With his trembling hand he filled the glasses, Hans Castorp hastening to assist him.
“Take it,” repeated Peeperkorn, “take my arm, let us drink so, let us drink it out—positively, young man. Very. Here is my hand. Art thou satisfied?”
“That is no word for it, of course, Mynheer Peeperkorn,” said Hans Castorp. He had not found it easy to drink out the full glass at a draught; he spilled a little and dried his knee with his handkerchief. “I might better say that I am immensely happy, and can hardly grasp how this has all come about, it is like a dream. What an immense honour for me! How I have deserved it I scarcely know, certainly in no active sense. It is not surprising that at first it seems entirely too bold, and I doubt if I shall be able to fetch it out—especially in Clavdia’s presence, who is not quite so likely to be pleased with the new arrangement, all at once.”
“Leave that to me,” responded Peeperkorn; “the rest is a matter of practice and habit. Go, now, young man. Leave me, my son. The night has fallen, our loved one may return any moment, and a meeting between you just now would perhaps not be quite well-advised.”
“Farewell, Mynheer Peeperkorn,” Hans Castorp said, and rose. “Yes, it has grown dark. I can imagine Herr Settembrini coming in suddenly and turning on the light, to let reason and convention reign—it is a weakness of his. Goodbye until tomorrow. I leave you, so proud, so joyful, as I could never have dreamed it was possible for me to be. And now you will have at least three good days, and free of fever, and that rejoices me as much as though it were myself. Brother, good night!”
Mynheer Peeperkorn (Conclusion)
A waterfall is always an attractive goal for an excursion. We scarcely know how to explain why Hans Castorp, with all his native love of falling water, had never visited the picturesque cascade in the valley of the Flüela. His cousin’s strong sense of duty to the service had probably prevented him, during Joachim’s time; the latter’s purposeful attitude had tended to confine their activities to the close vicinity of the Berghof. But even since that time—if we except the winter excursions on skis—Hans Castorp’s relations with the mountain scenery had been extremely conservative, not to say monotonous. The young man found a curious pleasure in the contrast between the limitations of his physical sphere and the broad scope of his mental operations. However, when it was proposed that his little group of seven people should make a driving excursion to the waterfall, he readily assented.
It was the blissful month of May, oft celebrated in the pleasant little ditties of the flat-land. Up here the air was fresh, the temperature scarcely ingratiating; but at least the snow was gone. It might, indeed, snow again; during the last few days there had been flurries of gigantic flakes, but it did not lie, it only made wet. The winter drifts had wasted away, they were gone, save for vestiges here and there; and the green slopes, the open paths, tempted the spirit to rove.
The group had been less socially occupied of late weeks owing to the illness of its ruling spirit, the prepotent Pieter Peeperkorn. His fever refused to yield to the beneficent working of the climate or the skilled ministrations of so excellent a doctor as Hofrat Behrens. He was obliged to spend much time in bed, not only on the days when the quartan fever held sway, but on others too. There was trouble with his liver and spleen, Behrens told those who tended him; the digestion was not what it should be—in short, the Hofrat did not neglect to point out that the condition seemed to indicate a danger of chronic debility, not to be ignored.
Mynheer Peeperkorn had presided at only one evening festivity in all these weeks; and the group had taken but one short walk. Hans Castorp was rather relieved than otherwise at this state of affairs; for the pledge he had drunk with Clavdia Chauchat’s protector made him difficulties, in general conversation, of the same kind he had to deal with in the case of Frau Chauchat herself, namely the avoidance of the formal mode of address—as though, as Peeperkorn said, they had eaten a philippina together. He was fertile in expedients to get round it or simply leave it out; nevertheless, the favour accorded him by Peeperkorn had doubled his present dilemma.
But now the excursion to the waterfall was the order of the day; Peeperkorn himself had arranged it, and felt equal to the effort. It was the third day after the usual attack, and he announced that he wished to take advantage of it. He did not, indeed, appear at the early meals of the day, but took them, in company with Madame Chauchat, in their salon, as they often did of late. But Hans Castorp received word, through the lame concierge, to be ready for a drive an hour after the midday meal, and further, to communicate with Ferge and Wehsal, Settembrini and Naphta, and to engage two landaus for three o’clock.
Accordingly, at this hour they assembled before the portal of the Berghof—Hans Castorp, Ferge and Wehsal,
