The Magic Mountain (109 page)

“It has nothing to do with us,” she said. She had crossed her arms again. “One would not be a woman if one were unwilling to risk being demeaned for the sake of a man, a man of stature, as you put it, who regards one as the object of his feelings and his fears about feelings.”

“Most definitely, Clavdia. Very well put. Because, then, even being demeaned brings with it a certain stature, and a woman can look down from the heights of her demeaned position to those who have no royal stature, and speak in that disparaging tone you used just now when you asked about
timbres-poste
and said: ‘Gentlemen should at least be punctual and dependable.’ ”

“Are you so sensitive, Hans? Don’t be. To hell with sensitivities—agreed? I used to be sensitive at one time. I admit it, since we’re sitting here together this evening. I was annoyed by your detachment, and that you were on such good terms with him for the sake of your own egoistic experience. And yet I was delighted, too, even grateful to you, that you showed him such respect. There was a great deal of loyalty in your conduct. And even if it was mingled with some impertinence, I still had to give you credit for it in the end.”

“That was very kind of you.”

She looked at him. “It appears you are incorrigible. I will tell you straight out: you are a subtle young man. I don’t know whether you have any depth, but you definitely have subtlety. Which is a good thing, by the way—one can live with that. It can provide the basis for friendship. Shall we build a friendship, establish an alliance for someone, instead of against someone as is usual? Will you give me your hand on it? I am afraid . . . afraid sometimes of being alone with him, emotionally alone,
tu sais
. He can be frightening. I’m afraid sometimes that something may happen to him. It makes me shudder. I would love to have some good person on my side.
Enfin
, if you would like to hear it, perhaps that is why I came back here with him.”

They were sitting knee to knee, he tilted forward in his rocking chair, she on the bench. She had squeezed his hands as she spoke these last words directly into his face.

“To me? Oh, that is lovely,” he said. “Oh, Clavdia, that is quite extraordinary. You brought him to me? And you still want to claim my waiting was stupid and impermissible and quite in vain? It would be terribly gauche of me if I did not know how to value your offer of friendship, a friendship with you for his sake.”

And then she kissed him on the mouth. It was one of those Russian kisses, the sort that are exchanged in that vast, soulful land at high Christian feasts, as a token and seal of love. But even as we record this kiss exchanged between a notoriously “subtle” young man and a charming, slinking, and still equally young woman, we cannot help finding in it a reminder of Dr. Krokowski’s elaborate, if not always unobjectionable way of speaking about love in a gently irresolute sense, so that one was never quite sure whether he meant its sanctified or more passionate and fleshly forms. Are we doing the same thing here, or were Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat doing the same thing with their Russian kiss? But what would be our readers’ reaction if we simply refused to get to the bottom of that question? In our opinion, it is analytically correct, although—to use Hans Castorp’s phrase—“terribly gauche” and downright life-denying, to make a “tidy” distinction between sanctity and passion in matters of love. What’s this about “tidy”? What’s this about gentle irresolution and ambiguity? Isn’t it grand, isn’t it good, that language has only
one
word for everything we associate with love—from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life, the touchingly lustful embrace of what is destined to decay—
caritas
is assuredly found in the most admirable and most depraved passions. Irresolute? But in God’s good name, leave the meaning of love unresolved! Unresolved—that is life and humanity, and it would betray a dreary lack of subtlety to worry about it.

And so while Hans Castorp’s and Frau Chauchat’s lips meet in a Russian kiss, let us lower the lights in our little theater for a change of scene. For our concern now is the second of the two conversations we promised to disclose, and after relighting the scene—it is the soft illumination of a late spring afternoon, the thaw has begun—we discover our hero in his customary place beside the great Peeperkorn’s bed, deep in respectful, friendly conversation. After four o’clock tea in the dining hall—at which

Frau Chauchat had appeared alone, as she had at all three previous meals that day, and then set off at once for a shopping trip down in Platz—Hans Castorp had asked to be admitted for his usual sick call on the Dutchman, partly to show the old man some attention and entertain him a little, partly to be edified by his personality: in short, for reasons both life-affirming and irresolute. Peeperkorn laid his
Telegraaf
aside, tossed his horn-rimmed pince-nez atop it after slipping it by the bridge of his nose, and extended a captain’s hand to his visitor, while his broad, ragged lips stirred with a vague, but pained expression. Red wine and coffee were within reach as usual; the coffee things, splattered brown from recent use, stood on the chair beside the bed—Mynheer had taken his usual afternoon cup, strong and hot, with sugar and cream, and he was still in a sweat from it. His regal face, encircled by white flames, was flushed, and little beads of moisture stood out on his brow and upper lip.

“I’m sweating a little,” he said. “Welcome, young man. On the contrary. Have a seat. It is a sign of weakness when one no sooner enjoys a hot drink than—Would you please? Quite, right, the handkerchief. Thanks so much.” The flush soon left his face, however, making way for the yellow pallor that usually came to the man’s face after a malign attack. The quartan fever had been fierce that morning, in all three of its’ stages—the chill, the hot flush, and the sweats—and Peeperkorn’s little pale eyes gazed out dully from under the idol-like tracery of his brow.

“It is—by all means, young man,” he said. “I might even say, by all means ‘appreciated’—absolutely. Very kind of you to pay a sick old man—”

“A visit?” Hans Castorp asked. “Not really, Mynheer Peeperkorn. I am the one who should be very grateful just to be allowed to sit here awhile. I get incomparably more out of it than you, my reasons are purely egoistic. And what a misleading description that is—‘a sick old man.’ No one would guess that is supposed to mean
you
. What a totally false picture that is.”

“Fine, fine,” Mynheer replied and closed his eyes for several seconds. Now he threw his majestic head back against the pillow, raising the chin high; he folded his long-nailed fingers over the broad regal chest outlined under his woolen shirt. “Fine, young man, or rather, you mean well, of that I am certain. It was pleasant yesterday afternoon—yes, yes, only yesterday afternoon—at that hospitable inn—I have forgotten the name—where we enjoyed those excellent scrambled eggs and salami and that wholesome country wine.”

“It was splendid!” Hans Castorp confirmed. “We all partook of downright illegal portions—the chef at the Berghof would be justly offended if he had seen us. In short, we all, without exception, did some intensive work there. The salami was the genuine Italian article. Herr Settembrini was quite touched, ate it with tears in his eyes, so to speak. He is a true patriot, as you know, a democratic patriot. He has consecrated his citizen’s pike on the altar of humanity just so that salami will have to pass through customs at the Brenner Pass someday.”

“That is immaterial,” Peeperkorn declared. “He is a chivalrous man and can carry on a high-spirited conversation, a cavalier, although apparently he does not enjoy the privilege of changing his attire often.”

“Never, in fact,” Hans Castorp said. “Never has the privilege. I have known him for a long time now and am on the friendliest of terms with him, which is to say, he very kindly took me on because he thought/I was ‘a problem child of life’—that’s just a phrase we two use and would require lengthy explanation—and works very hard to influence me and set me on the right course. But I have never seen him, be it summer or winter, in anything except those checked trousers and that threadbare double-breasted coat. He wears those old things, however, with remarkable decorum, quite the cavalier, I can only concur with you there. The way he wears them is a triumph over poverty, and I certainly prefer his poverty to Naphta’s elegance, which always seems uncanny somehow, the Devil’s own elegance, so to speak, and he gets the funds from dubious sources—I’ve caught a glimpse or two of his circumstances.”

“A chivalrous and high-spirited man,” Peeperkorn repeated without picking up on the remark about Naphta, “although—permit me a qualification—although not without his prejudices. Madame, my traveling companion, is not especially fond of him, as you perhaps may have noticed; she expresses little sympathy for him, doubtless because in his behavior toward her those very prejudices are in fact—not a word, young man. Far be it from me, as to Herr Settembrini and your friendly sentiments toward him—settled. I would not think of asserting that, in terms of the courtesy a cavalier owes a lady, he would ever—agreed, dear friend, absolutely unobjectionable. And yet there is a certain boundary, a reserve, a certain stand-off-ish-ness, which, humanly speaking, makes Madame’s feelings toward him eminently—”

“Understandable. Logical. Eminently justified. Forgive me, Mynheer Peeperkorn, for having arbitrarily completed your sentence. I risk it only because I am convinced of your complete acquiescence. There is nothing particularly remarkable in her reaction, not when one takes into account how very much the behavior of women—and you may well smile that at my tender age I generalize about women in this way—is dependent on the behavior of a man toward them. Women, if one may put it this way, are reactive creatures, with little original initiative, careless to the point of being passive. Allow me, please, to attempt to develop my thought somewhat, though in labored fashion. In matters of love, a woman, as nearly as I can determine, primarily regards herself as simply an object, she lets things come at her, she does not choose freely, she makes her own subjective choice in love only on the basis of the man’s choice, so that, if you will permit me to add this final point, her freedom of choice—presuming, of course, that the man in question is not too sorry a specimen, and even that cannot be regarded as all too strict a requirement—her freedom of choice, then, is prejudiced and corrupted by the fact that
she
has been chosen. Good God, I’m speaking in banalities, but when one is young, everything is, of course, new—new and astounding. You ask a woman: ‘Do you love him, then?’ And she opens her eyes wide, or even bats them, and replies, ‘He loves me so much.’ And now try to imagine that sort of answer from a man—forgive me for correlating the two. Perhaps there are men who would have to answer that way, but they are simply and utterly ridiculous, tied to love’s apron strings, to put it epigrammatically. I would like to know what sense of self-worth such a female answer represents. Does a woman feel she owes boundless subservience to a man who would confer the favor of his love on such a lowly creature, or does she see in the man’s love for her an unerring token of his superiority? I’ve asked myself that question in passing, now and again, in life’s quiet moments.”

“Primal, classic questions you’ve touched on there, young man, with your apt little discourse on holy matters,” Peeperkorn responded. “Desire intoxicates the male, the female demands and expects to be intoxicated by his desire. Which is the source of our duty to feel. And the source of the terrible disgrace when feeling is lacking, when there is an inability to awaken the female to desire. Will you drink a glass of red wine with me? I drink. I thirst. My loss of fluids today was considerable.”

“Many thanks, Mynheer Peeperkorn. It’s a little early yet for me, but I’m always willing to drink a sip to your health.”

“Well then, help yourself to the wineglass.’ There’s only one. I shall make do with the water tumbler. I’m sure this modest vintage will not be harmed if drunk from simpler vessels.” He poured, though his trembling captain’s hand required the assistance of his guest, and thirstily transferred red wine from the simple glass to his proletarian gullet, as if it were clearest water.

“That regales,” he said. “Won’t you have more? Then allow me to avail myself of—” He spilled a little wine as he poured himself another glass. The cover sheet of his comforter was splattered with dark red stains. “I repeat,” he said, raising a finger lance, while the wineglass continued to tremble in his other hand, “I repeat, that it is our duty, our
religious
duty to feel. Our feeling, you see, is our manly vigor, which awakens life. Life slumbers. It wants to be awakened, roused to drunken nuptials with divine feeling. Because feeling, young man, is divine. Man himself is divine in that he feels. He is the very feeling of God. God created him in order to feel through him. Man is nothing more than the organ by which God consummates His marriage with awakened and intoxicated life. And if man fails to feel, it is an eruption of divine disgrace, it is the defeat of God’s manly vigor, a cosmic catastrophe, a horror that never leaves the mind—” He drank.

“Allow me to take your empty glass, Mynheer Peeperkorn,” Hans Castorp said. “I find it most instructive to follow your train of thought. You have constructed a theological theory that ascribes to man an eminently honorable, if perhaps somewhat one-sided religious function. There is a rigor about your way of viewing things that, if I may say so, is also rather dispiriting—beg your pardon. All religious austerity is, of course, dispiriting for people of lesser stature. I would not think of wanting to correct you, but I would merely like to refer you back to your own comment about certain ‘prejudices’ that you say you have observed in Herr Settembrini’s behavior toward Madame, your traveling companion. I have known Herr Settembrini for a long time, a very long time, not just for years, but for years and years now. And I can assure you that his prejudices, to the extent he has any, are in no way of a petty or philistine nature—it would be absurd even to think such a thing. With him, one can speak only of prejudices on a grand and therefore impersonal scale, of general pedagogic principles, upon which, I admit, given my status as a ‘problem child of life,’ Herr Settembrini has often insisted—but that would lead us too far afield. It is a very vast topic, which it would be impossible to address in a few words—”