What was he talking about? Was it not democratic and unblushing enough that he had said “as one of us put it”—thus coupling himself and a personality like Peeperkorn? Had certain events in the past—which shed a dubious light on present pretensions—given him courage to utter the impertinence? Were the gods wishful to destroy him, when they moved him to embark on this foolhardy analysis of “vice”? Now let him look to it to extricate himself; for surely he has invoked the whirlwind.
Mynheer Peeperkorn, during Hans Castorp’s harangue, had sat flung back in his chair, his head still sunk on his breast. It was uncertain even whether he had been listening. But now, slowly, as the young man’s utterance grew more involved, he began to erect himself to his full sitting height, the majestic head inflamed; the pattern of furrows on his brow expanded upwards, his little eyes opened in pallid menace. Obviously a storm was brewing beside which the other had been a passing cloud. Mynheer’s under lip pressed wrathfully against the upper, the corners of his mouth drew down, the chin protruded. Slowly he raised his right arm above his head; the fist clenched and remained poised aloft, ready for summary execution upon the democratic prattler, who for his part was panic-stricken—yet not without a thrill of precarious joy at this spectacle of regal rage.
He repressed an inclination to flight, and hastened to say, disarmingly: “Of course, I have failed to express my meaning. The whole thing is simply a question of scale. If a thing has size, one cannot call it vice. Vice is petty. Of their nature, so are the raffinements. They are never on the grand scale. But since the most primitive times man has had to his hand a resource, a means of mounting to the heights of feeling, which belongs among the classic gifts of life: a resource, simple, sacred, in the grand style, if I may so express myself. I mean the grape, wine, the gift of the gods to man, as we are told of old time. A God invented it, and with its invention civilization began. For we are told that, thanks to the art of planting and treading the vine, man emerged from his barbaric state, and achieved culture; even today where the grape grows, those people are accounted, or account themselves, possessed of a higher culture than the Cimmerians, a fact which is worthy our attention. For it indicates that civilization is not a thing of the reason, of being sober and articulate; it has far more to do with inspiration and frenzy, the joys of the wine-cup—if I may make so bold as to ask, have I not expressed your attitude in the matter?”
A sly dog, this Hans Castorp. Or, as Herr Settembrini with literary feeling had put it, a “wag.” To rush into controversy with personalities, to be even forward of speech—but then to know how to extricate himself when need was, and his coattails, as it were, all but on fire! In the first place, he had given them an impromptu but quite respectable apologia for drinking; into which, en passant, he had slipped a reference to “civilization”—of which there was just then small trace in Mynheer Peeperkorn’s primitive and menacing attitude; and lastly, he had got round him, put him in the wrong, by asking him, quite simply, a question which one can scarcely answer and maintain the threatening pose or the raised fist. And accordingly the Dutchman relaxed from his neolithic rage, slowly his arm sank again till it rested on the table, his face lost its swollen look, the storm passed over with no trace but the last mutter of thunder, he even seemed to entertain the thought of clicking glasses again; and now Frau Chauchat came to the rescue, by calling her companion’s attention to the gradual disintegration of the party.
“My friend,” she said to him, in French, “you are neglecting your other guests. You devote yourself too exclusively to this gentleman—important though your conversation with him doubtless is—and the others have stopped playing, I fear they grow tired—shall we say good night?”
Peeperkorn turned his attention to the circle. It was true: they were demoralized. Lethargy and boredom sat on every brow; the guests were out of hand, like a neglected class. Several were on the point of falling asleep. Peeperkorn took a firm grip on the reins he had let fall. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he summoned them, with raised forefinger—and that pointed finger was like a waving standard or the flash of an unsheathed sword, as his words were like the rallying-cry of the leader, which brings to a stand the threatened rout. It had its effect in a trice. They picked themselves up, they pulled themselves together, they looked again with smiles into their host’s pale eyes beneath his masklike brows. He held them all, he pressed them afresh into service of his personality, sinking the tip of his forefinger till it met the tip of his thumb, and erecting the three others straight and stiff with their long nails. He stretched out his sea-captain’s hand, checking them, warning them, and words issued from his cracked lips—words utterly irrelevant and indistinct, yet exerting on their spirits a resistless power, thanks to the reserves of personality behind them.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Very good, very good indeed. Very. The flesh, ladies and gentlemen, is—not another word. No, permit me to say—weak, so the Scripture has it. Weak. Inclined to be unequal to claims—but I appeal to your—in short, ladies and gentlemen, in short and in brief, I ap‑peal! You will say to me: ‘Sleep.’ Very good, ladies and gentlemen, very good, very. I love and honour sleep. I venerate the deep, sweet, refreshing bliss of it. Sleep is one of the—what did you call them, young man?—one of the classic gifts of life—the
