BUDDENBROOKS
really—” Christian hesitated, wrinkling his nose and stooping a little. In this position he took a few steps.
“A joke!” shouted the Consul. “I think I can understand a joke, but you see how your joke was understood. ‘For my part, I have the greatest respect for my calling.’ That was what Hermann Hagenström answered you. And there you sat, a good-for-nothing, with no respect for yours—”
“Tom, you don’t know what you are talking about. I assure you he spoiled the whole joke. After everybody laughed, as if they agreed with me, there sat this Hagenström and brought out with ridiculous solemnity, ‘For my part—’ Stupid fool! I was really ashamed for him. I thought about it a long time in bed last night, and I had a quite remarkable feeling—you know how it feels—”
“Stop chattering, stop chattering, I beg you,” interrupted the Consul. He trembled with disgust in his whole body. “I agree—I agree with you that his answer was not in the right key, and that it was tasteless. But that is just the kind of people you pick out to say such things to!—if it is necessary to say them at all—and so you lay yourself open to an insolent snub like that. Hagenström took the opening to—give not only you but us a slap. Do you understand what ‘for my part’ meant? It meant: ‘You may have such ideas going about in your brother’s office, Herr Buddenbrook.’ That’s what it meant, you idiot.”
“Idiot—?” said Christian. He looked disturbed and embarrassed.
“And finally, you belong not to yourself alone; I’m supposed to be indifferent when you make yourself personally ridiculous—and when don’t you make yourself personally ridiculous?” Thomas cried. He was pale, and the blue veins stood out on his narrow temples, from which the hair went back in two bays. One of his light eyebrows was raised; even the long, stiff pointed ends of his moustache looked angry as he threw his words down at Christian’s feet on the gravel with quick sidewise gestures. “You make yourself
317
