Buddenbrooks: Part 6, Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

Tony retreats to her room after dinner, apparently not wanting to run into Thomas that evening. Thomas returns from the office at six o’clock, and Bethsy explains the situation to him, wearily adding that Tony is adamant about leaving Permaneder. Thomas goes to Tony’s room to talk some sense into her. Tony sits up, happy to see Thomas, despite the circumstances. She asks for updates on the family and on work.

Then, Thomas gets down to business. While it’s clear that Permaneder has behaved badly—and Thomas promises to let Permaneder know it—he thinks Tony is acting irrationally. When Tony insists that she won’t return to Munich, Thomas firmly tells Tony that she is “not to make a scandal” for the family. This only deepens Tony’s outrage—it’s she who has been scandalized and insulted by Permaneder’s behavior. She alludes to an insulting name that Permaneder called her the night she caught him with Babbit, but she refuses to tell Thomas what the name was. When she insists on a divorce, Thomas tells her that’s not an option—both parties must consent to a divorce, and there’s no way Permaneder would allow it.

Tony asks Thomas whether they really want to be the kind of family that maintains appearances—all the while suffering on the inside. Tony refuses to live that way—she knows who she is and isn’t afraid to let others judge her. Julie Möllendorpf can turn her nose up at Tony all she wants—Tony doesn’t care. No, the only real “scandal” that threatens the Buddenbrooks is being phony. After a pause, Thomas urges her to be honest with herself. It’s not Permaneder she hates—it’s that she’s struggling to adjust to her new life in a new, strange land.

Tony abruptly shouts that Thomas is right. In a lengthy and impassioned monologue, she describes how unbearably sad and alienated and lonely she has felt in her new home in the south. It’s been awful. Thomas and Gerda didn’t catch on to Tony’s misery since she “know[s] something about tact” and has been taught that she ought not let her emotions be a burden to others.

Tony continues. Thomas used to make fun of her “partiality for the nobility,” and she used to think it was something worth making fun of as well. But now she realizes that the Buddenbrooks—and their “circle of ruling families”—really do “feel that [they] are aristocrats.” And they should own that feeling. She cannot live among “people who have no dignity, morals, ambition, elegance, or discipline,” and so she cannot live in Munich. She resolves to divorce Permaneder. 

Tony finishes her speech. After a long pause, Thomas quietly confirms that there’s nothing he can do—it’s clear Tony’s mind is made up. Tony asks Thomas if he’s angry with her. He promises her he’s not, but he refuses to look at her. With tears in her eyes, Tony tells Thomas that the future of the Buddenbrook family is now in his hands alone. Christian likely won’t be much help, and she won’t be either.