The Magic Mountain (40 page)

For behind his brow were the thoughts or half-thoughts that first conferred true cloying sweetness to his visions and images, thoughts that centered on Madame Chauchat’s carelessness and brazenness, on the illness that accentuated and enhanced her body, the illness that embodied her very being and that he now shared with her according to medical dictum. The realization formed behind his brow that Madame Chauchat was taking utter license with those looks and smiles, totally disregarding their not being social acquaintances—as if they were not social creatures at all, as if there were no need for them even to
speak
to one another. And that was what terrified him, in the same way he had been terrified that day down in the examination room, when he had rapidly shifted his searching glance from Joachim’s naked upper torso to his eyes—the difference being that it was pity and worry that had been the source of his terror then, whereas other factors were involved here.

And so now life at the Berghof—this blessed and well-regulated life on a narrow stage—resumed its steady pace. And while Hans Castorp waited to have a picture taken of his interior, he continued to share that life with dear old Joachim, doing exactly what he did, hour for hour; and close proximity with his cousin was probably good for the young man. It was a proximity based solely on illness; all the same, Joachim had a great deal of military integrity about him—though, granted, without his even being aware of it, that integrity was being increasingly satisfied by rest cures, to the point where they had become, as it were, a substitute for duties fulfilled in the flatlands, a kind of spurious occupation. Hans Castorp was not so dull that he had not noticed that much quite accurately, but he also sensed an inhibiting, restraining effect on his own civilian sentiments—indeed it may have been this proximity, the example he took from it and its supervisory aspect, that kept him from overt actions and blind adventures. For he could observe only too well how Joachim had to endure the daily, constant assaults of orange-scented handkerchiefs, round brown eyes, a little ruby, a great many unwarranted giggles, and an externally well-formed chest; and the common sense and love of honor, which enabled Joachim to avoid those assaults and flee from them, touched Hans Castorp, kept him under some control and prevented him from “borrowing a pencil,” as it were, from a certain narrow-eyed person—which experience taught him he would have been only too ready to do without Joachim’s disciplining proximity.

Joachim never spoke of tittering Marusya, which therefore precluded Hans Castorp from mentioning Clavdia Chauchat. He restricted himself to harmless, furtive exchanges at meals with the teacher on his right, teasing the old maid about her weakness for their supple fellow patient until she would blush, and all the while trying to maintain his dignity by imitating old Grandfather Castorp’s chin-propping method. He also pressed her in order to learn new and interesting details about Madame Chauchat’s private life—her origins, her husband, her age, the exact nature of her illness. Did she have any children? he wanted to know. Oh, certainly not, no children. What would a woman like her do with children? Presumably she had been strictly forbidden to have any—and then, too, what sort of children would they have turned out to be? Hans Castorp had to concur. It was probably also too late now, he suggested with rugged objectivity. There were times, he remarked, when Madame Chauchat’s face, in profile at least, looked rather severe. Was it possible she was already past thirty? Fräulein Engelhart violently contested the very idea. Clavdia, thirty? At the worst, twenty-eight. And as for her profile, his tablemate forbade him ever to say such a thing again. Clavdia’s profile was one of softest, sweetest youth—though it was, of course, a most interesting profile as well, not that of some healthy little goose. And by way of punishment and without even pausing, Fräulein Engelhart added that she knew for a fact that Frau Chauchat often entertained a gentleman caller, a fellow countryman who lived in Platz. She received him in her room every afternoon.

The shot was well aimed. Despite everything he could do, Hans Castorp’s face looked strained, and even phrases like “you don’t say” and “well, I never,” with which he tried to parry her opening move, sounded strained. Incapable of simply shrugging off the existence of this fellow countryman as he pretended to do at first, he kept returning to the topic. With twitching lips he asked: A younger man? Young and attractive, from everything she had heard, the teacher replied, although she hadn’t actually seen him to judge for herself. Ill? At most, a very mild case. Well, he did hope, Hans Castorp said, that collars and cuffs were more in evidence with him than with her fellow countrymen at the Bad Russian table. And still intent on punishing him, Fräulein Engelhart claimed she was sure they were. Then he admitted that it was a matter that one should look into and earnestly commissioned her to find out what could be found out about the comings and goings of this fellow countryman. But several days later, instead of providing him with more information, she had other, completely different news for him.

She had learned that Clavdia Chauchat was having her portrait painted—and asked Hans Castorp whether he knew about that, too. If not, he could nevertheless be certain that she had it from the very best sources. For some time now, Clavdia had been sitting for her portrait, posing for someone right here in the house. And who was that? Why, the director.
Hofrat
Behrens, who saw her for that express purpose twice daily in his private residence.

This announcement affected Hans Castorp even more than her previous news. He now tried making several forced jokes about it. Well, of course, it was well known that the director did oils—what did the teacher want, it wasn’t forbidden, everyone was free to do so. And in the director’s own widower’s apartments, had she said? Well, he hoped that at least Fräulein von Mylendonk was present for the sittings.

“But she doesn’t have the time.”

“Surely Behrens doesn’t have more time than our head nurse,” Hans Castorp replied sternly.

But although that seemed to be his final remark at first, he was not at all prepared to let the subject drop and almost exhausted himself asking questions about every conceivable detail: about the picture itself—its size and whether it was just a head or a seated portrait—about the hours when the sittings were held. Fräulein Engelhart, however, could not satisfy him about these matters, either, and had to put him off with assurances that she would make further inquiries.

Immediately after hearing this news, Hans Castorp took his temperature—it was 99.9 degrees. He was far more worried and pained by the visits that Frau Chauchat paid than by those she received. Her private life—as a topic in and of itself and apart from what happened in it—had already begun to cause him pain and worry, and those same feelings could only intensify once rumors reached him of what was actually happening in her life. Granted, it was perfectly likely that the relationship between the Russian visitor and his countrywoman was quite sober and harmless; but for some time now, Hans Castorp had found himself regarding sobriety and harmlessness as twiddle-twaddle—just as he could not convince himself that oil painting was anything but an excuse for a relationship between an overenergetic, garrulous widower and a narrow-eyed, pussyfooting young woman. The taste the director displayed in his choice of models corresponded all too closely to his own for him to believe there was anything sober about it—and to reinforce his opinion, he needed only to picture the director’s purple cheeks and bloodshot pop-eyes.

An observation he made quite by chance on his own during this same period had a different effect on him, though it also served to confirm his own good taste. At the table set crosswise on the cousins’ left, the one near the side door, where Frau Salomon and the gluttonous student with glasses sat, there was another patient—from Mannheim, Hans Castorp had heard—a man about thirty years old, with thinning hair, bad teeth, and a timid way of speaking—the same fellow who occasionally played the piano at their evening social gatherings, usually the “Wedding March” from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. He was said to be very religious, which, as might be expected, was not uncommon among the people up here, or so Hans Castorp had been told. It was said he attended services down in Platz every Sunday and read devotional books during rest cure—books with a chalice or palm fronds on the cover. And, as Hans Castorp happened to notice one day, this fellow’s eyes were staring in the same direction as his own; like his own, they were fixed fondly—and shyly and insistently, if not to say fawningly—on Madame Chauchat’s supple body. Once Hans Castorp had noticed this fact, he could not help confirming it again and again. He would spot him standing among the other guests in the game room of an evening, gazing gloomily and forlornly at the charming, though flawed woman who was sitting on the sofa in the small salon and chatting with frizzy-haired Tamara (that was the droll-looking girl’s name), Dr. Blumenkohl, the man with the concave chest, and the hunch-shouldered youths from her table. He saw him turn away and, as misery played across the upper lip, slowly sneak an over-the-shoulder look out of the corner of one eye. He noticed how he blushed and did not look up, and then
did
look up when the glass door slammed and Frau Chauchat glided to her seat. And several times he watched as the poor fellow took up a position between the door and the Good Russian table so that Frau Chauchat would have to pass by him at the end of the meal. She paid him no regard, but he devoured her at close range with eyes full of profound sadness.

This discovery also caused young Hans Castorp no little worry, although the Mannheimer’s sad, greedy looks did not trouble him as much as the private relations between Clavdia Chauchat and Director Behrens—a man very much his superior in age, character, and position. Clavdia paid no attention to the man from Mannheim—if she had, it certainly would not have escaped Hans Castorp’s sharpened instincts. And so it was not the nasty thorn of jealousy that pricked his soul in this case. But he did explore all the feelings that intoxication and passion can explore once they catch a glimpse of themselves in the world outside, feelings that are the strangest mixture of disgust and shared emotions. If we are to get on with our story, however, it will be impossible to fathom and analyze all of that. In any case, the added emotional experience of observing the patient from Mannheim was almost too much for a man like poor Hans Castorp to have to deal with all at once.

And so eight days passed until Hans Castorp’s X-ray examination. He had not known how many days would have to pass, but one morning at early breakfast he received his orders from the head nurse, who had another sty now—it could not be the same one; apparently she was naturally susceptible to this harmless but disfiguring ailment. He had to report to the laboratory that afternoon—which made it eight days. Hans Castorp was to appear a half hour before tea, along with his cousin, since Joachim was also supposed to have a picture taken of his interior at the same time—his previous one being too old to be considered valid.

And so they both had cut short the main afternoon rest cure by a half hour, had “descended” the stairs to the pseudo-basement at three-thirty on the dot, and now sat in the little waiting room that separated the consulting and X-ray rooms. Joachim, for whom this was nothing new, was quite calm; Hans Castorp was a little feverish with expectation, since until now no one had ever taken a look into his organic interior. They were not alone. Several guests were already seated in the room, tattered illustrated magazines spread over their knees. They all waited together: a young, big bruiser of a Swede, who sat at Settembrini’s table in the dining hall and who people said had been so ill when he arrived the previous April that he had been admitted only with great reluctance, but who now had put on eighty pounds and was about to be released as fully cured; a woman from the Bad Russian table, a mother, a wretched soul; and her even more wretched, long-nosed, ugly son named Sasha. The three had been waiting before the cousins’ arrival and presumably had precedence on the appointment list. Evidently they were well behind schedule in the adjoining X-ray room, and a long wait appeared likely.

They were very busy in there—you could hear the director’s voice giving orders. It was a little past three-thirty when a technical assistant who worked down here opened the door to admit the lucky Swedish bruiser—evidently his predecessor had been let out by way of another exit. Things proceeded more quickly now. Ten minutes later they heard footsteps in the corridor—the stalwart stride of the fully cured Scandinavian, a walking advertisement for the climate and the sanatorium. The Russian mother and Sasha were admitted. As he had noticed previously when the Swede had gone in, Hans Castorp saw that semidarkness, a kind of artificial twilight, reigned in the X-ray room—just as it did in Dr. Krokowski’s analytical chamber. The windows had been blacked out, daylight banned, and only a couple of electric bulbs were turned on. Hans Castorp watched as Sasha and his mother were ushered in, and at the same moment the door to the corridor opened and the next scheduled patient arrived—a little early, since the lab was running late. It was Madame Chauchat.

It was Clavdia Chauchat who had appeared suddenly in the little room. Hans Castorp’s eyes stared wide when he realized who it was, and he could feel the blood drain from his face and his jaw go slack—his mouth was close to dropping open. Clavdia’s entrance had been so random, so totally unexpected—one moment she was not there, and the next she was sharing the little waiting room with the two cousins. Joachim gave Hans Castorp a quick glance and then not only lowered his eyes, but also picked up a magazine he had only just put back on the table, and hid his face behind it. Hans Castorp could not make up his mind to do the same. After first turning pale, his face was now very red, and his heart was pounding.

Frau Chauchat took a seat on a little round chair with rather rudimentary, stubby arms that stood beside the door to the laboratory; she leaned back, crossed one leg lightly over the other, and stared into space, although the nervous distraction of being watched gave a certain sly squint to her Pribislav eyes. She was wearing a white sweater and a blue skirt and held a book, a library book it appeared, on her lap; she lightly tapped out a rhythm with the sole of the shoe resting on the floor.