Part 47 (1/2)

They must get through, these three thousand ardent youths; they must reinforce with their bayonets the attack on the burning villages, and the trenches in front of and behind the line of hills; they must help to advance their line to a point indicated in the dispatch their leader has in his pocket. They are three thousand, that they may be two thousand when the hills, the villages are reached; that is the meaning of their number. They are a body of troops calculated as sufficient, even after great losses, to attack and carry a position and greet their triumph with a thousand-voiced huzza-not counting the stragglers that fall out by the way. Many a one has thus fallen out on the forced march, for which he proved too young and weak; paler he grew, staggered, set his teeth, drove himself on-and after all he could do fell out notwithstanding. Awhile he dragged himself in the rear of the marching column, overtaken and pa.s.sed by company after company; at length he remained on the ground, lying where it was not good to lie. Then came the shattering wood. But there are so many of them, swarming on-they can survive a bloodletting and still come on in hosts. They have already overflowed the level, rain-lashed land; the high road, the field road, the boggy ploughed land; we shadows stand amid and among them. At the edge of the wood they fix their bayonets, with the practised grips; the horns enforce them, the drums roll deepest ba.s.s, and forward they stumble, as best they can, with shrill cries; nightmarishly, for clods of earth cling to their heavy boots and fetter them.

They fling themselves down before the projectiles that come howling on, then they leap up again and hurry forward; they exult, in their young, breaking voices as they run, to discover themselves still unhit. Or they are hit, they fall, fighting the air with their arms, shot through the forehead, the heart, the belly. They lie, their faces in the mire, and are motionless. They lie, their backs elevated by the knapsack, the crowns of their heads pressed into the mud, and clutch and claw in the air. But the wood emits new swarms, who fling themselves down, who spring up, who, shrieking or silent, blunder forward over the fallen.

Ah, this young blood, with its knapsacks and bayonets, its mud-befouled boots and clothing! We look at it, our humanistic-aesthetic eye pictures it among scenes far other than these: we see these youths watering horses on a sunny arm of the sea; roving with the beloved one along the strand, the lover's lips to the ear of the yielding bride; in happiest rivalry bending the bow. Alas, no, here they lie, their noses in fiery filth. They are glad to be here-albeit with boundless anguish, with unspeakable sickness for home; and this, of itself, is a n.o.ble and a shaming thing-but no good reason for bringing them to such a pa.s.s.

There is our friend, there is Hans Castorp! We recognize him at a distance, by the little beard he a.s.sumed while sitting at the ”bad” Russian table. Like all the others, he is wet through and glowing. He is running, his feet heavy with mould, the bayonet swinging in his hand. Look! He treads on the hand of a fallen comrade; with his hobnailed boot he treads the hand deep into the slimy, branch-strewn ground. But it is he. What, singing? As one sings, unaware, staring stark ahead, yes, thus he spends his hurrying breath, to sing half soundlessly:

”And loving words I've carven

Upon its branches fair-”

He stumbles, No, he has flung himself down, a h.e.l.l-hound is coming howling, a huge explosive sh.e.l.l, a disgusting sugar-loaf from the infernal regions. He lies with his face in the cool mire, legs sprawled out, feet twisted, heels turned down. The product of a perverted science, laden with death, slopes earthward thirty paces in front of him and buries its nose in the ground; explodes inside there, with hideous expense of power, and raises up a fountain high as a house, of mud, fire, iron, molten metal, scattered fragments of humanity. Where it fell, two youths had lain, friends who in their need flung themselves down together-now they are scattered, commingled and gone.

Shame of our shadow-safety! Away! No more!-But our friend? Was he hit? He thought so, for the moment. A great clod of earth struck him on the s.h.i.+n, it hurt, but he smiles at it. Up he gets, and staggers on, limping on his earth-bound feet, all unconsciously singing:

”Its waving branches whispered

A mess-age in my ear-”

and thus, in the tumult, in the rain, in the dusk, vanishes out ot our sight.

Farewell, honest Hans Castorp, farewell, Life's delicate child! Your tale is told. We have told it to the end, and it was neither short nor long, but hermetic. We have told it for its own sake, not for yours, for you were simple. But after all, it was your story, it befell you, you must have more in you than we thought; we will not disclaim the pedagogic weakness we conceived for you in the telling; which could even lead us to press a finger delicately to our eyes at the thought that we shall see you no more, hear you no more for ever.

Farewell-and if thou livest or diest! Thy prospects are poor. The desperate dance, in which thy fortunes are caught up, will last yet many a sinful year; we should not care to set a high stake on thy life by the time it ends. We even confess that it is without great concern we leave the question open. Adventures of the flesh and in the spirit, while enhancing thy simplicity, granted thee to know in the spirit what in the flesh thou scarcely couldst have done. Moments there were, when out of death, and the rebellion of the flesh, there came to thee, as thou tookest stock of thyself, a dream of love. Out of this universal feast of death, out of this extremity of fever, kindling the rain-washed evening sky to a fiery glow, may it be that Love one day shall mount?

FINIS OPERIS.

Author's Note

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THE MAKING OF The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain

SINCE it is certainly not customary for an author to discuss his own work, perhaps a word of apology, or at least of explanation, should occupy first place. For the thought of acting as my own historian I find a little confusing; and, you know, there are few impartial historians anyway. Furthermore, since my work is still in the making and, I venture to hope, still reflects the present and its problems, it would be rather difficult, if not impossible, to criticize it with scholarly detachment-even if the critic were not not, at the same time, the author.

In selecting my Magic Mountain Magic Mountain for discussion, I base the choice on the sympathetic interest that this one of all my books received in America. Likewise, when I tell you freely of the book's genesis and my experiences with it, I am relying on the healthy and sympathetic att.i.tude of the American mind toward the personal, the anecdotal, and the intimately human. for discussion, I base the choice on the sympathetic interest that this one of all my books received in America. Likewise, when I tell you freely of the book's genesis and my experiences with it, I am relying on the healthy and sympathetic att.i.tude of the American mind toward the personal, the anecdotal, and the intimately human.

Oddly enough, it is not a difficulty for me, but rather the reverse, that I have to discuss The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain in English. I am reminded of the hero of my novel, the young engineer Hans Castorp. At the end of the first volume, he makes an extraordinary declaration of love to Madame Chauchat, the Kirghiz-eyed heroine, veiling its strangeness in the garment of a foreign tongue. It eases his embarra.s.sment and helps him to say things he could never have dared say in his own language. ” in English. I am reminded of the hero of my novel, the young engineer Hans Castorp. At the end of the first volume, he makes an extraordinary declaration of love to Madame Chauchat, the Kirghiz-eyed heroine, veiling its strangeness in the garment of a foreign tongue. It eases his embarra.s.sment and helps him to say things he could never have dared say in his own language. ”Parler francais” francais” he says, ” he says, ”c'est parler sans parler, en quelque maniere.” en quelque maniere.” In short, it helps him over his inhibitions-and an author who feels embarra.s.sed at having to talk about his own works is in the same way relieved at being able to talk about them in another language. In short, it helps him over his inhibitions-and an author who feels embarra.s.sed at having to talk about his own works is in the same way relieved at being able to talk about them in another language.

There are authors whose names are a.s.sociated with a single great work, because they have been able to give themselves complete expression in it. Dante is is the the Divina Divina Commedia Commedia, Cervantes is Don Quixote is Don Quixote. But there are others-and I must count myself among them-whose single works do not possess this complete significance, being only parts of the whole which makes up the author's lifework. And not only his lifework, but actually his life itself, his personality. He strives, that is, to overcome the laws of time and continuity. He tries to produce himself completely in each thing he writes, but only actually does so in the way The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain does it; I mean by the use of the leitmotiv, the magic formula that works both ways, and links the past with the future, the future with the past. The leitmotiv is the technique employed to preserve the inward unity and abiding presentness of the whole at each moment. In a broader sense, the whole lifework of the author has its leading motifs, which serve to preserve its unity, to make that unity perceptible to the reader, and to keep the whole picture present in each single work. But just for that reason, it may be unfair to the single work to look at it by itself, disregarding its connection with the others, and not taking into account the frame of reference to which it belongs. For instance, it is almost impossible to discuss does it; I mean by the use of the leitmotiv, the magic formula that works both ways, and links the past with the future, the future with the past. The leitmotiv is the technique employed to preserve the inward unity and abiding presentness of the whole at each moment. In a broader sense, the whole lifework of the author has its leading motifs, which serve to preserve its unity, to make that unity perceptible to the reader, and to keep the whole picture present in each single work. But just for that reason, it may be unfair to the single work to look at it by itself, disregarding its connection with the others, and not taking into account the frame of reference to which it belongs. For instance, it is almost impossible to discuss The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain without thinking of the links that connect it with other works; backwards in time to without thinking of the links that connect it with other works; backwards in time to Buddenbrooks Buddenbrooks and to and to Death in Death in Venice; Venice; forwards to the forwards to the Joseph Joseph novels. Let me first of all tell you something of the origin and conception of the novel, just as events in my life brought them about. In the year 1912-over a generation ago now-my wife was suffering from a lung complaint, fortunately not a very serious one; yet it was necessary for her to spend six months at a high alt.i.tude, in a sanatorium at Davos, Switzerland. I stayed with the children either in Munich or at our country home in Tolz, in the valley of the Isar. But in May and June I visited my wife for some weeks at Davos. There is a chapter in novels. Let me first of all tell you something of the origin and conception of the novel, just as events in my life brought them about. In the year 1912-over a generation ago now-my wife was suffering from a lung complaint, fortunately not a very serious one; yet it was necessary for her to spend six months at a high alt.i.tude, in a sanatorium at Davos, Switzerland. I stayed with the children either in Munich or at our country home in Tolz, in the valley of the Isar. But in May and June I visited my wife for some weeks at Davos. There is a chapter in The The Magic Mountain Magic Mountain, ent.i.tled ”Arrival,” where Hans Castorp dines with his cousin Joachim in the sanatorium restaurant, and tastes not only the excellent Berghof cuisine but also the atmosphere of the place and the life ”bei uns hier oben.” If you read that chapter, you will have a fairly accurate picture of our meeting in this sphere and my own strange impressions of it. If you read that chapter, you will have a fairly accurate picture of our meeting in this sphere and my own strange impressions of it.

The impressions grew stronger and stronger during the three weeks I spent at Davos visiting my wife while she was a patient. They are the same three weeks Hans Castorp originally meant to spend at Davos-though for him they turned into the seven fairytale years of his enchanted stay. I may even say that they threatened to do the same for me. At least one one of his experiences is a pretty exact transference to my hero of things that happened to me; I mean the examination of the carefree visitor from the ”flatland,” and the resulting discovery that he himself is to become a patient too! I had been at the so-called Berghof ten days, sitting out on trie balcony in cold, damp weather, when I got a troublesome bronchial cold. Two specialists were in the house, the head physician and his a.s.sistant, so I took the obvious course of consulting them. I accompanied my wife to the office, she having been summoned to one of her regular examinations. The head doctor, who of course looked rather like Hofrat Behrens, thumped me about and straightway discovered a so-called moist spot in my lung. of his experiences is a pretty exact transference to my hero of things that happened to me; I mean the examination of the carefree visitor from the ”flatland,” and the resulting discovery that he himself is to become a patient too! I had been at the so-called Berghof ten days, sitting out on trie balcony in cold, damp weather, when I got a troublesome bronchial cold. Two specialists were in the house, the head physician and his a.s.sistant, so I took the obvious course of consulting them. I accompanied my wife to the office, she having been summoned to one of her regular examinations. The head doctor, who of course looked rather like Hofrat Behrens, thumped me about and straightway discovered a so-called moist spot in my lung.

If I had been Hans Castorp, the discovery might have changed the whole course of my life. The physician a.s.sured me that I should be acting wisely to remain there for six months and take the cure. If I had followed his advice, who knows, I might still be there! I wrote The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain instead. In instead. In it it I made use of the impressions gathered during my three weeks' stay. They were enough to convince me of the dangers of such a milieu for young people-and tuberculosis is a disease of the young. You will have got from my book an idea of the narrowness of this charmed circle of isolation and invalidism. It is a sort of subst.i.tute existence, and it can, in a relatively short time, wholly wean a young person from actual and active life. Everything there, including the conception of time, is thought of on a luxurious scale. The cure is always a matter of several months, often of several years. But after the first six months the young person has not a single idea left save flirtation and the thermometer under his tongue. After the second six months in many cases he has even lost the capacity for any other ideas. He will become completely incapable of life in the flatland. I made use of the impressions gathered during my three weeks' stay. They were enough to convince me of the dangers of such a milieu for young people-and tuberculosis is a disease of the young. You will have got from my book an idea of the narrowness of this charmed circle of isolation and invalidism. It is a sort of subst.i.tute existence, and it can, in a relatively short time, wholly wean a young person from actual and active life. Everything there, including the conception of time, is thought of on a luxurious scale. The cure is always a matter of several months, often of several years. But after the first six months the young person has not a single idea left save flirtation and the thermometer under his tongue. After the second six months in many cases he has even lost the capacity for any other ideas. He will become completely incapable of life in the flatland.