The Magic Mountain Page 8

  It was the height of summer when he decided to take the trip—already the last week of July.

  He planned to stay three weeks.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE SHADOW OF RESPECTABILITY

  Hans Castorp had been afraid he would oversleep, he had been so thoroughly exhausted, but he was up and about earlier than necessary and had plenty of time leisurely to pursue his usual, highly civilized morning routine—its chief utensils included a rubber basin, a wooden bowl of green, lavender-scented soap, and a straw-colored brush—and was able not only to tend to matters of personal hygiene but also to unpack and put his things away. And as he passed the silver-plated blade across the perfumed foam on his cheeks, he recalled his muddled dreams and smiled an indulgent smile at such nonsense, shaking his head with the superiority of a man shaving by the light of reasonable day. He did not feel all that well rested, but fresh enough to meet the morning.

  He powdered his cheeks and slipped into his plaid undershorts and red morocco-leather slippers, and still drying his hands, he stepped out onto the balcony, which, although private, was connected to those adjoining and separated from them only by an opaque glass partition that extended almost to the railing. The morning was cool and cloudy. Long banks of fog lay motionless along the hills to both sides, while masses of clouds, white and gray, were draped on the more distant mountains. Patches and streaks of blue sky were visible here and there, and when a ray of sun broke through, the village in the valley below glistened white against the dark forests of pine on the slopes. Somewhere morning music was playing; presumably it came from the same hotel where the concert had been held the evening before. Muted chords of a chorale drifted toward him; a march followed after a brief pause. Hans Castorp loved music with all his heart, its effect being much like that of the porter he drank with his morning snack—profoundly calming, numbing, and “doze”-inducing—and he listened now with pleasure, his head tilted to one side, mouth open, eyes slightly bloodshot.

  He looked down at the winding road they had followed up to the sanatorium the evening before. Short-stemmed, starlike gentians were blooming in the moist grass of the slope. A section of the level ground had been fenced in to form a garden with gravel paths, flowerbeds, and an artificial grotto beneath a stately silver fir. Next to a metal-roofed arcade, open to the south and filled with lounge chairs, stood a flagpole, painted reddish brown and displaying a banner that fluttered full now and then—a fantasy flag, green and white, with a snake-entwined caduceus, the symbol of healing, at its center.

  A woman was walking in the garden, an older lady with a gloomy, even tragic look. Clad completely in black, with a black veil wound round her disheveled grayish-black hair, she wandered restlessly along the paths, keeping an even but quick pace, her knees slightly bent, her arms hanging stiffly at an angle in front of her. Her brow was creased by a frown, and her lowered, coal-black eyes, the skin beneath them forming drooping bags, were directed straight ahead. Her aging face, with its pale Mediterranean complexion and large, careworn mouth turned down at one corner, reminded Hans Castorp of a picture he had once seen of a famous tragedian; and it was eerie to watch how this pale woman dressed in black matched her long, somber strides, apparently without realizing it, to the rhythm of march music in the distance.

  Hans Castorp gazed down at her in thoughtful sympathy, and it seemed as if her sad appearance darkened the morning sun. Simultaneously, however, he perceived something else, something audible, coming from the adjoining room on his left, the room with the Russian couple, so Joachim had said—noises that were likewise ill suited to this cheerful, fresh morning, that tainted it, making it seem sultry somehow. Hans Castorp remembered that he had heard the same sounds the night before, but had been too tired to pay them any attention. Giggles, gasps, grapplings—there was no disguising the indelicate nature of the sound, although in his kindheartedness the young man at first tried hard to give it a harmless interpretation. One could use other terms for his kindheartedness—an insipid phrase like “purity of soul,” for instance, or a more serious and beautiful word like “modesty,” or disparaging words such as “avoidance of the truth” and “hypocrisy,” or even a phrase about “the mystic piety of shyness”—and Hans Castorp’s reaction to the sounds from the adjoining room combined something of them all and was visible now as a shadow of respectability that darkened his face, as if he should not know and did not want to know anything about what he heard there. It was an expression of propriety—not exactly original, but one he was in the habit of assuming under certain circumstances.

  And with this look on his face he returned to his room to avoid having to listen any longer to the proceedings, which despite the giggles sounded terribly serious, disconcertingly so. But the events on the far side of the wall were even more audible from his room. An apparent chase around the furniture, the crash of an upturned chair, a grab, an embrace, slaps and kisses—and then, of all things to accompany the invisible scene, a waltz was struck up in the distance, the tired melody of a popular ballad. Hans Castorp stood, towel in hand, and listened against his best intentions. And suddenly a blush rose up under his talcum, because what he had clearly seen coming had now arrived, and beyond any doubt, the game had turned bestial. “Good God in heaven!” he thought, turning away to finish dressing with as much noise as he could manage. “Well, they’re married, for heaven’s sake, that’s as it should be at least. But in broad daylight, that is a bit much. And I’m almost certain that they disturbed the peace last night, too. After all, they are ill, that’s why they’re here, or one of them is at least, and a little self-control wouldn’t be out of place. But of course,” he realized angrily, “the real scandal is that the walls are so thin and that you can hear everything so clearly, and that’s simply intolerable! Cheap construction, naturally, shamefully cheap! I wonder if I shall see these people later, or even be introduced to them? That would be most embarrassing.” But now Hans Castorp realized to his amazement that the flush that had come to his freshly shaven cheeks had not subsided, or at least the warmth that had come with it was not about to depart—the same hot, dry face that had bothered him yesterday evening, and that had disappeared while he slept, was back now in full force. This did not make him feel any friendlier toward the married couple next door, indeed he pouted his lips and muttered something very disparaging about them; and now he made the mistake of splashing his face with water again to cool it, which only made matters worse. And so he was feeling cross and at loose ends when he heard his cousin knock on the wall and call out to him. His expression, as Joachim entered the room, was not that of a man refreshed by sleep and ready to greet the morning.

  BREAKFAST

  “Hello,” Joachim said. “So that was your first night up here. Are you well satisfied?”

  He was ready for a walk, dressed in sporty clothes and sturdy, tooled boots, his ulster flung over his arm, the outline of the flat bottle clearly visible in one pocket. He wasn’t wearing a hat today, either.

  “Thanks,” Hans Castorp replied, “well enough. I’ll not categorize it any further. I had some rather confused dreams. And the place has one shortcoming, you know, it’s not soundproof—that is rather annoying. Who was the woman in black out in the garden?”

  Joachim knew at once whom he meant.

  “Ah, that’s Tous-les-deux,” he said. “That’s what we all call her at least, because those are the only words you ever hear out of her. She’s Mexican, you see, and knows not a word of German and almost no French, either, just a few scraps. She’s been here with her eldest son for five weeks now, a perfectly hopeless case, who’ll be making his exit soon enough—it’s all through him, his whole body’s poisoned with it, you could say, and at that stage it looks a lot like typhoid fever, Behrens says—gruesome for all involved, at any rate. And two weeks ago, now, her second son arrived up here, because he wanted to see his brother one last time—handsome young fellow, by the way, but then so is the other—both of them pretty as pictures, with t
hose glowing eyes that drive the ladies crazy. Well, the younger one already had a little bit of a cough down below, but was otherwise in quite good shape. And no sooner does he arrive than he has a temperature—and I mean a high fever, a hundred and three right away—he takes to his bed, and if he ever gets up again, Behrens says, he’ll have more luck than sense. But in any case, it was high time, and then some, for him to come up here. Yes, and since then the mother just wanders about, when she’s not sitting with them, and the only thing she ever says to anyone she meets is: ‘tous les deux!’ Because that’s all she knows how to say, and there’s no one here who understands Spanish.”

  “So that’s her problem,” Hans Castorp said. “I wonder if she’ll say the same thing to me when I get to know her? That would be so strange—I mean, it would be comical and weird at the same time,” he said, and his eyes took on yesterday’s look—seemed too hot and heavy, as if he had been weeping for a long time, and shone with the same glint that the

  Austrian horseman’s novel cough had enkindled in them. In fact, he felt as if he had only just now reestablished a connection with yesterday, as if he were taking in the whole picture again, as it were, which had not really been the case since he awoke. He was ready, by the way, he declared, shaking a few drops of lavender water on his handkerchief so that he could dab at his brow and under his eyes. “If it’s all right with you, we can go to breakfast—tous les deux,” he added as a joke, in a burst of high spirits. Joachim cast him a gentle glance and smiled a curious smile—melancholy and slightly mocking, it seemed—but why, he kept to himself.

  After making sure that he had cigars to smoke, Hans Castorp picked up his walking stick, coat, and hat—the last out of obstinacy, because he was all too definite in his own civilized habits to change them lightly and adopt strange new ones for a mere three weeks. And so they left, taking the stairs, and as they passed one door or another, Joachim would name its occupant—German names, but also all sorts of odd-sounding ones—adding brief remarks about the person’s character and the severity of the case.

  They also met people already returning from breakfast, and whenever Joachim said good morning to anyone, Hans Castorp would politely tip his hat. He was tense and nervous, like a young man about to introduce himself to a host of strangers, all the while plagued by the distinct feeling that his eyes and face are red—which was only partly true, because he was actually rather pale.

  “Before I forget,” he suddenly said rather impulsively, “you can go ahead and introduce me to the lady in the garden if we happen to meet her, I have no objections. She can repeat her ‘tous les deux’ to me, it won’t matter. I’m ready for it now and understand what it means and will know how to put on the proper face. But I don’t want to make the acquaintance of the Russian couple, do you hear? I definitely don’t want that. They are people devoid of all manners, and although I am going to have to live next door to them for three weeks because there was no other way to arrange things, I do not wish to know them. I am perfectly within my rights in expressly forbidding it.”

  “Fine,” Joachim said. “Did they disturb you all that much? Yes, they are barbarians, so to speak—uncivilized, to put a word on it—I did warn you. He always comes to meals in a leather jacket—quite shabby, let me tell you. I’m amazed Behrens doesn’t do something about it. And she’s not all that well groomed herself, despite the plumed hat. But in any case, you needn’t worry, they sit a good distance away, at the Bad Russian table—because there’s also a Good Russian table, where the more refined Russians sit. So there’s hardly any possibility you’d meet them, even if you wanted to. It’s not at all easy to make acquaintances here, if only because there are so many foreigners among the guests. I personally have got to know only a few myself in all my months here.”

  “Which of them is ill?” Hans Castorp asked. “He or she?”

  “He is, I think. Yes, just him,” Joachim said, obviously preoccupied. They hung their coats on the stands outside the dining hall, and entered it, a bright, low-vaulted room, where voices buzzed, dishes clattered, and “dining attendants” scurried about with steaming pots of coffee.

  There were seven tables in the dining hall, five placed lengthwise, only two crosswise. The tables were large, with room for ten persons at each, although not all the places had been set. They took only a few steps diagonally across the room, and Hans Castorp found that he was already at the place set for him, at the end of the middle table toward the front of the room, halfway between the two crosswise tables. Standing erect behind his chair, Hans Castorp bowed stiffly and cordially to his tablemates as Joachim formally introduced them, although he barely looked at them, let alone made a conscious note of their names. The only face and name he put together was Frau Stöhr, noticing her red face and oily, ash-blond hair, and an expression of such willful ignorance that it was easy to believe her guilty of howling gaffes. Then he sat down and noted approvingly that early breakfast here was a serious meal.

  There were pots of marmalade and honey, bowls of oatmeal and creamed rice, plates of scrambled eggs and cold meats; they had been generous with the butter. Someone lifted the glass bell from a soft Swiss cheese and cut off a piece; what was more, a bowl of fruit, both fresh and dried, stood in the middle of the table. A dining attendant in black and white asked Hans Castorp what he wanted to drink—cocoa, coffee, or tea? She was as small as a child, with an old, long face—a dwarf, he realized with a shock. He looked at his cousin, who merely shrugged and lifted an eyebrow as if to say, “Right, what else is new?” And so Hans Castorp simply accepted the fact and, since it was a dwarf, asked for his tea with special courtesy. He began with some creamed rice topped with sugar and cinnamon, meanwhile letting his eyes wander over the other items he intended to sample and across the seven tables of assembled guests—Joachim’s colleagues, his companions in misfortune, all with the same illness deep inside, all chatting and breakfasting.

  The room was done in the kind of modern decor that combines the most efficient simplicity with just a dash of fantasy. It was not deep in relation to its width, and on all four sides was a kind of passageway where the sideboards stood and that opened as a series of arches onto the central dining area. Its columns were paneled with a sandalwood finish, but only partway up; the top of each was painted white, like the upper half of the walls and the ceiling, but colorfully trimmed with simple, cheerful stenciled stripes, which then continued along the broad arches of the low ceiling. The hall was also decorated with several shiny brass chandeliers, all electric, each a series of three stacked rings joined by delicate filigree, with bells of milk glass set like little moons on the lowest circle. There were four glass doors—two on the long wall opposite, opening onto a veranda outside; a third up front to the left, leading directly into the front lobby; and finally the one through which Hans Castorp had entered and that opened off a different hallway, because Joachim had not used the same set of stairs as the night before.

  To his right was a homely creature in black, with a dull, flushed complexion and fuzzy cheeks; he took her to be a seamstress or dressmaker, chiefly because her breakfast consisted of nothing but coffee and buttered rolls—and for some reason he had always associated dressmakers with coffee and buttered rolls. On his left sat an English maiden lady—likewise well on in years, very ugly, with skinny, frigid fingers, who was drinking tea the color of blood and reading letters from home, written in a full, rounded hand. Next to her came Joachim, and then Frau Stöhr in a Scotchplaid woolen blouse. She kept the balled fist of her left hand pressed to her cheek while she ate and took obvious pains to make a refined impression when she talked, primarily by pulling her upper lip back to expose her long, narrow, rabbitlike teeth. A young man with a sparse moustache and an expression on his face as if he had something foul-tasting in his mouth sat down next to her and ate his breakfast in total silence. Hans Castorp had already taken his seat when the fellow entered, his chin sunk against his chest as he walked, and took his place without a glance at
anyone, showing by his demeanor that he absolutely did not wish to be introduced to the new guest. Perhaps he was too ill to value or see any point in mere formalities, or even to take any interest in his surroundings. Seated across from him, very briefly, was an extraordinarily gaunt, very blond young woman, who emptied a bottle of yogurt onto her plate, spooned down this dairy product, and promptly departed.

  The table conversation was not exactly lively. Joachim chatted politely with Frau Stöhr, inquiring after her health and expressing gentlemanly regrets that it left something to be desired. She complained of her “listlessness.” “I’m so listless,” she said, drawling it out with the affectation of the uneducated. Her temperature had already been 99.2 degrees when she got up, and what would it be by afternoon? The dressmaker admitted to a temperature equally as high, but declared the effect was just the opposite with her, that she felt quite excitable, nervous and restless inside, as if some special, decisive event were about to happen, which was not the case at all, this being simply a physical excitation with no psychological basis. She was probably not a dressmaker after all, because she spoke correctly, almost pedantically. All the same, Hans Castorp found her excitability, or at least her discussion of it, somehow inappropriate, almost indecent for such a nondescript, insignificant creature. He asked them, first the dressmaker and then Frau Stöhr, how long they had been up here—the former had been a resident for five months, the latter for seven; he marshaled his English to ask his neighbor on the left what sort of tea that was she was drinking—rose-hip, he learned—and whether it tasted good, to which she responded almost stormily in the affirmative. He now gazed out across the room where people were coming and going: early breakfast was not a strictly communal affair.