The Magic Mountain (48 page)

Settembrini had been standing very close to Hans Castorp as he spoke these final words in an almost flat tone of voice, hurrying to finish before reinforcements for Hans Castorp’s side arrived—Joachim had just entered the reading room, two postcards in hand. The man of letters said no more, and the ease with which he changed now to a light conversational tone did not fail to make an impression on his student—if one can call Hans Castorp that.

“There you are, lieutenant. You’ve probably been looking for your cousin—forgive me. We were deep in conversation—if I’m not mistaken, in something of a little dispute. He is not a bad quibbler himself, your cousin, certainly no harmless foe in a battle of words—when he wants to be.”

Dressed in white flannels and blue blazers, Hans Castorp and Joachim Ziemssen were sitting in the garden after dinner. It was yet another of those celebrated October days, a day that was both hot and gentle, festal and austere, with a dark blue southern sky above the valley, whose meadows, crossed with paths and dotted with settlements, were still a cheerful green and from whose rugged, wooded slopes came the sound of cowbells—a metallic, serene, simple tone that drifted clear and untroubled through the quiet, thin, empty air and enhanced the gala mood reigning in those high regions.

The cousins were sitting on a bench in front of a circle of young firs at the far end of the garden. The spot lay at the northwest edge of the level, fenced-in area on which the Berghof was set, about 150 feet above the valley floor. They said nothing. Hans Castorp was smoking. In his mind he was quarreling with Joachim for not having wanted to join the others on the veranda and for having insisted instead, against his express wish, that they come out and sit here in the hushed garden before retiring for their rest cure. Joachim was acting like a tyrant. As far as that went, they weren’t Siamese twins. They could go their separate ways if they were of different minds. Hans Castorp was not here to keep Joachim company, but was a patient himself. He went on sulking like this—had no trouble sulking, really, since he had his Maria Mancini. His hands in the side pockets of his blazer, his feet shod in brown shoes stretched out before him, he had set the long, dull gray cigar in the center of his mouth, letting it dangle slightly, the first ashes still clinging to the blunt tip in this initial phase; having just eaten a heavy meal, he was enjoying its aroma, which had come back in full force at last. It might well be that getting used to things up here was simply a matter of getting used to not getting used to them—but as for his digestive chemistry and his sensitive, dry mucous membranes that tended to nosebleeds, the adjustment seemed complete at last. He had not even noticed progress in the making, but over the course of these sixty-five or seventy days, the comfort his whole organism found in well-rolled tobacco, whether as stimulant or narcotic, had returned. And he was delighted that he had regained the capacity. Moral satisfaction reinforced physical pleasure. During his period of bed rest, he had made sparing use of the stock of two hundred he had brought with him and so still had some of those left. But in his letter to Schalleen requesting underwear and winter clothes, he had also asked her to order five hundred more from his supplier in Bremen to make sure he wouldn’t be caught short. They came in beautiful enameled boxes with gilt depictions of a globe, lots of medallions, and an exposition hall with banners flying.

And as they sat, here came Director Behrens walking through the garden. He had joined the others for the main meal in the dining hall today, had sat at Frau Salomon’s table, his gigantic hands folded before his plate. After that, it would appear, he had spent some time on the terrace, adding a personal touch, perhaps showing off his bootlace trick for someone who had never seen it before. Now he came strolling down the gravel path, dressed not in his medical smock, but in a small-checked swallowtail coat, his bowler pushed back on his head, a cigar in his mouth, too—a very black one, from which he drew great, whitish clouds of smoke. His head, or better, his face, with its purplish, flushed cheeks, snub nose, blue watery eyes, and short-cropped moustache, looked small in comparison to his tall, slightly stooped, and skewed figure, with its oversize hands and feet. In a nervous state, he was visibly startled by the sight of the cousins, and even stood there in some embarrassment that his path had led him directly toward them. Employing his usual cheerful lingo, he greeted them with, “Behold, behold, Timotheus!” and expressed his best wishes for their metabolisms. They were about to stand out of respect, but he told them to remain seated.

“No need, no need. Let’s have no further fuss about a simple fellow like myself. Don’t deserve it at all, inasmuch as you are my patients—both of you now. You needn’t do that. No objection to the status quo.” And there he stood before them, his cigar held between the first and second fingers of his gigantic right hand. “How’s your cabbage-roll doing, Castorp? Let me have a look. I’m a connoisseur. Good ash—what brand of lovely brunette is she?”

“Maria Mancini,
Poste de Banquette
, from Bremen, Director Behrens. Costs little or nothing, a mere nineteen pfennigs, natural color, but an aroma that you don’t normally find at the price. Best Sumatra-Havana wrapper, as you can see. I have got very used to them. It’s a medium mixture, quite spicy but light on the tongue. She likes you to leave her ash long—I knock it off twice at most. Of course she has her little moods, but the quality control must be especially exacting, because Maria is very dependable and has an absolutely even draw. Might I offer you one?”

“Thank you, let’s exchange brands.” And they pulled out their cases.

“She has good breeding,” the director said, holding out his brand. “Vivacious, you know, vim and vigor. Saint Felix-Brazil, I’ve always stuck to that sort. Soothes one’s cares away, catches fire like brandy, but, all the same, she packs something of a wallop toward the end. A little caution is in order—you can’t light one from the other. Would take more of a man than I. But I’d rather have a hearty snack than a whole day of tasteless air.”

Each rolled his gift between his fingers, examining the slender body with expert eye—there was an organic, living quality about the even rows of raised and slanted ribs, the tiny pores along the edges here and there, the veins that seemed almost to throb, the little irregularities of skin, the play of light on surfaces and edges.

Hans Castorp put it into words. “There’s life in a cigar. It actually breathes. At home I came up with the idea of keeping my Maria stored in airtight metal containers, to keep out the damp. Would you believe it, she died! Within a few weeks she grew sickly and died—nothing left but leathery corpses.”

They exchanged what they knew about the best way to store cigars, especially imports. The director loved imported cigars and would have most preferred to smoke heavy Havanas. Unfortunately they did not agree with him, and he told about two little Henry Clays he had taken a liking to one evening at a party and how they had come close to putting him six feet under. “I smoke them both with my coffee,” he said, “one after the other, thinking nothing of it. But no sooner am I finished than I have to ask myself what’s up. Whatever it is, I’m feeling very rum, stranger than I’ve ever felt in my life. I arrive home, no little problem in itself, and no sooner am I home than I think I’m about to pop my cork—you know, feet like ice, a cold sweat, you name it, face white as a sheet, heart doing crazy tricks, my pulse going from a thread you can barely feel to a helter-skelter, cross-country spurt, you know, and my brain in a tizzy. I was convinced that I was about to kick the bucket. I say ‘kick the bucket,’ since that’s the phrase that came to me then as the best description of my condition. Because actually I was feeling as euphoric as if this were some sort of shindig, although I was scared stiff, or better, I was out of my mind with fear. But fear and euphoria aren’t mutually exclusive, everybody knows that. Some scalawag who’s about to have a girl for the first time is afraid, too. So is she. But they simply melt together for euphoria. Well, I was close to melting myself, about to kick the bucket, my chest heaving away. But then Mylendonk’s ministrations broke the mood. Ice compresses, a rubdown with a brush, an injection of camphor—and so here I am still among the living.”

Hans Castorp had sat there listening in his role as patient, but now he looked up at Behrens, whose blue pop-eyes had filled with tears as he told his tale. His own face mirrored a mind full of thoughts. “You paint sometimes, don’t you, Director Behrens?” he suddenly asked.

The director pretended to recoil in astonishment. “What’s this? Now where did you get that notion, my lad?”

“Excuse me. I’ve heard people mention it here and there. I just happened to think of it.”

“Well, then I’ll not go to the trouble of telling fibs. We’re all human and have our weaknesses now and then. Yes, it’s been known to happen.
Anch’io sono pittore
, as that Spaniard liked to say.”

“Landscapes?” Hans Castorp asked. Circumstances contributed to his laconic, condescending tone.

“As many as you like,” the director replied with embarrassed bravado. “Landscapes, still lifes, animals—a fellow like me shrinks from absolutely nothing.”

“But no portraits?”

“A portrait or two has probably slipped in now and then. Do you want to commission me for one?”

“Ha, ha, no. But it would be very kind of you to show us your paintings if the opportunity should ever arise.”

Joachim, too, after first gazing at his cousin in astonishment, hastened to assure the director that it would indeed be very kind of him.

Behrens was so pleased and flattered that he was almost ebullient. He even turned red with delight, and by now his eyes seemed close to shedding actual tears. “Gladly, gladly!” he cried. “With greatest pleasure! Right here on the spot, if you’d like. Come along, come with me, I’ll brew us some Turkish coffee at my diggings.” And he took each young man by the arm and pulled them from the bench; linking arms with both, he now led them down the gravel path toward his residence, which, as they knew, was located in the nearby northwest wing of the Berghof.

“I’ve tried something along that line myself on occasion in the past,” Hans Castorp declared.

“You don’t say. The real thing in oils?”

“No, no, I never managed anything more than a watercolor or two. An occasional ship, a seascape, childish stuff. But I like to look at paintings, which is why I’ve taken this liberty.”

Joachim, in particular, felt somewhat relieved and enlightened by his cousin’s explanation for his startling curiosity—and it was more for his sake than the director’s that Hans Castorp had called attention to his own attempts as an artist. They arrived—but here was no splendid portal flanked by lanterns like the one at the end of the driveway on the other side of the building. A few semicircular steps led up to an oaken door, which the director opened with a latchkey, one of many on his key ring. His hand trembled as he did it; he was definitely nervous. They entered a vestibule where you could hang your things, and Behrens placed his bowler on its hook. Once they were inside the short corridor, which opened on both sides to the rooms of his small private residence and was separated from the rest of the building by a glass-paned door, he called for the maid and placed his order. Then with several jovial phrases of encouragement, he admitted his guests through one of the doors on the right.

Two rooms furnished in banal bourgeois style, one opening into the other and separated only by portieres, looked toward the valley: a dining room done in “antique German”; a combination living room and office, with sofa and chairs, bookcases and heavy wool carpets, a fraternity cap and crossed swords hung above a desk, plus a small smoking alcove, done in “Turkish” style. There were paintings everywhere, the director’s paintings—the visitors’ eyes at once began courteously to wander over them, ready to admire. The director’s departed spouse was conspicuously present, in several oils and also in a photograph on the desk. She was a thin, somewhat enigmatic blond in diaphanous garments, who always held her hands folded against her left shoulder—not firmly clasped, but with just the fingertips lying loosely interlaced—her eyes either directed heavenward or cast down, hidden under long lashes that stood out at an angle from the lids. But the late wife never looked straight ahead at her beholder. Otherwise, the paintings were mostly Alpine landscapes—mountains draped in snow and evergreen, mountains with peaks veiled in mist, and mountains whose crisp, sharp outlines stood out against a deep blue sky and betrayed the influence of Segantini. There were also other themes: Alpine dairy sheds, dewlapped cows standing or lying in sun-drenched pastures, a plucked hen among vegetables with its twisted neck dangling over one side of a table, floral arrangements, local mountain folk, and so on—all of them painted in a kind of brisk, dilettante style, with brash clumps of color that often looked as if they had been squeezed onto the canvas directly from the tube and must have taken a long time to dry. The technique occasionally proved effective at covering bad mistakes.

They moved along the walls as if at an exhibition, accompanied by the master of the house, who would now and then provide a title, but usually said nothing, displaying the proud apprehension of the artist, enjoying it all, letting his eyes rest on each work along with those of the strangers. The portrait of Clavdia Chauchat was hung in the living room, next to the window—Hans Castorp had spied it with one quick glance as he entered the room, although it bore only a very distant resemblance to her. He intentionally avoided the spot, keeping his companions pinned down in the dining room by pretending to admire a verdant view of the Sergi Valley with bluish glaciers in the background; well aware that he was in command, he first steered them into the Turkish smoking alcove, which he likewise gave a thorough examination amid much praise, and then surveyed the wall on the entrance side of the living room, sometimes urging Joachim to join him in his complimentary remarks. Finally he turned around and said with measured puzzlement, “Why, I know that face, don’t I?”