To which the Senator impatiently replied, “I don’t feel much like making jokes; but am I to judge from your words that you would like to put a soup-tureen on your chest of drawers and keep it there in memory of Mother? Please don’t get the idea that we want to cheat you out of your share. If you get less of the effects, you will get more elsewhere. The same is true of the linen.” “I don’t want the money. I want the linen and dishes.” “Whatever for?” Christian’s reply to this was one that made Gerda Buddenbrook turn and gaze at him with an enigmatic expression in her eyes. The Senator hastily donned his pince-nez to look the better, and Frau Permaneder simply folded her hands. He said: “Well, I am thinking of getting married, sooner or later.” He said this rather low and quickly, with a short gesture, as though he were tossing something to his brother across the table. Then he leaned back, avoiding their eyes, looking surly, defiant, and yet extremely embarrassed. There was a long pause. At last the Senator broke it by saying: “I must say, Christian, your ideas come rather late. That is, of course, if this really is anything serious, and not the same kind of thing you proposed to Mother a while ago.” “My intentions have remained what they were,” Christian said. He did not look at anybody or change his expression. “That is impossible, I should think. Were you waiting for Mother’s death--?” “I had that amount of consideration, yes. You seem to think, Thomas, that you have a monopoly of all the tact and feeling in the world--” “I don’t know what justifies you in making remarks like that. And, moreover, I must admire the extent of your consideration. On the day after Mother’s death, you propose to display your lack of filial feeling by--” “Only because the subject came up. But the point is that now Mother cannot be affected by any step I may take--no more to-day than she would be a year from now. Good Lord, Thomas, Mother couldn’t have any actual _right_--but I saw it from her point of view, and had consideration for that, as long as she lived. She was an old woman, a woman of a past generation, with different views about life--” “I can only say that I concur with her absolutely in this particular view.” “I cannot be bothered about that.” “But you will be bothered about it, my dear sir.” Christian looked at him. “No,” he shouted. “I won’t! I can’t do it. Suppose I tell you I can’t? I must know what I have to do, mustn’t I? I am a grown man--” “You don’t in the least know what you have to do. Your being what you call a grown man is only very external.” “I know very well what I have to do. In the first place, I have to act like a man of honour! You don’t know how the thing stands. With Tony and Gerda here we can’t really talk--but I have already told you I have responsibilities-- The last child, little Gisela--”