The Magic Mountain (32 page)

And so three days had passed since the bill for his second week had been taken care of with a thank-you and a receipt—which is the same thing as saying that he was now in the middle of the third and last week of his scheduled stay up here. On the coming Sunday he would be present for another of the regular fortnightly band concerts, and on Monday he would likewise attend another of Dr. Krokowski’s fortnightly lectures—or so he said to himself and to Joachim. On Tuesday or Wednesday, however, he would depart, and leave Joachim behind alone, poor Joachim, for whom Rhadamanthus had decreed who-knew-how-many more months and whose gentle black eyes dimmed with melancholy every time Hans Castorp made a passing reference to his approaching departure. Yes, good Lord, where had his vacation gone! It had flowed past, sped past, vanished—and one could not rightly say just how. After all, they had intended to spend twenty-one days together—quite a number really, too many to take them all in at once at the beginning. And suddenly there were only three or four paltry days left, a remnant hardly worth considering, though given some weight by the two upcoming periodical deviations in the daily routine, but already filled with thoughts of packing and farewell. Three weeks were as good as nothing up here—they had all told him that right off. The smallest unit of time here was the month, Settembrini had said, and since Hans Castorp’s stay came in under that, it was not really a stay at all—he was merely dropping by, as Director Behrens had put it. He wondered if the increase in one’s general metabolism here made three weeks seem no more than a moment or two. Such a velocity of life was some consolation for Joachim in light of the five months that still awaited him—if five would in fact be the end of it. But they should have paid more careful attention to time during those three weeks, the way you did measuring your temperature, when the prescribed seven minutes became a significant period of time. Hans Castorp felt sincerely sorry for his cousin—you could read in his eyes his sadness at the impending loss of a human companion—but he pitied him most when he thought about how the poor fellow would have to stay on here without him, whereas he would be living down in the flatlands, hard at work in the service of transportation technology, which brought nations closer together. There were moments when he felt the pity as a burning pain in his chest, felt it so intensely that now and again he seriously doubted he would be able to bring himself to leave Joachim here alone. And so pity became at times a searing pain, and that was probably the reason why, all on his own, he spoke less and less about his departure. It was Joachim who would bring the conversation around to it once in a while. Given his natural tact and delicacy, Hans Castorp seemed not to want to think of it until the very last moment.

“Well, at least we can hope,” Joachim said, “that you’ve recuperated here with us and will feel refreshed once you’re back down.”

“Yes, and I’ll give everyone your greetings,” Hans Castorp replied, “and tell them that you’ll follow in five months at the most. Recuperated? You’re asking if
I
’m feeling better after these few days, is that it? I would certainly like to think so. A certain amount of relaxation probably comes just by itself even after a short time. Although there were a lot of novel things to experience up here, novel in every regard, very exciting, but also very taxing to both mind and body. I don’t have the feeling that I’ve quite got used to it all yet and acclimatized myself, although that would be a precondition for any real recuperation. Maria is back to her old self, thank God, she’s been tasting good for several days now. But from time to time my handkerchief shows a little red when I use it, and it doesn’t look as if I’m going to be rid of either this damn flushed face or this silly pounding in my heart before I leave. No, no, you can’t really say I’ve acclimatized myself, but how could anyone in such a short time? It takes longer to get acclimatized here, to get used to all these new impressions. It’s only then that you can begin to recuperate and build up protein. And that’s a shame, because it was definitely a mistake for me not to have arranged for a longer stay—more time certainly would have been available. I feel as if once I’m back home in the flatlands I’m going to have to recuperate from my recuperation and sleep for three weeks, that’s how run-down I feel sometimes. And then to top it all there’s this catarrh I’ve caught.”

Indeed, it did look more and more as if Hans Castorp would be returning to the flatlands with a first-class case of the sniffles. He had caught a cold, presumably from lying outside in the rest cure—the evening rest cure, to carry the presumption further, in which he had been participating for about a week now, despite the cold, damp weather, which did not look as if it would improve before his departure—although he had learned that it was simply not recognized as such, that the notion of bad weather had no right to exist up here, that no one paid it any attention or feared it; and with the docility of youth, with its ability to adapt to the ideas and customs of almost any environment in which it may find itself, Hans Castorp had begun to make this indifference his own. Even when it was raining cats and dogs, you were not allowed to assume that it made the air any less dry. And it probably wasn’t in fact, because it left his head feeling just as hot as before, as if he were sitting in an overheated room or had drunk too much wine. And however cold it got—and it did get very cold—there was no point in his taking refuge in the room, because as long as it wasn’t snowing, there was no heat, so that it was no more comfortable for him to sit in his room than to put on a winter overcoat, artfully wrap himself in his two good camel-hair blankets, and lie out on the balcony. On the contrary, it was better out there, incomparably more comfortable, by any criterion the most agreeable state of affairs that Hans Castorp could remember ever having tried out—a judgment from which he could not be dissuaded by some writer and Carbonaro who made malicious remarks with snide connotations about the “horizontal life.” In particular, he found evenings there agreeable—the little lamp glowing on the table beside him, a Maria between his lips and tasting good once more, he would wrap himself in his blankets and savor the advantages offered by this style of lounge chair, though they were difficult to describe exactly. The tip of his nose froze, of course, and he had to hold his book (it was still
Ocean Steamships
) in terribly numbed, chapped hands, but he could gaze out through the arches of the balcony to the valley, which was adorned with scattered lights that clustered brightly here and there and from which almost every evening, for at least an hour, music came drifting his way, pleasantly muted, familiar melodic airs: fragments of operas, selections from
Carmen
,
Il Trovatore
, or
Der Freischütz
; well-constructed, smooth waltzes as well as marches to which you could jauntily rock your head back and forth; and cheerful mazurkas, too. Mazurkas? Marusya was her name, the girl with the little ruby ring—and in the next balcony, behind the thick milk-glass partition, lay Joachim. Now and then Hans Castorp would exchange a word or two with him, though discreetly, out of consideration for other “horizontals.” Life was just as good for Joachim out on his balcony as it was for Hans Castorp—although he was unmusical and unable to enjoy the evening concerts as much. What a shame—instead of listening, he was probably reading his Russian grammar. Hans Castorp, however, left
Ocean Steamships
lying on his blanket and listened with ardent interest to the music, gazing with contentment into the transparent depths of its structure and taking such genuine delight and inspiration in each melodic invention that he felt nothing but hostility when he occasionally recalled Settembrini’s opinions about music, annoying statements, such as how music was politically suspect—which was no better than Grandfather Giuseppe’s slogan about the July Revolution and the six days of Creation.

Joachim, then, did not participate in these musical pleasures, and the spicy diversion of smoking was likewise alien to him; but otherwise he, too, lay there on his balcony—safe, secure, content. The day was over, everything was over for now; one could be sure that nothing more would happen—no more upsets, no more unreasonable demands on the musculature of the heart. And at the same time one could be sure that such would also be the case come
tomorrow
, when, given the favorable probabilities of narrow space and regular schedules, everything would begin all over again. This double sense of security and safety left Hans Castorp feeling very cozy and, together with the music and the rediscovered flavor of his Maria, made his evening rest cure a truly delightful state of affairs.

This, however, did not prevent the visitor, a frail novice at all this, from catching a very bad cold while outside in his rest cure—if that was where he caught it. A bad case of the sniffles appeared to be in the making. He felt it as a pressure in his sinuses; his throat and uvula were sore and scratchy; air didn’t pass normally through the channel prescribed by nature, but was impeded, and its steady cold draft unleashed fits of coughing; overnight his voice had taken on the hollow timbre of a whiskey bass; and as he told it, he had not slept a wink—he had kept starting up from his pillow because of the stifling dryness in his throat.

“Very annoying,” Joachim said, “almost embarrassing, really. You should know that colds are not
reçus
here. It is denied that they exist, they do not occur—the air is officially much too dry here. And you won’t have much success as a patient if you go to Behrens with a cold. But it’s different with you, after all, you have a right to catch cold. It would be good if we could fend off your catarrh somehow—there are the methods practiced in the flatlands. But here—well, I doubt if they’ll be interested up here. It’s better not to get sick here, no one pays you any attention. It’s a well-known fact, but you’re learning it at the end of your stay. When I arrived there was a lady here who kept one hand pressed to her ear for a whole week, complaining of the pain, and finally Behrens took a look at it. ‘You can set your mind at ease,’ he said, ‘it’s not tubercular.’ And that was that. Yes, we’ll have to see what can be done. I’ll mention it to the bath attendant tomorrow morning when he comes for my massage. That’s the usual official channel—he’ll pass it on, and perhaps we can do something for you then.”

That was Joachim’s advice; and official channels worked. Hans Castorp had no sooner returned from his morning constitutional on Friday than there was a knock at his door, and he was given the opportunity of making the acquaintance of Fräulein von Mylendonk, or Head Nurse Mylendonk, as she was titled. Until now he had seen this evidently very busy woman only from afar—leaving one sickroom and crossing the corridor to a room opposite. Or he had caught a fleeting glimpse of her in the dining hall, or heard her squawky voice. But now she was paying him a personal visit; drawn here by his catarrh, she gave a bony, sharp rap on his door and entered almost before he could say “come in,” although at the threshold she leaned back to make sure she had the right room number.

“Thirty-four,” she croaked at full voice. “Right. Well, man alive,
on me dit, que vous avez pris froid, ich höre, Sie sind erkältet, vy, kazhetsya, prostudilis
’, I hear you have caught a cold. Which language do you prefer? German, I see. Ah, young Ziemssen’s visitor, I see. I should be in the operating room. There’s a gentleman who’s to be chloroformed, and he’s gone and eaten bean salad—if I didn’t keep my eyes open . . . And, man alive, you claim you’ve caught a cold here with us, do you?”

Hans Castorp was taken aback by the old noblewoman’s manner of speech. She seemed to dismiss her own words as she spoke—her head moving about in a restless, looping roll, her nose lifted in the air, searching, like some caged beast of prey. Her freckled right hand was closed in a loose fist, the thumb sticking upward, and by keeping it in constant motion, twisting her wrist back and forth, she seemed to say, “Quick, quick, quick! Don’t listen to what I’m saying, but speak up so I can be on my way.” She was a woman in her forties, with a stunted, shapeless figure under a white, belted clinical smock. A garnet cross dangled at her chest, and sparse tufts of reddish hair stuck out from under her nurse’s cap. Her watery-blue, bloodshot eyes wandered unsteadily, and to make matters worse, one had a sty in a very advanced stage; the nose was turned up, the mouth froglike, the lower lip protruding at an angle and moving like a shovel as she spoke. Hans Castorp gazed at her meanwhile with all the modest, patient, and gullible kindness native to him.

“What sort of a cold is it, eh?” the head nurse asked now, trying to fix her eyes in a piercing stare—but did not succeed, since they began to wander. “We don’t like these colds. Do you catch cold often? Hasn’t your cousin caught a lot of colds, too? How old are you? Twenty-four? Not an easy age. And so you’ve come up here and caught a cold? Good man alive, one should not speak of ‘colds’ here—that’s twiddle-twaddle from down below.” The word “twiddle-twaddle” sounded ghastly and bizarre when she spoke it, with her lower lip shoveling away. “You have the loveliest catarrh of the upper respiratory tract, I will admit, one can see it in your eyes.” And she made another of her odd attempts to stare directly at him, without any real success. “But catarrhs are not colds, they come from an infection to which one is already susceptible, and the only question is whether what we have here is an innocent infection or one that is less innocent, all the rest is twiddle-twaddle.” (There was that gruesome “twiddle-twaddle” again.) “It is of course possible that you tend to be more susceptible to the harmless type,” she said and seemed to look at him with the well-advanced sty—he was not sure how she managed that. “Here we have a harmless antiseptic. It may do you some good.” And from the black leather bag that hung from her belt she pulled out a little box and put it on the table. It was Formamint. “Though you do look rather hectic, too—as if you had a fever.” And she would not release him from her gaze, although her eyes kept ranging off a little to one side. “Have you measured your temperature?”