Thomas seemed almost disturbed when Tony, in a moving voice, called his attention to the fact. His good mood had not lasted. All too soon he had fallen silent again, more silent than before. He would leave the office in the midst of work, seized with unrest, and roam about the garden, sometimes pausing as if he felt confined in his movements, sighing, and covering his eyes with his hand. He said nothing, gave his feelings no vent--to whom should he speak, then? When he told his partner of the Pöppenrade matter, Herr Marcus had for the first time in his life been angry with him, and had washed his hands of the whole affair. But Thomas betrayed himself to his sister Tony, when they said good-bye on the street one Thursday evening, and she alluded to the Pöppenrade harvest. He gave her hand a single quick squeeze, and added passionately “Oh, Tony, if I had only sold it already!” He broke off abruptly, and they parted, leaving Frau Permaneder dismayed and anxious. The sudden hand-pressure had something despairing, the low words betrayed pent-up feeling. But when Tony, as chance offered, tried to come back to the subject, he wrapped himself in silence, the more forbidding because of his inward mortification over having given way--his inward bitterness at being, as he felt, feeble and inadequate to the situation in hand. He said now, slowly and fretfully: “Oh, my dear child, I wish we might ignore the whole affair!” “Ignore it, Tom? Impossible! Unthinkable! Do you think you could suppress the fact? Do you imagine the whole town would forget the meaning of the day?” “I don’t say it is possible--I only say I wish it were. It is pleasant to celebrate the past, when one is gratified with the present and the future. It is agreeable to think of one’s forefathers when one feels at one with them and conscious of having acted as they would have done. If the jubilee came at a better time--but just now, I feel small inclination to celebrate it.” “You must not talk like that, Tom. You don’t mean it; you know perfectly that it would be a shame to let the hundredth anniversary of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook go by without a sign or a sound of rejoicing. You are a little nervous now, and I know why, though there is really no reason for it. But when the day comes, you will be as moved as all the rest of us.”