C1The first two sentences of the novel's foreword deserve
special attention, for they contain the hero's characterization as
"simple-minded." As the story progresses, we become increasingly
aware that Hans Castorp is by no means a "simple-minded" young man
in the derogatory sense of the term. Mann merely mentions Castorp's
simplicity to emphasize his faculty of meeting the countless
influences to which he is exposed and to resist the many
temptations to commit himself permanently to any view or cause.
This is, of course, the major theme of the novel: the lengthy,
cumbersome, and perilous road of Hans Castorp's self-education.The
opening sentences also contain the novel's other major theme: the
complexity and mystery of time. Throughout this book are countless,
recurring variations on the theme of time. As a newcomer, Hans
Castorp is exposed, first of all, to the thin air of the Berghof
and the bizarre silhouettes of dense forests and snowcapped peaks
surrounding it. Mann uses nature here to evoke new, unfamiliar
feelings in Hans, feelings of vagueness and timelessness feelings
which will he intensified later on as he ventures higher into the
regions of eternal snow and ice.Besides using nature to introduce
the newcomer to the sanatorium, Mann also uses Joachim Ziemssen,
Castorp's cousin. Unknowingly Joachim has taken on some of the
characteristics of the mode of life at the Berghof. And, one thing
in particular which confuses Hans about Joachim is the latter's
concept of time. It strikes Hans that Joachim's sense of time is
very haphazard. In fact, their conversation soon dwells on the
nature of time, so treasured in the "world below" and so
meaningless "up here" where there is little to demand its
observance except the routine of taking one's temperature. These
reflections on time now focus on the static quality of duration;
soon, however, Mann will be concerned with the linear and circular
aspects of time in the course of Castorp's growing
self-awareness.Hans Castorp is both appalled and intrigued by
Joachim's use of the collective "we" and his reference to life at
the sanatorium as "life up here." Mann's objective in having
Joachim express this sharp differentiation between the world
"above" and that "below" is twofold: On a philosophical level, it
underlines the deep gap between the artistic-intellectual realm and
the "normal" realm of average people. Here we have the author's
early romantic concept of the dichotomy between art on the one hand
and life on the other. On a political level, the sharp
differentiation of "above" and "below" points to the fact that the
Berghof is a sanctuary of disease and death. It stands as the
symbol of the sick, chauvinistic European society before World War
I; its isolation from the "normal" world is symptomatic of the
advanced stage of its disease.In terms of technique, the continued
use of "up here" as opposed to "down there" is interesting as an
example of Mann's basic irony, which the reader should bear in mind
regardless of how involved the political and philosophical battles
will become as the story moves on. Irony is, of course, based on
the insight that something is not necessarily and exclusively so,
and that sometimes, or at the same time, it is very different. In
other words, "up here" where the idle, sick, and decadent
predominate, Hans Castorp, though sick himself, will be physically
cured and morally uplifted in the end. "Down there" where "normal"
people are supposedly healthy, carefree, and thoroughly bourgeois,
disease and war abound.Joachim, Hans' cousin, speaks in terms of
"up here" and "down below," and, in matters of disease and death,
he has acquired a nonchalance which is typical of the whole
atmosphere. Here Mann lashes out at the decadence of society which,
while taking death for granted, nevertheless does everything in its
power to conceal it as shocking or thought-provoking. To Mann, life
and death are two aspects of one perennially recurring process, a
process which will figure prominently later on during the
discussion between Settembrini and Naphta.Dr. Krokowski is the
first major figure of the mountain world whom Hans meets. He is
characterized as the perfect personification of the Berghof, where
the sympathy of those in charge is not with life but with disease
and death. He has so morally deteriorated that he does not even
believe that a person can be completely healthy. He laughs at Hans,
who insists he came to pay a three-week visit and not for
treatment. Krokowski stands as the apostle of doom in a world where
physical, mental, and moral decay go hand in hand. As are many
other scenes, the dialogue between Castorp and Dr. Krokowski is
autobiographical in origin. During his three-week visit to a
sanatorium, Thomas Mann actually contracted a serious cough and was
advised by the assistant of the institution to join his wife in her
rest cure. Certainly sensitive and possibly even susceptible to the
lures of life at a tuberculosis sanatorium, he declined. "I
preferred to composeThe Magic Mountaininstead," he declared, "for
had I agreed to stay there, I may still be up there now."It is not
by accident that the political dimension of this novel, which will
assume a central position in Hans Castorp's educational process, is
introduced through an Austrian aristocrat. The Austro-Hungarian
monarchy is regarded as the chief bulwark against democracy by
Settembrini, perhaps Castorp's most influential mentor. The
aristocrat's deep-seated cough, indicative of the advanced stage of
his disease, irritates Hans considerably. The war at the end will
irritate him even more because he will be forced to take up arms.
Ironically, he will be killed in it in a war which was caused, to a
substantial degree, by the reactionary forces of the once glorious
and now quickly deteriorating Hapsburg empire, of which the
aristocrat is a symbol.Throughout this chapter, Mann already
employs the technique of the leitmotif (a short musical phrase
representing and recurring with a given character, situation, or
emotion). He uses it to point to similarities and changes in the
conduct of the characters or to tie together elements of dreams and
visions with others experienced in real life. Joachim, for
instance, keeps shrugging his shoulders in a manner he never used
to in the "world below," and Castorp unpacks the same brand of
cigars that he used to enjoy at his great uncle's and that he will
still smoke when the sanatorium will have taken to playing
"seventeen-and-four" in Chapter 7. The face cream Hans applies on
his sunburned cheeks reappears in his first dream at the Berghof.
The image of Joachim also appears in Hans' dream; Joachim's face is
as translucently pale as that of Dr. Krokowski. In Castorp's dream,
Joachim and the Austrian aristocrat ride down the mountain side
together on a bobsled. In this fashion, the other sanatorium
carries its dead down the mountain. Thus, by means of the
leitmotif, we get a forewarning of Joachim's death in the future.
It is easy to spin the theme of their joint ride down the mountain
a little further, charging it with political implication. They head
toward death together: Joachim, the German soldier, willing to live
and die for a cause, and the Austrian aristocrat, symbol of the
crumbling monarchy. Yet we should always bear in mind that Joachim
is not decadent and that Mann never condemns him. He is merely less
complex than Castorp, and when the latter or Clavdia Chauchat
teases him about his bourgeois values, they do so with a
considerable amount of envy.Joachim, in fact, is the only character
in the entire novel who does not tempt our hero. And he is the only
one who is not tempted by the various educators.Here, as throughout
the story, dreams and visions yield strangely fused images by
drawing on Castorp's past experiences and presenting them in new
contexts.C2This chapter is a flashback into Hans Castorp's (and
Thomas Mann's) childhood and adolescence, using the approach
employed inBuddenbrooksof trying to explain a man's thoughts and
actions in terms of those of his ancestors. More than all other
chapters of the novel, this one brings to mind Mann's observation
that it is difficult and not at all desirable to talk aboutThe
Magic Mountainwithout being aware of its indebtedness
toBuddenbrooks.The present chapter may not be as intellectually
brilliant as subsequent ones, but when it comes to humor, wisdom,
and perceptive observations on the species of the bourgeois, it
certainly measures up to Mann's first success.The autobiographical
elements of this chapter are as numerous as they are obvious. The
characterization of Hans' grandfather, Senator Castorp, as a man
holding family traditions and old institutions in far higher esteem
than the insane expansion of harbor facilities and the godless
sophistication of modern big cities corresponds to the picture we
have of the author's father, Senator Thomas Heinrich Mann of Lbeck.
Hans decides to take up shipbuilding as a career, but from the
outset he does not really care for his work. He merely respects
it.Here is a parallel to Mann's early experience as an employee in
an insurance agency. Just as Mann quit the insurance business to
lead the "useless" life of an artist, so Hans never gets beyond
taking his textbookOcean Steamshipsup to the Berghof, where he
forgets about it. Hans abandons his studies because he thinks his
"love of idle hours" will not permit him to work hard. Mann,
wondering what a working mood really is, answered his own question
in the form of a little essay in which he asserts that "the mood to
work that's having slept well, good books, fresh air, few people,
and peace."As the narrator points out, however, there is also a
deeper reason for Hans Castorp's dissatisfaction with his
envisioned profession, and it is not exaggerating to see as his
credo throughout the novel: "A man lives not only his personal
life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the
life of his epoch and his contemporaries. . . . It is quite
conceivable that he may be vaguely conscious of the deficiencies of
his epoch and find them prejudicial to his own moral well-being."
As the most perfect proof of this insight, Castorp will continue
his ambivalence and indecision even after catching a glimpse of
truth in the snow dream.Thus this chapter becomes the true starting
point of the educational journey of Hans. The close relationship
between him and his grandfather, meticulously dealt with and
culminating in the treatment of the family christening basin,
reflects the tradition of conservative values in which Hans (and
Thomas Mann) was reared. The detailed description of Hans' life
with Joachim at the home of Consul Tienappel also reflects the
conservative tradition; the atmosphere radiates gentility. Since
Hans has embarked upon a journey of self-education and, eventually,
meaningfulness, these descriptions serve to point to his
indebtedness to the "normal world below," which he never really
abandons. Hans, not at all "simple," can empathize with Joachim,
his clear-cut opposite in so many ways. And Mann, despite his
often-revised views and later engagement for the liberal cause,
never ceased to think of himself as rooted in his conservative
upbringing.Castorp's reminiscences extend to his early and repeated
experiences with death. Having lost his father, mother, and now his
grandfather, he has had ample opportunity to find out that there is
more to death than the mournfulness and solemnity of funerals There
is also a physical aspect to it, almost ordinary and common in its
raw materiality Dead bodies, he reasons, cannot be truly a sad
affair because sadness only prevails where life is concerned. These
reflections are on Castorp's mind as he stands by his dead
grandfather, who appears to be a life size wax doll to him, nothing
but lifeless material. Here Mann's favorite theme of the polarity
of life and death comes in. The noble and ignoble aspects of death
which little Hans experiences are the basis of the novel's
progression by opposites and contrasts. Throughout the book, the
discussion of these ennobling and dehumanizing aspects of disease
and death will be continued. Castorp himself is aware of these dual
aspects which predestine him for his intense sensual, intellectual,
and moral adventures.Of the many motifs Mann employs, that of the
recurring number seven stands out. Before Hans'
time,sevengenerations were initiated into Christian life by being
sprinkled with water from the family basin, andsevenyears have
elapsed since his own christening.Sevencontinues to play an
important role until the end of the novel: the patients of the
sanatorium are seated aroundseventables, which is significant
because of the function of food asthe"time killer" in the boredom
of the Berghof; the name of Castorp's great educator will be
Settembrini,settemeaningsevenin Italian; aftersevenweeks, Castorp
ponders how quickly time has elapsed for him, and at the night of
the carnival he will tell Clavdia Chauchat thatsept moisunder her
eyes have made him fall in love with her; when the thunderbolt of
the war awakens Hans from hisseven-yearspell on the Magic Mountain,
the narrator refers to him as aSeven-Sleeper.(A literal translation
of the GermanSiebenschlaferrefers to a rodent known for its long
hibernation period of seven months.) Plunged into the war, Hans
will have to march forsevenhours to reach the battle scene.
Finally, the novel is divided into seven chapters.
C3This chapter serves two main functions: that of introducing
Hans Castorp to real life at the Berghof and its director, Hofrat
Behrens, as well as to the two characters who will vie for his
attention from now on Settembrini and Clavdia Chauchat. Second, the
chapter opens the discussion on the nature of time, the novel's
other major theme.The peculiar impressions Hans Castorp collects
characterize the atmosphere of physical and moral decay prevailing
at the sanatorium. When Joachim introduces his cousin to several
patients at their first breakfast together, the array of characters
they meet affords them a glimpse of all the misery and falseness
that they will live with throughout their stay. Quaint little
habits, distinct accents, gross flaws, and most unusual looks
identify each of those assembled as the representative of his
specific profession or corner of the continent. All of them are
sick members of society. The fact that they are all extremely
wealthy is by no means a coincidence and adds to the vital social
and political implications of the book.Most memorable among the
minor characters Castorp meets here is perhaps Frau Sthr, whose
unbelievable stupidity and coarseness puts her on the lowest rank
of the social ladder at the Berghof. It is important to note that,
sterile, sick, and half-dead though the patients here may be,
socializing and the sham accompanying it does interest them as if
they needed it to simulate ordinary life "below." Like so many
other patients, Frau Sthr is forever anxious to cover up her total
lack of intelligence and education by carrying on high-brow
conversations and acting sophisticated. Her overly cultured ways,
which cannot hide her countless gaucheries, are symptomatic of her
society's essential barbarism. Here Mann proves himself a perfect
caricaturist, employing recurring leitmotifs and picking
picturesque, appropriate names. The consistently stupid expression
of Frau Sthr's face, for instance, is described in terms of her
"rodentlike teeth." As the story goes on, this set of teeth becomes
Frau Sthr. Also, her name means "sturgeon" in German and, spelled
slightly differently, "stubborn," which provides ample leeway for
the (German-speaking) reader's punning imagination. To top it all
off, Frau Sthr keeps boasting of the twenty-eight different fish
sauces she can fix.Thus, she is a perfect example of a patient
whose insensitivity and total lack of potential keep her disease
from working in her favor. In sensitive people like Castorp, a rise
in the fever curve signifies growing awareness, a sharpening of
intelligence. In the case of Frau Sthr, on the other hand, all
there is for tuberculosis to bring out is the purely physical
aspect of disease. She remains gross and stupid until the end. The
same will be true of Clavdia Chauchat, although her deficiency is
not one of intelligence. She will remain sensual and passive
throughout the book.There are other, more shocking instances of the
sham facade of the sanatorium world, such as the threats of Herr
Albin, a hopeless case, to commit suicide. Playing with his gun,
the young man meets nothing but angry protests from his fellow
patients, who are extremely eager to avoid any thought of death.
When they insist he will be cured if he only stopped toying with
his weapon, it is their cowardice they show and not their sympathy
for him. The more they pretend to console him, the more he feels
challenged to uncover their unwillingness to face reality. More
than that, Albin says that he is content with his fate because now
certain of his impending death, he can resign himself to idleness
such as he did in school when the teacher would not call upon him
anymore because his failure was a fact. Herr Albin's mention of his
high school days triggers a faint, first picture of Castorp's own
school days; he is startled by a "wild wave of sweetness which
swept over him." The remembering of his school days, of his school
friend Hippe, and the foreshadowing of the exchange of the pencil
with Clavdia has begun. This is one of the book's major
motifs.Joachim casually tells his cousin that many patients die
without anybody knowing anything about it because such "unpleasant"
events are handled with utmost discreetness. Physical illness, in
other words, is treated exactly like the moral sickness of
exaggerated class-consciousness; it is ignored. The doctors of the
sanatorium (the ruling politicians of the "world below") are
anxious to conceal death (moral bankruptcy) from the public. As a
result, the climate of pretense at the Berghof (in prewar Europe)
stands in eerie contrast to death, which rules supreme.The theme of
the ennobling and dehumanizing aspects of death, touched upon
previously in connection with Frau Sthr, figures prominently in
Castorp's reaction to Behrens' brutal treatment of dying patients.
Hans Castorp insists that a dying human being should be treated
with respect because he is always more venerable than "a chap going
about, laughing and earning his living, and eating three meals a
day." The sensitivity he showed long ago at his grandfather's
deathbed is still there, though he seems to have become less
certain that "sadness can only prevail where life is concerned." He
has begun to view life and death as two aspects of one and the same
thing.In connection with his heart palpitations, Castorp's
preoccupation with this subject comes out again. Later, Mann will
transfer its discussion to the level of purely philosophical
discourses between Settembrini and Naphta, but for the time being
Hans worries about his palpitations and remarks to Joachim, "it is
disturbing and unpleasant to have the body act as though it had no
connection with the soul." The dichotomy between body and soul,
life and death, is beginning to strike him as something to give
more thought to, something he will transcend as his self-awareness
grows.Joachim introduces his cousin to Settembrini, an Italian
gentleman of fine features and great learning. The apostle of
reason, progress, and humanism, he is one of Hans' chief mentors
throughout the novel. Revealing himself as a man of letters, he
goes about reciting Italian poetry and telling the cousins of his
translations of liberal thinkers. One of these men he translated
had composed a hymn to Satan himself-Satan in the form of unbridled
revolution. The Italian baffles Castorp by comparing his visit to
the Berghof with Odysseus' venture into the realm of shadows. To
Hans' objection that he hascome upseveral thousand feet,
Settembrini cynically replies that Hans has been a victim of an
illusion.Settembrini's admiration for Renaissance poetry and
figures of Greek mythology shows how much he lives in the liberal
Greco-Roman tradition. It also reflects Mann's sympathy with this
view, which he considered the most powerful reservoir of democratic
thought. Yet the lines of the Italian song, a fervent glorification
of revolution, point to the one shortcoming in Settembrini which
renders his views deficient and unacceptable as such to our hero.
Like so many front-line liberals, Settembrini cannot extricate
himself from the paradox of having to be dogmatic about his
liberalism. He is rather willing to wage war against Austria,
Russia, and the church. But his fanaticism also has a pedantic side
to it; insisting to Castorp that smoking has been despised by the
most brilliant thinkers in history because it befogs the mind, he
declares it a vice.Hans Castorp, the avid consumer of Maria Mancini
cigars, does not appreciate this at all, and we may rest assured
that Thomas Mann, a connoisseur of cigars himself, intended this to
be a bit of criticism of Settembrini. This will be extremely
important later on because it will supply Naphta, Settembrini's
reactionary adversary, with arguments he could barely have found
himself. Mann himself never advocated liberalism to the point of
condoning revolution, and, in his attempts to help democratize
Germany, he never ceased to be extremely critical of those who
would transplant Western-style democracy on German society without
modifying it to suit a different mentality. It would be Germany's
role to mediate between East and West, according to Mann, but never
to copy a political system. This mediating role, by the way, is one
aspect of Castorp's dream of the rising moon in the east and the
setting sun in the west (Chapter 4).No sooner has Settembrini,
whose exterior is described as forcing Castorp to "mental alertness
and clarity," entered into our hero's life than he begins to use
his keen powers of observation in Hans' favor. He inquires about
the "term" Hans has been sentenced to by "Minos and Rhadamanthus";
he lashes out most cynically at Behrens' greediness (underlined by
his standard expressionsine pecuniaand his invention of a separate
summer season for the Berghof); and he condemns the director's
conniving generosity toward a debauched prince who showed his
gratitude by conferring the title of "Hofrat" on him. The Hofrat's
sensuality will become obvious later on, especially in connection
with his hobby, oil painting. Spotting Dr. Krokowski, Settembrini
mentions the appropriateness of his black attire to Hans and is
shocked that the latter has not yet sized him up. Exhorting him to
use his eyes and reasoning power to arrive at lucid conclusions,
the Italian lapses into another praise of humanism and the related
art of pedagogy.Settembrini represents that force which never
hesitates to express direct honesty. He answers Castorp's charge
that he is too sarcastic in his efforts to eradicate wrong by
telling him that malice is the "animating spirit of criticism; and
criticism is the beginning of progress and enlightenment." In this
context, it is interesting to note that the Italian liberal very
much resembles Mann's brother Heinrich, with whose highly didactic
notions about art (especially political literature) he never
agreed. Settembrini was the name of a historical figure in Italy's
fight for unification, though the author never said he used it in
his novel for this reason.Whether Mann chose Settembrini's name
deliberately or not, the long battle between the Austrian empire
and the individual Italian states over unification and independence
(of which World War I was merely the final, most violent outbreak)
is a major theme on the novel's political level. Settembrini's
aggressive exposure of the relationship of Behrens (whose spurious
title Hofrat means "Imperial Counselor" and was once a meaningful
award for distinguished services rendered, but is used here as a
symbol of the declining monarchy's title-consciousness) with a
debauched member of nobility certainly fits this pattern of his
passionate anti-monarchistic feelings.When Castorp finds the
patient who keeps irritating him by slamming doors in the dining
hall, he is surprised at her attractiveness and, above all, by her
slanted eyes, protruding cheek bones, and the delicate, girlish
hand that pats her hair: "A vague memory of something, of somebody,
stirred him slightly and fleetingly as he looked." Clavdia
Chauchat's Asiatic features captivate him. Little does Hans know
that from now on his life is going to be increasingly influenced by
her presence. The fact that she is Russian and returns to the
Caucasus every once in a while to visit her husband accounts for
her sloppy behavior, an indication of her pronounced passivity,
sensuality, and irrationality in Mann's "system" of ethnic
characteristics.The strange fascination Clavdia Chauchat exerts on
Castorp leads to the latter's mounting confusion. Her effect on him
is such that at one point he cannot even muster up enough strength
to look at the blood he coughed up a clear symbol of the decay she
spreads. Clavdia is like a scintillating and pungent carnivorous
plant, enticing her prey by dulling its senses rather than by
striking out herself. She is not even aware of her devastating
influence on Castorp, this fact underlines her passivity. The
implications of her sensual and irrational character are eminently
political, as are the Russian couple who keeps offending Castorp by
promiscuously giggling and panting in the room next to his. Feeling
and irrationality (in the form of passivity and tyranny) are
"Eastern" characteristics; submissiveness and hierarchial order
their political expression.Mann simplifies, of course, but he
nevertheless has a point, as the political history of eastern and
central Europe has shown for hundreds of years. Whether ruled by
tsarist or communistic tyranny, whether ruled by Prussian power
politics or Nazi imperialism, eastern and central European (Slavic)
peoples have never had a democratic tradition to speak of, at least
not before the end of the twentieth century. (Hungarians have, but
they are not Slavs). It is not by accident that the obscene sounds
of the Russian couple are accompanied by the hackneyed tunes of
operetta music symbols of imperial Austria. This theme of "Eastern"
and "Western" traits will crop up again in connection with the far
touchier discussion of whether "intellectual literature" may be
pitted against "emotional music."Immediately after Castorp meets
Settembrini and Clavdia Chauchat, the two become embattled over
him. Asked about his age by Settembrini, Castorp has to think twice
before answering him correctly. Then, when he talks gibberish (his
temperature is consistently rising), the Italian advises him to
return to the "world below." This marks Settembrini's first
intervention in Hans' support. His second one comes that night in
Hans' dream when Hofrat Behrens advises him to while away his time
in pursuit of pleasure. Settembrini, in this dream, admonishes Hans
to resist the diabolic forces of Behrens, but Hans refuses to pay
any attention to his clear-headed advice. Yet the Italian realizes
Hans' condition and keeps up his warnings. In this same dream,
Castorp finds himself back in the school court of his high school,
where he borrows a pencil from Clavdia Chauchat. Toward dawn, he
dreams of her again, this time of the open, delicate hand, which
she offers him to kiss. This hand was the very first thing he
noticed about her, and now it triggers the same "wild wave of
sweetness" in him he experienced when he put himself in Herr
Albin's position earlier that day. The connection is evident: Herr
Albin was bound to die and played with the idea of committing
suicide; Castorp is moving toward his own death through Clavdia.The
emergence of Clavdia Chauchat in the school court is the most
thoroughly developed leitmotif in the novel, pulling together
episodes both real and imagined over long spans of time. The
leitmotif strongly suggests Mann's familiarity with Sigmund Freud's
theory of dreams. In fact, Mann studied them while writingThe Magic
Mountain.He was also familiar with Freud's psychoanalytical
experiments. Therefore it may not be too farfetched to see in
Settembrini, the great admonisher toward self-control and
responsibility, an embodiment of the hero's superego; Clavdia
Chauchat, the temptress toward sensuality, may then be seen as
Hans' id.We have made the point that Mann conceived of virtually
all of the novel's characters in terms of opposites; in fact, most
of them are defined in terms of their opposites. Settembrini and
Clavdia Chauchat form such a set of opposites, Settembrini and
Naphta later on; and Castorp with Joachim also. If the relationship
between the cousins was well characterized in Chapter 1, there are
new insights here with regard to Behrens. He prefers the more
pliable and susceptible character of Hans to that of Joachim, which
makes him think Hans would be a better patient than his cousin.
Joachim's overly reserved treatment of his girlfriend Marusja, on
the other hand, is an interesting parallel to Hans' budding love
for Clavdia Chauchat.As stated at the outset of this chapter,The
Magic Mountainis also a novel about the mystery of time. Chapter 3
introduces the subject explicitly in the form of a conversation
between the cousins. It develops out of Castorp's annoyance over
the tedious procedure of having to take his temperature four times
a day. Yet his annoyance is only seemingly insignificant, for it
soon turns out that boredom plays a very real role in any
discussion about time. Time, after all, is the correlative of
experience.As is to be expected from Joachim's uncomplicated
nature, he is quite willing to let the various time-measuring
devices determine what time is. Castorp, however, is more
sophisticated and argues that time is as long or as short as
oneexperiencesit. When Joachim, getting tired of "mental
gymnastics," contends that "a minute lasts as long as it takes the
second hand of my watch to complete a circuit," Hans is still not
satisfied. Considering Joachim's words, he concludes that we
measure time by space. It does not mean much to say it takes twenty
hours from Hamburg to Davos, for on foot it takes infinitely
longer, and in the mind not even a second. This notion of time as a
function of space will be developed further when Hans tries to find
some relationship between time and the circles he makes wandering
around in the snowstorm.Time is not merely a major theme of the
novel; it is also its medium. All of Chapter 3 deals only with
events during Castorp's first day at the Berghof. It begins exactly
where Chapter 1 ended with Hans getting up in the morning. The
point is clear: Once a newcomer has lived through one day at the
sanatorium, the best he can hope for as far as novelty is concerned
are new ways of fighting boredom and confusion. A day is like a
month is like a year at the Berghof, and all of it is like a spell
of uncertain duration. The static quality of time stands out. As
Castorp puts it on his first afternoon up there: "Good Lord, is it
still only the first day? It seems to me I've been up here a long
time ages."From now on, single chapters of the book will not treat
a day, but weeks, months, and even years of Hans Castorp's life. No
wonder, for as Hans reflects at one point, "A path is always longer
the first time we traverse it."C4Settembrini reproaches Hans
Castorp for accepting the old-fashioned view that disease is always
something noble even when it affects stupid people. But Castorp
claims that whenever disease or death is present in any form, he
develops his faculties to the utmost. Even coffins and funerals
have a peculiar appeal to him. "Cultural backsliding" is the term
that Settembrini uses to describe Castorp's notions. Settembrini
respects the body only as long as it presents no obstacle against
the attainment of freedom; as a consequence, he regards the sick
body with contempt.Important to note is the surprise Settembrini
expresses upon hearing that Hans Castorp has bought a blanket. The
blanket is the symbol of the rest-cure at the sanatorium, and the
rest-cure the symbol of temptation toward the dangerous spells of
timelessness. The Italian chooses the wordsplacet experiri(Latin
forhe likes to experiment) to express his surprise over Castorp's
decision to resign himself to life at the Berghof. The point is
obvious: Settembrini's keen mind sees the temptations of illness,
whereas our hero, pursuing a system of trial and error, is still
largely unaware of them. He is the seeker, the hero of
thebildungsroman, forever venturing on new paths and vacillating
back and forth between what he is and what he is led to believe he
should be.With the rest-cures comes plenty of leisure time, and
with the leisure time come all those countless dreams, visions, and
states of semi-consciousness which lend a mystical quality to this
basically highly intellectual story. No wonder that Castorp lapses
into another reflection on the nature of time.When Settembrini
joins the cousins on the occasion of a Sunday morning terrace
concert, they all become involved in a lengthy discussion on music.
Joachim stresses its relationship to time, and the Italian adds a
new dimension to the conversation by tying music up with politics.
Confessing his preference for intellectual pursuits, especially
literature, over music, Settembrini even declares music to be
politically suspect because it invites the mind to remain passive
and to lose itself in reverie. Joachim's reply affords us a rare
glimpse into his uncomplicated mind. He defends what he calls the
"moral value" of music by arguing that it has a way of dividing
time into measures and other units. This alone makes it possible
for him to enjoy time, which would otherwise remain one dull
continuum. Settembrini agrees with him insofar as music may defeat
boredom. Joachim is of course simpler than Settembrini, and this is
why he longs for the conveniently arranged daily routine of the
"world below."Settembrini then brings up the essentially emotional
quality of music. His view reflects Mann's lifelong notion of the
self-destructive element in the esthetic soul. This soul has a
tendency to affirm life only to the degree it can provide the
individual with purely subjective, esthetic experience. Opposed to
any moral view of life (Settembrini is, of course, a moralist), the
esthetic soul conceives of the total immersion of the individual in
contemplation as life's sole justification. It denies an
individual's responsibility to society and therefore tends to be
politically reactionary.That it can under certain circumstances be
dangerous for segments of a whole nation to be transported into
musical-emotional passion was proven, for instance, in Nazi
Germany. The Nazis enthusiastically extolled the operas of Richard
Wagner with their ancient Germanic sagas and highly emotional
music. The enormous appeal of this combination, unfortunately,
distorted Wagner's intention.We have seen Settembrini's enthusiasm
for literature, preferably that of classical and Renaissance poets,
and Hans Castorp's reluctance to share this enthusiasm. But, toward
the end of his stay in the mountains, Hans will sing and listen to
music, highly romantic music. This corresponds to Mann's belief
that the preference of music over literature is a German
characteristic (and a Slavic one), while "Western" civilization is
essentially founded on literary (intellectual) values. Even if he
is grossly oversimplifying (Italians, after all, have created
opera, though one can argue opera is not a purely musical genre),
Mann has a point: The musical tradition in central and eastern
Europe is a long one, and there simply is nobody of the stature of
a Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart outside the German world. By the same
token, it is easy to show that German literature never produced a
Dante or Shakespeare and cannot compare, either in terms of
tradition or quality, with that of the French barring, perhaps,
Goethe.The real problems, however, come in when Mann (or
Settembrini, Mann's rational aspect) tries to explain these
differences by assigning a basically emotional (irrational) quality
to music and an intellectual one to literature. Where does this
leave Milton, much of the seventeenth century, most of the
nineteenth century, or writers like D. H. Lawrence, to name but a
few? And where shall we put Bach's fugues, Mozart, and the highly
mathematical music based on Schnberg's twelve-tone scale? Mann was
treading on thin ice here, and he must have known it. More than
once did he stress the complex, musical structure ofThe Magic
Mountain,and the hero of his last novel,Dr. Faustus,is the composer
Adrian Leverkhn, an intellectualpar excellence.One could more
easily dismiss these interesting but deficient attempts at
classifying people and peoples by national traits if Mann had not
attached implicit value judgments to them. And this he clearly did.
Hans Castorp rejects many of Settembrini's ideas in an effort to
find his own way to a "humane" life, but he ismoreinclined to side
with the Italian's views than with those of Clavdia Chauchat or,
later on, Naphta. The autobiographical element and political import
are significant: Mann was farsighted enough to question the merit
of Western democracy when transplanted to Germany, yet there can be
no doubt that the older he became, the more he agreed with its
ideals. He despised tyranny, whether in Germany or the former
Soviet Union.Though these political implications of Mann's belief
in national-ethnic characterization are not the essence of the
dream Castorp has on a bench not far from the Berghof, they
dramatize it considerably. In this dream, our hero finds himself
back in high school, where his thoughts center around Pribislav
Hippe, his one-time schoolmate. Pribislav is of Slavic descent, has
greenish eyes and protruding cheek bones. Hans Castorp used to be
fascinated by his appearance though they had met only once when he
borrowed a pencil from Hippe. The parallel to Clavdia Chauchat is
obvious. Snapping out of his dream, Castorp realizes the long span
of time his mind has traveled and, still fighting spells of
dizziness, runs to attend a lecture by another Slav, Dr. Krokowski.
Our hero's stubborn nosebleed is a symptom of his deteriorating
condition, as is his spinning head. Yet Hans deliberately rushes to
suck in the poisonous analyses of love presented by the Polish
doctor. Each in a different way and each to a different degree,
these three "Eastern" people play a vital role in Castorp's
worsening condition.As indicated above, Hans' dream is remarkable
for another reason, namely the complex world of dreams with its
total suspension of the sequence of time. In a previous dream, Hans
Castorp found himself borrowing a pencil; he will do so in reality
in the carnival scene. Now that Hippe has been recalled, Hans is
aware of the connection between the school friend and Clavdia
Chauchat. In no other leitmotif does the inseparability of man's
conscious and unconscious levels of experience appear so
strikingly. Mann employs the leitmotif to enhance the vividness of
his characterizations and also to emphasize the similarities of
recurring situations.Does this blending of dreams and conscious
experiences mean that had it not been for his fascination with
Hippe long ago, he would never have felt attracted to Clavdia
Chauchat? Or the other way round, perhaps, that she, in some
inexplicable way, has existed in his mind even before he met Hippe?
Expressed in terms of psychoanalysis, has his repressed homoerotic
attraction to Hippe emerged as his desire for Clavdia? The answers
remain ambiguous.At any rate, Hans Castorp attentively listens to
Dr. Krokowski's analyses in an effort to get rid of his mounting
sense of confusion. The subject of the lecture is the inevitability
of conflicts between love and chastity. He contends that, although
in the minds of most people the ideal of chastity defeats the sex
drive, this drive is too strong to let itself be repressed.
Repressed physical love is the basis of disease. Dr. Krokowski's
arguments and his "ruthlessly scientific" ways make him the
irresponsible representative of the type of psychoanalyst who
naively believes in the possibility of solving people's innermost
problems throughrationalinvestigation. He speaks of the "redeeming
power of the analytic," and he looks "like Christ with his arms
outstretched and his head on one side." Nevertheless, his ambiguous
treatment of love and his mounting interest in magic make him the
apostle, not of love, but of sterility. Appropriately enough, his
office is located in the basement and is shadowed by "profound
twilight." In this atmosphere of pseudo-scientific sensuality,
Clavdia Chauchat's presence triggers another dream within Castorp,
one full of longing for her. Indeed, Hans' love for
herisdisease-forming, but his dreams are but symbols of his
physical and moral condition.Whenever his mind is not clouded by
Clavdia Chauchat's image, Castorp tends to doubt Hofrat Behrens'
ability and interest in the cure of his patients. Behrens was
seriously ill himself; therefore, can a former patient, one who has
perhaps not wholly recovered, really do anything for him and for
everybody else up here? Castorp is aware his own health is
dwindling, but he is already too sick, both physically and morally,
to want to do anything about it. More and more, Madame Chauchat
becomes the center of his life. When she is around, they find
ever-new ways of flirting and arousing each other's sensuality, and
when she is away on her occasional visits to her husband, he
daydreams about her. Hans Castorp is quickly becoming part and
parcel of the horrible ennui of this sanatorium existence.At the
same time, his ties to Joachim are growing weaker. The slight
trembling of his head at the very sight of Madame Chauchat is
another outward sign of his violent emotional involvement. One of
numerous leitmotifs of the novel, Castorp's trembling also serves
to point to the significance of inherited tradition: Hans' father
and grandfather suffered from inflammation of the lungs. Thus being
by nature "life's delicate child," Hans' disease affords him an
ever more lucid understanding of himself. It teaches him that the
body and the soul cannot be two separate realms, each following its
own laws. This is important to remember, for the ultimate
transcendence of this dualism is the professed goal of our hero's
painful journey toward self-awareness and humanism.The idea that
man is to an astounding degree molded by tradition is one of Mann's
favorite themes, and it is dealt with once more in this chapter.
Settembrini tells Castorp about his (Settembrini's) grandfather,
who devoted his life to the noble cause of the Italian revolution.
Hans replies by mentioning that his own grandfather was dedicated
to the cause of the traditionalists of that time, who ruled over
the very areas where Settembrini's ancestors had lived. Together
they discover the uniqueness of their grandfathers, who practically
fought each other, each convinced of the justice of his cause.The
trance Hans Castorp experiences while listening to the story of
opposing causes has political relevance. He remembers himself on a
lake in his native Germany, crossing over in a boat: The pale moon
rising in the east and the glowing sun setting in the west leave
him in a strange mood of twilight. The colorful and confusing
twilight stands for the impending political holocaust threatening
Germany. As we have said previously, this picture may also be
interpreted to illustrate Mann's favorite political idea that of
Germany as a saving mediating force between East and West. In any
case, once again a dream points into the future by means of an
image of the past.Settembrini continues to present himself in the
light of the rationalist who believes in the final victory of
democracy; he agrees with his grandfather's comparison of the
French revolutionary days with the six days of creation. He
explains that he became a man of letters because there is a close
relationship between humanistic thought and action on the one hand
and speech and writing on the other. The idea of the intellectual
superiority of literature is advanced again. Yet Hans Castorp is
not impressed, and he even pounds his fist on the table at so much
arrogance from the Italian. After all, Settembrini, as much as
anyone else, is what he is largely because of his ancestors. This
is Thomas Mann speaking, the apostle of tradition at his best.C5If
we stop to take a look at the course Hans Castorp's life has taken
so far, we will see that it has zigzagged between the two poles of
Settembrini and Clavdia Chauchat. Torn between their extreme
positions, Castorp has either reverted to the values he cherished
at the outset or has resorted to Joachim's simpler views which
amounts to almost the same thing. Yet our hero has also shown more
and more unmistakable signs of a tendency to eschew Settembrini's
cautioning influence and to succumb to the spell of Madame
Chauchat. Hans has now reached the point where he is drawn to her
ever more violently, the violence reinforcing the pace at which
this happens and vice versa. The Italian's warning that "Lilith"
the name he gives Clavdia Chauchat during the carnival night was a
Hebrew night demon devouring men does not help, nor does his
attempt to keep Castorp from Clavdia's lures by switching on the
light. On the contrary, Hans tells his mentor to leave him alone
and confides to her that words, thought, and light are pitifully
"republican" notions. Eventually, Hans Castorp's sensuality reaches
a point where it turns into self-debasement. Thus, Chapter 5
contains the juncture at which Castorp's course of life merges with
that of Madame Chauchat. From here on, the two will move apart
again, he to new intellectual and moral insights and she to another
sensual adventure. It is not by accident that in the two-volume
edition, Mann let the first volume end here.Mann has been
criticized for having created relatively lifeless, almost stylized
characters, and this objection has its point. With the exception of
Castorp, the seeker of his identity and ideal, most central figures
tend to reiterate certain ready-made ideas on how to master life.
There is no character development or change in outlook in any of
them. While this static quality may become rather boring to the
reader when it dominates a scene (such as the major dialogues
between Settembrini and Naphta, whose dialectic technique and
content one could almost copy from an encyclopedia), it is also
true that this quality emphasizes the aspect of time which Castorp
keeps calling the "dimensionless present." Besides, carriers of
fixed ideas facilitate the success of their respective educational
function. This, needless to add, is extremely important in
abildungsroman.This static quality is most obvious in Settembrini,
whom Hans calls "a mere representative without name." Innumerable
times Settembrini assures Hans that anybody living "up here" is
doomed and that he should leave. His intricate monologue on the
unity of life and death is the clearest manifestation of his monism
yet. There is no new or even different angle to his arguments, and
if anything at all strikes Castorp or the reader as different, it
is his growing haughtiness.Our "delicate child of life," on the
other hand, is susceptible to the diverse influences and assaults
upon him. Joachim, Settembrini, Clavdia, and Naphta are not only
outside forces acting on him; they are also components of his own
personality, pulling him in several directions and thereby enabling
him to learn. He is Castor and a bit of Pollux, the twin stars of
Gemini, as his name suggests. (If nothing proves that Mann
consciously derived Castorp's name this way, the twin-star image is
nevertheless highly appropriate.) Hans continuously undergoes
changes, and he always moves. His new, defiant reaction has never
been so evident as when Settembrini condemns the perversely lavish
concept of time of "those Parthians and Scythians" (Slavs). To
convince Hans of his view, Settembrini divulges his membership in
an organization propagating the self-perfection of man on the basis
of "objective" data. He continues that the organization has asked
him to compile a volume on the therapeutic values of world
literature to be printed in an encyclopedia entitledThe Sociology
of Suffering.He even invites Hans to join, but Hans declines.And,
indeed, how can the fanatical Settembrini, risking anything as long
as his cause is advanced, be so dedicated to "international"
organizations and "world" literature? How can he refuse to
acknowledge the reality of disease when his own disease keeps him
from traveling to a professional meeting? Mann picks sociology as
his target here, pointing to its unfortunately widespread mania of
treating social phenomena as though they obeyed the laws of the
natural sciences. The mere title of Settembrini's encyclopedia is
symptomatic of the cast of mind which confuses quantity with
quality. In short, Castorp is infuriated, and he means to let his
teacher know. He points up the grave inconsistencies in
Settembrini's philosophy-which would not be so bad if Settembrini
did not always pride himself on his "rational" and "intellectual"
powers. Above all, Hans begins to supply his own correctives to
Settembrini's thoughts, which he has accepted or at least listened
to without contradicting so far. The upshot is that Hans is
undergoing a decisive phase in his education. It is important to
remember, though, that our hero's refusal to go on swallowing his
educator's suggestions hook, line, and sinker is not merely the
result of his rapidly growing infatuation with Clavdia Chauchat:
His conviction that all these arrogant claims advanced by
Settembrini are false is real and justified. It is for the first
explicit indication we have that Castorp has come to see his road
as leading somewhere between these extreme positions he
encounters.Very much the same static quality marks Behrens'
behavior. His leading role on the magic mountain is becoming more
apparent now, thus justifying everything that Settembrini has
observed and that Castorp has surmised about him. Especially
Behrens' sensuality is disclosed, both through his hobby, oil
painting, and his addiction to the body, which has nothing to do
with medical concerns. Interestingly enough, it is again Castorp
who begins to react differently. His desire for Clavdia Chauchat
makes it extremely hard for him to bear the mere thought that
Behrens should have enjoyed her nearness to this degree while he
painted her. Waiting in line to have his X-ray taken, he meets her
as she comes swirling into Behrens' waiting room, and the thought
that the doctor should be able to lookintoher, as well asather,
sets Hans wild. Taking advantage of an accidental encounter with
the doctor, Castorp invites himself to Behrens' house because he
wants to see the painting. Appropriately, the desires of both men
are naked to each other and they meet in front of the nude painting
of Clavdia. Castorp tells his host that he (Hans) should have
become a doctor because he loves the human body. Asking Behrens to
tell him something about the functions of the skin and the glands,
he eagerly listens to the doctor explaining the intricate processes
to him during which physical or psychological stimuli arouse
certain external changes. Behrens winds up his lecture stating that
both life and death are but two forms of oxidation. "Living
consists in dying," he says, revealing his utter disinterest in
life by denying its uniqueness. This exaggerated delight in
particularly the skin and glands is symptomatic of a pathological
condition which craves the body, especially the sick body. This is
what Behrens and Castorp have in common. In the latter, this desire
is so strong that it drives him to rave about it to Clavdia, which
gives him some sort of surrogate satisfaction.Eventually Castorp
responds to Behrens as he does to Settembrini. Just as he now
contradicts his Italian mentor, he also uncovers Behrens' vices. He
takes the initiative: He has convinced himself of Behrens'
carnality, so he pries at the doctor to hear more about the science
of the body. In terms of the educational process Hans is
undergoing, this scene is significant because it shows his growing
self-awareness. The particular stretch of road he is traveling now
leads him straight to his downfall, but it is only by crossing
through darkness that he can emerge wiser. There can be no cure
without the danger of death, no purification without fire, and no
mercy without previous sin. This is Mann speaking, the great
admirer and expert on medieval philosophy.Behrens presides during
Walpurgis Night, pouring punch and conducting diabolic games in
reddish semidarkness. According to legend, witches met the devil
during Walpurgis Night (April 30-May 1) for a night of revelry on
the Brocken Mountain. (Mann took much of this scene from
Goethe'sFaust). The symbolism of Behrens' drooping posture
dominating the magic mountain revelry is obvious. Mann resorts to
an old literary tradition, namely that of seeing the world of
clowns and jesters as the only real one. Castorp experiences this
night as he might experience a dream. Dreams, too, have stood for
windows into a higher reality throughout literature not only here
but in other Mann stories (Death in Venice). Thus Mann uses two
specific means here of stressing the scene's character of
revelation. That disease is the catalyst of any comprehension of
reality goes without special mention; it is one of the major themes
of the novel.The Walpurgis Night scene is central not only because
it contains the climax of Castorp's irrationality but also because
it elevates the novel's main leitmotif of the borrowed pencil from
the world of vague reminiscences into that of the very real party
game conducted by Behrens for his guests. Castorp experiences the
entire evening "like a dream," but he wants to participate in the
pig-drawing contest, so he approaches Clavdia Chauchat for a
pencil. Confronted with her, he turns pale, realizing the parallel
between this situation and the others he has lived through in
dreams (and, in reality, during his school days). Clavdia lends him
the pencil, using the very words Pribislav Hippe once used when he
lent Hans a pencil for a drawing lesson at school. Essential
questions are posed: Is Castorp experiencing the same thing over
and over again, though under slightly different circumstances and
in varying degrees of consciousness? Has he known Clavdia before,
and if so, in this world or in another? Where do dreams end and
where does reality begin if, indeed, they may be pitted against
each other as though they were mutually exclusive?Psychologically
speaking, this scene is a masterpiece, as is also proven by Mann's
insistence on having his hero address Clavdia in French. He carries
on a rather intimate conversation with her and eventually confesses
his love to her, allen franais.The reason is that he, like all of
us, finds it easier to express something delicate or embarrassing
in a language whose subtle nuances he cannot tell apart and for
which he is therefore not responsible. The author picked French
simply because at that time, French was the important language of
international communication; in this connection, we remember that
Castorp practiced it with Tous-les-Deux, the Mexican lady, long
ago.We have made the point that while Settembrini and Clavdia
Chauchat (later on Naphta and Mynheer Peeperkorn) are relatively
static characters because they are vehicles of different ideas,
Castorp is the one character who, being confronted with opposing
views, keeps moving by steering an in-between course. The thin
mountain air merely brings out his disease, which in sensitive
people like him becomes a yardstick of his growing self-awareness
and, thus, his education. This is what Castorp means when he
confides to his cousin that "down below," all the intriguing
discussions with Settembrini, for instance, would not have meant
anything to him.Now one must consider some of the indications that
Hans' condition has grown worse. First, Hans' fever curve has
steadily gone up, typically enough and most conspicuously, whenever
he either dreams of Clavdia or when he sees her. In fact, Hans has
reached the point where hewantsto be sick and triumphantly writes
home that his rising temperature necessitates his prolonged stay at
the sanatorium. If so far he has been largely unaware of the perils
endangering him, he is now defending himself against Settembrini's
warnings in spite of the fact that he understands the Italian's
concerns. Nothing does he dread more than the removal of the
protective veil of his clouded senses, which affords him the
destructive nearness of Clavdia Chauchat. As a result, Hans not
only foregoes his own judgment but also begins to let himself go.
Neglecting his posture at the table (where much of life at the
Berghof goes on) and slamming doors behind him, he takes on the
contempt of form and composure so characteristic of Clavdia.
Illustrating moral deterioration through the dissolution of form,
Mann makes the point that content and form are but two aspects of
one and the same thing. This issue, already dealt with on an
intellectual level in the discussion between Castorp and Behrens,
is of course only a variation on the underlying theme of the
dualistic view of life which Castorp seeks to overcome.The quickly
changing weather, which is employed throughout the novel as an
indication of the different values governing the Berghof world,
upsets our hero less and less. His response to the surface heat of
an Indian summer concealing the coming winter frost sheds light on
his diseased condition one of "mingled frost and fire." Oblivious
to the fact that it is October, he overcomes his confusion about
the strong sun rather quickly and, more and more susceptible to
sensual stimulation, thoroughly enjoys the heat. Now Hans is sick
enough to accept the suspension of the natural sequence of time as
"normal." Few things indicate the true condition of life on the
magic mountain (in prewar Europe) thus, why should the weather
follow the calendar?The scene in which Castorp and his cousin look
at each other's skeletons in front of the X-ray screen also points
to our hero's mounting confusion and awareness of his disease.
Looking at his bones, he is startled by the memory of an old aunt
of his who had the strange talent of seeing people who were about
to die as skeletons.Hans' growing self-awareness leads him to take
up serious reading, which is the prerequisite for any new insights.
He concentrates on books dealing with the origin and composition of
life, which is described as neither exclusively matter nor spirit
but as something resulting from an interaction between the two. The
more Castorp reads about the human body, the more he appreciates
life. He realizes that his old notions about death as an
independent force are wrong; they would keep him from enjoying life
to the fullest. Nevertheless, he still clings to the idea of death
and disease as something noble and so sends flowers and messages of
hope to patients about to die. Yet Hans' well-meaning consolations
lead to offenses and unintended cruelties in several instances,
proving Settembrini right in urging him "to let the dead bury their
dead." Taking the balance between intellectual and physical life as
the goal of his reading, Hans moves further ahead on the road whose
end brings the transcendence of all the dichotomies invented by man
(and Mann).Yet our hero, "life's delicate child," also travels
another path toward self-realization and self-awareness, which is
the reason why in his reading he dwells on pathology. As has been
indicated, CastorandPollux make up Hans' soul. Nothing is really
"simple" about him, and just as the several characters shaping his
mind may be interpreted to be something akin to the different
aspects of his (the average man's) consciousness, Castorp's own
actions and reactions often seem to belong to different patterns of
behavior. Indeed, the monolithic Castorp, cast out of one mold and
consistent within himself, does not exist. He cannot exist because
he is man depicted in the agonies of his lifelong battle toward
self-realization. Hans' avid reading of books on pathology only
seems to contradict his other reading. Castorp, the representative
of us all, is fighting within himself, as when he says to Clavdia
that "There are two paths to life: one is the regular one. . . .
The other leads through death that is the spiritual way." There are
different approaches to life for different people, but there are
also different souls within one and the same person.In terms of the
reading Castorp does, this means that his delving into problems of
pathology corresponds to that part within him which emphasizes
disease as something positive. In his sick state, our hero's
principle is pure feeling, which he readily admits. And since there
is nothing like disease to provide undiluted feeling, he craves
disease as a form of lust. The cause and symptom of his disease is
Clavdia Chauchat, and what he experiences when he sees her is an
intense and undecided battle between pain and lust. As a direct
result of all his abstract reading, Castorp falls asleep and lapses
into a rather sensual dream of Clavdia's embrace and lingering
kiss. As the undisputed painter of human psychology that he is,
Mann admirably succeeds here in depicting man's different levels of
consciousness as one large reservoir.The treatment of human
experience as essentially one reservoir, of which the various
dreams and visions are but the most paramount expression, is
closely tied up with the treatment of time. And time, as we have
seen in connection with the carnival scene already, figures
prominently in this chapter.At the beginning of Chapter 5, the
narrator reveals that the description of Castorp's life at the
Berghof will not take up nearly as much time as it has so far. This
does not contradict what was said above, for it means that, unlike
Chapter 1, which dealt solely with the newcomer's experiences
during his first day, all subsequent chapters are not commensurate
with the span of time they describe. This is consistent with
Castorp's often-expressed belief that time passes quickest whenever
a change of place is involved, and that after a while longer,
periods can easily be condensed into relatively little space
because they are not experienced as the same long periods any more.
The novel, let us not forget, attempts to convey the sense of time
as Castorp experiences it.The discussion of time now moves in the
direction of what the author symbolically calls "soup everlasting."
It appropriately describes the condition in which the sanatorium
patients experience the fading away of past and future, their
gradual blending into one indiscernible present. The soup they
always get for lunch is the only reality for them because it comes
regularly and divides up this uncertain something called "day." But
nobody really knows whether it comes once a day, twice a day, or
only every other day. Since this "eternal now" is increasingly hard
for them to bear, they try to counteract it by various hobbies:
Settembrini sticks to his reading and writing, Joachim has taken to
studying Russian to survive, and Castorp reads copiously or keeps
track of the days by arranging dates with Clavdia.Then, during the
night of the carnival, Castorp's enchantment widens his experience
of time to include magic touches of fulfillment. They are fleeting
touches, to be sure, which do not bring the fulfillment of his
longing as such. Fulfillment would be the end of all longing and
would hardly justify Castorp's further adventures toward
self-awareness and his own way of life. Yet, stammering his
confessions of love to Clavdia, he raves that sitting with her is
like a dream. The present and eternity have ceased to be two
opposite aspects of time. From now on, Hans Castorp experiences
them as one long, vague mystery.C6Now that Walpurgis Night is over
and Clavdia Chauchat has departed, Castorp takes off the fool's cap
she put on his head and returns to studying botany. Left with
nothing but Clavdia's farewell present and the framed X-ray
portrait of her upper body, he slowly moves away from her and
further up the path toward self-awareness. Now the path will lead
steeply upward and Castorp will reach its high point during the
snow adventure. Settembrini, of course, is unable to see that it is
not only in spite of, but because of, his involvement with Clavdia
that Hans resumes his search for knowledge and insight.
Settembrini's understanding of Castorp's education does not go
beyond the cynical inquiry of how Hans enjoyed the "pomegranate" of
sensuality, suggesting that one who has tasted of the fruit of
perdition is irretrievably lost. More than ever, Settembrini now
appears as the moralist and rationalistpar excellence,one who
dismisses disease as mere illusion, the result of a lack of reason.
In this context, it is interesting to note that Settembrini never
actually meets Clavdia, the embodiment of what he battles against.
Just how obstinate Settembrini is becomes clear when he, convinced
of his hopeless condition, says that he will move into the town of
Davos to complete his work for the encyclopedia. The subject of his
contribution, it will be remembered, amounts to an attempt to
conquer disease and death by denying its essence.If Settembrini
represents the purely ethical approach to life, the equally
intellectual Naphta, whom he introduces to the cousins, represents
the purely esthetic one. Extremely intense and lost in their
respective positions, these two adversaries charge the sanatorium
atmosphere with sheer mental brilliance. There is one trait in
Naphta that makes him radically different from Settembrini: As an
intellectual, Naphta is doomed by his irrational mentality to fight
his rationality. This renders him a living paradox which he will be
driven to solve eventually by committing suicide.Naphta exerts a
greater influence on Hans Castorp than Settembrini because our
hero, in a way the embodiment of both his educators, is sensitive
enough to respond to this tension in the newcomer. It is that part
of Naphta he cannot grasp which fascinates him most, thus proving
Naphtha's point that humanity always tends to be drawn to the
irrational elements rather than those that lend themselves to
rational analysis.All the endless discussions between Settembrini
and Naphta deal with the question of whether or not a monistic
principle prevails in the cosmos (as the Italian contends) or
whether spirit and matter are engaged in eternal conflict as two
autonomous forces (as the Spaniard claims). It is important to
understand that estheticism is related, in Mann's view, with
disease and, ultimately, death. This is also a part of
Schopenhauer's ultra-romantic philosophy in a nutshell: the purely
esthetic, sensual, and mystical mode of life as the great
temptation toward death, the final consoler.The discussions of
Naphta and Settembrini cover a wide variety of subjects, beginning
with politics and soon involving theology. Settembrini argues that
natural law alone is the basis of democracy, whereupon Naphta
replies that the concept of natural law is but a mutilation of
divine law and that the so-called democratic ideal is merely the
last attempt of the West to fend off the new order already building
up in the East. When the Spaniard learns that Settembrini is a
Freemason, he does not hesitate to call this organization a
surrogate for the church and claims its success is not the result
of the principles of enlightenment it cherishes but of its mystical
rituals. At one point, when Castorp is overwhelmed by a beautiful
fourteenth-centurypieta,Naphta, to whom it belongs, says it is
natural for Hans to be overwhelmed because only spiritual beauty
reaches real intensity. Settembrini counters that he prefers
Greco-Roman art with its balanced proportions to Gothic art with
its emphasis on physical distortion in the interest of the
spiritual. In reality, the Italian continues, Naphtha's exaggerated
enjoyment of thepieta'sexpression of pain illustrates his desire
for the experience of the purely physical; suffering always
intensifies this experience, often to the point of a perverted
sensuality. Naphtha's sympathy with disease even makes him argue
that the sick people of the world would lose their status of
priority in life and the healthy ones their best chance to gain
salvation (through practicing charity) if there were no misery.
Settembrini defends rationality to an absurd point, claiming to
have healed insane people merely by looking at them "rationally."
The relationship between esthetic appreciation, sensuality, and
death is an integral part of Castorp's gradual spiritual growth, as
was demonstrated most explicitly in his study of pathology and
Behrens' sinister role in it.From thepieta,the discussion of the
two men switches to the Inquisition, whose cruelties Settembrini
cites to make Castorp think twice about Naphtha's ideas on
suffering. The Spaniard retorts, however, that even the worst
tortures of the Inquisition were committed to save souls, something
that cannot be said of the butchering of the French Aconites, who
were convinced that when they killed a man they killed all of him
body and soul for good. Naphta corners Settembrini by telling him
that if he understood the essence of the Inquisition, he would know
that rationalists of his (Settembrini's) kind instituted it.More
than ever before, Mann demonstrates his thorough familiarity with
medieval philosophy and that of its forerunner, St. Augustine. The
heading "Of the City of God" is a direct translation of St.
Augustine's masterpiece, and "Deliverance by Evil" reflects his
concept ofFelix culpa(literally, "happy guilt"), whose essence is
that deliverance can come only through sin and subsequent
repentance. These ideas run through the entire novel, and although
they are never wrapped in religious terminology, Mann justifies
Castorp's disease as the prerequisite for his growing maturity.
When Settembrini carries on about the merits of the rationalistic
work ethic of the "West," Naphta comes back at him by explaining
the teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century
theologian. His symbology of humanity's progress toward perfection,
which was a progression toward pure contemplation, was "Western"
too; this is of course the main point Naphta wants to make.The
trouble is that neither Settembrini nor Naphta really understands
Clairvaux. For Settembrini, the dawn of humanity begins with the
Renaissance at best (really with the French Revolution). His mind
is therefore incapable of comprehending the full meaning of a
symbol: Negating any non-rational component within him, a symbol
remains inaccessible to him. All he gets out of Clairvaux is a
cheap distortion of the symbol of the "bed of repose," standing for
communication with God. Here we have an aspect of Settembrini which
is too easily overlooked: He, too, has strong touches of sensuality
about him, but he does not grant them room. Like disease, he simply
suppresses the urge for sex, and when its pressures become too
strong, he transfers his reaction to the level of jokes. In this
connection, the reader may recall some of his crude approaches to
female patients at the very beginning, which caused Castorp to call
him a windbag. Denying humanity's sensual level of existence, he is
bound to be a prude. Naphta, on the other hand, reacts in the other
extreme. Although well-versed in theology, he, too, is a victim of
his extreme and therefore wrong position. He cannot derive anything
but voluptuousness from the spirit dwelling in the body.Naphta's
voluptuousness again becomes apparent when he questions Settembrini
as to whether monism does not bore him. Humanity, according to
Naphta (whose name, incidentally, is also that of a flammable,
volatile liquid) does not long for liberty, but for terror.
Communism, of which early Christianity availed itself, may
therefore get along very well with Catholicism, he argues, although
the two are opposites in terms of their beliefs. His views, always
preferring some form of error to compromise, are rooted in his
conviction that death is an independent force. At Joachim's
deathbed, he goes so far as to assert that virtue cannot be where
there is reason, nor has religion anything to do with reason and
morals because it has nothing to do with life.What keeps drawing
the two adversaries toward each other may also be expressed in
terms of what they lack. Settembrini's deficiency is that he lacks
an entire sphere of human existence the intuitive or spiritual one;
Naphta's flaw is that he lives only in this sphere. By carrying
their deficiencies to absurd extremes, each of these men forfeits
his own standpoint which, up to a point, makes sense. Mann stresses
the futility of their intellectualism in the face of ultimate
reality a reality which kills both Settembrini and Naphta. Castorp
is fascinated by their brilliance, but he has matured enough to
realize the countless contradictions within each "system," much
less between the "systems" and the men advocating them. He
gradually arrives at a more harmonious view of the world. When
Joachim insists they did not come to Davos to get wiser, but
healthier, Hans reminds him that these inconsistencies are only
superficial ones and that they ought to be reconciled. "Dividing
the world up into two hostile camps," Castorp chides his cousin,
"is a grievous error, most reprehensible."As implied above,
Naphta's views are not all wrong, as, indeed, Settembrini's are not
all wrong. What the Spaniard propagates is wrong only in that it is
carried to self-defeating extremes. Suffering and disease may
indeed intensify experience beyond that which is accessible to the
"healthy" and "normal." The diseased organism, as Castorp's case
illustrates, may be more restless and therefore more eager to
learn; more sensitive and therefore more capable of learning;
closer to physical dissolution and therefore more "spiritualized."
Almost by necessity, the superior human being is in some way
deficient or, expressed differently, diseased. This is why
perfectly balanced or "normal" people tend to be average people; it
is also the reason they do not come to grief as easily as do
sensitive ones. They take, as does Joachim, the "direct" path to
life.Naphta's failure does not consist in preaching these basically
true aspects of life but in raising them to the position of
exclusiveness. There is little doubt, for instance, that the vast
majority of people really need some kind of authority more,
certainly, than Settembrini thinks, who judges people by his own
demand for freedom. Freedom, however, is no absolute good, nor is
anything else if elevated to exclusiveness. Although Naphta is
right in principle, he fails here because he winds up advocating
outright terror. Similarly, the discrepancy between his justified
reply to Settembrini that it is naive to judge the Inquisition by a
modern-day standpoint and his reactionary defense of medieval
practices in today's church is frightening. It is both absurd and
dangerous to propagate these practices in a time that has long
since given up the theological prerequisites for them. (To
understand the Inquisition, we must understand its underlying
belief that the soul's salvation presupposes the death of the
guilty body.)Thus, Mann takes sides neither with Settembrini nor
with Naphta but remains eager to advocate the ideal of aloofness
from all extremes. As a result, his approach is essentially ironic.
Irony keeps him from the danger of seeing somebody or something
only from a certain angle and only at a given moment. Mann is a
great believer in the elusive quality of reality, and he prefers to
depict its myriad, scintillating moods rather than supply a system
of neat little tags.Hereditary and environmental factors, which
Mann emphasizes as most instrumental in forming man, enhance this
irony. Their discussion is resumed here at precisely the points
where Naphta is about to drive home an idea to Settembrini or
Castorp. It immediately reduces Naphta to the level of a product of
his heritage: his Jewish ancestors, the cruel customs of his native
Poland, and the accident that led him to Catholicism. The Spanish
and the "Eastern" characteristics of Mann's ethnic "system" are
accountable for Naphta's irrationality, cruelty, and sympathy with
disease and death.We have seen that each of the novel's characters
is described in terms of another one, and often in terms of its
opposite. One of these sets of characters is Hans Castorp and his
cousin Joachim Ziemssen. Now, more than ever before, we can measure
Castorp's growing self-awareness (and confusion) by the
increasingly violent reactions of Joachim here. Joachim responds to
his cousin's growing interest in botany, for instance, by telling
him he understands him less than ever before. If Castorp gets tired
of the intellectual fireworks of his discussion partners, he
nevertheless derives insights from them. This is not true of
Joachim: All he remembers of these discussions is Naphta's Jewish
nose. Typical of a mind that judges by "racial" characteristics
(essentially different, it must be stressed, from Mann's ideas on
ethnically conditioned modes of behavior), Joachim refuses to think
because thinking only confuses matters. Again Mann's irony forbids
him to side with Castorp against his cousin. The purely
intellectual approach to life is quickly shown to be inadequate
and, using the farcical suicide later on, even as
self-destructive.The situation between the cousins climaxes when
Castorp explains to Joachim that the sudden, unusual change in
weather is merely the outward sign of the unusual state of affairs
on the magic mountain. Joachim's impatience with Hans erupts
because the latter has matured enough to accept this change. (Once
upon a time, the reader will recall, our hero was utterly confused
by the unusual climate.) Joachim makes plans to leave, demanding
that Behrens let him return to the army; because he is a military
man to the core, he departs. Before Joachim leaves, however, he
implores Hans to follow him while there is still time. He even
calls Hans by his first name. (Settembrini, too, will call him by
his first name at the outbreak of the war.) Hans does get Behrens'
permission to leave but then refuses to go.Irony plays an important
role in Joachim's life. He, who has literally lived for the day he
would be permitted to return to the world of law and order, is
forced to give it up again because of his failing health; and, to
make things worse, he has to return to the sanatorium just when the
maneuvers, a symbol of strict obedience to authority, are about to
begin. Not only his serious attacks, but also his behavior his
overly reserved treatment of his girlfriend Marusja, for instance
indicate his death is near. Nothing can keep him, however, from
formally applying for an extension of his leave. Never has he
ceased to be a deeply committed man.Eerily and symbolically enough,
the beard growing around his dying face gives him the added
likeness of an honorable warrior. It is true that Joachim has been
sick all along, but he contracted his deathblow while he was with
his unit "down below." He is a victim of fanatical call to duty,
and "honor was the death of him," as the cynical Behrens sums it
up. Appropriately, he is buried in a soldier's grave pierced by
roots-the roots which never permitted him to become exposed to any
flights of fancy. He is responsible for his own death, but
contentment and harmony on his deathbed are the reward for his
moral life. Joachim is, as our hero will explain to Clavdia, the
prototype of the kind who travels the "regular, direct, and honest"
path to life.There are other confrontations besides that between
the cousins which exemplify the degree to which Hans Castorp has
become part and parcel of the sanatorium world. Uncle Tienappel's
arrival and his sudden departure serve no other purpose than to
show the futility of his attempt to retrieve our renegade hero. It
also illustrates convincingly how James Tienappel, like every other
sensitive newcomer, becomes inevitably embroiled in the lures of
the magic mountain and would, if he stayed, be privileged (and
condemned) to share his nephew's fate. In fact, this new ambassador
of the flatlands goes through the same dizzying experiences Hans
once went through. And the heavy tongue, the feverish head, and the
protruding veins all seem, in Behrens' opinion, to indicate that he
is sick enough to stay "up here." Also, the uncle's sexual
excitement mounts, and, as was the case with Hans long ago, he
shows it not only by approaching a sensually attractive lady
patient, but by asking Behrens to describe the process of physical
decomposition to him. The thematic leitmotif of the affinity
between sensuality and an exaggerated concern for the body's origin
and makeup is taken up again. As one more parallel sensation which
we remember from Hans' earlier days, Uncle Tienappel's sense of
time becomes vague and his self-assurance begins to dwindle. Hans
Castorp fully understands his uncle's reactions as those of initial
adjustment-even though he is beyond them now. New insights have
slowly led him away from the deep sensuality of his days with
Clavdia (the fact that she is away has, of course, helped him), and
his concept of time has lost its haunting vagueness because he has
become used to it. "We don't feel the cold" is the stereotype with
which he counters his uncle's complaints, emphasizing the different
standards of the mountain world and his loyalty to them.Like
"Walpurgis Night," the section entitled "Snow" warrants separate
treatment. As far as Hans Castorp's educational process is
concerned, the two sections are opposites. "Snow" brings Castorp's
temporary attainment of his ideal whereas "Walpurgis Night" brought
a temporary abandonment of an ideal. Both scenes are perfect
battlefields for the forces of reason and sensuality in Castorp's
life. And, as in "Walpurgis Night," Settembrini's warnings (the
very words he shouted after Hans at the carnival) and Clavdia
Chauchat's enticements (here in the form of the recurring mention
of the pencil motif) play a leading role in this battle. That these
warnings and enticements are the product of Castorp's overwrought
imagination merely heightens their vividness and increases their
effect. The present scene, with all its hallucinations and visions,
superimposed upon each other, drawn together by leitmotifs, and
whirling around in the emerging circular concept of time, reflects
as a microcosm the scintillating macrocosm of the whole magic
mountain world. Our hero's wanderings among the marvels of this
world are condensed here in the hike away from the Berghof and his
almost fatal entanglement with nature.Fascinated by the
phantasmagorical landscape of an unusually deep winter, Castorp
decides to learn how to ski so that he can venture into higher
altitudes. This climb exposes our hero to the danger of succumbing
to the awesome power of undiluted nature. On several previous
occasions, the climate has been called unusual, but here the
aspects of extremity and incalculability prevail. Described as
"blinding chaos" and "white dark," snow is the paramount symbol (as
sand will be in Chapter 7) of confusion, the harbinger of Castorp's
sympathy with death.This sub-theme of snow symbolizing death finds
its most explicit expression in Castorp's musings about snowflakes
as too symmetrical and therefore opposed to the principle of life.
He has outgrown his teacher Settembrini's notion of life as
something regular, consistent, and purely rational. On the
contrary, his studies of nature have shown him that these qualities
are represented purest in inorganic nature. At the same time, he
loves snow and enjoys it with an eminently defiant attitude. Hans
is aware of his growing distance from the sanatorium, but he
continues to climb and dismisses his own misgivings as "cowardice."
His voracious appetite for primitive nature triggers the
association with Clavdia Chauchat in him, thus demonstrating that
his craving for the experience of nature is but another form of
sensuality. He has never ceased to toy "with forces so great that
to approach them nearly is destruction." Nowhere else is the close
proximity of supreme insight and death so frighteningly revealed as
during this almost fatal, yet indispensable, adventure. The
blinding fury of the snowstorm, the vivid presence of Clavdia's
greenish eyes touched off by the reflection of blank ice, the
effects of a glass of wine all these combine to drive him on.
Having lost his bearings, he moves around in circles and loses his
sense of time. This is Schopenhauer's philosophy about the
inviting, soothing quality of death. Yet it is Schopenhauer about
to be overcome by Goethe's life-asserting humanism in the ensuing
vision.The vision Hans Castorp has while standing up against a
cabin is the most comprehensive and profound of his many intrusions
into the mysteries of life and death. More lucidly than any other
one, it affords him a glimpse into the dual nature of human
existence and quickly leads him on toward his triumph the
transcendence of dualism. That it springs directly from his
exhaustion is consistent with the idea, dominant throughout the
novel, that disease and suffering are, in the last analysis,
positive forces serving spiritual growth provided that they
arenotgranted independence apart from life.Not white, gray, and
black, but green, blue, and gold are the colors of the world of
perfect harmony Hans sees. Glimpses of a luxuriant park where he
watches the serene "children of the sun," mythical figures
symbolizing the life-asserting forces, play among antique buildings
and mingle in Castorp's mind with faint memories of happy holidays
at the Mediterranean. A boy standing apart from his playmates and
alternately smiling at Hans and the vision of harmony he shares
with him, suddenly looks past him, his expression reflecting
horror. Following the boy's eyes, Hans Castorp now sees a landscape
of crumbling temples and a baby being dismembered by two witches,
symbols of the dark forces slumbering in humanity. Desperately
trying to escape the bloodthirsty vividness of his dream, Hans
Castorp wakes up. Checking his watch, he realizes that all these
visions of bliss and horror have been crammed into only a few
minutes. Time lasts as long as we experience it.Hans Castorp knows
he has glimpsed into the future state of social bliss, but also
into what Settembrini terms "cultural backsliding," which always
lurks behind it. The scene is highly symbolic, the countless
allusions to Mediterranean civilization (the Italian tenor, the
mention of Naples, Sicily, and Greece) suggesting Mann's belief in
the rational and peaceful quality of "Western" life and the
"moss-covered" and "weathered" temples, the statue's "empty
eye-sockets," and the gray witches suggesting the decayed world of
political reaction. The sunny and shady sides of the temples
represent the dual aspects of man, his reason and his
irrationality.What is new about this dream is the purely negative
aspect of death and the disgust with which Castorp treats it. There
is not a trace left of the temptation to surrender to it that he
displayed only a few minutes ago. Pondering his vision, Castorp
realizes that man dreams not only individually, but also
communally; that he who knows the body, that is, life, also knows
death; that all "interest in disease and death is only an
expression of interest in life" in short, that man is the master of
opposites just as he is their inventor. He now sees the utter
sterility of the intellectual efforts of Settembrini and Naphta,
neither of whom will be able to solve anything without the spark of
love. It cannot be man's task to fight life in the name of
unbridled reason (Settembrini) or to throw humanity back into
barbarism by advocating the abandonment of all reason (Naphta).
Since abstract systems can only be born of man, he must be superior
to them. Thus Castorp now vows to side with man, who alone is worth
fighting for, and to let death have no "sovereignty over his
thoughts."Castorp, it seems, has accomplished his goal. Yet his
supreme insight turns out to be little more than a fleeting
moment's caper. We hear that "even that same evening it was no
longer so clear as it had been at first." Is our hero's moment of
triumph perhaps only the result of wishful thinking, part of his
"dream of thoughts" that lingers after the actual vision is over? A
number of questions arise here: Can Hans Castorp (Everyman)
realistically be expected to develop his insights steadily and
consistently without backsliding? Does he fail to live up to the
ultimate goal, or his ultimate vision, because the task is
superhuman?Even if we exonerate Castorp from the charge of
deliberate irresponsibility, the nagging feeling remains that he
has failed and that his failure is somehow connected with his
impotence in the face of decisions. Confronted with endless
alternatives, he never really makes a choice; when he sometimes
comes close to making one, he does not stick to it nor act it out.
He conspicuously lacks the