“Why do you keep saying ‘good God’?” asked Thomas irritably. But his irritation was at bottom because he felt that Christian told this story with particular relish just because it gave him a chance to sneer at honest work. The Mother would discreetly change the subject. There were many hateful things in the world, thought the Frau Consul, born Kröger. Brothers could despise and dislike each other, dreadful as it sounded; but one didn’t mention such things. They had to be covered up and ignored. CHAPTER IV In May it happened that Uncle Gotthold--Consul Gotthold Buddenbrook, now sixty years old--was seized with a heart attack one night and died in the arms of his wife, born Stüwing. The son of poor Madame Josephine had had the worst of it in life, compared with the younger and stronger brother and sister born of Madame Antoinette. But he had long since resigned himself to his fortunes; and in his later years, especially after his nephew turned over to him the Consulate of the Netherlands, he ate his lozenges out of his tin box and harboured the friendliest feelings. It was his ladies who kept up the feud now: not so much his good-natured wife as the three elderly damsels, who could not look at Frau Consul, or Antonie, or Thomas, without a spark in their eyes. On the traditional “children’s day,” at four o’clock, they all gathered in the big house in Meng Street, to eat dinner and spend the evening. Sometimes Consul Kröger or Sesemi Weichbrodt came too, with her simple sister. On these occasions the three Miss Buddenbrooks from Broad Street loved to turn the conversation to Tony’s former marriage and to dart sharp glances at each other while they egged Madame Grünlich on to use strong language. Or they would make general remarks on the subject of the undignified vanity of dyeing one’s hair. Or they would enquire particularly after Jacob Kröger, the Frau Consul’s nephew. They made jokes at the expense of poor, innocent, Clothilde--jokes not so harmless as those which the charity girl received in good part every day from Tom and Tony. They made fun of Clara’s austerity and bigotry. They were quick to find out that Tom and Christian were not on the best of terms; also, that they did not need to pay much attention to Christian anyhow, for he was a sort of Tom-fool. As for Thomas himself, who had no weak point for them to ferret out, and who always met them with a good-humoured indulgence, that signified “I understand what you mean, and I am very sorry”--him they treated with respect tinctured with bitterness. Next came the turn of little Erica. Rosy and plump as she was, they found her alarmingly backward in her growth. And Pfiffi in a series of little shakes drew attention several times to the child’s shocking resemblance to the deceiver Grünlich.