“Well, Johann, my son, where are you going?” He stood still and put his hand out to his son—his white Buddenbrook hand, a little too short, though finely modelled. His active figure showed indistinctly against the dark red curtains, the only gleams of white being from his powdered hair and the lace frill at his throat.
“Aren’t you sleepy? I’ve been here listening to the wind; the weather is something fearful Captain Kloht is on his way from Riga. …”
“Oh, Father, with God’s help all will be well.”
“Well, do you think I can depend on that? I know you are on intimate terms with the Almighty—”
The Consul felt his courage rise at this display of good humour.
“Well, to get to the point,” he began, “I came in here not to bid you good night, but to—you won’t be angry, will you, Papa? … I didn’t want to disturb you with this letter on such a festive occasion … it came this afternoon. …”
“Monsieur Gotthold, voilà!” The old man affected to be quite unmoved as he took the sealed blue paper. “Herr Johann Buddenbrook, Senior. Personal. A careful man, your step-brother, Jean! Have I answered his second letter, that came the other day? And so now he writes me a third.” The old man’s rosy face grew sterner as he opened the seal with one finger, unfolded the thin paper, and gave it a smart rap with the back of his hand as he turned about to catch the light from the candles. The very handwriting of this letter seemed to express revolt and disloyalty. All the Buddenbrooks wrote a fine, flowing hand; but these tall straight letters were full of heavy strokes, and many of the words were hastily underlined.
The Consul had drawn back a little to where the row of chairs stood against the wall; he did not sit down, as his father did not; but he grasped one of the high chair-backs nervously and watched the old man while he read, his lips moving rapidly, his brows drawn together, and his head on one side.
FATHER,
I am probably mistaken in entertaining any further hope of your sense of justice or any appreciation of my feelings at receiving no reply from my second pressing letter concerning the matter in question. I do not comment again on the character of the reply I received to my first one. I feel compelled to say, however, that the way in which you, by your lamentable obstinacy, are widening the rift between us, is a sin for which you will one day have to answer grievously before the judgment seat of God. It is sad enough that when I followed the dictates of my heart and married against your wishes, and further wounded your insensate pride by taking over a shop, you should have repulsed me so cruelly and remorselessly; but the way in which you now treat me cries out to Heaven, and you are utterly mistaken if you imagine that I intend to accept your silence without a struggle. The purchase price of your newly acquired house in the Mengstrasse was a hundred thousand marks; and I am aware that Johann, your business partner and your son by your second marriage, is living with you as your tenant, and after your death will become the sole proprietor of both house and business. With my step-sister in Frankfort, you have entered into agreements which are no concern of mine. But what does concern me, your eldest son, is that you carry your un-Christian spirit so far as to refuse me a penny of compensation for my share in the house. When you gave me a hundred thousand marks on my marriage and to set me up in business, and told me that a similar sum and no more should be bequeathed me by will, I said nothing, for I was not at the time sufficiently informed as to the amount of your fortune. Now I know more: and not regarding myself as disinherited in principle, I claim as my right the sum of thirty-three thousand and three hundred and thirty-three marks current, or a third of the purchase price. I make no comment on the damnable influences which are responsible for the treatment I have received. But I protest against them with my whole sense of justice as a Christian and a business man. Let me tell you for the last time that, if you cannot bring yourself to recognize the justice of my claims, I shall no longer be able to respect you as a Christian, a parent, or a man of business.
GOTTHOLD BUDDENBROOK.
“You will excuse me for saying that I don’t get much pleasure out of reading that rigmarole all over again.—Voilà!” And Johann Buddenbrook tossed the letter to his son, with a contemptuous gesture. The Consul picked it up as it fluttered to his feet, and looked at his father with troubled eyes, while the old man took the long candle-snuffers from their place by the window and with angry strides crossed the room to the candelabrum in the corner.
“Assez, I say. N’en parlons plus! To bed with you—en event! ” He quenched one flame after another under the little metal cap. There were only two candles left when the elder turned again to his son, whom he could hardlly see at the far end of the room.
“Eh bien—what are you standing there for? Why don’t you say something?”
“What shall I say, Father? I am thoroughly taken aback.”
“You are pretty easily taken aback, then,” Johann Buddenbrook rapped out irritably, though he knew that the reproach was far from being a just one. His son was in fact often his superior when it came to a quick decision upon the advantageous course.
“‘Damnable influences,’” the Consul quoted. “That is the first line I can make out. Do you know how it makes me feel, Father? And he reproaches us with ‘unchristian behaviour!’”
“You’ll let yourself be bluffed by this miserable scribble, will you?” Johann Buddenbrook strode across to his son, dragging the extinguisher on its long stick behind him. “‘Unchristian behaviour!’ Ha! He shows good taste, doesn’t he, this canting money-grabber? I don’t know what to make of you young people! Your heads are full of fantastic religious humbug—practical idealism, the July Monarchy, and what not: and we old folk are supposed to be wretched cynics. And then you abuse your poor old Father in the coarsest way rather than give up a few thousand thaler.… So he deigns to look down upon me as a business man, does he? Well, as a business man, I know what faux-frais are!—Faux-frais,” he repeated, rolling the r in his throat. “I shan’t make this high-falutin scamp of a son any fonder of me by giving him what he asks for, it seems to me.”
“What can I say, Father? I don’t care to feel that he has any justification when he talks of ‘influences.’ As an interested party I don’t like to tell you to stick out, but—It seems to me I’m as good a Christian as Gotthold … but still …”
“‘Still’—that is exactly it, Jean, you are right to say ‘still.’ What is the real state of the case? He got infatuated with his Mademoiselle Stüwing and wouldn’t listen to reason; he made scene after scene, and finally he married her, after I had absolutely refused to give my consent. Then I wrote to him: ‘Mon très cher fils: you are marrying your shop—very well, that’s an end of it. We cease to be on friendly terms from now on. I won’t cut you off, or do anything melodramatic. I am sending you a hundred thousand marks as a wedding present, and I’ll leave you another hundred thousand in my will. But that is absolutely all you’ll get, not another shilling!’ That shut his mouth.—What have our arrangements got to do with him? Suppose you and your sister do get a bit more, and the house has been bought out of your share?”
“Father, surely you can understand how painful my position is! I ought to advise you in the interest of family harmony—but …” The Consul sighed. Johann Buddenbrook peered at him, in the dim light, to see what his expression was. One of the two candles had gone out of itself; the other was flickering. Every now and then a tall, smiling white figure seemed to step momentarily out of the tapestry and then back again.
“Father,” said the Consul softly. “This affair with Gotthold depresses me.”
“What’s all this sentimentality, Jean? How does it depress you?”
“We were all so happy here to-day, Father; we had a glorious celebration, and we felt proud and glad of what we have accomplished, and of having raised the family and firm to a position of honour and respect. … But this bitter feud with my own brother, with your eldest son, is like a hidden crack in the building we have erected. A family should be united, Father. It must keep together. ‘A house divided against itself will fall.’”
“There you are with your milk-and-water stuff, Jean! All I say is, he’s an insolent young puppy.”
A pause ensued. The last candle burned lower and lower.
“What are you doing, Jean?” asked Johann Buddenbrook. “I can’t see you.”
The Consul said shortly, “I’m calculating.” He was standing erect, and the expression in his eyes had changed. They had looked dreamy all the evening; but now they stared into the candle-flame with a cold sharp gaze. “Either you give thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-five marks to Gotthold, and fifteen thousand to the family in Frankfort—that makes forty-eight thousand, three hundred and thirty-five in all—or, you give nothing to Gotthold, and twenty-five thousand to the family in Frankfort. That means a gain of twenty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-five for the firm. But there is more to it than that. If you give Gotthold a compensation for the house, you’ve started the ball rolling. He is likely to demand equal shares with my sister and me after your death, which would mean a loss of hundreds of thousands to the firm. The firm could not face it, and I, as sole head, could not face it either.” He made a vigorous gesture and drew himself more erect than before. “No, Papa,” he said, and his tone bespoke finality, “I must advise you not to give in.”
“Bravo!” cried the old man. “There’s an end of it! N’en parlons plus! En avant! Let’s get to bed.”
And he extinguished the last candle. They groped through the pitch-dark hall, and at the foot of the stairs they stopped and shook hands.
“Good night, Jean. And cheer up. These little worries aren’t anything. See you at breakfast!”
The Consul went up to his rooms, and the old man felt his way along the baluster and down to the entresol. Soon the rambling old house lay wrapped in darkness and silence. Hopes, fears, and ambitions all slumbered, while the rain fell and the autumn wind whistled around gables and street corners.