end by the increased dignity of her manner. Everybody shivered with embarrassment. Little Johann coughed so hard that the coughs sounded like sobs. And then, in the sudden pause, there was no sound but the agonizing gurgles of Thomas Buddenbrook.

It was a relief when the servant announced that there was something to eat in the next room. But they had only begun, sitting in Gerda’s bedroom, to take a little soup, when Sister Leandra appeared in the doorway and quietly beckoned.

The Senator was dying. He hiccoughed gently two or three times, was silent, and ceased to move his lips. That was the only change. His eyes had been quite dead before.

Dr. Langhals, who was on the spot a few minutes later, put the black stethoscope to the heart, listened, and, after this scientific test, said “Yes, it is over.”

And Sister Leandra, with the forefinger of her gentle white hand, softly closed the eyes of the dead.

Then Frau Permaneder flung herself down on her knees by the bed, pressed her face into the coverlet, and wept aloud, surrendering herself utterly and without restraint to one of those refreshing bursts of feeling which her happy

RV 286 (286)