It’s all pretty hopeless, he thought, as he left Litfasz again, yet felt at the same time, strangely enough, on top of the world, he was buzzing, carefree, and all his resentment had vanished. He wondered why, he thought about it all the way to the Bremer Eck pub, because he wasn’t tired, and the Bremer Eck seemed to him like a good choice, time for a beer, a cigarette and a flatbread filled with something a little spicy, he thought, tonight is my Turkish evening, he thought, first into The Turk, which is a far better name than The Stone Cross – what an abysmal name for a pub, even if the street is called that, he thought, after that a Turkish flatbread in the Bremer Eck, he thought and turned left from Sielwall into the muddle of little streets where the Bremer Eck and Bremer Strasse were, and that is the most absurd thing of all, that the tiniest street in Bremen is named Bremer Strasse, he thought, and not only is it the smallest street, it’s also the hardest one to find, he thought soon afterwards, after he’d already been wandering around lost in the muddle of little streets for some time without finding either Bremer Strasse or the Bremer Eck. I must have taken a wrong turn, he thought and looked at the next street sign, it said Seiler Strasse, that didn’t mean anything to him, but to be quite honest, none of the street names here meant anything much to him, he only knew that he should be at the Bremer Eck now, but there wasn’t any Bremer Eck to be seen, nor Bremer Strasse, so he walked on and took the next right and suddenly he was at Sielwall again, so he retraced his steps again, back past Seiler Strasse and then the next right, because Bremer Eck must be somewhere here, but it wasn’t, here was the Osterdeich, and there was nobody around he could ask, although, he thought, that would be a bit embarrassing anyway, asking in Bremen for Bremer Strasse, you can’t do that, he thought, and retraced his steps again into the muddle of streets and took the next right and then left and then right again, and then he was at Lübecker Strasse, so Bremer Strasse couldn’t be far off, Bremen and Lübeck both being Hanseatic towns, and there not being much between them, he thought, while at the same time realizing that he really didn’t care whether he went to the Bremer Eck or any other pub, in the end all pubs are the same, just like all Hanseatic towns, he thought cheerily and went into the first pub he saw. It was the only one in Lübecker Strasse, which made his choice easier, and it was named Buddenbrooks in honour of the fictional Lübeck family, and that, thought Frank, shows a good deal more imagination than for example The Stone Cross, finally somebody who has made an effort, he thought and went in.
