Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/41

RV 31 (BUDDENBROOKS) Grünlich! Permaneder! Hagenström!—Tony, when she was egged on to it, would utter these names into the air like so many little trumpetings of disgust, with her shoulders well up. They had a sweet sound in the ears of the daughters of Uncle Gotthold.

They could not dissimulate, and they would accept no responsibility for omitting to say that little Johann was frightfully slow about learning to walk and talk. They were really quite right: it was an admitted fact that Hanno—this was the nickname adopted by the Frau Senator for her son—at a time when he was able to call all the members of his family by name with fair correctness, was incapable of pronouncing the names Friederike, Henriette, and Pfiffi so that any one could understand what he said. And at fifteen months he had not taken a single step alone. The Misses Buddenbrook, shaking their heads pessimistically, declared that the child would be halt and tongue-tied to the end of his days.

They later admitted the error of their gloomy prophecy; but nobody, in fact, denied that Hanno was a little backward. His early infancy was a struggle for life, and his family was in constant anxiety. At birth he had been too feeble to cry out; and soon after the christening a three-day attack of cholera-infantum was almost enough to still for ever the little heart set pumping, in the first place, with such difficulty. But he survived; and good Dr. Grabow did his best, by the most painstaking care and nourishment, to strengthen him for the difficult period of teething. The first tiny white point had barely pricked through the gum, when the child was attacked by convulsions, which repeated themselves with greater and greater violence, until again the worst was to be feared. Once more the old doctor speechlessly pressed the parents’ hands. The child lay in profound exhaustion, and the vacant look in the shadowy eyes indicated an affection of the brain. The end seemed almost to be wished for.

But Hanno regained some little strength, consciousness returned; and though the crisis which he had survived

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