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TECHNOLOGY IN AC TION™
Beginning Sensor
Networks with
XBee, Raspberry Pi,
and Arduino
Sensing the World with Python
and MicroPython
—
Second Edition
—
Charles Bell
www.allitebooks.com
Beginning Sensor
Networks with XBee,
Raspberry Pi, and
Arduino
Sensing the World with Python
and MicroPython
Second Edition
Charles Bell
www.allitebooks.com
Beginning Sensor Networks with XBee, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino:
Sensing the World with Python and MicroPython
Charles Bell
Warsaw, VA, USA
www.allitebooks.com
I dedicate this book to the countless healthcare
professionals, first responders, and many unsung heroes of
this difficult time we face in the world during the COVID-19
crisis. It is my hope this book and others like it help the
millions of people pass the time during the crisis learning
more about science and technology.
www.allitebooks.com
Table of Contents
About the Author��������������������������������������������������������������������������������xv
www.allitebooks.com
Table of Contents
vi
Table of Contents
vii
Table of Contents
viii
Table of Contents
ix
Table of Contents
Arduino Tutorial�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������288
Learning Resources�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������289
The Arduino IDE�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������290
Project: Hardware “Hello, World!”����������������������������������������������������������������294
Hosting Sensors with Arduino���������������������������������������������������������������������������300
Project: Building an Arduino Temperature Sensor���������������������������������������������302
Hardware Setup�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������302
Software Setup��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������304
Writing the Sketch���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������306
Test Execution���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������310
Project: Using an Arduino As a Data Collector for XBee Sensor Nodes�������������312
XBee Sensor Node���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������312
Coordinator Node�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������313
Arduino with XBee Shield����������������������������������������������������������������������������314
Testing the Final Project������������������������������������������������������������������������������326
For More Fun�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������328
Component Shopping List���������������������������������������������������������������������������������328
Summary����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������331
x
Table of Contents
xi
Table of Contents
xii
Table of Contents
xiii
Table of Contents
Appendix�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������683
Consolidated Shopping Lists�����������������������������������������������������������������������������683
Alternative Connection Systems�����������������������������������������������������������������������691
Grove�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������691
Qwiic�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������695
STEMMA QT������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������700
Summary����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������701
Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������703
xiv
About the Author
Charles Bell conducts research in emerging
technologies. He is a principal software
developer of the Oracle MySQL Development
team. He lives in a small town in rural Virginia
with his loving wife. He received his Doctor
of Philosophy in Engineering from Virginia
Commonwealth University in 2005.
Dr. Bell is an expert in the database field
and has extensive knowledge and experience in
software development and systems engineering.
His research interests include microcontrollers, three-dimensional printing,
database systems, software engineering, and sensor networks. He spends his
limited free time as a practicing maker focusing on microcontroller projects
and refinement of three-dimensional printers.
xv
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different content
opening one from time to time to stare despairingly at the clock,
which went stupidly on in its insensate, accurate way.
Ten minutes after seven o’clock, he tore himself out of bed and
began to move about the room with frantic haste. He let the candle
burn, for the daylight was not enough by itself. He breathed upon a
crystal and, looking out, saw a thick mist abroad.
He was unutterably cold, and a shiver sometimes shook his entire
body. The ends of his fingers burned; they were so swollen that he
could do nothing with the nail-brush. As he washed the upper parts
of his body, his almost lifeless hand let fall the sponge, and he stood
a moment stiff and helpless, steaming like a sweating horse.
At last he was dressed. Dull-eyed and breathless, he stood at the
table, collected his despairing senses with a jerk, and began to put
together the books he was likely to need to-day, murmuring in an
anguished voice: “Religion, Latin, chemistry,” and shuffling together
the wretched ink-spotted paper volumes.
Yes, he was already quite tall, was little Johann. He was more than
fifteen years old, and no longer wore a sailor costume, but a light-
brown jacket suit with a blue-and-white spotted cravat. Over his
waistcoat he wore a long, thin gold chain that had belonged to his
grandfather, and on the fourth finger of his broad but delicately
articulated right hand was the old seal ring with the green stone. It
was his now. He pulled on his heavy winter jacket, put on his hat,
snatched his school-bag, extinguished the candle, and dashed down
the stair to the ground floor, past the stuffed bear, and into the
dining-room on the right.
Fräulein Clementine, his mother’s new factotum, a thin girl with curls
on her forehead, a pointed nose, and short-sighted eyes, already sat
at the breakfast-table.
“How late is it, really?” he asked between his teeth, though he
already knew with great precision.
“A quarter before eight,” she answered, pointing with a thin, red,
rheumatic-looking hand at the clock on the wall. “You must get along,
Hanno.” She set a steaming cup of cocoa before him, and pushed
the bread and butter, salt, and an egg-cup toward his place.
He said no more, clutched a roll, and began, standing, with his hat
on and his bag under his arm, to swallow his cocoa. The hot drink
hurt the back tooth which Herr Brecht had just been working at. He
let half of it stand, pushed away the egg, and with a sound intended
for an adieu ran out of the house.
It was ten minutes to eight when he left the garden and the little brick
villa behind him and dashed along the wintry avenue. Ten, nine,
eight minutes more. And it was a long way. He could scarcely see for
the fog. He drew it in with his breath and breathed it out again, this
thick, icy cold fog, with all the power of his narrow chest; he stopped
his still throbbing tooth with his tongue, and did fearful violence to his
leg muscles. He was bathed in perspiration; yet he felt frozen in
every limb. He began to have a stitch in his side. The morsel of
breakfast revolted in his stomach against this morning jaunt which it
was taking; he felt nauseated, and his heart fluttered and trembled
so that it took away his breath.
The Castle Gate—only the Castle Gate—and it was four minutes to
eight! As he panted on through the streets, in an extremity of
mingled pain, perspiration, and nausea, he looked on all sides for his
fellow-pupils. No, there was no one else; they were all on the spot—
and now it was beginning to strike eight. Bells were ringing all over
the town, and the chimes of St. Mary’s were playing, in celebration of
this moment, “now let us all thank God.” They played half the notes
falsely; they had no idea of rhythm, and they were badly in want of
tuning. Thus Hanno, in the madness of despair. But what was that to
him? He was late; there was no longer any room for doubt. The
school clock was usually a little behind, but not enough to help him
this time. He stared hopelessly into people’s faces as they passed
him. They were going to their offices or about their business; they
were in no particular hurry; nothing was threatening them. Some of
them looked at him and smiled at his distracted appearance and
sulky looks. He was beside himself at these smiles. What were they
smiling at, these comfortable, unhurried people? He wanted to shout
after them and tell them their smiling was very uncivil. Perhaps they
would just enjoy falling down dead in front of the closed entrance
gate of the school!
The prolonged shrill ringing which was the signal for morning prayers
struck on his ear while he was still twenty paces from the long red
wall with the two cast-iron gates, which separated the court of the
school-building from the street. He felt that his legs had no more
power to advance: he simply let his body fall forward, the legs moved
willy-nilly to prevent his stumbling, and thus he staggered on and
arrived at the gate just as the bell had ceased ringing.
Herr Schlemiel, the porter, a heavy man with the face and rough
beard of a labourer, was just about to close the gate. “Well!” he said,
and let Buddenbrook slip through. Perhaps, perhaps, he might still
be saved! What he had to do now was to slip unobserved into his
classroom and wait there until the end of prayers, which were held in
the drill-hall, and to act as if everything were in order. Panting,
exhausted, in a cold perspiration, he slunk across the courtyard and
through the folding doors with glass panes that divided it from the
interior.
Everything in the establishment was now new, clean, and adequate.
The time had been ripe; and the grey, crumbling walls of the ancient
monastic school had been levelled to the ground to make room for
the spacious, airy, and imposing new building. The style of the whole
had been preserved, and corridors and cloisters were still spanned
by the fine old Gothic vaulting. But the lighting and heating
arrangements, the ventilation of the classrooms, the comfort of the
masters’ rooms, the equipment of the halls for the teaching of
chemistry, physics and design, all this had been carried out on the
most modern lines with respect to comfort and sanitation.
The exhausted Hanno stuck close to the wall and kept his eyes open
as he stole along. Heaven be praised, the corridors were empty. He
heard distantly the hubbub made by the hosts of masters and pupils
going into the drill-hall, to receive there a little spiritual strengthening
for the labours of the week. But here everything was empty and still,
and his road up the broad linoleum-covered stairs lay free. He stole
up cautiously on his tip-toes, holding his breath, straining his ears for
sounds from above. His classroom, the lower second of the
Realschule, was in the first storey, opposite the stairs, and the door
was open. Crouched on the top step, he peered down the long
corridor, on both sides of which were the entrances to the various
classrooms, with porcelain signs above them. Three rapid, noiseless
steps forward—and he was in his own room.
It was empty. The curtains of the three large windows were still
drawn, and the gas was burning in the chandelier with a soft hissing
noise. Green shades diffused the light over the three rows of desks.
These desks each had room for two pupils; they were made of light-
coloured wood, and opposite them, in remote and edifying austerity,
stood the master’s platform with a blackboard behind it. A yellow
wainscoting ran round the lower part of the wall, and above it the
bare white-washed surface was decorated with a few maps. A
second blackboard stood on an easel by the master’s chair.
Hanno went to his place, which was nearly in the centre of the room.
He stuffed his bag into the desk, sank upon the hard seat, laid his
arms on the sloping lid, and rested his head upon them. He had a
sensation of unspeakable relief. The room was bare, hard, hateful,
and ugly; and the burden of the whole threatening forenoon, with its
numerous perils, lay before him. But for the moment he was safe; he
had saved his skin, and could take things as they came. The first
lesson, Herr Ballerstedt’s class in religious instruction, was
comparatively harmless. He could see, by the vibration of the little
strips of paper over the ventilator next the ceiling, that warm air was
streaming in, and the gas, too, did its share to heat the room. He
could actually stretch out here and feel his stiffened limbs slowly
thawing. The heat mounted to his head: it was very pleasant, but not
quite healthful; it made his ears buzz and his eyes heavy.
A sudden noise behind him made him start and turn around. And
behold, from behind the last bench rose the head and shoulders of
Kai, Count Mölln. He crawled out, did this young man, got up, shook
himself, slapped his hands together to get the dust off, and came up
to Hanno with a beaming face.
“Oh, it’s you, Hanno,” he said. “And I crawled back there because I
took you for a piece of the faculty when you came in.”
His voice cracked as he spoke, because it was changing, which
Hanno’s had not yet begun to do. He had kept pace with Hanno in
his growth, but his looks had not altered, and he still wore a dingy
suit of no particular colour, with a button or so missing and a big
patch in the seat. His hands, too, were not quite clean; narrow and
aristocratic-looking though they were, with long, slender fingers and
tapering nails. But his brow was still pure as alabaster beneath the
carelessly parted reddish-yellow hair that fell over it, and the glance
of the sparkling blue eyes was as keen and as profound as ever. In
fact, the contrast was even more striking between his neglected
toilette and the racial purity of his face, with its delicate bony
structure, slightly aquiline nose, and short upper lip, upon which the
down was beginning to show.
“Oh, Kai,” said Hanno, with a wry face, putting his hand to his heart.
“How can you frighten me like that? What are you doing up here?
Why are you hiding? Did you come late too?”
“Dear me, no,” Kai said. “I’ve been here a long time. Though one
doesn’t much look forward to getting back to the old place, when
Monday morning comes round. You must know that yourself, old
fellow. No, I only stopped up here to have a little game. The deep
one seems to be able to reconcile it with his religion to hunt people
down to prayers. Well, I get behind him, and I manage to keep close
behind his back whichever way he turns, the old mystic! So in the
end he goes off, and I can stop up here. But what about you?” he
said sympathetically, sitting down beside Hanno on the bench. “You
had to run, didn’t you? Poor old chap! You look perfectly worn out.
Your hair is sticking to your forehead.” He took a ruler from the table
and carefully combed little Johann’s hair with it. “You overslept, didn’t
you? Look,” he interrupted himself, “here I am sitting in the sacred
seat of number one—Adolf Todtenhaupt’s place! Well, it won’t hurt
me for once, I suppose. You overslept, didn’t you?”
Hanno had put his head down on his arms again. “I was at the opera
last night,” he said, heaving a long sigh.
“Right—I’d forgot that. Well, was it beautiful?”
He got no answer.
“You are a lucky fellow, after all,” went on Kai perseveringly. “I’ve
never been in the theatre, not a single time in my whole life, and
there isn’t the smallest prospect of my going—at least, not for years.”
“If only one did not have to pay for it afterwards,” said Hanno
gloomily.
“The headache next morning—well, I know how that feels, anyhow.”
Kai stooped and picked up his friend’s coat and hat, which lay on the
floor beside the bench, and carried them quietly out into the corridor.
“Then I take for granted you haven’t done the verses from the
Metamorphoses?” he asked as he came back.
“No,” said Hanno.
“Have you prepared for the geography test?”
“I haven’t done anything, and I don’t know anything,” said Hanno.
“Not the chemistry nor the English, either? Benissimo! Then there’s a
pair of us—brothers-in-arms,” said Kai, with obvious gratification.
“I’m in exactly the same boat,” he announced jauntily. “I did no work
Saturday, because the next day was Sunday; and I did no work on
Sunday, because it was Sunday! No, nonsense, it was mostly
because I’d something better to do.” He spoke with sudden
earnestness, and a slight flush spread over his face. “Yes, perhaps it
may be rather lively to-day, Hanno.”
“If I get only one more bad mark, I shan’t go up,” said Johann; “and
I’m sure to get it when I’m called up for Latin. The letter B comes
next, Kai, so there’s not much help for it.”
“We shall see: What does Caesar say? ‘Dangers may threaten me in
the rear; but when they see the front of Caesar—’” But Kai did not
finish. He was feeling rather out of sorts himself; he went to the
platform and sat down in the master’s chair, where he began to rock
back and forth, scowling. Hanno still sat with his forehead resting on
his arms. So they remained for a while in silence.
Then, somewhere in the distance, a dull humming was heard, which
quickly swelled to a tumult of voices, approaching, imminent.
“The mob,” said Kai, in an exasperated tone. “Goodness, how fast
they got through. They haven’t taken up ten minutes of the period!”
He got down from the platform and went to the door to mingle with
the incoming stream. Hanno, for his part, lifted up his head for a
minute, screwed up his mouth, and remained seated.
Stamping, shuffling, with a confusion of masculine voices, treble and
falsetto, they flooded up the steps and over the corridor. The
classroom suddenly became full of noise and movement. This was
the lower second form of the Realschule, some twenty-five strong,
comrades of Hanno and Kai. They loitered to their places with their
hands in their pockets or dangling their arms, sat down, and opened
their Bibles. Some of the faces were pleasant, strong, and healthy;
others were doubtful or suspicious-looking. Here were tall, stout,
lusty rascals who would soon go to sea or else begin a mercantile
career, and who had no further interest in their school life; and small,
ambitious lads, far ahead of their age, who were brilliant in subjects
that could be got by heart. Adolf Todtenhaupt was the head boy. He
knew everything. In all his school career he had never failed to
answer a question. Part of his reputation was due to his silent,
impassioned industry; but part was also due to the fact that the
masters were careful not to ask him anything he might not know. It
would have pained and mortified them and shaken their faith in
human perfectibility to have Adolf Todtenhaupt fail to answer. He had
a head full of remarkable bumps, to which his blond hair clung as
smooth as glass; grey eyes with black rings beneath them, and long
brown hands that stuck out beneath the too short sleeves of his
neatly brushed jacket. He sat down next Hanno Buddenbrook with a
mild, rather sly smile, and bade his neighbour good morning in the
customary jargon, which reduced the greeting to a single careless
monosyllable. Then he began to employ himself silently with the
class register, holding his pen in a way that was incomparably
correct, with the slender fingers outstretched; while about him people
yawned, laughed, conned their lessons, and chattered half aloud.
After two minutes there were steps outside. The front rows of pupils
rose, and some of those seated farther back followed their example.
The rest scarcely interrupted what they were doing as Herr
Ballerstedt came into the room, hung his hat on the door, and betook
himself to the platform.
He was a man in the forties, with a pleasant embonpoint, a large
bald spot, a short beard, a rosy complexion, and a mingled
expression of unctuousness and sensuality on his humid lips. He
took out his notebook and turned over the leaves in silence; but as
the order in the classroom left much to be desired, he lifted his head,
stretched out his arm over the desk, and waved his flabby white fist a
few times powerlessly in the air. His face grew slowly red—such a
dark red that his beard looked pale-yellow by contrast. He moved his
lips and struggled spasmodically and fruitlessly for half a minute to
speak, and finally brought out a single syllable, a short, suppressed
grunt that sounded like “Well!” He still struggled after further
expression, but in the end gave it up, returned to his notebook,
calmed down, and became quite composed once more. This was
Herr Ballerstedt’s way.
He had intended to be a priest; but on account of his tendency to
stutter and his leaning toward the good things of life he had become
a pedagogue instead. He was a bachelor of some means, wore a
small diamond on his finger, and was much given to eating and
drinking. He was the head master who associated with his fellow
masters only in working hours; and outside them he spent his time
chiefly with the bachelor society of the town—yes, even with the
officers of the garrison. He ate twice a day in the best hotel and was
a member of the club. If he met any of his elder pupils in the streets,
late at night or at two or three o’clock in the morning, he would puff
up the way he did in the classroom, fetch out a “Good morning,” and
let the matter rest there, on both sides. From this master Hanno
Buddenbrook had nothing to fear and was almost never called up by
him. Herr Ballerstedt had been too often associated with Hanno’s
Uncle Christian in all too purely human affairs, to make him inclined
to conflict with Johann in an official capacity.
“Well,” he said, looked about him once more, waved his flabby fist
with the diamond upon it, and glanced into his notebook.
“Perlemann, the synopsis.”
Somewhere in the class, up rose Perlemann. One could hardly see
that he had risen; he was one of the small and forward ones. “The
synopsis,” he said, softly and politely, craning his neck forward with a
nervous smile. “The Book of Job falls into three sections. First, the
condition of Job before he fell under the chastening of the Lord:
Chapter One, Verses one to six: second, the chastening itself, and
its consequences, Chapter—”
“Right, Perlemann,” interrupted Herr Ballerstedt, touched by so much
modesty and obligingness. He put down a good mark in his book.
“Continue, Heinricy.”
Heinricy was one of the tall rascals who gave themselves no trouble
over anything. He shoved the knife he had been playing with into his
pocket, and got up noisily, with his lower lip hanging, and coughing in
a gruff voice. Nobody was pleased to have him called up after the
gentle Perlemann. The pupils sat drowsing in the warm room, some
of them half asleep, soothed by the purring sound of the gas. They
were all tired after the holiday; they had all crawled out of warm beds
that morning with their teeth chattering, groaning in spirit. And they
would have preferred to have the gentle Perlemann drone on for the
remainder of the period. Heinricy was almost sure to make trouble.
“I wasn’t here when we had this,” he said, none too respectfully.
Herr Ballerstedt puffed himself up, waved his fist, struggled to speak,
and stared young Heinricy in the face with his eyebrows raised. His
head shook with the effort he made; but he finally managed to bring
out a “Well!” and the spell was broken. He went on with perfect
fluency. “There is never any work to be got out of you, and you
always have an excuse ready, Heinricy. If you were ill the last time,
you could have had help in that part; besides, if the first part dealt
with the condition before the tribulation, and the second part with the
tribulation itself, you could have told by counting on your fingers that
the third part must deal with the condition after the tribulation! But
you have no application or interest whatever; you are not only a poor
creature, but you are always ready to excuse and defend your
mistakes. But so long as this is the case, Heinricy, you cannot expect
to make any improvement, and so I warn you. Sit down, Heinricy. Go
on, Wasservogel.”
Heinricy, thick-skinned and defiant, sat down with much shuffling and
scraping, whispered some sort of saucy comment in his neighbour’s
ear, and took out his jack-knife again. Wasservogel stood up: a boy
with inflamed eyes, a snub nose, prominent ears, and bitten
fingernails. He finished the summary in a rather whining voice, and
began to relate the story of Job, the man from the land of Uz, and
what happened to him. He had simply opened his Bible, behind the
back of the pupil ahead of him; and he read from it with an air of utter
innocence and concentration, staring then at a point on the wall and
translated what he read, coughing the while, into awkward and
hesitating modern German. There was something positively
repulsive about Wasservogel; but Herr Ballerstedt gave him a large
meed of praise. Wasservogel had the knack of making the masters
like him; and they praised him in order to show that they were
incapable of being led away by his ugliness to blame him unjustly.
The lesson continued. Various pupils were called up to display their
knowledge touching Job, the man from the land of Uz. Gottlob
Kassbaum, son of the unfortunate merchant P. Philipp Kassbaum,
got an excellent mark, despite the late distressing circumstances of
his family, because he knew that Job had seven thousand sheep,
three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred
asses, and a large number of servants.
Then the Bibles, which were already open, were permitted to be
opened, and they went on reading. Wherever Herr Ballerstedt
thought explanation necessary, he puffed himself up, said “Well!” and
after these customary preliminaries made a little speech upon the
point in question, interspersed with abstract moral observations. Not
a soul listened. A slumberous peace reigned in the room. The heat,
with the continuous influx of warm air and the still lighted gas
burners, had become oppressive, and the air was well-nigh
exhausted by these twenty-five breathing and steaming organisms.
The warmth, the purring of the gas, and the drone of the reader’s
voice lulled them all to a point where they were more asleep than
awake. Kai, Count Mölln, however, had a volume of Edgar Allan
Poe’s Tales inside his Bible, and read in it, supporting his head on
his hand. Hanno Buddenbrook leaned back, sank down in his seat,
and looked with relaxed mouth and hot, swimming eyes at the Book
of Job, in which all the lines ran together into a black haze. Now and
then, as the Grail motif or the Wedding March came into his mind,
his lids drooped and he felt an inward soothing; and then he would
wish that this safe and peaceful morning hour might go on for ever.
Yet it ended, as all things must end. The shrill sound of the bell,
clanging and echoing through the corridor, shook the twenty-five
brains out of their slumberous calm.
“That is all,” said Herr Ballerstedt. The register was handed up to him
and he signed his name in it, as evidence that he had performed his
office.
Hanno Buddenbrook closed his Bible and stretched himself,
yawning. It was a nervous yawn; and as he dropped his arms and
relaxed his limbs he had to take a long, deep breath to bring his
heart back to a steady pulsation, for it weakly refused its office for a
second. Latin came next. He cast a beseeching glance at Kai, who
still sat there reading and seemed not to have remarked the end of
the lesson. Then he drew out his Ovid, in stitched covers of marbled
paper, and opened it at the lines that were to have been learned by
heart for to-day. No, it was no use now trying to memorize any of it:
the regular lines, full of pencil marks, numbered by fives all the way
down the page, looked hopelessly unfamiliar. He barely understood
the sense of them, let alone trying to say a single one of them by
heart. And of those in to-day’s preparation he had not puzzled out
even the first sentence.
“What does that mean—‘deciderant, patula Jovis arbore glandes’?”
he asked in a despairing voice, turning to Adolf Todtenhaupt, who sat
beside him working on the register.
“What?” asked Todtenhaupt, continuing to write. “The acorns from
the tree of Jupiter—that is the oak; no, I don’t quite know myself—”
“Tell me a bit, Todtenhaupt, when it comes my turn, will you?”
begged Hanno, and pushed the book away. He scowled at the cool
and careless nod Todtenhaupt gave by way of reply; then he slid
sidewise off the bench and stood up.
The scene had changed. Herr Ballerstedt had left the room, and his
place was taken by a small, weak enervated little man who stood
straight and severe on the platform. He had a sparse white beard
and a thin red neck that rose out of a narrow turned-down collar. He
held his top-hat upside down in front of him, clasped in two small
hands covered with white hair. His real name was Professor
Hückopp, but he was called “Spider” by the pupils. He was in charge
of classrooms and corridors during the recess. “Out with the gas! Up
with the blinds! Up with the windows!” he said, and gave his voice as
commanding a tone as possible, moving his little arm in the air with
an awkward, energetic gesture, as if he were turning a crank.
“Everybody downstairs, into the fresh air, as quick as possible!”
The gas went out, the blinds flew up, the sallow daylight filled the
room. The cold mist rushed in through the wide-open windows, and
the lower second crowded past Professor Hückopp to the exit. Only
the head boy might remain upstairs.
Hanno and Kai met at the door and went down the stairs together,
and across the architecturally correct vestibule. They were silent.
Hanno looked pathetically unwell, and Kai was deep in thought. They
reached the courtyard and began to stroll up and down across the
wet red tiles, among school companions of all ages and sizes.
A youthful looking man with a blond pointed beard kept order down
here: Dr. Goldener, the “dressy one.” He kept a pensionnat for the
sons of the rich landowners from Mecklenburg and Holstein, and
dressed, on account of these aristocratic youths, with an elegance
not apparent in the other masters. He wore silk cravats, a dandified
coat, and pale-coloured trousers fastened down with straps under
the soles of his boots, and used perfumed handkerchiefs with
coloured borders. He came of rather simple people, and all this
elegance was not very becoming—his huge feet, for example,
looked absurd in the pointed buttoned boots he wore. He was vain of
his plump red hands, too, and kept rubbing them together, clasping
them before him, and regarding them with every mark of admiration.
He carried his head laid far back on one side, and constantly made
faces by blinking, screwing up his nose, and half-opening his mouth,
as though he were about to say: “What’s the matter now?” But his
refinement led him to overlook all sorts of small infractions of the
rules. He overlooked this or that pupil who had brought a book with
him into the courtyard to prepare a little at the eleventh hour; he
overlooked the fact that one of his boarding-pupils handed money to
the porter, Herr Schlemiel, and asked him to get some pastry; he
overlooked a small trial of strength between two third-form pupils,
which resulted in a beating of one by the other, and around which a
ring of connoisseurs was quickly formed; and he overlooked certain
sounds behind him which indicated that a pupil who had made
himself unpopular by cheating, cowardice, or other weakness was
being forcibly escorted to the pump.
It was a lusty, not too gentle race, that of these comrades of Hanno
and Kai among whom they walked up and down. The ideals of the
victorious, united fatherland were those of a somewhat rude
masculinity; its youth talked in a jargon at once brisk and slovenly;
the most despised vices were softness and dandyism, the most
admired virtues those displayed by prowess in drinking and smoking,
bodily strength and skill in athletics. Whoever went out with his coat-
collar turned up incurred a visit to the pump; while he who let himself
be seen in the streets with a walking-stick must expect a public and
ignominious correction administered in the drill-hall.
Hanno’s and Kai’s conversation was in striking contrast to that which
went on around them among their fellows. This friendship had been
recognized in the school for a long time. The masters suffered it
grudgingly, suspecting that it meant disaffection and future trouble.
The pupils could not understand it, but had settled down to regarding
it with a sort of embarrassed dislike, and to thinking of the two
friends as outlaws and eccentrics who must be left to their own
devices. They recognized, it is true, the wildness and insubordination
of Kai, Count Mölln, and respected him accordingly. As for Hanno
Buddenbrook, big Heinricy, who thrashed everybody, could not make
up his mind to lay a finger on him by way of chastisement for
dandyism or cowardice. He refrained out of an indefinite respect and
awe for the softness of Hanno’s hair, the delicacy of his limbs, and
his sad, shy, cold glance.
“I’m scared,” Hanno said to Kai. He leaned against the wall of the
school, drawing his jacket closer about him, yawning and shivering,
“I’m so scared, Kai, that it hurts me all over my body. Now just tell
me this: is Herr Mantelsack the sort of person one ought to be afraid
of? Tell me yourself! If this beastly Ovid lesson were only over! If I
just had my bad mark, in peace, and stopped where I am, and
everything was in order! I’m not afraid of that. It is the row that goes
beforehand that I hate!”
Kai was still deep in thought. “This Roderick Usher is the most
remarkable character ever conceived,” he said suddenly and
abruptly. “I have read the whole lesson-hour. If ever I could write a
tale like that!”
Kai was absorbed in his writing. It was to this he had referred when
he said that he had something better to do than his preparation, and
Hanno had understood him. Attempts at composition had developed
out of his old propensity for inventing tales; and he had lately
completed a composition in the form of a fantastic fairy tale, a
narrative of symbolic adventure, which went forward in the depths of
the earth among glowing metals and mysterious fires, and at the
same time in the souls of men: a tale in which the primeval forces of
nature and of the soul were interchanged and mingled, transformed
and refined—the whole conceived and written in a vein of
extravagant and even sentimental symbolism, fervid with passion
and longing.
Hanno knew the tale well, and loved it; but he was not now in a
frame of mind to think of Kai’s work or of Edgar Allan Poe. He
yawned again, and then sighed, humming to himself a motif he had
lately composed on the piano. This was a habit with him. He would
often give a long sigh, a deep indrawn breath, from the instinct to
calm the fluctuating and irregular action of his heart; and he had
accustomed himself to set the deep breathing to a musical theme of
his own or some one else’s invention.
“Look, there comes the Lord God,” said Kai. “He is walking in his
garden.”
“Fine garden,” said Hanno. He began to laugh nervously, and could
not stop; putting his handkerchief to his mouth the while and looking
across the courtyard at him whom Kai called the Lord God.
This was Director Wulicke, the head of the school, who had
appeared in the courtyard: an extremely tall man with a slouch hat, a
short heavy beard, a prominent abdomen, trousers that were far too
short, and very dirty funnel-shaped cuffs. He strode across the
flagstones with a face so angry in its expression that he seemed to
be actually suffering, and pointed at the pump with outstretched arm.
The water was running! A train of pupils ran before him and
stumbled in their zeal to repair the damage. Then they stood about,
looking first at the pump and then at the Director, their faces pictures
of distress; and the Director, meanwhile, had turned to Dr. Goldener,
who hurried up with a very red face and spoke to him in a deep
hollow voice, fairly babbling with excitement between the words.
This Director Wulicke was a most formidable man. He had
succeeded to the headship of the school after the death, soon after
1871, of the genial and benevolent old gentleman under whose
guidance Hanno’s father and uncle had pursued their studies. Dr.
Wulicke was summoned from a professorship in a Prussian high
school; and with his advent an entirely new spirit entered the school.
In the old days the classical course had been thought of as an end in
itself, to be pursued at one’s ease, with a sense of joyous idealism.
But now the leading conceptions were authority, duty, power, service,
the career; “the categorical imperative of our philosopher Kant” was
inscribed upon the banner which Dr. Wulicke in every official speech
unfurled to the breeze. The school became a state within a state, in
which not only the masters but the pupils regarded themselves as
officials, whose main concern was the advancement they could
make, and who must therefore take care to stand well with the
authorities. Soon after the new Director was installed in his office the
tearing down of the old school began, and the new one was built up
on the most approved hygienic and aesthetic principles, and
everything went swimmingly. But it remained an open question
whether the old school, as an institution, with its smaller endowment
of modern comfort and its larger share of gay good nature, courage,
charm, and good feeling, had not been more blest and blessing than
the new.
As for Dr. Wulicke himself personally, he had all the awful mystery,
duplicity, obstinacy, and jealousy of the Old Testament God. He was
as frightful in his smiles as in his anger. The result of the enormous
authority that lay in his hands was that he grew more and more
arbitrary and moody—he was even capable of making a joke and
then visiting with his wrath anybody who dared to laugh. Not one of
his trembling creatures knew how to act before him. They found it
safest to honour him in the dust, and to protect themselves by a
frantic abasement from the fate of being whirled up in the cloud of
his wrath and crushed for ever under the weight of his righteous
displeasure.
The name Kai had given Dr. Wulicke was known only to himself and
Hanno, and they took the greatest pains not to let any of the others
overhear it, for they could not possibly understand. No, there was not
one single point on which those two stood on common ground with
their schoolfellows. Even the methods of revenge, of “getting even,”
which obtained in the school were foreign to Hanno and Kai; and
they utterly disdained the current nicknames, which did not in the
least appeal to their more subtle sense of humour. It was so poor, it
showed such a paucity of invention, to call thin Professor Hückopp
“Spider” and Herr Ballerstedt “Cocky.” It was such scant
compensation for their compulsory service to the state! No, Kai,
Count Mölln, flattered himself that he was not so feeble as that! He
invented, for his own and Hanno’s use, a method of alluding to all
their masters by their actual names, with the simple prefix, thus: Herr
Ballerstedt, Herr Hückopp. The irony of this, its chilly remoteness
and mockery, pleased him very much. He liked to speak of the
“teaching body”; and would amuse himself for whole recesses with
imagining it as an actual creature, a sort of monster, with a
repulsively fantastic form. And they spoke in general of the
“Institution” as if it were similar to that which harboured Hanno’s
Uncle Christian.
Kai’s mood improved at sight of the Lord God, who still pervaded the
playground and put everybody in a pallid fright by pointing, with
fearful rumblings, to the wrapping papers from the luncheons which
strewed the courtyard. The two lads went off to one of the gates,
through which the masters in charge of the second period were now
entering. Kai began to make bows of exaggerated respect before the
red-eyed, pale, shabby-looking seminarists, who crossed over to go
to their sixth and seventh form pupils in the back court. And when the
grey-haired mathematics master, Herr Tietge, appeared, holding a
bundle of books on his back with a shaking hand, bent, yellow,
cross-eyed, spitting as he walked along, Kai said, “Good morning,
old dead man.” He said this, in a loud voice and gazed straight up
into the air with his bright, sharp gaze.
Then the bell clanged loudly, and the pupils began to stream through
the entrances into the building. Hanno could not stop laughing. He
was still laughing so hard on the stairs that his classmates looked at
him and Kai with wonder and cold hostility, and even with a slight
disgust at such frivolity.
There was a sudden hush in the classroom, and everybody stood
up, as Herr Professor Mantelsack entered. He was the Professor
ordinarius, for whom it was usual to show respect. He pulled the
door to after him, bowed, craned his neck to see if all the class were
standing up, hung his hat on its nail, and went quickly to the
platform, moving his head rapidly up and down as he went. He took
his place and stood for a while looking out the window and, running
his forefinger, with a large seal ring on it, around inside his collar. He
was a man of medium size, with thin grey hair, a curled Olympian
beard, and short-sighted prominent sapphire-blue eyes gleaming
behind his spectacles. He was dressed in an open frock-coat of soft
grey material, which he habitually settled at the waist with his short-
fingered, wrinkled hand. His trousers were, like all the other
masters’, even the elegant Dr. Goldener’s, far too short, and showed
the legs of a pair of very broad and shiny boots.
He turned sharply away from the window and gave vent to a little
good-natured sigh, smiling familiarly at several pupils. His mood was
obviously good, and a wave of relief ran through the classroom. So
much—everything, in fact—depended on whether Dr. Mantelsack
was in a good mood! For the whole form was aware that he gave
way to the feeling of the moment, whatever that might happen to be,
without the slightest restraint. He was most extraordinarily,
boundlessly, naïvely unjust, and his favour was as inconstant as that
of fortune herself. He had always a few favourites—two or three—
whom he called by their given names, and these lived in paradise.
They might say almost anything they liked; and after the lesson Dr.
Mantelsack would talk with them just like a human being. But a day
would come—perhaps after the holidays—when for no apparent
reason they were dethroned, cast out, rejected, and others elevated
to their place. The mistakes of these favourites would be passed
over with neat, careful corrections, so that their work retained a
respectable appearance, no matter how bad it was; whereas he
would attack the other copy-books with heavy, ruthless pen, and
fairly flood them with red ink, so that their appearance was shocking
indeed. And as he never troubled to count the mistakes, but
distributed bad marks in proportion to the red ink he had expended,
his favourites always emerged with great credit from these
exercises. He was not even aware of the rank injustice of this
conduct. And if anybody had ever had the temerity to call his
attention to it, that person would have been for ever deprived of even
the chance of becoming a favourite and being called by his first
name. There was nobody who was willing to let slip the chance.
Now Dr. Mantelsack crossed his legs, still standing, and began to
turn over the leaves of his notebook. Hanno Buddenbrook wrung his
hands under the desk. B, the letter B, came next. Now he would hear
his name, he would get up, he would not know a line, and there
would be a row, a loud, frightful catastrophe—no matter how good a
mood Dr. Mantelsack might be in. The seconds dragged out, each a
martyrdom. “Buddenbrook”— Now he would say “Buddenbrook.”
“Edgar,” said Dr. Mantelsack, closing his notebook with his finger in
it. He sat down, as if all were in the best of order.
What? Who? Edgar? That was Lüders, the fat Lüders boy over there
by the window. Letter L, which was not next at all! No! Was it
possible? Dr. Mantelsack’s mood was so good that he simply
selected one of his favourites, without troubling in the least about
whose turn it was.
Lüders stood up. He had a face like a pug dog, and dull brown eyes.
He had an advantageous seat, and could easily have read it off, but
he was too lazy. He felt too secure in his paradise, and answered
simply, “I had a headache yesterday, and couldn’t study.”
“Oh, so you are leaving me in the lurch, Edgar,” said Dr. Mantelsack
with tender reproach. “You cannot say the lines on the Golden Age?
What a shocking pity, my friend! You had a headache? It seems to
me you should have told me before the lesson began, instead of
waiting till I called you up. Didn’t you have a headache just lately,
Edgar? You should do something for them, for otherwise there is
danger of your not passing. Timm, will you take his place?”
Lüders sat down. At this moment he was the object of universal
hatred. It was plain that the master’s mood had altered for the worse,
and that Lüders, perhaps in the very next lesson, would be called by
his last name. Timm stood up in one of the back seats. He was a
blond country-looking lad with a light-brown jacket and short, broad
fingers. He held his mouth open in a funnel shape, and hastily found
the place, looking straight ahead the while with the most idiotic
expression. Then he put down his head and began to read, in long-
drawn-out, monotonous, hesitating accents, like a child with a first
lesson-book: “Aurea prima sata est ætas!”
It was plain that Dr. Mantelsack was calling up quite at random,
without reference to the alphabet. And thus it was no longer so
imminently likely that Hanno would be called on, though this might
happen through unlucky chance. He exchanged a joyful glance with
Kai and began to relax somewhat.
But now Timm’s reading was interrupted. Whether Dr. Mantelsack
could not hear him, or whether he stood in need of exercise, is not to
be known. But he left his platform and walked slowly down through
the room. He paused near Timm, with his book in his hand; Timm
meanwhile had succeeded in getting his own book out of sight, but
was now entirely helpless. His funnel-shaped mouth emitted a gasp,
he looked at the Ordinarius with honest, troubled blue eyes, and
could not fetch out another syllable.
“Well, Timm,” said Dr. Mantelsack. “Can’t you get on?”
Timm clutched his brow, rolled up his eyes, sighed windily, and said
with a dazed smile: “I get all mixed up, Herr Doctor, when you stand
so close to me.”
Dr. Mantelsack smiled too. He smiled in a very flattered way and said
“Well, pull yourself together and get on.” And he strolled back to his
place.
And Timm pulled himself together. He drew out and opened his book
again, all the time apparently wrestling to recover his self-control and
staring about the room. Then he dropped his head and was himself
again.
“Very good,” said the master, when he had finished. “It is clear that
you have studied to some purpose. But you sacrifice the rhythm too
much, Timm. You seem to understand the elisions; yet you have not
been really reading hexameters at all. I have an impression as if you
had learned the whole thing by heart, like prose. But, as I say, you
have been diligent, you have done your best—and whoever does his
best—; you may sit down.”
Timm sat down, proud and beaming, and Dr. Mantelsack gave him a
good mark in his book. And the extraordinary thing was that at this
moment not only the master, but also Timm himself and all his
classmates, sincerely felt that Timm was a good industrious pupil
who had fully deserved the mark he got. Hanno Buddenbrook, even,
thought the same, though something within him revolted against the
thought. He listened with strained attention to the next name.
“Mumme,” said Dr. Mantelsack. “Again: aurea prima—”
Mumme! Well! Thank Heaven! Hanno was now in probable safety.
The lines would hardly be asked for a third time, and in the sight-
reading the letter B had just been called up.