This silence lay like a heavy secret over the events of Hanno’s last illness. It must have been a frightful onslaught. They did not look in each other’s eyes as they talked; their voices were hushed, and their words were broken. But they spoke of one last episode--the visit of the little ragged count who had almost forced his way to Hanno’s bedside. Hanno had smiled when he heard his voice, though he hardly knew any one; and Kai had kissed his hands again and again. “He kissed his hands?” asked the Buddenbrook ladies. “Yes, over and over.” They all thought for a while of this strange thing, and then suddenly Frau Permaneder burst into tears. “I loved him so much,” she sobbed. “You don’t any of you know how much--more than any of you--yes, forgive me, Gerda--you are his mother.--Oh, he was an angel.” “He is an angel, now,” corrected Sesemi. “Hanno, little Hanno,” went on Frau Permaneder, the tears flowing down over her soft faded cheeks. “Tom, Father, Grandfather, and all the rest! Where are they? We shall see them no more. Oh, it is so sad, so hard!” “There will be a reunion,” said Friederike Buddenbrook. She folded her hands in her lap, cast down her eyes, and put her nose in the air. “Yes--they say so.--Oh, there are times, Friederike, when that is no consolation, God forgive me! When one begins to doubt--doubt justice and goodness--and everything. Life crushes so much in us, it destroys so many of our beliefs--! A reunion--if that were so--” But now Sesemi Weichbrodt stood up, as tall as ever she could. She stood on tip-toe, rapped on the table; the cap shook on her old head. “It _is so_!” she said, with her whole strength; and looked at them all with a challenge in her eyes. She stood there, a victor in the good fight which all her life she had waged against the assaults of Reason: hump-backed, tiny, quivering with the strength of her convictions, a little prophetess, admonishing and inspired. THE END A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET _This book is composed on the Linotype in Bodoni, so-called after its designer, Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) a celebrated Italian scholar and printer. Bodoni planned his type especially for use on the more smoothly finished papers that came into vogue late in the eighteenth century and drew his letters with a mechanical regularity that is readily apparent on comparison with the less formal old style. Other characteristics that will be noted are the square serifs without fillet and the marked contrast between the light and heavy strokes._ [Illustration] SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · PAPER MANUFACTURED BY W. C. HAMILTON & SONS, MIQUON, PA., AND FURNISHED BY W. F. ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK · BOUND BY H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.