CHAPTER VI
In the autumn Dr. Langhals said, making play like a woman with his beautiful eyes: “It is the nerves, Senator; the nerves are to blame for everything. And once in a while the circulation is not what it should be. May I venture to make a suggestion? You need another little rest. These few Sundays by the sea, during the summer, haven’t amounted to much, of course. It’s the end of September, Travemünde is still open, there are still a few people there. Drive over, Senator, and sit on the beach a little. Two or three weeks will do you a great deal of good.”
And Thomas Buddenbrook said “yes” and “amen.” But when he told his family of the arrangement, Christian suggested going with him.
“I’ll go with you, Thomas,” he said, quite simply. “You don’t mind, I suppose.” And the Senator, though he did mind very much, said “yes” and “amen” to this arrangement as well.
Christian was now more than ever master of his own time. His fluctuating health had constrained him to give up his last undertaking, the champagne and spirit agency. The man who used to come and sit on his sofa and nod at him in the twilight had happily not recurred of late. But the misery in the side had, if anything, grown worse, and added to this was a whole list of other infirmities of which Christian kept the closest watch, and which he described in all companies, with his nose wrinkled up. He often suffered from that long-standing dread of paralysis of the tongue, throat, and oesophagus, even of the extremities and of the brain—of which there were no actual symptoms, but the fear in
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