The Magic Mountain (124 page)

He did not straighten up. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He heard another cold, deep voice reply: “I’ve been watching him for some time now.”

The record had come to an end, the last chords of brass had died away. But no one turned off the machine. The needle moved to the middle of the disk and scratched idly in the silence. Now Hans Castorp lifted his head, and without having to search, his eyes looked in the right direction.

There was one more person than before in the room. There, off to the side of the semicircle, in the background, where the red light was swallowed up in night that the eye could barely pierce, between the doctor’s wide desk and the folding screen, there on the patient’s chair turned toward the room, where Elly had sat during the pause—there sat Joachim. It was Joachim with the shadowy hollow cheeks and warrior’s beard from his final days, with lips arched proud and full. He sat leaning back, one leg crossed over the other. Although whatever that was on his head cast a long shadow, his emaciated face visibly bore the stamp of suffering and the same austere, earnest expression that had made him look so manly. Two deep creases were engraved on his brow between the eyes, which had sunk deep into their bony sockets, although that did not distract from the tenderness of the gaze that came from those beautiful, large, dark eyes, directed in friendly silence at Hans Castorp, at him alone. His one minor sorrow of long ago, his protruding ears, was not noticeable under whatever that strange, unidentifiable thing was that he had on his head. Cousin Joachim was not in civvies; his saber appeared to be leaning against his crossed thigh and he held the hilt in both hands; also discernible, or so it seemed, was a holster attached to his belt. But this was no proper dress uniform he was wearing—no flash of color, no shiny buttons. It had a narrow tuniclike collar and side pockets, and a cross was dangling farther down. Joachim’s feet seemed very large, his legs very thin—and they looked as if they had been wrapped, more for sport than for any military reason. And what
was
that thing on his head? It looked as if Joachim had plopped a bit of field gear, a cooking pot, down over his head and then fastened it under his chin with a strap. The effect was properly warlike, and yet it was like something out of the past, a sixteenth-century lansquenet perhaps—strange.

Hans Castorp could feel Ellen Brand’s breath on his hands, could hear Hermine Kleefeld breathing rapidly next to him. Otherwise, there was no other sound except the incessant whetting scrape of the record still rotating beneath the needle that no one had bothered to lift. He did not look around to any of his fellow guests, did not want to see them, to know anything about them. Bending forward and leaning out to see past the hands and head on his knees, he stared into red darkness at the visitor in the chair. For a moment he thought he would throw up. His throat contracted and cramped in four or five fervent sobs. “Forgive me!” he whispered to himself, and then the tears came to his eyes and he saw nothing more.

He heard a voice murmur: “Speak to him.” Dr. Krokowski’s baritone called him calmly and solemnly by name and repeated his command. But instead of obeying it, he pulled his hands from under Elly’s face and stood up.

Dr. Krokowski called out his name again, this time in a stern voice of warning. But with a few quick strides, Hans Castorp was already at the door; with a flick of his hand, he turned on the white light.

Ellen Brand had recoiled in shock, and now lay twitching in Fräulein Kleefeld’s arms. The patient’s chair was empty.

Hans Castorp walked over to Krokowski, who stood there protesting loudly, came up very close to him, tried to say something, but no words would come from his lips. With a brusque, demanding gesture he held out his hand. Taking the key, he nodded menacingly several times directly in the doctor’s face, turned on his heels, and left the room.

And as one little year succeeded another, a ghost began to walk the Berghof, one whom Hans Castorp suspected was a direct descendent of that demon we have already called by its malicious name. With the irresponsible curiosity of the tourist thirsting for knowledge, he had studied that old demon, indeed had found potentialities within himself for lively participation in the monstrous acts of homage paid to it by the world all about him. Like the old demon, this new one had always been around, sprouting up here and there to hint at its presence, but as it spread now, it became clear that by temperament Hans Castorp was less suited for worship of this creature. All the same, the moment he let himself go the least little bit, he noted to his horror that his words, gestures, and expression, too, had succumbed to an infection no one in the place could escape.

What was it, then? What was in the air? A love of quarrels. Acute petulance. Nameless impatience. A universal penchant for nasty verbal exchanges and outbursts of rage, even for fisticuffs. Every day fierce arguments, out-of-control shouting-matches would erupt between individuals and among entire groups; but the distinguishing mark was that bystanders, instead of being disgusted by those caught up in it or trying to intervene, found their sympathies aroused and abandoned themselves emotionally to the frenzy. They turned pale and quivered. Eyes flashed insults, mouths wrenched with passion. They envied the active participants their right to use the occasion to shout. An aching lust to join them tormented both body and soul, and whoever lacked the strength to flee to solitude was drawn into the vortex, beyond all help. Frivolous conflicts multiplied throughout the Berghof, with recriminations exchanged right in front of the authorities, who attempted to arbitrate but could themselves lapse into bellowing abuse with frightful ease. And anyone who left the sanatorium with his soul more or less intact could never know in what condition he might return. Seated at the Good Russian table was a quite elegant provincial lady from Minsk, still young and only slightly ill—she had been sentenced to three months, no more—who one day went down into town to shop for French blouses. She got into such a wrangle with the saleswoman that she arrived home in a state of wild agitation, suffered a hemorrhage, and was soon diagnosed as incurable. Her husband was summoned and told that she would have to stay here now for good and all.

That is just one example of what was going around. We shall reluctantly supply others. Some readers will recall the student, or former student, with the thick circular glasses, who sat at Frau Salomon’s table—the gaunt young lad who had the habit of chopping all the food on his plate into a hodgepodge, propping his elbows on the table, and wolfing it down, while occasionally pushing his napkin up behind his thick glasses. And he had sat there all this time, still a student or former student, wolfing down his food and wiping his eyes, without ever giving anyone cause to pay him more than fleeting attention. But now, one morning at first breakfast, quite surprisingly, out of the blue so to speak, he had a fit, a seizure, arousing general commotion and bringing the entire dining hall to its feet. It suddenly grew loud in that part of the hall—there he sat, pale and shouting—shouts directed at the dwarf, who was standing beside him. “You’re lying!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “That tea is cold. The tea you brought me is ice-cold. I don’t want it. Before you lie to me again, just see for yourself if it isn’t lukewarm dishwater no respectable human being could possibly drink! How dare you bring me ice-cold tea! Where did you get the notion—what made you think you could serve me this tepid bilge with even a glimmer of hope I would drink it? I won’t drink it! I will not!” he howled and began to drum both fists on the table, setting all the dishes rattling and dancing. “I want hot tea! Piping hot tea—before God and man, that is my right. I don’t want this, I want it boiling hot. I’ll die on the spot before I take one swallow of this—you damned cripple!” he suddenly shrieked, flinging off the last bit of self-control and breaking through to the madness of utter license. He raised a fist at Emerentia and literally bared his frothing teeth. Then he went on drumming, stamping his feet now, howling, “I won’t. I will not!”—and the reaction in the hall was the usual. Tense and terrible sympathy went out to the raving boy. Some people had jumped up and were watching him, their fists doubled now, too, their teeth clenched, their eyes blazing. Others sat there pale, with downcast eyes, quivering. And they were still sitting like that long after the student had sunk back in exhaustion, gazing at his new cup of tea without taking a sip.

What
was
this?

A man joined the ranks of Berghof society, a thirty-year-old former businessman, who had wandered from sanatorium to sanatorium for years now with his fever. The man was an anti-Semite, on principle and as a matter of sport. His opposition to Jews was a cheerful obsession—this acquired hostility was the pride and content of his life. He had been a businessman, he was one no more, he was nothing in this world, but he had remained an anti-Semite. He was seriously ill, his cough sat heavy on him, and at times it sounded as if a lung were sneezing, a singular, high, brief, uncanny sound. But he was not a Jew, and that was the positive thing about him. His name was Wiedemann, a Christian name—nothing unclean about his name. He subscribed to a newspaper call
The Aryan Light
, and made speeches, as follows:

“I arrive at Sanatorium X in the town of Y. I decide I shall claim a spot in the common lounging area—and who is lying in the chair on my left? Why, Herr Hirsch! And on my right? Herr Wolf! But of course I departed immediately,” and so forth.

“Serves you right,” Hans Castorp thought with distaste.

Wiedemann had a quick, furtive glance. He truly looked as if a very real tassel were dangling just in front of his nose and he was constantly squinting at it, was unable to see beyond it. The erroneous belief that possessed him had become an itch of mistrust, a restless paranoia that drove him to pluck out any uncleanness that lay hidden or disguised in his vicinity, to hold it up to public disgrace. He taunted, he cast suspicions, he foamed at the mouth wherever he went. And in short, his days were filled with exposing to ridicule every form of life that did not possess the one merit he could call his own.

The emotional circumstances we have been describing exacerbated the man’s illness beyond measure; and since he could not fail to encounter forms of life here that displayed the imperfection of which he, Wiedemann, was free, those same circumstances led to a dreadful scene that Hans Castorp witnessed and that shall have to serve as one more example of what we are describing.

For there was another man present—and there was nothing about him that needed unmasking, the case was clear. The man’s name was Sonnenschein; and since one could not have a filthier name than that, from Wiedemann’s very first day here Sonnenschein became the tassel in front of his nose, at which he squinted furtively and maliciously, batting at it with his hand, less to push it aside than to start it swinging so that it could annoy him all the more.

Sonnenschein, like Wiedemann a businessman born and bred, was also seriously ill and almost pathologically sensitive. A friendly man, certainly not stupid and even rather playful by nature, he hated Wiedemann for his taunts and the way he batted that tassel, until it was almost a sickness with him as well. One afternoon everyone gathered in the lobby because Wiedemann and Sonnenschein had run afoul of one another and were going at it like savage beasts.

What a horrible, wretched sight they were. They scuffled like little boys, but with the desperation of grown men who have come to such a pass. They clawed faces, pinched noses, clutched throats, all the while punching away at one another, grappling, rolling about on the floor in terribly dead earnest; they spat, kicked, grabbed, trounced, whacked, and frothed at the mouth. Clerks from the management office came running and with some difficulty separated the two bitten and scratched opponents. Drooling and bleeding, his face doltish with rage, Wiedemann stood there with his hair literally standing on end. Hans Castorp had never seen the phenomenon before, had never believed it could really occur—but Herr Wiedemann’s hair stood up stiff and straight as nails. And he staggered away like that, while Herr Sonnenschein—with one eye turning black now and a bloody patch in the curly black hair that wreathed his head—was led away to the office, where he sat down, hid his face in his hands, and wept bitterly.

That was the Wiedemann-Sonnenschein affair. Everyone who witnessed it was still quivering hours later. In contrast to such misery, it is a comparative pleasure to tell about a genuine “affair of honor” that belongs to this same period and that definitely deserves the name, absurdly so, given the solemn formality with which it was carried out. Hans Castorp was not present at its various phases, but only learned about the complicated and dramatic course of events from documents, affidavits, and official minutes devoted to the affair, copies of which were circulated not only in the Berghof, not only in Davos, in the canton of Graubünden, in Switzerland, but also abroad, were sent as far as America, and were made available for study to persons who, one can be sure, would not and could not pay one whit of attention to the matter.

It was a Polish affair, a fracas of honor, which arose in the bosom of the Polish contingent that had recently found its way to the Berghof, a little colony that now occupied the Good Russian table. (Hans Castorp, we may interpose here, was no longer seated there, but had with time moved on to Hermine Kleefeld’s table, from there to Frau Salomon’s, then on to Fräulein Levi’s.) This contingent was decked out so elegantly, so gallantly, that one could only raise one’s eyebrows and prepare oneself for most any eventuality. It included one married couple, one young miss, who stood on cordial terms with one of the gentlemen, and then a whole group of cavaliers. Their names were von Zutawski, Cieszynski, von Rosinski, Michael Lodygowski, Leo von Asarapetian, and the like. Over champagne in the Berghof restaurant, a certain Japoll had, in the presence of two other cavaliers, made remarks, unrepeatable remarks, concerning both the wife of Herr von Zutawski and the young lady, whose name was Krylow and who was intimately associated with Herr Lodygowski. Measures were taken, certain formal actions resulted, all of which were contained in the written materials later distributed or sent by mail. Hans Castorp read: