Buddenbrooks: Part 7, Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

One Sunday in July, about a month after Thomas and his family move into their new house, Tony drops by and shares the news that she’s received a letter from Tiburtius in Riga, who has written the family to update them that Clara is gravely ill with tuberculosis. It’s not looking good, and Clara is apparently not interested in recovering—she wants to die and go to heaven. Thomas says nothing, and he and Tony walk together in sad, gloomy silence.

Christian is ill, too: his “‘ache’” has apparently gotten so bad that he's totally forgotten about all his other ailments. He was ready to leave London and return home, but his condition swiftly worsened, and he was unable to make it farther than Hamburg. Now, he’s lying in a hospital bed, having been diagnosed with rheumatic fever. The doctors say he is unfit to travel.

Thomas confesses that he recently had a bad business deal on some rye. Tony urges Thomas not to let himself get too upset about business. But Thomas replies that he’s not upset about the business deal: rather, he thinks it’s his sadness that caused the business deal to fall through. This shocks Tony: what does Thomas have to be sad about? He lives in a magnificent house, and he’s made a good life for himself. And God will take care of them through their other setbacks. Thomas explains that he feels rather directionless now that he’s made it in life. He doesn’t know how to enjoy himself.

Thomas describes a disappointing business meeting he had yesterday with the Buchen Railroad Commission, during which Hermann Hagenström smugly shut down all Thomas’s ideas. Thomas thinks back to what Tony said at Hanno’s christening—“It’s as if a whole new era is beginning”—back then, he thought maybe Tony was right. Now, he’s not so sure. And the new house and election to the senate only make him less certain. Those things are just “superficialities.”