The Magic Mountain Part 34

"I shall have to put on my thinking-cap and try to recall what alchemy is-generally speaking, I mean. Alchemy: trans.m.u.ting into gold, the philosopher's stone, aurum aurum potabile." potabile."

"In the popular mind, yes. More informedly put, it was purification, refinement, metamorphosis, transubstantiation, into a higher state, of course; the lapis lapis philosophorum philosophorum, the male-female product of suiphur and mercury, the res bina res bina, the double-s.e.xed prima materia prima materia, was no more, and no less, than the principle of levitation, of the upward impulse due to the working of influences from without. Instruction in magic, if you like." Hans Castorp was silent. He glanced slantwise upward, and blinked.

"The primary symbol of alchemic trans.m.u.tation," Naphta said, "was par excellence par excellencethe sepulchre."

"The grave?"

"Yes, the place of corruption. It comprehends all hermetics, all alchemy, it is nothing else than the receptacle, the well-guarded crystal retort wherein the material is compressed to its final transformation and purification."

"Hermetics-what a lovely word, Herr Naphta! I've always liked the word hermetic. It sounds like magicking, and has all sorts of vague and extended a.s.sociations. You must excuse my speaking of such a thing, but it reminds me of the conserve jars that our housekeeper in Hamburg-Schalleen, we call her, without any Miss or Mrs.-keeps in her larder. She has rows of them on her shelves, air-tight gla.s.ses full of fruit and meat and all sorts of things. They stand there maybe a whole year-you open them as you need them and the contents are as fresh as on the day they were put up, you can eat them just as they are. To be sure, that isn't alchemy or purification, it is simple conserving, hence the word conserve. The magic part of it lies in the fact that the stuff that is conserved is withdrawn from the effects of time, it is hermetically sealed from time, time pa.s.ses it by, it stands there on its shelf shut away from time. Well, that's enough about the conserve jars. It hasn't much to do with the subject. Pardon me, you were going to enlighten me further."

"Only if you wish me to do so. The learner must be of dauntless courage and athirst for knowledge, to speak in the style of our theme. The grave, the sepulchre, has always been the emblem of initiation into the society. The neophyte coveting admission to the mysteries must always preserve undaunted courage in the face of their terrors; it is the purpose of the Order that he should be tested in them, led down into and made to linger among them, and later fetched up from them by the hand of an unknown Brother. Hence the winding pa.s.sages, the dark vaults, through which the novice is made to wander; the black cloth with which the Hall of the Strict Observance was hung, the cult of the sarcophagus, which played so important a role in the ceremonial of meetings and initiations. The path of mysteries and purification was encompa.s.sed by dangers, it led through the pangs of death, through the kingdom of dissolution; and the learner, the neophyte, is youth itself, thirsting after the miracles of life, clamouring to be quickened to a demonic capacity of experience, and led by shrouded forms which are the shadowing-forth of the mystery."

"Thank you so much, Professor Naphta. That is splendid. That is what the teaching of hermetics is like, then; it can't hurt me to have heard something about it too." "The less so that it is a guide to the ultimate; to the absolute recognition of the transcendental, and therewith to our end and aim. The alchemistic ritual of the lodges, in later centuries, led many a n.o.ble and inquiring spirit to that end-to which I need give no name, for it cannot have escaped you that the successive degrees of the Scottish Rite were only a surrogate, a subst.i.tute of the Hierarchy, that the alchemistic learning of the Master-Mason fulfilled itself in the mystery of transubstantiation, and that the hidden guidance which the lodge vouchsafed to its pupils has its prototype just as plainly in the means of grace, as the symbolic mummeries of lodge ceremonial have theirs in the liturgical and architectural symbolism of our Holy Catholic Church." "Ah, indeed!"

"But even that is not all. I have already suggested that the derivation of the lodgefrom that craftsmanly and honourable masonic guild is only a historical extension. The Strict Observance invested it with a much deeper human basis. The secrets of the lodge have, in common with certain mysteries of our Church, the clearest connexion with the ceremonial mysteries and ritual excesses of primitive man. I refer, so far as the Church is concerned, to the love-feast, the sacramental enjoyment of body and blood; as for the lodge-"

"One moment. One moment for a marginal note. Even in the strict communion to which my cousin belongs, they have so-called love-feasts. He has often written to me about them. I suppose they are very respectable affairs-except possibly they get a little drunk, but nothing like what it is at the corps-students'-"

"As for the lodge, however, I am thinking of the cult of the sepulchre, to whom I referred you before. In both cases it has to do with a symbolism of the ultimate, with elements of orgiastic primitive religion, with wild sacrificial rites by night, to the honour of dying and transforming, death, metamorphosis, resurrection. You will recall that the mysteries of Isis, and the Eleusinian mysteries too, were served by night, and in caverns. In Freemasonry there are present a host of Egyptian survivals, and there were, among the secret societies, some that called themselves Eleusinian. There were lodges that held feasts of Eleusinian mysteries and aphrodistic rites which finally did introduce the female element; feasts of roses, to which reference is made in the three blue roses on the Masonic ap.r.o.n, and which often pa.s.sed over into the bacchantic." "What's this, what's this I hear, Professor Naphta? All this Freemasonry? And I must reconcile with it all my ideas of our enlightened Herr Settembrini?"

"You would do him very great injustice if you imagined he knew anything about it. I told you that he, or his like, purified the lodge of all the elements of higher life. They humanized it, they modernized it. G.o.d save the mark! They rescued it from false G.o.ds and restored it to usefulness, reason and progress, for making war upon princes and priests, in short for social amelioration. In it they once more discuss nature, virtue, moderation, the fatherland. In a word, it is a G.o.d-forsaken bourgeoisiedom, in the form of a club."

"What a pity! Too bad about the feasts of roses! I mean to ask Settembrini if he hears anything about them nowadays."

"The n.o.ble knight of the T-square!" scoffed Naphta. "You must remember that it has been no easy matter for him to get admitted inside the gates of the temple of humanity. He is as poor as a church-mouse, and they not only demand the higher, the humanistic culture-save the mark-but also one must belong to the possessing cla.s.ses, to be able to stand the dues and entrance fees. Culture and possessions-there is the bourgeoisie for you! There you have the pillars of the liberal world-republic." "In any case," laughed Hans Castorp, "we have it all right before our eyes."

"And yet," Naphta added, after a pause, "I would counsel you not to take this man and what he stands for as altogether a laughing matter; since we are on the subject, let me warn you to be on your guard. The insipid is not synonymous with the harmless. Stupidity is not necessarily free from suspicion. These people have watered their wine, that was once such a fiery draught, but the idea of the brotherhood itself remains strong enough to stand a good deal of water. It preserves the remnant of a fruitful mystery, and there is as little doubt that the lodge mixes in politics, as that there is more to see in our amiable Herr Settembrini than just his simple self, and that powers stand behind him, whose representative and emissary he is." "An emissary?" "That is, a proselyter, a seeker of souls."

"And what kind of emissary are you, may I ask?" Hans Castorp thought. Aloud hesaid: "Thank you, Professor Naphta. I am genuinely grateful for your advice and warning. What do you think? Suppose I go a storey higher-in so far as one can speak of a storey-and touch up our disguised lodge-brother a bit? The learner must be of dauntless courage, athirst for knowledge. But cautious too, of course. It's well to take precautions when one deals with emissaries."

He might with impunity seek further information from Herr Settembrini, for that gentleman could not reproach Naphta with any lack of discretion; indeed, he had never made any secret of his members.h.i.+p in the harmonious band of brothers. The Rivista della Ma.s.soneria Rivista della Ma.s.soneria lay open upon his table; Hans Castorp had simply never noticed it. Enlightened by Naphta, he led the conversation round to the subject of the "kingly art," as though Settembrini's connexion with it had never been a matter of doubt, and he met with very little reticence. True, there were points upon which the literary man was silent. When they were touched upon he closed his lips with ostentation, being obviously bound by those terroristic vows of which Naphta had spoken; this when Hans Castorp encroached on trade secrets, as it were, outward forms of the organization, and his own position within it. But otherwise he was almost too expansive; and held forth at length, giving the seeker after information a considerable picture of the extent of the society, which spread almost all over the world, with twenty thousand lodges and a hundred and fifty grand lodges, in round numbers, and had penetrated civilizations like Haiti and the Negro republic of Liberia. Also he had much to tell of the great names whose bearers had been Masons: Voltaire, Lafayette and Napoleon, Franklin and Was.h.i.+ngton, Mazzini and Garibaldi; among the living, the King of England, and besides him, a large group of people in whose hands lay the conduct of the nations of Europe, members of governments and parliaments. Hans Castorp expressed respect, but no surprise. It was the same with the student corps, he said. The members of these held together in after life, and they looked after their people well, so that it was hard to get into any important official hierarchy if you had not been a corps-student. For that reason it was perhaps not so logical of Herr Settembrini to argue that the members.h.i.+p of those important personages in the society was flattering to it; since on the other hand it might be a.s.sumed that the occupation of so many important posts by Freemasons gave evidence of the power of the society, which certainly mixed in politics, perhaps more than Herr Settembrini was willing to admit. lay open upon his table; Hans Castorp had simply never noticed it. Enlightened by Naphta, he led the conversation round to the subject of the "kingly art," as though Settembrini's connexion with it had never been a matter of doubt, and he met with very little reticence. True, there were points upon which the literary man was silent. When they were touched upon he closed his lips with ostentation, being obviously bound by those terroristic vows of which Naphta had spoken; this when Hans Castorp encroached on trade secrets, as it were, outward forms of the organization, and his own position within it. But otherwise he was almost too expansive; and held forth at length, giving the seeker after information a considerable picture of the extent of the society, which spread almost all over the world, with twenty thousand lodges and a hundred and fifty grand lodges, in round numbers, and had penetrated civilizations like Haiti and the Negro republic of Liberia. Also he had much to tell of the great names whose bearers had been Masons: Voltaire, Lafayette and Napoleon, Franklin and Was.h.i.+ngton, Mazzini and Garibaldi; among the living, the King of England, and besides him, a large group of people in whose hands lay the conduct of the nations of Europe, members of governments and parliaments. Hans Castorp expressed respect, but no surprise. It was the same with the student corps, he said. The members of these held together in after life, and they looked after their people well, so that it was hard to get into any important official hierarchy if you had not been a corps-student. For that reason it was perhaps not so logical of Herr Settembrini to argue that the members.h.i.+p of those important personages in the society was flattering to it; since on the other hand it might be a.s.sumed that the occupation of so many important posts by Freemasons gave evidence of the power of the society, which certainly mixed in politics, perhaps more than Herr Settembrini was willing to admit.

Settembrini smiled, fanning himself with the magazine, which he still held in his hand. Did Hans Castorp intend to put him a case? Had he in mind to betray him into incautious utterances upon the political character, the essentially political spirit of the lodge? "Useless furberia furberia, Engineer. We admit that we are political, admit it openly, unreservedly. We care nothing for the odium that is bound up with the word in the eyes of certain fools-they are at home in your own country, Engineer, and almost nowhere else. The friend of humanity cannot recognize a distinction between what is political and what is not. There is nothing that is not political. Everything is politics." "That's flat."

"I know there are people who think well to refer to the originally unpolitical nature of Masonic thought. But these people play with words, and set limits which have long since become imaginary and without significance. In the first place, the Spanish lodges, at least, have had a political coloration from the very first." "I should imagine so."

"You can imagine very little, Engineer. Do not fancy that you are inclined to profound thought; the best you can do is to be receptive and to take to heart-I say this in your own interest, as well as in the interest of your country and of Europe- what I am about to impress upon you: namely, that in the second place, Masonic thought was never unpolitical, at any time-could not be. If it believed itself to be so, it was in error as to its own essential characteristics. What are we? Master-builders and builders on a building. The purpose of all is one, the good of the whole the fundamental tenet of the brotherhood. What is this good, what is this building? It is the true social structure, the perfecting of humanity, the new Jerusalem. But tell me which that is, political or non-political? The social problem, the problem of our common existence, is in itself politics, politics through and through, and nothing else than politics. Whoever devotes himself to the cause-and he does not deserve the name of man that would withhold himself from that devotion-belongs to politics, foreign and domestic; he understands that the art of the Freemason is the art of government-" "Art of-" "That Illuminist Freemasonry had the regent degree-"

"That is fine, Herr Settembrini: art of government, degree of regent-I like all that very much. But tell me something: are you Christians, you Masons?" "Perche?" "Perche?"

"I beg your pardon, I will ask another question; I'll put it more simply andgenerally. Do you believe in G.o.d?"

"I will reply to you. But why do you ask?"

"I was not trying to draw you, just now. But there is a story in the Bible of the Pharisees testing our Lord with a Roman coin, and he tells them to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's. It seemed to me this distinction is the distinction between the political and the non-political. If there is a G.o.d, then there is also this distinction. Do Freemasons believe in G.o.d?"

"I bound myself to answer. You are speaking of a unity which we seek to bring about, but which to-day, alas, does not exist. If it comes to exist-and I repeat that we labour with silent a.s.siduity upon this great task-then indeed the religious creed of the Freemason will be unanimous, and it will be 'ecrasez l'infame!' " "Will that be obligatory? It would hardly be tolerant." "Will that be obligatory? It would hardly be tolerant."

"The problem of tolerance, my dear Engineer, is rather too large for you to tackle. Do not forget that tolerance becomes crime, if extended to evil." "G.o.d would be the evil?"

"Metaphysics is the evil. It is for no purpose but to put to sleep the energy which weshould apply to the building of the temple of society. An example is afforded by theaction of the Grand Orient of France a generation ago. He struck the name of G.o.d outof his writings. We Italians followed him."

"How Catholic!"

"In what sense do you-"

"I mean I find it enormously Catholic, to strike out G.o.d."

"What you wish to express is-"

"Nothing worth listening to, Herr Settembrini. Don't pay too much attention to my prattle. It just struck me that atheism may be enormously Catholic, and as though one might strike out G.o.d merely the better to be Catholic."

Herr Settembrini allowed a pause to ensue; but it was clear that he only did so out of pedagogic deliberation. He answered, after a measured silence: "Engineer, I am far from wis.h.i.+ng to wound or mortify you in your adhesion to Protestantism. We were speaking of tolerance; it is surely superfluous for me to emphasize that far from mere toleration, I feel for Protestantism, as the historical opponent of the enslavement of knowledge, the most profound admiration. The invention of printing and the Reformation are and remain the two outstanding services of central Europe to the cause of humanity. Without question. But after what you have just said I do not doubt you will understand me when I reply that after all it is only one side of the question, and there is another. Protestantism conceals elements-the very personality of your reformer concealed elements.-I am thinking of elements of quiescent beat.i.tude, hypnotic abstraction, which are not European, but foreign to the laws of life that govern our busy continent. Look at him, this Luther! Observe the portraits we have, in early and later life. What sort of cranial formation is that, what cheek-bones, what a singular emplacement of the eye! My friend, that is Asia! I should be surprised, I should be greatly surprised, if there were not Wendish, Slavic, Sarmatic elements in play there. And if the mighty apparition of this man-for who would deny that it was mighty?-had not flung a fatal preponderance into one of the two scales which in your country hang so dangerously even, into the scale of the East, so that the other even to-day is still outweighed and flies up in the air-"

Herr Settembrini walked from the humanistic folding-desk in the little window, where he had been standing, up to the table, nearer his pupil, who was sitting on the cot against the wall, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

"Caro!" Herr Settembrini said. "Ca Herr Settembrini said. "Caro amico! There will be decisions to make, decisions of unspeakable importance for the happiness and the future of Europe; it will fall to your country to decide, in her soul the decision will be consummated. Placed as she is between East and West, she will have to choose, she will have to decide finally and consciously between the two spheres. You are young, you will have a share in this decision, it is your duty to influence it. And therefore let us thank the fates that brought you up here to this horrible region, thus giving me opportunity to work upon your plastic youth with my not unpractised, not wholly flagging eloquence, and make you feel the responsibility which-which your country has in the face of civilization-" There will be decisions to make, decisions of unspeakable importance for the happiness and the future of Europe; it will fall to your country to decide, in her soul the decision will be consummated. Placed as she is between East and West, she will have to choose, she will have to decide finally and consciously between the two spheres. You are young, you will have a share in this decision, it is your duty to influence it. And therefore let us thank the fates that brought you up here to this horrible region, thus giving me opportunity to work upon your plastic youth with my not unpractised, not wholly flagging eloquence, and make you feel the responsibility which-which your country has in the face of civilization-"

Hans Castorp sat, his chin in his hand. He looked out of the mansard window, and in his simple blue eyes there was a certain obstinacy. He was silent.

"You are silent," Herr Settembrini said, moved. "You and your native land, you preserve a silence which seems to cover a reservation-and which gives one no hint of what goes on in your depths. You do not love the Word, or you have it not, or you are chary with it to unfriendliness. The articulate world does not know where it is with you. My friend, that is perilous. Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictious word, preserves contact-it is silence which isolates. The suspicion lies to hand that you will seek to break your silence with deeds. You will ask Cousin Giacomo" (Settembrini had taken to calling Joachim Giacomo, for convenience sake) "to step out in front of your silence,

'And thrice he smites, and thrice his blows Deal death, before him fly his foes...' "

Hans Castorp began to laugh, and Herr Settembrini smiled too, satisfied for the moment with the effect of his plastic words.

"Good," he said. "Very good, let us laugh, you will always find me ready to do that. Laughter, says the cla.s.sic, is a sunbeam of the soul. We have wandered from the point, we have taken up questions which, I admit, have much to do with the difficulties encountered by us in our preparatory efforts to establish a Masonic worldfederation." Herr Settembrini went on to speak of the idea of this world-federation, which had originated in Hungary, the hoped-for realization of which was destined to consummate the world-power of Freemasonry. Casually he displayed letters from foreign potentates of the society: one from the very hand of the Swiss Grand Master, Brother Quartier la Tente, of the thirty-third degree; and discussed the proposal to make Esperanto the official language of the body. His zeal elevated him to the sphere of policy; he directed his gaze hither and yon, estimated the prospects of revolutionary thought in his own country, in Spain, in Portugal. He was in contact by letter, it appeared, with persons who were at the head of the Portuguese lodge, and there, without much doubt, things were ripening to a decisive event. Hans Castorp would think of him when, before very long, it came to an upset in that country. Hans Castorp promised to do so.

It should be remarked that these Masonic conferences between the pupil and the two mentors took place separated in time, before Joachim's return. The following conversation, however, occurred during his second stay up here, and in his presence, nine weeks after he arrived, at the beginning of October. Hans Castorp retained a clear memory of this gathering in the autumn suns.h.i.+ne, before the Kurhaus in the Platz, where they sat sipping cooling drinks; for it was just at that time he began to feel a secret concern about Joachim-though its ground was not one usually thought very important, being merely a sore throat and hoa.r.s.eness, quite harmless afflictions, which yet appeared to Hans Castorp in a somewhat peculiar light-the same light, one might say, that he saw in the depths of Joachim's eyes. Those eyes had always, we know, been large and mild, but to-day, precisely on this very day, had seemed to grow larger and deeper, with a musing, yes, we must even say an ominous expression, together with the above-mentioned light. It would have been false to say that Hans Castorp did not like the look of them; he did, only that it disquieted him. And, in short, one cannot, by their very nature, speak of these impressions otherwise than vaguely and confusedly. As for the talk-a controversy, of course, between Settembrini and Naphta-it was an affair of itself, only slightly connected with those earlier and private utterances on the subject of Freemasonry. Ferge and Wehsal were there, and the interest was general, although not all the parties were equal to the situation. Herr Ferge, for instance, was quite definitely not. But a dispute carried on as though it were a matter of life and death, yet with all the polished elegance of a fulldress debate-as were, indeed, all engagements between Settembrini and Naphta- such a dispute is in itself highly diverting to hear, even for those who understand but little of it or its bearing. Strangers sitting near them listened in amaze to the exchange of words and were chained to the spot by the pa.s.sion and brilliance displayed. All this took place, as we said, in front of the Kurhaus, after tea. The four guests from the Berghof had met Settembrini there, and by chance Naphta also. They sat together about a little metal table, with various drinks and soda, or anise and vermouth. Naphta, who regularly took his tea here, had ordered wine and cake, obviously a reminiscence from his student days. Joachim moistened his aching throat with a lemonade made of fresh lemons, very strong and sour; it had an astringent effect which soothed the ache. Settembrini was drinking sugar-and-water through a straw, with a gusto that made it the rarest of beverages.

He jested: "What do I hear, Engineer? What are these rumours that fly about? Your Beatrice is returning? Your guide through all the nine circles of Paradise? I must hope that you will not entirely scorn the friendly hand of your Virgil. Our ecclesiastic here will tell you that the world of the medio evo medio evo is not complete when Franciscan mysticism is not counterbalanced by the opposite pole of Thomistic cognition." They laughed over these erudite jests, and looked at Hans Castorp, who laughed back, raising his gla.s.s to his "Virgil." But it is unbelievable what endless academic strife arose in the next hour out of Herr Settembrini's high-sounding but harmless remark. Naphta, having been in a manner challenged, straightway girded up his loins, and fell foul of the Latin poet, whom Settembrini was known to admire to the point of idolatry, even placing him higher than Homer, while Naphta had more than once expressed contempt for him and for the whole of Latin poetry, and did not fail to seize this opportunity to do so again. It was a complaisant limitation of the great Dante, due to his period, that he took so seriously this mediocre versifier and in his poem a.s.signed him so high a role-even though Herr Ludovico did ascribe rather too freemasonly a meaning to it. But what was there to this courtly laureate and lickspittle of the Julian house, this urban is not complete when Franciscan mysticism is not counterbalanced by the opposite pole of Thomistic cognition." They laughed over these erudite jests, and looked at Hans Castorp, who laughed back, raising his gla.s.s to his "Virgil." But it is unbelievable what endless academic strife arose in the next hour out of Herr Settembrini's high-sounding but harmless remark. Naphta, having been in a manner challenged, straightway girded up his loins, and fell foul of the Latin poet, whom Settembrini was known to admire to the point of idolatry, even placing him higher than Homer, while Naphta had more than once expressed contempt for him and for the whole of Latin poetry, and did not fail to seize this opportunity to do so again. It was a complaisant limitation of the great Dante, due to his period, that he took so seriously this mediocre versifier and in his poem a.s.signed him so high a role-even though Herr Ludovico did ascribe rather too freemasonly a meaning to it. But what was there to this courtly laureate and lickspittle of the Julian house, this urban litterateur litterateur and eulogist, who was without a spark of creative genius, whose soul, if he had one, was second-hand, and who was certainly no poet, but a Frenchman in an Augustan full-bottomed wig! and eulogist, who was without a spark of creative genius, whose soul, if he had one, was second-hand, and who was certainly no poet, but a Frenchman in an Augustan full-bottomed wig!

Herr Settembrini had no doubt that the speaker would find ways and means of reconciling his scorn of the golden age of Rome with his office as teacher of Latin. Yet he, Settembrini, could not avoid calling attention to the serious conflict in which such judgments involved Herr Naphta with his own favourite centuries, when Virgil was not only not despised, but his greatness was recognized in the most naive way; namely, by making a seer and magician of him.

It was vain, Naphta responded, for Herr Settembrini to invoke the simplicity of those primitive times, the victorious element which preserved its creative vitality even while endowing that which it conquered with a demonic quality. But in truth, the Fathers of the early Church were never weary of warning the faithful against the lies of the old philosophers and poets, in particular of cautioning them not to be corrupted by the voluptuous eloquence of Virgil; and to-day, at a time when again an age is declining to its fall, and we see the approaching dawn of another proletarian morn, the time is ripe to feel with them. Finally, in order to leave nothing unanswered, Herr Ludovico might be a.s.sured that he, the speaker, did his duty by the small civilian task which Herr Settembrini had been so kind as to mention, with all due reservatio reservatio mentalis; mentalis; though there was indeed a certain irony in his conforming to the standards of a cla.s.sic and rhetorical educational system, whose survival the most optimistic observer could not predicate for more than a few decades. though there was indeed a certain irony in his conforming to the standards of a cla.s.sic and rhetorical educational system, whose survival the most optimistic observer could not predicate for more than a few decades.

"You studied them," Settembrini cried out, "you studied them till you sweated, those old poets and philosophers; you have sought to make their priceless heritage your own, as you used the building-stones of their monuments to erect your churches. For well you knew that your proletarian soul could of its own strength bring no art form to birth; and you hoped to defeat antiquity with its own weapons. So it will ever be, history will repeat itself. Your crude immaturity must go to school to the power which you would like to persuade yourself and others to despise; for without discipline you could not endure in the sight of man, and there is but one kind, that which you call the bourgeois, but which is in reality the human." Herr Settembrini went on. A matter of decades? The end of the humanistic principles of education? Only politeness prevented him from a burst of laughter both unaffected and mocking. A Europe that knew how to preserve its immortal treasures would serenely pa.s.s over any proletarian apocalypse of which it here and there pleased people to dream and resume its ordered programme of the reign of cla.s.sic reason.

It was, Naphta rejoined bitingly, just this ordered programme about which Herr Settembrini seemed not to be very well informed. That which he took for granted was precisely that which was being called in question: namely, whether the Mediterranean, cla.s.sic, humanistic tradition was bound up with humanity and so coexistent with it, or whether it was but the intellectual garb and appurtenance of a bourgeois liberal age, with which it would perish. History would decide this; he would recommend Hen Settembrini not to lull himself in the secure triumph of his Latin conservatism. All his hearers, but with especial bitterness Herr Settembrini himself, listened to this brazen characterization on the part of little Naphta. He, Herr Settembrini, the avowed servant of progress, a conservative! He twisted violently his flowing moustaches, and seeking for a return blow left the enemy time for a further onslaught upon the cla.s.sical ideal in education, the rhetorical and literary spirit which characterized the whole of the European educational system, and its splenetic partisans.h.i.+p of the formal and grammatical, which was nothing else than an accessory to the interests of bourgeois cla.s.s supremacy, and had long been an object of ridicule to the people. They had no idea what an utter joke our doctors' degrees and the whole system fostered by our educational mandarins had become in the minds of the proletariat; as also the public school system, which was the instrument of the domination of the middle cla.s.ses, maintained in the delusion that popular education is merely watered scholars.h.i.+p. The sort of training and education required by the people in their struggle against the crumbling bourgeois kingdom they had long known how to find elsewhere than in these governmental establishments for compulsory training; one day all the world would realize that our system, which had developed out of the cloister school of the Middle Ages, was a ridiculous bureaucracy and anachronism, that n.o.body in the world any longer owes his education to his schooling, and that a free and public instruction through lectures, exhibitions, cinematographs, and so forth was vastly to be preferred to any school course.

Herr Settembrini said that Naphta had served up to their audience a mixture of revolution and obscurantism, in which, however, the obscurantist element outweighed the other, to an unsavoury extent. Herr Settembrini was pleased to see his concern for the enlightenment of the people, but his pleasure was marred by the fear that what really actuated Herr Naphta was an instinctive tendency to involve both people and world in a.n.a.lphabetic darkness.

Naphta smiled. "That bogy!" he said. Herr Settembrini believed himself to have uttered a word of terror, to have displayed the head of the gorgon, quite convinced that everybody would promptly pale at the sight. He, Naphta, regretted to disappoint his partner in the dialogue, but the fact was, the sight of the humanistic horror of illiteracy simply made him laugh. Verily, one must be a cla.s.sical literary man, a precieux precieux, a seicentist seicentist, a Marinist, a Jack-of-all-trades of the estilo culto estilo culto, to attach such exaggerated educational value to knowing how to write, as to imagine that where that knowledge was lacking a night of the spirit must reign. Did Herr Settembrini remember that the greatest poet of the Middle Ages, Wolfram von Eschenbach, could neither read nor write? It had been thought blameworthy, in the Germany of that time, to send a boy to school unless he was to be a priest; and this popular-aristocratic scorn of the literary arts was always the sign of fundamental n.o.bility of soul; the literary person, true son of humanism and bourgeoisiedom, could always, certainly, read and write-whereas the n.o.ble, the soldier, and the people never could, or barely-but he could do and understand nothing else in all the wide world, being nothing but a Latinistic windbag, who had power over language, but left life to people who were fit for it. Which was the reason why the literary person always conceived of politics as an empty bag of wind; that is, of rhetoric and "literature," which in political jargon were called radicalism and democracy-and so on, and so on.

But now Herr Settembrini sprang into the breach. His opponent, he cried, was rash to expose his preference for the intense barbarism of certain epochs, and to pour scorn upon a love of literary form-without which no human nature was possible or thinkable, never had been and never would be! Fundamental n.o.bility? Only misanthropy could so characterize the absence of letters, a rude and tongue-tied materialism. Rather you could only rightly so characterize a certain lordly luxuriance, the generosita generosita which displayed itself in ascribing to form a human value independent of its content-the cult of speech as an art for art's sake, the inheritance bequeathed by the Graeco-Roman culture, which the humanists, the which displayed itself in ascribing to form a human value independent of its content-the cult of speech as an art for art's sake, the inheritance bequeathed by the Graeco-Roman culture, which the humanists, the uomini letterati uomini letterati, had restored, restored at least to the Romance nations, and which was the source of every later significant idealism, even political. "Yes, my dear sir! That which you would disparage as a divorce between literature and life is nothing but a higher unity in the diadem of the beautiful; I am under no apprehension as to the side on which highhearted youth will choose to fight, in a struggle where the opposing camps are literature and barbarism."

Hans Castorp had been only half listening to the dialogue, being preoccupied by the fundamental n.o.bility of the soldierly representative then present-or rather by the strange new expression in his eyes. He started slightly as he felt himself challenged by Herr Settembrini's last words, and made such a face as he had the time the humanist would have solemnly constrained him to a choice between East and West: a face full of reserve and obstinacy. He said nothing. They forced everything to an issue, these two-as perhaps one must when one differed-and wrangled bitterly over extremes, whereas it seemed to him, Hans Castorp, as though somewhere between two intolerable positions, between bombastic humanism and a.n.a.lphabetic barbarism, must be something which one might personally call the human. He did not express his thought, for fear of irritating one or other of them; but, wrapped in his reserve, listened to one goading the other on, each leading the other from hundredthly to thousandthly, and all because of Herr Settembrini's original little joke about Virgil. The Italian would not give over; he brandished the word, he made it prevail. He threw himself into the fray as the defender of literary genius, celebrated the history of the written word, from the moment when man, yearning to give permanency to his knowledge or emotions, engraved word-symbols upon stone. He spoke of the Egyptian G.o.d Thoth, identical with the thrice-renowned Hermes of h.e.l.lenism; who was honoured as the inventor of writing, protector of libraries, and inciter to all literary efforts. He bent the knee metaphorically before that Trismegistus, the humanistic Hermes, master of the palaestra, to whom humanity owed the great gift of the literary word and agonistic rhetoric-which incited Hans Castorp to the remark that this Egyptian person had apparently been a politician, playing in the grand style the same role as that Herr Brunetto Latini who had sharpened the wits of the Florentines, taught them the art of language and how to guide their State according to the rules of politics. Naphta put in that Herr Settembrini was slightly disingenuous: his picture of Thoth-Trismegistus had a good deal of the reality smoothed away. He had been, in fact, an ape, moon and soul deity, a peac.o.c.k with a crescent moon on his head, and in his Hermes aspect, a G.o.d of death and of the dead, a soul-compeller and tutelary soul-guide, of whom late antiquity made an arch-enchanter, and the cabalistic Middle Ages the Father of hermetic alchemy.

Hans Castorp's brain reeled. Here was blue-mantled death masquerading as a humanistic orator; and when one sought to gaze at closer range upon this pedagogic and literary G.o.d, benevolent to man, one discovered a squatting ape-faced figure, with the sign of night and magic on its brow. He waved it away with one hand, which he laid over his eyes. But upon that darkness wherein he sought refuge from complete bewilderment, there broke the voice of Herr Settembrini, continuing to chant the praises of literature. All greatness, both contemplative and active, he said, had been bound up with it from all time; and mentioned Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, named the Prussian Frederick and other heroes, even Lasalle and Moltke. It disturbed him not a whit that Naphta referred him to China, where such a witless idolatry of the alphabet obtained as had never been the case in any other land, and where one might become a field-marshal if one could draw the forty thousand word-symbols of the language-a standard, one would think, directly after a humanistic heart!-Ah, Naphta well knew-pitiable scoffer though he was!-that it was a matter not of drawing symbols but of literature as a human impulse, of its spirit, which was Spirit itself, the miraculous conjunction of a.n.a.lysis and form. This it was that awakened the understanding of all things human, that operated to weaken and dissolve silly prejudices and convictions, that brought about the civilizing, elevating, and betterment of the human race. While it developed extreme ethical sensitiveness and refinement, far from being fanatical, it preached honest doubt, fairness, tolerance. The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of pa.s.sions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the n.o.blest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint-in this high key was Herr Settembnni's apologetic pitched. But alas, his antagonist was not struck dumb-on the contrary, he straightway set about with malicious, brilliant criticism to undermine the humanist's panegyric. He declared himself to the party of conservation and of life, and struck out against the decadent spirit which hid itself behind all that seraphic cant. The marvellous conjunction to which Herr Settembrini referred, in a voice all quavering with emotion, was nothing but a deception and juggling, for the form which the literary spirit prided itself on uniting with the principle of examination and division was only an apparent, a lying form, no true, adequate, natural, living form. These so-called reformers of humanity did indeed take the words purification and sanctification in their mouths, but what they really meant and intended was the emasculation, the phlebotomy of life. Yes, their theory and moving spirit were in violation of life; and he who would destroy pa.s.sion, that man desired nothing less than pure nothingness-pure, at least, in the sense that pure was the only adjective which could be applied to nothingness. It was just here that Herr Settembrini showed himself for that which he was: namely, the man of progress, liberalism, and middlecla.s.s revolution. For the progress was pure nihilism, the liberal citizen was quite precisely the advocate of nothingness and the Devil; yes, he denied G.o.d, the conservatively and positively Absolute, by swearing to the devilish anti-Absolute. And yet with his deadly pacificism thought himself monstrously pious. But he was anything else than pious, he was a traitor to life, before whose stern inquisition and Vehmgericht Vehmgericht he deserved to be put to the question-and so forth. he deserved to be put to the question-and so forth.