Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Hours (1998)

  “There was a lovely coat for Angelica at Harrods,” Vanessa says. “But then nothing for the boys, and it seemed so unfair. I suppose I shall give her the coat for her birthday, but then of course she’ll be cross because she believes coats ought to come to her anyway, as a matter of course, and not be presented as gifts.” Virginia nods. At the moment, she can’t seem to speak. There is so much in the world. There are coats at Harrods; there are children who will be angry and disappointed no matter what one does. There is Vanessa’s plump hand on her cup and there is the thrush outside, so beautiful on its pyre; so like millinery. There is this hour, now, in the kitchen. Clarissa will not die, not by her own hand. How could she bear to leave all this? Virginia prepares to offer some wisdom about children. She has scant idea what she’ll say, but she will say something. She would like to say, It is enough. The teacups and the thrush outside, the question of children’s coats. It is enough. Someone else will die. It should be a greater mind than Clarissa’s; it should be someone with sorrow and genius enough to turn away from the seductions of the world, its cups and its coats. “Perhaps Angelica—” Virginia says. But here’s Nelly to the rescue; furious, triumphant, back from London with a parcel containing the China tea and sugared ginger. She holds the package aloft, as if she would hurl it. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Bell,” she says with an executioner’s studied calm. Here is Nelly with the tea and ginger and here, forever, is Virginia, unaccountably happy, better than happy, alive, sitting with Vanessa in the kitchen on an ordinary spring day as Nelly, the subjugated Amazon queen, Nelly the ever indignant, displays what she’s been compelled to bring. Nelly turns away and, although it is not at all their custom, Virginia leans forward and kisses Vanessa on the mouth. It is an innocent kiss, innocent enough, but just now, in this kitchen, behind Nelly’s back, it feels like the most delicious and forbidden of pleasures. Vanessa returns the kiss. Mrs. Dalloway “Poor Louis.” Julia sighs with a surprisingly elderly mixture of rue and exhausted patience, and she seems, briefly, like a figure of ancient maternal remonstrance; part of a centuries-long line of women who have sighed with rue and exhausted patience over the strange passions of men. Briefly, Clarissa can imagine her daughter at fifty: she will be what people refer to as an ample woman, large of body and spirit, inscrutably capable, decisive, undramatic, an early riser. Clarissa wants, at that moment, to be Louis; not to be with him (that can be so thorny, so difficult) but to be him, an unhappy person, a strange person, faithless, unscrupulous, loose on the streets. “Yes,” she says. “Poor Louis.” Will Louis spoil the party for Richard? Why did she ask Walter Hardy?

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Since he also has funny head movements like a bird and is quite talkative, I always call him "the magpie"; but Grünlich forbids me to do so, because he says the magpie steals, but Herr Kesselmeyer is a man of honour. When walking, he bends down and flails his arms. His downy feathers only go halfway down the back of his head, and from there his neck is all red and cracked. There's something so very happy about him! Sometimes he slaps me on the cheek and says: You good little woman, what a godsend for Grünlich that heshegot! Then he pulls out a pair of pince-nez (he always has three of them with him, on long cords that keep getting tangled on his white waistcoat), slaps them on his nose, which he crinkles all over, and gapes at me like that happily that I laugh out loud in his face. But he doesn't mind that at all. Grünlich himself is very busy, drives to town in our little yellow car in the morning and often comes home late. Sometimes he sits with me and reads the newspaper. If we're going in company, for example to see Kesselmeyer or Consul Goudstikker on Alsterdamm or Senator Bock on Rathausstrasse, we have to hire a carriage. I've often asked Grünlich to buy a coupe, because that's what's needed out here. He half-promised me, too, but oddly enough, he doesn't like socializing with me at all, and apparently doesn't like it when I talk to the people of town. Should he be jealous? Our villa, which I have already described to you in detail, dear Mama, is really very pretty and has been made even more beautiful by the recent purchase of furniture. You wouldn't have any objections to the salon on the mezzanine floor: all in brown silk. The dining-room next door is very handsomely paneled; the chairs cost 25 Kurant marks each. I'm sitting in the Pensee room that serves as a living room. Then there is a smoking and games room. The hall, the other half across the corridor occupies the ground floor, has now been given yellow blinds and looks elegant. Upstairs are bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing rooms and servants' quarters. We have a little groom for the yellow car. I'm pretty happy with the two girls. I don't know if they are completely honest; but thank God I don't have to watch every threesome! In short, everything is as our name deserves. But now something is coming, dear Mama, the most important thing, which I have saved for last. Because some time ago I felt a little strange, you know, not quite healthy and yet still different; on occasion I told Doctor Klaassen. This is a very small person with a big head and an even bigger bow hat.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  "What a bosom!" he said; and to this Consul Döhlmann added an excessively rude joke, which only caused the gentlemen to laugh briefly and dismissively through their noses. Then the waiting waiter was called. "I've finished the bottle, Schröder," said Doehlmann. 'We might as well pay up. It has to happen one day... And you, Christian? Well, Gieseke will probably pay for you.« Here, however, Senator Buddenbrook revived. Wrapped in his collared coat, he had his hands in his lap and the cigarette in his corners of mouth, sat almost without interest; but suddenly he sat up and said sharply: "Don't you have any money with you, Christian? Then you will allow me to explain the trifle.” Umbrellas were opened and we stepped out from under the tent roof to stroll a bit... – Now and then Frau Permaneder visited her brother. Then the two of them would go for a walk to the »Mövenstein« or the »Seetempel«, whereby for unknown reasons Tony Buddenbrook got into an enthusiastic and vaguely rebellious mood. She repeatedly emphasized the freedom and equality of all people, summarily rejected any hierarchy of estates, threw harsh words against privilege and arbitrariness, and expressly demanded that merit should be crowned. And then she got down to her life. She spoke well, she entertained her brother very well. As long as she walked the earth, this happy creature had not needed to swallow anything, not the slightest thing, and to endure it in silence. She hadn't said nothing to any flattery or insult that life had said to her. All, every happiness and every sorrow, she had poured out in a flood of banal and childishly important words that perfectly satisfied her need to communicate. Her stomach wasn't quite healthy, but her heart was light and free - she didn't know how much. Nothing unspoken consumed her; no silent experience burdened her. And that's why she didn't have anything to bear with her past. She knew that she had had troubled and bad fates, but none of that had left her feeling heavy or tired, and basically she didn't believe in it at all. But since it seemed to be a well-established fact, she took advantage of it by bragging about it and talking about it with a mighty serious air... She scolded, she called people by their names in honest indignation, who had detrimentally affected her life - and consequently that of the Buddenbrook family - and whose number had become quite considerable in the course of time. "Tear Trieschke!" she cried. "Greenish! permaneder! Tiburtius! wine gift! Hagenstroms! The prosecutor! The Severin! What filous, Thomas, God will punish you one day, I will keep my faith!« When they got up to the "Sea Temple," dusk was already falling; autumn was advanced. They stood in one of the chambers that opened onto the bay, in which it smelled of wood, like in the bathing establishment's cabins, and whose rough-hewn walls were covered with inscriptions, initials, hearts, verses.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  and we are effectively like herrings. So why - isn't it?' He spoke in a tone of slight indignation, with an expression and hand gestures that said: You'll see... I don't have to put up with it... I would be stupid ... since, thank God, there is not a lack of what is absolutely necessary to remedy the situation ... 'Now I wanted to wait,' he went on, 'I wanted to wait until Zerlina and Bob needed a house, and only then would I give them mine and think about something bigger; but . Two more years at the most... You're young - the better! But in short, why should I wait for her and let the golden opportunity that is presently before me pass me by? There really wouldn't be any good sense in it..." There was assent in the room, and the conversation stopped a little on this family matter, this forthcoming marriage; for as advantageous marriages between siblings were not uncommon in the city, no one took offense at them. They asked about the young people's plans, plans that even included honeymoon... They were thinking of going to the Riviera, to Nice, etc. They felt like it - and so why not, right?... The younger children too mentioned, and the Consul spoke of them with ease and pleasure, lightly and with a shrug. He himself had five children and his brother Moritz had four: sons and daughters... yes, thank you very much, they were all well. Besides, why shouldn't they be well, right? In short, they were fine. And then he got back to the growing family and the crampedness of his home... "Yes, this is different!" he said. 'I could see that on the way up here - the house is a pearl, a pearl without question, assuming the comparison holds up at these dimensions, ha! ha!... Already the wallpaper here... I confess to you, ma'am, I constantly admire the wallpaper as I speak. A charming room effectively! If I think... this is where you've been allowed to spend your life..." ... Already the wallpaper here ... I confess to you, ma'am, as I speak I constantly admire the wallpaper. A charming room effectively! If I think... this is where you've been allowed to spend your life..." ... Already the wallpaper here ... I confess to you, ma'am, as I speak I constantly admire the wallpaper. A charming room effectively! If I think... this is where you've been allowed to spend your life..." "With a few interruptions - yes," said Frau Permaneder in that special throaty voice that she sometimes had at her command. "Interruptions - yes," the Consul repeated with a courteous smile. Then he glanced at Senator Buddenbrook and Herr Gosch, and as the two gentlemen were engaged in conversation, he drew his chair closer to Frau Permaneder's sofa seat and leaned towards her so that the heavy blow of his nose was now just under hers sounded.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  'Nice,' she said, 'thank you, Anton; I go to him.« But first she walked past the office entrance, a little to the right, to where the colossal stairwell opened up above her, this stairwell that was formed on the first floor by the continuation of the cast-iron banister, but at the height of the second floor it became one wide gallery of columns in white and gold, while from the dizzying heights of the "incoming light" a mighty, golden luster floated down ... "Noble!" said Mrs. Permaneder quietly and contentedly, while she looked into this open and bright splendor, which she quite simply signified the power, splendor and triumph of the Buddenbrooks. But then she remembered that she had come here on a distressing matter, and slowly turned towards the entrance to the office. Thomas was in there all alone; he sat at his window seat and wrote a letter. He looked up, raising one of his fair brows, and held out his hand to his sister. 'Evening, Tony. What good do you bring.« "Oh, not much good, Tom!... No, the stairwell is too lovely!... By the way, you're sitting here in the semi-dark and writing." “Yes… an urgent letter. - So nothing good? In any case, we want to walk around the garden a bit; that's more comfortable. Come." A violin adagio tremoled down from the first floor as they walked down the hall. "Listen!" said Frau Permaneder and stopped for a moment ... "Gerda is playing. How heavenly! Oh god, that woman... she's a fairy! How is Hanno, Tom?” 'He's about to have dinner with Frau Jungmann. It's too bad that it still doesn't really want to move forward with its walking..." 'It'll come, Tom, it'll come! How are you satisfied with Ida?” "Oh, how could we not be content..." They passed the rear stone hallway, leaving the kitchen on the right, and exited through a glass door, up two steps, into the delicate and fragrant flower garden. "Well?" asked the senator. It was warm and still. The scents of the neatly delineated beds hung in the evening air, and the fountain, surrounded by tall lilac irises, sent its jet with peaceful splashing towards the dark sky, where the first stars were beginning to gleam. In the background, a small flight of steps flanked by two low obelisks led up to a raised gravel square, on which stood an open wooden pavilion, which, with its awning lowered, sheltered a few garden chairs. On the left the property went through a wall separated from the neighboring garden; on the right, however, the side wall of the adjoining house was clad over its entire height with a wooden scaffolding, which was destined to be covered with creepers over time. There were a few currant and gooseberry bushes on the sides of the stairway and the pavilion square; but only one large tree was there, a gnarled walnut tree, which stood against the wall to the left. "The thing is," Mrs.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  But if a man has given up those things which are subject to foreign fate, and ceased to regard them as parts of himself at all, we are well-nigh powerless over him. The Stoic receipt for contentment was to dispossess yourself in advance of all that was out of your own power,—then fortune's shocks might rain down unfelt. Epictetus exhorts us, by thus narrowing and at the same time solidifying our Self to make it invulnerable: "I must die; well, but must I die groaning too? I will speak what appears to be right, and if the despot says, then I will put you to death, I will reply, 'When did I ever tell you that I was immortal? You will do your part and I mine; it is yours to kill and mine to die intrepid; yours to banish, mine to depart untroubled.' How do we act in a voyage? We choose the pilot, the sailors, the hour. Afterwards comes a storm. What have I to care for? My part is performed. This matter belongs to the pilot. But the ship is sinking; what then have I to do? That which alone I can do—submit to being drowned without fear, without clamor or accusing of God, but as one who knows that what is born must likewise die."[264] This Stoic fashion, though efficacious and heroic enough in its place and time, is, it must be confessed, only possible as an habitual mood of the soul to narrow and unsympathetic characters. It proceeds altogether by exclusion. If I am a Stoic, the goods I cannot appropriate cease to be my goods, and the temptation lies very near to deny that they are goods at all. We find this mode of protecting the Self by exclusion and denial very common among people who are in other respects not Stoics. All narrow people intrench their Me, they retract it,—from the region of what they cannot securely possess. People who don't resemble them, or who treat them with indifference, people over whom they gain no influence, are people on whose existence, however meritorious it may intrinsically be, they look with chill negation, if not with positive hate. Who will not be mine I will exclude from existence altogether; that is, as far as I can make it so, such people shall be as if they were not.[265] Thus may a certain absoluteness and definiteness in the outline of my Me console me for the smallness of its content. Sympathetic people, on the contrary, proceed by the entirely opposite way of expansion and inclusion. The outline of their self often gets uncertain enough, but for this the spread of its content more than atones. Nil humani a me alienum . Let them despise this little person of mine, and treat me like a dog, I shall not negate them so long as I have a soul in my body. They are realities as much as I am.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  " Merci ," said Lebrecht Kröger, shaking the hand of the consul who was standing by the car. " Thank you, Jean, it was lovely!" Then the bell banged and the carriage rumbled away. Pastor Wunderlich and the broker Grätjens also left with thanks on her way. Herr Köppen, in a coat with a five-fold cape, a rambling gray top hat on his head and his stout wife on his arm, said in his bitterest bass: 'Evening, Buddenbrook! Well, go in, don't catch a cold. Thank you - you? I haven't eaten in a long time... and so my red at four Kurantmarks suits you? Good night again..." The couple went down against the river with Consul Kröger and his family, while Senator Langhals, Doctor Grabow and Jean Jacques Hoffstede went in the opposite direction... Consul Buddenbrook stood, his hands buried in the pockets of his light-colored trousers, a little shivering in his cloth coat, a few steps from the front door and listened to the footsteps echoing in the deserted, wet and dimly lit streets. Then he turned and looked up at the gray gabled facade of the house. His eyes lingered on the inscription carved in ancient letters above the entrance: - » Dominus providebit. ' Bowing his head a little, he entered and carefully locked the clumsily creaking front door. Then he snapped the porch door shut and walked slowly across the echoing hallway. To the cook, who came clinking down the stairs with a tea tray full of glasses, he asked, "Where's the gentleman, Trina?" "In the dining room, Herr Consul..." Her face flushed like her arms, for she was from the country and easily confused. He went upstairs, and while he was still in the dark colonnade his hand made a movement towards his breast pocket, where the paper crackled. Then he stepped into the hall, in one corner of which the remains of a candle were still burning on one of the candelabra, illuminating the cleared table. The sour smell of the shallot sauce lingered in the air. Back there by the windows, Johann Buddenbrook walked leisurely up and down, his hands behind his back. Tenth Chapter "Well, my son Johann! Where are you going!” He stopped and stretched out his hand to his son, the Buddenbrooks' white hand, which was a little too short but delicately articulated. His vigorous figure, on which only the powdered wig and the lace jabot shone white, stood out against the dark red of the window curtains, dimly and restlessly illuminated. "Not yet tired? I walk here and listen to the wind... darn weather! Captain Kloht is on his way from Riga..." "O father, with God's help everything will go well!" 'Can I count on that? Admittedly, with the Lord God you're into you and you..." The Consul felt better about this good mood. 'Yes, to get to the point,' he began, 'not only did I want to say good night to you, papa, but...

• From The Hours (1998)

  She loves her son purely, as mothers do—she does not resent him, does not wish to leave. She loves her husband, and is glad to be married. It seems possible (it does not seem impossible) that she’s slipped across an invisible line, the line that has always separated her from what she would prefer to feel, who she would prefer to be. It does not seem impossible that she has undergone a subtle but profound transformation, here in this kitchen, at this most ordinary of moments: She has caught up with herself. She has worked so long, so hard, in such good faith, and now she’s gotten the knack of living happily, as herself, the way a child learns at a particular moment to balance on a two-wheel bicycle. It seems she will be fine. She will not lose hope. She will not mourn her lost possibilities, her unexplored talents (what if she has no talents, after all?). She will remain devoted to her son, her husband, her home and duties, all her gifts. She will want this second child. Mrs. Woolf She is reading proofs with Leonard and Ralph when Lottie announces that Mrs. Bell and the children have arrived. “That can’t be,” Virginia says. “It’s not two-thirty yet. They’re coming at four.” “They’re here, ma’am,” says Lottie in her slightly numbed tone. “Mrs. Bell has gone straight into the parlor.” Marjorie glances up from the parcel of books she’s been wrapping in twine (she, unlike Ralph, will compliantly wrap parcels and sort type, which is a blessing and a disappointment). She says, “Is it two-thirty already? I’d hoped to have these off by now.” Virginia does not wince, not visibly, at the sound of Marjorie’s voice. Leonard says sternly to Virginia, “I can’t stop working. I will make my contracted appearance at four o’clock, and if Vanessa chooses to remain that long, I’ll see her then.” “Don’t worry, I’ll attend to Vanessa,” Virginia says, and as she stands she’s aware of her disheveled housedress, the lank disorder of her hair. It’s only my sister, she thinks, but still, after all this time, after everything that’s happened, she wants to inspire in Vanessa a certain surprised admiration. Still she wants her sister to think, “The goat’s really looking rather well, isn’t she?” Virginia is not looking particularly well, and there’s not much she can do about it, but at least by four o’clock she’d have fixed her hair and changed her dress. She follows Lottie upstairs, and as she passes the oval mirror that hangs in the foyer she is tempted, briefly, to look at her reflection. But she can’t. Squaring her shoulders, she enters the parlor. Vanessa will be her mirror, just as she’s always been.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  And Klothilde, who was sitting there thin and elderly in her flowered calico dress, read a story which bore the title: "Blind, deaf, dumb and yet blissful"; now and then she scraped up the remains of biscuit on the tablecloth, whereupon she grasped the heap with all five fingers and carefully ate it. The sky, in which a few white clouds stood motionless, slowly began to fade. The city garden lay with symmetrically arranged paths and beds, colorful and clean in the afternoon sun. The scent of the mignonettes that lined the beds came now and then through the air. "Well, Tom," said the Consul cheerfully, and took the cigar out of his mouth; "The rye affair with van Henkdom & Comp. that I told you about is coming to an end." "What's he giving?" Thomas asked interestedly, stopping pestering Tony. “Sixty thalers for a thousand kilos… not bad, is it?” "That's excellent!" Tom knew this was a very good deal. "Tony, your attitude is not comme il faut ," the Consul remarked, and Tony, without lifting his eyes from her book, took an elbow off the table. "It doesn't hurt," said Tom. 'She can sit however she likes, she'll always be Tony Buddenbrook. Thilda and she are indisputably the loveliest in the family.« Klothilde was amazed to die. "God! Tom -?' she said, and it was incomprehensible how long she could draw out those short syllables. Tony endured in silence, because Tom was superior to her, there was no help; he would find an answer again and have the laughs on his side. She just sucked in the air sharply, nostrils open, and shrugged her shoulders. But when the Consul began to talk about the forthcoming ball at Consul Huneus' and dropped something about new patent leather shoes, Tony took his other elbow off the table and showed himself lively. "You talk and talk," cried Christian miserably, "and this is so terribly difficult! I wish I were a merchant too!' "Yes, you want something different every day," said Tom. – Then Anton came across the yard; he came with a card on the tea tray and was looked forward to with anticipation. " Greenish , Agent," read the Consul. "From Hamburg. A pleasant, well recommended man, a pastor's son. I have business with him. There's one thing... Tell the Lord, Anton - you alright Bethsy? – he may make an effort here…” – Through the garden came, hat and stick in the same hand, with rather short steps and slightly stretched out head, a medium-sized man of about 32 years in a green-yellow, woolly and long-tailed suit and gray twine gloves. His face, under the light blond, sparse hair, was rosy and smiling; but next to one nostril was a conspicuous wart. His chin and upper lip were clean-shaven, and his whiskers hung down in the English fashion; these favorites were of a decidedly golden yellow colour.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Fifth Chapter Deaths tend to bring about a mood turned to heaven, and no one was surprised to hear this or that highly religious phrase from the Consul Buddenbrook's lips after the death of her husband, which one had not been used to hearing about her before. It soon became evident, however, that this was not temporary, and the fact was quickly known in the city that the Consul was willing to honor the memory of the deceased primarily by doing so, already in the last years of his life , since she had aged, had sympathized with his spiritual leanings, now fully embraced his pious world-view. She strove to fill the sprawling house with the spirit of those who had passed away, with the gentle and Christian earnestness that did not exclude a noble cheerfulness of heart. The morning and evening prayers continued on a larger scale. The family assembled in the dining room, while the servants stood in the portico, and the Consul or Clare read a passage from the great family Bible with the enormous letters, and a few verses from the hymnal were sung to the harmonium which the Consul played. Also, one of the sermon and devotional books with a black cover and gold edges often took the place of the Bible, these treasure chests, psalters, ordination hours, morning tones and pilgrim's staffs, whose constant tenderness for the sweet, Christian did not often come to the services. An objection that Thomas had raised against the exercises on occasion, very cautiously and half jokingly, had been rejected with mildness and dignity. Unfortunately, Madame Grünlich did not always behave correctly. One morning, when a strange preacher was visiting Buddenbrooks, one was compelled to sing the words to a solemn, faithful, and heartfelt melody: "I'm a real raven aas, A true cripple of sin who ate up his sins, As the rust the Zwippel. Oh Lord, take me dog by the ear, Throw me the mercy bone And take me sin lout Into your heaven of grace!« … whereupon Mrs. Grünlich threw the book away out of inner contrition and left the room. The consul herself, however, asked far more of herself than of her children. For example, she set up a Sunday school.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  On Sunday morning, lots of little elementary school girls rang the bell in Mengstrasse, and Stine Voss, who lived near the Wall, and Mike Stuht, who lived in Glockengiesserstrasse, and Fike Snut, who lived on the Trave or in Kleine Gröpelgrube or Engelswisch, went with them her blond hair, combed with water, across the large hallway into the bright garden room, back there, which had not been used as an office for a long time, where benches had been put up and where the Consul Buddenbrook, née Kröger, with her dress made of heavy black satin , their white, noble face and their still whiter lace cap, them at a little table on which stood a glass of sugar water, She also founded the "Jerusalem Evening," and in addition to Klara and Klothilde, Tony also had to take part, willy-nilly. Once a week, by the light of lamps and candles, about twenty ladies, who were of the age when it is time to look around for a good place in heaven, sat at the long table in the dining room, drinking tea or bishop, eating sandwiches and sandwiches and pudding, read spiritual songs and treatises, and made handicrafts that were sold in a bazaar at the end of the year, and the proceeds of which were sent to Jerusalem for missionary purposes. The pious association was formed mainly of ladies from the Consul's circle of society, and Senator Langhals, Consul Möllendorpf and the old Consul Kistenmaker belonged to it, while other old ladies who were more worldly and profane, like Madame Köppen, belonged to it mocked their friend Bethsy. The city's preachers' wives, the widowed consul Buddenbrook, née Stüwing, and Sesemi Weichbrodt, along with her uneducated sister, were also members. before Jesus however, there is no rank and no difference, and so poorer and stranger figures also took part on Jerusalem eve, such as a small, wrinkled creature rich in godliness and crochet patterns, who dwelt in the Holy Spirit Hospital, called Heavenly Citizen and the last of hers Sex was ... "The last citizen of heaven," she called herself wistfully, and as she did so she stuck her knitting needle under her bonnet to ruffle her hair. Far more notable, however, were two other members, a pair of twins, two queer old girls who, in eighteenth-century shepherd hats and clothes faded for many years, walked hand in hand about the town doing good. Their name was Gerhardt and they claimed to be descended in a straight line from Paul Gerhardt. It was said that they were not at all destitute; but they lived miserably and gave everything to the poor ... "Love!" remarked Consul Buddenbrook, who was sometimes a little ashamed of her, "God looks into your heart, but your clothes are not very neat ... You have to keep yourself ..." But then they kissed only on the forehead their elegant friend, whom the lady of the world could not deny...

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  Owing to the limited circulation of their works abroad, even the older generation of émigré writers, whose fame had been solidly established in pre-Revolution Russia, could not hope that their books would make a living for them. Writing a weekly column for an émigré paper was never quite sufficient to keep body and pen together. Now and then translations into other languages brought in an unexpected scoop; but, otherwise, grants from various émigré organizations, earnings from public readings and lavish private charity were responsible for prolonging elderly authors’ lives. Younger, less known but more adaptable writers supplemented chance subsidies by engaging in various jobs. I remember teaching English and tennis. Patiently I thwarted the persistent knack Berlin businessmen had of pronouncing “business” so as to rhyme with “dizziness”; and like a slick automaton, under the slow-moving clouds of a long summer day, on dusty courts, I ladled ball after ball over the net to their tanned, bob-haired daughters. I got five dollars (quite a sum during the inflation in Germany) for my Russian Alice in Wonderland. I helped compile a Russian grammar for foreigners in which the first exercise began with the words Madam, ya doktor, vot banan (Madam, I am the doctor, here is a banana). Best of all, I used to compose for a daily émigré paper, the Berlin Rul’, the first Russian crossword puzzles, which I baptized krestoslovitsï. I find it strange to recall that freak existence. Deeply beloved of blurbists is the list of more or less earthy professions that a young author (writing about Life and Ideas—which are so much more important, of course, than mere “art”) has followed: newspaper boy, soda jerk, monk, wrestler, foreman in a steel mill, bus driver and so on. Alas, none of these callings has been mine.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  More stretched, patient, and hungry by Thilda's Of course Klara knew nothing of humility. On the contrary, when dealing with the servants, yes, even with her siblings and her mother, she used a somewhat imperious tone, and her contralto voice, which could only be lowered with certainty but never raised it questioningly, had an imperious character and was able to often take on a short, hard, intolerant and haughty timbre: on days when Klara was suffering from a headache. Before the death of the Consul enshrouded the family in mourning, she had attended with unapproachable dignity the gatherings in her parents' house and in houses of equal rank... The Consul looked at her and she could not hide the fact that, despite the stately dowry and Klara's domestic will find it difficult to marry off this child. She could not imagine any of the skeptical, red-sponge-drinking, and jovial merchants in her area, but a cleric at the side of the serious, god-fearing girl, and since this thought moved the consul joyfully, Pastor Tiburtius’ gentle introductions found a measured and friendly welcome. And indeed the matter unfolded with great precision. On a warm and cloudless July afternoon, the family went for a walk. The consuls, Antonie, Christian, Klara, Thilda, Erika Grünlich with Mamsell Jungmann and Pastor Tiburtius in their midst, went far out in front of the castle gate to eat strawberries, milk or red fruit jelly at a rural innkeeper outdoors at wooden tables, and after the Vespers meal one walked in the large kitchen garden, which stretched as far as the river, in the shade of all kinds of fruit trees between currant and gooseberry bushes, asparagus and potato fields. Sievert Tiburtius and Klara Buddenbrook stayed a little behind. He, much smaller than she, with the parted whiskers both shoulders, had taken the curly black straw hat from his large head and, while he now and then dried his forehead with the handkerchief, had a long and gentle conversation with her with wide eyes, during the course of which they both stopped and Klara with them said yes in a serious and calm voice. Then, after the return, when the consul, a little tired and overheated, was sitting alone in the landscape room, Pastor Tiburtius - outside lay the thoughtful stillness of Sunday afternoon - sat down with her in the summer evening glow and began a long and gentle conversation with her too , at the end of which the Consul said: “Enough, my dear Mr. Pastor … Your proposal corresponds to my maternal wishes, and you have not made a bad choice, I can assure you of that. Who would have thought that your entrance and stay in our house would be so wonderfully blessed!... I do not want to say my last word today, because it is proper that I first write to my son, the consul, who is currently, how You know, located abroad.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  a vague torment, because all the nerves are short here. They're all just too short..." But the relatives took these complaints just as little seriously as his jokes and hardly answered. They scattered indifferently, and so Christian sat silently in front of the theater for a while, looked at it with quick, thoughtful blinks, and then got up. "Well, kid, have fun with that," he said, stroking Hanno's hair. 'But not too much . . . and don't forget about your serious work, do you hear? I've made a lot of mistakes... But now I want to go to the club... I'm going to the club for a bit!' he called to the adults. “They celebrate Christmas there too. Goodbye.” And with stiff, crooked legs he walked away through the portico. Everyone had lunch earlier than usual today and therefore helped themselves extensively with tea and biscuits. But one was hardly done when large crystal bowls filled with a yellow, grainy porridge were passed around for snacking. It was almond cream, a mixture of eggs, ground almonds, and rose water, which tasted wonderful, but which, if you took a spoonful too much, caused the most terrible stomach trouble. Nevertheless, and although the consul asked "to leave a small hole open" for supper, there was no compulsion. As for Klothilde, she performed miracles. Silently and gratefully, she spooned up the almond cream as if it were buckwheat groats. For refreshment there was also wine jelly in glasses, which was eaten with English Plumkake. Hanno was left alone in the hall because little Elisabeth Weinschenk had been taken home, while he was allowed to stay in Mengstrasse for supper for the first time this year; gifts, and Ida Jungmann chatted with Riekchen Severin in the columned hall, although, as a governess, she usually kept a strict social distance from the maid. The lights of the great tree had burned down and were extinguished, so that the crib now lay in darkness; but a few candles on the small trees on the table were still burning, and here and there a twig came within reach of a little flame, scorched and crackled, and intensified the scent that pervaded the hall. Each breeze that touched the trees made the pieces of tinsel gold attached to them tremble with a delicate metallic sound. It was now quiet enough again to hear the faint sounds of a barrel organ coming from a distant street through the cold evening. Hanno enjoyed the Christmas scents and sounds with devotion. He read his mythology book with his head in his hand, ate mechanically and because it was necessary, confectionery, marzipan, almond cream and plumkake, and the anxious trepidation of a full stomach mingled with the sweet excitement of the evening to a wistful bliss.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  Third: Community. Rick is very, very serious about people living together, eating together, and playing together. He encourages young single people to get houses and live with each other. Rick doesn’t like it when people are lonely. We have home communities that meet all over town, and we consider this to be the heart of our church. Almost every church I have ever been to already does a great job at this. Fourth: Authenticity. This is something of a buzzword, I know, but Imago actually lives this. I speak from the pulpit at Imago from time to time, and I am completely comfortable saying anything I like. I don’t have to pretend to be godly in order for people to listen. Authenticity is an enormous value at Imago. I love this because by being true I am allowing people to get to know the real me, and it feels better to have people love the real me than the me I invented. So one of the things I had to do after God provided a church for me was to let go of any bad attitude I had against the other churches I’d gone to. In the end, I was just different, you know. It wasn’t that they were bad, they just didn’t do it for me. I read through the book of Ephesians four times one night in Eugene Peterson’s The Message, and it seemed to me that Paul did not want Christians to fight with one another. He seemed to care a great deal about this, so, in my mind, I had to tell my heart to love the people at the churches I used to go to, the people who were different from me. This was entirely freeing because when I told my heart to do this, my heart did it, and now I think very fondly of those wacko Republican fundamentalists, and I know that they love me, too, and I know that we will eat together, we will break bread together in heaven, and we will love each other so purely it will hurt because we are a family in Christ. So here is a step-by-step formula for how you, too, can go to church without getting angry: Pray that God will show you a church filled with people who share your interests and values. Go to the church God shows you. Don’t hold grudges against any other churches. God loves those churches almost as much as He loves yours. 13 Romance Meeting Girls Is Easy

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  I don’t like institutionalized anything. I don’t like corporations. I am not saying institutions and corporations are wrong, or bad; I am only saying I don’t like them. Some people don’t like classical music, some people don’t like pizza, I don’t like institutions. My dislike might stem from a number of things, from the nonpersonal feel I get when I walk into a corporate office or the voice-mail system I encounter when I call my bank. It might be the nonengaged look on every fast-food worker’s face or the phone calls I receive in the middle of dinner asking me what long-distance carrier I use. Those people never want to just talk; they always have an agenda. My dislike for institutions is mostly a feeling, though, not something that can be explained. There are upsides to institutions, of course. Tradition, for example. The corridors at Harvard, rich with history, thick with thought, the availability of good, hot Starbucks coffee at roughly thirty locations within five miles of my home. And what about all those jobs? Without the corporate machine, where would people work? I suppose we need them. The institutions. The corporations. But mostly I don’t like them. I don’t have to like them either. It’s my right. I don’t like church, either, for the same reason. Or I should say I didn’t like church. I like attending a Catholic service every once in a while, but I think that is because it feels different to me. I grew up Baptist. I like watching religious television every once in a while. It’s better than Comedy Central. I want to study psychology so I can sit in front of religious television and figure out these people’s problems. For a while I was very fascinated with televangelists. I couldn’t afford a television ministry but I had a computer, so I would go into Christian chat rooms and try to heal people. It was funny at first, but it got boring. Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox. I think that sounds cool. Greek Orthodox. Unless you are Greek. Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist. If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church. If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church. Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool. [image "9780785263708_0143_004" file=Image00046.jpg] I go to a church now that I love. I never thought I would say that about a church. I never thought I could love a church. But I love this one. It is called Imago-Dei, which means “Image of God” in Latin. Latin is exotic and cool. In the churches I used to go to, I felt like I didn’t fit in. I always felt like the adopted kid, as if there was “room at the table for me.” Do you know what I mean? I was accepted but not understood.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  A beer and a kaas…” But Mr. Dieckmann did not understand that, but began with great fluency: "Anything that's there, Mr. Kunsel ... crayfish, shrimp, various sausages, various cheeses, smoked eel, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon ..." 'Fine, Dieckmann, you'll do it. And then give us six glasses of milk and a pint of beer, if I'm not mistaken, Herr Permaneder, eh?..." “One beer, six times milk…Sweet milk, buttermilk, thick milk, full milk, Herr Kunsel…” “Half and half, Dieckmann; sweet milk and buttermilk. So in an hour.” And they walked across the square. "First of all, it's up to us to visit the source, Mr. Permaneder," said Thomas. “The source: that means the source of the Au, and the Au is the little river on which Schwartau lies and on which our town was originally located in the gray Middle Ages, until it burned down – it probably wasn’t very durable, you know – and was rebuilt on the Trave. Incidentally, painful memories are linked to the name of the river. As boys we thought it was funny to pinch each other's arms and ask: What's the name of the river near Schwartau? Then, of course, because it hurt, you cried out your name against your will... Da!' he suddenly stopped ten paces from the climb; 'we've been overtaken. Möllendorpfs and Hagenstroms.« Indeed, up there on the third floor of the wooded terrace, the chief members of these two favorably related families sat at two tables drawn close together and ate amid animated conversation. Old Senator Möllendorpf presided, a pale gentleman with white, thin, pointed sideburns; he was diabetic. His wife, née Langhals, fiddled with her long-handled lorgnette, and her gray hair was still untidy about her head. Her son was there, August, a blond young man of well-to-do appearance and Julchen's husband, née Hagenström, who was small, lively, with large, blank, black eyes and almost equally large diamonds on the earlobes, sat between her brothers Hermann and Moritz. Consul Hermann Hagenstrom began to grow very strong, for he lived splendidly and it was said that he would start eating foie gras first thing in the morning. He wore a reddish-blond, cropped beard, and his nose—his mother's nose—was conspicuously flat on his upper lip. Doctor Moritz, with a flat chest and a yellowish complexion, showed his pointed, gapped teeth in lively conversation. Both brothers had their wives with them, for the legal scholar had also been married for several years, to a Fraulein Puttfarken from Hamburg, a lady with butter-colored hair and an excessively dispassionate, apparently Anglicizing, but extraordinarily beautiful and regular facial features, for Doctor Hagenstrom could not have reconciled his reputation as an esthete to marry an ugly girl. Finally, Hermann Hagenstrom's little daughter and Moritz Hagenstrom's little son were also present, two children dressed in white who were already as good as engaged to each other, because the Huneus-Hagenstrom fortune was not to be wasted. – Everyone ate scrambled eggs with ham.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Fifth Chapter A year and two months later, on a snowy, hazy January morning in 1850, Herr and Madame Grünlich were sitting with their little three-year-old daughter in the light-brown one Wood paneled dining room on chairs, each of which had cost 25 Kurantmarks, at first breakfast. The panes of the windows were almost opaque with fog; bare trees and bushes were blurred behind them. Red embers crackled in the green-glazed low stove, which stood in a corner near the open door that led into the "Pensee Room," where leafy plants could be seen, and filled the room with a gentle, faintly fragrant warmth. On the opposite side, half-returned green cloth portieres gave a view of the brown silk salon and a high glass door, the cracks of which were stuffed with padded rolls, behind which a small terrace was lost in the white-grey, opaque fog. A third exit led to the corridor. The snow-white knitted damask on the round table was traversed by a green embroidered table runner and covered with gold-rimmed porcelain so transparent that it shimmered here and there like mother-of-pearl. A tea machine hummed. Rounds and slices of milk biscuits lay in a thin silver flat breadbasket, shaped like a large, jagged, slightly rolled leaf. Small, rippled balls of butter piled up under a crystal bell, under another different types of cheese, yellow, green marbled and white, were visible. There was no lack of a bottle of red wine, which stood in front of the master of the house, because Mr. Grünlich had a warm breakfast. With his favorites freshly coiffed and a face that seemed particularly rosy at this hour of the morning, he sat with his back to the drawing room, fully dressed in a black coat and light-colored, large-checked trousers, and ate a lightly fried cutlet, in English fashion. His wife found this noble, but also so disgusting that she could never bring herself to exchange her usual breakfast of bread and eggs for it. Tony was in his dressing gown; she adored dressing gowns. Nothing seemed more elegant to her than an elegant negligee, and since she had not been allowed to succumb to this passion at home, she indulged now that she is a married woman all the more eagerly. She owned three of those supple and delicate garments that can be made with more taste, refinement and imagination than a ballroom dress. But to-day she wore the dark red dressing-gown, the color of which matched exactly the tone of the wallpaper over the wood paneling, and whose large-flowered fabric, softer than cotton, was interwoven all over with a sprinkling of minute glass beads of the same tint... A straight and dense row of red velvet bows ran down from the neckline to the hem. Her thick ash-blond hair, adorned with a dark red velvet bow, was curled over her forehead.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Even Gerda, and in a kind of mute and rigid nervousness, now began to revive, and when, after an accelerated way back, one arrived in front of the inn again and sat down on the second step of the forest terrace at an overabundantly occupied table, it was she who did it in amiable phrases, regretted that Herr Permaneder's departure was so imminent: now that we had gotten to know each other a little, for example, when it was easy to see that on both sides there were ever fewer misunderstandings or non-understandings because of the dialect ... She could confirm the assertion argued that her friend and sister-in-law Tony said "Gosh!" with virtuosity two or three times... Herr Permaneder refrained from giving any affirmative answer to the word "departure," but for the time being devoted himself to the delicacies that the table was brimming with, and which he didn't get across the Danube every day. They ate the good things at leisure, and little Erika was almost happiest about the tissue paper serviettes, which seemed to her incomparably nicer than the big linen ones at home, and which, with the waiter's permission, she even put a few in her pocket as a souvenir stuck and then, while Herr Permaneder smoked several deep black cigars with his beer and the Consul smoked his cigarettes, the family and their guest sat together for a long time and chatted; – but it was remarkable that no one remembered Mr. Permaneder's departure and that the future was left completely untouched. Instead, they exchanged memories, discussed the political events of the last few years, and after telling some forty-eight anecdotes, Mr. Permaneder reported which the consul retold to her deceased husband, who shook with laughter, about the revolution in Munich and about Lola Montez, for whom Frau Grünlich was immensely interested. But then, when the first hour after noon was gradually over, when Erika, all hot and laden with daisies, cuckoo flower and grass, returned from a foray with Ida and reminded me of the pepper nuts, that were still to be bought, they set out on a walk down to the village … not before the consul, whose guests were all today, had settled the bill with a not insignificant piece of gold. Orders were given in front of the inn that the carriage should be ready in an hour, because they wanted to be able to rest a little in the city before dinner; and then they walked slowly, for the sun beat down on the dust, the low houses of the spot. Immediately after the Au bridge, the order was arranged naturally and automatically, which was then halted along the way: Mamsell Jungmann was in front, because of her long strides, next to Erika, who was tirelessly jumping and hunting for cabbage whites, followed by the consul, Thomas and Gerda and finally, at some distance, Frau Grünlich with Herr Permaneder.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Over there, on the breakfast table, the sun rested blindingly on the white linen, here and there sprinkled with crumbs, and played in small, sparkling twists and leaps on the gilding of the mortar-shaped cups... Both wings of the bedroom door were open, and from there one could hear the voice of Johann Buddenbrooks, who was humming very softly to himself an old funny melody: "A good man, a good man, A man of complaisance; He cooks the soup and weighs the child And smells like bitter oranges.” He sat to one side of the little cradle with green silk curtains that stood by the Consul's high four-poster bed, and held it up with one hand in a steady wave. The consul and her husband had settled down here for a while for the sake of easier service, while her father and Madame Antoinette, who, wearing an apron over her striped dress and a lace cap on her thick white curls, sat down at the table at the back flannel and linen, used the third room on the mezzanine to sleep. Consul Buddenbrook scarcely glanced into the next room, so busy was he with his work. His face wore a serious expression, almost suffering from devotion. His mouth was slightly open, his chin drooped a little, and his eyes clouded now and then. He wrote: »Today, i. On April 14, 1838, at 6 o'clock in the morning, my dear wife Elisabeth, née Kröger, was happily delivered of a little daughter with God's gracious help. Baptize the nameKlarashould receive. Yes, the Lord helped her so graciously, although according to Doctor Grabow the birth came a little too early and before that everything was not going well and Bethsy was in a lot of pain. Oh, where is there such a God as you are, you Lord of hosts, who helps you in all troubles and dangers and teaches us to recognize your will correctly, so that we fear you and may be found faithful to your will and commandments! Oh, Lord, lead and lead us all as long as we live on earth…” – The pen hurried on, smoothly, nimbly, and executing here and there a flourish of mercantile flourishes, and line by line it spoke to God. Two pages later it said: »I wrote out a policy for my youngest daughter for 150 Kuranttaler. Lead her, oh Lord! on your ways and give her a pure heart, so that one day she will enter the dwellings of eternal peace.