And so Thomas Buddenbrook, who had stretched his hands out imploringly for high and final truths, sank back now into the ideas, images, and customary beliefs in which he had been drilled as a child. He went about his day trying to remember the personal God, the Father of humankind, who had sent a part of Himself to earth so that He could suffer and bleed for us, who on the Last Day would call men to judgment and at whose feet the just would enter into eternity in recompense for their trials in this vale of woe—the whole rather vague and rather absurd story, which did not require that you
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