The Magic Mountain (91 page)

His designs had been of the most discreet and delicate, he had meant nothing clumsy or abrupt. He would not even fetch her from the station—what a mercy, indeed, he had not thought of doing so! Uncertain whether a woman—upon whom illness had conferred such a degree of freedom—uncertain whether she would even admit the fantastic adventures of a dream dreamed on carnival night, in a foreign tongue to boot! Whether she would even wish in the first instance to be reminded of them. No, there would be no exigence, no clumsy pressing of claims. Admitted that his relations with the slant-eyed sufferer went beyond the limits prescribed by the traditions of the Occident; the uttermost formality of civilization, even for the moment apparent forgetfulness—was indicated as the suitable procedure. A respectful greeting from table to table—only that, for the time, no more. A courtly approach as occasion indicated, an easy inquiry after the health of the traveller. The actual meeting would follow in good time, as a reward for his chivalrous reserve.

All this fine feeling, now, had become null and void—Hans Castorp’s conduct being deprived of choice, and therewith of merit. The presence of Mynheer Peeperkorn effectively disposed of any tactics save utter aloofness. On the evening of the arrival, Hans Castorp had seen from his loge the sleigh come up the winding drive. On the box next the coachman sat the Malayan valet, a yellow little man with a fur collar to his overcoat, and a bowler hat. At the back, his hat over his brows, sat the stranger, beside Clavdia. That night Hans Castorp got little sleep. Next morning he heard for the asking the name of the mysterious new arrival; heard likewise that the two travellers occupied neighbouring suites on the first floor. He was early at breakfast, and sat in his place erect but pale, awaiting the slamming of the glass door. It did not come. Clavdia’s entrance was noiseless; for Mynheer Peeperkorn closed the door behind her—tall and broad, his white hair flaring above his lofty brow, he followed the familiar gliding tread of his companion, as with head stuck out before her she slipped to her chair. Yes, she was unchanged. Regardless of his programme, Hans Castorp devoured her, with his sleep-weary eyes. There was the red-blond hair, no more elaborately dressed than of yore, wound in the same simple braid about her head; there were the “prairie-wolf’s eyes,” the rounding neck, the lips that seemed fuller than they actually were, thanks to the prominent cheek-bones, which gave the cheeks that exquisite flat or slightly concave look.—Clavdia! he thought, and thrilled. He fixed his eyes on the unexpected guest; not without a toss of the head for the splendid masklike impression the person made; not without summoning a sneer at pretensions which, however justified by present possession, were invalidated by the past—by certain very definite events in the past—for instance in the field of amateur portraiture. Hans Castorp knew, for had not those events visited himself with justifiable pangs?—Even her way of turning, before she sat down, to present herself, as it were, to the room, she had as of yore. Mynheer Peeperkorn assisted at the little ceremony, standing behind her while it took place, and then seating himself at Clavdia’s side.

As for that courtly salute from table to table—nothing came of it. Clavdia’s eyes, when she presented herself, had passed over Hans Castorp’s person and his whole vicinity, and rested upon the far corner of the room. At the next meal it was the same. And the more meals passed without any response to his gaze than this blank and indifferent passing-over, the more impracticable became the project of the courtly salute. After supper the two travelling-companions sat in the small salon, on the sofa together, surrounded by their table-mates; and Peeperkorn, his magnificent visage flaming against the flashing white of hair and beard, drank out the bottle of red wine he had ordered at table. At each of the main meals he drank one, or two, or two and a half bottles, in addition to the “bread” which he took even at early breakfast. Obviously the system of this kingly man stood in more than common need of moistening. He took in fluid likewise in the form of extra-strong coffee, many times a day, drinking it out of a large cup, even after dinner—or rather, he drank it during dinner, along with the wine. Wine and coffee, Hans Castorp heard him say, were both good for fever—quite aside from their cordial and refreshing properties—very good against the intermittent tropical fever which had kept him in bed for several hours the second day after he arrived. The Hofrat called it quartan fever: it took the Dutchman about every fourth day, first with a chill, then with a fever, then with a mighty sweat. He was said to have also an inflamed spleen, from the same cause.

A LITTLE time passed, some three or four weeks—this on our own reckoning, since on Hans Castorp’s we cannot depend. They brought no great change. On our hero’s part they witnessed an abiding scorn of the unforeseen circumstances which kept him in undeserved exile, of, in particular, that circumstance which called itself Pieter Peeperkorn, when it took unto itself a glass of gin—the disturbing presence of that kingly, incoherent man, which upset Hans Castorp far more than had the presence of the “organ-grinder” in the old days. His brows took on two querulous vertical wrinkles, and five times daily he contracted them as he sat and looked at the returned traveller—glad despite himself to be able to look at her—and at the high-and-mighty presence sitting there all unaware what a poor light past events shed on his present pretensions.

One evening the social hour happened to be livelier than usual—which it might be at any time without especial cause. A Hungarian student played spirited gipsy waltzes on his fiddle; and Hofrat Behrens, who chanced to be present for a quarter-hour with Dr. Krokowski, got somebody to play the melody of the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” on the bass notes of the piano, while he himself operated in a skipping movement with a brush over the treble, and parodied the violin counterpoint. Everybody laughed; and the Hofrat, nodding benevolent approval of his own sprightly performance, withdrew amid applause. The gaiety prolonged itself, there was more music, people sat down with drinks beside them to dominoes and bridge, trifled with the optical instruments, or stood in groups talking. Even the Russian circle mingled with the others in hall and music-room. Mynheer Peeperkorn was to be seen among them—or rather, he could not but be seen, wherever he was, his kingly head towering high above any scene, and dwarfing it by the sheer weight and majesty of his person. Those who stood about him, drawn first by the reports of the man’s wealth, soon hung absorbed upon his personality. Forgetful of all else, they stood laughing and nodding, spellbound by the pallid eye, by the brow’s mighty folds, by the compulsion of the gestures his longnailed hands performed. And never, for one moment, were they conscious of any lack in his incoherent, rhapsodic, literally futile remarks.

If we look about for our friend Hans Castorp, we shall find him in the reading- and writing-room, where once (but that “once” is vague, not the teller nor the reader of this story, nor yet its hero, being any longer clear upon the degree of its “onceness”)—where once he had received certain very important communications touching the history of human progress. It was quiet here—only two or three other persons shared his retreat. At one of the double tables, under the electric light, a man was writing; and a lady with two pairs of glasses on her nose sat by the bookshelves and turned over the leaves of an illustrated magazine. Hans Castorp sat near the open door to the music-room, with his back to the portières, on a chair that happened to be standing there, a plush-covered chair in Renaissance style, with a high straight back, and no arms. He held a newspaper as though to read it, but instead was listening with his head on one side to the snatches of music and talk from the next room. His brows were dark, his thoughts seemed not on harmonies bent, but rather on the thorny path of his present disillusionment. Bitter, bitter was the weird of our young man, who had borne out the long waiting only to be gulled at the end. Indeed he seemed not far from a sudden determination to fling his paper upon the chair he sat in, to escape by the hall door and exchange the empty gaieties of the salon for the frosty solitude of his balcony, and the society of his Maria.

“And your cousin, Monsieur?” a voice suddenly asked above and behind his shoulder. It was a voice enchanting to his ear; it seemed his senses had been expressly contrived to perceive its sweet-and-bitter huskiness as the very height and summit of earthly harmonies; it was the voice that once had said to him: “Certainly. But be careful not to break it”—a compelling, fateful voice. And if he heard aright, it had asked him about Joachim.

Slowly he let his newspaper fall, and turned his face up a little, so that the crown of his head came against the straight back of his chair. He even closed his eyes, but quickly opened them, and gazed somewhere into space—the expression on the poor wight’s face was well-nigh that of a sleep-walker, or clairvoyant. He wished she might ask again, but she did not, he was not even sure she still stood behind him, when, after all that pause, so tardily and with scarce audible voice he answered: “He is dead. He went down below to the service, and he died.”

He realized that this “dead” was the first word to fall between them; likewise, simultaneously, that she was not sure of expressing herself in his tongue, and chose short and easy phrases to condole in. Still standing behind and above him, she said: “Oh, woe, alas! That is too bad! Quite dead and buried? Since when?”

“Some time ago. His mother came and took him back with her. He had grown a beard, a soldier’s beard. They fired three salvoes over his grave.”

“He deserved them. He was a very good young man. Far better than most other people—than some others one knows.”

“Yes, he was good and brave. Rhadamanthus always talked about his doggedness. But his body would have it otherwise.
Rebellio carnis
, the Jesuits call it. He always set store by his body—in the highest sense. However, his body thought otherwise, and snapped its fingers at doggedness. But it is more moral to lose your life than to save it.”

“Ah, Settembrini. Him I know. That Italian who—whom I did not like. He was not
hu—ma
n. He had—arrogance.” The voice dwelt on the word human—dreamily, fanatically; and accented arrogance on the final syllable. “He is no longer here? And I am so stupid, I do not know what is Rhadamanthus.”

“If he is that, then I would gladly make his acquaintance.—Did I not tell you your cousin would die if he went down to be a soldier?”

And Hans Castorp answered as he had vowed and dreamed: “
Tu l’as su
,” he said. “What are you thinking of?” she asked him.

There was a long pause. He did not retract, he waited, with the crown of his head pressed against the chair-back, and his gaze half tranced, to hear her voice again; and again he was not sure she was still there, again he was afraid the broken music might have drowned her departing footsteps. At last it came again: “And Monsieur did not go down to his cousin’s funeral?”

A laugh came from above him, a word that sounded like “Madman!”—”For me? How absurd it is—
ils ne t’auraient pas laissé partir.”

He was silent. He still gazed somnambulantly, but his brows were gathered. After a while he asked: “
Et toi—où as-tu été?”

“Yes, Philip’s castle. An inhuman place. I preferred the folk-dancing in Catalonia, the
sardana
to the bagpipes.
Moi
,
j’ai dansé aussi moi!
they take each other’s hands and dance in a ring—the whole square is full of dancing people.
C’est charmant
. That is
hu—ma
n. I bought a little blue cap, such as all the men and boys of the people wear down there, almost like a fez—the
boina
. I shall wear it in the rest-cure, and other places, perhaps. Monsieur shall judge if it becomes me.” “What monsieur?” “Sitting here in this chair.” “Not Mynheer Peeperkorn?” “He has already pronounced judgment—he says I look charming in it.”

“He said that—all of it? Did he really finish the sentence, so it could be understood?”

“Ah! It seems Monsieur is out of temper? Monsieur would be spiteful, cutting? He would laugh at people who are much greater and better, and—more
hu
—man than himself and his—his
ami bavard de la Méditerranée, son maître et grand parleur—
put together. But I cannot listen—” “Have you my x-ray portrait?” he interrupted, crest-fallen. She laughed. “I must look it out.” “I carry yours here. And on my bedside table I have a little easel—”