The Magic Mountain Part 38

"Because your companion and I can exchange no kisses on the brow," Hans Castorp responded. "I hope you sleep well. No, no, that is the sheerest nonsense, however you look at it."

Frau Chauchat, for her part, was moving toward her door; Peeperkorn gave way, and let the unwilling suitor go, though looking at him awhile over his and the Malay's shoulders, his wrinkled brows drawn high in astonishment at an insubordination his kingly temper was seldom called upon to brook.

Mynheer Peeperkorn(Continued)

MYNHEER PEEPERKORN remained in House Berghof the whole winter-what there was left of it-and on into the spring; and there took place, among others, a memorable excursion (in which Settembrini and Naphta joined) into the Fluela valley, to see the waterfall. This occurred at the end of his stay. At the end? Did he remain no longer, then? No. He went away? Yes-and no. How yes and no? Pray let us have no prying into secrets-in the fullness of time we shall know. We are aware that Lieutenant Ziemssen died, not to speak of other less admirable performers of the dance of death. Then Peeperkorn's malignant tropical fever carried him off? No, not so-but why so impatient? Let us not forget the condition of life as of narration: that we can never see the whole picture at once-unless we propose to throw overboard all the G.o.d-conditioned forms of human knowledge. Let us at least pay time so much honour as the nature of our story permits-little enough, in all conscience; for it has begun to rush pell-mell and helter-skelter; or, if the words suggest too much noise and confusion, shall we say it is going like the wind? The little hand on time's clock trips away as though measuring seconds; but G.o.d knows how much time it is covering when it whisks round heedless of the divisions it pa.s.ses over! So much is certain, that we have been up here years. Our brains reel, surely this is an evil dream, though dreamed with nor has.h.i.+sh nor opium; a censor of morals would rebuke us for it. Yet how much logical clarity, how much pure light of reason have we opposed to the stealing vague? Not by chance, may we say, have we kept company with intellectual lights like Naphta and Settembrini, instead of surrounding ourselves with incoherent Peeperkorns! And this leads us to a comparison, which in many respects, notably that of scale, must result in favour of this latest arrival on the scene. It did so in Hans Castorp's own mind. He lay, considering matters, in his loge, and admitted to himself that his two over-vocal mentors, the self-elected guardians of his soul, were dwarfed beside Pieter Peeperkorn. Almost he inclined to call them what Peeperkorn in his royal cups had called him, Hans Castorp-chatterboxes. He was well pleased that hermetic pedagogy should have given him this too: contact with an out-and-outpersonality.

True, this personality was the companion of Clavdia Chauchat's travels, and as such a greatly disturbing element. But that was another matter, and one which Hans Castorp did not allow to prejudice his judgment. He persisted in his sincere and respectful if also rather forward sympathy for this man on the grand scale, regardless of his partners.h.i.+p in the travelling-trunks of the woman of whom once, on a carnival night, Hans Castorp had borrowed a lead-pencil. That was his way; though we know some people, male and female, will not understand such a lack of sensibility, preferring that our hero should hate Peeperkorn, avoid him, call him an old dotard, a drivelling old sot. Instead of which we see him by Peeperkorn's bedside in his attacks of fever-prattling to him (the word applies to his own share in the conversation, not the majestic Peeperkorn's) and with the receptivity of inquiring youth on his travels, letting himself be played on by the power of the personality. All this Hans Castorp did, and all this we report of him, indifferent to the danger that someone may thereby be reminded of Ferdinand Wehsal, who once was wont to carry Hans Castorp's overcoat. The comparison is not pertinent-for our hero was no Wehsal. Depths of self-abas.e.m.e.nt were not his line. But he was no "hero" either: which is to say, he would never let his relation to the masculine be conditioned by the feminine. True to our principle of making him out neither better nor worse than he was, we a.s.sert that he simply declined-not expressly and consciously, but quite naively, declined to let his judgment of his own s.e.x be perverted by romantic considerations. Nor his sense of what was formative in experience. The female s.e.x may find this offensive; we believe Frau Chauchat did feel some involuntary chagrin over the fact-a biting remark or so escaped her, to which we shall refer later on. But surely it was this very characteristic of his which rendered him so irresistible an object for pedagogic rivalry.

Pieter Peeperkorn lay grievously ill, the day after that evening of cards and champagne we have described-and no wonder. Nearly all the partic.i.p.ants in those long-drawn-out, exhausting revels were the same. Hans Castorp was no exception, his head ached to splitting; which did not prevent him from paying a visit to the bedside of his last night's host. He craved permission through the Malay, whom he met in the corridor; and it was readily granted.

He entered the Dutchman's double bedroom through the salon which separated it from Frau Chauchat's. It was larger and more luxuriously furnished than most of the Berghof rooms, with satin-upholstered arm-chairs and curly-legged tables. A thick, soft carpet covered the floor, and the beds-they were not the usual hygienic dyingbed of the establishment, but very stately indeed, of polished cherry-wood with bra.s.s mounting, and above them hung a little canopy without curtains, like one umbrella sheltering both.

Pieter Peeperkorn lay in one of the two; its red satin coverlet was strewn with papers, books, and letters, and he was reading the Telegraaf Telegraaf through his horn-rimmed pince-nez with the high nose-piece. The coffee-machine stood on a chair at the bedside, and a half-empty bottle of the same simple effervescent red wine was on the night-table, among vials of medicine. Hans Castorp was rather put off to see the Dutchman wearing not a white night-s.h.i.+rt, but a long-sleeved woollen vest, b.u.t.toned at the wrists and collar-less, cut round in the neck, and clinging to the old man's powerful torso, his broad shoulders and breast. This undress threw into even greater relief the splendid humanity of his head on the pillow; in it he looked more remote than ever from the conventional and middle-cla.s.s, suggesting on the one hand the through his horn-rimmed pince-nez with the high nose-piece. The coffee-machine stood on a chair at the bedside, and a half-empty bottle of the same simple effervescent red wine was on the night-table, among vials of medicine. Hans Castorp was rather put off to see the Dutchman wearing not a white night-s.h.i.+rt, but a long-sleeved woollen vest, b.u.t.toned at the wrists and collar-less, cut round in the neck, and clinging to the old man's powerful torso, his broad shoulders and breast. This undress threw into even greater relief the splendid humanity of his head on the pillow; in it he looked more remote than ever from the conventional and middle-cla.s.s, suggesting on the one hand the homme du peuple homme du peuple, on the other a portrait-bust.

"By all means, young man," he said, taking off the horn spectacles by the nosepiece. "Come in. Don't mention it-on the contrary." Hans Castorp sat down by the bed, and concealed his surprise-for it was that rather than admiration which he felt, however sympathetically-under a burst of cordial and lively chatter, which Peeperkorn seconded with magnificent disjecta membra disjecta membra and much play of gesture. He looked very "poorly," yellow and in evident distress; a good deal affected by the attack of fever he had had toward morning, and the subsequent exhaustion-in part undoubtedly the result of his last night's bout. "We were pretty-last night, you know-carried it pretty far," he said. "But you are-Good. With you there were no further-but my age, and the condition I am in-my child," he turned with mild yet quite perceptible severity to Frau Chauchat, who just then entered the room from the salon, "very well, very well indeed. Very. But I repeat-ought to have been prevented." Something like an approach to his regal fit of rage rose in face and voice. The injustice, the unreason of the reproof were obvious to anybody who tried to imagine the storm that would have burst on the head of one seriously thinking to disturb him in his drink. But such are the moods of the great. Frau Chauchat moved to and fro in the room, after greeting Hans Castorp, who rose as she entered, without a handshake, but with a smile and nod, and a "Pray don't disturb yourself"-in his and much play of gesture. He looked very "poorly," yellow and in evident distress; a good deal affected by the attack of fever he had had toward morning, and the subsequent exhaustion-in part undoubtedly the result of his last night's bout. "We were pretty-last night, you know-carried it pretty far," he said. "But you are-Good. With you there were no further-but my age, and the condition I am in-my child," he turned with mild yet quite perceptible severity to Frau Chauchat, who just then entered the room from the salon, "very well, very well indeed. Very. But I repeat-ought to have been prevented." Something like an approach to his regal fit of rage rose in face and voice. The injustice, the unreason of the reproof were obvious to anybody who tried to imagine the storm that would have burst on the head of one seriously thinking to disturb him in his drink. But such are the moods of the great. Frau Chauchat moved to and fro in the room, after greeting Hans Castorp, who rose as she entered, without a handshake, but with a smile and nod, and a "Pray don't disturb yourself"-in his tetea-tete tetea-tete, that was, with Mynheer. She busied herself about the room, summoned the Malay to take the coffee-machine, then withdrew awhile, and on her return, softfooted, took part standing in the others' talk. Hans Castorp got an impression that she was there on guard. It was all very well for her to come back to the Berghof in company with a personality. But when the long-suffering lover took leave to evince regard for the personality, as man for man, then she betrayed uneasiness in pointed phrases like "Pray don't disturb yourself" and the like. They cost Hans Castorp a smile, which he bent his head to hide, though inwardly aglow. Peeperkorn poured him out a gla.s.s of wine from the bottle on the night-table. Under the circ.u.mstances the best thing, in the Dutchman's opinion, was to begin where one had left off; and that innocent effervescent wine had the same effect as soda-water. They touched gla.s.ses. Hans Castorp, as he drank, looked at the freckled, sea-captain's hand, with its pointed nails, the woollen band b.u.t.toned round the wrist. It took up the gla.s.s, carried it to the thick, cracked lips; the throat, so like a statue's and yet rather like a day labourer's, worked up and down as it swallowed the wine. Peeperkorn indicated the medicine bottle on the table, a brown liquid, of which he took a spoonful from Frau Chauchat's hand. It was an antipyretic, chiefly quinine, he baid. He made his guest try its characteristic bitter and pungent taste; and had much to say in praise of the wonderworking, germ-destroying properties of the drug, its tonic quality, its wholesome effect in regulating the temperature. It slowed down protein catabolism, promoted a.s.similation, in short it was a boon to mankind, a wonderful cordial, tonic and stimulant-an intoxicant as well, for one could get quite tipsy on it, he said, making the last night's suggestive gesture of fingers and head like a pagan priest at his ritual dance.

Yes, a wonderful substance, cinchona. It had not been three hundred years since European pharmacology made its acquaintance; not a century since the alkaloid had been isolated which was its active principle; isolated and, to a certain extent, a.n.a.lysed, for it would be too much to say that chemistry knew all there was to know about it, or was in a position to reproduce it synthetically. Our pharmacology need not be too arrogant over its science; for the state of its knowledge on the subject of quinine was a fair example of the rest. It had various facts about the operation of this or that drug; but was very often embarra.s.sed to know the causes of the effect produced. If the young man were to survey the field of our toxicological knowledge, he would find that no one could tell him anything of the elementary properties conditioning the effects of the so-called poisons. For example, take the venom of snakes: all that was known of these animal substances was that they belonged to the alb.u.minoid group, and consisted of various proteids, none of which produced a violent effect, except in this certain-and most uncertain-combination. Introduced into the blood-circulation, the effect was astonis.h.i.+ng indeed, considering how far we were from being accustomed to think of alb.u.men as a poison. The truth was, Peeperkorn said, and lifted his head from the pillow, elevated the arabesques on his brow, and gave point to his remarks by the little circle and the upright finger-tips-the truth was, in the world of matter, that all substances were the vehicle of both life and death, all of them were medicinal and all poisonous, in fact therapeutics and toxicology were one and the same, man could be cured by poison, and substances known to be the bearer of life could kill at a thrust, in a single second of time.

He spoke very impressively, and with unwonted coherence, of drugs and poisons, and Hans Castorp listened and nodded; less concerned with the content of his speech-he seemed to have the subject much at heart-than with silently exploring this extraordinary personality, which in the end remained as inexplicable as the operation of the snake-poison he was discussing. In the world of matter, Peeperkorn said, everything depended on dynamics, all else being entirely hypothetical. Quinine was one of the medicinal poisons; one of the strongest of these. Four grammes could make one deaf and giddy and short-winded; it acted like atropine on the visual organs, it was as intoxicating as alcohol; workers in quinine factories had inflamed eyes and swollen lips and suffered from affections of the skin. Peeperkorn described the cinchona, the quinine-tree, in the primeval forests of the Cordilleras, three thousand metres above sea-level. Its bark, called Peruvian or Jesuits' bark, came late to Spain, long after the natives of South America knew its use. He spoke of the enormous quinine plantations owned by the Dutch government in Java, whence yearly many million pounds of the coils of reddish bark, like cinnamon, were s.h.i.+pped to Amsterdam and London. In fact, said Peeperkorn, bark, the wood-fibre itself, from the epidermis to the cambium, contained, almost always, extraordinary dynamic virtue, for good or evil. The knowledge of drugs possessed by the coloured races was far superior to our own. In certain islands east of Dutch New Guinea, youths and maidens prepared a love charm from the bark of a tree-it was probably poisonous, like the manzanilla tree, or the antiaris toxicaria antiaris toxicaria, the deadly upas-tree of Java, which could poison the air round with its steam and fatally stupefy man and beast. This bark they powdered and mixed with coconut shavings, rolled the mixture into a sheet and toasted it, then sprinkled a brew in the face of the reluctant one, who was straightway inflamed with love for the sprinkler. Sometimes it was the bark of the root that contained the principle, as was the case with a certain creeper growing in the Malay Archipelago, called strychnos tieute strychnos tieute, from which the natives prepared the upasradsha upasradsha, by adding snake-venom. This drug caused immediate death when introduced into the circulation-as for instance by means of an arrow-but n.o.body could explain how it operated. All that seemed clear was that the upas had a dynamic relation with strychnine... Peeperkorn, by this time, was sitting erect in his bed; now and then, with a hand that slightly trembled, conveying the winegla.s.s to his cracked lips, to take great, thirsty draughts. He went on to speak of the "crows'-eye" tree of the Coromandel Coast, from the orange-yellow berries of which-the crows' eyes-was extracted the most powerful alkaloid of all, strychnine. His voice sank to a whisper, and the great folds of his brow rose high, as he described to Hans Castorp the ash-grey boughs, the strikingly glossy foliage and yellow-green blossoms; the picture of this tree conjured up in the mind's eye of the young man was luridly, almost hysterically garish-it made him shudder. But here Frau Chauchat intervened, saying it was not good for Mynheer Peeperkorn to talk any longer, it tired him too much. She disliked to interfere, but Hans Castorp would forgive her if she suggested that they had had enough for the time. The young man accordingly took his leave. But often, in the months that followed, did Hans Castorp sit by the bed of that kingly man, when he kept it after an attack of fever; Frau Chauchat being within hearing, as she moved about the rooms, and sometimes taking part with a few words. They spent much time together when Peeperkorn was free of fever; for the Dutchman, on his good days, seldom failed to gather round him a select company, to play and drink and otherwise divert themselves and rejoice the inner man. These reunions took place either in the salon, as on the first occasion, or in the restaurant; and Hans Castorp had a habitual place between the great man and his languid companion. They even went abroad together, took walks with Herr Ferge and Wehsal, Naphta and Settembrini, those opposed spirits, whom they could hardly fail to meet. Hans Castorp counted himself fortunate in presenting them to Peeperkorn, and even, in the end, to Clavdia Chauchat. He troubled not at all whether the acquaintance was to these pedagogues' liking or not. Secure in the knowledge that they needed a tree whereon to sharpen their pedagogical tusks, he reckoned on their putting up even with unwelcome society, in order to continue in enjoyment of his own.

And he was not wrong in thinking that the members of this motley group would at least get used to not getting used to each other. Strangeness, tension, even suppressed hostility there was of course enough between them; it is surely rather remarkable that a comparatively insignificant personality could have held them together. That he did so must be laid to a certain shrewd geniality native to him, which found everything fish that came to his net, and not only bound to him people of the most diverse tastes and characters, but exerted enough power to bind them to each other.

Again, how involved were the relations between the various members of our group! Let us con them a little, as Hans Castorp himself did, with shrewd, yet friendly eye, as they went their ways together. There was the unhappy Wehsal, consumed by his louring pa.s.sion for Frau Chauchat; who grovelled before Peeperkorn and Hans Castorp, the one on grounds of the past, the other for the sake of the compelling present. And there was Clavdia Chauchat herself, charming, soft-stepping invalid, the property of Peeperkorn-surely by choice and conviction, yet uneasy and sharptongued to see her carnival cavalier on such good terms with her sovereign lord. The irritation was probably the same in kind as that which coloured her feeling toward Herr Settembrini, the humanist and haranguer, whom she could not abide, calling him arrogant, not "hu-m "hu-man." Dearly would she have liked to ask this mentor of Hans Castorp's the meaning of certain words in his own Mediterranean tongue, of which, though less contemptuously, she was as ignorant as he of hers: the words he had flung after the altogether nice young German, quite correct and of good family, on that carnival night when at length he had summoned courage to approach her.-Hans Castorp was in love up to his ears, so much was true; not in the accepted blissful sense, but as one loves when the case is out of all reason, and cannot be celebrated in any pretty little flat-land ditties we know of. He was badly smitten, quite subjugated, endured all the orthodox pangs; yet was the man to retain, even in his slavery, a certain sense of proportion, which told him that his devotion was worth something to the fair one with the Tartar eyes; not too blind in his abas.e.m.e.nt to measure its worth by Settembrini's own att.i.tude toward her. The Italian was as distant as the dictates of humanistic courtesy would permit; while she was only too obviously piqued by his bearing. The position with regard to Leo Naphta was scarcely more-or, from Hans Castorp's point of view, scarcely less-favourable. True, there was here no fundamental antagonism such as set Herr Ludovico's being against hers and all its works. Also, the language difficulty was less, and they sometimes strolled and talked apart, Clavdia and the knife-edged little man; discussed books, and questions of political philosophy, upon which both held radical views. Hans Castorp, in his simplicity, would sometimes take part. Yet Frau Chauchat could not but be aware of a certain haughty aloofness in Naphta's bearing. Its source was the caution of the parvenu, a feeling of insecurity in this unfamiliar society. But in truth his Spanish terrorism had little in common with her roving, door-slamming, all-too-human humanity. And there was moreover the subtle, scarcely perceptible animosity felt by both pedagogues on the score of this disturbing female element that came between them and their fledgling, and united them in an unspoken, primitive hostility, at least as potent as their long-standing conflict with each other. If Hans Castorp was aware of these sentiments they could hardly escape his charmer's feminine intuition.

Was there something of the same aversion in the att.i.tude of the two dialecticians toward Pieter Peeperkorn? At least, Hans Castorp thought he discerned it, though perhaps he went out to meet it, and took malicious pleasure in watching tongue-tied majesty in contact with his two "auditors," as, with reference to his stocktaking activities, he jestingly called them-though distinctly feeling that the word was but a definition by contraries! Mynheer, in the open, was not so impressive as in the house. He wore a soft felt hat drawn down on his brows, covering the blaze of white hair and the forehead's extraordinary folds, reducing, as it were, the scale of his features, even the commanding large red nose. He looked better standing than walking; for he took small steps, and with each one of them s.h.i.+fted the full weight of his body on to the leg he had advanced-it was the comfortable gait of an old man, but it was not kingly. He stooped slightly too, or rather, shrank together; though even so he overlooked Herr Ludovico, and was a whole head taller than little Naphta. But it was not his height alone that made his presence oppressive-oh, quite as oppressive as Hans Castorp had antic.i.p.ated!-to the two politicians.

Yes, they suffered by comparison-so much was perceptible not only to the connoisseur's watchful eye, but very probably to the feelings of those concerned, the tongue-tied giant as well as the two insignificant and over-articulate others. Peeperkorn treated both with distinguished attention, a respect which Hans Castorp would have called ironic had he not known that irony is not on the grand scale. Kings are never ironical-not even in the sense of a direct and cla.s.sic device of oratory, to say nothing of any other kind. The Dutchman's manner toward Hans Castorp's friends was rather mocking than ironic. He made beautiful fun of them, either openly or veiled in exaggerated respect. "Oh, yes, yes," he would say, with his finger threatening their direction, the head and smiling lips turned away, "this is-these are-ladies and gentlemen, I call your attention-cerebrum, cerebral, you understand! No, no-positively. Extraordinary-displays great-" In revenge, they looked at each other, pantomimed despair, angled for Hans Castorp's glance; but he refused to be drawn.

Settembrini however attacked Hans Castorp directly, and confessed to pedagogic concern.

"Lord, what a stupid old man you have there, Engineer," said he. "What is it you see in him? What good can he do you? I am at a loss. I should understand-though scarcely approve-your putting up with his society in order to enjoy that of his mistress. But it is obvious that you are even more interested in him than in her. Cometo the aid of my understanding, I implore you."

Hans Castorp laughed. "By all means," said he. "Absolutely. That is to say-very good. Very good indeed." He tried to imitate Peeperkorn's gestures. "Yes, yes," he went on, laughing, "you find it stupid, Herr Settembrini, and I admit it is unclear, which in your eyes is even worse. Stupid-well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst. There, I have made an epigram-a bon mot! bon mot! What do you think of it?" What do you think of it?"

"Very good. I look forward eagerly to your collection of aphorisms. Perhaps there is still time to beg you not to forget some comment we once made on the anti-social nature of paradox."

"I won't indeed, Herr Settembrini. I certainly will not. No, my mot mot was not in the nature of paradox, I a.s.sure you. I only meant to indicate the difficulty I really find in distinguis.h.i.+ng between stupidity and cleverness. It is so hard to draw a line-one goes over into the other.-I know you hate all that mystical was not in the nature of paradox, I a.s.sure you. I only meant to indicate the difficulty I really find in distinguis.h.i.+ng between stupidity and cleverness. It is so hard to draw a line-one goes over into the other.-I know you hate all that mystical guazzabuglio; guazzabuglio; you are all for values, judgment, and judgment of values; and I'm sure you are right. But this about stupidity and-on my honour, it's a complete mystery; and after all, it is allowable to think about mysteries, isn't it, so long as one is honestly bent on getting to the bottom of them? But I ask you. Can you deny that he puts us all in his pocket? That's expressing it crudely, perhaps-but, so far as I can see, you can't deny it. He puts us all in his pocket; somehow or other, he has the right to laugh at us all-but where does he get it? Where does it come from? How does he do it? Certainly it's not that he's so clever. I admit that you can't talk about his cleverness. He's inarticulate-it's more feeling with him, feeling is just his mark, if you'll excuse my language. No, as I say, it's not out of cleverness, not on intellectual grounds at all, that he can do as he likes with us. You would be right to deny it. It isn't the point. But not on physical either. It's not the ma.s.sive shoulders, or the strength of his biceps; not because he could knock us down if he liked. He isn't conscious of his power; if he does take a notion, he can easily be put off it with a couple of civilized words.-So it is not physical. And yet the physical has something to do with it; not in a muscular sense- it's something quite different, mystical; because so soon as the physical has anything to do with it, it becomes mystical, the physical goes over into the spiritual, and the other way on, and you can't tell them apart, nor can you cleverness and stupidity. But the result is what we see, the dynamic effect-he puts us in his pocket. We've only one word for that-personality. We use it in another, more regular sense too, in which we are all personalities-morally, legally, and otherwise. But that is not the sense in which I am using it now. I am speaking of the mystery of personality, something above either cleverness or stupidity, and something we all have to take into account: partly to try to understand it; but partly, where that is not possible, to be edified by it. You are all for values; but isn't personality a value too? It seems so to me, more so than either cleverness or stupidity, it seems positive and absolute, like life-in short, something quite worth while, and calculated to make us trouble about it. That's what I wanted to say in answer to what you said about stupidity." you are all for values, judgment, and judgment of values; and I'm sure you are right. But this about stupidity and-on my honour, it's a complete mystery; and after all, it is allowable to think about mysteries, isn't it, so long as one is honestly bent on getting to the bottom of them? But I ask you. Can you deny that he puts us all in his pocket? That's expressing it crudely, perhaps-but, so far as I can see, you can't deny it. He puts us all in his pocket; somehow or other, he has the right to laugh at us all-but where does he get it? Where does it come from? How does he do it? Certainly it's not that he's so clever. I admit that you can't talk about his cleverness. He's inarticulate-it's more feeling with him, feeling is just his mark, if you'll excuse my language. No, as I say, it's not out of cleverness, not on intellectual grounds at all, that he can do as he likes with us. You would be right to deny it. It isn't the point. But not on physical either. It's not the ma.s.sive shoulders, or the strength of his biceps; not because he could knock us down if he liked. He isn't conscious of his power; if he does take a notion, he can easily be put off it with a couple of civilized words.-So it is not physical. And yet the physical has something to do with it; not in a muscular sense- it's something quite different, mystical; because so soon as the physical has anything to do with it, it becomes mystical, the physical goes over into the spiritual, and the other way on, and you can't tell them apart, nor can you cleverness and stupidity. But the result is what we see, the dynamic effect-he puts us in his pocket. We've only one word for that-personality. We use it in another, more regular sense too, in which we are all personalities-morally, legally, and otherwise. But that is not the sense in which I am using it now. I am speaking of the mystery of personality, something above either cleverness or stupidity, and something we all have to take into account: partly to try to understand it; but partly, where that is not possible, to be edified by it. You are all for values; but isn't personality a value too? It seems so to me, more so than either cleverness or stupidity, it seems positive and absolute, like life-in short, something quite worth while, and calculated to make us trouble about it. That's what I wanted to say in answer to what you said about stupidity."

Nowadays, when Hans Castorp relieved his mind, he did not hem and haw, become involved and stick in the middle. He said his say to the end like a man, rounded off his period, let his voice drop and went his way; though he still got red, and at heart was still afraid of the silence he knew would follow when he had done, to give him time to feel mortified at what he had expressed.

Herr Settembrini let it have full sway before he said: "You deny that you are hunting paradoxes; but at the same time you well know that I love them as much as I do mysteries. In making a mystery of the personality, you run a risk of idol-wors.h.i.+p. You do reverence to a hollow mask. You see mystery in mystification, in one of those counterfeits with which a malicious demon of physical form loves sometimes to mock us. Have you ever frequented theatrical circles? You know those physiognomies in which the features of Julius Caesar, Beethoven, and Goethe unite-the happy possessor of which has only to open his mouth to prove himself the most pitiable fool on G.o.d's earth?"

"Very good, a freak of nature," said Hans Castorp. "But not alone a freak of nature, not simply a hoax. For since these people are actors, they must have a gift, and the gift itself is beyond cleverness and stupidity, it is after all a value. Mynheer Peeperkom has a gift, say what you like; and thus it is he can stick us all in his pocket. Put Herr Naphta in one corner of the room, and let him deliver a discourse on Gregory the Great and the City of G.o.d-it would be highly worth listening to-and put Mynheer Peeperkorn in the other, with his extraordinary mouth and the wrinkles on his forehead, and let him not say a word except 'By all means-capital-settled, ladies and gentlemen!' You will see everybody gather round Peeperkorn, and Herr Naphta will be sitting there alone with his cleverness and his City of G.o.d, though he may be uttering such penetrating wisdom that it pierces through marrow and cuc.u.mber, as Behrens says-"

"Take shame to yourself for bowing down to success," Herr Settembrini adjured him. "Mundus vult decipi. I do not claim that people ought to flock about Herr Naphta. He is too full of guile for my taste. But I am inclined to range myself on his side, in the imaginary scene you have conjured up with such relish. Will you despise logic, precision, discrimination? Will you contemn them, in favour of some suggestion-hocus-pocus and emotional charlatanry? If you will, then the devil has you in his-"

"But he can often talk as coherently as you please," said Hans Castorp, "when he gets interested. The other day he was telling me about dynamic drugs and Asiatic poison-trees; it was so interesting it was almost uncanny-interesting things are always a bit uncanny-but the interest was not so much in what he was saying as it was taken in connexion with his personality, which made it interesting and uncanny at once."

"Ah, yes, your weakness for Asia is well known to me. True, I cannot oblige with marvels such as those," the Italian said, so bitterly that Hans Castorp hastened to a.s.sure him how much he valued his conversation and instruction from quite another angle, and that it had not occurred to him to make comparisons which would be unjust to both sides. Herr Settembrini paid no heed, he spurned the politeness, and went on: "In any case, Engineer, you must permit me to admire your serene objectivity. It approaches the fantastic, you will admit. The way things stand: this zany has taken away your Beatrice from you, yet you-it is unheard of."

"These are temperamental differences, Herr Settembrini. We have different views as to what is knightly and warm-blooded. You, a southerner, would prescribe poison and dagger, at least you would conceive the affair in its social and pa.s.sionate aspect, and want me to act like a game-c.o.c.k. That would of course be masculine and gallant, in a social sense. But with me it is different. I am not at all masculine in the sense that I see in another man only a rival male and nothing more. Perhaps I am not masculine at all-certainly I am not in the sense which I tend to call 'social,' I don't exactly know why. What I do is to question my sad heart whether I have any ground of complaint against the man. Has he really insulted me? But an insult must be of intent, otherwise it can be none. And as for his having 'done anything' to me, there I should have to apply to her- her-and I have no right to, certainly not with regard to Peeperkorn. For he is a quite extraordinary personality, which by itself is something for women, and then he is hardly a civilian, like me, he is a sort of military, a bit like my poor cousin, in that he has a point d'honneur point d'honneur, a sore spot, as it were, which is feeling, life.-I know I am talking nonsense, but I'd rather go rambling on, and partly expressing something I find it difficult to express, than to keep on transmitting faultless plat.i.tudes. That must be a military trait in my character, after all, if I may say so-"

"You may say so," Settembrini acquiesced. "A trait at least worthy of praise. The courage to recognize and express-that is the quality that makes literature-that is humanism."

Thus they parted on good terms, Herr Settembrini having given the conversation this placable turn. It was the wiser course; his position had not been so strong he could afford to push the argument to extremes. A conversation dealing with jealousy was rather slippery ground for him; at one point he would have been obliged to admit that his own position-as a pedagogue-was scarcely masculine in the social and c.o.c.kfighting sense, else why should the prepotent Peeperkorn disturb his tranquillity, in the same way Naphta and Frau Chauchat did? Lastly, the Italian could not hope to argue his pupil out of interest in a personality to whose native superiority he himself and his partner in cerebral gymnastic were w.i.l.l.y-nilly constrained to bow.

They were on safer ground when they could sustain the conversation in the realms of the intellectual, and hold the attention of their audience by one of their elegant and impa.s.sioned debates, academic, yet conducted as though the matter discussed were the most burning question of the time, or of all time. They were of course almost the sole support of such discussions; while these lasted; they did, to some extent, neutralize the effect of "bigness" purveyed by a certain member of their group, who could only accompany them by a running play of wrinkles, gestures, and s.n.a.t.c.hes of mockery. But even that was enough to cast a shadow, rob their brilliant performance of some of its gloss, emasculate it, as it were, set up a cross-current perceptible to them all, though Peeperkorn himself remained unconscious, or conscious to a degree impossible for them to guess. Neither side could get any advantage, both were embarra.s.sed, and the stamp of futility set upon their debate. We might put it like this: that their life-and-death duel of wits came to be carried on always with vague subterranean reference to "bigness" walking beside them, and to be deflected from its...o...b..t by the magnetism "bigness" exerted. One cannot characterize otherwise this puzzling, for the two disputants maddening, posture of affairs. One can only add that had there been no Pieter Peeperkorn, party feeling would have run higher on both sides; as when Leo Naphta defended the arch-revolutionary nature of the Church, against Settembrini's dogmatic a.s.sertion that that great historic power was to be looked upon merely as the protectress of the sinister forces of reaction; whereas all the forces that made for life and future, and looked undismayed on change and resolution, he claimed for the principles of enlightenment; science and progress, which had their rise in an epoch of quite opposed tendencies, the famous century that witnessed the rebirth of cla.s.sical culture. He drove home his convictions with a graceful play of word and gesture. Whereupon Naphta, with chilling acuity, undertook to show-and showed too, with devastating clarity-that the Church, as the embodiment of the religious and ascetic ideal, was remote indeed from posing as the champion and support of the existing order, in other words of secular culture and civil law-rather had she from the beginning inscribed upon her radical banner the programme of their extirpation root and branch; that absolutely everything beloved and cherished of the bourgeoisie, the conservative, the cowardly, and the impotent-the State, family life, secular art and science-was consciously or unconsciously hostile to the religious idea, to the Church, whose innate tendency and permanent aim was the dissolution of all existing worldly orders, and the reconst.i.tution of society after the model of the ideal, the communistic City of G.o.d.

After that, Settembrini took the floor-and well he knew how to avail himself of it. It was lamentable, he said-this confusion of luridly revolutionary doctrine with a general insurrection of all the powers of evil. The Church's love of innovation had for centuries manifested itself in putting to the question the living idea, wherever she found it; throttling it, quenching it in smoke at the stake; to-day she announces through her emissaries that she rejoices in revolution, that her goal is the uprooting of freedom, culture, and democracy, which she intends to replace by barbarism and the dictators.h.i.+p of the mob. Yea, verily, a fearsome mixture of contradictory consistency and consistent contradiction...

His opponent, Naphta retorted, displayed no lack of the same qualities. By his own account, he was a democrat; yet his words sounded neither democratic nor egalitarian; but rather displayed a reprehensible and arrogant aristocratism, as when he alluded to the delegated dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat as mob rule! However, where the Church was in question, a.s.suredly he showed himself a democrat; for the Church was admittedly the most aristocratic force in the history of mankind; an aristocracy in the last and highest sense, that of the spirit. For the ascetic spirit-if the pleonasm might be pardoned him-the spirit that would deny and destroy the world, was aristocracy itself, a pure culture of the aristocratic principle. It could never be popular; and the Church, accordingly, had at all times been unpopular. A little research into the cultural history of the Middle Ages would convince Herr Settembrini of the stout resistance which the people-in the widest sense-opposed to the things of the Church. There were for instance monkish figures, the invention of popular fantasy, who, quite in the spirit of Luther, had set up wine, women, and song in opposition to the ascetic idea. All the instincts of secular heroism, all warlike spirit, all court poetry, set themselves in more or less open conflict with the religious idea and the hierarchy. For all that was "the world," all that was "the common people," compared with the aristocracy of the spirit represented by Church.

Herr Settembrini thanked him for jogging his memory. The figure of the monk Ilsan in the Rosengarten Rosengarten he did indeed find refres.h.i.+ng by comparison with this muchlauded aristocracy of the grave. He, the speaker, was no friend to the German Reformation; but they would find him ever ready to defend whatever of democratic individualism there was in its teaching, against any and every clerical and feudal craving for dominion over the individual. he did indeed find refres.h.i.+ng by comparison with this muchlauded aristocracy of the grave. He, the speaker, was no friend to the German Reformation; but they would find him ever ready to defend whatever of democratic individualism there was in its teaching, against any and every clerical and feudal craving for dominion over the individual.

"Aha!" cried Naphta. So Herr Settembrini would condemn the Church for lack of democracy, for being wanting in a sense of the value of human personality? But what of the humane freedom from prejudice evinced by canonical law? For whereas Roman law made the possession of legal rights dependent upon citizens.h.i.+p, and Germanic law upon individual freedom and members.h.i.+p in the tribe, ecclesiastical law, orthodoxy, was alone in divorcing legal rights from either national or social considerations, and a.s.serting that slaves, serfs, and prisoners of war were all capable of making wills and inheriting property.

Settembrini bitingly remarked that he might mention, as not entirely irrelevant in this connexion, the so-called "canonical portion," which subtracted a substantial sum from every testamentary bequest. And he spoke of priestly demagoguery, which began to vent its thirst for power in exaggerated solicitude for the under dog, when the top dog would none of it. The Church, he a.s.serted, cared more about the quant.i.ty of souls she got hold of than their quality-which certainly reflected upon her pretensions to spiritual refinement.

So the Church lacked refinement? Herr Settembrini's attention was invited to the inexorable aristocratism which underlay the idea that shame could be inherited: the pa.s.sing on of guilt to the-democratically considered-innocent descendants; for example, the illegitimacy and lifelong pollution of natural children. But the Italian bade him be silent: in the first place, because his human feelings rose up in arms against Naphta's words, and in the second, because he had had enough of such quibbles, and saw in the s.h.i.+fts of his opponent's apologetics only the same old infamous and devilish cult of nihilism, which wanted to be called Spirit, and found so legitimate, so sacrosanct the admittedly existent hatred of the ascetic principle. But here Naphta begged to be forgiven for laughing outright. The nihilism or the Church! The nihilism of the most realistic system of government in the history of the world! Herr Settembrini, then, had never been touched by a breath of that ironic humanity which made constant concession to the world and the flesh, cleverly veiling the letter and letting the spirit rule, not to put too sore a constraint on nature? He had never heard of the ecclesiastical conception of indulgence, under which was to be cla.s.sified one of the sacraments of the Church-namely, marriage, not in itself an absolute good, like the other sacraments, but only a protection against sin, countenanced in order to set bounds to sensual desire; that the ascetic principle, the ideal of complete chast.i.ty, might be upheld, without at the same time opposing an unpolitic harshness to the flesh?

Herr Settembrini, of course, could not refrain from protesting against this hideous conception of "policy"; against the gesture of a shrewd and sinister complaisance, made by the "Spirit"-or what called itself so-against the imaginary guilt of its opposite, which it pretended to deal with in a "politic" sense, but which in reality stood in no need of the pernicious indulgence it proffered; against the accursed dualism of a conception which bedevilled the universe-that is to say, life-as well as life's dark opposite, the Spirit-for if life was evil, the Spirit, as pure negation, must be so too. And he broke a lance in defence of the blamelessness of sensual gratification-hearing which, Hans Castorp could not but think of the humanistic cuddy under the roof, with its standing desk, rush-bottomed chairs, and water-bottle. Naphta a.s.serted that sensual gratification was never blameless-nature, he said, always had a bad conscience in respect of the spiritual. The ecclesiastical policy of indulgence practised by the Spirit he designated as "Love"-this to refute the nihilism of the ascetic principle. Hans Castorp felt how very odd indeed the word sounded in the mouth of sharp, skinny little Naphta.

So it went on-we know already how it went, and so did Hans Castorp. We have listened, as he did, for a little while, in order to learn how such a peripatetic pa.s.sageat-arms fares, in what way it is blown upon, by the presence of a personality. It seemed as though a secret impulse to animadvert upon the presence of Peeperkorn quenched the leaping spark of wit, and called up that sense of weary devitalization that comes over us when an electric connexion fails to connect. Yes, that was it. No spark leaped nimbly from pole to pole, no flash of lightning, no current. The intellect which should in its own opinion have neutralized the presence was neutralized by it- as Hans Castorp, amazed and curious, perceived.

Revolution, conservation-he looked at Peeperkorn, saw him stalking along, not particularly majestic on foot, with his slumping gait, his hat drawn over his brows; saw his thick lips with their broken line, heard him say, jerking his head mockingly in the direction of the debaters: "Yes, yes-cerebrum, highly cerebral, you understand. Very; that is-it shows"-and behold, in a trice, the current cut off! Dead. As a doornail. They tried another tack, invoked more powerful spells, came on the "aristocratic problem," on popularity and exclusiveness. Not a spark. Despite itself, what they said sounded personal. Hans Castorp saw Clavdia's traveling-companion as he lay under the red satin coverlet, in his collarless woollen s.h.i.+rt, half ancient ouvrier ouvrier, half royal bust. And the nerve of the debate quivered and died. They tried to galvanize it into life. Negation, cult of nihilism on the one hand, on the other the positive a.s.sertion of life, and the inclining of the heart unto love. But where was the spark, where the current, directly one looked at Mynheer, as one did, irresistibly, as though magnetized? They simply were not there-which remained, to use Hans Castorp's expression, neither more nor less than a mystery. He took note, for his collection of aphorisms, that either one expresses a mystery in the simplest words, or leaves it unexpressed. But to get this one expressed, one could only say straight out that Pieter Peeperkorn, with his kingly mask, and bitter, irregular mouth, was both, now this, now that; both seemed to fit him and to neutralize each other when one looked at him-both this and that, the one and the other. Yes, this stupid old man, this commanding cipher! He did not paralyse the opposition by cross-purposes and confusion, like Naphta, he was not like him equivocal, or was so in an entirely different way, in a positive way, this staggering mystery, which so naively set at naught not only cleverness and stupidity, but so much else in the way of opposed views invoked by Settembrini and Naphta, in order to stimulate interest, to their own pedagogical ends. The personality, it appeared, was not pedagogically inclined-yet what a find, what a prize, for inquiring youth on its travels! Fascinating it was to watch riddling royalty when the conversation turned on marriage and sin, indulgences, the guilt or innocence of pleasures of the sense! His head would sink upon his shoulder or chest, the calamitous lips part as the mouth relaxed into pathetic curves, the nostrils dilate as with pain, the folds on the forehead rose until the eyes were fixed in a wide, suffering gaze.-It was a picture of bitterness and woe. And behold, as one looked, this martyr's visage blossomed into wantonness. The head was roguishly on a side, the still open lips wreathed in wickedly suggestive smiles, the sybaritic little dimple appeared in one cheek-he was again the dancing priest, and jerked his head as before, mockingly, in the direction of so much cerebration, as they heard him say: "Ah, yes, yes, absolutely! But isn't there a-are there not-sacraments of pleasure- you understand-"

Still, as we said, Hans Castorp's diminished friends and teachers were always well served when they could wrangle. They were in their element, whereas the personality was not. Though one might have two views of the role he played when wrangling was the order of the day. But on the other hand, when the scene changed from the sphere of the intellectual to the strictly earthly and practical, and dealt with questions, and in fields, where commanding natures prove their worth-then there were no two views possible. For then the others were undone, then they were cast in the shade, then they drew in their horns, and Peeperkorn came out, grasped the sceptre, arranged, decided, "settled." Was there any wonder, then, that he behaved so as to bring that state of things about, that he sought to override logomachy? He suffered, while it held sway, or if it held sway for long. But not in his vanity. Of that Hans Castorp felt a.s.sured. For vanity is not on the grand scale, nor is greatness vain. No, Peeperkorn's need of reality had other grounds. It sprang, to put it baldly, from fear: from a characteristic infirmity of minds on the grand scale, from the sensitively and pa.s.sionately cherished point d'honneur point d'honneur which Hans Castorp had struggled to explain to Herr Settembrini, describing it as in a sense a military trait. which Hans Castorp had struggled to explain to Herr Settembrini, describing it as in a sense a military trait.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the Dutchman said, and lifted his sea-captain's hand, with its nails like lance-heads, in entreaty and monition. "Ladies and gentlemen. Very good. Very. Asceticism. Indulgences. l.u.s.t of the flesh. By all means. Most important. Most debatable. But may I-I should like to-I fear we may commit a serious error. Are we not irresponsibly neglecting-one of our highest-" He drew in a deep breath. "Ladies and gentlemen. This air-this characteristic thawing air, with its somewhat enervating breath, full of memories and promises of spring-we should not breathe it in to breathe it out in-Really.-I must implore you. We must not. It is an insult. We should give it out only in the form of praise-of complete and utter-enough, ladies and gentlemen. I interrupt myself-in honour of-" He did, indeed, stand still, bent backward, shading his brows with his hat. They followed his gaze. "May I," said he, "may I draw your attention upwards-high in the sky, to that black, circling point against the blue, intensely blue, shading into black-that is a bird of prey. It is, if I am not mistaken-look, ladies and gentlemen, look, my child. It is an eagle. Most emphatically I call your attention-look, it is no buzzard, no vulture, it is an eagle. If you were as far-sighted as my advancing age-yes, my child, advancing-my hair is white. You would see, as plainly as I do, the blunt pinions-it is a golden eagle. He circles directly overhead, he hovers, not a single beat of his wing-at a tremendous height in the blue, and with his keen, far-sighted eyes under the prominent bony structure of his brows he is peering earthwards. The eagle, ladies and gentlemen, the bird of Jove, king of his kind, the lion of the upper air. He has feathered gaiters, and a beak of iron, with a sudden hook at the end; claws of enormous strength, their talons curving inwards, the front ones overlapped by the long hinder one in an iron clutch. Look!" And he tried to put his long fingers in the posture of an eagle's claw. "Gaffer, why are you circling and spying up there?" He turned his head upwards again. "Strike! Strike downward, with your iron beak into head and eyes, tear out the belly of the creature G.o.d gives you-splendid! Splendid! Absolutely! Bury your talons in its entrails, make your beak drip with its blood-"

He had wrought himself to a pitch. All interest in Settembrini's and Naphta's antinomies was fled away. But the vision of the eagle remained-even though they ceased talking about it, and devoted themselves to the programme they were carrying out under Mynheer's lead. They stopped at an inn to eat and drink-quite out of hours, but with an appet.i.te whetted by silent memories of the eagle. There was a feasting and a tippling, such as always went on where Mynheer was, in Dorf or Platz, or the inns at Claris and Klosters, whither they had gone in the little train. Under his tutelage, they tasted the "cla.s.sic" gifts of life: coffee and cream with fresh bread, moist cheese and fragrant Alpine b.u.t.ter, heavenly-tasting with hot roasted chestnuts. They drank red Veltliner, to their hearts' content. Peeperkorn accompanied the impromptu meal with a fire of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns; or incited Anton Karlowitsch Ferge to talk, that good-natured sufferer, who abhorred all high thoughts, but could hold forth so acceptably on the subject of the manufacture of rubber shoes in Russia. He described how the rubber ma.s.s was treated with sulphur and other substances, and the finished, glossy product subjected to a heat of over two hundred degrees to "vulcanize" it. He talked about the polar circle, for his business trips had more than once taken him thither; about the midnight sun, and eternal winter at the North Cape-all this out of his scraggy throat, from beneath his bushy moustaches. Up there, he said, the steamers looked tiny, next the gigantic cliffs, on the steel-grey surface of the sea. And a yellow radiation was diffused over great tracts of the heavens-the northern lights. The whole thing had seemed spooky to him, Anton Karlowitsch: the scene and himself to boot.

Thus Herr Ferge, the complete outsider, the only member of the group who stood detached from its complicated relations.h.i.+ps. But now that we speak of these, it will be well to relate two conversations, two priceless conversations a deux a deux, which our unheroic hero had, the first with Clavdia Chauchat, the second with the present companion of her travels; one in the hall, on an evening when the disturbing element lay above with a fever; the other on an afternoon by Mynheer's bedside.

It was half dark in the hall. The social activities had been brief and languid, the guests withdrew early to the evening cure or else took their wilful way into town, to dance and game. A single light burned in the hall ceiling-and in the adjoining salons dimness reigned. But Hans Castorp knew that Frau Chauchat, who had taken dinner without her protector, was not gone upstairs after it, but still lingered in the writingroom, so he did the same. He sat by the tiled hearth, in the back part of the hall, which was raised by one step from the rest, and separated by arches supported on two columns; in a rocking-chair such as that one Marusja had leaned back in, on the evening Joachim had spoken with her for the first and last time. He was, permissibly at this hour, smoking a cigarette.

She came, he heard her approaching step and the sound of her frock; fanning the air with a letter she held by one corner, and saying, in her Pribislav voice: "The porter has gone. Do give me a timbre poste timbre poste."

She was wearing a thin dark silk this evening, cut round in the neck, with filmy sleeves finished by a b.u.t.toned cuff at the wrists. It was the cut he loved. She wore the pearls, they gleamed palely in the half light. He looked up into her Khirgiz face. "Timbre?" he repeated, "I have none." he repeated, "I have none."

"No? Tant pis pour vous Tant pis pour vous. Not prepared to do a lady a favour?" She pouted and shrugged her shoulders. "I am disappointed. You ought to be more precise and dependable. I imagined you having a compartment in your pocket-book, nice neat little sheets of all denominations."

"Why should I? I never write a letter. To whom should I write? I seldom do, even a card, and that is already stamped. I have no one to write to. I have no contact with the flat-land, it has fallen away. We have a folk-song that says: 'I am lost to the world'- so it is with me."

"Well, then, lost soul, at least give me a papiros papiros," said she, and sat down opposite him on a bench with a linen cus.h.i.+on, one leg over the other. She stretched out her hand. "With those, at least, you are provided." She took a cigarette, negligently, from the silver case he held out to her, and availed herself of his little pocket-device, the flame of which lighted up her face. The indolent "Give me a cigarette," the taking it without thanks, bespoke the spoiled, luxurious female; yet even more it betokened a human companions.h.i.+p and mutual "belonging," an unspoken give and take which came both thrilling and tender to his love-lorn sense.

He said: "Yes, I always have them. I am always provided, one must be. How should I get on without them? I have, as they say, a pa.s.sion for them. To tell the truth, however, I am hardly a very pa.s.sionate man, though I have my pa.s.sions, phlegmatic ones."

"I am extraordinarily relieved," she said, breathing out, as she spoke, the smoke she had inhaled, "to hear that you are not a pa.s.sionate man. But how should you be? You would have degenerated. Pa.s.sionate-that means to live for the sake of living. But one knows that you all live for sake of experience. Pa.s.sion, that is self-forgetfulness. But what you all want is self-enrichment. C'est ca. C'est ca. You don't realize what revolting egoism it is, and that one day it will make you an enemy of the human race?" "Well, well, well! Enemy of the human race! How can you make such a general statement, Clavdia? Have you something definite and personal in your mind, when you say we don't live for the sake of life, but for the sake of enriching ourselves? Women don't usually moralize like that, so abstractly. Oh, morality, and that! A subject for Naphta and Settembrini to quarrel over. It belongs to the realm of the Great Confusion. Whether one lives for oneself, or for the sake of life-one doesn't know oneself, no one can know that precisely and certainly. I mean, the limits are fluid. There is egoistic devotion, and there is devoted egoism. I think, on the whole, that it is as it is in love. Of course, it is probably immoral of me that I cannot very well attend to what you say to me about morality for being so happy that we are sitting here as we once did, and then never again, even since you came back. And that I may tell you there was never anything so lovely as the way those cuffs suit your hand, and the soft flowing silk your arm-your arm, that I know so well-" "I am going." You don't realize what revolting egoism it is, and that one day it will make you an enemy of the human race?" "Well, well, well! Enemy of the human race! How can you make such a general statement, Clavdia? Have you something definite and personal in your mind, when you say we don't live for the sake of life, but for the sake of enriching ourselves? Women don't usually moralize like that, so abstractly. Oh, morality, and that! A subject for Naphta and Settembrini to quarrel over. It belongs to the realm of the Great Confusion. Whether one lives for oneself, or for the sake of life-one doesn't know oneself, no one can know that precisely and certainly. I mean, the limits are fluid. There is egoistic devotion, and there is devoted egoism. I think, on the whole, that it is as it is in love. Of course, it is probably immoral of me that I cannot very well attend to what you say to me about morality for being so happy that we are sitting here as we once did, and then never again, even since you came back. And that I may tell you there was never anything so lovely as the way those cuffs suit your hand, and the soft flowing silk your arm-your arm, that I know so well-" "I am going."