BUDDENBROOKS
the chocolate, his teeth hurting horribly all the while. Then he sipped his sweet wine gingerly and listened to Uncle Christian, who had begun to talk.
He told about the Christmas celebration at the club, which had been very jolly, it seemed. “Good God!” he said, just as if he were about to relate the story of Johnny Thunderstorm, “those fellows drank Swedish punch just like water.”
“Ugh!” said the Frau Consul shortly, and cast down her eyes.
But he paid no heed. His eyes began to wander—and thought and memory became so vivid that they flickered like shadows across his haggard face.
“Do any of you know,” he asked, “how it feels to drink too much Swedish punch? I don’t mean getting drunk: I mean the feeling you have the next day—the after-effects. They are very queer and unpleasant; yes, queer and unpleasant at the same time.”
“Reason enough for describing them,” said the Senator.
“Assez, Christian. That does not interest us in the least,” said the Frau Consul. But he paid no attention. It was his peculiarity that at such times nothing made any impression on him. He was silent awhile, and then it seemed that the thing which moved him was ripe for speech.
“You go about feeling ghastly,” he said, turning to his brother and wrinkling up his nose. “Headache, and upset stomach—oh, well, you have that with other things, too. But you feel filthy”—here he rubbed his hands together, his face entirely distorted. “You wash your hands, but it does no good; they feel dirty and clammy, and there is grease under the nails. You take a bath: no good, your whole body is sticky and unclean. You itch all over, and you feel disgusted with yourself. Do you know the feeling, Thomas? you do know it, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes,” said the Senator, making a gesture of repulsion with his hand. But Christian’s extraordinary tactlessness had so increased with the years that he never perceived how
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