The Magic Mountain Part 25

What a joy that was, what a boon to the eyes, after so much white! But there was another green, surpa.s.sing in its tender softness even the hue of the new gra.s.s, and that was the green of young larch buds. Hans Castorp could seldom refrain from caressing them with his hand, or stroking his cheeks with them as he went on his walks-their softness and freshness were irresistible. "It almost tempts one to be a botanist," he said to his companion. "It's a fact, I could almost wish to be a natural scientist, out of sheer joy at the reawakening of nature, after a winter like this up here. That's gentian, man, that you see up there on the cliffs; and this is a sort of little yellow violet- something I'm not familiar with. And this is ranunculus, they look just the same down below, the natural order Ranunculaceae: Ranunculaceae: compound, I remember, a particularly charming plant, androgynous, you can see a lot of stamens and pistils, an androecium and a gynaeceum, if I remember rightly. I really must root out some old volume of botany or other, and polish up my knowledge in this field.-My hat, how gay it's getting to look in the world!" compound, I remember, a particularly charming plant, androgynous, you can see a lot of stamens and pistils, an androecium and a gynaeceum, if I remember rightly. I really must root out some old volume of botany or other, and polish up my knowledge in this field.-My hat, how gay it's getting to look in the world!"

"It will be even more so in June," Joachim said. "The flowering-time in these parts is famous. But I hardly think I'll be here for it.-That's probably from Krokowski, that you get the idea of studying botany?"

Krokowski? What made him say that? Oh, very likely because Dr. Krokowski had been uttering himself botanically in one of his lectures of late. Yes, we shall be in error if we a.s.sume that because time has brought about many changes at the Berghof, Dr. Krokowski no longer delivers his lectures. He delivers them as before, one every two weeks, in a frock-coat, though no longer in sandals, for those he wears only in the summer, and soon will be donning them again: delivers them every second Monday, in the dining-room, as on that far-off day when Hans Castorp returned late and bloodbespattered from his walk. For three-quarters of a year now had the a.n.a.lyst held forth on the subject of love and disease. Never much at one time, in little chats, from half to three-quarters of an hour long, he had dealt out the treasures of his intellect; and one received the impression that he need never leave off, that he could as well go on for ever. It was a sort of half-monthly Thousand and One Nights' Entertainment, spinning itself out at will, calculated, like the stories of Scheherazade, to gratify the curiosity of a prince, and turn away his wrath. Dr. Krokowski's theme, in its untrammelled scope, reminded one, indeed, of the undertaking to which Settembrini had vowed himself, the Encyclopaedia of Suffering. And the extent to which it offered points of departure could be seen from the circ.u.mstance that the lecturer had lately talked about botany- to be precise, about mushrooms. But he had perhaps slightly changed his theme by now. He was at present discussing love and death; finding occasion for observations in part subtly poetic in their nature, in part ruthlessly scientific. And thus it was, in this connexion, that the learned gentlemen, speaking with his drawling, typically Eastern cadence, and his softly mouthed r, came upon the subject of botany; that is to say, upon the subject of mushrooms. These creatures of the shade, luxuriant and anomalous forms of organic life, were fleshly by nature, and closely related to the animal kingdom. The products of animal metabolism, such as alb.u.men, glycogen, animal starch, in short, were present in them. And Dr. Krokowski went on to speak of a mushroom, famous in cla.s.sical antiquity and since, on account of its form and the powers ascribed to it-a fungus in whose Latin name the epithet impudicus impudicus occurred; and which in its form was suggestive of love, in its odour of death. For it was a striking fact that the odour of the occurred; and which in its form was suggestive of love, in its odour of death. For it was a striking fact that the odour of the Impudicus Impudicus was that of animal decay: it gave out that odour when the viscous, greenish, spore-bearing fluid dripped from its bell-shaped top. Yet even to-day, among the ignorant, the mushroom pa.s.sed for an aphrodisiac. All that, Lawyer Paravant found, had been a bit strong for the ladies. He was still here, having hearkened to the Hofrat's propaganda, and stuck out the melting season. Likewise Frau Stohr, who had shown strength of character and set her face against every temptation to unlawful departure, expressed herself at table to the effect that Krokowski had been positively "obscure" to-day, with his cla.s.sical mushroom. She had actually said obscure, the poor creature, and gone on making one howler afteranother. was that of animal decay: it gave out that odour when the viscous, greenish, spore-bearing fluid dripped from its bell-shaped top. Yet even to-day, among the ignorant, the mushroom pa.s.sed for an aphrodisiac. All that, Lawyer Paravant found, had been a bit strong for the ladies. He was still here, having hearkened to the Hofrat's propaganda, and stuck out the melting season. Likewise Frau Stohr, who had shown strength of character and set her face against every temptation to unlawful departure, expressed herself at table to the effect that Krokowski had been positively "obscure" to-day, with his cla.s.sical mushroom. She had actually said obscure, the poor creature, and gone on making one howler afteranother.

But what surprised Hans Castorp was that his cousin should have mentioned Dr. Krokowski and his botanical allusions; for the psycho-a.n.a.lyst had been as little referred to between them as Clavdia Chauchat or Marusja. By common consent they had pa.s.sed over his ways and works in silence. But now Joachim had mentioned him-though in an irritable tone. His saying, too, that he would not be here for the flowering season had sounded very much out of sorts. Good Cousin Joachim seemed on the way to losing his equilibrium. His voice vibrated with irritation when he talked, and the old gentleness and moderation were of the past. Was it that he missed the orange perfume? Did the way they put him off with his Gaffky number drive him to the verge of despair? Or was he of more than one mind whether he should await the autumn up here or resolve on unlawful departure?

In reality it was something besides all these that had given the shade of vexation to Joachim's voice and made him mention the recent botanical lecture with contempt. Hans Castorp did not know this-or rather, he did not know that Joachim knew it; as for himself, he knew it well enough, did this venturesome spirit, this delicate nursling of life, this schoolmaster's plague! In a word, Joachim had caught his cousin at his tricks again, had found him out in another species of disloyalty, not so unlike the one he had been guilty of on the evening of carnival, only possessed of a still keener point in the circ.u.mstance that of this one he made a practice. In the rhythmic monotony of time's flow, in the well-nigh minute articulation of the normal day-that day which was ever, even unto confusion and distraction, the same day, an abiding eternity, so that it was hard to say how it ever managed to bring forth any change-in the inviolable, unbreachable regimen, we say, of that normal day, Dr. Krokowski's routine of visits took him, as of yore, through all the rooms, or rather through all the balconies, from chair to reclining-chair, between half past three and four in the afternoon. How often had the normal day of the Berghof renewed itself, since the faroff time when Hans Castorp lay and grumbled within himself because Dr. Krokowski described an arc about him and left him on one side! The guest of that day had long become the comrade-Dr. Krokowski often thus addressed him when he made his rounds; and if, as Hans Castorp said to Joachim, the military a.s.sociations of the word, with the exotic p.r.o.nunciation of the r, sounded singularly inappropriate in his mouth, yet the word itself did not go so badly with his robust and hearty, confidence-inviting manner. But that again, in its turn, was belied by his blackness and pallor, so that some aura of the questionable always hung about the man.

"Well, comrade, and how goes it?" the doctor said, as, coming from the barbarian Russians, he approached the head end of Hans Castorp's reclining-chair. The patient, hands folded on his chest, smiled daily at the blithe address, smiled with a friendly, albeit rather hara.s.sed mien, watching the doctor's yellow teeth, that were visible through his beard. "Slept right well, did you?" Dr. Krokowski would go on. "Curve going down? Up, eh? Never mind, it will be all right before you come to get married. Good day to you." And he would go on into Joachim's balcony. For these afternoon rounds were merely a coup d'il coup d'il, no more.

But once in a way he would stop rather longer, standing there broad-shouldered and st.u.r.dy, ever with his manly smile, chatting with the comrade of this and that: the weather, the various departures and new arrivals, the mood the patient was in, whether good or bad; sometimes about his personal affairs, origin and prospects-before he uttered the formula: "Good day to you" and pa.s.sed on. Hans Castorp would shift his hands to behind his head, and reply to all he was asked, smiling in his turn. He experienced a penetrating sense of uncanniness, yes, but he answered. They spoke in low tones, so that Joachim, despite the fact that the gla.s.s part.i.tion only half separated them, could not make out what they said-indeed, made not the slightest effort to do so. He heard his cousin get up from his chair and go indoors, probably to show the doctor his curve; and the conversation seemed to be further prolonged inside the chamber, to judge from the length of time before the a.s.sistant appeared, this time from the inside, through his room.

What did the comrades talk about? Joachim never put the question. But if one of us were to do so, an answer in general terms might be forthcoming, as that there is much matter for an exchange of views, between two comrades and fellow-men when they possess ideas in common, and one of them has arrived at the point of conceiving the material universe in the light of a downfall of the spirit, a morbid growth upon it, while the other, as physician, is wont to treat of the secondary character of organic disease. Yes, there was, we should say, much to talk about, much to say on the subject of the material as the dishonourable decay of the immaterial, of life as the impudicity of substance, or disease as an impure manifestation of life. With the current lectures for background, the conversation might swing from the subject of love as a force making for disease, from the supersensory nature of the indications, to "old" and "fresh" infected areas, to soluble toxins and love potions, to the illumination of the unconscious, to the blessings of psycho-a.n.a.lysis, the transference of symptoms-in short, how can we know what all they talked about, Dr. Krokowski and young Castorp, when all these are merely guesses and suppositions thrown out in response to a hypothetic question!

In any case, they talked no longer; it had lasted only a few weeks. Of late the a.s.sistant spent no more time with this particular patient than with the others, but confined himself chiefly to the "Well, comrade?" and "Good day to you," on his rounds. But now Joachim had made another discovery, he had fathomed the duplicity of his cousin-without, be it said, any faintest intention of so doing, without having bent his military honour to the office of spy. It happened quite simply that he had been summoned, one Wednesday, from the first rest period, to go down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and be weighed by the bathing-master. He came down the clean linoleum-covered steps that faced the consulting-room door, with the x-ray cabinets on either side: on the left the organic, on the right, round the corner and one step lower down, the a.n.a.lytic, with Dr. Krokowski's visiting-card tacked on the door. Joachim paused halfway down the stair, as he saw his cousin coming from the consulting-room, where he had just had an injection. He stepped hastily through the door, closed it with both hands, and without looking round, turned toward the door which had the card fastened on it with drawing-pins. He reached it with a few noiseless, crouching steps, knocked, bent to listen, with his head close to the tapping finger. And as the "Come in" in an exotic baritone sounded on the other side, Joachim saw his cousin disappear into the half-darkness of Dr. Krokowski's a.n.a.lytic lair.

A New-Comer LONG days-the longest, objectively speaking, and with reference to the hours of daylight they contained; since their astronomical length could not affect the swift pa.s.sage of them, either taken singly or in their monotonous general flow. The vernal equinox lay three months back, the solstice was at hand. But the seasons up here followed the calendar with halting steps, and only within the last few days had spring fairly arrived: a spring still without hint of summer's denser air, rarefied, ethereal, and balmy, with the sun sending silvery gleams from a blue heaven, and the meadows blithe with parti-coloured flowers.

Hans Castorp found bluebells and yarrow on the hill-side, like the ones Joachim had put in his room to greet him when he came; and seeing them, realized how the year was rounding out. Those others had been the late blossoms of the declining summer; whereas now the tender emerald gra.s.s of the sloping meadows was thick-starred with every sort of bloom, cup-shaped, bell-shaped, star-shaped, any-shaped, filling the sunny air with warm spice and scent: quant.i.ties of wild pansies and fly-bane, daisies, red and yellow primulas, larger and finer than any Hans Castorp had ever seen down below, so far as he could recall noticing, and the nodding soldanella, peculiar to the region, with its little eye-lashed bells of rose-colour, purple, and blue.

Hans Castorp gathered a bunch of all this loveliness and took it to his room; by no means with the idea of decoration, but of set and serious scientific intent. He had a.s.sembled an apparatus to serve his need: a botanical text-book, a handy little trowel to take up roots, a herbarium, a powerful pocket-lens. The young man set to work in his loggia, clad in one of the light summer suits he had brought up with him when he came-another sign that his first year was rounding out its course.

Fresh-cut flowers stood about in gla.s.ses within his room, and on the lamp-stand beside his highly superior chair. Flowers half faded, wilted but not dry, lay scattered on the floor of the loggia and on the bal.u.s.trade; others, between sheets of blottingpaper, were giving out their moisture under pressure from heavy stones. When they were quite dry and flat, he would stick them with strips of paper into his alb.u.m. He lay with his knees up, one crossed over the other, the manual open face down upon his chest like a little gabled roof; holding the thick bevelled lens between his honest blue eyes and a blossom in his other hand, from which he had cut away with his pocketknife a part of the corolla, in order the better to examine the thalamus-what a great fleshy lump it looked through the powerful lens! The anthers shook out their yellow pollen on the thalamus from the tips of their filaments, the pitted pistil stood stiffly up from the ovaries; when Hans Castorp cut through it longitudinally, he could see the narrow channel through which the pollen grains and utricles were floated by the nectar secretion into the ovarian cavity. Hans Castorp counted, tested, compared; he studied the structure and grouping of calyx and petals as well as the male and female organs; compared what he found with the sketches and diagrams in his book; and saw with satisfaction that these were accurate when tested by the structure of such plants as were known to him. Then he went on to those he had not known the names of, and by the help of his Linnaeus established their cla.s.s, group, order, species, family, and genus. As he had time at his disposal, he actually made some progress in botanical systematization on the basis of comparative morphology. Beneath each dried specimen in his herbarium he carefully inscribed in ornamental lettering the Latin name which a humanistic science had gallantly bestowed on it; added its distinguishing characteristics, and submitted the whole to the approval of the good Joachim, who was all admiration.

Evenings he gazed at the stars. He was seized with an interest in the pa.s.sing year- he who had already spent some twenty-odd cycles upon this earth without ever troubling his head about it. If the writer has been driven to talk about the vernal equinox and suchlike, it is because these terms formed the present mental furniture of our hero, which he now loved to set out on all occasions, here too surprising his cousin by the fund of information at his command.

"The sun," he might begin, as they took their walks together, "will soon be entering the sign of the Crab. Do you know what that means? It is the first summer sign of the zodiac, you know. Then come Leo and Virgo, and then the autumn, the equinox, toward the end of September, when the rays of the sun fall vertically upon the equatoragain, as they did in March, when the sun was in the sign of the Ram."

"I regret to say it escaped my attention," Joachim said grumpily. "What is all that you are reeling off so glibly about the Ram and the zodiac?"

"Why, you know what the zodiac is-the primitive heavenly signs: Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and the rest. How can you help being interested in them? At least, you must know there are twelve of them, three for each season, the ascending and the declining year, the circle of constellations through which the sun pa.s.ses. I think it's great. Imagine, they have been found employed as ceiling decoration in an Egyptian temple-and a temple of Aphrodite, to boot-not far from Thebes. They were known to the Chaldeans too, the Chaldeans, if you please, those Arabic-Semitic old necromancers, who were so well versed in astrology and soothsaying. They knew and studied the zone in the heavens through which the planets revolve; and they divided it into twelve signs by constellations, the dodecatemoria dodecatemoria, just as they have been handed down to us. Magnificent, isn't it? There's humanity for you!" "You talk about humanity just like Settembrini."

"Yes-and yet not just the same either. You have to take humanity as it is; but even so I find it magnificent. I like to think about the Chaldeans when I lie and look at the planets they were familiar with-for, clever as they were, they did not know them all. But the ones they did not know I cannot see either. Ura.n.u.s was only recently discovered, by means of the telescope-a hundred and twenty years ago." "You call that recently?"

"I call it recently-with your kind permission-in comparison with the three thousand years since their time. But when I lie and look at the planets, even the three thousand years get to seem 'recently,' and I begin to think quite intimately of the Chaldeans, and how in their time they gazed at the stars and made verses on them- and all that is humanity too." "I must say, you have very tall ideas in your head."

"You call them tall, and I call them intimate-it's all the same, whatever you like to call it. But when the sun enters Libra again, in about three months from now, the days will have shortened so much that day and night will be equal. The days keep on getting shorter until about Christmas-time, as you know. But now you must please bear in mind that, while the sun goes through the winter signs-Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces-the days are already getting longer! For then spring is on the way again-the three-thousandth spring since the Chaldeans; and the days go on lengthening until we have come round the year, and summer begins again." "Of course."

"No, not of course at all-it is really all hocus-pocus. The days lengthen in the winter-time, and when the longest comes, the twenty-first of June, the beginning of summer, they begin to go downhill again, toward winter. You call that 'of course'; but if one once loses hold of the fact that it is is of course, it is quite frightening, you feel like hanging on to something. It seems like a practical joke-that spring begins at the beginning of winter, and autumn at the beginning of summer. You feel you're being fooled, led about in a circle, with your eye fixed on something that turns out to be a moving point. A moving point in a circle. For the circle consists of nothing but such transitional points without any extent whatever; the curvature is incommensurable, there is no duration of motion, and eternity turns out to be not 'straight ahead' but 'merry-go-round'!" "For goodness' sake, stop!" of course, it is quite frightening, you feel like hanging on to something. It seems like a practical joke-that spring begins at the beginning of winter, and autumn at the beginning of summer. You feel you're being fooled, led about in a circle, with your eye fixed on something that turns out to be a moving point. A moving point in a circle. For the circle consists of nothing but such transitional points without any extent whatever; the curvature is incommensurable, there is no duration of motion, and eternity turns out to be not 'straight ahead' but 'merry-go-round'!" "For goodness' sake, stop!"

"The feast of the solstice-midsummer night! Fires on the mountain-top, and ringaround-a-rosy about the leaping flames! I have never seen it; but they say our rude forefathers used thus to celebrate the first summer night, the night with which autumn begins, the very midday and zenith of the year, the point from which it goes downhill again: they danced and whirled and shouted and exulted-and why, really, all that primitive exultation? Can you make it out? What were they so jolly about? Was it because from then on the world went down into the dark-or perhaps because it had up till then gone uphill, and now the turning-point was reached, the fleeting moment of midsummer night and midsummer madness, the meeting-place of tears and laughter? I express it as it is, in the words that come to me. Tragic joy, triumphant sadness that was what made our ancestors leap and exult around the leaping flames: they did so as an act of homage to the madness of the circle, to an eternity without duration, in which everything recurs-in sheer despair, if you like."

"But I don't like," growled Joachim. "Pray don't put it off on me. Pretty large concerns you occupy yourself with, nights when you do your cure."

"Yes, I'll admit you are more practically occupied with your Russian grammar. Why, man, you're bound to have perfect command of the language before long; and that will be a great advantage to you if there should be a war-which G.o.d forbid." "G.o.d forbid? You talk like a civilian. War is necessary. Without it, Moltke said, the world would soon go to pieces altogether it would rot."

"Yes, it has a tendency that way, I admit. And I'll go so far as to say," began Hans Castorp, and was about to return to the Chaldeans, who had carried on wars too, and conquered Babylonia, even if they were a Semitic people, which was almost the same as saying they were Jews-when the cousins became simultaneously aware that two gentlemen, walking close in front of them, had been attracted by what they were saying and interrupted their own conversation to look around.

They were on the main street, between the Kurhaus and Hotel Belvedere, on their way back to the village. The valley was gay in its new spring dress, all bright and delicate colour. The air was superb. A symphony of scents from meadows full of flowers filled the pure, dry, lucent, sun-drenched air. They recognized Ludovico Settembrini, with a stranger; but it seemed as though he for his part either did not recognize them or did not care for a meeting, for he turned round again, quickened his step, and plunged into conversation, accompanied by his usual lively gestures. When the cousins came up on his right and gaily greeted him, he exclaimed: "Sapristi!" and "Well, well, well!" with every mark of delighted surprise; yet would have held back and let them pa.s.s on, but that they failed to grasp his intention-or else saw no sense in it. For Hans Castorp was genuinely pleased to see him thus, after a lapse of time: he stopped and warmly shook hands, asked how he did, and looked in polite expectation at his companion. Settembrini was thus driven to do what he obviously preferred not to do, but what seemed the only natural thing, under the circ.u.mstances: namely, to present them to each other, which he accordingly did, with much appropriate gesticulation, and the gentlemen shook hands, half standing, half walking on. It appeared that the stranger, who might be about Settembrini's age, was a housemate of his, the other tenant of Lukacek the ladies' tailor. His name, so the young people understood, was Naphta. He was small and thin, clean-shaven, and of such piercing, one might almost say corrosive ugliness as fairly to astonish the cousins. Everything about him was sharp: the hooked nose dominating his face, the narrow, pursed mouth, the thick, bevelled lenses of his gla.s.ses in their light frame, behind which were a pair of pale-grey eyes-even the silence he preserved, which suggested that when he broke it, his speech would be incisive and logical. According to custom he was bare-headed and overcoatless-and moreover very well dressed, in a dark-blue flannel suit with white stripes. Its quiet but modish cut was at once marked down by the cousins, whose worldly glances were met by their counterpart, only quicker and keener, from the little man's own side. Had Ludovico Settembrini not known how to wear with such easy dignity his threadbare pilot coat and check trousers, he must have suffered by contrast with his company. This happened the less in that the checks had been freshly pressed, doubtless by the hands of his landlord, and might, at a little distance, have been taken for new. The worldly and superior quality of the ugly stranger's tailoring made him stand nearer to the cousins than to Settembrini; yet it was not only his age which ranged him rather with the latter, but also a quite p.r.o.nounced something else, most conveniently exemplified by the complexion of the four. For the two younger were brown and burnt, the two elder pale: Joachim's face had in the course of the winter turned an even deeper bronze, and Hans Castorp's glowed rosy red under his blond poll. But over Herr Settembrini's southern pallor, so well set off by his dark moustache, the sun's rays had no power; while his companion, though blond-haired-his hair was a metallic, colourless ashenblond, and he wore it smoothed back from a lofty brow straight over his whole head- also showed the dead-white complexion of the brunette races. Two out of the four- Hans Castorp and Settembrini-carried walking-sticks; Joachim, as a military man, had none, and Naphta, after the introductions, clasped his hands again behind him. They, and his feet as well, were small and delicate, as befitted his build. He had a slight cold, and coughed un.o.btrusively.

Herr Settembrini at once and elegantly overcame the hint of embarra.s.sment or vexation he had betrayed at first sight of the young people. He was in his gayest mood, and made all sorts of jesting allusions as he performed the introductions-for example, he called Naphta "princeps scholasticorum." "princeps scholasticorum." Joy, he said, quoting Aretine, held brilliant court within his, Settembrini's, breast; a joy due to the blessing of the springtime-to which commend him. The gentlemen knew he had a certain grudge against life up here often enough he had railed against it!-All honour, then, to the mountain spring! It was enough of itself to atone for all the horrors of the place. All the disquieting, provocative elements of spring in the valley were here lacking: here were no seething depths, no steaming air, no oppressive humidity! Only dryness, clarity, a serene and piercing charm. It was after his own heart, it was superb. They were walking in an uneven row, four abreast whenever possible; when people came towards or pa.s.sed them, Settembrini, on the right wing, had to walk in the road, or else their front for the moment broke up, and one or the other stepped back-either Hans Castorp, between the humanist and Cousin Joachim, or little Naphta on the left side. Naphta would give a short laugh, in a voice dulled by his cold: its quality in speaking was reminiscent of a cracked plate tapped on by the knuckle. Joy, he said, quoting Aretine, held brilliant court within his, Settembrini's, breast; a joy due to the blessing of the springtime-to which commend him. The gentlemen knew he had a certain grudge against life up here often enough he had railed against it!-All honour, then, to the mountain spring! It was enough of itself to atone for all the horrors of the place. All the disquieting, provocative elements of spring in the valley were here lacking: here were no seething depths, no steaming air, no oppressive humidity! Only dryness, clarity, a serene and piercing charm. It was after his own heart, it was superb. They were walking in an uneven row, four abreast whenever possible; when people came towards or pa.s.sed them, Settembrini, on the right wing, had to walk in the road, or else their front for the moment broke up, and one or the other stepped back-either Hans Castorp, between the humanist and Cousin Joachim, or little Naphta on the left side. Naphta would give a short laugh, in a voice dulled by his cold: its quality in speaking was reminiscent of a cracked plate tapped on by the knuckle.

Indicating the Italian by a sidewise nod, he said, with a deliberate enunciation: "Hark to the Voltairian, the rationalist! He praises nature, because even when she has the chance she doesn't befog us with mystic vapours, but preserves a dry and cla.s.sic clarity. And yet-what is the Latin for humidity?"

"Humor," cried Settembrini, over his shoulder. "And the humour in the professor's nature-observations lies in the fact that like Saint Catherine of Siena he thinks of the wounds of Christ when he sees a red primula in the spring."

"That would be witty, rather than humorous," Naphta retorted. "But in either case a good spirit to import into nature; and one of which she stands in need."

"Nature," said Settembrini, in a lower voice, not so much over as along his shoulder, "needs no importations of yours. She is Spirit herself." "Doesn't your monism rather bore you?"

"Ah, you confess, then, that it is simply to divert yourself that you wrench G.o.d and nature apart, and divide the world into two hostile camps?"

"I find it most interesting to hear you characterize as love of diversion what I mean when I say Pa.s.sion and Spirit."

"And you, who put such large words to such empty uses, don't forget that you sometimes reproach me for being rhetorical."

"You will stick to it that Spirit implies frivolity. But it cannot help being what it is: dualistic. Dualism, ant.i.thesis, is the moving, the pa.s.sionate, the dialectic principle of all Spirit. To see the world as cleft into two opposing poles-that is Spirit. All monism is tedious. Solet Aristoteles quaerere pugnam Solet Aristoteles quaerere pugnam."

"Aristotle? Didn't Aristotle place in the individual the reality of universal ideas? That is pantheism."

"Wrong. When you postulate independent being for individuals, when you transfer the essence of things from the universal to the particular phenomenon, which Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, as good Aristotelians, did, then you destroy all unity between the world and the Highest Idea; you place the world outside of G.o.d and make G.o.d transcendent. That, my dear sir, is cla.s.sic mediaevalism." "Cla.s.sic medievalism! What a phrase!"

"Pardon me, I merely apply the concept of the cla.s.sic where it is in place: that is to say, wherever an idea reaches its culmination. Antiquity was not always cla.s.sic. And I note in you a general repugnance to the Absolute; to the broader application of categories. You don't even want absolute Spirit. You only want to have Spirit synonymous with democratic progress."

"I should hope we are at one in the conviction that Spirit, however absolute, oughtnever to become the advocate of reaction."

"Yet you are always claiming it as the advocate of freedom!"

"Why do you say 'yet'? Is it freedom that is the law of love of one's kind, or is it nihilism and all uncharitableness?" "At any rate, it is the last two of which you are so obviously afraid."

Settembrini flung up his arm. The skirmish broke off. Joachim looked bewildered from one to the other, and Hans Castorp with lifted brows stared at the path before him. Naphta had spoken sharply and apodictically; yet he had been the one to defend the broader conception of freedom. He had a way of saying "Wrong!" with a ringing nasal sound, and then clipping his lips tightly together over it-the effect was not ingratiating. Settembrini had countered for the most part lightly, yet with a fine warmth in his tone, as when he urged their essential agreement upon certain fundamental points. He now began, as Naphta did not speak again, to gratify the natural curiosity of the young people about the new-comer-some sort of explanation being obviously their due after the dialogue just ended. Naphta pa.s.sively let him go on, without heeding. He was, so Settembrini said, professor of ancient languages in the Fridericianum-bringing out the t.i.tle with pompous emphasis, as Italians do. His lot was the same as the speaker's own: that is, he had been driven to the conclusion that his stay would be a long one, and had left the sanatorium for private quarters under the roof of Lukacek the ladies' tailor. The high school of the resort had cannily secured the services of this distinguished Latinist-the pupil of a religious house, as Settembrini father vaguely expressed it-and it went without saying that he was an adornment to his position. In short, Settembrini extolled the ugly Naphta not a little, regardless of the abstract disputation they had just had, which now, it seemed, was to be resumed.

Settembrini went on to explain the cousins to Herr Naphta, whereby it came out thathe had already spoken of them. Here, he said, was the young engineer who had come up on three weeks' leave, only to have Herr Hofrat Behrens find a moist place in his lung; and here was that hope of the Prussian army organization, Lieutenant Ziemssen. He spoke of Joachim's revolt and intended departure, and added that one must not insult the Engineer by imputing to him any less zealous desire to return to his interrupted labours. Naphta made a wry face.

"The gentlemen have an eloquent advocate. Far be it from me to question the accuracy of his interpretation of your thoughts and wishes. Work, work-why, he would call me nothing less than an enemy of mankind-inimicus humanae naturae-if I dared suggest that there have been times when talk in that vein would utterly fail to produce the desired effect: times when the precise opposite to his ideal was held in incomparably higher esteem. Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance, preached an order of progress towards perfection quite different from any Signor Ludovico ever dreamed of. Would you like to hear what it was? His lowest stage was in the 'mill,' the second on the 'ploughed field,' the third, and most commendable-don't listen, Settembrini!-was upon 'the bed of repose.' The mill was the symbol of earthly life-not a bad figure. The ploughed field represented the soul of the layman, the scene of the labours of priest and teacher. This was a stage higher than the mill. But the bed-"

"That will do, we understand," cried Settembrini. "Sirs, is he going to expatiate now upon the purpose and uses of the 'lewd day-bed'?"

"I did not know, Ludovico, that you were a prude. To see you looking at the girls... What has become of your pagan single-mindedness? I continue: the bed is the place of intercourse between the wooing and the wooed: symbolically, it typifies devotional retirement from the world for the purpose of contact with G.o.d."

"Fie! Andate Andate, andate!" andate!" the Italian fended him off, in a voice almost tearful. They all laughed. But Settembrini went on, with dignity: "No, no, I am a European, an Occidental, whereas the order of progress you describe is purely Eastern. The Orient abhors activity. Lao-Tse taught that inaction is more profitable than anything else between heaven and earth. When all mankind shall have ceased to do anything whatever, then only will perfect repose and bliss reign upon this earth. There you have your intercourse with G.o.d." the Italian fended him off, in a voice almost tearful. They all laughed. But Settembrini went on, with dignity: "No, no, I am a European, an Occidental, whereas the order of progress you describe is purely Eastern. The Orient abhors activity. Lao-Tse taught that inaction is more profitable than anything else between heaven and earth. When all mankind shall have ceased to do anything whatever, then only will perfect repose and bliss reign upon this earth. There you have your intercourse with G.o.d."

"Oh, indeed! And what about Western mysticism-and what about quietism, a religion that numbers Fenelon among its disciples? Fenelon taught that every action is faulty, since every will to act is an insult to G.o.d, who wills to act alone. I cite the propositions of Molinos. There is no doubt that the spiritual possibility of finding salvation in repose has been disseminated pretty generally all over the world." Here Hans Castorp put in his word. With the courage of simplicity he mixed in the debate, and, gazing into s.p.a.ce, delivered himself thus: "Devotion, retirement-there is something in it, it sounds reasonable. We practise a pretty high degree of retirement from the world, we up here. No doubt about it. Five thousand feet up, we lie in these excellent chairs of ours, contemplating the world and all that therein is, and having our thoughts about it. The more I think of it, the surer I am that the bed of repose-by which I mean my deck-chair, of course-has given me more food for thought in these ten months than the mill down in the flat-land in all the years before. There's simply no denying it."

Settembrini looked at him, a melancholy gleam in his dark eye. "Engineer!" he said, restrainingly. He took Hans Castorp's arm and drew him a little aside, as though to speak to him in private "How often have I told you that one must realize what one is and think accordingly! Never mind the propositions. Our Western heritage is reason- reason, a.n.a.lysis, action, progress: these, and not the slothful bed of monkish tradition!"

Naphta had been listening. He turned his head to say, "Monkish tradition! As if we did not owe to the monks the culture of the soil of all Europe! As if it were not due to them that Germany, France and Italy yield us corn and wine and fruit to-day, instead of being covered with primeval forest and swamp! The monks, my dear sir were hard workers-" "Ebbe! Well, then!"

"Certainly against his intentions, at least. What I am calling your attention to is nothing less than the distinction between the utilitarian and the humane."

"And what I am calling your attention to is the fact, which I observe with indignation, that you are still dividing the world up into opposing factions."

"I grieve to have incurred your displeasure. Yet it is needful to make distinctions, and to preserve the conception of the h.o.m.o Dei h.o.m.o Dei, free from contaminating const.i.tuents. It was you Italians that invented banking and exchange, which may G.o.d forgive you! But the English invented the economic social theory, and the genius of humanity can never forgive them that."