The Magic Mountain Part 41

"Pull yourself together, Wehsal, and stop talking in that poor-spirited way," Hans Castorp admonished him. "Women are for ever smiling, at anything, just for the sake of smiling; there is no sense in attending to it. Why do you always cry yourself down? You have your advantages and your disadvantages, like the rest of us. For instance, you can play out of the Midsummer Night's Dream Midsummer Night's Dream, and it's not everybody who can. Will you play for us again soon' "

"Yes, you think you can talk to me condescendingly, like that," retorted the wretched soul, "and you don't know what cheek there is in your consolation and how it just lowers me the more. You have the right to, though. You are laughing out of the wrong corner of your mouth now; but once you were in the seventh heaven, and felt her arms about your neck-oh, G.o.d, it burns me in the pit of my stomach when I think of it-and you are conscious of all you have had, when you look down on me and my torments and think what a beggarly wretch I am."

"You haven't a pretty way of expressing yourself, Wehsal. I don't need to conceal my opinion of it, since you reproach me with being cheeky: it is really very repulsive and probably intentional on your part; you lay yourself out to be disgusting and humiliate yourself, the whole time. Are you really so desperately in love with her?" "Fearfully," answered Wehsal, with a head-shake. "Words cannot express what I have had to endure from my craving for her. I wish I could say it will be the death of me-but the trouble is, one can neither die nor live. It was a bit better while she was away, I was gradually beginning to forget her. But since she came back, and I have her daily before my eyes, I get attacks-I bite my hand and strike about me, and am beside myself. Such things ought not to be; yet one cannot wish not to have them. Whoever is in that state cannot wish not to be, it would be like wis.h.i.+ng not to live, because it has bound itself up with life. What good would it do to die? Afterwards- afterwards, yes, gladly. In her arms it would be bliss. But before-no; it would be preposterous, because life is longing, and longing is life-it cannot go against itself, that is the cursed catch in the game. Even when I say cursed, it is only a way of talking, as though I were somebody else, for in myself I cannot feel it so. There are many kinds of torture, Castorp, and whichever one you are under, your one desire and longing is to be free of it. But the torture of fleshly l.u.s.t is the only one you can never wish to be free of, except through satisfaction. Never, never in any other way, never at any price. So it is; the man who is not suffering from it doesn't dwell on it; but the man who is learns to know our Lord Jesus Christ, and his tears run down. Good Lord in heaven, what a thing it is, that the flesh can crave the flesh like that, simply because it is not its own flesh, but belongs to another soul-how strange, and yet, when you come to look at it, how una.s.suming, how friendly, how almost apologetic! One might say, almost, if that is all he wants, in G.o.d's name let him have it! What is it I want, Castorp? Do I want to kill her? Do I want to shed her blood? I only want to fondle her. Dear, good Castorp, don't despise me for whining like this-but after all, couldn't she let me have my way? There would be something higher about it, Castorp; I am not a beast of the field, in my way I am a man too. Pure fleshly desire casts about, here, there, and everywhere; it is not bound, not fixed, and so we call it animal. But when it is fixed upon a human being, with a human face, then we begin talking about love. It is not that I just crave her carnal part, to enjoy as if she were a fleshand-blood doll; if there were one least little thing different about her face, it might be that I should not crave her at all-which shows that I love her soul, and love her with my soul. For love of the face is love of the soul-"

"Why, Wehsal, what's the matter with you? You are off your head, you don't know how you are going on-"

"But that is just it," pursued the unhappy wretch, "that she has a soul, that she is a creature made up of soul and body. And her soul will have absolutely nothing to do with mine, nor her body either, and thence come, oh, G.o.d, the torments I suffer, and therefore is my desire condemned to shame, and my body must mortify itself for ever. Why will she know nothing of me, Castorp, either body or soul, and why is my desire a horror to her? Am I not a man? Even if I am repulsive? I swear to you that I am, that I would give her more than all the others who have lain there, once she opened to me the bliss of her embrace, of her arms, which are beautiful because her soul is so. There is not a glory of the flesh I would not offer her, Castorp, if it were only a matter of the body, not of the countenance, if it were not her accursed soul that will have none of me, without which I should have no longing for her body-that is the devil's treadmill in which I eternally go round and round."

"Hush, Wehsal, hush, the coachman can understand you. He does not turn his head, on purpose, but I can see by the expression of his back that he is listening."

"Yes, you're right, he is listening, and he understands. There you have again the thing I am talking about, and can see what it is like. If I were speaking of-of palingenesis, or hydrostatics, he would not understand, and would not listen, he would not have the faintest idea about it, nor care to have. There is no popular understanding for those things. But this business of body and soul, the last and highest and most ghastly private matter in the world, is also the most universal-everybody can understand it and laugh at anyone suffering from it, whose days are a torture of desire and his nights a torment of h.e.l.l. Castorp, dear Castorp, let me make my little moan to you-you don't know the sort of nights I have. Every night I dream of her, ah, what do I not dream of her, it makes me burn inside even to think of it! And all the dreams end the same way: she gives me a box on the ear, slaps me in the face, sometimes spits at me, with her face all distorted with disgust, and then I awake, covered with sweat and drowned in shame and desire-"

"That will do, Wehsal. We will sit quiet now, and make up our minds to hold our tongues until we reach the grocer's and someone gets in with us. That is my wish. I don't want to wound you, and I admit that your mental state is a quite choice and par ticular mess. But you know the story about the maiden who by way of being punished for something had snakes and toads hop out of her mouth, a snake or a toad for every word she spoke. The book does not say what she did about it, but I should think she finally had to keep her mouth shut."

"But every human being needs to express what he feels," said Wehsal complainingly, "to relieve himself, my dear Castorp, when he is in the state I am in!" "And every human being has the right to do it, too, if you like. But my dear Wehsal, it seems to me there are certain rights a man simply does not a.s.sert."

After which, according to Hans Castorp's desire, they were silent. Moreover, they were now arrived at the grocer's vine-clad cottage, where they needed not to linger at all, for Naphta and Settembrini stood waiting in the street; the one in his shabby fur, the other in a yellowish-white spring overcoat, copiously st.i.tched, and looking almost foppish. They all bowed and exchanged greetings, and Naphta took his place beside Ferge in the first landau, which now contained four persons, while Herr Settembrini added himself to the other two in the second carriage. Wehsal gave up his place on the back seat, and the Italian lolled there elegantly, as though on his native Corso; in his very best mood, and bubbling over with esprit. esprit.

He talked about the pleasure of driving, the charm of sitting still and being moved along at the same time amid a changing scene; showed a fatherly interest in Hans Castorp, even patted the forlorn Wehsal's cheek and bade him forget his own unsympathetic ego in admiration of the blithe exterior world, to which the Italian pointed with a s.p.a.cious gesture of his hand in its worn leather glove.

It was a delightful drive. The horses, all four of them st.u.r.dy, glossy, well-fed beasts, with a blaze on each forehead, covered the excellent road at a steady pace. There was no dust. The route was bordered here and there by crumbling rock tufted with gra.s.s and flowers. Telegraph-poles flew past. Their way wound along the mountain forests in pleasant curves that invited the interest and led it on; in the sunny distance glimmered mountain heights still partly covered with snow. They left behind their own accustomed valley, and the change of scene refreshed their spirits. At the edge of the forest they drew up, having decided to cover on foot the remainder of the distance to the goal they had in mind-a goal of which they had been for some time aware, by reason of the sound that came to their ears, at first scarcely perceptible, but steadily increasing in volume. They all heard, directly they dismounted, that far-away, sibilant, vibrating roar, that distant murmuring of water, as yet so faint that they would suddenly lose the sound and pause to listen again.

"It is mild enough now," Settembrini said. He had often been here before. "But when you come close, it is brutal, at this time of the year. You won't be able to hear yourselves think-mark my words."

Thus they entered the woods, along a path strewn with damp pine-needles: Pieter Peeperkorn first, leaning on Madame Chauchat's arm, his soft black hat drawn down on his brows, walking with his slumping gait; behind them Hans Castorp, hatless, like the other gentlemen, hands in pockets, head on one side, whistling softly as he looked about; then Naphta and Settembrini, then Ferge and Wehsal, last the Malay with the tea-basket on his arm. They all talked about the wood.

For the wood was not quite usual, it had a peculiarity which made it picturesque, exotic, even uncanny. It abounded in a hanging moss that draped and wreathed and wrapped the trees: the matted web of this parasitic plant hung and dangled in long, pallid beards from the branches, so that scarcely any pine-needles were visible for the shrouding veil. A complete, a bizarre transformation, a bewitched and morbid scene. For the trees were sick of this rank growth, it threatened to choke them to death-so all the visitors felt, as the little train wound along the path toward the sound, and the hissing and splas.h.i.+ng swelled slowly to a mighty tumult that justified Settembrini's prediction. A turn in the path revealed the bridge and the rocky ravine down which the torrent poured. At the moment their eyes perceived it, their ears seemed saluted with the maximum of sound-for which infernal was the only right word. The volume of water fell perpendicularly in a single cascade, perhaps nine or ten feet high, and of considerable breath, and foaming white shot away over the rocks. The frantic noise of its falling seemed to mingle all possible intensities and variations of sound-hissing, thundering, roaring, bawling, whispering, cras.h.i.+ng, crackling, droning, chiming- truly it was enough to drive one senseless. The visitors went very close, on the slippery rocks at the bottom of the chasm, and stood looking, bespattered with its spray, enveloped in its mist, their ears stopped by its insensate clamour. They exchanged glances and head-shakes and rather intimidated smiles as they stood regarding this spectacle, this long catastrophe of foam and fury, whose preposterous roaring deafened them, frightened them, bewildered their senses of sight and hearing, so that they even imagined they heard above, below, and on all sides, cries of warning, trumpet-calls, hoa.r.s.e human voices.

Gathered in a little group behind Mynheer Peeperkorn, Frau Chauchat surrounded by the five gentlemen, they stood and looked into the surging waters. The others could not see the Dutchman's face, but they saw him take off his hat, and breathe in the freshness with expanding chest. They communicated by looks and signs, for words would have been useless, even shrieked immediately into the ear, against that raging thunder. Their lips formed soundless phrases of wonder and admiration. Hans Castorp, Settembrini, and Ferge proposed, by nods and signs, to climb up the side of the ravine in which they stood, and look down upon the water from above. It was not difficult: a series of narrow steps cut in the rock led up to an upper storey, so to speak, of the forest. They climbed it, one behind the other, reached the bridge which spanned the water just where it arched to pour downward, and leaning on the rail, waved to the party below. Then they crossed over and climbed laboriously down on the other side of the stream, whence they rejoined their friends by a second bridge over the whirling torrent.

Tea-drinking was now indicated; and more than one of them said it might be well to withdraw a little from the din in order to enjoy that refreshment in comfort, not totally dumb, not utterly deafened and dazed. But they learned that Peeperkorn thought otherwise. He shook his head, and pointed several times with violence toward the ground. His distorted lips curled back with the emphasis of the "Here!" they shaped. What could the others do? In such matters he was accustomed to command, and the weight of his personality would always have been decisive, even if he had not been, as he was, master and mover of the expedition. Size itself is tyrannical, autocratic; thus it has always been, thus it will remain. Mynheer desired to eat in sight, in thunderous hearing of the waterfall, it was his mighty will. Who did not wish to go hungry must acquiesce. Most of them felt dissatisfied. Herr Settembrini saw that all chance of conversation, of a human interchange of ideas, would be out of the question, and flung up his hand with a gesture of resigned despair. The Malay hastened to carry out his master's will. Two camp-stools were set up against the rocks for Monsieur and Madame, and at their feet upon a cloth he spread out the contents of the basket: coffee-apparatus and gla.s.ses, thermos bottles, cake and wine. The others found places on boulders, or against the railing of the foot-bridge, holding their cups of hot coffee in their hands, their plates on their knees; they ate silently, amid the clamour. Peeperkorn sat with his coat-collar turned up and his hat on the ground beside him, drinking port out of a monogrammed silver cup, which he emptied many times. And suddenly he began to speak. Extraordinary man! It was impossible for him to hear his own voice, still more for the others to catch a syllable of what he let transpire without its in the least transpiring. But with the winecup in his right hand, he raised his forefinger, stretching his left arm palm outwards toward the water. They saw his kingly features move in speech, the mouth form words, which were as soundless as though spoken into empty, etherless s.p.a.ce. No one dreamed he would continue; with embarra.s.sed smiles they watched this futile activity, thinking every moment it would cease. But he went on, with tense, compelling gesture, to harangue the clamour that swallowed his words; directing upon this or that one of the company by turns the gaze of his pale little weary eyes, spanned wide beneath the lifted folds of his brow; and whoever felt himself addressed was constrained to nod back again, wide-eyed, openmouthed, hand to ear, as though any sort of effort to hear could better the utterly hopeless situation. He even stood up! There, in his crumpled ulster, that reached nearly to his heels, the collar turned up; bare-headed, cup in hand, the high brow creased with folds like some heathen idol's in a shrine, and crowned by the aureole of white hair like flickering flames; there he stood by the rocks and spoke, holding the circle of thumb and forefinger, with the lancelike others above it, before his face, and sealing his mute and incomprehensible toast with that compelling sign of precision. Such words as they were accustomed to hearing from him, they could read on his lips or divine from his gestures: "Settled" and "Absolutely!"-but that was all. They saw his head sink sideways, the broken bitterness of the lips, they saw the man of sorrows in his guise. But then quite suddenly flashed the dimple, the sybaritic roguishness, the garment s.n.a.t.c.hed up dancewise, the ritual impropriety of the heathen priest. He lifted his beaker, waved it half-circle before the a.s.sembled guests, and drank it out in three gulps, so that it stood bottom upwards. Then he handed it with outstretched arm to the Malay, who received it with an obeisance, and gave the sign to break up the feast.

They all bowed and thanked him as they hastened to do his bidding. Those crouching on the ground sprang up, the others jumped down from the railing. The little Javanese in his stiff hat and turned-up collar gathered the remnants of the meal. They went back along the path in the same order as they had come, through the draped, uncanny grove, to the high road and the waiting carriages.

This time Hans Castorp mounted with Alynheer and Madame, and sat opposite the pair with the humble Ferge, to whom all high thoughts were vain. Scarcely a word was spoken on the homeward drive. Mynheer sat with his jaw dropped and his hands palm upward on the carriage rug spread across his and Madame's knees. Settembrini and Naphta dismounted and took their leave before the carriages crossed the track and the watercourse, and Wehsal drove alone as far as the portal of the Berghof, where the party separated.

Was Hans Castorp's sleep this night rendered light and fitful by portents of which his soul knew naught-so that the slightest variation in the usual nightly peace of the Berghof, the faintest commotion, the barely perceptible sound of running, was enough to fetch him broad awake, to make him sit up in bed? He had been, in fact, awake for some time before a knock came on his door, as it did shortly after two o'clock. He answered at once, composed, alert and energetic, and heard the voice of one of the nurses in the house, saying in high, uncertain tones that Frau Chauchat would be glad if he would come at once to the first storey. Briskly he responded, sprang up and flung on some clothing, ran his fingers through his hair, and went down; not slow, not fast, and more in uncertainty as to the how than the what, in the meaning of these summons. The door to Peeperkorn's salon stood open, also that to his bedroom, where all the lights were burning. The two physicians, the Directress, Madame Chauchat, and the Malay were within, the last-named dressed not as usual, but in a sort of national costume, with a striped garment like a s.h.i.+rt, very long wide sleeves, a gaily coloured skirt, and a curious, cone-shaped hat made of yellow cloth on his head. He wore an ornament of amulets on his breast, and stood with folded arms at the head of the bed, wherein Pieter Peeperkorn lay on his back, his arms stretched out before him. Hans Castorp, paling, took in the scene. Frau Chauchat sat with her back toward him in a low chair at the foot of the bed. Her elbows rested on the coverlet, her chin was in her hands, whose fingers were buried in her upper lip, and she gazed into the face of her protector.

"Evening, m' boy," said Behrens, who stood talking in low tones with Krokowski and the Oberin, and nodded ruefully to Hans Castorp, with his upper lip drawn back. He was in his surgeon's coat, from the pocket of which a stethoscope stuck out, wore embroidered slippers and no collar. "It's all up with him," he added in a whisper. "Gone for good, o'er the border and awa'. Come have a look-run your experienced eye over him-you'll agree there's nothing for us to do."

Hans Castorp approached the bed on tiptoe. The Malay without turning his head followed the movement, until his eyeb.a.l.l.s showed white. The young man a.s.sured himself by a side glance that Frau Chauchat was paying no heed; then stood by the bed in his accustomed posture, his weight on one leg, his head on one side, his hands folded across his stomach, reverently, reflectively gazing. Pieter Peeperkorn lay under the red satin coverlet, in his tricot tricot s.h.i.+rt, as Hans Castorp had so often seen him. His hands were veined a bluish black, likewise parts of his face; a considerable disfigurement, though the kingly features remained unaltered. Beneath the white aureole of hair the masklike folds carved by the habitual gesture of a lifetime ran in a row of four or five, straight across the brow and then in a right angle down the temples; they were more striking than ever, by contrast with the drooping lids and the repose of the features. The cracked lips were slightly parted. The . cyanosis indicated abrupt stoppage, a violent apoplectic arrest of the vital functions. s.h.i.+rt, as Hans Castorp had so often seen him. His hands were veined a bluish black, likewise parts of his face; a considerable disfigurement, though the kingly features remained unaltered. Beneath the white aureole of hair the masklike folds carved by the habitual gesture of a lifetime ran in a row of four or five, straight across the brow and then in a right angle down the temples; they were more striking than ever, by contrast with the drooping lids and the repose of the features. The cracked lips were slightly parted. The . cyanosis indicated abrupt stoppage, a violent apoplectic arrest of the vital functions.

Hans Castorp stood awhile, reverently, observing all this; hesitating to move, expectant of being addressed by the "widow." As he was not, and could not bring himself to disturb her, he turned toward the little group of other persons present. Behrens jerked his head in the direction of the salon, and Hans Castorp followed him thither. "Suicide?" he asked, subdued but terse.

"Rather," said the Hofrat, with a shrug, and added: "up to the hilt. To the nth nth power. Have you ever seen a toy like this before?" he went on, and drew out of the pocket of his smock an irregularly shaped case, from which he took a small object and presented it to the young man's notice. "Nor I either. But it is well worth seeing. We live and learn. It's a fantastic little gadget, and ingenious. I took it out of his hand. Take care, if it drips on your skin it will blister." power. Have you ever seen a toy like this before?" he went on, and drew out of the pocket of his smock an irregularly shaped case, from which he took a small object and presented it to the young man's notice. "Nor I either. But it is well worth seeing. We live and learn. It's a fantastic little gadget, and ingenious. I took it out of his hand. Take care, if it drips on your skin it will blister."

Hans Castorp turned the puzzling little object in his hands. It was made of steel, gold, ivory, and rubber, wonderful to see. There were two curving p.r.o.ngs of bright steel, extremely sharp-pointed; a slightly spiral centre portion of gold-inlaid ivory, in which the p.r.o.ngs were somewhat movable and could sink up to a point; and a bulb of semi-hard black rubber. The whole thing was only about two inches long. "What is it?" Hans Castorp asked.

"That," answered Behrens, "is an organized hypodermic syringe. Or, if you like, it is a copy of the mechanism of the cobra's bite. Understand? You don't seem to," he went on, as Hans Castorp continued to stare at the bizarre little instrument. "These are the teeth. They are not solid all the way, there is a ca.n.a.l inside, the thickness of a hair; you can see the issue of it quite plainly, here just above the point. They are also open at the base, of course, and communicate with the excretory duct of the bulb, which runs into the ivory middle part. When the teeth bite, they sink in a little, and the pressure on the reservoir shoots the contents into the ca.n.a.ls, so that the poison gets into circulation the moment the fangs sink in the flesh. Perfectly simple, when you see it like that; you just have to get the idea. He probably had it made after his own design." "Surely," Hans Castorp said.

"The amount must have been very small," continued the Hofrat. "What it lacked inquant.i.ty it made up for in-"

"Dynamic," Hans Castorp finished for him.

"Well, yes. What it was we shall soon find out. It will be worth knowing too, it has something curious to teach us. Shall we wager that the native on duty over there, who dressed himself up like that for the night's work, could tell us all we want to know? I suspect it is a combination of animal and vegetable poisons, the most powerful known, for it must have worked like lightning. Everything points to its having taken away his breath, paralysed his respiration, you know, quick suffocation, probably easy and painless."

"G.o.d grant it," said Hans Castorp piously, handed the uncanny toy back to the Hofrat and returned to the bedchamber.

Madame Chauchat and the Malay were there alone. And this time Clavdia lifted herface toward the young man as he neared the bed.

"You had a right to be called," she said.

"It was kind of you," he answered, "and you are right." He availed himself of the third person plural as used by the peoples of the cultured West. "We were brothers. I feel shamed in the depth of my soul that I tried to hide it, and used circ.u.mlocutions before other people. Were you with him at the last?" "The servant called me when all was over," she answered.

"He was built on such a grand scale," Hans Castorp began again, "that he considered it a blasphemy, a cosmic catastrophe, to be found wanting in feeling. For you must know, he regarded himself as the instrument of G.o.d's marriage. That was a piece of majestic tomfoolery-when one is moved one can say things that sound cra.s.s and irreverent, but are after all more solemn than the conventional religious formulas." "C'est une abdication," she said. "He knew of our folly?"

"I was not able to prevent it, Clavdia. He guessed, when I refused to kiss you on the forehead, in his presence. At this moment, his presence is rather symbolic than actual-but will you let me do it now?"

She moved her head toward him, in a little nod, the eyes closed. He pressed his lips on her brow. The brown, doglike eyes of the Malay servant watched the scene, rolling sidewise, until the whites showed.

The Great G.o.d Dumps

ONCE more we hear Herr Hofrat Behren's voice-let us give it our ear. For we hear it perhaps for the last time. Some day even the story itself will come to an end. Long has it lasted; or, rather, the pace of its contentual time has so increased that there is no more holding it, even its musical time is running out. Perhaps we shall have no further opportunity to hear the lively cadences of the Rhadamanthine tongue. The Hofrat said to Hans Castorp: "Castorp, old c.o.c.k, you're bored. Chap-fallen, I see it every day, disgust and ennui are written on your brow. You're collapsed like a punctured tire-if some first-cla.s.s excitement doesn't come along every day, you pull a face as though you were saying: 'H'm, small potatoes and and few in the hill!' Am I right, or am I not?" Hans Castorp said never a word-a sure sign that his inward man was indeed pervaded with gloom. few in the hill!' Am I right, or am I not?" Hans Castorp said never a word-a sure sign that his inward man was indeed pervaded with gloom.

"Right, then, of course, as I always am," Behrens answered himself. "Well, I can't have you spreading the toxin of your disaffection all over my community, you disgruntled citizen, you. I must convince you that you are not forgotten of G.o.d and man, that the powers above have an eye, an unchanging eye upon you, and ceaselessly ponder your welfare. Old Behrens hasn't forsaken you yet, my lad. Well, joking aside, I've been thinking about your case, and in the watches of the night something has come to me. I might almost speak of a revelation-in short, I promise great things from my new idea, nothing more nor less than your complete cure and triumphal progress down to the flat-land, before you can say Jack Robinson."

"Yes," he went on, after a pause for effect, "you may well open your eyes"-Hans Castorp had done nothing of the sort, merely blinked at him rather sleepy and distraught-"of course you haven't an idea how old Behrens can say such a thing. Well, it's like this: it cannot have escaped your acute apperceptions that there is something about your case that doesn't hold water. The symptoms of infection have not for a long time corresponded to the local condition, which is undoubtedly very much improved. It's not only since yesterday that I've been thinking about it. Here is your latest photo, take it and hold it up to the light. See there! The sheerest pessimist and cavillar-as the Kaiser says-could not see very much in it to find fault with. Some of the foci are absorbed, the area is smaller and more clearly defined, which you are experienced enough to know is a sign of healing. Nothing here to explain the unreliability of your domestic heater, my man. The doctor finds himself under the necessity of casting about for another cause." Hans Castorp's bow conveyes at most a civil interest.

"You would think old Behrens must admit to having made a mistake in the treatment? Well, if you did, you've come a cropper again; sized the thing up wrong, and old Behrens too. The treatment was not wrong, but it was just possibly one-sided. The possibility has occurred to me that your symptoms were not necessarily to be referred to tuberculosis alone-because it is out of the question to refer them to it any longer. There must be some other source of trouble. In my view, you've got cocci." "Yes," he repeated with increase of emphasis, and in acknowledgment of the bow with which Hans Castorp accepted his statement, "it is my profound conviction that you have streps-which, of course, is not necessarily alarming."

Of alarm there could be no talk: Hans Castorp's face expressed at most a sort of ironic recognition, either of his companion's acuteness, or of the new dignity with which the Hofrat had hypothetically invested him.

"No call for panic," he varied his theme. "Everybody has cocci. Any a.s.s can have streps. You needn't be puffed up. It is not very long since we have known that one can have streptococci in the blood without showing any symptoms of infection. And many of my colleagues are as yet unacquainted with the situation which confronts us, namely, that a man can even have tubercular bacilli in his blood without being any the worse for it. We aren't more than three steps from the conception that tuberculosis is a disease of the blood." Hans Castorp politely found that truly remarkable.

"When I say streps," Behrens began again, "you must not picture a well-known orsevere type of illness. If this little one has really settled down and made itself at home in you, the bacteriological blood-test will show it. But whether it is really the cause of the fever-supposing it is present-that we can only tell from the effect of the streptovaccine treatment. This, my dear friend, is the technique, and I promise myself unheard-of results. Tuberculosis is the most long-winded thing in the world; but affections of this sort can be cured very quickly to-day; if you react to the inoculations, you will be as sound as a bell inside six weeks. Well, what do you say to that? That little ole Behrens has his head on his shoulders, what?"

"It is only a hypothesis for the moment, isn't it?" Hans Castorp said languidly.

"But a demonstrable hypothesis! A highly fruitful hypothesis!" the Hofrat responded. "You'll see how fruitful it is, when the cocci begin to grow in our culture. To-morrow afternoon we'll rap you; we'll let your blood according to the sacred rites of the village barber. It's diverting in itself, and may have miraculous results." Hans Castorp declared himself ready for the diversion, and thanked the Hofrat in due form for his efforts in his behalf. He put his head on one side and watched Behrens paddle off. It was true: the intervention had come at the critical moment, Rhadamanthus had not been far out in the description he gave of Hans Castorp's face and air. The new undertaking was put forth-quite explicitly, there had been no attempt to wrap it up-in order to tide him over the crisis he was in, which betrayed itself by a bearing very like the departed Joachim's, when he was mentally working himself up to a certain desperate resolve.

And further. It seemed to Hans Castorp that not only he himself had arrived at this point, but that all the world, "the whole show," as he said, had arrived there with him; he found it hard to differentiate his particular case from the general. He had experienced the extravagant ending of his connexion with a certain personality. A commotion had ensued in the house. There had been a farewell between Clavdia Chauchat and himself, the surviving member of a severed brotherhood; a farewell, uttered in the shadow of a tragic renunciation, and followed by her second departure from the Berghof. Now all these events had put the young man in a frame of mind to find life itself not precisely canny. Everything appeared to have gone permanently and increasingly awry, as though a demonic power-which had indeed for a long time given hints of its malign influence-had suddenly taken control, in a way to induce secret consternation and almost thoughts of flight. The name of the demon was Dumps.

The reader will accuse the writer of laying it on pretty thick when he a.s.sociates two such ideas as these, and ascribes to mere staleness a mystical and supernatural character. But we are not indulging in flights of fancy. We are adhering strictly to the personal experience of our simple-minded hero, which in some way defying exact definition it has been given us to know, and which indicates that when all the uses of this world unitedly become flat, stale, and unprofitable, they are actually possessed by a demonic quality capable of giving rise to the feelings we have described. Hans Castorp looked about him. He saw on every side the uncanny and the malign, and he knew what it was he saw: life without time, life without care or hope, life as depravity, a.s.siduous stagnation; life as dead.

Yet it was occupied too, it had activities of various kinds, pursued simultaneously; now and again one of these would a.s.sume the proportions of a craze, and subordinate everything to itself. Old residents experienced the periodic revival of more than one of these fads. So for instance amateur photography, always playing an important role at the Berghof, had twice become a perfect mania, lasting weeks and months on end. Everywhere one saw people absorbedly bent over cameras supported in the pit or their stomachs, focusing and snapping the shutter; and floods of snapshots were handed round at table. It became a point of honour to do the developing oneself. The supply of dark-rooms in the establishment was not sufficient, the bedroom windows and doors were draped with black cloth, and people busied themselves by dim red lights over chemical baths, until something caught fire, the Bulgarian student at the "good" Russian table was nearly reduced to ashes, and a prohibitory decree went forth from the management. Next they tired of ordinary photography, the fas.h.i.+on veered to flashlights and colour photography after Lumiere. They were enthusiastic over groups of people with startled, staring eyes in livid faces dazed by the magnesium flare, resembling the corpses of the murdered set upright. Hans Castorp had a framed diapositive, showing him with a copper-coloured visage, a bra.s.sy b.u.t.tercup in his b.u.t.tonhole, standing among b.u.t.tercups in a poisonously green meadow, with Frau Stohr on one side of him in a sky-blue blouse, and Fraulein Levi on the other in a blood-red sweater.

Then there was the collecting of postage stamps, a considerable interest at all times, but rising periodically to an obsession. Everybody pasted, haggled, exchanged, took in philatelic magazines, carried on correspondence with special vendors, foreign and domestic, with societies and private owners; astonis.h.i.+ng sums were spent for rare specimens, even by people whose means were scarcely adequate to their expenses at the Berghof.

Postage stamps would have their day, and give way to the next folly on the list, which might be the acc.u.mulation and endless munching of all possible brands of chocolate. Everybody's mouth was stained brown, and the Berghof kitchen offered its most elaborate delicacies to captious and indifferent diners who had lost their appet.i.tes to Milka-nut Milka-nut, Chocolat a la creme d'amandes Chocolat a la creme d'amandes, Marquis-napolitains Marquis-napolitains, and gold-besprinkled cats' tongues.