“Well, Christian,” the consul’s wife said – her hair had taken on a golden sheen now – “what did you learn this afternoon?” And it turned out that Christian had had lessons in writing, arithmetic, and singing.

He was a lad of seven, who even now looked ridiculously like his father. He had the same rather small, round, deep-set eyes, the same jutting arch to the nose was evident already, and a few lines  beneath the cheekbones suggested  that the shape of the face would not retain its present childish fullness.

“We laughed ourselves silly” – he was starting to chatter away now, while his eyes  wandered  from person to person in the room.  “I have to tell you what Herr Stengel said to Siegmund Kostermann.” He bent forward, shaking his head and addressing the empty air with great emphasis. “‘Externally, my good lad, externally you are sleek and dapper, true, but internally, my good lad, you are black.’” He  dropped all his  “r”s as he said it, and “black” came out  as  “bleck” – and his  face was  so convincingly comic at depicting this “extuhnal” sleekness and dapperness that  they all broke into laughter.

“A monkey!” old Buddenbrook repeated with a giggle.