Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/329

RV 319 (BUDDENBROOKS) handed up to him and he signed his name in it, as evidence that he had performed his office.

Hanno Buddenbrook closed his Bible and stretched himself, yawning. It was a nervous yawn; and as he dropped his arms and relaxed his limbs he had to take a long, deep breath to bring his heart back to a steady pulsation, for it weakly refused its office for a second. Latin came next. He cast a beseeching glance at Kai, who still sat there reading and seemed not to have remarked the end of the lesson. Then he drew out his Ovid, in stitched covers of marbled paper, and opened it at the lines that were to have been learned by heart for to-day. No, it was no use now trying to memorize any of it: the regular lines, full of pencil marks, numbered by fives all the way down the page, looked hopelessly unfamiliar. He barely understood the sense of them, let alone trying to say a single one of them by heart. And of those in to-day’s preparation he had not puzzled out even the first sentence.

“What does that mean—‘deciderant, patula Jovis arbore glandes’?” he asked in a despairing voice, turning to Adolf Todtenhaupt, who sat beside him working on the register.

“What?” asked Todtenhaupt, continuing to write. “The acorns from the tree of Jupiter—that is the oak; no, I dont quite know myself—”

“Tell me a bit, Todtenhaupt, when it comes my turn, will you?” begged Hanno, and pushed the book away. He scowled at the cool and careless nod Todtenhaupt gave by way of reply; then he slid sidewise off the bench and stood up.

The scene had changed. Herr Ballerstedt had left the room, and his place was taken by a small, weak enervated little man who stood straight and severe on the platform. He had a sparse white beard and a thin red neck that rose out of a narrow turned-down collar. He held his top hat upside down in front of him, clasped in two small hands covered with white hair. His real name was Professor

RV 319 (319)