The Magic Mountain (11 page)

“Three weeks,” Hans Castorp said, rather pridefully, as he saw himself the object of envy.

“
O dio!
Three weeks! Do you hear, Lieutenant? Does it not sound to you impertinent to hear a person say: ‘I am stopping for three weeks and then I am going away again’? We up here are not acquainted with such a unit of time as the week—if I may be permitted to instruct you, my dear sir. Our smallest unit is the month. We reckon in the grand style—that is a privilege we shadows have. We possess other such; they are all of the same quality. May I ask what profession you practise down below? Or, more probably, for what profession are you preparing yourself? You see we set no bounds to our thirst for information—curiosity is another of the prescriptive rights of shadows.” “Pray don’t mention it,” said Hans Castorp. And told him.

“A ship-builder! Magnificent!” cried Settembrini. “I assure you, I find that magnificent—though my own talents lie in quite another direction.”

“Herr Settembrini is a literary man,” Joachim explained, rather self-consciously. “He wrote the obituary notices of Carducci for the German papers—Carducci, you know.” He got more self-conscious still, for his cousin looked at him in amazement, as though to say: “Carducci? What do you know about him? Not any more than I do,

I’ll wager.”

“Yes,” the Italian said, nodding. “I had the honour of telling your countrymen the story of our great poet and freethinker, when his life had drawn to a close. I knew him, I can count myself among his pupils. I sat at his feet in Bologna. I may thank him for what culture I can call my own—and for what joyousness of life as well. But we were speaking of you. A ship-builder! Do you know you have sensibly risen in my estimation? You represent now, in my eyes, the world of labour and practical genius.” “Herr Settembrini, I am only a student as yet, I am just beginning.”

“Certainly. It is the beginning that is hard. But all work
is
hard, isn’t it, that deserves the name?”

“That’s true enough, God knows—or the Devil does,” Hans Castorp said, and the words came from his heart.
Settembrini’s eyebrows went up.

“Oh,” he said, “so you call on the Devil to witness that sentiment—the Devil incarnate, Satan himself? Did you know that my great master wrote a hymn to him?” “I beg your pardon,” Hans Castorp said, “a hymn to the Devil?”

“The very Devil himself, and no other. It is sometimes sung, in my native land, on festal occasions. ‘
O salute
,
O Satana
,
O ribellione
,
O forza vindice della ragione!
…’ It is a magnificent song. But it was hardly Carducci’s Devil you had in mind when you spoke; for he is on the very best of terms with hard work; whereas yours, who is afraid of work and hates it like poison, is probably the same of whom we are told that we may not hold out even the little finger to him.”

All this was making the very oddest impression on our good Hans Castorp. He knew no Italian, and the rest of it sounded no less uncomfortable, and reminded him of Sunday sermons, though delivered quite casually, in a light, even jesting tone. He looked at his cousin, who kept his eyes cast down; then he said: “You take my words far too literally, Herr Settembrini. When I spoke of the Devil, it was just a manner of speaking, I assure you.”

“Somebody must have some
esprit
,” Settembrini said, looking straight ahead, with a melancholy air. Then recovering himself, he skillfully got back to their former subject, and went on blithely: “At all events, I am probably right in concluding from your words that the calling you have embraced is as strenuous as it is honourable. As for myself, I am a humanist, a
homo humanus
. I have no mechanical ingenuity, however sincere my respect for it. But I can well understand that the theory of your craft requires a clear and keen mind, and its practice not less than the entire man. Am I right?”

“You certainly are, I can go all the way with you there,” Hans Castorp answered. Unconsciously he made an effort to reply with eloquence. “The demands made to-day on a man in my profession are simply enormous. It is better not to have too clear an idea of their magnitude, it might take away one’s courage: no, it’s no joke. And if one isn’t the strongest in the world—It is true that I am here only on a visit; but I am not very robust, and I cannot with truth assert that my work agrees with me so wonderfully well. It would be a great deal truer to say that it rather takes it out of me. I only feel really fit when I am doing nothing at all.” “As now, for example?”

“Now? Oh, now I am so new up here, I am still rather bewildered—you can imagine.”
“Ah—bewildered.”

“Yes, and I did not sleep so very well, and the early breakfast was really too solid.—I am accustomed to a fair breakfast, but this was a little too rich for my blood, as the saying goes. In short, I feel a sense of oppression—and for some reason or other, my cigar this morning hasn’t the right taste, something that as good as never happens to me, or only when I am seriously upset—and to-day it is like leather. I had to throw it away, there was no use forcing it. Are you a smoker, may I ask? No? Then you cannot imagine the annoyance and disappointment it is for anyone like me, who have smoked from my youth up, and taken such pleasure in it.”

“I am without experience in the field,” Settembrini answered, “but I find that my lack of it is in no poor company. So many fine, self-denying spirits have refrained. Carducci had no use for the practice. But you will find our Rhadamanthus a kindred spirit. He is a devotee of your vice.” “Vice, Herr Settembrini?”

“Why not? One must call things by their right names; life is enriched and ennobled
thereby. I too have my vices.”
“So Hofrat Behrens is a connoisseur? A charming man.”
“You find him so? Then you have already made his acquaintance?”

“Yes, just now, as we came out. It was almost like a professional visit—but gratis, you know—
sine pecunia
. He saw at once that I am anæmic. He advised me to follow my cousin’s regimen entirely: to lie out on the balcony a good deal—he even said I should take my temperature.”

“Did he indeed?” Settembrini cried out. “Capital!” He laughed and threw back his head. “How does it go, that opera of yours? ‘A fowler bold in me you see, forever laughing merrily!’ Ah, that is most amusing! And you will follow his advice? Of course, why shouldn’t you? He’s a devil of a fellow, our Rhadamanthus! ‘Forever laughing’—even if it
is
rather forced at times. He is inclined to melancholia, you know. His vice doesn’t agree with him—of course, else it would be no vice. Smoking gives him fits of depression; that is why our respected Frau Directress has taken charge of his supplies, and only deals him out daily rations. It even happens sometimes that he yields to the temptation to steal it, and then he gets an attack of melancholia. A troubled spirit, in short. Do you know your Directress already, too? No? You have made a mistake. You must remedy it at the earliest opportunity. My dear sir, she comes of the noble race of von Mylendonk. And she is distinguished from the Medici Venus by the fact that where the goddess has a bosom, she has a cross.” “Ah, ha ha!—capital!” Hans Castorp laughed. “Her Christian name is Adriatica.”

“Adriatica!” shouted Hans Castorp. “Priceless! Adriatica von Mylendonk! Isn’t that splendid! Sounds as though she had been dead a very long time. It is positively mediaeval.”

“My dear sir,” Settembrini answered him, “there is a good deal up here that is positively mediaeval, as you express it. Personally, I am convinced that Rhadamanthus was actuated simply and solely by artistic feeling when he made this fossil head overseer of his Chamber of Horrors. You know he is an artist, by the bye. He paints in oils. Why not? There’s no law against it—anybody can paint that likes. Frau Adriatica tells all who will listen to her, not counting those who won’t, that a Mylendonk was abbess of a cloister at Bonn on the Rhine, in the thirteenth century. It can’t have been long after that she herself saw the light of day.” “Ha ha! Why, Herr Settembrini, I find you are a mocker!”

“A mocker? You mean I am malicious? Well, yes, perhaps I am a little,” said Settembrini. “My great complaint is that it is my fate to spend my malice upon such insignificant objects. I hope, Engineer, you have nothing against malice? In my eyes, it is reason’s keenest dart against the powers of darkness and ugliness. Malice, my dear sir, is the animating spirit of criticism; and criticism is the beginning of progress and enlightenment.” And he began to talk about Petrarch, whom he called the father of the modern spirit.

“I think,” Joachim said thoughtfully, “that we ought to be going to lie down.”

The man of letters had been speaking to an accompaniment of graceful gestures, one of which he now rounded off in Joachim’s direction and said: “Our lieutenant presses on to the service. Let us go together, our way is the same: the ‘path on the right that shall lead to the halls of the mightiest Dis’—ah, Virgil, Virgil! He is unsurpassable. I am a believer in progress, certainly, gentlemen; but Virgil—he has a command of epithet no modern can approach.” And on their homeward path he recited Latin verse with an Italian pronunciation; interrupting himself, however, as he saw coming towards them a young girl—a girl of the village, as it seemed, and by no means remarkable for her looks—whom he laid himself out to smile at and ogle most killingly: “O la, la, sweet, sweet, sweet!” he chirruped. “Pretty, pretty, pretty! ‘Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,’ ” he quoted as they passed, and kissed his hand at the poor girl’s embarrassed back.

“What a windbag it is,” Hans Castorp thought. He remained of that opinion still, after the Italian had recovered from his attack of gallantry and begun to scoff again. His animadversions were chiefly directed upon Herr Hofrat Behrens: he jeered at the size of his feet, and at the title he had received from a certain prince who suffered from tuberculosis of the brain. Of the scandalous courses of that royal personage the whole neighbourhood still talked; but Rhadamanthus had shut his eye—both eyes, in fact—and behaved every inch a Hofrat. Did the gentlemen know that he—the Hofrat—had invented the summer season? He it was, and no other. One must give the devil his due. There had been a time when only the faithfullest of the faithful had spent the summer in the high valley. Then our humourist, with his unerring eye, had perceived that this neglect was simply the result of unfortunate prejudice. He got up the idea that, so far at least as his own sanatorium was concerned, the summer cure was not only not less to be recommended than the winter one, it was, on the contrary, of great value, really quite indispensable. And he knew how to get this theory put about, to have it come to people’s ears; he wrote articles on the subject and launched them in the press—since when the summer season had been as flourishing as the winter one.

“Genius!” said Settembrini. “In-tu-ition!” He went on to criticize the proprietors of all the other sanatoria in the place, praising their acquisitive talents with mordant sarcasm. There was Professor Kafka. Every year, at the critical moment, when the snow began to melt, and several patients were asking leave to depart, he would suddenly find himself obliged to be away for a week, and promise to take up all requests on his return. Then he would stop away for six weeks, while the poor wretches waited for him, and while, incidentally, their bills continued to mount. Kafka was once sent for to go to Fiume for a consultation, but he would not go until he was guaranteed five thousand good Swiss francs; and thus two weeks were lost in
pourparlers
. Then he went; but the day after the arrival of the great man, the patient died. Dr. Salzmann asserted that Kafka did not keep his hypodermic syringes clean, and his patients got infected one from the other. He also said he wore rubber soles, that his dead might not hear him. On the other hand, Kafka told it about that Dr. Salzmann’s patients were encouraged to drink so much of the fruit of the vine—for the benefit of Dr. Salzmann’s pocket-book—that they died off like flies, not of phthisis but cirrhosis of the liver.

Thus he went on, Hans Castorp laughing with good-natured enjoyment at this glib and prolific stream of slander. It was, indeed, great fun to listen to, so eloquent was it, so precisely rendered, so free from every trace of dialect. The words came, round, clear-cut, and as though newly minted, from his mobile lips, he tasted his own wellturned, dexterous, biting phrases with obvious and contagious relish, and seemed to be far too clearheaded and self-possessed ever to mis-speak.

“You have such an amusing way of talking, Herr Settembrini,” Hans Castorp said. “So lively, so—I don’t quite know how to characterize it.”

“Plastic?” responded the Italian, and fanned himself with his handkerchief, though it was far from warm. “That is probably the word you seek. You mean I have a plastic way of speaking. But look!” he cried, “what do my eyes behold? The judges of our infernal regions! What a sight!”

The walkers had already put behind them the turn in the path. Whether thanks to Settembrini’s conversation, the fact that they were walking downhill, or merely that they were much nearer the sanatorium than Hans Castorp had thought—for a path is always longer the first time we traverse it—at all events, the return had been accomplished in a surprisingly short time. Settembrini was right, it was the two physicians who were walking along the free space at the back of the building; the Hofrat ahead, in his white smock, his neck stuck out and his hands moving like oars; on his heels the black-shirted Dr. Krokowski, who looked the more self-conscious that medical etiquette constrained him to walk behind his chief when they made their rounds together.

“Ah, Krokowski,” Settembrini cried. “There he goes—he who knows all the secrets in the bosoms of our ladies—pray observe the delicate symbolism of his attire: he wears black to indicate that his proper field of study is the night. The man has but one idea in his head, and that a smutty one. How does it happen, Engineer, that we have not spoken of him until now? You have made his acquaintance?” Hans Castorp answered in the affirmative. “Well? I am beginning to suspect that you like him, too.”