The Magic Mountain (106 page)
Read The Magic Mountain Online
Authors: Thomas Mann
He is in torments. She cannot understand. The woman, the gipsy girl, cannot, will not understand. Will not—for in her rage and scorn speaks something more and larger than the moment and the personal: a hatred, a primeval hostility against that principle, which in the accents of these Spanish bugles—or French horns—called to the lovelorn little soldier. Over that it was her deepest, her inborn, her more than personal ambition to triumph. And she possesses a very simple means: she says that if he goes he does not love her—precisely that which José cannot bear to hear. He beseeches her to let him speak. She will not. Then he compels her—it is a deucedly serious moment, dull notes of
fatality
rise from the orchestra, a gloomy, ominous motif, which, as Hans Castorp knew, recurred throughout the opera, up to its fatal climax, and formed also the first phrase of the soldier’s
aria
, on the next plate, which had now to be inserted. “See here thy flow’ret treasured well”—how exquisitely José sang that! Hans Castorp played this single record over and over, and listened with the deepest participation. As far as its contents went, it did not fetch the action much further; but its imploring emotion was moving in the highest degree. The young soldier sang of the flower Carmen had tossed him at the beginning of their acquaintance, which had been everything to him, in the arrest he had suffered for love of her. He confesses: “Sometimes I cursed the hour I met thee, and tried all vainly to forget thee”—only next moment to rue his blasphemy, and pray on his knees to see her once more. And as he prayed—striking the same high note as just before on the “To see thee, Carmen,” but now the orchestration lends all the resources of its enchantment to paint the anguish, the longing, the desperate tenderness, sweet despair, in the little soldier’s heart—ah, there she stood before his eyes, in all her fatal charm; and clearly, unmistakably, he felt that he was undone, for ever lost—on the word undone came a sobbing whole-tone grace-note to the first syllable—lost and for ever undone. “Then would an ecstasy steal o’er me,” he despairingly asseverated in a recurrent melody repeated wailingly by the orchestra, rising two tones from the tonic and thence returning ardently to the fifth: “Carmen, my own,” he repeats, with infinite tenderness but rather tasteless redundancy, going all the way up the scale to the sixth, in order to add: “My life, my soul belongs to thee”—after which he let his voice fall ten whole tones and in deepest emotion gave out the “Carmen, I love thee!” shuddering forth the words in anguish from a note sustained above changing harmonies, until the “thee” with the syllable before it was resolved in the full accord. “Yes, ah, yes,” said Hans Castorp, with mournful satisfaction, and put on the finale: where they are all congratulating young José because the meeting with the officer has cut off his retreat, and now it only remains open to him to desert, as Carmen, to his horror, had before now demanded he should.
fatality
rise from the orchestra, a gloomy, ominous motif, which, as Hans Castorp knew, recurred throughout the opera, up to its fatal climax, and formed also the first phrase of the soldier’s
aria
, on the next plate, which had now to be inserted. “See here thy flow’ret treasured well”—how exquisitely José sang that! Hans Castorp played this single record over and over, and listened with the deepest participation. As far as its contents went, it did not fetch the action much further; but its imploring emotion was moving in the highest degree. The young soldier sang of the flower Carmen had tossed him at the beginning of their acquaintance, which had been everything to him, in the arrest he had suffered for love of her. He confesses: “Sometimes I cursed the hour I met thee, and tried all vainly to forget thee”—only next moment to rue his blasphemy, and pray on his knees to see her once more. And as he prayed—striking the same high note as just before on the “To see thee, Carmen,” but now the orchestration lends all the resources of its enchantment to paint the anguish, the longing, the desperate tenderness, sweet despair, in the little soldier’s heart—ah, there she stood before his eyes, in all her fatal charm; and clearly, unmistakably, he felt that he was undone, for ever lost—on the word undone came a sobbing whole-tone grace-note to the first syllable—lost and for ever undone. “Then would an ecstasy steal o’er me,” he despairingly asseverated in a recurrent melody repeated wailingly by the orchestra, rising two tones from the tonic and thence returning ardently to the fifth: “Carmen, my own,” he repeats, with infinite tenderness but rather tasteless redundancy, going all the way up the scale to the sixth, in order to add: “My life, my soul belongs to thee”—after which he let his voice fall ten whole tones and in deepest emotion gave out the “Carmen, I love thee!” shuddering forth the words in anguish from a note sustained above changing harmonies, until the “thee” with the syllable before it was resolved in the full accord. “Yes, ah, yes,” said Hans Castorp, with mournful satisfaction, and put on the finale: where they are all congratulating young José because the meeting with the officer has cut off his retreat, and now it only remains open to him to desert, as Carmen, to his horror, had before now demanded he should.
“Away to the mountains, away, away, Share in our life, careless and gay,”
they sang in chorus—one could understand the words quite well:
“Freely to roam, the world our home,
Gaily to pass o’er land and sea
And enjoy, all else excelling,
Sweet liberty!”
“Yes, yes,” he said, as before; and passed on to a fourth record, something very dear and good.
It is not our fault that it was French again, nor are we responsible for its once more striking the military note. It was an intermezzo, a solo number, the Prayer from Gounod’s
Faust
. The singer, a character warmly sympathetic to our young man’s heart, was called in the opera Valentine; but Hans Castorp named him by another and dearly familiar, sadness-evoking name; whose onetime bearer he had come largely to identify with the operatic character whom the wonder-box was making vocal—though the latter to be sure had a much more beautiful voice, a warm and powerful baritone. His song was in three parts: the first consisting of two closely related “corner”— strophes, religious in character, almost in the style of the Protestant chorale, and a middle-strophe, bold and
chevaleresque
, war-like, light-hearted, yet God-fearing too, and essentially French and military. The invisible character sang:
Faust
. The singer, a character warmly sympathetic to our young man’s heart, was called in the opera Valentine; but Hans Castorp named him by another and dearly familiar, sadness-evoking name; whose onetime bearer he had come largely to identify with the operatic character whom the wonder-box was making vocal—though the latter to be sure had a much more beautiful voice, a warm and powerful baritone. His song was in three parts: the first consisting of two closely related “corner”— strophes, religious in character, almost in the style of the Protestant chorale, and a middle-strophe, bold and
chevaleresque
, war-like, light-hearted, yet God-fearing too, and essentially French and military. The invisible character sang:
“Now the parting hour has come I must leave my lovéd home”
and turned under these circumstances to God, imploring Him to take under His special care and protection his beloved sister. He was going to the wars: the rhythm changed, grew brisk and lively, dull care and sorrow might go hang! He, the invisible singer, longed to be in the field, to stand in the thickest of the fray, where danger was hottest, and fling himself upon the foe—gallant, God-fearing, altogether French. But if, he sang, God should call him to Himself, then would He look down protectingly on “thee”—meaning the singer’s sister, as Hans Castorp was perfectly aware, yet the word thrilled him to the depths, and his emotion prolonged itself as the hero sang, to a mighty choral accompaniment:
“O Lord of heaven, hear my prayer!
Guard Marguerite within Thy shelt’ring care!”
There the record ceased. We have dwelt upon it because of Hans Castorp’s especial penchant; but also because it played a certain rôle on a later and most strange occasion. And now we come back to the fifth and last piece in his group of high favourites: this time not French, but something especially and exemplarily German; not opera either, but a
lied
, one of those which are folk-song and masterpiece together, and from the combination receive their peculiar stamp as spiritual epitomes. Why should we beat about the bush? It was Schubert’s “Linden-tree,” it was none other than the old, old favourite, “
Am Brunnen vor dem Tore.”
It was sung to piano accompaniment by a tenor voice; and the singer was a lad of parts and discernment, who knew how to render with great skill, fine musical feeling and finesse in recitative his simple yet consummate theme. We all know that the noble
lied
sounds rather differently when given as a concert-number from its rendition in the childish or the popular mouth. In its simplified form the melody is sung straight through; whereas in the original art-song, the key changes to minor in the second of the eight-line stanzas, changes back again with beautiful effect to major in the fifth line; is dramatically resolved in the following “bitter blasts” and “facing the tempest”; and returns again only with the last four lines of the third stanza, which are repeated to finish out the melody. The truly compelling turn in the melody occurs three times, in its modulated second half, the third time in the repetition of the last half-strophe “Ay, onward, ever onward.” The enchanting turn, which we would not touch too nearly in bold words, comes on the phrases “Upon its branches fair,” “A message in my ear,” “Yet ever in my breast”; and each time the tenor rendered them, in his clear, warm voice, with his excellent breathing-technique, with the suggestion of a sob, arid so much sensitive, beauty-loving intelligence, the listener felt his heart gripped in undreamed-of fashion; with an effect the singer knew how to heighten by head-tones of extraordinary ardour on the lines “I found my solace there,” and “For rest and peace are here.” In the repetition of the last line, “Here shouldst thou find thy rest,” he sang the “shouldst thou” the first time yearningly, at full strength, but the second in the tenderest flute-tones.
lied
sounds rather differently when given as a concert-number from its rendition in the childish or the popular mouth. In its simplified form the melody is sung straight through; whereas in the original art-song, the key changes to minor in the second of the eight-line stanzas, changes back again with beautiful effect to major in the fifth line; is dramatically resolved in the following “bitter blasts” and “facing the tempest”; and returns again only with the last four lines of the third stanza, which are repeated to finish out the melody. The truly compelling turn in the melody occurs three times, in its modulated second half, the third time in the repetition of the last half-strophe “Ay, onward, ever onward.” The enchanting turn, which we would not touch too nearly in bold words, comes on the phrases “Upon its branches fair,” “A message in my ear,” “Yet ever in my breast”; and each time the tenor rendered them, in his clear, warm voice, with his excellent breathing-technique, with the suggestion of a sob, arid so much sensitive, beauty-loving intelligence, the listener felt his heart gripped in undreamed-of fashion; with an effect the singer knew how to heighten by head-tones of extraordinary ardour on the lines “I found my solace there,” and “For rest and peace are here.” In the repetition of the last line, “Here shouldst thou find thy rest,” he sang the “shouldst thou” the first time yearningly, at full strength, but the second in the tenderest flute-tones.
So much for the song, and the rendering of it. For the earlier selections, we may flatter ourselves, perhaps, that we have been able to communicate to the reader some understanding, more or less precise, of Hans Castorp’s intimate emotional participation in the chosen numbers of his nightly programme. But to make clear what this last one, the old “Linden-tree,” meant to him, is truly a ticklish endeavour; requiring great delicacy of emphasis if more harm than good is not to come of the undertaking.
Let us put it thus: a conception which is of the spirit, and therefore significant, is so because it reaches beyond itself to become the expression and exponent of a larger conception, a whole world of feeling and sentiment, which, whether more or less completely, is mirrored in the first, and in this wise, accordingly, the degree of its significance measured. Further, the love felt for such a creation is in itself “significant”: betraying something of the person who cherishes it, characterizing his relation to that broader world the conception bodies forth—which, consciously or unconsciously, he loves along with and in the thing itself.
May we take it that our simple hero, after so many years of hermetic-pedagogic discipline, of ascent from one stage of being to another, has now reached a point where he is conscious of the “meaningfulness” of his love and the object of it? We assert, we record, that he has. To him the song meant a whole world, a world which he must have loved, else he could not have so desperately loved that which it represented and symbolized to him. We know what we are saying when we add—perhaps rather darkly—that he might have had a different fate if his temperament had been less accessible to the charms of the sphere of feeling, the general attitude of mind, which the
lied
so profoundly, so mystically epitomized. The truth was that his very destiny had been marked by stages, adventures, insights, and these flung up in his mind suitable themes for his “stock-taking” activities, and these, in their turn, ripened him into an intuitional critic of this sphere, of this its absolutely exquisite image, and his love of it. To the point even that he was quite capable of bringing up all three as objects of his conscientious scruples!
lied
so profoundly, so mystically epitomized. The truth was that his very destiny had been marked by stages, adventures, insights, and these flung up in his mind suitable themes for his “stock-taking” activities, and these, in their turn, ripened him into an intuitional critic of this sphere, of this its absolutely exquisite image, and his love of it. To the point even that he was quite capable of bringing up all three as objects of his conscientious scruples!
Only one totally ignorant of the tender passion will suppose that such scruples can detract from the object of love. On the contrary, they but give it spice. It is they which lend love the spur of passion, so that one might almost define passion as misgiving love. But wherein lay Hans Castorp’s conscientious and stocktaking misgiving, as to the ultimate propriety of his love for the enchanting
lied
and the world whose image it was? What was the world behind the song, which the motions of his conscience made to seem a world of forbidden love? It was death.
lied
and the world whose image it was? What was the world behind the song, which the motions of his conscience made to seem a world of forbidden love? It was death.
What utter and explicit madness! That glorious song! An indisputable masterpiece, sprung from the profoundest and holiest depths of racial feeling; a precious possession, the archetype of the genuine; embodied loveliness. What vile detraction! Yes. Ah, yes! All very fine. Thus must every upright man speak. But for all that, behind this so lovely and pleasant artistic production stood—death. It had with death certain relations, which one might love, yet not without consciously, and in a “stocktaking” sense, acknowledging a certain illicit element in one’s love. Perhaps in its original form it was not sympathy with death; perhaps it was something very much of the people and racy of life; but spiritual sympathy with it was none the less sympathy with death. At first blush proper and pious enough, indisputably. But the issues of it were sinister.
What was all this he was thinking? He would not have listened to it from one of you. Sinister issues. Fantastical, dark-corner, misanthropic, torture-chamber thoughts, Spanish black and the ruff, lust not love—and these the issues of pure-eyed loveliness!
Unquestioning confidence, Hans Castorp knew, he had never placed in Herr Settembrini. But he remembered now an admonition the enlightened mentor had given him in past time, at the beginning of his hermetic career, on the subject of “spiritual backsliding” to darker ages. Perhaps it would be well to make cautious application of that wisdom to the present case. It was the backsliding which Herr Settembrini had characterized as “disease”; the epitome itself, the spiritual phase to which one backslid—that too would appeal to his pedagogic mind as “diseased”? And even so? Hans Castorp’s loved nostalgic lay, and the sphere of feeling to which it belonged—morbid? Nothing of the sort. They were the sanest, the homeliest in the world. And yet—This was a fruit, sound and splendid enough for the instant or so, yet extraordinarily prone to decay; the purest refreshment of the spirit, if enjoyed at the right moment, but the next, capable of spreading decay and corruption among men. It was the fruit of life, conceived of death, pregnant of dissolution; it was a miracle of the soul, perhaps the highest, in the eye and sealed with the blessing of conscienceless beauty; but on cogent grounds regarded with mistrust by the eye of shrewd geniality dutifully “taking stock” in its love of the organic; it was a subject for self-conquest at the definite behest of conscience.
Yes, self-conquest—that might well be the essence of triumph over this love, this soul-enchantment that bore such sinister fruit! Hans Castorp’s thoughts, or rather his prophetic half-thoughts soared high, as he sat there in night and silence before his truncated sarcophagus of music. They soared higher than his understanding, they were alchemistically enhanced. Ah, what power had this soul-enchantment! We were all its sons, and could achieve mighty things on earth, in so far as we served it. One need have no more genius, only much more talent, than the author of the “
Lindenbaum
,” to be such an artist of soul-enchantment as should give to the song a giant volume by which it should subjugate the world. Kingdoms might be founded upon it, earthly, alltoo-earthly kingdoms, solid, “progressive,” not at all nostalgic—in which the song degenerated to a piece of gramophone music played by electricity. But its faithful son might still be he who consumed his life in self-conquest, and died, on his lips the new word of love which as yet he knew not how to speak. Ah, it was worth dying for, the enchanted
lied!
But he who died for it, died indeed no longer for it; was a hero only because he died for the new, the new word of love and the future that whispered in his heart. These, then, were Hans Castorp’s favourite records.
Lindenbaum
,” to be such an artist of soul-enchantment as should give to the song a giant volume by which it should subjugate the world. Kingdoms might be founded upon it, earthly, alltoo-earthly kingdoms, solid, “progressive,” not at all nostalgic—in which the song degenerated to a piece of gramophone music played by electricity. But its faithful son might still be he who consumed his life in self-conquest, and died, on his lips the new word of love which as yet he knew not how to speak. Ah, it was worth dying for, the enchanted
lied!
But he who died for it, died indeed no longer for it; was a hero only because he died for the new, the new word of love and the future that whispered in his heart. These, then, were Hans Castorp’s favourite records.
Highly Questionable
EDHIN KROKOWSKI’S lectures had in the swift passage of the years taken an unexpected turn. His researches, which dealt with psycho-analysis and the dream-life of humanity, had always had a subterranean, not to say catacombish character; but now, by a transition so gradual that one scarcely marked it, they had passed over to the frankly supernatural, and his fortnightly lectures in the dining-room—the prime attraction of the house, the pride of the prospectus, delivered in a drawling, foreign voice, in frock-coat and sandals from behind a little covered table, to the rapt and motionless Berghof audience—these lectures no longer treated of the disguised activities of love and the retransformation of the illness into the conscious emotion. They had gone on to the extraordinary phenomena of hypnotism and somnambulism, telepathy, “dreaming true,” and second sight; the marvels of hysteria, the expounding of which widened the philosophic horizon to such an extent that suddenly before the listener’s eyes would glitter darkly puzzles like that of the relation of matter to the psychical, yes, even the puzzle of life itself, which, it appeared, was easier to approach by uncanny, even morbid paths than by the way of health.
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