The Magic Mountain Part 46

"Undoubtedly," answered Herr Settembrini, and cast a glance upward at his neighbour, only to turn away again at once and lean his head on his hand. "Shall you take it up?" Wehsal wanted to know.

"Can you ask?" answered Settembrini, and looked a moment at him too. "Gentlemen," he said then, and sat up, having brought himself again to perfect control, "I regret the outcome of our pleasure excursion; but in life one must be prepared to reckon with such events. Theoretically I disapprove of the duel, I am of a law-abiding temper. In practice, however, it is another matter. There are situations where-quarrels that-in short, I am at this man's service. It is well that in my youth I fenced a little. A few hours' practice will make my wrist supple again. Shall we go? The rendezvous will have to be made. I a.s.sume our gentleman will already have ordered them to put to the horses."

Hans Castorp had moments, during the drive home, and afterwards, when he became giddy in contemplation of what lay before them. Still more, when it subsequently appeared that Naphta would not hear of cut and thrust, but insisted on a duel with pistols. And he, as the injured party, had the choice of weapons. There were moments, we say, when Hans Castorp was able, to a certain extent, to free himself from embroilment with the prevailing temper and tell himself that all this was madness, and must be prevented.

"If even there were a real injury," he cried, in discussion with Herr Settembrini, Ferge and Wehsal-Naphta, on the way home, had invited the last-named to be his second, and he acted as intermediary between the factions. "An affront like that, purely civilian and social! If one of them had dragged the other's good name in the dirt, if it was a question of a woman, or anything else really momentous, that you could take hold of, so that you felt there was no possibility of reconciliation! For such cases the duel is the last resort; and when honour is satisfied and the affair has gone off with credit to all parties, and the antagonists part friends, as they say, why, then it seems a very good arrangement, quite useful and practical, too, in complicated cases. But what was it he did? I don't mean to stand up for him, I only ask what the insult consisted in. He threw the categories to the winds, as you say, and robbed conceptions of their academic dignity. And you felt yourself insulted thereby-justifiably, let us a.s.sume-" "a.s.sume?" repeated Herr Settembrini, and looked at him.

"Oh, justifiably, quite justifiably! He affronted you. But he did not insult you. There is a difference. Permit me to say so. It was a matter of abstractions, an intellectual disagreement. On intellectual topics he could affront you, perhaps, but not insult you. That is axiomatic, any court of honour would tell you the same, I swear to G.o.d they would. And so neither was your answer to him, about infamy and chastis.e.m.e.nt an insult; because it was in an intellectual sense, the whole affair was in the intellectual sphere, and has nothing to do with the personal, and an insult can only be personal. The intellectual can never be personal, that is the conclusion and the explanation of the axiom, and therefore-"

"You err, my friend," answered Settembrini, with closed eyes. "You err first of all in the a.s.sumption that the intellectual cannot a.s.sume a personal character. You should not think that," he said, and smiled a peculiarly fine and painful smile. "The point at which you go wrong is in your estimation of the things of the mind, in general. You obviously think they are too feeble to engender conflicts and pa.s.sions comparable for sternness with those real life brings forth, the only issue of which can be the appeal to force. All incontro! All incontro! The abstract, the refined-upon, the ideal, is at the same time the Absolute-it is sternness itself; it contains within it more possibilities of deep and radical hatred, of unconditional and irreconcilable hostility, than any relation of social life can. It astonishes you to hear that it leads, far more directly and inexorably than these, to radical intimacy, to grips, to the duel and actual physical struggle? The duel, my friend, is not an "arrangement," like another. It is the ultimate, the return to a state of nature, slightly mitigated by regulations which are chivalrous in character, but extremely superficial. The essential nature of the thing remains the primitive, the physical struggle; and however civilized a man is, it is his duty to be ready for such a contingency, which may any day arise. Whoever is unable to offer his person, his arm, his blood, in the service of the ideal, is unworthy of it; however intellectualized, it is the duty of a man to remain a man." The abstract, the refined-upon, the ideal, is at the same time the Absolute-it is sternness itself; it contains within it more possibilities of deep and radical hatred, of unconditional and irreconcilable hostility, than any relation of social life can. It astonishes you to hear that it leads, far more directly and inexorably than these, to radical intimacy, to grips, to the duel and actual physical struggle? The duel, my friend, is not an "arrangement," like another. It is the ultimate, the return to a state of nature, slightly mitigated by regulations which are chivalrous in character, but extremely superficial. The essential nature of the thing remains the primitive, the physical struggle; and however civilized a man is, it is his duty to be ready for such a contingency, which may any day arise. Whoever is unable to offer his person, his arm, his blood, in the service of the ideal, is unworthy of it; however intellectualized, it is the duty of a man to remain a man."

Thus was Hans Castorp put in his place. What should he answer? He preserved a depressed and brooding silence. Herr Settembrini had spoken with composure, logically. But his words sounded strange in his mouth. His thoughts were not his own thoughts, the idea of the duel was one he would never have come upon of himself. He had only taken it over from the terroristic little Naphta. And what he said was but an expression of the strength of that prevailing temper, whose tool and underling Herr Settembrini's fine understanding had become. What? The intellectual, simply because it was so stern, must lead relentlessly to the animal, to the issue of physical combat? Hans Castorp set himself against it-or at least he tried, only to discover, in affright, that even he was powerless to do so. In him too the prevailing temper was strong, he was not the man to win free. There was an area of his brain where memory showed him Wiedemann and Sonnenschein grappled like animals; and with horror he understood that at the end of everything only the physical remained, only the teeth and the nails. Yes, they must fight; only thus could be a.s.sured even that small mitigation of the primitive by the rules of chivalry. Hans Castorp offered to act as Herr Settembrini's second.

The offer was refused. No, it was not fitting, it would not do, he was told: first by Herr Settembrini himself, with that fine, rueful smile; then, after brief consideration, by Ferge and Wehsal, who also, without specified reason, found it would not do for Hans Castorp to a.s.sist at the encounter in this capacity. As a neutral party, perhaps- the presence of such an one was a part of the prescribed chivalrous mitigations-he might be present. Even Naphta, through his second, let it be known that this was his view, and Hans Castorp was satisfied. As witness, or as neutral party, in either case he was able to exert his influence upon the details of the procedure now to be discussed and settled-an influence which proved necessary indeed.

For Naphta's proposals went beyond all bounds. He demanded a distance of five paces, and, if necessary, three exchanges of fire. These insane conditions he sent by Wehsal the very evening of the quarrel; Wehsal had succeeded in fully identifying himself with Naphta's mad ideas, and partly as representative, but certainly also in accordance with his personal taste, obstinately insisted upon them. Settembrini, of course, found nothing in them to object to. But Ferge, as second, and the neutral Hans Castorp, were beside themselves, and the latter fell heavily upon the wretched Wehsal. Was he not ashamed to bring forward such frantic and inhuman ideas to meet a case where the injury was purely abstract, not sensible at all? As though pistols were not bad enough, that they must add these murderous conditions! Where did the chivalrous mitigation come in? He might as well suggest firing across a handkerchief! He, Wehsal, was not going to be fired at five paces off-it was easy for him to be blood-thirsty! And so forth. Wehsal shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that precisely that extreme case was a contingency; thus reducing to silence Hans Castorp, who was inclined to forget the fact. But he succeeded, during the negotiations of the following day, in fixing the number of shots at one instead of three, and in dealing with the question of distance so as to arrange that the combatants should be placed fifteen paces apart, and have the right to advance five paces before firing. But in exchange for these concessions, he had to promise that no attempt should be made at reconciling the parties.-It was discovered that none of them had any pistols. Herr Albin had. Besides the s.h.i.+ny little revolver with which he loved to frighten the ladies, he had a pair of officer's pistols from Belgium in a velvet case: Browning automatics, with brown wooden b.u.t.ts holding the magazine, blued steel mechanism and s.h.i.+ning barrels, with crisp little sights atop. Hans Castorp had seen them in Herr Albin's room, and against his own convictions, out of sheer compulsion from the prevailing temper, offered to borrow them. He made no concealment of the purpose they were to serve, but appealing to the young swaggerer's honour, readily swore him to secrecy. Herr Albin instructed him how to load the pistols, and they tested both weapons with blank shots in the open.

All this took time: two days and three nights intervened between the quarrel and the meeting. The place was of Hans Castorp's choosing: that picturesque blue-blossoming scene of his retreat and stock-taking activities. On this spot the affair should take place, on the third morning, as soon as there should be light enough to see. The evening before, rather late, it occurred to Hans Castorp, by this time thoroughly wrought up, that there ought to be a physician present.

He immediately advised with Ferge, who foresaw great difficulty. Rhadamanthus himself was an old corps-student; but it would be impossible to ask the head of the establishment to act in an illegal affair, and between patients to boot. It was scarcely likely a doctor could be found who would be willing to lend a hand in a pistol duel between two severe cases. As for Krokowski, for all his brain, it was a question whether the technique of wound treatment would be his strong point.

Wehsal, who was present, announced that Naphta had already expressed himself to the effect that he wanted no doctor. He was not going to the meeting-place to be salved and bandaged, but to lay about him, and that in grim earnest. It sounded a sinister declaration enough; but Hans Castorp tried to interpret it as meaning that Naphta felt there would be no need of a physician. Ferge too bore back a message from Herr Settembrini, that they might dispose of the question, it did not interest him. It was thus not unreasonable to hope that both antagonists had resolved not to let it come to the shedding of blood. Two nights had pa.s.sed since the quarrel, and there would be yet a third. Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. In the early dawn, standing weapon in hand, neither of the combatants would be the same man as on the evening of the quarrel. They would be going through it, if at all, mechanically, in obedience to the demands of honour, not, as they would have at first, of their own free will, desire, and conviction; and such a denial of their actual selves in favour of their past ones, it must somehow be possible to prevent.

Hans Castorp's reflections proved in the event not far from justified; but justified in a manner unlike anything he could have dreamed. So far as Herr Settembrini was concerned, he was entirely right. But had he suspected in what direction Leo Naphta would have altered his intentions beforehand, or at the decisive moment, not even the prevailing temper, of which all this was the outcome, could have driven him to let the affair go on.

At seven o'clock next morning, the sun showed no sign of making an appearance above the mountain; yet day was dawning, difficultly, in a reek of mist, as Hans Castorp, after a restless night, left the Berghof to go to the rendezvous. The maidservants cleaning the hall looked after him in wonder. The house door, however, was unbolted; Ferge and Wehsal, alone or in company, had undoubtedly pa.s.sed that threshold, the one to accompany Settembrini, the other Naphta, to the field of battle. He, Hans, went alone, his capacity of neutral not permitting him to attach himself to either party.

He moved mechanically, under the compulsion of honour, under pressure from the prevailing temper. It was necessary for him to be present at the encounter-that went without saying. Impossible to stop away and await the event in bed, in the first place because-but he did not finish his firstly, but hastened on to secondly, which was that one could not leave the thing to itself. Thus far, thank Heaven, nothing dreadful had happened; and nothing dreadful need happen, it was really highly improbable that anything would. They had had to get up and dress by artificial light. and breakfastless, in the bitter frost, betake themselves to the appointed spot. But once there, under the influence of his, Hans Castorp's presence, the whole thing would surely be turned aside, work out for good-in some manner not yet foreseen, and best left unguessed at, since experience showed that even the simplest events always worked out differently from what one would have thought beforehand.

All which notwithstanding, this was the unpleasantest morning within his memory. He felt stale and seedy, his teeth tended to chatter; in the depth of his being he was p.r.o.ne to mistrust his own powers of self-control. These were such singular times. The lady from Minsk, who shattered her health on the point of a quarrel with her corsetiere corsetiere, the raging schoolboy, Wiedemann and Sonnenschein, the Polish earboxes-drearily he thought of them. Simply he could not picture two people, before his eyes, in his presence, standing up to shoot at each other, spill each other's blood. But when he remembered what it had come to, what he had actually seen, in the case of Wiedemann and Sonnenschein, then he mis...o...b..ed himself, mis...o...b..ed all the world, and s.h.i.+vered in his fur jacket; though at the same time a feeling of the extraordinariness, the abnormality of all this, heightened by the quality of the early morning air, began now surprisingly to elevate and stimulate him.

In the dusk of that slow-brightening dawn, moved by such mingled and fluctuating hopes and feelings, he mounted the narrow path along the slope, from the village end of the bob-run; arrived at the deeply drifted woods, crossed the little wooden bridge over the course, and followed a way among the tree-trunks trodden by feet in the snow rather than cleared by any shovel. He walked fast, and very soon overtook Settembrini and Ferge, the latter holding the case of pistols with one hand under his cloak. Hans Castorp did not hesitate to join them, and, coming abreast, was aware of Naphta and Wehsal, only a few paces in advance.

"Cold morning; at least eighteen degrees of frost," said he, in the purity of his intentions, but started at the frivolity of his own remark, and added: "Gentlemen, I am convinced-"

The others were silent. Ferge's good-natured moustache wagged up and down. After a while Settembrini came to a pause, took Hans Castorp's hand, laid his own other one upon it, and spoke.

"My friend, I will not kill. I will not. I will offer myself to his bullet, that is all that honour can demand. But I will not kill, you may trust me."

He released the young man and walked on. Hans Castorp was deeply moved. After a few steps he said: "That is splendid of you, Herr Settembrini. Now-on the other side-if he, for his part- "

But Herr Settembrini shook his head. Hans Castorp reflected that if one party did not fire, the other would surely not be able to bring himself to do it either; and his heart perceptibly lightened. Everything was going well, his predictions seemed about to be verified.

They crossed the foot-bridge over the gorge, where the waterfall hung stiff and silent. Naphta and Wehsal were walking up and down before the bench now upholstered with thick white cus.h.i.+ons of snow: the bench on which Hans Castorp, lying to await the end of his nose-bleeding, had experienced such lively memories out of the distant past. Naphta was smoking a cigarette, and Hans Castorp questioned himself if he should do the same, but found he had no faintest desire. It seemed to him an affectation in the other. With the pleasure he always felt in these surroundings, he looked about at them in their icy state and found them not less beautiful than in the season of their blue blossom-time. The fir that jutted so boldly into the picture had its trunk and branches laden with snow.

"Good-morning," he said cheerily, with the idea of lending the scene a note of the natural, which should help to dissipate its evil bearing-but was out of luck, for n.o.body answered. The greetings consisted in silent bows, so stiff as to be almost imperceptible. However, he was resolved to convert the energy from his walk, the splendid warmth engendered by brisk motion in the cold air, at once and without delay to good purpose; and so began: "Gentlemen, I am convinced-"

"You will develop your convictions another time," Naphta cut him off icily. "The weapons, if you please," he added, in the same arrogant tone. Hans Castorp, thus slapped on the mouth, had to look on while Ferge brought out the fatal etui etui from beneath his cloak, and handed one pistol to Wehsal to pa.s.s on to Naphta. Settembrini took the other from Ferge's hand. The latter in a murmur asked them to make a s.p.a.ce, and began measuring off the ground. He marked off the outer limits by lines dug with his heel in the snow, the inner by means of two canes, his own and Settembrini's. Our good-natured sufferer, what sort of work was this for him? Hans Castorp could not trust his eyes. Ferge was long-legged, he took proper strides, the fifteen paces, at least, were a goodly distance-but the cursed canes, alas, were not far apart at all. Certainly, he was acting in all honour; but what a grip the prevailing temper had upon him, to enforce him to a procedure so monstrous in its significance! from beneath his cloak, and handed one pistol to Wehsal to pa.s.s on to Naphta. Settembrini took the other from Ferge's hand. The latter in a murmur asked them to make a s.p.a.ce, and began measuring off the ground. He marked off the outer limits by lines dug with his heel in the snow, the inner by means of two canes, his own and Settembrini's. Our good-natured sufferer, what sort of work was this for him? Hans Castorp could not trust his eyes. Ferge was long-legged, he took proper strides, the fifteen paces, at least, were a goodly distance-but the cursed canes, alas, were not far apart at all. Certainly, he was acting in all honour; but what a grip the prevailing temper had upon him, to enforce him to a procedure so monstrous in its significance!

Naphta had flung his fur cloak on the ground, so that its mink lining showed. Pistol in hand, he moved to one of the outer barriers directly it was established, and while Ferge was still marking off the other. When that was fixed, Settembrini took up his position, his shabby fur coat open in front. Hans Castorp wrenched himself out of a stealing paralysis, and flung himself once more into the breach.

"Gentlemen," he said, choking, "don't be hasty. It is my duty, after all-" "Silence!" cried out Naphta sharply. "Give the signal."

But no one gave the signal. It had not been arranged for. Somebody, of course, ought to say: "Fire!" but it had not been realized that it was the office of the neutral party to give the dread sign-at least, it had not been mentioned. Hans Castorp remained silent, and n.o.body spoke in his place.

"We will begin," Naphta declared. "Come forward, sir, and fire," he called across to his antagonist, and began himself to advance, holding the pistol at arm's length, directed at Settembrini-an unbelievable sight. Settembrini did the same. At the third step the other, without firing, was already at the barrier-the Italian raised the pistol very high, and fired. The shot awaked repeated echoes, the mountains flung back the sound and the rebound, the valley reverberated with the shock, until it seemed to Hans Castorp people must come running.

"You fired in the air," Naphta said collectedly to Settembrini, letting his ownweapon sink.

Settembrini answered: "I fired where it pleased me to fire."

"You will fire again!"

"I have no such intention. It is your turn." Herr Settembrini, lifting his face toward the sky, had turned himself somewhat side-wise to his opponent. It was touching to realize that he had heard one should not offer one's breast full face to an opponent'sfire; and that he was acting according to the regulations.

"Coward!" Naphta shrieked; and with this human shriek confessing that it takes more courage to fire than be fired upon, raised his pistol in a way that had nothing to do with duelling, and shot himself in the head.

Piteous, unforgettable sight! He staggered, or tottered, while the mountains played ball with the sound of his shot, a few steps backward, flinging out his legs jerkily; executed a right turn with his whole body, and fell with his face in the snow. They all stood a moment rigid. Settembrini, hurling his weapon from him, was first at Naphta's side. "Infelice!" "Infelice!" he cried. he cried. "Che cosa fai, per l'amor di Dio?" "Che cosa fai, per l'amor di Dio?"

Hans Castorp helped him turn the body over. They saw the blackened red hole in the temple. They looked into a face that one would do well to cover with the silk handkerchief, one corner of which hung out of Naphta's breast pocket.

The Thunderbolt

SEVEN years Hans Castorp remained amongst those up here. Partisans of the decimal system might prefer a round number, though seven is a good handy figure in its way, picturesque, with a savour of the mythical; one might even say that it is more filling to the spirit than a dull academic half-dozen. Our hero had sat at all seven of the tables in the dining-room, at each about a year, the last being the "bad" Russian table, and his company there two Armenians, two Finns, a Bokharian, and a Kurd. He sat at the "bad" Russian table, wearing a recent little blond beard, vaguish in cut, which we are disposed to regard as a sign of philosophic indifference to his own outer man. Yes, we will even go further, and relate his carelessness of his person to the carelessness of the rest of the world regarding him. The Authorities had ceased to devise him distractions. There was the morning inquiry, as to whether he had slept well, itself purely rhetorical and summary; and that aside, the Hofrat did not address him with any particularity; while Adriatica von Mylendonk-she had, at the time of which we write, a stye in a perfect state of maturity-did so seldom, in fact scarcely ever. They let him be. He was like the scholar in the peculiarly happy state of never being "asked" any more; of never having a task, of being left to sit, since the fact of his being left behind is established, and no one troubles about him further-an orgiastic kind of freedom, but we ask ourselves whether, indeed, freedom ever is or can be of any other kind. At all events, here was one on whom the authorities no longer needed to keep an eye, being a.s.sured that no wild or defiant resolves were ripening in his breast. He was "settled," established. Long ago he had ceased to know where else he should go, long ago he had ceased to be capable of a resolve to return to the flat-land. Did not the very fact that he was sitting at the "bad" Russian table witness a certain abandon? No slightest adverse comment upon the said table being intended by the remark! Among all the seven, no single one could be said to possess definite tangible advantages or disadvantages. We make bold to say that here was a democracy of tables, all honourable alike. The same tremendous meals were served here as at the others; Rhadamanthus himself occasionally folded his huge hands before the doctor's place at the head; and the nations who ate there were respectable members of the human race, even though they boasted no Latin, and were not exaggeratedly dainty at their feeding. Time-yet not the time told by the station clock, moving with a jerk five minutes at once, but rather the time of a tiny timepiece, the hand of which one cannot see move, or the time the gra.s.s keeps when it grows, so un.o.bservably one would say it does not grow at all, until some morning the fact is undeniable-time, a line composed of a succession of dimensionless points (and now we are sure the unhappy deceased Naphta would interrupt us to ask how dimensionless points, no matter how many of them, can const.i.tute a line), time, we say, had gone on, in its furtive, un.o.bservable, competent way, bringing about changes. For example, the boy Teddy was discovered, one day-not one single day, of course, but only rather indefinitely from which day- to be a boy no longer. No more might ladies take him on their laps, when, on occasion, he left his bed, changed his pyjamas for his knickerbockers, and came downstairs. Imperceptibly that leaf had turned. Now, on such occasions, he took them on his instead, and both sides were as well, or even better pleased. He was become a youth; scarcely could we say he had bloomed into a youth; but he had shot up. Hans Castorp had not noticed it happening, and then, suddenly, he did. The shooting-up, however, did not suit the lad Teddy; the temporal became him not. In his twenty-first year he departed this life; dying of the disease for which he had proved receptive; and they cleansed and fumigated after him. The fact makes little claim upon our emotions, the change being so slight between his one state and his next.

But there were other deaths, and more important; deaths down in the flat-land, which touched, or would once have touched, our hero more nearly. We are thinking of the recent decease of old Consul Tienappel, Hans's great-uncle and foster-father, of faded memory. He had carefully avoided unfavourable conditions of atmospheric pressure, and left it to Uncle James to stultify himself; yet an apoplexy carried him off after all; and a telegram, couched in brief but feeling terms-feeling more for the departed than for the recipient of the wire-was one day brought to Hans Castorp where he lay in his excellent chair. He acquired some black-bordered note-paper, and wrote to his uncle-cousins: he, the doubly, now, so to say, triply orphaned, expressed himself as being the more distressed over the sad news, for that circ.u.mstances forbade him interrupting his present sojourn even to pay his great-uncle the last respects. To speak of sorrow would be disingenuous. Yet in these days Hans Castorp's eyes did wear an expression more musing than common. This death, which could at no time have moved him greatly, and after the lapse of years could scarcely move him at all, meant the sundering of yet another bond with the life below; gave to what he rightly called his freedom the final seal. In the time of which we speak, all contact between him and the flat-land had ceased. He sent no letters thither, and received none thence. He no longer ordered Maria Mancini, having found a brand up here to his liking, to which he was now as faithful as once to his old-time charmer: a brand that must have carried even a polar explorer through the sorest and severest trials; armed with which, and no other solace, Hans Castorp could lie and bear it out indefinitely, as one does at the sea-sh.o.r.e. It was an especially well cured brand, with the best leaf wrapper, named "Light of Asia"; rather more compact than Maria, mouse-grey in colour with a blue band, very tractable and mild, and evenly consuming to a snow-white ash, that held its shape and still showed traces of the veining on the wrapper; so evenly and regularly that it might have served the smoker for an hour-gla.s.s, and did so, at need, for he no longer carried a timepiece. His watch had fallen from his night-table; it did not go, and he had neglected to have it regulated, perhaps on the same grounds as had made him long since give up using a calendar, whether to keep track of the day, or to look out an approaching feast: the grounds, namely, of his "freedom." Thus he did honour to his abiding-everlasting, his walk by the ocean of time, the hermetic enchantment to which he had proved so extraordinarily susceptible that it had become the fundamental adventure of his life, in which all the alchemistical processes of his simple substance had found full play. Thus he lay; and thus, in high summer, the year was once more rounding out, the seventh year, though he knew it not, of his sojourn up here.

Then, like a thunder-peal-

But G.o.d forbid and modesty withhold us from speaking overmuch of what the thunder-peal bore us on its wave of sound! Here rodomontade is out of place. Rather let us lower our voice to say that then came the peal of thunder we all know so well; that deafening explosion of long-gathering magazines of pa.s.sion and spleen. That historic thunder-peal, of which we speak with bated breath, made the foundations of the earth to shake; but for us it was the shock that fired the mine beneath the magic mountain, and set our sleeper ungently outside the gates. Dazed he sits in the long gra.s.s and rubs his eyes-a man who, despite many warnings, had neglected to read the papers.

His Mediterranean friend and mentor had ever tried to prompt him; had felt it inc.u.mbent upon him to instruct his nursling, the object of his solicitude, in what was going on down below; but his pupil had lent no ear. The young man had indeed, in a stocktaking way, preoccupied himself with this or that among the subjective shadows of things; but the things themselves he had heeded not at all, having a wilful tendency to take the shadow for the substance, and in the substance to see only shadow. For this, however, we must not judge him harshly, since the relation between substance and shadow has never been defined once and for all.

Long ago it had been Herr Settembrini who brought sudden illumination into the room, sat down beside the horizontal Hans and sought to influence and instruct him upon matters of life and death. But now it was the pupil, who, seated with his hands between his knees, at the bedside of the humanist, or near his couch in the cosy and retired little mansard study, with the carbonaro carbonaro chairs and the water-bottle, kept him company and listened courteously to his utterances upon the state of Europe-for in these days Herr Ludovico was seldom on his legs. Naphta's violent end, the terroristic deed of that desperate antagonist, had dealt his sensitive nature a blow from which it could scarcely rally; weakness and infirmity had since been his portion. He could no longer work on the chairs and the water-bottle, kept him company and listened courteously to his utterances upon the state of Europe-for in these days Herr Ludovico was seldom on his legs. Naphta's violent end, the terroristic deed of that desperate antagonist, had dealt his sensitive nature a blow from which it could scarcely rally; weakness and infirmity had since been his portion. He could no longer work on the Sociological Pathology Sociological Pathology; the League waited in vain for that lexicon of all the masterpieces of letters having human suffering for their central theme. Herr Ludovico had perforce to limit to oral efforts his contribution to the organization of progress; and even so much he must have foregone had not Hans Castorp's visits given him opportunity to spread his gospel.

His voice was weak, but he spoke with conviction, at length and beautifully, upon the self-perfecting of the human spirit through social betterment. Softly, as though on the wings of doves, came the words of Herr Ludovico. Yet again, when he came to speak of the unification and universal well-being of the liberated peoples, there mingled a sound-he neither knew nor willed it, of course-as of the rus.h.i.+ng pinions of eagles. That was the political key, the grandfatherly inheritance that united in him with the humanistic gift of the father, to make up the litterateur- litterateur-precisely as humanism and politics united in the lofty ideal of civilization, an ideal wherein were blended the mildness of doves and the boldness of eagles. That ideal was only biding its time, until the day dawned, the Day of the People, when the principle of reaction should be laid low, and the Holy Alliance of civic democracies take its place. Yes, here seemed to sound two voices, with differing counsels. For Herr Settembrini was a humanitarian, yet at the same time, half explicitly, he was warlike too. In the duel with the outrageous little Naphta he had borne himself like a man. But in general it still remained rather vague what his position was to be, when humanity in an outburst of enthusiasm united itself with politics in support of a triumphant and dominating world-civilization, and the burgher's pike was dedicated upon the altar of humanity. There was some doubt whether he would then hold back his hand from the shedding of blood. Yes, it seemed the prevailing temper more and more held sway in the Italian's mind and view; the boldness of the eagle was gradually outbidding the mildness of the dove.

Not infrequently his att.i.tude toward the existing great political systems was divided, embarra.s.sed, disturbed by scruples. The diplomatic rapprochement rapprochement between his country and Austria, their co-operation in Albania, had reflected itself in his conversation: a co-operation that raised his spirits in that it was directed against Latinless half-Asia-knout, Schlusselburg, and all-yet tormented them in that it was a misbegotten alliance with the hereditary foe, with the principle of reaction and subjugated nationalities. The autumn previous, the great French loan to Russia, for the purpose of building a network of railways in Poland, had awakened in him similar misgivings. For Herr Settembrini belonged to the Francophile party in his own country, which was not surprising when one recalled that his grandfather had compared the six days of the July Revolution to the six days of the creation, and seen that they were as good. But the understanding between the enlightened republic and Byzantine Scythia was too much for him, it oppressed his breast, and at the same time made him breathe quicker for hope and joy at the thought of the strategic meaning of that network of railways. Then came the Serajevo murder, for everyone excepting German Seven-Sleepers a storm-signal; decisive for the informed ones, among whom we may reckon Herr Settembrini. Hans Castorp saw him shudder as a private citizen at the frightful deed, while in the same moment his breast heaved with the knowledge that this was a deed of popular liberation, directed against the citadel of his loathing. On the other hand, was it not also the fruit of Muscovite activity, and as such giving rise to great heart-searchings? Which did not hinder him, three weeks later, from characterizing the extreme demands of the monarchy upon Servia as a hideous crime and an insult to human dignity, the consequences of which he could foresee well enough, and awaited in breathless excitement. between his country and Austria, their co-operation in Albania, had reflected itself in his conversation: a co-operation that raised his spirits in that it was directed against Latinless half-Asia-knout, Schlusselburg, and all-yet tormented them in that it was a misbegotten alliance with the hereditary foe, with the principle of reaction and subjugated nationalities. The autumn previous, the great French loan to Russia, for the purpose of building a network of railways in Poland, had awakened in him similar misgivings. For Herr Settembrini belonged to the Francophile party in his own country, which was not surprising when one recalled that his grandfather had compared the six days of the July Revolution to the six days of the creation, and seen that they were as good. But the understanding between the enlightened republic and Byzantine Scythia was too much for him, it oppressed his breast, and at the same time made him breathe quicker for hope and joy at the thought of the strategic meaning of that network of railways. Then came the Serajevo murder, for everyone excepting German Seven-Sleepers a storm-signal; decisive for the informed ones, among whom we may reckon Herr Settembrini. Hans Castorp saw him shudder as a private citizen at the frightful deed, while in the same moment his breast heaved with the knowledge that this was a deed of popular liberation, directed against the citadel of his loathing. On the other hand, was it not also the fruit of Muscovite activity, and as such giving rise to great heart-searchings? Which did not hinder him, three weeks later, from characterizing the extreme demands of the monarchy upon Servia as a hideous crime and an insult to human dignity, the consequences of which he could foresee well enough, and awaited in breathless excitement.

In short, Herr Settembrini's feelings were as complex as the fatality he saw fast rolling up, for which he sought by hints and half-words to prepare his pupil, a sort of national courtesy and compunction preventing him from speaking out. In the first days of mobilization, the first declaration of war, he had a way of putting out both hands to his visitor, taking Hans Castorp's own and pressing them, that fairly went to our young noodle's heart, if not precisely to his head. "My friend," the Italian would say, "gunpowder, the printing-press, yes, you have certainly given us all that. But if you think we could march against the Revolution-Caro! ..." ..."

During those days of stifling expectation, when the nerves of Europe were on the rack, Hans Castorp did not see Herr Settembrini. The newspapers with their wild, chaotic contents pressed up out of the depths to his very balcony, they disorganized the house, filled the dining-room with their sulphurous, stifling breath, even penetrated the chambers of the dying. These were the moments when the "SevenSleeper," not knowing what had happened, was slowly stirring himself in the gra.s.s, before he sat up, rubbed his eyes-yes, let us carry the figure to the end, in order to do justice to the movement of our hero's mind: he drew up his legs, stood up, looked about him. He saw himself released, freed from enchantment-not of his own motion, he was fain to confess, but by the operation of exterior powers, of whose activities his own liberation was a minor incident indeed! Yet though his tiny destiny fainted to nothing in the face of the general, was there not some hint of a personal mercy and grace for him, a manifestation of divine goodness and justice? Would Life receive again her erring and "delicate" child-not by a cheap and easy slipping back to her arms, but sternly, solemnly, penitentially-perhaps not even among the living, but only with three salvoes fired over the grave of him a sinner? Thus might he return. He sank on his knees, raising face and hands to a heaven that howsoever dark and sulphurous was no longer the gloomy grotto of his state of sin. And in this att.i.tude Herr Settembrini found him-figuratively and most figuratively spoken, for full well we know our hero's traditional reserve would render such theatricality impossible. Herr Settembrini, in fact, found him packing his trunk. For since the moment of his sudden awakening, Hans Castorp had been caught up in the hurry and scurry of a "wild" departure, brought about by the thunder-peal. "Home"-the Berghof-was the picture of an ant-hill in a panic: its little population was flinging itself, heels over head, five thousand feet downwards to the catastrophe-smitten flat-land. They stormed the little trains, they crowded them to the footboard-luggageless, if needs must, and the stacks of luggage piled high the station platform, the seething platform, to the height of which the scorching breath from the flat-land seemed to mount-and Hans Castorp stormed with them. In the heart of the tumult Ludovico embraced him, quite literally enfolded him in his arms and kissed him, like a southerner-but like a Russian too-on both his cheeks; and this, despite his own emotion, took our wild traveller no little aback. But he nearly lost his composure when, at the very last, Herr Settembrini called him "Giovanni" and, laying aside the form of address common to the cultured West, spoke to him with the thou!

"E cos in giu, " he said. " he said. "Cos vai in giu finalmente-addio, Giovanni mio! Giovanni mio! Quite otherwise had I thought to see thee go. But be it so, the G.o.ds have willed it thus and not otherwise. I hoped to discharge you to go down to your work, and now you go to fight among your kindred. My G.o.d, it was given to you and not to your cousin, our Quite otherwise had I thought to see thee go. But be it so, the G.o.ds have willed it thus and not otherwise. I hoped to discharge you to go down to your work, and now you go to fight among your kindred. My G.o.d, it was given to you and not to your cousin, our Tenente! Tenente! What tricks life plays! Go, then, it is your blood that calls, go and fight bravely. More than that can no man. But forgive me if I devote the remnant of my powers to incite my country to fight where the Spirit and What tricks life plays! Go, then, it is your blood that calls, go and fight bravely. More than that can no man. But forgive me if I devote the remnant of my powers to incite my country to fight where the Spirit and sacro egoismo sacro egoismo point the way. point the way. Addio!" Addio!"

Hans Castorp thrust out his head among ten others, filling the little open windowframe. He waved. And Herr Settembrini waved back, with his right hand, while with the ring-finger of his left he delicately touched the corner of his eye.

What is it? Where are we? Whither has the dream s.n.a.t.c.hed us? Twilight, rain, filth. Fiery glow of the overcast sky, ceaseless booming of heavy thunder; the moist air rent by a sharp singing whine, a raging, swelling howl as of some hound of h.e.l.l, that ends its course in a splitting, a splintering and sprinkling, a crackling, a coruscation; by groans and shrieks, by trumpets blowing fit to burst, by the beat of a drum coming faster, faster-There is a wood, discharging drab hordes, that come on, fall, spring up again, come on.-Beyond, a line of hill stands out against the fiery sky, whose glow turns now and again to blowing flames. About us is rolling plough-land, all upheaved and trodden into mud; athwart it a bemired high road, disguised with broken branches and from it again a deeply furrowed, boggy field-path leading off in curves toward the distant hills. Nude, branchless trunks of trees meet the eye, a cold rain falls. Ah, a signpost! Useless, though, to question it, even despite the half-dark, for it is shattered, illegible. East, west? It is the flat-land, it is the war. And we are shrinking shadows by the way-side, shamed by the security of our shadowdom, and noways minded to indulge in any rodomontade; merely led hither by the spirit of our narrative, merely to see again, among those running, stumbling, drum-mustered grey comrades that swarm out of yonder wood, one we know; merely to look once more in the simple face of our one-time fellow of so many years, the genial sinner whose voice we know so well, before we lose him from our sight.

They have been brought forward, these comrades, for a final thrust in a fight that has already lasted all day long, whose objective is the retaking of the hill position and the burning villages beyond, lost two days since to the enemy. It is a volunteer regiment, fresh young blood and mostly students, not long in the field. They were roused in the night, brought up in trains to morning, then marched in the rain on wretched roads-on no roads at all, for the roads were blocked, and they went over moor and ploughed land with full kit for seven hours, their coats sodden. It was no pleasure excursion. If one did not care to lose one's boots, one stooped at every second step, clutched with one's fingers into the straps and pulled them out of the quaking mire. It took an hour of such work to cover one meadow. But at last they have reached the appointed spot, exhausted, on edge, yet the reserve strength of their youthful bodies has kept them tense, they crave neither the sleep nor the food they have been denied. Their wet, mud-bespattered faces, framed between strap and grey-covered helmet, are flushed with exertion-perhaps too with the sight of the losses they suffered on their march through that boggy wood. For the enemy, aware of their advance, have concentrated a barrage of shrapnel and large-calibre grenades upon the way they must come; it crashed among them in the wood, and howling, flaming, splas.h.i.+ng, lashed the wide ploughed land.