“Oh, you and your shaking, Gosch!” Peter Döhlmann exclaimed. “Why don’t you just let yourself go, like me? I’ll croak if I don’t drink my bottle every day--I’ve got as far as that; and I’ll croak if I do. How would you feel if you couldn’t get rid of your dinner, not a single day--I mean, after you’ve got it in your stomach?” And he favoured them with some repulsive details of his condition, to which Christian listened with dreadful interest, wrinkling his nose as far as it could go and countering with a brief and forcible account of his “misery.” It rained harder than ever. It came straight down in sheets and filled the silence of the Kurgarden with its ceaseless, forlorn, and desolate murmur. “Yes, life’s pretty rotten,” said Senator Gieseke. He had been drinking heavily. “I’d just as lief quit,” said Christian. “Let it go hang,” said Herr Gosch. “There comes Fike Dahlbeck,” said Senator Gieseke. The proprietress of the cow-stalls, a heavy, bold-faced woman in the forties, came by with a pail of milk and smiled at the gentlemen. Senator Gieseke let his eyes rove after her. “What a bosom,” he said. Consul Döhlmann added a lewd witticism, with the result that all the gentlemen laughed once more, through their noses. The waiter was summoned. “I’ve finished the bottle, Schröder,” said Consul Döhlmann. “May as well pay--we have to some time or other. You, Christian? Gieseke pays for you, eh?” Senator Buddenbrook roused himself at this. He had been sitting there, hardly speaking, wrapped in his cloak, his hands in his lap and his cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Now he suddenly started up and said sharply, “Have you no money with you, Christian? Then I’ll lend it to you.” They put up their umbrellas and emerged from their shelter to take a little stroll.