Part 4 (1/2)
”I don't deny it,” said Joachim. ”But when one behaves as feebly as that-”
”No,” persisted Hans Castorp, with a violence out of proportion to the opposition he met, ”I insist that a dying man is above any chap that is going about and laughing and earning his living and eating his three meals a day. It isn't good enough”-his voice quavered-”it isn't good enough, for one to calmly-just calmly”-his words trailed off in a fit of laughter that seized and overcame him, the laughter of yesterday, a profound, illimitable, body-shaking laughter, that shut up his eyes and made tears well from beneath their lids.
”Sh-h!” went Joachim, suddenly. ”Keep quiet,” he whispered, and nudged his uncontrollably hilarious cousin in the side. Hans Castorp looked up through tears. A stranger was approaching them from the left, a dark man of graceful carriage, with curling black moustaches, wearing light-coloured check trousers. He exchanged a good-morning with Joachim in accents agreeable and precise, and then remained standing before them in an easy posture, leaning on his cane, with his legs crossed.
Satana
HIS age would have been hard to say, probably between thirty and forty; for though he gave an impression of youthfulness, yet the hair on his temples was sprinkled with silver and gone quite thin on his head. Two bald bays ran along the narrow scanty parting, and added to the height of his forehead. His clothing, loose trousers in light yellowish checks, and too long, double-breasted pilot coat, with very wide lapels, made no slightest claim to elegance; and his stand-up collar, with rounding corners, was rough on the edges from frequent was.h.i.+ng. His black cravat showed wear, and he wore no cuffs, as Hans Castorp saw at once from the lax way the sleeve hung round the wrist. But despite all that, he knew he had a gentleman before him: the stranger's easy, even charming pose and cultured expression left no doubt of that. Yet by this mingling of shabbiness and grace, by the black eyes and softly waving moustaches, Hans Castorp was irresistibly reminded of certain foreign musicians who used to come to Hamburg at Christmas to play in the streets before people's doors. He could see them rolling up their velvet eyes and holding out their soft hats for the coins tossed from the windows. ”A hand-organ man,” he thought. Thus he was not surprised at the name he heard, as Joachim rose from the bench and in some embarra.s.sment presented him: ”My cousin Castorp, Herr Settembrini.”
Hans Castorp had got up at the same time, the traces of his burst of hilarity still on his face. But the Italian courteously bade them both not to disturb themselves, and made them sit down again, while he maintained his easy pose before them. He smiled standing there and looking at the cousins, in particular at Hans Castorp; a smile that was a fine, almost mocking, deepening and crisping of one corner of the mouth, just at the point where the full moustache made its beautiful upward curve. It had upon the cousins a singular effect: it somehow constrained them to mental alertness and clarity; it sobered the reeling Hans Castorp in a twinkling, and made him ashamed.
Settembrini said: ”You are in good spirits-and with reason too, with excellent reason. What a splendid morning! A blue sky, a smiling sun-”with an easy, adequate motion of the arm he raised a small, yellowish-skinned hand to the heavens, and sent a lively glance upward after it-”one could almost forget where one is.”
He spoke without accent, only the precise enunciation betrayed the foreigner. His lips seemed to take a certain pleasure in forming the words. It was most agreeable to hear him.
”You had a pleasant journey hither, I hope?” he turned to Hans Castorp. ”And do you already know your fate-I mean has the mournful ceremony of the first examination taken place?” Here, if he had really been expecting a reply he should have paused; he had put his question, and Hans Castorp prepared to answer. But he went on: ”Did you get off easily? One might put”-here he paused a second, and the crisping at the corner of his mouth grew crisper-”more than one interpretation upon your laughter. How many months have our Minos and Rhadamanthus knocked you down for?” The slang phrase sounded droll on his lips. ”Shall I guess? Six? Nine? You know we are free with the time up here-”
Hans Castorp laughed, astonished, at the same time racking his brains to remember who Minos and Rhadamanthus were. He answered: ”Not at all-no, really, you are under a misapprehension, Herr Septem-”
”Settembrini,” corrected the Italian, clearly and with emphasis, making as he spoke a mocking bow.
”Herr Settembrini-I beg your pardon. No, you are mistaken. Really I am not ill. I have only come on a visit to my cousin Ziemssen for a few weeks, and shall take advantage of the opportunity to get a good rest-”
”Zounds! You don't say? Then you are not one of us? You are well, you are but a guest here, like Odysseus in the kingdom of the shades? You are bold indeed, thus to descend into these depths peopled by the vacant and idle dead-”
”Descend, Herr Settembrini? I protest. Here I have climbed up some five thousand feet to get here-”
”That was only seeming. Upon my honour, it was an illusion,” the Italian said, with a decisive-wave of the hand. ”We are sunk enough here, aren't we, Lieutenant?” he said to Joachim, who, no little gratified at this method of address, thought to hide his satisfaction, and answered reflectively:
”I suppose we do get rather one-sided. But we can pull ourselves together, afterwards, if we try.”
”At least, you you can, I'm sure-you are an upright man,” Settembrini said. ”Yes, yes, yes,” he said, repeating the word three times, with a sharp s, turning to Hans Castorp again as he spoke, and then, in the same measured way, clucking three times with his tongue against his palate. ”I see, I see, I see,” he said again, giving the can, I'm sure-you are an upright man,” Settembrini said. ”Yes, yes, yes,” he said, repeating the word three times, with a sharp s, turning to Hans Castorp again as he spoke, and then, in the same measured way, clucking three times with his tongue against his palate. ”I see, I see, I see,” he said again, giving the s s the same sharp sound as before. He looked the newcomer so steadfastly in the face that his eyes grew fixed in a stare; then, becoming lively again, he went on: ”So you come up quite of your own free will to us sunken ones, and mean to bestow upon us the pleasure of your company for some little while? That is delightful. And what term had you thought of putting to your stay? I don't mean precisely. I am merely interested to know what the length of a man's sojourn would be when it is himself and not Rhadamanthus who prescribes the limit.” the same sharp sound as before. He looked the newcomer so steadfastly in the face that his eyes grew fixed in a stare; then, becoming lively again, he went on: ”So you come up quite of your own free will to us sunken ones, and mean to bestow upon us the pleasure of your company for some little while? That is delightful. And what term had you thought of putting to your stay? I don't mean precisely. I am merely interested to know what the length of a man's sojourn would be when it is himself and not Rhadamanthus who prescribes the limit.”
”Three weeks,” Hans Castorp said, rather pridefully, as he saw himself the object of envy.
”O dio! Three weeks! Do you hear, Lieutenant? Does it not sound to you impertinent to hear a person say: 'I am stopping for three weeks and then I am going away again'? We up here are not acquainted with such a unit of time as the week-if I may be permitted to instruct you, my dear sir. Our smallest unit is the month. We reckon in the grand style-that is a privilege we shadows have. We possess other such; they are all of the same quality. May I ask what profession you practise down below? Or, more probably, for what profession are you preparing yourself? You see we set no bounds to our thirst for information-curiosity is another of the prescriptive rights of shadows.” ”Pray don't mention it,” said Hans Castorp. And told him. Three weeks! Do you hear, Lieutenant? Does it not sound to you impertinent to hear a person say: 'I am stopping for three weeks and then I am going away again'? We up here are not acquainted with such a unit of time as the week-if I may be permitted to instruct you, my dear sir. Our smallest unit is the month. We reckon in the grand style-that is a privilege we shadows have. We possess other such; they are all of the same quality. May I ask what profession you practise down below? Or, more probably, for what profession are you preparing yourself? You see we set no bounds to our thirst for information-curiosity is another of the prescriptive rights of shadows.” ”Pray don't mention it,” said Hans Castorp. And told him.
”A s.h.i.+p-builder! Magnificent!” cried Settembrini. ”I a.s.sure you, I find that magnificent-though my own talents lie in quite another direction.”
”Herr Settembrini is a literary man,” Joachim explained, rather self-consciously. ”He wrote the obituary notices of Carducci for the German papers-Carducci, you know.” He got more self-conscious still, for his cousin looked at him in amazement, as though to say: ”Carducci? What do you know about him? Not any more than I do,
I'll wager.”
”Yes,” the Italian said, nodding. ”I had the honour of telling your countrymen the story of our great poet and freethinker, when his life had drawn to a close. I knew him, I can count myself among his pupils. I sat at his feet in Bologna. I may thank him for what culture I can call my own-and for what joyousness of life as well. But we were speaking of you. A s.h.i.+p-builder! Do you know you have sensibly risen in my estimation? You represent now, in my eyes, the world of labour and practical genius.” ”Herr Settembrini, I am only a student as yet, I am just beginning.”
”Certainly. It is the beginning that is hard. But all work is is hard, isn't it, that deserves the name?” hard, isn't it, that deserves the name?”
”That's true enough, G.o.d knows-or the Devil does,” Hans Castorp said, and thewords came from his heart.
Settembrini's eyebrows went up.
”Oh,” he said, ”so you call on the Devil to witness that sentiment-the Devil incarnate, Satan himself? Did you know that my great master wrote a hymn to him?” ”I beg your pardon,” Hans Castorp said, ”a hymn to the Devil?”