Dr. Langhals had gone home for a while, but when he returned he found everything as before. He held a brief discussion with the nurse and then took his leave. Dr. Grabow looked in again as well. Attended to what could be attended to with a kindly face, and left. Thomas Buddenbrook’s eyes were still glazed, and he continued to move his lips and make gurgling sounds. Dusk fell. The soft red glow of winter twilight shone through the window and fell on the muddy clothes draped over a chair in one corner of the room.

At five o’clock, Frau Permaneder impetuously let her feelings get the better of her. She was sitting on the bed opposite her sister-in-law, and suddenly, putting her throaty voice to use, she folded her hands and began to speak the words of a hymn – very loudly. “Bring now, O Lord,” she said – and they all sat there rigid, listening – “an ending, to all his pain and woe; Thy strength and mercy sending, the grace of death bestow. …” But she was praying with such heartfelt intensity and was so caught up in each word she spoke that she did not stop to think that  she did not even know the whole verse – by the third line she was hopelessly stuck. She recited it, and then, with her voice still raised, she broke off and substituted a dignified pose for the final lines. Cringing with embarrassment, everyone in the room waited for her to finish. Johann cleared his throat so  loudly that it sounded like a groan.  And  then the only sound to break the silence was Thomas Buddenbrook’s agonized gurgling.

It came as a relief when the maid announced that she had brought up something to eat. But as they sat in Gerda’s bedroom and began to spoon their soup, Sister Leandra appeared in the door and beckoned them with a friendly gesture.

The senator was dying. He sobbed softly two or three times, then fell silent, and his lips stopped moving. That was the only observable change – his eyes had been dead all along.

Dr. Langhals arrived within a few minutes; he put his black stethoscope to the corpse’s chest, listened for a while, and having contemplated his conscientious examination, said, “Yes, it’s over.”

Sister Leandra carefully closed the dead man’s eyes with the forefinger of her pale, gentle hand.