In truth, they were all cut to the quick, they were crushed. He had folded his hands across his chest, upon his scanty beard, and laid his head on one side. His eyes had grown dim with feeling as the words expressive of the lonely anguish of death fell from his chapped lips. Frau Stöhr sobbed. Frau Magnus heaved a heavy sigh. Lawyer Paravant saw it was incumbent upon him to represent the sense of the meeting. In a voice solemnly sunk, he assured their honoured host that the circle was his to command. Herr Peeperkorn mistook them. Here they were, blithe as the dawn, jolly as sand-boys, ready for anything. This, he said, was a priceless evening, so festive, so out of the ordinary. Such was their feeling, and no one of them had any present idea of availing himself of life’s good gift of sleep. Mynheer Peeperkorn could count on them, one and all.
“Splendid, excellent,” Peeperkorn cried, and stood erect again. He unclasped his hands and spread them wide and high before him, palms outward—it looked like a heathen prayer. His majestic physiognomy, but now imprinted with Gothic anguish, blossomed once more in pagan jollity. Even a sybaritic dimple appeared in his cheek. “The hour is at hand,” said he, and sent for the wine-card. He put on a horn-rimmed pince-nez, the nosepiece of which rode high up on his forehead, and ordered champagne, three bottles of Mumm & Co., Cordon rouge, extra dry, with petits fours, toothsome cone-shaped little dainties in lace frills, covered with coloured frosting and filled with chocolate and pistache cream. Frau Stöhr licked her fingers after them. Herr Albin nonchalantly removed the wire from the first bottle, and let the mushroom-shaped cork pop to the ceiling; elegantly he conformed to the ritual, holding the neck of the bottle wrapped in a serviette as he poured. The noble foam bedewed the cloth. Every glass rang as the guests saluted, then drank the first one empty at a draught, electrifying their digestive organs with the ice-cold, prickling, perfumed liquid. Every eye sparkled. The game had come to an end, no one troubled to take cards or gains from the table. They gave themselves over to a blissful far niente, enlivened by scraps of conversation in which, out of sheer high spirits, no one hung back. They uttered thoughts that in the thinking had seemed primevally fresh and beautiful, but in the saying somehow turned lame, stammering, indiscreet, a perfect gallimaufry, calculated to arouse the scorn of any sober onlooker. The audience, however, took no offence, all being in much the same irresponsible condition. Even Frau Magnus’s ears were red, and she admitted that she felt “as though life were running through her”—which Herr Magnus seemed not over-pleased to hear. Hermine Kleefeld leaned against Herr Albin’s shoulder as she held her glass to be filled. Peeperkorn conducted the Bacchanalian rout with his long-fingered gestures, and summoned additional supplies: coffee followed the champagne, “Mocha double,” with fresh rounds of “bread,” and pungent liqueurs: apricot brandy, chartreuse, crême de vanille, and maraschino for the ladies. Later there appeared marinated filets of fish, and beer; lastly tea, both Chinese and camomile, for those who had done with champagne and liqueurs and did not care to return to a sound wine, as Mynheer himself did; he, Frau Chauchat, and Hans Castorp working back after midnight to a Swiss red wine. Mynheer Peeperkorn, genuinely thirsty, drank down glass after glass of the simple, effervescent drink.
The party held together for another hour, partly because they were all too leaden-footed and befuddled to rise, partly because this method of spending the hours of the night appealed to them by its novelty; partly by the weight of Peeperkorn’s personality, and the blasting example of Peter and his brethren, to which they all shamed to yield. Generally speaking, the female section seemed less compromised than the male. For the men, flushed or sallow, sat with their legs sprawled before them, puffing out their cheeks. Now and then they would make a half-mechanical effort to lift the glass, but their hearts were no longer in it. The women were more enterprising. Hermine Kleefeld, bare elbows on the table, propped up her head, her cheeks in her hands, and showed the giggling Ting-fu all the enamel of her front teeth. Frau Stöhr, with her chin and shoulder coquettishly meeting, sought to reawaken Lawyer Paravant to desire. Frau Magnus’s state was such that she had seated herself on Herr Albin’s lap and was pulling both his ears by their lobes—a sight in which Herr Magnus appeared to find relief. The company had urged Anton Karlowitsch Ferge to regale them with the story of the pleura-shock; but his tongue was too thick, he could not manage it, and honourably avowed his incapacity, which was greeted by the company as occasion for another drink. Wehsal all at once began to weep bitterly, from some unplumbed depth of wretchedness. They brought him round with coffee and cognac; but the episode roused Peeperkorn’s lively interest, who looked at his quivering chin, from which tears dripped, and with raised forefinger and lifted masklike brows called the attention of the company to the phenomenon.
“That is—” he said. “Ah—with your permission, that is—holy. Dry his chin, my
