BUDDENBROOKS
prestige of the old firm made him love to be present in the daily struggle for success. He well knew that his assured and elegant bearing, his tact and winning manners were responsible for a great deal of good trade.
“A business man cannot be a bureaucrat,” he said to Stephan Kistenmaker, of Kistenmaker and Sons, his former school-fellow. He had remained the oracle of this old playmate, who listened to his every word in order to give it out later as his own. “It takes personality—that is my view. I don’t think any great success is to be had from the office alone—at least, I shouldn’t care for it. I always want to direct the course of things on the spot, with a look, a word, a gesture—to govern it with the immediate influence of my will and my talent—my luck, as you call it. But, unfortunately, personal contact is going out of fashion. The times move on, but it seems to me they leave the best behind. Relations are easier and easier; the connections better and better; the risk gets smaller—but the profits do too. Yes, the old people were better off. My grandfather, for example—he drove in a four-horse coach to Southern Germany, as commissary to the Prussian army—an old man in pumps, with his head powdered. And there he played his charms and his talents and made an astonishing amount of money, Kistenmaker. Oh, I’m afraid the merchant’s life will get duller and duller as time goes on.”
It was feelings like these that made him relish most the trade he came by through his own personal efforts. Sometimes, entirely by accident, perhaps on a walk with the family, he would go into a mill for a chat with the miller, who would feel himself much honoured by the visit; and quite en passant, in the best of moods, he would conclude a good bargain. His partner was incapable of that sort of thing.
As for Christian, he seemed at first to devote himself to his task with real zest and enjoyment, and to feel exceptionally well and contented. For several days he ate with
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