The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

  He fell silent. He was still sitting just as at the start—bending toward the woman reclining there in her paper tricorn, his intertwined feet far back under his creaking chair, her pencil between his fingers—and from lowered eyes, Hans Lorenz Castorp’s blue eyes, he looked out into the room, which was empty now. The guests had scattered. The piano in the far corner across from them tinkled softly, disjointedly; the patient from Mannheim was playing with just one hand, while the teacher at his side paged through the music, which she now held on her knees. As the conversation between Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat died away, the pianist stopped playing altogether, laying the hand with which he had been doodling back in his lap. Fräulein Engelhart went on thumbing through the music. Only these four were left now from the Mardi Gras party—they sat there motionless. The stillness lasted several minutes. Slowly it weighed down on the couple at the piano until their heads sank deeper and deeper, the Mannheimer’s toward the keyboard, Fräulein Engelhart’s toward her music. Finally, almost simultaneously, as if by some silent agreement, they stood up circumspectly; ingeniously avoiding any glances toward the other occupied corner of the room, with heads tucked low and arms stiff to their sides, the man from Mannheim and the teacher softly vanished together on tiptoe by way of the reading room.

  “They’re all retiring to their rooms,” Frau Chauchat said. “Those were the last; it’s getting late. Ah yes, our carnival festivities are over.” And she raised both arms to remove her paper hat from her reddish hair, wound in a braid around her head. “You know the consequences, monsieur.”

  But Hans Castorp rejected this, keeping his eyes closed and not changing his position in the least. He replied, “Never, Clavdia. Never will I address you formally, never in life or in death, if I may put it that way, and surely I may. That form of address, as cultivated in the West and in civilized society, seems terribly bourgeois and pedantic to me. Why, indeed, use such forms? Formality is the same thing as pedantry! All those things you have established in regard to morality, you and your ailing compatriot—do you seriously suppose they surprise me? What sort of dolt do you take me for? So then tell me, what do you think of me?”

  “That is a subject requiring little thought. You are a decent, simple fellow from a good family, with handsome manners, a docile pupil to his teachers, who will soon return to the flatlands in order to forget completely that he ever spoke in a dream here and to help repay his great and powerful fatherland with honest labor on the wharves. And there you have your own intimate photograph, taken with no apparatus at all. You do find it a good likeness, I hope?”

  “It lacks some of the details that Behrens found there.”

  “Ah, the doctors are always finding something, it’s what they’re good at.”

  “You sound like Monsieur Settembrini. And my fever? Where does it come from?”

  “Oh, go on, it’s an episode of no consequence that will pass quickly.”

  “No, Clavdia, you know perfectly well that what you say is not true and is spoken without conviction, of that I am certain. The fever in my body and the pounding of my exhausted heart and the trembling in my hands, it is anything but an episode, for it is nothing but”—and he bent his pale face deeper toward hers, his lips twitching—“nothing but my love for you, yes, the love that overwhelmed me the instant I laid eyes on you, or better, the love that I acknowledged once I recognized you—and it is that love, obviously, that has led me to this place.”

  “What foolishness!”

  “Oh, love is nothing if not foolish, something mad and forbidden, an adventure in evil. Otherwise it is merely a pleasant banality, good for singing calm little songs down on the plains. But when I recognized you, recognized my love for you—it’s true, I knew you before, from days long past, you and your marvelously slanting eyes and your mouth and the voice with which you speak—there was a time long ago, when I was still just a schoolboy, that I asked you for a pencil, just so I could meet you at last, because I loved you with an irrational love, and no doubt what Behrens found in my body are the lingering traces of my age-old love for you, proof that I was sick even back then.”

  His teeth banged together. While he fantasized, he had pulled one foot out from under his creaking chair, and shoving it out in front of him and letting his other knee touch the floor, he was now kneeling beside her, his head bent low, his whole body quivering. “I love you,” he babbled, “I have always loved you, for you are the ‘intimate you’ of my life, my dream, my destiny, my need, my eternal desire.”

  “Come, come!” she said. “If your teachers could only see you—”

  But in his despair he merely shook his head, his face still directed toward the carpet, and replied, “I don’t care, I don’t care about Carducci and the republic of eloquence and human progress over time, because I love you!”

  She softly stroked the short-cropped hair at the back of his head with one hand. “My little bourgeois!” she said. “My handsome bourgeois with the little moist spot. Is it true that you love me so much?”

  Thrilled by her touch—on both knees now, head thrown back, eyes closed—he went on, “Ah, love, you know. The body, love, death, are simply one and the same. Because the body is sickness and depravity, it is what produces death, yes, both of them, love and death, are carnal, and that is the source of their terror and great magic! But death, you see, is on the one hand something so disreputable, so impudent that it makes us blush with shame; and on the other it is a most solemn and majestic force—something much more lofty than a life spent laughing, earning money, and stuffing one’s belly—much more venerable than progress chattering away the ages—because it is history and nobility and piety, the eternal and the sacred, something that makes you remove your hat and walk on tiptoe. In the same way, the body, and love of the body, too, are indecent and disagreeable; the body’s surface blushes and turns pale because it is afraid and ashamed of itself. But at the same time it is a great and divine glory, a miraculous image of organic life, a holy miracle of form and beauty, and love of it, of the human body, is likewise an extremely humanistic affair and an educating force greater than all the pedagogy in the world! Ah, ravishing organic beauty, not done in oils or stone, but made of living and corruptible matter, full of the feverish secret of life and decay! Consider the marvelous symmetry of the human frame, the shoulders and the hips and the breasts as they blossom at each side of the chest, and the ribs arranged in pairs, and the navel set amid the supple belly, and the dark sexual organs between the thighs! Consider the shoulder blades shifting beneath the silky skin of the back, and the spine descending into the fresh doubled luxuriance of the buttocks, and the great network of veins and nerves that branch out from the trunk through the armpits, and the way the structure of the arms corresponds to that of the legs. Oh, the sweet inner surfaces of the elbow and the hollow of the knee, with their abundance of organic delicacies beneath the padding of flesh! What an immense festival of caresses lies in those delicious zones of the human body! A festival of death with no weeping afterward! Yes, good God, let me smell the odor of the skin on your knee, beneath which the ingeniously segmented capsule secretes its slippery oil! Let me touch in devotion your pulsing femoral artery where it emerges at the top of your thigh and then divides farther down into the two arteries of the tibia! Let me take in the exhalation of your pores and brush the down—oh, my human image made of water and protein, destined for the contours of the grave, let me perish, my lips against yours!”

  When he finished speaking, he did not open his eyes; he remained just as he was—his head thrown back, his hands stretched out before him, still holding the little silver pencil—quivering and swaying there on his knees.

  She said, “You are indeed a gallant suitor, one who knows how to woo in a very profound, German fashion.”

  And she set her paper hat on his head.

  “Adieu, my Carnival Prince! I can predict that you’ll see a nasty rise in your fever chart this evening.”

  Then she gli
ded out of her chair, glided across the carpet to the door, where she stopped and turned halfway back to him, one bare arm raised, a hand on the hinge. Over her shoulder she said softly, “Don’t forget to return my pencil.”

  And she left.

  CHAPTER 6

  CHANGES

  What is time? A secret—insubstantial and omnipotent. A prerequisite of the external world, a motion intermingled and fused with bodies existing and moving in space. But would there be no time, if there were no motion? No motion, if there were no time? What a question! Is time a function of space? Or vice versa? Or are the two identical? An even bigger question! Time is active, by nature it is much like a verb, it both “ripens” and “brings forth.” And what does it bring forth? Change! Now is not then, here is not there—for in both cases motion lies in between. But since we measure time by a circular motion closed in on itself, we could just as easily say that its motion and change are rest and stagnation—for the then is constantly repeated in the now, the there in the here. Moreover, since, despite our best desperate attempts, we cannot imagine an end to time or a finite border around space, we have decided to “think” of them as eternal and infinite—in the apparent belief that even if we are not totally successful, this marks some improvement. But does not the very positing of eternity and infinity imply the logical, mathematical negation of things limited and finite, their relative reduction to zero? Is a sequence of events possible in eternity, a juxtaposition of objects in infinity? How does our makeshift assumption of eternity and infinity square with concepts like distance, motion, change, or even the very existence of a finite body in space? Now there’s a real question for you!

  Hans Castorp turned these sorts of questions over and over in his own mind—a mind that, since his arrival up here, had tended to quibble and think indiscreet thoughts of this sort and had perhaps been especially honed and emboldened for grumbling by a naughty, but overwhelming desire, for which he had now paid dearly. He asked himself these questions, asked good Joachim, even asked the valley buried under snow now since time out of mind, although he certainly never heard anything resembling an answer from any party—hard to say which was least helpful. In fact, he asked himself such questions only because he could not find any answers. It was almost impossible to engage Joachim’s interest in these matters, since he thought of nothing—as Hans Castorp had himself noted one evening in French—except being a soldier down in the plains, and lived in increasingly bitter conflict with his hopes, which teased him by now drawing nearer, now vanishing into the distance. Indeed, of late he seemed inclined to end the struggle with one decisive blow. Yes, good, patient, honest Joachim, a man given totally to service and discipline, was subject to attacks of insubordination, rising up against the “Gaffky scale,” an analytical method by which people down in the laboratory (or, as it was usually called, the “lab”) ascertained and specified the degree to which a patient was infected. And, depending on whether only a few isolated bacilli were to be found in the sample analyzed, or whether they were present in untold quantities, the patient was assigned a Gaffky number—on which everything else depended. Every patient had to reckon with it as the infallible indication of his chances of being cured; the number of months or years someone would have to stay here could easily be determined from it—beginning with just dropping by for six months all the way up to a “life sentence,” which all too often meant very little in terms of actual time spent. And so it was against the Gaffky scale that Joachim rebelled, openly refusing to believe in its authority—well, not quite openly, not to the higher-ups, but to his cousin and even his tablemates. “I’ve had it up to here; they’re not going to make a fool of me any longer,” he said loudly, the blood rising in his darkly tanned face. “Two weeks ago, I was two on the Gaffky, a trifle, the best prospects. And today it’s nine, a teeming population, and the plains are simply out of the question. How in the devil is a man supposed to know how he stands, it’s intolerable. There’s a fellow over at Schatzalp, a Greek farmer, sent up here from Arcadia by an agent of the sanatorium—a hopeless case of galloping consumption, they expect his demise any day, but not one bacillus has ever been counted in his sputum. Whereas the fat Belgian captain, who left here healthy just as I was arriving, was ten on the Gaffky, simply swarming with it, and all he had was a tiny little cavity. To hell with Gaffky! I’ve had it—I’m going home, even if it kills me!” This was how Joachim put it—and it pained everyone to see this gentle, sedate young man in open rebellion. Whenever he heard Joachim threaten to chuck it all, Hans Castorp could not help thinking of certain things he had heard a third party say in French. But he kept his peace—was he supposed to reproach his cousin with the example of his own patience, the way Frau Stöhr did? She actually admonished Joachim not to be so obstinate, but to show some humility and to see in her, Karoline Stöhr, an example of faithful perseverance, of pure willpower: the way she denied herself the pleasure of running the show at home as a housewife in Cannstatt, in order that someday she might be restored whole to her husband, a completely cured wife. No, Hans Castorp really wanted none of that, especially because ever since Mardi Gras his conscience had bothered him; that is to say, his conscience told him that Joachim had to regard a certain incident, about which they never spoke but of which Joachim was undoubtedly aware, as an instance of betrayal, desertion, and faithlessness, particularly when one thought of a pair of round, brown eyes, unwarranted giggles, and orange perfume, to the effects of which he was exposed five times a day—and each time sternly, properly lowered his eyes to his plate. Yes, even in the quiet reluctance with which Joachim responded to his speculations and opinions about “time,” Hans Castorp thought he sensed something of a military propriety that included a reproach to his conscience. As for the valley, this winter valley under a deep blanket of snow, to which Hans Castorp likewise directed his metaphysical questions from his splendid lounge chair, its peaks, summits, ridges, and brown-green-reddish forests stood there silent in time, were draped in the web of silently flowing earthly days, now sparkling against the deep blue of the sky, now wrapped in mists, now aglow with the red of the setting sun, now glittering hard as diamonds in a world turned magical by moonlight—but always in the snow, while six unbelievably long months had scampered by. And all the guests declared they could not stand to see any more snow, it disgusted them, summer alone had more than satisfied them in that regard, nothing but masses of snow, day in, day out, mounds of snow, pillows of snow, whole slopes of snow—it was more than any human being could stand, deadly to both mind and spirit. And they put on sunglasses, tinted green, yellow, or red—to protect their eyes, to be sure, but more to protect their hearts.

  So, valley and mountains under snow for six months now? Seven! Time sweeps onward while we tell our tale—not only our time, the time we devote to the telling, but also the profoundly past time of Hans Castorp and those who share his fate up there in the snow—and it brings forth changes. Everything that Hans Castorp had anticipated—and all too hastily put into words for Herr Settembrini as they returned from Platz that afternoon before Mardi Gras—was well on its way to being fulfilled. Not that Midsummer Night was imminent, but Easter had already passed through the white valley, April was advancing, Pentecost loomed ahead in open view, and spring would soon begin and with it the snow would melt—though not all of it, there was always some on the peaks to the south and in the ravines of the Rhätikon chain to the north, not to mention what would fall all through summer without sticking. But the trundling year definitely promised decisive changes very soon, for it had now been six weeks since the night of Mardi Gras, when Hans Castorp had borrowed a pencil from Frau Chauchat—and given it back to her, though only after first asking for some little memento, which he now carried in his pocket—a time twice as long as Hans Castorp had originally intended to stay up here.

  Six weeks had indeed passed since that evening when Hans Castorp had made Clavdia Chauchat’s acquaintance and returned to his room considerably later than con
scientious Joachim to his; six weeks since the morning after, the day of Frau Chauchat’s departure—her departure for now, her temporary departure for Daghestan, far to the east, beyond the Caucasus. That her departure was intended as merely temporary, was a departure only for now, that Frau Chauchat planned to return, although it was not certain just when—hoped to return, indeed would surely return—as to all that, Hans Castorp had received direct, spoken assurances, though not during the conversation in a foreign language we have already shared with our readers, but during an interval we have chosen to pass over in silence by breaking the time-bound flow of our narrative and so allowing only pure time to take its course. At any rate, the young man had received those assurances and comforting promises before returning to room 34 that night. He did not, however, exchange a single word with Frau Chauchat the next day, hardly saw her—only twice, and then from some distance: at dinner, when she had appeared in her blue skirt and white wool sweater, slamming the glass door and gracefully slinking to her table one last time, which set his heart pounding in his throat and almost caused him to hide his face in his hands—only Fräulein Engelhart’s sharp gaze had prevented that; and then again, at three that afternoon, as she was leaving, although he had not actually been present, but had merely watched from a hall window with a view to the driveway.

  Her departure had taken place in much the same fashion as others Hans Castorp had seen during his stay: the sleigh or carriage stopped at the ramp, driver and porter strapped down trunks, and around the main entrance were gathered sanatorium guests—both friends of the person who, whether cured or not, whether to live or to die, was returning now to the flatlands, and mere onlookers playing hooky from their rest cure to take in the ambiance. A gentleman in a frock coat from the management, perhaps even the doctors, would appear, and then the departing guest came out—usually with a beaming smile, graciously greeting both bystanders and friends left behind, and generally quite animated by the excitement of the moment. And this time it had been Frau Chauchat who emerged, smiling, arms full of flowers, wearing a large hat and a long, coarse traveling coat trimmed with fur; she was accompanied by Herr Buligin, her concave countryman, who was to travel partway with her. Like every other departing guest, she, too, seemed happy and excited, if only because life would surely change—whether a person departed with medical approval or out of weary desperation broke off his stay at his own risk and with a bad conscience. Her cheeks were flushed, she kept up a constant flow of chatter—in Russian, presumably—while someone tucked a fur blanket around her legs. Not just Frau Chauchat’s countrymen and tablemates were present, but countless other guests were on hand as well. Dr. Krokowski showed up, smiling pithily and showing his yellow teeth under his beard. More flowers were presented. The great-aunt gave her some candies, “konfekti” as she called them in Russian; the teacher, Fräulein Engelhart, appeared, as did the man from Mannheim—although he stood off at some distance, watching gloomily; but then his mournful eyes glided up to the window, where he had spotted Hans Castorp, and lingered gloomily there for a while. Director Behrens had not come, having presumably said his good-byes to her on some other private occasion. The onlookers waved and called out, the horses pulled; as the sleigh moved forward, Frau Chauchat’s upper body sank back against the cushions and her smiling, slanted eyes quickly surveyed the façade of the Berghof and rested for the fraction of a second on Hans Castorp’s face. He was pale as he hurried back to his room and out onto the balcony, from where he could catch another glimpse of the sleigh as it made its jingling way down the approach road toward Dorf; then he threw himself in his chair, and from his breast pocket he pulled his memento—not reddish-brown pencil shavings this time, but a little plate of glass in a narrow frame, which had to be held up to the light for him to see what was there: the portrait of Clavdia’s interior, without a face, but revealing the organs of her chest cavity and the tender framework of her upper body, delicately surrounded by the soft, ghostlike forms of her flesh.