The tapestries in this room had a sky-blue background, against which, between slender columns, white figures of gods and goddesses stood out with plastic effect. The heavy red damask window-curtains were drawn; stiff, massive sofas in red damask stood ranged against the walls; and in each corner stood a tall gilt candelabrum with eight flaming candles, besides those in silver sconces on the table. Above the heavy sideboard, on the wall opposite the landscape-room, hung a large painting of an Italian bay, the misty blue atmosphere of which was most effective in the candle-light. Every trace of care or disquiet had vanished from Madame Buddenbrook’s face. She sat down between Pastor Wunderlich and the elder Kröger, who presided on the window side. “Bon appétit!” she said, with her short, quick, hearty nod, flashing a glance down the whole length of the table till it reached the children at the bottom. CHAPTER IV “Our best respects to you, Buddenbrook--I repeat, our best respects!” Herr Köppen’s powerful voice drowned the general conversation as the maid-servant, in her heavy striped petticoat, her fat arms bare and a little white cap on the back of her head, passed the cabbage soup and toast, assisted by Mamsell Jungmann and the Frau Consul’s maid from upstairs. The guests began to use their soup-spoons. “Such plenty, such elegance! I must say, you know how to do things!--I must say--” Herr Köppen had never visited the house in its former owner’s time. He did not come of a patrician family, and had only lately become a man of means. He could never quite get rid of certain vulgar tricks of speech--like the repetition of “I must say”; and he said “respecks” for “respects.” “It didn’t cost anything, either,” remarked Herr Gratjens drily--he certainly ought to have known--and studied the wall-painting through the hollow of his hand. As far as possible, ladies and gentlemen had been paired off, and members of the family placed between friends of the house. But the arrangement could not be carried out in every case; the two Överdiecks were sitting, as usual, nearly on each other’s laps, nodding affectionately at one another. The elder Kröger was bolt upright, enthroned between Madame Antoinette and Frau Senator Langhals, dividing his pet jokes and his flourishes between the two ladies. “When was the house built?” asked Herr Hoffstede diagonally across the table of old Buddenbrook, who was talking in a gay chaffing tone with Madame Köppen. “Anno ... let me see ... about 1680, if I am not mistaken. My son is better at dates than I am.” “Eighty-two,” said the Consul, leaning forward. He was sitting at the foot of the table, without a partner, next to Senator Langhals. “It was finished in the winter of 1682. Ratenkamp and Company were just getting to the top of their form.... Sad, how the firm broke down in the last twenty years!”