He sank upon a bench; he struck an attitude which looked as though he had lost the Battle of Waterloo; he struck his clenched fist against his forehead and repeated several times, with a blasphemous roll of the eyes: “Ha, accursed, accursed!” He must have been, at bottom, cruelly bored by the small, safe business he did and the petty transfer of this or that bit of property; for this loss, this tragic blow with which Heaven had stricken him down--him, the schemer Gosch--delighted his inmost soul. He fed on it for weeks. Some one would say, “So you’ve had a loss, Herr Gosch, I’m sorry to hear.” To which he would answer: “Oh, my good friend, ‘_uomo non educato dal dolore riman sempre bambino_’!” Probably nobody understood that. Was it, possibly, Lope da Vega? Anyhow, there was no doubt that this Siegismund Gosch was a remarkable and learned man. “What times we live in,” he said, limping up the street with the Consul, supported by his stick. “Times of storm and unrest.” “You are right,” replied the Consul. “The times are unquiet. This morning’s sitting will be exciting. The principle of the estates--” “Well, now,” Herr Gosch went on, “I have been about all day in the streets, and I have been looking at the mob. There are some fine fellows in it, their eyes flaming with excitement and hatred--” Johann Buddenbrook began to laugh. “You like that, don’t you? But you have the right end of it after all, let me tell you. It is all childishness! What do these men want? A lot of uneducated rowdies who see a chance for a bit of a scrimmage.” “Of course. Though I can’t deny--I was in the crowd when Berkemeyer, the journeyman butcher, smashed Herr Benthien’s window. He was like a panther.” Herr Gosch spoke the last word with his teeth particularly close together, and went on: “Oh, the thing has its fine side, that’s certain. It is a change, at least, you know; something that doesn’t happen every day. Storm, stress, violence--the tempest! Oh, the people are ignorant, I know--still, my heart, this heart of mine--it beats with theirs!” They were already before the simple yellow-painted house on the ground floor of which the sittings of the Assembly took place.