The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

  Any deceased person? Hans Castorp continued to hold back. Nevertheless, the idea that it could be any departed soul occupied his thoughts to such an extent that in the course of the next three days he came to the opposite conclusion. Or to be more precise, it did not take three days, but only a few minutes of one of them to accomplish this. His change of mind occurred while he was alone in the music room one evening, playing yet once again the recording stamped with the personality of Valentin, for whom he felt such great sympathy. He sat in his chair and listened to this good soldier pray as he answered the call to depart for the field of honor; he sang

  And if God takes me, should I die,

  I shall protect you from on high,

  O Marguerite.

  And as always when Hans Castorp listened to this aria, deep emotions stirred within him, strengthened this time by certain possibilities that were compacted into a wish, and he thought, “Idle and sinful or not, it would certainly be wonderfully strange and a very special adventure. And knowing him as I do, if he has anything to do with this, he won’t hold it against me.” And he recalled the calm, generous reply of “Oh, please, go ahead and look,” that he had once received out of the dark night of the X-ray laboratory, when he had thought it necessary to ask permission to commit certain optical indiscretions.

  The next morning he announced he would take part in that evening’s session, and half an hour after supper he joined the habitués of the uncanny as they made their way to the basement, chatting nonchalantly. They were all permanent residents, either firmly rooted or at least of very long standing, like Dr. Ting-Fu and Wenzel the Bohemian, whom he met on the stairs, and the group they greeted in Dr. Krokowski’s office: Herr Ferge and Herr Wehsal for instance, the prosecutor, the ladies Levi and Kleefeld, not to mention those who had told him about the apparition of Holger’s head, and, of course, the medium herself, Elly Brand.

  As Hans Castorp passed through the door with the calling card tacked decoratively to it, he found the Nordic child already under the doctor’s wing. Dressed in his black clinical smock, Krokowski was right beside her, one arm paternally flung over her shoulders; she stood waiting at the foot of the two steps that led from the basement down into the assistant’s apartments, and the two of them together greeted arriving guests. These greetings were characterized by unhesitating, expansive cheerfulness on all sides. The intent, it appeared, was to keep the mood free of any constraining solemnity. They all talked at once in loud, jocular voices, gave one another encouraging pokes in the ribs, and made a point of showing just how at ease they were. Beneath Dr. Krokowski’s beard, under that pithy expression that reassured and enjoined confidence, his yellow teeth were constantly in evidence as he repeated his “my d’gods” and were particularly visible as he welcomed Hans Castorp, who said nothing and looked unsure of himself. “Courage, my friend,” his host seemed to say, tossing his head back with a little shake and pumping the young man’s hand almost roughly, “why should anyone look down-in-the-mouth? No cant, no sticky-sweet piety here, just the manly cheerfulness of unbiased research!” But this pantomimed greeting did not make Hans Castorp feel any better. We noted that in coming to this decision, he had recalled his experience in the X-ray laboratory, and yet that association by no means suffices to describe his state of mind. Rather, it all evoked in’ him very lively memories of a unique and unforgettable hodgepodge of emotions—nervousness, playfulness, curiosity, disgust, and awe—that he had felt years before when, a little tipsy, he joined some pals and set out for the first time to visit a brothel in Sankt Pauli.

  All invited guests were now present, and so Dr. Krokowski asked his two assistants—this time it was Frau Magnus and ivory-hued Fräulein Levi—to join him in the adjacent office for a physical examination of the medium, while Hans Castorp and the other nine participants waited in the consulting room for the completion of this standard procedure of scientific rigor, always conducted without any findings. Hans Castorp knew this room well, from the days when he had spent some hours chatting here with the psychoanalyst, behind Joachim’s back. It was an ordinary doctor’s waiting room like any other: back on the left, by the window, a desk with an armchair, plus an easy chair for the patient; a reference library on both sides of the door to the adjacent office; on the right at the rear, near the desk and chairs, but separated from them by a folding screen, a chaise longue set at an angle and covered in oilcloth; in the same corner, a glass cupboard filled with instruments, facing a bust of Hippocrates in the near corner; on the right wall, just above the gas fireplace, an engraving of Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson; and a red carpet that covered almost the entire floor. And yet it was also obvious that certain alterations in the furnishings had been made for this special occasion. The round mahogany table, which one would normally have found surrounded by armchairs in the middle of the room under the electric chandelier, had been shoved into the near left corner, where the plaster bust stood; and set at an odd angle, closer to the fireplace, which gave off a dry heat, was a smaller table, with a skimpy cloth and a little red-shaded lamp, above which another lamp dangled from the ceiling, likewise with a red shade, its bulb, however, draped in black gauze. On, and beside, this little table were placed a few infamous items: the serving bell, in fact two different sorts of bells, one a handbell, the other a desk bell that you banged with your palm; the dish of flour; the wastepaper basket. Around the little table, about a dozen chairs and stools of various sorts had been placed in a semicircle, one end of which was near the foot of the chaise longue, the other almost in the exact middle of the room, just below the chandelier. And here, nearest the last chair, but about halfway to the door to the adjacent office, the gramophone cabinet had been set. The album of light favorites lay on a stool next to it. So much for the setup. The red lamps had not yet been lit. The chandelier supplied an abundance of white daylight. The window, the narrow end of the desk abutting it, had been covered with a black cloth, in front of which had been hung a cream-colored, open lacework curtain.

  After ten minutes, the doctor returned with the three ladies from his inner office. Little Elly’s external appearance had changed. She was no longer in street clothes, but in a kind of séance costume, a nightgown-like robe of white crêpe that left her slender arms bare and was gathered at the waist by a cincture or cord. Beneath it, her virginal breasts lay unencumbered and softly outlined—she was apparently wearing little else.

  She was greeted enthusiastically. “Hello, Elly! Charming as ever! A perfect fairy! Good luck, my angel!” She smiled in response to the calls, fully aware that her outfit looked good on her. “Preparatory examination negative,” Dr. Krokowski announced. “Let’s get down to some hard work now, comrades!” he added, with only one of his palatalized, exotic tongue-tapping r’s. The others began to take their seats, hallooing, chatting, and clapping shoulders, and Hans Castorp, feeling put off by the tone of these opening remarks, was likewise moving to find a spot in the semicircle of chairs, when the doctor turned to address him personally.

  “My friend,” he said (my friend!), “since you are more or less a guest or novice in our midst this evening, I would like to single you out for a special honor. I charge you with the task of exercising scientific control over our medium. Which is done as follows.” He directed the young man toward the end of the semicircle nearest the chaise longue and folding screen, where Elly had taken a seat on an ordinary cane chair, her face turned more to the entrance with its two steps than to the middle of the room; the doctor then sat down on a similar chair directly in front of her and grasped her hands, at the same time holding both her knees clamped between his own. “Do it in just the same way,” he commanded, and signaled for Hans Castorp to replace him. “You will have to admit that her movements are totally restricted. But by way of redundancy, we shall have someone lend you support. My dear Fräulein Kleefeld, might I entreat you to assist?” And upon being summoned so politely and exotically, that lady joined the trio and clasped Elly’s fragile wrists in both h
ands.

  Hans Castorp could not avoid staring now and then straight into the face of the virginal child prodigy confined directly in front of him. Their eyes met, but Elly’s slid down and off to one side in token of a modesty that was quite understandable given the situation; and she offered a little affected smile as well, tilting her head and pursing her lips slightly, just as she had recently at the séance with the glass. As a matter of fact, the sight of this demure affectation aroused another, more distant memory in her monitor—it reminded him more or less of the way Karen Karstedt had smiled as she had stood with him and Joachim beside her still-undug grave in the Dorf cemetery.

  The semicircle had settled into place. They were thirteen in all, not including Wenzel the Bohemian, who kept himself available for tending to Polyhymnia’s needs and, having now readied her for service, took a place on a stool toward the middle of the room behind the others. He also had his mandolin with him. After first flipping a switch that turned on both lamps that gave off reddish light and then flipping another that doused the white ceiling light, Dr. Krokowski took his seat under the chandelier, there where the arch of chairs came to an end. A gently glimmering darkness lay over the room, whose farther regions and corners were now totally inaccessible to their eyes. Actually, only the surface of the little table and its immediate environs were illumined in soft red light. For the first few minutes you could barely see your neighbor. Your eyes adjusted only slowly to the darkness and learned to make use of what light there was, which was augmented somewhat by the dancing flames in the fireplace.

  The doctor devoted a few words to the illumination, apologizing for its scientific inadequacy. They should not, however, interpret it as mystification, as mere setting of the mood. Unfortunately, as much as he would like it otherwise, no additional light could be permitted for now. The nature of the forces they were about to study was such that they simply could not unfold in white light, could not become operative. That was a factual precondition to which they would have to reconcile themselves for now. Hans Castorp was content to do so—the darkness felt good, it minimized the peculiarity of the whole situation. Besides, this defense of darkness reminded him of the gloom in which they had gathered so piously in the X-ray room, and of how they had first had to let darkness wash over their daylight eyes before they could “see.”

  The medium, Dr. Krokowski noted, continuing an introduction evidently addressed in particular to Hans Castorp, no longer needed to be put into a trance by the attending physician. As the gentleman monitoring her would doubtless soon notice, she fell into that state all on her own, and once this occurred, her attendant spirit, known to them as Holger, would speak through her, and it was to him—and not to her—that one was to address one’s wishes. It was a common error, by the way, an error that could even bring about failure, to believe one had to concentrate one’s will and thoughts on the prospective phenomenon. On the contrary, it was best to diffuse one’s attention somewhat, even quiet conversation was useful. Hans Castorp should, however, concentrate on keeping the medium’s extremities under flawless control.

  “The chain will now be formed,” Dr. Krokowski concluded, and they proceeded to follow instructions, laughing when a neighbor’s hand could not be immediately located in the darkness. Dr. Ting-Fu, sitting next to Hermine Kleefeld, placed his right hand on her shoulder and extended his left hand to Herr Wehsal, who came next. Beside the doctor sat Herr and then Frau Magnus, who joined hands with A. K. Ferge, who, if Hans Castorp was not mistaken, was linked to Fräulein Levi of the ivory complexion on his right—and so on. “Music!” Dr. Krokowski commanded; and the Czech, standing just behind the doctor and his nearest neighbor, turned the gramophone on and let the needle down. “Talk!” Krokowski commanded again at the sound of the first bars of an overture by Millöcker; and they obediently set to work to get a conversation going, about nothing, nothing at all—this winter’s snowfall, the menu at supper, some new arrival, some wild or authorized departure. Half-drowned by the music, the talk would break off and start up again, its life sustained artificially. Several minutes passed.

  The record had not yet come to an end, when Elly was seized by a violent spasm. A trembling passed through her body, her torso tipped forward until her brow was touching Hans Castorp’s, and at the same time her arms began to make strange back-and-forth pumping motions, forcing her monitors’ arms to do the same.

  “Trance!” Fräulein Kleefeld announced knowingly. The music died away. The conversation broke off.

  In the abrupt silence one could hear the doctor’s soft, drawling baritone. “Is Holger present?” he asked.

  Elly shuddered again. She swayed in her chair. Then Hans Castorp felt her give his hands a firm, brief squeeze.

  “She squeezed my hands,” he reported.

  “He,” the doctor corrected. “He squeezed your hands. He is present, then. Our d’gods, Holger,” he said unctuously. Using informal pronouns, he now continued, “We welcome you most heartily, good fellow. And now, please recall how the last time you tarried here among us you promised to call up any person who has passed on and who might be named by our circle, be it brother or sister, and to make him or her visible to mortal eyes. Are you willing to do so now? Do you feel capable of honoring that promise today?”

  Elly shuddered again. She sighed and delayed her answer. Slowly she lifted her hands, and those of the two guardians, to her brow, where she let them rest awhile. Then very close to Hans Castorp’s ear, she whispered a fervent “Yes!”

  The breath of speech directly on his ear caused our friend to experience that creeping epidermal phenomenon popularly known as “goose bumps,” which the director had explained to him once long ago. We call it a creeping sensation in order to differentiate between its purely physical and its psychological aspects, since there was hardly any sense of horror involved. What he was thinking, more or less, was: “Well, she’s certainly impudent enough!” But at the same time he was touched, indeed jolted, by a confused feeling born of his own confusion in hearing a sweet young thing, whose hand he was holding, whisper the word “yes” in his ear.

  “He said yes,” he reported, and felt embarrassed.

  “Fine, then, Holger,” Dr. Krokowski said. “We shall take you at your word. We are all confident that you will do your honest best. The name of the dear departed soul whose manifestation we desire will be given to you in a moment. Comrades,” he said, turning to the group, “speak up! Who has a wish at the ready? Whom shall Friend Holger reveal to us?”

  Silence followed. Everyone was waiting for someone else to say something. Over the last few days, each of them had probably scrutinized the direction of his own thoughts, asked himself to whom they reached out. And yet, the return of those who have died—or better, the desirability of such a return—is always a complicated, ticklish matter. Ultimately, to put it plainly, it does not exist, this desirability. It is a miscalculation; by the light of cold day, it is as impossible as the thing itself, which would be immediately evident if nature rescinded that impossibility even once; and what we call mourning is perhaps not so much the pain of the impossibility of ever seeing the dead return to life, as the pain of not being able to wish it.

  They were all vaguely aware of this, and although they were not dealing here with a serious and authentic return to life, but a purely sentimental and theatrical performance, during which one would only see the departed person—nothing life-threatening, really—they nevertheless feared being confronted by whomever they had thought about, and each would have preferred to pass on to his neighbor the privilege of expressing such a wish. Even Hans Castorp, despite his having once heard that kind, generous “Oh, please, go ahead and look” emerge from the night, held back and at the last moment was quite prepared to let someone else go first. But it all seemed to be taking too long, and so turning his head to address the leader of the session, he said with a husky voice, “I would like to see my dead cousin, Joachim Ziemssen.”

  It was a great relief to eve
ryone. Of all those present, only Dr. Ting-Fu, Wenzel the Czech, and the medium herself had not known the person now named. The rest of them—Ferge, Wehsal, Herr Albin, the prosecutor, Herr and Frau Magnus, the ladies Stöhr, Levi, and Kleefeld—loudly and happily expressed their approval, and even Dr. Krokowski himself nodded with satisfaction, although his relations with Joachim had always been cool, since the latter had proved less than obliging in the matter of analysis.

  “Very good,” the doctor said. “Did you hear, Holger? The gentleman named was a stranger to you in life. Do you know him in the world beyond, and are you prepared to bring him to us?”

  High suspense. The sleeping woman swayed, sighed, and shuddered. She seemed to be searching and struggling as she slumped first to one side and then the other, whispering gibberish now in Hans Castorp’s ear, now in Hermine Kleefeld’s. Finally Hans Castorp felt the squeeze from both hands that meant “yes,” which he duly reported.

  “Fine, then!” Dr. Krokowski cried. “To work, Holger. Music!” he cried. “Talk!” And he repeated his injunction that there should be no strenuous concentration or forced visualization of their anticipated visitor—the only thing that helped was a casual, floating attentiveness.

  And what followed now were the strangest hours our hero’s young life had ever known until then; and although we are not completely sure as to his later fate, although we shall lose sight of him at a certain point in our story, we would like to think that they remained the strangest hours he would ever experience.

  These were hours—more than two, we admit it straight out, including a brief pause in the “labor” that now began for Holger, or actually, for virginal Miss Elly—hours of labor that went on so dreadfully long that they all were close to despairing of any result, and indeed were often tempted out of pure pity to forgo the experience and cut this short, for it truly seemed unmercifully hard work, beyond the fragile strength of her of whom it was demanded. We men, if we do not shirk our own humanity, are aware of a certain moment in life when we feel this same unbearable pity—to which, absurd as it seems, no one responds, presumably because it is quite out of place—when we wrestle with a suppressed, outraged “Enough!” although we know it is not yet enough, cannot, dare not, be enough, and must go on and end one way or the other. It should be clear that we are speaking about a husband’s, a father’s pity, about the act of birth, which Elly’s travails indeed so manifestly, so unmistakably resembled that even someone unfamiliar with birth would have had to have recognized it—someone like our young Hans Castorp, who, having never shirked life, now learned about that act of organic mysticism in this form. And what a form it was! And for what a purpose! And under what circumstances! Scandalous is the only word for the specific details of this animated maternity ward bathed in reddish light—from the virginal young lady in labor, with her flowing nightgown and frail, bare arms, to the incessant light favorites coming from the gramophone; to the artificial chatter that the semicircle attempted to keep going on doctor’s orders; to the constant cheery cries of encouragement to the struggling girl—“Hello, Holger! Courage! Won’t be long! Don’t give up, Holger, just let it come, you’ll do it!” And we are certainly not exempting from the scandal the person and circumstance of the “husband,” either—if we may regard Hans Castorp as the husband in this case, since it had been his wish—the husband, then, who held the knees of the “mother” clamped between his own, her hands in his, hands as wet as little Leila’s once had been, so that he constantly had to get a new grip to keep them from slipping away.