Buddenbrooks

I

“Oh, yes, yes, what the dickens does come next? C’est la question, ma très chère demoiselle!”

Frau Consul Buddenbrook shot a glance at her husband and came to the rescue of her little daughter. She sat with her mother-in-law on a straight white-enamelled sofa with yellow cushions and a gilded lion’s head at the top. The Consul was in his easy-chair beside her, and the child perched on her grandfather’s knee in the window.

“Tony,” prompted the Frau Consul, “ ‘I believe that God’⁠—”