Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

by Thomas Mann

c’est la question, ma très chère demoiselle!”

Mais c’est une folie! You

‘N’est-ce pas, Rapp,’ he said and grabbed a handful of gold from the table, ‘les Allemands aiment beaucoup ces petits Napoléons?’—And Rapp replied, ‘Oui, Sire, plus que le Grand!’ ”

Ah, where is there such a God as Thou art, Lord of Sabaoth, Thou who helpest in all dangers and afflictions, and who teachest us to know Thy will aright, that we may fear Thee and be found faithful to Thy will and commandments! Ah Lord, direct and guide us all for as long as we live on this earth.…”—The

“L’année la plus heureuse de ma vie,” it

the thought of death had been admitted into the house and now held silent sway in its spacious rooms.

To the very end he did not mention Gotthold, and when the consul wrote to demand that he appear at the bedside of his dying father, the eldest son’s only reply was silence.

But whenever he would speak to her, she would suddenly be able to think: “I know something you don’t. The nobility, as an institution, is despicable.”

“Ah, Bethsy, she is at peace with herself, and that is the most solid kind of happiness we can ever achieve on earth.”

uomo non educato dal dolore riman sempre bambino!”

She believed, without knowing it, that absolutely every character trait was a family heirloom, a piece of tradition, and therefore something venerable and worthy of her respect, no matter what.

But what’s a man to do? I’ve had a great deal of worry. These are trials sent by God. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel some guilt about you, my child.

You had too little momentum and imagination, too little of the idealism that enables a man to cherish, to nurture, to defend something as abstract as a business with an old family name—and to bring it honor and power and glory. That requires a quiet enthusiasm that is sweeter and more pleasant, more gratifying than any secret love.

What distinguished him, even among more learned fellow citizens, was that he was a man of exceptional refinement and culture, which both disconcerted people and inspired their respect.

Even when he appeared to be relaxing—reading his newspapers after dinner, for instance—a thousand plans were simultaneously at work in his brain, while he slowly, even passionately twirled one long tip of his mustache and the veins on his pallid temples swelled and stood out. And he devoted the same deadly earnest to planning a business maneuver or outlining a speech as he did to contemplating a complete refurbishing of his supply of underwear—to do it at last in one fell swoop, so that at least in that regard everything would be in perfect order for a while.

“We’re only as young or old as we feel. And when something good we’ve longed for finally does come along, it lumbers in a little too late somehow, loaded down with petty, annoying, upsetting details, covered with all the grime of reality that we never really imagined, and that is so irritating—irritating.”

What is success? A mysterious, indescribable power—a vigilance, a readiness, the awareness that simply by my presence I can exert pressure on the movements of life around me, the belief that life can be molded to my advantage. Happiness and success are inside us. We have to reach deep and hold tight. And the moment something begins to subside, to relax, to grow weary, then everything around us is turned loose, resists us, rebels, moves beyond our influence. And then it’s just one thing after another, one setback after another, and you’re finished.

‘It’s as if a whole new era is beginning’?

I know that the external, visible, tangible tokens and symbols of happiness and success first appear only after things have in reality gone into decline already. Such external signs need time to reach us, like the light of one of those stars up there, which when it shines most brightly may well have already gone out, for all we know.”

Nothing was going right. Nothing was turning out the way he wanted. Had things gone so far now that, when it came to the most crucial matters, people simply “went right over his head,” here in the house of his forefathers? That a pastor from Riga could swindle him behind his back?

His games have a deeper meaning and fascination that adults can no longer fathom and require nothing more than three pebbles, or a piece of wood with a dandelion helmet, perhaps; but above all they require only the pure, strong, passionate, chaste, still-untroubled fantasy of those happy years when life still hesitates to touch us, when neither duty nor guilt dares lay a hand upon us, when we are allowed to see, hear, laugh, wonder, and dream without the world’s demanding anything in return, when the impatience of those whom we want so much to love has not yet begun to torment us for evidence, some early token, that we will diligently fulfill our duties.

“One only responds to an idea with anger when one is not quite sure of one’s own power to resist it.” What a damn sly person little Tony was!

Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène,

What I am saying is that, for me, familiarity with the piano—which in its ability to recapitulate the most complex and rich harmonies provides a unique means of musical reproduction—results in a clearer, more intimate and comprehensive relationship with music.

Fidelio.

“Everything I’ve ever tried to do has gone wrong and ended in misfortune. But my intentions were always good, God knows they were! My most heartfelt wish has been to accomplish something in life and to bring a little honor to the family. And now this has fallen apart, too. This is how it had to end. It’s all over.”

And, leaning against the arm he had put around her shoulder to soothe her, she wept over the failure she had made of life, its last hope extinguished now.

You know very well that I’m a woman who has been steeled by life.

L’espérance toute trompeuse que’elle est, sert au moin à nous mener à fin de la vie par un chemin agréable.

These were the innocent and refreshing tears of her childhood, which had served her faithfully in all the storms and shipwrecks of life.

play at work, to work at play, to strive, to direct one’s half-serious, half-whimsical ambition toward goals to which one ascribes only symbolic value—that requires a great deal of vigor, humor, and a breezy kind of courage for debonair, skeptical compromises and ingenious half-measures; but Thomas Buddenbrook felt indescribably weary and listless.

The whole world all around was filled with that mild and marvelous swishing sound, which spoke to little Johann in a kindly voice and persuaded him to close his eyes in contentment.

He had what he had. When it all came raining down on him, he would remember the sea and the hotel gardens, and just the brief thought of the sound that the little waves made in the still of the evening—coming from far away, from some remote distance wrapped in mysterious slumber to splash against the rampart—would comfort him, put him out of reach of all life’s hardships.

Every man had to untangle the riddle on his own, had to work diligently at it, at hot speed, all by himself; before it was too late, he must either achieve some clear readiness for death, or die in despair. And Thomas Buddenbrook turned away in hopeless disappointment from his only son, in whom he had hoped to live on, strong and rejuvenated, and began in haste and fear to seek for truth—which had to exist somewhere for him.

“Concerning Death and Its Relation to the Indestructibility of Our Essential Nature.”

Death was a blessing, so great, so deep that we can fathom it only at those moments, like this one now, when we are reprieved from it. It was the return home from long, unspeakably painful wanderings, the correction of a great error, the loosening of tormenting chains, the removal of barriers—it set a horrible accident to rights again.

An intoxicating joy ran through him, lifted him up, and it was incomparably sweeter than the world’s sweetest pain. This was it, this was the drunken darkness that had filled him since the afternoon, this was what had stirred in his heart in the middle of the night, awakening him, quickening like first love within him. And in being granted this understanding and realization—not in words and sequential thoughts, but in the sudden bliss of internal illumination—he was already free, was truly liberated from all natural and artificial bonds and barriers.

There was only the endless present, and the energy within him, which loved life with such a painfully sweet, urgent, yearning love, and of which his own person was no more than an abortive expression—that energy would now know how to find access to the endless present.

And, sensing around him the irresistible shadows of sleep and numbness, he swore an oath never to let go of that immense joy, to gather all his energies, and to learn, to read, and to study, until he had made that view of the world—the source of all that he had felt—firmly and inalienably his own.

But a man chooses to rest beside the wide simplicity of external things, because he is weary from the chaos within.”

When she stood up again, her face was wet with tears, but she was fortified, relieved, and at perfect peace with herself—and she immediately realized that death announcements would have to be prepared in great haste.

had gone to her rest as well. Having spent her last years tormented by gout, she had passed on gently, simply, firm in her childish faith and envied by her educated sister, who still had to do battle with rationalist doubts now and then, and who, although she had grown ever more hunchbacked and tiny, was bound to this sinful earth by a rugged constitution.

And he had been overwhelmed by one of those fits of total despondency that he knew so well. He had once again felt how painful beauty truly is, how it plunged you into shame and yearning despair and at the same time gnawed away at your courage and fitness for daily life.

“Du, du liegst mir am Herzen,”

Pastor Pringsheim said that they might as well give up on me, that I came from a degenerate family.”

What was happening? What was he feeling? Was this his way of overcoming dreadful obstacles?

Yes, that’s how it goes. One struggles and takes another running start and goes into battle again—and all the while you’ve just sat there and waited patiently.

“We shall see them again,” Friederike Buddenbrook said, folding her hands firmly in her lap; she lowered her eyes and thrust her nose in the air. “Yes, that’s what they say. Oh, there are times, Friederike, when that is no comfort. God strike me, but sometimes I doubt there is any justice, any goodness, I doubt it all. Life, you see, crushes things deep inside us, it shatters our faith. See them again—if only it were so.”

“It is so!” she said with all her strength and dared them with her eyes. There she stood, victorious in the good fight that she had waged all her life against the onslaughts of reason. There she stood, hunchbacked and tiny, trembling with certainty—an inspired, scolding little prophet.

Woods is also the translator of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus and The Magic Mountain.