The Magic Mountain (26 page)

It had been staggering in the extreme. Hans Castorp thrilled at the encounter, yet experienced a mounting uneasiness like that he felt when he realized how narrow was the proximity that enclosed him and the fair Russian. That the long-forgotten Pribislav Hippe should appear to him in the guise of Frau Chauchat and look at him with those “Kirghiz” eyes—this was to be immured, not with opportunity, but with the inevitable, the unescapable, to such an extent as to fill him with conflicting emotions. It was a situation rich in hope, yet heavy with dread—it gave our young friend a feeling of helplessness, and set in motion a vague instinct to cast about, to grope and feel for help or counsel. One after another he mentally summoned up various people, the thought of whom might serve him as some sort of mental support.

There was the good, the upright Joachim, firm as a rock—yet whose eyes in these past months had come to hold such a tragic shadow, and who had never used to shrug his shoulders, as he did so often now. Joachim, with the “Blue Peter” in his pocket, as Frau Stöhr called the receptacle. When Hans Castorp thought of her hard, crabbed face it made him shiver. Yes, there was Joachim—who kept constantly at Hofrat Behrens to let him get away and go down to the longed-for service in the “plain”—the “flat-land,” as the healthy, normal world was called up here, with a faint yet perceptible nuance of contempt. Joachim served the cure single-mindedly, to the end that he might arrive sooner at his goal and save some of the time which “those up here” so wantonly flung away; served it unquestioningly for the sake of speedy recovery—but also, Hans Castorp detected, for the sake of the cure itself, which, after all, was a service, like another; and was not duty duty, wherever performed? Joachim invariably went upstairs after only a quarter-hour in the drawing-rooms; and this military precision of his was a prop to the civilian laxity of his cousin, who would otherwise be likely to loiter unprofitably below, with his eye on the company in the small salon. But Hans Castorp was convinced there was another and private reason why Joachim withdrew so early; he had known it since the time he saw his cousin’s face take on the mottled pallor, and his mouth assume the pathetic twist. He perfectly understood. For Marusja was almost always there in the evening—laughter-loving Marusja, with the little ruby on her charming hand, the handkerchief with the orange scent, and the swelling bosom, tainted within—Hans Castorp comprehended that it was her presence which drove Joachim away, precisely because it so strongly, so fearfully drew him toward her. Was Joachim too “immured”—and even worse off than himself, in that he had five times a day to sit at the same table with Marusja and her orange-scented handkerchief? However that might be, it was clear that Joachim was preoccupied with his own troubles; the thought of him could afford his cousin no mental support. That he took refuge in daily flight was a credit to him; but that he had to flee was anything but reassuring to Hans Castorp, who even began to feel that Joachim’s good example of faithful service of the cure and the initiation which he owed to his cousin’s experience might have also their bad side.

Hans Castorp had not been up here three weeks. But it seemed longer; and the daily routine which Joachim so piously observed had begun to take on, in his eyes, a character of sanctity. When, from the point of view of “those up here,” he considered life as lived down in the flat-land, it seemed somehow queer and unnatural. He had grown skilled in the handling of his rugs and the art of making a proper bundle, a sort of mummy, of himself, when lying on his balcony on cold days. He was almost as skilful as Joachim—and yet, down below, there was no soul who knew aught of such an art or the practice of it! How strange, he thought; yet at the same moment wondered at himself for finding it strange—and there surged up again that uneasy sensation of groping for support.

He thought of Hofrat Behrens and his professional advice, bestowed “
sine
pecunia
,” that he should, while he was up here, order his life like the other patients, even to the taking of his temperature. He thought of Settembrini, and of how he had laughed at that same advice, and quoted something out of
The Magic Flute
, Did thinking of either of these two afford him any moral support? Hofrat Behrens was a white-haired man, old enough to be Hans Castorp’s father. He was the head of the establishment, the highest authority. And it was of fatherly authority that the young man now felt an uneasy need. But no, it would not do: he could not think with childlike confidingness of the Hofrat. The physician had buried his wife up here, and been brought so low by grief as almost to lose his mind; then he had stopped on, to be near her grave and because he himself was somewhat infected. Was he sound again? Was he single-mindedly bent on making his patients whole, so they could go back to service in the world below? His cheeks had a purple hue, he looked fevered. That might be only the effect of the air up here; Hans Castorp, without fever, so far as he could judge without a thermometer, felt the same dry heat in his face, day in, day out. Of course, when one heard the Hofrat talk, one might easily conclude he had fever. There was something not quite right about it; it all sounded very jovial and lively, but on the whole forced, particularly when one thought of the purple cheeks and the watery eyes, which seemed to be still weeping for his wife. Hans Castorp recalled what Settembrini had said about the Hofrat’s vices and chronic depression—that might have been malicious; it might have been sheer windiness. But he did not find it sustained or fortified him to think of Hofrat Behrens.

Then there was Settembrini himself, of course—the chronic oppositionist, the windbag, the “
homo humanus
,” as he styled himself. Hans Castorp thought him well over, with his gift of the gab, his florid harangue on the combination of dullness and disease, and how he, Hans Castorp, had been taken to task for calling it a “dilemma for the human intelligence.” What about him? Would the thought of him be anyway efficacious? Hans Castorp recalled how several times, in the extraordinarily vivid dreams that visited his sleep in this place, he had taken umbrage at the dry and subtle smile curling the Italian’s lip beneath the flowing moustache; how he had railed at him for a hand-organ man, and tried to shove him away because he was a disturbing influence. But that was in his dreams—the waking Hans Castorp was no such matter, but a much less untrammelled person; not disinclined, either, on the whole, to try out the influence upon himself of this novel human type, with its critical animus and acumen, despite the fact that he found the Italian both carping and garrulous. After all, Settembrini had called himself a pedagogue; obviously he was anxious to exercise influence; and Hans Castorp, for his part, fairly yearned to be influenced—though of course, not to an extent which should cause him to pack his trunk and leave before his time, as Settembrini had in all seriousness proposed.

“
Placet experiri
,” he thought to himself, with a smile. So much Latin he had, without calling himself a
homo humanus
. The upshot was that he kept his eye on Settembrini, listened keenly and critically to what he had to say when they met on their prescribed walks to the bench on the mountain-side, or down to the Platz, or wherever and whenever opportunity offered. Other occasions there were, too: for instance, at the end of a meal Settembrini would rise from table before anyone else and saunter across among the seven tables, in his check trousers, a toothpick between his lips, to where the cousins sat. He did this in defiance of law and custom, standing there in a graceful attitude, with his legs crossed, talking and gesticulating with the toothpick. Or he would draw up a chair and sit down at the corner of the table, between Hans Castorp and the schoolmistress, or between Hans Castorp and Miss Robinson, and look on while they ate their pudding, which he seemed to have forgone.

“May I beg for admission into this charmed circle?” he would say, shaking hands with the cousins, and comprehending the rest of the table in a sweeping bow. “My brewer over there—not to mention the despairing gaze of the breweress!—But, really, this Herr Magnus! Just now he has been delivering a discourse on folk-psychology. Shall I tell you what he said? ‘The Fatherland, it is true, is one enormous barracks. But all the same it’s got a lot of solid capacity, it’s genuine. I wouldn’t change it for the fine manners of the rest of them. What good are fine manners to me if I’m cheated right and left?’ And more of the same kind. I am at the end of my patience. And opposite me I have a poor creature, with churchyard roses blooming in her cheeks, an old maid from Siebenbürgen, who never stops talking about her brother-in-law, a man we none of us either know or wish to know. I could stand it no longer, I shook their dust from my feet, I bolted.” “You raised your flag and took to your heels,” Frau Stöhr stated.

“Precisely,” shouted Settembrini. “I fled with my flag. Ah, what an apt phrase! I see I have come to the right place; nobody else here knows how to coin phrases like that.—May I be permitted to inquire after the state of your health, Frau Stöhr?” It was frightful to see Frau Stöhr preen herself.

“Good land!” she said. “It is always the same, you know yourself: two steps forward and three back. When you have been sitting here five months, along comes the old man and tucks on another six. It is like the torment of Tantalus: you shove and shove, and think you are getting to the top—”

“Ah, how delightful of you, to give poor old Tantalus a new job, and let him roll the stone uphill for a change! I call that true benevolence.—But what are these mysterious reports I have been hearing of you, Frau Stöhr? There are tales going about—tales about doubles, astral bodies, and the like. Up to now I have lent them no credence— but this latest story puzzles me, I confess.” “I know you are poking fun at me.”

“Not for an instant. I beg you to set my mind at rest about this dark side of your life; after that it will be time to jest. Last night, between half past nine and ten, I was taking a little exercise in the garden; I looked up at the row of balconies; there was your light gleaming through the dark; you were performing your cure, led by the dictates of duty and reason. ‘Ah,’ thought I, ‘there lies our charming invalid, obeying the rules of the house, for the sake of an early return to the arms of her waiting husband.’—And now what do I hear? That you were seen at that very hour at the Kurhaus, in the
cinematógrafo
” (Herr Settembrini gave the word the Italian pronunciation, with the accent on the fourth syllable) “and afterwards in the café, enjoying punch and kisses, and—”

Frau Stöhr wriggled and giggled into her serviette, nudged Joachim and the silent Dr. Blumenkohl in the ribs, winked with coy confidingness, and altogether gave a perfect exhibition of fatuous complacency. She was in the habit of leaving the light burning on her balcony and stealing off to seek distraction in the quarter below. Her husband, meanwhile, in Cannstadt, awaited her return. She was not the only patient who practised this duplicity.

“And,” went on Settembrini, “that you were enjoying those kisses in the company of—whom, do you think? In the company of Captain Miklosich from Bucharest. They say he wears a corset—but that is little to the point. I conjure you, madame, to tell me! Have you a double? Was it your earthly part which lay there alone on your balcony, while your spirit revelled below, with Captain Miklosich and his kisses?” Frau Stöhr wreathed and bridled as though she were being tickled.

“One asks oneself, had it not been better the other way about,” Settembrini went on; “you enjoying the kisses by yourself, and the rest-cure with Captain Miklosich—” “Tehee!” tittered Frau Stöhr.

“Have the ladies and gentlemen heard the latest?” the Italian went on, without pausing for breath. “Somebody has been flown away with—by the devil. Or, to speak literally, by his mama—a very determined lady, I quite took to her. It was young Schneermann, Anton Schneermann, who sat at Mademoiselle Kleefeld’s table. You see, his place is empty. It will soon be filled up again, I am not worried about that— but Anton is off, on the wings of the wind, in the twinkling of an eye, rapt away before he knew where he was. Sixteen years old, and had been up here a year and a half, with six months to go. But how did it happen? Who knows? Perhaps somebody dropped a little word to Madame his mother; anyhow, she got wind of his goings-on,
in Baccho et ceteris
. She appears unannounced on the scene, some three heads taller than I am, white-haired and exceeding wroth; fetches Herr Anton a couple of boxes on the ear, takes him by the collar, and puts him on the train. ‘If he is going to the dogs,’ she says, ‘he can do it just as well down below.’ And off they go.”

“Everybody within ear-shot laughed; Herr Settembrini had such a droll way of telling a story. Despite his contemptuous attitude toward the society of the place, he always knew everything that went on. He knew the name and circumstances of each patient. He knew that such and such a person had been operated on for rib resection; had it on the best authority that from the autumn onward no one with a temperature of more than 101.3° would be admitted into the establishment. He told them how last night the little dog belonging to Madame Capatsoulias from Mitylene stepped on the button of the electric signal on his mistress’s night-table and occasioned much commotion and running hither and yon—particularly because Madame Capatsoulias had been found not alone, but in the society of Assessor Düstmund from Friedrichshagen. Even Dr. Blumenkohl had to laugh at that. Pretty Marusja well-nigh choked in her orange-scented handkerchief, and Frau Stöhr yelled with laughter, holding her breast with both hands.

But to the cousins Ludovico Settembrini talked of himself and his early life; whether on the walks they took together, or during the evening in the salon, or perhaps, in the dining-room itself, after a meal, when most of the patients had left and the three sat together at their end of the table, while the waitresses cleared away and Hans Castorp smoked his Maria Mancini, which in the third week had regained a little of its savour. He was critical of what he heard, and often he felt put off; yet he listened receptively to the Italian’s talk, for it opened to his understanding a world utterly new and strange.