Part 22 (1/2)

Then the low sleds would come singly, with long intervals between, around the curves of the white course, that shone metallic between frozen barriers of snow. The riders were men and women, in white woollens, with gay-coloured scarves of all nationalities wound about them. They were all red and l.u.s.ty, and it snowed into their faces as they came on. Sledges would skid and upset, rolling their riders into the snow-and the onlookers would take photographs of the scene. Here too music played. The spectators sat in small tribunes, or pressed upon the narrow path that had been shovelled alongside the course; or thronged the wooden bridges which spanned it, watching the sleds that from time to time whizzed beneath. This was the path taken by the corpses from the sanatorium above, Hans Castorp thought: round these curves, under these bridges they came, down, down, to the valley below. He spoke of it to the others.

They even took Karen, one afternoon, to the Bioscope Theatre in the Platz-she loved it all so very much. The bad air they sat in was offensive to the three, used as they were to breathing the purest; it oppressed their breathing and made their heads feel heavy and dull. Life flitted across the screen before their smarting eyes: life chopped into small sections, fleeting, accelerated; a restless, jerky fluctuation of appearing and disappearing, performed to a thin accompaniment of music, which set its actual tempo tempo to the phantasmagoria of the past, and with the narrowest of means at its command, yet managed to evoke a whole gamut of pomp and solemnity, pa.s.sion, abandon, and gurgling sensuality. It was a thrilling drama of love and death they saw silently reeled off; the scenes, laid at the court of an oriental despot, galloped past, full of gorgeousness and naked bodies, thirst of power and raving religious selfabnegation; full of cruelty, appet.i.te, and deathly l.u.s.t, and slowing down to give a full view of the muscular development of the executioner's arms. Constructed, in short, to cater to the innermost desires of an onlooking international civilization. Settembrini, as critic, Hans Castorp thought, and whispered as much to his cousin, would doubtless have sharply characterized what they saw as repugnant to a humanistic sense, and have scarified with direct and cla.s.sic irony the prost.i.tution of technical skill to such a humanly contemptible performance. On the other hand, Frau Stohr, who was sitting not far from our three friends, seemed utterly absorbed; her ignorant red face was twisted into an expression of the hugest enjoyment. to the phantasmagoria of the past, and with the narrowest of means at its command, yet managed to evoke a whole gamut of pomp and solemnity, pa.s.sion, abandon, and gurgling sensuality. It was a thrilling drama of love and death they saw silently reeled off; the scenes, laid at the court of an oriental despot, galloped past, full of gorgeousness and naked bodies, thirst of power and raving religious selfabnegation; full of cruelty, appet.i.te, and deathly l.u.s.t, and slowing down to give a full view of the muscular development of the executioner's arms. Constructed, in short, to cater to the innermost desires of an onlooking international civilization. Settembrini, as critic, Hans Castorp thought, and whispered as much to his cousin, would doubtless have sharply characterized what they saw as repugnant to a humanistic sense, and have scarified with direct and cla.s.sic irony the prost.i.tution of technical skill to such a humanly contemptible performance. On the other hand, Frau Stohr, who was sitting not far from our three friends, seemed utterly absorbed; her ignorant red face was twisted into an expression of the hugest enjoyment.

And so were the other faces about them. But when the last flicker of the last picture in a reel had faded away, when the lights in the auditorium went up, and the field of vision stood revealed as an empty sheet of canvas, there was not even applause. n.o.body was there to be applauded, to be called before the curtain and thanked for the rendition. The actors who had a.s.sembled to present the scenes they had just enjoyed were scattered to the winds; only their shadows had been here, their activity had been split up into millions of pictures, each with the shortest possible period of focus, in order to give it back to the present and reel it off again at will. The silence of the crowd, as the illusion pa.s.sed, had about it something nerveless and repellent. Their hands lay powerless in face of the nothing that confronted them. They rubbed their eyes, stared vacantly before them, blinking in the brilliant light and wis.h.i.+ng themselves back in the darkness, looking at sights which had had their day and then, as it were, had been transplanted into fresh time, and bedizened up with music. The despot died beneath the knife, with a soundless shriek. Then came scenes from all parts of the world: the President of the French Republic, in top-hat and cordon, sitting in a landau and replying to a speech of welcome; the Viceroy of India, at the wedding of a rajah; the German Crown Prince in the courtyard of a Potsdam garrison. There was a picture of life in a New Mecklenburg village; a c.o.c.k-fight in Borneo, naked savages blowing on nose-horns, a wild elephant hunt, a ceremony at the court of the King of Siam, a courtesans' street in j.a.pan, with geishas sitting behind wooden lattices; Samoyeds bundled in furs, driving sledges drawn by reindeer through the snowy wastes of Siberia; Russian pilgrims praying at Hebron; a Persian criminal under the knout. They were present at all these scenes; s.p.a.ce was annihilated, the clock put back, the then and there played on by music and transformed into a juggling, scurrying now and here. A young Moroccan woman, in a costume of striped silk, with trappings in the shape of chains, bracelets, and rings, her swelling b.r.e.a.s.t.s half bared, was suddenly brought so close to the camera as to be life-sized; one could see the dilated nostrils, the eyes full of animal life, the features in play as she showed her white teeth in a laugh, and held one of her hands, with its blanched nails, for a shade to her eyes, while with the other she waved to the audience, who stared, taken aback, into the face of the charming apparition. It seemed to see and saw not, it was not moved by the glances bent upon it, its smile and nod were not of the present but of the past, so that the impulse to respond was baffled, and lost in a feeling of impotence. Then the phantom vanished. The screen glared white and empty, with the one word Finis Finis written across it. The entertainment was over, in silence the theatre was emptied, a new audience took the place of that going out, and before their eager eyes the cycle would presently unroll itself again. written across it. The entertainment was over, in silence the theatre was emptied, a new audience took the place of that going out, and before their eager eyes the cycle would presently unroll itself again.

Incited by Frau Stohr, who joined them at the exit, they paid a visit to the cafe at the Kurhaus, Karen clapping her hands in delighted grat.i.tude. Here too there was music, a small, red-uniformed orchestra, conducted by a Bohemian or Hungarian first violin, who stood apart from the others, among the dancing couples, and belaboured his instrument with frantic wreathings of his body. Life here was mondaine: mondaine: strange drinks were handed at the tables. The cousins ordered orangeade for the refreshment of their charge and themselves, while Frau Stohr took a brandy and sugar. The room was hot and dusty. At this hour, she said, the cafe life was not yet in full swing, the dancing became much livelier as the evening advanced, and numerous patients from the sanatoria, as well as dissipated folk from the hotels and the Kurhaus, many more than were here as yet, came later to join the fun. More than one serious case had here danced himself into eternity, tipping up the beaker of life to drain the last drop, and strange drinks were handed at the tables. The cousins ordered orangeade for the refreshment of their charge and themselves, while Frau Stohr took a brandy and sugar. The room was hot and dusty. At this hour, she said, the cafe life was not yet in full swing, the dancing became much livelier as the evening advanced, and numerous patients from the sanatoria, as well as dissipated folk from the hotels and the Kurhaus, many more than were here as yet, came later to join the fun. More than one serious case had here danced himself into eternity, tipping up the beaker of life to drain the last drop, and in in dulci jubilo dulci jubilo suffering his final haemorrhage. The suffering his final haemorrhage. The dulci jubilo dulci jubilo became, on her unlettered lips, something extraordinary. The first word she p.r.o.nounced became, on her unlettered lips, something extraordinary. The first word she p.r.o.nounced dolce dolce, with some reminiscence of her musical husband's Italian vocabulary; but the second suggested jubilee jubilee, or an attempt to yodel, or goodness alone knew what. The cousins both devoted themselves a.s.siduously to the straws in their gla.s.ses, when this Latin was given out-but Frau Stohr took no offence. She began, drawing back her lips and showing her rodent-like teeth, to drop hints and make insinuations on the subject of the relations of the three young people. As far as poor Karen was concerned, it was all pretty obvious, and, as Frau Stohr said, she could not but enjoy being chaperoned, on her little outings, by such fine cavaliers. But the other side was not so easy to come at. However, ignorance and stupidity notwithstanding, the creature's feminine intuition helped her to a glimpse, even though a partial and vulgarized one, of the truth. For she saw, and even teasingly aimed at the fact, that Hans Castorp was the cavalier, and young Ziemssen merely in attendance; further-for she was aware of the state of Hans Castorp's feeling toward Madame Chauchat-that he was playing the gallant to poor little Karstedt because he did not know how to approach the other. It was a simple guess, lacking profundity and not actually covering all the facts of the case-in short, it was only too worthy of Frau Stohr, and when she came out with it, flat-footed, he did not even answer, save by a faint smile and an impenetrable stare. So much was true, after all, that poor Karen did afford him a subst.i.tute, an intangible yet real support, as did the rest of his charitable activities. But at the same time they were an end in themselves too. The inward satisfaction he experienced whenever he fed the afflicted Frau Mallinckrodt her broth, or suffered Herr Ferge to tell him once more the tale of the infernal pleura-shock, or saw poor Karen clapping her ravaged and mortifying hands in grateful joy, was perhaps of a vicarious and relative kind; yet it was none the less pure and immediate. It was rooted in a tradition diametrically opposed to the one Herr Settembrini, as pedagogue, represented-yet seemed to him, young Hans Castorp, for all that, not unworthy of having applied to it the placet placet experiri. experiri.

The little house where Karen Karstedt lived lay near the railway track and the watercourse, on the way to the Dorf, quite conveniently for the cousins to fetch her after breakfast for the morning walk. Going thence toward the village, to arrive upon the main street, one had before one the little Schiahorn, and on its right three peaks which were called the Green Towers, but were now covered like the rest with snow that gleamed blindingly in the sun. Still further to the right came the round summit of the Dorfberg, and a quarter of the way up its slope was visible the cemetery of the Dorf, surrounded by a wall, obviously commanding a fine view, very likely of the distant lake, and thus suggesting itself naturally as the goal of a promenade. Thither they went, one lovely morning-indeed, all the days now were lovely; with a hot sun, a sparkling frost, a deep-blue, windless air, and a scene that glittered whitely all abroad. The cousins, one of them brick-red in the face, the other bronzed, walked without overcoats, which would have been intolerable in this suns.h.i.+ne: young Ziemssen in sports clothes, with ”arctics,” Hans Castorp in arctics as well, but with long trousers, not feeling worldly enough to don short ones. This was the new year, between the beginning and middle of February-yes, the last figure in the date had changed since Hans Castorp came up here, it was written now with the next higher digit. The minute-hand on time's clock had moved one s.p.a.ce further on: not one of the large s.p.a.ces, not one which measured the centuries or the decades; it was only the year that had been shoved forward by one figure; though Hans Castorp had been up here not a whole year yet, but scarcely more than half a one, it had jerked itself on, as does the minute-hand of certain large clocks, which only register by five minutes at a time; and was now pointing motionless, awaiting the moment to move forward again. But the hand that marked the months would have to move on for ten s.p.a.ces more, only two more, in fact, than it had moved since he came up here; for February did not count, being once begun-as money changed counts as money spent.

To the graveyard then, on the slope of the Dorfberg, the three wended their way- we tell it to complete the tale of their excursions. It was Hans Castorp's idea; Joachim probably had scruples at first, on the score of poor Karen, but in the end agreed that it was useless to pretend with her, or to carry out Frau Stohr's cowardly policy of s.h.i.+elding her from all that could remind her of her end. Karen Karstedt was not yet so far on as to display the self-deception that marks the last stage. She knew quite well how it stood with her, and what the necrosis of her finger-tips meant: knew too that her unfeeling relatives would not hear of the unnecessary expense of having her sent back home, and that it would be her lot, after her exit, to fill a modest s.p.a.ce up yonder. In short, it might even be said that such an excursion was more fitting, morally spoken, than many another, than the cinematograph or the bob-sleigh races, for example-and surely it was no more than proper to make those lying up there a visit once in a way, as a comradely attention, provided one did not regard it as in the same cla.s.s with an ordinary walk or excursion to a point of interest.

Slowly they went, in single file, up the narrow path that had been made in the snow, leaving the highest villas behind and below them, and watching the familiar scene unroll in its winter splendour, a little altered in perspective, and opening out to the north-west, toward the entrance of the valley. There was the hoped-for view of the lake, now a frozen and snow-covered round, bordered with trees; the mountains seemed to slope directly down to its farther sh.o.r.e, while beyond these again showed unfamiliar peaks, all in full snow, overtopping each other against the blue sky. The young folk looked at the view, standing in the snow before the stone gateway to the cemetery; then they entered through the ironwork grille, which was on the latch. Here too they found paths shovelled between the small enclosures, each of which was surrounded with its railing, each containing a number of graves. The snow rounded over and built up each smooth and even elevation, with its cross of stone or metal, its small monument adorned with medallions and inscriptions. No soul was to be seen or heard, the quiet remoteness and peace of the spot seemed deep and unbroken in more than one sense. A little stone angel or cupid, finger on lip, a cap of snow askew on its head, stood among the bushes, and might have pa.s.sed for the genius of the place-the genius of a silence so definite that it was less a negation than a refutation of speech. The silence it guarded was far from being empty of content or character. Here it would have been in place for our two male visitors to take off their hats, had they had any on. But they were, even Hans Castorp, bare-headed; and could only walk reverently, their weight on the b.a.l.l.s of their feet, making instinctive inclinations on one side and the other, single file in the wake of Karen Karstedt, as she led the way.

The cemetery was irregular in shape, having begun as a narrow rectangle facing the south, and then thrown out other rectangles on both sides. Successive increases in size had evidently been necessary, and ploughed land had been taken in. Even so, the present enclosure seemed fairly full, both along the wall and in the less desirable inner plots; one could hardly see or say just where another interment was to take place. The three wandered for some time discreetly along the paths, among the enclosures, stopping to decipher a name or date here or there. The tablets and crosses were modest affairs, that must have cost but little. The inscriptions bore names from every quarter of the earth, they were in English or Russian-or other Slavic tongues-also German, Portuguese, and more. The dates told their own sad story, for the time they covered was generally a short span indeed, the age between birth and death averaging not much more than twenty years. Not crabbed age, but youth peopled the spot; folk not yet settled in life, who from all corners of the earth had come together here to take up the horizontal for good and all.

Somewhere in the thick of the graves, near the heart of the acre, lay a small, flat, levelled place, the length of a man, between two rounded mounds with wreaths of everlasting hanging on their headstones. Involuntarily the three paused here, the young girl first, to read the mournful inscriptions; Hans Castorp stood relaxed, his hands clasped before him, his eyes veiled and his mouth somewhat open, young Ziemssen very self-controlled, and not only erect, but even bending a thought backward; and both the cousins stole a glance at Karen's face. She stood there, aware of their glance, with modest and shamefaced mien, her head bent on her shoulder, blinking her eyes and smiling a strained little smile.

Walpurgis-Night WITHIN the next few days it would be seven months since Hans Castorp's advent among those up here; while Cousin Joachim, who had already had five to his credit, would soon be able to look back upon twelve; that is to say, upon a whole round year. Round, indeed, in a cosmic sense; for since the doughty little locomotive had set him down at these heights, the earth had completed one full course round the sun, and was returned to the point whence it had then set out. The carnival season was at hand, and Hans Castorp inquired among the old inhabitants of the Berghof what it would be like. ”Magnifique,” answered Settembrini, whom the cousins had again encountered on the morning walk. ”Gorgeous,” he said. ”Every bit as lively as it is in the Prater. You shall see, Engineer, 'the gayest gallants of the night, in brilliant rows advancing,' ” he quoted, and went on in his most mocking vein, couching his gibes in sounding phrases, with a telling accompaniment of arm, shoulder, and head movements. ”What do you expect? Even in maisons de sante maisons de sante they have their b.a.l.l.s for the fools and idiots, I've read; why not up here as well? The programme includes various they have their b.a.l.l.s for the fools and idiots, I've read; why not up here as well? The programme includes various danses danses macabres macabres, as you may imagine; but unfortunately some of last year's guests will not be here-the party being over at half past nine, you perceive-”

”Do you mean-oh, capital!” laughed Hans Castorp. ”Herr Settembrini, you are a wretch! Half past nine-I say, did you get that?” he turned to his cousin. ”Herr Settembrini means it would be too early for some of last year's guests to take part. Ha ha-spooky! He means the ones that have taken leave of the flesh and the things of the flesh in the mean time. But I am all excitement,” he said. ”I think it's quite proper to celebrate the feasts up here as they come, and mark off the time in the usual way. Just a dead level of monotony, without any breaks at all, would be too awful for words. We have had Christmas already, we took notice of the beginning of the New Year; and now comes Shrove Tuesday; after that, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter; then six weeks after that, Whitsunday; then it is almost midsummer, the solstice, and we begin to go toward autumn-”

”Stop, stop, stop!” Settembrini cried, lifting his face to heaven and pressing his temples with the palms of his hands. ”Be quiet, I cannot listen to you letting go the reins like that!”

”Pardon me, I mean it just the other way. Behrens will finally have to make up his mind to the injections, to get rid of my infection; my temperature sticks at 99.3 to four, five, six, and even seven. I am, and I continue to be, life's delicate child! I don't mean I am a long-termer, Rhadamanthus hasn't let me in for any definite number of months; but he did say it would be nonsense to interrupt the cure, when I've been up here so long already, and invested so much time, so to speak. Even if he did set a term, what good would it do me? When he says, for instance, half a year, that is to be taken as the minimum, it is always more. Look at my cousin; he was to have finished the beginning of the month-finished in the sense of being healed, cured-and the last time Behrens saw him, he stuck on four more to make sure he is entirely sound- well, then, where are we? Why, at the summer solstice, just as I said, without the faintest notion of offending you, and on the way to winter. Well, well, for the present what we have before us is Fasching, and as I say, I consider it fit and proper to celebrate it in the usual way, just as it comes in the calender. Frau Stohr tells me the concierge sells tin horns in his lodge, did you know that?”

And so it fell out. Shrove Tuesday came on apace; before one had actually seen it on the way, it arrived. All sorts of absurd instruments were snarling and squealing in the dining-hall, even at early breakfast; at midday, paper snakes were launched from the table where Ganser, Rasmussen, and Fraulein Kleefeld sat. Paper caps were mounted; they, like the trumpets, were to be had of the concierge. The round-eyed Marusja was among the first to appear in one. But in the evening-ah, in the evening there were festivities in the hall and the reception-rooms, in the course of which-but we alone know to what, thanks to Hans Castorp's enterprising spirit, these carnival gaieties led up in their course; and we do not mean to let our knowledge betray us into indiscretion. We shall pay time all the honour due it, and precipitate nothing. Nay, rather, we shall incline to protract the tale, out of feeling for young Hans Castorp's moral compunctions, which have so long prevented him from crossing his Rubicon. Everybody went down to the Platz in the afternoon, to see the streets in carnival mood, with harlequins and columbines shaking their rattles, with maskers on foot and in jingling, decorated sleighs, among whom went forward lively skirmishes, and much confetti was flung. Spirits were very high at all seven tables when the guests a.s.sembled for the evening meal; there was every indication that the fun begun abroad would continue in the same key within doors. The concierge had done a thriving trade in rattles and tin trumpets; Lawyer Paravant had been the first to go further in the same line, putting on a lady's kimono and a braid of false hair belonging to Frau Consul-General Wurmbrandt; he wore his moustaches drawn down on each side of his mouth with the tongs, and looked the very picture of a Chinaman, evoking loud applause from all quarters. The management had done its share. Each of the seven tables was decked with a paper lantern, a coloured moon with a lighted candle inside; when Settembrini entered, and pa.s.sed by Hans Castorp's, he quoted:

”See the gorgeous tongues of fire- Club as gay as heart's desire-”

He brought out the words with his fine, dry smile, and sauntered to his place, where he was greeted with a rain of missiles like tiny pellets, that broke and scattered a spray of perfume where they fell. Yes, from the first moment the key was high. The bursts of laughter were unintermitted; paper snakes hung down from the chandeliers, swaying to and fro; confetti swam in the sauces; very early the dwarf waitress brought in the first ice-pail, the first bottle of champagne. Inspired by Lawyer Einhuf, the guests drank it mixed with burgundy. Toward the end of the meal the ceiling light went out, and only the colourful twilight of the paper lanterns illumined the room, making of the scene an Italian night, and setting the crown upon the mood of the evening. Settembrini pa.s.sed over a paper to Hans Castorp's table, by the hand of Marusja, who sat nearest him, with a green tissue-paper jockey cap on her head; on it he had written with a pencil:

”But mind, the mountain's magic-mad to-night,

And if you choose a will-o'-the-wisp to light

Your path, take care, 'twill lead you all astray.”

This was received with enthusiasm, though Dr. Blumenkohl, whose state had now much altered for the worse, muttered something to himself, with the expression peculiar to him upon his face, or rather upon his lips; he seemed to be asking what sort of verses were these. But Hans Castorp considered that an answer was due, he felt it inc.u.mbent on him to cap the quotation, though it was unlikely he would have produced anything very striking. He searched his pockets for a pencil, but found none, nor could Joachim or the schoolmistress supply his need; and his bloodshot eyes looked to the east for aid, to the farther left-hand corner of the room-it was plain that his fleeting purpose was dissipated in a widening circle of a.s.sociations. He paled a little, and entirely lost sight of his original intention.

Other good ground there was for paling. Frau Chauchat had made special toilet for carnival, she wore a new gown, or at least one new to our hero, of thin, dark silk, probably black, or at most shot with a golden brown. It was cut with a modest little round neck like a schoolgirl's frock, hardly so much as to show the base of the throat, or the collar-bones, or the slightly prominent bone at the back of the neck, beneath the soft fringes or her hair. But it left free to the shoulder Clavdia's arms, so tender and yet so full, so cool, so amazingly white, set off against the dark silk of her frock, with such ravis.h.i.+ng effect that it made Hans Castorp close his eyes, and murmur within himself: ”O my G.o.d!” He had never seen such a mode before. Ball gowns he had seen, stately and ceremonial, cut in conformity with a fas.h.i.+on that exposed far more of the person than this one did, without achieving a jot of its sensational effect. Poor Hans Castorp! He was reminded of a theory he had once held about these arms, on making their acquaintance for the first time, veiled in diaphanous gauze: that it was the gauze itself, the ”illusion” as he called it, which had lent them their indescribable, unreasonable seductiveness. Folly! The utter, accentuated, blinding nudity of these arms, these splendid members of an infected organism, was an experience so intoxicating, compared with that earlier one, as to leave our young man no other recourse than again, with drooping head, to whisper, soundlessly: ”O my G.o.d!” Later on, another paper was handed over, on which was written:

”Society to heart's desire-

In faith, of brides, a party,

And jolly bachelors on fire