“Cold morning; at least eighteen degrees of frost,” said he, in the purity of his intentions, but started at the frivolity of his own remark, and added: “Gentlemen, I am convinced—”
The others were silent. Ferge’s good-natured moustache wagged up and down. After a while Settembrini came to a pause, took Hans Castorp’s hand, laid his own other one upon it, and spoke.
“My friend, I will not kill. I will not. I will offer myself to his bullet, that is all that honour can demand. But I will not kill, you may trust me.”
He released the young man and walked on. Hans Castorp was deeply moved. After a few steps he said: “That is splendid of you, Herr Settembrini. Now—on the other side—if he, for his part—”
But Herr Settembrini shook his head. Hans Castorp reflected that if one party did not fire, the other would surely not be able to bring himself to do it either; and his heart perceptibly lightened. Everything was going well, his predictions seemed about to be verified.
They crossed the footbridge over the gorge, where the waterfall hung stiff and silent. Naphta and Wehsal were walking up and down before the bench now upholstered with thick white cushions of snow: the bench on which Hans Castorp, lying to await the end of his nose-bleeding, had experienced such lively memories out of the distant past. Naphta was smoking a cigarette, and Hans Castorp questioned himself if he should do the same, but found he had no faintest desire. It seemed to him an affectation in the other. With the pleasure he always felt in these surroundings, he looked about at them in their icy state and found them not less beautiful than in the season of their blue blossom-time. The fir that jutted so boldly into the picture had its trunk and branches laden with snow.
“Good morning,” he said cheerily, with the idea of lending the scene a note of the natural, which should help to dissipate its evil bearing—but was out of luck, for nobody answered. The greetings consisted in silent bows, so stiff as to be almost imperceptible. However, he was resolved to convert the energy from his walk, the splendid warmth engendered by brisk motion in the cold air, at once and without delay to good purpose; and so began: “Gentlemen, I am convinced—”
“You will develop your convictions another time,” Naphta cut him off icily. “The weapons, if you please,” he added, in the same arrogant tone. Hans Castorp, thus slapped on the mouth, had to look on while Ferge brought out the fatal étui from beneath his cloak, and handed one pistol to Wehsal to pass on to Naphta. Settembrini took the other from Ferge’s hand. The latter in a murmur asked them to make a space, and began measuring off the ground. He marked off the outer limits by lines dug with his heel in the snow, the inner by means of two canes, his own and Settembrini’s.
Our good-natured sufferer, what sort of work was this for him? Hans Castorp could not trust his eyes. Ferge was long-legged, he took proper strides, the fifteen paces, at least, were a goodly distance—but the cursed canes, alas, were not far apart at all. Certainly, he was acting in all honour; but what a grip the prevailing temper had upon him, to enforce him to a procedure so monstrous in its significance!
Naphta had flung his fur cloak on the ground, so that its mink lining showed. Pistol in hand, he moved to one of the outer barriers directly it was established, and while Ferge was still marking off the other. When that was fixed, Settembrini took up his position, his shabby fur coat open in front. Hans Castorp wrenched himself out of a stealing paralysis, and flung himself once more into the breach.
“Gentlemen,” he said, choking, “don’t be hasty. It is my duty, after all—”
“Silence!” cried out Naphta sharply. “Give the signal.”
But no one gave the signal. It had not been arranged for. Somebody, of course, ought to say: “Fire!” but it had not been realized that it was the office of the neutral party to give the dread sign—at least, it had not been mentioned. Hans Castorp remained silent, and nobody spoke in his place.
“We will begin,” Naphta declared. “Come forward, sir, and fire,” he called across to his antagonist, and began himself to advance, holding the pistol at arm’s length, directed at Settembrini—an unbelievable sight. Settembrini did the same. At the third step the other, without firing, was already at the barrier—the Italian raised the pistol very high, and fired. The shot awaked repeated echoes, the mountains flung back the sound and the rebound, the valley reverberated with the shock, until it seemed to Hans Castorp people must come running.
“You fired in the air,” Naphta said collectedly to Settembrini, letting his own weapon sink.
Settembrini answered: “I fired where it pleased me to fire.”
“You will fire again!”
“I have no such intention. It is your turn.” Herr Settembrini, lifting his face toward the sky, had turned himself somewhat sidewise to his opponent. It was touching to realize that he had heard one should not offer one’s breast full face to an opponent’s fire; and that he was acting according to the regulations.
“Coward!” Naphta shrieked; and with this human shriek confessing that it takes more courage to fire than be fired upon, raised his pistol in a way that had nothing to do with
