Read "Buddenbrooks" by Thomas Mann online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A christening -- a christening in Broad Street!
All, everything is there that was dreamed of by Madame Permaneder in the days of her expectancy. In the dining-room, the maidservant, moving noiselessly so as not to disturb the services in the next room, is filling the cups with steaming hot chocolate and whipped cream. There are quantities of cups, crowded together on the great round tray with the gilded shell-shaped handles. And Anton the butler is cutting a towering layer-cake into slices, and Mamsell Jungmann is arranging flowers and sweets in silver dessert-dishes, with her head on one side, and both little fingers stuck out.