Loneliness and Happiness

Abstract

On a certain warm summer Sunday in 1892 Tony Buddenbrook, who has by then gone through two marriages, has supper with her brother, Thomas, and her sister-in-law in their magnificent new home in the Fischergrube. After supper the three of them sit together around a large table under the gas lamp. The two ladies are occupied with their needlework, while the Senator is fighting his daily battle with the newspaper which he finds — as his grandfather before him — insipid and dull. The windows are open and occasional distant noises puncture the quiet of the residential street. Then a troop of sailors passes by, their arms linked, smoking and singing. They are coming from a somewhat disreputable harbor tavern, and in their raucous mood they are looking for one even more disreputable. Then their hoarse voices fade away...