She hated these black gentlemen bitterly. As a mature woman who knew life and was no longer a silly innocent, she found herself unable to believe in their irreproachable sanctity. “Mother,” she said, “oh dear, I know I must not speak evil of my neighbours. But one thing I must say, and I should be surprised if life had not taught you that too, and that is that not all those who wear a long coat and say ‘Lord, Lord’ are always entirely without blemish.” History does not say what Tom thought of his sister’s opinion on this point. Christian had no opinion at all. He confined himself to watching the gentlemen with his nose wrinkled up, in order to imitate them afterward at the club or in the family circle. But it is true that Tony was the chief sufferer from the pious visitants. One day it actually happened that a missionary named Jonathan, who had been in Arabia and Syria--a man with great, reproachful eyes and baggy cheeks was stopping in the house, and challenged her to assert that the curls she wore on her forehead were consistent with true Christian humility. He had not reckoned with Tony Grünlich’s skill at repartee. She was silent a moment, while her mind worked rapidly; and then out it came. “May I ask you, Herr Pastor, to concern yourself with your own curls?” With that she rustled out, shoulders up, head back, and chin well tucked in. Pastor Jonathan had very few curls on his head--it would be nearer truth to say that he was quite bald. And once she had an even greater triumph. There was a certain Pastor Trieschke from Berlin. His nickname was Teary Trieschke, because every Sunday he began to weep at an appropriate place in his sermon. Teary Trieschke had a pale face, red eyes, and cheek-bones like a horse’s. He had been stopping for eight or ten days with the Buddenbrooks, conducting devotions and holding eating contests with poor Clothilde, turn about. He happened to fall in love with Tony--not with her immortal soul, oh no, but with her upper lip, her thick hair, her pretty eyes and charming figure. And the man of God, who had a wife and numerous children in Berlin, was not ashamed to have Anton leave a letter in Madame Grünlich’s bedroom in the upper storey, wherein Bible texts and a kind of fawning sentimentality were surpassingly mingled. She found it when she went to bed, read it, and went with a firm step downstairs into the Frau Consul’s bedroom, where by the candle-light she read aloud the words of the soul-saver to her Mother, quite unembarrassed and in a loud voice; so that Teary Trieschke became impossible in Meng Street. “They are all alike,” said Madame Grünlich; “ah, they are all alike. Oh, heavens, what a goose I was once! But life has destroyed my faith in men. Most of them are scoundrels--alas, it is the truth. Grünlich--” The name was, as always, like a summons to battle. She uttered it with her shoulders lifted and her eyes rolled up. CHAPTER VI