The Magic Mountain (123 page)

“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by the light of cold day, it is as impossible as the thing itself, which would be immediately evident if nature rescinded that impossibility even once; and what we call mourning is perhaps not so much the pain of the impossibility of ever seeing the dead return to life, as the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 everyone. 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.

For the gas fireplace behind the semicircle was putting out heat.

A mystic consecration? Oh no, it was all too noisy, too preposterous there in the reddish darkness, to which their eyes had gradually become so accustomed that they could more or less take in the whole room. The music and their cries were reminiscent of a Salvation Army revival meeting, even for someone like Hans Castorp, who had never attended services held by those high-spirited enthusiasts. There was nothing ghostly about the scene, and if its effects were mystical and mysterious, if they aroused pious feelings in anyone, then it was only in a natural, organic sense—and we have already noted the more precise, intimate context involved. Elly’s efforts came in waves, followed by pauses during which she would fall limply to one side of her chair, in a fully inaccessible state that Dr. Krokowski called “deep trance.” Then she would straighten up and begin to moan; she tossed back and forth, pushed and wrestled with her monitors, whispered hot babble in their ears, made a series of sidelong whiplash movements as if trying to fling something out of her, gnashed her teeth, and once even bit Hans Castorp’s sleeve.

This went on for an hour or more. Then the leader of the session found that it would be in the interest of all present to allow for a pause. Wenzel the Czech, who toward the end had provided a little change of pace by shutting off the gramophone and plunking his mandolin quite adeptly, now laid his instrument down. With a sigh, they all let go of one another’s hands. Dr. Krokowski walked over to the wall to turn on the chandelier. There was a flare of blinding white, and all the night-eyes squinted stupidly. Elly went on slumbering; she was bent forward, her face almost in her lap. They noticed that she was busy doing something rather curious, an activity with which the others seemed familiar, but that caught Hans Castorp’s attention, and he watched in amazement: for several minutes she reached out her cupped hand until it was at about her hip, then pulled it back—stretched it out and with a ladling or raking motion, pulled it back, as if she were collecting or gathering something. Then after a series of jerks she came to, blinked—her eyes, too, squinting stupidly into the light—and smiled.

She smiled, an affected and somewhat reserved smile. Their pity for her labors did indeed seem to have been wasted. She did not look particularly exhausted. Perhaps she did not even remember any of it. She sat in the chair reserved for patients at the back of the doctor’s wide desk, near the window, between it and the folding screen arranged around the chaise longue; she had turned the chair enough so that she could brace one arm on the desktop and look out into the room. And there she sat, the object of sympathetic glances and occasional encouraging nods, and said not a word during the entire intermission, which lasted fifteen minutes.

It was a real intermission—everyone was relaxed and mildly satisfied with the work thus far accomplished. The gentlemen’s cigarette cases clicked. People smoked with gusto and in scattered groups discussed how the session was going. They were a long way from feeling discouraged about it, from any sense that they might have to contemplate its ending in failure. There were sufficient signs to counter all such despondency. Those who had been sitting at the far end of the semicircle, near the doctor, all agreed that several times they had clearly felt the cool draft that regularly prepared the way for any phenomena and that originated with the medium herself, always streaming in one particular direction. Others claimed to have seen little flecks of white light, shifting points of concentrated energy that had appeared repeatedly along the folding screen. In short, no giving up! No faint hearts! Holger had given his word, and they had no right to doubt he would keep it.

Dr. Krokowski gave the signal for the session to resume. While the others took their seats again, he personally led Elly back to her chair of martyrdom, stroking her hair as she sat down. Everything went just as before; Hans Castorp asked to be relieved of his post as primary monitor, but was refused this request by their leader. It was important to him, the doctor said, that the person who had expressed the wish be afforded proof, by the direct evidence of the senses, that all fraudulent manipulation of the medium was out of the question. And so Hans Castorp resumed his peculiar position in front of Elly. The light was reduced to a dim red. The music started up again. Once more, there were several minutes of Elly’s jerky spasms and pumping motions; but this time it was Hans Castorp who announced, “Trance!” The scandalous birthing proceeded.

But with what terrible difficulties! It did not seem to want to proceed at all—and how could it? What madness! What sort of motherhood was this? A delivery—how and from what? “Help, help,” the child moaned, her labor pains threatening now to become a futile, dangerous constant cramp, known to obstetricians as eclampsia. She called for the doctor at one point, asked him to lay hands on her. Which he did, urging her on in pithy phrases. This magnetization, if that is what it was, gave her strength for further struggles.

And so the second hour passed. Eyes weaned from daylight again grew somewhat accustomed to the dim illumination; and the room was filled alternately with mandolin plunking and gramophone melodies from the album of light favorites. Then something happened—and Hans Castorp was the cause. He made a suggestion, expressed a wish, a thought, that he had been entertaining for some time, actually from the very start, and that quite possibly should have been offered before now. Elly was in her “deep trance,” her face resting in her tightly held hands, and Herr Wenzel was about to change records or turn one over, when our friend began to say, with some determination, that he had a suggestion to make—insignificant, really, but then it might be useful, in his opinion. He had . . . that is, the house record library contained one particular piece, “Valentin’s Prayer” from Gounod’s
Faust
, baritone and orchestra, very attractive. He, Hans Castorp, suggested they might try playing it just once.

“And why is that?” the doctor asked from somewhere in the red darkness.

“A matter of mood, of an emotional state,” the young man replied. The spirit of the piece was peculiar, quite special. He was merely suggesting they give it a try. It was not out of the question, in his view, that the spirit or character of the music might shorten the current proceedings.

“Is the recording here?” the doctor asked.

No, it wasn’t. But Hans Castorp could fetch it right away.

“What are you thinking of!” Krokowski rejected the idea out of hand. What? Hans Castorp wanted to leave and come back, go fetch something and then have them pick up their labors where they had left off? That was inexperience speaking. No, it was absolutely impossible. It would ruin everything, they would have to begin all over again. And scientific accuracy likewise prohibited even thinking of engaging in any such arbitrary departure and return. The door was locked. He, the doctor, had the key in his pocket. And in short, if the record was not readily available, then they would have to—he was still speaking when the Czech interjected from beside the gramophone.

“The record is here.”

“Here?” Hans Castorp asked.

Yes, here.
Faust
, “Valentin’s Prayer.” Here, he could see for himself. Somehow it had got put into the album of light favorites, rather than in the green album of arias, number two, where it properly belonged. How extraordinary, how fortunate, by accident or carelessness it had landed in the frothier stuff and only needed to be put on.

And what did Hans Castorp say to that? He said nothing. It was the doctor who said, “Well, then, all the better,” and several people echoed him. The needle made its whetting sound, the cover was lowered. And to the chords of a chorale, a male voice began to sing, “And now since I must leave—”

No one spoke. They listened. The moment the music began, Elly took up her labors again. She started up in her chair, shuddered, groaned, pumped, and put her slippery wet hand to her brow. The record continued to play. It came to the middle section with the bouncing rhythm, the passage about battle and danger—gallant, devout, and French. Then it moved on to the finale, the reprise, with augmented orchestra swelling in massive tones: “O Lord of heaven, hear my prayer.”

Hans Castorp was occupied with Elly. She reared back, drawing air in through her constricted throat, sank forward again with a long sigh, and crouched there without a sound. He was bending worriedly down over her, when he heard Frau Stöhr say in a whimpering peep: “Ziems—sen!”