Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/322

RV 312 (BUDDENBROOKS) with Hanno in his growth, but his looks had not altered, and he still wore a dingy suit of no particular colour, with a button or so missing and a big patch in the seat. His hands, too, were not quite clean; narrow and aristocratic-looking though they were, with long, slender fingers and tapering nails. But his brow was still pure as alabaster beneath the carelessly parted reddish-yellow hair that fell over it, and the glance of the sparkling blue eyes was as keen and as profound as ever. In fact, the contrast was even more striking between his neglected toilette and the racial purity of his face, with its delicate bony structure, slightly aquiline nose, and short upper lip, upon which the down was beginning to show.

“Oh, Kai,” said Hanno, with a wry face, putting his hand to his heart. “How can you frighten me like that? What are you doing up here? Why are you hiding? Did you come late too?”

“Dear me, no,” Kai said. “I’ve been here a long time. Though one doesn’t much look forward to getting back to the old place, when Monday morning comes round. You must know that yourself, old fellow. No, I only stopped up here to have a little game. The deep one seems to be able to reconcile it with his religion to hunt people down to prayers. Well, I get behind him, and I manage to keep close behind his back whichever way he turns, the old mystic! So in the end he goes off, and I can stop up here. But what about you?” he said sympathetically, sitting down beside Hanno on the bench. “You had to run, didn’t you? Poor old chap! You look perfectly worn out. Your hair is sticking to your forehead.” He took a ruler from the table and carefully combed little Johann’s hair with it. “You overslept, didn’t you? Look,” he interrupted himself, “here I am sitting in the sacred seat of number one—Adolf Todtenhaupt’s place! Well, it won’t hurt me for once, I suppose. You overslept, didn’t you?”

Hanno had put his head down on his arms again. “I

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