The Magic Mountain Part 3

"Before I forget it," he said abruptly, "you may introduce me to the lady in the garden if you like, I mean if it happens that way, I have no objection. She would just say: 'Tous les deux' 'Tous les deux' to me, and I shouldn't mind it, being prepared, and knowing what it means-I should know how to look. But I don't wish to know the Russian pair, do you hear? I expressly don't wish it. They are a very ill-behaved lot. If I must live for three weeks next door to them, and nothing else could be arranged, at least I needn't know them. I am justified in that, and I simply and explicitly decline." to me, and I shouldn't mind it, being prepared, and knowing what it means-I should know how to look. But I don't wish to know the Russian pair, do you hear? I expressly don't wish it. They are a very ill-behaved lot. If I must live for three weeks next door to them, and nothing else could be arranged, at least I needn't know them. I am justified in that, and I simply and explicitly decline."

"Very good," Joachim said. "Did they disturb you? Yes, they are barbarians, more or less; uncivilized, I told you so before. He comes to the table in a leather jacket, very shabby, I always wonder Behrens doesn't make a row. And she isn't the cleanest in this world, with her feather hat. You may make yourself quite easy, they sit at the 'bad' Russian table, a long way off us-there is a 'good' Russian table, too, you see, where the nicer Russians sit-and there is not much chance of you coming into contact with them, even if you wanted to. It is not very easy to make acquaintance here, partly from the fact that there are so many foreigners. Personally, as long as I've been here, I know very few." "Which of the two is ill?" Hans Castrop asked. "He or she?"

"The man I think. Yes, only the man," Joachim answered, absently. They pa.s.sed among the hat- and coat-racks and entered the light, low-vaulted hall, where there was a buzzing of voices, a clattering of dishes, and a running to and fro of waitresses with steaming jugs.

There were seven tables, all but two of them standing lengthwise of the room. They were good-sized, seating each ten persons, though not all of them were at present full. A few steps diagonally into the room, and they stood at their places; Hans Castorp's was at the end of a table placed between the two crosswise ones. Erect behind his chair, he bowed stiffly but amiably to each table-mate in turn, as Joachim formally presented him; hardly seeing them, much less having their names penetrate his mind. He caught but a single name and person-Frau Stohr, whom he perceived to have a red face and greasy ash-blond hair. Looking at her he could quite credit the malapropisms Joachim told of. Her face expressed nothing but ill-nature and ignorance. He sat down, observing as he did so that early breakfast was taken seriously up here.

There were pots of marmalade and honey, basins of rice and oatmeal porridge, dishes of cold meat and scrambled eggs; a plenitude of b.u.t.ter, a Gruyere cheese dropping moisture under a gla.s.s bell. A bowl of fresh and dried fruits stood in the centre of the table. A waitress in black and white asked Hans Castorp whether he would drink coffee, cocoa or tea. She was small as a child, with a long, oldish face-a dwarf, he realized with a start. He looked at his cousin, who only shrugged indifferently with brows and shoulders, as though to say: "Well, what of it?" So he adjusted himself as speedily as possible to the fact that he was being served by a dwarf, and put special consideration into his voice as he asked for tea. Then he began eating rice with cinnamon and sugar, his eyes roving over the table full of other inviting viands, and over the guests at the six remaining tables, Joachim's companions and fellow victims, who were all inwardly infected, and now sat there breakfasting. The hall was done in that modern style which knows how to give just the right touch of individuality to something in reality very simple. It was rather shallow in proportion to its length, and opened in great arched bays into a sort of lobby surrounding it, in which serving-tables were placed. The pillars were faced halfway up with wood finished to look like sandalwood, the upper part white-enamelled, like the ceiling and upper half of the walls. They were stenciled in gay-coloured bands of simple and lively designs which were repeated on the girders of the vaulted ceiling. The room was further enlivened by several electric chandeliers in bright bra.s.s, consisting of three rings placed horizontally one over the other and held together by delicate woven work, the lowest ring set with globes of milky gla.s.s like little moons. There were four gla.s.s doors, two on the opposite wall, opening on the verandah, a third at the bottom of the room on the left, leading into the front hall, and a fourth, by which Hans Castorp had entered through a vestibule, as Joachim had brought him down a different stair from the one they had used yesterday evening.

He had on his right a plain-looking woman in black, with a dull flush on her cheeks, the skin of which was downy-looking, as an older person's often is. She looked to him like a seamstress or home dressmaker, the idea being suggested by the fact that she took only coffee and b.u.t.tered rolls for breakfast; since his childhood he had always somehow a.s.sociated dressmakers with coffee and b.u.t.tered rolls. On his left sat an English spinster, also well on in years, very ugly, with frozen, withered-looking fingers. She sat reading her home letters, which were written in round hand, and drinking tea the colour of blood. Next her was Joachim, and then Frau Stohr, in a woollen blouse of Scotch plaid. She held her left hand doubled up in a fist near her cheek as she ate, and drew her upper lip back from her long, narrow, rodent-like teeth when she spoke, obviously trying to make an impression of culture and refinement. A young man with thin moustaches sat next beyond. His facial expression was of one with something bad-tasting in his mouth, and he ate without a word. He had come in after Hans Castorp was already seated, with his chin sunk on his breast; and sat down so, without even lifting his head in greeting, seeming by his bearing plumply to decline being made acquainted with the new guest. He was, perhaps, too ill to have thought of or care for appearances, or even to take any interest in his surroundings. Opposite him there had sat for a short time a very lean, light-blonde girl who emptied a bottle of yogurt on her plate, ladled it up with a spoon, and took herself off. The conversation at table was not lively. Joachim talked politely with Frau Stohr, inquired after her condition and heard with proper solicitude that it was unsatisfactory. She complained of relaxation. "I feel so relaxed," she said with a drawl and an underbred, affected manner. And she had had 99.1 when she got up that morning- what was she likely to have by afternoon? The dressmaker confessed to the same temperature, but she on the contrary felt excited, tense, and restless, as though some important event were about to happen, which was certainly not the case; the excitation was purely physical, quite without emotional grounds. Hans Castorp thought to himself that she could not be a dressmaker after all; she spoke too correctly, even pedantically. He found her excitation, or rather the expression of it, somehow unsuitable, almost offensive, in so homely and insignificant a creature. He asked her and Frau Stohr, one after the other, how long they had been up here, and found that one had five, the other seven months to her credit. Then he mustered his English to inquire of his neighbour on the right what sort of tea she was drinking (it was made of rose-hips) and if it tasted good, which she almost pa.s.sionately affirmed; then he watched people coming and going in the room; the first breakfast, it appeared, was not regarded as a regular meal, in any strict sense.

He had been a little afraid of unpleasant impressions, but found himself agreeably disappointed. The room was lively, one had not the least feeling of being in a place of suffering. Tanned young people of both s.e.xes came in humming, spoke to the waitresses, and fell to upon the viands with robust appet.i.te. There were older people, married couples, a whole family with children, speaking Russian, and half-grown lads. The women wore chiefly close-fitting jackets of wool or silk-the so-called sweater-in white or colours, with turnover collars and side pockets; they would stand with hands thrust deep in these pockets, and talk-it looked very pretty. At some tables photographs were being handed about-amateur photography, no doubt-at another stamps were being exchanged. The talk was of the weather, of how one had slept, of what one had "measured in the mouth" on rising. Nearly everybody seemed in good spirits, probably on no other grounds than that they were in numerous company and had no immediate cares. Here and there, indeed, sat someone who rested his head on his hand and stared before him. They let him stare, and paid no heed.

Hans Castorp gave a sudden angry start. A door was slammed-it was the one on the left, leading into the hall, and someone had let it fall shut, or even banged it, a thing he detested; he had never been able to endure it. Whether from his upbringing, or out of a natural idiosyncrasy, he loathed the slamming of doors, and could have struck the guilty person. In this case, the door was filled in above with small gla.s.s panes, which augmented the shock with their ringing and rattling. "Oh, come," he thought angrily, "what kind of d.a.m.ned carelessness was that?" But at the same time the seamstress addressed him with a remark, and he had no time to see who the transgressor had been. Deep creases furrowed his blond brows, and his face was contorted as he turned to reply to his neighbour.

Joachim asked whether the doctors had come through. Yes, someone answered, they had been there once and left the room just as the cousins entered. Then it would be better not to wait, Joachim thought. An opportunity for introducing his cousin would surely come in the course of the day. But at the door they nearly ran into Hofrat Behrens, as he entered with hasty steps, followed by Dr. Krokowski.

"Hullo-ullo there! Take care, gentlemen! That might have been rough on all of our corns!" He spoke with a strong low-Saxon accent, broad and mouthingly. "Oh, so here you are," he addressed Hans Castorp, whom Joachim, heels together, presented. "Well, glad to see you." He reached the young man a hand the size of a shovel. He was some three heads taller than Dr. Krokowski; a bony man, his hair already quite white; his neck stuck out, his large, goggling bloodshot blue eyes were swimming in tears; he had a snub nose, and a close-trimmed little moustache, which made a crooked line because his upper lip was drawn up on one side. What Joachim had said about his cheeks was fully borne out; they were really purple, and set off his head garishly against the white surgeon's coat he wore, a belted smock of more than kneelength, beneath which showed striped trousers and a pair of enormous feet in rather worn yellow laced boots. Dr. Krokowski too was in professional garb; but his smock was of some shiny black stuff and made like a shirt, with elastic bands at the wrists. It contrasted sharply with the pallor of his skin. His manner suggested that he was present solely in his capacity as a.s.sistant; he took no part in the greeting, but a certain expression at the corners of his mouth betrayed the fact that he felt the strain of his subordinate position.

"Cousins?" the Hofrat asked, motioning with his hand from one to the other of the two young men and looking at them with his bloodshot eyes. "Is he going to follow the drums like you?" he addressed Joachim, jerking his head at Hans Castorp. "G.o.d forbid, eh? I could tell as soon as I saw you"-he spoke now directly to the young man-"that you were a layman; there's something civilian and comfortable about you, not like our sabre-rattling corporal here! You'd be a better patient than he is, I'll wager. I can tell by looking at people, you know, whether they'll make good patients or not; it takes talent, everything takes talent-and this myrmidon here hasn't a spark. Maybe he shows up on the parade-ground, for aught I know; but he's no good a' being ill. Will you believe it, he's always wanting to clear out! Badgers me all the time, simply can't wait to get down there and be skinned alive. There's doggedness for you! Won't give us even a measly half-a-year! And yet it's quite pretty up here; I leave it to you if it isn't, Ziemssen, what? ... Well, your cousin will appreciate us, even if you don't. He'll get some fun out of it. There's no shortage in the lady market here, either; we have the most charming females. At least, some of them are very picturesque on the outside. But you ought to have better colour yourself, you know, if you want to please the s.e.x. 'The golden tree of life is green,' as the poet says-but it's a poor colour for the complexion, all the same. Totally anaemic, of course," he broke off, and without more ado put up his index and middle fingers and drew down Hans Castorp's eyelid. "Precisely! Totally anaemic, as I was saying. You know it wasn't such a bad idea of yours to let your native Hamburg shift for itself awhile. Great inst.i.tution, Hamburg-simply revels in humidity-sends us a tidy contingent every year. But if I may take the occasion to give you the benefit of my poor opinion-sine pecunia pecunia, you understand, quite sine pecunia sine pecunia-I would suggest that you do just as your cousin does, while you are up here. You couldn't turn a better trick than to behave for the time as though you had a slight tuberculosis pulmonum tuberculosis pulmonum, and put on a little flesh. It's curious about the metabolism of protein with us up here. Although the process of combustion is heightened, yet the body at the same time puts on flesh.-Well, Ziemssen, slept pretty well, what?... Splendid! Then get on with the out-of-doors exercise-but not more than half an hour, you hear? And afterwards stick the quicksilver cigar in your face, eh? And be good and write it down, Ziemssen! That's a conscientious lad! Sat.u.r.day I'll look at the curve. Your cousin better measure too. Measuring can't hurt anybody. Morning, gentlemen. Have a good time-morning- morning-" Krokowski joined him as he sailed off down the hall, swinging his arms palms backward, directing to right and left the question about sleeping well, which was answered on all sides in the affirmative.

Banter. Viatic.u.m Viatic.u.m. Interrupted Mirth Interrupted Mirth

"VERY nice man," Hans Castorp said, as after a friendly nod to the lame concierge, who was sorting letters in his lodge, they pa.s.sed out into the open air. The main entrance was on the south-west side of the white building, the central portion of which was a storey higher than the wings, and crowned by a turret with a roof of slatecoloured tin. You did not issue from this side into the hedged-in garden, but were immediately in the open, in sight of the steep mountain meadows, dotted with single fir-trees of moderate size, and writhen, stunted pines. The way they took-it was the only one they could take, outside the drive going down to the valley-rose by a gentle ascent to the left, behind the sanatorium, past the kitchen and domestic offices, where huge dustbins stood at the area rails. Thence it led in the same direction for a goodish piece, then made a sharp bend to the right and mounted more rapidly along the thinly wooded slopes. It was a reddish path, firm and yet rather moist underfoot, with boulders here and there along the edge. The cousins were by no means alone upon it: guests who had finished breakfast not long after them followed hard upon their steps, and groups of others, already returning, approached with the stalking gait of people descending a steep incline.

"Very nice man," repeated Hans Castorp. "He has such a flow of words I enjoy listening to him. 'Quicksilver cigar' was capital, I got it at once.-But I'll just light up a real one," he said, pausing, "I can't hold out any longer. I haven't had a proper smoke since yesterday after luncheon. Excuse me a minute." He opened his automobile-leather case, with its silver monogram, and drew out a Maria Mancini, a beautiful specimen of the first layer, flattened on one side as he particularly liked it; he cut off the tip slantingly with a sharp little tool he wore on his watch-chain, then, striking a tiny flame with his pocket apparatus, puffed with concentration at the long, blunt-ended cigar until it was alight. "There!" he said. "Now, as far as I'm concerned, we can get on with the exercise. You don't smoke-out of sheer doggedness, of course." "I never do smoke," answered Joachim; "why should I begin up here."

"I don't understand it," Hans Castorp said. "I never can understand how anybody can not not smoke-it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak-or at least of a first-cla.s.s pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke-though of course that is more or less of an exaggeration. But a day without tobacco would be flat, stale, and unprofitable, as far as I am concerned. If I had to say to myself to-morrow: 'No smoke to-day'-I believe I shouldn't find the courage to get up-on my honour, I'd stop in bed. But when a man has a good cigar in his mouth-of course it mustn't have a side draught or not draw well, that is extremely irritating-but with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him-literally. It's just like lying on the beach: when you lie on the beach, why, you lie on the beach, don't you?-you don't require anything else, in the line of work or amus.e.m.e.nt either.-People smoke all over the world, thank goodness; there is nowhere one could get to, so far as I know, where the habit hasn't penetrated. Even polar expeditions fit themselves out with supplies of tobacco to help them carry on. I've always felt a thrill of sympathy when I read that. You can be very miserable: I might be feeling perfectly wretched, for instance; but I could always stand it if I had my smoke." smoke-it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak-or at least of a first-cla.s.s pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke-though of course that is more or less of an exaggeration. But a day without tobacco would be flat, stale, and unprofitable, as far as I am concerned. If I had to say to myself to-morrow: 'No smoke to-day'-I believe I shouldn't find the courage to get up-on my honour, I'd stop in bed. But when a man has a good cigar in his mouth-of course it mustn't have a side draught or not draw well, that is extremely irritating-but with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him-literally. It's just like lying on the beach: when you lie on the beach, why, you lie on the beach, don't you?-you don't require anything else, in the line of work or amus.e.m.e.nt either.-People smoke all over the world, thank goodness; there is nowhere one could get to, so far as I know, where the habit hasn't penetrated. Even polar expeditions fit themselves out with supplies of tobacco to help them carry on. I've always felt a thrill of sympathy when I read that. You can be very miserable: I might be feeling perfectly wretched, for instance; but I could always stand it if I had my smoke."

"But after all," Joachim said, "it is rather flabby-minded of you to be so dependent on it. Behrens is right, you are certainly a civilian. He meant it for a sort of compliment, I dare say; but the truth is, you are a civilian-incurable. But then, you are healthy, you can do what you like," he added, and his eyes took on their tired look. "Yes, healthy except for the anaemia," said Hans Castorp. "That was certainly straight from the shoulder, his telling me I look green. But it is true-I've noticed myself that I look green in comparison with the rest of you up here, though it never struck me down home. And it was nice of him to give me advice gratis like that- 'sine pecunia,' as he put it. I'll gladly undertake to do as he says, and live just as you do. After all, how else should I do while I'm up here? And it can't do me any harm; suppose I do put on a little flesh, then, in G.o.d's name-though it sounds a bit disgusting, you will admit."

Joachim coughed slightly now and then as they walked, it seemed to strain him to go uphill. When he did so for the third time, he paused and stood still with a frown. "Go on ahead," he said. Hans Castorp hastened to do so, without looking round. Then he slackened his pace, and finally almost stopped, as it seemed to him he must have got a good distance ahead of Joachim. But he did not look round.

A troop of guests of both s.e.xes approached him. He had seen them coming along the level path half-way up the slope; now they were stalking downhill directly towards him; he heard their voices. They were six or seven persons of various ages: some in the bloom of youth, others rather older. He took a good look at them, from the side, as he walked with bent head, thinking about Joachim. They were tanned and bareheaded, the women in sweaters, the men mostly without overcoats or even walkingsticks, all of them like people who have just gone casually out for a turn in the open. Going downhill involves no sustained muscular effort, only an agreeable process of putting on the brakes in order not to finish by running and tripping head over heels; it is really nothing more than just letting yourself go; and thus the gait of these people had something loose-jointed and flighty about it, which communicated itself to the appearance of the whole group and made one almost wish to be of their lively party. They came close up to him, he saw their faces clearly. No, they were not all brown: two of the ladies were, on the contrary, distinctly pale; one of them thin as a lath, and ivory-white of complexion, the other shorter and plump, disfigured by freckles. They all looked at him, smiling rather boldly. A tall young girl in a green sweater, with untidy hair and foolish, half-open eyes, brushed past Hans Castorp, nearly touching him with her arm. And as she did so she whistled-oh, impossible! Yes, she did though; not with her mouth, indeed, for she did not pucker the lips, but held them firmly closed. She whistled from somewhere inside, and looked at him with her silly, half-shut eyes-it was an extraordinarily unpleasant whistle, harsh and penetrating, yet hollow-sounding; a long-drawn-out note, falling at the end, like the sound made by those rubber pigs one buys at fairs, that give out the air in a wailing key as they collapse. The sound issued, inexplicably, from her breast-and then, with her troop, she had pa.s.sed on.

Hans Castorp stood and stared. In a moment he turned round, understanding at least so much, that the atrocious thing must have been a joke, a put-up job; for he saw over his shoulder that they were laughing as they went, that a stodgy, thick-lipped youth, whose coat was turned up in an unseemly way about him so that he could put both hands in his trouser pockets, turned his head and laughed quite openly. Joachim approached. He had greeted the group with his usual punctiliousness, almost pausing, and bowing with heels together; now he came mildly up to his cousin. "Why are you making such a face?" he asked.

"She whistled," answered Hans Castorp. "She whistled out of her inside as she pa.s.sed. Will you have the goodness to explain to me how?"

"Oh!" Joachim said, and laughed curtly. "Nonsense, she didn't do it with her inside. That was Hermine Kleefeld, she whistles with her pneumothorax."

"With her what?" Hans Castorp demanded. He felt wrought up, without knowing why. His voice was between laughter and tears as he added: "You can't expect me to understand your lingo."

"Oh, come along," Joachim said. "I can explain it to you as we go. You looked rooted to the spot! It's a surgical operation, they often perform it up here. Behrens is a regular dab at it. When one of the lungs is very much affected, you understand, and the other one fairly healthy, they make the bad one stop functioning for a while, to give it a rest. That is to say, they make an incision here, somewhere on the side, I don't know the precise place, but Behrens has it down fine. Then they fill you up with gas-nitrogen, you know-and that puts the cheesy part of the lung out of operation. The gas doesn't last long, of course; it has to be renewed every two weeks; they fill you up again, as it were. Now, if that keeps on a year or two, and all goes well, the lung gets healed. Not always, of course; it's a risky business. But they say they have had a good deal of success with it. Those people you saw just now all have it. That was Frau Iltis, with the freckles, and the thin, pale one was Fraulein Levi, that had to lie so long in bed, you know. They have formed a group, for of course a thing like the pneumothorax brings people together. They call themselves the Half-Lung Club; everybody knows them by that name. And Hermine Kleefeld is the pride of the club, because she can whistle with hers. It is a special gift, by no means everybody can do it. I can't tell you how it is done, and she herself can't exactly describe it. But when she has been walking rather fast, she can make it whistle, and of course she does it to frighten people, especially when they are new to the place. Also, I believe she uses up nitrogen when she does it, for she has to be refilled once a week."

Then it was that Hans Castorp laughed. His excitement, while Joachim wa.s.speaking, had fixed for its outlet upon laughter rather than tears; and he laughed as he walked, his hand over his eyes, his shoulders bent, shaken by a succession of subdued chuckles.

"Are they incorporated?" he asked as soon as he could speak. His voice sounded weak and tearful with suppressed laughter. "Have they any by-laws? Pity you aren't a member, you could get me in as a guest, as-as a.s.sociate half-lunger.-You ought to ask Behrens to put you out of commission, then perhaps you could learn to whistle too; it must be something one could learn-well, that's the funniest thing ever I heard in my life!" he finished, heaving a deep sigh. "I beg your pardon for speaking of it like this, but they seem very jolly over it themselves, your pneumatic friends. The way they were coming along-and to think that was the Half-Lung Club. Tootle-ty-too, she went at me-she must be out of her senses! It was utter cheek-will you tell me why they behave so cheekily?"

Joachim sought for a reply. "Good Lord," he said, "they are so free- free-I mean, they are so young, and time is nothing to them, and then they may die-perhaps-why should they make a long face? Sometimes I think being ill and dying aren't serious at all just a sort of loafing about and wasting time; life is only serious down below. You will get to understand that after a while, but not until you have spent some time up here."

"Surely, surely," Hans Castorp said. "I'm sure I shall. I already feel great interest in the life up here, and when one is interested, the understanding follows.-But what is the matter with me-it doesn't taste good," he said, and took his cigar out of his mouth to look at it. "I've been asking myself all this time what the matter was, and now I see it is Maria. She tastes like papier mache, I do a.s.sure you-precisely as when one has a spoilt digestion. I can't understand it. I did eat more than usual for breakfast, but that cannot be the reason, for she usually tastes particularly good after a too hearty meal. Do you think it is because I had such a disturbed night? Perhaps that is how I got out of order. No, I really can't stick it," he said, after another attempt. "Every pull is a disappointment, there is no sense in forcing it." And after a hesitating moment he tossed the cigar off down the slope, among the wet pine-boughs. "Do you know what I think it has to do with?" he asked. "I feel convinced it is connected with this d.a.m.ned heat I feel all the time in my face. I have suffered from it ever since I got up. I feel as though I were blushing the whole time, deuce take it! Did you have anything like that when you first came?"

"Yes," said Joachim. "I was rather queer at first. Don't think too much of it. I told you it isn't so easy to accustom oneself to the life up here. But you will get right again after a bit. Look, that bench is in a pretty place. Let's sit down awhile and then go home. I must take my cure."

The path had become level. It ran now in the direction of Davos-Platz, some third of the height, and kept a continuous view, between high, spa.r.s.e, wind-blown pines, of the settlement below, gleaming whitely in the bright air. The bench on which they sat leaned against the steep wall of the mountain-side, and near them a spring in an open wooden trough ran gurgling and plashing to the valley.

Joachim was for instructing his cousin in the names of the mist-wreathed Alpine heights which seemed to enclose the valley on the south, pointing them out in turn with his alpenstock. But Hans Castorp gave the mountains only a fleeting glance. He sat bent over, tracing figures on the ground with the ferrule of his cityish silvermounted walking-stick. There were other things he wanted to know.

"What I meant to ask you," he began, "the case in my room had died just before I got here; have there been many deaths, since you came?"

"Several, certainly," answered Joachim. "But they are very discreetly managed, you understand; you hear nothing of them, or only by chance afterwards; everything is kept strictly private when there is a death, out of regard for the other patients, especially the ladies, who might easily get a shock. You don't notice it, even when somebody dies next door. The coffin is brought very early in the morning, while you are asleep, and the person in question is fetched away at a suitable time too-for instance, while we are eating."

"H'm," said Hans Castorp, and continued to draw. "I see. That sort of thing goes on behind the scenes, then."

"Yes-for the most part. But lately-let me see, wait a minute, it might be possibly eight weeks ago-"

"Then you can hardly say lately," Hans Castorp pounced on him crisply.

"What? Well, not lately, then, since you're so precise. I was just trying to reckon. Well, then, some time ago, it was, I got a glimpse behind the scenes-purely by chance-and I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was when they brought the Sacrament to little Hujus, Barbara Hujus-she was a Catholic-the Last Sacrament, you know, Extreme Unction. She was still about when I first came up here, and she could be wildly hilarious, regularly giggly, like a little kid. But after that it went pretty fast with her, she didn't get up any more-her room was three doors off mine-and then her parents arrived, and now the priest was coming to her. It was while everybody was at tea, not a soul in the pa.s.sages. But I had gone to sleep in the afternoon rest and overslept myself, I hadn't heard the gong and was a quarter of an hour late. So that at the decisive moment I wasn't where all the others were, but behind the scenes, as you call it; as I go along the corridor, they come toward me, in their lace robes, with the cross in front, a gold cross with lanterns-it made me think of the Sch.e.l.lenbaum Sch.e.l.lenbaum they march with, in front of the recruits." "What sort of comparison is that?" Hans Castorp asked, severely. they march with, in front of the recruits." "What sort of comparison is that?" Hans Castorp asked, severely.

"It looked like that to me-I couldn't help thinking of it. But listen. They came towards me, marching, quick step, three of them, so far as I remember: the man with the cross, the priest, with gla.s.ses on his nose, and a boy with a censer. The priest was holding the Sacrament to his breast, it was covered up, and he had his head bent on one side and looked very sanctified-it is their holy of holies, of course."

"Exactly," Hans Castorp said. "And just for that reason I wonder at your making the comparison you did."

"Yes, but wait a bit-if you had been there, you wouldn't have known what kind of face you would make remembering it afterwards. It was the sort of thing to give youbad dreams-"

"How?"

"Like this: I ask myself how I am supposed to behave, under the circ.u.mstances. I had no hat to take off-"

"There, you see, don't you?" Hans Castorp interrupted him again. "You see now, one ought to wear a hat. Naturally I've noticed that none of you do up here; but you should, so you can have something to take off when it is proper to do so. Well, but what then?"

"I stood against the wall," Joachim went on, "as respectfully as I could, and bent over a little when they were by me-it was just at little Hujus's door, number twentyeight. The priest seemed to be pleased that I saluted; he acknowledged very courteously and took off his cap. But at the same time they came to a stop, and the ministrant with the censer knocks, and lifts the latch, and makes way for his superior to enter. Just try to imagine my sensations, and how frightened I was! The minute the priest sets his foot over the threshold, there begins a hullabaloo from inside, a screaming such as you never heard the like of, three or four times running, and then a shriek-on and on without stopping, at the top of her lungs: Ah-h-h-h! So full of horror and rebellion, and anguish, and-well, perfectly indescribable. And in between came a gruesome sort of begging. Then it suddenly got all dulled and hollowsounding, as though it had sunk down into the earth, or were coming out of a cellar." Hans Castorp had turned with violence to face his cousin. "Was that the Hujus?" he asked abruptly. "And how do you mean-out of a cellar?"

"She had crawled down under the covers," said Joachim. "Imagine how I felt! The priest stood on the threshold and spoke soothingly, I can see now just how he stuck his head out and drew it back again while he talked. The cross-bearer and the acolyte hesitated, and couldn't get in. I could see between them into the room. It was just like yours and mine, the bed on the side wall left of the door, and people were standing at the head, the relatives of course, the parents, talking soothingly at the bed, where you could see nothing but a formless ma.s.s that was begging and protesting horribly, and kicking about with its legs." "You say she kicked?"

"With all her might. But it did her no good, she had to take the Sacrament. The priest went up to her, and the two others went inside the room, and the door closed. But first I saw little Hujus's head come up for a second, a shock of blond hair, and look at the priest with staring eyes, that were without any colour, and then with a wail go down under the sheet again."

"And you tell me all that now for the first time?" Hans Castorp said, after a pause. "I can't understand how you came not to speak of it yesterday evening. But, good Lord, she must have had strength, to defend herself like that. That takes strength. They ought not to fetch the priest before one is quite weak."

"She was weak," responded Joachim.-"Oh, there's so much to tell, one doesn't have time to pick and choose. She was weak enough! It was only the fright gave her so much strength. She was in a fearful state when she saw she was going to die; and she was such a young girl, it was excusable, after all. But grown men behave like that too, sometimes, and it's deplorably feeble of them, of course. Behrens knows how to treat them, he takes just the right tone in such cases." "What kind of tone?" Hans Castorp asked with drawn brows.

" 'Don't behave like that,' he tells them," Joachim answered. "At least, that is what he told somebody lately-we heard it from the Directress, who was present and helped to hold the man. He was one of those who make a regular scene at the end, and simply won't die. So Behrens brought him up with a round turn: 'Do me the favour not to behave like that,' he said to him; and the patient became quite calm and died as quietly as you please."

Hans Castorp slapped his thigh and threw himself back against the bench, looking up at the sky.

"I say, that's pretty steep," he cried. "Goes at him like that, and simply tells him not to behave that way! To a dying man! But after all, a dying man has something in a way-sacred about him. One can't just-perfectly coolly, like that-a dying man is sort of holy, I should think!"