The Magic Mountain (104 page)

“Newest model,” the Hofrat said. “Latest triumph of art, my children; A-I, copperbottomed,
superfinísimo
, nothing better on the market in this line of goods”—he managed to give the words the twang of an eager and ignorant salesman. “This is not just a machine,” he went on, taking a needle out of one of the gay little metal boxes ranged on the table, and fitting it into the holder, “it’s a Stradivarius, a Guarneri; with a resonance, a vibration—
dernier raffinemang
, Polyhymnia patent, look here in the inside of the lid. German make, you know, we do them far and away better than anybody else. The truly musical, in modern, mechanical form, the German soul up to date. And here’s the libretto,” he said, and gestured with his head toward a little case on the wall, filled with broad-backed albums. “I turn it all over to you, it is yours. But take care of it; I commend it to the solicitude of the public. Shall we shoot it off once, just for fun?”

The patients implored him to do so. Behrens drew out a fat magic tome, turned over the heavy leaves, and chose a paper envelope, which showed a coloured title through a round hole on the front. He placed the record on the disk, set it in motion, waited until it was at full speed, and then carefully set the fine steel point upon the edge of the plate. There was a low, whetting sound. He let the lid sink, and at the same moment, from the open doors in front, from between the slats of the blind, or, rather, from the box as a whole, came a burst of music, with a hubbub of instruments, a lively, bustling, insistent melody: the first contagious bars of an Offenbach overture. They listened, their lips parted in smiles. They could scarcely believe their ears at the purity and faithful reproduction of the colour of the wood-wind. A solo violin preluded whimsically; the bowing, the
pizzicato
, the sweet gliding from one position to another, were all clearly audible. It struck into the melody of the waltz, “
Ach
,
ich
habe sie verloren”;
the orchestral harmony lightly bore the flattering strain— enchanting it was to hear it taken up by the ensemble and repeated as a sounding
tutti
. Of course, it was scarcely like a real orchestra playing in the room. The volume of sound, though not to any extent distorted, had suffered a diminution of perspective. If we may draw a simile from the visual field, it was as though one were to look at a painting through the wrong end of an opera-glass, seeing it remote and diminutive, though with all its luminous precision of drawing and colour. The vivid, consummate piece of music was reproduced in all the richness of its light-hearted invention. The finish was abandon itself, a galop with a drolly hesitating beginning, a shameless
cancan
that called up a vision of top-hats waved in the air, flying skirts and tossing knees, and seemed never to come to the end of its triumphal jollification. But at length the mechanism stopped automatically. It was over. There was cordial applause. They called for more, and it was forthcoming. A human voice welled out from the casket, a masculine voice at once soft and powerful, with orchestral accompaniment. It was a famous Italian baritone; the marvellous organ swelled out to the full extent of its natural register, there could be no talk here of any diminution or veiling of the sound. If one sat in an adjoining room and did not see the instrument, it seemed not otherwise than as though the artist stood in the salon in his own person, notes in hand, and sang. He sang an
aria di bravura
in his own tongue—
Eh
,
U barbiere! “Di
qualità
,
di qualità! Figaro qua
,
Figaro là
,
Figaro
,
Figaro
,
Figaro!”
The listeners almost died of laughter at his
falsetto parlando
, at the contrast between the deep voice and the tongue-splitting facility with which it rendered the words. The musical followed and admired the art of his phrasing, his breathing-technique. He was a master in the irresistible, a virtuoso of the Italian
da capo
school; he must have come forward to the footlights and flung up his arm, as he held the last tone before the closing tonic, so that the audience involuntarily burst out in shouts of applause before he ceased. It was beyond words.

Followed a French horn, playing, with delicate scrupulosity, variations on a folksong. A soprano voice, with the loveliest freshness and precision, the most exquisite
staccato
, trilled and warbled an air from
La Traviata
. The spirit of a world-famed violinist played as though behind veils a romance by Rubinstein, to a piano accompaniment that sounded thin and cold, like a spinet. The wonder-box seemed to seethe: it poured out the chimes of bells, harp glissandos, the crashing of trumpets, the long rolling of drums. Lastly, dance records were put in. There were specimens of the new imported dance, the tango, in the taste of a water-side dive, calculated to make a Viennese waltz sound sedate and grand-fatherly by contrast. Two couples displayed the fashionable steps, Behrens having by now withdrawn with the admonition that a needle should be used no more than once, and the whole instrument handled “as though it were made of eggs.” Hans Castorp took his place as operator.

But why precisely Hans Castorp? In this wise. With suppressed eagerness he had opposed those who had thought to take over, on the Hofrat’s departure, the changing of plate and needle, the switching on and off of the current. “Let me do it,” he said to them, gently putting them aside; and they gave way, first because he wore an air of having known all about it for years, and second because they cared little to take their pleasures actively, instead of sitting to be served to as much and such enjoyment as they could comfortably and unbored receive.

Not so Hans Castorp. While the Hofrat was introducing his new toy to the guests, the young man had remained in the background, not laughing or applauding, but following the performance with tense interest, rubbing an eyebrow round with two fingers, as he had on occasion a way of doing. Several times he restlessly shifted his position, even went into the reading-room to listen from there; then took up his stand close to Behrens, with his hands behind his back, and an enigmatic expression on his face, fixing the casket with his eye, and observing the simple operation of it. But within him something was saying: “Hold on! This is an epoch. This thing was sent to me!” He was filled with the surest foreknowledge of a new passion, a new enchantment, a new burden of love. The youth in the flat-land, who at first sight of a maiden marvels to find himself pierced to the heart with love’s barbed arrow, feels not greatly different. Jealousy followed hard upon. Public property, was it? Had that feeble curiosity the right, or the strength, to possess anything? “Let me do it,” he had said between his teeth, and they were content it should be so. They danced a little more, to the rollicking pieces he ran off; asked for another vocal number, an operatic duet, the barcarole from the
Contes d’Hoffmann
, which sounded lovely enough. When he closed the lid they all flocked off, chattering in their ephemeral pleasure over the new toy, these to the evening rest-cure, those to bed. He had been waiting for them to go. They left behind all as it was, the boxes of needles open, the plates and albums strewn about. It was like them. He made as though to follow, but then left them on the stairs, turned back to the salon, closed all the doors, and stopped there half the night, busy as a bee.

He made himself acquainted with the new possession, and worked in undisturbed enjoyment through the contents of the heavy albums. There were twelve, in two sizes, with twelve records each; many of the flat, round, black disks were inscribed on both sides, not only with the continuation of a piece of music, but also because many of the plates held two distinct records. Here was a world to conquer, large enough that even to survey it was a difficult task at first, and bewildering; yet a world full of beautiful possibilities. He played some twenty or thirty records; using a kind of needle that moved softly over the plate and lessened the sound, in order that his activity might not offend the silence of the night. But twenty or thirty were scarcely the eighth part of the riches that lay asking to be enjoyed. He must be content tonight with looking over the titles, only choosing one now and again to set upon the disk and give it voice. To the eye one was like another, except for the coloured label in the centre of each hardrubber plate; each and all were covered to the centre or nearly so with concentric circles; but it was these fine lines that held all imaginable music, the happiest inspirations from every region of the art, in choicest reproduction.

There were many overtures, and single symphonic movements, played by famous orchestras, the names of whose conductors were given on the record. There was a long list of
lieder
, sung to piano accompaniment by famous prima donnas; some of these were the lofty and conscious creation of individual artists, others simple folksongs, still others fell between the two categories, in that they were products of an intellectual art, and at the same time sprang from all that was profoundest and most reverent in the feeling and genius of a people—artificial folk-songs, one might call them, if the word artificial need not be taken to cast a slur on the genuineness of their inspiration. One of these Hans Castorp had known from childhood; but from now on began to attach to it a quite special love and clothe it with many associations, as shall be seen hereafter. What else was there—or, simply—what was there not? Operas aplenty. An “international troupe of famous artists, male and female, displayed their highly trained, God-given talent in
arias
,
duos
, ensembles illustrating various periods and localities in the history of the opera—to discreet orchestral accompaniment. The opera of the south, a high-hearted, light-hearted ravishment; the German, racy of the people, whimsical, hobgoblinish; and both grand and comic opera in the French style. But was that all? Oh, no. A succession of chamber music followed, quartets and trios, instrumental solo numbers for violin, ‘cello, flute; concert numbers with violin or flute obbligato, piano solos—and then there were the light diversions, the “couplets,” the topical and popular numbers, played in the first instance by some small orchestra or other, and needing a coarse needle to render them suitably.

Hans Castorp, bustling and solitary, sifted and classified it all, and tried a fraction of it upon the instrument. At a late hour, as late as on the occasion of the first carouse with Pieter Peeperkorn of majestic memory, he went flushed of cheek to bed, where from two to seven he dreamed of the wonder-box. He saw in his sleep the disk circling about the peg, with a swiftness that made it almost invisible and quite soundless. Its motion was not only circular, but also a peculiar, sidling undulation, which communicated itself to the arm that bore the needle, and gave this too an elastic oscillation, almost like breathing, which must have contributed greatly to the
vibrato
and
portamento
of the stringed instruments and the voices. Yet it remained unclear, sleeping as waking, how the mere following out of a hair-line above an acoustic cavity, with the sole assistance of the vibrating membrane of the sound-box, could possibly reproduce such a wealth and volume of sound as filled Hans Castorp’s dreaming ear.

Next morning he was early in the salon, even before breakfast; and comfortably sitting with folded hands, listened to a glorious baritone voice, singing to a harp accompaniment: “
Blick’ ich umher in diesem edlen Kreise.”
The harp sounded perfectly natural, there was no distortion or diminution of the sound that poured out of the casket accompanying the swelling, breathing, articulating human voice—it was simply amazing! And there could be on earth nothing more tender than the next number he chose: a duet from a modern Italian opera, a simple, heartfelt mingling of emotion between two beings, one part taken by the world-famous tenor who was so well represented in the albums, the other by a crystal-clear and sweet little soprano voice; nothing more lovely than his “
Da mi il braccio
,
mia piccina
” and the simple, sweet, succinct little melodic phrase in which she replies.

Hans Castorp started as the door opened in his rear. It was the Hofrat, looking in on him; in his clinical coat, the stethoscope showing in his breast pocket, he stood there a moment, with his hand on the door-knob, and nodded at the distiller of sweet sounds. Hans Castorp, over his shoulder, replied to the nod, and the chief’s blue-cheeked visage, with its one-sided moustache, disappeared as he drew the door to behind him. Hans Castorp returned to his invisible, melodious pair of lovers.

Later in the day, after the noon and evening meals, he had a changing audience for his performance—unless one must reckon him in with the audience, instead of as the dispenser of the entertainment. Personally he inclined to the latter view. And the Berghof population agreed with him, to the extent that from the very first night they silently acquiesced in his self-appointed guardianship of the instrument. They did not care, these people. Aside from their ephemeral idolatry of the tenor, luxuriating in the melting brilliance of his own voice, letting this boon to the human race stream from him in cantilenas and high feats of virtuosity, notwithstanding their loudly proclaimed enthusiasm, they were without real love for the instrument, and content that anyone should operate it who was willing to take the trouble. It was Hans Castorp who kept the records in order, wrote the contents of each album on the inside of the cover, so that each piece might be found at once when it was wanted, and “ran” the instrument. Soon he did it with ease and dexterity. The others would have spoiled the plates by using worn-out needles, would have left them lying about on chairs, would have tried all sorts of imbecile tricks, playing some noble and stately piece of music at breakneck speed and pitch, or setting the indicator at zero, so that nothing but a hysterical trilling or a long expiring groan came from the instrument. They had tried all that already. Of course, they were ill; but they were also pretty crude. After a while, Hans Castorp simply took the key of the little cabinet that held the needles and albums, and kept it in his pocket, so that his permission must needs be asked if anyone desired to play.