The Magic Mountain

which served the republican capitalist and belletristic collaborator on the Sociology of Suffering as study and sleeping-cabinet. These he blithely displayed to his young friends, characterizing them as retired and cosy, in order to supply them with suitable adjectives in which to praise them, which they accordingly did. They both found his quarters charmingly cosy and retired, just as he said. They had a glimpse into the tiny sleeping-chamber, merely a short and narrow bedstead in the corner under the sloping roof, and a small drugget on the floor beside it; then they turned again to the study, which was no less sparsely furnished, but orderly to the point of formality, or even frigid. Heavy old-fashioned chairs, four in number, with rush seats, were symmetrically placed on either side the door, the divan was pushed against the wall, and a round table with a green cover held the centre of the room, upon which for all ornament⁠—or, possibly, for refreshment, but in any case with an effect of chaste sobriety⁠—there stood a water-bottle with a glass turned upside-down over it. Books and pamphlets leaned against each other in a little hanging shelf, and at the open window stood a high-legged, flimsy folding desk, with a small, thick felt mat on the floor beneath it, just large enough to afford standing-room. Hans Castorp took up position here for a minute to try what it was like. This was Herr Settembrini’s workshop, where he wrote articles in belles-lettres to contribute to the encyclopaedia of human suffering. The young man rested his elbows on the slanting surface of the desk, and announced that he found the little apartment very retired and cosy. Thus, he presumed, aloud, might Ludovico’s father, with his long, aristocratic nose, have bent over his work at Padua⁠—and learned that he was standing, indeed, at the very desk of the deceased scholar; nay, more, that the chairs, the table, even the water-bottle, had been his, and that the chairs had come down from the Carbonaro grandfather, the walls of whose law office at Milan they once had graced. That made a great impression on the young people; the chairs straightway began in their eyes to betray affinity with political agitation⁠—Joachim, who had been sitting all unconscious on one, with his legs crossed, got up at once, looked at it mistrustfully, and did not sit down again. But Hans Castorp, at the elder Settembrini’s desk, thought how the younger now laboured here, to mingle the politics of the grandfather and the father’s humanism in a blend of literary beauty. At length they all went off together, the author having offered to see his friends to their door.

They were silent for some way; but the silence spoke of Naphta, and Hans Castorp could wait. He felt sure Herr Settembrini would mention his housemate, had come out with them for that very purpose. He was not mistaken.

Drawing a long breath, as if to get a good start, the Italian began: “My friends, I should like to warn you.”

As he paused, after that, Hans Castorp asked, affecting surprise: “Against what?” He might as well have said against whom, but expressed himself impersonally to show how completely unconscious he was of Herr Settembrini’s meaning⁠—a meaning which even Joachim perfectly comprehended.

“Against the personage whose guest we have just been,” answered Settembrini, “and whose acquaintance I have unwillingly been the means of your making. Chance willed it, as you saw, I could not prevent it. But the responsibility is mine, and as such I feel it. It is my duty to point out to your tender years the intellectual perils of intercourse with this man, and to beg you to keep your acquaintance with him within safe limits. His form is logic, but his essence is confusion.”

“He does seem rather weird,” was Hans Castorp’s view. “Some of the things he said were very queer: it sounded as if he meant to say that the sun revolves round the earth.” But how could they, he went on, have suspected that a friend of his, Herr Settembrini’s, was an unsuitable person for them to associate with? As he himself admitted, they had made the acquaintance through him, had met the man first in his company, and seen that the two walked and took tea together. Surely that must mean⁠—

“Of course, Engineer, of course.” Herr Settembrini’s voice was full of mild resignation, it even trembled. “I am open to this rejoinder, and so you make it. Good. I am quite ready to accept the responsibility. I live under the same roof as this man, our meetings are unavoidable, one word leads on to another, an acquaintance is formed. Herr Naphta is a person of most unusual mental powers. He is by nature discursive, and so am I. Condemn me if you will⁠—I avail myself of the opportunity to cross swords with an antagonist who is after all my equal. I have no one else⁠—anywhere.⁠—In short, it is true that I visit him and he me, we take walks together. We dispute. We quarrel, nearly every day, till we draw blood; but I confess the contrariness and mischievousness of his ideas but render our acquaintance the more attractive. I need the friction. Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them⁠—and I am only confirmed in mine. How could you assert so much of yours, Lieutenant, or you, Engineer? You are defenceless against intellectual sophistry, you are exposed to danger from the influence of this half fanatical, half pernicious quackery⁠—danger to the intellect and to the soul.”

Hans Castorp rejoined that it was probably all true; he and his cousin were naturally more or less prone to such dangers⁠—it was the same old story about the delicate child of life, he understood perfectly. But on the other hand, one might cite Petrarch and his maxim, which was familiar to Herr Settembrini. And after all it was worth listening to, all that Naphta had to say. One must admit