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"It is not right, it is not right, Gerda," said old Fräulein Weichbrodt, perhaps for the hundredth time. Her voice was full of reproach and distress. She had a sofa place today in the circle that sat round the centre-table in the drawing-room of her former pupil. Gerda Buddenbrook, Frau Permaneder, her daughter Erica, poor Clothilde, and the three Misses Buddenbrook made up the group. The green cap-strings still fell down upon the old lady's childish shoulders; but she had grown so tiny, with her seventy-five years of life, that she could scarcely raise her elbow high enough to gesticulate above the surface of the table.
"No, it is not right, and so I tell you, Gerda," she repeated. She spoke with such warmth that her voice trembled. "I have one foot in the grave, my time is short -- and you can think of leaving me -- of leaving us all -- forever! If it were just a visit to Amsterdam that you were thinking of -- but to leave us forever -- ! " She shook her birdlike old head vigorously, and her brown eyes were clouded with her distress. "It is true, you have lost a great deal -- "