“Muddling through”

“Muddling through” is an expression for getting by without decisive effort, associated in the novel with Alois Permaneder’s relaxed fatalism. Tony first uses it to explain both her affection for him and her reservations about his character; after the death of their infant daughter, it names his swift return to ordinary comforts, giving the phrase a sharper, more painful resonance.

Meaning and First Use

Tony contrasts Permaneder with Bendix Grünlich, whose industry and inventiveness, she says, had concealed villainy. Permaneder, by contrast, is good-hearted but too comfortable: he takes life easily, lets matters follow their course, and is unlikely to become a millionaire. Tony calls this a fault as well as a defining quality. In the same account, she connects his disposition to southern Bavaria, explaining that she had loved him in Munich among people who spoke and acted as he did. Her description makes the expression more than a judgment about laziness: it points to the ease and naturalness she found attractive, while acknowledging the practical limits of a temperament that does not press toward wealth or achievement.

A Temperament in Contrast

The phrase’s mixture of indulgence and criticism reflects Tony’s divided assessment of her husband. She insists that Permaneder is incapable of meanness and not motivated by money, even as she recognizes that he is inclined to let events take their course. His manner offers a striking contrast with the guile Tony associates with Grünlich, but it does not provide the forcefulness or ambition she might have expected from a husband. The expression therefore carries both affection and dissatisfaction: Permaneder’s ease is part of what makes him seem kind and natural to her, and also part of what makes him seem passive.

From Habit to Aftermath

The phrase recurs in a darker setting after Tony’s infant daughter dies. Permaneder is deeply shaken by the sight of his lifeless child; tears fall as he laments, “Oh my, what a pain, what a pain in th’ ol’,” echoing another colloquial expression in his habitual speech. Yet, as Tony observes, he soon resumes taking things easy. Evenings at the Hofbräuhaus help him through his grief, and his kindly, half-grumpy, half-doltish fatalism carries him back into routine: he muddles through.

Tony’s letters, meanwhile, gather her losses into a despairing sequence: Grünlich, bankruptcy, Permaneder’s retirement, and now the dead child. Her husband’s recovery of his customary ease stands beside her continuing sense of misfortune. The expression thus marks a difference in how the couple endure hardship: Permaneder absorbs sorrow into routine, whereas Tony narrates each reversal as another calamity that has happened to her. The repeated phrase is affectionate in its first use, when it helps define the man Tony loves; after the child’s death, it also exposes the emotional distance between them.