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. He was slightly thick-set as to figure, but neither fat nor lean. He wore a black, already somewhat shiny coat, short tight trousers of the same material, and a white waistcoat, over which went a long thin watch-chain and two or three eye-glass cords. His clipped white beard was in sharp contrast with his red face. It covered his cheeks and left his chin and lips free. His mouth was small and mobile, with two yellowish pointed teeth in the otherwise vacant gum of his lower jaw, and he was pressing these into his upper lip, as he stood absently by the door with his hands in his trousers pockets and the black and white down on his head waving slightly, although there was not the least perceptible draught.
Finally he drew his hands out of his pockets, bowed, released his lip, and with difficulty freed one of the eye-glass cords from the confusion on his waistcoat. He lifted his pince-nez and put it with a single gesture astride his nose. Then he made the most astonishing grimaces, looked at the husband and wife, and remarked: “Ah, ha!”
He used this expression with extraordinary frequency and a surprising variety of inflections. He might say it with his head thrown back, his nose wrinkled up, mouth wide open, hands swishing about in the air, with a long-drawn-out, nasal, metallic sound, like a Chinese gong; or he might, with still funnier effect, toss it out, gently, en passant; or with any one of a thousand different shades of tone and meaning. His a was very clouded and nasal. To-day it was a hurried, lively “Ah ha!” accompanied with a jerk of the head, that seemed to arise from an unusually pleasant mood, and yet might not be trusted to be so; for the fact was, Banker Kesselmeyer never behaved more gaily than when he was dangerous. When he jumped about emitting a thousand “Ah ha’s,” lifting his glasses to his nose and letting them fall again, waving his arms, chattering, plainly quite beside himself with light-headedness, then you might be sure that evil was gnawing at his inwards. Herr Grünlich looked at him blinking, with unconcealed mistrust.
“Already—so early?” he asked.
“Ah, ha!” answered Herr Kesselmeyer, and waved one of his small, red, wrinkled hands in the air, as if to say: “Patience, there is a surprise coming.” “I must speak with you, without any delay; I must speak with you.”
The words sounded irresistibly comic as he rolled each one about before giving it out, with exaggerated movements of his little toothless, mobile mouth. He rolled his r’s as if his palate were greased. Herr Grünlich blinked more and more suspiciously.
“Come and sit down, Herr Kesselmeyer,” said Tony. “I’m glad you’ve come. Listen. You can decide between us. Grünlich and I have been disagreeing. Now tell me: ought a three-year-old child to have a governess or not?”
But Herr Kesselmeyer seemed not to be attending. He had seated himself and was rubbing his stubbly beard with his forefinger, making a rasping sound, his mouth as wide open as possible, nose as wrinkled, while he stared over his glasses with an indescribably sprightly air at the elegantly appointed breakfast-table, the silver bread-basket, the label on the wine-bottle.
“Grünlich says I am ruining him,” Tony continued.
Herr Kesselmeyer looked at her; then he looked at Herr Grünlich; then he burst out into an astonishing fit of laughter. “You are ruining him?—you? You are ruining him—that’s it, is it? Oh good gracious, heavens and earth, you don’t say! That is a joke. That is a tre-men-dous, tre-men-dous joke.” He let out a stream of ha ha’s all run in together.
Herr Grünlich was plainly nervous. He squirmed on his seat. He ran his long finger down between his collar and his neck and let his golden whiskers glide through his hand.
“Kesselmeyer,” he said. “Control yourself, man. Are you out of your head? Stop laughing! Will you have some wine? Or a cigar? What are you laughing at?”
“What am I laughing at? Yes, yes, give me a glass of wine, give me a cigar. Why am I laughing? So you think your wife is ruining you?”
“She is very luxuriously inclined,” Herr Grünlich said irritably.
Tony did not contradict him. She leaned calmly back, her hands in her lap on the velvet ribbons of her frock and her pert upper lip in evidence: “Yes, I am, I know. I have it from Mamma. All the Krögers are fond of luxury.”
She would have admitted in the same calm way that she was frivolous, revengeful, or quick-tempered. Her strongly developed family sense was instinctively hostile to conceptions of free will and self-development; it inclined her rather to recognize and accept her own characteristics wholesale, with fatalistic indifference and toleration. She had, unconsciously, the feeling that any trait of hers, no matter of what kind, was a family tradition and therefore worthy of respect.
Herr Grünlich had finished breakfast, and the fragrance of the two cigars mingled with the warm air from the stove. “Will you take another, Kesselmeyer?” said the host. “I’ll pour you out another glass of wine.—You want to see me? Anything pressing? Is it important?—Too warm here, is it? We’ll drive into town together afterward. It is cooler in the smoking-room.” To all this Herr Kesselmeyer simply shook his hand in the air, as if to say: “This won’t get us anywhere, my dear friend.”
At length they got up; and, while Tony remained in the dining-room to see that the servant-maid cleared away, Herr Grünlich led his colleague through the “pensée-room,” with his head bent, drawing his long beard reflectively through his fingers. Herr Kesselmeyer rowed into the room with his arms and disappeared behind his host.
Ten minutes passed. Tony had gone into the salon to give the polished nut-wood escritoire and the curved table-legs her personal attention with the aid of a gay little feather duster. Then she moved slowly through the dining-room into the living-room with dignity and marked self-respect. The Demoiselle Buddenbrook had plainly not grown less important in her own eyes since becoming Madame Grünlich. She held herself very erect, chin in, and looked down at the world from above. She carried in one hand her little lacquered key-basket; the other was in the pocket of her gown, whose soft folds played about her. The naïve expression of her mouth betrayed that the whole of her dignity and importance were a part of a beautiful, childlike, innocent game which she was constantly playing with herself.
In the “pensée-room” she busied herself with a little brass sprinkler, watering the black earth around her plants. She loved her palms, they gave so much elegance to the room. She touched carefully a young shoot on one of the thick round stems, examined the majestically unfolded fans, and cut away a yellow tip here and there with the scissors. Suddenly she stopped. The conversation in the next room, which had for several minutes been assuming a livelier tone, became so loud that she could hear every word, though the door and the portières were both heavy.
“Don’t shriek like that—control yourself, for God’s sake!” she heard Herr Grünlich say. His weak voice could not stand the strain, and went off in a squeak. “Take another cigar,” he went on, with desperate mildness.
“Yes, thanks, with the greatest pleasure,” answered the banker, and there was a pause while he presumably helped himself. Then he said: “In short, will you or won’t you: one or the other?”
“Kesselmeyer, give me an extension.”
“Ah, ha! No, no, my friend. There is no question of an extension. That’s not the point now.”
“Why not? What is stirring you up to this? Be reasonable, for heaven’s sake. You’ve waited this long.”
“Not a day longer, my friend. Yes, we’ll say eight days, but not an hour longer. But can’t we rely any longer on—?”
“No names, Kesselmeyer.”
“No names. Good. But doesn’t some one rely any longer on his estimable Herr Pa—”
“No hints, either. My God, don’t be a fool.”
“Very good; no hints, either. But have we no claim any longer on the well-known firm with whom our credit stands and falls, my friend? How much did it lose by the Bremen failure? Fifty thousand? Seventy thousand? A hundred thousand? More? The sparrows on the housetops know that it was involved, heavily involved. Yesterday—well, no names. Yesterday the well-known firm was good, and it was unconsciously protecting you against pressure. To-day its stock is flat—and B. Grünlich’s stock is the flattest of the flat. Is that clear? Do you grasp it? You are the first man to notice a thing like that. How are people treating you? How do they look at you? Beck and Goudstikker are perfectly agreeable, give you the same terms as usual? And the bank?”
“They will extend.”
“You aren’t lying, are you? Oh, no! I know they gave you a jolt yesterday—a very, very stimulating jolt, eh? You see? Oh, don’t be embarrassed. It is to your interest, of course, to pull the wool over my eyes, so that the others will be quiet. Hey, my dear friend? Well, you’d better write to the Consul. I’ll wait a week.”
“A part payment, Kesselmeyer!”
“Part payment, rubbish! One accepts part payment to convince oneself for the time of a debtor’s ability to pay. Do I need to make experiments of that land on you? I am perfectly well-informed about your ability to pay. Ah, ha, ah, ha! Part payment! That’s a very good joke.”
“Moderate your voice, Kesselmeyer. Don’t laugh all the time in that cursed way. My position is so serious—yes, I admit, it is serious. But I have such-and-such business in hand—everything may still come out all right. Listen, wait a minute: Give me an extension and I’ll sign it for twenty per cent.”
“Nothing in it, nothing in it, my friend. Very funny, very amusing. Oh, yes, I’m in favour of selling at the right time. You promised me eight per cent, and I extended. You promised me twelve and sixteen per cent, and I extended, every time. Now, you might offer me forty per cent, and I wouldn’t consider it—not for a moment. Since Brother Westfall in Bremen fell on his nose, everybody is for the moment freeing himself from the well-known firm and getting on a sound basis. As I say, I’m for selling at the right time. I’ve held your signatures as long as Johann Buddenbrook was good—in the meantime I could write up the interest on the capital and increase the per cent. But one only keeps a thing so long as it is rising or at least keeping steady. When it begins to fall, one sells—which is the same as saying I want my capital.”
“Kesselmeyer, you are shameless.”
“Ah, ha, a-ha! Shameless, am I? That’s very charming, very funny. What do you want? You must apply to your father-in-law. The Credit Bank is raging—and you know you are not exactly spotless.”
“No, Kesselmeyer. I adjure you to hear me quietly. I’ll be perfectly frank. I confess that my situation is serious. You and the Credit Bank are not the only ones—there are notes of hand—everything seems to have gone to pieces at once!”
“Of course—naturally. It is certainly a clean-up—a liquidation.”
“No, Kesselmeyer; hear me out. Do take another cigar.”
“This one is not half finished. Leave me alone with your cigars. Pay up.”
“Kesselmeyer, don’t let me smash!—You are a friend of mine—you have eaten at my table.”
“And maybe you haven’t eaten at mine?”
“Yes, yes—but don’t refuse me credit now, Kesselmeyer!”
“Credit? It’s credit, now, is it? Are you in your senses? A new loan?”
“Yes, Kesselmeyer, I swear to you—A little—a trifle. I only need to make a few payments and advances here and there to get on my feet again and restore confidence. Help me and you will be doing a big business. As I said, I have a number of affairs on hand. They may still all come out right. You know how shrewd and resourceful I am.”
“I know what a numbskull you are! A dolt, a nincompoop, my dear friend! Will you have the goodness to tell me what your resourcefulness can accomplish at this stage? Perhaps there is a bank somewhere in the wide world that will lend you a shilling? Or another father-in-law? Ah, no; you have already played your best card. You can’t play it twice.—With all due respect, my dear fellow, and my highest regards.”
“Speak lower, devil take you!”
“You are a fool. Shrewd and resourceful, are you? Yes, to the other chap’s advantage. You’re not scrupulous, I’ll say that for you, but much good it’s done you! You have played tricks, and wormed capital out of people by hook or crook, just to pay me my twelve or sixteen per cent. You threw your honour overboard without getting any return. You have a conscience like a butcher’s dog, and yet you are nothing but a ninny, a scapegoat. There are always such people—they are too funny for words. Why is it you are so afraid to apply to the person we mean with the whole story? Isn’t it because there was crooked work four years ago? Perhaps it wasn’t all quite straight—what? Are you afraid that certain things—?”
“Very well, Kesselmeyer; I will write. But suppose he refuses? Suppose he lets me down?”
“Oh—ah, ha! Then we will just have a bankruptcy, a highly amusing little bankruptcy. That doesn’t bother me at all. So far as I am concerned, I have about covered my expenses with the interest you have scratched together, and I have the priority with the assets. Oh, you wait; I shan’t come short. I know everything pretty well, my good friend; I have an inventory already in my pocket. Ah, ha! We shall see that no dressing-gown and no silver bread-basket gets away.”
“Kesselmeyer, you have sat at my table—”
“Oh, be quiet with your table! In eight days I’ll be back for the answer. I shall walk in to town—the fresh air will do me good. Good morning, my friend, good morning!”
And Herr Kesselmeyer seemed to depart—yes, he went. She heard his odd, shuffling walk in the corridor, and imagined him rowing along with his arms. …
Herr Grünlich entered the “pensée-room” and saw Tony standing there with the little watering-can in her hand. She looked him in the face.
“What are you looking at? Why are you staring like that?” he sad to her. He showed his teeth, and made vague movements in the air with his hands, and wiggled his body from side to side. His rosy face could not become actually pale; but it was spotted red and white like a scarlet-fever patient’s.