boulders, with the eternal, confused tumult that deafens and silences and destroys all sense of time.
Finally Morten made a movement as though rousing himself from deep thought, and said, “Well, you will soon be leaving us, Fräulein Tony.”
“No; why?” Tony said absently.
“Well, it is the tenth of September. My holidays are nearly at an end, anyhow. How much longer can it last? Shall you be glad to get back to the society of your own kind? Tell me – I suppose the gentlemen you dance with are very agreeable? – No, no, that was not what I wanted to say. Now you must answer me,” he said, with a sudden resolution, shifting his chin in his hands and looking at her. “Here is the question I have been waiting so long to ask. Now: who is Herr Grünlich?”
Tony sat up, looking at him quickly, her eyes shifting back and forth like those of a person recollecting himself on coming out of a dream. She was feeling again the sense of increased personal importance first experienced when Herr Grünlich proposed for her hand.
“Oh, is that what you want to know, Morten?” she said weightily. “Well, I will tell you. It was really very painful for me to have Thomas mention his name like that, the first afternoon; but since you have already heard of him – well, Herr Grünlich, Bendix Grünlich, is a business friend of my father, a well-to-do Hamburg merchant, who has asked for my hand. No, no,” she replied quickly to a movement of Morten’s, “I have refused him; I have never been able to make up my mind to yield him my consent for life.”
“And why not? – if I may ask,” said Morten awkwardly.
“Why? Oh, good heavens, because I couldn’t endure him,” she cried out in a passion. “You ought to have seen him, how he looked and how he acted. Among other things, he had yellow whiskers – dreadfully unnatural. I’m sure he curled them and put on gold powder, like the stuff we use for the Christmas nuts. And he was underhanded. He fawned on my Father and Mother and chimed in with them in the most shameful way –”
Morten interrupted her. “But what does this mean: ‘That trims it up uncommonly’?”
Tony broke into a nervous giggle.
“Well, he talked like that, Morten. He wouldn’t say ‘That looks very well’ or ‘It goes very well with the room.’ He was frightfully silly, I tell you. And very persistent; he simply wouldn’t be put off, although I never gave him anything but sarcasm. Once he made such a scene – he nearly wept – imagine a man weeping!”
“He must have worshipped you,” Morten said softly.
“Well, what affair was that of mine?” she cried out, astonished, turning around on her sand-heap.
“You are cruel, Fräulein Tony. Are you always cruel? Tell me: You didn’t like this Herr Grünlich. But is there any one to whom you have been more gracious? Sometimes I think: Has she a cold heart? Let me tell you something: a man is not idiotic simply because he weeps when you won’t look at him. I swear it. I am not sure, not at all, that I wouldn’t do the same thing. You see, you are such a dainty, spoilt thing. Do you always make fun of people that lie at your feet? Have you really a cold heart? ”
After the first giggle, Tony’s lip began to quiver. She turned on him a pair of great distressed eyes, which slowly filled with tears as she said softly: “No, Morten, you should not think that of me – you must not think that of me.”
“I don’t; indeed I don’t,” he cried, with a laugh of mingled emotion and hardly suppressed exultation. He turned fully about, so that he lay supporting himself on his elbows, took her hands in both his, and looked straight into hers with his kind steel-blue eyes, which were excited and dreamy and exalted all at once.
“Then you – you won’t mock at me if I tell you –?”
“I know, Morten,” she answered gently, looking away from him at the fine white sand sifting through the fingers of her free hand.
“You know – and you – oh, Fräulein Tony!”
“Yes, Morten. I care a great deal for you. More than for any one else I know.”
He started up, making awkward gestures with his arms, like a man bewildered. Then he got to his feet, only to throw himself down again by her side and cry in a voice that stammered, wavered, died away and rose again, out of sheer joy: “Oh, thank you, thank you! I am so happy! more than I ever was in all my life!” And he fell to kissing her hands. After a moment he said more quietly: “You will be going back to town soon, Tony, and my holidays will be over in two weeks; then I must return to Göttingen. But will you promise me that you will never forget this afternoon here on the beach – till I come back again with my degree, and can ask your Father – however hard that’s going to be? And you won’t listen to any Herr Grünlich meantime? Oh, it won’t be so long – I will work like a – like anything! it will be so easy! ”
“Yes, Morten,” she said dreamily, looking at his eyes, his mouth, his hands holding hers.
He drew her hand close to his breast and asked very softly and imploringly: “And won’t you – may I – seal the promise?”
She did not answer, she did not look at him, but moved nearer to him on the sand-heap, and Morten kissed her slowly and solemnly on the mouth. Then they stared in different directions across the sand, and both felt furiously embarrassed.
10
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 spiritual eye; that never has he during these interminably anxious months ceased to think of the precious afternoon in your parental salon, when you let fall a blushing promise which filled me with bliss unspeakable! Since then long weeks have flown, during which you have retired from the world for the sake of calm and self-examination. May I now hope that the period of probation is past? The undersigned permits himself, dearest Mademoiselle, to send the enclosed ring as an earnest of his undying tenderness. With the most tender compliments, and devotedly kissing your hand, I remain,
Your obedient servant,
Grünlich.
—————
Dear Papa,
How angry I’ve been! I had the enclosed letter and ring just now from Grünlich, and my head aches fearfully from excitement. I don’t know what else to do but send them both to you. He simply will not understand me, and what he so poetically writes about the promise isn’t in the least true, and I beg you emphatically to make it immediately perfectly clear to him that I am a thousand times less able to say yes to him than I was before, and that he must leave me in peace. He makes himself ridiculous. To you, my dearest Father, I can say that I have bound myself elsewhere, to one who adores me and whom I love more than I can say. Oh, Papa! I could write pages to you! I mean Herr Morten Schwarzkopf, who is studying to be a physician, and who as soon as that happens will ask for my hand. I know that it is the rule of the family to marry a business man, but Morten belongs to the other section of respectable men, the scholars. He is not rich, which I know is important to you and Mamma: but I must tell you that, young as I am, I have learned that riches do not make every one happy. With a thousand kisses,
Your obedient daughter,
Antonie.
P.S. I find the ring very poor gold, and too narrow.
—————
My Dear Tony,
Your letter duly received. As regards its contents, I must tell you that I did not fail to communicate them to Herr Grünlich: the result was of such a nature as to shock me very much. You are a grown girl, and at a serious time of life, so I need not scruple to tell you the consequences that a frivolous step of yours may draw after it. Herr Grünlich, then, burst into despair at my announcement, declaring