Chapter V: Soup-Everlasting (Part 3 of 7)
The present state of his feelings, however, had put on one side any such sentiments as these; it was now the Italian who was the object of his irritation, because he, in his benightedness, had spoken of Parthians and Scythians and had not meant thereby the persons at the “ bad ” Russian table, the shock-headed, linenless students, who sat there disputing endlessly in their outlandish tongue, which was obviously the only one they knew, and which, in its soft, spineless character reminded Hans Castorp of the thorax without ribs Hofrat Behrens had described to him. True, the manners and customs of such people might readily awaken feelings of disgust in the breast of a humanist. They ate with their knives, and unmentionably messed the front of their blouses. Settembrini asserted that one of them, a medical student well on in his training, was so ignorant of Latin as not to know, for example, what the word vacuum meant. As for the married couple in number thirty-two, Hans Castorp’s own daily experience of them was such as to render quite credible Frau Stohr’s report, that when the bathing-master entered tneir room in the morning for the usual massage, they received him lying in bed together.
All this might well be true. But after all, the distinction between “ good ” and “ bad ” was a plain one, it did not exist for nothing. Hans Castorp assured himself that he felt only contempt for any propagandist of the republic and the hello stile who went about with his nose in the air, and calmly — with particular calm, although at the same time both febrile and fuddled — lumped the members of both tables together under the title of Parthians and Scythians. Hans Castorp understood only too well the sense in 22 9
which he used it, since he had begun to understand the connexion between Frau Chauchat’s illness and her “ slackness.” But as he had one day put it to Joachim: one begins by being angry and disgusted, and then all at once “ something quite different enters in,” that has “ nothing to do with moral judgment,” and it is all up with your severity; you are simply not at home to pedagogic influences, however republican, however eloquent. But, we are impelled to ask, probably again in the spirit of Ludovico Settembrini, what sort of questionable experience is this, which palsies a man’s judgment, robs him of all claim to it, or even makes him waive that claim, and experience in so doing the abandonment of ecstasy? We do not ask its name — for that everyone knows. Our question rather refers to its moral quality; and we confess that we do not anticipate any very self-confident reply. In Hans Castorp’s case its nature was evident in the extent to which he not only ceased to exercise his judgment, but even began to experiment for his own part and upon his own mortal vesture. He tried, for instance, how it would feel to sit at table with his back all relaxed, and discovered that it afforded sensible relief to the pelvic muscles. Again, one day, instead of punctiliously closing a door behind him, he let it slam; and this too he found both fitting and agreeable. It corresponded to the shoulder-shrug with which Joachim had greeted him at the station, and which was so habitual among those up here.
In brief, our traveller was now over head and ears in love with Clavdia Chauchat — we may still use the phrase, since we have already obviated any possible misunderstanding on the score of it. We have seen that the essence of his passion was something quite other than the tender and pensive mood of that oft-quoted ditty: rather it was a wild and vagrant variation upon the lovesick lute, it was mingled frost and fire, like the state of a fever patient, or the October air in these high altitudes. What he actually lacked, in fact, was an emotional bridge between two extremes. On the one hand his passion dwelt, with an immediacy that left the young man pale and staring, upon Frau Chauchat’s knee, the line of her thigh, her back, her neck-bone, her arms that pressed together her little breasts — in a word, it dwelt upon her body, her idle, accentuated body, exaggerated by disease and rendered twice over body . And, on the other hand, it was something in the highest degree fleeting and tenuous; a thought, nay, a dream, the frightful, infinitely alluring dream of a young man whose unspoken, unconscious questioning of the universe has received no answer save a hollow silence. We have as much right as the next person to our private thoughts about the story we are relating; and we would here hazard the surmise that young Hans Castorp would never have overstepped so far the limits originally fixed for his stay if to his simple soul there might have been vouchsafed, out of the depth of his time, any reasonably satisfying explanation of the meaning and purpose of man’s life.
For the rest, his lovesick state afforded him all the joy and all the anguish proper to it the world over. The anguish is acute, it has, like all anguish, a mortifying element; it shatters the nervous system to an extent that takes the breath away, and can wring tears from the eyes of a grown man. As for the joys, to do them justice, they were manifold, and no less piercing than the anguish, though their occasion might be trifling indeed. Almost any moment of the Berghof day might bring one forth. For example, about to enter the dining-room, Hans Castorp would perceive the object of his dreams behind him — an experience clear and simple in anticipation, but inwardly ravishing to the point of tears. Their eyes meet at close range, his own and her grey-green ones, whose slightly oriental shape and position pierce him to the very marrow. He is incapable of connected thought, but unconsciously steps back to give her precedence through the door. With a half-smile, a half-audible “ Merci” she accepts his conventional courtesy and, passing him by, enters the room. He stands there, within the aura of her personality as it sweeps past, idiotic with happiness at the encounter, and at the word which has been uttered by her mouth directly for his ear. He follows her, he moves unsteadily to his own table and, sinking into his chair, becomes aware that Clavdia, as she too takes her place, has turned to look at him. He thinks she wears an expression as though musing on their encounter at the door. Oh, unbelievable adventure! Oh, joy, rapture, and boundless exaltation! Ah, no, this drunkenness of fantastic bliss Hans Castorp could never have experienced at the glance of any healthy little goose down in the flat-land, to whom he might have, calmly, correctly, and with most definite intentions, “ given his heart,” and devoted the sentiments described in the song. He greets the schoolmistress with feverish sprightliness — she has seen the whole thing, and her downy old cheek wears its dusky signal — and then bombards Miss Robinson with English conversation, so absurdly that she, not versed in the ecstatic, fairly recoils, and measures him with mistrustful eyes.
Another time, as they sit at the evening meal, the serene rays of the setting sun fall upon the “ good ” Russian table. The curtains have been drawn over the window and the verandah door, but somewhere there is a little crack, and through it the red gleam finds its way, not hot, but dazzling, and falls upon Frau Chauchat’s face, so that she shields it with her hand as she sits talking with the concave countryman on her right. It is annoying but not serious, nobody troubles about it, probably not even the fair one herself. But across the dining-room Hans Castorp sees it — quiescent awhile, like the others. He examines the situation, follows the course of the ray of light, makes up his mind where it enters. It comes from the bay-window in the right-hand corner, between the verandah door and the “ bad ” Russian table, at a goodish distance from Frau Chauchat ’s place, and almost equally far from Hans Castorp’s. Without a word he gets up and, serviette in hand, crosses over among the tables, draws the cream-coloured curtains so that they lap well over one another, convinces himself by a glance over his shoulder that the ray from the setting sun is shut out and Frau Chauchat relieved, and with an air of perfect equanimity goes back to his place. An observant young man, who takes it upon himself to perform a needful courtesy neglected by others. But few of them even noticed his act; Frau Chauchat, however, instantly felt the relief, and turned round, remaining in that position until Hans Castorp had resumed his place and, sitting down, looked over at her, when she thanked him, with a friendly, rather surprised smile, and a bow that was less an inclination than a shoving forward of the head. He acknowledged by a bow in his turn. His heart stood stockstill, it seemed not to beat. Only after the whole thing was over did it begin again, and hammered, and only then did he become conscious that Joachim had kept his eyes directed upon his plate. Afterwards, too, he realized that Frau Stohr had nudged Dr. Blumenkohl in the side, and then looked about at their own and other tables, trying to catch people’s eyes.
All this is the sheerest commonplace; but the commonplace becomes remarkable when it springs from remarkable soil. There were periods of strain and periods when the tension between them beneficently relaxed — though perhaps the tension existed less between them than it did in Hans Castorp’s fevered imagination, for how far Madame Chauchat was affected we can only guess. In these days of fine weather the majority of the guests betook themselves to the verandah, after the midday meal, and stood about in groups, sunning themselves, for a quarter-hour or so, in a scene much like that on the Sunday afternoons of the fortnightly concerts. All these young people, absolutely idle, overfed on a meat and sweet diet, and without exception feverish — chattered and laughed, philandered, made eyes. Frau Salomon 2 3 2
from Amsterdam would perch on the balustrade, hard pressed on the right by the knees of the thick-lipped Ganser, on the left by the Swedish minion — who, it appeared, was quite recovered, but extending his cure for a little space before going home. Frau litis was apparently a widow; for she had rejoiced only lately in the visit of a “ fiance ” — a melancholy, inferior-looking person, whose presence had not in the least prevented her from accepting the attentions of the hook-nosed, fiery-eyed Captain Miklosich, him of the waxed mustachios and swelling chest. New figures turned up on the terrace: ladies of various nationalities from the general rest-halls, and new arrivals since the first of October, whom Hans Castorp barely knew by name. Then there were cavaliers of Herr Albin’s kidney, monocled youths of seventeen, a spectacled, rosy-faced young Dutchman with a mania for collecting postage stamps; certain Greeks, with pomaded hair and almond-shaped eyes, inclined to overreach at table; and a pair of young dandies who were nicknamed Max and Moritz, and bore a great reputation for breaking out of bounds. The humpbacked Mexican, whose ignorance of any language save his own lent him the facial expression of a deaf person, took endless photographs, dragging his tripod from one point to another on the terrace. Sometimes the Hofrat would appear, and perform his “ stunt ” with the boot-laces. And somewhere in the thick of the crowd would lurk solitary the religious devotee from Mannheim; Hans Castorp would watch disgustedly to see his great sad eyes take their secret way.
But to return, by way of example, to some of those strains and stresses to which Hans Castorp’s state was prone. Our young man was sitting on a painted garden chair, with his back against the wall, talking with his cousin, whom he had forced, against his will, to come outside; in front of him*, by the balustrade, Frau Chauchat stood smoking with her table-mates. He talked for her benefit; she turned her back. His thirst for conversation was not satisfied by Joachim; he must needs make an acquaintance— and whose? No other than Hermine Kleefeld’s. He directed a casual word toward that young lady, then presented himself and his cousin by name, and drew up another chair, in order to carry on the game. Did she know, he asked, what a deuce of a fright she had put him in, at their first encounter, when she had whistled him such an inspiriting welcome? He did not mind owning that she had accomplished her purpose; he had felt as though someone had hit him on the head — she might ask his cousin! He called it an outrage, frightening harmless strangers like that, piping at them with her pneumothorax! And so forth and so on. Joachim, quite aware of the role that was being forced upon him, sat with his eyes on the ground; even Fraulein Kleefeld gradually perceived, from Hans Castorp’s distraught and wandering eye, that she was being made a tool of, and felt piqued accordingly. And still the poor youth went on smirking and turning phrases and modulating his voice, until at last he actually succeeded in making Frau Chauchat turn round and look him in the face. But only for a moment. Her Pribislav eyes glided rapidly down his figure, as he sat there one knee over the other, with a deliberate insouciance which had all the effect of scorn; they paused for a space upon his yellow boots, and then carelessly, with perhaps a smile in their depths, withdrew.
It was a bitter, bitter blow. Hans Castorp talked on awhile, feverishly. Then, inwardly smitten by the power of that gaze upon his boots, he fell silent almost in the middle of a word, and lapsed into deep dejection. Fraulein Kleefeld, bored and offended, went her way. Joachim remarked, not without irritation, that perhaps they might go up to the rest-cure now. And a broken spirit answered feebly that they might.
Hans Castorp anguished piteously for two days. Nothing occurred in that time to be balsam for his smarting wound. What had she meant by her look? Why, in the name of reason, had she visited him with her scorn? Did she regard him merely as a healthy young noodle from down in the flat-land, whose receptivity was sure to be of the harmless sort; as a guileless, ordinary chap, who went about laughing and earning his daily bread and filling his belly full; as a model pupil in the school of life, with no comprehension of anything but the tedious advantages of a respectable career? Was he, he asked himself, a mere feckless tourist and three-weeks’ guest, or was he a man who had made his profession on the score of a moist spot, a member of the order, one of those up here, with a good two months to his credit — and had not Mercurius only yesterday evening climbed up to ioo°? Ah, here, even here, lay the bitter drop that overflowed his cup: Mercurius had ceased to mount! The fearful depression of these days had a chilling, sobering, relaxing effect upon Hans Castorp’s system, which, to his profound chagrin, displayed itself in a reduced degree of fever, scarcely higher than normal. He had the cruel experience of proving to himself that all his anguish, all his dejection, had no other result than to separate him still further from Clavdia, and from that which was significant in her existence.
The third day brought the blessed release. It was early upon a magnificent October morning, sunny and fresh. The meadows were covered with silvery-grey webs. The sun and the waning moon both hung high up in a lucent heaven. The cousins were abroad earlier than usual, meaning to honour the fine weather by extending their morning walk a little further than the prescribed limits, and continuing the forest path beyond the bench by the watercourse. Joachim’s curve, too, had lately shown a gratifying decrease; he had accordingly suggested this refreshing irregularity, and Hans Castorp had not said no.
“ We seem to be cured,” he said, “ no fever, free of infection, as good as ripe for the world again. Why shouldn’t we have our fling? ” They set out with walking-sticks, and hatless — for since his “ profession ” Hans Castorp had resigned himself to the prevailing custom, despite the original assertion of his own contraryminded* conventions. But they had not yet covered the initial ascent of the reddish path, had arrived only at about that point where the novice had once encountered the pneumatic crew, when they saw at some distance ahead of them, slowly mounting, Frau Chauchat; Frau Chauchat in white, a white sweater and white flannel skirt, even white shoes. Her red-blond hair gleamed in the morning sun. To be precise, Hans Castorp saw her; Joachim was made aware of her presence by an unpleasant sensation of being dragged and pulled along by his cousin, who had started up at a great pace, after having suddenly checked and almost stood still on the path. Joachim found the compulsion exceedingly annoying. His breath came shorter, he began to cough, Hans Castorp, with his eyes on his goal, and his breathing apparatus apparently in splendid trim, gave little heed; and Joachim, having recognized the situation for what it was, drew his brows together and kept step for step, feeling it out of the question to let his cousin go on alone.
The lovely morning made Hans Castorp sprightly. And his soul, in that period of black depression, had secretly assembled its powers. He felt a sure intuition that the moment was come to break the ban. He strode on, dragging the panting and reluctant Joachim in his train, and they had as good as overtaken Frau Chauchat, at the point where the path grew level and turned to the right along the wooded hillock. Here the young man slackened his pace, not to be breathless with exertion in the 2 35
moment of carrying out his purpose. And just beyond the bend in the path, between mountain and precipice, where the sunlight slipped athwart the boughs of the rust-coloured firs, it actually fell out, the wonder came to pass, that Hans Castorp, on Joachim’s left, overtook the fragile fair one, he went by her with a manly stride, and then, at the moment when he was beside her, on her right, greeted her with a profoundly respectful, hatless inclination of the head, and a murmured “ good-morning,” to which she answered by a friendly bow, that showed no trace of surprise, and a good-morning in her turn. She said it in Hans Castorp’s mother-tongue, and smiled with her eyes. And all that was something different, something fundamentally and blessedly other than that look she had bent upon his boots — it was a gift of fortune, an unexampled turn in affairs, a joy well-nigh beyond comprehending, it was the blessed release.
Transported by that word, look, and smile, half blinded by his senseless joy, Hans Castorp trod on winged feet, hurrying the misused Joachim with him, who uttered not a word, and gazed away down the steep. It had been a manoeuvre of a rather unscrupulous sort; in Joachim’s eyes, as Hans Castorp well knew, it looked very like treachery. Yet it was not the same thing as borrowing a lead-pencil of a perfect stranger; one might even say it would have been ill-bred to pass by a lady with whom one had been for months under the same roof and not salute her. They had even been in conversation with her, that time in the waiting-room. That was why Joachim could say nothing; but Hans Castorp well knew another reason that made his honourloving cousin walk on in silence with averted head, while he himself was so supremely happy, so glad all over, at the success of his manoeuvre. Never a man down in the flat-land who had “ given his heart ” to some healthy, commonplace little goose, been successful in his suit, and experienced all the orthodox and anticipatory gratifications proper to his state, never could such a man be blissfuller, no, not half so blissful, as Hans Castorp now over this momentary joy which he had snatched. — And so, after a while, he clapped his cousin heartily on the shoulder and said: “ Hullo, what’s the matter with you? Isn’t it magnificent to-day? Let’s go down to the Kurhaus afterwards, there will probably be music. Perhaps they’ll play that thing from Carmen. — What’s the matter? Has anything got under your skin? ”
“ No,” Joachim answered. “ But you look so hot, I’m afraid your curve has gone up again.”
It had. The greeting he had exchanged with Clavdia Chauchat had overcome the mortifying depression; it was at bottom the consciousness of this which had lain at the root of Hans Castorp’s gratification. Yes, yes, Joachim was right, Mercurius was mounting again: when Hans Castorp consulted him, on their return from their walk, he had climbed up to 100.4°.
Encyclop&dic
If certain insinuations on Herr Settembrini’s part had angered Hans Castorp, the annoyance was quite unjustified, as also his feeling that the schoolmaster had been spying on him. A blind man must have seen how it stood with the youth; he himself did nothing to conceal his state, being prevented by a certain native and lofty simplicity. He inclined rather to wear his heart upon his sleeve, in contrast — if you like, favourable contrast — to the devotee from Mannheim, with his thin hair and furtive mien. But in general we would emphasize the fact that people in Hans Castorp s state regularly feel a craving for self-revelation, an impulse to confess themselves, a blind preoccupation with self, and a thirst to possess the world of their own emotions, which is the more offensive to the sober onlooker, the less sense, reasonableness, or hope there lies in the whole affair.
How people in this state go about to betray themselves is hard to define; but it seems they can neither do nor leave undone anything which would not have that effect — doubly so, then, in a society like that of the Berghof, where, as the critically minded Herr Settembrini once expressed it, people were possessed of two ideas, and only two: temperature — and then again temperature. By the second temperature he meant preoccupation with such questions as, for instance, with whom Frau ConsulGeneral Wurmbrandt from Vienna consoled herself for the defection of Captain Miklosich — whether with the Swedish minion, or Lawyer Paravant from Dortmund, or both. Everybody knew that the bond between the lawyer and Frau Salomon from Amsterdam, after subsisting for several months, had been broken by common consent, and that Frau Salomon had followed the leanings of her time of life and taken up with callow youth. The thick-lipped Ganser from Hermine Kleefeld’s table was for the present under her wing; she had taken him “ to have and to hold,” as Frau Stohr, in legal parlance, yet not without perspicuity, had put it — and thus Lawyer Paravant was free either to quarrel or to compound with the Swede over the favours of the Frau ConsulGeneral, as seemed to him advisable. 2 37
These affairs then — in which, of course, the passage along the balconies, at the end of the glass partitions, played a considerable role — were rife in Berghof society, particularly among the fevered youth. They occupied people’s minds, they were a salient feature of life up here — and even in saying thus much we are far from having precisely defined the position with regard to them. Hans Castorp, on this subject, received a singular impression: it was that a certain fundamental fact of life, which is conceded the world over to be of great importance, and is the fertile theme of constant allusion, both in jest and earnest, that this fundamental fact of life bore up here an entirely altered emphasis. It was weighty with a new weight; it had an accent, a value, and a significance which were utterly novel — and which set the fact itself in a light to make it look much more alarming than it had been before. Thus far, whenever we have referred to any questionable performances at the Berghof, we have done so in what may have seemed a light and jesting tone; this without prejudice to our real opinion as to the levity, or otherwise, of the performances, and solely for the usual obscure reasons which prompt other people to adopt the same. But as a matter of fact, that tone was far less usual in our present sphere than it is elsewhere in the world. Hans Castorp had considered himself pretty well-informed on the subject of the above-named “ fact of life ” which has always and everywhere been such a favourite target for shafts of wit. And he may have been right in so considering. But now he found that the knowledge he had had down in the flat-land had been most inadequate, that he had actually been in a state of simple ignorance. For his personal emotions in the time of his stay up here — upon the nature of which we have been at some pains to enlighten the reader, and which had been at moments so acute as to wring from the young man that cry of “ Oh, my God! ” — had opened his eyes, had made him capable of hearing and comprehending the wild, the overstrained, the namelessly extravagant key in which all the “ affairs ” up here were set. Not that, even up here, they did not make jests on the subject. But up here, far more than down below, jests seemed out of place. They made one’s teeth to chatter, and took away one’s breath, they betrayed themselves too plainly for what they were, a thin and obvious disguise for a hidden extremity — or rather, an extremity impossible to hide. Hans Castorp well remembered the mottled pallor of Joachim’s skin when, for the first and only time, he had innocently alluded to Marusja’s physical charms in the light tone he might have assumed at home. He remembered the chill withdrawal of the blood from his own face, the time he had drawn the curtain to shield Madame Chauchat from the sun; he knew that he had seen the same look on other faces up here, both before and since — he usually remarked it in pairs, as, for example, on the faces of Frau Salomon and young Ganser, in the beginning of that relation between them so happily described by Frau Stohr. Hans Castorp, we say, recalled all this, and realized that under such circumstances it would not only have been very hard for him not to “ betray himself,” but that the effort would not have been worth his pains. In other words, not alone the noble simplicity which did him honour, but also a certain sympathetic something in the air urged him not to do violence to his feelings or make any secret of his condition.
Joachim had, as we know, early spoken of the difficulty of forming acquaintances up here. In reality this arose chiefly from the fact that the cousins formed a miniature group by themselves in the society of the cure; but also because the soldierly Joachim was bent on nothing else but speedy recovery, and hence objected on principle to any closer contact or more social relations with his fellow sufferers. It was a good deal this attitude of his that prevented his cousin from exposing his feelings more freely to the world at large. Even so, there came an evening when Joachim might behold his cousin the centre of a group composed of Hermine Kleefeld, Ganser, Rasmussen, and the youth of the monocle and the finger-nail, making an impromptu speech on the subject of Frau Chauchat’s peculiar and exotic facial structure, and betraying himself by his unsteady voice and the excited glitter of his eyes, until his listeners exchanged glances, nudged each other, and tittered.
This was painful for Joachim; but the object of their mirth seemed insensible to his own self-betrayal; perhaps he felt that his state, if concealed and unregarded, would never come to any proof. He might count, however, on a general understanding of it, and as for the inevitable malice that went with it, he took that for granted. People, not only at his own table, but at neighbouring ones as well, enjoyed seeing him flush and pale when the glass door slammed. And even this gratified him; it was like an outward confirmation and assertion of his inner frenzy, which seemed tc him calculated to forward his affair, and encourage his vague and senseless hopes. And so it too made him happy. It came to this: that people actually stood about in groups to observe the infatuated youth — after dinner, on the terrace, or on a Sunday afternoon before the porter’s lodge, when the letters were distributed, for on that day they were not carried to the patients’ rooms. He was quite generally known to be very far gone, drunk as a lord and not caring who knew it. Frau Stohr, Fraulem Engelhart, Hermine Kleefeld and her friend the tapir-faced girl, Herr Albm, the young man with the finger-nail, and perhaps others among the guests — would stand together and watch him, with the corners of their mouths drawn down, fairly chortling, whilst he, poor wight, his face aglow with the heat that from the first had never left him, with the glittering eye the gentleman rider’s cough had kindled, would gaze, forlornly and frantically smiling, in one certain direction.
It was really splendid of Herr Settembrini, under these circumstances, to go up to Hans Castorp, engage him in conversation, and ask him how he did. But it is doubtful whether the young man knew how to value and to be grateful for such benevolence and freedom from prejudice. One Sunday afternoon the guests were thronging about the porter’s lodge, stretching out their hands for letters. Joachim was among the foremost; but Hans Castorp had stopped in the rear, angling, in the fashion we have described, for a look from Clavdia Chauchat. She was standing near by, among a group of her table-mates, waiting until the press about the lodge should be lightened. It was an hour when all the patients mingled, an hour rich in opportunity, and for that reason beloved of our young man. The week before, he had stood at the window so close to Madame Chauchat that she had in fact jostled him, and then, with a little bow, had said: “ Pardon” Whereat he, with a feverish presence of mind for which he thanked his stars, had responded: “ Pas de quoi , madame.”
What a blessed dispensation of providence, he thought, that there should be a regular Sunday afternoon distribution of letters’ One might say that he spent the week in waiting for the next week’s delivery. And waiting means hurrying on ahead, it means regarding time and the present moment not as a boon, but an obstruction; it means making their actual content null and void, by mentally overleaping them. Waiting, we say, is long. We might just as well — or more accurately — say it is short, since it consumes whole spaces of time without our living them or making any use of them as such. We may compare him who lives on expectation to a greedy man, whose digestive apparatus works through quantities of food without converting it into anything of value or nourishment to his system. We might almost go so far as to say that, as undigested food makes man no stronger, so time spent in waiting makes him no older. But in practice, of course, there is hardly such a thing as pure and unadulterated waiting. 24O
Well, the week had been somehow devoured, and the hour for the Sunday afternoon post came round again, so like the other it seemed never to have changed. Like to that other, what thrilling opportunities it offered, what prospects lay concealed within it of coming into social relations with Frau Chauchat! Prospects that made the heart of young Hans Castorp leap and contract, yet without actually issuing in action; for against their doing so lay certain obstacles of a nature partly military, partly civil. In other words, they were in part the fruit of Joachim’s presence, in part the result of Hans Castorp’s own moral compunctions; but also, in part, they rested upon his sure intuition that social relations with Frau Chauchat, conventional relations, in which one made bows and addressed her as madame, and spoke French as far as possible, were not the thing at all, were neither necessary nor desirable. He stood and watched her laugh as she spoke, precisely as Pribislav Hippe had laughed as he spoke, that time in the school yard: she opened her mouth rather wide, and her slanting, grey-green eyes narrowed themselves to slits above the cheek-bones. That was, to be sure, not “ beautiful ”; but when one is in love, the aesthetic judgment counts for as little as the moral.
“ You are expecting dispatches, Engineer? ”
Only one person could talk like that — and he a disturber of Hans Castorp’s peace. The young man started and turned toward Herr Settembrini, who stood there smiling the same fine, humanistic smile that had sat upon his features when he greeted the newcomer, at the bench by the watercourse. Now, as then, it mortified Hans Castorp. We know how often, in his dreams, he had sought to drive away the organ-grinder as an element offensive to his peace; but the waking man is more moral than the sleeping, and, as before, the sight of that smile not only had a sobering effect upon Hans Castorp, but gave him a sense of gratitude, as though it had responded to his need.
“ Dispatches, Herr Settembrini? Good Lord, I’m no ambassador! There might be a postcard there for one of us. My cousin is just asking.”
“ That devil on two sticks in there has handed mine out to me already,” Herr Settembrini said, and carried his hand to the side pocket of the inevitable pilot coat. “ Interesting matter, I must confess, of literary and social import. It is about an encyclopaedic publication, to which a philanthropic institution has considered me worthy to contribute. Beautiful work, in short — ” Herr Settembrini interrupted himself. “ But how about you? ” he asked. “ How are your affairs going? For instance, how far has the process of acclimatization gone? You have not been so long among us but that one may still put the question.”
“ Thanks, Herr Settembrini. It still has its difficulties it seems. It very likely will have, up to the last day. My cousin told me when I came that many people never got used to it. But one gets used in time to not getting used.”
“ A complicated process,” laughed the Italian. “ An odd way of settling down in a place. But of course youth is capable of anything. It doesn’t get used to things, but it strikes roots.”
“ And after all, this isn’t a Siberian penal settlement.”
“ No. Ah, you have a fancy for oriental simile. Natural enough. Asia surrounds us — wherever one’s glance rests, a Tartar physiognomy.” Herr Settembrini gave a discreet glance over his shoulder. “ Genghis Khan,” he said. “ Wolves of the steppes, snow, vodka, the knout, Schlusselburg, Holy Russia. They ought to set up an altar to Pallas Athene, here in the vestibule — to ward off the evil spell. Look yonder — there is a species of Ivan Ivanovitch without a shirt-front, having a disagreement with Lawyer Paravant. Both of them want to be in the front rank to receive their letters. I can’t tell which of them is in the right, but, for my part, Lawyer Paravant fights under the aegis of the goddess. He is an ass, of course; but at least he knows some Latin.”
Hans Castorp laughed – a thing Herr Settembrini never did. One could not imagine him laughing heartily; he never got further than the fine, dry crisping of the corner of his mouth. He looked at the laughing young man, and presently asked: “ Have you received your diapositive? ”
“ I have received it,” Hans Castorp weightily affirmed.’ Just the other day. Here it is,” and he felt for it in his inner breast pocket.
“ Ah, you carry it in a case. Like a certificate, as it were — a sort of membership card. Very good. Let me see it.” And Herr Settembrini held it against the light, between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand; a little glass plate framed in strips of black paper. The gesture was a common one up here, one often saw it. His face, with the black almond-shaped eyes, displayed a slight grimace as he did so, but whether this happened in the effort to see more clearly or for other causes, he did not permit it to appear.
“ Yes, yes,” he said, after a while. “ Here is your identity card. Thanks very much,” and he handed the plate back to Hans Castorp over his shoulder, without looking.
“ Did you see the strands? ” asked Hans Castorp. And the nodules? ” “ You know,” Herr Settembrini answered him very deliberately, “ my opinion of these productions. You know too that those spots and shadows there are very largely of physiological origin. I have seen a hundred such pictures, looking very like this of yours; the decision as to whether they offered definite proof or not was left more or less to the discretion of the person looking at them. I speak as a layman, but a layman of a good many years’ experience.”
“ Does your own look much worse than this one? ”
“ Rather worse. I am aware, however, that our lords and masters do not base any diagnosis on the evidence of these toys alone. Then you purpose stopping the winter up here with us? ”
“Yes — Lord knows — I am beginning to get used to the idea of not going back until my cousin does.”
“ Getting used, that is, to not getting used — you put that very wittily. I hope you have received supplies from home — winter clothing, stout foot-gear? ”
“ Everything — all in the proper order. I informed my relatives, and our housekeeper sent me everything by express delivery. I shall do nicely now.”
“ I am relieved. But hold — you need a bag, a fur sack! What are we thinking of? This late summer is treacherous — it can turn to winter inside an hour. You will be spending the coldest months up here.”
“ Yes, the sleeping-sack,” Hans Castorp said. “ That is a requisite, I suppose. It had crossed my mind that we must be going down to the Platz one of these days soon to buy one. One never needs the thing again, of course — but even for the five or six months it is worth while.’’
“ It is, it is. — Engineer,” said Herr Settembrini in a low voice, coming close to the young man as he addressed him, “ don’t you know there is something frightful in the way you fling the months about? Frightful because unnatural, inconsistent with your character; it is due solely to the facility of your time of life. Ah, the fatal facility of youth! It is the despair of the teacher, for its proneness to display itself in the wrong direction. I beg you, my young friend, not to adopt the phrases current up here, but to speak the language of the European culture native to you. Up here there is too much Asia. It is not without significance that the place is full of Muscovite and Mongolian types. These people — ” Herr Settembrini motioned with his chin over his shoulder — “ do not put yourself in tune with them, do not be infected with their ideas; rather set yourself against them, oppose your nature, your higher 2 4 ?
nature against them; cling to everything which to you is by nature and tradition holy, as a son of the godlike West, a son of civilization: and, for example, time. This barbaric lavishness with time is in the Asiatic style; it may be a reason why the children of the East feel so much at home up here. Have you never remarked that when a Russian says four hours, he means what we do when we say one? It is easy to see that the recklessness of these people where time is concerned may have to do with the space conceptions proper to people of such endless territory. Great space, much time — they say, in fact, that they are the nation that has time and can wait. We Europeans, we cannot. We have as little time as our great and finely articulated continent has space, we must he as economical of the one as of the other, we must husband them, Engineer! Take our great cities, the centres and foci of civilization, the crucibles of thought! Just as the soil there increases in value, and space becomes more and more precious, so, in the same measure, does time. Carpe diem! That was the song of a dweller in a great city. Time is a gift of God, given to man that he might use it — use it, Engineer, to serve the advancement of humanity.”
Whatever difficulty, if any, his phrases offered Herr Settembrini’s Mediterranean palate, he brought them out with a clarity, a euphony, one might almost say a plasticity, that was truly refreshing. Hans Castorp made no answer save the short, stiff, embarrassed bow of a pupil receiving a reprimand. What could he have said? Herr Settembrini had delivered a private lecture, almost whispered it into his ear, with his back to the rest of the people in the room; it had been so pointed, so unsocial, so little conversable in its nature, that merely to commend its eloquence seemed lacking in tact. One does not tell a schoolmaster that he has expressed himself well. Hans Castorp, indeed, had done so orxe or twice in the early days of their acquaintance, probably from an instinct to preserve the social equilibrium; but the humanist’s utterances had never before reached quite such a didactic pitch. There was nothing for it but to pocket the admonition, feeling as embarrassed as a schoolboy at so much moralizing. Moreover, one could see by Herr Settembrini’s expression that he had not finished his train of thought. He still stood so close to Hans Castorp that the young man was constrained to bend a little backwards; and his black eyes gazed fixedly into the other’s face.
“You suffer, Engineer,” he went on. “You are like one distraught — who could help seeing it ? But your attitude tow ard suffering can be a European attitude; it should not be the oriental, which in its soft abandonment inclines so readily to seek this spot. 2 “
The oriental attitude toward suffering is one of pity and a bound* less patience — that cannot, it ought not to be ours, to be yours! — Look — we were speaking of what the post had brought us, look at these! Or better, come with me, it is impossible here — let us withdraw, and I will disclose to you certain matters. Come with me! ” And turning, he drew Hans Castorp away, and they entered one of the small reception-rooms, the first on the right next the vestibule, which stood empty. It was furnished as a reading- and writing-room, with oak panelling and a light, vaulted ceiling, bookcases, a centre table covered with newspapers in holders and surrounded with seats, and writing appurtenances arranged in the bay-windows. Herr Settembrini advanced as far as the neighbourhood of one of the windows, Hans Castorp followed. The door remained open.
The Italian sought the baggy side pocket of his pilot coat, and drew thence with impetuous hand a bundle of papers in a large, already opened envelope. Its contents — various printed matter, and a sheet of writing — he ran through his fingers under Hans Castorp’s eye.
“These papers,” he said, “bear the stamp, in French, of the International League for the Organization of Progress. I have them from Lugano, where there is an office of a branch of the League. You inquire after its principles, its scope? I will define them for you, in two words. The League for the Organization of Progress deduces from Darwinian theory the philosophic concept that man’s profoundest natural impulse is in the direction of selfrealization. From this it follows that all those who seek satisfaction of this impulse must become co-labourers in the cause of human progress. Many are those who have responded to the call; there is a considerable membership, in France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and in Germany itself. I myself have the honour of having my name inscribed on the roll. A comprehensive and scientifically executed programme has been drawn up, embracing all the projects for human improvement conceivable at the moment. We are studying the problem of our health as a race, and the means for combating the degeneration which is a regrettable accompanying phenomenon of our increasing industrialization. The League envisages the founding of universities for the people, the resolution of the class conflict by means of all the social ameliorations which recommend themselves for the purpose, and finally the doing away with national conflicts, the abolition of war through the development of international law. You perceive that the objects toward which the League directs its efforts are ambitious and broad in their scope. Several international periodicals are evidence of its activities — monthly reviews, which contain articles in three or four languages on the subject of the progressive evolution of civilized humanity. Numerous local groups have been established in the various countries; it is expected that they will exert an edifying and enlightening influence by means of discussion evenings and appropriate Sunday observances. Above all, the League will strive its utmost to aid with the material at its disposal the political party of progress in every country. You follow me, Engineer^ 5 ”
“ Absolutely,” Hans Castorp replied, with precipitation. He had, as he spoke, the feeling of a man who finds himself slipping, but for the moment contrives to keep his feet.
Herr Settembrini appeared satisfied. “ I assume that these are new and surprising ideas to you? ”
“ Yes, I confess this is the first time I have heard of these — these endeavours.”
“ Ah,” Settembrini murmured, “ ah, if you had only heard of them earlier! But perhaps it is not yet too late. These circulars — you would like to know what they say? Listen. Last spring a formal meeting of the League was called, at Barcelona. You are aware that that city can boast of a quite special affinity with progressive political ideas. The congress sat for a week, with banquets and festivities. I wanted to go — good God, I yearned to be there and take part in the deliberations. But that scurvy rascal of a Hofrat forbade me on pain of death, so — well, I was afraid I should die, and I didn’t go. I was in despair, as you may imagine, over the trick my unreliable health had played me. Nothing is more painful than to be prevented by our physical, our animal nature from being of service to reason. My satisfaction, therefore, over this communication from Lugano is the more lively. You are curious to know what it says? I can imagine. But first, a few brief explanations: the League for the Organization of Progress, mindful of its task of furthering human happiness — in other words, of combating human suffering by the available social methods, to the end of finally eliminating it altogether; mindful also of the fact that this lofty task can only be accomplished by the aid of sociology, the end and aim of which is the perfect State, the League, in session at Barcelona, determined upon the publication of a series of volumes bearing the general title: The Sociology of Suffering. It should be the aim of the series to classify human suffering according to classes and categories, and to treat it systematically and exhaustively. You ask what is the use of classification, arrangement, systematization? I answer you: order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject — the actual enemy is the unknown. We must lead the human race up out of the primitive stages of fear and patient stupidity, and set its feet on the path of conscious activity. We must enlighten it upon two points: first, that given effects become void when one first recognizes and then removes their causes; and second, that almost all individual suffering is due to disease of the social organism. Very well; this is the object of the Sociological Pathology. It will be issued in some twenty folio volumes, treating every species of human suffering, from the most personal and intimate to the great collective struggles arising from the conflicting interests of classes and nations; it will, in short, exhibit the chemical elements whose combination in various proportions results in all the ills to which our human flesh is heir. The publication will in every case take as its norm the dignity and happiness of mankind, and seek to indicate the measures and remedies calculated to remove the cause of each deviation. Famous European specialists, physicians, psychologists, and economists will share in the composition of this encyclopaedia of suffering, and the general editorial bureau at Lugano will act as the reservoir to collect all the articles which shall flow into it. I can read in your eyes the question as to what my share is to be in all these activities. Hear me to the end. This great work will not neglect the belletrist in so far as he deals with human suffering: a volume is projected which shall contain a compilation and brief analysis of such masterpieces of the world’s literature as come into question by depicting one or other kind of conflict — for the consolation and instruction of the suffering. This, then, is the task entrusted to your humble servant, in the letter you see here.”
“ You don’t say, Herr Settembrini! Allow me to offer you my heartiest congratulations! That is a magnificent commission, just in your line, I should think. No wonder the League thought of you! And what joy you must feel to aid in the elimination of human suffering! ”
“ It is a work very broad in its scope,” Herr Settembrini said thoughtfully, “ and will require much consideration and wide reading. Especially,” he added, and his gaze seemed to lose itself in the immensity of his task, “ since literature has regularly chosen to depict suffering, and even second- and third-rate masterpieces treat of it in one form or another. But what of that? So much the better! However comprehensive the work may be, it is at least of a nature that will permit me to carry it on, if needs must, even in this accursed place — though I hope I need not be here long enough to bring it to a conclusion. That is something,” he said, 2 47
moving closer to Hans Castorp, and subduing his voice nearly to a whisper, “ that is something which can hardly be said of the duties nature lays upon you, Engineer! This is what I wanted to bring out, this is the word of warning I have been trying to utter. You know what admiration I feel for your profession. But as it is a practical, not an intellectual calling, you are differently situated from myself, in that you can only pursue it down in the world — only there can you be a true European, only there can you actively fight suffering, improve the time, further progress, with your own weapons and in your own way. If I have told you of the task that has fallen to my lot, it was only to remind you, only to recall you to yourself, only to clarify certain conceptions of vours which the atmospheric conditions up here were obviously beginning to becloud. I would urge it upon you: hold yourself upright, preserve your self-respect, do not give ground to the unknown. Flee from this sink of iniquity, this island of Circe, whereon you are not Odysseus enough to dwell in safety. You will be going on all fours — already you are inclining toward your forward extremities, and presently you will begin to grunt — have a care! ” The humanist had uttered these admonitions in the same low voice, shaking his head impressively. He finished with drawn brows and eyes directed toward the ground. To answer him slightly or jestingly, as Hans Castorp would once have done, was out of the question. The young man weighed that possibility for a second, standing with lowered lids. Then he lifted his shoulders and spoke, no louder than Herr Settembrini: “ What shall I do? ”
“ What I told you.”
“ You mean — go away? ”
Herr Settembrini was silent.
“ What you mean to say is that I should leave for homer ^
“ It was the advice I gave you on the first evening, Engineer. “Yes — and then I was free to do so, though it seemed to me silly to throw up the sponge just because the air up here put me about a bit. But now it is a rather different state of affairs: I have been examined, and Hofrat Behrens told me in so many words that it would be no good my going home, I should only have to come back again; and that if I stopped down there, the whole lobe would be at the devil before you could say Jack Robinson. ^
“ I know; and now you have the evidence in your pocket.
“ You say that so ironically – with the right kind of irony, ot course, that cannot for a moment be misunderstood, the direct and classic device of oratory — you see, I remember t e t ings you say. But do you mean that after you have seen this photograp , after the x-ray and Behrens’s diagnosis, you take it upon yourself to advise me to go home? ”
Settembrini hesitated for a second. Then he drew himself up, and directed the gaze of his black eyes full upon Hars Castorp’s face. He answered, with an emphasis not quite without theatrical effect: “ Yes, Engineer, I take it upon myself.”
But Hans Castorp’s bearing too had stiffened. He stood with his heels together, and looked straight at Herr Settembrini in his turn. This time it was a duel. Hans Castorp stood his ground. Influences from not far off gave him strength. Here was a schoolmaster — but yonder was a woman with narrow eyes. He made no apologies for his words, he did not beg Herr Settembrini not to take offence; he answered: “ Then you are more prudent for yourself than for others. You did not go to Barcelona in the face of the doctor’s orders. You were afraid of death, and you stopped up here.”
To a certain point Herr Settembrini’s pose was undeniably shaken; his smile, as he answered, was slightly forced.
“ I know how to value a ready answer — even though your logic smacks of sophistry. It would disgust me to enter the lists in the sort of rivalry that is too current up here; otherwise I might reply that my case is far more serious than yours — so much more, in fact, that it is only by artificial means, almost by deliberate selfdeception, that I can keep alive the hope of leaving this place and having sight of the world below before I die. In the moment when that hope can no longer be decently sustained, in that moment I shall turn my back on this establishment, and take private lodgings somewhere in the valley. That will be sad; but as the sphere of my labours is the freest, the least material in the world, the change cannot prevent me from resisting the forces of disease and serving the cause of humanity, up to my latest breath. The difference between us, in this respect, I have already pointed out to you. Engineer, you are not the man to assert your better self in these surroundings. I saw it at our first meeting. You reproach me with not having gone to Barcelona. I submitted to the prohibition, not to destroy myself untimely. But I did so with the most stringent reservations; my spirit protested in pride and anguish against the dictates of my wretched body. Whether that protest survives in you, as you comply with the behests of our powers that be — whether it is not rather the body, the body and its evil propensities, to which you lend a ready ear — ”
“ What have you against the body? ” interrupted Hans Castorp suddenly, and looked at him with wide blue eyes, the whites of which were veined with blood. He was giddy with his own temerity and showed as much. — Whatever am I saying? he thought. I’m getting out of my depth. But I won’t give way; now I have begun, I won’t give him the last word if I can help it. Of course he will have it anyhow, but never mind, I will make the most of it while I can. — He enlarged upon his objection: “ But you are a humanist, are you not? What can you have to say against the body? ”
Settembrini’s smile this time was unforced and confident. “ ‘ What have you against analysis? ’ ” he quoted, with his head on one side. “ ‘ Are you down on analysis? ’ You will always find me ready to answer you, Engineer,” he said, with a bow and a sweeping downward motion of the hand, ” particularly when your opposition is spirited; and you parry not without elegance. Humanist— yes, certainly, I am a humanist. You could never convict me of ascetic inclinations. I affirm, honour, and love the body, as I protest I affirm, honour, and love form, beauty, freedom, gaiety, the enjoyment of life. I represent the world, the interest of this life, against a sentimental withdrawal and negation, classicism against romanticism. I think my position is unequivocal. But there is one power, one principle, which commands my deepest assent, my highest and fullest allegiance and love; and this power, this principle, is the intellect. However much I dislike hearing that conception of moonshine and cobwebs people call ‘ the soul ’ played off against the body, yet, within the antithesis of body and mind, the body is the evil, the devilish principle, for the body is nature, and nature — within the sphere, I repeat, of her antagonism to the mind, and to reason — is evil, mystical and evil. ‘ You are a humanist? ’ By all means I am a humanist, because I am a friend ol mankind, like Prometheus, a lover of humanity and human nobility. That nobility is comprehended in the mind, in the reason, and therefore you will level against me in vain the reproach of Christian obscurantism — ”
Hans Castorp demurred.
” You will,” Herr Settembrini persisted, ” level this reproach in vain, if humanistic pride one day learns to feel as a debasement and disgrace the fact that the intellect is bound up with the body and with nature. Did you know that the great Plotinus is said to have made the remark that he was ashamed to have a body ? asked Settembrini. He seemed eager for a reply, and Hans Castorp was constrained to confess that this was the first he had heard of it.
” We have it from Porphyrius. An absurd remark, if you like. But the absurd is the intellectually honourable; and nothing can 25O
be more pitiable than the reproach of absurdity, levelled against the mind as it asserts its dignity against nature, and refuses to abdicate before her. — Have you heard of the Lisbon earthquake, Engineer? ”
“ An earthquake? No — I see no newspapers up here — ”
“ You misunderstand me. En passant, let me say it is a pity, and very indicative of the spirit of this place, that you neglect to read the papers. But you misunderstand me, the convulsion of nature to which I refer is not modern. It took place some hundred and fifty years ago.”
“ I see. Oh, wait — I have it. I have read that Goethe said to his servant, that night in his bedchamber — ”
“ No, it was not of that I was speaking,” Settembrini interrupted him, closing his eyes, and shaking his small sallow hand in the air. “ Besides, you are confusing two catastrophes. You are thinking of the earthquake of Messina. I have in mind the one that visited Lisbon in the year 1755.”
“ Pardon.”
“ Well, Voltaire was outraged by it.”
“ Outraged? That is — how do you mean? ”
“ He rebelled. Yes. He declined to accept that brutal fatwm et factum. His spirit refused to abdicate before it. He protested in the name of reason and the intellect against that scandalous dereliction of nature, to which were sacrificed thousands of human lives, and three-quarters of a flourishing city. You are astonished? You smile? You may well be astonished; but as for smiling, give me leave to tell you it is out of place. Voltaire’s attitude was that of a worthy descendant of those old Gauls that shot their arrows against the heavens. There, Engineer, you have the hostility the intellect feels against nature, its proud mistrust, its high-hearted insistence upon the right to criticize her and her evil, reason-denying power. Nature is force; and it is slavish to suffer force, to abdicate before it — to abdicate, that is, inwardly. And there too you have the humanistic position which runs not the slightest risk of involving itself in contradictions, or of relapsing into churchly hypocrisy, when it sees in the body the antagonist, the representative of the evil principle. The contradiction you imagine you see is at bottom always the same. ‘ What have you against analysis? ’ Nothing — when it serves the cause of enlightenment, freedom, progress. Everything when it is pervaded by the horrible haut gout of the grave. And thus too with the body. We are to honour and uphold the body when it is a question of emancipation, of beauty, of freedom of thought, of joy, of desire. We must despise it in so 2 5 l
far as it sets itself up as the principle of gravity and inertia, when it obstructs the movement toward light; we must despise it in so far as it represents the principle of disease and death, in so far as its specific essence is the essence of perversity, of decay, sensuality, and shame.”
These last words Settembrini had uttered standing close to Hans Castorp, very rapidly and tonelessly, as though to make an end of the subject. Succour was nigh for the youth: Joachim entered the reading-room, with two postcards in his hand. The Italian broke off; and the dexterity with which he altered his tone for one in a lighter and fitting social key was not lost upon his pupil — if so Hans Castorp may be called.
“ There you are, Lieutenant! Have you been looking for your cousin? I must apologize; we had fallen into conversation — if I am not mistaken, we have even had a slight disagreement. He is not a bad reasoner, your cousin, a by no means contemptible antagonist in an argument — when he takes the notion.”
Humaniora
Hans Castorp and Joachim Ziemssen, arrayed in white trousers and blue blazers, were sitting in the garden after dinner. It was another of those much-lauded October days: bright without being heavy, hot and yet with a tang in the air. The sky above the valley was a deep southern blue and the pastures beneath, with the cattle tracks running across and across them, still a lively green. From the rugged slopes came the sound of cowbells; the peaceful, simple, melodious tintinnabulation came floating unbroken through the quiet, thin, empty air, enhancing the mood of solemnity that broods over the valley heights.
The cousins were sitting on a bench at the end of the garden, in front of a semi-circle of young firs. The small open space lay at the north-west of the hedged-in platform, which rose some fifty yards above the valley, and formed the foundations of the Berghof building. They were silent. Hans Castorp was smoking. He was also wrangling inwardly with Joachim, who had not wanted to join the society on the verandah after luncheon, and had drawn his cousin against his will into the stillness and seclusion of the garden, until such time as they should go up to their balconies. That was behaving like a tyrant — when it came to that, they were not Siamese twins, it was possible for them to separate, if their inclinations took them in opposite directions. Hans Castorp was not up here to be company for Joachim, he was a patient himsel .
Part 11 of 30