BUDDENBROOKS
house, a very pretty girl. Well, suddenly there was the whole audience! Good Lord, I don’t know how I got off the stage.”
Madame Grünlich was the only one who laughed, to speak of, in the circle round the table. But Christian went on, his eyes wandering back and forth. He talked about English café-chantant singers; about an actress who came on in powdered wig, and knocked with a long cane on the ground and sang a song called: “That’s Maria.” “Maria, you know—Maria is the most scandalous of the lot. When somebody does something perfectly shocking, why—‘that’s Maria’—the bad lot, you know—utterly depraved!” He said this last with a frightful expression and raised his right hand with the fingers formed into a ring.
“Assez, Christian,” said the Frau Consul. “That does not interest us in the least.”
But Christian’s gaze flickered absently over her head; he would probably have stopped without her suggestion, for he seemed to be sunk in a profound, disquieting dream of Maria and her depravity, while his little round deep eyes wandered back and forth.
Suddenly he said: “Strange—sometimes I can’t swallow. Oh, it’s no joke. I find it very serious. It enters my head that perhaps I can’t swallow, and then all of a sudden I can’t. The food is already swallowed, but the muscles—right here—they simply refuse. It isn’t a question of will-power. Or rather, the thing is, I don’t dare really will it.”
Tony cried out, quite beside herself: “Christian! Good Lord, what nonsense! You don’t dare to make up your mind to swallow! What are you talking about? You are absurd!”
Thomas was silent. But the Frau Consul said: “That is nerves, Christian. Yes, it was high time you came home; the climate over there would have killed you in the end.”
After the meal Christian sat down at the little harmonium that stood in the dining-room and imitated a piano virtuoso. He pretended to toss back his hair, rubbed his hands, and looked around the room; then, without a sound, without
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