Buddenbrooks was written before the turn of the century; it was first published in 1902, and became a German classic. It is one of those novels⁠—we possess many of them in English⁠—which are at once a...

“And⁠—and⁠—what comes next?” “Oh, yes, yes, what the dickens does come next? C’est la question, ma très chère demoiselle!” Frau Consul Buddenbrook shot a glance at her husband and came to the rescue o...

“And⁠—and⁠—what comes next?” “Oh, yes, yes, what the dickens does come next? C’est la question, ma très chère demoiselle!” Frau Consul Buddenbrook shot a glance at her husband and came to the rescue o...

Herr Jean Jacques Hoffstede was the town poet. He undoubtedly had a few verses in his pocket for the present occasion. He was nearly as old as Johann Buddenbrook, and dressed in much the same style ex...

As the party began to move toward the dining-room, Consul Buddenbrook’s hand went to his left breast-pocket and fingered a paper that was inside. The polite smile had left his face, giving place to a ...

“Our best respects to you, Buddenbrook⁠—I repeat, our best respects!” Herr Köppen’s powerful voice drowned the general conversation as the maidservant, in her heavy striped petticoat, her fat arms bar...

“Did you ever see him, Herr Pastor?” The plates were being changed again. An enormous brick-red boiled ham appeared, strewn with crumbs and served with a sour brown onion sauce, and so many vegetables...

And now came, in two great cut-glass dishes, the “Plettenpudding.” It was made of layers of macaroons, raspberries, ladyfingers, and custard. At the same time, at the other end of the table, appeared ...

The general merriment had now reached its height. Herr Köppen felt a great need to unfasten a few buttons of his waistcoat; but it obviously wouldn’t do, for not even the elderly gentlemen were permit...

They were rising from table. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, gesegnete Mahlzeit! Cigars and coffee in the next room, and a liqueur if Madame feels generous.⁠ ⁠… Billiards for whoever chooses. Jean, you w...

It was rather late, nearly eleven, when the party began to break up. They had reassembled in the landscape-room, and they all made their adieux at the same time. The Frau Consul, as soon as her hand h...

“Well, Johann, my son, where are you going?” He stood still and put his hand out to his son⁠—his white Buddenbrook hand, a little too short, though finely modelled. His active figure showed indistinct...

It was mid-April, two and a half years later. The spring was more advanced than usual, and with the spring had come to the Buddenbrook family a joy that made old Johann sing about the house and moved ...

It was mid-April, two and a half years later. The spring was more advanced than usual, and with the spring had come to the Buddenbrook family a joy that made old Johann sing about the house and moved ...

Early in the summer, sometimes as early as May or June, Tony Buddenbrook always went on a visit to her grandparents, who lived outside the Castle Gate. This was a great pleasure. For life was delightf...

Jean Jacques Hoffstede’s verdict on the two sons of Consul Buddenbrook undoubtedly hit the mark. Thomas had been marked from the cradle as a merchant and future member of the firm. He was on the moder...

It was not simply the weakness of age that made Madame Antoinette Buddenbrook take to her lofty bed in the bedchamber of the entresol, one cold January day after they had dwelt some six years in Meng ...

It grieved the Consul sorely that the grandfather had not lived to see the entry of his grandson into the business⁠—an event which took place at Easter-time of the same year. Thomas had left school at...

“We shall put Tony into Fräulein Weichbrodt’s boarding-school,” said the Consul. He said it with such decision that so it was. Thomas was applying himself with talent to the business; Clara was a thri...

Therese Weichbrodt was humpbacked. So humpbacked that she was not much higher than a table. She was forty-one years old. But as she had never put her faith in outward seeming, she dressed like an old ...

On a June afternoon, not long after five o’clock, the family were sitting before the “portal” in the garden, where they had drunk coffee. They had pulled the rustic furniture outside, for it was too c...

On a June afternoon, not long after five o’clock, the family were sitting before the “portal” in the garden, where they had drunk coffee. They had pulled the rustic furniture outside, for it was too c...

Tony, coming back from a walk some days later, met Herr Grünlich at the corner of Meng Street. “I was most grieved to have missed you, Fräulein,” he said. “I took the liberty of paying my respects to ...

This year the Buddenbrooks took no holiday during Christian’s and Clara’s vacation. The Consul said he was too busy; but it was Tony’s unsettled affair as well, that kept them lingering in Mengstrasse...

Consul Buddenbrook said to his wife: “If I thought Tony had a motive in refusing this match⁠—But she is a child, Betsy. She enjoys going to balls and being courted by the young fellows; she is quite a...

The road to Travemünde first crosses the ferry and then goes straight ahead. The grey high-road glided away under the hoofs of Lebrecht Kröger’s fat brown Mecklenburgs. The sound of their trotting was...

In her neat little room with the flower-covered furniture, Tony woke next morning with the fresh, happy feeling which one has at the beginning of a new chapter. She sat up in bed and, with her hands c...

She had put on her big straw hat, and she raised her sunshade; for it was very hot, though there was a little seabreeze. Young Schwarzkopf, in his grey felt, book in hand, walked beside her and someti...

And now began for Tony Buddenbrook a stretch of beautiful summer weeks, briefer, lovelier, than any she had ever spent in Travemünde. She bloomed as she felt her burden no longer upon her; her gay, pe...

“It is wonderful how one doesn’t get bored, here at the seashore, Morten. Imagine lying anywhere else for hours at a time, flat on your back, doing nothing, not even thinking⁠—” “Yes. But I must confe...

Dearest Mademoiselle Buddenbrook, For how long must the undersigned exist without a glimpse of his enchantress? These few lines will tell you that the vision has never ceased to hover before his spiri...

It rained in streams. Heaven, earth, and sea were in flood, while the driving wind took the rain and flung it against the panes as though not drops but brooks were flowing down and making them impossi...

Thomas appeared with the Kröger calèche. The day was at hand. The young man arrived at ten o’clock in the forenoon and took a bite with the family in the living-room. They sat together as on the first...

Then came the ferry, and Israelsdorf Avenue, Jerusalem Hill, the Castle Field. The wagon passed the Castle Gate, with the walls of the prison rising on the right, and rolled along Castle Street and ov...

“I entirely agree with you, my good friend. This important matter must be settled. In short, then: the usual dowry of a young girl of our family is seventy thousand marks.” Herr Grünlich cast at his f...

Thomas Buddenbrook went down Meng Street as far as the “Five Houses.” He avoided Broad Street so as not to be accosted by acquaintances and obliged to greet them. With his hands deep in the big pocket...

April 30, 1846 My dear Mamma, A thousand thanks for your letter, in which you tell me of Armgard von Schilling’s betrothal to Herr von Maiboom of Pöppenrade. Armgard herself sent me an invitation (ver...

April 30, 1846 My dear Mamma, A thousand thanks for your letter, in which you tell me of Armgard von Schilling’s betrothal to Herr von Maiboom of Pöppenrade. Armgard herself sent me an invitation (ver...

“What is the matter, Betsy?” said the Consul, as he came to the table and lifted up the plate with which his soup was covered. “Aren’t you well? You don’t look just right to me.” The round table in th...

Consul Buddenbrook crossed his spacious ground floor in haste. Coming out into Bakers’ Alley, he heard steps behind him and saw Gosch the broker, a picturesque figure in his long cloak and Jesuit hat,...

When the Consul and Siegismund Gosch returned to the hall, the scene was a more comfortable one than it had been a quarter of an hour before. It was lighted by two large oil lamps standing on the Comm...

A year and two months later, on a misty, snowy morning in January of the year 1850, Herr and Madame Grünlich sat at breakfast with their little three-year-old daughter, in the brown wainscoted dining-...

Herr Kesselmeyer entered unannounced, as a friend of the house, without hat or coat. He paused, however, near the door. His looks corresponded exactly to the description Tony had given to her Mother. ...

Consul Johann Buddenbrook arrived at the villa at two o’clock in the afternoon. He entered the Grünlich salon in a grey travelling-cloak and embraced his daughter with painful intensity. He was pale a...

Herr Grünlich’s face was all mottled with red; but he had dressed carefully in a respectable-looking black coat and pea-green trousers like those in which he had made his first visits in Meng Street. ...

Dora the cook, about whose honesty Tony had had her doubts, was busy in the dining-room. “Ask Madame Grünlich to come down,” ordered the Consul. “Get yourself ready, my child,” he said as Tony appeare...

A chastened mood reigned for some time at the old house in Meng Street after Madame Grünlich and her little daughter returned thither to take up their abode. The family went about rather subdued and d...

What follows happened in the late summer of 1855, on a Sunday afternoon. The Buddenbrooks were sitting in the landscape-room waiting for the Consul, who was below dressing himself. They had arranged t...

“Good evening, Justus,” said the Frau Consul. “How are you? Sit down.” Consul Kröger embraced her tenderly and shook hands with his elder niece, who was also present in the dining-room. He was now abo...

“Good evening, Justus,” said the Frau Consul. “How are you? Sit down.” Consul Kröger embraced her tenderly and shook hands with his elder niece, who was also present in the dining-room. He was now abo...

In the beginning of February, 1856, after eight years’ absence, Christian Buddenbrook returned to the home of his fathers. He arrived in the post-coach from Hamburg, wearing a yellow suit with a patte...

The head of the firm of Johann Buddenbrook had measured his brother on his arrival with a long, scrutinizing gaze. He had given him passing and unobtrusive observation during several days; and then, t...

In May it happened that Uncle Gotthold⁠—Consul Gotthold Buddenbrook, now sixty years old⁠—was seized with a heart attack one night and died in the arms of his wife, born Stüwing. The son of poor Madam...

Deaths in the family usually induce a religious mood. It was not surprising, after the decease of the Consul, to hear from the mouth of his widow expressions which she had not been accustomed to use. ...

Sievert Tiburtius was a small, narrow man with a large head and a thin, long, blond beard parted in the middle, so that he sometimes put the ends back over his shoulders. A quantity of little woolly r...

Amsterdam, July 30th, 1856 Hotel Het Hassje My dear Mother, I have just received your important letter, and hasten to thank you for the consideration you show me in asking for my consent in the affair...

That year there was indeed a merry midsummer holiday in the Buddenbrook home. At the end of July Thomas returned to Meng Street and visited his family at the shore several times, like the other busine...

Some six months later Consul Buddenbrook returned with his bride from Italy. The March snows lay in Broad Street as the carriage drove up at five o’clock before the front door of their simple painted ...

Thomas Buddenbrook took a solitary early breakfast in his pretty dining-room. His wife usually left her room late, as she was subject to headaches and vapours in the morning. The Consul went at once t...

Thomas Buddenbrook took a solitary early breakfast in his pretty dining-room. His wife usually left her room late, as she was subject to headaches and vapours in the morning. The Consul went at once t...

At the end of April Frau Grünlich returned home. Another epoch was behind her, and the old existence began again⁠—attending the daily devotions and the Jerusalem evenings and hearing Lea Gerhardt read...

Consul Buddenbrook came from the “Harmony”⁠—a reading-club for men, where he had spent the hour after second breakfast⁠—back into Meng Street. He crossed the yard from behind, entered the side of the ...

The outer bell rang, and Frau Grünlich appeared on the landing to look down into the court⁠—a habit she had lately formed. The door was hardly opened below when she started, leaned over still more, an...

Herr Permaneder moved into Meng Street; he ate dinner with Thomas Buddenbrook and his wife the following day; and on the third, a Thursday, he made the acquaintance of Justus Kröger and his wife, the ...

A mist lay over the town. But⁠—or so said Herr Longuet, the livery man in John Street, as he himself drove the covered charabanc up to the door of the house in Meng Street: “The sun will be out before...

In the morning at eight o’clock Consul Buddenbrook, so soon as he had left his bed, stolen through the little door and down the winding stair into the bathroom, taken a bath, and put on his nightshirt...

She wrote: “… And when I say ‘croquettes,’ she doesn’t understand me, because here they are called ‘meaties’; and when she says ‘broccoli,’ how could any Christian know she means cauliflower? When I s...

It was a day toward the end of November⁠—a cold autumn day with a hazy sky. It looked almost as if there would be snow, and a mist was rising, pierced through every now and then by the sun. It was one...

Tony returned to her bedchamber after dinner. During the meal her Mother had told her that Thomas was aware of her expected arrival; and she did not seem particularly anxious to meet him. The Consul c...

Tony lost no time. She went resolutely about her affair. In the hope of quieting her, of bringing her slowly to a different frame of mind, the Consul said but little. He asked only one thing: that she...

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 maidservant, moving noiselessly s...

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 maidservant, moving noiselessly s...

Christian Buddenbrook, proprietor of the firm of H. C. F. Purmeister and Company of Hamburg, came into his brother’s living-room, holding in his hand his modish grey hat and his walking-stick with the...

James Möllendorpf, the oldest of the merchant senators, died in a grotesque and horrible way. The instinct of self-preservation became very weak in this diabetic old man; and in the last years of his ...

Every vacant seat in the Senate must, according to the Constitution, be filled within four weeks. Three of them have passed, and this is election-day⁠—a day of thaw, at the end of February. It is abou...

Our desires and our performance are conditioned by certain needs of our nervous systems which are very hard to define in words. What people called Thomas Buddenbrook’s “vanity”⁠—his care for his perso...

One Sunday at the beginning of July⁠—Senator Buddenbrook had moved some four weeks before⁠—Frau Permaneder appeared at her brother’s house toward evening. She crossed the cool ground floor, paved with...

“You don’t even ask me? You go right over my head?” “I have done as I had to do.” “You have acted like a distracted person, in a perfectly unreasonable way.” “Reason is not the highest thing on earth....

Wars and rumours of war, billeting and bustle! Prussian officers tread the parquetry floors of Senator Buddenbrook’s bel-étage, kiss the hand of the lady of the house, and frequent the club with Chris...

When Herr Hugo Weinschenk⁠—in his buttoned-up frock-coat, with his drooping lower lip and his narrow black moustaches, which grew, in the most masculine way imaginable, right into the corners of his m...

When Herr Hugo Weinschenk⁠—in his buttoned-up frock-coat, with his drooping lower lip and his narrow black moustaches, which grew, in the most masculine way imaginable, right into the corners of his m...

In the spring of 1868, one evening towards ten o’clock, Frau Permaneder entered the first story of her brother’s house. Senator Buddenbrook sat alone in the living-room, which was done in olive-green ...

She mounted the stairs to the second storey, left the little balcony on her right, went along the white-and-gold balustrade and through an antechamber, the door of which stood open on the corridor, an...

The Senator, when he was alone again, sat down at the table, took out his glasses, and tried to resume his reading. But in a few minutes his eyes had roved from the printed page, and he sat for a long...

Was it forgetfulness, or was it intention, which would have made Senator Buddenbrook pass over in silence a certain fact, had not his sister Tony, the devotee of the family papers, announced it to all...

“Oh, Bach, Sebastian Bach, dear lady!” cried Edmund Pfühl, Herr Edmund Pfühl, the organist of St. Mary’s, as he strode up and down the salon with great activity, while Gerda, smiling, her head on her ...

Thomas Buddenbrook was, in his heart, far from pleased with the development of little Johann. Long ago he had led Gerda Arnoldsen to the altar, and all the Philistines had shaken their heads. He had f...

Nowadays, when the family gathered at table on Thursdays, under the calmly smiling gaze of the immortals on the walls, they had a new and serious theme. It called out on the faces of the female Budden...

Frau Permaneder was going along Broad Street in a great hurry. There was something abandoned about her air: she showed almost none of the impressive bearing usual to her on the street. Hunted and hara...

Senator Buddenbrook followed the two gentlemen, old Dr. Grabow and young Dr. Langhals, out of the Frau Consul’s bedchamber into the breakfast-room and closed the door. “May I ask you to give me a mome...

Senator Buddenbrook followed the two gentlemen, old Dr. Grabow and young Dr. Langhals, out of the Frau Consul’s bedchamber into the breakfast-room and closed the door. “May I ask you to give me a mome...

Through the open door Frau Permaneder could be seen praying in the chamber of death. She knelt there alone, at a chair near the bed, with her mourning garments flowing about her on the floor. While sh...

Little Johann was to go to take his farewell of his grandmother’s mortal remains. His father so arranged it, and, though Hanno was afraid, he made not a syllable of objection. At table, the day after ...

A week later there sat in Senator Buddenbrook’s private office, in the leather chair beside the writing-desk, a little smooth-shaven old man with snow-white hair falling over his brow and temples. He ...

Often, in an hour of depression, Thomas Buddenbrook asked himself what he was, or what there was about him to make him think even a little better of himself than he did of his honest, limited, provinc...

Often, in an hour of depression, Thomas Buddenbrook asked himself what he was, or what there was about him to make him think even a little better of himself than he did of his honest, limited, provinc...

Thomas Buddenbrook did not contemplate the future of little Johann with the weary dejection which was now his settled mood when he thought about his own life and his own end. The family feeling which ...

The extended summer trip which had once been customary with the Buddenbrooks had now been given up for some years. Indeed, when the Frau Senator, in the previous spring, had wished to make her old fat...

In the beginning of the year 1873 the Senate pardoned Hugo Weinschenk, and the former Director left prison, six months before his time was up. Frau Permaneder, if she had told the truth, would have ad...

The marriage of which little Johann had been the issue had never lost charm in the town as a subject for conversation. Since both of the parties to it were still felt to have something queer about the...

In the autumn Dr. Langhals said, making play like a woman with his beautiful eyes: “It is the nerves, Senator; the nerves are to blame for everything. And once in a while the circulation is not what i...

Winter had come, Christmas had passed. It was January, 1875. The snow, which covered the foot-walks in a firm-trodden mass, mingled with sand and ashes, was piled on either side of the road in high mo...

Frau Permaneder mounted the main staircase, holding up her gown in front of her with one hand and with the other pressing her muff to her cheek. She tripped and stumbled more than she walked; her chee...

Senator Buddenbrook had died of a bad tooth. So it was said in the town. But goodness, people don’t die of a bad tooth! He had had a toothache; Herr Brecht had broken off the crown; and thereupon the ...

It sometimes happens that we may recall this or that person whom we have not lately seen and wonder how he is. And then, with a start, we remember that he has disappeared from the stage, that his voic...

It sometimes happens that we may recall this or that person whom we have not lately seen and wonder how he is. And then, with a start, we remember that he has disappeared from the stage, that his voic...

The alarm-clock went off with cruel alacrity. It was a hoarse rattling and clattering that it made, rather than a ringing, for it was old and worn out; but it kept on for a painfully long time, for it...

Cases of typhoid fever take the following course. The patient feels depressed and moody⁠—a condition which grows rapidly worse until it amounts to acute despondency. At the same time he is overpowered...

“It is not right, it is not right, Gerda,” said old Fräulein Weichbrodt, perhaps for the hundredth time. Her voice was full of reproach and distress. She had a sofa place today in the circle that sat ...