The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

  “He challenged you,” Hans Castorp said anxiously.

  “He certainly did,” Settembrini replied, casting a glance up at his pupil beside him, then turning away again and leaning his head against one hand.

  “And are you going to accept?” Wehsal wanted to know.

  “You ask?” Settembrini replied, glancing up at him, too, for a moment. “Gentlemen,” he continued and stood up, perfectly composed now, “I deplore the way today’s amusements have turned out, but every man must reckon with such incidents in life. Theoretically, I do not approve of dueling—I mean in terms of the law. On a practical level, however, it is another matter. And there are situations where—antagonisms that . . . in short, I am at the gentleman’s disposal. It is a good thing that I fenced a little in my youth. A few hours of practice will limber up my wrist again. Let us go. We shall have to arrange the details. I presume that the other gentleman has already ordered the horses hitched.”

  During the ride home and afterward as well, Hans Castorp had moments when he grew dizzy at the thought of what lay ahead, especially when it turned out that Naphta would have nothing to do with cut and thrust, but insisted on a duel with pistols—and indeed, as the injured party in an affair of honor, he did have the choice of weapons. There were moments, as we said, when the young man was able to free himself to some extent from his own inner state and from more general entanglements and befuddlements, and understood that this was madness and that someone must stop it.

  “If only there had been some actual insult!” he shouted in a discussion with Settembrini, Ferge, and Wehsal—the last gentleman, who during the ride home had been selected by Naphta as his second, was now mediating between the parties. “Some obvious social affront, some civil offense! If one had dragged the other’s name in the mud, if it had something to do with a woman or any sort of tangible real-life calamity where there is no possibility of a settlement. Fine, in such cases, the duel is there as a last resort. And if honor has been sufficiently satisfied and no one has been seriously injured and you can say the opponents have parted with differences reconciled—then you can even call it a good arrangement, beneficial and practical in certain complicated situations. But what did he do? I’m not trying to defend him, I am simply asking what he did to insult you. He cast categories to the winds. He robbed ideas of their academic dignity, as he put it. And you were offended by that—and rightly so, let us assume—”

  “Assume?” Herr Settembrini repeated and stared at him.

  “And rightly so, rightly so. He did offend you. But he did not insult you! There is a difference, if you will permit me to say so. It was about abstractions, about ideas. You can offend someone with abstract ideas, but you cannot insult him with them. That’s a maxim that would be accepted in any court of honor, I can assure you of that, by God. And so what you said to him about its being ‘infamous’ and having to be ‘severely punished’ was no insult, either, because it, too, was meant intellectually. It all belongs to the realm of the intellect and has nothing to do with either of you personally, which is the only way something can be an insult. Intellectual abstractions can never be personal, that is the logical conclusion and extension of my maxim.”

  “You are mistaken, my friend,” Herr Settembrini retorted with his eyes closed. “You are mistaken first in the assumption that intellectual matters cannot become personal. You should not suppose that,” he said and smiled a singularly delicate and painful smile. “You are, however, above all mistaken in your assessment of the intellect, which you apparently consider too weak to produce conflicts and passions as harsh as those that real life brings with it and that can be resolved only by reaching for weapons. All’incontro! The purified abstraction, the ideal, is at the same time also the absolute, and is thus rigor itself, and contains far more profound and radical possibilities for hatred, for categorical and irreconcilable hostility than are found in social life. Are you surprised that in comparison to the latter, the ideal leads even more directly and inexorably to truly radical situations, to the question of you or me, to the duel, to physical struggle? The duel, my friend, is not just any ‘arrangement.’ It is the final arrangement, a return to the primal state of nature, only slightly moderated by certain chivalrous, but purely superficial rules. The essence of the situation remains what it has been since the beginning, a physical struggle, and it is each man’s duty, however far he may be from nature, to keep himself equal to this situation. Whoever is unable to stand up for an ideal with his person, his arm, his blood, is unworthy of that ideal, and no matter how intellectual one may become, what matters is that one remains a man.”

  That put Hans Castorp in his place. What could he reply to that? He said nothing, only brooded gloomily. Herr Settembrini’s words seemed calm and logical, and yet they sounded strange and unnatural coming from him. His thoughts were not his thoughts—just as he would never have taken the notion to fight a duel on his own, but had only adopted it from Naphta, the little terrorist; they merely showed that he, too, was enveloped by the same inner state that had possession of them all—it had enslaved Herr Settembrini’s beautiful reason, had made it its tool. What? Ideas, simply because they were rigorous, led inexorably to bestial deeds, to a settlement by physical struggle? Hans Castorp rebelled against the notion or at least tried to do so—only to find to his horror that he could not. That inner state was strong within him, too; he was not the man—not he, either—to extricate himself from it. From his fund of memories came the dreadful, last visions of Wiedemann and Sonnenschein helplessly rolling in bestial struggle; and he shuddered as he realized that in the end it is only the physical that remains—the nails, the teeth. Yes, yes, they would probably have to fight; that way matters might at least be salvaged by chivalrous rules that moderated the primal state. Hans Castorp offered to serve as Herr Settembrini’s second.

  His offer was refused. No, that would not do, it was not appropriate, he was told—first by Herr Settembrini with a smile both delicate and painful, and then after brief reflection, by Ferge and Wehsal, who likewise found it would be unsuitable for Hans Castorp to appear on the dueling ground in that capacity. He could attend as a neutral party, perhaps—the presence of such a person being among the chivalrous prescriptions for moderating beastliness. Even Naphta let it be known through his second, Wehsal, that this was his opinion, too—and Hans Castorp said all right. Witness or neutral party, in any case he would have a chance to influence decisions about the modalities, which proved sorely necessary.

  For Naphta was truly out of control in his suggestions. He demanded a distance of five paces and three exchanges of fire, if that should prove necessary. These mad proposals were delivered on the very evening of the argument by way of Wehsal, who turned out to be the perfect mouthpiece and representative for Naphta’s savage ideas and doggedly insisted on such conditions—in part because they suited his own tastes. Settembrini, of course, had no objections to any of it; but Ferge as his second and Hans Castorp as the neutral party were beside themselves, and the latter even turned abusive with wretched Wehsal. Was he not ashamed of himself, he asked, to come peddling such vile, unacceptable proposals when it was nothing but a purely abstract duel, based on no real injury whatever? Pistols were awful enough as it was, and then to add these murderous particulars. That definitely put an end to chivalry—why not go ahead and shoot at each other separated by only a handkerchief! He, Wehsal, was not the one who would be shot at from that distance, and so it was easy for him to be bloodthirsty—and so on. Wehsal gave a shrug, as if to say that this was, after all, a radical situation, thus more or less disarming his opponent, who was inclined to forget that fact. All the same, in tedious negotiations the following day, Hans Castorp managed to reduce the three exchanges of fire to one and to resolve the issue of distance by having the combatants stand fifteen paces apart, but with each retaining the right to step forward five paces before firing. Even that concession, however, was achieved only on the assurance that no attempt at reconciliation wa
s to be made. By the way, none of them owned pistols.

  Herr Albin did. In addition to the shiny little revolver with which he loved to frighten the ladies, he also owned a pair of officer’s pistols, twins bedded together in a velvet-lined case; they were Belgian-made automatic Brownings, with brown wooden butts that held the magazines, with bluish steel mechanisms and shiny, rifled barrels, their spare, dainty sights set atop the muzzles. Hans Castorp had once noticed them in the blowhard’s room and offered—against his better judgment, in a spirit of absolute neutrality—to borrow the pistols from him. Not even attempting to disguise his purpose, he found it easy to appeal to Herr Albin’s sense of chivalry, though he did ask that it be kept secret as a matter of personal honor. Herr Albin even showed him how to load them, and out in the open they practiced firing blanks with both pistols.

  All this took time, and so two days and three nights passed before the rendezvous. The meeting place was Hans Castorp’s idea; he had suggested they use his picturesque summer retreat, the blue-blossoming meadow where he “played king.” There, on the third morning after the argument, as soon as it was light enough, the issue was to be resolved. It was not until very late the evening before that it occurred to Hans Castorp, who was very distraught, that it would be necessary to have a doctor present on the field of battle.

  He immediately consulted with Ferge on this issue, for which there was no simple solution. Rhadamanthus had been a member of a dueling fraternity, but they could not possibly approach the head of the sanatorium and ask him to abet them in an illegal act, particularly since patients were involved. There was hardly any hope of locating a doctor who would be prepared to offer a hand in a duel with pistols between two seriously ill men. As for Krokowski, it was not even certain whether the spiritualist had any expertise in treating wounds.

  Wehsal, who was brought in for consultation, informed them that Naphta had stated he did not want a doctor present. He was not going up there to be salved and bandaged, but to engage in the fray, and with serious intent. He did not care what happened afterward, what would be would be. That sounded like a rather grim pronouncement, but Hans Castorp tried to interpret it to mean that Naphta secretly believed no doctor would be needed. And had not Settembrini also let it be known by way of Ferge that they should set the question aside, that it did not interest him? It was not too unreasonable to hope that the adversaries were agreed in their intention not to let it come to actual bloodletting. They had both had two nights to sleep on it since their exchange, and would have yet a third. Tempers cool, minds clear, certain moods do not remain unaltered with the passage of time. The next morning, pistol in hand, neither of the combatants would be the same man he had been on the evening of their quarrel. At worst, they would go through the motions, meet the demands of honor, but not act on the fleeting urges of free will, not behave out of conviction and passion as they had then. Somehow it had to be possible to prevent them from denying their real selves just to indulge the selves they had displayed in Monstein.

  Hans Castorp was not mistaken in thinking like this—unfortunately, however, he was not mistaken in a way he never could have dreamed. He was quite right, in fact, as far as Herr Settembrini went. But even given the inner state out of which all this had arisen, if Hans Castorp had guessed in what sense Leo Naphta would alter his intentions before the decisive moment, or in just that moment, he would not have allowed to happen what was about to happen.

  At seven o’clock the sun was a long way from emerging from behind their mountain, but day was struggling to break through the mist as Hans Castorp, after a very restless night, left the Berghof for the rendezvous. Housemaids cleaning the lobby looked up from their work in astonishment. The front door was no longer locked, however. Ferge and Wehsal, either singly or together, had surely passed through it already, the one to fetch Settembrini, the other to accompany Naphta to the battlefield. Hans walked alone, since in his capacity as a neutral observer he was not allowed to join either party.

  He walked to meet the demands of honor, went through the motions required by the force of circumstance. He had to be present at the meeting, that went without saying. He could not possibly have excluded himself, have lain in bed waiting for the news, first because—but he did not even spell out his first reason, but went immediately to his second, which was that one could not simply let things take their own course. Nothing awful had happened yet, thank God, and nothing awful needed to happen, it was even unlikely it would. They all were to get up by artificial light, go without breakfast, and gather in the bitter chill of morning—that had been the agreement. But beyond that, simply by virtue of his, Hans Castorp’s, presence and influence, everything would doubtless turn out for the best—in some happy way that could not be foreseen, that it was better not even to try to guess, for experience taught him that even the most modest events always turned out differently from how he tried to picture them ahead of time.

  It was nevertheless the most unpleasant morning he could recall. Dulled and exhausted from lack of sleep, Hans Castorp could feel his teeth trying to chatter, and just below the surface was a temptation to mistrust his own words of reassurance. These were such strange times. The lady from Minsk ravaged by her own anger, the raging student, Wiedemann and Sonnenschein, slaps exchanged in the name of Polish honor—it all ran riot in his mind. He could not imagine that on his arrival and before his very eyes two people would shoot at one another, spill each other’s blood. But when he remembered what Wiedemann and Sonnenschein had actually done as he looked on, he no longer trusted himself or his world. He shivered in his fur coat. And yet, at the same time, a sense of the situation’s extraordinary solemnity, in combination with the refreshing early morning air, elated and invigorated him.

  And so with mixed and unsettled feelings and thoughts, and by the twilight of slowly approaching dawn, he sought out the very narrow path that started at the end of the bobsled run in Dorf; he climbed the slope, reached the woods drifted full with snow, crossed the wooden bridge beneath which the run passed, and set out between the tree trunks, trudging along a path fashioned more by footsteps than by a shovel. He was moving quickly and soon overtook Settembrini and Ferge, the latter carrying the pistol-case in one hand under his cape. Hans Castorp did not hesitate to join them, and no sooner was he alongside than he spotted Naphta and Wehsal only a short distance ahead.

  “Cold morning, at least zero,” he said with every good intention; but then, alarmed at the frivolity of his words, he added, “Gentlemen, I am convinced that . . .”

  The others did not respond. Ferge let his good-natured moustache bob up and down. After a while Settembrini stopped, grasped Hans Castorp’s hand, laid his own other hand atop it, and said, “My friend, I will not kill. I will not. I shall offer myself to his bullet, that is all honor demands of me. But I will not kill, you may be assured of that.”

  He let go and walked on. Hans Castorp was deeply moved. After a few steps, however, he said, “That is a marvelously beautiful thing for you to do, Herr Settembrini. Except, there is the other side. What if he, for his part . . . ?”

  Herr Settembrini only shook his head. And after thinking about it, Hans Castorp decided that if the Italian did not shoot, then his opponent could not possibly dare do otherwise, and so decided that things looked promising, that his assumptions were apparently about to be confirmed. He felt a weight being lifted from his heart.

  They crossed the footbridge leading over the gorge where the waterfall, now rigid and mute, would plunge come summer, lending the spot much of its picturesque quality. Naphta and Wehsal were pacing back and forth in front of the bench, covered now with thick white pillows of snow, but on which, while waiting for a nosebleed to end, Hans Castorp had once relived uncommonly vivid memories. Naphta was smoking a cigarette, and Hans Castorp asked himself whether he would like to do the same and, finding that he had not the least desire, decided this had to be an affectation on Naphta’s part. He looked around him now, delighting as always in this bo
ldly intimate spot, which even under these icy conditions was no less beautiful than during the season of blue blossoms. The trunk and branches of the spruce that jutted at an angle across the scene were laden with snow.

  “Good morning,” he wished them in a cheery voice, hoping his words would lend a natural tone to the gathering and help banish all evil—but with no success, for no one replied. The exchange of greetings consisted of mute bows, so stiff they were practically indiscernible. All the same, he remained determined to put to immediate good effect the bustle of arrival, the hearty billowing of his breath in the cold air, the warmth of his quick walk in the winter morning.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, “I am convinced that . .

  “You will have to elaborate on your convictions some other time,” Naphta said, coldly cutting him off. “The weapons, please, if I may ask,” he added with the same arrogance. And a dumbfounded Hans Castorp had to watch as Ferge pulled the dreadful case from under his cape. Wehsal now walked over to receive one of the pistols from him and then passed it on to Naphta. Settembrini accepted the other one from Ferge’s hand. Then a space had to be cleared; Ferge muttered for them to move aside and began to pace off the distances and make them visible: the outer boundaries he marked by digging his heel into the snow, the inner limits with two canes, his own and Settembrini’s.

  The good-natured martyr, what was he up to there? Hans Castorp could not believe his eyes. Ferge was a long-legged man and he stepped it off properly, so that the fifteen paces at least became a handsome distance, although there were also those two damned cane barriers—which were not far apart at all. To be sure, he meant well. And yet what befuddlement compelled him to make preparations of such monstrous significance?