BUDDENBROOKS
to his lights. Tilda is a good girl—but we’re not so bad, either. Hey, Betsy?”
He turned to his daughter-in-law, who generally deferred to his views. Madame Antoinette, probably more from shrewdness than conviction, sided with the Consul; and thus the older and the younger generation crossed hands in the dance of life.
“You are very kind, Papa,” the Consul’s wife said. “Tony will try her best to grow up a clever and industrious woman. . . . Have the boys come home from school?” she asked Ida.
Tony, who from her perch on her grandfather’s knee was looking out the window, called out in the same breath: “Tom and Christian are coming up Johannes Street . . . and Herr Hoffstede . . . and Uncle Doctor. . . . ”
The bells of St. Mary’s began to chime, ding-dong, ding-dong—rather out of time, so that one could hardly tell what they were playing; still, it was very impressive. The big and the little bell announced, the one in lively, the other in dignified tones, that it was four o’clock; and at the same time a shrill peal from the bell over the vestibule door went ringing through the entry, and Tom and Christian entered, together with the first guests, Jean Jacques Hoffstede, the poet, and Doctor Grabow, the family physician.
9
