Page:Buddenbrooks vol 2 - Mann (IA buddenbrooks0002mann).pdf/53

RV 43 (BUDDENBROOKS) “And you never told me a syllable. Everybody conceals things from me, and acts without my authority,” repeated the Senator.

“Yes, Thomas, I have kept silent. For I felt I must fulfil the last wish of my dying child, and I knew you would have tried to prevent me!”

“Yes! By God, I would have!”

“You would have had no right to, for three of my children would have been on my side.”

“I think my opinion has enough weight to balance that of two women and a degenerate fool.”

“You speak of your brother and sisters as heartlessly as you do to me.”

“Clara was a pious, ignorant woman, Mother. And Tony is a child—and, anyhow, she knew nothing about the affair at all until now—or she might have talked at the wrong time, eh? And Christian? Oh, he got Christian’s consent, did Tibertius! Who would have thought it of him? Do you know now, or don’t you grasp it yet—what he is, this ingenious pastor? He is a rogue, and a fortune-hunter!”

“Sons-in-law are always rogues,” said Frau Permaneder, in a hollow voice.

“He is a fortune-hunter! What does he do? He travels to Hamburg, and sits down by Christian’s bed. He talks to him—‘Yes,’ says Christian, ‘yes, Tibertius, God bless you! Have you any idea of the pain I suffer in my left side?’—Oh, the idiots, the scoundrels! They joined hands against me!” And the Senator, perfectly beside himself, leaned against the wrought-iron fire-screen and pressed his clenched hands to his temples.

This paroxysm of anger was out of proportion to the circumstances. No, it was not the hundred and twenty-seven thousand marks that had brought him to this unprecedented state of rage. It was rather that his irritated senses connected this case with the series of rebuffs and misfortunes which had lately attended him in both public and private

RV 43 (43)