The Magic Mountain Part 43

And enjoy, all else excelling,

Sweet liberty!"

"Yes, yes," he said, as before; and pa.s.sed on to a fourth record, something very dear and good.

It is not our fault that it was French again, nor are we responsible for its once more striking the military note. It was an intermezzo, a solo number, the Prayer from Gounod's Faust Faust. The singer, a character warmly sympathetic to our young man's heart, was called in the opera Valentine; but Hans Castorp named him by another and dearly familiar, sadness-evoking name; whose onetime bearer he had come largely to identify with the operatic character whom the wonder-box was making vocal-though the latter to be sure had a much more beautiful voice, a warm and powerful baritone. His song was in three parts: the first consisting of two closely related "corner"- strophes, religious in character, almost in the style of the Protestant chorale, and a middle-strophe, bold and chevaleresque chevaleresque, war-like, light-hearted, yet G.o.d-fearing too, and essentially French and military. The invisible character sang:

"Now the parting hour has come I must leave my loved home"

and turned under these circ.u.mstances to G.o.d, imploring Him to take under His special care and protection his beloved sister. He was going to the wars: the rhythm changed, grew brisk and lively, dull care and sorrow might go hang! He, the invisible singer, longed to be in the field, to stand in the thickest of the fray, where danger was hottest, and fling himself upon the foe-gallant, G.o.d-fearing, altogether French. But if, he sang, G.o.d should call him to Himself, then would He look down protectingly on "thee"-meaning the singer's sister, as Hans Castorp was perfectly aware, yet the word thrilled him to the depths, and his emotion prolonged itself as the hero sang, to a mighty choral accompaniment:

"O Lord of heaven, hear my prayer!

Guard Marguerite within Thy shelt'ring care!"

There the record ceased. We have dwelt upon it because of Hans Castorp's especial penchant; but also because it played a certain role on a later and most strange occasion. And now we come back to the fifth and last piece in his group of high favourites: this time not French, but something especially and exemplarily German; not opera either, but a lied lied, one of those which are folk-song and masterpiece together, and from the combination receive their peculiar stamp as spiritual epitomes. Why should we beat about the bush? It was Schubert's "Linden-tree," it was none other than the old, old favourite, "Am Brunnen vor dem Tore."

It was sung to piano accompaniment by a tenor voice; and the singer was a lad of parts and discernment, who knew how to render with great skill, fine musical feeling and finesse in recitative his simple yet consummate theme. We all know that the n.o.ble lied lied sounds rather differently when given as a concert-number from its rendition in the childish or the popular mouth. In its simplified form the melody is sung straight through; whereas in the original art-song, the key changes to minor in the second of the eight-line stanzas, changes back again with beautiful effect to major in the fifth line; is dramatically resolved in the following "bitter blasts" and "facing the tempest"; and returns again only with the last four lines of the third stanza, which are repeated to finish out the melody. The truly compelling turn in the melody occurs three times, in its modulated second half, the third time in the repet.i.tion of the last half-strophe "Ay, onward, ever onward." The enchanting turn, which we would not touch too nearly in bold words, comes on the phrases "Upon its branches fair," "A message in my ear," "Yet ever in my breast"; and each time the tenor rendered them, in his clear, warm voice, with his excellent breathing-technique, with the suggestion of a sob, arid so much sensitive, beauty-loving intelligence, the listener felt his heart gripped in undreamed-of fas.h.i.+on; with an effect the singer knew how to heighten by head-tones of extraordinary ardour on the lines "I found my solace there," and "For rest and peace are here." In the repet.i.tion of the last line, "Here shouldst thou find thy rest," he sang the "shouldst thou" the first time yearningly, at full strength, but the second in the tenderest flute-tones. sounds rather differently when given as a concert-number from its rendition in the childish or the popular mouth. In its simplified form the melody is sung straight through; whereas in the original art-song, the key changes to minor in the second of the eight-line stanzas, changes back again with beautiful effect to major in the fifth line; is dramatically resolved in the following "bitter blasts" and "facing the tempest"; and returns again only with the last four lines of the third stanza, which are repeated to finish out the melody. The truly compelling turn in the melody occurs three times, in its modulated second half, the third time in the repet.i.tion of the last half-strophe "Ay, onward, ever onward." The enchanting turn, which we would not touch too nearly in bold words, comes on the phrases "Upon its branches fair," "A message in my ear," "Yet ever in my breast"; and each time the tenor rendered them, in his clear, warm voice, with his excellent breathing-technique, with the suggestion of a sob, arid so much sensitive, beauty-loving intelligence, the listener felt his heart gripped in undreamed-of fas.h.i.+on; with an effect the singer knew how to heighten by head-tones of extraordinary ardour on the lines "I found my solace there," and "For rest and peace are here." In the repet.i.tion of the last line, "Here shouldst thou find thy rest," he sang the "shouldst thou" the first time yearningly, at full strength, but the second in the tenderest flute-tones.

So much for the song, and the rendering of it. For the earlier selections, we may flatter ourselves, perhaps, that we have been able to communicate to the reader some understanding, more or less precise, of Hans Castorp's intimate emotional partic.i.p.ation in the chosen numbers of his nightly programme. But to make clear what this last one, the old "Linden-tree," meant to him, is truly a ticklish endeavour; requiring great delicacy of emphasis if more harm than good is not to come of the undertaking.

Let us put it thus: a conception which is of the spirit, and therefore significant, is so because it reaches beyond itself to become the expression and exponent of a larger conception, a whole world of feeling and sentiment, which, whether more or less completely, is mirrored in the first, and in this wise, accordingly, the degree of its significance measured. Further, the love felt for such a creation is in itself "significant": betraying something of the person who cherishes it, characterizing his relation to that broader world the conception bodies forth-which, consciously or unconsciously, he loves along with and in the thing itself.

May we take it that our simple hero, after so many years of hermetic-pedagogic discipline, of ascent from one stage of being to another, has now reached a point where he is conscious of the "meaningfulness" of his love and the object of it? We a.s.sert, we record, that he has. To him the song meant a whole world, a world which he must have loved, else he could not have so desperately loved that which it represented and symbolized to him. We know what we are saying when we add-perhaps rather darkly-that he might have had a different fate if his temperament had been less accessible to the charms of the sphere of feeling, the general att.i.tude of mind, which the lied lied so profoundly, so mystically epitomized. The truth was that his very destiny had been marked by stages, adventures, insights, and these flung up in his mind suitable themes for his "stock-taking" activities, and these, in their turn, ripened him into an intuitional critic of this sphere, of this its absolutely exquisite image, and his love of it. To the point even that he was quite capable of bringing up all three as objects of his conscientious scruples! so profoundly, so mystically epitomized. The truth was that his very destiny had been marked by stages, adventures, insights, and these flung up in his mind suitable themes for his "stock-taking" activities, and these, in their turn, ripened him into an intuitional critic of this sphere, of this its absolutely exquisite image, and his love of it. To the point even that he was quite capable of bringing up all three as objects of his conscientious scruples!

Only one totally ignorant of the tender pa.s.sion will suppose that such scruples can detract from the object of love. On the contrary, they but give it spice. It is they which lend love the spur of pa.s.sion, so that one might almost define pa.s.sion as misgiving love. But wherein lay Hans Castorp's conscientious and stocktaking misgiving, as to the ultimate propriety of his love for the enchanting lied lied and the world whose image it was? What was the world behind the song, which the motions of his conscience made to seem a world of forbidden love? It was death. and the world whose image it was? What was the world behind the song, which the motions of his conscience made to seem a world of forbidden love? It was death.

What utter and explicit madness! That glorious song! An indisputable masterpiece, sprung from the profoundest and holiest depths of racial feeling; a precious possession, the archetype of the genuine; embodied loveliness. What vile detraction! Yes. Ah, yes! All very fine. Thus must every upright man speak. But for all that, behind this so lovely and pleasant artistic production stood-death. It had with death certain relations, which one might love, yet not without consciously, and in a "stocktaking" sense, acknowledging a certain illicit element in one's love. Perhaps in its original form it was not sympathy with death; perhaps it was something very much of the people and racy of life; but spiritual sympathy with it was none the less sympathy with death. At first blush proper and pious enough, indisputably. But the issues of it were sinister.

What was all this he was thinking? He would not have listened to it from one of you. Sinister issues. Fantastical, dark-corner, misanthropic, torture-chamber thoughts, Spanish black and the ruff, l.u.s.t not love-and these the issues of pure-eyed loveliness!

Unquestioning confidence, Hans Castorp knew, he had never placed in Herr Settembrini. But he remembered now an admonition the enlightened mentor had given him in past time, at the beginning of his hermetic career, on the subject of "spiritual backsliding" to darker ages. Perhaps it would be well to make cautious application of that wisdom to the present case. It was the backsliding which Herr Settembrini had characterized as "disease"; the epitome itself, the spiritual phase to which one backslid-that too would appeal to his pedagogic mind as "diseased"? And even so? Hans Castorp's loved nostalgic lay, and the sphere of feeling to which it belonged-morbid? Nothing of the sort. They were the sanest, the homeliest in the world. And yet-This was a fruit, sound and splendid enough for the instant or so, yet extraordinarily p.r.o.ne to decay; the purest refreshment of the spirit, if enjoyed at the right moment, but the next, capable of spreading decay and corruption among men. It was the fruit of life, conceived of death, pregnant of dissolution; it was a miracle of the soul, perhaps the highest, in the eye and sealed with the blessing of conscienceless beauty; but on cogent grounds regarded with mistrust by the eye of shrewd geniality dutifully "taking stock" in its love of the organic; it was a subject for self-conquest at the definite behest of conscience.

Yes, self-conquest-that might well be the essence of triumph over this love, this soul-enchantment that bore such sinister fruit! Hans Castorp's thoughts, or rather his prophetic half-thoughts soared high, as he sat there in night and silence before his truncated sarcophagus of music. They soared higher than his understanding, they were alchemistically enhanced. Ah, what power had this soul-enchantment! We were all its sons, and could achieve mighty things on earth, in so far as we served it. One need have no more genius, only much more talent, than the author of the "Lindenbaum," to be such an artist of soul-enchantment as should give to the song a giant volume by which it should subjugate the world. Kingdoms might be founded upon it, earthly, alltoo-earthly kingdoms, solid, "progressive," not at all nostalgic-in which the song degenerated to a piece of gramophone music played by electricity. But its faithful son might still be he who consumed his life in self-conquest, and died, on his lips the new word of love which as yet he knew not how to speak. Ah, it was worth dying for, the enchanted lied! lied! But he who died for it, died indeed no longer for it; was a hero only because he died for the new, the new word of love and the future that whispered in his heart. These, then, were Hans Castorp's favourite records. But he who died for it, died indeed no longer for it; was a hero only because he died for the new, the new word of love and the future that whispered in his heart. These, then, were Hans Castorp's favourite records.

Highly Questionable

EDHIN KROKOWSKI'S lectures had in the swift pa.s.sage of the years taken an unexpected turn. His researches, which dealt with psycho-a.n.a.lysis and the dream-life of humanity, had always had a subterranean, not to say catacombish character; but now, by a transition so gradual that one scarcely marked it, they had pa.s.sed over to the frankly supernatural, and his fortnightly lectures in the dining-room-the prime attraction of the house, the pride of the prospectus, delivered in a drawling, foreign voice, in frock-coat and sandals from behind a little covered table, to the rapt and motionless Berghof audience-these lectures no longer treated of the disguised activities of love and the retransformation of the illness into the conscious emotion. They had gone on to the extraordinary phenomena of hypnotism and somnambulism, telepathy, "dreaming true," and second sight; the marvels of hysteria, the expounding of which widened the philosophic horizon to such an extent that suddenly before the listener's eyes would glitter darkly puzzles like that of the relation of matter to the psychical, yes, even the puzzle of life itself, which, it appeared, was easier to approach by uncanny, even morbid paths than by the way of health.

We say this because we consider it our duty to confound those flippant spirits who declared that Dr. Krokowski had resorted to mystification for the sake of redeeming his lectures from hopeless monotony; in other words, with purely emotional ends in view. Thus spoke the slanderous tongues which are everywhere to be found. True, the gentlemen at the Monday lectures flicked their ears harder than ever to make them hear; Fraulein Levi looked, if possible, even more like a wax figure wound up by machinery. But these effects were as legitimate as the train of thought pursued by the mind of the learned gentleman, and for that he might claim that it was not only consistent but even inevitable. The field of his study had always been those wide, dark tracts of the human soul, which one had been used to call the subconsciousness, though they might perhaps better be called the superconsciousness, since from them sometimes emanates a knowingness beyond anything of which the conscious intelligence is capable, and giving rise to the hypothesis that there may subsist connexions and a.s.sociations between the lowest and least illumined regions of the individual soul and a wholly knowing All-soul. The province of the subsconscious, "occult" in the proper sense of the word, very soon shows itself to be occult in the narrower sense as well, and forms one of the sources whence flow the phenomena we have agreed thus to characterize. But that is not all. Whoever recognizes a symptom of organic disease as an effect of the conscious soul-life of forbidden and hystericized emotions, recognizes the creative force of the psychical within the material-a force which one is inclined to claim as a second source of magic phenomena. Idealist of the pathological, not to say pathological idealist, he sees himself at the point of departure of certain trains of thought which will shortly issue in the problem of existence, that is to say in the problem of the relation between spirit and matter. The materialist, son of a philosophy of sheer animal vigour, can never be dissuaded from explaining spirit as a mere phosph.o.r.escent product of matter; whereas the idealist, proceeding from the principle of creative hysteria, is inclined, and very readily resolved, to answer the question of primacy in the exactly opposite sense. Take it all in all, there is here nothing less than the old strife over which was first, the chicken or the egg-a strife which a.s.sumes its extraordinary complexity from the fact that no egg is thinkable except one laid by a hen, and no hen that has not crept out of a previously postulated egg.

Well then, it was such matters as these that Dr. Krokowski discussed in his lectures. He came upon them organically, logically, legitimately-that fact cannot be overemphasized. We will even add that he had already begun to treat of them before the arrival of Ellen Brand upon the scene of action, and the progress of matters into the empirical and experimental stage.

Who was Ellen Brand? We had almost forgotten that our readers do not know her, so familiar to us is the name. Who was she? Hardly anybody, at first glance. A sweet young thing of nineteen years, a flaxen-haired Dane, not from Copenhagen but from Odense-on-Funen, where her father had a b.u.t.ter business. She herself had been in commercial life for a couple of years or so; with a sleeve-protector on her writing-arm she had sat over heavy books, perched on a revolving stool in a provincial branch of a city bank-and developed temperature. It was a trifling case, probably more suspected than real, though Elly was indeed fragile, fragile and obviously chlorotic-distinctly sympathetic too, giving one a yearning to lay one's hand upon the flaxen head-as the Hofrat regularly did, when he spoke to her in the dining-room. A northern freshness emanated from her, a chaste and gla.s.sy, maidenly chaste atmosphere surrounded her, she was entirely lovable, with a pure, open look from childlike blue eyes, and a pointed, fine, High-German speech, slightly broken, with small typical misp.r.o.nunciations. About her features there was nothing unusual. Her chin was too short. She sat at table with the Kleefeld, who mothered her.

Now this little Fraulein Brand, this little Elly, this friendly-natured little Danish bicycle-rider and stoop-shouldered young counter-jumper, had things about her, of which no one could have dreamed, at first sight of her transparent small personality, but which began to discover themselves after a few weeks; and these it became Dr. Krokowski's affair to lay bare in all their extraordinariness.

The learned man received his first hint in the course of a general evening conversation. Various guessing games were being played; hidden objects found by the aid of strains from the piano, which swelled higher when one approached the right spot, and died away when the seeker strayed on a false scent. Then one person went outside and waited while it was decided what task he should perform; as, exchanging the rings of two selected persons; inviting someone to dance by making three bows before her; taking a designated book from the shelves and presenting it to this or that person-and more of the same kind. It is worthy of remark that such games had not been the practice among the Berghof guests. Who had introduced them was not afterwards easy to decide; certainly it had not been Elly Brand, yet they had begun since her arrival.

The partic.i.p.ants were nearly all old friends of ours, among them Hans Castorp. They showed themselves apt in greater or less degree-some of them were entirely incapable. But Elly Brand's talent was soon seen to be surpa.s.sing, striking, unseemly. Her power of finding hidden articles was pa.s.sed over with applause and admiring laughter. But when it came to a concerted series of actions, they were struck dumb. She did whatever they had covenanted she should do, did it directly she entered the room; with a gentle smile, without hesitation, without the help of music. She fetched a pinch of salt from the dining-room, sprinkled it over Lawyer Paravant's head, took him by the hand, led him to the piano and played the beginning of a nursery ditty with his forefinger; then brought him back to his seat, curtseyed, fetched a footstool and finally seated herself at his feet, all of that being precisely what they had cudgelled their brains to set her for a task. She had been listening.

She reddened. With a sense of relief at her embarra.s.sment they began in chorus to

chide her; but she a.s.sured them she had not blushed in that sense. She had notlistened, not outside, not at the door, truly, truly she had not!

Not outside, not at the door?

"Oh, no"-she begged their pardon. She had listened after she came back, in theroom, she could not help it.

How not help it?

Something whispered to her, she said. It whispered and told her what to do, softly, but quite clearly and distinctly.

Obviously that was an admission. In a certain sense she was aware, she had confessed, that she had cheated. She should have said beforehand that she was no good to play such a game, if she had the advantage of being whispered to. A compet.i.tion loses all sense if one of the compet.i.tors has unnatural advantages over the others. In a sporting sense, she was straightway disqualified-but disqualified in a way that made chills run up and down their backs. With one voice they called on Dr. Krokowski, they ran to fetch him, and he came. He was immediately at home in the situation, and stood there, st.u.r.dy, heartily smiling, in his very essence inviting confidence. Breathless they told him they had something quite abnormal for him, an omniscient, a girl with voices. Yes, yes? Only let them be calm, they should see. This was his native heath, quagmirish and uncertain footing enough for the rest of them, yet he moved upon it with a.s.sured tread. He asked questions, and they told him. Ah, there she was-come, my child, is it true, what they are telling me? And he laid his hand on her head, as scarcely anyone could resist doing. Here was much ground for interest, none at all for consternation. He plunged the gaze of his brown, exotic eyes deep into Ellen Brand's blue ones, and ran his hand down over her shoulder and arm, stroking her gently. She returned his gaze with increasing submission, her head inclined slowly toward her shoulder and breast. Her eyes were actually beginning to glaze, when the master made a careless outward motion with his hand before her face. Immediately thereafter he expressed his opinion that everything was in perfect order, and sent the overwrought company off to the evening cure, with the exception of Elly Brand, with whom he said he wished to have a little chat.

A little chat. Quite so. But n.o.body felt easy at the word, it was just the sort of word Krokowski the merry comrade used by preference, and it gave them cold s.h.i.+vers. Hans Castorp, as he sought his tardy reclining-chair, remembered the feeling with which he had seen Elly's illicit achievements and heard her shamefaced explanation; as though the ground were s.h.i.+fting under his feet, and giving him a slightly qualmish feeling, a mild seasickness. He had never been in an earthquake; but he said to himself that one must "experience a like sensation of unequivocal alarm. But he had also felt great curiosity at these fateful gifts of Ellen Brand; combined, it is true, with the knowledge that their field was with difficulty accessible to the spirit, and the doubt as to whether it was not barren, or even sinful, so far as he was concerned-all which did not prevent his feeling from being what in fact it actually was, curiosity. Like everybody else, Hans Castorp had, at his time of life, heard this and that about the mysteries of nature, or the supernatural. We have mentioned the clairvoyante greataunt, of whom a melancholy tradition had come down. But the world of the supernatural, though theoretically and objectively he had recognized its existence, had never come close to him, he had never had any practical experience of it. And his aversion from it, a matter of taste, an aesthetic revulsion, a reaction of human pride- if we may use such large words in connexion with our modest hero-was almost as great as his curiosity. He felt beforehand, quite clearly, that such experiencess whatever the course of them, could never be anything but in bad taste, unintelligible and humanly valueless. And yet he was on fire to go through them. He was aware that his alternative of "barren" or else "sinful," bad enough in itself, was in reality not an alternative at all, since the two ideas fell together, and calling a thing spiritually unavailable was only an a-moral way of expressing its forbidden character. But the "placet experiri" planted in Hans Castorp's mind by one who would surely and resoundingly have reprobated any experimentation at all in this field, was planted firmly enough. By little and little his morality and his curiosity approached and overlapped, or had probably always done so; the pure curiosity of inquiring youth on its travels, which had already brought him pretty close to the forbidden field, what time he tasted the mystery of personality, and for which he had even claimed the justification that it too was almost military in character, in that it did not weakly avoid the forbidden, when it presented itself. Hans Castorp came to the final resolve not to avoid, but to stand his ground if it came to more developments in the case of Ellen Brand. Dr. Krokowski had issued a strict prohibition against any further experimentation on the part of the laity upon Fraulein Brand's mysterious gifts. He had pre-empted the child for his scientific use, held sittings with her in his a.n.a.lytical oubliette, hypnotized her, it was reported, in an effort to arouse and discipline her slumbering potentialities, to make researches into her previous psychic life. Hermine Kleefeld, who mothered and patronized the child, tried to do the same; and under the seal of secrecy a certain number of facts were ascertained, which under the same seal she spread throughout the house, even unto the porter's lodge. She learned, for example, that he who-or that which-whispered the answers into the little one's ear at games was called Holger. This Holger was the departed and etherealized spirit of a young man, the familiar, something like the guardian angel, of little Elly. So it was he who had told all that about the pinch of salt and the tune played with Lawyer Paravant's forefinger? Yes, those spirit lips, so close to her ear that they were like a caress, and tickled a little, making her smile, had whispered her what to do. It must have been very nice when she was in school and had not prepared her lesson to have him tell her the answers. Upon this point Elly was silent. Later she said she thought he would not have been allowed. It would be forbidden to him to mix in such serious matters-and moreover, he would probably not have known the answers himself. It was learned, further, that from her childhood up Ellen had had visions, though at widely separated intervals of time; visions, visible and invisible. What sort of thing were they, now- invisible visions? Well, for example: when she was a girl of sixteen, she had been sitting one day alone in the living-room of her parents' house, sewing at a round table, with her father's dog Freia lying near her on the carpet. The table was covered with a Turkish shawl, of the kind old women wear three-cornered across their shoulders. It covered the table diagonally, with the corners somewhat hanging over. Suddenly Ellen had seen the corner nearest her roll slowly up. Soundlessly, carefully, and evenly it turned itself up, a good distance toward the centre of the table, so that the resultant roll was rather long; and while this was happening, the dog Freia started up wildly, bracing her forefeet, the hair rising on her body. She had stood on her hind legs, then run howling into the next room and taken refuge under a sofa. For a whole year thereafter she could not be persuaded to set foot in the living-room.

Was it Holger, Fraulein Kleefeld asked, who had rolled up the cloth? Little Brand did not know. And what had she thought about the affair? But since it was absolutely impossible to think anything about it, little Elly had thought nothing at all. Had she told her parents? No. That was odd. Though so sure she had thought nothing about it, Elly had had a distinct impression, in this and similar cases, that she must keep it to herself, make a profound and shamefaced secret of it. Had she taken it much to heart? No, not particularly. What was there about the rolling up of a cloth to take to heart? But other things she had-for example, the following:

A year before, in her parent's house at Odense, she had risen, as was her custom, in the cool of the early morning and left her room on the ground-floor, to go up to the breakfast-room, in order to brew the morning coffee before her parents rose. She had almost reached the landing, where the stairs turned, when she saw standing there close by the steps her elder sister Sophie, who had married and gone to America to live. There she was, her physical presence, in a white gown, with, curiously enough, a garland of moist water-lilies on her head, her hands folded against one shoulder, and nodded to her sister. Ellen, rooted to the spot, half joyful, half terrified, cried out: "Oh, Sophie, is that you?" Sophie had nodded once again, and dissolved. She became gradually transparent, soon she was only visible as an ascending current of warm air, then not visible at all, so that Ellen's path was clear. Later, it transpired that Sister Sophie had died of heart trouble in New Jersey, at that very hour.

Hans Castorp, when Fraulein Kleefeld related this to him, expressed the view that there was some sort of sense in it: the apparition here, the death there-after all, they did hang together. And he consented to be present at a spiritualistic sitting, a tabletipping, gla.s.s-moving game which they had determined to undertake with Ellen Brand, behind Dr. Krokowski's back, and in defiance of his jealous prohibition. A small and select group a.s.sembled for the purpose, their theatre being Fraulein Kleefeld's room. Besides the hostess, Fraulein Brand, and Hans Castorp, there were only Frau Stohr, Fraulein Levi, Herr Albin, the Czech Wenzel, and Dr. Ting-Fu. In the evening, on the stroke of ten, they gathered privily, and in whispers mustered the apparatus Hermine had provided, consisting of a medium-sized round table without a cloth, placed in the centre of the room, with a winegla.s.s upside-down upon it, the foot in the air. Round the edge of the table, at regular intervals, were placed twenty-six little bone counters, each with a letter of the alphabet written on it in pen and ink. Fraulein Kleefeld served tea, which was gratefully received, as Frau Stohr and Fraulein Levi, despite the harmlessness of the undertaking, complained of cold feet and palpitations. Cheered by the tea, they took their places about the table, in the rosy twilight dispensed by the pink-shaded table-lamp, as Fraulein Kleefeld, in concession to the mood of the gathering, had put out the ceiling light; and each of them laid a finger of his right hand lightly on the foot of the winegla.s.s. This was the prescribed technique. They waited for the gla.s.s to move.

That should happen with ease. The top of the table was smooth, the rim of the gla.s.s well ground, the pressure of the tremulous fingers, however lightly laid on, certainly unequal, some of it being exerted vertically, some rather sidewise, and probably in sufficient strength to cause the gla.s.s finally to move from its position in the centre of the table. On the periphery of its field it would come in contact with the marked counters; and if the letters on these, when put together, made words that conveyed any sort of sense, the resultant phenomenon would be complex and contaminate, a mixed product of conscious, half-conscious, and unconscious elements; the actual desire and pressure of some, to whom the wish was father to the act, whether or not they were aware of what they did; and the secret acquiescence of some dark stratum in the soul of the generality, a common if subterranean effort toward seemingly strange experiences, in which the suppressed self of the individual was more or less involved, most strongly, of course, that of little Elly. This they all knew beforehand-Hans Castorp even blurted out something of the sort, after his fas.h.i.+on, as they sat and waited. The ladies' palpitation and cold extremities, the forced hilarity of the men, arose from their knowledge that they were come together in the night to embark on an unclean traffic with their own natures, a fearsome prying into unfamiliar regions of themselves, and that they were awaiting the appearance of those illusory or halfrealities which we call magic. It was almost entirely for form's sake, and came about quite conventionally, that they asked the spirits of the departed to speak to them through the movement of the gla.s.s. Herr Albin offered to be spokesman and deal with such spirits as manifested themselves-he had already had a little experience at seances.

Twenty minutes or more went by. The whisperings had run dry, the first tension relaxed. They supported their right arms at the elbow with their left hands. The Czech Wenzel was almost dropping off. Ellen Brand rested her finger lightly on the gla.s.s and directed her pure, childlike gaze away into the rosy light from the table-lamp. Suddenly the gla.s.s tipped, knocked, and ran away from under their hands. They had difficulty in keeping their fingers on it. It pushed over to the very edge of the table, ran along it for a s.p.a.ce, then slanted back nearly to the middle; tapped again, and remained quiet.

They were all startled; favourably, yet with some alarm. Frau Stohr whimpered that she would like to stop, but they told her she should have thought of that before, she must just keep quiet now. Things seemed in train. They stipulated that, in order to answer yes or no, the gla.s.s need not run to the letters, but might give one or two knocks instead.

"Is there an Intelligence present?" Herr Albin asked, severely directing his gaze over their heads into vacancy. After some hesitation, the gla.s.s tipped and said yes. "What is your name?" Herr Albin asked, almost gruffly, and emphasized his energetic speech by shaking his head.

The gla.s.s pushed off. It ran with resolution from one point to another, executing a zigzag zigzag by returning each time a little distance toward the centre of the table. It visited H, O, and L, then seemed exhausted; but pulled itself together again and sought out the G, and E, and the R. Just as they thought. It was Holger in person, the spirit Holger, who understood such matters as the pinch of salt and that, but knew better than to mix into lessons at school. He was there, floating in the air, above the heads of the little circle. What should they do with him? A certain diffidence possessed them, they took counsel behind their hands, what they were to ask him. Herr Albin decided to question him about his position and occupation in life, and did so, as before, severely, with frowning brows; as though he were a cross-examining counsel. The gla.s.s was silent awhile. Then it staggered over to the P, zigzagged and returned to O. Great suspense. Dr. Ting-Fu giggled and said Holger must be a poet. Frau Stohr began to laugh hysterically; which the gla.s.s appeared to resent, for after indicating the E it stuck and went no further. However, it seemed fairly clear that Dr. Ting-Fu was right. by returning each time a little distance toward the centre of the table. It visited H, O, and L, then seemed exhausted; but pulled itself together again and sought out the G, and E, and the R. Just as they thought. It was Holger in person, the spirit Holger, who understood such matters as the pinch of salt and that, but knew better than to mix into lessons at school. He was there, floating in the air, above the heads of the little circle. What should they do with him? A certain diffidence possessed them, they took counsel behind their hands, what they were to ask him. Herr Albin decided to question him about his position and occupation in life, and did so, as before, severely, with frowning brows; as though he were a cross-examining counsel. The gla.s.s was silent awhile. Then it staggered over to the P, zigzagged and returned to O. Great suspense. Dr. Ting-Fu giggled and said Holger must be a poet. Frau Stohr began to laugh hysterically; which the gla.s.s appeared to resent, for after indicating the E it stuck and went no further. However, it seemed fairly clear that Dr. Ting-Fu was right.

What the deuce, so Holger was a poet? The gla.s.s revived, and superfluously, in apparent pridefulness, rapped yes. A lyric poet, Fraulein Kleefeld asked? She said ly-ric, as Hans Castorp involuntarily noted. Holger was disinclined to specify. He gave no new answer, merely spelled out again, this time quickly and unhesitatingly, the word poet, adding the T he had left off before.

Good, then, a poet. The constraint increased. It was a constraint that in reality had to do with manifestations on the part of uncharted regions of their own inner, their subjective selves, but which, because of the illusory, half-actual conditions of these manifestations, referred itself to the objective and external. Did Holger feel at home, and content, in his present state? Dreamily, the gla.s.s spelled out the word tranquil. Ah, tranquil. It was not a word one would have hit upon oneself, but after the gla.s.s spelled it out, they found it well chosen and probable. And how long had Holger been in this tranquil state? The answer to this was again something one would never have thought of, and dreamily answered; it was "A hastening while." Very good. As a piece of ventriloquistic poesy from the Beyond, Hans Castorp, in particular, found it capital. A "hastening while" was the time-element Holger lived in: and of course he had to answer as it were in parables, having very likely forgotten how to use earthly terminology and standards of exact measurement. Fraulein Levi confessed her curiosity to know how he looked, or had looked, more or less. Had he been a handsome youth? Herr Albin said she might ask him herself, he found the request beneath his dignity. So she asked if the spirit had fair hair.

"Beautiful, brown, brown curls," the gla.s.s responded, deliberately spelling out the word brown twice. There was much merriment over this. The ladies said they were in love with him. They kissed their hands at the ceiling. Dr. Ting-Fu, giggling, said Mister Holger must be rather vain.

Ah, what a fury the gla.s.s fell into! It ran like mad about the table, quite at random, rocked with rage, fell over and rolled into Frau Stohr's lap, who stretched out her arms and looked down at it pallid with fear. They apologetically conveyed it back to its station, and rebuked the Chinaman. How had he dared to say such a thing-did he see what his indiscretion had led to? Suppose Holger was up and off in his wrath, and refused to say another word! They addressed themselves to the gla.s.s with the extreme of courtesy. Would Holger not make up some poetry for them? He had said he was a poet, before he went to hover in the hastening while. Ah, how they all yearned to hear him versify! They would love it so!

And lo, the good gla.s.s yielded and said yes! Truly there was something placable and good-humoured about the way it tapped. And then Holger the spirit began to poetize, and kept it up, copiously, circ.u.mstantially, without pausing for thought, for dear knows how long. It seemed impossible to stop him. And what a surprising poem it was, this ventriloquistic effort, delivered to the admiration of the circle-stuff of magic, and sh.o.r.eless as the sea of which it largely dealt. Sea-wrack in heaps and bands along the narrow strand of the broad-flung bay; an islanded coast, girt by steep, cliffy dunes. Ah, see the dim green distance faint and die into eternity, while beneath broad veils of mist in dull carmine and milky radiance the summer sun delays to sink! No word can utter how and when the watery mirror turned from silver into untold changeful colour-play, to bright or pale, to spreading, opaline and moonstone gleams-or how, mysteriously as it came, the voiceless magic died away. The sea slumbered. Yet the last traces of the sunset linger above and beyond. Until deep in the night it has not grown dark: a ghostly twilight reigns in the pine forests on the downs, bleaching the sand until it looks like snow. A simulated winter forest all in silence, save where an owl wings rustling flight. Let us stray here at this hour-so soft the sand beneath our tread, so sublime, so mild the night! Far beneath us the sea respires slowly, and murmurs a long whispering in its dream. Does it crave thee to see it again? Step forth to the sallow, glacierlike cliffs of the dunes, and climb quite up into the softness, that runs coolly into thy shoes. The land falls harsh and bushy steeply down to the pebbly sh.o.r.e, and still the last parting remnants of the day haunt the edge of the vanis.h.i.+ng sky. Lie down here in the sand! How cool as death it is, how soft as silk, as flour! It flows in a colourless, thin stream from thy hand and makes a dainty little mound beside thee. Dost thou recognize it, this tiny flowing? It is the soundless, tiny stream through the hour-gla.s.s, that solemn, fragile toy that adorns the hermit's hut. An open book, a skull, and in its slender frame the double gla.s.s, holding a little sand, taken from eternity, to prolong here, as time, its troubling, solemn, mysterious essence...

Thus Holger the spirit and his lyric improvisation, ranging with weird flights of thought from the familiar sea-sh.o.r.e to the cell of a hermit and the tools of his mystic contemplation. And there war more; more, human and divine, involved in daring and dreamlike terminology-over which the members of the little circle puzzled endlessly as they spelled it out; scarcely finding time for hurried though rapturous applause, so swiftly did the gla.s.s zigzag back and forth, so swiftly the words roll on and on. There was no distant prospect of a period, even at the end of an hour. The gla.s.s improvised inexhaustibly of the pangs of birth and the first kiss of lovers; the crown of sorrows, the fatherly goodness of G.o.d; plunged into the mysteries of creation, lost itself in other times and lands, in interstellar s.p.a.ce; even mentioned the Chaldeans and the zodiac; and would most certainly have gone on all night, if the conspirators had not finally taken their fingers from the gla.s.s, and expressing their grat.i.tude to Holger, told him that must suffice them for the time, it had been wonderful beyond their wildest dreams, it was an everlasting pity there had been no one at hand to take it down, for now it must inevitably be forgotten, yes, alas, they had already forgotten most of it, thanks to its quality, which made it hard to retain, as dreams are. Next time they must appoint an amanuensis to take it down, and see how it would look in black and white, and read connectedly. For the moment, however, and before Holger withdrew to the tranquillity of his hastening while, it would be better, and certainly most amiable of him, if he would consent to answer a few practical questions. They scarcely as yet knew what, but would he at least be in principle inclined to do so, in his great amiability?

The answer was yes. But now they discovered a great perplexity-what should they ask? It was as in the fairy-story, when the fairy or elf grants one question, and there is danger of letting the precious advantage slip through the fingers. There was much in the world, much of the future, that seemed worth knowing, yet it was so difficult to choose. At length, as no one else seemed able to settle, Hans Castorp, with his finger on the gla.s.s, supporting his cheek on his fist, said he would like to know what was to be the actual length of his stay up here, instead of the three weeks originally fixed. Very well, since they thought of nothing better, let the spirit out of the fullness of his knowledge answer this chance query. The gla.s.s hesitated, then pushed off. It spelled out something very queer, which none of them succeeded in fathoming, it made the word, or the syllable Go, and then the word Slanting and then something about Hans Castorp's room. The whole seemed to be a direction to go slanting through Hans Castorp's room, that was to say, through number thirty-four. What was the sense of that? As they sat puzzling and shaking their heads, suddenly there came the heavy thump of a fist on the door.