AN OUTBURST OF TEMPER/SOMETHING VERY EMBARRASSING
And so August began, and among its first days, slipping past without incident, was the anniversary of our hero’s arrival up here. It was over now, and that was good—for Hans Castorp had watched its coming with some uneasiness. That was normal—no one was fond of anniversaries of arrival. Those who had been here a year or more did not mention them. True, people never failed to take advantage of any excuse for festivities or toasts and augmented the high-points in the year’s rhythmic pulse with as many private, irregular beats as possible by gathering in the restaurant to feast and pop corks in celebration of birthdays, physical exams, imminent wild or authorized departures, and similar events—but patients greeted these memorial days with pure silence, let them glide by, and truly forgot to observe them in the certainty that others would not recall them very clearly either. They made sure that time was properly segmented, kept an eye on the calendar and its recurring cycle of external events. But the measuring and counting of the time that bound each person to space up here, of personal, individual time—that was for newcomers and short-termers; established residents reserved their praise for unmeasured time and unheeded eternity, for the day that was always the same, and each person delicately presumed everyone else harbored the same sentiment. It would have been considered totally uncouth and cruel to mention to someone that he or she had been here for three years to the day—it was not done. Frau Stöhr herself, however lacking in other respects, showed perfect tact and refinement in this regard and had never been guilty of such an offense. Her illness and the fever in her body were, to be sure, bound up with her great ignorance. Only recently she had told her tablemates about the “affectation” in the tips of her lungs and then, when conversation turned to historical matters, declared that remembering dates had always been her “ring of Polycrates”—which was likewise greeted by rather frozen expressions on the faces of those around her. But it was unthinkable that she would have reminded young Ziemssen, for instance, of his anniversary in February, though the thought probably occurred to her, since her unhappy head was filled with useless dates and facts and she loved keeping track of other people’s affairs. Custom, however, held her in check.
It was the same on Hans Castorp’s anniversary. She had indeed tried to give him a meaningful wink at breakfast, but when his only response was a vacant stare, she quickly pulled back. Even Joachim had said nothing to his cousin, although he was well aware of the date on which he had met his “three-week guest” at the station in Dorf. Joachim was not very talkative by nature—definitely not as talkative as Hans Castorp had become up here, not to mention certain humanists and humbugs of their acquaintance—but the silence he had adopted of late was peculiar and impressive. Only monosyllables passed his lips—while the muscles in his face worked hard. It was clear that for him the station at Dorf was associated with more than arrivals or meeting guests. He was corresponding regularly with the flatlands now. Decisions were ripening within him. The preparations he was making were almost concluded.
July had been warm and sunny. But at the start of the new month, bad weather set in—damp, gloomy days, with a mixture of snow and rain, then snow, clear and simple; and except for an occasional splendid burst of summer, the bad weather continued for the rest of the month and on into September. At first the rooms held the warmth of the preceding summer days—fifty-five degrees, which was considered comfortable—but they quickly grew colder and colder. People were glad to see snow cover the valley, because that sight—and only that sight, since falling temperatures accomplished nothing—moved management to turn on the heat, at first only in the dining hall, but then in the rooms as well, so that when you unwrapped yourself from your blankets at the end of a rest cure and came back into the room from the balcony, your moist, numb hands could feel warmth stirring in the radiator, even if the dry heat only made your cheeks burn all the more.
Was this winter? The senses could not avoid that conclusion, and people complained that they had been “cheated out of summer”—although, abetted by natural and artificial circumstances, people had cheated themselves out of it by squandering both internal and external time. Reason tried to tell them beautiful autumn days would follow, a whole succession of days so warm and splendid that they might very well deserve the honor of being called summer—that is, if one ignored the sun’s crossing the sky lower and setting earlier each day. But the effect of the winter landscape on the general mood was stronger than any such consolation. You stood at your closed balcony door and stared with disgust at the squalls and flurries—just as Joachim was standing there now.
“Is winter starting up again already?” he asked in a choked voice.
From behind him in the room, Hans Castorp responded, “It would be a little early for that—it can’t be for good yet. Although it does have a look of terrible finality about it. If winter means darkness, snow, cold, warm radiators—then this is winter again, there’s no denying. And when you think that it was only just winter, that the thaw is barely over—at least it seems that way, doesn’t it, as if spring were only yesterday? It can put you in a foul mood momentarily, I admit. It’s deleterious to a basic human love of life—let me explain what I mean. I mean the world is normally arranged so that it meets people’s needs and is salutary to their love of life, there’s no denying that. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the natural order—the size of the earth, for instance, or the time it takes for it to turn on its axis or orbit the sun, the alternation of day and night, the change of seasons, the rhythm of the cosmos, if you like—that all that has been measured out to suit our needs. That would surely be too simple, too brazen—what the philosophers call teleology. But the fact is, thank God, that our needs and the general, fundamental facts of nature are in harmony. I say ‘thank God,’ because it really is a reason to praise God. And down in the flatlands, when summer comes, or winter, then the time since the previous summer, or winter, is always the same, and the season seems new and welcome—that’s the foundation of our love of life. But up here with us, that order, that harmony is disturbed—first of all, because there are no real seasons, as you yourself once noted, but merely summer days and winter days all mixed up higgledy-piggledy. And besides, there really is no time that you can notice passing, so that the new winter, when it does come, isn’t new, but just the old one again; and that explains the discontent you feel when peering out through the windowpane.”
“Many thanks,” Joachim said. “And now that you have explained the matter, I suppose, you’re so content that you’re even content with its being like this, even though it’s . . . no!” Joachim said. “Enough!” he said. “It’s a filthy mess. The whole thing is a monstrous, disgusting, filthy mess, and whatever you may think, I—” And he strode rapidly out of the room, angrily pulling the door to behind him—and there was almost no doubt that those were tears in his beautiful, gentle eyes.
Hans Castorp was left behind, perplexed. He had never taken certain of his cousin’s resolves all that seriously—at least not as long as they remained pronouncements. But now that Joachim had fallen silent, with the muscles in his face working so hard, and begun behaving as he just had, Hans Castorp took fright, because he understood that the officer was man enough to act—turned pale with fright, for both of them, for both Joachim and himself. It is quite possible that he will die, he thought—but that information was secondhand at best; and so it became mixed with the pain of an old suspicion he had never been able to suppress entirely and he thought, “Can it be that he’ll leave me alone up here—even though it was I who came up here just to visit him?” And then he thought, “How horrible, how absurd—so horrible and absurd that I can feel my face turning cold and my heart pounding irregularly. Because if I stay behind up here alone—and that is what I’ll do if he leaves, it’s totally out of the question for me to go with him—then it will be—my heart’s standing absolutely still now—it will be for good and all, because I’ll never, ever find my way b
ack to the flatlands alone.”
This was the frightening course Hans Castorp’s thoughts took. And that same afternoon, he was to gain certainty about the turn things had taken: Joachim declared the die was cast, the blow struck, his decision made.
They had descended into the bright basement for their monthly checkups—it was after tea, one day early in September. As they entered the dry heated air of the consulting room, they found Dr. Krokowski at his desk and the director leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, his face very purple—in one hand he held his stethoscope and was tapping it against his shoulder. He yawned and stared at the ceiling. “Greetings, boys!” he said in a dull voice that was a further indication of a very languid mood—melancholy, general resignation. Evidently he had been smoking. But he was vexed by objective problems as well, about which the cousins had already heard: the sort of sanatorium affair with which everyone was only all too familiar. A young lady, Ammy Nölting was her name, had first been admitted in the fall two years previous and then discharged as fully cured in August, nine months later—but was back before September was even out, claiming that she “did not feel well” at home. Last February her lungs were found clear of any sounds and she had been returned to the flatlands. Around the middle of July, however, she had resumed her old place at Frau Iltis’s table. This same Ammy had been discovered at one o’clock in the morning in her room with another patient named Polypraxios, a young Greek chemist whose father owned dye-works in Piraeus—the same fellow whose well-turned leg had aroused justifiable admiration at the Mardi Gras party. The discovery was made by a jealous friend, who had found her way to Ammy’s room by the same route Polypraxios had taken, that is, by way of the balcony, and in her rage and pain over what she saw there had begun shrieking so dreadfully that people came running. Word spread like wildfire. Behrens had no choice but to expel all three—the Athenian, Fräulein Nölting, and her girlfriend, who in her passionate rage had paid little attention to her own honor—and had just been discussing the whole unsavory affair with his assistant, who, by the way, had been treating both girls privately. Even as he examined the cousins, he went on talking about the matter in a melancholy, resigned tone of voice, for he was such an expert in auscultation that he could simultaneously listen to a patient’s interior, talk about something else, and dictate what he had heard to his assistant.
“Yes, yes, gentlemen, the damn libido,” he said. “The whole affair is great sport for you, of course—it doesn’t matter to you. Vesicular. But the director of a sanatorium gets a noseful, believe you—muffled—believe you me. Can I help it if phthisis is accompanied by increased concupiscence? Slight roughness? I didn’t arrange things this way, but before you know what’s happened you’re running a cathouse. Diminished under the left shoulder. We provide analysis, a chance to talk things out—and a hell of a lot of good it does. The more the rhonchial pack talks things out the more lecherous they become. I advocate mathematics. Better here, the old sound is gone. Keeping oneself occupied with mathematics, I say, is the best medicine for cupidity. Prosecutor Paravant, who was severely afflicted, threw himself into math—he’s busy squaring the circle these days, and it has greatly eased his problem. But most of them are too dull-witted or too lazy for that, God help them. Vesicular. You see, I’m quite aware that young folks go to the dogs all too easily here, and I used to attempt to take occasional measures against their debauchery. But then one day some lad or lover looked me straight in the eye and asked what business it was of mine. And since then I’ve been only a doctor. Weak rattling, top right.”
He was finished now with Joachim; he slipped his stethoscope into the pocket of his smock and rubbed both eyes with his gigantic left hand—a habit of his when he “faded” and felt melancholy. Half-mechanically and between moody yawns, he rattled off his sales talk: “Well, Ziemssen, keep your chin up. Things don’t always happen the way we find them described in a physiology textbook. There’s still a hitch or two, and you haven’t entirely cleared up your troubles with Gaffky, either—you even went up a notch or so here recently. It’s six this round, but that’s no reason to be down in the dumps. You were more ill when you first arrived, I can show you the records to prove it, and with another five, six moneths—did you know that people used to say ‘moneth’ rather than month? Much more euphonious, I think. I’ve decided to use only ‘moneth’ myself.”
“Director Behrens,” Joachim began—he was standing there naked from the waist up, but still at attention, his chest thrust forward, his heels together, and with a face as blotchy as it was the first time Hans Castorp had noticed that this was how his tanned face looked when it turned pale.
“If you do your duty for another half year or so,” Behrens broke in over his halting start, “keeping your boots polished and such, then your career is made. You can take Constantinople, you’ll be robust enough to bust a whole Prussian regiment.”
Who knows, given the director’s melancholy state, how much more balderdash of this sort there would have been, if the sight of Joachim, standing there at undaunted attention, obviously determined to speak—and speak courageously—had not disconcerted him.
“Director Behrens,” the young man said, “I wish to report that I have decided to depart.”
“What’s this? You’re going off and leaving us? I thought you wanted to join the military someday, a healthy man.”
“No, sir, I have to leave now—one week from today.”
“Someone tell me—am I hearing right? You want to toss in the towel, you want to cut and run? Do you know that’s desertion of duty?”
“No, that is not how I see it, Director Behrens. I have to return to my regiment.”
“Although I’m telling you that I can definitely discharge you in six months, but not one day before?”
Joachim’s pose was growing more and more official. He tucked in his stomach and in a choked, bluff voice he said, “I have been here for a year and a half, Director Behrens. I can wait no longer. You originally told me three months, sir. My cure has been regularly extended, until another year and a quarter have now passed, and I am still not well.”
“Is that my fault?”
“No, Director Behrens. But I cannot wait any longer. I can’t wait for a total cure up here, otherwise I will miss this opportunity. I have to go back down. I need some time to outfit myself and take care of other matters.”
“Do you have your family’s approval for what you’re doing?”
“My mother approves. It’s all arranged. I will be joining the seventy-sixth as an ensign on the first of October.”
“No matter what the risk?” Behrens asked, staring at him with his bloodshot eyes.
“Yes, sir, Director Behrens, sir,” Joachim replied with trembling lips. “Well, fine, then, Ziemssen.” The director’s facial expression changed, his body relaxed, everything seemed to go slack. “Fine, then, Ziemssen. At ease. Go ahead, leave—and God be with you. I see you know what you want. Take over. The responsibility is definitely yours and not mine from the moment you do take over. Man is master of his fate. You travel at your own risk. I wash my hands. But never fear, it may turn out all right. Yours is a fresh-air profession. It may very well be that it does you good and you’ll make the grade.”
“Yes sir, Director Behrens, sir.”
“Well, and what about you, my young member of the civilian population? I suppose you want to go along?”
It was Hans Castorp’s turn to answer. He stood there as pale as he had at the examination that had ended with his being admitted one year before, was standing on the very same spot, and his heart was once again hammering visibly against his ribs. He said, “I would prefer to make that dependent on your approval, Director Behrens.”
“My approval? Fine!” And he grabbed Hans Castorp by one arm and pulled him to him. Listened and tapped. But dictated no results. It all went rather quickly. When he was done, he said, “You may leave.” Hans Castorp stammered, “You mean . . . but how can that be? Am I c
ured?”
“Yes, you’re cured. The spot at the upper left isn’t worth talking about. Your temperature has nothing to do with it. I can’t tell you what causes that. I assume it’s of no further importance. As far as I’m concerned, you may leave.”
“But, Director Behrens. You’re not really serious, are you?”
“Not serious? What do you mean? What would make you think that? What sort of person do you suppose I am, if I may ask? What do you take me for, the owner of a cathouse?”
It was an outburst of temper. The rush of hot blood to the director’s face turned his purple cheeks a deep violet; his skewed lip and little moustache were wrenched until upper teeth could be seen at one side of his mouth. He thrust his head forward like a bull. His bloodshot, watery eyes popped from their sockets.
“I won’t stand for it!” he shouted. “I don’t own anything here. I’m merely an employee. I’m a doctor. I am only a doctor, do you understand? I am not anyone’s procurer. I’m no Signor Amoroso working the Toledo in beautiful Naples, do you understand? I serve suffering humanity. And if you have formed a different opinion of me, you can go to hell, to pot, or to the dogs—take your pick. Bon voyage!”
And with long, even strides he walked out the door—the door leading to the X-ray waiting room—and slammed it behind him.
The cousins looked helplessly to Dr. Krokowski, but he merely buried his nose deeper in his papers. They scrambled to put on their clothes.
As they climbed the stairs, Hans Castorp said, “That was really dreadful. Have you ever seen him like that before?”
“No, never like that. But superiors throw temper tantrums. The only thing to do is maintain perfect composure and let it pass right over you. He was upset, of course, by the Polypraxios-Nölting affair. But did you see,” Joachim went on, and his joy at having fought the good fight rose visibly, making him catch his breath, “did you see how he backed off and capitulated when he realized that I was serious? All you have to do is show your spunk and not let them get the upper hand. And now I’ve been given permission more or less—he said himself that I’d probably make the grade—to leave a week from today.” And correcting himself, he added, “To be with my regiment inside of three weeks.” He did not even mention his cousin, but restricted his exuberant comments to his own fate.