Chapter III: Drawing the Veil (Part 1 of 2)
Drawing the Veil
He had been so utterly weary, he had feared to oversleep; but he was on his legs rather earlier than usual, and had a superfluity of leisure in which to perforin the accustomed ritual of his morning toilet, in which a rubber tub, a wooden bowl of green lavender soap, and the accompanying little brush played the principal parts. He had even time to do some unpacking and moving in. As he covered his cheeks with scented lather and drew over them the blade of his silver-plated “ safety,” he recalled his confused dreams and shook his head indulgently over so much nonsense, with the superior feeling a man has when shaving himself in the clear light of reason. He did not feel precisely rested, yet had a sense of morning freshness.
With powdered cheeks, in his Scotch-thread drawers and red morocco slippers, he walked out on the balcony, drying his hands. The balcony ran across the house and was divided into small separate compartments by opaque glass partitions, which did not quite reach to the balustrade. The morning was cool and cloudy. Trails of mist lay motionless in front of the heights on one side and the other, while great cloud-masses, grey and white, hung down over the distant peaks. Patches and bands of blue showed here and there; now and then a gleam of sunshine lighted up the village down in the valley, till it glistened whitely against the dark fircovered slopes. Somewhere there was music, very likely in the same hotel where there had been a concert the evening before. The subdued chords of a hymn floated up; after a pause came a march. Hans Castorp loved music from his heart; it worked upon him in much the same way as did his breakfast porter, with deeply soothing, narcotic effect, tempting him to doze. He listened well pleased, his head on one side, his eyes a little bloodshot.
He could see below him the winding road up to the sanatorium, by which he had come the night before. Among the dewy grass of the sloping terrace short-stemmed, star-shaped gentians stood out. Part of the level ground had been enclosed for a garden, with flower-beds, gravel paths, and an artificial grotto under a stately silver fir. A hall, with rechning-chairs and a galvanized roof, opened tow ards the south, near it stood a flag-pole, painted reddish-browm, on which the flag fluttered open now r and then on its cord. It was a fancy flag, green and white, with the caduceus, the emblem of healing, in the centre.
A woman was walking in the garden, an elderly lady, of melancholy, even tragic aspect. Dressed all in black, a black veil wound about her dishevelled grey-black hair, with wrinkled brow and coal-black eyes that had hanging pouches of Tin beneath them, she moved with rapid, restless step along the garden paths, staring straight before her, her knees a little bent, her arms hanging stiffly down. The ageing face in its southern pallor, with the large, wried mouth drawn down on one side, reminded Hans Castorp of a portrait he had once seen of a famous tragic actress. And strange it was to see how the pale, black-clad woman unconsciously matched her long, woeful pace to the music of the march.
He looked down upon her with pensive sympathy; it seemed to him the sad apparition darkened the morning sunshine. But in the same instant he became aware of something else, something audible: certain noises penetrating to his hearing from the room on the left of his own, which was occupied, Joachim had said, by a Russian couple. Again he felt a discrepancy; these sounds no more suited the blithe freshness of the morning than had the sad sight in the garden below — rather they seemed to befoul the air, make it thick, sticky. Hans Castorp recalled having heard similar sounds the evening before, though his weariness had prevented him from heeding them: a struggling, a panting and giggling, the offensive nature of which could not long remain hidden to the young man, tr) as he good-naturedly did to put a harmless construction on them. Perhaps something more or other than good nature was in play, something to which we give a variety of names, calling it now purity of soul, which sounds insipid; again by that grave, beautiful name of chastity; and yet again disparaging it as hypocrisy, as “ hating to look facts in the face ”; even ascribing it to an obscure sense of awe and piety — and, in truth, something of all these was in Hans Castorp’s face and bearing as he listened. He seemed to be practising a seemly obscurantism; to be mentally draw mg the veil over these sounds that he heard; to be telling himself that honour forbade his taking any cognizance of them, or even hearing them at all — it gave him an air of propriety which was not quite native, though he knew how to assume it on occasion. With this mien, then, he drew back from the balcony into his room, in order not to listen further to proceedings which, for all the giggling that went with them, were plainly in dead earnest, even alarming. But from indoors the noise could be heard even more plainly. He seemed to hear a chase about the room; a chair fell over; someone was caught and seized; loud kissing ensued — and the music below had changed to a waltz, a popular air whose hackneyed, melodious phrases accompanied the invisible scene. Hans Castorp stood towel in hand and listened, against his better judgment. And he began to blush through the powder; for what he had all along seen coming was come, and the game had passed quite frankly over into the bestial. “ Good Lord! ” he thought. He turned away and made as much noise as possible while he concluded his toilet. “ Well, at least they are married, as far as that goes,” he said to himself. “ But in broad daylight — it’s a bit thick! And last night too, I’m sure. But of course they are ill, or at least one of them, or they wouldn’t be here — that may be some excuse. The scandalous part of it is, the walls are so thin one can’t help hearing everything. Simply intolerable. The place is shamefully jerry-built, of course. What if I should see them, or even be introduced? I simply couldn’t endure it! ” Here Hans Castorp remarked with surprise that the flush which had mounted in his freshly shaven cheek did not subside, nor its accompanying warmth: his face glowed with the same dry heat as on the evening before. He had got free of it in sleep, but the blush had made it set in again. He did not feel the friendlier for this discovery towards the wretched pair next door; in fact he stuck out his lips and muttered a derogatory word in their direction, as he tried to cool his hot face by bathing it in cold water — and only made it glow the more. He felt put out; his voice vibrated with ill humour as he answered to his cousin’s knock on the wall; and he appeared to Joachim on his entrance like anything but a man refreshed and invigorated by a good night’s sleep.
Breakjast
“ Morning,” Joachim said. “ Well, that was your first night up here. How did you find it? ”
He was dressed for out-of-doors, in sports clothes and stout boots, and carried his ulster over his arm. The outline of the flat bottle could be seen on the side pocket. As yesterday, he wore no hat.
“Thanks,” responded Hans Castorp, “it was well enough, I won’t try to judge yet. I’ve had all sorts of mixed-up dreams, and this building seems to possess the disadvantage of being porous — the sound goes straight through it. It’s annoying. — Who is that dark woman down in the garden? ”
Joachim knew at once whom he meant.
“ Oh,” he said, “ that’s Tous-les-deux. We all call her that up here, because it’s the only thing she says. Mexican, you know; doesn’t know a word of German and hardly any French, just a few scraps. She has been here for five weeks with her eldest son, a hopeless case, without much longer to go. He has it all over, tubercular through and through, you might say. Behrens says it is much like typhus, at the end — horrible for all concerned. Well, two weeks ago the second son came up, to see his brother before the end — handsome as a picture; both of them were that, with eyes like live coals — they nuttered the dovecots, I can tell you. He had been coughing a bit down below, but otherwise quite lively. Well, he no sooner gets up here than he begins to run a temperature, high fever, you know, 103.1 0 . They put him to bed — and if he gets up again, Behrens says, it will be more good luck than good management. But it was high time he came, in any case, Behrens says. — Well, and since then the mother goes about — whenever she is not sitting with them — and if you speak to her, she just says: ‘ T ous les deux! ’ She can’t say any more, and for the moment there is no one up here who understands Spanish.”
u So that’s it,” Hans Castorp said. “ Will she say it to me, when I get to know her, do you think 5 That will be queer — funny and weird at the same time, I mean.” His eyes looked as they had yesterday, they felt hot and heavy, as if tired with weeping, and yet brilliant too, with the gleam that had been kindled in them yesterday at the sound of that strange, new cough on the part of the gentleman rider. He had the feeling that he had been out of touch with yesterday since waking, and had only now picked up the threads again where he laid them down. He told his cousin he was ready, sprinkling a few drops of lavender-water on his handkerchief as he spoke and dabbing his face with it, on the brow and under the eyes. “ If you like, we can go to breakfast, tous les deux” he recklessly joked. Joachim looked with mildness at him, then smiled his enigmatic smile of mingled melancholy and mockery — or so it seemed, for he did not express himself otherwise.
After looking to his supply of cigars Hans Castorp took coat and stick, also, rather defiantly, his hat — he was far too sure of himself and his station in life to alter his ways and acquire new ones for a mere three weeks’ visit — and they went out and down the step. In the corridor Joachim pointed to this and that door and gave the names of the occupants — there were German names, but also all sorts of foreign ones — with brief comments on them and the seriousness of their cases.
They met people already coming back from breakfast, and when Joachim said good-morning, Hans Castorp courteously lifted his hat. He was tense and nervous, as a young man is when about to present himself before strangers — when, that is, he is conscious that his eyes are heavy and his face red. The last, however, was only true in part, for he was rather pale than otherwise.
” Before I forget it,” he said abruptly, “ you may introduce me to the lady in the garden if you like, I mean if it happens that way, I have no objection. She would just say: £ Tons les deux 9 to me, and I shouldn’t mind it, being prepared, and knowing what it means — I should know how to look. But I don’t wish to know the Russian pair, do you hear? I expressly don’t wish it. They are a very ill-behaved lot. If I must live for three weeks next door to them, and nothing else could be arranged, at least I needn’t know them. I am justified in that, and I simply and explicitly decline.”
“ Very good,” Joachim said. ” Did they disturb you? Yes, they are barbarians, more or less; uncivilized, I told you so before. He comes to the table in a leather jacket, very shabby, I always wonder Behrens doesn’t make a row. And she isn’t the cleanest in this world, with her feather hat. You may make yourself quite easy, they sit at the ‘ bad ’ Russian table, a long way off us — there is a ‘ good ’ Russian table, too, you see, where the nicer Russians sit — and there is not much chance of you coming into contact with them, even if you wanted to. It is not very easy to make acquaintance here, partly from the fact that there are so many foreigners. Personally, as long as I’ve been here, I know very few.”
” Which of the two is ill? ” Hans Castrop asked . ” He or she? ”
” The man I think. Yes, only the man,” Joachim answered, absently. They passed among the hat- and coat-racks and entered the light, low-vaulted hall, where there was a buzzing of voices, a clattering of dishes, and a running to and fro of waitresses with steaming jugs.
There were seven tables, all but two of them standing lengthwise of the room. They were good-sized, seating each ten persons, though not all of them were at present full. A few steps diagonally into the room, and they stood at their places; Hans Castorp’s was at the end of a table placed between the two crosswise ones. Erect behind his chair, he bowed stiffly but amiably to each table-mate in turn, as Joachim formally presented him; hardly seeing them, much less having their names penetrate his mind. He caught but a single name and person — Frau Stohr, whom he perceived to have a red face and greasy ash-blond hair. Looking at her he could quite credit the malapropisms Joachim told of. Her face expressed nothing but ill-nature and ignorance. He sat down, observing as he did so that early breakfast was taken seriously up here.
There were pots of marmalade and honey, basins of rice and oatmeal porridge, dishes of cold meat and scrambled eggs; a plenitude of butter, a Gruyere cheese dropping moisture under a glass bell. A bowl of fresh and dried fruits stood in the centre of the table. A waitress in black and white asked Hans Castorp whether he would drink coffee, cocoa or tea. She was small as a child, with a long, oldish face — a dwarf, he realized with a start. He looked at his cousin, who only shrugged indifferently with brows and shoulders, as though to say: “ Well, what of it? ” So he adjusted himself as speedily as possible to the fact that he was being served by a dw’arf, and put special consideration into his voice as he asked for tea. Then he began eating rice with cinnamon and sugar, his eyes roving over the table full of other inviting viands, and over the guests at the six remaining tables, Joachim’s companions and fellow’ victims, who were all inw ardly infected, and now sat there breakfasting.
The hall was done in that modern style which knows how r to give just the right touch of individuality to something in reality very simple. It was rather shallow 7 in proportion to its length, and opened in great arched bays into a sort of lobby surrounding it, in which serving-tables were placed. The pillars were faced halfway up with wood finished to look like sandalwood, the upper part white-enamelled, like the ceiling and upper half of the walls. They were stenciled in gay-coloured bands of simple and lively designs which were repeated on the girders of the vaulted ceiling. The room was further enlivened by several electric chandeliers in bright brass, consisting of three rings placed horizontally one over the other and held together by delicate woven work, the lowest ring set with globes of milky glass like little moons. There were four glass doors, two on the opposite wall, opening on the verandah, a third at the bottom of the room on the left, leading into the front hall, and a fourth, by which Hans Castorp had entered through a vestibule, as Joachim had brought him down a different stair from the one they had used yesterday evening.
He had on his right a plain-looking woman in black, with a dull flush on her cheeks, the skin of which was downy-looking, as an older person’s often is. She looked to him like a seamstress or home dressmaker, the idea being suggested by the fact that she took only coffee and buttered rolls for breakfast; since his childhood he had always somehow associated dressmakers with coffee and buttered rolls. On his left sat an English spinster, also well on in years, very ugly, with frozen, withered-looking fingers. She sat reading her home letters, which were written in round hand, and drinking tea the colour of blood. Next her was Joachim, and then Frau Stohr, in a woollen blouse of Scotch plaid. She held her left hand doubled up in a fist near her cheek as she ate, and drew her upper lip back from her long, narrow, rodent-like teeth when she spoke, obviously trying to make an impression of culture and refinement. A young man with thin moustaches sat next beyond. His facial expression was of one with something bad-tasting in his mouth, and he ate without a word. He had come in after Hans Castorp was already seated, with his chin sunk on his breast; and sat down so, without even lifting his head in greeting, seeming by his bearing plumply to decline being made acquainted with the new guest. He was, perhaps, too ill to have thought of or care for appearances, or even to take any interest in his surroundings. Opposite him there had sat for a short time a very lean, lightblonde girl who emptied a bottle of yogurt on her plate, ladled it up with a spoon, and took herself off.
The conversation at table was not lively. Joachim talked politely with Frau Stohr, inquired after her condition and heard with proper solicitude that it was unsatisfactory. She complained of relaxation. “ I feel so relaxed,” she said with a drawl and an underbred, affected manner. And she had had 99. i° when she got up that morning — what was she likely to have by afternoon? The dressmaker confessed to the same temperature, but she on the contrary felt excited, tense, and restless, as though some important event were about to happen, which was certainly not the case; the excitation was purely physical, quite without emotional grounds. Hans Castorp thought to himself that she could not be a dressmaker after all; she spoke too correctly, even pedantically. He found her excitation, or rather the expression of it, somehow unsuitable, almost offensive, in so homely and insignificant a creature. He asked her and Frau Stohr, one after the other, how long they had been up here, and found that one had five, the other seven months to her credit. Then he mustered his English to inquire of his neighbour on the right what sort of tea she was drinking (it was made of rose-hips) and if it tasted good, which she almost passionately affirmed; then he watched people coming and going in the room; the first breakfast, it appeared, was not regarded as a regular meal, in any strict sense.
He had been a little afraid of unpleasant impressions, but found himself agreeably disappointed. The room was lively, one had not the least feeling of being in a place of suffering. Tanned young people of both sexes came in humming, spoke to the waitresses, and fell to upon the viands with robust appetite. There were older people, married couples, a whole family with children, speaking Russian, and half-grown lads. The women wore chiefly closefitting jackets of wool or silk — the so-called sweater — in white or colours, with turnover collars and side pockets; they would stand with hands thrust deep in these pockets, and talk — it looked very pretty. At some tables photographs were being handed about
— amateur photography, no doubt — at another stamps were being exchanged. The talk was of the weather, of how one had slept, of what one had “ measured in the mouth ” on rising. Nearly everybody seemed in good spirits, probably on no other grounds than that they were in numerous company and had no immediate cares. Here and there, indeed, sat someone who rested his head on his hand and stared before him. They let him stare, and paid no heed.
Hans Castorp gave a sudden angry start. A door was slammed
— it was the one on the left, leading into the hall, and someone had let it fall shut, or even banged it, a thing he detested; he had never been able to endure it. Whether from his upbringing, or out of a natural idiosyncrasy, he loathed the slamming of doors, and could have struck the guilty person. In this case, the door was filled in above with small glass panes, which augmented the shock with their ringing and rattling. “ Oh, come,” he thought angrily, “ what kind of damned carelessness was that? ” But at the same time the seamstress addressed him with a remark, and he had no time to see who the transgressor had been. Deep creases furrowed his blond brow r s, and his face was contorted as he turned to reply to his neighbour.
Joachim asked whether the doctors had come through. Yes, someone answered, they had been there once and left the room just as the cousins entered. Then it would be better not to wait, Joachim thought. An opportunity for introducing his cousin would surely come in the course of the day. But at the door they nearly ran into Hofrat Behrens, as he entered with hasty steps, followed by Dr. Krokow r ski.
“ Hullo-ullo there! Take care, gentlemen! That might have been rough on all of our corns! ” He spoke with a strong lowSaxon accent, broad and mouthingly. “ Oh, so here you are,” he addressed Hans Castorp, whom Joachim, heels together, presented. “ Well, glad to see you.” He reached the young man a hand the size of a shovel. He was some three heads taller than Dr. Krokowski; a bony man, his hair already quite white; his neck stuck out, his large, goggling bloodshot blue eyes were swimming in tears; he had a snub nose, and a close-trimmed little moustache, which made a crooked line because his upper lip was drawn up on one side. What Joachim had said about his cheeks was fully borne out; they were really purple, and set off his head garishly against the white surgeon’s coat he wore, a belted smock of more than knee-length, beneath which showed striped trousers and a pair of enormous feet in rather worn yellow laced boots. Dr. Krokowski too was in professional garb; but his smock was of some shiny black stuff and made like a shirt, with elastic bands at the wrists. It contrasted sharply with the pallor of his skin. His manner suggested that he was present solely in his capacity as assistant; he took no part in the greeting, but a certain expression at the comers of his mouth betrayed the fact that he felt the strain of his subordinate position.
“ Cousins? ” the Hofrat asked, motioning with his hand from one to the other of the two young men and looking at them with his bloodshot eyes. “ Is he going to follow the drums like you? ” he addressed Joachim, jerking his head at Hans Castorp. “God forbid, eh? I could tell as soon as I saw you ” — he spoke now directly to the young man — “that you were a layman; there’s something civilian and comfortable about you, not like our sabrerattling corporal here! You’d be a better patient than he is, I’ll wager. I can tell by looking at people, you know, whether they’ll make good patients or not; it takes talent, everything takes talent — and this myrmidon here hasn’t a spark. Maybe he shows up on the parade-ground, for aught I know; but he’s no good at being ill. Will you believe it, he’s always wanting to clear out! Badgers me all the time, simply can’t wait to get down there and be skinned alive. There’s doggedness for you! Won’t give us even a measly half-a-year! And yet it’s quite pretty up here; I leave it to you if it isn’t, Ziemssen, what? . . . Well, your cousin will appreciate us, even if you don’t. He’ll get some fun out of it. There’s no shortage in the lady market here, either; we have the most charming females. At least, some of them are very picturesque on the outside. But you ought to have better colour yourself, you know, if you want to please the sex. ‘ The golden tree of life is green,’ as the poet says — but it’s a poor colour for the complexion, all the same. Totally anaemic, of course,” he broke off, and without more ado put up his index and middle fingers and drew down Hans Castorp’s eyelid. “ Precisely! Totally anaemic, as I was saying. You know it wasn’t such a bad idea of yours to let your native Hamburg shift for itself awhile. Great institution, Hamburg — simply revels in humidity — sends us a tidy contingent every year. But if I may take the occasion to give you the benefit of my poor opinion — sine pectmia , you understand, quite sine pecuma — would suggest that you do just as your cousin does, while you are up here. Y >u couldn’t turn a better trick than to behave for the time as though you had a slight tuberculosis pidmonwn , and put on a little flesh. It’s curious about the metabolism of protein with us up here. Although the process of combustion is heightened, yet the body at the same time puts on flesh. — Well, Ziemssen, slept pretty well, what? . . . Splendid! Then get on with the out-of-doors exercise — but not more than half an hour, you hear^ 5 And afterwards stick the quicksilver cigar in your face, eh? And be good and write it down, Ziemssen! That’s a conscientious lad! Saturday I’ll look at the curve. Your cousin better measure too. Measuring can’t hurt anybody. Morning, gentlemen. Have a good time — morning — morning — ” Krokowski joined him as he sailed off down the hall, swinging his arms palms backward, directing to right and left the question about sleeping well, which was answered on all sides in the affirmative.
Banter . Viaticum. Interrupted Mirth
“ Very nice man,” Hans Castorp said, as after a friendly nod to the lame concierge, who was sorting letters in his lodge, they passed out into the open air. The main entrance was on the south-west side of the white building, the central portion of which was a storey higher than the wings, and crowned by a turret with a roof of slate-coloured tin. You did not issue from this side into the hedged-in garden, but were immediately in the open, in sight of the steep mountain meadows, dotted with single fir-trees of moderate size, and writhen, stunted pines. The way they took — it was the only one they could take, outside the drive going down to the valley — rose by a gentle ascent to the left, behind the sanatorium, past the kitchen and domestic offices, where huge dustbins stood at the area rails. Thence it led in the same direction for a goodish piece, then made a sharp bend to the right and mounted more rapidly along the thinly wooded slopes. It was a reddish path, firm and yet rather moist underfoot, with boulders here and there along the edge. The cousins were by no means alone upon it: guests who had finished breakfast not long after them followed hard upon their steps, and groups of others, already returning, approached with the stalking gait of people descending a steep incline.
“ Very nice man,” repeated Hans Castorp. “ He has such a flow of words I enjoy listening to him. ‘ Quicksilver cigar ’ was capital, I got it at once. — But I’ll just light up a real one,” he said, pausing, “ I can’t hold out any longer. I haven’t had a proper smoke since yesterday after luncheon. Excuse me a minute.” He opened his automobile-leather case, with its silver monogram, and drew out a Maria Mancini, a beautiful specimen of the first layer, flattened on one side as he particularly liked it; he cut off the tip slantingly with a sharp little tool he wore on his watchchain, then, striking a tiny flame with his pocket apparatus, puffed with concentration at the long, blunt-ended cigar until it was alight. “ There! ” he said. “ Now, as far as I’m concerned, we can get on with the exercise. You don’t smoke — out of sheer doggedness, of course.”
“ I never do smoke,” answered Joachim; “ why should I begin up here? ”
“ I don’t understand it,” Hans Castorp said. “ I never can understand how anybody can not smoke — it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak — or at least of a first-class pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke — though of course that is more or less of an exaggeration. But a day without tobacco would be flat, stale, and unprofitable, as far as I am concerned. If I had to say to myself to-morrow: ‘ No smoke to-day ’ — I believe I shouldn’t find the courage to get up — on my honour, I’d stop in bed. But when a man has a good cigar in his mouth — of course it mustn’t have a side draught or not draw well, that is extremely irritating — but with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him — literally. It’s just like lying on the beach: when you lie on the beach, why, you lie on the beach, don’t you 2 — you don’t require anything else, in the line of work or amusement either. — People smoke all over the world, thank goodness; there is nowhere one could get to, so far as I know, where the habit hasn’t penetrated. Even polar expeditions fit themselves out with supplies of tobacco to help them carry on. I’ve always felt a thrill of sympathy when I read that. You can be very miserable: I might be feeling perfectly wretched, for instance; but I could always stand it if I had my smoke.”
“ But after all,” Joachim said, “ it is rather flabby-minded of vou to be so dependent on it. Behrens is right, you are certainly a civilian. He meant it for a sort of compliment, I dare say; but the truth is, you are a civilian — incurable. But then, you are healthy, you can do what you like,” he added, and his eyes took on their tired look.
“Yes, healthy except for the anaemia,” said Hans Castorp. “ That was certainly straight from the shoulder, his telling me I look green. But it is true — I’ve noticed myself that I look green in comparison with the rest of you up here, though it never struck me down home. And it was nice of him to give me advice gratis like that — ‘ sine pecunia as he put it. I’ll gladly undertake to do as he says, and live just as you do. After all, how else should I do while I’m up here? And it can’t do me any harm; suppose I do put on a little flesh, then, in God’s name — though it sounds a bit disgusting, you will admit.”
Joachim coughed slightly now and then as they walked, it seemed to strain him to go uphill. When he did so for the third time, he paused and stood still with a frown “ Go on ahead,” he said. Hans Castorp hastened to do so, without looking round. Then he slackened his pace, and finally almost stopped, as it seemed to him he must have got a good distance ahead or Joachim, But he did not look round.
A troop of guests of both sexes approached him. He had seen them coming along the level path half-way up the slope; now they were stalking downhill directly towards him; he heard their voices. They were six or seven persons of various ages: some in the bloom of youth, others rather older. He took a good look at them, from the side, as he walked with bent head, thinking about Joachim. They were tanned and bare-headed, the women in sweaters, the men mostly without overcoats or even walkingsticks, all of them like people who have just gone casually out for a turn in the open. Going downhill involves no sustained muscular effort, only an agreeable process of putting on the brakes in order not to finish by running and tripping head over heels; it is really nothing more than just letting yourself go; and thus the gait of these people had something loose- jointed and flighty about it, which communicated itself to the appearance of the whole group and made one almost wish to be of their lively party.
They came close up to him, he saw their faces clearly. No. they were not all brown: two of the ladies were, on the contrary, distinctly pale; one of them thin as a lath, and ivory-white of complexion, the other shorter and plump, disfigured by freckles. They all looked at him, smiling rather boldly. A tall young girl in a green sweater, with untidy hair and foolish, half -open eyes, brushed past Hans Castorp, nearly touching him with her arm. And as she did so she whistled — oh, impossible! Yes, she did though; not with her mouth, indeed, for she did not pucker the lips, but held them firmly closed. She whistled from somewhere inside, and looked at him with her silly, half-shut eyes — it was an extraordinarily unpleasant whistle, harsh and penetrating, yet hollow-sounding; a long-drawn-out note, falling at the end, like the sound made by those rubber pigs one buys at fairs, that give out the air in a wailing key as they collapse. The sound issued, inexplicably, from her breast — and then, with her troop, she had passed on.
Hans Castorp stood and stared. In a moment he turned round, understanding at least so much, that the atrocious thing must have been a joke, a put-up job; for he saw over his shoulder that they were laughing as they went, that a stodgy, thick-lipped youth, whose coat was turned up in an unseemly way about him so that he could put both hands in his trouser pockets, turned his head and laughed quite openly. Joachim approached. He had greeted the group with his usual punctiliousness, almost pausing, and bowing with heels together; now he came mildly up to his cousin.
“ Why are you making such a face? ” he asked.
“ She whistled,” answered Hans Castorp. “ She whistled out of her inside as she passed. Will you have the goodness to explain to me how? ”
“ Oh! ” Joachim said, and laughed curtly. “ Nonsense, she didn’t do it with her inside. That was Hermine Kleefeld, she whistles with her pneumothorax.”
“ With her what? ” Hans Castorp demanded. He felt wrought up, without knowing why. His voice was between laughter and tears as he added: “ You can’t expect me to understand your lingo.”
“ Oh, come along,” Joachim said. “ I can explain it to you as we go. You looked rooted to the spot! It’s a surgical operation, they often perform it up here. Behrens is a regular dab at it. When one of the lungs is very much affected, you understand, and the other one fairly healthy, they make the bad one stop functioning for a while, to give it a rest. That is to say, they 5 I
make an incision here, somewhere on the side, I don’t know the precise place, but Behrens has it down fine. Then they fill you up with gas — nitrogen, you know — and that puts the cheesy part of the lung out of operation. The gas doesn’t last long, of course; it has to be renewed every two weeks; they till you up again, as it were. Now, if that keeps on a year or two. and all goes well, the lung gets healed. Not always, of course; it’s a risky business. But they say they have had a good deal of success with it. Those people you saw” just now all have it. That was Frau litis, with the freckles, and the thin, pale one was Fraulein Levi, that had to lie so long in bed, you know. They have formed a group, for of course a thing like the pneumothorax brings people together. They call themselves the Half-Lung Club; everybody knows them by that name. And Hermine Kleefeld is the pride of the club, because she can whistle with hers. It is a special gift, by no means everybody can do it. I can’t tell you how it is done, and she herself can’t exactly describe it. But when she has been walking rather fast, she can make it whistle, and of course she does it to frighten people, especially when they are new to the place. Also, I believe she uses up nitrogen when she does it, for she has to be refilled once a week.
Then it was that Hans Castorp laughed. His excitement, while Joachim was speaking, had fixed for its outlet upon laughter rather than tears; and he laughed as he walked, his hand over his eyes, his shoulders bent, shaken by a succession of subdued chuckles.
“ Are they incorporated? ” he asked as soon as he could speak. His voice sounded weak and tearful with suppressed laughter. “ Have they any by-laws? Pity you aren’t a member, you could get me in as a guest, as — as associate half-lunger. — You ought to ask Behrens to put you out of commission, then perhaps you could learn to whistle too; it must be something one could learn — well, that’s the funniest thing ever I heard in my life! ” he finished, heaving a deep sigh. “ I beg your pardon for speaking of it like this, but they seem very jolly over it themselves, your pneumatic friends. The way they were coming along — and to think that was the Half-Lung Club. Tootle-ty-too, she went at me — she must be out of her senses! It was utter cheek — will you tell me why they behave so cheekily? ”
Joachim sought for a reply. “ Good Lord,” he said, “ they are so free — I mean, they are so young, and time is nothing to them, and then they may die — perhaps — why should they make a long face? Sometimes I think being ill and dying aren’t serious at all just a sort of loafing about and wasting time; life is only serious down below. You will get to understand that after a while, but not until you have spent some time up here.”
“ Surely, surely,” Hans Castorp said. “ I’m sure I shall. I already feel great interest in the life up here, and when one is interested, the understanding follows. — But what is the matter with me — it doesn’t taste good,” he said, and took his cigar out of his mouth to look at it. “ I’ve been asking myself all this time what the matter was, and now I see it is Maria. She tastes like papier mache, I do assure you — precisely as when one has a spoilt digestion. I can’t understand it. I did eat more than usual for breakfast, but that cannot be the reason, for she usually tastes particularly good after a too hearty meal. Do you think it is because I had such a disturbed night? Perhaps that is how I got out of order. No, I really can’t stick it,” he said, after another attempt. “ Every pull is a disappointment, there is no sense in forcing it.” And after a hesitating moment he tossed the cigar off down the slope, among the wet pine-boughs. “Do you know what I think it has to do with? ” he asked. “ I feel convinced it is connected with this damned heat I feel all the time in my face. I have suffered from it ever since I got up. I feel as though I were blushing the whole time, deuce take it! Did you have anything like that when you first came? ”
“ Yes,” said Joachim. “ I was rather queer at first. Don’t think too much of it. I told you it isn’t so easy to accustom oneself to the life up here. But you will get right again after a bit. Look, that bench is in a pretty place. Let’s sit down awhile and then go home. I must take my cure.”
The path had become level. It ran now in the direction of Davos-Platz, some third of the height, and kept a continuous view, between high, sparse, wind-blown pines, of the settlement below, gleaming whitely in the bright air. The bench on which they sat leaned against the steep wall of the mountain-side, and near them a spring in an open wooden trough ran gurgling and plashing to the valley.
Joachim was for instructing his cousin in the names of the mist-wreathed Alpine heights which seemed to enclose the valley on the south, pointing them out in turn with his alpenstock. But Hans Castorp gave the mountains only a fleeting glance. He sat bent over, tracing figures on the ground with the ferrule of his cityish silver-mounted walking-stick. There were other things he wanted to know.
“ What I meant to ask you,” he began, “ the case in my room had died just before I got here; have there been many deaths since you came? ”
“ Several, certainly,” answered Joachim. “ But they are very discreetly managed, you understand; you hear nothing of them, or only by chance afterwards; everything is kept strictly private when there is a death, out of regard for the other patients, especially the ladies, who might easily get a shock. You don’t notice it, even when somebody dies next door. The coffin is brought very early in the morning, while you are asleep, and the person in question is fetched away at a suitable time t< >o — for instance, while we are eating.”
“ H’m,” said Hans Castorp, and continued to draw. “ I see. That sort of thing goes on behind the scenes, then.”
“ Yes — for the most part. But lately — let me see, wait a minute, it might be possibly eight weeks ago — ”
“ Then you can hardly say lately,” Hans Castorp pounced on him crisply.
“ What? Well, not lately, then, since you’re so precise. I was just trying to reckon. Well, then, some time ago, it was, I got a glimpse behind the scenes — purely by chance — and I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was when they brought the Sacrament to little Hujus, Barbara Hujus — she was a Catholic — the Last Sacrament, you know, Extreme Unction. She was still about when I first came up here, and she could be wildly hilarious, regularly giggly, like a little kid. But after that it went pretty fast with her, she didn’t get up any more — her room was three doors off mine — and then her parents arrived, and now the priest was coming to her. It was while everybody was at tea, not a soul in the passages. But I had gone to sleep in the afternoon rest and overslept myself, I hadn’t heard the gong and was a quarter of an hour late. So that at the decisive moment I wasn’t where all the others were, but behind the scenes, as you call it; as I go along the corridor, they come toward me, in their lace robes, with the cross in front, a gold cross with lanterns — it made me think of the Schellenbaum they march with, in front of the recruits.”
“ What sort of comparison is that 5 ” Hans Castorp asked, severely.
“ It looked like that to me — I couldn’t help thinking of it. But listen. They came towards me, marching, quick step, three of them, so far as I remember: the man with the cross, the priest, with glasses on his nose, and a boy with a censer. The priest was holding the Sacrament to his breast, it was covered up, and he had his head bent on one side and looked very sanctified — it is their holy of holies, of course.”
“ Exactly,” Hans Castorp said. “ And just for that reason I wonder at your making the comparison you did.”
“Yes, but wait a bit — if you had been there, you wouldn’t have known what kind of face you would make remembering it afterwards. It was the sort of thing to give you bad dreams — ”
“ How? ”
“ Like this: I ask myself how I am supposed to behave, under the circumstances. I had no hat to take off — ”
“ There, you see, don’t you? ” Hans Castorp interrupted him again. “ You see now, one ought to wear a hat. Naturally I’ve noticed that none of you do up here; but you should, so you can have something to take off when it is proper to do so. Well, but what then? ”
“ I stood against the wall,” Joachim went on, “ as respectfully as I could, and bent over a little when they were by me — it was just at little Hu jus’s door, number twenty-eight. The priest seemed to be pleased that I saluted; he acknowledged very courteously and took off his cap. But at the same time they came to a stop, and the ministrant with the censer knocks, and lifts the latch, and makes way for his superior to enter. Just try to imagine my sensations, and how frightened I was! The minute the priest sets his foot over the threshold, there begins a hullabaloo from inside, a screaming such as you never heard the like of, three or four times running, and then a shriek — on and on without stopping, at the top of her lungs: Ah-h-h-h! So full of horror and rebellion, and anguish, and — well, perfectly indescribable. And in between came a gruesome sort of begging. Then it suddenly got all dulled and hollow-sounding, as though it had sunk down into the earth, or were coming out of a cellar.”
Hans Castorp had turned with violence to face his cousin. “ Was that the Hujus? ” he asked abruptly. “ And how do you mean — out of a cellar 5 ”
“ She had crawled down under the covers,” said Joachim. “ Imagine how I felt! The priest stood on the threshold and spoke soothingly, I can see now just how he stuck his head out and drew it back again while he talked. The cross-bearer and the acolyte hesitated, and couldn’t get in. I could see between them into the room. It was just like yours and mine, the bed on the side wall left of the door, and people were standing at the head, the relatives of course, the parents, talking soothingly at the bed, where you could see nothing but a formless mass that was begging and protesting horribly, and kicking about with its legs.”
“ You say she kicked? ”
“ With all her might. But it did her no good, she had to take the Sacrament. The priest went up to her, and the two others went inside the room, and the door closed. But first I saw little Hujus’s head come up for a second, a shock of blond hair, and look at the priest with staring eyes, that were without any colour, and then with a wail go down under the sheet again.”
“ And you tell me all that now for the first time^ ” Hans Castorp said, after a pause. “ I can’t understand how you came not to speak of it yesterday evening. But, good Lord, she must have had strength, to defend herself like that. That takes strength. They ought not to fetch the priest before one is quite weak.”
“ She was weak,” responded Joachim. — “ Oh, there’s so much to tell, one doesn’t have time to pick and choose. She was weak enough! It was only the fright gave her so much strength. She was in a fearful state when she saw she was going to die; and she was such a young girl, it was excusable, after all. But grown men behave like that too, sometimes, and it’s deplorably feeble of them, of course. “Likens knows how to treat them, he takes just the right tone in such cases.”
” What kind of tone? ” Hans Castorp asked with drawn brows.
“ ‘ Don’t behave rke that,’ he tells them,” Joachim answered. “ At least, that is wUat he told somebody lately — we heard it from the Directress, w*v y.is present and helped to hold the man. He was one of those who make a regular scene at the end, and simply won’t die. So Behrens brought him up with a round turn: ‘ Do me the favour not to behave like that,’ he said to him; and the patient became quite calm and died as quietly as you please.’’
Hans Castorp slapped his thigh and threw himself back against the bench, looking up at the sky.
“ I say, that’s pretty steep,” he cried. “ Goes at him like that, and simply tells him not to behave that way! To a dying man! But after all, a dying man has something in a way — sacred about him. One can’t just — perfectly coolly, like that — a dying man is sort of holy, I should think! ”
u I don’t deny it,” said Joachim. “ But when one behaves as feebly as that — ”
“ No,” persisted Hans Castorp, with a violence out of proportion to the opposition he met, “ l insist that a dying man is above any chap that is going about and laughing and earning his living and eating his three meals a day. It isn’t good enough — ” his voice quavered “—it isn’t good enough, for one to calmly — just calmly — ” his words trailed off in a fit of laughter that seized and overcame him, the laughter of yesterday, a profound, illimitable, body-shaking laughter, that shut up his eyes and made tears well from beneath their lids.
“ Sh-h! ” went Joachim, suddenly. “ Keep quiet,” he whispered, and nudged his uncontrollably hilarious cousin in the side. Hans Castorp looked up through tears.
A stranger was approaching them from the left, a dark man of graceful carriage, with curling black moustaches, wearing lightcoloured check trousers. He exchanged a good-morning with Joachim in accents agreeable and precise, and then remained standing before them in an easy posture, leaning on his cane, with his legs crossed.
Satana
His age would have been hard to say, probably between thirty and forty; for though he gave an impression of youthfulness, yet the hair on his temples was sprinkled with silver and gone quite thin on his head. Two bald bays ran along the narrow scanty parting, and added to the height of his forehead. His clothing, loose trousers in light yellowish checks, and too long, doublebreasted pilot coat, with very wide lapels, made no slightest claim to elegance; and his stand-up collar, with rounding corners, was rough on the edges from frequent washing. His black cravat showed wear, and he wore no cuffs, as Hans Castorp saw at once from the lax way the sleeve hung round the wrist. But despite all that, he knew he had a gentleman before him: the stranger’s easy, even charming pose and cultured expression left no doubt of that. Yet by this mingling of shabbiness and grace, by the black eyes and softly waving moustaches, Hans Castorp was irresistibly reminded of certain foreign musicians who used to come to Hamburg at Christmas to play in the streets before people’s doors. He could see them rolling up their velvet eyes and holding out their soft hats for the coins tossed from the windows. “ A hand-organ man,” he thought. Thus he was not surprised at the name he heard, as Joachim rose from the bench and in some embarrassment presented him: “ My cousin Castorp, Herr Settembrini.”
Hans Castorp had got up at the same time, the traces of his burst of hilarity still on his face. But the Italian courteously bade them both not to disturb themselves, and made them sit down again, while he maintained his easy pose before them. He smiled, standing there and looking at the cousins, in particular at Hans Castorp; a smile that was a line, almost mocking deepening and crisping of one comer of the mouth, just at the point where the full moustache made its beautiful upward curve. It had upon the cousins a singular effect: it somehow constrained them to mental alertness and clarity; it sobered the reeling Hans Castorp in a twinkling, and made him ashamed.
Settembrini said: “ You are in good spirits — and with reason too, with excellent reason. What a splendid morning! A blue sky, a smiling sun ” — with an easy, adequate motion of the arm he raised a small, yellowish-skinned hand to the heavens, and sent a lively glance upward after it — “ one could almost forget where one is.”
He spoke without accent, only the precise enunciation betrayed the foreigner. His lips seemed to take a certain pleasure in forming the words, it was most agreeable to hear him.
“You had a pleasant journey hither, I hope 5 ” he turned to Hans Castorp. “ And do you already know your fate — I mean has the mournful ceremony of the first examination taken place? ” Here, if he had really been expecting a reply he should have paused; he had put his question, and Hans Castorp prepared to answer. But he went on: u Did you get off easily 5 One might put — ” here he paused a second, and the crisping at the corner of his mouth grew crisper — “ more than one interpretation upon your laughter. How many months have our Minos and Rhadamanthus knocked you down for 5 ” The slang phrase sounded droll on his lips. “Shall I guess 5 Six? Nine? You know we are free with the time up here — ”
Hans Castorp laughed, astonished, at the same rime racking his brains to remember who Minos and Rhadamanthus were. He answered: “Not at all — no, really, you are under a misapprehension, Herr Septem — ”
“ Settembrini,” corrected the Italian, clearly and with emphasis, making as he spoke a mocking bow.
“ Herr Settembrini — I beg your pardon. No, you are mistaken. Really I am not ill. I have only come on a visit to my cousin Ziemssen for a few weeks, and shall take advantage of the opportunity to get a good rest — ”
“Zounds! You don’t say? Then you are not one of us? You are well, you are but a guest here, like Odysseus in the kingdom of the shades 5 You are bold indeed, thus to descend into these depths peopled by the vacant and idle dead — ” “ Descend, Herr Settembrini? I protest. Here I have climbed up some five thousand feet to get here — ”
“ That was only seeming. Upon my honour, it was an illusion,’* the Italian said, with a decisive wave of the hand. “We are sunk enough here, aren’t we, Lieutenant? ” he said to Joachim, who, no little gratified at this method of address, thought to hide his satisfaction, and answered reflectively:
“ I suppose we do get rather one-sided. But we can pull ourselves together, afterwards, if we try.”
“ At least, you can, Im sure — you are an upright man,” Settembrini said. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, repeating the word three times, with a sharp s , turning to Hans Castorp again as he spoke, and then, in the same measured way, clucking three times with his tongue against his palate. “ I see, I see, I see,” he said again, giving the 5 the same sharp sound as before. He looked the newcomer so steadfastly in the face that his eyes grew fixed in a stare; then, becoming lively again, he went on: “ So you come up quite of your own free will to us sunken ones, and mean to bestow upon us the pleasure of your company for some little while? That is delightful. And what term had you thought of putting to your stay? I don’t mean precisely. I am merely interested to know what the length of a man’s sojourn would be when it is himself and not Rhadamanthus who prescribes the limit.”
“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 an 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: u 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 shipbuilder! 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 5 ”
“That’s true enough, God knows — or the Devil does,” Hans Castorp said, and the words came from his heart.
Settembnni’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 5 ”
“ 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 Satctna, O ribelliane , O forza vindice della ragioiie! . . .’ 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 it his cousin, who kept his eyes cast down; then he said: “You lake my words far too literally, Herr Settembrini. When I spoke >f the Devil, it was just a manner of speaking, I assure you.”
“ Somebody must have some esprit ” Settembrini said, looking traight ahead, with a melancholy air. Then recovering himself, ie skilfully got back to their former subject, and went on dithely: “ At all events, I am probably right in concluding from )0
four words that the calling you have embraced is as strenuous as t is honourable. As for myself, I am a humanist, a homo hurmmts. have no mechanical ingenuity, however sincere my respect for t. 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 5 ”
“Now 5 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 5 No 5 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 5 ”
“Why not 5 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 5 A charming man.”
“ You find him so 5 Then you have already made his acquaintance? ”
“ Yes, just now, as we came out. It was almost like a profesugliness. 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 I path on the right that shall lead to the halls of the mightiest Dis 5 — 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 ail 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 well-turned, 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.
“ WelP I am beginning to suspect that you like him, too.”
“ I don’t know, really, Herr Settembrini. I’ve seen him only casually. And I am not very quick in my judgments. I am inclined to look at people and say: ‘ So that’s you, is it? Very good.’ ”
“ That is apathetic of you. You should judge — to that end you have been given your eyes and your understanding. You felt that I spoke maliciously, just now. If I did, perhaps it was not without intent to teach. We humanists have all of us a pedagogic itch. Humanism and schoolmasters — there is a historical connexion between them, and it rests upon psychological fact: the office of schoolmaster should not – cannot – be taken from the humanist, for the tradition of the beauty and dignity of man rests in his hands. The priest, who in troubled and inhuman times arrogated to himself the office of guide to youth, has been dismissed; since when, my dear sirs, no special type of teacher has arisen. The humanistic grammar-school – you may call me reactionary, Engineer, but in abstracto^ generally speaking, you understand, I remain an adherent — ”
He continued in the lift to expatiate upon this theme, and left off only when the cousins got out as the second storey was reached. He himself went up to the third, where he had, Joachim said, a little back room.
“ hasn’t much money, I suppose,” Hans Castorp said, entering Joachim’s room, which looked precisely like his own.
“ No, I suppose not,” Joachim answered, “ or only so much as just makes his stay possible. His father was a literary man too, you know, and, I believe, his grandfather as well.”
“ Yes, of course,” Hans Castorp said. “ Is he seriously ill? ” “ Not dangerously, so far as I know, but obstinate, keeps coming back. He has had it for years, and goes away in between, but soon has to return again.”
“ Poor chap! So frightfully keen on work as he seems to be! Enormously chatty, goes from one thing to another so easily. Rather objectionable, though, it seemed to me, with that girl.
I was quite put off, for the moment. But when he talked about human dignity, afterwards, I thought it was great — sounded like an address. Do you see much of him? ”
Mental Gymnastic
Joachim’s reply came impeded and incoherent. He had taken a small thermometer from a red leather, velvet-lined case on his table, and put the mercury-filled end under his tongue on the left side, so that the glass instrument stuck slantingly upwards out of his mouth. Then he changed into indoor clothes, put on shoes and a braided jacket, took a printed form and pencil from his table, also a book, a Russian grammar — for he was studying Russian with the idea that it would be of advantage to him in the service — and, thus equipped, took his place in the reclining-chair on his balcony, throwing his cameVs-hair mg ighty across his feet.
It was scarcely needed. During the last quarter-hour the layer of cloud had grown steadily thinner, and now the sun broke through in summerlike warmth, so dazzlingly that Joachim protected his head with a white linen shade which was fastened to the arm of his chair, and furnished with a device by means of which it could be adjusted to the position of the sun. Hans Castorp praised this contrivance. He wished to await the result of Joachim s measurement, and meanwhile looked about to see how everything was done: observed the fur-lined sleeping-sack that stood against the wall in a corner of the loggia, for Joachim to use on cold days; and gazed down into the garden, with his elbows on the balustrade. The general rest-hall was populated by reclining patients, reading, writing, or conversing. He could see only a part of the interior, some four or five chairs.
“ How long does that go om ” he asked, turning round.
Joachim raised seven fingers.
Part 3 of 30