BUDDENBROOKS
“Well, let’s be quick, then, Wenzel; there’s no time to lose, evidently.”
The Senator did not don his office jacket, as he usually did of a morning, but put on at once a black cutaway coat with a white waistcoat and light-coloured trousers. There would certainly be visits. He gave a last glance in the mirror, a last pressure of the tongs to his moustache, and turned with a little sigh to go. The dance was beginning. If only the day were well over! Would he have a single minute to himself, a single minute to relax the muscles of his face? All day long he should certainly have to receive, with tact and dignity, the congratulations of a host of people, find just the right word and just the right tone for everybody, be serious, hearty, ironic, jocose, and respectful by turns; and from afternoon late into the night there would be the dinner at the Ratskeller.
It was not true that his head ached. He was only tired. Already, though he had just risen, with his nerves refreshed by sleep, he felt his old, indefinable burden upon him. Why had he said his head ached—as though he always had a bad conscience where his own health was concerned? Why? Why? However, there was no time now to brood over the question.
He went into the dining-room, where Gerda met him gaily. She too was already arrayed to meet their guests, in a plaid skirt, a white blouse, and a thin silk zouave jacket over it, the colour of her heavy hair. She smiled and showed her white teeth, so large and regular, whiter than her white face; her eyes, those close-set, enigmatic brown eyes, were smiling too, to-day.
“I’ve been up for hours—you can tell from that how excited I am,” she said, “and how hearty my congratulations are.”
“Well, well! So the hundred years make an impression on you too?”
“Tremendous, But perhaps it is only the excitement of the celebration. What a day! Look at that, for instance.”
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