Hans Castorp and Joachim Ziemssen were sitting in the garden after dinner in white trousers and blue jackets. It was still one of those vaunted October days, a day hot and light, festive and austere at the same time, with a dark blue sky from the south over the valley, which was criss-crossed and populated by pathsAt bottom the fields were still happily green, and cowbells came from the rough, wooded leanings – that tinny, peaceful, simple-musical sound that floated clear and undisturbed through the still, thin, empty air, deepening the festive mood that prevails over high regions .
The cousins sat on a bench at the end of the garden in front of a circle of young firs. – The place was on the north-western edge of the fenced platform, fifty meters above the valley, which formed the pedestal of the Berghof site. they were silent. Hans Castorp smoked. Inwardly he quarreled with Joachim because he hadn’t wanted to take part in the social gatherings on the veranda after dinner, but had forced him, against his wishes and will, into the quiet of the garden before they would start lying down. That was tyrannical of Joachim. Strictly speaking, they weren’t the Siamese twins. They could break up if their passions diverged. Hans Castorp wasn’t here to keep Joachim company, he was a patient himself. He sulked in that sense, and he could bear to sulk, since he had Maria Mancini. With his hands in the side pockets of his jacket, his brown-shoeed feet stretched out, he held the long, dull gray cigar, which was still in the early stages of consumption, that is, from the blunt end of which he had not yet wiped the ash, in which Middle of the lips so that they hung down a bit, and after the strong meal he enjoyed her aroma, which he had now completely regained his hold on. Otherwise his acclimatization up here might only consist of getting used to the fact that he didn’t get used to it – what the chemistry of his stomach, the nerves of his from the blunt tip of which he had not yet wiped the ash, in the middle of his lips so that it hung down a bit, and after the strong meal he enjoyed its aroma, which he had now completely regained his hold on. Otherwise his acclimatization up here might only consist of getting used to the fact that he didn’t get used to it – what the chemistry of his stomach, the nerves of his from the blunt tip of which he had not yet wiped the ash, in the middle of his lips so that it hung down a bit, and after the strong meal he enjoyed its aroma, which he had now completely regained his hold on. Otherwise his acclimatization up here might only consist of getting used to the fact that he didn’t get used to it – what the chemistry of his stomach, the nerves of hisAs far as dry mucous membranes with a tendency to bleeding were concerned, the adjustment had apparently finally taken place: imperceptibly and without being able to follow the progress, over the course of the days, these sixty-five or seventy days, his whole organic liking for the well-made vegetable stimulant or narcotic restored. He rejoiced in the returned fortune. The moral satisfaction enhanced the physical pleasure. While he was bedridden he had saved on the supply of two hundred he had brought with him; Remnants of it were still there. But at the same time as the laundry, the winter clothes, he had had Schalleen bring another five hundred pieces of Bremen goods to cover himself. They were beautiful lacquered boxes with a globe
As they sat, behold, Hofrat Behrens came through the garden. He had taken part in the luncheon in the hall today; at Frau Salomon’s table he had been seen folding his huge hands in front of his plate. Then he must have lingered on the terrace, struck personal notes, probably performed the bootlace feat, for someone who hasn’t seen it. Now he came strolling up the gravel path, without a doctor’s coat, in a small checkered swallowtail, his bowler hat on his neck, a cigar in his mouth, too, which was very black and from which he drew large, whitish clouds of smoke. His head, his face too the flushed bluish cheeks, the snub nose, the moist blue eyes and the tucked up little beard were small in relation to the long, slightly bent and kinked womanstature and to the girth of his hands and feet. He was nervous, he visibly jumped when he saw the cousins, and even felt a little embarrassed because he had to go up to them. He greeted them in the usual manner, cheerful and eloquent, with “Look, look, Timothy!” and blessings on their metabolism, forcing them to remain seated as they wished to rise to his honor.
“Given, given. No further fuss with me, a simple man. Doesn’t suit me, since you’re patients, one like the other. You don’t need anything like that. Nothing to say against the situation as it is.”
And he stopped in front of them, the cigar between the index and middle fingers of his huge right hand.
“How does the cabbage roll taste, Castorp? Let’s see, I’m a connoisseur and a lover. The ash is good: what kind of brownish beauty is that?”
“Maria Mancini, Postre de Banquett from Bremen, Herr Hofrat. Costs little or nothing, nineteen pfennigs in pure colors, but has a bouquet that is otherwise not found in this price range. Sumatran Havana, Sand Leaf Deckers as you see. I’ve gotten very used to them. It’s a medium-bodied blend and very flavorful but light on the tongue. She likes it when you leave her the ashes for a long time, I only brush them twice at most. Of course she has her little whims, but the control during production must be particularly precise, because Maria is very reliable in her properties and breathes completely evenly. May I offer you one?”
“Thanks, we can trade.” And they took out their cases.
“She has race,” said the Hofrat, handing over his badge. “Temperament, you know, juice and vigor. St. Felix-Brasil, I’ve always stuck with this character. A real worry breaker, burns like schnapps, and especially towards the end it has something brilliant. Some restraint in dealings is recommended, one cannot light one at the other, that is beyond manpower. But I’d rather have a good bite than steam all day long…”
They twirled the exchanged gifts between their fingers, examined these slender bodies with objective knowledge, with the slanting parallel ribs of their raised, here and there slightly aired wrapper edges, their overlying veins that seemed to pulsate, the small bumps in their skin, the play of the light had something organically alive on their surfaces and edges. Hans Castorp pronounced it:
“A cigar has life. She’s really breathing. At home I once thought of keeping Maria in an airtight tin box to protect her from moisture. Do you want to believe she died? She perished and was dead within a week – all leathery corpses.”
And they shared their experiences on the best way to store cigars, especially imports. The privy councilor loved imports, he would have preferred to only smoke heavy Havanas. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stand them, and two little Henry Clays, whom he once took to heart in a party, almost got him under the lawn, he said. ‘I smoke them with coffee,’ he said, ‘one at a time, and think little of it. But when I’m done, the question arises as to how I actually do itbecomes sense. In any case, completely different, totally strange, like never before in life. Coming home was no small matter, and when I’m there, I’m thinking all the more, the monkey is kidding me. Knuckles of pork, you know, cold sweat where you want, the face white as linen, the heart in all states, a pulse – sometimes threadlike and hardly felt, sometimes holter dipole, over hill and dale, you understand, and the brain in a state of excitement … I was convinced that I should dance. I say: dance, because that’s the word that came to mind at the time and that I needed to describe my condition. Actually it was very jolly and quite a celebration, although I was colossal scared or, more correctly, consisted entirely of scared. But fear and celebration are not mutually exclusive, everyone knows that. the brat, First-time girlfriend is scared too, and so are they, and they’re melting with glee. Well, I almost melted too, I wanted to dance with heaving bosom. But the Mylendonk got me out of the mood with its applications. Ice compresses, brush frottage, a camphor injection, and that’s how I stayed with humanity.”
Hans Castorp, seated in his capacity as a patient, looked up at Behrens with an expression that indicated thought activity, whose blue, bulging eyes had filled with tears as he spoke.
“You paint sometimes, Herr Hofrat,” he said suddenly.
The Hofrat pretended to recoil.
“Well? Boy, how do you seem to me?’
“Forgiveness. I have heard it mentioned occasionally. It just occurred to me.”
“Well then, I don’t want to resort to denial. We are all weak human beings. Yes, something like that happened. Anch’ io sono pittore , as that Spaniard used to say.”
“Landscapes?” asked Hans Castorp briefly and patronizingly. Circumstances led him to this tone.
“As much as you want!” answered the privy councillor, with embarrassed boastfulness. “Landscapes, still lifes, animals – what a guy is, doesn’t shy away from anything at all.”
“But no portraits?”
“A portrait probably got lost as well. Would you like to commission me with yours?”
“Haha no. But it would be very kind if Mr. Hofrat would show us your pictures on occasion.”
Joachim, too, after looking at his cousin in astonishment, hastened to assure him that that would be very kind.
Behrens was delighted, flattered to the point of enthusiasm. He actually blushed with pleasure, and his eyes seemed about to shed their tears this time.
he cried. “But with the greatest pleasure! But right there if you enjoy it! Come here, come with me, I’ll brew us a Turkish coffee in my booth!” And he took the young people by the arm, pulled them off the bench and, hanging between them, led them along the gravel path towards his apartment, which, as they knew, was located in the nearby north-west wing of the Berghof building.
“I used to try myself,” explained Hans Castorp, “here and there in this direction.”
“What you say. Quite solid in oil?”
“No, no, I didn’t get beyond one or the other watercolor. Sometimes a ship, a seascape, childish things. But I like seeing pictures very much, and that’s why I was so free…”
Joachim, in particular, found himself somewhat reassured and enlightened about his cousin’s strange curiosity by this explanation – and Hans Castorp referred to his own artistic experiments more for him than for the Hofrat. They arrived: there was no so magnificent portal flanked by lanterns on this side as yonder on the driveway. A few rounded steps led up to the oak front door, which the privy councilor opened with a push of his rich bunch of keys. His hand trembled; he was definitely nervous. An anteroom furnished as a cloakroom accommodated them, where Behrens hung up his bowler hat. Inside, in the short corridor separated from the general part of the building by a glass door, on either side of which were the premises of the small private apartment, he called for the maid and made his order. Then, amid jovial and encouraging phrases, he admitted his guests–by one of the doors on the right.
A couple of banally bourgeois furnished rooms facing the valley, connected, without connecting doors, separated only by porticos: an “old German” dining room, a living room and study with a desk over which hung a student’s cap and crossed bats, woolly carpets, a library and sofa arrangement and a smoking room that was furnished in a “Turkish” style. Pictures hung everywhere, the pictures of the privy councilor – the eyes of those who entered immediately went polite and ready for admirationbeyond. The privy councilor’s wife was seen several times: in oil and also as a photograph on the desk. It was a thinly and fluidly dressed, somewhat enigmatic blonde, who, with her hands clasped on her left shoulder–not tightly clasped, only so that the top finger joints lay faintly together–her eyes either lifted heavenward or deeply downcast and kept hidden under the long eyelashes sticking out obliquely from the lids: the blessed never looked straight ahead and towards the viewer. Otherwise there were mainly mountainous landscape motifs, mountains in the snow and in the green of fir trees, mountains surrounded by the smoke of the mountains, and mountains whose dry and sharp outlines, under the influence of Segantini, cut into a deep blue sky. There were also herdsmen’s huts,
They walked along the walls, looking as if they were in an exhibition, accompanied by the master of the house, who now and then called a motif by name, but mostly in silence, in the proud trepidation of the artist, enjoying his eyes resting with those of strangers on his works let. The portrait of Clawdia Chauchat hung on the window wall in the living room – Hans Castorp already had itspotted with a quick glance upon entering, though it bore only a vague resemblance. Deliberately he avoided the spot, kept his companions in the dining room, where he pretended to admire a green view of the Sergital with bluish glaciers in the background, then, on his own authority, steered first over to the Turkish cabinet, which he, with praise on his lips, also thoroughly explored and then inspected the entrance wall of the living room, sometimes asking Joachim to applaud. Finally he turned and asked with moderation:
“Isn’t that a familiar face?”
“Do you recognize her?” Behrens wanted to hear.
“Yes, deception is not possible. This is the lady from the Good Russian Table, with the French name…”
“That’s right, the Chauchat. I’m glad you find her similar.”
“Speaking!” Hans Castorp lied, less out of deceit than out of the awareness that, if everything had gone right, he should not have recognized the model at all – just as little as Joachim would have ever recognized it on his own. the good, outwitted Joachim, who of course now saw the light, the true light after the false light that Hans Castorp had previously lit for him. “Yeah,” he said quietly, readying himself to help look at the picture. His cousin had been able to compensate him for her absence from the porch party.
It was a half-profile bust, slightly below life size, low-cut, with a veil drape around the shoulders and breasts, in a broad, black, sloping inwardand bordered by a frame decorated with a gold border at the edge of the canvas. Mrs. Chauchat appeared ten years older than she was, as is usual in dilettante portraits that want to be characteristic. There was too much red all over the face, the nose was badly marked, the color of the hair was wrong, too strawy, the mouth distorted, the special charm of the physiognomy not seen or not brought out, missed by coarsening its causes, the whole thing a rather bungled product when Portrait only distantly related to its subject. But Hans Castorp didn’t take the resemblance very seriously, the connection between this canvas and Frau Chauchat’s person was close enough for him that the picture shouldDepicting Frau Chauchat, she herself had sat as a model in these rooms, that was enough for him, he repeated, moved:
“How she lives and lives!”
“Don’t say that,” said the councillor. “It was a bulky piece of work, I don’t think I’ve quite finished it, although we must have had twenty sessions – how can you manage with such a complicated visage. One thinks she must be easy to catch, with her hyperborean cheekbones and eyes like cracked cuts in a yeast cake. Yes, something has changed. If you get the detail right, you screw up the whole thing. The pure puzzle. Do you know her? Maybe you shouldn’t copy them, but work from memory. Do you know her?”
“Yes, no, superficially, as one knows the people here…”
“Well, I know them more internally, subcutaneously, you understand, via arterial blood pressure, tissue tension and lymphatic movement,I pretty much know about her – for certain reasons. The superficial presents greater difficulties. Have you ever seen her leave? How she walks is her face. A sneak. Take the eyes as an example – I’m not talking about the colour, which also has its pitfalls; I mean the fit, the cut. You say the lid fissure is split, crooked. But that’s just how it seems to you. What deceives you is the epicanthus, that is, a variety found in certain races, which consists in excess skin, resulting from the flat bridge of the nose in these people, extending from the fold of the lid down over the inner corner of the eye. Pull the skin taut over the bridge of your nose and you have an eye just like ours. A piquant mystification then, by the way not honorable; for when viewed in the light of day, the epicanthus amounts to an atavistic formation of inhibitions.”
“So that’s how it works,” said Hans Castorp. “I didn’t know, but I’ve been interested in what those eyes are all about for a long time.”
“Vexation, deception,” affirmed the Councilor. “Just draw them crooked and slit and you’re lost. You have to get the crookedness and slitting done as nature does, drive illusion within illusion, so to speak, and to do that, of course, you need to know about the epicanthus. Knowledge can’t hurt at all. Look at the skin, the body skin here. Is that vivid, or is it not particularly vivid in your opinion?”
“Enormously,” said Hans Castorp, “it is painted enormously vividly, the skin. I think similarly well painted is minenever happened. One seems to see the pores.” And he ran the edge of his hand lightly over the décolleté of the picture, very white against the exaggerated reddening of the face, like a part of the body not ordinarily exposed to the light, and so, intentionally or not , which insistently evoked the idea of being naked – a rather clumsy effect anyway.
Nevertheless, Hans Castorp’s praise was justified. The matt shimmering whiteness of this delicate but not thin bust, lost in the bluish drapery, had a lot of nature; it was evidently painted with feeling, but notwithstanding a certain sweetness that emanated from it, the artist had managed to give it a sort of scientific reality and vivid precision. He had used the grainy character of the canvas to let it appear through the oil paint as a natural unevenness of the skin’s surface, particularly in the region of the delicately protruding collarbones. A mole on the left, where the breast began to divide, was not neglected, and between the elevations one thought one could see faint bluish veins showing through. It was, as if a scarcely perceptible shiver of sensitivity passed over this nudity under the viewer’s gaze – dare I say it: one might imagine perceiving the perspiration, the invisible vapor of life of this flesh, as if one were to press one’s lips to it , not the smell of paint and varnish, but that of the human body. With all this we are giving the impressions of Hans Castorp: but if he was particularly willing to receive such impressions, it can be stated factually that Frau Chauchats but feel that of the human body. With all this we are giving the impressions of Hans Castorp: but if he was particularly willing to receive such impressions, it can be stated factually that Frau Chauchats but feel that of the human body. With all this we are giving the impressions of Hans Castorp: but if he was particularly willing to receive such impressions, it can be stated factually that Frau ChauchatsCleavage was by far the most notable piece of painting in these rooms.
Hofrat Behrens rocked, hands in pockets, on heels and balls of feet while he observed his work at the same time as the visitors.
“I’m glad, sir,” he said, “I’m glad it makes sense to you. It’s good and can’t do any harm if you know a little about what’s underneath the epidermis and can paint along with what you can’t see – in other words: if you have a different relationship to nature than just the lyrical one, shall we say; For example, if you’re a part-time doctor, physiologist, anatomist, and you still have a secret knowledge of lingerie – that can be an advantage, say what you like, there’s definitely a pre. The body skin has science that you can use a microscope to examine for its organic correctness. You not only see the mucous and horny layers of the epidermis, but beneath that is thought of the dermis tissue with its ointment glands and sweat glands and blood vessels and warts – and beneath that again the fat skin, the padding, you know, the base that, with its many fat cells, brings about the lovely female forms. But what is known and thought along also speaks. It flows into your hand and has its effect, it’s not there and somehow it’s there, and that gives clarity.”
Hans Castorp was hooked on this conversation, his forehead was red, his eyes brightened, he didn’t know what to say first because he had a lot to say. First, he intended the image of the shaded window wallsecondly, he absolutely wanted to tie in with the Hofrat’s statements about the nature of the skin, which were of urgent interest to him, but thirdly, he wanted to try to express his own general and philosophical thoughts, which were also extremely important to him. Putting his hands to the portrait to take it down, he hastily began:
“Yes sir, yes sir! Very good, that’s important. I would like to say… That means Herr Hofrat said: ‘In a different relationship.’ It would be good if, in addition to the lyrical – I think you said that – the artistic relationship, there were another, if, in short, things were understood from another angle, for example the medical one. That is colossally correct – excuse me, Herr Hofrat – I think it is so outstandingly correct because it is not really a question of fundamentally different conditions and points of view, but strictly speaking always one and the same – just varieties of it, I mean : shades, I mean: variations of one and the same general interest, of which the artistic occupation is just a part and an expression, if i may say so Yes, excuse me, I’ll take down the picture, there’s absolutely no light here, you’ll see, I’ll just carry it over to the sofa to see if it’s not completely different there… I wanted to say: What is it about the medical science? I don’t understand anything about it, of course, but she’s concerned with people. And the judiciary, the legislation and the judiciary? Also with humans. And language research, with which the exercise of the pedagogical but she is concerned with people. And the judiciary, the legislation and the judiciary? Also with humans. And language research, with which the exercise of the pedagogical but she is concerned with people. And the judiciary, the legislation and the judiciary? Also with humans. And language research, with which the exercise of the pedagogicaljob related? And the theology, pastoral care, the spiritual pastoral ministry? Everything to do with people, they are all just shades of one and the same important and … main interest, namely interest in people, they are the humanistic professions, in a word, and if you want to study them, you learn as a basis first of all the ancient languages, isn’t it, for the sake of formal education, as they say. You may be surprised that I’m talking about it like that, I’m just a realist, a technician. But the other day I was thinking about it while lying down: it is excellent, an excellent institution in the world, that every kind of humanistic profession is based on the formal, the idea of form, of beautiful form, you know, – that brings something so noble and superfluous to the matter, and also something of feeling and … politeness, – the interest almost becomes something like a gallant concern … That is, I express myself most probably inappropriately, but one sees how the spiritual and the beautiful mix and have actually always been one, in other words: science and art, and that artistic activity is also an essential part of it, as a fifth faculty, so to speak, that it is nothing at all is different than a humanistic profession, a shadowing of the humanistic interest, insofar as your most important topic or concern is the human being, you will admit that to me. I only painted ships and watersubject, so I immediately asked whether Mr. Hofrat was also active in this area… Wouldn’t it be hanging here a lot more favorably?”
Both Behrens and Joachim looked at him to see if he wasn’t ashamed of what he had just said off the top of his head. But Hans Castorp was too busy to be embarrassed. He held the picture against the wall of the sofa and demanded an answer as to whether it wasn’t much better exposed there. At the same time the maid brought hot water, an alcohol stove and small coffee cups on a board. The privy councilor showed them into the cabinet and said:
“Then you wouldn’t really have to be so interested in painting as primarily in sculpture … Yes, of course there’s more light there. If you think that it can take that much of it … For plastic, I mean, because that has to do most purely and exclusively with people in general. But that the water doesn’t boil away from us.”
“Very true, the sculpture,” said Hans Castorp as they walked over, and forgot to put the picture up again or put it down: he took it with him and carried it by foot into the adjoining room. “Certainly, a Greek Venus or an athlete like that, that’s where the humanistic shows itself most clearly, it’s basically the truth, the actually humanistic kind of art, if you think about it.”
“Well, as far as little Chauchat is concerned,” remarked the privy councilor, “that’s probably more of a subject for painting, I think Phidias or the other one with the Mosaic ending would have turned up their noses at their kind of physiognomy . .. What are you doing, what are you carrying around with the ham?”
“Thanks, I’ll put it here on my chair leg first, it’s in good shape for the moment. But the Greek sculptors didn’t pay much attention to the head, what mattered to them was the body, maybe that was precisely what was humanistic… And the female sculptor, so that’s fat?”
“That’s fat!” said finally the Councilor, who had unlocked a closet and taken out the accessories for making coffee, a tubular Turkish grinder, the long-handled cooking mug, the double container for sugar and ground coffee, all made of brass. “Palmitin, stearin, oleïn,” he said and poured coffee beans from a tin can into the grinder, whose crank he began to turn. “The gentlemen see, I do everything myself, right from the start, it tastes twice as good. – What did you think? That it was ambrosia?’
“No, I already knew it myself. It’s just weird hearing it that way,” said Hans Castorp.
They sat in the corner between the door and the window, at a bamboo tabouret with an oriental ornamented brass plate, on which the coffee maker had found space between smoking paraphernalia: Joachim next to Behrens on the ottoman richly furnished with silk cushions, Hans Castorp in a lounge chair on castors against which he Mrs. Chauchat’s portrait had been leaning. A colorful carpet lay beneath them. The privy councilor spooned coffee and sugar into the mug with a handle, poured more water and allowed the drink to boil over the spirit flame. It foamed brown in the onion cups and proved to be as strong as it was sweet when sipping.
“Yours too, by the way,” said Behrens. “Your plastic, as far as it can be said, is of course also fat, ifnot to the same degree as with women. With us, fat usually makes up only one twentieth part of body weight, with women it accounts for sixteenth. Without the subcutaneous tissue, we would all be just morels. It fades over the years, and then there is the well-known unaesthetic drape. It is thickest and boldest on the female breast and stomach, on the thighs, short, everywhere where there is something going on for the heart and hands. It is also fat and ticklish on the soles of the feet.”
Hans Castorp turned the tubular coffee grinder between his hands. Like the whole set, it was probably more Indian or Persian than Turkish in origin: the style of the engravings worked into the brass, the surfaces of which emerged bare from the matt background, indicated this. Hans Castorp looked at the ornamentation without being able to gain any insight from it. When he had figured it out, he suddenly blushed.
“Yes, this is a device for single men,” said Behrens. “That’s why I keep it under wraps, you know. My kitchen fairy could spoil her eyes with it. You probably won’t get any further damage. I got it once as a gift from a patient, an Egyptian princess, who gave us the honor of a year. You see, the pattern repeats itself on each piece. Funny what?
“Yes, that’s strange,” replied Hans Castorp. “Ha no, of course it doesn’t bother me. You can even take it seriously and solemnly if you want, – although in the end it’s not quite appropriate on a coffee set. The old people are said to have something like that on their coffins from time to timehave attached. In a sense, the obscene and the sacred were one and the same.”
“Well, as far as the princess is concerned,” said Behrens, “I think she was more for the former. Incidentally, I also have very nice cigarettes from her, they’re something extra fine, they only turn up on first-class opportunities.” And he took the brightly colored box out of the closet to offer it. Joachim abstained by pulling his heels together. Hans Castorp reached out and smoked the unusually large and wide cigarette, adorned with a sphinx in gold print, which was indeed wonderful.
“Tell us something about the skin,” he begged, “if you’d be so kind, Herr Hofrat!” He had taken Frau Chauchat’s portrait back, placed it on his knee and was looking at it in the chair leaning back, cigarette between his lips. “Not exactly from the fatty skin, we now know what it’s all about. But of human skin in general, which you know how to paint so well.”
“Of the skin? Are you interested in physiology?”
“Very! Yes, I have always been extremely interested in that. The human body, I’ve always had a great sense for it. I’ve sometimes wondered if I shouldn’t have been a doctor – in a way, I think that wouldn’t have been a bad fit for me. After all, anyone who is interested in the body is also interested in the disease – specifically even in it – isn’t that what it is? By the way, it doesn’t mean much, I could have been different. For example, I could have become a clergyman.”
“Yes, temporarily it has sometimes seemed to me as if I had actually been completely in my element.”
“Why did you become an engineer?”
“Random. It was more or less the external circumstances that made the difference.”
“Well, from the skin? What am I supposed to tell you about your Sensory Leaf? This is your outer brain, you see, – of very much the same ontogenetic origin as the apparatus for the so-called higher sense organs up there in your skull: the central nervous system, you must know, is merely a slight transformation of the outer layer of skin, and in the lower animals, there is no difference at all between central and peripheral, they smell and taste with their skin, you have to imagine, they only have skin sensibility – it must be quite comfortable when you put yourself in their place. On the other hand, with such highly differentiated creatures as you and I, the ambition of the skin is limited to tickling, it is only a protective and signaling organ, but on the alert against everything, whatever wants to get too close to the body – she even stretches tactile apparatus beyond herself, namely the hair, the tiny body hairs, which consist merely of horny skin cells and let one sense an approach even before the skin itself is even touched. Just between us, it’s even possible that the protective and defensive work of the skin doesn’t just extend to the physical… Do you know how you turn red and pale?”
“Inaccurate.”
“Yes, we know exactly, to be honest, neither do we, at least as far as blushing is concerned. The matter is not entirely clear, because expanding muscles that could be set in motion by the vasomotor nerves have not yet been found in the vessels. Why the rooster’s crest actually swells – or what other boastful examples could be cited – is, so to speak, mysterious, especially since it is a question of psychological influences. We assume that there are connections between the cerebral cortex and the vascular center in the head medulla. And with certain stimuli, for example: you are very ashamed, this is where this connection plays, and the vascular nerves play according to the face, and then the blood vessels there expand and fill so that you get a head like a turkey, You’re there, swollen with blood, and you can’t see out of your eyes. On the other hand, in other cases, God knows what’s in store for you, possibly something very dangerously beautiful – the blood vessels in the skin constrict and the skin becomes pale and cold and sags and then you look like a corpse for everyone Emotion, with lead-colored eye sockets and a white, pointed nose. But the sympathetic makes the heart beat properly.”
“So that’s how it happens,” said Hans Castorp.
“Something like that. Those are reactions, you know. But since all reactions and reflexes have an inherent purpose, we physiologists almost suspect that these side effects of psychic affects are actually useful means of protection, defensive reflexes of the body, like goose bumps. You know how you get goosebumps?”
“It’s actually an event of the skin’s sebaceous glands secreting sebum, a proteinaceous, greasy secretion, you know, not exactly appetizing, but it keeps the skin supple so it doesn’t crack and crack from dryness and is pleasant to the touch – it it is inconceivable how the human skin would be touched without the cholesterol smear. These ointment glands have small organic muscles that can erect the glands, and when they do that, like the boy that the princess poured the bucket of gudgeons over, your skin becomes like a grater, and when the stimulus is strong, the hair follicles also stand up – the hair on your head and the little hairs on your body stand on end, like a porcupine that defends itself, and you can say that you have learned to shudder.”
“Oh, me,” said Hans Castorp, “I’ve learned that sometimes. It even gives me the creeps quite easily, on all sorts of occasions. What amazes me is that the glands erect on so many different occasions. If someone runs a stylus over glass, you get goosebumps, and with particularly beautiful music you suddenly get goosebumps, and when I took communion at my confirmation, I got one over the other, the sleet and tingling even wanted to don’t stop anymore. It’s strange how not everything gets the little muscles moving.”
“Yes,” said Behrens, “an attraction is an attraction. The content of the stimulus gives the body the devil what. Be it gudgeons or supper, the sebaceous glands are getting erect.”
“Herr Hofrat,” said Hans Castorp, looking at the picture on his knees; “which I wanted to come back to. Earlier you talked about internal processes, lymph movement and the like… What’s the deal with that? I would like to hear more about it, about the lymph movement for example, if you would be so kind, I am very interested.”
“I want to believe that,” Behrens replied. “The lymph is the very finest, most intimate and most delicate thing in the whole body – it is probably what you have in mind when you ask. People always talk about blood and its mysteries and call it a special juice. But the lymph is only the juice of the juice, the essence, you know, blood milk, a very delicious dripping – after fat food, by the way, it really looks like milk.” And he began to describe tidily and eloquently, like the blood , this theatrical coat red, prepared by respiration and digestion, saturated with gases, laden with moulting slag, fat, protein, iron, sugar and salt broth, which is pressed at a temperature of thirty-eight degrees by the heart pump through the vessels and stimulates the metabolism everywhere in the body, the animal warmth, in a word keeps dear life going, – like the blood does not reach the cells directly, but like the pressure it is under, lets an extract and milky juice from it sweat through the vessel walls and presses it into the tissues, so that it penetrates everywhere, fills every crevice as tissue fluid and stretches and strains the elastic cell tissue. That is the tension in the tissue, the turgor, and the turgor in turn is responsible for the fact that the lymph gently washes over the cells as tissue fluid fills every slit and stretches and stretches the elastic cell tissue. That is the tension in the tissue, the turgor, and the turgor in turn is responsible for the fact that the lymph gently washes over the cells as tissue fluid fills every slit and stretches and stretches the elastic cell tissue. That is the tension in the tissue, the turgor, and the turgor in turn is responsible for the fact that the lymph gently washes over the cellsand having exchanged material with them, is driven into the lymph vessels, the vasa lymphatica, and flow back into the blood, it’s a liter and a half a day. He described the tubular and suction vein system of the lymphatic vessels, spoke of the breast milk duct, which collects the lymph from the legs, abdomen and breast, one arm and one side of the head, then of delicate filter organs, which are developed in many places in the lymphatic vessels, called lymph glands and located on the neck, in the armpit, the elbow joints, the hollow of the knee and similarly intimate and tender parts of the body. “Swelling can occur there,” explained Behrens, “and that’s what we assumed – thickening of the lymph glands, let’s say: in the hollows of the knees and arm joints, swellings similar to dropsy here and there, and there’s always a reason for that not exactly a nice one either.
Hans Castorp said nothing. “Yes,” he said quietly after a pause, “it’s like that, I could have become a doctor. The breast milk duct… The lymph in the legs… I’m very interested in that. – What is the body!” he suddenly cried, breaking out stormily. “What is the meat! What is the body of man! What is it made of! Tell us this afternoon, Herr Hofrat! Tell us once and for all and accurately so we know!”
“Of water,” answered Behrens. “So you are also interested in organic chemistry? That’s mostly water, what the humanistic human body is made of, nothing better and nothing worse, it’s no reason to get violent. The dry matter is only twenty-fivePercent, and twenty percent of that is regular chicken protein, protein stuff, if you want to put it a little more poshly, with really just a little bit of fat and salt added, that’s pretty much it.”
“But the chicken protein. What is that?”
“All kinds of elementary things. Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Sulfur. Sometimes also phosphorus. You develop an excessive thirst for knowledge. Some proteins are also combined with carbohydrates, i.e. with glucose and starch. As you age, the flesh becomes tough, which is because there is an increase in collagen in the connective tissue, the glue, you know, the main component of bone and cartilage. What else do you want me to tell you? There we have a protein in the muscle plasma, the myosinogen, which coagulates into muscle fibrin in death and causes rigor mortis.”
“Yes, rigor mortis,” said Hans Castorp cheerfully. “Very good very good. And then comes the general analysis, the anatomy of the grave.”
“Well, of course. You said that beautifully, by the way. Then things get big. You flow apart, so to speak. Consider all that water! And the other ingredients don’t last very long without life, they are broken down into simpler, inorganic compounds by the decay.”
“Rot, decomposition,” said Hans Castorp, “that’s combustion, combination with oxygen, as far as I know.”
“Remarkably correct. Oxidation.”
“And life?”
“Also. Also, youngster. Also oxidation. Life is mainly just oxygen burn of cell protein, there comesthe beautiful animal warmth that one sometimes has too much of. Well, living is dying, there’s not much to sugarcoat – une destruction organique , as some Frenchman, in his innate frivolity, once called it. It also smells like life. If it seems different to us, then our judgment is bribed.”
‘And if one is interested in life,’ said Hans Castorp, ‘one is particularly interested in death. Don’t you do that?”
“Well, at least there is a kind of difference. Life is that the form is preserved in the change of matter.”
“Why keep the shape,” said Hans Castorp.
“For what reason? Look, it’s not a bit humanistic what you’re saying.”
“Form is ete-pe-tete.”
“You have decided what to do today. Something formal. But I’m dropping out now,” said the Hofrat. “I’m getting melancholy now,” he said, cupping his huge hand over his eyes. “See, this is how it comes over me. So I’ve had coffee with you, and I liked it, and suddenly I feel melancholic. Gentlemen, I have to excuse myself now. It was special to me and I had all sorts of fun…”
The cousins had jumped up. They blamed themselves, they said, the Herr Hofrat for so long . . . He gave reassuring counter-assurances. Hans Castorp hastened to take Frau Chauchat’s portrait into the next room and hang it back in its place. They entered the gardenno longer to get to their quarters. Behrens showed them the way through the building by leading them to the connecting glass door. The back of his neck seemed to stand out more than usual in the state of mind that had suddenly come over him, he blinked his wide eyes, and his little mustache, which was crooked as a result of the one-sided puckered lips, had taken on a miserable expression.
As they walked down corridors and stairs, Hans Castorp said:
“Admit that was a good idea of mine.”
“Anyway, it was a change,” Joachim replied. “And you spoke out about a number of things on this occasion, I have to say that. I was even a little too haywire. It’s high time that we got at least twenty minutes on the couch before tea. You may think it’s ete-pe-tete of me that I insist on it so – casually, as you are lately. But after all, you don’t need it as much as I do.”
