BUDDENBROOKS
Frau Consul was convinced that her husband had acted correctly and out of a sense of duty; but when Tony began to talk, she would put up her lovely white hand and say: “Assez, my child; I do not like to hear about it.”
Clara, now twelve years old, understood nothing, and Cousin Clothilde was just as stupid. “Oh, Tony!”—that was all she could say, with drawling astonishment. But the young wife found an attentive listener in Mamsell Jungmann, who was now thirty-five years old and could boast of having grown grey in the service of the best society. “You don’t need to worry, Tony, my child,” she would say. “You are young; you will marry again.” And she devoted herself to the upbringing of little Erica, telling her the same stories, the same memories of her youth, to which the Consul’s children had listened fifteen years before; and, in particular, of that uncle who died of hiccoughs at Marienwerder “because his heart was broken.”
But it was with her father that Tony talked most and longest. She liked to catch him after the noonday meal or in the morning at early breakfast. Their relations had grown closer and warmer; for her feeling had been heretofore one of awe and respect rather than affection, on account of his high position in the town, his piety, his solid, stern ability and industry. During that talk in her own salon he had come humanly near to her, and it had filled her with pride and emotion to be found worthy of that serious and confidential consultation. He, the infallible parent, had put the decision into her hands: he had confessed, almost humbly, to a sense of guilt. Such an idea would never have entered Tony’s head of itself; but since he said it, she believed it, and her feeling for him had thereby grown warmer and tenderer. As for the Consul, he believed himself bound to make up to his daughter for her misfortune by redoubled love and care.
Johann Buddenbrook had himself taken no steps against his untrustworthy son-in-law. Tony and her Mother did hear
234
