Peeperkorn sat with his coat-collar turned up and his hat on the ground beside him, drinking port out of a monogrammed silver cup, which he emptied many times. And suddenly he began to speak. Extraordinary man! It was impossible for him to hear his own voice, still more for the others to catch a syllable of what he let transpire without its in the least transpiring. But with the wine-cup in his right hand, he raised his forefinger, stretching his left arm palm outwards toward the water. They saw his kingly features move in speech, the mouth form words, which were as soundless as though spoken into empty, etherless space. No one dreamed he would continue; with embarrassed smiles they watched this futile activity, thinking every moment it would cease. But he went on, with tense, compelling gesture, to harangue the clamour that swallowed his words; directing upon this or that one of the company by turns the gaze of his pale little weary eyes, spanned wide beneath the lifted folds of his brow; and whoever felt himself addressed was constrained to nod back again, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, hand to ear, as though any sort of effort to hear could better the utterly hopeless situation. He even stood up! There, in his crumpled ulster, that reached nearly to his heels, the collar turned up; bareheaded, cup in hand, the high brow creased with folds like some heathen idol’s in a shrine, and crowned by the aureole of white hair like flickering flames; there he stood by the rocks and spoke, holding the circle of thumb and forefinger, with the lancelike others above it, before his face, and sealing his mute and incomprehensible toast with that compelling sign of precision. Such words as they were accustomed to hearing from him, they could read on his lips or divine from his gestures: “Settled” and “Absolutely!”—but that was all. They saw his head sink sideways, the broken bitterness of the lips, they saw the man of sorrows in his guise. But then quite suddenly flashed the dimple, the sybaritic roguishness, the garment snatched up dancewise, the ritual impropriety of the heathen priest. He lifted his beaker, waved it half-circle before the assembled guests, and drank it out in three gulps, so that it stood bottom upwards. Then he handed it with outstretched arm to the Malay, who received it with an obeisance, and gave the sign to break up the feast.
They all bowed and thanked him as they hastened to do his bidding. Those crouching on the ground sprang up, the others jumped down from the railing. The little Javanese in his stiff hat and turned-up collar gathered the remnants of the meal. They went back along the path in the same order as they had come, through the draped, uncanny grove, to the high road and the waiting carriages.
This time Hans Castorp mounted with Mynheer and Madame, and sat opposite the pair with the humble Ferge, to whom all high thoughts were vain. Scarcely a word was spoken on the homeward drive. Mynheer sat with his jaw dropped and his hands palm upward on the carriage rug spread across his and Madame’s knees. Settembrini and Naphta dismounted and took their leave before the carriages crossed the track and the watercourse, and Wehsal drove alone as far as the portal of the Berghof, where the party separated.
Was Hans Castorp’s sleep this night rendered light and fitful by portents of which his soul knew naught—so that the slightest variation in the usual nightly peace of the Berghof, the faintest commotion, the barely perceptible sound of running, was enough to fetch him broad awake, to make him sit up in bed? He had been, in fact, awake for some time before a knock came on his door, as it did shortly after two o’clock. He answered at once, composed, alert and energetic, and heard the voice of one of the nurses in the house, saying in high, uncertain tones that Frau Chauchat would be glad if he would come at once to the first storey. Briskly he responded, sprang up and flung on some clothing, ran his fingers through his hair, and went down; not slow, not fast, and more in uncertainty as to the how than the what, in the meaning of these summons.
The door to Peeperkorn’s salon stood open, also that to his bedroom, where all the lights were burning. The two physicians, the Directress, Madame Chauchat, and the Malay were within, the last-named dressed not as usual, but in a sort of national costume, with a striped garment like a shirt, very long wide sleeves, a gaily coloured skirt, and a curious, cone-shaped hat made of yellow cloth on his head. He wore an ornament of amulets on his breast, and stood with folded arms at the head of the bed, wherein Pieter Peeperkorn lay on his back, his arms stretched out before him. Hans Castorp, paling, took in the scene. Frau Chauchat sat with her back toward him in a low chair at the foot of the bed. Her elbows rested on the coverlet, her chin was in her hands, whose fingers were buried in her upper lip, and she gazed into the face of her protector.
“Evening, m’boy,” said Behrens, who stood talking in low tones with Krokowski and the Oberin, and nodded ruefully to Hans Castorp, with his upper lip drawn back. He was in his surgeon’s coat, from the pocket of which a stethoscope stuck out, wore embroidered slippers and no collar. “It’s all up with him,” he added in a whisper. “Gone for good, o’er the border and awa’. Come have a look—run your experienced eye over him—you’ll agree there’s nothing for us to do.”
Hans Castorp approached the bed on tiptoe. The Malay without turning his head followed the movement, until his eyeballs showed white. The young man assured himself by a side glance that Frau Chauchat
