“You err, my friend,” answered Settembrini, with closed eyes. “You err first of all in the assumption that the intellectual cannot assume a personal character. You should not think that,” he said, and smiled a peculiarly fine and painful smile. “The point at which you go wrong is in your estimation of the things of the mind, in general. You obviously think they are too feeble to engender conflicts and passions comparable for sternness with those real life brings forth, the only issue of which can be the appeal to force. All’ incontro! The abstract, the refined-upon, the ideal, is at the same time the Absolute—it is sternness itself; it contains within it more possibilities of deep and radical hatred, of unconditional and irreconcilable hostility, than any relation of social life can. It astonishes you to hear that it leads, far more directly and inexorably than these, to radical intimacy, to grips, to the duel and actual physical struggle? The duel, my friend, is not an ‘arrangement,’ like another. It is the ultimate, the return to a state of nature, slightly mitigated by regulations which are chivalrous in character, but extremely superficial. The essential nature of the thing remains the primitive, the physical struggle; and however civilized a man is, it is his duty to be ready for such a contingency, which may any day arise. Whoever is unable to offer his person, his arm, his blood, in the service of the ideal, is unworthy of it; however intellectualized, it is the duty of a man to remain a man.”
Thus was Hans Castorp put in his place. What should he answer? He preserved a depressed and brooding silence. Herr Settembrini had spoken with composure, logically. But his words sounded strange in his mouth. His thoughts were not his own thoughts, the idea of the duel was one he would never have come upon of himself. He had only taken it over from the terroristic little Naphta. And what he said was but an expression of the strength of that prevailing temper, whose tool and underling Herr Settembrini’s fine understanding had become. What? The intellectual, simply because it was so stern, must lead relentlessly to the animal, to the issue of physical combat? Hans Castorp set himself against it—or at least he tried, only to discover, in affright, that even he was powerless to do so. In him too the prevailing temper was strong, he was not the man to win free. There was an area of his brain where memory showed him Wiedemann and Sonnenschein grappled like animals; and with horror he understood that at the end of everything only the physical remained, only the teeth and the nails. Yes, they must fight; only thus could be assured even that small mitigation of the primitive by the rules of chivalry. Hans Castorp offered to act as Herr Settembrini’s second.
The offer was refused. No, it was not fitting, it would not do, he was told: first by Herr Settembrini himself, with that fine, rueful smile; then, after brief consideration, by Ferge and Wehsal, who also, without specified reason, found it would not do for Hans Castorp to assist at the encounter in this capacity. As a neutral party, perhaps—the presence of such an one was a part of the prescribed chivalrous mitigations—he might be present. Even Naphta, through his second, let it be known that this was his view, and Hans Castorp was satisfied. As witness, or as neutral party, in either case he was able to exert his influence upon the details of the procedure now to be discussed and settled—an influence which proved necessary indeed.
For Naphta’s proposals went beyond all bounds. He demanded a distance of five paces, and, if necessary, three exchanges of fire. These insane conditions he sent by Wehsal the very evening of the quarrel; Wehsal had succeeded in fully identifying himself with Naphta’s mad ideas, and partly as representative, but certainly also in accordance with his personal taste, obstinately insisted upon them. Settembrini, of course, found nothing in them to object to. But Ferge, as second, and the neutral Hans Castorp, were beside themselves, and the latter fell heavily upon the wretched Wehsal. Was he not ashamed to bring forward such frantic and inhuman ideas to meet a case where the injury was purely abstract, not sensible at all? As though pistols were not bad enough, that they must add these murderous conditions! Where did the chivalrous mitigation come in? He might as well suggest firing across a handkerchief! He, Wehsal, was not going to be fired at five paces off—it was easy for him to be bloodthirsty! And so forth. Wehsal shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that precisely that extreme case was a contingency; thus reducing to silence Hans Castorp, who was inclined to forget the fact. But he succeeded, during the negotiations of the following day, in fixing the number of shots at one instead of three, and in dealing with the question of distance so as to arrange that the combatants should be placed fifteen paces apart, and have the right to advance five paces before firing. But in exchange for these concessions, he had to promise that no attempt should be made at reconciling the parties.—It was discovered that none of them had any pistols.
Herr Albin had. Besides the shiny little revolver with which
