BUDDENBROOKS ·II· Other Books by THOMAS MANN DEATH IN VENICE ROYAL HIGHNESS MAGIC MOUNTAIN THOMAS MANN BUDDENBROOKS VOLUME TWO [Illustration] Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter ALFRED·A·KNOPF·NEW YORK 1927 COPYRIGHT 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. _Published, February, 1924_ _Second Printing, July, 1924_ _Third Printing, March, 1927_ MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PART SEVEN CHAPTER I A christening--a christening in Broad Street! All, everything is there that was dreamed of by Madame Permaneder in the days of her expectancy. In the dining-room, the maid-servant, moving noiselessly so as not to disturb the services in the next room, is filling the cups with steaming hot chocolate and whipped cream. There are quantities of cups, crowded together on the great round tray with the gilded shell-shaped handles. And Anton the butler is cutting a towering layer-cake into slices, and Mamsell Jungmann is arranging flowers and sweets in silver dessert-dishes, with her head on one side, and both little fingers stuck out. Soon the company will have seated themselves in the salon and sitting-room, and all these delicacies will be handed round. It is to be hoped they will hold out, since it is the whole family which has gathered here, in the broader, if not quite in the broadest sense of the word. For it is, through the Överdiecks, connected distantly with the Kistenmakers, and through them with the Möllendorpfs--and so on. One simply must draw the line somewhere! But the Överdiecks are represented, and, indeed, by no less a personage than the head of the family, the venerable Doctor Kaspar Överdieck, reigning Burgomaster, more than eighty years old. He came in a carriage, and mounted the steps leaning on his staff and Thomas Buddenbrook’s arm. His presence enhances the dignity of the occasion--and, beyond a question, this occasion is worthy of every dignity! For within, in the salon, there is a flower-decked small table, serving as an altar, with a young priest in black vestments and a stiff snowy ruff like a millstone round his neck, reciting the service; and there is a great, strapping, particularly well-nourished person, richly arrayed in red and gold, bearing upon her billowing arms a small something, half smothered in laces and satin bows: an heir--a first-born son! A Buddenbrook! Do we really grasp the meaning of the fact? Can we realize the thrill of that first whisper, that first little hint that travelled from Broad Street to Mengstrasse? Or Frau Permaneder’s speechless ecstasy, as she embraced her mother, her brother, and--very gently--her sister-in-law? And now, with the spring--the spring of the year 1861--he has come: he, the heir of so many hopes, whom they have expected for so many years, talked of him, longed for him, prayed to God and tormented Dr. Grabow for him; at length he has come--and looks most unimposing.