The Magic Mountain (101 page)

“It is mild enough now,” Settembrini said. He had often been here before. “But when you come close, it is brutal, at this time of the year. You won’t be able to hear yourselves think—mark my words.”

Thus they entered the woods, along a path strewn with damp pine-needles: Pieter Peeperkorn first, leaning on Madame Chauchat’s arm, his soft black hat drawn down on his brows, walking with his slumping gait; behind them Hans Castorp, hatless, like the other gentlemen, hands in pockets, head on one side, whistling softly as he looked about; then Naphta and Settembrini, then Ferge and Wehsal, last the Malay with the tea-basket on his arm. They all talked about the wood.

For the wood was not quite usual, it had a peculiarity which made it picturesque, exotic, even uncanny. It abounded in a hanging moss that draped and wreathed and wrapped the trees: the matted web of this parasitic plant hung and dangled in long, pallid beards from the branches, so that scarcely any pine-needles were visible for the shrouding veil. A complete, a bizarre transformation, a bewitched and morbid scene. For the trees were sick of this rank growth, it threatened to choke them to death—so all the visitors felt, as the little train wound along the path toward the sound, and the hissing and splashing swelled slowly to a mighty tumult that justified Settembrini’s prediction. A turn in the path revealed the bridge and the rocky ravine down which the torrent poured. At the moment their eyes perceived it, their ears seemed saluted with the maximum of sound—for which infernal was the only right word. The volume of water fell perpendicularly in a single cascade, perhaps nine or ten feet high, and of considerable breath, and foaming white shot away over the rocks. The frantic noise of its falling seemed to mingle all possible intensities and variations of sound—hissing, thundering, roaring, bawling, whispering, crashing, crackling, droning, chiming— truly it was enough to drive one senseless. The visitors went very close, on the slippery rocks at the bottom of the chasm, and stood looking, bespattered with its spray, enveloped in its mist, their ears stopped by its insensate clamour. They exchanged glances and head-shakes and rather intimidated smiles as they stood regarding this spectacle, this long catastrophe of foam and fury, whose preposterous roaring deafened them, frightened them, bewildered their senses of sight and hearing, so that they even imagined they heard above, below, and on all sides, cries of warning, trumpet-calls, hoarse human voices.

Gathered in a little group behind Mynheer Peeperkorn, Frau Chauchat surrounded by the five gentlemen, they stood and looked into the surging waters. The others could not see the Dutchman’s face, but they saw him take off his hat, and breathe in the freshness with expanding chest. They communicated by looks and signs, for words would have been useless, even shrieked immediately into the ear, against that raging thunder. Their lips formed soundless phrases of wonder and admiration. Hans Castorp, Settembrini, and Ferge proposed, by nods and signs, to climb up the side of the ravine in which they stood, and look down upon the water from above. It was not difficult: a series of narrow steps cut in the rock led up to an upper storey, so to speak, of the forest. They climbed it, one behind the other, reached the bridge which spanned the water just where it arched to pour downward, and leaning on the rail, waved to the party below. Then they crossed over and climbed laboriously down on the other side of the stream, whence they rejoined their friends by a second bridge over the whirling torrent.

Tea-drinking was now indicated; and more than one of them said it might be well to withdraw a little from the din in order to enjoy that refreshment in comfort, not totally dumb, not utterly deafened and dazed. But they learned that Peeperkorn thought otherwise. He shook his head, and pointed several times with violence toward the ground. His distorted lips curled back with the emphasis of the “Here!” they shaped. What could the others do? In such matters he was accustomed to command, and the weight of his personality would always have been decisive, even if he had not been, as he was, master and mover of the expedition. Size itself is tyrannical, autocratic; thus it has always been, thus it will remain. Mynheer desired to eat in sight, in thunderous hearing of the waterfall, it was his mighty will. Who did not wish to go hungry must acquiesce. Most of them felt dissatisfied. Herr Settembrini saw that all chance of conversation, of a human interchange of ideas, would be out of the question, and flung up his hand with a gesture of resigned despair. The Malay hastened to carry out his master’s will. Two camp-stools were set up against the rocks for Monsieur and Madame, and at their feet upon a cloth he spread out the contents of the basket: coffee-apparatus and glasses, thermos bottles, cake and wine. The others found places on boulders, or against the railing of the foot-bridge, holding their cups of hot coffee in their hands, their plates on their knees; they ate silently, amid the clamour. Peeperkorn sat with his coat-collar turned up and his hat on the ground beside him, drinking port out of a monogrammed silver cup, which he emptied many times. And suddenly he began to speak. Extraordinary man! It was impossible for him to hear his own voice, still more for the others to catch a syllable of what he let transpire without its in the least transpiring. But with the winecup in his right hand, he raised his forefinger, stretching his left arm palm outwards toward the water. They saw his kingly features move in speech, the mouth form words, which were as soundless as though spoken into empty, etherless space. No one dreamed he would continue; with embarrassed smiles they watched this futile activity, thinking every moment it would cease. But he went on, with tense, compelling gesture, to harangue the clamour that swallowed his words; directing upon this or that one of the company by turns the gaze of his pale little weary eyes, spanned wide beneath the lifted folds of his brow; and whoever felt himself addressed was constrained to nod back again, wide-eyed, openmouthed, hand to ear, as though any sort of effort to hear could better the utterly hopeless situation. He even stood up! There, in his crumpled ulster, that reached nearly to his heels, the collar turned up; bare-headed, cup in hand, the high brow creased with folds like some heathen idol’s in a shrine, and crowned by the aureole of white hair like flickering flames; there he stood by the rocks and spoke, holding the circle of thumb and forefinger, with the lancelike others above it, before his face, and sealing his mute and incomprehensible toast with that compelling sign of precision. Such words as they were accustomed to hearing from him, they could read on his lips or divine from his gestures: “Settled” and “Absolutely!”—but that was all. They saw his head sink sideways, the broken bitterness of the lips, they saw the man of sorrows in his guise. But then quite suddenly flashed the dimple, the sybaritic roguishness, the garment snatched up dancewise, the ritual impropriety of the heathen priest. He lifted his beaker, waved it half-circle before the assembled guests, and drank it out in three gulps, so that it stood bottom upwards. Then he handed it with outstretched arm to the Malay, who received it with an obeisance, and gave the sign to break up the feast.

They all bowed and thanked him as they hastened to do his bidding. Those crouching on the ground sprang up, the others jumped down from the railing. The little Javanese in his stiff hat and turned-up collar gathered the remnants of the meal. They went back along the path in the same order as they had come, through the draped, uncanny grove, to the high road and the waiting carriages.

This time Hans Castorp mounted with Alynheer and Madame, and sat opposite the pair with the humble Ferge, to whom all high thoughts were vain. Scarcely a word was spoken on the homeward drive. Mynheer sat with his jaw dropped and his hands palm upward on the carriage rug spread across his and Madame’s knees. Settembrini and Naphta dismounted and took their leave before the carriages crossed the track and the watercourse, and Wehsal drove alone as far as the portal of the Berghof, where the party separated.

Was Hans Castorp’s sleep this night rendered light and fitful by portents of which his soul knew naught—so that the slightest variation in the usual nightly peace of the Berghof, the faintest commotion, the barely perceptible sound of running, was enough to fetch him broad awake, to make him sit up in bed? He had been, in fact, awake for some time before a knock came on his door, as it did shortly after two o’clock. He answered at once, composed, alert and energetic, and heard the voice of one of the nurses in the house, saying in high, uncertain tones that Frau Chauchat would be glad if he would come at once to the first storey. Briskly he responded, sprang up and flung on some clothing, ran his fingers through his hair, and went down; not slow, not fast, and more in uncertainty as to the how than the what, in the meaning of these summons. The door to Peeperkorn’s salon stood open, also that to his bedroom, where all the lights were burning. The two physicians, the Directress, Madame Chauchat, and the Malay were within, the last-named dressed not as usual, but in a sort of national costume, with a striped garment like a shirt, very long wide sleeves, a gaily coloured skirt, and a curious, cone-shaped hat made of yellow cloth on his head. He wore an ornament of amulets on his breast, and stood with folded arms at the head of the bed, wherein Pieter Peeperkorn lay on his back, his arms stretched out before him. Hans Castorp, paling, took in the scene. Frau Chauchat sat with her back toward him in a low chair at the foot of the bed. Her elbows rested on the coverlet, her chin was in her hands, whose fingers were buried in her upper lip, and she gazed into the face of her protector.

“Evening, m’ boy,” said Behrens, who stood talking in low tones with Krokowski and the Oberin, and nodded ruefully to Hans Castorp, with his upper lip drawn back. He was in his surgeon’s coat, from the pocket of which a stethoscope stuck out, wore embroidered slippers and no collar. “It’s all up with him,” he added in a whisper. “Gone for good, o’er the border and awa’. Come have a look—run your experienced eye over him—you’ll agree there’s nothing for us to do.”

Hans Castorp approached the bed on tiptoe. The Malay without turning his head followed the movement, until his eyeballs showed white. The young man assured himself by a side glance that Frau Chauchat was paying no heed; then stood by the bed in his accustomed posture, his weight on one leg, his head on one side, his hands folded across his stomach, reverently, reflectively gazing. Pieter Peeperkorn lay under the red satin coverlet, in his
tricot
shirt, as Hans Castorp had so often seen him. His hands were veined a bluish black, likewise parts of his face; a considerable disfigurement, though the kingly features remained unaltered. Beneath the white aureole of hair the masklike folds carved by the habitual gesture of a lifetime ran in a row of four or five, straight across the brow and then in a right angle down the temples; they were more striking than ever, by contrast with the drooping lids and the repose of the features. The cracked lips were slightly parted. The . cyanosis indicated abrupt stoppage, a violent apoplectic arrest of the vital functions.

Hans Castorp stood awhile, reverently, observing all this; hesitating to move, expectant of being addressed by the “widow.” As he was not, and could not bring himself to disturb her, he turned toward the little group of other persons present. Behrens jerked his head in the direction of the salon, and Hans Castorp followed him thither. “Suicide?” he asked, subdued but terse.

“Rather,” said the Hofrat, with a shrug, and added: “up to the hilt. To the
nth
power. Have you ever seen a toy like this before?” he went on, and drew out of the pocket of his smock an irregularly shaped case, from which he took a small object and presented it to the young man’s notice. “Nor I either. But it is well worth seeing. We live and learn. It’s a fantastic little gadget, and ingenious. I took it out of his hand. Take care, if it drips on your skin it will blister.”

Hans Castorp turned the puzzling little object in his hands. It was made of steel, gold, ivory, and rubber, wonderful to see. There were two curving prongs of bright steel, extremely sharp-pointed; a slightly spiral centre portion of gold-inlaid ivory, in which the prongs were somewhat movable and could sink up to a point; and a bulb of semi-hard black rubber. The whole thing was only about two inches long. “What is it?” Hans Castorp asked.

“That,” answered Behrens, “is an organized hypodermic syringe. Or, if you like, it is a copy of the mechanism of the cobra’s bite. Understand? You don’t seem to,” he went on, as Hans Castorp continued to stare at the bizarre little instrument. “These are the teeth. They are not solid all the way, there is a canal inside, the thickness of a hair; you can see the issue of it quite plainly, here just above the point. They are also open at the base, of course, and communicate with the excretory duct of the bulb, which runs into the ivory middle part. When the teeth bite, they sink in a little, and the pressure on the reservoir shoots the contents into the canals, so that the poison gets into circulation the moment the fangs sink in the flesh. Perfectly simple, when you see it like that; you just have to get the idea. He probably had it made after his own design.” “Surely,” Hans Castorp said.

“Well, yes. What it was we shall soon find out. It will be worth knowing too, it has something curious to teach us. Shall we wager that the native on duty over there, who dressed himself up like that for the night’s work, could tell us all we want to know? I suspect it is a combination of animal and vegetable poisons, the most powerful known, for it must have worked like lightning. Everything points to its having taken away his breath, paralysed his respiration, you know, quick suffocation, probably easy and painless.”

“God grant it,” said Hans Castorp piously, handed the uncanny toy back to the Hofrat and returned to the bedchamber.