He pulled both young men from the bench and walked between them arm in arm, down the gravel path which led, as they knew, to his private quarters in the northwest wing of the building.
“I’ve dabbled a little in that sort of thing myself,” Hans Castorp explained.
“You don’t say! Gone in for it properly—oils?”
“Oh, no, I never went further than a watercolour or so. A ship, a sea-piece, childish efforts. But I’m fond of painting, and so I took the liberty—”
Joachim in particular felt relieved and enlightened by this explanation of his cousin’s startling curiosity; it was in fact more on his account than on the Hofrat’s that Hans Castorp had offered it. They reached the entrance, a much simpler one than the impressive portal on the drive, with its flanking lanterns. A pair of curving steps led up to the oaken house door, which the Hofrat opened with a latchkey from his heavy bunch. His hand trembled, he was plainly in a nervous state. They entered an antechamber with clothes-racks, where Behrens hung his bowler on a hook, and thence passed into a short corridor, which was separated by a glass door from that of the main building. On both sides of this corridor lay the rooms of the small private dwelling. Behrens called a servant and gave an order; then to a running accompaniment of whimsical remarks ushered them through a door on the right.
They saw a couple of rooms furnished in banal middle-class taste, facing the valley and opening one into another through a doorway hung with portières. One was an “old-German” dining-room, the other a living- and working-room, with woollen carpets, bookshelves and sofa, and a writing-table above which hung a pair of crossed swords and a student’s cap. Beyond was a Turkish smoking-cabinet. Everywhere were paintings, the work of the Hofrat. The guests went up to them at once on entering, courteously ready to praise. There were several portraits of his departed wife, in oil; also, standing on the writing-table, photographs of her. She was a thin, enigmatic blonde, portrayed in flowing garments, with her hands, their fingertips just lightly enlaced, against her left shoulder, and her eyes either directed toward heaven or else cast upon the ground, shaded by long, thick, obliquely outstanding eyelashes. Never once was the departed one shown looking directly ahead of her toward the observer. The other pictures were chiefly mountain landscapes, mountains in snow and mountains in summer green, mist-wreathed mountains, mountains whose dry, sharp outline was cut out against a deep-blue sky—these apparently under the influence of Segantini. Then there were cowherds’ huts, and dewlapped cattle standing or lying in sun-drenched high pastures. There was a plucked fowl, with its long writhen neck hanging down from a table among a setting of vegetables. There were flower-pieces, types of mountain peasantry, and so on—all painted with a certain brisk dilettantism, the colours boldly dashed on to the canvas, and often looking as though they had been squeezed on out of the tube. They must have taken a long time to dry—but were sometimes effective by way of helping out the other shortcomings.
They passed as they would along the walls of an exhibition, accompanied by the master of the house, who now and then gave a name to some subject or other, but was chiefly silent, with the proud embarrassment of the artist, tasting the enjoyment of looking on his own works with the eyes of strangers. The portrait of Clavdia Chauchat hung on the window wall of the living-room—Hans Castorp spied it out with a quick glance as he entered, though the likeness was but a distant one. Purposely he avoided the spot, detaining his companions in the dining-room, where he affected to admire a fresh green glimpse into the valley of the Serbi, with ice-blue glaciers in the background. Next he passed of his own accord into the Turkish cabinet, and looked at all it had to show, with praises on his lips; thence back to the living-room, beginning with the entrance wall, and calling upon Joachim to second his encomiums. But at last he turned, with a measured start, and said: “But surely that is a familiar face?”
“You recognize her?” the Hofrat wanted to know.
“It is not possible I am mistaken. The lady at the ‘good’ Russian table, with the French name—”
“Right! Chauchat. Glad you think it’s like her.”
“Speaking,” Hans Castorp lied. He did so less from insincerity than in the consciousness that, on the face of things, he ought not to have been able to recognize her. Joachim could never have done so—good Joachim, who saw the whole affair now in its true light, after the false one Hans Castorp had first cast upon it; saw how the wool had been pulled over his eyes; and with a murmured recognition applied himself to help look at the painting. His cousin had paid him out for not going into society after luncheon.
It was a bust-length, in half profile, rather under life-size, in a wide, bevelled frame, black, with an inner beading of gilt. Neck and bosom were bare or veiled with a soft drapery laid about the shoulders. Frau Chauchat appeared ten years older than her age, as often happens in amateur portraiture where the artist is bent on making a character study. There was too much red all over the face, the nose was badly out of drawing, the colour of the hair badly hit off, too straw-colour; the mouth was distorted, the peculiar charm of the features ungrasped or at least not brought out, spoiled by the exaggeration of their single elements. The whole was a rather botched performance, and only distantly related to its original. But Hans Castorp was not particular about the degree of likeness, the relation of this canvas to Frau Chauchat’s person was close enough for him. It purported to represent her, in these very rooms she had sat for it, that was all
