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Necessary Purchase

"Is your summer over now?" Hans Castorp asked his cousin ironically on the third day…

It was a dreadful break in the weather.

The second day, which the guest had spent entirely up here, had been splendidly summery. Deep blue the sky shone above the lance-like top shoots of the firs, while the village in the valley floor shimmered glaringly in the heat and the ringing of the cows, which wandered about plucking the short, warmed meadow grass of the slopes, filled the air cheerfully and contemplatively. The ladies had appeared already for first breakfast in delicate washable blouses, some even with openwork sleeves, which had not dressed them all equally well - Frau Stöhr, for example, it dressed decidedly badly; her arms were too spongy, airiness of clothing was simply not suited to her. The male world of the sanatorium too had paid heed to the beautiful weather in various outward ways. Lustre jackets and linen suits had appeared, and Joachim Ziemßen had worn ivory-colored flannel trousers with his blue coat, a combination that gave his appearance a completely military stamp. As for Settembrini, he had indeed repeatedly expressed the intention of changing his suit. "Devil!" he had said when after lunch he promenaded down into the town with the cousins, "how the sun burns! I see I shall have to dress more lightly." But although it was elegantly expressed, he had continued as before to wear his long fleecy coat with the large lapels and his checked trousers - probably that was everything he possessed in the way of wardrobe.

On the third day, however, it was exactly as if nature had been brought to a fall and every order turned upside down; Hans Castorp did not trust his eyes. It was after the main meal, and they had been in the rest cure for twenty minutes, when the sun hastily hid itself, ugly peat-brown clouds rose up over the southeastern ridges, and a wind of alien air-quality, cold and startling to the bones, as if it came from unknown icy regions, suddenly swept through the valley, overturned the temperature, and opened an entirely new regime.

"Snow," said Joachim's voice behind the glass wall.

"What do you mean by 'snow'?" Hans Castorp asked in reply. "You do not mean to say that it is going to snow now?"

"Certainly," Joachim answered. "We know that wind. When it comes, then there is sleighing."

"Nonsense!" said Hans Castorp. "If I am right, we are writing the beginning of August."

But Joachim had spoken truly, initiated as he was into conditions. For within a few moments, amid repeated thunderclaps, a mighty snowstorm set in - a flurry so thick that everything appeared wrapped in white vapor and one could see almost nothing of village and valley anymore.

It went on snowing all afternoon. The central heating was lit, and while Joachim put his fur sack to use and did not let himself be disturbed in his cure-service, Hans Castorp fled into the interior of his room, moved a chair up to the warmed pipes, and from there looked out into the mischief, often shaking his head. The next morning it no longer snowed; but although the outdoor thermometer showed some degrees of warmth, the snow had nevertheless remained lying a foot deep, so that a complete winter landscape spread out before Hans Castorp's astonished eyes. They had let the heating go out again. The room temperature was six degrees above zero.

"Is your summer over now?" Hans Castorp asked his cousin with bitter irony…

"One cannot say that," Joachim replied matter-of-factly. "God willing, there will still be beautiful summer days. Even in September that is still quite possible. But the thing is that the seasons here are not so very different from one another, you know; they mix, so to speak, and do not keep to the calendar. In winter the sun is often so strong that one sweats and takes off one's coat while walking, and in summer, well, you can already see how it sometimes is here in summer. And then the snow - it throws everything into confusion. It snows in January, but in May not much less, and in August it snows too, as you observe. On the whole one can say that no month passes without snow; that is a proposition one can hold to. In short, there are winter days and summer days and spring and autumn days, but real seasons, those do not actually exist among us up here."

"That is a fine confusion," said Hans Castorp. In overshoes and winter overcoat he went down into the town with his cousin to procure blankets for the rest cure, for it was clear that in this weather he would not get by with his plaid. Temporarily he even considered whether he should proceed to the purchase of a fur sack, but then refrained from it, indeed in a manner recoiled from the thought.

"No, no," he said, "let us stay with the blankets! I shall have use for them down below again, and blankets are something one has everywhere; there is nothing so special or exciting about them. But such a fur sack is altogether too specific - understand me properly, if I acquire a fur sack, I would feel as though I meant to settle down here domestically and already belonged to you, in a certain sense… In short, I mean only to say that for these few weeks it would absolutely not be worth buying a fur sack specially."

Joachim agreed with this, and so in a handsome, well-stocked shop of the English Quarter they acquired two camel's-hair blankets such as Joachim had, an especially long and broad, pleasantly soft product in natural color, and gave orders that they should be sent immediately to the sanatorium, to the International Sanatorium "Berghof," room door 34. This very afternoon Hans Castorp intended to use them for the first time.

Naturally it was the time after second breakfast, for otherwise the day's schedule offered no opportunity to go down into the town. It was raining now, and the snow in the streets had turned into splashing icy slush. On the way home they overtook Settembrini, who under an umbrella, though bareheaded, was likewise striving toward the sanatorium. The Italian looked yellow and was visibly in an elegiac mood. In pure and well-formed words he lamented the cold, the wet, under which he suffered so bitterly. If only there were heating at least! But these wretched potentates let the heating go out as soon as it stopped snowing - a dull-witted rule, a mockery of all reason! And when Hans Castorp objected that he imagined a moderate room temperature probably belonged to the cure principles - that they evidently wished thereby to forestall any pampering of the patients - Settembrini answered with the most vehement mockery. Ah, indeed, the cure principles. The sublime and untouchable cure principles! Hans Castorp truly spoke of them in the right tone, namely that of religiosity and submissiveness. Only striking - though striking in an entirely pleasing sense - that precisely those among them enjoyed such unconditional veneration as coincided exactly with the economic interests of the rulers, while one was inclined to close an eye toward those where this was less the case… And while the cousins laughed, Settembrini came to speak of his deceased father, in connection with the warmth for which he longed.

"My father," he said drawn-out and rapturously - "he was such a fine man - sensitive in body as in soul! How he loved in winter his little warm study, loved it from the heart; always twenty degrees Reaumur had to prevail there, by virtue of a little stove glowing red, and when on wet-cold days, or on those when the cutting tramontana wind was going, one entered from the hall of the little house, the warmth laid itself around one's shoulders like a gentle mantle, and the eyes filled with comfortable tears. The little room was crammed full with books and manuscripts, among which there were great treasures, and between the treasures of the mind he stood in his dressing gown of blue flannel at the narrow desk and devoted himself to literature - dainty and small in person, a good head shorter than I, imagine! but with thick tufts of gray hair at the temples and a nose so long and fine… What a Romanist, my gentlemen! One of the first of his time, a connoisseur of our language as few are, a Latin stylist as no one else any longer, a uomo letterato after Boccaccio's heart… From far away scholars came to confer with him, one from Haparanda, another from Krakow; they came expressly to Padua, our city, to show him respect, and he received them with friendly dignity. He was also a poet of distinction, who in his leisure hours composed tales in the most elegant Tuscan prose - a master of the idioma gentile," said Settembrini with utmost enjoyment, letting the native syllables slowly melt on his tongue and moving his head back and forth as he did so. "His little garden he cultivated according to Virgil's example," he continued, "and what he spoke was healthy and beautiful. But warm, warm he had to have it in his little room, otherwise he trembled and could shed tears from vexation that people let him freeze. And now imagine, Engineer, and you, Lieutenant, what I, the son of my father, must suffer in this damned and barbaric place, where in high summer the body trembles with cold and degrading impressions constantly torture the soul! Ah, it is hard! What types surround us! That foolish devil's servant of a Hofrat. Krokowski" - and Settembrini acted as though he had to break his tongue - "Krokowski, that shameless confessor, who hates me because my human dignity forbids me to hand myself over to his priestly mischief… And at my table… What company in which I am forced to dine! To my right sits a brewer from Halle - Magnus is his name - with a mustache that resembles a bundle of hay. 'Leave me in peace with literature!' he says. 'What does it offer? Beautiful characters! What am I to do with beautiful characters! I am a practical man, and beautiful characters scarcely occur in life at all.' This is the idea he has formed of literature. Beautiful characters… O Mother of God! His wife, opposite him, sits there and loses protein while sinking more and more into dullness. It is a dirty misery…"

Without having come to an understanding with each other, Joachim and Hans Castorp were of one mind about these speeches: they found them self-pitying and unpleasantly rebellious, though also entertaining, indeed educational in their bold and word-sharp insubordination. Hans Castorp laughed good-naturedly over the "bundle of hay" and also over the "beautiful characters," or rather over the drolly despairing way in which Settembrini spoke of them. Then he said:

"God, yes, the company is probably a little mixed in an institution like this. One cannot choose one's table neighbors - where would that lead. At our table there is also such a lady… Frau Stöhr - I imagine you know her? Murderously uneducated she is, one really must say, and sometimes one does not quite know where to look when she chatters like that. And at the same time she complains a great deal about her temperature and that she is so slack, and is unfortunately probably no very light case at all. That is so strange - ill and stupid - I do not know whether I am expressing myself correctly, but it touches me in a quite peculiar way when someone is stupid and then also ill, when that comes together like that; it is probably the saddest thing in the world. One absolutely does not know what kind of face to make at it, for one would like to show seriousness and respect to a sick person, would one not; illness is in a certain sense something venerable, if I may say so. But if stupidity always comes between with 'Fomulus' and 'cosmic establishment' and such blunders, then one truly no longer knows whether to weep or laugh; it is a dilemma for human feeling and so pitiful that I cannot say it. I mean, it does not rhyme, it does not fit together; one is not accustomed to imagine it together. One thinks a stupid person must be healthy and ordinary, and illness must make a person fine and clever and special. That is how one generally imagines it. Or not? I am probably saying more than I can answer for," he concluded. "It is only because we happened upon it…" And he became confused.

Joachim too was somewhat embarrassed, and Settembrini was silent with raised eyebrows, giving himself the appearance of politely waiting for the end of the speech. In reality he had it in mind to let Hans Castorp get completely out of his concept before he answered:

"Sapristi, Engineer, you display philosophical gifts there that I would not at all have expected of you! According to your theory, you would have to be less healthy than you pretend, since you evidently possess spirit. Permit me, however, to remark to you that I cannot follow your deductions, that I reject them, yes, that I stand before them in genuine hostility. I am, as you see me here, somewhat intolerant in matters of the spirit, and would rather let myself be scolded as a pedant than leave unchallenged views that seem to me as worthy of challenge as those you have developed…"

"But, Herr Settembrini…"

"Per-mit me… I know what you wish to say. You wish to say that you did not mean it so seriously, that the views represented by you are not without more ado your own, but that, as it were, you only took up one of the possible views floating in the air in order irresponsibly to try yourself in it for once. That corresponds to your age, which still lacks masculine resolution and may for the time being make experiments with all sorts of standpoints. Placet experiri," he said, pronouncing the c of "Placet" softly, in the Italian manner. "A good maxim. What gives me pause is only the fact that your experiment moves precisely in this direction. I doubt that chance rules here. I fear the presence of an inclination that threatens to become fixed in character if one does not oppose it. Therefore I feel obliged to correct you. You stated that illness coupled with stupidity was the saddest thing in the world. I can grant you that. I too prefer a witty sick person to a consumptive fool. But my protest begins when you regard illness in association with stupidity, in a certain sense, as a fault of style, as an aberration of taste on nature's part and a dilemma for human feeling, as you were pleased to express yourself. When you seem to hold illness for something so noble and - what did you say - venerable that it simply does not rhyme with stupidity. That too was your expression. Well then, no! Illness is by no means noble, by no means venerable - this conception is itself illness, or it leads to it. Perhaps I awaken your disgust toward it most surely if I tell you that it is aged and ugly. It stems from superstitiously contrite times in which the idea of the human had degenerated and been degraded into a caricature, anxious times to which harmony and well-being were considered suspect and devilish, while infirmity in those days was equal to a passport to the kingdom of heaven. Reason and enlightenment, however, have driven away these shadows that lay upon the soul of humanity - not yet completely; they still lie in battle with them today; but this battle is called work, my dear sir, earthly work, work for the earth, for the honor and interests of humanity, and daily steeled anew in such battle, those powers will liberate man completely and lead him on the paths of progress and civilization toward an ever brighter, milder, and purer light."

Good heavens, thought Hans Castorp, dismayed and ashamed, that is an aria! What have I done to provoke that? It does seem a little dry to me, incidentally. And what does he always want with work. Always he has it with work, although it fits so little here. And he said:

"Very fine, Herr Settembrini. It is downright worth hearing how you know how to say that. One could not… could not express it more plastically, I mean."

"Back-inclination," Settembrini resumed, lifting his umbrella over the head of someone passing by, "spiritual back-inclination into the views of those dark, tormented times - believe me, Engineer, that is illness, an illness sufficiently researched, for which science possesses various names, one from the language of aesthetics and psychology and one from that of politics - school expressions that have nothing to do with the matter and of which you may gladly do without. But since in spiritual life everything is connected and one thing arises from another, since one may not offer the devil one's little finger without his taking the whole hand and the whole man along with it… since on the other hand a healthy principle can always produce only what is healthy, no matter which one places at the beginning - impress it upon yourself that illness, far from being something noble, something all too venerable to be permitted to be distressingly linked with stupidity, instead means degradation - yes, a painful degradation of man that offends the idea, one that one may spare and tend in the individual case, but to honor it spiritually is aberration - impress that upon yourself! - an aberration and the beginning of all spiritual aberration. This woman whom you mentioned - I renounce recalling her name - Frau Stöhr, then, thank you very much - in short, this ridiculous woman - it is not her case, it seems to me, that places human feeling, as you said, in a dilemma. Ill and stupid - in God's name, that is misery itself, the matter is simple; there remains nothing but pity and a shrug of the shoulders. The dilemma, my dear sir, the tragedy begins where nature was cruel enough to break the harmony of the personality - or to make it impossible from the start - by joining a noble and life-willing spirit with a body unfit for life. Do you know Leopardi, Engineer, or you, Lieutenant? An unhappy poet of my country, a hunchbacked, sickly man with an originally great soul, but one constantly humiliated by the misery of his body and drawn down into the lowlands of irony, whose laments tear the heart. Listen to this!"

And Settembrini began to recite in Italian, letting the beautiful syllables melt on his tongue, moving his head back and forth and at times closing his eyes, unconcerned that his companions understood not a word. Plainly what mattered to him was to enjoy his memory and pronunciation himself and to display them to advantage before his listeners. At last he said:

"But you do not understand; you hear without grasping the painful meaning. The cripple Leopardi, my gentlemen, feel this wholly, lacked above all the love of women, and this was probably what especially made him incapable of checking the stunting of his soul. The radiance of fame and virtue faded for him, nature appeared evil to him - incidentally, she is evil, stupid and evil, I grant him this - and he despaired - it is terrible to say - he despaired of science and progress! Here you have tragedy, Engineer. Here you have your 'dilemma for human feeling' - not with that woman there - I refuse to trouble my memory about her name… Do not speak to me of the 'spiritualization' that can be produced by illness, for God's sake, do not do it! A soul without body is as inhuman and dreadful as a body without soul, and incidentally the former is the rare exception and the latter the rule. As a rule it is the body that overgrows, that seizes all importance, all life, and emancipates itself in the most repulsive fashion. A person who lives as an invalid is only body; that is the anti-human and degrading thing - in most cases he is nothing better than a cadaver…"

"Funny," said Joachim suddenly, bending forward to look at his cousin, who was walking on Settembrini's other side. "You said something quite similar recently."

"Really?" said Hans Castorp. "Yes, it may well be that something similar has already gone through my head."

Settembrini was silent for several steps. Then he said:

"So much the better, my gentlemen. So much the better, if that is so. The intention was far from me to present you with any original philosophy - that is not my office. If our Engineer has already noticed something in agreement on his own side, this only confirms my supposition that he dilettantizes spiritually, that in the manner of gifted youth he is at present merely making experiments with possible views. The gifted young person is not a blank sheet; rather, he is a sheet on which, as if with sympathetic ink, everything already stands written, the right as well as the wrong, and it is the educator's task to develop the right decisively, but to extinguish forever, through appropriate influence, the false thing that wants to emerge. The gentlemen have made purchases?" he asked in a changed, light tone…

"No, nothing more," said Hans Castorp, "that is…"

"We have procured a couple of blankets for my cousin," Joachim answered indifferently.

"For the rest cure… In this dog's cold… I am supposed to take part for these few weeks," said Hans Castorp laughing and looked at the ground.

"Ah, blankets, rest cure," said Settembrini. "So, so, so. Ei, ei, ei. In fact: Placet experiri!" he repeated with Italian pronunciation and took his leave, for they had entered the sanatorium, greeted by the limping concierge, and in the hall Settembrini swung off into the conversation rooms to read the newspapers before dinner, as he said. He seemed to want to cut the second rest cure.

"God preserve us!" said Hans Castorp when he stood with Joachim in the elevator. "He really is a pedagogue - he himself said recently that he had such a vein. One has to watch out terribly with him, that one does not say a word too many; otherwise there are detailed lessons. But it is worth hearing, how he knows how to speak; every word springs so round and appetizing from his mouth - I always have to think of fresh rolls when I listen to him."

Joachim laughed.

"Better not tell him that. I do think he would be disappointed to learn that you think of rolls during his lessons."

"Do you think so? Yes, that is not even certain. I always have the impression that it is not entirely the lessons themselves that matter to him, perhaps only in the second place, but especially the speaking, how he lets the words spring and roll… so elastic, like rubber balls… and that it is not at all unpleasant to him if one particularly notices that too. Brewer Magnus is probably somewhat stupid with his 'beautiful characters,' but Settembrini ought to have said what it actually comes down to in literature. I did not like to ask, so as not to expose myself; I do not really understand anything further about it either and until now had never seen a man of letters. But if it does not depend on beautiful characters, then evidently it depends on beautiful words; that is my impression in Settembrini's company. What vocabulary he uses! Without being at all embarrassed he speaks of 'virtue' - I ask you! In my whole life I have never yet taken the word into my mouth, and even at school we always only said 'bravery' when 'virtus' stood in the book. Something contracted in me, I must say. And then it makes me somewhat nervous when he scolds so much, at the cold and at Behrens and at Frau Magnus because she loses protein, and in short at everything. He is an opposition man; I was clear about that at once. He chops away at everything that exists, and that always has something neglected about it; I cannot help it."

"You say that," Joachim answered thoughtfully. "But then it also has something proud about it, something that does not seem neglected at all, but on the contrary; he is a man who has regard for himself, or for people in general, and that pleases me in him, that has something decent about it in my eyes."

"You are right there," said Hans Castorp. "He even has something stern about him - one often becomes quite uncomfortable because one feels - let us say: controlled; yes, that is not at all a bad designation. Would you believe that I always had the feeling he was not in agreement with my buying blankets for lying down, that he had something against it and was somehow worked up about it?"

"No," said Joachim, astonished and composed. "How could that be. I really cannot imagine it." And then, the thermometer in his mouth, with bag and baggage, he went into the rest cure, while Hans Castorp at once began to clean and change himself for the midday meal - there was only a scant little hour until then anyway.