This was the line he sometimes took. With a cunning otherwise foreign to his nature he would make out that the schoolmistress’s ravings over Madame Chauchat were not what he very well knew them to be, but an independent phenomenon, of a quaint and amusing kind; about which he, Hans Castorp, made free to tease the old spinster, feeling his own withers unwrung. He risked nothing by this attitude, being confident that his accomplice would agree to anything he said, no matter how wide of the mark.
“Good morning,” he greeted her, “I hope you slept well and dreamed of your charmer? Mistress Mary, quite contrary—or whatever her name is! Upon my word, one has only to speak of her to make you blush! You have completely lost your head over her—you can’t deny it.”
And the schoolmistress, who really had blushed and tucked her head down over her cup, would mumble out of the left-hand corner of her mouth: “Shame on you, Herr Castorp! It really is too bad of you to embarrass me like this. Everyone can see we are talking about her and that you have said something to make me get red.”
It was an extraordinary game the two of them were playing; each perfectly aware that they lied and double-lied, each knowing that Hans Castorp teased the schoolmistress only in order to be able to talk about Frau Chauchat. He took a morbid and extravagant pleasure in thus trifling with Fräulein Engelhart, and she on her side reciprocated; first out of a natural instinct to be the go-between in a love-affair, secondly because to oblige Hans Castorp she had actually contrived to fall victim to Frau Chauchat’s charms; and finally because she felt a pathetic joy in having him tease her and make her blush. He well knew, and she well knew, all this about each other and themselves; each knew that the other knew and that the whole situation was equivocal and almost questionable. Equivocal and questionable situations were, in general, repugnant to Hans Castorp’s taste, and the present one was no exception. He felt disgusted, yet for all that he went on fishing in these troubled waters, quieting his conscience with the assurance that he was only up here on a visit and would soon be leaving. He pronounced upon the young woman’s charms with the air of a connoisseur; said she was “sloppy,” that she looked younger and prettier full face than profile; that her eyes were too far apart; that she carried herself in a way that left much to be desired; that her arms, on the other hand, were pretty and soft-looking. He felt his head shaking as he talked; he tried to suppress the trembling, and realized not only that the schoolmistress must see his efforts, but, with profound disgust, that her head was actually shaking too! But he went on—he had purposely called Frau Chauchat Mistress Mary, in order that he might put the question of her name; so now he said: “I suppose her name is not Mary at all; do you know what it is? I mean her given name. You must know it, being as much smitten as you are!”
The schoolmistress reflected. “Wait half a minute,” she said. “I knew it, once. Was it Tatiana? No—nor Natascha. Natascha Chauchat? No, that was not it. Wait, I have it—it was Avdotia. Or at least something very like that. It was not Katienka or Ninotschka, of that I am certain. I can’t quite get it, for the moment. But I can surely recall it if you would like to know.”
And next day she actually did know the name, and uttered it the moment the glass door slammed. Frau Chauchat’s name was Clavdia.
Hans Castorp did not grasp it at first. He had to have her repeat the name, even to spell it, before he understood. Then he pronounced it twice or thrice, turning his bloodshot eyes in Frau Chauchat’s direction, in order, as it were, to try if it suited.
“Clavdia,” he said. “Yes, that is probably it; it fits her quite well.” He could not hide his pleasure in the degree of intimacy thus achieved, and from now on referred always to Frau Chauchat as Clavdia. “Your Clavdia appears to be making bread pills. That’s not very elegant, I should think.”
“It depends on who does it,” the schoolmistress would answer. “Clavdia it becomes.”
Yes, unquestionably the mealtimes in the hall with the seven tables had great charm for Hans Castorp. He hated to have one come to an end, and his consolation was that soon, in two or three hours, he would be back again. While he was sitting there, it was as though he had never risen. And for the time in between? It was nothing. A short turn as far as the watercourse or the Platz, a little rest on his balcony: no great burden, no serious interruption. Not as though he had to look forward to some interest or effort, which would not have been so easy to overleap in spirit. Effort was not the rule in the well-regulated Berghof life. Hans Castorp, when he rose from one meal, could straightway by anticipation begin to rejoice in the next—if, indeed, rejoicing is not too facile, too pleasant and unequivocal a word for the sentiments with which he looked forward to another meeting with the afflicted fair one. The reader, on the other hand, may very likely find such adjectives the only ones suitable to describe Hans Castorp’s personality or emotions. But we suggest that a young man with a well-regulated conscience and sense of fitness could not, whatever else he did, simply “rejoice in” Frau Chauchat’s proximity. In fact, we—who must surely know—are willing to assert that he himself would have repudiated any such expression if it had been suggested to him.
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