BUDDENBROOKS
something if he could only think of it. Three steps from the door he trod on a cracker of such exceptional quality that it made a noise like dynamite. He jumped violently; then, in these straits, he smiled exactly as though nothing had happened and took his place before the middle row of benches, stooping sideways, in his customary attitude, and resting one palm on the desk in front of him. But this posture of his was familiar to everybody; somebody had put some ink on the right spot, and Herr Modersohn’s small clumsy hand got all inky. He acted as though he had not noticed, laid his wet black hand on his back, blinked, and said in a soft, weak voice: “The order in the classroom leaves something to be desired.”
Hanno Buddenbrook loved him in that moment, sat quite still, and looked up into his worried, helpless face. But Wasservogel grunted louder than ever, and a handful of peas went rattling against the window and bounced back into the room.
“It’s hailing,” somebody said, quite loudly. Herr Modersohn appeared to believe this, for he went without more ado to the platform and asked for the register. He needed it to call the names from, for, though he had been teaching the class for five or six weeks, he hardly knew any of them by name.
“Feddermann,” he said, “will you please recite the poem?”
“Absent,” shouted a chorus of voices. And there sat Feddermann, large as life, in his place, shooting peas with great skill and accuracy.
Herr Modersohn blinked again and selected a new name. “Wasservogel,” he said.
“Dead,” shouted Petersen, attacked by a grim humour. And the chorus, grunting, crowing, and with shouts of derision, asseverated that Wasservogel was dead.
Herr Modersohn blinked afresh. He looked about him, drew down his mouth, and put his finger on another name in the register. “Perlemann,” he said, without much confidence.
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