The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

he looked exactly like someone democrats would not be able to count on, and the resemblance to his grandfather was undeniable. Perhaps he would take after him, become a conservative, a brake on other elements. That was quite possible—but so was the opposite. For he was an engineer after all, a shipbuilder in the making, a man of global commerce and technology. So that it might well be that Hans Castorp would join up with the radicals,

One could use other terms for his kindheartedness—an insipid phrase like “purity of soul,” for instance, or a more serious and beautiful word like “modesty,” or disparaging words such as “avoidance of the truth” and “hypocrisy,” or even a phrase about “the mystic piety of shyness”—and Hans Castorp’s reaction to the sounds from the adjoining room combined something of them all and was visible now as a shadow of respectability that darkened his face, as if he should not know and did not want to know anything about what he heard there.

I hope that you have nothing against malice, my good engineer. In my eyes it is the brightest sword that reason has against the powers of darkness and ugliness. Malice, sir, is the spirit of criticism, and criticism marks the origin of progress and enlightenment.”

it seemed to him that although honor had its advantages, so, too, did disgrace,

It was indeed rather odd to hear a lecture about love, since the lectures he usually attended were about things like gear transmissions in ships. How did one go about discussing such a delicate subject, something of such a private nature, here in broad daylight, before an audience of both ladies and gentlemen? Dr. Krokowski discussed it by using a hybrid terminology, a blend of poetical and academic styles, all of it uncompromisingly scientific, but in an ornate, lilting tone, which seemed rather unsuitable to Hans Castorp, but which perhaps accounted for the flush on the ladies’ cheeks and the way the gentlemen kept flicking their ears.

one was never quite sure whether he meant its sanctified or more passionate and fleshly forms—leaving

With his glowing eyes, his waxen pallor, his black beard, and those monastic sandals over gray woolen socks, he seemed to symbolize in his person the battle between chastity and passion about which he had been speaking.

this deplorable phenomenon with which he was struggling was not merely of organic origin, was not attributable solely to the local air or the strain of adjusting to it, but was also the expression of an inner excitement

Europe was the continent of rebellion, critique, and transforming action, whereas the continent to the east embodied inertia and inactivity. There was no doubt which of these two forces would gain the victory—that of enlightenment, of reasoned advancement toward perfection. Because human progress was always gathering up new nations in the course of its brilliant advance, conquering new continents—indeed all of Europe itself—and had even started to press on into Asia.

what or who stood on the opposing side of patriotism, the dignity of man, and beautiful literature—the side toward which Hans Castorp believed he should direct his thoughts and deeds? There stood…Clavdia Chauchat—listless, worm-eaten, Kirghiz-eyed;

Hans Castorp had been offended by Joachim’s “Rather!”—it had sounded so impertinent, or at least oddly indifferent under the circumstances. But the main thing was that Joachim spoke, that he was able to speak to her at all and perhaps was even showing off a little for his cousin with his impertinent “Rather!”—just as Hans Castorp had himself showed off for Joachim and Settembrini when he had been asked how long he intended to stay and had said, “Three weeks.” She had turned to address Joachim, despite the magazine he was holding up in front of his face—because he was a long-term resident, of course, and so she had known him longer, at least by sight. Although there was that other reason, too: a polite social conversation, an articulated exchange was quite appropriate for them, because no savage, profound, terrible secret existed between them. Had someone brown-eyed, with a ruby ring and orange-blossom perfume, been waiting here with them, it would have been up to him, Hans Castorp, to speak up and say, “Rather!”—to stand across from her so sovereign and correct.

“Analysis is good as a tool of enlightenment and civilization—to the extent that it shakes stupid preconceptions, quashes natural biases, and undermines authority. Good, in other words, to the extent that it liberates, refines, and humanizes—it makes slaves ripe for freedom. It is bad, very bad, to the extent that it prevents action, damages life at its roots, and is incapable of shaping it. Analysis can be very unappetizing, as unappetizing as death, to which it may very well be linked—a relative of the grave and its foul anatomy.”

This liberality, this barbaric extravagance in the use of time is the Asian style—that may be the reason why the children of the East feel so at home here. Have you never noticed that when a Russian says ‘four hours’ it means no more to him than ‘one hour’ does to us? The idea comes easily to mind that the nonchalance with which these people treat time has something to do with the savage expanse of their land. Too much room—too much time.

What was life, really? It was warmth, the warmth produced by instability attempting to preserve form, a fever of matter that accompanies the ceaseless dissolution and renewal of protein molecules, themselves transient in their complex and intricate construction. It was the existence of what, in actuality, has no inherent ability to exist, but only balances with sweet, painful precariousness on one point of existence in the midst of this feverish, interwoven process of decay and repair. It was not matter, it was not spirit. It was something in between the two, a phenomenon borne by matter, like the rainbow above a waterfall, like a flame. But although it was not material, it was sensual to the point of lust and revulsion, it was matter shamelessly sensitive to stimuli within and without—existence in its lewd form. It was a secret, sensate stirring in the chaste chill of space. It was furtive, lascivious, sordid—nourishment sucked in and excreted, an exhalation of carbon dioxide and other foul impurities of a mysterious origin and nature. Out of overcompensation for its own instability, yet governed by its own inherent laws of formation, a bloated concoction of water, protein, salt, and fats—what we call flesh—ran riot, unfolded, and took shape, achieving form, ideality, beauty, and yet all the while was the quintessence of sensuality and desire. This form and this beauty were not derived from the spirit, as in works of poetry and music, nor derived from some neutral materia...

disease was life’s lascivious form.

what was life? Was it perhaps only an infectious disease of matter—just as the so-called spontaneous generation of matter was perhaps only an illness, a cancerous stimulation of the immaterial?

When the last flickering frame of one reel had twitched out of sight and the lights went up in the hall and the audience’s field of dreams stood before them like an empty blackboard, there was not even the possibility of applause. There was no one there to clap for, to thank, no artistic achievement to reward with a curtain call. The actors who had been cast in the play they had just seen had long since been scattered to the winds; they had watched only phantoms, whose deeds had been reduced to a million photographs brought into focus for the briefest of moments so that, as often as one liked, they could then be given back to the element of time as a series of blinking flashes. Once the illusion was over, there was something repulsive about the crowd’s nerveless silence. Hands lay impotent before the void. People rubbed their eyes, stared straight ahead, felt embarrassed by the brightness and demanded the return of the dark, so that they could again watch things, whose time had passed, come to pass again, tricked out with music and transplanted into new time.

another form of exploitation, that of time—the monstrosity of receiving a bonus, that is, interest paid on money, from the simple passage of time and thereby perverting a universal divine institution, time itself, to one’s own advantage and the detriment of others.”

the critical principle can and must have only one meaning, purpose, and goal: the idea of duty, the command given by life itself.

Isn’t it grand, isn’t it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love—from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly.

In short, there were inconsistencies here. Herr Settembrini was a humanitarian, and yet at the same time and bound up with it, he was, as he half admitted, a man of war. He had behaved very humanely in his duel with crude Naphta; but more generally, whenever his enthusiasms blended humanity and politics for the ideal of civilization’s ultimate victory and dominion, whenever the citizen’s pike was consecrated on the altar of humanity, it became doubtful whether, on a more impersonal level, he remained of a mind to hold back his sword from shedding blood. Yes, Herr Settembrini’s own inner state meant that in his world of beautiful views, the element of the eagle’s boldness prevailed more and more over the dove’s mildness.