Personal Fulfillment and Self-Knowledge Theme Analysis

Thomas, who was destined from birth to be a merchant and the future owner of the firm, attended modern, scientific classes beneath the Gothic arches of the Old School. He was a clever, alert, and prudent young man, but he took immense enjoyment in Christian’s wonderful gift for imitating the teachers of the humanities classes he attended, where he showed no less talent than his brother, although less seriousness.

Tony followed the gesture with her eyes, and they gazed together into the same distance—it would not have taken much for their two hands, lying side by side on the beach, to have joined. They said nothing for a long time. And while the sea murmured ponderously and peacefully below, Tony suddenly felt herself united with Morten in a great, vague, yearning, intuitive understanding of what “freedom” meant.

We are not born, my dear daughter, to pursue our own small personal happiness, for we are not separate, independent, self-subsisting individuals, but links in a chain; and it is inconceivable that we would be what we are without those who have preceded us and shown us the path that they themselves have scrupulously trod, looking neither to the left nor the right, but, rather, following a venerable and trustworthy tradition.

Tony gazed for a long time at her own name and the open space after it. And then, suddenly she flinched and swallowed hard, her whole face a play of nervous, eager movement, her lips quickly touching for just a moment—and now she grabbed the pen, plunged rather than dipped it into the ink well, and, crooking her index finger any laying her flushed head on her shoulder, wrote in her own clumsy hand, slanting upward from left to right: “Engaged on 22 September 1845 to Herr Bendix Grünlich, merchant from Hamburg.”

The fierce contempt in which Thomas held his brother—and the wistful indifference with which Christian bore it—found expression in all those trivial moments of life that can only manifest themselves among people thrown together in families. If, for example, conversation turned to the history of the Buddenbrooks, Christian could become wrapped up in a mood of high seriousness—which ill became him—and speak with love and admiration of his hometown and his forebears. The consul would immediately cut him off with an icy remark. He could not stand it. He despised his brother so much that he would not allow him to love the things he loved.

“Every word you’ve said is childish. I beg you, won’t you please, just for one second, agree to look at the matter like an adult? Don’t you see that you are carrying on as if something serious and awful had happened to you, as if your husband had cruelly betrayed you, holding you up to shame before all the world? Just consider for a moment—nothing happened at all! Not one human soul knows anything about that absurd scene on your staircase on Kaufinger Strasse. You will not prejudice your dignity, or ours, one iota if you return to Permaneder, perfectly calm and cool, and at most with your nose set slightly in the air. On the contrary—you will prejudice our dignity if you don’t do it, because that would turn a mere bagatelle into a true scandal.”

“I’ve learned from life and history. I know that the external, visible, tangible tokens and symbols of happiness and success first appear only after things have in reality gone into decline already.”

It was nevertheless Frau Antonie’s most fervent wish—particularly since she had “gone out of business” herself, as she put it—that her daughter would fulfill the hopes that had gone so awry for her, that she would marry happily and advantageously, bringing honor to the family and erasing the memory of her mother’s fate.

“Well, this is no fun,” the senator said in a gruff, annoyed voice and stood up. “What are you crying about? Although it’s enough to make us all cry that you couldn’t put forth the effort to please me a little on a day like today. Are you a little girl? What’s to become of you if you keep on like this? Do you think you can still break into tears when you grow up and have to give a speech to people?”

Never, Hanno thought in despair, I’ll never give a speech to anyone!

“I became what I am,” Thomas said at last, with emotion in his voice, “because I did not want to become like you. If I have inwardly shrunk away from you, it was because I had to protect myself from you, because your nature and character are a danger to me. I am speaking the truth.”

He was empty inside, and he could see no exciting project or absorbing task into which he could throw himself with joy and satisfaction. But he had a need to keep busy, and his mind never stopped working. He was consumed by his own restless energy, which for him had always been something different form his father’s natural and solid joy in work, something artificial, more like a nervous itch, practically a drug—like the pungent little Russian cigarettes he constantly smoked. That energy had never left him, he was less its master than ever; it had gained the upper hand, had become such a torment that he wasted his time with a host of trivialities.

“You can’t believe how he looked when they brought him in. No one has ever seen even a speck of dust on him, he never allowed that, his whole life long. What vile, insulting mockery for it to end like this.”