The Magic Mountain (103 page)

He halted. Turning his face to his neighbor, he wrapped himself, tall and broad, in a grandly expressive silence that demanded understanding—one forefinger upraised; the mouth irregular and ragged beneath a naked, red upper lip still somewhat raw from shaving; the strained tracery of creases across the bare brow encircled by white flames; the little pale eyes held wide—and in his eyes Hans Castorp saw something like a flicker of terror at that crime, that one great sin, that unpardonable transgression, to which he had alluded and which, in trying to fathom its horror, he had condemned to silence with all the spellbinding energy of a vague but commanding personality . . . Objective, matter-of-fact terror, Hans Castorp thought, but personal terror, too, something to do with his own life, with the regal man himself. What Hans Castorp saw flickering there for just a moment, it seemed, was
fear
, not minor, everyday fear, but panic and dread; and despite all the reasons for his hostile feelings toward Frau Chauchat’s majestic traveling companion, Hans Castorp had by nature too much respect for others not to be shaken by what he saw.

He lowered his eyes and nodded to give his majestic neighbor the satisfaction of having been understood. And then he said, “That is probably true. It may be a sin—and a token of our inadequacies—to indulge in refined tastes without having given the simple, natural gifts of life, the great and holy gifts, their due. That is your opinion, if I understand you correctly, Mynheer Peeperkorn. And although I had never thought of it that way before, now that you mention it, I can only concur with you wholeheartedly. It is probably all too seldom that full justice is done to such healthy and simple gifts of life. Certainly most people are too weak-willed and inattentive, too unscrupulous and emotionally drained, to do them justice—it is more than likely the case.”

The grand man was highly gratified. “Young man,” he said, “agreed. Permit me to say—but not one word more. I beg you to drink with me, to quaff our glasses down to the last drop, arm in arm. That does not mean that I am offering you the brotherhood of informal pronouns—I was about to do so, but have reconsidered. That would be a bit too hasty.

I shall more than likely do so, however, within the foreseeable future. Depend on it! But if you wish and insist on it now—”

Hans Castorp’s gesture implied that he seconded the delay Peeperkorn had proposed.

“Fine, young man. Fine, comrade. Inadequacies—fine. Fine and horrifying. Unscrupulous—very fine. Gifts—not so fine. Demands! Life’s holy, feminine demands upon our manly honor and vigor—”

Hans Castorp was suddenly confronted with the realization that Peeperkorn was very drunk. And yet his drunkenness did not belittle or demean him, caused him no disgrace, but rather, when joined with the majesty of his nature, it only made him grander and more awe-inspiring. Even drunken Bacchus, Hans Castorp thought, had propped himself on his exuberant companions without losing anything of his divinity, and ultimately it depended on
who
was drunk—a personality or a tinker. He steeled himself against any loss of respect for this overwhelming traveling companion, whose cultured gestures had grown flaccid and whose tongue was thick.

“Brotherhood—,” Peeperkorn said, throwing his massive body back in free and proud intoxication and stretching one arm out over the table to bang it with a flaccidly clenched fist, “in the offing—in the near offing, though discreetly reconsidered for now, fine. Settled. Life, young man, is a woman, a woman sprawled before us, with close-pressed bulging breasts and a great, soft belly between those broad hips, with slender arms and swelling thighs, with eyes half-closed in mocking defiance, demanding our most urgent response, the proof or collapse of our resilient manly desire—collapse, young man, do you understand what that means? The defeat of feeling in the face of life, that is the inadequacy for which there is no pardon, no pity, no honor, but only merciless shame and scornful laughter—
set
-tled, young man, and spewed out again. Ignominy and disgrace are mild terms for such ruin and bankruptcy, for such ghastly humiliation. It is the end, the despair of hell itself, doomsday . . .”

As he spoke, the Dutchman had thrown his massive body back farther and farther, while at the same time his regal head sank to his chest as if he were about to fall asleep. But at this last word, he raised his flaccid fist for two more heavy blows to the tabletop, and slight Hans Castorp, edgy from the gambling and wine and these very peculiar circumstances, flinched and gazed in frightened awe at this powerful man. “Doomsday”—the word fit him perfectly. Hans Castorp could not recall ever having heard anyone use the word, except perhaps in religion class; and it was no accident, he thought, for of all the people he knew, who among them was fit to release such a thunderbolt—or better, who had the stature for it? Little Naphta might have made use of it, but it would have been a usurpation, mere caustic chatter, whereas in Peeperkorn’s mouth the thunderbolt was trumpeted forth with its full crashing, booming, biblical impact. “My God—what a personality!” he thought for the hundredth time. “I have stumbled upon a personality, and he is Clavdia’s traveling companion.” Feeling rather tipsy himself, he spun his wineglass in place with one hand and thrust the other into his trouser pocket, squinting with one eye from the smoke of the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Should he not have kept silent after the aforesaid thunderbolt? What could his prim voice accomplish? But discussion was a habit now, thanks to his democratic mentors—both were basically democratic, although the one struggled not to be—and he got caught up in one of his own ingenuous commentaries.

“Your remarks, Mynheer Peeperkorn,” he said (what a way to put it—remarks; did one make “remarks” about doomsday?), “lead my thoughts back again to what we previously agreed upon about the nature of vice: that it is an insult to the simple, and as you said, holy, or, as I might put it, classic gifts of life—those gifts of life that have stature, so to speak—an insult to them to show a preference for acquired refinements, in which one ‘indulges,’ as one of us two expressed it, whereas one ‘embraces’ or ‘devotes oneself to’ the great gifts. But therein lies, or so it seems to me, the excuse—forgive me, I am by nature inclined to excuse (though excuses have no real stature, as I am only too aware)—the excuse, then, for vice, to the extent, that is, that vice is based upon ‘inadequacy,’ as we have called it. You said things of such great stature in regard to the terrors of inadequacy, that I find myself quite confounded. But what I mean is, vice is surely not insensitive to such terrors, but on the contrary, gives them their full and just due, to the extent that what drives a man to vice is the failure of feeling in the face of the classic gifts of life; which therefore does not imply, or does not necessarily imply, an insult to life, since it might equally as well be interpreted as an embracing of life. Indeed, inasmuch as these refinements are meant to intoxicate or excite us—are stimulants, as they say—they support and enhance the intensity of feelings, which means, then, that their purpose and goal are life itself, a love of feeling, are inadequacy’s way of striving for feeling . . . what I mean is . . .”

What was he talking about? What sort of excess of democratic impudence had led him to speak of “one of us two,” when it was a matter of a personality and himself? Had he found the courage for such impertinence in past events that cast certain current rights of possession in a very odd light? Or was he simply feeling his oats? Was that why he had got himself tangled up in this brazen analysis of “vice”? Well, it was up to him to get himself out now—for he had clearly conjured up dreadful forces.

All during his guest’s speech, Mynheer Peeperkorn had remained flung back in his chair with his head sunk to his chest, so that there was some doubt if Hans Castorp’s words had impinged on his consciousness. But now as the young man grew more confused, the older man gradually began to rear up out of his chair, taller and taller, to full size—his majestic head swelling and turning red, the arabesques on his brow rising and spreading, his little eyes growing ever larger in pale threat. What was going to happen? A temper tantrum seemed to be brewing that would make his previous outburst look like minor annoyance. Mynheer’s lower lip was braced in mighty fury against his upper lip, so that both corners of his mouth were pulled down and his chin was thrust forward, and slowly his right arm lifted above the table to the level of his head, then higher still, the fist clenched, poised to deliver an annihilating blow to this democratic chatterbox, who—both filled with terror and yet savoring the eerie sight of eloquent regal wrath unfolding before him—had difficulty hiding his fear and a panicky desire to flee. He hastily decided to try to head things off.

“Naturally, I have expressed myself poorly. The whole thing is a matter of stature, nothing more. Whatever has stature cannot be called vice. Vice never has stature. Over-refined tastes have no stature. But since time immemorial, the human striving for feeling has in fact had one means ready at hand, one drug, one intoxicant, that belongs to the classic gifts of life and bears the stamp of the simple and holy, and thus is no vice—one means of stature, if I may put it that way. Wine—the gods’ gift to man, as the humanistic peoples of antiquity claimed, the philanthropic invention of a god who is in fact associated with civilization, if I may be permitted the allusion. For we learn that it is thanks to the art of planting and pressing the grape that man emerged from his savage state and achieved culture. And even today nations where the grape grows are considered, or consider themselves, more cultured than wineless Cimmerians—a most remarkable fact. For it asserts that culture is not a matter of reason and well-articulated sobriety, but rather is bound up with enthusiasm, with intoxication, and the sense of regalement. Is that not, if I may be so bold as to inquire, your opinion in this matter as well?”

What a rascal our Hans Castorp is. Or, as Herr Settembrini would have expressed it with belletristic delicacy, what a “wag”—reckless, even brazen, when dealing with personalities, but just as clever at extricating himself when he must. In the most ticklish situation he had managed—with good grace and quite impromptu—a vindication of drink; he had, moreover, just in passing, brought the conversation around to “civilization,” of which, to be sure, little was evident in Mynheer Peeperkorn’s primitive, menacing pose; and finally, by asking his question, had relaxed that grandiose pose—it would have been quite inappropriate to respond with a raised, clenched fist. The Dutchman backed off from his antediluvian gesture of fury; he slowly lowered his arm to the table, his face lost its swollen redness; his expression seemed to say “cheers!” with only a conditional, after-the-fact threat still lingering there. The thunderstorm cleared, and Frau Chauchat intervened as well, calling her traveling companion’s attention to the general decline in conviviality.

“Dear friend, you are neglecting your guests,” she said in French. “You are devoting yourself too exclusively to this gentleman, with whom you doubtless have important matters to discuss. But meanwhile the game has almost come to a halt, and I fear people are growing bored. Shall we end our party?”

Peeperkorn turned immediately to the rest of the table. It was true: demoralization, lethargy, and stupor were rampant. Guests were horsing around like unsupervised schoolchildren. Several of them were close to dozing off. Peeperkorn immediately grabbed the slack reins. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he cried, raising a forefinger—and the long tapering nail was like a brandished sword or a waving banner, and his words were like those of a captain halting an incipient rout with the cry of “Let him who is no coward follow me!” And the engagement of his personality promptly had a bracing, focusing effect. They roused themselves, replaced slack faces with bright ones, nodded and smiled back into their mighty host’s pale eyes beneath the idol-like tracery of his brow. Binding them all under his spell and calling them back to his service, he lowered the tip of his forefinger to the tip of his thumb and let the other long nails stand erect at one side. He spread his captain’s hand, cautioning and restraining them, and from his painfully ragged lips came words whose discursive ambiguity had compelling power over their minds thanks to the personality behind them.

“Ladies and gentlemen—fine. The flesh, ladies and gentlemen, is as we know—settled. No, permit me to say it—‘weak.’ So it is written. ‘Weak,’ which means it tends to see the demands—but I appeal to your—in short and for good and all, ladies and gentlemen, I ap-
peal
to you. You will say—sleep. Fine, ladies and gentlemen, agreed, excellent. I love and honor sleep. I venerate its deep, sweet, refreshing bliss. Sleep must be counted among the—how did you put it, young man?—among the classic gifts of life, among its first, its primal, I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, its highest gifts. And yet please observe and recall: Gethsemane! ‘And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. Then he saith unto them, tarry ye here, and watch with me.’ Do you recall? ‘And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?’ Fervent, ladies and gentlemen. Incisive. Stirring. ‘And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. And saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold the hour is at hand.’ Ladies and gentlemen—excruciating, heart-wrenching.”

And indeed they were all profoundly moved and embarrassed. He had crossed his hands over his breast and scant beard, his head tilted to one side. His pale eyes had faltered as those words spoken from the throes of lonely death crossed his ragged lips. Frau Stöhr sobbed. Frau Magnus heaved a great sigh. Prosecutor Paravant felt it incumbent upon him, as the party’s representative as it were, to speak in their behalf, to offer in a low voice a few words to their honored host. There must be some mistake here. They were fresh and alert, gay and merry, engaged with all their hearts and souls. It was such a lovely, festive, absolutely extraordinary evening—they all understood and felt it, and for now no one would even think of making use of the gift of life called sleep. Mynheer Peeperkorn could depend on his guests, on every single one of them.