BUDDENBROOKS
resignation. Submission was her strongest characteristic: one read it in her weary light-blue eyes—the eyes of Bendix Grünlich—and heard it in the tones of her patient, sometimes plaintive voice.
The three Misses Buddenbrook, Uncle Gotthold’s daughters, wore their old affronted and critical air; Friederike and Henriette, the eldest, had grown leaner and more angular with the years; while Pfiffi, the youngest, now fifty-three years old, was much too little and fat.
Old Frau Consul Kröger, Uncle Justus’ widow, had been asked too, but she was rather ailing—or perhaps she had no suitable gown to put on: one couldn’t tell which.
They talked about Gerda’s journey and the train she was to take; about the sale of the villa and its furnishings, which Herr Gosch had undertaken. For Gerda was taking nothing with her—she was going away as she had come.
Then Frau Permaneder began to talk about life. She was very serious and made observations upon the past and the future—though of the future there was in truth almost nothing to be said.
“When I am dead,” she declared, “Erica may move away if she likes. But as for me, I cannot live anywhere else; and so long as I am on earth, we will come together here, we who are left. Once a week you will come to dinner with me—and we will read the family papers.” She put her hand on the portfolio that lay before her on the table. “Yes, Gerda, I will take them over, and he glad to have them. Well, that is settled. Do you hear, Tilda? Though it might exactly as well be you who should invite us, for you are just as well off as we are now. Yes—so it goes. I’ve struggled against fate, and done my best, and you have just sat there and waited for everything to come round. But you are a goose, you know, all the same—please don’t mind if I say so—”
“Oh, Tony,” Clothilde said, smiling.
“I am sorry I cannot say good-bye to Christian,” said Gerda, and the talk turned aside to that subject. There was
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