The Magic Mountain Part 35

Thus did Naphta astutely go about to turn Herr Settembrini's paean the wrong way and represent himself as the incarnation of the cherishing severity of love-so that it was again impossible to distinguish which side was in the right, where G.o.d stood and where the Devil, where death and where life. Our readers will believe us that his antagonist insisted on giving him t.i.t for tat, paying in the newest-minted coin, receiving in his turn another just as good; thus the conversation proceeded, on the lines laid down. But Hans Castorp attended no longer. Joachim had remarked that he believed he had a feverish cold, and did not quite know what to do about it, as colds were not "recus" up here. The duellists had paid him no heed, but Hans Castorp kept, as we have said, an eye on his cousin, and so got up, in the midst of a speech, relying on Ferge and Wehsal to display adequate thirst for further pedagogic disputation. On the way home he and Joachim agreed that it was best to invoke the official channels in matters like colds and sore throats. In other words, they would ask the bathing-master to see the Oberin, in order that something might be done to relieve the sufferer. It was well done. That very evening, directly after dinner, Adriatica knocked at Joachim's door, Hans Castorp being present, and asked what were the wishes of the young officer.

"Sore throat? Hoa.r.s.eness?" she repeated; "what sort of antics are these, young 'un?" and undertook to pierce him with her eye. It was not Joachim's fault that their glances failed to meet, hers swerved aside. Yet she would continue to try, though experience must have taught her it was not given her to succeed in the undertaking. With the help of a sort of metal shoehorn from her pocket, she looked at the patient's tonsils, Hans Castorp standing by with the lamp. Rising on tiptoes to peer into Joachim's throat, she asked: "Tell me, young 'un, do you ever swallow the wrong way?"

What could he answer? For the moment, while she peered into his throat, nothing; but even after she was done, he was at a loss. Naturally, in the course of his life, when eating or drinking he had swallowed the wrong way; but everybody did the same, and surely that could not be what she meant. He asked why: he could not remember the last time.

It was no matter, she said. It had merely occurred to her. He had taken a cold, she added, to the astonishment of the cousins, for colds were in the ordinary way taboo. In any case, it would be necessary to have the Hofrat's laryngeal mirror for further examination of the throat. She left some formamint, and a bandage with a guttapercha sheath, to be used for a moist compress during the night. Joachim availed himself of both, finding they gave relief. He continued to use them; but his hoa.r.s.eness persisted, it even grew worse in the next few days, though the sore throat largely disappeared.

His fever proved imaginary-at least the thermometer gave no more than the usual result, that, namely, which together with the results of the Hofrat's examinations kept our ambitious Joachim here for his little after-cure, instead of letting him return to the colours. The October terminus had slipped by and no man named it, neither the Hofrat nor the cousins between themselves. They let it pa.s.s, in silence, with downcast eyes. From the diagnosis which Behrens dictated at the monthly examinations to to the psychically expert a.s.sistant sitting at his table, and from the results shown by the photographic plate, it was all too clear that though there had once been a departure, of which the best that could be said was that it had been decidedly risky, this time there was nothing for it but iron self-discipline, until such a day as entire immunity might be won, for the fulfilment of the oath and the service of the flat-land. the psychically expert a.s.sistant sitting at his table, and from the results shown by the photographic plate, it was all too clear that though there had once been a departure, of which the best that could be said was that it had been decidedly risky, this time there was nothing for it but iron self-discipline, until such a day as entire immunity might be won, for the fulfilment of the oath and the service of the flat-land.

Such was the decree with which, one and all, they silently pretended to be in agreement. But the truth was, neither of the cousins was sure the other believed it; if they did not meet each other's eyes, it was because of the doubt both pairs of eyes sought to hide, and because the eyes had met before. That, of course, often happened, after the colloquy on the subject of literature, during which Hans Castorp had first remarked the strange new light and ominous expression in the depths of his cousin's eyes. And happened once at table. Joachim suddenly choked violently, and could scarcely get his breath. While he gasped behind his serviette, and his neighbour, Frau Magnus, performed the time-honoured service of slapping him on the back, the cousins' eyes met, in a way more alarming to Hans Castorp than the incident itself, that being something that might happen to anyone. Then Joachim closed his eyes and left the table, his face covered with his serviette, to cough himself out in the garden. Ten minutes later he came back, smiling, if rather pale, and with excuses on his lips for the disturbance. He went on again with his hearty meal, and no one thought afterwards even of wasting a word on so trifling an episode. But some days later, at second breakfast, the thing occurred again; this time there was no meeting of eyes, at least on the part of the cousins, for Hans Castorp bent over his plate and went on eating without seeming to notice. But after the meal they spoke of it, and Joachim freed his mind on the subject of that d.a.m.ned female who had put the thing in his head with her silly question and somehow or other set a spell on him. Yes, it was obviously a case of suggestion, Hans Castorp agreed, and as such rather amusing, despite its annoying side. And Joachim, having named it, seemed able to counteract the spell; he was careful at table, and did not choke any more frequently than persons not bewitched. Not until nine or ten days later did it occur again-where there was simply nothing to be said.

But he was summoned out of his order to Rhadamanthus. The Oberin had so arranged it, probably with good sense; since there was a laryngeal mirror at hand, it was well to make use of that clever little device for the relief of the obstinate hoa.r.s.eness or even total lack of voice from which he suffered for hours at a time, and the sore throat, which recurred whenever he omitted to keep his throat pa.s.sages soft by various salivating medicaments. Not to mention, indeed, that though he choked as other people do, and no more frequently, this was only by dint of the very greatest care, which hindered him at his meals, and made him late in finishing.

The Hofrat, then, mirrored, reflected, peered deep into Joachim's throat, and when he had done, Joachim went straight to his cousin's balcony to give him the result. He said, half whispering, as it was the hour for the afternoon cure, that it had been bothersome, and tickled a good deal. Behrens had rambled on about an inflamed condition, and said the throat must be painted every day; they were to begin tomorrow, as the medicament had to be put up. An inflamed condition, then, and it was to be painted. Hans Castorp, his head full of far-reaching a.s.sociations, having to do for instance with the lame concierge, and that lady who had gone about for a week holding her ear, and need not have troubled herself, would have liked to put more questions. But he refrained, inwardly resolving to see the Hofrat privately, and said to Joachim he was glad the trouble was being treated, and that the Hofrat had taken it personally in hand. He was top-hole in his line, he would soon put it right. Joachim nodded without looking at him, turned and went into his balcony.

What troubled our honour-loving Joachim? In these last days his eyes had grown so shy, so uncertain in their glance. Fraulein von Mylendonk's efforts had suffered shipwreck only the other day against his mild dark gaze; but now had she tried, she might even have succeeded. For Joachim avoided meeting people's eyes; and even when he met them, as he sometimes must notwithstanding, for his cousin looked at him a good deal, Hans Castorp was not greatly the wiser. He sat now in his balcony much cast down, and tempted to see the chief upon the spot, but refrained, for Joachim must have heard him get up; it was better to wait, and see Behrens later in the afternoon.

That proved impossible. It seemed he simply could not lay eyes on the Hofrat; either that evening, or in the course of the two following days. It was difficult to prevent Joachim from noticing; but that could not fully account for the fact that Rhadamanthus was not to be brought to bay. Hans Castorp sought and asked for him through the house; was sent here or there where he would be certain to find him, and found only that he had gone. Behrens was present at a meal, indeed, but sat far off Hans Castorp, at the "bad" Russian table, and disappeared before the sweet. Once or twice, seeing him stand in talk with Krokowski, with the Oberin, with a patient, on the stairs or in the pa.s.sage, Hans Castorp thought he had him, and only needed to wait. But chancing to turn away his eyes a minute, he looked back to find him vanished. On the fourth day he succeeded. From his balcony he saw his prey below, giving directions to the gardener; slipped forth of his covers and ran down. He saw the Hofrat's back, as he was paddling in the direction of his own house, set off at a smart pace after him, even took the liberty of calling, but the Hofrat paid no heed. At last, breathless, he caught up his quarry and brought him to a stand.

"What are you doing here?" demanded the Hofrat, and goggled his eyes. "Shall I get an extra-special copy of the house rules printed for you? Seems to me this is the rest period. Your curve and your x-ray don't justify you in playing the independent gentleman, so far as I know. I ought to set up a scarecrow to gobble up people who have the cheek to come down and walk about in the garden at this hour." "Herr Hofrat, I absolutely must speak to you for a moment."

"I've been observing for some days that you thought you had. You've been laying traps for me, as though I were a female and the object of your pa.s.sion. What do you want?"

"It is on account of my cousin, Herr Hofrat. Pardon me-he is coming to you to have his throat painted.-I feel sure the thing is all right-it is quite harmless, isn't it, if you will pardon my asking?"

"You are always for having everything harmless, Castorp-that is the nature of you. You rather like mixing in matters that are not harmless, but you treat them as though they were and think to find favour in the eyes of G.o.d and man. You're a bit of a hypocrite, Castorp, and a bit of a coward; your cousin puts it very euphemistically when he calls you a civilian."

"That may all be, Herr Hofrat. The weaknesses of my character are beyond question. But that is just the point-at the moment they are not in question: what I've been trying for three days to ask you is-"

"That I'll wrap up the dose in jelly for you-isn't that it? You want to badger me into abetting your d.a.m.ned hypocrisy, so that you can sleep in comfort, while other people have to wake and watch and grin and bear it." "But, Herr Hofrat, why are you so hard on me? I actually want to-"

"Yes, yes, hardness isn't your line, I know. Your cousin's a different sort, quite another pair of shoes. He knows. He knows- He knows-and keeps quiet. Understand? He doesn't go about hanging on to people's coat-tails and asking them to help him pull the wool over his eyes! He knows what he did, and what he risked, and he is the kind to bite his teeth together on it. That's the kind of thing a man, that is a man, can do: unfortunately it isn't in the line of a fascinating biped like yourself. But I warn you, Castorp, if you are going to give way to your civilian feelings and set up a howl, I'll simply show you the door. What we need now is a man man. You understand?"

Hans Castorp was silent. Nowadays he too turned mottled when he changed colour, being too copper-tinted to grow really pale. At last, with twitching lips, he said: "Thank you, Herr Hofrat. I understand now-at least, I feel sure you would not speak to me so-so solemnly if it weren't serious with Joachim. But I dislike scenes very much-you do me injustice there. If the thing requires judgment and discretion, I think I can promise you I shall not be wanting."

"You set great store by your cousin, Hans Castorp?" asked the Hofrat, as suddenly he gripped the young man's hand, and looked at him with his blue, blood-veined, protruding eyes, under their white eyelashes.

"What is there to say, Herr Hofrat? A near relation, and-and my good friend and only companion up here"-Hans Castorp gulped and turned one foot about on its toesas he stood. The Hofrat hastened to let go his hand.

"Well, then be as good to him as you can, these next six or eight weeks," he said. "Just turn yourself loose and give free rein to your native harmlessness. That will help him the most. I'll be here too, to help make things comfortable, and befitting the officer and gentleman he is."

"It's the larynx, isn't it?" Hans Castorp asked, inclining his head in answer.

"Laryngea," Behrens a.s.sented. "Breaking down fast. The mucous membrane of the trachea looks bad too. Maybe yelling commands in the service set up a locus minoris locus minoris resistentiae resistentiae there. But we must always be ready for such little diversions. Not much hope, my lad; really none at all, I suppose. Of course, we'll try everything that's good and costs money." "The mother," began Hans Castorp. there. But we must always be ready for such little diversions. Not much hope, my lad; really none at all, I suppose. Of course, we'll try everything that's good and costs money." "The mother," began Hans Castorp.

"Later on, later on. No hurry. Use your discretion, and see that she comes into the picture at the right time. And now get back where you belong. He will miss you-it can't be pleasant for him to feel himself discussed behind his back."

Daily Joachim went to be painted, in the fine autumn weather. In white flannel trousers and blue blazer, he would come back late from his treatment, neat and military; would enter the dining-room, make his little bow, courteous and composed, in excuse of his tardiness, and sit down to his meal, which was specially prepared, for he no longer ate the regular food, on account of the danger of choking; he received minces and broths. His table-mates grasped quickly the state of affairs. They returned his greetings with unusual warmth, and addressed him as Lieutenant. When he was not there they asked after him of Hans Castorp; and even people from the other tables came up to inquire. Frau Stohr wrung her hands, and exhausted herself in vulgar lamentations. But Hans Castorp replied only in monosyllables, admitted the seriousness of the affair, yet to a certain extent made light of it, in the honourable design not to betray his cousin untimely.

Daily they took their walks together, thrice covering the prescribed distance, to which the Hofrat had now strictly limited Joachim, in order to husband his strength. Hans Castorp walked at his cousin's left. They had been used to walk as chance had it, but now he held consistently to the left. They did not talk much; uttered the phrases proper to the daily routine, and little else. On the subject that lay between them there is nothing to say, especially between people of traditional reserve, who could scarcely bring themselves to utter each other's first names. Sometimes it did well up insistently in Hans Castorp's civilian breast, as though it must out. But it could not: the painful, rebellious feeling sank away again, and he was still.

With bowed head Joachim walked beside him. He gazed earthwards-as though looking at the earth. How strange! He walked so comme il faut comme il faut, so much as he had always been; he greeted people with his wonted courtliness, he set store, as always, by his outward appearance and bienseance- bienseance-and he belonged to the earth. Well, thither we all belong, soon or late. But so young; with such joyous goodwill to his chosen service-to belong to the earth so young, is bitter. Bitterer, harder to understand, for him who knew and walked beside him than for the devoted one himself, whose knowledge, even though he knew and kept silent, was academic in its nature, was in a way less his own concern than his companion's. It is a fact that a man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own. Whether he realizes it or not, he ill.u.s.trates the pertinence of the adage: So long as we are, death is not; and when death is present, we are not. In other words, between death and us there is no rapport; it is something with which we have nothing to do-and only incidentally the world and nature. And that is why all living creatures can contemplate it with composure, with indifference, unconcern, with egoistic irresponsibility. Of this state of mind Hans Castorp observed much in his cousin, in these weeks; and comprehended that Joachim, knowing, yet did not know; that it was not hard for him to preserve a decorous silence on the subject, for the reason that his inward relation to it was, so to speak, merely theoretic. So far as it came into practical consideration with him, it was regulated by a healthy sense of the fitness of things, which made him as little likely to discuss it as he was to talk about other functional indecencies of which we are all aware, by which our life is conditioned, but on the subject of which we yet preserve bienseance. bienseance.

So they walked and kept silence between them upon all such unseemly natural concerns. Even the complaints which at first Joachim had so frequently and loudly voiced at missing the manuvres, and neglecting the service in general, he voiced no more. Yet why, despite all his unconscious bearing, did that sad, shrinking look creep back into his gentle eyes? And that flickering glance-over which the Frau Directress, had she tried, might now have triumphed? Was it because he saw how big-eyed and hollow-cheeked he was grown?-for so he was, in these few weeks, much more than during his whole stay down below, and his bronze skin turned from day to day more brown and leathery. As though circ.u.mstances which to Herr Albin were but an opportunity to enjoy the boundless advantages of shame, were to the young officer a source of chagrin and self-contempt. Before what, before whom, did his once frank and open glance seek to swerve aside? How strange is this shame of the living creature that slips away into a corner to die, convinced that he may not expect from outward nature any reverence or regard for his suffering and death! Convinced, and rightly: a troop of swallows on exultant wing will give no heed to a maimed comrade, nay, they will even peck him with their beaks. But the example is from the lower reaches of nature. Hans Castorp's heart indeed, his humanly pitying and loving heart, swelled in his breast to see this dark, instinctive shame rise in Joachim's eyes. He walked on his left side expressly; and when there came a little rise to surmount, would help his cousin, who had grown by now unsteady on his feet; would put his arm across his shoulder; overcoming his shyness, would even leave it there a while, until Joachim shook it off pettishly and said: "Don't, it looks silly-as if we were drunk, coming along like that."

But there came a moment when Hans Castorp saw in a different light the sadness in Joachim's eyes. It was when the latter received the order to keep his bed, at the beginning of November. The snow lay deep. By then he found it too difficult to eat even the minces and porridge they prepared for him, as every second mouthful went the wrong way. The change to liquid nourishment was indicated, and Behrens sent him to bed, in order to conserve his strength. The evening before, the last evening he was about, Hans Castorp saw him talking to Marusja, Marusja of the ready laugh, the orange-scented handkerchief, the bosom fair to outward eye. After dinner, during the social half-hour, Hans Castorp came out of the music-room to look for his cousin, and saw him by the tiled stove, near Marusja's rocking-chair, which Joachim held tipped back with his left arm, so that she looked up in his face from a half-lying posture, with her round brown eyes, and he bent over her, talking softly and disjointedly. She smiled every now and then, and shrugged her shoulders, nervously, deprecatingly. The onlooker hastened to withdraw; though he saw that he was not the only one to watch the little scene, un.o.bserved or at least unheeded by Joachim. The sight shook Hans Castorp more than any sign of failing strength he had seen all these weeks in his cousin: Joachim in conversation, sunk in conversation, with Marusja, at whose table he had sat so long without exchanging a syllable with her, but in reason and honour kept his eyes cast down, and sternly refused to be aware of her person or existence, though he went all mottled whenever she was mentioned in his presence-"Ah, yes, he is a lost man," thought Hans Castorp, and sat down on a chair in the music-room, to give Joachim time for this one farewell indulgence.

From now on, Joachim took up the horizontal. Hans Castorp sitting in his excellent chair wrote to Louisa Ziemssen. To his earlier reports he added that Joachim had now taken to his bed; that he had said nothing, but the wish to have his mother by him could be read in his eyes, and Hofrat Behrens agreed that it would be well. He put it all with great delicacy. And Louisa Ziemssen, as was not surprising, took the earliest possible train and came to her son. Three days after the humanely worded letter went off she arrived, and Hans Castorp engaged a sleigh and fetched her from the station in a snow-storm. As the train drew in, he took care to compose his features, that the mother might not receive a shock, nor on the other hand be lulled by false hopes. How often had such meetings taken place on this platform, how often this arrival in haste, this anguished searching of features as the traveller descended from the train! Frau Ziemssen gave the impression that she had run all the way from Hamburg on foot. Flushed of face, she drew Hans Castorp's hand between hers to her breast, and looking at him as though she feared to hear, put her hurried, almost shamefaced queries. He parried them by thanking her for having come so quickly, saying it was splendid to have her, and how delighted Joachim would be. Yes, he was in bed now; it was too bad, but had to be, on account of the liquid diet, which must naturally weaken him to some extent. If necessary, of course, there were other expedients-for instance, artificial nourishment. But she would see for herself.

She saw; and beside her, Hans Castorp saw too. Up to that moment he had not been fully aware of the changes the last weeks had made in Joachim-the young have not much eye for such things. But now he looked with the eyes of the newly arrived mother, as though he had not seen Joachim for weeks; and realized clearly and distinctly, as doubtless she did too, and beyond a doubt Joachim himself clearest of all, that he was a moribundus moribundus. He took Frau Ziemssen's hand and held it-his own was as yellow and wasted as his face. And his ears, because of the emaciation, stood out almost disfiguringly. Yet despite this blemish, the one affliction of his young days, and despite the austere expression illness set upon his features, their manly beauty seemed intensified-the lips, perhaps, beneath the small black moustache, looked a shade too full by contrast with the hollow cheek. Two lengthwise folds had graven themselves in the yellow surface of his brow; his eyes, deep in their bony sockets, were larger and more beautiful than ever, Hans Castorp never tired of looking at them. For all the distressed and wavering look was gone, now Joachim lay in bed; there was only that earlier light in their dark, quiet depths-yes, there was the "ominous" look as well. He did not smile, he took his mother's hand and whispered her a welcome. He had not even smiled on her entrance; and this immobility of his mien said all.

Louisa Ziemssen was a brave soul. She did not dissolve in grief at sight of her dear son. The almost invisible net that confined and kept in order her hair was symbolic of her composed and self-controlled bearing. Phlegmatic, energetic, as they all were on her native heath, she took in hand the care of Joachim, spurred on by his appearance to engage all her maternal powers in the struggle, and persuaded that if anything could save him, it must be her watchful and devoted care. Not to spare herself, but only from a sense of style, did she consent to call in a nurse. It was Sister Berta, Alfreda Schildknecht, who came with her little black bag. Frau Ziemssen's zeal left her little to do, by day or night, and she had plenty of time to stand in the corridor, with her eye-gla.s.s ribbon behind her ear, and keep an eye to all that went on. She was a prosaic soul, this Protestant sister. Once, when she was alone in the room with Hans Castorp and the patient, who was not asleep but lay on his back with open eyes, she actually made the remark: "Who would have dreamed I should ever come to tend the last illness of either of you?"

Hans Castorp, horrified, shook his fist at her, but she scarcely grasped his meaning; she was far from any thought of sparing Joachim's feelings, and too matter-of-fact to dream that anyone, least of all the next of kin, could be in any doubt as to the character and issue of this illness. "There," she said, and held a handkerchief wet with cologne to Joachim's nose, "take a little comfort, Herr Leutnant, do!" And after all, she was right: there could be little sense, at this hour, in keeping up the pretence. It was more for the sake of the tonic effect that Frau Ziemssen still spoke to her son, in a brisk, encouraging voice, of his recovery. For two things were unmistakable: first, that Joachim was approaching death in full consciousness, and second, that he consented to his state, and was in harmony with himself. Only in the last week-the end of November-did cardiac weakness show itself. There were hours when he grew confused, no longer realized his condition, and spoke of an early return to the colours, spoke even of the autumn manuvres, which he imagined were still going on. Then it was Hofrat Behrens ceased to hold out any hope, and told the relatives the end was a matter of hours. The condition is as regular as it is pathetic, this forgetful, credulous self-deception, that attacks even masculine spirits at the hour when the lethal process nears its culmination. As impersonal, as true to type, as independent of the individual consciousness as the temptation to slumber that overpowers the man benumbed by cold, or the walking in circles of one who has lost his way. Hans Castorp's grief and concern did not prevent him from objective observation of these phenonema, nor from making shrewd if baldly expressed remarks upon them in conversation with Naphta and Settembrini, when he reported to them on his cousin's condition. He even drew upon himself a rebuke from Settembrini, for saying he thought the current conception in error which would have it that a philosophical credulity and belief that all is for the best is the mark of a sound nature, as pessimism and cynicism are of morbidity. For if this were true, it would not be precisely the hopeless final stage that displayed an optimism so abnormally rosy as to make the preceding depression seem by comparison a cra.s.sly healthy manifestation of life. He was glad at the same time to be able to tell his friends that though Rhadamanthus gave them no hope, yet the hopelessness was not of the most painful character, for he prophesied a gentle, painless end, despite Joachim's blooming youth.

"Idyllic-affair of the heart, my dear lady," Behrens said, and held Louisa Ziemssen's hand in his own two, the size of shovels, looking down at her with his goggling, watery, blood-shot eyes. "I'm tremendously glad it is taking such a gratifying course, and he doesn't need to go through with dema of the glottis or any indignity of that sort, he will be spared a lot of messing about. The heart is giving out rapidly, lucky for him and for us; we can do our duty with camphor injections and the like, without much chance of drawing things out. He will sleep a good deal at the end, and his dreams will be pleasant, I think I can promise you that; even if he shouldn't go off in his sleep, still it will be a short crossing, he'll scarcely notice, you may rely upon it. It's so in the majority of cases, at bottom-I know what death is, I am an old retainer of his; and believe me, he's overrated. Almost nothing to him. Of course, all kinds of beastliness can happen beforehand-but it isn't fair to count those in, they are as living as life itself, and can just as well lead up to a cure. But about death-no one who came back from it could tell you anything, because we don't realize it. We come out of the dark and go into the dark again, and in between lie the experiences of our life. But the beginning and the end, birth and death, we do not experience; they have no subjective character, they fall entirely in the category of objective events, and that's that."

Which was the Hofrat's way of administering consolation. We may hope that the reasonable Frau Ziemssen drew comfort therefrom; his a.s.surances, at least, were in a very large degree justified by the event. Joachim, in these days, slept many hours, out of weakness, and probably dreamed of the flat-land and the service and whatever else was pleasant to him to dream. When he roused, and they asked how he felt, he would answer a little incoherently, yet always that he felt well and happy. This though he had scarcely any pulse, and at the end could no longer feel the hypodermic needle. His body was insensitive, you might have burned or pinched the flesh, he was past feeling. Great physical changes had taken place since the mother's coming. Shaving had grown burdensome to him, for some eight or ten days it had not been done, and he had now a strong growth of beard, setting off with a black frame his waxen face and gentle eyes. It was the warrior's beard, the beard of the soldier in the field; they all found it manly and becoming. But because of this beard Joachim had suddenly grown from a stripling to a ripe man-though perhaps not because of it alone. He was living fast, his life whirred away like the mechanism of a watch; he pa.s.sed at a gallop through stages not granted him in time to reach; and in the last four-and-twenty hours became a grey old man. The cardiac weakness caused a facial swelling that gave the effect of strain, and made upon Hans Castorp the impression that dying must at the very least be a great effort, though of course Joachim, thanks to various sensory adjustments and a merciful narcosis of the system, was not aware of it. The puffing of the features was mostly about the lips; the inside of the mouth also seemed dry or semi-paralysed, making Joachim mumble like an old man-which annoyed him excessively. If he could only, he said thickly, get rid of it he would be quite all right, but it was a cursed nuisance.

In what sense he meant the "quite all right" was not clear-in fact, he showed the typical tendency to ambiguousness, made more than one remark of doubtful or double sense, seemed to know and yet not to; once, when it was very evident that a wave of the oncoming dissolution broke over him, he shook his head and said self-pityingly that he felt very bad, he had never felt so bad before.

After that he became austere, forbidding, even gruff; would not listen to any soothing fictions or pretence, but stared before him and made no reply. Louisa Ziemssen had sent for a young clergyman, who, to Hans Castorp's regret, did not appear in a starched ruff, but wore bands instead. After he had prayed with Joachim, the patient a.s.sumed an official tone and air, and uttered his wishes in the form of short commands.

At six o'clock in the afternoon he began making a strange continuous movement with his right hand, with the chain bangle on the wrist: pa.s.sing it across the bed-cover, at about the hips, lifting it as he drew it back and toward him, with a raking motion, as though he were gathering something in.

At seven o'clock he died; Alfreda Schildknecht was in the corridor, the mother and cousin were alone with him. He had sunk down in the bed, and curtly ordered them to prop him up. While Frau Ziemssen, with her arm about his shoulders, tried to do so, he said hurriedly that he must write out an application for an extension of his leave and hand it in at once; and even while he said this, the "short crossing" came to pa.s.s, as Hans Castorp, reverently watching in the light of the red-shaded table-lamp, quickly perceived. His gaze grew dim, the unconscious tension of the features relaxed, the strained and swollen look about the lips notably diminished; the beauty of early manhood visited once more our Joachim's quiet brow, and all was over.

Louisa Ziemssen turned sobbing away; it was Hans Castorp who bent over the moveless, breathless form, closed the eyes with the tip of his ring-finger, and laid the hands together on the coverlet. Then he too stood and wept, tears ran down his cheeks, like those that had smarted the skin of the English officer of marines: those clear drops flowing in such bitter abundance every hour of our day all over our world, till in sheer poetic justice we have named the earth we live in after them; that alkaline, salty gland-secretion, which is pressed from our system by the nervous stress of acute pain, whether physical or mental. It contained, as Hans Castorp knew, a certain amount of mucin and alb.u.men as well.

The Hofrat came, summoned by Sister Berta. He had been there a half-hour earlier, and given a camphor injection; had scarcely been absent for more than the moment of the "short crossing." "Ay," said he simply, "he has it behind him now," and lifted the stethoscope from Joachim's breast. And he pressed both their hands, nodding his head; standing with them awhile by the bed, and looking into Joachim's moveless visage, with the warrior beard. "Crazy young one," he said: jerking his head towards the rec.u.mbent form. "Crazy chap. Would force it, you know-of course, that's the way of the service down there, all force, all compulsion-he joined the service while he was febrile, he took a life-and-death chance. Field of honour, you know-slipped away from us, and now he's dead on the field. Honour was the death of him, and death-well, you might put it the other way round too. At any rate, he's gone-'had the honour to take his leave.' A madman, a crazy chap." And he left, tall and stooped, his neck-bone very prominent.

It had been decided to take Joachim home; and House Berghof a.s.sumed the arrangements, doing all that was necessary or that could add to the dignity or stateliness of the occasion. Mother and cousin needed not to lift a finger. By next day Joachim lay in his silk dress-shirt, with flowers about him on the coverlet, looking, in the midst of all this white, more beautiful than immediately after death. Every trace of strain was gone from the features, they had composed themselves, growing cold, into a silent purity of form. Curling dark locks fell upon the yellowish brow, that seemed to be of some fine brittle stuff between wax and marble; through the crisp hair of the beard, the lips showed full and curling. An antique helmet would have become this head-as many of the guests remarked, who came to take last leave of Joachim. Frau Stohr, as she looked, wept with abandon. "A hero, he was a hero," cried she, and demanded that the Erotica be played at his grave. be played at his grave.

"Be quiet," hissed Settembrini, at her side. He and Naphta were with her in the room. Greatly moved, with both hands he waved the onlookers toward the bed and summoned them to mourn with him. "Un giovanotto tanto simpatico, tanto tanto stimabile," stimabile," said he repeatedly. said he repeatedly.

And Naphta, without looking at him, or relaxing his contained manner, apparently could not refrain from saying, low and bitingly: "I am glad to see that despite your enthusiasm for freedom and progress, you have some feeling for serious things." Settembrini pocketed the affront. Perhaps he felt conscious, under the circ.u.mstances of the moment, of the superiority of Naphta's position over his own; may even have sought to balance this by the lively expression of his grief, especially when Leo Naphta further presumed on his advantage, while he had it, and sententiously added: "The mistake you literary men make is in thinking that only the spirit makes for virtue. It is nearer the truth to say that only where there is no spirit is there true virtue."

"Goodness," thought Hans Castorp, "but that was a Pythian remark! Made like that with the lips snapped together afterwards, it quite staggers one-for the moment, that is." In the afternoon the metallic coffin arrived. The removal of Joachim to this stately receptacle, decorated with lions' heads and rings, was the sole affair of the man who came along with it, a black-clad functionary of the undertaking establishment which had the arrangements in hand. He wore a sort of short dress-coat, and the weddingring on his plebian hand had almost grown into the flesh. One inclined to feel that he exhaled an odour of death from his garments-pure prejudice, of course, and groundless. This specialist let it be known that all his spiriting had to be done behind the scenes, and a proper and dress-parade appearance presented to the surviving relatives. Hans Castorp felt fairly suspicious of the fellow and all his works. He a.s.sented to Frau Ziemssen's withdrawal, but was not minded to be bowed from the scene himself. He stood by and lent a hand, grasping the figure under the shoulders and helping carry it over to the coffin, upon whose coverlet and ta.s.selled cushions Joachim presently lay ensconced high and solemnly, among candelabra provided by the house.

On the next day but one appeared a phenomenon which determined Hans Castorp to take inward leave of that quiet form, to void the field and leave it to the professional guardian of the amenities: Joachim, whose expression had been so n.o.ble and serious, began now to smile in his warrior beard. Hans Castorp did not conceal from himself that this smile had in it the seeds of corruption; he knew in his heart that time was pressing. It was good that the coffin was now to be closed, the lid screwed on; that the hour for removal was at hand. Hans Castorp, laying aside traditional reserve, lightly touched with his lips the icy forehead of that which once was Joachim; and though conscious still of mistrustful sentiments toward the man behind the scenes, yet submissively followed Louisa Ziemssen from the room.

We let the curtain fall, for the last time but one. While it rustles down, let us take our stand in spirit with Hans Castorp on his lonely height, and gaze down with him upon a damp burial-ground in the flat-land; see the flash of a sword as it rises and falls, hear the word of command rapped out, and three salvoes, three fanatical salutes reverberating over Joachim Ziemssen's root-pierced grave.

CHAPTER VII.

By the Ocean of Time CAN one tell-that is to say, narrate-time, time itself, as such, for its own sake? That would surely be an absurd undertaking. A story which read: "Time pa.s.sed, it ran on, the time flowed onward" and so forth-no one in his senses could consider that a narrative. It would be as though one held a single note or chord for a whole hour, and called it music. For narration resembles music in this, that it fills up fills up the time. It "fills it in" and "breaks it up," so that "there's something to it," "something going on"-to quote, with due and mournful piety, those casual phrases of our departed Joachim, all echo of which so long ago died away. So long ago, indeed, that we wonder if the reader is clear how long ago it was. For time is the medium of narration, as it is the medium of life. Both are inextricably bound up with it, as inextricably as are bodies in s.p.a.ce. Similarly, time is the medium of music; music divides, measures, articulates time, and can shorten it, yet enhance its value, both at once. Thus music and narration are alike, in that they can only present themselves as a flowing, as a succession in time, as one thing after another; and both differ from the plastic arts, which are complete in the present, and unrelated to time save as all bodies are, whereas narration-like music-even if it should try to be completely present at any given moment, would need time to do it in. the time. It "fills it in" and "breaks it up," so that "there's something to it," "something going on"-to quote, with due and mournful piety, those casual phrases of our departed Joachim, all echo of which so long ago died away. So long ago, indeed, that we wonder if the reader is clear how long ago it was. For time is the medium of narration, as it is the medium of life. Both are inextricably bound up with it, as inextricably as are bodies in s.p.a.ce. Similarly, time is the medium of music; music divides, measures, articulates time, and can shorten it, yet enhance its value, both at once. Thus music and narration are alike, in that they can only present themselves as a flowing, as a succession in time, as one thing after another; and both differ from the plastic arts, which are complete in the present, and unrelated to time save as all bodies are, whereas narration-like music-even if it should try to be completely present at any given moment, would need time to do it in.

So much is clear. But it is just as clear that we have also a difference to deal with. For the time element in music is single. Into a section of mortal time music pours itself, thereby inexpressibly enhancing and enn.o.bling what it fills. But a narrative must have two kinds of time: first, its own, like music, actual time, conditioning its presentation and course; and second, the time of its content, which is relative, so extremely relative that the imaginary time of the narrative can either coincide nearly or completely with the actual, or musical, time, or can be a world away. A piece of music called a "Five-minute Waltz" lasts five minutes, and this is its sole relation to the time element. But a narrative which concerned itself with the events of five minutes, might, by extraordinary conscientiousness in the telling, take up a thousand times five minutes, and even then seem very short, though long in relation to its imaginary time. On the other hand, the contentual time of a story can shrink its actual time out of all measure. We put it in this way on purpose, in order to suggest another element, an illusory, even, to speak plainly, a morbid element, which is quite definitely a factor in the situation. I am speaking of cases where the story practises a hermetical magic, a temporal distortion of perspective reminding one of certain abnormal and transcendental experiences in actual life. We have records of opium dreams in which the dreamer, during a brief narcotic sleep, had experiences stretching over a period of ten, thirty, sixty years, or even pa.s.sing the extreme limit of man's temporal capacity for experience: dreams whose contentual time was enormously greater than their actual or musical time, and in which there obtained an incredible foreshortening of events; the images pressing one upon another with such rapidity that it was as though "something had been taken away, like the spring from a broken watch "from the brain of the sleeper. Such is the description of a hashish eater. Thus, or in some such way as in these sinister dreams, can the narrative go to work with time; in some such way can time be dealt with in a tale. And if this be so, then it is clear that time, while the medium of the narrative, can also become its subject. Therefore, if it is too much to say that one can tell a tale of of time, it is none the less true that a desire to tell a tale time, it is none the less true that a desire to tell a tale about about time is not such an absurd idea as it just now seemed. We freely admit that, in bringing up the question as to whether the time can be narrated or not, we have done so only to confess that we had something like that in view in the present work. And if we touched upon the further question, whether our readers were clear how much time had pa.s.sed since the upright Joachim, deceased in the interval, had introduced into the conversation the above-quoted phrases about music and time-remarks indicating a certain alchemistical heightening of his nature, which, in its goodness and simplicity, was, of its own unaided power, incapable of any such ideas-we should not have been dismayed to hear that they were not clear. We might even have been gratified, on the plain ground that a thorough-going sympathy with the experiences of our hero is precisely what we wish to arouse, and he, Hans Castorp, was himself not clear upon the point in question, no, nor had been for a very long time-a fact that has conditioned his romantic adventures up here, to an extent which has made of them, in more than one sense, a "time-romance." How long Joachim had lived here with his cousin, up to the time of his fateful departure, or taken all in all; what had been the date of his going, how long he had been gone, when he had come back; how long Hans Castorp himself had been up here when his cousin returned and then bade time farewell; how long-dismissing Joachim from our calculations-Frau Chauchat had been absent; how long, since what date, she had been back again (for she did come back); how much mortal time Hans Castorp himself had spent in House Berghof by the time she returned; no one asked him all these questions, and he probably shrank from asking himself. If they had been put him, he would have tapped his forehead with the tips of his fingers, and most certainly not have known-a phenomenon as disquieting as his incapacity to answer Herr Settembrini, that long-ago first evening, when the latter had asked him his age. All which may sound preposterous; yet there are conditions under which nothing could keep us from losing account of the pa.s.sage of time, losing account even of our own age; lacking, as we do, any trace of an inner time-organ, and being absolutely incapable of fixing it even with an approach to accuracy by ourselves, without any outward fixed points as guides. There is a case of a party of miners, buried and shut off from every possibility of knowing the pa.s.sage of day or night, who told their rescuers that they estimated the time they had spent in darkness, flickering between hope and fear, to be some three days. It had actually been ten. Their high state of suspense might, one would think, have made the time seem longer to them than it actually was, whereas it shrank to less than a third of its objective length. It would appear, then, that under conditions of bewilderment man is likely to under- rather than over-estimate time. time is not such an absurd idea as it just now seemed. We freely admit that, in bringing up the question as to whether the time can be narrated or not, we have done so only to confess that we had something like that in view in the present work. And if we touched upon the further question, whether our readers were clear how much time had pa.s.sed since the upright Joachim, deceased in the interval, had introduced into the conversation the above-quoted phrases about music and time-remarks indicating a certain alchemistical heightening of his nature, which, in its goodness and simplicity, was, of its own unaided power, incapable of any such ideas-we should not have been dismayed to hear that they were not clear. We might even have been gratified, on the plain ground that a thorough-going sympathy with the experiences of our hero is precisely what we wish to arouse, and he, Hans Castorp, was himself not clear upon the point in question, no, nor had been for a very long time-a fact that has conditioned his romantic adventures up here, to an extent which has made of them, in more than one sense, a "time-romance." How long Joachim had lived here with his cousin, up to the time of his fateful departure, or taken all in all; what had been the date of his going, how long he had been gone, when he had come back; how long Hans Castorp himself had been up here when his cousin returned and then bade time farewell; how long-dismissing Joachim from our calculations-Frau Chauchat had been absent; how long, since what date, she had been back again (for she did come back); how much mortal time Hans Castorp himself had spent in House Berghof by the time she returned; no one asked him all these questions, and he probably shrank from asking himself. If they had been put him, he would have tapped his forehead with the tips of his fingers, and most certainly not have known-a phenomenon as disquieting as his incapacity to answer Herr Settembrini, that long-ago first evening, when the latter had asked him his age. All which may sound preposterous; yet there are conditions under which nothing could keep us from losing account of the pa.s.sage of time, losing account even of our own age; lacking, as we do, any trace of an inner time-organ, and being absolutely incapable of fixing it even with an approach to accuracy by ourselves, without any outward fixed points as guides. There is a case of a party of miners, buried and shut off from every possibility of knowing the pa.s.sage of day or night, who told their rescuers that they estimated the time they had spent in darkness, flickering between hope and fear, to be some three days. It had actually been ten. Their high state of suspense might, one would think, have made the time seem longer to them than it actually was, whereas it shrank to less than a third of its objective length. It would appear, then, that under conditions of bewilderment man is likely to under- rather than over-estimate time.